Willard,

Lot’s of word you wrote there. My eyes must fail me ’cause all I can see is “I can’t”, “I just can’t”, “I don’t wanna”. It was your question Mr. W, why oh why would you expect me to do YOUR work for YOU? I don’t care. That the CIA had it done is sufficient for my purpose, and it still says “global cooling”.
Climateball, back in your court.

In regard to the recent (April 15, 2015) Science, Space, and Technology Committee Congressional Hearing:

As was to be expected, Congressional hearings are more about political posturing rather than being a directed effort of objective information gathering. Naturally, there was the perfunctory public posturing of pretending to appear “fair and balanced”. But the unmistakable overall flavor was really one of there-we-g0-again legalistic tribunes where selected legal briefs are presented on behalf of well-known staked-out positions by convenient plaintiffs who get to argue the virtues of their special points of view on their favorite issues regarding global warming and global climate change.

What went missing in this Congressional climate forum was any kind of real balancing testimony from experts in the field who have spent decades to analyze this important topic of global climate change. Regrettably, there was no real discussion as to what we actually do know about the global warming problem, and why we know it.

But, looking on the brighter side, perhaps there may have been a small modicum of progress having been made in that the likes of Senator James Inhofe (R, Oklahoma) and Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R, California) were not out there lambasting global warming and climate change as being the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on humanity. It appears that perhaps at this point in time, making such blatant denials of reality could be perceived as being unnecessarily clueless and ignorant.

But then there is also the contrary example of courageous conviction, and understanding of the global warming reality, exhibited by former Congressman Bob Inglis (R, South Carolina), who paid the price for being politically incorrect. One can only hope that at some point, pragmatic sanity will eventually prevail.

Even some of the staunchest of the global warming doubters have now grudgingly come around to acknowledge that CO2 does indeed absorb thermal radiation (but they want to claim that the absorption is small, that CO2 is saturated, and that water vapor actually absorbs more strongly); that while there might have been some increase in global temperature (it all has been mostly due to natural variability, and as such, it has been beneficial); and that while humans might have contributed to the rise in atmospheric CO2 (it has not been significant, and besides, the plants have benefitted from more CO2).

While there was nothing that was specifically erroneous in these Congressional Hearing presentations, it was the usual problem of half-truths, misdirection, and non-sequiturs being used to paint a picture that is not an accurate description of where we stand in our understanding of the current climate situation.

Part of the problem may also be attributable to the flexible nature of some basic definitions. What exactly is meant by this common term “global warming”? Literally, the term “global warming” would signify that the global-mean temperature is rising, and if the global-mean temperature were to be decreasing, the situation would then become “global cooling”. But this frequently used term has also acquired a more technical meaning as it is being used in climate science. As the key cause and principal component of global warming, it is the rise in atmospheric CO2 and other greenhouse gases that act to increase the strength of the terrestrial greenhouse effect, and induce more water vapor in the atmosphere as a feedback effect. This inevitably leads to an increase in global surface temperature. This is really what the term “global warming” represents.

But there are other factors that also affect the global temperature. These can be caused by changes in solar irradiance, volcanic aerosols, and the natural variability of the ocean. Changes in solar irradiance and volcanic aerosols are typically known accurately enough. It is the variability of the ocean that is the principal source of uncertainly, such as a strong negative branch of the PDO cycle that can keep the global temperature from rising while atmospheric CO2 continues to increase unabated.

It is important to remember that the present-day changes affecting the global climate consist of two basic components: (1) the ongoing global warming component fueled by increasing atmospheric CO2, and (2) the natural variability of the climate system that consists of random-looking fluctuations about a slowly evolving zero reference point of the climate system.

It would be a misdirection to suggest that global warming has just somehow stalled simply because there has been only a little rise in global surface temperature since the prominent peak in 1998. There was no comparable “pause” in the rate of atmospheric CO2 increase during this time period. Instead, the global energy imbalance of the Earth increased as the heat energy that would have been warming the ground surface was being diverted toward heating the ocean. This puts more unrealized global warming into the “pipeline”, from which it will be emerging as the PDO cycle shifts toward its positive phase.

The natural variability of the climate system also makes it difficult to infer climate sensitivity to the radiative forcing by atmospheric CO2. Reliable estimates of the equilibrium climate sensitivity (equivalent to about 3 K for doubled CO2) are obtained from the geological record and from climate model calculations. The transient climate sensitivity is by definition a moving target since it depends on the rate of change of heat transport into the ocean (which itself is a changing factor), and estimating the transient climate sensitivity from observational data is particularly difficult (and uncertain), because it is necessary to know all contributing forcings in order to disentangle the feedback contributions from the total climate system response. While the CO2 forcing may be known accurately, it is big uncertainty as to the “virtual” forcings due to the natural variability of the ocean that are the most difficult to determine. Thus, estimates of the transient climate sensitivity (whether high, or low), will continue to remain highly uncertain.

In view of the above, the suggestion that climate models are running “too hot” compared to observations is disingenuous. Climate models may well run “cold” while simulating El Nino events, and run “hot” while simulating the global temperature during a strong negative PDO. Both climate models and the real world exhibit a form of unforced natural variability. And in both cases, this natural variability is quasi-chaotic, with no real way to coordinate the phasing of this variability. Any short-term comparisons between climate model results and observations need to keep this in mind. To sidestep this problem, the time period for comparisons must be long enough for the natural variability contributions to average out.

Granted, the definition of “dangerous” climate change is ambiguous. And there is probably no real way to quantify just what “dangerous” actually represents. Perhaps the example of the Titanic may help.
At what point did the situation on the Titanic become dangerous? There was no perceived danger when the Titanic left Southampton for New York. Most of the passengers were still dry and alive some two hours after hitting the iceberg. Did the danger begin when the iceberg was spotted, but there was not enough time to avoid the collision? Or was the danger already brewing when Captain Smith ignored reports of icebergs and continued full steam ahead? There might be some relevant parallels to draw.

Global-mean winds, global-mean temperatures, and global-mean precipitation, compared between a doubled CO2 climate and the current climate would not appear to be consequentially different. But it is the extreme weather events that cause the damage. Whether humans get blamed, or not blamed, neither adds nor detracts from the problem. Global warming puts more heat, water vapor, and latent energy into the atmosphere. And that is the fuel that makes the extreme weather events more extreme. So, there actually is a real relationship to be had between global warming (human induced) and a growing danger of more severe weather extremes. A better studied quantification of this relationship would certainly be very useful.

It would seem more appropriate to assign “wickedness” to problems that are more specifically related to witches. The climate problem, while clearly complex and complicated, is not incomprehensible. Current climate models do a very credible job in simulating current climate variability and seasonal changes. Present-day weather models make credible weather forecasts – and there is a close relationship. Most of the cutting edge current climate modeling research is aimed at understanding the physics of ocean circulation and the natural variability of the climate system that this generates. While this may be the principal source of uncertainty in predicting regional climate change and weather extreme events, this uncertainty in modeling the climate system’s natural variability is clearly separate and unrelated to the radiative energy balance physics that characterize the global warming problem. The appropriate uncertainty that exists in one area of climate modeling doe not automatically translate to all other components of the climate system.

Besides, the persistent uncertainties regarding the natural variability of the climate system are not the real problem that we face. The real problem is the continued increase in atmospheric CO2 that is causing the ongoing global warming. And, the basic facts and physics for understanding this aspect of global warming are all well established and well understood.

There always seem to be temptations to minimize the consequences of the global warming problem, or the cost-effectiveness of proposed efforts taken or suggested to counteract the global warming problem. That is just what Steven Koonin attempted to do in a previous post, nor does it appear to be different in this Congressional hearing.

Typically, the economic costs of taking action to address the global warming problem are always cited as being unnecessarily excessive. This was true of the proposed expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the levees and shoreline in New Orleans prior to Katrina, and in New York prior to Sandy. Had this money actually been spent to make New York and New Orleans more hurricane-proof, we might never have known that hundreds of billions worth of hurricane damage might have been averted.

The economic cost of combating global warming is likely to be many hundreds of billions of dollars. But has anybody tried to calculate how many trillions of dollars it would cost to relocate Miami, New York, Washington DC, and New Orleans to higher ground? Surely, there are bound to be many other economic costs to tally up, brought on by the inaction to counteract the impending consequences that global warming is sure to bring.

Clearly, decisions will need to be made, and they will need to be made sooner rather than later. Is there anybody in Congress who is capable of making the hard decisions? It is actually important to first fully understand the problem before deciding to act, or in justifying the decision not to act.

+1

> That the CIA had it done is sufficient for my purpose, and it still says “global cooling”.

Where does it say “global cooling,” Danny, and how does that suffice for which purpose, again? I thought your point was more old skool than that:

[M]y thanks to Jim for stating my point well. The internet didn’t exist back in the pre-historic days of the 70’s. So those of us ancient enough to have lived then received our information via “old school” media of teevee, newspapers (ya’ll remember them?), magazines, and the like.

http://judithcurry.com/2015/04/18/week-in-review-science-edition/#comment-695325

I don’t think by “the like” you imply what CIA had done. Speaking of which, have you noticed that this “study” only implicated its author, and that your “the CIA had it done” is contradicted by what we can read on the very first page of the study?

You still have lots of homework to do before playing monkey with other Denizens, Danny.

It wasn’t catastrophic when it slowed down from the MWP to the LIA either. It was just colder.

Peter, it would be nice to know all those things on your list. However, if one believes that there is a significant chance of the increase in CO2 causing an increase in temperature of say 3C by say 2100, it is probably a good idea to think about considering to mitigate that.

That 3C would be added to whatever happened in the natural variability department. Which I think is numbers 1-5 on your list. Let’s say for the sake of discussion that we estimate that natural variability is likely to be in the neighborhood of a range that is limited by 1C rise in temperature, and 1C decrease. So, if it is the coolest outcome we probably don’t have to worry. If n.v. makes it 1C warmer then the total is 4C. Maybe we should worry. The problem is that we don’t and are not likely to know how to usefully predict n.v., in the foreseeable future. If you believe otherwise, please tell us about it.

As some very clever commenter has observed, the scientists have been working on this a long time and they have not figured this crap out. It’s a nasty, knotty, stinky, sticky, wicked problem. So do we go with the trite and trivial , CO2 is necessary for life, and go on about our business unperturbed? Or do we consider the possibility that the 97% Chicken Little consensus goons could be right, in spite of themselves?

> I think it is an important point that alarm skeptics can be so because they are futurists.

Incredibilism is the opposite of futurism. See for instance T.A.M Craven, a navy engineer:

There is practically no chance communications space satellites will be used to provide better telephone, telegraph, television, or radio service inside the United States.

Vintage 1961, an engineer was incredulous regarding one of the media Danny considers old skool.

Ragnaar, Are you making a prediction? It seems a few are looking for a jump (.2 C) within a year. What is you Vegas spread?

David L. Hagen,

Thank you this post. I missed all this.

Also a massive thank you to Bjorn Lomborg and to Australia’s Prime Minister for all they have done and are continuing to do to lead us to make rational policy decisions.

Peter Lang | April 19, 2015 at 8:56 pm |

That may be what scientists are interested in, but it’s of no use whatsoever for policy analysis.

What is needed for policy analysis are pdfs for:
1. When will the next abrupt climate change begin?
2. what direct will the change be (to warmer or cooler)?
3. How long will the change continue?
4. What will be the magnitude of the change
5. What will be the max, min and average rate of change and how long with the max rates of change last.
6. The damage function (by region)

Who has those? No one has a clue and there seems to be virtually no work being done on it.

Well, you are wandering into Dr. Curry territory.

Simple fact is we don’t know how the climate works now (hence the stadium wave and some other concepts). If we don’t know how it is supposed to work we can’t tell if we have broken it. Dr. Curry seems to be addressing the problem areas and we need more of this.

A subtlety that doesn’t get mentioned much, is that if the models are currently wrong because of natural cycles – they were wrong in the 90s. If the models don’t reproduce natural cycles – to train them to reproduce the 90s they had to misparameterize the models. Correctly parameterized models should understate the 1990s warming.

Until science better understands how climate is supposed to work, and how it is changing (why the “water vapor feedback” for CO2 never emerged among other things) I would image it is hard to identify tipping points. But a “real scientist” would do a better job of addressing that.

You should thank Judith for protecting your tender sensibilities, garrie.

“… I am somehow attacking Dr. Curry by disagreeing with her.”

Nobody said that. You are attacking her by accusing her of a litany of things and refusing to provide evidence that substantiate your accusations. With the exception of the word “demeaning”, which is your erroneous characterization of what Judith said about Levin being clueless on climate science, which he is. Jimmy gave you examples to illustrate, but you poo-pooed the Levin faux pas by dressing it up as common sense. Really. And you insist that Judith owes you quotes. You already got them from jimmy.

Mark Levin is a very smart guy and if he took the time to inform himself on climate science he would realize that up to now, he has been clueless.

I am copying this, Judith, in case you delete it. If you do, I would appreciate knowing what parts are allegedly offensive and I will remove them. I thought you said that you were going to defend yourself from spurious attacks launched by these anonymous blog characters.

Oh, here’s another one Judith:

“But a “real scientist” would do a better job of addressing that.”

And this anonymous blog character only gots initials to go with his ignorance.

Willard,
Read pg 7.
“Early in the 1970’s a series of climate anomalies occurred.
The WORLD’S (my caps) snow and ice cover increased by at least 10 to 15 percent.

In the eastern Canadian area of Arctic Greenland, below normal temperatures ………………..

Then drought and flooding anomalies (I’m not gonna put any more work in to typing all this as you’re putting in none)

Then a reference to fallen civilizations and Bryn Mawr tying those falls to cooling events.
Then discussion of climate nuts and bolts.

Then pg. 12 a reference to fig. 3 “shows the most dangerous effect of the global cooling trend” referencing changes in “atmospheric circulation and rainfall” (see above where I didn’t bother to type out all of pg. 7)

Then pg. 15 “Because of the global cooling trend……….”

Then pg. 16 “Scientists are confident that unless man is able to effectively modify the climate, the northern regions ……..will again be covered with 100 to 200 feet of snow. This will occur within the next 2500 years they are quite positive……….” may occur soon but that’s open to speculation.

Then pg. 24 references impacts of a 1C temp drop.
Then bottom pg. 25 discuss impacts of a return to LIA.

Then:”While the CIA overall came down on the side of the “global coolers”, cooler heads called for a new research plan (The Wisconsin Plan) which came to be known as the National Climate Plan (June 1974). NAS, NSF and NOAA became the lead agencies. Soon the 1980s happened, global warming took center stage, and the scientific infrastructure was in place and has served us since. Thank you, CIA.” from :http://www.lternet.edu/node/64883

I rest my case.

Don Monford.

Peter, it would be nice to know all those things on your list.

If we don’t know the answers to those questions we can’t make rational policy decisions. I have no confidence that we have any idea whether CO2 emissions are doing more harm than good. For that reason, I oppose any policy that does not have clear economic advantages, irrespective of any CAGW alarmist’s claims about some intangible benefit like ‘climate damages avoided’ many generations from now.

The more of these weak arguments I see trying to justify policies that are not rational, the more strongly convinced I am there is no valid case for any of the proposed UN orchestrated policies.

Roger Sowell,

reality Check
Do you accept that nuclear power is the safest way to generate electricity in terms of fatalities per TWh (based on 60 years and 15,000 reactors years of operation of civil nuclear power plants)? http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/06/deaths-by-energy-source-in-forbes.html

Given this, nuclear would be the least expensive to insure if all technologies were rated equally on the risks of fatalities.

The actual costs of nuclear insurance are a trivial cost of electricity from nuclear power plants. If you don’t believe me, then produce the numbers you are using (per TWh for the electricity generation technologies you are comparing)

Danny, I am trying to focus on the state of science and what the view really was concerning any future “global cooling” crisis. I found this article that I think will give you some perspective on these issues.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/01/the-global-cooling-myth/?wpmp_tp=1

It won’t do to keep making the same assertions as if they were incontrovertible when Prof. Curry (and Nic Lewis and others) are specifically making arguments against those assertions. It is either question-begging or foreign-tourist failure (speaking louder and slower but still in the wrong language after the natives don’t understand you the first time). Do the models indeed accurately capture natural variability when left to run unforced? If today’s lack of warming as CO2 increased is attributable to temporary natural variability, why isn’t much of the run-up to 1998 attributable to natural variability as well? And if in fact natural variability is responsible for the recent pause, wouldn’t we currently be in a world of freezing-cold hurt absent human emissions?

Also it probably isn’t a great idea to say that if the oceans are absorbing more heat lately then that heat is contributing to “warming in the pipeline”–I believe that most “mainstream” analysis says that that’s not true, since the heat diffuses to create a tiny temperature increase across a vast volume of water. It’s also probably not a great idea to claim that more energy in the climate system implies more extreme weather events, since enhanced polar warming reduces temperature gradients across the surface and it is plausible that this could reduce extreme weather events.

Even someone just tracking this debate from the outside can see these holes in the exposition. Cannot those inside the debate?

Joseph,
Thank you. I’ve read it. And many associated, and his site. My point is not the accuracy of the thinking of the early 70’s it’s why there are those of us skeptical (with good reason based on having had this experience) now. How those on the strictly AGW side cannot grasp that skepticism comes naturally as a result of having been warmed of a coming cooling leads me to think that it’s that many on that side didn’t have this experience on which to base hesitancy for acceptance. Apparently, I’m only making sense to those with that shared personal experience. I’m not at all making a case for the accuracy of the threat of global cooling, only making a case for good reasons folks base evaluation of the current “alarmism” on past experience with like “alarmism”. Does this not make any sense to you at all? Jim D shows signs of understanding.