Realprimate

quote:

And no I never claimed to be a scientist

But the key scientific work that Jennifer Marohasy was referencing concerns the following content
Spencer

Which is saying that the models misrepresent cloud and watervapour as negative forcings and that anthropic CO2's effective forcing is much smaller than currently included in the models, based on recent satellite observations.

So that's what needs answering, not an ad hominem attack on her.

Nothing in your list touches this.

quote:

Originally posted by M Batchelor:
Realprimate wrote,

[QUOTE]Jennifer Marohasy’s a shill for the Institute of Public Affairs.

What does that mean? The claims she made about the head of the IPCC, NASA probe and Roy Spencer are either correct or incorrect. Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

QUOTE]

Just Spencer's own words...

Permit me one last ad hom.

I think Roy Spencer is very very wrong. Off his rocker as he himself puts it?

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/01/25/double-...ans-are-driving-co2/

QUOTE
Atmospheric CO2 Increases:

Could the Ocean, Rather Than Mankind, Be the Reason?

by

Roy W. Spencer

1/25/2008



This is probably the most provocative hypothesis I have ever (and will ever) advance: The long-term increases in carbon dioxide concentration that have been observed at Mauna Loa since 1958 could be driven more than by the ocean than by mankind’s burning of fossil fuels.

Most, if not all, experts in the global carbon cycle will at this point think I am totally off my rocker.

UNQUOTE

Realprimate

quote:

I think Roy Spencer is very very wrong. Off his rocker as he himself puts it?

In your quote he is talking about a hypothesis, which by definition is there to be supported or refuted through scientific investigation. So what's your point with this.

It's wholly different to the subject of his current work where he's taken measurements from recent satellite observations, had them peer reviewed that they don't agree with what is in the models.

quote:

Originally posted by Son of Mulder:
Realprimate

quote:

I think Roy Spencer is very very wrong. Off his rocker as he himself puts it?

In your quote he is talking about a hypothesis, which by definition is there to be supported or refuted through scientific investigation. So what's your point with this.

It's wholly different to the subject of his current work where he's taken measurements from recent satellite observations, had them peer reviewed that they don't agree with what is in the models.

Yes point taken (hence my question mark at the end of my sentence) but I've found the one I've been looking for. Spencer's cock up in his calcs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/science/earth/12clima...=rssuserland&emc=rss

"The scientists who developed the original troposphere temperature records from satellite data, John R. Christy and Roy W. Spencer of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, conceded yesterday that they had made a mistake but said that their revised calculations still produced a warming rate too small to be a concern."

realprimate.

If my link to the paper by Roy W. Spencer, William D. Braswell, John R. Christy, and Justin Hnilo is the paper that M Batchelor was waiting for there should be no need to discuss reporters. Should there?


I can only find brief explanations on Pacala-Socolow's 'wedges', but from the suggested actions that you disclose here I only disagree with two actions. Carbon sequestration would literally remove free oxygen from the atmosphere never to be recycled and biofuels don't make any true CO₂ reductions while they do tie up a lot of crop production land. I also think the use of hydrogen technologies is a 'must', but you didn't mention this in their list.

Best regards, suricat.

RP. SoM.

For ages, nothing happens! Then, WHAM! The posts move too fast for me to keep up.

I need a rest! Carry on guys.

Best regards, suricat.

Realprimate

quote:

Spencer's cock up in his calcs.

Yes I'd seen that before as well but that was then this is now - however they did point out that despite the error it didn't change the conclusions drawn.

The new stuff has been peer reviewed by modelling experts - I'm sure if it does contain errors, they will be pounced on.

Suricat

quote:

I can only find brief explanations on Pacala-Socolow's 'wedges',

These are usually called stabilization wedges try google "stabilization wedges" powerpoint for a good presentation.

Hello, I'm back from a hard weekend of DIYing.

Roy Spencer's paper describes a weather phenomenon that is "nominally supportive" of the Lindzen Iris hypothesis. Interesting no doubt, but not a nail in the coffin of anything. Marohasy's hyperbole is a bit much to take frankly.

Marohasy says "the head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels". Without tracking down what this is based on I would bet that he actually said that natural variability is currently overriding the warming trend, not compensating for it. A very different thing.

Found this and it makes fun reading an online Canadian article, thought SOM may afford it a rye smile half way through(I think it was SOM who mentioned winds pushing warm air from the tropics to the Arctic all them months ago)

Enjoy anyway

Steve_M.

It's a pity you are not an engineer Steve. Your terms could be confusing because a 'compensator' usually is employed to 'override' an external 'unbalancing' action! In engineering terminology 'this is a damping action'. Though for climatologists this probably means a 'negative forcing'.

It all depends on the 'reflex' that calls the forcing into play!

Best regards, suricat.

PS
got the link for the Canadian article off Jennifer Marohasy's homepage where you will also find a darling Norwegian anecdote about an Australian farmers conversation with a sheep about the ethics of Whaling(she's a funny Gal alright )

National Post the online paper that just keeps giving(Oh dear!)

just a thought, does the exclamation mark go inside or outside the closing bracket?

Son of Mulder.

quote:

These are usually called stabilization wedges try google "stabilization wedges" powerpoint for a good presentation.

Did it, seen it, don't want to do it again.

I don't want to seem derogatory on that subject, but what I 'turned up' looked like a reference for a 'presentation meeting' on 'how to spin CO₂ as a fossil fuel regulator'. I don't want to, and haven't, taken this 'on board' with my current understandings of climate. It just looks sooo political (though this may only be the presentation 'method').

Best regards, suricat.

Steve_M

quote:

Marohasy says "the head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels".

Whether he did or didn't it's certainly sounds like what Roy Spencer is saying ie that an unexplained process is compensating for some of the increasing CO2, and as I understand it results from changes in precipitation cycles that effects a reduction in high cloud.

What I see Spencer is saying is essentially that climate is changing because of CO2, it won't have much effect on global average temperature but it is affecting precipitation cycles... this in my view will either be good, bad or indifferent dependent on what the bottom line climate effects are.

Maybe he's providing the justification to move from the phrase "global warming" to "climate change".

But without putting this validated new evidence in the models we won't start to get a handle on it.

quote:

What I see Spencer is saying is essentially that climate is changing because of CO2, it won't have much effect on global average temperature but it is affecting precipitation cycles... this in my view will either be good, bad or indifferent dependent on what the bottom line climate effects are.

The Lindzen Infrared Iris hypothesis that Spencer refers to is a purported effect whereby warming induces a change in local climate that allows more infrared to escape, thereby causing a balancing cooling. As always, one has to ask why this didn't happen to prevent all the ice age cycles from happening.

But without putting this validated new evidence in the models we won't start to get a handle on it.[/quote]

It's not validated yet. For the last 20 years Spencer and Christy have been using satellite evidence to "disprove" climate models. And for the last 20 years the satellite data has turned out to be wrong and the models have turned out to be right. Many corrections to the satellite data (including many by Spencer and Christy) have resulted in it moving closer and closer to the models and now they're pretty much in agreement.

20 years ago the models were saying relative humidity would remain constant with warming. Now satellite data is showing this to be the case also.

suricat

quote:

It's a pity you are not an engineer Steve. Your terms could be confusing because a 'compensator' usually is employed to 'override' an external 'unbalancing' action!

That's exactly my point! Marohasy is saying the climate is "compensating" for the warming - implying that it has an inbuilt method of balancing the warming. I'm saying that the variability is part of a cycle and currently we're on a downward part of the variability which is partially overriding the trend. Later we'll be an upward part of the variability which will again override the trend but make it warmer (eg. like what happened in 1998). When that happens, sceptics will adopt it as the new point when global warming stopped.

Maybe "override" isn't a good choice of word - but it was late and I was tired

Steve_M.

No worries Steve, I'm sure I've made many posts that include odd wording.

Anyway, it's the science in this that interests me, not the 'tittle tattle'.

quote:

I'm saying that the variability is part of a cycle and currently we're on a downward part of the variability which is partially overriding the trend.

I agree, ocean cooling followed by very low UV (to say the least). Though these 'global' events are not caused by the hydrosphere, yet the 'natural reflex' of the hydrosphere is to 'dump' the heat that it's received back into space. Even after the 'heating' influence has stopped.

For a 'bounded chaotic oscillator' with little memory this 'cooling' phase has continued for rather a long time (unless UV wields greater influence than it is credited with). What about the more global aspects of tropopause altitude and cloud condensate mass, could these not leave a 'memory' for the hydrosphere to act upon? Could this cause the hydrosphere to 'overrun' and continue cooling 'after the event'?

Best regards, suricat.

Steve_M

quote:

The Lindzen Infrared Iris hypothesis that Spencer refers to is a purported effect whereby warming induces a change in local climate that allows more infrared to escape, thereby causing a balancing cooling. As always, one has to ask why this didn't happen to prevent all the ice age cycles from happening.

One answer could be the relative size of any perturbation vs the tolerance of the window of stability.

quote:

One answer could be the relative size of any perturbation vs the tolerance of the window of stability.

True, but the Milankovitch cycles which are the accepted cause of the cycling of the ice ages, make only subtle changes to the distribution of solar energy, not its total amount.

One could argue that being at a glacial minimum the climate might be more tolerant to further warming, but since sea-levels were 6 metres higher at the last glacial minimum I wouldn't be so sure.

Steve_M

quote:

One could argue that being at a glacial minimum the climate might be more tolerant to further warming, but since sea-levels were 6 metres higher at the last glacial minimum I wouldn't be so sure.

So why aren't sea level so high at this glacial minimum given we have anthropic CO2 as well this time?

quote:

True, but the Milankovitch cycles which are the accepted cause of the cycling of the ice ages, make only subtle changes to the distribution of solar energy, not its total amount.

So how does that differ from effects that may be caused by continental drift, changes in aerosol ditribution etc?

quote:

So why aren't sea level so high at this glacial minimum given we have anthropic CO2 as well this time?

Evidence is that the last glacial minimum was slightly warmer than 20th Century - not all Milankovitch cycles are the same.

quote:

So how does that differ from effects that may be caused by continental drift, changes in aerosol ditribution etc?

The point I'm making is that it is harder to imagine a world that is unstable to Milankovitch cycles while being stable to an apparently larger kick from doubling CO2. I'm not sure that continental drift and aerosols are relevant. Yes, they both can have a big effect too.

quote:

Originally posted by Son of Mulder:
Realprimate

quote:

And no I never claimed to be a scientist

But the key scientific work that Jennifer Marohasy was referencing concerns the following content
Spencer

Which is saying that the models misrepresent cloud and watervapour as negative forcings and that anthropic CO2's effective forcing is much smaller than currently included in the models, based on recent satellite observations.

So that's what needs answering, not an ad hominem attack on her.

Nothing in your list touches this.

I’ve just had a look at the Spencer reference you’ve supplied i.e. weatherquestions.com. He states the “cooling” from the 1940’s to the 1970’s which I have previously addressed with four references which show there was cooling for approximately seven years in that period. That’s all.

Another assertion in his blog is his graph for the Medieval Warming Period based on “a more recent study” than the Mann hockey stick . Namely Loehle & McCulloch.

Loehle, C. 2007. A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 18(7-8): 1049-1058.

Loehle, C., and J.H. McCulloch. 2008. Correction to: A 2000-year global temperature reconstruction based on non-treering proxies. Energy & Environment 19(1): 93-100.

Call me ad-hom biased but Energy & Environment has form.

Realclimate deals with the issues in Loehle’s paper.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/p...structions/#more-506


As for your question which is saying

“that the models misrepresent cloud and watervapour as negative forcings and that anthropic CO2's effective forcing is much smaller than currently included in the models, based on recent satellite observations.

So that's what needs answering,

Nothing in your list touches this.”

Spencer ends his blog with :-

“we can imagine that globally-averaged temperatures were flat from 1990 until 2000, then there was a brief