Bishop Hill An olive branch
Mar 25, 2013 GWPF Royal Society Well this looks like good news - Paul Nurse has offered to arrange a meeting between GWPF and some (so far unidentified) climate scientists, and Nigel Lawson has accepted.
On behalf of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, Lord Lawson has accepted an offer by Sir Paul Nurse, the President of the Royal Society, who has offered to arrange a meeting between the GWPF and climate scientists.
In a recent letter to Lord Lawson, the GWPF chairman, Sir Paul suggested that the Foundation needed more mainstream and expert climate science advice and offered that the Royal Society “would be happy to put the GWPF in touch with people who can offer the Foundation informed scientific advice.”
In his response, Lord Lawson writes that he is “happy to accept your offer to arrange a meeting and look forward to hearing from you about this.”
“I hope this marks the start of a more productive dialogue with the Royal Society,” said Dr Benny Peiser, the Director of the GWPF.Letter By Sir Paul Nurse to Lord Lawson
Letter By Lord Lawson to Sir Paul Nurse
see also: Lord Lawson’s initial letter to Sir Paul Nurse
The offer and acceptance of talks is welcome. I hope this marks the end of the public war of words and the beginning of something a bit more interesting. I'm slightly concerned, however, that Nurse is going to remain on the outside of that dialogue. I really think he should attend any talks in person - I think his understanding of what sceptics are arguing is a bit of a caricature.
Nevertheless, there is much cause for optimism here.
Reader Comments (181)
Ed - are you looking for a good conspiracy theory? - please be sure to tell Stephan when you find one.
Entropic Man,
Roy Spencer might falsify some of your statements for you:
"The trend in the imbalance in the Earth’s radiation budget as measured by the CERES instrument of NASA’s Terra satellite that has been building since about 2000 is primarily in the reflected solar (shortwave, or SW, or RSW) component, not the emitted infrared (longwave, or LW) component."
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2010/04/earths-missing-energy-trenberths-plot-proves-my-point/
Mar 26, 2013 at 8:18 AM | michael hart
I do not think so. The trend Dr Spencer describes is more likely to be due to the observed increase in cirrus cloud, rather than direct changes in CO2. Not relevant to my point.
The "missing energy" problem, which slowed sea surface temperature increase in the last decade has been at least partly sorted. As Rhoda will tell you, I have been obsessing lately about warming of the deep ocean as an explaination for Trenberth's missing heat.
The authors of this recently published paper, Balmesada et al, have been analysing oceanic temperature information and observed considerable warming below 700M, below the thermocline.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50382/abstract
This is the core figure from their paper. The measure is the ocean heat content. This increases as the ocean warms.
http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/BTK13Fig1.jpg
Note that the slowest warming, the flattest slope, is for the upper 300M. The warming rate for the upper 700M is larger and the warming rate for all depths, including below 700M, is largest of all again. This would only occur if the ocean heat content is increasing faster at greater depths. That is where the missing heat has been going.
Note too, the increase in slope for all three graphs after 2000 as heat which would otherwise have been heating the surface and atmosphere has been going instead into the deep ocean. This looks like an answer to the " no warming since 1998" people. They have been looking in the wrong place.
Another view on Balmesda here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/26/trenberth-still-searching-for-missing-heat/
trenberth-still-searching-for-missing-heat/
Mar 26, 2013 at 10:16 PM | not banned yet
Looks like he's found it.
"A common thread of AGW fanatics is an inability to debate skeptics."
Mar 26, 2013 at 7:10 PM | lurker, passing through laughing
I have observed three mainstream climate scientists come to this site. They would have hoped to debate the science. Instead they were met with a barrage of bullshit.
Not surprisingly, they rapidly recognised that it was a waste of their time and effort. Once they realised that they were as Gulliver among the Yahoos, they left.
Your opening sentence should have read.
"A common thread of sceptics is an inability to debate AGW science."
EM - I know this probably isn't worth the keystrokes, but do you understand heat capacity? And have you read the actual paper you are discussing?
I've observed a number of mainstream climate scientists come to this site. I've observed that it is not uncommon for them to have a clear but mistaken idea of what scpetics think. It is common for them to lecture as if we were their students rather than to engage in the way we might hope. It is common for them to post a load of links to papers for their interlocutors to read, as if we were their students. They don't seem to have any ide4a of how to make a point or to debate, they rely on their authority, which, here, they do not have.
Having said that, we don't give them an easy time, and some of us are too mean and nasty. Perhaps we have been sneered at by the likes of Mann and Schmidt one too many times. Perhaps we don't like the ad homs. Perhaps we don't like being given homework. Either way (and I don't think EM is altogether wrong in his view) the debate is not taking place. All climate scientists are welcome to answer any of my awkward questions about which I've opened discussion threads. Is there really climate sensitivity in the usually understood sense? Where is the fingerprint of positive feedback? Can you show me the mechanism of warming in the lab or measure it in the wild?
I don't think those should be difficult questions. No climate scientist turns up to set me straight. I'm still waiting for answers from RB about Harries et all 2001 and Myrhe's CS figure. Perhaps the answers were sucked into the deep ocean and will emerge in 2000 years.
There's no Royal Road to understanding climate change. You have to do the homework.
The alternative is soundbite science, which would give you only a superficial understanding.
EM - I know this probably isn't worth the keystrokes, but do you understand heat capacity? And have you read the actual paper you are discussing?
Mar 27, 2013 at 1:32 AM | not banned yet
Yes and not yet. I've had to rely on information from various websites. Can you reccomend a link to the full text?
Fig. 1 shows an increase of 15*10^22J for the heat content of the whole ocean volume in the decade from 2000 to 2010.
Over that time period the imbalance Martin A mentioned has put in an estimated 3W/M^2, equivalent to a total annual input of 1.8*10^22J to the climate system. That's 18*10^22J for the decade.
If this data is accurate the deep ocean warming alone has accounted for 83% of the heat input this decade. Most of the rest is being used to melt Arctic and Antarctic ice, glaciers and permafrost.
Because of this diversion of energy the land and sea surface temperatures are warming more slowly, giving the recent pause which so delighted the sceptics.
Now, rather than being rude, please falsify this hypothesis.
EM, everything in it is a guess. It may look OK on the face of it, but it needs proving. Not falsifying. It can't be falsified while all the numbers are flexible. However, if heat goes willy-nilly into the ocean and emerges later after decades or centuries, if that is really true, then there is not a damn thing we can do about it and the heat which is emerging now went down there a long time ago. Now, tell me how they work out the imbalance to 3watts per sqm when they can't measure any of the component parts of the 'trenberth diagram' to anything like that accuracy. And while you are at it, why do they always give those energy transfers in averages? How can they do that? Guessing, that's how.
rhoda.
Your mention of inaccuracy and uncertainty is a standard sceptic trope. Unfortunately no climate scientist would take it seriously unless you could show it using reliable statistics and data analysis of your own,
This is what I mant about the Royal Road. To debate with climate scientists you need to know their science as well as they do. If you can then demonstrate shortcomings, you will be taken seriously. Any courtroom lawyer will tell you that you ned to know your opponent's case as well as you know your client's. The same applies if you want to debate science with scientists.
The weakness of your use of the Socratic method is that it is intended as a teaching tool for use by someone who is already a scholar in the subject and uses questions to guide his pupil's thinking. You are not well versed in climatology and it quickly shows up in conversation with a professional. They will not waste time educating you in basic science. They will expect you to learn the science for yourself. There are any number of university level sets of climatology study notes available online.
"It needs proving". This demonstrates your misunderstanding of how science works.
You can prove a mathematical statment like the Pythagoras Theorem. YOU CAN NEVER PROVE ANYTHING IN SCIENCE. All theories are provisional. They have passed every test to date However, there is always the possibility that a future test will show the theory to be incomplete, inadequate or downright wrong. This applies to physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, climatology and any other science you care to name and is accepted by every working scientist.
A theory which fits reality well will be accepted as provisionally true and used as a practical tool until supplanted by something which fits even better. The scientists involved are aware that it is provisional, but do not say so explicitely every other sentence, it being taken as read.
To get working scientists to change to a new theory you must provide persuasive evidence that the theory they are using is
a) a poor fit to reality.
and/or
b) that a modified version, or a new theory, fits reality better.
This is what I mean by my repeated references to falsifiability. It is no use for sceptics to TELL the climatologists they are wrong. You must SHOW they are wrong, with persuasive evidence, not obfuscation, nibbling at loose ends or rhetorical questions.
Thanks for the lecture. Now I understand why I don't like pedagogues.
EM - is it true (as someone posted) that you were a schoolteacher?
Big Oil
I was a teacher. Old habits die hard.
rhoda
I'm afraid all I said was true, if unpleasant to your sensitivities.
If you want to debate climate change with the professionals you need to know your stuff. You will also be expected to play the game by Karl Popper's rules.
Rhoda, you come across to me as a real thinker. You are working on what you have read, and trying to make sense of it in a critical spirit. You are not impressed with what you have come across in 'climate science' these days and I feel the same. The great strength of science is that anyone can participate, even me. I just need to observe, to think, to theorise, and ask questions to help me clarify what is what, what is clearly supported by observation and logic, and what is mere speculation. Anyone can do it. No prior standing is required. Long may it serve us. Nullius in Verba may have been abandoned by the leadership of the Royal Society in exchange for their mess of potage, but I think it lives on in the home of an Oxfordshire housewife.
EM - "Note that the slowest warming, the flattest slope, is for the upper 300M. The warming rate for the upper 700M is larger and the warming rate for all depths, including below 700M, is largest of all again. This would only occur if the ocean heat content is increasing faster at greater depths. That is where the missing heat has been going."
Do you have any graph paper left from your school days?
If so, imagine a bucket of water 50cm deep. Imagine raising the temperature of water in 1degC steps.
Plot the curves for the increase in heat content in Joules for the top 15cm, the top 35cm and the whole 50cm against temp for increases in of 1degC, 2degC, 3 degC, 4degC and 5degC.
What do you see?
not banned here
Thank you, the bucket is a very good analogy.
Assuming your bucket is heating evenly at all depths the surface level would start at the lowest heat content and show the shallowest slope.
The mid level would show its own heat content plus that of the surface . Its line would be start higher and show a steeper slope.
The deepest level would include both levels above it. Its line would start highest and show the steepest slope.
This description matches Figure 1 ( http://www.skepticalscience.com//pics/BTK13Fig1.jpg )
after the year 2000. That is why it indicates that deep ocean warming is taking place.
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Now take another bucket and warm it only at the surface. The three layers will stagnate at different temperatures without convection to mix them.
The line for the upper layer will start at the lowest heat content and show a slope dependant on the warming rate.
The second level will start at a higher heat content and show a steeper slope as some heat move down by conduction from above.
The deep level will be insulated from the surface heating and stay constant. It's line will start highest and its slope will parallel the mid layer because little heat is being transferred downwards betwen them.
This describes the pattern seen in the oceans before 2000. The thermocline at 700M limited mixing between mid-level and deep water and kept the latter constant.
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The significance of this work is that
a) It shows that a change in ocean behaviour occured around the year 2000. The amount of heat entering the deep ocean increased significantly.
b) The increased amount of heat entering the deep ocean is consistent with the amount of heat that would need to be drawn down to produce the pause in surface warming observed since 1998.
This is why Balmesda et al is important and why Watts and co are so desperate to discredit it.
Th data shows where Trenberth's "missing heat" is going and explains the pause in warming.
EM - lets go one step at a time:
From your reply:
//
Assuming your bucket is heating evenly at all depths the surface level would start at the lowest heat content and show the shallowest slope.
The mid level would show its own heat content plus that of the surface . Its line would be start higher and show a steeper slope.
The deepest level would include both levels above it. Its line would start highest and show the steepest slope.
//
So can we agree that the slope of the curves does NOT show the rate of warming as the temperature change was the same for the whole mass of water? Warming being defined as "increase in temperature".
It figures. No offence, but you often tend to come across as someone lecturing a class of 15 year-olds, rather than discussing with people who are, at very least, your equals and in some cases undoubtedly have a depth of knowledge and understanding of the uncertainties superior to yours.
You are mistaken. Warming is a temperature change, but remember that a temperature increase is also an increase in heat content for a constant mass.
"The heat content of the oceans has increased." is equivalent to saying "The average temperature of the oceans has increased."
The graph we are discussing is not a temperature graph, it is a heat content graph. The slope is rate of change measured as J/unit time.
The upper level graph shows the J/year added to the upper level only.
The mid level graph shows the total heat added per year to the upper level and the mid level. This will be more J/year than the upper level graph and therefore show a greater slope.
Similarly for the deep graph which shows the changing heat content of the entire ocean volume.
The increased slope when you include thedeep levels reflects the increasing volume in an evenly warming body of water. If deeper levels are not warming, then the deep level graph would have the same slope as the mid level graph
To understand the graph, stay focused on the heat content first. Once you can describe the change in heat content of each layer of the ocean, then, and only then, you can consider the temperature implications.
No offence, but you often tend to come across as someone lecturing a class of 15 year-olds, rather than discussing with people who are, at very least, your equals and in some cases undoubtedly have a depth of knowledge and understanding of the uncertainties superior to yours.
Mar 29, 2013 at 8:00 PM | Martin A
Apologies if my style annoys, but I'm probably too old to change now. I do try nowadays to discuss the science and avoid personal comments as far as possible.
I judge people by what goes into their comments. On that basis there is a wide variation in knowledge and ability. There are also commenters who claim scientific expertise, but whose comments suggest they have forgotten how it works.
For example, I am currently discussing Balmesda et al with not banned here, and we seem to have got hung up on the difference between heat content and temperature. That's fair enough. I have no idea of his background or education but we are discussing the science, hopefully as equals, and we'll probably get onto the same wavelength eventually
You are certainly more knowledgeable than me in your own technical field, but not necessarily outside it. Are you an engineer? I've known other engineers who share an all or nothing approach to uncertainty. They insist that only zero uncertainty is acceptable. This is an excellent approach to building a bridge, but is not an effective approach to sciences like climatology.which progress in ways more like solving a jigsaw than calculating stress on an I-beam.
As for who here is my inferior, equal or superior; it would be insulting to classify anyone in those terms. I'm an old science teacher, which required a working knowledge of a wide range of subjects from astronomy to zoology. This leaves me initially unable to debate the subtleties of a particular field, but does give me a breadth of knowledge which many here would find hard to match. In the internet world, that gives me one advantage. I may not have universal detailed knowledge in my head, but will know what to look for.
By convention, all opinions should be given equal weight.This is a problem with democratic debate.
Would you take a vote among drivers to decide whether a bridge was safe? Of course not.
Much better to ask a group of civil engineers to investigate and then accept their consensus.
My weighting of other people's opinions varies with their demonstrated understanding of the science and the degree to which their opinions are affected by non- scientific considerations. To parphrase Orwell
"All opinions are equal, but some are more equal than others."
Sure, we bow to your omniscience, Mr Whybray.
Although some may find your conceit simply jawdropping. If you're so awesome, why didn't you ever become a scientist? Merely spouting the findings of others isn't much of an outlet for an enquiring mind.
I suspect that's the issue - enquiry simply isn't on your agenda. For teachers 'knowledge' comes neatly contained in textbooks. Anything outwith is utterly verboten, not part of the syllabus.
You're stamping your Government-approved GCSE-level 'authority' foot at people so far ahead of you that you simply can't recognise it.
With apologies to Monty Python:
Schoolteacher: Well. I mean. Er, I mean. You're a man of the world, aren't you...I mean, er, you've er... you've been there haven't you...I mean you've been around...eh?
Scientist: What do you mean?
Schoolteacher: Well I mean like you've er...you've done it...I mean like, you know...you've...er...you've conducted...experiments, you've planned research programmes...you've advanced human knowledge... people all over the world cite your work?
Scientist: Yes.
Schoolteacher: What's it like?
Sorry EM - as I originally thought this isn't worth the keystrokes.
Say No To Fearmongers, not banned yet.
Two successive ad hominem attacks.
Thank you gentlemen. I'm honoured. I notice you continue to attack the man, but still fail to falsify my science.
EM - nothing ad hom about pointing out that the nonsense you write is not worth the keystokes of a reply.
You aren't worth the time because you aren't interested in discussion - only pushing unsupportable points of view whilst presenting yourself as an authority worth heeding.
As you are such a skilled teacher who knows what to look for - why not try this thing called "google"? Type in "Engineering Statistics" and see what you get - perhaps you could educate yourself on how engineers evaluate and deal with uncertainty?
Also why not have a read of Balmesda et al and see if you can figure out what might be problematic with this:
"To understand the graph, stay focused on the heat content first. Once you can describe the change in heat content of each layer of the ocean, then, and only then, you can consider the temperature implications."
Good luck.
Whybray, sure, you're not even worth an ad hominem. Not banned yet is right. Meanwhile, enjoy the Chinooks rescuing livestock on your very own local outbreak of global warming.
not banned yet
I've been reading non-sceptic online responses to Balmesada et al this evening. They agree with my interpretation, not yours. Since you have failed to show that I'm wrong and have returned to your old habit of insulting your oppenent when you lose, I'll chalk this one up as a win and move on to other topics.
Say No To Fearmongers
For a junior civil servant you are very uncivil.
Feeble. Surely I'm in the pay of big oil, or some shady branch of Koch Brothers intergalactic empire? Keep guessing.
EM - telling people that you are much smarter than them is not a useful tactic when you are trying to persuade them to change their minds.
Even if it is true (which is very unlikely in this instance), it tends to get their backs up, unless they are less than 10 years old. Quite often, even then it has the same effect.
Stop digging.
Chalk it up how you like EM - I've put it down to the usual trolling on your part.
Btw. Any of those "online responses" describe the Joulemeter that you claim Balmesda used?