Saturday
Jan262013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill It's all in the adjustments (redux)
Jan 26, 2013 Climate: WG2 From time to time we have observed at BH that tweaks and corrections and errors in climatological time series always seem to lead to the conclusion "it's worse than we thought". Who can forget the great Bob Watson's remarks to this end in the aftermath of glaciergate?
Anthony Watts reports on the latest in this long line of upwardly mobile adjustments:
...the rate of sea level rise has been bumped up 0.43 mm/yr in the last few years. This sort of thing has been going on more or less regularly and it seems to go only one way.
Yup.
Reader Comments (57)
Don Keiller
I know my Popper.
His appoach works beautifully in the controlled environment of a physics lab. You are able to measure the whole behaviour of the system to fine limits, freely adjust independant variables and set up controls to limit extraneous factors. You can replicate your experiment repeatedly using the same apparatus and have other labs replicate it independantly.Under those conditions falsifiability works well.
Unfortunately those studying climate are working with a complex multivariate non-linear system, trying to discern trends and patterns in a high-noise environment.
We can study the behaviour of parts of the system, such as CO2 spectra, in the lab, We cannot gather data of the same quality under every environmental condition met in the field.
The experiment started before we arrived and is continuing in ways we cannot control. The results will come in progressively over the next couple of centuries. We have no duplicate apparatus, control over independant variables or opportunities to replicate.
Under these conditions strict Popperian scientific method becomes an aspiration, rather than normal practice.
EM,
So in spite of your acknowledgement of a complex multivariate non-linear system which will take hundreds of years to understand, science as we know it can go hang because you enlightened ones know all the answers and can divine the unmeasurable.
Thanks for this confession. 'You' are a self-appointed priesthood of misanthropes
It still amazes me that they can see 3.2mm of sea level rise from a satellite, but when I ask for data on actual measurement of 2 watts per square metre, equivalent to finding a light bulb on in a dark room, they tell me it's too difficult.
2 watts/sq m is a warmists claim of the effect of the extra CO2 since it was at that ideal level before man came along. It ought to be observable. It is in fact 'indistinguishable from the noise'. But they can see 3.2mm from a satellite and tell that from waves and tides. Lots of tides, not just that moon thing. but I am merely an Oxfordshire housewife.
SayNoToFearmongers.
One reason why I come to sites like this is to find ways of improving techniques for studying the atmosphere . Practical suggestions welcome.
rhoda
I think this is the information that you are looking for. Look at Figure 4. Note that positive values are for incoming energy, negative values are outgoing.
http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/43307/2/JGR_2009JD012105%5B1%5D.pdf
EM,
The paper you linked to claims to be observationally based, but ends up being entirely dependent on attributing infinite fudge factor aerosol effects (i.e. models) to balance alleged forcings against desired, consensus-serving results. Given recent findings in this field I'd be somewhat reticent about offering this for educative purposes, largely because it would make me look silly.
SayNoToFearmongers
How would you confirm or falsify an imbalance between incoming and outgoing energy flow in Earth's energy budget?
While,you're about it, references to those "recent findings in the field" would be interesting. Please give me proper descriptions of techniques and proper results, in peer reviewed papers; not a post on some sceptic's website.
Let's keep this a scientific discussion without the emotionally loaded words and point scoring.
GISTEMP adjustments in the last month cooled the 20s and 30s by about .02C and warmed the past few decades by about .03C.