General AGW discussion thread

[Ari Jokimaki]

So there you are, it's just as I said, straight from the horses mouth.

Let's just see what you actually said:

If we compare the amount of energy absorbed by the oceans directly from the sun with the amount of longwave outgoing radiation (infrared) energy absorbed by co2 compared to water vapour, we can see this is also irrelevant in terms of the effect of backradiation from increased co2 in the atmosphere to the surface. The convection of heat through the effective co2 layer is ignored by models.

So, you claimed that "convection of heat through the effective co2 layer is ignored by models", but you have just shown yourself that convection is indeed included in the models, not ignored, so once again we see that you have stated a false thing as a fact. And you went on claiming that the things were just as you said, which is another false claim from you.

Please be more careful in future before you accuse me of twisting the facts.

When I said that your facts have turned out to be twisted here recently, I was not talking about this issue because you hadn't even answered my question about this issue yet. So we see that you are trying to twist this fact also by trying to pretend that my statement was related to this convection issue. We also saw above that even in this convection issue your facts have turned out to be twisted.

Talking about twisting the facts, you selected lot of quotes from different documents to show that convection exists, and that there are some problems with modelling the convection. You forgot to mention that CO₂ is also transported up by convection. See Miyazaki et al. (2008), their figure 2c shows measured CO₂ distribution in upper troposphere, and you can see from the ppm-scale (373 +/- few ppm) that CO₂ concentration is quite substantial in the upper troposphere. Now, let us take another selected quote from Wikipedia's climate model page: "...upward transport of heat by convection (especially important in the lower troposphere)". If there is plenty of CO₂ in the upper troposphere and convection mainly occurs in lower troposphere, then there must be a CO₂ column even above the "convected heat". Oh, and as you wanted to emphasize modelling problems related to convection, see how well Miyazaki et al. model recreates the observed distribution of both surface (simulated - figure 2d and f, observed - figure 2b) and upper troposphere (simulated - figure 2e and g, observed - figure 2c). Having problems with modelling doesn't mean that the modelling cannot be done, even if climate sceptics would like people to believe that is so.

Another interesting paper on the issue is Chahine et al. (2008):

Our results demonstrate that satellite derived CO₂ data track weather patterns and can also be used to study the vertical and horizontal transports in the Earth’s atmosphere. We have shown that CO₂ emissions by surface sources can be observed in the mid-troposphere and how they are transported around the globe.

See the figure 3 also, it contains a global map of measured CO₂ concentration in mid-troposphere.

So, as you are trying to emphasize some "estimates" from 2001 to prove your points, these people are actually measuring these things, and the emerging (or, rather, already emerged) picture doesn't look like anything you are claiming.

[Ari Jokimaki]

That's been my pet theory for a while - that there's something commensurate with sunspots. We know what it's not (total radiation). Given the strong correllation, however, why hasn't there been efforts to find out what it is? It's clear (inductively) the Earth's temperature doesn't cause the sunspots! More likely, something else in the sunspots is changing how the Earth's atmosphere deals with the radiation (more clouds? ozone? absorption dynamics?)

Lockwood & Fröhlich (2007) say this:

Our results show that the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanisms is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.

Sunspot number is among the things they included in their study.

[William]

Lockwood & Fröhlich (2007) say this:


Sunspot number is among the things they included in their study.

http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/insti...ort_3_2007.pdf

In a recent paper (ref. [1]) Mike Lockwood and Claus Frohlich have argued that recent trends in solar climate forcing have been in the wrong direction to account for "the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures".

These authors accept that "there is considerable evidence for solar influence on Earth's pre-industrial climate and the Sun may well have been a factor in post-industrial climate change in the first half of the last century." But they argue that this historical link between the Sun and climate came to an end about 20 years ago. Here we rebut their argument comprehensively.

Ari,

Fortunately, we will have a chance to live through nature's demonstration of the mechanisms. As most are aware there is a 10 fold increase in atmospheric disturbances during the abrupt cooling periods, I would expect due to increase temperature differential between poles and tropical latitudes. The increase in atmospheric disturbances leaves a residue of sodium chloride from the ocean and dust from the Sahara on the Greenland Ice sheet surface during the "RICKIES" (pronounced Ricky or Rickies) rapid climatic change events.

I believe your specific weather complaint was a lack of sea ice in your vicinity. Mother nature should have a solution to that problem, in the next couple of years. How was snow fall in your area?

This is not a sporting event where people pick sides and cheer on their team.

[William]

As the planet cools, there is more snow and extreme climatic events.

I believe there were snow fall records in Northern Europe also. As noted the UK had its coldest winter in the last 10 years.

I see reports of record cold weather in the Southern Hemisphere.

Of course this is only weather, not climate change. As the temperature extreme increases the change is no longer weather (i.e. Outside of the range possible with mechanisms that cause "weather".)

http://www.nowpublic.com/environment...ear-old-record

The Canadian province of Ontario has been hit with record breaking levels of snowfall this winter and there are no signs of it letting up any time soon. In fact, meteorologists are predicting that Toronto, Ontario's capital city, will break a 70 year old record for snowfall set in 1939.

http://www.spokesman.com/stories/200...s-in-forecast/

As I’ve been saying for weeks, it’s possible that the Spokane International Airport will challenge the all-time record of 93.5 inches set back in 1949-50. Last year was close to that record with 92.6 inches of the white stuff. As of Tuesday morning, the airport has received 81.5 inches with more snow expected.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate...orm012809b.jpg

Kentucky was, perhaps, affected the most by the ice where as many as 24 people died and as many as 6,500 people were displaced according to CNN reports. The governor of Kentucky, Steve Beshear, called the storm the "biggest natural disaster" in the state's modern history. Beshear was forced to declare a state of emergency in 93 of the state's 120 counties. The storm caused 609,000 homes and businesses to lose power, exceeding a record that was set just five months prior by the remnants of Hurricane Ike.

During the month of December more than 2,000 daily snowfall records were broken across the U.S. The record snowfalls were the result of several winter storms that wreaked havoc along the western seaboard and across the Plains, Great Lakes and the Northeast. The more noteworthy snow events took place in the Desert Southwest, the Upper Midwest, the Northeast, southeast Texas, and southwestern Louisiana.

[nauthiz]

I believe there were snow fall records in Northern Europe also.

That's not necessarily a sign of a colder weather and in the absence of further information I'd presume it indicates the opposite.

If the weather stays colder than you can get less snow because less water will evaporate from surrounding bodies of water and the air will be drier. If the weather gets warmer, you might then get more snow because the increase in temperature means more water vapor in the air to precipitate.

In general, the heaviest snowfalls occur when the temperature is within a few degrees of freezing.

[William]

That's not necessarily a sign of a colder weather and in the absence of further information I'd presume it indicates the opposite.

If the weather stays colder than you can get less snow because less water will evaporate from surrounding bodies of water and the air will be drier. If the weather gets warmer, you might then get more snow because the increase in temperature means more water vapor in the air to precipitate.

In general, the heaviest snowfalls occur when the temperature is within a few degrees of freezing.

I support your statement for a single heavy snow fall. Regions that are extremely cold have little snow. This record snowfall came from a series of extreme storms followed by unusually cold weather. The snow did not melt.

What happens as the planet cools in North America is the high latitude cold air moves south creating near hurricane level blizzards. In North America there is no West to East mountain range to protect the Southern Regions from the extremely cold Northern Latitude mid-continent air.

There were three separate below freezing events in Florida this year.

On the coast when the planet cools there can be very heavy snowfall, in regions where there is normally no or little snow, for example on the west coast Seattle and Vancouver. During the glacial phase for example New York City was the center that feed the ice sheet in that area.

The extreme weather continues.

January 29, 2009 Storm

Utility companies in Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio, Arkansas and West Virginia warned that many of the estimated 1.3 million homes and businesses left without electricity wouldn't have power back before Saturday at the earliest, and at worst, as late as mid-February

Tree limbs encased in ice tumbled onto roads and crashed onto power lines in hard-hit Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma, keeping thousands without power. In Arkansas - where ice in some places was 3 inches thick - people huddled next to portable heaters and wood-burning fires as utilities warned electricity may be out for days.

Febuary 9, 2009 Storm

Staff at Winnipeg hospitals were kept extra busy throughout Monday treating people who sustained injuries in falls because of icy conditions caused by one of the worst ice storms in recent memory.

March 1, 2009

http://www.usatoday.com/weather/stor...nas-snow_N.htm

Rare March snowstorm for the Carolinas

Forecasters expect a rare March snowstorm across a large portion of South and North Carolina starting Sunday. A band of heavy snow could bring up to 8 inches, likely along Interstate 85 in North Carolina.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/02/2...-north-dakota/

By the end of January, many counties had more than 400 percent of normal snow totals on the ground, and Governor John Hoeven had declared a state of emergency.

“There has been a repeated pattern,” said Fong, ”where the county will come and plow a road and then two days later, without any additional snow, the road becomes impassable again.” Relatively speaking, the people in Bismarck have gotten off light. Divide County, in the state’s northwest corner, has received 500 percent of normal snowfall.

[Ari Jokimaki]

http://www.space.dtu.dk/upload/insti...ort_3_2007.pdf

I would have expected much better from those authors because they have after all published some peer reviewed work before, but this one... well, they don't even seem to know the difference between the weather and climate:

...global surface temperatures have been roughly flat since 1998. The apparent pause in global warming...

There seems to be more thorough analysis of this work available showing that there's nothing of substance there, so I won't bother with it any further.

I believe your specific weather complaint was a lack of sea ice in your vicinity. Mother nature should have a solution to that problem, in the next couple of years. How was snow fall in your area?

You have misunderstood. It was not a "complaint". At that point, you posted just about every news item about local cold events, trying to imply that they had significance in global climate. I pointed out one example of recent anomalous warmth just to show that your examples of cold anomalies are just cherry picking, but you still don't seem to understand that. Our snow fall has been very weak for many years now. This winter we had more of it than in last 2 years, but still very little. But I'm not claiming that my local observation has anything to do with global climate. If you are trying to claim that the planet is cooling, it should be easy to show from global long time mean temperatures. Problem is that even in 5 year means there's very little "cooling" showing, and 5 year mean is still quite short time when climate is being discussed.

[Stroller]

A very interesting paper has been published By Nir Shaviv:

Citation: Shaviv, N. J. (2008), Using the oceans as a calorimeter to quantify the solar radiative forcing, J. Geophys. Res., 113,
A11101, doi:10.1029/2007JA012989

from the paper:

[73] In summary, we find clear evidence indicating that
the total flux entering the oceans in response to the solar
cycle is about an order of magnitude larger than the globally
averaged irradiance variations of 0.17 W/m2. The sheer size
of the heat flux, and the lack of any phase lag between the
flux and the driving force further implies that it cannot be
part of an atmospheric feedback and very unlikely to be part
of a coupled atmosphere-ocean oscillation mode. It must
therefore be the manifestation of real variations in the global
radiative forcing.
[74] It should be stressed that the observed correlation
between the oceanic heat flux and solar activity does not
provide proof for any particular amplification mechanism,
including that of the CRF/climate link. It does however
provide very strong support for the notion that an amplification
mechanism exists. Given that the CRF/climate links
predicts the correct radiation imbalance observed in the
cloud cover variations, it is a favorable candidate.
[75] With respect to simulating climate dynamics, the
results have two very interesting ramifications. First, they
imply that any attempt to explain historic temperature
variations should consider that the solar forcing variations
are almost an order of magnitude larger that just the TSI
variations now used almost exclusively. It would imply that
the climate sensitivity required to explain historic temperature
variations is smaller than often concluded.
[76] Second, an additional constraint can be used to
narrow the range of GCMs’ model parameters. Under solar
cycle like periodic forcing, a GCM should predict that the
ratio between the oceanic heat flux and sea-surface temperature
variations is that which is observed, namely, a net
oceanic flux of 1.05 ± 0.25 W/m2 for every 0.09 ± 0.01
C
change in the sea-surface temperature (or somewhat larger
land surface temperature variations). This should prove
useful in constraining GCM based predictions, such as that
of climate sensitivity.

[pumpkinpie]

Adding on to what Ari said....the weather reports seem more appropriate for a separate "extreme weather" thread, rather than one focusing on the climate. Or else incorporate these reports into a 30-year period and see what that says about the climate.

[William]

I would have expected much better from those authors because they have after all published some peer reviewed work before, but this one... well, they don't even seem to know the difference between the weather and climate:


There seems to be more thorough analysis of this work available showing that there's nothing of substance there, so I won't bother with it any further.

Ari,

My comments are included in the Realclimate thread. See 79, 197, 203, 208, and 211. I do not see an refutement of my comments. A little playful name calling and a dare, but no scientific refutement.

The Realclimate thread creates a strawman with the incorrect mechanism and demonstrate the incorrect mechanism is incorrect.

It does appear the sun is entering a Dalton or Maunder minimum. As noted by Bond in the past when the sun enters the Dalton or Maunder minimum the planet cools. That is a fact.

The planet does appear to be cooling. The first question is how much and how quickly. The second question, assuming the planet cools, is how does the mechanism work.

[HenrikOlsen]

There is evidence the planet is cooling. The UK Meteorological Society is now predicting a drop in temperature over the next decade. That is a reversal. The UK Meteorological Society had been continuing to predict each year after 1998 would be the warmest on record. That prediction was not correct and each year has been colder than 1998. This recent UK winter is the coldest in last 10 years, with abnormally high snowfall.

Once again, and as you have done in just about every post you have made, you're confusing weather for climate and ignoring that every year, including those after '98, the rolling average has been rising.

[William]

Once again, and as you have done in just about every post you have made, you're confusing weather for climate and ignoring that every year, including those after '98, the rolling average has been rising.

If my understanding of the mechanisms is correct, the current small change is a precursor to the big Kahuna. May you live in interesting times. I am curious as to the specific timing and magnitude of the change.

I would assume you have not looked at this problem of the glacial/interglacial cycle from a cause standpoint.

Assuming the planet starts to abruptly cool, is CO2 still a pollutant? I do not understand, the one thing humans are doing that is positive for the biosphere is to add CO2 and to warm it.

Quantitative estimate of the Milankovitch-forced contribution to observed Quaternary climate change


http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc...=rep1&type=pdf

The so-called Milankovitch hypothesis, that much of inferred past climate change is a response to near periodic variations in the earth’s position and orientation relative to the sun, has attracted a great deal of attention. Numerous textbooks (e.g., Bradley, 1999; Wilson et al., 2000; Ruddiman, 2001) of varying levels and sophisticate ion all tell the reader that the insolation changes are a major element controlling climate on time scales beyond about 10,000 years.

A number of records commonly described as showing control of climate change by Milankovitch insolation forcing are reexamined. The fraction of the record variance attributable to orbital changes never exceeds 20%. In no case, including a tuned core, do these forcing bands explain the overall behavior of the records. At zero order, all records are consistent with stochastic models of varying complexity with a small superimposed Milankovitch response, mainly in the obliquity band. Evidence cited to support the hypothesis that the 100 Ka glacial/interglacial cycles are controlled by the quasi-periodic insolation forcing is likely indistinguishable from chance, given the small sample size andnear-integer ratios of 100 Ka to the precessional periods.

[Gillianren]

If my understanding of the mechanisms is correct, the current small change is a precursor to the big Kahuna.

Not necessarily. As I'm sure you're aware, weather is a chaotic system. For example, a couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine was visiting the area. She stopped by to visit a couple of friends of ours who live in Bellingham, up against the Canadian border, then came down here, about 150 miles south, and she said it was colder. I didn't check the weather report, but it's possible she was right--and both Bellingham and Olympia are at or near sea level.

[Ari Jokimaki]

My comments are included in the Realclimate thread.

Your comments there don't deal with their comments about Svensmark & Friis-Christensen response, you are just posting the same global cooling stuff there as you have been doing here.

[Ari Jokimaki]

I'll add that there are couple of newer papers on the solar forcing issue: Lockwood & Fröhlich (2008) and Lockwood (2008). Both indicate that solar forcing is not the one causing the long time rising trend in global temperature, and it has been negative since 1987. They also deal with Svensmark & Friis-Christensen response.

[William]

Your comments there don't deal with their comments about Svensmark & Friis-Christensen response, you are just posting the same global cooling stuff there as you have been doing here.

Ari,

This is a copy of my comment #79 which directly address Lockwood's argument. Lockwood is looking at GCR changes. There are other hypothesized solar mechanisms that modulate planetary cloud cover and hence affect planetary temperature. Lockwood's early paper's only looked at TSI.

Ari, I see you have no response to above comment that shows periods of time when there is no correlation of planetary temperature and CO2 levels. Over the last 600 kyr and the last 200 million years.

Likewise there is the data that shows the tropical trosospheric temperature does not agree with the CO2 climate models.

My comment: #79 RealClimate
There is data that supports the assertion that a significant portion of the 20th century global warming was due to solar changes. (Note the sun can directly effect global cloud cover via electroscavenging in addition to modulation of GCR.)

Any way, here is a paper that provides data to support the assertion that there is strong correlation of the parameter Ak (which is a measure of the solar magnetic field strength and wind speed. The solar mechanism to that is hypothesized to module cloud cover, is more complicated than simply number of sunspots.) and planetary temperature, in the 20th century. There are also papers that show planetary cloud cover inversely tracks the 20th century temperature changes. Such as Enric Palle’s paper that measures the earthshine off of the moon to determine change in planetary albedo.

[Response: I have not been able to find any convincing documentation on any trend in the low cloudiness (including in the IPCC AR4). -rasmus]

Paper by Georgieva, Bianchi, & Kirov “Once again about global warming and solar activity”

http://sait.oat.ts.astro.it/MSAIt760.....76..969G.pdf

From the above paper: “It has been noted that in the last century the correlation between sunspot number and geomagnetic activity has been steadily decreasing from - 0.76 in the period 1868-1890 to 0.35 in the period 1960-1982, … According to Echer et al (2004), the probable cause seems to be related to the double peak structure of geomagnetic activity. The second peak, related to high speed solar wind from coronal holes (my comment: For example coronal hole 254 that produced the Dec 16, 2006 peak in solar wind, during a sun spot minimum, see attached link to Solar Observation Data), seems to have increased relative to the first one, related to sunspots (CMEs) but, as already mentioned, this type of solar activity is not accounted for by sunspot number. In figure 6 long term varations in global temperature are compared to the long-term variations in geomagnetic activity as expressed by the ak-index (Nevanlinna and Kataga 2003). The correlation between the two quantities is 0.85 with

...

[William]

I'll add that there are couple of newer papers on the solar forcing issue: Lockwood & Fröhlich (2008) and Lockwood (2008). Both indicate that solar forcing is not the one causing the long time rising trend in global temperature, and it has been negative since 1987. They also deal with Svensmark & Friis-Christensen response.

Ari,
Obviously if the planet starts to abruptly cool this issue will be resolved. As it has stopped warming and is now cooling is a fact. The question is will the cooling trend continue and will it accelerate.

There are papers that show there have in the past been a series of cold events that coincide with solar changes. Specifically how the solar changes cool the planet is not known. There are papers that show the glacial/interglacial cycle cannot be explained by insolation changes.

Planetary temperature change has a time constant (1/e) of roughly 3 to 5 years, so there will even for an abrupt forcing change be a time delay as the system reaches the new equilibrium.

[Ari Jokimaki]

This is a copy of my comment #79 which directly address Lockwood's argument.

So? Like I said: "Your comments there don't deal with their comments about Svensmark & Friis-Christensen response". You offered Svensmark & Friis-Christensen "paper", to which I responded with RealClimate blog entry which addresses Svensmark & Friis-Christensen arguments. You then offered your comments as a response to that. Your comments don't address the arguments presented in the RealClimate blog.

But, I notice that you mention Palle there, some time ago I commented Palle et al. paper in this post, and it seems that there's no good evidence of any significant trends in Earth's albedo in that paper.

Ari, I see you have no response to above comment that shows periods of time when there is no correlation of planetary temperature and CO2 levels. Over the last 600 kyr and the last 200 million years.

Oh, sorry, I didn't know that I am obligated to respond to all of your claims. That would be useless as you are mainly just repeating that global cooling argument over and over again without any evidence for it but few selected news about some cold weather events. Your cooling argument is about weather, not climate. Also, if you look at this diagram from GISS, it is not that clear that temperature even is currently cooling. The whole global cooling argument seems to rest on that one anomalously cold spike that happened beginning of 2008.

It is not secret that CO₂ level haven't been correlating with global temperature in the past. It is common knowledge that greenhouse gases started to be dominant cause of global warming during the second half of 20th century. Before that, there were other dominant drivers to global temperature. Reason for that is clear, see this diagram of historical CO₂ levels (the green line). CO₂ levels have been around 240 ppm in the past but now they are about 380 ppm.

Likewise there is the data that shows the tropical trosospheric temperature does not agree with the CO2 climate models.

You have a bad habbit of not offering references for your claims. Your claims are worthless without them.

Obviously if the planet starts to abruptly cool this issue will be resolved. As it has stopped warming and is now cooling is a fact.

Rubbish. This have been told to you many times that apparent cooling (or, rather, slowed warming) of last couple of years cannot be thought of as anything else than chaotic weather patterns. Declaring planetary cooling is too premature, but of course climate sceptic has to beat that drum on every occasion when today was colder than yesterday. But if you want highlight these weather patterns, then just look at the GISS-diagram I linked to; there is strong warming trend going on starting from the beginning of 2008. So, according to your standards the "cooling trend" has stopped, right?

There are papers that show there have in the past been a series of cold events that coincide with solar changes.

1. Again, it is no secret that climate changes in the past have had different causes than the climate change of today. Having solar changes dominating past climate is common knowledge which doesn't mean that greenhouse gases aren't dominant now.
2. "There are papers" is usually followed by references, but not in your posts.
3. When there are two series having "events" every now and then, it is not surprise that sometimes the "events" of the two series coincide.
4. Even if one would show that some past changes have been due to solar changes doesn't mean that Lockwood & Fröhlich are wrong in that solar forcing is not causing current climate change. Lockwood % Fröhlich are not claiming that past climate changes are not due solar changes. In fact, they specifically state that solar effects were important in pre-industrial times, but their point is that "solar variability effects... ...have simply been swamped by other factors in recent years". If you want to show Lockwood & Fröhlich wrong, you need to address their arguments directly.

There are papers that show the glacial/interglacial cycle cannot be explained by insolation changes.

"There are papers..." again without reference.

Citing causes for past changes in climate doesn't mean that greenhouse gases aren't the cause for this current one. What would stop their effect in the atmosphere all of a sudden? Earlier in this thread I cited some papers that measured greenhouse gas forcing, and here is another one: The role of carbon dioxide in climate forcing from 1979 to 2004: introduction of the Annual Greenhouse Gas Index - Hofmann et al. (2006). Check out their table 2 for example, there is CO₂ radiative forcing growing steadily. What would stop it?

[mugaliens]

Apparently, some whizz kid has built a 50 cubic " box with an ARM7 processor and linux coupled to a radio shack sensor and launched it into orbit with a catapult to do the same job.

Wow.

$300,000 vs NASA's $285,000,000.

That's almost 1,000 times more expensive.



Seriously, I wonder how much more capable the OCO was than the CanX-2 is?

[William]

So? Like I said: "Your comments there don't deal with their comments about Svensmark & Friis-Christensen response". You offered Svensmark & Friis-Christensen "paper", to which I responded with RealClimate blog entry which addresses Svensmark & Friis-Christensen arguments. You then offered your comments as a response to that. Your comments don't address the arguments presented in the RealClimate blog.

You have a bad habbit of not offering references for your claims. Your claims are worthless without them.


Rubbish. This have been told to you many times that apparent cooling (or, rather, slowed warming) of last couple of years cannot be thought of as anything else than chaotic weather patterns. Declaring planetary cooling is too premature, but of course climate sceptic has to beat that drum on every occasion when today was colder than yesterday. But if you want highlight these weather patterns, then just look at the GISS-diagram I linked to; there is strong warming trend going on starting from the beginning of 2008. So, according to your standards the "cooling trend" has stopped, right?

"There are papers..." again without reference.

Ari,
I have presented a linked argument above with published data to refute the assertion the majority of the 20th century warming was caused by CO2.

1) There is data and analysis in published papers, that shows in the past planetary temperature did not correlate with CO2 levels.
2) There is Douglass' paper (which I will provide a link to) that shows tropical tropospheric temperatures have not risen which is in fundamental disagreement with the general climate models.
3) I provide the paper below and can provide other papers that shows the glacial/interglacial cycle is not caused by insolation changes. There is some other first order strong climate forcing function.
4) I can provide a dozen papers that all showed that solar major minimums correlate with the cold events. That is not refuted by anyone in the scientific community. The question is mechanism.
5) There is also satellite data in addition to the earthshine data that shows the planet's albedo changed during the 20th century and that a significant portion of the 20th century warming was due to the albedo changes. (Planetary albedo and cloud cover is difficult to measure which is why this scientific issue clouds vs CO2 has not been settled.)

Perhaps we can turn the discussion around. What data do you have the shows the 20th century warming was caused by increased CO2?

As I said this issue will be settled. If what I said is correct the planet will cool. It does appear it is cooling now. I agree that more time will be required to confirm a climate change is happening. A cooling event is not a positive event.


Quantitative estimate of the Milankovitch-forced contribution to observed Quaternary climate change


http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retri...77379104000575

The so-called Milankovitch hypothesis, that much of inferred past climate change is a response to near periodic variations in the earth’s position and orientation relative to the sun, has attracted a great deal of attention. Numerous textbooks (e.g., Bradley, 1999; Wilson et al., 2000; Ruddiman, 2001) of varying levels and sophisticate ion all tell the reader that the insolation changes are a major element controlling climate on time scales beyond about 10,000 years.

A number of records commonly described as showing control of climate change by Milankovitch insolation forcing are reexamined. The fraction of the record variance attributable to orbital changes never exceeds 20%. In no case, including a tuned core, do these forcing bands explain the overall behavior of the records. At zero order, all records are consistent with stochastic models of varying complexity with a small superimposed Milankovitch response, mainly in the obliquity band. Evidence cited to support the hypothesis that the 100 Ka glacial/interglacial cycles are controlled by the quasi-periodic insolation forcing is likely ...

Paleoclimatic Record

Evidence for Predicting Global Cooling for the Next Three Decades

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...t=va&aid=10783

Planetary temperature during Maunder Minimum.

http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/ao/ot...al2000_IJC.pdf

[William]

You have a bad habit of not offering references for your claims. Your claims are worthless without them. ...

"There are papers..." again without reference....

This paper essentially disproves that CO2 has the cause of the 20th century warming. The problem is if CO2 was not responsible for the 20th century warming what was responsible has stopped, abruptly changed.

But as I said, where is the paper that proves that CO2 was responsible for the 20th century warming.

A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions by David Douglass, John Christy, Benjamin Pearsona and Fred Singer


http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf

We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 ‘Climate of the 20th Century’ model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data.

This is the Realclimate response to Douglass et al's paper.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php...ropopshere-ii/

This is the next response.

http://co2sceptics.com/news.php?id=2656

A debate exists over whether tropical troposphere temperature trends in climate models are inconsistent with observations (Karl et al. 2006, IPCC (2007), Douglass et al 2007, Santer et al 2008). Most recently, Santer et al (2008, herein S08) asserted that the Douglass et al statistical methodology was flawed and that a correct methodology showed there is no statistically significant difference between the model ensemble mean trend and either RSS or UAH satellite observations. However this result was based on data ending in 1999. Using data up to the end of 2007 (as available to S08) or to the end of 2008 and applying exactly the same methodology as S08 results in a statistically significant difference between the ensemble mean trend and UAH observations and approaching statistical significance for the RSS T2 data. The claim by S08 to have achieved a “partial resolution” of the discrepancy between observations and the model ensemble mean trend is unwarranted..

The 20th century warming has stopped. Why? This argument is one sided. There is no scientific explanation for what we are observing.

I live in a Northern country and have friends and relatives in all provinces. This was been and continues to be an exceptionally cold winter (another storm this week -30C with wind chill.) Record long term cold, very, very, strong winter storms, and high snowfall for all regions. I do not see global cooling as an academic question. In one year the "weather" has returned to the cold of the 1970's.

[Gillianren]

I live in a Northern country and have friends and relatives in all provinces. This was been and continues to be an exceptionally cold winter (another storm this week -30C with wind chill.) Record long term cold, very, very, strong winter storms, and high snowfall for all regions. I do not see global cooling as an academic question. In one year the "weather" has returned to the cold of the 1970's.

For the umpteenth time, weather and climate are not the same thing. Looking at the weather of one region--and in whatever country you live, it's still small relative to the size of the Earth--does not and cannot stand in for the accumulated effects around the world. Is the cold weather of your region balanced by or exceeded by warming somewhere else? Have you bothered to look? Further, you have also been told that you cannot make predictions based on what happens one year, since climate is a chaotic system.

You know, the more I listen to AGW skeptics, the harder it is to take any of them seriously.

[nauthiz]

There's also the point, often made by climatologists who try to explain the AGW idea, that the theory predicts that while the entire planet's average temperature is expected to rise, that doesn't translate into an even change spread across the entire planet. The models predict that in several regions the local climate will get colder over the next decade or two. Just because there's an unusually cold winter in Nord doesn't mean it's also a cold winter in Skagway. It's been a pretty darn hot winter for me - was out in short sleeve t-shirt with no jacket on in New York in early February this year. And I was comfortable. But I didn't make a big deal of it except to enjoy it and comment on how weird it is, because weather is not climate.

Also a "temperature" that includes wind chill is not a temperature. Temperature is what the thermometer says, not what the TV weather guy says it'll feel like.

[Torsten]

Some maps labeled "Mean Monthly Temperature Differences from Normal (National)" from a northern country that has provinces:

October, 2008
November, 2008
December, 2008
January, 2009
February, 2008

There seems to be selective reporting of extreme weather.

I think this means that William is allowed to quote any weather report that is about cold weather, but if anyone mentions that it is so hot where they live that the power grid is failing due to demand by air conditioners, that is "selective reporting".

[Ari Jokimaki]

I have presented a linked argument above with published data to refute the assertion the majority of the 20th century warming was caused by CO2.

Which one?

1) There is data and analysis in published papers, that shows in the past planetary temperature did not correlate with CO2 levels.

Which everyone agrees on, but again you didn't provide references.

2) There is Douglass' paper (which I will provide a link to) that shows tropical tropospheric temperatures have not risen which is in fundamental disagreement with the general climate models.

See below.

3) I provide the paper below and can provide other papers that shows the glacial/interglacial cycle is not caused by insolation changes. There is some other first order strong climate forcing function.

Once again, nobody is claiming that greenhouse gases were always the dominant driver behind global temperature changes. But currently they are.

4) I can provide a dozen papers that all showed that solar major minimums correlate with the cold events. That is not refuted by anyone in the scientific community. The question is mechanism.

What point is there only to say that you can provide the papers? Just provide them. Although, I have already said that sun is thought to have been a major player in past climate changes, and that doesn't take away the role of greenhouse gases in this current change.

5) There is also satellite data in addition to the earthshine data that shows the planet's albedo changed during the 20th century and that a significant portion of the 20th century warming was due to the albedo changes. (Planetary albedo and cloud cover is difficult to measure which is why this scientific issue clouds vs CO2 has not been settled.)

Go ahead and show the data, and the study that goes along with it. Why one always needs to ask you these references before you provide them?

One thing you need to remember here is that albedo changes are expected also when greenhouse gases are warming the planet. Also, measuring just albedo change and calculating it's forcing directly is not enough. One has to know the cause to albedo changes, because there are causes for albedo change that are not so easy to determine how much forcing they are causing, such as clouds.

Perhaps we can turn the discussion around. What data do you have the shows the 20th century warming was caused by increased CO2?

You mean you don't know? Have you only looked at alternative causes? I have linked to a lot of papers even in this thread. Looking backwards and selecting only those that are most relevant: Just in the last post I linked to Hofmann et al. (2006). Then there was Miyazaki et al. (2008) and Chahine et al. (2008). Before that I have linked to some modelling papers and then to a few papers showing radiative forcing measurements (Griggs & Harries, 2004, Clerbaux et al., 2003, Philipona et al., 2004, Dürr, 2004) and to a paper by Harries et al. (2008) showing some CO₂ infrared absorption measurements from atmosphere. I also linked to a couple of papers (Quay et al, 1992, Pataki et al., 2006) showing measurements that differentiate anthropogenic and natural emissions of CO₂. Very relevant is the textbook I linked to. I also linked to Lean & Rind (2008). These will do for now.

Of course, one only needs to say that the evidence is in peer reviewed literature in general. There are thousands of papers supporting anthropogenic warming by greenhouse gases. Read the peer reviewed literature. Also, good thing would be to read the IPCC AR4.

It does appear it is cooling now.

So, do you disagree that from the beginning of 2008 there has been a strong warming trend (as shown by GISS monthly global temperature data)?

This paper essentially disproves that CO2 has the cause of the 20th century warming. The problem is if CO2 was not responsible for the 20th century warming what was responsible has stopped, abruptly changed.

But as I said, where is the paper that proves that CO2 was responsible for the 20th century warming.

A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions by David Douglass, John Christy, Benjamin Pearsona and Fred Singer
...
This is the Realclimate response to Douglass et al's paper.
...
This is the next response.

Allen & Sherwood (2008) do the analysis until 2005, and they find that:

The degree of warming remains fairly uncertain, but is within the range simulated by climate models, albeit with some discrepancies near the tropopause.
...
Most importantly, we conclude that observed changes in wind seem to be consistent with those predicted by models given sampling and other uncertainties, supporting previous suggestions that discrepancies between predicted and observed upper-tropospheric warming are due to problems remaining in the temperature records1.

But let's assume for argument's sake that Douglass et al. (2007) are correct and there is a real difference between the models and the observations in the tropical troposphere. In this situation, nobody would yet know why the models don't follow the observations in tropics. Yet, you claim that Douglass et al. "essentially disproves that CO2 has the cause of the 20th century warming". How would you know that it is specifically the CO₂ that is wrong instead of numerous other possibilities? Douglass et al. discuss possible differences in tropical temperatures between the models and the observations, and they don't even mention CO₂ in their paper. Claiming that CO₂ effects are ruled out based on this paper is false.

Even if you believe that Douglass et al. is correct, you need to ask why it is happening only in tropics, where (coincidentally) the distribution of radiosondes is sparse. You also need to ask what other causes there might be for models to be wrong (that is, if they even would be wrong) only in tropics. Could there be some grand but yet local phenomenon that might be difficult to model, such as some large oscillation? Instead of asking these questions, you are leaping to a conclusion that CO₂ is not causing warming. I find your approach very unscientific.

Besides, in order to show warming effects of CO₂ false, you would need to show why all of our laboratory and atmosphere infrared measurements relating to properties of CO₂ are wrong.

The 20th century warming has stopped. Why?

It's because we have entered to the era of 21st century warming.

In one year the "weather" has returned to the cold of the 1970's.

Well, let's just see what what the measurements show. Do you notice any difference between the global temperature of 2008 and global temperature of 1970s? Or, are you claiming that during these couple of months of 2009, the global long time mean temperature has dropped 0.5K (which would be by far the record-breaking change in global temperatures since 1880, and how would you even show that long time mean had dropped during last months)? But hang on, just recently I linked to a diagram from GISS showing monthly global temperatures, that diagram shows also one month of 2009 and there's no sign of temperature droppage yet, so this drop back to 1970's temperatures has to have happened during one month (February). Oh, and by the way, in this northern country where I live, the winter was standard warm 2000's winter.

[Stroller]

nobody is claiming that greenhouse gases were always the dominant driver behind global temperature changes. But currently they are.

That is not a matter of fact, it is an assertion, the correctness or otherwise of which is the subject of this debate.

Dr Roy Spencer, and eminently well qualified climate scientist said something along the lines of:
"I have yet to see any evidence that the modern warming cannot be explained by natural variation"

It is up to the protagonists of the theory of AGW to prove their case, since the null hypothesis of no anthropogenic forcing fits the data within the limits of natural temperature variation.

Although Ari provides many links to many pal reviewed papers, it is the case that the only 'proof' of AGW comes from computer models which are by the IPCC's own admission in chapter 2 of AR4, deficient in many respects. These models have either failed to predict climate or are given sufficiently wide error ranges to render them useless for the purpose of proving the AGW theory.

Furthermore, the models rely on an outdated and superseded notion of solar forcing which when removed from the models makes it even more difficult for them to create an accurate hindcast without lowing the claimed sensitivity of climate to co2.

Meanwhile, empirical data continues to confound the proposition that co2 is a strong driver of climate.

The ARGO ocean data, even after 'correction', and according to Josh Willis who collates the data, shows "a slight cooling since 2003"

The four main surface and satellite based temperature indices show on average, have been flat since 2003 and shown a steep decline in temperature since 2005 of 0.2C. Six years is not inter-annual variability no matter how much the AGW proponents huff and puff about weather.

Sea levels have on average dropped since a maximum was hit in 2005 according to Colorado university. Sea levels were some 30 metres lower 9000 years ago, rose steeply until around 4000 years ago, and have been tailing off in increase since. They are the consequence of the melting of the glaciers formed in the last ice age, and it will take at the C20th average rate another 20,000 years for sea levels to increase until all the ice is melted.

Paltridge et al have recently published a paper showing that humidity levels in the upper troposphere have dropped since 1948, removing half the climate sensitivity claimed by AGW theory through water vapour feedback. (yes I know radiosonde data is problematic and so do they. The satellite data used by AGW proponents is equally problematic, the science is not settled in this area.)

Co2 continues it's steady upward plod of around 5ppm per year. Without the support of water vapour positive feedback which maybe isn't happening after all, it does very little to change the temperature of the earth, as simple well known physics amply demonstrates.

[nauthiz]

There are thousands of papers supporting anthropogenic warming by greenhouse gases.

All we need to know that every last one of those papers is bunk is this one 2007 paper which doesn't really contradict AGW in any kind of clear way, and that readily admits in its own abstract that its conclusions are at odds with the conclusions of all the other teams who have reported on the same data set, which, incidentally, happens to be a rather crummy data set to begin with.

[William]

Which one?

Which everyone agrees on, but again you didn't provide references.

See below.

Once again, nobody is claiming that greenhouse gases were always the dominant driver behind global temperature changes. But currently they are.

What point is there only to say that you can provide the papers? Just provide them. Although, I have already said that sun is thought to have been a major player in past climate changes, and that doesn't take away the role of greenhouse gases in this current change.

Go ahead and show the data, and the study that goes along with it. Why one always needs to ask you these references before you provide them?

One thing you need to remember here is that albedo changes are expected also when greenhouse gases are warming the planet. Also, measuring just albedo change and calculating it's forcing directly is not enough. One has to know the cause to albedo changes, because there are causes for albedo change that are not so easy to determine how much forcing they are causing, such as clouds.

Ari,

OK, here are some of the facts that form the linked argument.

1. In the past there are major periods in last 1.2 million and in the last 200 million years where CO2 levels do not correlate with planetary temperature changes. I can provide a link to multiple papers if you wish. What I am saying is not disputed by the scientific community. The complete lack of simple correlation directly challenges the current CO2 warming hypothesis and mechanism. There is no explanation for the data and lack of correlation.

2. No one is disputing the "CO2 Greenhouse" effect for initial CO2. If you use the IPCC's very optimistic equation (the equation is disputed) the direct warming affect due to a doubling of CO2 is 0.7C. The question is how does that get multiplied to a 3C +/- 1.5C rise. Look at point 1. Something is incorrect with the science. Quoting the number of text books that say something or the number of scientists that say something does not solve the scientific paradox. They and you are ignoring paradox 1.

3. There is evidence that the Milankovitch hypothesis has no basis in science. It is an urban myth. As noted in Wunsch's paper there is at most 20% correlation between temperature changes and insolation changes which is less than chance. There is no qualitative support for the Milankovitch hypothesis. There is a major first order climate forcing function that is causing the glacial/interglacial cycle. I provided a link to Kaplan's paper that provides data that shows that both Northern and Southern Hemispheres simultaneously cool and warm which absolutely rules out "ocean currents" which take 1000's of years for the Northern Hemisphere changes to affect Southern Hemisphere besides the forcing effect being a couple of orders of magnitude less than what is required to cool and warm the entire planet. (The tropics are also effected.)

4. Abrupt climate change. There are a series of abrupt cooling periods in the paleoclimatic record. The urban myth was that these abrupt cooling periods were caused by abrupt stoppage of the Atlantic Drift current. No one provided a mechanism as to what could possibly cause the Atlantic Drift current to abruptly turn off and on. I provided a link to Seager's paper that shows basic modelling shows that Wally Broecker's Climate is an Angry Beast hypothesis is an urban myth.

5. I provided a link to Douglass et al's paper that shows tropical tropospheric temperatures have not warmed which is in direct disagreement of the predicted temperature from the general climate models. As noted in the RealClimate blog on Douglass et al's paper if that finding is correct, then the predicted 3C rise is not correct. You provided a link to "Warming maximum in the tropical upper troposphere deduced from thermal winds" by R. Allen and S. Sherwood which does address Douglass et al's data or conclusion. i.e. Douglass et are using published temperature data. I provide a 2009 paper that used 2007 and 2008 temperature data that suppports Douglass et al's conclusion.

6. Lastly is the planet now cooling or warming. 70% of the planet is covered with water. The temperature measurement you provided is biased and contaminated by urban heat islands, it shows a warming of 0.44C as compared to the much published 0.7C maximum temperature anomaly. The data you provide shows the planet is cooling. How much cooling would convince you that the CO2 hypothesis is incorrect? What is the maximum cooling that could now occur?

Quantitative estimate of the Milankovitch-forced contribution to observed Quaternary climate change


http://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retri...77379104000575

The so-called Milankovitch hypothesis, that much of inferred past climate change is a response to near periodic variations in the earth’s position and orientation relative to the sun, has attracted a great deal of attention. Numerous textbooks (e.g., Bradley, 1999; Wilson et al., 2000; Ruddiman, 2001) of varying levels and sophistication all tell the reader that the insolation changes are a major element controlling climate on time scales beyond about 10,000 years. A recent paper begins ‘‘It is widely accepted that climate variability on time scales of 1000 to 100,000 years is driven primarily by orbital, or so-called Milankovitch, forcing.’’ (McDermott et al., 2001).

A number of records commonly described as showing control of climate change by Milankovitch insolation forcing are reexamined. The fraction of the record variance attributable to orbital changes never exceeds 20%. In no case, including a tuned core, do these forcing bands explain the overall behavior of the records. At zero order, all records are consistent with stochastic models of varying complexity with a small superimposed Milankovitch response, mainly in the obliquity band. Evidence cited to support the hypothesis that the 100 Ka glacial/interglacial cycles are controlled by the quasi-periodic insolation forcing is likely indistinguishable from chance, given the small sample size and near-integer ratios of 100 Ka to the precessional periods.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div...al_QJ_2002.pdf

http://www.americanscientist.org/iss...mild-climate/1

The notion that the Gulf Stream is responsible for keeping Europe anomalously warm turns out to be a myth by Richard Seager

If you grow up in England, as I did, a few items of unquestioned wisdom are passed down to you from the preceding generation. Along with stories of a plucky island race with a glorious past and the benefits of drinking unbelievable quantities of milky tea, you will be told that England is blessed with its pleasant climate courtesy of the Gulf Stream, that huge current of warm water that flows northeast across the Atlantic from its source in the Gulf of Mexico. That the Gulf Stream is responsible for Europe's mild winters is widely known and accepted, but, as I will show, it is nothing more than the earth-science equivalent of an urban legend.

[mugaliens]

For the umpteenth time, weather and climate are not the same thing.

You're right - they're not:

weather - the state of the atmosphere with respect to heat or cold, wetnessor dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness

climate - the average course or conditions of the weather at a place usually over a period of years

Looking at the weather of one region--and in whatever country you live, it's still small relative to the size of the Earth--does not and cannot stand in for the accumulated effects around the world.

If you're implying that weather is what happens locally and climate is the geographic sum of weather over the globe, you're wrong. Climate is the mean, variation, and distribution of the weather occuring within any specific geographic region over time. Thus, one can talk about the current weather in Houston, as well as Houston's typical climate. One can also talk about both global weather and global climate.

Further, you have also been told that you cannot make predictions based on what happens one year, since climate is a chaotic system.

It's easy to predict certain aspects of chaotic systems, provided one understands them and the limits of the prediction. For example, given one year of weather, I can easily, and very accurately (nearly 100% certainty) predict the summer will be warmer than the winter. But that's not very specific... So, I could predict with reasonable accuracy (95% C.I.) that Houston's daytime highs in the month of June will range between 73 and 94, 90% of the time, with absolute variations between 47 and 105.

Just because a system is chaotic doesn't mean it's unpredictable. Chaos in weather makes it impossible for me to predict whether the peak high in Houston on June 1 will be above or below it's 77 def F mean. Yet there remain many things about which I can predict with absolute certainty.

In order for a system to be classed as chaotic, it but be sensitive to initial conditions (butterfly effect), it must be topologically mixing (blurry/mixed result), and it's periodic orbits must be dense ().

Linear systems are never chaotic. Many aspects of chaotic systems are often highly predictible due to the presence of attractors.

Let's take a pendulum for example - it's a chaotic system! Here's how: The pendulum may average 1 swing per second. However, it varies from that mean enough so that precisely 1,000 seconds later, the pendulum will probably not be in the same section of it's arc. After 1,000,000 swings, it's position will be chaotically pseudorandom (impossible to predict). Yet we can predict with absolute confidence that the duration of its 1,000,000th swing will be 1 second +/- 1/1,000th of a second.

You know, the more I listen to AGW skeptics, the harder it is to take any of them seriously.

The more I hear AGW supporters talk about chaotic systems such as the weather and the resulting climate, I feel much the same way.

[Gillianren]

If you're implying that weather is what happens locally and climate is the geographic sum of weather over the globe, you're wrong. Climate is the mean, variation, and distribution of the weather occuring within any specific geographic region over time. Thus, one can talk about the current weather in Houston, as well as Houston's typical climate. One can also talk about both global weather and global climate.

Yes. I know. However, it is inaccurate to say "it was really cold this winter, so our climate hasn't warmed," because data can have outliers. Further, "it was really cold here this winter, so global warming isn't happening" is equally inadequate, because it doesn't take into account anything but one cold winter in one place.

It's easy to predict certain aspects of chaotic systems, provided one understands them and the limits of the prediction. For example, given one year of weather, I can easily, and very accurately (nearly 100% certainty) predict the summer will be warmer than the winter. But that's not very specific... So, I could predict with reasonable accuracy (95% C.I.) that Houston's daytime highs in the month of June will range between 73 and 94, 90% of the time, with absolute variations between 47 and 105.

So you can predict that the temperature will fall within a 21-point spread? 90% of the time?

Just because a system is chaotic doesn't mean it's unpredictable. Chaos in weather makes it impossible for me to predict whether the peak high in Houston on June 1 will be above or below it's 77 def F mean. Yet there remain many things about which I can predict with absolute certainty.

90% of the time, right?

The more I hear AGW supporters talk about chaotic systems such as the weather and the resulting climate, I feel much the same way.

Your explanation of chaos is fascinating. However, it doesn't go toward the basic fact that you can't use one data point to extrapolate anything, or even a group of data points clustered over a relatively small region. We here have had an unusually harsh winter, with more snow on the ground than has been seen here in a very long time. This would imply to William that global warming cannot be happening, even though that data point must also be balanced by the fact that our summers have been getting consistently hotter over the last half-dozen or so years. That isn't proof of global warming either, of course, because it's still only data from one place. When William claims such things as proof that global climate isn't changing, he makes himself look inadequate to the task of understanding how things work.

Which is not, incidentally, meant to imply that I'm anything of an expert. I'm not. Frankly, my acceptance of AGW is fairly intuitive. We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. We know we're putting a lot more CO2 into the atmosphere. We know global temperatures, contrary to what William says, have been on the rise for some time. Ergo . . . .