The dilemma of a warmist

Posted on 14 June 2011 by Scottish-Sceptic

For years we were told: “nothing other than manmade warming can explain the late 20th century rise in temperature”. To which the sensible sceptic asked: “what about natural variation”. To which the alarmist replied: “there is no such thing” or if they were more informed “the hockey stick proves that natural variation is too small and could not affect global temperature”.
Now of course it hasn’t warmed for over a decade and there’s only so long that you can hide such an obvious fact before even the most gullible start asking: why? So how do they explain this?
If natural variation is so small that it cannot have been responsible for the 20th century, then it is too small to have stopped the “warming”. If natural variation is big enough to cause sufficient cooling to cancel out the warming, then it is clearly big enough (when working in the opposite way i.e. to warm) to explain all the apparent warming in the 20th century.
The reason we got this doomsday cult, is because they managed to argue from a small and scientific warming of around 1C due to CO2 doubling up to as much as 6C due to what I can only say are entirely mythical “feedback effects”. Feedback effects, with no scientific proof, but which “conveniently” multiply the real science by whatever number they needed to “prove” that all the (apparent) 20th century warming was due to CO2. They did this by saying: “it has to be CO2 that caused the 2oth century warming because nothing else can explain the change, therefore the relationship between CO2 and temperature is whatever number we need to make the increase in CO2 cause the (apparent) increase in global temperature.”
It’s not science, but it certainly fooled a lot of people into believing it was “science”. They managed to justify this nonsense scaling up of the known effects to suit their political agenda with what I call the Sherlock Holmes defence: “when you have eliminated all possible causes, what remains, however illogical, must be the cause”.
That is why the debate was so heated: they needed to “prove” that nothing else could explain the 20th century upswing. That is why they ruthlessly attacked anyone working on solar or suggesting natural variation. That is why they were forced to manufacture the hockey stick to “prove” that there was no medieval warm period, because if there had been significant warming in the past without CO2, then there could be significant warming in the present which was not caused by CO2, and did not necessitate mythical “feedback” multipliers and did not require the destruction of western economies to “save” the world.
They could do that with past climate, because they controlled how they interpreted the tree rings. The could decide how much warming they could attribute to any given change in tree ring size. In short they could remove the medieval warm period by scaling down the temperature change for any given change in tree ring size … except for the inconvenient fact that this bogus temperature record no longer matched the real record when we had actual temperature measurements hence the infamous “hide the decline” scandal.
So, it is now impossible for them to explain the 21st century pause without admitting that there is significant natural variation similar in magnitude to the change they say must be due to CO2. They cannot simultaneously argue that CO2 is the sole cause of climate change and therefore climate must “continue to change” as it did in the 20th century “due to CO2” AND explain why it hasn’t changed in the 21st century!
Gotcha!
Addendum
… what am I talking about? “they can’t argue both black and white” … I’ve talked to warmist for years and they do it all the time. Logic defies them: that is why they are warmists!

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

23 Responses to The dilemma of a warmist

  1. Garry says:
    14 June 2011 at 11:12

    Isn’t it the case that Hansen and his cronies annually proclaim that “The year 20xx is the Warmest Year On Record.” I’m quite sure that they said this about 2010, and Hansen/Romm et al have already made a similar prediction of “Warmest [Predicted] Year On Record” for 2012 (in fact for the entire decade of 2011 to 2020). Yet when you read the alleged factual basis for these assertions you find that they are loaded with qualifiers and caveats, particularly concerning regional variations and natural phenomena such as La Nina.
    As a layman I have to confess that I’m a little unclear as to how Hansen/Romm/Mann et al get away with this stuff, and how that reconciles with no actual warming in the last decade+.
    Because their simple assertion – which is widely promoted by the mainstream media – is that “Yes indeed the last decade has been showing warming and so there is no need to address any asserted inadequacy of our CO2 theory, because obviously it is demonstrated by the annual warming data as being correct.” Followed by a torrent of caveats and qualifiers.

  2. Scottish Sceptic says:
    14 June 2011 at 11:35

    That is where you tell the scientists from the bogus eco-politician in a white coat. A real scientist will tell you both that it is the warmest decade since the start of instrumentational readings AND they will tell you that there has been no warming this decade. They would also say that we can account for around a third of the warming due to known science (although the science has changed and it may only be 0.5C with latest spectral data), but they would then say: “we can’t account for the majority of the apparent warming in the 20th century; however the following could be partially or wholly responsible …”
    In real science, the aim is to gather and present as accurate a picture as is possible given the resources to hand. No serious scientist would give precedence over the average value for a decade of global temperatures over the trend in that decade.
    The fact that they are mentally incapable of admitting the 21st century pause speaks volumes about their bias and lack of scientific integrity and calls into question everything they do particularly all their calculations of global temperature. Then you get into issues like the time frame over which to measure temperature trend, and the way to treat variation and what is meant by “exceptional”, and you are so heavily reliant on the personal opinion of these people as to how to treat these issues that the answer you get is almost entirely the result of their own personal slant rather than the unbiased assessment of science.
    And then they think the solution is to “improve their communication”. Well no! Real scientists value the robustness of their evidence. Not these charlatans: show them a met stations over tarmac and they dismiss it as a personal attack rather than a legitimate concern over the quality of their data.

  3. Scots Renewables says:
    14 June 2011 at 21:00

    The warming since 1995 is statistically significant. That is science backed by statistics.

  4. pauldd says:
    14 June 2011 at 22:22

    There has been no statistically significant trend since 2000 in any of the five major temperature indexes. That is why the author of the post is accurate when he writes: “Now of course it hasn’t warmed for over a decade.”
    Of course, it is easy to cherry pick starting dates. That is why I like the graphic (labeled global temperature trends) contained in this blog post so much. http://www.masterresource.org/2009/10/a-cherry-pickers-guide-to-temperature-trends/. You can pick any of the major temperature indexes for any given starting year since 1989 and it will show you the trend rate. Unfortunately, it is only updated to 2009.

  5. Scottish Sceptic says:
    14 June 2011 at 22:31

    If it is science then what is the null hypothesis? It is that the “warming” was caused by natural variation.
    What is the basis of this “science” that forces us to reject the null hypothesis? Is it that natural variation is well below the 0.2C in 15 years NO! We’ve clearly seen entirely comparable periods within the instrumentational record. So the SCIENCE forces us to accept the null hypothesis unless or until it can be proven that the null hypothesis is inadequate. And because the null hypothesis is clearly adequate to explain all the warming of the 20th century the science is that manmade global warming is just a theory.
    As for the warming being statistically significant. On what basis are you staying it is statistically significant? OK … I know your answer, it’s because you read it somewhere and are just repeating what some idiot has said and think it is smart. But how can you talk about statistical significance of 1/f type noise? You can’t just apply some Micky mouse standard deviation test because it is only appropriate for Gaussian noise and global temperature signal is clearly not Gaussian noise and to try to apply such a useless test would be neither scientific nor statistically valid.
    You could correctly say “there has been warming” (or more accurately the reported readings from all the sensors over tarmac have appeared to warm). You could say “the warming would be significant if it were gaussian noise” — but as it’s not guassian it’s a rather stupid statement. But you couldn’t say the warming trend is inconsistent with previous noise, and that is what “statistically significant” is intended to mean when it is used by scientists and not propaganda spin doctors and lobbyists.

  6. Robert of Ottawa says:
    14 June 2011 at 22:39

    The Sherlock Holmes defense 🙂 I like it! otherwise known as “argument from ignorance”

  7. Scots Renewables says:
    14 June 2011 at 22:48

    Your strangely circular argument appears to revolve round the assumption that we are de facto unable to detect global warming, therefore cannot ever tell whether it is happening or not. A bit defeatist if you ask me.
    More importantly, as you well know there is no ’21st century pause’ – it is another myth put about by the denial industry that is easily disproved by any look at the actual figures. If you can’t see the hypocracy in cherry picking a ten year data period to ‘prove’ that GW has ‘stopped’ while at the same time banging the same tired old ‘hockey stick’ drum yet again then hopefully other readers of this blog can.
    (Although this is unlikely as the sole interest of this blog appears to lie in preaching to the converted)

  8. Scottish Sceptic says:
    14 June 2011 at 22:49

    Paul, I always start in 2001 for three reasons:
    1. It is the first time the IPCC came out with a testable prediction of global temperature (which gave a minimum warming of 1.4C/century)
    2. It’s unbiased to warming or cooling because the period 2001+ starts with a nice flat trend, i.e. we have stability for a number of years and so you’d get pretty much the same result whichever year you picked after 2001.
    3. It’s the beginning of the 21st century (centuries start with the year 1 because there is no year 0, the year before 1AD being 1BC).
    In short, the trend from 2001 is a fair assessment of how well the climate predictions are doing, and the answer is “not at all well”!

  9. Scottish Sceptic says:
    14 June 2011 at 23:20

    I don’t mind people with different views on the interpretation of data, but if you are just going to make ridiculous comment like “there is no 21st century pause” you really shouldn’t bother posting here. You could argue that 10 years is insufficient … that’s a valid approach – although 10 years is generally accepted as sufficient by most people involved in climate. You could argue that the data is corrupt (but that is the sceptic position) you could argue… sorry I can’t see any other way to legitimately question the validity of the 21th century pause. It’s just a matter of fact that there has been “no upward trend” in the data these last ten years. It is simply an inevitable consequence of the interval used for climate measurements and a simple calculation of trend.
    Another approach you could try is to say: “decades start with 1980,1990.2000, etc.”. I’ve not tried it since climategate, but you used to get a slight warming trend from 2000 rather than the clear cooling trend from 2001. But my response is that the trend is still marginal and the fact that a small change in year just flips from cooling to warming, really just underlines the fact there has been no real trend in the last decade … which in layman’s terms is what the “pause” is.
    And of course, the real interest is whether the pause will be followed by a decade of “warming”, “cooling” or “no trend”.

  10. jae says:
    14 June 2011 at 23:28

    Heh. I’m still trying to understand how greenhouse gases interact with the most basic radiative heat transfer equation, which does not appear to allow for any “atmospheric greenhouse effect.”
    Here is the fundamental equation that is used to calculate the radiative energy transfer between objects:
    Power = (epsilon)(alpha)((T-warm)^4 – (T-ambient)^4)),
    (sorry, I hate messing with html)
    where power is radiative energy emitted by the warm body (in wm-2), epsilon is the emissivity (usually assumed as = 1), alpha is Planck’s constant, T-warm is the temperature of the warmer object, and T-ambient is the temperature of the cooler object.
    Does anyone see any /variables/parameters/functions/factors/adjustments/whatever to “account” for backradiation/ “insulation”/ “atmospheric blanket effect”/ etc. due to GHE?? No, because there are none. Radiative transfer is dependent ONLY upon the parameters given above, not upon what gases/concentrations are present between the objects.
    I know of no “limitations” on this equation, such as a caveat that it only applies in a vacuum. Does anyone else know of any (need reference, if so)?
    The fact that energy loss is “slowed down” by the radiation back from the cooler object (backradiation) is included in this classic equation, so we can easily accommodate the concept, so often mentioned to support a GHE, that the presence of backradiation from the air retards the rate of heat loss to outer space*.
    Therefore, if one wants to determine the radiative loss from the surface to the tropopause, one only needs to know the temperatures at the surface and at the tropopause (assuming one can assume bb radiation in air). One does not need to know anything about how dense the GHGs are in-between.
    So, let’s just use this well-known and well-accepted equation to calculate the “average radiative emissions” from the planet, assuming the average surface temperature is 15 C and the point at which the “effective radiation temperature” of -18 C occurs (about 5.5 km altitude). Assuming an emissivity of 1, the equation gives 390 wm-2 – 240 wm-2 = 150 wm-2. Now, let’s add Kiel and Trenberth’s famous estimates for latent heat (78 wm-2) and for “thermals” (convection) (24 wm-2), giving a total of 252 wm-2. Not far from K&T’s value of 235 wm-2. In fact, if one assumes an emissivity of 0.9, which is probably much more realistic, one gets almost exactly the same number as the K&T estimate (237).
    Coincidence, perhaps, but I doubt it.
    So there appears to be no place for or need for a “GHG effect” to explain “radiative balances.”
    A bonus is that this simple equation fits the situation for ALL planets with atmospheres. The GHG theory does not.
    *Just like “back conduction” retards the rate of conduction toward the cold end of a metal rod that is being heated at only one end.z

  11. Scottish Sceptic says:
    14 June 2011 at 23:41

    “Radiative transfer is dependent ONLY upon the parameters given above, not upon what gases/concentrations are present between the objects.” That is because the equation you are using is for two objects with nothing in between. In effect, the CO2 & atmosphere is a whole series of intermediate objects between the earth’s surface and space. The result is that each “layer” in the atmosphere will loose/gain heat according to the above equation, but as a result it will change its temperature and the emissivity of that layer will be dependent on CO2. However an added complexity, is that there is transmission through the layers and the CO2 and other gases will absorb the radiation with the result that the the radiation is no longer blackbody, so that the adsorption is the product of the emissivity of that layer and the incident radiation.
    The other huge complexity which you don’t mention is that something like 50% of the heat from the surface is lost through evaporative loss and travels straight up to the cloud layer. I’ve not had the misfortune to look at many climate models, but the ones I saw totally missed this heat flow which was a huge eye-opener for me as you can’t possibly get the climate models right unless you include dynamic heat flows from air movement.

  12. jae says:
    15 June 2011 at 00:00

    “That is because the equation you are using is for two objects with nothing in between. ”
    As I mentioned in my comment, I would like to see a reference for that statement.

  13. Pingback: Cranky Old Crow

  14. kuhnkat says:
    15 June 2011 at 03:31

    jae,
    there are no other equations. Every transfer is between two objects. If there is something between the two objects the transfer is to that object in between. One of the mistakes of warmers is that something important magically happens because all the transfers aren’t to space. Although CO2 collides with, and transfers energy to, the rest of the atmosphere, it also receives energy from the rest of the atmosphere which it then radiates. Pekka Parilla has schooled us in the FACT that at lower altitudes CO2 radiates from collision and not from absorption. In fact, CO2, like all other gasses at earth atmospheric temperatures is a poor radiator so collision is king. Pekka has never shown calculations showing what the net balance is from this interesting FACT, but, it tends to upset many assumptions like the average radiation altitude!! The warmers also do not like to talk about UV as N2 is an absorber of UV along with O2, O3, O, and other species!!! The current loss of UV in our quiet sun will probably make quite a bit of difference that the modelers never knew to take into account blowing out the assumption of the sun’s variability only being about 1%!!
    The modelers have really done a great job for biased religious types!!! Too bad they will go down in history as MORONS!!

  15. Pingback: Scottish Sceptic on the warmists’ dilemma | JunkScience Sidebar

  16. Scottish Sceptic says:
    15 June 2011 at 07:05

    Jae, the equation stems from work on blackbodies. A blackbody is defined as a surface with an emissivity of 1 … which means all frequencies emit and absorb at their maximum for that temperature. The emissivity value is a “fake” value, in that it approximates the amount of emission or absorption compared to a perfect blackbody. The reason I say it’s “fake” is that it is a rather simplistic value which sums the relative emission/absorption at each frequency and indeed at different angles compared to a idealistic “blackbody”.
    Where your equation comes from is a single “non-perfect” blackbody emitter surrounded by a perfect blackbody absorber. In reality, it is not so much an “equation” as a model of a situation which is approximated by the equation.
    The situation you describe (with a gas) is a more complex situation than a real surface surrounded by a perfect blackbody absorber. If instead of a gas, we had e.g. a surface of. a thin material, you could treat the surface as a non-perfect black body surrounded by two different regions, the first being a non-perfect blackbody so the emission and asorption equations would both be affected by the emissivity of the surfaces. The second would fit your equation. It would then be possible to estimate the temperature of the surface, and then work out the heat flow.
    HOWEVER: the emissivity “value” only works if the radiation coming in is blackbody. When you talk about the exchange of energy between two surfaces, each with their own emissivity spectrum, you can only absorb radiation in pars of the spectrum where they are being emitted. The result is that you can only accurately calculate the energy flow by doing a “line by line” analysis of the emission and absorption spectra from and to each surface.
    However it gets a whole order of magnitude when the surface is transparent like the atmosphere, another order of magnitude when it all starts moving like a real atmosphere (SOMETHING USUALLY IGNORED IN CLIMATE MODELS)
    And it gets unbelievably complicated when the people creating these models are so secretive that they don’t even let people see their models.

  17. jae says:
    15 June 2011 at 12:26

    SS:
    “HOWEVER: the emissivity “value” only works if the radiation coming in is blackbody. When you talk about the exchange of energy between two surfaces, each with their own emissivity spectrum, you can only absorb radiation in pars of the spectrum where they are being emitted. The result is that you can only accurately calculate the energy flow by doing a “line by line” analysis of the emission and absorption spectra from and to each surface.”
    Yeah, that’s right. I guess I presented a couple of thoughts jumbled together. Let me go at it again. First, I’m trying to say that if you did have two actual blackbodies, you could fill the space between them with “greenhouse gases” and the radiation between them would be no different than it would be for a vacuum. IOW, the backradiation from the ghgs has no effect on overall radiation. No “insulation” effects, no “slowing down the rate of radiation,” etc. Do you agree with this? If not, where are the physical principles that “tweak” this simple equation to allow it to be used by engineers to do real world calculations?
    The second thing I was trying to say is that you can discuss radiation in gases by considering “effective temperatures,” i.e., the temperature a bb would have to irradiate that much radiation. Isn’t that the way the satellites come up with the magic -18 C? It appears to me that the numbers are in the same ballpark as numbers from lbl calculations like MODTRAN, no?

  18. nofreewind says:
    15 June 2011 at 15:42

    Significant to whom?
    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1995/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/to/trend
    Hadley temps reveal a very insignificant .15C “trend” since 1995. ALL OF WHICH occurred during the very large El Nino of 1998. The temp increase occurred because of a change in ocean currents,nothing to do with CO2. And nothing has happened since.
    Good post Scottish Skeptic. We are living in a world where the absurd is accepted as Fact.

  19. Ben says:
    15 June 2011 at 16:02

    First, the “When the impossible is eliminated…” is a Pirot quote, not Holmes. Second, it is a formal method of proof, called “proof by exhaustion”. This isn’t really useful in the real world in non-trivial circumstances due to the fact that circumstates are rate that you you can exhaustively prove something but cannot more easily find a proof by direct methods.

  20. Scottish Sceptic says:
    15 June 2011 at 16:12

    It’s even more funny now I know its wrong!
    Of course it works when you have a closed set of alternatives and can clearly eliminate each of them. Or to paraphrase nixon*: when you have a set of known unknowns. The problem with climate is that we have a set of unknown unknowns, so it is never possible to know that you have eliminated all the possible causes of climate variation.
    *Wink!

  21. jae says:
    16 June 2011 at 02:24

    Looks like Scottish-like Skeptics canno’ outdo even ze crickets….Wink.

  22. Stuart Greig says:
    16 June 2011 at 03:22

    I wish I could get away with doing to my income tax returns, what climate researchers did to temperature data in order to make their statistics ‘significant’ 😉

  23. Pingback: Catchup 7 – Old Posts From Bigblog Site | Greenhouse Bullcrap

Comments are closed.