Those who think that a consensus is a substitute for science are not real scientists. Even a pseudo-scientist uses at least some scientific sounding language to maintain his status but consensus talk is entirely free of it. Global warming consensus is not even the first one we know of. There was once upon a time a consensus about the existence of a magical fluid called phlogiston that penetrated solid matter and was released by combustion. It was eventually renamed “caloric” like global warming was renamed “climate change” and then faded from view. What killed phlogiston was discovery of new facts about the role of oxygen in combustion. We also have new facts about global warming and and its connection with the hiatus that have been unearthed by Dr. Ferenc M. Miskolczi, a Hungarian scientist. But unlike the acceptance of new facts contradicting Phlogiston, new facts about warming are being deliberately suppressed by the global warming establishment. They don’t stop with verbal arguments but have proceeded to falsify the experimental record about global warming. To set the record straight we must first eliminate obvious fraud before we can proceed to theory. It can be demonstrated that fraud is practiced by temperature control bodies such as HadCRUT, GISS and NCDC with the aim of changing our impression of what the climate is really doing. I will give you an example involving the existence of a ‘pause’/hiatus of warming that I have periodically brought up. It is not the one you think of. There was a complete stoppage of warming in the eighties and nineties that lasted from 1979 to 1997, an 18 year stretch. That is as long as the current well-known ‘hiatus’ has lasted. But you will not find it from official land-based temperature curves set up by the three organizations named above. That is because they are deliberately pushing a false picture of warming upon us. In the place of a hiatus of the eighties and nineties they show a fake “late twentieth century warming” that does not exist. How do I know this? Because fortunately these guys still don’t control the satellites, and there is that hiatus in satellite records for anyone to pull down. I discovered this in 2008 while doing research for my book “What Warming?” I also discovered then that HadCRUT3 was instrumental in the cover-up operation and even put a warning about it into the preface of the book. Nothing happened. Later I connected all three organizations above with the cover-up when it turned out that they had had their data-sets adjusted by the same computer and the computer left its footprints on the output from all three temperature curves. These footprints consist of a set of identical sharp upward spikes that heretofore had passed as noise, which they are not. Two of them sit right on top of their version of the super El Nino of 1998. Despite this dirty work the status of the hiatus in the eighties and nineties is not in doubt,however, thanks to ENSO. Its oscillations created a wave train of five El Nino peaks, with La Nina valleys in between them, right smack in the middle of the hiatus. In such a case the global mean temperature is determined by the midpoint of a line connecting an El Nino peak with its neighboring La Nina valley. I marked all these midpoints for the entire wave train. I ended up with all the dots forming a horizontal straight line, proving absence of warming for 18 years. The hiatus itself, with dots marking the progression of global mean temperature, is shown as figure 15 in the book. The role of HadCRUT3 in the cover-up operation is shown in figure 24 in the book. When a hiatus exists atmospheric carbon dioxide keeps increasing but there is no corresponding warming as predicted by the Arrhenius greenhouse theory. That of course is a wrong prediction, repeated 18 times, and invalidates the Arrhenius greenhouse theory completely. But the IPCC has been using it and they still do not want to let it go. They can be reassured that an alternative greenhouse theory exists that explains it all. It is called MGT (Miskolczi greenhouse theory), the one they summarily rejected in 2007. Numerous alarmist authors feel the same way as the IPCC does and have published more than two dozen scholarly, peer-reviewed articles to prove that there is no hiatus. They have not succeeded. They are looking for a “missing heat” somewhere in the ocean when it actually left for outer space before they even got started. Two of the articles made a splash, One of them was by Karl and the other one by Trenberth. Karl’s argument depends upon a completely re-written global temperature record that should fit in well with the re-written hiatus of the eighties and nineties. Even so, I could find only two experimental points in his entire paper could qualify as observations of warming. MGT, the Miskolczi greenhouse theory, differs from the Arrhenius greenhouse theory in being able to handle more than one greenhouse gas simultaneously absorbing in the IR. The Arrhenius theory can handle only one – carbon dioxide. That makes it incomplete because there are several different greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This is why it differs from reality. According to MGT, carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere form a joint optimal absorption window in the infrared whose whose optical thickness is 1.87. This value was obtained by analysis of radiosonde measurements. In 2010 Miskolczi showed that addition of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere for 61 years straight did not change its optical thickness in the IR. If you now add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb IR just as Arrhenius says. But this will increase the optical thickness. And as soon as this happens water vapor will start to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored. The added carbon dioxide will of course continue to absorb but the reduction of water vapor has reduced the total absorptivity enough to prevent any warming. And that explains why there is no warming during a hiatus. We are now dealing with the working out of the consequences of applying the laws of nature to climate, not with inexplicable changes to natural laws as uninformed opinion would argue. Just the mere existence of the hiatus proves that both the greenhouse effect of Hansen as well as AGW simply do not exist. It follows from this that all the money spent and laws invented to fight CARBON DIOXIDE POLLUTION are a complete and total waste. When that truth sinks in there will be plenty of people who were involved instigating this insanity who need to be punished. First step should be to fire them all from government service. Second one, cancel all contracts involved with mitigation. And don’t forget to nullify the laws these people stuck us with. There is more, but I will leave the rest for local options that are sure to come up.

Stephen Mosher: They point away from the evidence presented to what is not present.

Given the evidence that we have (as in Turbulent Eddie’s nice graph), what is the conditional probability that there were not other equally strong hurricanes in that area? In the last 150 years, say? In the 300 years including the peak of the Medieval Warm Period? You regularly defend counter-intuitive conditional expectations, how about conditional distributions? An answer can’t be computed without an explicit prior, but would you restrict attention to priors that have probability 0 for that area?

Would you insist that the conditional probabilities of conjectured but unobserved events must always be treated as “unicorns”? Or are they not, as I claim these are, sometimes perfectly reasonable?

Jim D: The temperature provides the energy, of course.

Quick revision needed. It is the sun that “provides” the energy. The temperature is a partial measure of how much energy there is (I call it partial because of the transfer of latent energy, which may not change temperature.)

hockeyschtick- The only “slowing of cooling” from CO2 is a delay of a few milliseconds for photons traveling from surface to space…

Consider this graphic:

Of the solar energy absorbed by land and sea and exiting the surface via radiative emission, ~71% is absorbed by the atmosphere. The trip to emission altitude via molecular movement adds much much more than “a few milliseconds“, no?

And increasing GHGs ought to increase the percentage absorbed by the atmosphere. Do you see a way around that?

ossqss, I don’t know why you are so interested in the 1800’s. Please explain. How about the 1700’s, or 1300’s? It is today that we are seeing a rather strong El Nino and tropical storms may be about to match that, yes? This temperature is unprecedented in the period for which we have good records. This may also portend the future, which is also more relevant than your 1800’s, for which there is too little Pacific data to make any judgement of any kind.

If you want to dispute the hypothesis stated also by Webster et al. or Emanuel that sea-surface temperatures could be linked to hurricane intensities, go ahead. Correct them or defer. This hypothesis is fairly well known. I think it was Gray that identified 80 F as a critical temperature for hurricane formation to even be possible. It’s a very strong connection, identified now in decades of observations. You still want to argue with him? Larger warm areas can lead to longer tracks too, and the warm areas are especially large in a warmer world with an El Nino. By saying that there is a connection between warmer temperatures and stronger tropical storms, I don’t think I am saying anything that should be a surprise or hard to understand.

That’s not a tree lobster, it’s a bush crab.

The moment when the unusually powerful hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, in the summer of 2005, people insisted on being informed and on understanding the phenomenon. Let’s assume that winter temperatures turn suddenly to Ice Age conditions (not experienced for more than one hundred years), but no one talks about this because there is a war going on. That was the case during the winter of 1939/40, when, in several locations in Northern Europe, average temperatures were more degrees lower than during the previous century, and the WWII war machinery cooled down the earth for four decades. If this investigation succeeds in proving that two major wars changed the course of the climate twice in the last century, it will also prove that shipping, fishing, off-shore drilling, and other ocean uses had constantly contributed to the global warming since the start of industrialization, more than 150 years ago. A new chapter on the climate change issue could be now opened, giving more attention to oceanic phenomena under the influence of the potential of the “1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” . All research would lead to a better understanding and protection of the stability of our short-term weather and long-term global climate. Here are some research on the subject I’m talking about: http://www.1ocean-1climate.com. What do you think on that?

The way I look at is that the earth was only around 5C cooler during the last ice age and now we are talking about the probability of going over one third to two thirds of that temperature change in a little over 200 years. I think that would be a pretty dramatic change in such a short amount of time relative to most past fluctuations And we know how the temperature affected the earth;s climate by dropping only 5C.

[…] Also:  T-Storm attacks Tucson AZ.  List of damage reports from AZ.  More AZ damage reports.  Phoenix area rain reports.  Perry Park AZ had 1.26″ of rain in an hour.  57,000 customers without power in the Phoenix area overnight.   Tucson are rain reports.  Rainfall:  6.86″ Charleston SC, 4.47″ Mt. Pleasant SC, 3.59″ Orlando FL, 2.78″ Savannah GA.  Highest in U.S. Monday was 112 at Death Valley CA and lowest was 27 at Island Park ID…Bettles and Noatak AK reached 25.  Warmest summer (June-August) ever at Portland, Eugene and Salem, OR.  Fred downgraded to a tropical storm…but farthest east hurricane ever (since the satellite era) in the North Atlantic.   NWS finds rattlesnake in their office!!!  Texas waterspout.  What the moon looks like now.   On the 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. […]

The reason to refer to the past is strong and critical. We are talking about climate, not hemlines or weekend footy scores. The very people who invite us to keep a focus on recent events and findings are themselves all too willing to invoke the past constantly, but only as a vague field of reference to serve their conclusions and dogmas.

In other words, comparatives are encouraged, all sorts of things are worse, hotter, drier, more extreme – but points of comparison are banned. There is no “than”. It’s all just “more”.

Look at the comment that started this. The present Hurricane Fred is a rare event. It reached hurricane force at 22.5 W, whereas a hurricane in 1892 reached force at 24.1W. So Fred was indeed born a bit further east than Hurricane 5 of 1892, and both events, so close to the African coast, are very rare. So far, a good point, which proves nothing, but is well worth making.

However it was not Hurricane 5 of 1892 which was born furthest to the east before Fred broke its “record”. It was Hurricane 3 of 1890, further south of Verde, which became a hurricane at 23.0W, just half a degree west of Fred.

Now look at the tone of the comment, how Fred has come “right on cue”. Instead of being the most easterly known in the post 1851 record, it’s most easterly “ever”. What is the “cue” supposed to be and how hard is it to specify about “records”? After 115 years an observation for hurricane longitude was at last exceeded by half a degree and that is a big deal? Was 23.0W supposed to be some kind of unbreachable boundary? A Trump fence erected by sinister skeps…till Fred showed ’em!

Not by baby talk and stunts can I be persuaded. Ever.

Innisfail is south of Cairns but your point remains valid Mosomoso. Natural variability comes in many shapes and sizes but TonyB will tell you that historical incidences of extreme weather events are deemed by climate science as “anecdotal” and of no significance.

Jim, and others who have posted replies….you have missed the important point. Energy by itself does not contribute to hurricane intensity. It is the energy differential, otherwise you would not have intense storms on colder planets, or in colder climates.

It does not follow that a warming climate necessarily will result in increased cyclone activity or intensity. If a changing climate resulted in greater difference between energy accumulating at the tropics than at the poles, then it might do.

Sorry, I meant Hurricane 3 of 1900, not 1890. I got the 115 years right!

Something else to give things more of an adult tilt. In discussions of the previous Hurricane Fred of 2009 (same name in same Verde region, for some reason), noted for being so strong so far south and east, the NHC observed:
“THIS TYPE OF SYSTEM… HOWEVER…WOULD HAVE BEEN VERY DIFFICULT TO ACCURATELY OBSERVE BEFORE SATELLITE PICTURES BEGAN IN THE 1960S.”

Their capitals – but worth capitalising.

South it is, Peter!

Innisfail is a good spot for extremes. I don’t know if it holds the Australian record for most rain in a day and month, but the half-metre + it copped on individual days in 1903 and 1913 sounds awesome. Since 1887, Jan, Feb, March and April all set records over a metre and half.

And in 1950, the year eastern Oz nearly floated away (while the west baked), Innisfail managed nearly 6 metre of rain. Where did they put all that?

Like most of Oz, Innisfail had its driest year in 1902…but sssh.

The point here is that, if certain of the above extremes were to occur now, they would cease to be quaint anecdotes and become doom science. You know the drill.

Innisfail is reputed to be the wettest place in Oz and yes, its amazing that the surrounding area hasn’t been washed out to sea by now!

Peter, I’ve seen figures of nearly 8 metres for Tully in 1950. That was a year! I was born in 1949 and could not get a hold of the whole droughty Australia thing received from parents, grandparents and bush lore. Then came some climate change in the 1960s and I got it. But then the stormin’ 70s etc etc…

Willard

I won’t pretend that I understand your lobster metaphor. Squirrels, Unicorns and now lobsters.

There was I thinking that it was perfectly logical to comment on the likely lack of observations in past eras due to the likely lack of observers- or that events might not be recorded or stored. As Mosh says, new data is coming along all the time which changes our perceptions of the past, so at some point more observational data might or might not come to the fore.

As for the importance of extremes, There are whole Depts (The Met Office) and papers that concern themselves with them, quite apart from politicians worrying about them, that someone somewhere must think they are of some relevance.

tonyb