Monday
Apr292013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Climate Dialogue on long-term persistence
Apr 29, 2013 Climate: Statistics The Dutch site Climate Dialogue has launched a debate on long-term persistence in climate records. It features Rasmus Benestad, Demetris Koutsoyiannis and Armin Bunde.
This could be interesting.
Reader Comments (5)
The way the debate has been organised seems thoughtful and I hope will be emulated elsewhere. Dr Koutsoyiannis probably has a way to go before the implications of LTP sink in. As he writes:
Lots to learn, as ever.
Honourable MP Peter Lilley has launched a debate on whether Honourable Ed Davies is indeed "honourable" considering the way he may have delayed the release of
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/10025517/The-green-spin-of-environmental-activists-has-skewed-the-fracking-debate.html
"the Energy Secretary, was apparently so upset by the British Geological Survey’s new estimates, which show there may be 250 times as much shale gas as previously thought, that he told them to go and redo their figures. That means a delay of several months – on top of the 18-month moratorium Mr Davey previously imposed on drilling. He is a decent and honest minister – unlike his predecessor Chris Huhne, now detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure. But if he really has asked official geologists to redo their figures, that is reprehensible."
Science has NEVER said that Climate Change Crisis, a comet hit of an emergency is inevitable or eventual or imminent or "WILL" be a crisis. They only agree it COULD be a crisis and its been 28 years!
EVERY IPCC WARNING IS QUALIFIED WITH "COULD BE" or "MAYBE".
Al - might be fun to do a "search and replace" reissue, with all those could be and maybes replaced by "might not be".
As a physicist Rasmus Benestad understands conservation of energy well enough.
I've not yet read the follow up comments/discussion, but... But it does not necessarily follow, as he appears to imply, that it is impossible for atmospheric and ocean heat content to increase, and ice decrease at the same time, without a (net) change in so-called radiative forcing. It is disingenuous to argue from that standpoint.
Albedo and emissivity effects aside; phase changes, kinetic energy, geopotential energy, chemical potential (salinity changes, ocean redox chemistry); they all make a contribution to the energy budget. Some of these may be highly localized, some may be disperse. Here is one good reason why temperature measurements get the headlines: Most everything else is much harder to measure. Work is not heat.
While reading Benestad's piece, one moment I seemed to be reading something about conservation of energy. Then a sensible, cautionary, discussion about the difficulty of defining, and statistically distinguishing, signal from noise. When suddenly, it leaped to “It is just statistics and a bit of physics: It can only be due to greenhouse gases”, or words to that effect.
Et voilà! With one bound he was free! He has considered all the processes, and counted all the Joules! Not.
Sure, it is certainly appropriate to try and quantify all contributions in an attempt to eliminate possible causes, that's the root of the problem, isn't it? However, it seems almost de-rigeur in this field for people to casually assert or imply: "I've thought of everything", and this appears just another example. Why am I not surprised that he is an occasional contributor at Real Climate?
At least Kevin Trenberth sometimes gives the impression that he is still trying to count the Joules. If the models were able to reproduce the "noise" as adequately as Benestad suggests, then maybe Trenberth wouldn't need to be looking for his missing heat.