Oh, and nobody ever answered that question of mine about any sort of experiment to demonstrate CO2-induced warming. I don't mean radiative physics in action, I mean to show warming in the atmosphere or a reasonable facsimile of it.
May 6, 2014 at 4:52 PM | Registered Commenterrhoda

As far as I'm aware, Rhoda, Trenberth et al are still looking for the mystical tropospheric hotspot, or it might move about a bit he said, or something like that. It seems to have been rather ignored recently, despite being possibly the single biggest failure of the whole charade.

It should be the front and centre-piece of radiative-warming of the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, as predicted by the models. Relatively free of the complexities of weather going on underneath, or the passage of the seasons.

I think even Richard Black may have once mentioned it in an article before he (officially) left the BBC. It's the place where global-warming should spend most of it's time hanging out, but doesn't. They went there with satellite sensors and radiosondes, but it wasn't home. And it still isn't, because we know they would have told us loudly if they had found it.

It might be nice to read an update on the non-situation.

Increased temperature should increase CO2 as the oceans degas according to Lindzen, and I believe just about everything else. I must admit I'm not sure what Dr. Spencer was trying to do, but will have a guess, or maybe ask him. Anyway my guess is that, and I've done it myself, he wants to remove arguments that can easily be used to deflect the discussion away from the real issues, especially arguments that can't be won, and CO2 doesn't warm the atmosphere is just such an argument. It has been around since the 19th century and, even if it turns out it doesn't warm the atmosphere, the distraction from the main issues will be counter productive.

I'll come to the real issues, but now to Dung's complaint, what he said makes sense to me, but there are thousands of people out there trawling the blogs looking for loony right wingers (not you Dung) making "unscientific", "anti-science" remarks. What will then happen is that Dung's reasonable remark will be picked up by Roger Harrabin, or the excerable preening George Monbiot (who if he was made of chocolate would eat himself) and bandied about as "BH bloggers don't believe CO2 is a GHG. " That's the problem as I see it, although I don't know if I'd have censored it if it was my blog.

The CAGW meme is now so implanted in the minds of the public that challenging the scientific basis is counter productive in the absence of empirical evidence. So, for me, the three main areas to discuss are:

1. The climate models cannot foretell the future state of the climate. (Forecasting the future is typically the game of mountebanks and charlatans, although I don't think the great majority of cliscis are mountebanks, or charlatans, just plain naive if they believe they can foretell the future using computers);

2. If they are right can we practically reduce CO2 emissions in the timescales available to avoid the catastrophes?

3. If we can't then we should plan for adaptation.

I don't know about anyone else but I could care less about renewables if they were cost effective. We will run out of fossil fuels eventually (although that might be for many millennia hence) so there's no harm in finding other more sustainable sources of energy. The sin is we've gone for wind and solar, when the money would have been better spent on nuclear. That's the crime in the great global warming scare.

I have an open mind about the GH effect. I understand it and have no reason to doubt it. My mind is not closed to the possibility that at some stage scientific opinion may change in the light of new data or changed understanding. I don't think blogs should remove comments just because the views are held by a minority, unless it is established beyond doubt that the views are wrong.

I don't think we fully understand the GH effect. For example, upwelling IR, once absorbed by GH gases, will transfer almost instantly to kinetic energy through collision with molecules of other atmospheric gases. This kinetic energy is measurable as temperature. The greenhouse warming of the atmosphere is therefore pretty instantaneous and therefore one would expect the relentless increase in GHG concentration to show a corresponding increase in atmospheric temperature.

Furthermore, the positive feedback from water vapour doesn't seem to be happening either...

Like I said, I have an open mind.

I too have grave misgivings about global average temperature. As Richard says using the GATA might have some signal provided the same weather stations were used, that all the weather stations were calibrated in the same way, that the environnments around the weather stations were identical for the entire period, that all the measuring teams used the same size grid, that the weather stations hadn't been moved, that the same number of weather stations were used to calculate the GAT in the first place and there were weather stations in the Arctic and Antarctic. There is also an issue about the actual distribution of weather stations, and, of course we lost thousands of them in the 1990s, to me at least, blessed as I am with the logic of simpleton, if you had 1 weather station in the Antarctic and one on the equator the global average temperature could be -20C. Anyway it's complex.

The satellites are a better bet, but they've had calibration and instrumentation problems and can't measure temperatures directly so a lot of processing, and major adjustments.

Add to this that the data we get is in hundredths of a degree and it all has a sort of Lewis Carrol feel to it.

But hey, it falls into the category of things not to be challenged because it's a waste of time as everyone and his/her dog has accepted and challenging it makes you look like a nutter to the "cognescenti".

"I too have grave misgivings about global average temperature."

I wouldn't it is amazingly stable and (hu)mankind lives in a range 'comfortably' that easily spans 20 degrees. Does anywhere know the temperature that is optimum, say a 1st world country that uses the least energy on heating and cooling combined. Mediterranean countries probably do OK though I find them unpleasantly cool due to the lack of heating over the winter. Conversely I'm happy to exist in 35 degree humid tropical temperatures if I have a ceiling fan to help cool me down, which is obviously trivial energy wise compared to heating a UK terrace in subzero temperatures for a fortnight.

This thread contains a number of examples which make the problem clear. The science cannot be reduced to simple soundbites which is what the politicians want to deal in because it reduces the debate to a level they can understand.

Such as "there is no such thing as a global average temperature", "debunked" by Spencer above by an explanation of how such a thing can be calculated. But when I'm trying to discuss this with the majority of people who haven't read hundreds of pages of discussion and debate on the subject, I am trying to find a way to explain my belief that what is known as the "global average temperature" is a statistic (not a measurement, for a start) which is a useless concept, for many reasons including those mentioned above. "There is no such thing" is one shorthand for this. It doesn't mean there isn't a number, it means the number doesn't represent anything meaningful.

Similarly with "CO2 doesn't cause warming". In theory it does in the lab, in practice it demonstrably doesn't necessarily in the earth's climate system, see last x years for proof.

But people quote the simple soundbites, along with "scientists say", and want simple reasons why the soundbites are wrong, which don't exist. Often they are not even wrong in themselves, they just don't lead to the apparently obvious conclusion for reasons which are not obvious without a level of scientific and technical knowledge which many people simply don't have; e.g. why do we not see warming when the CO2 bottle experiment says we should? The bloody experts in the field don't know that, although they won't admit it in public, how can I explain it in the pub? Even trying to explain that they don't actually know but won't admit it and the evidence is in an email leak sounds like tinfoil hat stuff!

"Oh, but there were enquiries which said there was nothing in that." Well, nooo, actually..." You either believe that things like that happen in the UK today or you don't. Most people don't, and really, really don't want to, because it has serious implications about the society they live in.

May 7, 2014 at 8:24 PM | Unregistered CommenterNW

I totally understand what you are saying. The key I think is try to get people to think for themselves (common sense) rather than look for some authority that doesn't actually exist. Do people really believe the complete dirge that stands for news these days on all of the main channels for example. To me there is an obvious agenda to virtually everything presented these days from all the different viewpoints depending on the source of the news.

"I too have grave misgivings about global average temperature."
Should have read "I too have grave misgivings about global average temperature as a metric."

I probably made the point clumsily, but what I was trying to point out that GATA was another of those "givens" which are beyond discussion, like CO2 doesn't cause warming.