What REALLY gets me is that while 1934 was clearly a peak in U.S. temps, it was a little bit of a valley in the global temps!
Posted on 08/10/2007 8:24:21 AM PDT by cogitator
Still curious about your answer to the question at the end of post #58.
Lambert's article was the easiest one to find that described the error McKitrick and Michaels made in detail. I try to find sources that are explanatory -- their politics are irrelevant. If I could find good right-wing sources that have accurate information on climate science (Roger Pielke's blog comes close), I'd utilize them too. But I never evaluate whether they are right-wing or left-wing, I try to determine if their science is respectable.
“their politics are irrelevant” - His *first sentence* was garbage about a ‘right wing attack on science’. Utter slanderous garbage to feed BS to leftie minions and keep them on the ‘reservation’ about hyped-up AGW fears. If his own politics is front and center, then its quite relevent, and his brand of politicized pseudo-science is everything *WRONG* about how the liberals/left approaches the issue. They dont just dispute the skeptics but slander and demonize them.
I am not asking for a ‘right wing source’, I am only asking that you not consider a biased leftwing source such as Tim Lambert as authoritative. This is not the first time you ref’d to him. You are giving away where you are really coming from with this BS, especially when you call non-partisan Pielke a “right-wing source” (WTF?!?!)
I answered in #60.
“The output from models IS data. If it wasn’t, you couldn’t check the validity of models against observations.”
And when observations don’t match the models, what are you to do with the models?
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/articles/V10/N33/EDIT.jsp
I consider him authoritative when he provides an explanation of a scientific subject that is comprehensibly explanatory.
You are giving away where you are really coming from with this BS, especially when you call non-partisan Pielke a “right-wing source”
If you don't discern Pielke Sr.'s slant, then your bias is compensating, too. I cite sources where I find the information required to support a point I make.
Wikipedia on Pielke Sr.:
Finally, he's a very accomplished scientist and I fully respect his views, though I don't completely agree with him.
OK. Since my original question wasn't about McKitrick, I didn't discern an answer there. In another posting (all I can do today), I previewed what I'd like to write. I probably won't get this done until Saturday or Sunday, but I may work on it a little the next few days.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1881044/posts?page=77#77
Make better models! (FReeper palmer should eat this up.)
Excerpt: "While models generally predict trends in temperatures and the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere fairly well, precipitation is much harder to predict because it varies so much in short periods of time and over short distances—afternoon rain showers have a way of disappearing just a quickly as they pop up. ... “I just think it’s a much harder process for the models to represent,” Wentz said."
I always find that when trying to get more perspective on a paper, it's good to find quotes from the authors about it, like the one above. The article below is another.
Warmer Earth might be wetter, scientists find
Oooh, oooh, oooh: I found a free online link to the actual paper!
How much more rain will global warming bring?
Conclusion excerpt: "The reason for the discrepancy between the observational data and the GCMs is not clear. One possible explanation is that two decades is too short of a time period, and thus we see internal climate variability that masks the limiting effects of radiative forcing. However, we would argue that although two decades may be too short for extrapolating trends, it may indeed be long enough to indicate that the observed scaling relations will continue on a longer time scale. Another possible explanation is that there are errors in the satellite retrievals, but the consistency among the independent retrievals and validation of the winds with other data sets suggests otherwise. Lastly, there is the possibility that the climate models have in common a compensating error in characterizing the radiative balance for the troposphere and Earth's surface. For example, variations in modeling cloud radiative forcing at the surface can have a relatively large effect on the precipitation response (4), whereas the temperature response is more driven by how clouds affect the radiation at the top of the troposphere." (palmer should like this, too)
I kinda wish a site like CO2Science, whose politics are VERY clear, would indicate that the authors of the paper propose explanations, and they don't consider the results "embarassing" for anybody.
What REALLY gets me is that while 1934 was clearly a peak in U.S. temps, it was a little bit of a valley in the global temps!
In the 6 easy steps you tout above, the sensitivity (step 5) may be valid over centuries but can easily be modified by shorter term forcings. For example, if the temperature went up 5 degrees with a doubling of CO2 in the past, but part of the temperature increase was due to solar forcing causing CO2 increases over a few centuries, then a doubling of CO2 now will not cause an immediate 5 degree warmup even if it does in the long run.
The real reason for them to use sensitivity is the models have poor fidelity which is compensated with empirical imput. They will take an area in the tropics (especially hard to model), measure weather parameter relationships and put them in the model. There's nothing wrong with that and it greatly improves accuracy. The problem is that once their hypothetical world changes due to global warming, the measurements are no longer valid. It takes water vapor increases to produce temperature increases from CO2 increases (otherwise known as "sensitivity"). But the water vapor increases change the weather and weather is poorly modeled, so the temperature predictions are inaccurate.
Finally, here's some unbiased data to dispel any myths about ground station accuracy. In this sample (first one I picked randomly that had full recent data), you can see no particular trend: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/dv?cb_00010=on&format=gif_default&begin_date=1978-03-01&end_date=2007-08-14&site_no=02011400&referred_module=sw even though data from the station nearby http://data.giss.nasa.gov/work/gistemp/STATIONS//tmp.425724110020.1.1/station.txt shows swings with an upward bias over the same period (1978-present)
And by the same token, we can always increase particle emissions if it's getting too warm.
“I consider him [Lambert] authoritative when he provides an explanation” ... “If you don’t discern Pielke Sr.’s slant,”
So Lambert’s unscientific blatant leftwing political slant is irrelevent but Pielke’s scientifically sound mild skepticism of the ‘consensus’ damns him as ‘slanted’?!?!? Your hypocrisy is showing.
No, I cannot tell whether Pielke is a Democrat or a Republican, while Lambert is a blatant move-on type partisan leftist. Pielke talks solely the science of climate reconstruction, modeling and estimation. Your helpful wiki link shows zero evidence of political leanings and has this summary of his views:
“Pielke has a somewhat nuanced position on climate change, which is sometimes taken for skepticism, a label that he explicitly renounces. ... Pielke has reached the following conclusions with respect to climate science on his weblog:
* The needed focus for the study of climate change and variability is on the regional and local scales. Global and zonally-averaged climate metrics would only be important to the extent that they provide useful information on these space scales.
* Global and zonally-averaged surface temperature trend assessments, besides having major difficulties in terms of how this metric is diagnosed and analyzed, do not provide significant information on climate change and variability on the regional and local scales.
* Global warming is not equivalent to climate change. Significant, societally important climate change, due to both natural- and human- climate forcings, can occur without any global warming or cooling.
* The spatial pattern of ocean heat content change is the appropriate metric to assess climate system heat changes including global warming.
* In terms of climate change and variability on the regional and local scale, the IPCC Reports, the CCSP Report on surface and tropospheric temperature trends, and the U.S. National Assessment have overstated the role of the radiative effect of the anthropogenic increase of CO2 relative to the role of the diversity of other human climate climate forcing on global warming, and more generally, on climate variability and change.
* Global and regional climate models have not demonstrated skill at predicting climate change and variability on multi-decadal time scales.
* Attempts to significantly influence regional and local-scale climate based on controlling CO2 emissions alone is an inadequate policy for this purpose.
* A vulnerability paradigm, focused on regional and local societal and environmental resources of importance, is a more inclusive, useful, and scientifically robust framework to interact with policymakers, than is the focus on global multi-decadal climate predictions which are downscaled to the regional and local scales. The vulnerability paradigm permits the evaluation of the entire spectrum of risks associated with different social and environmental threats, including climate variability and change.
* Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of carbon dioxide. The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate. These assessments have also not communicated the inability of the models to accurately forecast the spread of possibilities of future climate. The forecasts, therefore, do not provide any skill in quantifying the impact of different mitigation strategies on the actual climate response that would occur. [2]”
I don’t know which of the above statements are R or D type statements. I’d say none of them.
“Finally, he’s a very accomplished scientist and I fully respect his views, though I don’t completely agree with him.”
His accomplishments and experience speak for themselves. See below via your wiki link (”Professor Pielke has published more than 300 scientific papers, 50 chapters in books, and co-edited 9 books.”) your comment is phrased more like tenure-tack colleague than an outsider; are you a PhD-level climatologist? I’d also wonder which of his positions listed above you find objectionable. They all seem reasonable to me.
From 1971-1974 he worked as a research scientist at the NOAA Experimental Meteorology Lab, from 1974-1981 he was an associate professor at the University of Virginia, served the primary academic position of his career as a professor at Colorado State University from 1981-2006, was deputy of CIRA at Colorado State University from 1985-1988, from 1999-2006 was Colorado State Climatologist, at Duke University was a research professor from 2003-2006, and was a visiting professor at the University of Arizona from October-December 2004. Since 2005, Piekle has served as Senior Research Scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) at UC-Boulder and an emeritus professor of the Department of Atmospheric Science at Colorado State University. He retired from CSU and in post-retirement is a CIRES researcher.
Pielke has served as Chairman and Member of the American Meteorological Society Committee on Weather Forecasting and Analysis, as Chief Editor of Monthly Weather Review, was elected a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society in 1982 and a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 2004, has served as Editor-in-Chief of the US National Science Report to the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, as Co-Chief Editor of the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, and since 2006 as Editor of Scientific Online Letters on the Atmosphere.
The question was whether I agree with the specific global temperature trend of 0.6C, and my answer was/is - not until reviewed for accuracy issues: “ The numbers that fall out await such a review and scrubbing of data and adjustments for accuracy. We shouldn’t trust statements about international numbers/trends with high precision until that has been really done.”
“And when observations don’t match the models, what are you to do with the models?”
“Make better models! (FReeper palmer should eat this up.)”
This is how far off the GCMs apparently are on precipitation:
“Older computer models projected this would mean a 6 percent increase in rainfall over the next century, but the Santa Rosa team thinks 20 percent is closer to the mark, she said.”
Estimates were off by a factor of 3!
Even your quote says that the answer has to be ‘fix the model’.
Wentz asks rhetorically: “Can total water in the atmosphere increase by 15% but preciptiation only increase by 4%?”
The answer apparently is ‘NO’.
The very area that ‘skeptics’ (aka non-alarmists) have been pointing out all along were suspect:
- water vapor feedback
- cloud cover response
- precipitation response
... do in fact need correction.
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