Friday
Jul182014
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Stiffen the sinews
Jul 18, 2014 GWPF Pierre Gosselin at NoTricksZone reports some remarks by Professor Fritz Vahrenholt, who has recently joined the academic advisers to the GWPF. Let's hope that the good prof. is not meted out the same treatment from the opposition that Lennart Bengtsson received, which led to his stepping down from his appointment after a couple of weeks.
Updated 9.20am 18.7.2014. TM
John Christie points out
“There’s a climate establishment, and I’m not in it
More divisions reported here.
H/T Paul Homewood.
Reader Comments (28)
Since the majority of climate "scientists" are somewhat muted about the McCarthyism that surrounds the discipline, they are equally guilty.
No doubt they will waffle on about how they are not part of this, but they are guilty through their silence!
Lennart, not Leonhardt
[Thanks, now altered. TM]
The bully tactics won't go away. The issue to support any and all who are willing to start standing up to the bullies and thugs.
One does not win a fight if one relies on the other side to stop hitting so hard.
Those participating in the social madness of climate doom are not going to suddenly wake up and apologize for the decades of clap trap and billions of dollars squandered.
In more GWPF news, Owen Paterson will be giving their annual lecture:
http://order-order.com/2014/07/18/sacked-o-patz-trolls-climate-change-campaigners/
I suspect Professor Fritz Vahrenholt pushed his boat out into shark infested waters when he wrote his book The Neglected Sun. Joining GWPF can only be the equivalent of climbing onto a bigger ship albeit one with more persons the sharks want to get their teeth into.
I think a cartoon from Josh is called for, showing a large dam with the usual suspects
pushing their fingers in the increasing number of small holes that are appearing .
Perhaps some could be standing on the shoulders of scientists who dare not discent at
the moment.
Perhaps a little off topic, but the deplorable loss of the highly respected Owen Paterson, now replaced by a lightweight whose conduct nearly caused deselection on her own patch, must be a setback to all of us whose sentiments accord with this blog.
Meanwhile the incompetent Ed Davey remains in post.
David Cameron seems to favour the inept over the capable for reasons best known to himself.
It's not all going our way I'm afraid.
The quote is from this piece in the NYT
The NYT piece includes this comment from Dr Mears on the gaps between models and reality:
Is it just me? I don't think you are allowed to say "natural variation" in the field of your own study. Imagine an astronomer saying "Jupiter stays in one place except for some natural variation". At the very least he should be saying "factors we do not understand" or "unknown factors" or similar.
Professor Vahrenholt seems a feisty character who comes out fighting.
More developments: The Telegraph is reporting that "Owen Paterson, the sacked Environment Secretary, has signed up to deliver the annual lecture of the controversial climate sceptic group founded by former Chancellor Nigel Lawson."
Sorry to wander annoyingly off-topic, but here is a site with some interesting information: http://quixoteslaststand.com/2014/01/01/scotland-5-million-trees-chopped-down-for-wind-turbines-thats-whats-called-saving-the-planet/
h/t Liv (a follower of Jo Nova)
Jul 18, 2014 at 1:37 PM Varco
Yes, Paterson will, if he cares to, have some tales to tell.
Predictably, Paterson's decision has come under the usual peevish attack from Greensleaze and Fiends of the Earth. So bloody predictable, aren't they? I'm hoping I live long enough to see the silent majority finally turn on them.
Jul 18, 2014 at 3:14 PM | Registered CommenterMike Jackson
I quite agree. I would also like to see an interviewer get stuck into one of their spokesmen properly rather than give them the free ride they have enjoyed for too long.
Being that this blog originates in England -- I feel that I must present here this corrected and finally finished work of poetry -- replacing any earlier versions I may have rashly posted. Yes, poets are indeed mad -- so cut me some slack.
PROFESSOR PHIL JONES
The English Prometheus
To tell the tale as it began --
An ego yearned
Ambition burned
Inside a quiet little man
No one had heard of Phillip Jones
Obscure to fame
(And likewise blame)
The creep of time upon his bones
Men self-deceive when fame is sought
Their fingers fold
Their ego told
That fire is what their fist has caught
Such want to feel not understand
Jones made it plain
That Hell must reign
In England's green and pleasant land
What demon in him came to birth?
In mental fight
Against the light
He raised the temperature of earth
And with his arrows of desire
In sneak attacks
He shot the backs
Of those who questioned -- where's the fire?
Raw data which was burning gold
He threw away
So none could say
It falsified what he foretold
East Anglia supports him still
Whitewashed and praised
His name emblazed
Within that dark Satanic Mill
The evil that this twit begain
Will go around
And come around
Prometheus soon wicker man
Eugene WR Gallun
Eugene,
I think Scotland, not England. (A delicate point currently)
Nic - not just currently - there has been malcontent north of the border since the Treaty of Union was first mooted in the early 18th Century: http://www.scotland.org.uk/history/act-union.
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height.
Defections are accelerating as real scientists reject the 'Enhanced GHE' hypothesis from 1981_Hansen_etal.pdf. In that paper, they claimed with no evidence that OLR comes from a single zone at -18 deg C, 5 to 6 km altitude, and 33 K lapse rate warming from it to the surface is caused by GHGs.
OLR comes from three main zones:15 deg C atmospheric window; -50 deg C CO2; +5 to -30 deg C H2O. -18 deg C is a flux-weighted virtual mean with no physical existence. Lapse rate warming is gravitational; real GHE ~11 K.
The IPCC models create 40% extra heat energy than reality, a perpetual motion machine; it's a travesty........
Jack Hughes
Agreed. Blaming "natural variation" is vague to the point of absurdity. Anyone invoking "natural variation" should be discussing specific mechanisms, and doing it with numbers and energy budgets.
The IPCC models create 40% extra heat energy than reality, a perpetual motion machine; it's a travesty........
Jul 18, 2014 at 6:51 PM | Unregistered Commenterturnedoutnice
You've made this mistake before, double counting back radiation as additional energy appearing in the system. It is redirected outward radiation and should be counted as such.
Sorry EM, the misdirection is very clever. The incorrect assumption that there is a single -18 deg C OLR emitter at ToA is used with the grey body atmosphere assumption to claim Kirchhoff's Law of Radiation applies at ToA. Met Office modellers have a spurious explanation of this. In the two-stream approximation it offsets part of the 571.5 W/m^2 'heating', making it 333 W/m^2. The atmosphere is semi-transparent.
The other trick they pull is to use double low level cloud optical depth in hind-casting, about 1.3x real albedo: this fine tunes oceanic evaporation kinetics. The reality is that there is zero net CO2-AGW, controlled by the water cycle.
EM, you are a particularly slippery character with respect to use of language and evade with the best of them.
Not that you give a damn for anyone's respect of course.
@Jack Hughes
I agree. The only intelligent response to Dr Mears's comment is to slap one's forehead and say "Duh!"
Numerous sceptics have pointed out for years that the GCMs are worthless for attribution and prognoses if they can't capture or explain natural variation on the multidecadal scale. Mears mentions trade winds and ocean uptake. Mmm. Long-term variation in Atmospheric Angular Momentum, which affects inter alia the trade wind strength and direction, and the variation in ocean heat uptake both clearly show cyclic behaviour with periodicity of around 60 years. The first is evident from long-term records of Length of Day, and the second from mean-sea-level records going back to 1700 or thereabouts. The GCMs are unable to capture or explain this behaviour.
If Dr Mears ran a brokerage firm, his comment would translate into: "We predicted a rising share price and suggested a strong buy. Unfortunately, the share price has fallen. This does not mean that our model of the stock market is worthless. On the contrary, it just means that our analysis does not fully account for some things which have a major effect on the share price. Apart than that, it is a super model that you can rely on for your future investments. We now suggest that you buy..."
Paul X
The modellers would be delighted to incorporate future natural variation.
Please supply data on volcanic eruptions, solar cycle intensities and El Ninos between now and 2100. :-)
EM, that's three red herrings.
The consensus modellers say solar variation has no effect during the time-scales of the recent "pause".
They also like to make the [dubious] claim that El Ninos must somehow 'average out'.
And there haven't been any significant eruptions since 1990 which means they can't blame volcanoes either for getting it wrong.
Michael hart
You miss my point. A climate model is a set of physical equations simulating the behaviour of the Earth's climate system. Much of it is predictable. Things like latent heat do not change with time.
What is unpredictable are the effects of factors such as larger/ longer solar cycles, volcanic activity, El ninos, etc. These are put into projected runs as random factors and the model run repeatedly to allow a likely range of variation to be generated.
A model with a weak solar maximum, high volcanic activity and predominately La Nina conditions will give a cooler than average short term projection. A run with a strong solar mazimum , below average volcanic activity and frequent El Ninos will produce a warmer outcome.
From the outcome of many runs, the modellers can generate a likely range of projected outcomes. They do not claim to produce a single prediction
For me the question is; did the models in which the natural variation matched reality produce a realistic outcome?
Reality produced a 21st century with a weak current solar cycle, above average volcanic activity (but no Pinatubo scale eruptions) and mostly La Nina or La Nada conditions. The rate of temperature rise has slowed.
What did model runs with the same natural variation show? Slower warming!
When you look at projections for the coming decade the same uncertainty applies. The long term AGW trend will continue but the exact outcome will depend on short term variability. If Paul K demands that model projections produce an exact prediction (you appreciate the difference?) he will need to find some way of accurately predicting future natural variation.
per EM: If the modelers just knew the future of Volcanos, El Nino, solar, etc. - then their models would be wonderful.
How about if they start by getting the daily stuff modeled - like convective activity?