Tuesday
Jul232013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Your ship is sinking. Will spin help?
Jul 23, 2013 Climate: sensitivity This is a hypothesis that the Met Office seems to be testing in the series of papers they have released today. There are three documents:
- Paper 1: Observing changes in the climate system (PDF, 2 MB)
- Paper 2: Recent pause in global warming (PDF, 1 MB)
- Paper 3: Implications for projections (PDF, 664 kB)
Having focused on climate sensitivity in recent months, as far as this blog is concerned it's the third paper that is most of interest. As readers know, there is a surfeit of new observationally constrained papers that have found low climate sensitivity. Strangely, the Met Office authors only consider the Otto et al study, which had a relatively high ECS estimate - a function of the ocean temperature dataset used. As we know, if any other dataset had been used then they would have got an estimate in line with the other recent observational estimates.
Sure looks like spin to me.
Reader Comments (235)
I find it very strange that in some parts of this blog people are rightly attacking met office and other models that predicted warming, this based on the 15 year hiatus.
However in other threads people are praising Climate Sensitivity papers that show a CS of 2.0C or less, these papers are still predicting warming and it has not been happening.
Is there any chance you folks might reconsider this slightly unreasonable and illogical attitude?
Maybe instead of the spaghetti graphs of temperature projections that some use to show the spread of the models, they could just write 'Here be Dragons'. That would at least be more honest.
Low CS (no, I still don't accept it, but never mind) and high/unquantified natural variation. Just what lukewarmers have said for years. How are the met going to spin it so they are still the experts and the lukewarmers are still wrong? They have to do that to keep their authority. They just cannot allow that a bunch of amateurs were right and they were wrong. How are they going to do it?
Not by the epicycle/fudge/get out of jail card that is the deep ocean thing. Once you allow that get-out, all betts are off.
In my naivety I thought the MO were about to change their MO and start to act like scientists. How wrong can one be! I bets Betts won't show his face on this thread. MoFos!
From Paper 2:
“…the additional heat from the continued rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations has been absorbed in the ocean and has not been manifest as a rise in surface temperature”.
Accepting the above gives rise to a few questions, some rhetorical:
Does that not mean GCM’s have failed to adequately model heat transfer to the oceans?
Given that we live on ye olde water planet, does that not reduce confidence in the predictive power of GCM’s?
If the heat is going into the oceans and results in an almost immeasurably small change in deep ocean temperature, is there any physical justification for a water vapour amplification of climate sensitivity to CO2 forcing?
Jumping on a different nag, possibly headed for the knackers yard, is there any reason to believe that the ocean will occasionally burp out this heat (ENSO anyone?) in a manner consistent with the step change temperature graphs, ala Bob Tisdale?
In probably a final comment on figure 4 of paper 3, and figure 1.4 of IPCC AR5 (draft), I note that the grey 5 - 95% uncertainty interval in both graphs appear to have been "adjusted" years after the original projections. Indeed, the AR5 figure shows that current temperatures are outside (below) the ORIGINAL error bars of ALL historical forecasts.
matthu
No, I don't think we can be certain of anything but I'm pretty certain — absent any more plausible explanation — that if the heat had "gone into" the oceans most of it would have warmed the top couple of meters or thereabouts and given transpiration and radiation and convection and tides and currents and winds that heat would be so widely dispersed that not only would it be unmeasurable it would be irrelevant.
Unable to sleep last night — the third night in row the temperature has remained above 25 until midnight — I got to wondering how much heat is generated, not by the effects of CO2 resulting from mankind burning fossil fuels but directly by using those fuels either to create heat or (as at the moment) incidentally by the waste heat from the air conditioners going full blast.
The answer, I suppose, is probably not very much but it seems odd that we blame the greenhouse effect of CO2 for a temperature rise of half-a degree worldwide but apparently take little account of the amount of heat directly generated by mankind's normal daily activity.
If the MO ship is spinning too fast in a vortex they are likely suffer a Descent into the Maelstrom (E.A.Poe)
Josh?
MJ, Roy Spencer was asked a while ago about the raw heat output of all these people and machines round the world, so did a few sums and showed that it really is negligible. Can't find a reference for this, despite not actually looking.
The warming at the end of last century was blamed on the increase in GHG concentration. Now that there is no warming, the heat is mysteriously disappearing into the depths of the oceans. So why didn't ocean heating take place instead of a temperature rise last century?
What has changed? Unless they can explain the reason for the change, their assertion that it is now heating the ocean is garbage, just an excuse to cover the fact that they haven't got a clue.
They might as well argue that someone left the big window open and the heat escaped. Trenberth...!
Steve M often refers to climate science arguments as "hide the pea". This is a sort of hide the heat variation. Perhaps it was never there in the first place.
The likely explanations are:
(a) GHG theory is flawed.
(b) Most of the heating was natural and it has now stopped.
(c) Earth's thermostat is very efficient
Met office forecast for July 2013, made on 27th june: "For July below-average UK-mean temperatures are more likely than above-average". So nearly correct - just two words need swapped.
Here is Allen et al 2013 that is apparently the source for fig4. It would appear, they took just the least bad forecast - and then they fiddled the figures so as to lower the uncertainty range so the actual data wouldn't look so far off.
http://commonsenseatheism.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Allen-et-al-Test-of-a-decadal-climate-forecast.pdf
Not that we need to consider the uncertainty in these numbers at all. This is a computer model, the uncertainty is whatever the programmers programmed in.
Cheers,
Nick
The invisible heat going into/hiding in the deep ocean? Hummm? Why did it never go there before?
That lost heat sure is a sneaky concept.
"Others maintain that this is a temporary pause and that temperatures will again rise at rates seen previously"
It looks like we are now in the hands of a previously unmentioned group. Not scientists, not experts but "OTHERS" Who are these people?
Is there a connection bstween others and "they" as in they say that etc.
Answers on a postcard.
'The ten hottest years on record globally have all been since 1997'
I've always wondered what the point if this remark was.
Few doubt that there was a warming period. But when you get to the top of a mountain you aren't still climbing.
Can anyone enlighten me
Latimer Adler
It's quite simple really.
In the same way that the universe is creating the space, into which it is expanding, the mountain is growing into the space created by the GCMs.
Hope that clears it up LOL
Dear Latimer, nobody can enlighten you therefore you need an exercise routine and diet ^.^
Fig4 in the MO report is clearly misleading. Much better would be to use the one leaked from IPCC AR5 that Roger posted a link to:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/ipcc_fig1-4_models_obs.png
but it occurs to me that this is still being a bit too kind to the scientists predictions. It compares the various IPCC reports to HadCRUT4. But HadCRUT4 didn't exist when these forecasts were made. The IPPC does prefer HadCRU - but it's version 3 we should be comparing to - that's what the climate modellers were trying to predict.
And version 4 runs about 0.05 degC warmer than HadCRUT3. So the actual temperature measurements in the above graphic - post 2000 should be moved down by 0.05, a quarter of the distance between the ticks on the Y axis. Not huge, but moves a lot more of those data [points completely out of the uncertainty ranges shown.
Cheers,
Nick.
The invisible heat going into/hiding in the deep ocean? Hummm? Why did it never go there before?
That lost heat sure is a sneaky concept.
Jul 23, 2013 at 6:36 PM | Unregistered Commentereyesonu
What you are failing to realise is that the new heat is smart heat. This is a special kind of heat which never existed before but has now been discovered by the church of late as usual scientologists. It automatically knows when not to be absorped and so passes through to the coldest part of the oceans to make it warmer for the Maldive's cabinet next meeting. :)
It's time for the criminals at the Met Office to be indicted for causing the deaths of thousands of innocent people in fuel poverty and for causing misery for the rest of the normal folk in the UK.
Phillip Bratby
Bang on!
Building on the "hide the pea idea", if the temperature rises, the GHG is heating the surface and atmosphere. If the temperature does not rise, the GHG is heating the depths of the oceans. Can they explain why it should stop doing one thing and start doing the other?
If the temperature does rise again, is that because we are back to the first mechanism, or does that mean the oceans are giving up the missing heat? Again, would the MO please provide a rationale for that.
If we return to warming in a big way, that must be due to both mechanisms but it is pointless asking for an explanation because Ms Slingo will be busy doing cartwheels into the far distance.
If we return to very slight warming, how will the MO explain that? A bit of both? Back to the first mechanism?
What if we have a long period of no warming? This will be billed as the time bomb scenario. The MO will tell us that massive heating will occur within 5 years. After 4 years they will say that Chinese particulate emissions have delayed the warming, etc, etc.
What if we start cooling? This will be extreme weather and indisputable evidence of global warming.
steveta_uk
Thanks. I knew there would be an answer somewhere.
Stephen Richards
Would this be the smart heat that all those smart meters are going to measure? I think we ought to be told.
Please, DNFTT folks.
btw, Judith Curry has some valuable comments referencing this thread and these Met Office papers.
Here is a glimpse, but well worth reading all of her remarks at Climate, Etc:
Whistling past the graveyard, peddling the tricycled model as fast a little feet can move.
===============
@Skiphil
The following few words from JC sum up the salient issues:-
Green Sand,
Yessss, Dr. Curry is willing to utter such inconvenient truths from within the hallowed halls of academic climate science.
No matter how mildly her questions, challenges, and criticisms are worded, they are huge stumbling blocks for the activists. No wonder the Manniacs of the world hate her and don't understand a genuine, honest scientist.
As I have pointed out several times, CS is unique among climate science concepts that are inherently incapable of being verified by observation or experiment.
Why? Because 97% of sceptics also believe it is meaningful.
Writing as an author of the study, I think that the Met Office paper 3 factually misrepresents the results of Otto et al (2013) in more than one place.
Moreover, the results of the Harris et al (2012) study, which they cite in the same paper as giving high sensitivity estimates, reflect the high sensitivity and other characteristics of the Met Offie HadCM3 GCM used in the study - it cannot realistically be a proper observationally based or constrained study.
GS, thanks for the JC article.
Skiphil's Judith Curry quotes demonstrate how flimsy and foolish the Metoffice spin really is. Why can't they bring themselves to admit their forecasts failed and do a proper post mortem on their models, just like every geologist has to do when his prospect gets plugged and abandoned as a dry hole?
Ed Davey should read Judith Curry's appraisal of the Met Office reports.
The Met Office should consider whether they are a scientific organisation or global warming activists.
The Government should ask itself if the Met Office deserves public funding in order to produce biased science fiction. They should explain why our stupid climate policy is based on stupid assumptions.
Ed Davey should sack the MO management then resign.
shub
You have Skiphil to thank for pointing to Dr Curry's post, which, along with the comment above from Nic Lewis, leads me think this MO play has "legs".
The "uncertainties" are now certainties, they are the many, many variables we certainly do not understand!
Dr Curry's post has gained the attention of R Pielke Sr:-
Hi Judy They also miss the implications if the heat were really buried deeper in the ocean – see, for example,
“Torpedoing Of The Use Of The Global Average Surface Temperature Trend As The Diagnostic For Global Warming”
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/torpedoing-of-the-use-of-the-global-average-surface-temperature-trend-as-the-diagnostic-for-global-warming/
http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/23/uk-met-office-on-the-pause/#comment-350047
Tom Nelson notes the MO reports and reminds us of a study by Judith Lean and others four years ago where as the Groan explains:
"World will warm faster than predicted in next five years, study warns
New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics"
http://tomnelson.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/remember-four-years-ago-when-world-was.html
Link there to the Groan where reading the comments are now even more amusing than back then. :)
Mick.
I think the heat going into the deep ocean is a Travesty ...
@ Pete
The MO has been trained on 159 years of entirely predictable Atlantic depressions sweeping across the UK one after another. As soon as mother nature throws in an anti-cyclone the MO goes to pieces. Their computer programs have as much difficulty as human forecasters with high pressure areas. They will be mightily relieved when we return to the steady march of retired cyclones, tropical storms and hurricanes traipsing across the country.
I believe anti-cyclones are the chaotic element in the weather and in my view their research money would be best spent on the characteristics of anti-cyclones.
Yes, I can enlighten you. Some time back I posted some Met Office management discussions . They included the following:
- "should we come clean and say that global warming is much less certain than we had thought?"
- "Absolutely not. It's a certainty. And we'd look really stupid too if we said that"
- "Yes, but we already look really stupid when we say that the Global Warming is continuing as usual even though the temperature has not changed for 15 plus years"
- "Just tell them that the ten hottest years on record occurred since 1998. That always shuts them up"
(etc etc)
Mick J,
"Judith Lean" - I thought, hmm either the solar physicist, or another moniker for widow Twanky from the Telegraph?
Quoting stuff from the graunida - who knows - I oft ponder on why, widow Twanky doesn't return to his real home - London N1 9GU - after all, he is an Islington CP 'space cadet' like the rest of them.
Latimer
This is part of the mantra of the True Believers. It helps keep the faith in the face of all that confounding evidence. It's like climate models - very useful.
In spite of the fact that it sounds like it was handed down by the Greenpeace PR department, Richard Betts says it has scientific merit, and that's good enough for me.
The heat is hiding I the lower oceans? Since when did heat sink? Why do kettles have the element at the bottom?
MET-O paper 2 intro:
"Radiative forcing by greenhouse gases has continued unabated; that heat is being held in the system"
Wanna bet?
Cloud increased after 1998 according to Palle et al and ISCCP. Cloud absorbs 40W/m^2 more incoming solar than theory and models think they do, according to empirical data gathered by the USAF.
Which means that as well as shading the surface more, the additional cloud re-emits more upwards than theory thinks it does. What it emits downwards mostly gets re-absorbed and convected back up well above the surface.
The 'missing heat' is now somewhere past Alpha Centauri.
... Why do kettles have the element at the bottom?
Jul 24, 2013 at 12:03 AM Ken Hall
Because otherwise, you'd have to fill the kettle even if you only wanted to make a small cup of Nescafe.
As an Uninformed Lay Person (ULP), for me the money quote was that which Judith Curry used right at the top of her post. If I might be forgiven for x-posting my response here:
So the bottom line seems to be that this "pause" - which the Met Office and others have spent at least the better part of a year, in effect, insisting was not occurring and berating those who had the temerity to observe that it has - has finally been acknowledged!
But (in keeping with past "standard operating procedures" on far too many such dragged out acknowledgments), the "experts" have, in effect, pronounced that "it doesn't matter, anyway ... our models continue to rule!"
I could be wrong, but my guess would be that this is a rather determined and elaborate exercise in "spin" ahead of the Sept. "approval" of WG1's contribution to AR5, in order to ... uh ... sustain what former UNFCCC head honcho, Yvo de Boer had declared last November:
Not to mention that there appears to be no mention of the simple fact that even if the output of their gloriously faulty - if not significantly deficient - models turns out to be correct, they still have absolutely no empirical evidence (nor even a sustainably "alarming" correlation) which would support the hypothesis that the primary "culprit" is human-generated emissions of CO2. But perhaps this is not a message that the "experts" want to convey to the policymakers - or to the public!
YMMV, but, well, that's the view from here ;-)
To which I would now add ...
It is definitely worth noting the comment of Nic Lewis (who is always far more diplomatic than I fear I shall ever learn to be!) above [Jul 23, 2013 at 9:51 PM] is quite, well, alarming, and bears repeating (if not elevation to the head post, my bold):
"Spin" is one thing; but "factually misrepresent[ing] results ... in more than one place" is a completely different kettle of (distinctly malodourous) fish, IMHO.
Paul Milligan
http://judithcurry.com/2013/07/23/uk-met-office-on-the-pause/#comment-349989
Roger Pielke
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/torpedoing-of-the-use-of-the-global-average-surface-temperature-trend-as-the-diagnostic-for-global-warming/
Perhaps surface heat is magically transported into the ocean deep but why the fixation on heat?
Is it possible that biological activity near the surface transforms the incident energy and atmospheric gases into chemical potential energy some of which is added to the food chain while the rest sinks to the ocean floor.
There's a huge 3D reservoir of water and life in the oceans that is predominantly fed by a relatively small 2D surface.
Discounting mechanical energy there are three clear competitors for solar energy at the surface: evaporation, heating and chemical processes that include the biosphere.
Do we have a handle on how the energy cake is carved into portions?
Fiona Harvey, environment correspondent in The Guardian, has resurrected the Hockey stick just in time:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2013/jul/22/climate-change-slowdown-warming-oceans
Maybe someone should provide a link to AM's books?
If spin is all that's ever kept your ship above the waterline, I suppose it's worth a shot ... particularly if it's all you've ever had a talent for.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
It's my guess that people here are being over hard on the Met Office.
I'd be interested to know if some sort of pressure was applied, and by whom, to get them to come out with these reports. Surely, given the disapprobation the office has recently incurred, a more normal reaction would be to keep the head down. Has someone, somewhere, possibly at Ministerial level, applied some pressure? A quiet Davey/Slingo telecon? "Buck up! Give me some spin! Your job - there's no-one else that can do it!" (maybe even an added " ... or else ...".)
On the contrary. The Met Office management enthusiastically whipped up the CAGW scare (happily pocketing generous bonuses while clocking up inflation-proofed pensions) which led to the Climate Change Act.
The harm done by the Met Office makes Robert Maxwell look like a small-time shoplifter by comparison.
If they were all sacked tomorrow without compensation, they'd be getting off very lightly by comparison with what natural justice would condemn them to.