Bishop Hill The Oz guide to climate change
Feb 16, 2015 Climate: Models Climate: Surface Climate: WG2 Royal Society In the wake of the Royal Society's recent quick guide to climate change, the Australian Academy has produced their own newbies' guide which can be seen here.
It contains some interesting bits and bobs, for example this bit on extreme rainfall.
Heavy rainfall events have intensified over most land areas and will likely continue to do so, but changes are expected to vary by region.
Which makes an interesting contrast to the IPCC's view:
There are likely more land regions where the number of heavy precipitation events
has increased than where it has decreased. The frequency or intensity of heavy precipitation
events has likely increased in North America and Europe. In other continents, confidence in
changes in heavy precipitation events is at most medium.
I'm also amused by the handling of the pause:
Two main factors have contributed to the most recent period of slowed surface warming. First, decadal variability in the ocean-atmosphere system has redistributed heat in the ocean, especially in the eastern and central Pacific [85, 87, 88]. This has caused warming at depth and cooling of surface waters and the lower atmosphere in this region. Second, several temporary global cooling influences have come into play including unusually weak solar activity (Box 3.1, see page 15), increased aerosol production, and volcanic activity [95–98].
Reader Comments (46)
"...the document is propaganda rather than education..."
Aren't they all?
Pure propaganda; no science. Have these organisations no shame?
Sloppy science, sloppy presentation. Never mind, it will help the politicians to tax more and fund CAGW research even more.
Climate Change by Numbers…coming from BBC4 soon?
Warning: not much brain activity required
What is sad is that they receive a celebrity endorsement from otherwise outstanding scientist and Nobel laureate Brian Schmidt
Page 9 of the linked document - Graph title
Changes over the last 800,000 years...CO2 & Temp
WTF ??
I am still trying to work out just how the heat can be hiding in the depths of the ocean. If it is there then the water must be warmer and, if the physics that I learned for my engineering degree so long ago, less dense, therefore it will rise to the surface - but it isn't. Something rather fishy going on here but, then again, climate 'scientists' don't learn physics or any other science subject it would appear.
I am 70 YO.
My younger daughter is 40 YO.
She is a keen scuba diver on the Great Barrier Reef.
I must warn her to wear ice jackets in the future.
The old time divers out of Cairns are interesting folk to talk with about the Great Battier Reef. These folk have been diving the reef for 50+ years. they say it varies from year to year. It is not better, nor worse than when they first dived.
The greatest effects have been from the Crown of Thorns starfish.
That must be a disappointment to experts such as Oh Bummer..
Ivan, you are confusing two usages of the word "warmer".
You are naively assuming that the deep ocean that is "warmer" due to hiding all that heat means that it is warmer than something else. In which case, as you say, you would expect it rise.
But this usage of the word "warmer" simply means warmer than it would otherwise have been. So if the deep ocean temperature is at an average of 3.00001C instead of 3C then that is "warmer". There's a whole lot of water down there, so a teeny-weeny increase in temperature can mean that it's hiding a whole lot of heat.
But it isn't any "warmer" than anything else, so no tendency to rise.
And of course there is no way for this hidden heat to influence anything else by somehow majically transporting to somewhere else. If it is all hiding down below, that's a good thing as that heat is effectively gone.
"Two main factors..."
Natural variation, then. Precisely what sceptics have been saying for decades.
Just tiny wee flaw in their "temporary cooling influences", the UN IPCC et al have clearly stated that the Sun doesn't affect the Earth's climate by any significant amount, therefore why all of a sudden is the Sun influencing climate? They cannot have it both ways!
Its just in-line with climate 'sciences' approach of heads you lose tails I win , so more or less rain is 'equal proof '
An interesting question which the alarmist seem unable to answer is what would disprove your claims , now in normal science you should be able to easily answer that but in special climate 'science' that seem to be impossible , I wonder why?
Like the RS, they were captured about 10-15 years ago by a group of activists. They put out papers like this one without consulting the membership, whose views are by no means as unequivocal as they make out.
In the Christian time frame, time has been calibrated around the concept of years before, or after the birth of Jesus, hence BC, and AD.
In the fantasy world of climate change alarmism, is there a magic date, after which any extreme weather event MUST be due to climate change, and anything before did not exist, and MUST BE FORGOTTEN/IGNORED?
Years Before Climate Change BCC
Years After Climate Change ACC
The Medieval Warm Period is clearly BCC, and attempts to erase it, seem to have encountered some difficulty, not unlike the Little Ice Age. For Alarmists, Ignorance must be bliss, they even advocate it, and it is rumoured, award themselves Nobel Prizes for promoting ignorance.
Tourists visiting modern day Carthage, Palestine or Petra, must wonder how thriving populations survived in arid desert. Clearly the civilisations of 2000 years ago had magic technology that could make deserts fertile. Would some of the climate research money be better spent on rediscovering these ancient techniques, or did the Romans drive gas guzzling, climate changing chariots, not mentioned in other research about the fall of the Roman Empire?
Ivan, climate scientists have looked everywhere else for Trenberths missing heat, which must exist, because their theories, backed up by their own peer review process, says so.
The missing heat, may therefore be likened to the bogeyman, believed to be hiding beneath the bed of young children of a nervous disposition.
Was the bogeyman created by the childs imagination, or by adults, using fear to control the vulnerable/gullible?
Adults can reassure children with "anti bogeyman defence" measures, which actually work, and threaten to remove them, if the child misbehaves.
This was written in 2000, by the late oceanographer, Dr Robert Stevenson
"Yes, the Ocean Has Warmed; No, It's Not "Global Warming" by Dr. Robert E. Stevenson
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/articles/ocean.html. Here are a few extracts, the whole paper is very informative.
"For 15 years, modellers have tried to explain their lack of success in predicting global warming. The climate models had predicted a global temperature increase of 1.5°C by the year 2000, six times more than that which has taken place.
Not discouraged, the modellers argue that the heat generated by their claimed "greenhouse warming effect" is being stored in the deep oceans, and that it will eventually come back to haunt us. They've needed such a boost to prop up the man-induced greenhouse warming theory, but have had no observational evidence to support it. The Levitus, et al. article is now cited as the needed support.
The top layer of the ocean to that depth warms up easily under sunlight. Below 100 meters, however, little radiant energy remains. The ocean becomes progressively darker and colder as the depth increases.
The infrared radiation penetrates but a few millimeters into the ocean. This means that the greenhouse radiation from the atmosphere affects only the top few millimeters of the ocean. Water just a few centimeters deep receives none of the direct effect of the infrared thermal energy from the atmosphere! Further, it is in those top few millimeters in which evaporation takes places. So whatever infrared energy may reach the ocean as a result of the greenhouse effect is soon dissipated.
.....anomalous heat associated with changing solar irradiance is stored in the upper 100 meters. The heat balance is maintained by heat loss to the atmosphere, not to the deep ocean.
modellers who "need" to get warm surface waters to move into the depths of the oceans, and remain sequestered there for long periods of time,...turn to the physical mechanism of this vertical (thermohaline) circulation system. Their hope (claim) is that there can be occasions when salinity, rather than temperature, is the prime determining factor in the density of the surface waters. Then, warm water, made dense by an increase in the sea's salt content, would sink.
It does not happen!
The primary physical factor in determining the density of sea water is the temperature (Sverdrup, Johnson, and Fleming, 1943). In the open ocean, top or bottom, salinity differences are measured in a few parts per thousand.
Thermohaline circulation takes place where the surface waters become colder than the waters beneath. The large vertical movements occur in polar seas, where accelerated radiation makes the surface waters greatly colder than the deeper waters.
In these waters, surface water temperatures are about -1.9°C, the normal salinity of the water keeping it from freezing into ice. The deep waters, being warmer than such surface waters, rise to the surface, as the upper layers sink slowly into the dark ocean depths.
Because only very cold surface water is able to sink, it is simple to understand that the deep ocean can never warm up, regardless of how warm the surface ocean around the world may become. No deep lying "thermal lag" is going to take place."
Box 1.1 on page 7...naturally if climate change prediction IS so easy then how did the pause get missed by pretty much everyone?
Mailman
They skate over what I consider to be a key point:
Leaving aside the analogy -- which I think is fine, by the way, although I prefer to use a box of gas, where we know the bulk properties although we can't predict trajectories of individual molecules -- this boils down to "we can determine future climate because...CO2 et al. have a predictable effect on climate."
"...the UN IPCC et al have clearly stated that the Sun doesn't affect the Earth's climate by any significant amount."
I have difficulty getting my head around the logic of that claim. Surely the sun is the fons et origo of a climate - take away the sun and what happens? Instant death of everything.
In parts of Australia the Bogeyman is known as the Bunyip, a word derived from Aboriginal folklore, generally understood to be a carnivorous creature living in swamps and marshes. A strange concept for early white settlers to rationalise with a land not routinely overflowing with flooded areas.
Maybe the climate has a habit of changing in Australia, just like everywhere else.
The Report says “Increased water vapour concentrations
have been observed and attributed to warming12, 13, and this feedback
approximately doubles the sensitivity of climate to human activities14”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/06/nasa-satellite-data-shows-a-decline-in-water-vapor/
Nasa say humidity is declining
davidchappell, the IPCC know all about the sun, and many of their top experts have solar panels sewn into the rear, low level gusset of their underpants.
"propaganda rather than education"
Sadly, it has been very effective. My stepdaughter, 24, tells me her generation absolutely believe in climate change and that we are all going to fry. Those who should fry are the teachers propagating this nonsense.
I wonder how many climate scientists run a cold bath of water, and heat it overnight, using infra red lights fixed to the bathroom ceiling?
GC: Climate scientists have swimming pools which they heat overnight using IR panels to capture the back-radiation.
Re: it woz the sun wot did it/didn't do it.
It is always comforting to have a spare consensus ready to hand, just in case the first consensus is proved untrue or unfounded.
Page 15:
Whatever good faith differences there may be in interpretation, how can they say this when they must be aware of the 1910-1940 rate of warming?
"This has caused warming at depth and cooling of surface waters and the lower atmosphere"
This otherwise unexplained cause of the pause, could equally well be an otherwise unexplained reason for the global warming, if reversed.
If you throw a boomerang, you should expect to get hit on the back of your head.
Phillip Bratby, and some successful subsidy farmers run solar panels overnight ..........
It is amazing how many villages have paella on their plate, thanks to the benevolence of EU Taxpayers.
I've probably linked to this before, but like most of Clive James's output, it bears repetition.
@davidchappell: Precisely! ;-)
Isn't it ironic that the climate fear mongering is destined for western audiences, pushing them toward making soon forced heavy investments in the green products set up by astute and well introduced bankers while the ultimate New Great Game strategy pursued by the Anglo Americans with the help of the very same bankers is to secure at all cost -and that includes as we see war everywhere, from Europe to Afghanistan- Eurasian conventional good ol' oil and gas resources?
TomRude, bankers never lose their own money. Any losses they make, are suffered by others.
CoffeeTime 3:52 ....as far as we can tell from the available evidence
Evidence they have chosen to ignore, becomes unavailable.
Sometimes it takes a lot of dedicated effort to keep evidence unavailable, this is sometimes described as being economical with the truth, and may be confused with economy of effort. The Economy always loses though.
Pity the poor Australians: stuck on a large desert island with Clive Hamilton and Clive James .
What do the Royal Society and the Australian Academy have in common?
They are both fraudulent when it comes to explaining "climate change".
The authorities are going all out for Paris. More propaganda coming soon from the BBC. Climate change change mathematics from 3 stooges.
Phillip Bratby:
'GC: Climate scientists have swimming pools which they heat overnight using IR panels to capture the back-radiation.'
No, actually all they do is to put tinfoil on the ceiling. This reflects the radiation from the cold water back into the pool warming the water.
They also roast chickens by wrapping frozen chickens in tinfoil; once again the reflected radiation from the frozen chicken eventually roasts them.
And we think they're dumb!!
So that's where the missing heat has gone - into the frozen chickens.
Phili Foster and Pillip Bratby, having located the missing heat...
Where did all the climate research money go? Billions of it.
Apologies Philip Foster and davidchappell
Is this uncertain method of cooking chicken the true cause of the rise in salmonella?
"the document is propaganda rather than education"
Indeed. All pretense evaporated sometime ago. 'Climate' was always and remains the stalking horse for political change. Christine Figueras - "At a news conference last week in Brussels, Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of U.N.'s Framework Convention on Climate Change, admitted that the goal of environmental activists is not to save the world from ecological calamity but to destroy capitalism."
Segue to: UNEP Finance Initiative " Portfolio Carbon" ironically prefaced with the disclaimer:
"As such, UNEP FI makes no representations as to the accuracy or any other aspect of information contained in this report. UNEP FI is not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for any decision made or action taken based on information contained in this report or for any consequential, special or similar damages, even
if advised of the possibility of such damages."
The goal:
"Ultimately, a decarbonised ‘financial economy’ will make the decarbonisation of the ‘real economy’ much more likely and easier to achieve."
The mechanism:
"Not only can institutional investors play a catalytic role in the decarbonisation of the economy; increasingly, regulators, policymakers, investee companies, pension beneficiaries and the public at large are expecting investors to
fulfil precisely that responsibility."
God help all those who sail in her.
It's also interesting how they say "the recent period of slowed warming..." as if (a) the "recent period" was in the past and now over and (b) it was a slowing, not a stop.
In other words, whatever the factual evidence, they just behave as if their hypothesis were intact and valid.
Whatever this is, it isn't science.
I know (or at least hope) that the folks talking about heating chickens with foil or baths with back radiation are just having a larf, but it's a bit worrying to think that BH is really over-populated by denizens of the Doug Cotton/Sky Dragon denier community.
Was all the effort Roy Spencer put into explaining the bleedin obvious wasted?
Russell
I think you'll find that Clive James lives here (UK) and is too unwell to return home. The poor Australians are still stuck with Tim Flannery and John Cook, though.
Fortunately The Australian newspaper has a good article by Garth Paltridge on 17 February entitled " Climate of Cherry Picking" which highlights the numerous omissions and flaws in the Australian Academy of Science publication . The overestimations of mainstream climate models over the last 30 years features strongly.