Bishop Hill A bodyguard of woo
Sep 1, 2013 In a leader just published, the Guardian is covering the plateau in global temperatures and is to be congratulated on telling half the story. That's considerably better than telling none of the story at all, as is its wont.
There is, however, a serious debate about why the observed temperatures have not kept pace with computer-modelled predictions and where the heat that should have registered on the global thermometer has hidden itself. One guess – supported by some sustained but still incomplete research – is that the deep oceans are warming: that is, the extra heat that should be measurable in the atmosphere has been absorbed by the sea. This is hardly good news: atmosphere and ocean play on each other, and any stored heat is likely to be returned to the atmosphere sooner or later, in unpredictable ways. The real lesson from the latest finding is that there is a lot yet to be understood about how the planet works, and precisely how ocean and atmosphere distribute warmth from the equator to the poles.
To describe the deep-ocean explanation for the hiatus as a guess seems reasonable to me. It is genuinely no more than that, although I think to be truly clear about it one would have to point out that it is somewhat implausible for the missing heat to have found its way to the deep ocean without being detected nearer the surface. Nevertheless, I think you do get a sense of the puzzlement of climatologists, so one should probably commend the Guardian for raising its game.
Of course one can't expect the whole article to be that good, and the Guardian appears to have adapted Winston Churchill's famous maxim somewhat, ensuring that its scientifically sensible statement is attended by a bodyguard of woo to keep its readers happy - referring to Australian floods and melting Arctic ice with none of the context that would allow the uninitiated to make sense of such statements.
But hey, let's recognise the progress.
Reader Comments (83)
It's all bloody twaddle.
They just make up excuses as they go along....
I sense many in this charade really would just like to be able to publicly come clean and say 'we ain't got a clue guv and it's all looking a bit sus' ...
But the gatekeepers won't let them.
As the party line remains the same, total commitment to 'the cause ' , allowing its self to be 'chief bitch ' to Bob 'fast fingers 'Ward and SS , whilst employing moderation designed to ensure that the only 'sacred facts ' are those which support their position , there is no reason to give them any credit for 'progress '
They are still happy ban people at the drop of a hat , if they make any of their environmental 'journalists' life hard be pointing out facts or asking questions . And lets remember GM 's views on people who fly , what he thinks should happen to airlines executives and how AGW sceptics are like holocaust deniers.
So no credit at all .
Would you believe it !!! Those pesky temperatures have failed to keep up with the computer modelled quesswork .DRAT
This is a really obscure rock band and a really obscure song, 'Deep Blue Sea', - but remarkably apposite.
Heres the song-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qUzZBmo2VA
And the lyrics-
Lyrics to Deep Blue Sea -
Not that you're good; not that you're bad;
you're not really happy, but you're not really sad.
not that you're dull but you're not very bright;
not a morning person but you're tired at night.
are you one or ther other, are you for or against,
or just a lukewarm loner,
staying close to the fence?
you're caught between the devil
and the deep blue sea
and you're driffting in the middle ground.
don't want to live life in the in-between
and you're sinking but you can't real swim;
you're not on the outside but you're not fully in.
not that you're slow but you're not very fast;
you're never been first but you've never been last.
are you open to options,
are you biding your time,
or just afraid to commit and to cross that line?
are you sink or swim, out or in,
you don't know -
somewhere in-between.
are you stand or fall, run or stall,
you don't know -
somewhere in-between.
Guardian? Serious debate?
Is this a sick joke?
When climate alarmists blame Australian flooding rains on carbon dioxide, it is useful to remember that Australian rains and droughts famously vary with ENSO. Neville Nichols, president of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society wrote this in 2011:
"Given the well-known relationship between the SOI and heavy rains in eastern Australia (eg., McBride and Nicholls, 1983) we can conclude that the fundamental cause of the heavy rains this past six months was indeed this record La Niña event. Other heavy rain years (1917/18, 1950/51, 1973/74, 1975/76) were also the result of strong La Niña events. The relationship between rainfall and the SOI is very strong, with a correlation coefficient of 0.66. So, the heavy rains were not caused by global warming, but by a record la Niña event – a natural fluctuation of the climate system." "
http://www.amos.org.au/news/id/111
There is, however, a serious debate about why the observed temperatures have not kept pace with computer-modeled predictions and where the heat that should have registered on the global thermometer has hidden itself.
As if the observed temps are at fault for not keeping up with the models, and the "missing" heat must exist, hidden somewhere. A more honest and balanced statement should read:
There is, however, a serious debate about why the computer-modeled predictions have not been realized in observed temperatures, and why the heat predicted for the global thermometer has not appeared.
On the topic of hidden heat in the deep ocean I recently came across this rather impressive animation of global ocean currents using data from NASA Goddard *- it's all swirling around and no mistake - but looking at it there are obviously persistent patterns to the flows. Identifying areas where deep water is being forced up and vice versa doesn't look like an insurmountable problem and calculating the heat loads and estimating various parameters shouldn't be an insurmountable issue.
But then again - Trenberth doesn't want an answer.
*it's quite a big file and you'll need Google Earth plugin in your browser - it's worth the wait.
Rather than put the opening sentence as
"There is, however, a serious debate about why the observed temperatures have not kept pace with computer-modelled predictions and where the heat that should have registered on the global thermometer has hidden itself. "
the Guardian could have better put it as
"There is, however, a serious debate about why the computer modelled temperatures have failed to predict observed temperatures and where are the flaws in the models".
That would seem to me to be a better start point for any inquisition.
"...that is, the extra heat that should be measurable in the atmosphere has been absorbed by the sea..."
This -THIS - is where we can get the wavering layman on-side. They, like us, must find it bloody difficult to understand how all this disastrous heating they've heard so much about (like, it's going to be the end of the world; that we are paying so much tax to avoid - so it must be gi-normous!) can get so far down into the deep oceans, through all that cold water, and emerge later (in a time-frame of the warmists' choice, it seems) to start the whole CAGW crap all over again.
We can and must educate people to not misunderstand this rubbish (regardless of the split infinitive).
Under which law of fluid dynamics does heat sink? Evidently the alarmist movement has no shame and instead of pondering disparity between theory and reality they are papering over the crack.
Why is there any credibility whatsoever in this claim?
During all that oh-so nasty global warming in-bound energy would have gone into the oceans in due proportions to ocean and land extent, yet now there's no warming we're expected to believe the 'missing heat' has magically avoided landfall completely and instead dived exclusively into the oceans, and then to add to the fantasy it's dived to the bottom - just where nobody can accurately measure it?
The ONLY reason for this absurd claim is that without somewhere, anywhere, for the missing heat to be located, AGW theory is as good as dead in the water.
No missing heat = it's gone, radiated out of the system, which compromises climate sensitivity, feedbacks, the lot. That kills the theory stone dead, and they know it.
AGW theory is hanging on by its finger nails...
Plumbing the depths of plausibility, and its so obvious it must be acutely embarassing. Good.
the problem is that some ostensibly sensibly sensible climate scientists such as John Nielson-Gammon also seem to accept this bullshit. He also thinks that glaciers are dimiinishing. (without evidence for his views, of course...we just know they are decreasing)
correction Nielsen-Gammon - but why he supports the Tamino crap is beyond my understanding
Oh how predictable_
"Guardian? Serious debate?
Is this a sick joke?"
Sep 1, 2013 at 10:26 PM | Don Keiller
Well what a surprise. The Graun tries to have a debate on a subject that should be close to your heart, and you dismiss is out of hand.
As always, we see how closed and set the minds of deniers really are.
Sep 1, 2013 at 10:37 PM | ZedsDeadBed
....................
So you would say that the Guardian is a bastion of open debate where both sides can get a fair hearing?
Comments removed
Monbiot suggesting anyone with a differing view is akin to a "holocaust denier" and that anyone who disagrees should be put on trial for crimes against humanity that have not occurred yet!
Those that deny climate change do have closed minds Zedsdeadbed - in particular those that deny the existence of the MWP.
And also those that deny that the models are running hot.
If you are looking for a closed mind - try looking in the mirror.
Hang on....Don't you all know that the science is settled?
Please, DNFTT.
The increase in ocean heat content at depth is shown in Figure 1 of Balmasada et al.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50382/pdf
Note the increase in rate of heat accumulation (the slope of the graphs) occuring from 2002. This matches the 2002 flattening of the 5-year running mean for the global temperature record.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
The increase in the rate of heat accumulation in the ocean, particularly below 700M, matches the reduction in the rate of heat accumulation in the atmosphere.
Note also the OHC response to decreased insolation during and after Pinaturbo. This strengthens the confidence that there is both a correalation and a causal link between OHC and measured global temperature.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SeaIceSept1_2013.png
Thanks diogenes a graph is worth more than a thousand words.
ps sorry for the language.
nice paper, Entropic Man:
from the intro
Here we present the time evolution of the global ocean heat
content for 1958 through 2009 from a new observation-
based reanalysis of the ocean.
So it's only 5 years out-of-date. Good for these intrepid scientists.
More importantly:
2. The Ocean Reanalysis
[
6
] ORAS4 has been produced by combining, every
10 days, the output of an ocean model forced by atmospheric
reanalysis
fluxes and quality controlled ocean observations.
What does this mean? Is there any real empirical data used here apart from measurements from elephant seals (known to these folks as"autonomous pinniped bathythermograph)". It seems to demand comprehenisve debunking, which i am sure you will provide. Amongst other things, I am delighted that below 700m, they can quote temps to within 0.01deg, whereas at higher levels they can only support 0.08 or 0.09 deg. Is it worthwhile spending any time on such stuff?
I reverently believe that the Maker who made us all makes everything in New England but the weather. I don't know who makes that, but I think it must be raw apprentices in the weather-clerk's factory who experiment and learn how, in New England, for board and clothes, and then are promoted to make weather for countries that require a good article, and will take their custom elsewhere if they don't get it.
There is a sumptuous variety about the New England weather that compels the stranger's admiration -- and regret. The weather is always doing something there; always attending strictly to business; always getting up new designs and trying them on the people to see how they will go. But it gets through more business in spring than in any other season.
In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four-and-twenty hours. It was I that made the fame and fortune of that man that had that marvelous collection of weather on exhibition at the Centennial, that so astounded the foreigners. He was going to travel all over the world and get specimens from all the climes. I said, "Don't you do it; you come to New England on a favorable spring day." I told him what we could do in the way of style, variety, and quantity. Well, he came and he made his collection in four days. As to variety, why, he confessed that he got hundreds of kinds of weather that he had never heard of before. And as to quantity -- well, after he had picked out and discarded all that was blemished in any way, he not only had weather enough, but weather to spare; weather to hire out; weather to sell; to deposit; weather to invest; weather to give to the poor.
Mark Twain.
Diogenes, Arthur
Thank you, you rather make my point. You put up a graph with no discussion to indicate how it supports your argument.
Your graph shows that this year's Arctic ice extent is not among the top three (2012,2007 and 2008) on record. In fact it is closely following that for 2009.
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2013/08/Figure21.png
Surely you are not simplistic enough to expect that every year's ice extent should be lower than the one before. Long term trends do not behave so neatly.
I now look forward to your explaination of how this graph shows that glaciers are extending and that global warming has stopped.
Breaking News: Climate models to be updated, GIGO no longer suffice.
From Sep 1, 2013 all new climate papers will be rejected unless they include GIGO + Hiatus.
Sometimes half a loaf is worse than nothing. Translating the Guardian-speak: "So the models got it wrong but we should act as if they got it right."
diogenes
Where do you get 5 years? From the end of the last observations in 2009 to February 2013, when Nature received the paper is 3 years 2 months.
Complex datasets like these take time to compile and are usually one or two years in arrears. Once available to the authors, they then take time to do the analysis, write the paper and get it published.
The raw data is temperature measurements taken by a variety of different techniques at different locations, depths and times. Some is from the temperature profiles recorded as ARGO floats sink to 2000M and resurface. Others are from disposable sinkers which transmit temperature and depth readings as they drop. Seals have been used to carry recorders which store temperature and depth information.
From these the authors have to calculate temperature profiles and then the amount of heat stored per unit volume at different depths and in different areas. These are then combined to give the final OHC values.
Your last point, regarding resolution of temperature measurements came out garbled. Could you refer me to the relevant points in the paper?
"AGW theory is hanging on by its finger nails..."
That's about it. If this state continues for a few years, we'll have an entirely new AGW theory with entirely new terminology, 'heat', 'ocean heat', energy transfer, 'partitioning' (I saw the word being used) etc, in place.
shrub
That's how science works . It adapts as new information comes in.
I refer you to Newton's rules of inquiry.
(1) We are to admit no more causes of natural things such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.
(2) The same natural effects must be assigned to the same causes.
3) Qualities of bodies are to be esteemed as universal.
(4) Propositions deduced from observation of phenomena should be viewed as accurate until other phenomena contradict them.
Look particularly at 4). In modern parlance- Form hypotheses based on the data so far collected.Use those as a provisional explaination for what you observe, and as a guide to predict the outcome of further observations. Update them as new data becomes available.
EM, come on then, can your (school)masterly physics brain please explain the threat to the planet that 0.1°C of additional deep ocean heat can present to the planet, assuming it's actually there rather than a desperate grasp at a fantasy straw?
For example, could it suddenly focus itself into a boiling mass and overwhelm humanity, Daily Mail style, or might it actually obey some laws of physics and be dispersed, low grade energy that doesn't actually make the blindest bit of difference to anything, other than, of course, being marginally beneficial for biodiversity?
I think we should be told.
(And please learn how to spell Shub's name.)
SayNoTo Fearmongers.
I argue science and all the bureaucrat can manage is sarcasm?
Think of the oceans as the mercury in the bulb of a thermometer. Increase their temperature and they expand. Of the current 3.2mm/year average annual increase in sea level about half is due to melting ice and the other half to thermal expansion. Both are expected to accelerate. This is not a problem for those on high ground, but a lot of our civilization's infrastructure is close to sea level and vulnerable to the consequences of sea level rise.
As an example - How would you move the Dungerness A and B nuclear power stations if the gravel ness on which they are built starts to erode?
Goodnight
That's not how 'science works'. If your theory fails to explain, you discard it. Because it was wrong. If your theory cannot predict outcomes, you discard it. Not create a new theory and give it the same name and declare it to be correct.
There can be ocean heat accumulation but it takes hundreds of years, the time from a change in precipitated ice at on Antarctica to the melt water reaching the Equator.
If that reduces, the water in the deeps will be warmer.
So, if we are detecting warming, it was caused by the start of the MWP.
' "AGW theory is hanging on by its finger nails..."
That's about it. If this state continues for a few years, we'll have an entirely new AGW theory with entirely new terminology, 'heat', 'ocean heat', energy transfer, 'partitioning' (I saw the word being used) etc, in place.
Sep 2, 2013 at 1:06 AM | Registered Commentershub'
The radiation-only theorists talk only about energy. They explain that phenomena such as ENSO must average out over long periods of time and could not impact climate. Their position rules out empirical investigation into ENSO, AMO, you name it. Sadly for them, the evidence for climate science and the output of models are not stated in joules but in temperatures. There is a good reason for that. If CAGW had been presented in terms of joules and theory of energy it would have attracted the same public following as the study of "dark matter."
When ENSO, the AMO, and related phenomena are described in terms of temperature, the hypothesis that they are natural regularities makes perfectly good sense. Trenberth is in an interesting position here. The suspected "ocean mixing" that might move heat from lesser depths to greater depths must be a natural regularity in the oceans and not something that can be described as an effect of radiation.
If Alarmist climate scientists would just talk to one another they would soon discover that collectively they subscribe to a theory that is inconsistent.
EM argue science? You argue ideology laced with some nice "science speak".
Climate Science was settled. This hiatus was not predicted.
Therefore the uncertainty factor was way off. Wayyyyy offfff.....
Now, we have to believe that models were valid, just ONE important process was missed.
The models are uncertain. Yet we know that if this hiatus had not happened, no one would be looking for TWO processes that might cancel each other out at this short time frame of decades. Why TWO why not FOUR or EIGHT?
You talk about science. Science is not the issue. It is the leverage applied to the uncertainties that is the issue. You have no doubt.
A rational look at the state of climate science gives uncertainties far greater than you will ever admit.
It is you that is not rational. A believer.
I have done many financial system migrations. You move accounts often from many systems into one system. Due to the double entry book keeping in each source system, in the new system you create a Take-On account. This account is used as the contra account for each account as it moves to the new system. Simply when all the accounts are migrated it should have a ZERO balance.
It never does. BUT... the Project Manager will call the migration a success and everyone will feel happy if the balance is less than say USD 100,000. It is what everyone wants to hear. It should mean no accounts were missed, or incorrect balances transferred. Champagne all round.
Then of course 8 weeks later a missed account or transaction has to be corrected and the balance changes to USD 10,000,000. Bugger. The Project Manager has left, but will tell everyone for ever more that his Take-On balance was great.
EM, you are like the Project Manager. This scenario is similar to Climate Models and how they are used by true believers.
Recent authoritative papers make it very clear that part of the "missing heat" is due to overestimation of sensitivity and at least part (if not all the remainder) is being offset by natural variance (+PDO).
If there's any heat still missing, it might perhaps have found its way down to Davy Jones. However, that heat cannot play any role in the international negotiations for a climate change treaty, for two reasons:
Any deep sea effects fall outside the UNFCCC definition: "Climate change means a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the composition of the global ATMOSPHERE and which is in addition to natural climate variability observed over comparable time periods."
Trenberth told NPR that ocean heat remains in situ "for hundreds of years" unless it is close to the surface. 800 years is the residence time suggested by ice cores. Even Lord Stern's discount rates don't put much weight on events that might (or might not) occur beyond the lifetimes of our great-grandchildren's great-grandchildren.
Entropic Man
Alternatively:
I'm not saying it is right, (it is from a model, after all) but just in case you wish to broaden your horizons....
"Guardian? Serious debate?
Is this a sick joke?"
Sep 1, 2013 at 10:26 PM | Don Keiller
[snip]
Don has a point. After all, the Guardian is the paper that published this utter stupidity two days ago
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/30/climate-change-civil-rights-washington
Not to mention the drivel that Damian and Leo (such Guardian names, eh?) are responsible for.
Sep 1, 2013 at 11:25 PM | Unregistered CommenterDoug UK
Doug,
I've been banned twice from the Gunduria simply for linking to articles which questioned CAGW.
DNFTT
Talking of Churchill maxims, I liked this in a tweet some hours ago:
Dragos Dumitriu links that to Toyota's Kanban method for just-in-time production, which has become a big theme in agile software development. But add to it WSC's
and one has some fine thoughts to be getting on with for climate in the month of IPCC AR5.
EM
How does an increase of 0.1'C in the ocean heat the atmosphere by more than 0,1'C? I would have thought that this is a good thing and will stop us frying? If the heat is going deep then the surface is not heating so fish and mammals etc. are safe too? If the heat goes deep by a mechanism not understood then it is just as likely to be released when beneficial to humans as not?
As has been asked before by others what is the explanation for the change? Previously the atmosphere got warmer now it doesn't previously the deep ocean was steady now it warms; from what I've read the Argo buoys, the only accurate subsurface measurements available, haven't detected anything?
Finally 0.1'C is a very precise and small number how can you be sure it's accurate?
EM: "The increase in ocean heat content at depth is shown in Figure 1 of Balmasada et al."
Er, sorry to say but the paper you refer to is a re-analyis. So its rather like pretending that a computer is actually real data and then analysing the result of an imaginary world. Shame you could not link to a paper that included actual measurements of this heat accumulating in the ocean.
On Argo floats and the precision of ocean temperature measurement: The water volume in the oceans is about 1.3 billion cubic km; there are approximately 3,000 Argo floats in operation. Therefore each individual float is effectively measuring about 400,000 cu km of water (incidentally that is about 160 billion olympic-sized swimming pools) and it is claimed that the temperature of the oceans can be measured to an accuracy of even 0.1 degrees. I have several bridges for sale...
Barry Brill above...former member of Parliament in NZ & Minister in NZ Government perhaps???
@David Chappell
"it is claimed that the temperature of the oceans can be measured to an accuracy of even 0.1 degrees. I have several bridges for sale..."
Good list of sensor information in this paper. Get in touch with the sensor manufacturers on the list and see what accuracy they offer...
http://www.isa.org/~sarni/temper.pdf
@ Jabba the Cat 0906
It's not a question of the precision or accuracy of the sensors, I have no doubt they can perform as their manufacturers claim. It's a question of whether or not a particular set of sensors can credibly measure the temperature of 160 billion olympic swimming pools.
Trenberth's missing heat is currently in a spherical shell, expanding at the speed of light, away from the surface of planet Earth.
It is called "Black Body Radiation".
Climate psientists take note.
From above link - the graun cif, nothing more needs to be said.
EM keeps telling us that CAGW is going to fry us all and destroy the planet. Only he and his believers wish the means to stop that happening - but he's not telling us how that will work - and he and his believers therefore will the end of CAGW (after all, if you know how to stop it, you must know when it has stopped; when the danger is over).
So, EM, tell us mere mortals, what would constitute, in your opinion, the end of AGW as
weyou know it? What should we be looking for in all the graphs, reports, re-analyses, etc? What will tell us when it's safe to go back to the world?