The Problems with CAGW

[StudentOfClimatology]

Yes but the upper oceans would cool. The heat has to come from somewhere. The deep ocean can't warm, while the upper ocean stays the same (actually it is warming too) and the atmosphere warms, unless the earth is gaining net energy (in this case, large amounts @ ~.5W/m2. ).

I agree, which is why I don't think natural variations can explain any of the deep ocean warming. Though, deep ocean warming does significantly slow conductive cooling of the upper oceans.

Even in the best case scenarios (re: emission reduction), CO^2 continues to increase or remain elevated, which would further warm both the deep oceans and upper oceans.

[Isotherm]

Again, a blatant logical fallacy in this post.

 

The warming of the deep oceans is just a magically delayed response to the 1990-2000 warming.

 

 

If that is the case, where is the heat coming from? It's not coming from the atmosphere because the atmosphere has warmed. It's not coming from the 0-700m layer because that layer has warmed slightly as well. Heat doesn't magically come from no where. It either comes from a global imbalance, or it comes from somewhere else on earth.

 

The massive warming of the oceans the last 10 years represents the massive global imbalance of energy. 

 

You also appear to not understand quite how large this energy imbalance is. 

 

Those people who actually engage long enough and sincerely enough on the subject can agree on the basic facts of AGW. Like Snowlover123. And ORH.

 

 

 

Believe it or not, there are plenty of scientific minds out there who disagree with your opinion.

 

 

 

Take a look at this study done by Wunsch and Heimback (2014) - Bidecadal thermal changes in the abyssal ocean:

 

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0GwGZxDu2R4J:ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/heatcontentchange_26dec2013_ph.pdf+&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

 

 

 

Essentially the bottom 50% of the ocean(s) have been cooling over the past two decades:

 

 

 

 

Why is this? So the energy imbalance yields a warming of predominately the 700-2000m layer of the ocean, but the ocean response to that forcing seems to be lesser at 0-700m and even lesser at 2000m-bottom.

 

Your argument would make more sense if the deep oceans were at the very least holding steady (or slightly warming) in terms of OHC, but they're cooling.

 

The truth of the matter is you cannot tell me with any certainty the cause of the cooling of the lower 50% of the ocean, warming of the middle layer, and leveling of the top layer. It's not as simple as you make it out to be.

 

Furthermore, with regards to the 700-2000m spike in OHC -- why did it take until post 1990 for the significant spike to occur, given GHG forcing has been increasing at a relatively linear rate over the past 60-90 years. The Co2 concentration in 1959 was already 316 ppm. So it took until post 1990 for the 0-2000m layer of the oceans to respond to the energy imbalance? Can you point to any peer reviewed literature that explains why that energy imbalance was not realized in the oceans until after 1990? Especially given GHG emissions have been increasing rather linearly for much of the past century and global temperatures have been increasing over the past 100 years.

 

 

The Wunsch study concluded that the oceans have warmed at 0.2 W/m^2 (+/- 0.1) over the period 1992-2011, in strong contrast to Hansen's number of 0.86 W/m2 (+/- 0.12) over the 1993-2003 period. Furthermore, the middle layer warming (700-2000m) could have predominately resulted from warmth from the deepest layers (warm water rises) thousands of years ago. This explanation sounds like a plausible one to me.

 

This is not the response you'd see from the oceans given a steadily increasing energy imbalance as you assert.

 

There are many unanswered questions concerning the variations in ocean heat content, contrary to your set-in-stone type statements.

[Isotherm]

I am all for open debate, objectivity, constructive critique etc. The problem is people who already have their mind made up and whose arguments are not based in fact, contain logical fallacies, and/or are based in sarcasm. Blizzard has shown his mind is completely made up and he is impervious to any facts or reasoning. 

 

Preaching 'debate, objectivity, questioning, critique etc.' is just a way for deniers to pretend to be open minded and ignore the obvious lack of facts and logic in their beliefs. 

 

Blizzards original post was entirely made up facts, logical fallacies, and sarcasm. 

 

I responded as substantively as possible. He responded with even more made up 'fact's', fallacies, and sarcasm.

 

 

Actions speak louder than words, and it's clear by your actions that the first sentence is blatantly false. You mean open debate that covers a range within your opinion, which is apparently fact.

 

You like the term logical fallacy, but you misuse it constantly. Logical fallacies are errors within reasoning. If someone's point can be supported by peer reviewed literature, and it doesn't agree with you, that's not a logical fallacy, it's called a differing opinion.

 

Let's be honest here. Some of us may be more open-minded than others, but we all come here with a certain stance that we're looking to defend/promulgate on this forum. In that way, one might argue we're all closed-minded. However, some are less inclined than others to read research of differing viewpoints due to a number of reasons (and not only read said research, but comprehend it, and come to an objective conclusion about it). Objectivity is difficult by human nature, and attaining 100% objectivity is impossible in my opinion, but that doesn't mean we should refrain from trying to be as objective as possible.

[Msalgado]

Actions speak louder than words, and it's clear by your actions that the first sentence is blatantly false. You mean open debate that covers a range within your opinion, which is apparently fact.

 

You like the term logical fallacy, but you misuse it constantly. Logical fallacies are errors within reasoning. If someone's point can be supported by peer reviewed literature, and it doesn't agree with you, that's not a logical fallacy, it's called a differing opinion.

 

Let's be honest here. Some of us may be more open-minded than others, but we all come here with a certain stance that we're looking to defend/promulgate on this forum. In that way, one might argue we're all closed-minded. However, some are less inclined than others to read research of differing viewpoints due to a number of reasons (and not only read said research, but comprehend it, and come to an objective conclusion about it). Objectivity is difficult by human nature, and attaining 100% objectivity is impossible in my opinion, but that doesn't mean we should refrain from trying to be as objective as possible.

 

To be quiet fair, Skier took time to respond to Blizzards initial OP extremely fairly.  Blizzard then responded with bull**** about talking points, so given his history, I am not surprised Skier just wrote him off in this thread.  I would definitely not say that is indicative of having a closed mind but rather of being frustrated with a poster given a history of not backing up his claims with anything that resembles what you just did 2 posts ago.  

[AvantHiatus]

Wunsch and Heimback (2014) appears to be based on poor data consistency. The 0-700m layer is infact not declining as this study claims, nor has it stabilized. This should make one skeptical of the remainder of the findings presented here. By supporting this research, you accept that NODC is guilty of scientific malpractice.

 

[Isotherm]

Wunsch and Heimback (2014) appears to be based on poor data consistency. The 0-700m layer is infact not declining as this study claims, nor has it stabilized. This should make one skeptical of the remainder of the findings presented here. By supporting this research, you accept that NODC is guilty of scientific malpractice.

 

 

 

 

The study concluded that the 0-700m layer has slightly warmed up through 2010. The top 100m have generally flat-lined, but down to 700m, there's been a slight warming. So you must have misinterpreted their results.

[AvantHiatus]

The study concluded that the 0-700m layer has slightly warmed up through 2010. The top 100m have generally flat-lined, but down to 700m, there's been a slight warming. So you must have misinterpreted their results.

 

The graph extends out to 2012, and the 0-700m peak is in 2009....2010-212 period shows a decline. We know this is blatantly false information, especially after 2013. If anything, it is cherrypicked to end before the recent impressive rises, or the report is outdated. Either way it's not worth my time or anyone else's consideration.

[ORH_wxman]

Wunsch and Heimback (2014) appears to be based on poor data consistency. The 0-700m layer is infact not declining as this study claims, nor has it stabilized. This should make one skeptical of the remainder of the findings presented here. By supporting this research, you accept that NODC is guilty of scientific malpractice.

 

 

 

 

Did you read the paper? There are multiple interpretations of the argo data.

 

 

Also, the bolded is the kind of junk that should not be posted here without some seriously robust evidence. You are accusing that supporting a different peer reviewed conclusion from another is supporting that one side is "guilty of scientific mispractice"....wow. You must basically think the entire field is guilty of scientific mispractice then if that is how you draw your conclusion. This is actually how science works. You have different conclusions/methods published throughout the literature and then some get rebutted and never go further...others get more heavily debated until one side emerges with more evidence. That doesn't mean the side that is wrong is "guilty of scientific mispractice".

 

Do a bit better than that. C'mon man.

[AvantHiatus]

Did you read the paper? There are multiple interpretations of the argo data.

 

 

Also, the bolded is the kind of junk that should not be posted here without some seriously robust evidence. You are accusing that supporting a different peer reviewed conclusion from another is supporting that one side is "guilty of scientific mispractice"....wow. You must basically think the entire field is guilty of scientific mispractice then if that is how you draw your conclusion. This is actually how science works. You have different conclusions/methods published throughout the literature and then some get rebutted and never go further...others get more heavily debated until one side emerges with more evidence. That doesn't mean the side that is wrong is "guilty of scientific mispractice".

 

Do a bit better than that. C'mon man.

I don't need to read the paper if the data it is based on is false, there was no decline in the 0-700m layer between 2010 and 2012. That is a fact. Do you disagree? Is the chart measuring the rate of increase or the total Ocean Heat Content?

[ORH_wxman]

I don't need to read the paper if the data it is based on is false, there was no decline in the 0-700m layer between 2010 and 2012. That is a fact. Do you disagree? Is the chart measuring the rate of increase or the total Ocean Heat Content?

 

 

How do you know?

 

NODC says it didn't. Is that the last word in your mind? We have multiple temperature datasets...they don't always agree. Is one of them performing scientific malpractice? The words you use are very strong considering you don't even really know what you are talking about.

 

Wunsch and Heimback take ARGO data and other data sources and then use an ocean circulation model to estimate the OHC of all the layers based on this data based on the paper. NODC uses different methods to base their estimates on...I believe their estimates are generally smoothing/mathematical to fill in the gaps but I am not 100% sure as I have not thoroughly read the NODC paper. I just know that the two methods aren't the same. You say one is wrong with no proof other than quoting NODC's graph...that isn't proof they are right. That is a ciruclar argument and science doesn't work that way.

 

 

It's one thing to not agree with a paper...that is totally fine. But to start throwing around phrases like "supporting scientific malpractice" without extremely robust evidence of such is completely unacceptable if you want to be viewed as credible.

[AvantHiatus]

How do you know?

 

NODC says it didn't. Is that the last word in your mind? We have multiple temperature datasets...they don't always agree. Is one of them performing scientific malpractice? The words you use are very strong considering you don't even really know what you are talking about.

 

Wunsch and Heimback take ARGO data and other data sources and then use an ocean circulation model to estimate the OHC of all the layers based on this data based on the paper. NODC uses different methods to base their estimates on...I believe their estimates are generally smoothing/mathematical to fill in the gaps but I am not 100% sure as I have not thoroughly read the NODC paper. I just know that the two methods aren't the same. You say one is wrong with no proof other than quoting NODC's graph...that isn't proof they are right. That is a ciruclar argument and science doesn't work that way.

 

 

It's one thing to not agree with a paper...that is totally fine. But to start throwing around phrases like "supporting scientific malpractice" without extremely robust evidence of such is completely unacceptable if you want to be viewed as credible.

How can we agree on anything when we are required to choose between divergent datasets? This is black and white man, and you have resorted to calling me out instead of addressing my argument.

 

It is impossible to support two divergent data simultaneously and claim they are true. Thus, we are required to research in order to prove which one is scientifically tenable, or even if all current datasets are inaccurate.

 

Sorry about the strong statements about malpractice. I think I derailed myself there in hindsight. I can understand why temperature datasets would diverge. Some of them are based on satellite extrapolation and others do not include polar data. However, ARGO is the go to source for OHC and these guys somehow came to a different conclusion using the same data.

[Isotherm]

Great post/points Will. Fully agree.

 

And this isn't "black and white". Climate science is much too complex. For global temperatures for example, there are multiple datasets - does that mean only one of them is truthful while all the others are lying? In science one can often implement different methodologies and consequently arrive at slightly different conclusions. There isn't one easy answer to everything in this particular subject.

[Cory]

How can we agree on anything when we are required to choose between divergent datasets? This is black and white man, and you have resorted to calling me out instead of addressing my argument.

 

It is impossible to support two divergent data simultaneously and claim they are true. Thus, we are required to research in order to prove which one is scientifically tenable, or even if all current datasets are inaccurate.

 

Sorry about the strong statements about malpractice. I think I derailed myself there in hindsight.

 

He called you out because you disregarded the findings of a peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Physical Oceanography, without even reading it, because it disagreed with the trend in the NODC graph. Oh, and stated that anyone accepting the paper's findings thinks NODC is committing scientific malpractice. 

[ORH_wxman]

How can we agree on anything when we are required to choose between divergent datasets? This is black and white man, and you have resorted to calling me out instead of addressing my argument.

 

It is impossible to support two divergent data simultaneously and claim they are true. Thus, we are required to research in order to prove which one is scientifically tenable, or even if all current datasets are inaccurate.

 

Sorry about the strong statements about malpractice. I think I derailed myself there in hindsight.

 

 

OHC is an inherently poor dataset relatively speaking...we have to understand that before using it. They both show increasing OHC over long periods so we can be fairly confident that we have seen a signficant increase over the past couple of decades. The magnitude of the increase may vary from source to source but we know the increase is significant. But short term trends like the one you stated from 2010-2012 are not significant and can easily diverge from one dataset to another.

 

And no, it is not "black and white"...climate science is a million shades of gray and so is this. The difference since 2009 in those datasets can easily be explained by the different methods.

 

A lower OHC increase in recent years would support the view that forcing has declined to produce the sfc temp slowdown...whether from aerosols or volcanoes or clouds, or whatever...the higher OHC increase estimates would support that ocean mixing is most responsible for the slowdown in global sfc temps. You may note that both of these theories are debated in the literature at the moment...which means that estimates of OHC aren't cut and dry and neither are estimates of forcing.

[The_Global_Warmer]

So OHC is dropping but the Earth is warmer than ever.  Got it.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

[AvantHiatus]

OHC is an inherently poor dataset relatively speaking...we have to understand that before using it. They both show increasing OHC over long periods so we can be fairly confident that we have seen a signficant increase over the past couple of decades. The magnitude of the increase may vary from source to source but we know the increase is significant. But short term trends like the one you stated from 2010-2012 are not significant and can easily diverge from one dataset to another.

 

And no, it is not "black and white"...climate science is a million shades of gray and so is this. The difference since 2009 in those datasets can easily be explained by the different methods.

 

A lower OHC increase in recent years would support the view that forcing has declined to produce the sfc temp slowdown...whether from aerosols or volcanoes or clouds, or whatever...the higher OHC increase estimates would support that ocean mixing is most responsible for the slowdown in global sfc temps. You may note that both of these theories are debated in the literature at the moment...which means that estimates of OHC aren't cut and dry and neither are estimates of forcing.

I think the lower OHC arguments are losing ground and this is becoming more obvious every day. Oceanic mixing is definitely in play, especially along the equatorial regions. However, the trend is solidly upward everywhere else, especially apparent in recent SSTA anomalies, which are also supposedly masked or counter-balanced by a temporary -AMO state. (I think the long-term +AMO period will continue until 2030).

 

Assuming that the AMO continues with its quasi-cycle of roughly 70 years, the peak of the current warm phase would be expected in c. 2020,^[13] or based on its 50–90 year quasi-cycle, between 2000 and 2040 (after peaks in c. 1880 and c. 1950).

 

[Cory]

So OHC is dropping but the Earth is warmer than ever.  Got it.

 

Whatever it takes.

 

 

I didn't see anyone here say that OHC is dropping. 

[The_Global_Warmer]

I didn't see anyone here say that OHC is dropping. 

 

This does.  Remember OHC and SSTA are tied together.  Especially when you get up to the 0-100M graphic.

 

 

Maybe it's because the graphic only runs thru 2011.  But in real time there is only one data point that is higher than the most recently one you see on the right and that was at the very end of 1997 during the peak of the epic nino.  We have broken weekly ssta records now multiple times in the Summer of 2013.  Again in 2014 even more impressively and earlier than 2013 and now we are breaking 2013's records with ease as well as breaking monthly records.  As well as cruising to breaking all of the surface temp data sets yearly records including a huge number going back to the Fall of 2013 and even just Jan-June 2014.  With the poles actually cool since Spring the place of this heat is coming from the oceans.

 

This can't be done without the upper layers of the ocean being loaded with heat.

 

[Cory]

This does.  Remember OHC and SSTA are tied together.  Especially when you get up to the 0-100M graphic.

 

Maybe it's because the graphic only runs thru 2011.  But in real time there is only one data point that is higher then the most recently one you see on the right and that was at the very end of 1997 during the peak of the epic nino.  We have broken weekly ssta records now multiple times in the Summer of 2013.  Again even more impressive and earlier than 2013 and now we are breaking 2013's records with ease as well as breaking monthly records.

 

 

 

Right, it's probably due to the ending point of their graph. Also, NODC is displaying back to ~1955, whereas Wunsch and Heimback are displaying only from 1992, which shows short-term trends more clearly than NODC and ends with a downturn that lines up with your 2010-2012 SSTA drop. 

[ORH_wxman]

Why are you posting SSTA as evidence of OHC?

 

How many times have we pointed out that they are not the same? If you are using SSTA as a proxy for OHC, then surely you must believe that we had virtually zero OHC increase from 2002-2012 when the SSTA trendline was negative...and now just barely going positive out to 2014.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Right, it's probably due to the ending point of their graph. Also, NODC is displaying back to ~1955, whereas Wunsch and Heimback are displaying only from 1992, which shows short-term trends more clearly than NODC and ends on a temporary downturn that lines up with the 2010-2012 SSTA drop. 

 

when you compare the early to mid 90s with the end of the graphic on the 0-100M line it's very comparable.  The peak season especially but global temps are much warmer now. Much warmer even in the cooler years of 2008 and 2011.  It's hard to imagine that being from land.  That top 100M is pretty much the mixed surface layer so it should be very close to sst trends which is evident in 1998 and 2010.

[AvantHiatus]

Why are you posting SSTA as evidence of OHC?

 

How many times have we pointed out that they are not the same? If you are using SSTA as a proxy for OHC, then surely you must believe that we had virtually zero OHC increase from 2002-2012 when the SSTA trendline was negative...and now just barely going positive out to 2014.

However, is there not some semi-decent correlation between SSTA and the 0-700m layer? SSTA was taking a break after the 2010 el nino, ironically this would agree with the paper Isotherm posted. Like I said, if the chart continued out beyond January 1st, 2012, you would see the trend reverse dramatically or stabilize as their methodology appears to retain a cold bias.

[nflwxman]

However, is there not some semi-decent correlation between SSTA and the 0-700m layer? SSTA was taking a break after the 2010 el nino, ironically this would agree with the paper Isotherm posted. Like I said, if the chart continued out beyond January 1st, 2012, you would see the trend reverse dramatically or stabilize as their methodology appears to retain a cold bias.

The correlation probably lies in the 0-100m layer, if anything.  But they are squarely mutually exclusive and can diverge depending on trade wind strength, ect.  

[chrisf97212]

Why are you posting SSTA as evidence of OHC?

 

How many times have we pointed out that they are not the same? If you are using SSTA as a proxy for OHC, then surely you must believe that we had virtually zero OHC increase from 2002-2012 when the SSTA trendline was negative...and now just barely going positive out to 2014.

 

So, stupid question of the day.  When SST's are abnormally high do we assume they're predominantly releasing heat into the atmosphere or absorbing energy from the atmosphere?  I assumed the former was the case but if so, wouldn't that curb OHC?

[ORH_wxman]

So, stupid question of the day.  When SST's are abnormally high do we assume they're predominantly releasing heat into the atmosphere or absorbing energy from the atmosphere?  I assumed the former was the case but if so, wouldn't that curb OHC?

 

They are releasing heat into the atmosphere...this is especially evident during ENSO. We see how even recently the SSTA spiked up in the past month down in the tropical pacific (though now starting to decline a bit) but the OHC plummeted during that time. Typically in El Nino events, the OHC drops substantially as the heat is released...this is also why there tends to be a spike in global sfc temps and lower tropospheric temps that lag the El Nino peak as well.

 

It's not the same everywhere. SSTA spikes or drops can occur by advection too or via solar heating with a stable blocking pattern.

 

The bottom line though is that OHC can often show a different trend versus SSTA and the two are not interchangable.

[sokolow]

http://www.americanwx.com/bb/index.php/topic/44068-the-problems-with-cagw/?p=3020229

It's quite revealing that you want people to debate your points when you don't even address blizzard's evidence-based data in this post. For political (not science-based) reasons you, Jacob, and skier just want to ignore evidence that doesn't fit your contentions.

Actions speak louder than words, and it's clear by your actions that the first sentence is blatantly false. You mean open debate that covers a range within your opinion, which is apparently fact.

You like the term logical fallacy, but you misuse it constantly. Logical fallacies are errors within reasoning. If someone's point can be supported by peer reviewed literature, and it doesn't agree with you, that's not a logical fallacy, it's called a differing opinion.

Let's be honest here. Some of us may be more open-minded than others, but we all come here with a certain stance that we're looking to defend/promulgate on this forum. In that way, one might argue we're all closed-minded. However, some are less inclined than others to read research of differing viewpoints due to a number of reasons (and not only read said research, but comprehend it, and come to an objective conclusion about it). Objectivity is difficult by human nature, and attaining 100% objectivity is impossible in my opinion, but that doesn't mean we should refrain from trying to be as objective as possible.

Here is what is sort of frustrating about this, for me, from a disciplinary perspective. Historians are taking on this project of setting out evidence-based and methodical arguments that provide causal explanations for change in human society (cultural, social, economic, etc.) over time. Within history, generally speaking, there's been a number of intellectual trends and disputes over -- out of the countless competing possible mechanisms -- which forces take precedence when trying to give an account of historical events. Military? Political? Cultural? Economic? Technological? And so on.

One of them is, of course, environmental and climatic conditions. And we can go back to the foundations of modern history (lets say, Herder) and see elaborate explanations of how climate & landscape shape people into distinct “races” with particular kinds of lifeways appropriate to their environment.

So, Hegel:

The unchangeableness of climate, of the whole character of the country in which a nation has its permanent abode, contributes to the unchangeablness of the national character. A desert, proximity to the sea or remoteness from it, all these circumstances can have an influence on the national character

And the shared experience of struggle and existence in a particular kind of environment gets taken as one basis for the concept of “Volk.”

During the era of the European colonial expansion that tendency was grossly apparent as trite justifications for racial difference; European peoples, coming from a harsh climate of cold winters, are are muture peoples endowed with particular qualities of Will and Endurance by struggle against nature. That struggle culminated in advanced industrial & agricultural civilization. Meanwhile, the peoples of the warm, balmy tropics remained simple childlike because since time immemorial nature provided their basic needs through the bounty of the forests and seas. Therefore, (centuries of genocide, slavery, and horror).

And of course, all that is racist garbage which rightly got thrown in the trash. However, the countervailing tendency among historians was then to say, look. People are adaptable and clever. They shape their environments as necessary. Social phenomena must have social causes and we can't go making up just so fairytales about how climate drives history. People make history.

It took a while (lets say ~1970s) for enough of the stink of völkisch race theory and other fantasies to dissipate before historians went back in a serious way and said, “well actually” and started exploring the interaction between climate and history as a mainstream undertaking. One of the conclusions was, well: we can do this in a defensible way but we need good data and methods to do it on a scientific basis. We need to be really really careful in this process of setting up, interpreting, and critically evaluating our documentary, archaeological, and natural datasets for the reconstruction of historical- and paleoclimate and tying that to human events.

And generally speaking as we go back in time the type, consistency, spatial density, and preservation of the evidence changes, whether direct or indirect. Mostly as we go back in time it gets worse, though that's not always the case. Historians, archaeologists, anthropologists and allied fields interested in climates of the past have to accept that the quality of our evidence fundamentally limits the type, scope, and confidence of the claims we can make. Consequently there's been a period of interdisciplinary collaboration with the physical sciences aimed at inventorying, calibrating, and testing the kinds of evidence we have as well as their coverage in space and time: discerning anchor points where our evidence is dense, diverse, and defensible then working out from there. Going back calibrating, and testing it again.

We recognize this process implicitly in this forum because we talk about “the weather services era” or “the modern instrumental record” and the “the beginning of the instrumental record” the period of descriptive, qualitative meteorological observations, grapevines-and-glaciers, and so on as constituent parts of a quasi-hierarchical array of evidence.

OK so yada yada why does this matter. Over in another thread we were talking about datasets & archives for climate research. Here is blizzard on that topic:

they have to adjust temperature up to keep this charade going. Lots of money and careers at stake

Most METs are very skeptical because we know how complicated the real atmosphere is as we are tasked with short term predictions. If you are a MET and not skeptical I question your understanding of the atmosphere.

Basically you have so many problems in the various observation sites, observation location changes, changes in equipment, TOB, data stations dropping out, changing land use albeit vegetation or pavement that the surface record is rife with uncertainties. They have tried their best to reconcile this but when the entire trend in the U.S dataset is because of adjustments it just is not convincing. In any event, the U.S land surface is small relative to the globe. Steven Goddard, Anthony Watts and others have torn apart the USHCN convincingly so I would refer you to their work. I am not going to re-invent the wheel on this.

This last one is in response to the direct question of well, what is the instrumental temperature record useful for?

Its good enough for day to day weather, not good enough for long term climate IMO. Geez, that was a dumb question.

OK so -- unless I missed that it was a joke? -- that is blizzard's evaluation of the modern instrumental record of temp & precip &c.; because of its many flaws, gaps, inadequacies in coverage, gross inhomogeneities, and problems in the analysis thereof blizzard is highly skeptical of researchers' ability to use the mainstream datasets and archives to discuss climatic changes across the last 120 years.

Fine.

However.

I know this is going to over like a lead balloon but here goes....

1) The climate is always changing. 100 years or so of data is a snap shot in a long period of changing climate. How do we know that the climate was stable before CO2 was increasing??? It never was before so why was it in the late 1800s stable???

9) The Little ice age ended in the late 1800s. The 20th century showed much higher levels of solar activity which naturally leads to the conclusion that we are recovering from the LIA. Solar activity is down now, but lag effects could make any drop in temperature delayed.

The late 70s were a known global cool period after a cold AMO pattern. That is when the satellite record for sea ice began. This is a small snap shot of the Arctic sea ice variations. We are witnessing normal climate variations with small contributions from CO2. The recovery will occur when the AMO goes cold again.

During Younger Dryas there was a LARGE amount of ice melting from the rapid transition from glacial to interglacial which could easily affect the North Atlantic MOC which then could rapidly affect climate...the "flickering" climate of that time. Once the ice melted the climate has become incredibly stable relative to the periods when there has been a lot of glacial mass. That is a well documented fact. The Greenland Ice Core data shows this remarkably well. And we all know that the Arctic regions respond most rapidly to any climate change so if the climate was fairly stable in Greenland it is suffice to say that globally the climate probably was just as stable or even more so. I also took courses in paleo climatology. In fact because of these courses I became even more skeptical of CAGW... not less.

If blizzard really believes that the modern instrumental record is too deeply flawed for making acurate or precise decade or century-scale claims about climate from ~1860 forward, then what business does he or she have talking about an LIA or MWP, when such a thing might have started or ended, let alone a recovery from an LIA?

If calibrations, corrections, and homogenizations for TOBS and site changes are insuperable problems from 1860 forward, then on what evidentiary basis does one go postulating periods of holocene climate stability, flickering, fluctuation, and the magnitudes of temperature or precipitation anomalies thereof -- other than in a very coarse, limited, speculative, relative, and qualitative sense?

So what does that leave us as being able to say? Maybe wager that in continental Europe it was perhaps cooler and wetter during the Renaissance, and warmer before that. How much cooler or warmer? Somewhere between Fimbulwinter and the Fires of Hell.

Maybe you can take that to the bank, but it's not worth much.

For that matter,

This is the problem. You are wrong on climate and atmospheric science... climate is a branch of atmospheric science. Most climate scientists are either atmospheric scientists, physicists or mathematicians. Many are just geography majors which tends to be less rigorous academically. If you polled all the folks with MET tags on this whole site(not just the climate change forum) I bet more than 50% do not agree with CAGW. I bet most do agree in some small warming(like me) but not the craziness that is proclaimed by the mainstream climate science. I would not want to be in the "mainstream". As I said its tribalism....

... if you are going to denigrate geographers as "just" members of a less academically rigorous discipline, what does it say about you if you refuse to even meet the standards of evidence and methodological rigor established by the historians & geographers who extended the existence of an LIA to begin with.

Blizzard's strong skepticism about modern instrumental records has huge implications for what a person who chooses to stand on that claim can say about climates of the past and with what confidence, and it has huge implications what methods & evidences that person can employ. That skepticism has consequences which would require us to go back, disassemble, scrutinize, and carefully reassemble the basis of whole fields. Which would be fine and necessary if we really believed it but I don't see a recognition of that in his / her posts.

I, personally, find it frustrating to talk with blizzard and "address blizzard's evidence-based data" because his / her standards of evidence appear to be ad-hoc and at variance with widely accepted norms and best practices.

[FloridaJohn]

Good post, sokolow. Thanks for taking the time to type it up.

[Sundog]

Sokolow, great post.

[PhillipS]

Excellent analysis, Sokolow.

[blizzard1024]

 Here is blizzard on that topic:

This last one is in response to the direct question of well, what is the instrumental temperature record useful for?

OK so -- unless I missed that it was a joke? -- that is blizzard's evaluation of the modern instrumental record of temp & precip &c.; because of its many flaws, gaps, inadequacies in coverage, gross inhomogeneities, and problems in the analysis thereof blizzard is highly skeptical of researchers' ability to use the mainstream datasets and archives to discuss climatic changes across the last 120 years.

Fine.

However.

If blizzard really believes that the modern instrumental record is too deeply flawed for making acurate or precise decade or century-scale claims about climate from ~1860 forward, then what business does he or she have talking about an LIA or MWP, when such a thing might have started or ended, let alone a recovery from an LIA?

If calibrations, corrections, and homogenizations for TOBS and site changes are insuperable problems from 1860 forward, then on what evidentiary basis does one go postulating periods of holocene climate stability, flickering, fluctuation, and the magnitudes of temperature or precipitation anomalies thereof -- other than in a very coarse, limited, speculative, relative, and qualitative sense?

So what does that leave us as being able to say? Maybe wager that in continental Europe it was perhaps cooler and wetter during the Renaissance, and warmer before that. How much cooler or warmer? Somewhere between Fimbulwinter and the Fires of Hell.

Maybe you can take that to the bank, but it's not worth much.

For that matter,

... if you are going to denigrate geographers as "just" members of a less academically rigorous discipline, what does it say about you if you refuse to even meet the standards of evidence and methodological rigor established by the historians & geographers who extended the existence of an LIA to begin with.

Blizzard's strong skepticism about modern instrumental records has huge implications for what a person who chooses to stand on that claim can say about climates of the past and with what confidence, and it has huge implications what methods & evidences that person can employ. That skepticism has consequences which would require us to go back, disassemble, scrutinize, and carefully reassemble the basis of whole fields. Which would be fine and necessary if we really believed it but I don't see a recognition of that in his / her posts.

I, personally, find it frustrating to talk with blizzard and "address blizzard's evidence-based data" because his / her standards of evidence appear to be ad-hoc and at variance with widely accepted norms and best practices.

 

1) The LIA and MWP have been proven by various proxies around the globe. They are general warmer and colder times that we know but not to any degree of precision that we are measuring climate today. No where near that. They do try however to mesh such coarse data sets to much more fine datasets of today. Anyway, the LIA is well documented with the Thames Freezing every winter, sea ice affecting shipping lanes in the North Atlantic where we haven't gotten sea ice in the 20th century and this was documented for a few centuries. The way the atmosphere works you don't keep one part of the globe colder and the rest warmer for long periods of time. So the precision is not the idea here.  

 

2) the modern instrument era is trying to detect such small changes in global climate over remote parts of the world. It is rife with uncertainties, adjustments etc.

 

There is a big difference here which you have failed to comprehend. Plus you are so wordy...you obviously aren't a science writer.