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Comment on Who is on which ‘side’ in the climate debate, anyways? by Barry Bickmore

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Chief and others,

I became a Monckton hobbyist after he visited my home town and gratuitously fibbed to my state legislators and reporters. He then tried to engage in a conversation with some local scientists. I decided to follow up on some of his claims–e.g., he liked to use graphs that seemed to show that IPCC temperature and CO2 projections were already way off the mark, and I was able to show that 1) he had miscopied (faked?) the CO2 numbers, 2) which he then fed into an equation for equilibrium (not transient) climate sensitivity to get his (fake) IPCC temperature projections. In other words, he fed fake data into the wrong equation to get fake temperature projections that magically didn’t match well with real temperature data. You can find sources for all these claims here:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/08/monckton-makes-it-up/

So the idea that I’m just “executing the messenger,” or engaging in simple ad hominem, is laughable. But with all this damning evidence, why do I bother pointing out Monckton’s oddities–like pretending to be a member of Parliament (!!!) and claiming to have invented a miracle cure-all (!!!)?

I soon discovered that the people who listen to Monckton 1) usually don’t have the skills to check for themselves whether he’s telling the truth, and/or 2) don’t give a rat’s posterior whether he’s telling the truth. I emphasize his wackiness for the benefit of those who simply don’t have the skills, but no matter what anyone points out about Monckton or his claims, some will defend him to the death. But this is useful too, because it is a great way to show reporters that a large swath of the climate contrarian community is impenetrably stupid.

Consider how Monckton countered the charge that he had faked the IPCC temperature. Here’s what he said on WUWT:

“Some have said that the IPCC projection zone on our graphs should show exactly the values that the IPCC actually projects for the A2 scenario. However, as will soon become apparent, the IPCC’s “global-warming” projections for the early part of the present century appear to have been, in effect, artificially detuned to conform more closely to observation.”

In other words, right there on Watts’s blog, Monckton came right out and admitted that what he was calling the IPCC’s projections were not actually the IPCC’s projections! And yet, he still defended himself for representing them as IPCC projections because his fake projections were (according to his fevered imaginings) what the IPCC really should have projected!

Detailed analysis and sources here:

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/the-monckton-files-a-bold-monckton-prediction/

Did this cause any of the WUWT faithful to reconsider their loyalty to Monckton? Not that I could tell. Drop in a few Latin phrases, and that crowd is fully satisfied that all His Lordship’s foes have been vanquished.

So by all means, keep defending Monckton, and keep defending Watts for unfailingly publishing whatever nonsense Monckton’s addled brain can produce. He’s God’s gift to climate realists, because in the eyes of people who aren’t scientists, but also aren’t complete rubes, he discredits quite a lot of people.


Comment on Who is on which ‘side’ in the climate debate, anyways? by kim

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So how were those ‘projections’ after all?
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Comment on I know I’m right (?) by captdallas2 0.8 +/- 0.2

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Chief, “Dallas – I was talking more about the instrument than any approximation of a blackbody. Although there was a cavity blackbody in the instrument for calibration.”

Right, but approximation of a black body is required for reference/calibration. Webby gets lost by assuming everything is ideal and symmetrical. It is not, so anything that deals with considering efficiency is “word salad”.for the beaver brained minion.

The fact is that adding 3.7Wm-2 of radiant insulation will be less efficiency than the previous 3.7Wm-2. The mass inside that added 3.7Wm-2 “shell” will approach a better estimation of a black body and the spectrum will broaden finding more gaps, so it is pretty simple to estimate the impact of another 3.7Wm-2 of forcing provided you have a reliable reference. That is absolute basic thermo, frame of reference, KISS and ASSUME. When you get estimates to agree from various frames of reference, you are likely on the right track. When you have to pick more abstract frames and fanciful assumptions you are wandering down the rabbet holes.

Comment on What is internal variability? by Anteros

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+1
I happily read the post, unencumbered by possible prejudices and biases that might have come from ‘information’ about its source. It also increased my critical thinking – had it been by Hansen or Lindzen, I’m sure I’d have filtered it one way or another – to some degree – by the sense that “I know what this guy is trying to sell me”

First reaction? Well written and interesting.

Comment on Pause tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling by Stacey

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Im puzzled so what caused the Pacific cooling?

Comment on What is internal variability? by David Springer

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How do we know ENSO is internal and not partly or even largely influenced by external forcings?

The statement that ENSO is internal is narrative i.e. a just-so story. The fact of the matter is we can neither predict nor explain the timing and magnitude of ENSO events yet some idiot thinks he can say it’s internal. Climate science is a frickin’ circus and the practitioners are mostly clowns.

Comment on What is internal variability? by AK

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<blockquote>An example of Internal variability which exists on a longer time scale is Thermohaline Circulation.</blockquote> Not really. Perhaps <b>variations</b> in the "<i>Thermohaline Circulation.</i>" <blockquote>All internal variability can do is move energy around.</blockquote> This is a mistake many on both sides of the issue make: the energy is moving from the sun to interstellar space, via Earth. The amount of the flows are (AFAIK) far greater than the amount stored in the atmosphere, and the same is true for the oceans over a longer time scale. Internal variability represents changes to the amounts of different flows, which aren't subject to the same sorts of conservations that energy is. <blockquote>To summarise, the IPCC have largely ruled out internal climate change, and used physics to exaggerate processes that would normally have little impact on their own, to explain the origin of the climate.</blockquote> Should be "<i>explain the origin of the climate </i><b>changes</b>." <blockquote>In contrast to a system depended on positive feedback, the impact of external forcing is reduced with a system based on a negative feedback, and the initial ‘cause’ or ‘origin’ of climate change is far more ambiguous.</blockquote> The weather, including such long-scale processes as discussed here, is a very complex non-linear system, and thus almost certainly has a great number of feedback loops, some positive and some negative. <blockquote>Ruling out Internal variability as a driver of change inevitability [sic] means negative feedbacks are also ruled out, and vice versa.</blockquote> Roughly true, but it might be better to say that when the system <b>has</b> substantial memory, as well as negative feedbacks, internal variability will always be present and ruling it out as the cause of a specific change will be very, very difficult.

Comment on Pause tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling by R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist

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What part of the ARGO data do you dispute?

In terms of the next El Niño, I don’t wish for anything to “roll on”. I am an observer.


Comment on Pause tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling by Tom

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Get out of the toilet, Michael. Blame it all on the adjustment.

Comment on Pause tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling by Pekka Pirilä

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Paul,

I didn’t mean that the number of 85% would indicate anything else than that this paper does not show evidence for a persistent enough trend form natural variability to contribute much to the change over 50-60 years, while there’s evidence for shorter term variability and it’s role in the present hiatus.

Whether the paper tells less directly something about long term variability and it’s role in the warming is more difficult to say.

Comment on Pause tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling by R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist

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Oceans drive the troposphere bud. Oceans are the dog, troposphere the tail.

Comment on What is internal variability? by AK

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We can't be absolutely <b>certain</b> "<i>that ENSO is internal</i>", but there are many proxies that seem (with great probability IMO) to show ENSO cycles going back many millennia. ENSO appears to be stochastic in a similar fashion to a dripping faucet, and the possibility that external forcings are influencing its timing cannot (at this time) be ruled out. Not the same thing though.

Comment on Pause tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling by WebHubTelescope (@WHUT)

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“So, …, the pause is real. “

I haven’t read the paper but am trying to infer what it is about from the various commentary.

In signal processing circles and engineering in general, there is a specific lingo that is used when talking about separating signal from noise.

The words “pause” or “hiatus” are rarely, if ever, used when describing an oscillating component that temporarily obscures a rising trend. The signal analyst would usually say that the rising signal is either “masked” by the oscillating component or that the the signal is being “compensated” by a signal that has the opposite sign.

The climate scientists really need to assert their theories of isolating and removing the noise from the masked signal or of describing the situation instead as a compensating effect.

To say that it is a “pause” or “hiatus” is laughable when they obviously have a theory to explain it.

Here is an example. Say that you had a radio signal that you were listening to. Periodically, the signal fades out and some other garbled static comes out of the speaker. One does not call that a “pause” or “hiatus” in the signal, but that the real signal is being “masked” or “compensated” or “interfered” with by another signal or by environmental effects.

The enduring truth is that over time, since the AGW temperature signal is a secular rising trend, eventually the signal will emerge from the noise, and it will be harder to argue with the rhetorical wording alone. Time will tell.

One way to pull the signal out is to integrate the data, which cancels out the oscillatory compensation. Already, the OHC signal is doing this and we can see unmasked global heating effect more clearly.

Comment on What is internal variability? by AK

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According to Salby, we don't even know what the CO2 signal <b>was</b> much prior to the last quarter century. And <a href="http://www.climatedepot.com/2013/07/09/murry-salby-and-macquarie-university/" rel="nofollow">the way he was treated</a> strongly suggests that the alarmists, or at least the socialists trying to use climate alarm as a stalking horse for their own agenda, know he's right and are trying to suppress him. No wonder they feel such "urgency" about "doing something" about climate change.

Comment on What is internal variability? by A fan of *MORE* discourse

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Anonymous X concludes  “Until  climate scientists  aeronautical engineers consider internal variability in the context of both positive and negative feedback systems, it is unlikely the great mysteries of  climate change  flight control will be solved.”

Fluid flow — even turbulent flow — conserves energy and mass (and momentum); thus aircraft flight paths are reliably predictable even when the flow over the airframe is turbulent, such that individual aerodynamical “buffets” are not predictable.

As with aerodynamics, so with climate dynamics. Short-term dynamical “climate buffets” occur unpredictably; long-term secular dynamics are reasonably predictable. That is the physical principle of Hansen-style strong climate science.

Is it any wonder that today’s young scientists overwhelmingly prefer Hansen-style strong climate science to Monckton-style flimsy climate science?

\scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}


Comment on What is internal variability? by Edim

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Where does the short term ends and long term begins? Longer term change (warming since LIA) could also be internal variability and shorter term variability (ENSO, AMO) could be forced change.

Comment on Pause tied to equatorial Pacific surface cooling by R. Gates aka Skeptical Warmist

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Won’t average out as long as there is a constant external forcing on the system.

Comment on What is internal variability? by WebHubTelescope (@WHUT)

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On first glance, the poster has his definitions bass-ackwards. A negative feedback system has a damped response to an external forcing. That is the first figure. In contrast, a positive feedback system hits the “rails” in its response to an external forcing. That is the second figure. He has the classical descriptions reversed.

I don’t know what discipline that X Anonymous comes from but he can’t be a controls engineer.

X-man also sayeth:

“Periods of hiatus /rapid warming, etc. cancel out in the long term.”

In signal processing circles and engineering in general, there is a specific lingo that is used when talking about separating signal from noise.

The words “pause” or “hiatus” are rarely, if ever, used when describing an oscillating component that temporarily obscures a rising trend. The signal analyst would usually say that the rising signal is either “masked” by the oscillating component or that the the signal is being “compensated” by a signal that has the opposite sign.

The climate scientists really need to assert their theories of isolating and removing the noise from the masked signal or of describing the situation instead as a compensating effect.

To say that it is a “pause” or “hiatus” is kind of odd when they obviously have a theory to explain it.

Here is an example. Say that you had a radio signal that you were listening to. Periodically, the signal fades out and some other garbled static comes out of the speaker. One does not call that a “pause” or “hiatus” in the signal, but that the real signal is being “masked” or “compensated” or “interfered” with by another signal or by environmental effects.

The enduring truth is that over time, since the AGW temperature signal is a secular rising trend, eventually the signal will emerge from the noise, and it will be harder to argue with the rhetorical wording alone. Time will tell.

One way to pull the signal out is to integrate the data, which cancels out the oscillatory compensation. Already, the OHC signal is doing this and we can see unmasked global heating effect more clearly.

Comment on What is internal variability? by AK

Comment on What is internal variability? by David Springer

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None are in equilibrium because equilibrium is an ideal state that is never perfectly attained in nature. So we call them equilibrium systems because they have a theoretical equilibrium state they move toward and around and beyond and back always seeking but never attaining. The most stable equilibrium systems are those constantly closing the distance but never quite getting there because the rate of approach decreases as the distance decreases. This puts practical bounds on how far out of equilibrium a system may become and there’s a lot of that happening in the earth’s climate. For instance there’s an equilbrium point for cloud cover somewhere in the neighborhood of 70%. More clouds than that shades the ocean too much which retards evaporation which retards cloud formation while less cloud cover exposes the ocean to more sunlight which accelerates cloud formation. Bazinga. A thermostat. The travel above and below the set point is its hysteresis. The third phase of water (ice) mucks things up because it’s a positive instead of negative feedback. Ice reflects sunlight so the more ice the colder it gets which promotes even more ice. This is the cause of ice ages. It thought the only thing that stops a death spiral to a snowball earth is millions of years of accumulation of volcanic soot on the frozen surface which darkens it and/or the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, also volcanic in origin, until the scale is tipped and melting ice, which is also a positive feedback effect, ends the ice age. At the present time the earth is in a no man’s land where ice waxes and wanes on a cycle lasting over 100,000 years.

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