Ping Bil Slowman; The global warming hoax reveiled
in [Design]
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From: Jon Kirwan on 28 Nov 2009 20:14 On Sat, 28 Nov 2009 09:49:13 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> wrote: >Jon Kirwan wrote: >> On Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:17:20 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >> wrote: >> >>> Jon Kirwan wrote: >>>> On Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:43:33 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >>>> wrote: >>>> >>>>> Jon Kirwan wrote: >>>>>> On Wed, 25 Nov 2009 09:03:28 -0800, Joerg <invalid(a)invalid.invalid> >>>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>>> Bill Sloman wrote: >>>>>>>> On Nov 25, 12:09 pm, Jan Panteltje <pNaonStpealm...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: >>>>>>> [...] >>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> But the glaciers, those will further retreat from Europe, and north of America, >>>>>>>>> only to come back then later, in thousands of years cycles. >>>>>>>> Since we've messed up the positive feedback that drove that cycle and >>>>>>>> added more than enough CO2 and methane to the atmosphere, the glacier >>>>>>>> aren't going to be coming back any time soon. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> The shapes and locations ofof the continents will still be pretty much >>>>>>>> the same. I doubt if the world will look that different. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>> Ahm, the glacier north of us on Mt.Shasta is growing ... >>>>>>> >>>>>>> Maybe it hasn't heard of AGW and someone should tell it :-) >>>>>> Joerg, you should know better than to be this highly selective in what >>>>>> you consider a good argument. Read this USA Today article from a year >>>>>> and a half ago more closely: >>>>>> >>>>>> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2008-07-08-mt-shasta-growing-glaciers_N.htm >>>>> Only problem is that the proof doesn't seem to be in the pudding: >>>>> >>>>> http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/cgi-bin/cliMONtpre.pl?ca5983 >>>> Did you read through at least half the article I mentioned above? >>> Yes. Thing is, with all the AGW claims there ought to be a significant >>> average rise since 1948. >> >> I'm not sure what you are saying. >> > >I meant a pronounced increase in precipitation. > > >>>>> They should know better than to publish something like this without >>>>> _showing_ the underlaying statistics :-) >>>> Which publisher, Joerg? The link I mentioned or the link you did? >>> Yours, USA Today. Mine is affiliated with NOAA, which I believe even the >>> warmingists wouldn't dispute. >> >> USA Today is just the news article I had imagined you'd glimpsed >> before. I thought maybe it would be good to read it more fully, if >> so. Thanks for clarifying your point. >> > >There wasn't that much meat in it. As an engineer I am used to seeing >more graphs and tables from official or at least credible sources. > > >>>> If you are talking about the USA Today article, my motivation was to >>>> show you that you are being very selective in choosing that isolated >>>> data point. >>>> >>>> Just as I might choose a 6-sigma noise-spiked data point to try and >>>> show you a rise when you know darned well the trend of the data was to >>>> fall. You'd rightly point out my mistake. >>>> >>>> As I did, yours. >>> I am not so sure it is one. But I also don't want to rule it out. >> >> Climate is averages, not noise. Not weather. And no one I know of, >> least of all climate scientists, are stating that there will be >> absolutely no cases where some particular glacier won't increase. >> Cripes, if that were exactly true we'd be in a lot worse mess! >> >> There is an increased hydrologic cycle. In some cases, precipitation >> (in terms of annual averages) may not even change, but the >> distribution over the year may. >> >> For example, in my area (which, by the way, is where Andrew Fountain >> is .. or was .. located... who is a primary contact regarding Mt. >> Shasta's glaciers), the precipitation is remaining similar on an >> annual basis, but is shifting away from summer/fall precipitation >> (which used to be a near constant complaint I'd hear from California >> transplants) and towards winter/spring. Larger annual amplitude, >> similar average value. It does have a real impact, though. We will >> have to create more summer-time storage to supply the 1.5 million >> people who depend upon the glaciers now for their fresh water supply >> during late summer. Glaciers, normally quite decently sized here in >> Portland and northward, are receding quite rapidly. We've lost almost >> 50% of the mass balance at Mt. Hood, for example, and expect to see it >> reach zero in the late summertime perhaps in 30 years or so if the >> current rate remains unchanged. The reasons why these mountains are >> losing them faster than some areas is largely understood -- they are >> neither insulated by lots of rock, nor highly reflective by being >> completely free of rock; instead, they have the right mix of loose >> gravel and dirt on them for higher melt rates. We've had a few unique >> _slides_ that took out important roadways in the last few years, as >> well. (As you can see, I can cherry-pick data, too. ;) >> > >I am not disputing that. As I wrote in my reply to Bill, there are >glaciers in Europe that are going almost totally bare. What the >warmingists don't seem to grasp or sometimes deny tooth and nail is that >this is quite normal. I don't buy this, at all. Sorry. Yes, the world has been warmer. Yes, glaciers have been much less in abundance. Yes, oceans have been much higher. Etc., etc. None of this means these are directions we want to head. Nor does it say there isn't an historically unique rate of change in evidence today. Nor does it say humans aren't having a pervasive impact that contributes strongly to both the sign (+ or -) and the magnitude of recent rates. You simply are placing yourself against what the current state of science theory and result says. And that's not a very smart place to put yourself unless you are in a position to claim a comprehensive exposure to it. The scientists active in these areas make it their business. You've done nothing to convince me that you are in a better position to be able to say "this is quite normal," Joerg. It may sting a little to realize that I would take their word over yours. But in this case, I do. It's as basic as that. Here's some quotes from last week's report: "Has global warming recently slowed down or paused? "No. There is no indication in the data of a slowdown or pause in the human-caused climatic warming trend. The observed global temperature changes are entirely consistent with the climatic warming trend of ~0.2 �C per decade predicted by IPCC, plus superimposed short-term variability (see Figure 4). The latter has always been � and will always be � present in the climate system. Most of these short-term variations are due to internal oscillations like El Ni�o � Southern Oscillation, solar variability (predominantly the 11-year Schwabe cycle) and volcanic eruptions (which, like Pinatubo in 1991, can cause a cooling lasting a few years). "If one looks at periods of ten years or shorter, such short-term variations can more than outweigh the anthropogenic global warming trend. For example, El Ni�o events typically come with global-mean temperature changes of up to 0.2 �C over a few years, and the solar cycle with warming or cooling of 0.1 �C over five years (Lean and Rind 2008). However, neither El Ni�o, nor solar activity or volcanic eruptions make a significant contribution to longer-term climate trends. For good reason the IPCC has chosen 25 years as the shortest trend line they show in the global temperature records, and over this time period the observed trend agrees very well with the expected anthropogenic warming. "Nevertheless global cooling has not occurred even over the past ten years, contrary to claims promoted by lobby groups and picked up in some media. In the NASA global temperature data, the past ten 10-year trends (i.e. 1990-1999, 1991-2000 and so on) have all been between 0.17 and 0.34 �C warming per decade, close to or above the expected anthropogenic trend, with the most recent one (1999-2008) equal to 0.19 �C per decade. The Hadley Center data most recently show smaller warming trends (0.11 �C per decade for 1999-2008) primarily due to the fact that this data set is not fully global but leaves out the Arctic, which has warmed particularly strongly in recent years. "It is perhaps noteworthy that despite the extremely low brightness of the sun over the past three years (see next page); temperature records have been broken during this time (see NOAA, State of the Climate, 2009). For example, March 2008 saw the warmest global land temperature of any March ever measured in the instrumental record. June and August 2009 saw the warmest land and ocean temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere ever recorded for those months. The global ocean surface temperatures in 2009 broke all previous records for three consecutive months: June, July and August. The years 2007, 2008 and 2009 had the lowest summer Arctic sea ice cover ever recorded, and in 2008 for the first time in living memory the Northwest Passage and the Northeast Passage were simultaneously ice-free. This feat was repeated in 2009. Every single year of this century (2001-2008) has been among the top ten warmest years since instrumental records began. "... "Can solar activity or other natural processes explain global warming? "No. The incoming solar radiation has been almost constant over the past 50 years, apart from the well-known 11-year solar cycle (Figure 5). In fact it has slightly decreased over this period. In addition, over the past three years the brightness of the sun has reached an all-time low since the beginning of satellite measurements in the 1970s (Lockwood and Fr�hlich 2007, 2008). But this natural cooling effect was more than a factor of ten smaller than the effect of increasing greenhouse gases, so it has not noticeably slowed down global warming. Also, winters are warming more rapidly than summers, and overnight minimum temperatures have warmed more rapidly than the daytime maxima � exactly the opposite of what would be the case if the sun were causing the warming. "Other natural factors, like volcanic eruptions or El Ni�o events, have only caused short-term temperature variations over time spans of a few years, but cannot explain any longer-term climatic trends (e.g., Lean and Rind 2008)." "... "Isn�t climate always changing, even without human interference? "Of course. But past climate changes are no cause for complacency; indeed, they tell us that the Earth�s climate is very sensitive to changes in forcing. Two main conclusions can be drawn from climate history: Climate has always responded strongly if the radiation balance of the Earth was disturbed. That suggests the same will happen again, now that humans are altering the radiation balance by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. In fact, data from climate changes in the Earth�s history have been used to quantify how strongly a given change in the radiation balance alters the global temperature (i.e., to determine the climate sensitivity). The data confirm that our climate system is as sensitive as our climate models suggest, perhaps even more so. "Impacts of past climate changes have been severe. The last great Ice Age, when it was globally 4-7 �C colder than now, completely transformed the Earth�s surface and its ecosystems, and sea level was 120 meters lower. When the Earth last was 2-3 �C warmer than now, during the Pliocene 3 million years ago, sea level was 25-35 meters higher due to the smaller ice sheets present in the warmer climate. "Despite the large natural climate changes, the recent global warming does stick out already. Climate reconstructions suggest that over the past two millennia, global temperature has never changed by more than 0.5 �C in a century (e.g. Mann et al. 2008; and references therein)." >A few thousand years ago they wear also iceless or >nearly iceless, as evidence by the findings of ancient weaponry, shoes, >coins, and the typical litter that unfortunately always happens along >major thoroughfares. They must have lacked an "Adopt-a-Highway" program >back then ;-) > >Since they found Roman coins there the last warm period without ice on >the glacier cannot have been be that long ago: > >http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7580294.stm > > >> That aside, some places, due to the increased cycle will experience >> increases and some decreases. The total global precipitation will >> slightly increase. >> >> From the Copenhagen Diagnosis, recently released: >> >> "Post IPCC AR4 research has also found that rains become >> more intense in already-rainy areas as atmospheric water vapor >> content increases (Pall et al. 2007; Wentz et al. 2007; Allan >> and Soden 2008). These conclusions strengthen those of earlier >> studies and are expected from considerations of atmospheric >> thermodynamics. However, recent changes have occurred faster >> than predicted by some climate models, raising the possibility >> that future changes will be more severe than predicted. >> >> "... >> >> "In addition to the increases in heavy precipitation, there have >> also been observed increases in drought since the 1970s >> (Sheffield and Wood 2008), consistent with the decreases in >> mean precipitation over land in some latitude bands that have >> been attributed to anthropogenic climate change (Zhang et al. >> 2007). >> >> "The intensification of the global hydrological cycle with >> anthropogenic climate change is expected to lead to further >> increases in precipitation extremes, both increases in very >> heavy precipitation in wet areas and increases in drought in dry >> areas. While precise figures cannot yet be given, current studies >> suggest that heavy precipitation rates may increase by 5% - 10% >> per �C of warming, similar to the rate of increase of atmospheric >> water vapor." >> >> On a separate topic, I thought you might be interested in the GLIMS >> numbers for the glaciers on Mt. Shasta: >> >> (Unnamed, I think) G237813E41427N 1950-07-01 58849 >> G237815E41410N 1950-07-01 58850 >> Konwakiton Glacier G237805E41400N 1950-07-01 58851 >> Watkins Glacier G237821E41403N 1950-07-01 58852 >> Whitney Glacier G237787E41415N 1950-07-01 58853 >> G237804E41420N 1950-07-01 58854 >> Bolam Glacier G237799E41421N 1950-07-01 58855 >> G237803E41424N 1950-07-01 58856 >> G237813E41422N 1950-07-01 58857 >> Hotlum Glacier G237814E41418N 1950-07-01 58858 >> G237818E41416N 1950-07-01 58859 >> >> You can use those to secure data on those from the GLIMS dataset. Not >> that it probably matters. But there it is because I wasted my time >> looking for them. Oh, well. > >Thanks, but right now I have to first find some inductors for an EMI >case :-) hehe. Well, I wasted my time already. So there. >>>>> Here in Northern California people look at their water bills, they see >>>>> drought rates being charged more and more often. Warmingists predicted >>>>> we'd be swamped with precipitation by now. Didn't happen. >>>>> >>>>> Then they look at their heating bills. Amounts of required fuel rising, >>>>> for example we went from 2 cords to 4 cords. So it ain't getting warmer. >>>>> We would never again buy a house with a pool around here. >>>>> >>>>> This is a middle class neighborhood with a fairly high percentage of >>>>> engineers, so you'd normally assume people with a pretty level head. >>>>> Nearly all now think that AGW is just one gigantic ruse to raise taxes >>>>> in one way or another. Again, this is not me ranting, it's what we hear >>>> >from the people. Meaning voters :-) >>>> >>>> None of that changes anything about what I said. Climate is averages >>>> and I think you _know_ this. >>>> >>>> If you said, "the average voltage, at 1Hz bandwidth, at this node is 4 >>>> volts" and I responded by using a high bandwidth tool and pointing out >>>> a 5 nanosecond spike at 8V and said, "no, it's 8V", you'd know I was >>>> being disingenuous. And you'd be right. >>> And that 8V spike could be the root cause why a chip always fails so >>> you'd have made a valid and concerning observation :-) >> >> Not the point when talking about averages, is it? >> >>>> If you are interested in access to specific details, you might read: >>>> >>>> http://nsidc.org/glims/ >>>> >>>> However, if scarfing through a database is a pain, an informed summary >>>> of the circumstances of mountain glaciers around the world can be had >>>> from: Cogley, J. G., 2009, "Geodetic and direct mass-balance >>>> measurements: comparison and joint analysis," Annals of Glaciology 50, >>>> 96-100. I can get you a copy, if you intend to read it. >>> I know that most glaciers are receding for a while now. >> >> Accepted. >> >>> That has >>> happened in the past as well, and then they grew again. What I harbor >>> doubts about is that this is human-caused. These doubt haven't exactly >>> been reduced after the revelations of emails lately. >> >> Understood. It is the __attribution__ that you are questioning. In >> many cases, it's worth keeping that in view. Not __everything__ in >> the world is 100% due to humans. ;) > >True. But the question is whether it's 90%, 50%, or maybe only 2%. That >where warmingists are often making shaky assumptions. Of course that's an important question. It's been answered, to a sufficient degree to be useful. >>> As you said, climate is averages, but we must look much, much farther >>> than just 50, 100 or 150 years. As has been discussed here before, there >>> has for example been homesteading and farming in areas of Greenland that >>> are now under a thick layer of ice. Of course that is an inconvenient >>> truth for warmingists. Bill might claim that Exxon-Mobil has gone there >>> in the dead of night, drilled holes, dropped some Viking tools and >>> artefacts down those holes and then poured water back into them :-) >> >> Those cases have been addressed in the literature. I've read a few >> and felt those I saw were reasoned as well as my ignorance allowed me >> to determine and didn't overstate or understate the cases. I can >> track down more and we can read them together, if you are interested >> in reading more comprehensively on these specifics. At that point, >> I'd probably take what you said afterwards as a much more serious >> criticism. > >Thing is, there's tons and tons of other cases. I mean, guys like old >Oetzi was for sure not doing a glacier hike just for the fun of it. He >was probably hunting on fertile grounds that were ice-free, and then >from what archaeologists have determined killed if not murdered up there. > >[...] In other words, you don't want to spend the time needed to gain a comprehensive view. I can accept that. But realize what it means as far as my taking your opinion on any of this. My feeling here is that climate science is huge. Really huge. No one masters all of it. But if you can't even be bothered to take a point you are making -- not something someone else decides to say or write, but something you decide on your own is true enough that you are willing to place yourself in a position of making claims about it -- and follow through with even that single thing long enough to find out where it takes you when you gain a fuller view of even that tiny corner of things.... Well, why should I care, then? Yeah. It takes work. So what? Spend it, or don't. But if you don't, even in cases where you feel comfortable talking strongly about it... then it undermines (to me) what you say. You either care about your opinion or you don't. And if you don't, why should I? (On this subject, obviously. On many others, I'm all ears.) Jon
From: dagmargoodboat on 28 Nov 2009 20:15 On Nov 27, 10:19 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > On Nov 26, 9:18 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > > Or just do an error-budget analysis. The AGW contribution alleged > > from CO2 is, well, not even clear. A range of estimates from ~0.25 to > > 1 W/m^2 out of roughly 300W/m^2 has been offered. (That wide an > > uncertainty band is pretty pathetic on its face, isn't it?) Check out the ranges of forcings estimated here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas " * water vapor, which contributes 3672% [a 2:1 range] * carbon dioxide, which contributes 926% [3:1] * methane, which contributes 49% * ozone, which contributes 37%" > It might be if it had been offered by someone who knew what they were > talking about. These are the sorts of numbers that Christopher > Monckton comes up with > > http://www.altenergyaction.org/Monckton.html#sec7 > > More reliable sources seem to be able to come up with a narrower > range. > > http://atoc.colorado.edu/~seand/headinacloud/?p=204 They estimate it using models: "So how is Radiative Forcing calculated? For the most part, it is estimated using data from what is referred to as General Circulation Models (GCMs). These models use numerous methodologies[...]" > > gives a figure of 1.66 W/m², with a range between 1.49 and 1.83 W/m². The same source goes on to give a 4:1 uncertainty range(!) for net anthropogenic forcing: "Overall, the total net anthropogenic Radiative Forcing is equal to an average value of 1.6 W/m² [0.6 to 2.4 W/m²]. This means a warming of the climate." It's not clear to me whether 1.6 W/m² is total forcing due to CO2, or just the anthropogenic contribution. Your reference gives the language of the formal IPCC definition, which amounts to "total forcing due to CO2," but then the writer goes to include 1.6 W / m² in his list of man-made factors. The IPCC itself is inconsistent, employing the first usage ("total warming") in one report, and redefining forcing to mean "relative to 1750" (i.e., man-made) in a later report: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing#IPCC_usage I took 1.6-to-1.7 W / m² as _total_ forcing due to CO2, of which only ~1/4 is man-made. If I'm wrong, I'm off by a factor of 4. So, am I? The above link gives the following relationship between forcing and CO2 concentration: dT = 5.35 x ln( Ct / Co), W / m², where Ct = current concentration of CO2, in ppm. Co = reference concentration of CO2, in ppm. using 280ppm as the reference level, and 387ppm as Ct, that gives 5.35 x ln(387/280) = 1.7 W / m². So, my mistake. 1.7 W / m² alleged as due to man, not 1/4 that. (It's a good thing the reference level isn't lower, otherwise for the same absolute CO2 levels we'd get hotter and hotter and hotter.) That's still a fraction--perhaps 1/10th--of the uncertainty over clouds. > This ties up with > > http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/aggi/ > > They don't give nice simple numbers, but they do derive their numbers > from the measured behaviour of the atmosphere which does constrain the > numbers to within about +/-10%. > > And you have to keep in mind that forcing depends on the other gases > in the atmosphere. Some IR absorbtion lines overlap, and pressure > broadening makes individual absorbtion lines wider. It is all > predictable but it means that total forcing is averaged over a lot of > rather different situations. > > The uncertainty over the contribution of clouds alone swamps even > > the highest figure by nearly two orders of magnitude. > > Says who? Another one of these people whose advice you seem to have > trouble remembering with any precision? E.g., from the first comment in this same reference: "2) Cloud Feedbacks This is the million dollar question in climate science, as far as Im concerned. Models vary even among the sign of the [water vapor] feedback, although as I recall most have a positive cloud feedback. See the post here for more information. Im not sure how reliable GCM cloud feedbacks are, as clouds are not resolved explicitly in the models. One things for sure.. this is an issue that will be around for some time to come " -- Cheers, James Arthur
From: Michael A. Terrell on 28 Nov 2009 20:27 JosephKK wrote: > > Michael A. Terrell wrote: > > > > It was 34 degrees in Ocala Thursday night. It's supposed to be 35 > >tonight. > > From the short time i spent in Florida that is about 10 to 15 degrees > below normal for this time of year. I've had to turn the heat on the last two days. That doesn't usually happen till near the end of December. -- The movie 'Deliverance' isn't a documentary!
From: Bill Sloman on 28 Nov 2009 20:51 On Nov 28, 2:13 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > On Nov 27, 10:19 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > > > On Nov 26, 9:18 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > > > > On Nov 26, 5:26 pm,Bill Sloman<bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > > > > > James Arthur thinks that climate models can't predict any more than a > > > > fortnight ahead before they blow up. Oddly enough they can, but > > > > weather models can't. > > > > If I ever wrote that, it was a mistake. But I don't believe I ever > > > did. (But since you keep saying it, and Joerg lives in Oregon, it > > > must be true.) > > > You said it all right. You seem to have - very wisely - requested that > > your post was not to be archived, and have managed to contain your > > outrage at being caught making a fool of yourself until the original > > evidence had evaporated. > > No, if I said it, it's still here in the archives. Maybe you've > confused me with someone else. Since I included the date and time and source of your post in my response to it, "On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:08:17 -0800 (PST), dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com" I'm tolerably confident that I wasn't responding to anybody else, and yet there doesn't seem to be a corrseponding post in the archive that I can get at. Granting your capacity to remember different things when addressing the same problem at different times, it does seem to me to be possible that you might have requested that your post should not be archived when you posted it, and are now remembering something different. > My information on GCMs came from reading their summaries (supplied by > each GCM group), reading as much of one global climate model's FORTRAN > spaghetti source-code as I could stand, and, mostly, _directly_ from > one of the world's preeminent experts, who works on them. > > So, I've always known the difference. A charming story, but incompatible with you post of the 22nd November. > > > > On Sun, 22 Nov 2009 07:08:17 -0800 (PST), dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com > > > > wrote: > > > <snip> > > > > As a second measure of global climate models (GCM), we know from > > > actual life how poorly the models predict El Nino, or hurricanes, or > > > other near-term phenomena that depend on accurate understanding of > > > real temperature, deep ocean currents, or other quantities critical to > > > long-term projections (if those are even possible), but which are not > > > known well enough to make even short-term predictions. > > > As a 3rd measure of GCM, before you graced s.e.d. with your inquiries, > > > I related that I got that same info (above) from one of the persons > > > *responsible* for one of the main climate models. That person said > > > GCM are important and useful tools in understanding climate, and for > > > making predictions as far as several weeks into the future. Beyond > > > that, says (s)he, the models quickly diverge uselessly from reality. > > > James Arthur doesn't know the difference between a global climate > > model, which predicts over a span of year and a global weather model > > which falls to pieces in about two weeks. > > >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butterfly_effect > > >http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev28_2/text/cli.htm > > I know the difference. But suppose I didn't--it still doesn't > matter. Cast aside your irrelevant bile and consider: we're in a 10- > year cooling trend. I don't remember any stern warnings from > climastrologists this was imminent, do you? Quite the opposite. But > your memory is better than mine--you remember things that didn't even > happen. Maybe you could cite those warnings for us. > > Or is 10 years "just weather," and not climate? In this context it is a lot closer to weather than climate. If you were anything like as au fait with the current state of climate modelling as you claim, you'd be aware that the current explantation of the relatively slow warming over the past decade involves the influence of the North Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, which is still relatively poorly understood, though we are now starting to get useful information from the Argo program (which you'd know all about if you were as well-informed as you like to pretend). http://www.argo.ucsd.edu/Origins_of_Argo.html At the time when a prediction based on this insight might have qualified as a prediction, rather than an explanation, the Argo program was just being launched. Back then we did know about the El Nino/La Nina oscillation, and had started to appreciate that it shows up in the global temperature measurements > > > I'd have to ask the person who writes them exactly how far in the > > > future GCMs go these days before diverging uselessly into chaos, but > > > IIRC they gave some useful, broad indications as much as a few months > > > in advance. Not accurate, but enough. Several weeks becomes several months? Models that broke down that fast would be useless for the work that they are being asked to do, and I can't imagine that anybody would waste their time working on them.You do seem to be talking about a different kind of global climate model to the ones that the IPCC is interested in - and has to be interested in, given their charter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model > > James Arthur "improving" what he remembers. > > I already stated I don't remember exactly. That - at least - is credible. >And part of it is that I > can't be too particular without revealing my source, which I am > entrusted not to do. That person is a scientist, not a politician, > and doesn't want to be sacrificed on the altar of AGW political > correctness. And that is merely plausible. Such a person would also be unhappy if their reputation were tarred by your imperfect understanding of what you were told. > The point being that the things fall apart in a few months, Or at least the ones that you claim to know about. > and > they're being used to forecast 50-500x that timespan and more. It > doesn't matter whether the 20-year forecast fell apart at two months > or three, or even four or five months, does it? Obviously not, because nobody in their right mind would use such a model for such a job., and your claim that they do would seem to have more to do with the imperfection of your memory than anything else. > Obviously they're no good even at predicting in the 1-10 year > timeframe, or they would've predicted the current cooling. That doesn't follow. It is difficult to predict the consequences of phenomena one knows very little about, and until we've got a lot more of the Argo data, we don't know how much heat is being moved towards the poles by ocean currents, or what routes it is following. If you knew anything like as much as you claim about climate modelling, you wouldn't be be silly enough to claim that the late 1990's climate models were useless because they didn't reflect the influence of ocean currents that we didn't know much about at the time. And a failure to predict relatively small, short term excursions isn't evidence that a model can't predict bigger, longer term excursions. You are bitching about a failure to predict the effect of a 20ppm rise in CO2 levels. It took an 80pmm rise in CO2 levels (from the pre-industrial 280ppm to the 360ppm in the mid-1990s) to generate enough global warming for it to show above the short-term noise level, and what has happened since then has been swamped - unsurprisingly - by more (relatively) short term noise. We have every prospect of adding 200ppm more CO2 to the atmosphere over the next century. A model doesn't have to be too accurate to tell us that this means quite a lot more warming than we saw over the last century - quite enough to create worrying problems. -- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen
From: dagmargoodboat on 28 Nov 2009 20:53
On Nov 27, 10:19 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...(a)ieee.org> wrote: > On Nov 26, 9:18 pm, dagmargoodb...(a)yahoo.com wrote: > > And yet you'd tell me you know for a fact that man-made CO2 is beyond > > any doubt the one, most important, overriding factor? > > > Yes, you would. > > And I'd be right. Your capacity for creative scepticism verges on > denialism, and you can't - or won't - identify your sources, so your > credibility is totally shot. You cite authorities. That is, you rely on experts to explain something that's over your head--you said that about the models, not me--and take what they say on faith. I don't claim any authority, nor do I require any credibility. I only claim I can add, and read, and think. You're free to do the same. I constantly cite public sources of raw data, but most people don't have the time to waste checking them. So for alls' sake I prefer to point out obvious contradictions, sanity checks. Quickies. To wit, the common man doesn't need to know what makes a car go to tell whether or not it goes--he can just try driving the car and see. If it doesn't go, it's bogus. If it doesn't have wheels (i.e., if it doesn't solve an obvious, important problem), it's probably bogus. Having some knowledge of cars--even incomplete knowledge--Mr. Everyman can do even better, even just spot-checking. If he lifts the hood and sees a hamster-wheel + rodent, coupled to the drive shaft, he can make some practical inferences w.r.t performance. Yes, even without calculating turbulent flow in the fuel (feed?) injectors, or factoring in positive feedback from a dangling carrot, or whatever. One wrong constant in a simulation might show that as a zippy, efficient car with a 200 h.p. hamster. Global Climate Models fail simple tests like that. They don't know from ocean currents. They don't accurately model clouds. Without those things you can't model heat flow from the equator to the poles, which is what drives our entire climate. That *is* our climate. They assume static ice sheets and static vegetation, i.e., semi-static albedo. IOW, they run on hamsters. And they're missing some wheels. They're getting better, but they still aren't predictive 100 years or even 20 years--or even 10 years, as we've just seen--into the future. So, pointing to GCMs as proof of apocalyptic prognostications of doom is, well, bogus. They just aren't nearly that good yet--they don't handle all the many factors well enough--and even if they did we have no way to prove they're right, to know they haven't omitted something important, or just plain made a mistake. -- Cheers, James Arthur |