Bishop Hill Betts off
Dec 10, 2014 Climate: MetOffice Richard Betts has kicked off a small Twitter kerfuffle today, taking umbrage at Matt Ridley's Times piece yesterday.
@ProfMarkMaslin Exactly. If @mattwridley wants to criticise climate policy then he's got every right, but attacking scientists is wrong.
— Richard Betts (@richardabetts) December 10, 2014Matt has responded on his own blog today and I'm taking the liberty of reproducing his comment here.
After this article was published an extraordinary series of tweets appeared under the name of Richard Betts, a scientist at the UK Met Office and somebody who is normally polite even when critical. He called me “paranoid and rude” and made a series of assertions about what I had written that were either inaccurate or stretched interpretations to say the least. He then advanced the doctrine that politicians should not criticize civil servants. The particular sentence he objected to was:
Most of the people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in their views on climate policy, which hardly reassures the rest of us that they leave those prejudices at the laboratory door.
He thought this was an unjustified attack on civil servants. However, if you read what I said in that sentence, it is that (1) people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in support of certain policies – which is not a criticism, just a statement; and (2) that we need reassurance that they do not let that consciously or unconsciously influence their work, which again is not a criticism, let alone an attack, merely a request for reassurance. Certainly there is no mention of civil servants, let alone by name, and nothing to compare with an attack on me by name calling me paranoid and rude.
Is the first assertion true? I had in mind Jim Hansen, who was in charge of GISS, a data set for which serious questions have been raised about adjustments made that warm the present or cool the past, and who is prepared to get himself arrested in protest against fossil fuels. I also had in mind Phil Jones, partly in charge of HADCRUT, who also is not shy with his views. I was not thinking of Julia Slingo of the Met Office, because I do not think of the Met Office as a collater of temperature data, but perhaps I should have been. And then there’s Australia’s BoM. And indeed the RSS data, whose collater, Dr Carl Mears, fumes at the way “denialists” talk about his data. Hardly objective language.
Is my request for reassurance reasonable? In view of the Australian episodes, the GISS adjustments, the USHCN story from earlier this year (see here) – all of which raised doubts about the legitimacy of adjustments being made to the temperature data – then yes, I think I am. Do I think the data are fatally flawed? No, I don’t. I happily accept that all the data sets show some warming in the 1980s and 1990s and not much since and that this fits with the satellite data. But do I think such data can be used to assert that this is the warmest year, by 0.01 degrees, a month before the year ends? No, I don’t. I think people like Dr Betts should say as much.
As of this writing, Dr Betts’s latest tweet is:
If @mattwridley wants to criticise climate policy then he's got every right, but attacking scientists is wrong.
Well, if by attacking he means physically or verbally abusing, then yes, I agree, but I don’t do it. I don’t call people by name “paranoid”, for example. But criticizing scientists should be allowed surely? And asking for reassurance? Come on, Richard.
The WMO “re-analysed” a data set to get its 0.01 degree warmest year. What was that reanalysis and has it been independently checked? I would genuinely like to know. I stopped taking these things on trust after the hockey stick scandal.
The thrust of my article was that the reputation of the whole of science is at risk if bad practices and biases are allowed to infect data collection and presentation, and that science like other institutions can no longer take public trust for granted. A reaction of bluster and invective hardly reassures me that science takes my point on board. For the moment, I remain of the view that
The overwhelming majority of scientists do excellent, objective work, following the evidence wherever it leads. Science remains (in my view) our most treasured cultural achievement, bar none. Most of its astonishing insights into life, the universe and everything are beyond reproach and beyond compare.
But Dr Betts’s reaction has weakened my confidence in this view.
I must say, this seems a bit out of character for Richard, particularly his retweeting of the "Ridley is wrong because Northern Rock" thing put forward by Mark Maslin (the latter declaring, "North Rock the ultimate failure of neoliberalism", thus rather making Matt's about politicised scientists for him). I always laugh when scientists try to poison the well in this manner. It does so damage their own credibility.
Reader Comments (338)
Dec 11, 2014 at 1:34 PM | Unregistered CommenterLatimer Alder
... and Then There's Silence, Mr. Physics?
ATTP
And more highly thought of if they had. People trust objective reporting and those who do not make wild claims which turn out to be wildy over-stated. One day, when perhaps it matters, they will say something important and find that no-one is listening any more.While it looks as if we are going to have to differ over the fact/interpretation of various aspects of Ridley's essay (since there is no meeting of minds it seems pointless to continue the discussion) we are in danger of missing one aspect of the WMO release which he took exception to and which would have guaranteed that in my working life with press releases it would have ended up on the spike or at the very best somewhere on page 23.
There is nothing special about 2014. It may or may not turn out to be the warmest year by a fraction of a degree too small to measure and which will be lost in the noise anyway and only if you assume that the terrestrial temperature record is more reliable than the satellite record. You will need to go some to convince us of that one given the evidence we can produce to rebut it, Rutherglen being only one example in hundreds.
So why the hype?
Has the WMO suddenly become a publicity organisation? A hotbed of environmental activists? An advocacy group?
Or does it still claim to be scientific? In which case let the scientific facts speak for themselves. As Ridley put it:
In my time I have written and contributed to a number of Press Releases. The art and purpose of writing a press release is not to impart information but to attract publicity. The first step in drafting is to decide what headline you wish to see in the media. You then construct the content of the document in order to achieve that endpoint.
You don't tell lies since that would be too risky but you don't need to. Schneiders oft quoted statement about truth and lies is a non-existent dilemma since any spin doctor will tell you their skill is in telling the truth in a deliberately misleading manner. NGOs are past masters at this sort of deception. Deceiving the audience without telling lies gives you instant deniability, since you can always subsequently point to those parts of the document which demonstrate the caveats missed in the sound bite headline.
This appears to be the case with the current WMO Press Release. As ATTP points out it didn't say 2014 was going to be the hottest year because of the important caveat which followed, but it is quite clear that the release was written to produce that politically convenient headline which duly appeared across the media.
Mike Jackson - thanks for injecting the reality of what happens in content-starved media outlets.
It's a salutory reminder of why we should take all of it with a big block of salt.
"Superfoods" like quinoa are in the same category.
Fortunately, the evidence for people actually changing their behaviour as a result is miniscule, if that. Despite all the hype about obesity, people are still queuing up at Maccas.
It took only a few moments of cursory research to torpedo ATTP's (nee Hot Whopper's) attempts to ridicule claims about the timing of the WMO's premature pronouncements.
Good thing that ATTP gave a wink and a nod to "a very reliable source :-)", huh...
Is it true Latimer Alder has been signed up for the new American crime series CSI:Bracknell?
@Arthur Dent
Re Press Releases. Imagine this one from a Press Secretary last century:
"The Titanic has paused mid-Atlantic to take on ice."
My only comment is on the statement made by Betts to start with - attacking scientists is wrong. I then gather that Betts is a "civil servant" as well, thus we have someone that is being paid by taxes to do his job objectively. As a civil servant myself, here in the US, the last thing I would say is that you have no right to criticize me or my work, although you perceive I am not doing a proper job. That is bull droppings. My employer - the public and any public member - has every right to criticize me and my work when it is skewed by personal opinion. If I have lost objectivity, I more than deserve criticism, I deserve termination. I would suggest the same should be true for civil servants anywhere, including the UK.
Richard
We are not talking about a private organisation here, we are talking about government. Which lives on taxes extracted from us, and is supposedly answerable to us. A relationship in which the press plays a crucial role.
For its (by and large) continuing deafening silence over Climategate and the ensuing official coverups thereof, government climate scientists and bureaucrats are still very much in the dock as far as integrity is concerned. If and when the likes of Jones and Mann and the other crooks are sacked and/or servely punished, the climate establishment deserves every criticism it gets. And as publicly as possible.
Full marks for engaging though.
H20 The Wonder Molecule asks
'Is it true Latimer Alder has been signed up for the new American crime series CSI:Bracknell?'
You may think that. I couldn't possibly comment. But it's a new pair of RayBans and a bug-growing kit for Christmas, Horatio :-)
In other entertainment news, it seems that Wottsie aka ATTP has joined the ranks of the US mystery show 'Disappeared'. It's rightly little known and ignored by most. He/she will feel at home there, I'm sure.
H2O: the miracle molecule
"most excellent post at Dec 11, 2014 at 10:14 AM
Policy advisors should be neutral, unbiased."
Just back from the Scottish parliament with Lord Monckton where we heard some of their advisers starting with WWF. And what on earth are they doing advising the Scottish parliament? And what were they saying? They were insisting that climate would warm 6C (as a result of Monckton's questions) and not one of them cared at all about the effects as not one mentioned the cost to people in Scotland or the harm being done until I got the last question in.
And it was snowing - and mentioned the "children won't know what snow is".
And then I happened to be on the same train as someone else who had gone to the Scottish parliament and worked for a charity dealing with fuel poverty.
Apparently 900,000 Scots are in fuel poverty. That's an utter disgrace. But rather than talking about the things that directly impact Scots and kill many of them, the parliament hears from frankly delusional people who believe in 6C warming which is above anything the IPCC are saying.
Statistically, people in Scotland die because they cannot afford to heat their homes and none of these academics or advisers care at all about them.
Mike Haseler: ‘Civil servants aren't allowed to speak their own views on policy.’
Mike, you have misunderstood the intent of my post, which was to look at Ridley’s argument and show where it was self-defeating, rather than disputing the substantive issues.
To reiterate, his argument works like this:
1. Those who are vocal in their views on climate policy cannot be trusted.
2. Most of the people in charge of collating temperature data are vocal in their
views on climate policy.
3. Most of the people in charge of collating temperature data cannot be trusted.
The major premise, and the notion that underpins his argument, is a lack of trust of those who make known their views about climate policy. Without that central premise, Ridley would be making a mere assertion that you can’t trust people who collate temperature data.
Clearly, Ridley wanted to aim his post at specific people, but in generalising the way he did he has hoovered up all commentators into his net, thus undermining his own position.
But to address your point about advisor neutrality, of course advisors to government should strive to be ‘neutral’, ie they should provide the best advice possible. But that advice will also include the views of the experts who happen to be government advisors.
What you are suggesting is that the government should divest itself of all expertise and employ drones who simply parrot the views of other interested parties. Sorry, can’t be done. One of the tasks of the advisor is to analyse and interpret the view of other parties, in order to provide the best possible advice to government.
The key role of the policy advisor is to be Neutral wrt policy issues, i.e. not to take sides but to place before the decision makers all the key facts, the options and their consequences.
A policy advisor that puts forward the "best" advice is exceeding his brief by pre-empting the decision.
If I want to eat dinner in a strange city, the scientist will provide me with a comprehensive list of all the restaurants (data) the activist will tell me the Taj Mahal is the best restaurant in the city (opinion) whereas the policy adviser will ask me what I like to eat, how far I want to travel and how much I want to spend and will then tell me there are four restaurants within my preferred distance of travel that meet my menu and price preferences. He might also tell me that a little further than my specified distance limit are three more restaurants. (Advice and options).
Oldtimer
The global annual temperature is a mean, calculated from temperature measurements of all types measured during the year, mostly from land stations and at the sea surface. Different organisations calculate the value in slightly different ways.Thus Japan, GISS, NOAA, NCDC and the Met Office all publish comparable figures for each year, uually three weeks into January.
BEST is a land only record and is usually higher. UAH and RSS publish troposphere temperatures, somewhat cooler than the surface.
The confidence limits are a measure of the statistical uncertainy in that value. Usually 95% confidence limits, they infer that there is a 95% confidence that the actual temperature is no further from the calculated mean. Thus Hadcrut4 gives a figure such as 14.6C +/- 0.1C.
In practice, two annual temperatures are only likely to be significantly different if their confidence limits do not overlap. At typical 20th century warming rates this usually means at least a 20 year gap.
Thus a warmest year tends to mean more to headline writers and propagandists. To the scientists the long term trends are more meaningful.
Arthur Dent: ‘The key role of the policy advisor is to be Neutral wrt policy issues, i.e. not to take sides but to place before the decision makers all the key facts, the options and their consequences.’
Exactly. Remember that the government advisor is dealing with a range of information, any of which may be incomplete, partial or irrelevant. Marshalling the ‘key facts, the options and their consequences’ requires a good deal of analysis and interpretation. The result is the ‘best’ advice available.
‘...activist will tell me the Taj Mahal is the best restaurant in the city...’
You are interpreting ‘best’ here as the view favoured by one party. When I say best, I mean the most complete and relevant advice available.
Brendan H
First I should declare my interests:
1. I spent the day in the Scottish parliament "glowering" at a presentation by someone their on behalf of WWF & another who claimed that warming would be 6C. So, this is the reality of the "Policy advisers".
2. Three members of my immediate family are (were) member of the civil service - two in the scientific civil service
3. I have been at three Universities and have known several academics since childhood and I watched my wife go through her doctorate of physics.
4. I have a physics & electronics degree, MBA have worked in wind and latterly studied climate.
So, when it comes to how science should be presented to politicians I am familiar with many of the issues.
you said: "What you are suggesting is that the government should divest itself of all expertise and employ drones who simply parrot the views of other interested parties."
That is not what I said. I said that a scientist must be impartial and that they must not only be impartial but must be seen to be impartial. We have similar rules for very many others:
1. Civil servants
2. Judges
3, Police
4. Those serving on juries
Everyone else manages this task of keeping their mouths shut about their personal views but somehow this is too much for the academics who want to claim the kudos of being impartial scientists whilst at the same time actively engaging in lobbying.
Perhaps to move the discussion forward I should propose various "levels" of the science->policy flow
1. The production of raw data
2. The interpretation of raw data and development of theories and models
3. The interpretation of the economic and social implications
4. The development of political policy
As I understand it, you want academics to have a political role in which they advocate specific and very political policies, plus you want them to provide the raw data, interpret it ... and you want to deny anyone else any say ... so e.g. the only way someone like me can become an expert on this issue so I can put contrary evidence is by not being paid.
So, in effect you want to be policeman, judge, jury, executioner and I might suggest it is often implied that you would be lawmaker as well removing the right of anyone to speak in opposition to you.
That clearly is not acceptable
Instead I would suggest the following:
1. Those producing raw data such as the temperature data must be entirely unbiased. I would therefore suggest this role is carried out by an organisation which specifically bars its employees or the organisation from making any utterance about the "meaning" of the data. Instead it would be tasked to provide quality data which we could all trust (and have a suitable budget). And the staff would not be scientists, but mainly instrumentation engineers who know how to create a quality network of temperature readings.
2. The interpretation of data and development of theories is the role that we expect from academia. This role should again be entirely neutral and devoid of politics. We should also encourage a diversity of views and "free frank and open" discussion.
3. The economic and social impacts. Once we start talking about how things may impact society, they inevitably involve balancing political viewpoints. So, those looking at the political implications will tend to have a political outlook and therefore tend to be political astute with their own political outlook. And so long as their is not a monopoly for one political view or a wholesale denial of any funding for one side of the discussion or any media coverage for one side (as there is now), then it is reasonable that those dealing with these issues express political views - so long as there is not an overall bias
4. Then we have the development of political policy which is entirely political but if everyone else acted properly, then those taking political decisions will be basing it on the best science available.
However, at the moment, the situation is this:
Those producing the data are biased (e.g. Hansen)
They bias the data and then give it to another biased group of academics who add their own bias
Then this biased,biased theories goes to the next group who add yet more bias
And then this biased, biased, biased work goes to the politicians who refine it with their own bias
And amazingly - the result is totally biased.
Re data:
When I first took an interest in climate I had this rather idealistic vision of an institute whose sole job was to produce high quality data in the way Mike H describes. And of an IT department that was a true data repository...carefully curated and auditable through its lifetime from initial collection to eventual appearance as part of the unassailable 'true record' of the world's weather. A resource that all could use to better understand the climate.
Being an IT sort of guy I expected there woud be metadata and data dictionaries, version control, a standard set of processes to process the data, regression testing and all the procedral parapehenalia the IT profession has developed over the years. They don't go to all that work because they like doing it or because its cheap...but because its essential.
So you can imagine my suprise when my illusio was shattered. It appears that most of the data was kept somewhere in Phil Jones' notoriously untidy and disorganised office. Some (it is said) had been lost in an office move. There was little documentation, and no auditability. People could, and had 'adjusted' the data with no trace of the reason and the original raw material was often mislaid or otherwise unobtainable.
In short it was a shambles.Unprofessional and completely unfit for purpose. The lowliest junior clerk who kept a council's grass cutting records in such a state would be on a disciplinary for incompetence. Let alone a lauded Professor who has published ver 200 papers - without anyone even requesting to see 'his' data and methods.
And then to confirm my shock, along came poor old hapless Harry of Harry_Read_Me. I have huge sympathy for Ian Harris...the poor IT guy given the impossible job of sorting out the unholy mess that the professional academics had made of a relatively simple job of record keeping.
None of the techniques they could have used are new or difficult. None are secret. Commercial IT installations use them all the time to keep vital records. They do not require much special training. But they do need the people in question to get up form their backsides and take their responsibilities for data curation seriously. It seems this was beyond the guys at UEA.
So we are left with a most unsatisfactory circumtance where no hostorical records of weather can really be relied upon (unless the original paper records have been archived somewhere). Anything that has ever been digitised is open to suspicion of interference and 'adjustment'
And as so many have commented on before, Whenever any 'adjusted' data has been reworked, surprise, surprise the effects of the adjustments have been to lower the apparent historic temperatures and raise today's. It has never (to my knowledge) been shown to be the other way round. Random adjustments would surely give a more random 50/50 split.
The whole matter of past temperature and weather records is a disgrace to the profession of climatology.
ATTB - maybe you are right and Ridley should not have singled out BOM over the adjustments at Rutherglen; he should have highlighted the fraudulent adjustments by NOAA at Darwin instead. Or GISS with Alice Springs?
Brendan H - yes, in theory perhaps. But in reality, both in Holyrood and Westminster, it is clear that our policy advisers have not given best advice to decision makers, e.g. our energy policy which despite recent reviews is still rewarding and favouring inefficient, expensive and totally unreliable renewables, at a time when the grid control engineers are crying out for new baseload and dispatchable plants so they can keep the lights on, after having lost the output of our older coal and nuclear plants. The policy advisers have no excuse for this, as experienced and well qualified engineers like Philip Bratby, Derek Birkett, Rupert Soames, (and Capell and Brownedoff) have been warning them of the coming iceberg for years now.
update - for a graphical representation of the iceberg, see page 24 of this report:
UK peak demand / generation capacity
EM:
Which, as I say, is about as useful as having Global Average Lottery Number: easy to come up with but absolutely meaningless in the context of a national lottery. At the end of the day, when cliches have been put on the back burner and all the cards are on the table, GAT is a load of sphericals.Harry passfield
I prefer energy budget data myself, but the public find a single temperature easier to understand.
What is your preferred climate metric?
@Entropic
JFI. How do you *measure* the energy budget that you prefer? Have you discovered/invented a Jouleometer?
If not, what *measured* data would you use to construct such a budget? How do you do it?
Latimer
Actually, for the datasets of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) over the 20th Century, adjusting for biases arising from the change from bucket thermometers to engine-intake thermometers leads to a substantial reduction in the global SST warming trend - see Figure 1 of
this Met Office paper for example.
[RB, the PDF is not accessible from your link]
Should climate scientists advocate for policy?
Gavin Schmidt
Judith Curry
Richard Betts
http://sustainabilitymedialab.com/post/57614399179/this-is-the-archive-video-of-the-full-google
Latimer Alder good point one of the many , many ways the 'investigation' into CRU etc fell down was they never even consider that simply awful data management and control which was seen not just in leaked e-mails but on in other instances of 'the dog eat my data' And its on the 'value ' of this data that the world has spent billions , with the spending of trillions called for along with massive changes to society .
At a certain level I would bet Jones and co , cannot believe how they got so far with what they know to be such rubbish .
@Marion, 8:24 PM; "Should climate scientists advocate for policy?"
IMHO, you have to be either a scientist, or an advocate. You cannot be both, particularly when a bunch of greedy, troughing politicians involve themselves in the process.
@ Marion: Should climate scientists advocate for policy?
I think that the answer must be "of course, should they chose to do so". That is the right of anyone, savant or fool.
It's just that they should not claim to be infallible, nor that advocacy is somehow equivalent to evidence, nor that anyone who does not receive their income as a "climate scientist" be denied a contrary voice.
And, as some will do all of these things, it is we who should be vigilant for error or falsehood and not hesitate to question or correct them.
Latimer Alder - a great contribution!!
I'd only add that as someone who designed precision temperature monitoring and control equipment for academia - I was also appalled by the utter disregard for the quality of the equipment they used for temperature ... no it wasn't them ... it was worse, they had no interest at all in the equipment because it was "someone else's".
It was a $1,000,000,000,000 project cost and their budget for instrumentation didn't appear enough to buy a plastic thermometer from Woollies.
Meanwhile, over at Climate Audit, Steve McIntyre has been looking at the global temperature datasets and comparing them with the models.
Much more interesting and constructive than merely trying to undermine the integrity of those who collated the datasets...
Gareth "@ Marion: Should climate scientists advocate for policy?
I think that the answer must be "of course, should they chose to do so". That is the right of anyone, savant or fool."
It is the right of everyone - except those who are in jobs where they must be seen to be impartial. A judge cannot sit in a court and pronounce their own views about the type of crime in front of them. A civil servant cannot be in a job dealing with a policy view and also be campaigning in this area. A policeman can't be advocating for a change of the law on an issue and be employed to enforce the law.
People in certain jobs have a duty not to express their own views. They have a right to express those views only if they leave their job first.
Or to turn it around. How would you feel if you went before a judge who had the previous day been on your facebook page expressing their disgust for you personally?
There's absolutely nothing to prove they would be biased. Nor would the fact they kept quiet mean that they were impartial. But we expect people who behave impartially to be seen to be impartial.
And the same is true of a scientist. You cannot have your cake and eat it. You cannot both claim the credibility of impartial science and demonstrate your own strong views on the science; for by demonstrating you have strong views, you taint the credibility of the science, just as a judge who expressed their own views would taint the credibility of their judgement.
Richard Betts
"Much more interesting and constructive than merely trying to undermine the integrity of those who collated the datasets..."
Let us suppose that I said you lacked integrity, and that you decided to sue me. And that we went before a judge and the day before the court hearing the judge was sitting on the TV saying that they were a climate sceptic and they felt all climate academics should be strung up.
Even if there was absolutely no evidence whatsoever that they allowed their own views to affect their judgement, would you be content to accept the judgement from someone who openly expressed a very strong opinion that clearly showed they had a bias on the subject in hand?
Or to turn it around, why don't you pay me to produce a global temperature series? Or do you question my integrity?
Brendan I think we agree but there is a very fine line to be drawn between:
a) an adviser assessing all the information and coming up with the best summary of the data and the range of policy options that follow and
b) the adviser assessing all the information and coming up with the policy answer.
Far too many so called advisers are closet lobbyists who wish to close the policy debate down by providing "the answer" instead of the range of options.
@ MikeHaseler, 9:30 PM: "except those who are in jobs where they must be seen to be impartial".
I agree. I posted a link to the Civil Service Code earlier. I can't see how Betts' can justify his behaviour. I hope Matt Ridley makes a formal complaint to the Cabinet Secretary.
@richard betts
Thanks for the heads up of the SST datasets. I'll lok forward to reading the paper. Right now the link you provided says I'm forbidden to access it, but I'm sure that's just a hiccup.
As to your remark
'Much more interesting and constructive than merely trying to undermine the integrity of those who collated the datasets...'
I'm not undermining anything. Those who undermined their integrity are those who did such a poor job of curating 'their' data.
And though there may be a genteel convention among academics that nobody ever publicly does a bad job or screws something up, that doesn't apply in the outside world where actions (or inactions) have consequences for people' careers and reputation.
Perhaps if academics were a little (a lot?) quicker to call out bad/incompetent behaviour among their colleagues a lot more scientific progress would have been made. The cosy culture does you no favours in the long run as problems and mistakes go uncorrected and mount up.
I make no apology for pointing out that the CRU guys don't seem to know their arse from their elbow when it comes to professional data curation. Their own words (via 'Harry') illustrate their incompetence in spades. They had the opportunity over many years to do a world-class job and show us all how good they were. And they blew it. Tough shit.
Latimer Adler
Calculating the warming rate is so simple even an amateur can do it. Since 95% of the incoming energy surplus ends up in the oceans. I've done it myself from two directions.
One is to start with the Argos deep water temperatures and to calculate the energy required to produce the observed temperature change. If you want to save a step you can start with the published ocean heat content figures.
The other is to subtract ice melt and extraction from the sea level rise and calculate the energy needed to produce the thermal expansion.
Both come out at 3*10^22 Joules/year. Done professionally by satellite measurement of insolation, albedo and OLR you get a similar answer.
Re: Dec 11, 2014 at 9:29 PM | Registered CommenterRichard Betts
"Meanwhile, over at Climate Audit, Steve McIntyre has been looking at the global temperature datasets and comparing them with the models."
But isn't this what climate scientists should have been doing Richard? Interesting that none seems to come up with the analysis that Steve McIntyre manages so succinctly.
"Much more interesting and constructive than merely trying to undermine the integrity of those who collated the datasets..."
If it was a mere matter of collation of data then there would not be such contention - it is the adjustments to the data (as well as the creation of data!) that many have a problem with and which undermines the integrity of those doing the adjustments particularly when they're used to hype the 'warmest year'. Steve highlights Judith Curry's very interesting post -
http://judithcurry.com/2014/12/09/spinning-the-warmest-year/
Isn't that what the Met Office have been doing Richard?
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/news/2014-temperatures
"2014: A year of record-breaking temperatures?
December 2014 - Preliminary figures show that 2014 is on course to be the warmest year on record, both globally and for the UK....Finally, the evidence for the influence of human emissions of greenhouse gases on this year's likely global mean surface temperature record is irrefutable. Even for the UK itself, the current record temperatures have been shown to be 10 times more likely because of human activities."......???
Irrefutable?, 10 times more likely? Perhaps you'd care to explain...
Latimer Adler
This is one version I did a little while ago.
There are three main energy sinks in the climate system, these are the oceans, the ice and the atmosphere. The pause in air temperatures means that we only need to consider ice and oceans.
Ice volume on land measured by GRACE and Cryosat is decreasing by 500 cubic kilometres per year.
The latent heat of fusion of water is 3.34*10^5 J/kg. 500 cu. Km.of ice is 5*10^14Kg.
The melting ice is therefore absorbing 1.67*10^20J/year.
It takes 360 cubic kilometres of extra volume to raise sea level by 1mm. The melting ice is raising sea level by 1.39mm/year.
Sea level is rising at 3.2+/-0.4 mm/year.Take out the ice- related rise and thermal expansion is causing an increase of 1.81mm/year. This is an expansion of 652 cu.km/year.
Total volume of the ocean is 1.37*10/9 cu.km. The thermal expansion coefficient of seawater is ~10^-4/K.
The ocean has expanded by 6.52*10^2 / 1.37*10^9 = 8.9*10^-7. This corresponds to a temperature increase of 8.9*10-7 / 10^-4 = 8.9*10^-3K.
The specific heat of seawater is 3.98*10^3J/Kg/K, 3.98*10^15J/cu. km/K.
To produce the observed rate of sea level rise requires ( 1.37*10^9)*(3.98*10^15)*(8*9*10-3) =4.85*10^22
J.
Total imbalance is 4.85*10^22 + 1.67*10^20, still 4.85*10^22J.
1W = 1J/second, 3.15*10^7J/year.
To produce the imbalance you need an input power of 4.85*10^22 / 3.15*10^7. = 1.54 * 10^15W.
Surface area of the Earth is 5.1*10^14M^2. The imbalance is 1.54*10^15 / 5.1*10^14 = 0.3W/M^2.
The uncertainty in sea level rise is +/- 0.4mm. The uncertainty in energy imbalance is therefore 0.3*( 0.4/3.2) = 0.04.
Stephens et al 2012 gave an imbalance figure at TOA of 0.6+/- 0.4. Nice to see that my own rough amateur estimate is within the uncertainty range of the professional work.
Mike Haseler
In this amazing world in which we live, is it not astounding that representatives of organisations whose only purpose in this life is to destroy everything that has been created by man's ingenuity, are permitted to take part in discussions about science and policy and indeed as you point out are very often invited to give 'advice' to government officials. Why do the BBC turn to these evil creatures to comment on anything?
Can you imagine the outcry if the Koch Brothers (whoever they are ™ Latimer Alder) were invited to advise the CCC, participate in a BBC love-in on climate science or an IPCC bunfight.
The world is badly in need of a re-balance.
@entropic
Excellent
'One is to start with the Argos deep water temperatures and to calculate the energy required to produce the observed temperature change'.
Would you like to remind us how much that temperature change (observed) actually is? And how/when those measurements were taken. I agree its a simple step to get energy from temperature. But no, I wouldn't like to skip a step and go to the published energy figures. Being a good chemist I like 'show me' measurements.
And indulge me a little more. There are huge differences in 'sea level rise' depending on your position on Earth. And how much of the pretty arbitrary 'global isostatic adjustment' fudge factor is applied. Could you remind us all which actual measurements you use in your calculations?
EM:
There isn't one. Get over it. Climate, like sh*t, happens. End of.@entropi
It seems our posts crossed.
Thank you for showing your calculations.
A few points.
1. You say you used ARGO data and measured temperatures. And yet you derive (rather than measure) a temperature change in your calculations. Deriving a theoretical temperature change is a very different thing from actually measuring it. You need to do both to show that your method is robust. When theory and observation agree, it is a powerful confirmation that you are on the right lines. But without the measurements, it's just a theory
2. The deep sea is pretty cold. Is the generalisation of ~10^-4 still valid for the coefficient of expansion around 4C where, I seem to recall, water is at it densest and the coefficient between 0C and 4C is actually negative? How near are the deep sea temperatures from ARGO to this point? It is a crucial point surely.
3. You did not describe which measurements led you to the figure of 3.2+/- 0.4 mm/year for sea level rise.
4. Any heat related changes to the deep sea temperature are surely not 'immediate' (days/weeks/months) in effect. Is it not possible that any heating detected is just a hangover (by a few years) from earlier heating episodes. Is today's sea level rise a good indicator of today's energy budget?
1) The example I gave is for deriving energy imbalance from sea level. For the other calculation, for ARGO data you can go to their website. For OHC I used a variation of this graph ,which I think came from WUWT.
2) I considered this. A recent paper noted that on the data available below 2000M there is very little warming taking place. Thus my approximation for coefficient of expansion need not consider water at or below 4C. It also need only consider the top third of the depth range, since the coefficient of expansion also decreases with increasing pressure. 10^-4 was a mid -range estimate. I think I tried for the value at 10C and 1000M.To take full account of the variation with temperature and pressure would need calculus, not arithmetic.
3) For sea level I used the Colorado figure derived from a mix of tide gauge and satellite data. I know you are unhappy with their figures, but that is a topic for another day.
4) There is a lag. For depths under 700M there is enough mixing to make the lag less than a year. For deeper levels to 2000M the lag is probably somewhere between a year and a decade. Integrating from the surface to 2000M, maybe 5 years? I doubt you could use OHC to follow the weather, but it is sensitive enough spot a change in rate fairly quickly. If you look at the OHC graph there is a noticeable increase in slope around 2000 when surface temperature change slows and the "pause" is supposed to start
If the "pause" stopped now it would probably show in retrospect as another inflections point and a reduction in the rate of change in OHC thereafter, as more heat stayed in the atmosphere.
Thanks for the critique. As with most such calculations the output will only be as good as the data, but I regard the ability of three different techniques using independent datasets to agree within reasonable confidence limits as partial validation.
Re. Latimer's post on previous page: Haha, so attp goes on and on about 'facts' and when one more layer of 'facts' are laid out for him he goes mum. Ignorant of the nature, history of the WMO and its place in international technocracy, but blindly willing to place trust in it just because some sceptics online doubted it. How sad.
And then there's Silence indeed.
@entropic
Thanks for the clarificatons.
But one more if I may?
Using your figures based on real-life observations, if things so on as they are, in the year 2114, sea level will be about one foot (300 mm) higher and the oceans will be about 0.9C warmer. The atmosphere - where we live and breathe and die and grow things - will stay at its current temperature.
Why should we care?
To my mind, these small figures only just get into the 'ho hum, we'd better remember to take them into account a bit' category. And are way away from 'the most important problem humanity has ever faced'.
Please try to persuade me to view them as anything much more significant than pretty trivial.
@entropic (2)
And if we ignore the badly explained 'isostatic adjustment' for which Colorado's only justification seems to be 'But Mummy everybody else does it too), and take the lower end of their estimates, then the predicted 100 year ocean temperature rise falls to about 0.5K. And the sea level rise to 9 inches
Please strain every sinew to persuade me that a change in sea temperature form 283.1K to 283.6K and a change in sea level of 3 house bricks by 2114 is really 'the most important problem humanity has ever faced'
Try as I might, I can't see it. It's not much above noise level trivia
Re: Dec 11, 2014 at 9:14 PM | Registered CommenterSalopian
Re:Dec 11, 2014 at 9:15 PM | Unregistered Commentergareth
Re: Dec 11, 2014 at 9:30 PM | Registered CommenterMikeHaseler
Many thanks for your responses to -
"Should climate scientists advocate for policy?
Gavin Schmidt
Judith Curry
Richard Betts
http://sustainabilitymedialab.com/post/57614399179/this-is-the-archive-video-of-the-full-google
"
I thought it was a very interesting clip and quite revealing commentaries by Gavin, Judith and Richard.
My own view is that should climate scientists choose to do so then they become legitimate targets for criticism.
....particularly if they claim the evidence is "irrefutable" yet are unable to provide the empirical evidence to back up such claims.
Mike Haseler: ‘I would therefore suggest this role is carried out by an organisation which specifically bars its employees or the organisation from making any utterance about the "meaning" of the data.’
Even if it were possible to create such a function, it would hardly be desirable. Data doesn’t ‘speak’. Governments and societies need the interpretive and explanatory function of an agency that is beholden to the body politic and charged with the function of providing advice about matters such as weather and climate.
Academia is not that agency. It has its own purpose and interests, which are not necessarily those of the government and public.
As for the matter of trust, gagging such a body as you propose would hardly make for the sort of transparent decision-making that sceptics so desire.
And is it possible to make a strict separation between merely ‘presenting’ the data, and talking about the ‘meaning’ of the data? Here is a recent comment from the US agency, the National Climatic Data Center of NOAA.
‘The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for October 2014 was the highest on record for October, at 0.74°C (1.33°F) above the 20th century average of 14.0°C (57.1°F).’
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/10
For some, this comment may be merely the presentation of facts. For others, it may amount to interpretation. Whichever stance you take, the notion that you can create a product unsullied by human judgement is a chimera.
Ron C
I've just added your 'Titanic' post to the Hall of Fame thread.
Good one!
Reminds me of Hirohito's broadcast announcing the surrender in 1945:
"... the war situation has developed, not necessarily to Japan's advantage".
Arthur Dent: ‘...there is a very fine line to be drawn between:
a) an adviser assessing all the information and coming up with the best summary of the data and the range of policy options that follow and
b) the adviser assessing all the information and coming up with the policy answer.’
There are advisors and advisors. A person who has been chosen on account of their expertise in some field, policy or otherwise, is at times going to be required to provide their own expert opinion on some matter. So, yes, it’s a fine line.
‘Far too many so called advisers are closet lobbyists who wish to close the policy debate down by providing "the answer" instead of the range of options.’
I don’t have the background or knowledge to comment on advisors as ‘closet lobbyists’, so I will reserve judgement.
I will say a couple of things, though. In literal terms, the ‘far too many’ construction is an odd one, in that it implies that a few bad sorts are OK, but when you get to a critical point of far too many, things become intolerable.
But that’s not quite what the phrase means, and that’s the other issue. It’s likely that there are some closet lobbyist advisors, and so my reply would be that public servants are human, but by and large provide excellent and impartial advice as they uphold the foundations of civilisation.
Our own dear RB has question or two awaiting him this morning.