Bishop Hill Speccy on AR5
Sep 20, 2013 Climate: Surface Energy: other The Spectator has a leader article on the Fifth Assessment Report today, and pretty much nails it:
Next week, those who made dire predictions of ruinous climate change face their own inconvenient truth. The summary of the fifth assessment report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will be published, showing that global temperatures are refusing to follow the path which was predicted for them by almost all climatic models. Since its first report in 1990, the IPCC has been predicting that global temperatures would be rising at an average of 0.2° Celsius per decade. Now, the IPCC acknowledges that there has been no statistically significant rise at all over the past 16 years.
And the outlook seems to be upbeat too:
As things have worked out, carbon emissions in the rich world have been falling anyway — not due to green taxes but to better technology, like fracking. Global warming is still a monumental challenge, but one that does not necessarily have to be met by taxing the poor off the roads and out of the sky. Sanity is returning to the environmental debate. Let us hope that, before too long, it also returns to British energy policy.
Reader Comments (138)
Don't blame the modellers who are nothing but fellow travellers riding on the incorrect assumption that back radiation can do significant work against a small negative temperature gradient.
It is not the models that are wrong - they have in fact performed a worthwhile job by proving that the theory is bust.
Why are all the reasons (excuses?) ex post facto?
Nothing in their scenarios/projections/predictions has stood the test of time.
Predict something. Stand or fall on it. That's the way science (not alarmism) works.
That means you, EM.
Thank you, EM (Sep 20, 2013 at 8:05 PM):
So, the 30 year fall from 1945 – 75 can be ignored, as it has risen the 30 years since. But, what about the 30 year rise 1910 – 40? Wasn’t that before the despicable increase of evil CO2? What could have caused that? As CO2 has long been hyped as THE driver of global warming, how can you explain its absence? Perhaps that which is presently “forcing” the lack of global warming over the rising CO2 was working in reverse?
What will be the dire consequences of global warming? From when is the dreaded 2°C measured? Are we approaching its realisation, or witnessing its start? What doom will befall us when that target is reached? What is the optimum temperature that we should be aiming for in our vain search for climate control? How much will it cost, in monetary as well as social and environmental terms?
Finally, let’s put that scary-looking graph in perspective – on a full scale graph, it would just be a slightly wiggly line. Not so scary that way, is it?
To the wider world, Climategate had nothing to do with numbers.
The curtain went back and there was a cabal of grown men lying, cheating and colluding to play dirty tricks Game over
The reason they lie is that they identify themselves with an anti capitalist stance that has no more culture substance or depth than an Apple advertising campaign. It boils down to the snobbery of those who don't have to get their hands dirty in the marketplace.
I commented on the Speccy site and I would like to know what is WRONG with anecdotal evidence. Surely that's where science starts - observed real-life phenomena.
If the Met people predict a calm day (using venerable scientific methods) and I instead experience a very windy day, am I wrong or are they?
It hasn't warmed here for years. Oh, and sea-level isn't going up so as you'd notice. Perhaps we may be able to grow grapes here in 50 years. I'll be dead by then. Don't give a **** either way.
Entropic:
If someone of the calibre of Pielke or Curry could produce a good physical model which projected a flat 21st century under current emission scenarios I would take the sceptics a lot more seriously.
Sorry, EM, but given absence of modelled cloud effects in all the GCMs, I don't think we can say that anyone has produced "a good physical model" yet. In any event, you continually put the shoe on the wrong foot - Pielke, Curry, et al don't have to provide a model - the null hypothesis is NOT that CO2 (or in fact, any identifiable cause) is changing the climate; the null hypothesis is that climate continues to flucturate randomly. Against that, Mann, Hansen, Jones, etc, have to produce "a good physical model" that hind-casts without particular tweeking and special pleading. So far, they have not been able to do so.
For future reference, EM, could you tell us which model you put your confidences in? They predict widely differing outcomes (despite all claiming to be based on the fundamentals), but a maximum of one can be correct, or closest.
I dislike Wiki , for many reasons , but in this instance , the detail is on the whole , correct. Also , why , as an aircraft engineer , I will not fly , through choice, on an aircraft that has been designed by MODELS. I will wait until the empirical evidence is in .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787#Operational_problems
So, why should I believe the many models which warn of my impending doom due to me driving a 4.2 litre V8 EM ?
waits for EM to revert to the "no one has ever refuted Mann or Trenberth or any other warmist etc in the peer-reviewed literature" defence.... 3...2...1...
Fixed it for ya. Take yer pick.
Entropic man wrote ...
Wait, what? You assured me that the divergence from projections is due to too many unpredictable volcanoes and sulphate arseholes, and now you're not sure?
I don't recall reading an explanation of the GHE that included how it could be conveniently masked for long periods of time by internal heat flows, or how heat in the atmosphere is somehow independent of heat in the oceans.
And you seem to have missed the possible explanation that ECS is much lower than climopractors want it to be, and that all those fanciful feedback mechanisms they spent their well-paid careers pontificating about do not, in fact, exist.
Perhaps you could check SkS for a comeback, as that's where you seem to get most of your info, for some reason ;)
Sep 20, 2013 at 3:40 PM | Roger Longstaff
Yes, but the selling of human-generated CO2 as the primary cause of global warming, might well be described as a "monumental challenge" which - despite the very best efforts of a virtual army of activists and advocates - they have failed to meet.
For more than twenty years, they've put their unquestioning faith in the output of their precious models when they should have been recognizing and respecting the simple fact that mother nature rules!
entropic man 20 years to disprove until you get 20 years then it will be longer , but one event is 'proof ' of climate doom.
Funny how that works is' it ?
Hi. Judith Curry has an excellent article on the IPCC in The Weekend Australian today. It's accompanied by an article by the infamous John Cook. Hard to get to online, so I'm reproducing it here in the hope that someone better-qualified will email a letter to The Australian. letters@theaustralian.com.au
Hardly any experts doubt human-caused climate change
John Cook, UQ, Weekend Australian Inquirer, 21/9/13
Efforts to suggest otherwise through cherry-picked quotes serve only to feed a public misperception
IN 2009, University of East Anglia servers were hacked, with years of private correspondence between climate scientists stolen. The hacker uploaded the emails to the internet, allowing bloggers to republ i sh carefully selected quotes. During the next two years, nine investigations from university and government bodies on both sides of the Atlantic investigated the stolen emails. All unanimously found no evidence of data falsification. The sinister conspiracies conjured by the fevered imagination of the blogosphere failed to materialise.
The theft of the private emails, dubbed Climategate, demonstrates the fallacy of over-interpreting cherry-picked quotes from private conversations. A single quote cannot capture the full context of a conversation, let alone explain the nuances of the science. Climategate lends credence to the infamous saying by Cardinal Richelieu: ‘‘Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough in them to hang him.’’
In an article in Inquirer last week, Andrew Montford republished illegally obtained private correspondence, falling into the same fallacy of portraying an incomplete, misleading picture. Last year, my server was hacked and years of private conversations were stolen. Montford republished a quote in which I discussed reducing the public misperception about the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming. Montford argued from this quote that our research was a public relations exercise rather than a scientific investigation.
What is the bigger picture that Montford overlooks? To begin with, he fails to consider that we had already performed a great deal of scientific investigation, scanning more than 12,000 abstracts and determining that papers rejecting human-caused global warming had a vanishingly small presence in the peer-reviewed literature.
Preliminary analysis had already observed that the amount of research endorsing human caused global warming was increasing at an accelerating rate.
Montford also fails to realise that a high-impact, peer-reviewed journal such as Environmental Research Letters publishes only research that makes a significant scholarly contribution. Our research analysed for the first time the evolution of scientific consensus across the past two decades. We found that scientific agreement strengthened as more evidence for human-caused global warming accumulated.
Another novel contribution of our research was inviting the authors of the papers to rate their own research. After all, who is more of an expert on a paper than its author? This independent approach produced a 97.2 per cent consensus on human-caused global warming, confirming the 97.1 per cent consensus we observed from the abstract text.
That 1200 scientists from across the world confirmed the overwhelming consensus is a fact studiously ignored by critics of our paper. The independent ratings by the paper’s authors also expose the fallacy that we used an asymmetrical definition for consensus. We adopted several different definitions of consensus because scientists endorse human-caused global warming in different ways.
Some are explicit about how much humans have contributed. Others endorse the consensus without quantifying the human contribution. Others imply rather than explicitly endorse the consensus. The bottom line is no matter which definition you adopt, you always find an overwhelming consensus.
What if we only use symmetrical definitions of consensus; for example, humans are causing more than half of global warming versus less than half? Scientists who rated their own papers by these definitions show a consensus of 96.2 per cent.
Scientific agreement is so robust, you can look at it front-on, sideways or upside down and still find a consensus.
In fact, our research is not the only evidence for scientific consensus. A survey of earth scientists found 97 per cent consensus among actively publishing climate scientists. A compilation of public statements on climate change found 97 per cent consensus among published climate scientists. National academies of science from 80 countries endorse the consensus. Not a single academy of science disputes humancaused global warming.
Our research is the latest in a long line of statements and studies affirming that among the world’s experts on climate change, it’s considered a fundamental fact humans are causing global warming.
Despite this robust agreement, a ‘‘consensus gap’’ exists, with the public perceiving a 50:50 scientific debate. As well as provide scholarly contributions with our research, we set out to reduce this persistent public misperception. It is possible to do both at the same time.
Trying to reframe peer-reviewed research based on an out-of-context quote as a ‘‘PR exercise’’ is simply an attempt to avoid facing the facts.
HaroldW
"While all GCMs include some sort of model of atmospheric and oceanic circulation, not all include e.g. biological effects."
A pity, because some biological effects like melting and decaying permafrost or plankton growth can significantly affect CO2 quantities. On the other hand, some factors can be demonstrated to have no effect and can be left out.
"Some models produce a significantly lower sensitivity than the mean."
If the variation is symmetrical half the models should show lower sensitivity than the mean. :-). In practice the variation is asymmetric , with a short left tail and a long right tail, so the mode is lower than the mean.
I suspect that the left tail is short because CO2 alone produces a sensitivity about 1.1C/doubling and most of the secondary forcings are positive. There is also the problem that fast forcings are easy to spot even in a short run, while slow forcings only show if longer time periods are used; TCR versus ECS. This means that, all else being equal,a longer run will tend to show a higher sensitivity.
"nobody should be trying to force a flat long term trend. That does not appear to be an accurate summary of the observations."
Agreed, though I've encountered a number of sceptics for whom a flat trend is an article of faith.
Your point about cycles explains a lot of the observed pattern. My own inspection of the temperature record suggests four components.(I'd love to see a proper analysis).
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
1) Stochastic year-on year variation within a +/- 0.1C band.
2) Your +/- 0.1C short term oscillation, which matches the period and intensiy of the solar cycle quite well.
3) Your longer term +/-0.1C cycle might be conservative. If you tale 1880, 1940 and 2000 as peaks you can get a 60 year cycle with +/- 0.15C. This is quite a good match to the AMO. I once did a basic energy calculation for the AMO and it would store enough energy to drive a cycle that size.If this cycle peaked in 2000, it would, as you suggest, help explain the current pause, along with the post 188- and post 1940 pauses.
4) Follow the AMO peaks and you get a longer trend of about 0.6C/century, with a possible acceleration. From 1880 to 1940 the rise is 0.3C. From 1940 to 2000 the rise is 0.5C. This might be AGW, or it might be the rising curve of a longer cycle, though I've seen no sign of such a cycle in pre-1880 estimates.
The rate of temperature change is difficult to pin down because you can cherrypick.
The 1880 to present rate is 0.8C in 130 years, 0.06C/decade.
1910 to present is 1.05C in 100 years, 0.105C/decade.
1950 to present is 0.7C in 60 years is 0.17C/decade
1970 to 2000 is 0.55C in 30 years, 0.18C/decade.
I note that the longer the time period, the slower the rate. This shows acceleration, at least in the 20th century figures.
All this over 0.8K in c.150 years...
Too many people to answer!
Better uncertain models than no analysis at all. Read AR4 and you do not get certainties, you get possibilities, with the uncertainties defined. AR5 will have a somewhat different format, but will present a similar message.
The only certainties I see in climate change are from people convinced that nothing is happening. I do not have certainty. For that you should go to a priest (Bishop Hill? ) or a politician. A scientist's stock in trade is uncertainty. That's part of how it works. If you want science to give you perfect understanding now, you have come to the wrong window.
I've brainstormed a number of possible mechanisms contributing to the pause, some more likely than others. Personally I suspect a ropadope, a number of interacting factors. Like many things, we will probably understand the early 21st century climate only in retrospect.
As for doing nothing, the proper response to "Look out for that falling piano" is not to stand there saying "What piano?". :-)
And so to bed. One final dataset for you to contemplate.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
This is starting to look like Judy Curry's threads, where the usual suspects have the same arguments over and over again with no resolution. It is like a bad marriage writ on the blogosphere. As at Judy's, it has little or no relevance to the topic under discussion.
My take from the head post is that they are still lamely holding up the notion that CO2 is a pollutant and a serious problem, which has unfortunately been pushed down the agenda. They can't deny that it has been pushed down the agenda; it has. What they are saying is that it is still all true, "monumental" indeed. It is a tiny victory.
Electoral victory is what matters.
The leading edge of the herd
Went over the cliff
Before the remaining cattle
Came to their senses,
One bull-headed critter after another.
==================
"Electoral victory is what matters."
True enough, when there is an alternative - like in Australia Jo. But us poor sods livin' in the UK have no choice, it is always the same choice.
LiblabCon - all of our main political parties: obey the EU unquestioningly and therefore - worship at the green CAGW altar.
EM - Please give it a rest. You're not going to convince anyone here.
Your simplified and idealised view of models, climate and so on is complemented by your tendency to address BH commenters as if you were addressing a class of thirteen year-olds.
What will happen is this. It will fail to warm. However, this will not lead to any lessening of belief on the part of the warmists. Some explanation will be found which maintains the belief that the planet is getting dangerously warm because of CO2 emissions. In fact, belief will strengthen.
It may be that the prophesies were different from what is being represented. This does often happen.
It may be that it is 'really' warming in a variety of ways which do not lead to the atmosphere actually warming.
It may be that they have got the real indicator wrong, it could be that the real measure we should be using is Arctic Ice. Or maybe it will be, in a very bad hurricane season, storms.
The thing we can be sure of is that no observations will falsify the theory in the minds of the faithful. And this is because we are dealing with something much more interesting, dangerous and complicated than a scientific theory about climate.
We are dealing with an essentially religious approach to belief and to society couched in scientific terms. The language and rituals of religion have been appropriated and religious feelings have been attached to various public policy prescriptions, for which scientific justification has been produced. This is not the first time that this has happened. Several 19 and 20C politico-religious cults did the same thing. The key marker of this is the widespread view that no informed good faith scepticism about the tenets of the movement is possible. It is either wickedness or feeble mindedness. The use of the vocabulary of 'deniers' and so on is the key sign.
What you have to be prepared for is that scientific refutation will strengthen belief and activism not weaken it. Deniers will be hated even more. They are after all evil. You can see this in the Guardian comments all the time. The problem will be transferred to them. Belief has to account for the fact that there is so much scepticism. It is because the wicked are perverting the minds of the faithful. Pretty soon disbelief will be seen as the problem rather than the observations. The observations will vanish as a topic of dispute, but disbelief will loom much larger.
Direct action targeted at prominent unbelievers will seem not only justified but essential. We are moving towards animal rights type direct action.
Read Festinger's book 'When prophecy Fails'. Also read Michael Burleigh. This is what is coming towards us. The more disastrous the disconfirmations become, the more extreme will be the language, beliefs and attitudes of the believers. It is not going to be as simple as you all think.
I have set out to simplify my analysis of the IPCC junk science. It all comes down to a single sentence: ‘Houghton’s assumption that the atmosphere is a grey body is wrong’.
Here is the logic. Arrhenius’ claim of black body emission from the surface is wrong, easily shown by correct radiation physics. However, Houghton’s grey body idea, the norm in Physics, allowed Trenberth to think that half the extra energy of the perpetual motion machine could be be offset by applying Kirchhoff’s Law of Radiation at ToA.
This with the false assumption of 33 K ghe gives the artificial ‘positive feedback’ from overly warm sunlit oceans. The rise in temperature is then compensated by assuming double real low level cloud optical depth in hind casting.
Hence I set out to rebuild the theory around the reality of a semi-transparent (to IR) atmosphere and it all comes clear; there is virtually zero CO2-AGW, the real AGW having been from Asian aerosols reducing cloud albedo, now saturated.
The science went wrong with this simple misjudgement.
I suppose the IPCC scheduled their conference on the 27th September because they expected a new record minimum Arctic ice the week before, so they could trumpet this and then meet as the presumptive centre of the world’s attention. But instead the Gore effect has struck -- a cold arctic summer, and the ice has bounced back so nobody is paying attention to the IPCC, poor guys.
And now, <drum roll>, the Fat Lady sings the end of the melt season:
http://osisaf.met.no/p/ice_extent_graphs.php
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/old_icecover.uk.php
"You need around 20 years of data before you can significantly separate the warming signal from the noise.
Says who?"
Sep 20, 2013 at 4:24 PM | Justice4Rinka
Anyone who has even the faintest idea about climate science, so clearly not you. You might want to try reading AR5 when it comes out in a week. Y'know, actual science, instead of evidence-free crank blog rantings.
Although I disagree slightly with EM, in thinking that a 30 year period is what is actually required to separate trend from noise, as this is what most climate scientists use.
"EM - Please give it a rest. You're not going to convince anyone here."
Sep 21, 2013 at 8:12 AM | Martin A
Ah yes, why would evidence, data and published papers convince people, when they can just mindlessly repeat 'it's all a scam for the New World Order.....'
Why some people are prepared to put on a contortionist's act in defence of the climate science crooks baffles me. Misplaced loyalty if ever I saw it.
A little scientific rigour early on, as opposed to agenda driven alarmism, could have prevented all this nonsense.
"To the wider world, Climategate had nothing to do with numbers.
The curtain went back and there was a cabal of grown men lying, cheating and colluding to play dirty tricks Game over"
Sep 20, 2013 at 8:46 PM | eSmiff
Mmm, I mean, it's not like there have been any inquiries into Climategate or anything, is it? And it's not like 8 of them found no evidence of wrongdoing or deception, is it? After all, just think how paranoid and insane you'd have to be to deny the evidence of 8 different inquiries, and bleat about every single one of them being a big conspiracy...
AlecM
Whether or not this the real AGW having been from Asian aerosols reducing I wouldn't like to say, but there seems to be increasing evidence (not that there wasn't already a great deal) that this there is virtually zero CO2-AGW is true.
I guess that until your work is peer reviewed and approved by John Cook you may well be a lone voice crying in the wilderness of climate modelling,
Steve Jones: "Why some people are prepared to put on a contortionist's act in defence of the climate science crooks baffles me."
It's simple, these are paid trolls.
@SandyS: no-one has appreciated the significance of the grey body assumption before. This runs through this physics like the town name in rock. It's the crutch upon which the false physics is hung. Take it away and the edifice collapses.
As for publication, the World moves in mysterious ways.........
The Earth at some previous time can be seen as an almost identical full-scale model of the Earth at present. In the past the Earth's atmosphere has contained far more CO2 both by volume and by mass. The consequence for the Earth was not to flip over some thermal-runaway tipping-point.
Either the mighty molecule is not so dominant or natural processes and variation acts to counter it - thereby showing that they (including the sun) are themselves the dominant factors.
"Let us hope that sanity returns to British energy policy", indeed but I fear we will be in for a long wait. The troughers have their noses firmly in the trough, including the Camerloon. And there they will stay short of a massive electoral wipe out.
EM
Dodging the piano is fine until you realise you've just stepped head first into the juggernaut that came up behind you whilst everyone was watching the piano.
The reason for the slower rate over the longer time period is because that longer time period included at least two ~30-year periods when the temperature either remained static or declined. You cannot take one period during which temperatures rose, do a comparison with a longer period during which temperatures both rose and fell and which also includes your selected period and then try to draw conclusions from it. That shows either carelessness, ignorance or dishonesty!
In fact the linear trends for 1910-1940 and 1970-2000 are almost identical as you can see here. The data is from HADCRUT 3 unadjusted global mean and for the 30-year periods 1880-1910, 1910-1940, 1940-1970, and 1970-2000.
EM
I still reckon you're a bit blinkered on the subject of the likely movement of temperature. Nobody that I know is talking about long-term stasis unless you count less than 20-30 years as 'long-term'. My view is that we have been trying to apply science to something that it cannot handle simply because "the science" is not mature enough because as yet there is insufficient reliable data to work with.
So ... we know there was a Minoan Warm Period, ditto Roman, ditto Medieval, ditto 20th century and cold periods in between. Climatologists are using ice cores and tree rings to give some insight into these; the rest of us are relying on historical records and historical events.
Within the period of at least reasonably reliable temperature records we have evidence of roughly 60-year cycles within the longer ups and downs. We are at about 60 years since the last peak. Why would we now assume, on the basis solely of a newly-discovered obsession with CO2, and especially given the almighty row (albeit mostly a civilised one) between those that see CO2 as the main driver of warming, those who accept a certain but minor rôle for it, and those who deny that it has any part to play — and all of them claiming to have the science on their side, that the current stasis is either non-existent or temporary or that the next move is not going to be downwards?
As has been repeated on here, the null hypothesis must be that natural variation dominates until there is convincing evidence to the contrary.
Where is that evidence?
DNFTT - and i don't mean EM
Martin A
EM at least takes the argument out of the Conference South and into The Championship.
NZ Willy, without further evidence I am inclined to disagree. Arrogance like EM's is hard to buy, and nobody would pay for ZDB's insults.
For me Bob Layson's comment here is one of the most pertinent, geological studies show that during the Earth's history, levels of atmospheric CO2 have been massively higher than today. During the periods of high CO2 temperature has been both much higher than today and much lower (ice age). The scientists of today can not perform experiments showing the effect of CO2 but the Earth has already done those experiments and shown conclusively that CO2 is NOT the answer.
I said: "It's simple, these are paid trolls."
Michael Hart: "NZ Willy, without further evidence I am inclined to disagree. Arrogance like EM's is hard to buy, and nobody would pay for ZDB's insults."
It's a common disruptive tactic. The idea is to prevent synergy by sending in the dissemblers -- that way you expend your energy in countering the trolls, instead of possible constructive projects. If it quacks like a duck...
This is climate troll central where the trolls are sent out on spoiling missions
Monbiot's little Orcs
http://www.campaigncc.org/
Climate science little more than a giant trolling exercise. Mike Hulme is a relative sceptic. This is his advice on presenting the issues.
"The idea of climate change should be seen as an
intellectual resource around which our collective and personal
identities and projects can form and take shape. We need to ask
not what we can do for climate change, but to ask what climate
change can do for us."
Hulme then goes on to suggest that all climate change arguments
should include at least one of the following four
"myths" (being a motivational story).
1. Lamenting Eden - To give the idea that the world was stable
until man turned up. And we broke it.
2. Presaging apocalypses - Where you should use phrases like
"impending disaster" and "tipping point".
This is despite having the knowledge of such predictions (as
Hulme states) but should because it "capitalizes on the
human inbuilt fear of the future."
3. Reconstructing babel - Appealing to our fear of advancement
and technology. As though anything modern is inherently bad.
4. Celebrating Jubilee - Balancing the cosmic unfairness of the
world where well off inherently make this worse for the poor and
the balance should be readdressed every 25 years.
Mike Hulme should be locked up.
It is easy to discover that the psychiatric drugs industry is remarkably similar to climate science.
The Scandalous Off-Label use of Antipsychotics in Anxiety Disorders
A recent paper presents a chilling testimony to the spreading creep of antipsychotic misuse ( Comer JS, Mojtabai R, & Olfson M (2011). National Trends in the Antipsychotic Treatment of Psychiatric Outpatients With Anxiety Disorders. The American journal of psychiatry PMID: 21799067). In 1996, antipsychotics were prescribed for patients with an anxiety disorder in 10% of office visits. One decade later, this had more than doubled despite there being no evidence that antipsychotics work for anxiety disorders and clear evidence that they cause dangerous side effects. Because antipsychotics have no FDA indication for anxiety disorders, all this massive overprescription was done completely off-label.
This is truly alarming, but unfortunately it is not really surprising. Antipsychotics have managed to become the top class of drugs- generating þhe highest revenue with sales of $15 billion per year- despite the troubling facts that much of the prescribing is off label, unsupported by scientific evidence, and likely to cause the dreadful side effect of obesity with all its consequent risks. This is an astounding reflection on the lack of caution in everyday medical practice, Used appropriately, antipsychotics are extremely valuable and necessary tools- but what could possibly justify their becoming such promiscuous best sellers
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/dsm5-in-distress/201108/the-scandalous-label-use-antipsychotics-in-anxiety-disorders
There are others looking at AR5 with a jaundiced eye and asking when will the scam stop.
http://www.trendingcentral.com/whatever-happened-global-warming/
EM - Please give it a rest. You're not going to convince anyone here.
Your simplified and idealised view of models, climate and so on is complemented by your tendency to address BH commenters as if you were addressing a class of thirteen year-olds.
Sep 21, 2013 at 8:12 AM | Martin A
Would you prefer a sceptic ghetto full of sterile self congratulation?
I'm enjoying the debate, and I suspect some of the other commenters here are too. I find that debate can help sharpen one's own ideas. Some of the points raised redirect my own thinking in directions I would not have come up with alone. I no longer expect to convert or be converted, but I certainly gain from the discussion.
Simplified and idealised? The full complexity of the scientific arguments are way above the pay grades of almost all of us here. I tend to end up pitching at my own level. I'm a retired science teacher , widely read and operating outside my own speciality.
The people here vary from the odd climate change professional such as Nic Lewis and Richard Betts, down to people with whatever science education they got at school. Who should one pitch to, when even professional engineers can come out with comments showing an ignorance which would make a GCSE student blush? And dont belittle thirteen year olds. A sharp Year 10 can be very good at spotting flaws in an argument.
Take my response to Radical Rodent's question. I do not know his academic level, so I pitched it relatively low. If you would like to explain to him the problem of significantly separating trend from noise in time series data at your own professional level, please feel free.
Style can be a matter of habit. I spent a lifetime in classrooms and it's worn grooves. My apologies if you find it offensive , but its probably too much a part of me to change.
Predict something. Stand or fall on it. That's the way science (not alarmism) works.
Sep 20, 2013 at 8:23 PM | Evil Denier & proud of it
If the world were static that would be easy to do. Unfortunately prediction is like log rolling. Reality has an unfortunate habit of shifting under one's feet as new evidence comes in and old predictions become less reliable.
"I note that the longer the time period, the slower the rate. This shows acceleration, at least in the 20th century figures."
Mike Jackson
You're right on that one and I was wrong. . With whatever causes the 1880 -1910 and 1940-1970 slowdowns removed and the solar cycle ignored, the warming rates based on 1910-1940 and 1970-2000 have been remarkably linear around 0.15-0.2 C/decade.
Regarding short and long term, thirty years is probably about as short as you would want to get when talking about climate trends.
Longer term?
Over a century we see a warming trend.
Over a millenium we see the MWP turning into the LIA and rebounding.
Over 10 millenia we see the MWP and LIA as part of a latter Holocene cooling trend.
Over 100 millennia we see a single glacial/interglacial cycle.
Over 1000 millennia we see the cycle repeating.
Over 10000 millennia we see plate tectonics moving continents into a configuration which makes ice ages possible.
Interesting that we both see a 60 year cycle. Unfortunately the amplitude is roughly 0.3C from minimum to maximum, so its not enough on its own to explain the temperature record. There's also an ongoing increase of about 0.5C per cycle which would need explaination if you want to find an alternative to CO2.
You ask where is the evidence. For CO2 there's a lot. If there was another mechanism, you would think all the instrumentation now in operation would have spotted it by now. Where is your evidence?