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Comment on Week in review by Rob Ellison

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One of the important lessons an education in Earth sciences gives is the need to distinguish between reputable and disreputable sources. Although I started with Wikipedia – it is never the place to stop.

As the repository of borehole data in a globally coordinated paleoclimatic dtat project – the University of Michigan is reputable.

Flynn the Dingbat most evidently is not.


Comment on Week in review by Rob Ellison

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There is nothing particularly evident but the peaks and troughs happen at the same time and that you smooth out the significant divergence last decade. Why the increasing divergence in sensible heat at the surface?

Why did it happen last decade?

If the difference is IR emissions at the surface – why isn’t this reflected in tropospheric temperatures? After all – it relies purely on emissions and is much faster than mixing.

Comment on Week in review by Jim D

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The way I see it is that the changed forcing has a new equilibrium surface temperature associated with it. The land can adjust almost immediately to that, while the ocean can’t because of its thermal inertia. It is all about the difference between these surfaces. The atmosphere can mute this effect, but can’t prevent it.

Comment on Week in review by Jim D

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by Ed Barbar

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The stadium wave is part of a bigger idea.

Do you mean it’s like one of many dynamic systems that interact? I could believe that. I could also believe it is a major component to climate. Do you disagree?

If you did, how could you tell?

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by willard (@nevaudit)

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by Jim D

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And it gets further from equilibrium the faster the forcing changes. It is always trying to catch up, but the current time is particularly difficult as the forcing is now changing at a rate of 4 W/m2 per century, which is rather unprecedented.

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by Rob Ellison

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There is particle/wave duality but no doubt that photons behave as a particle and as a wave. One of the fundamental mysteries.

We need to think in terms of control variables. Perhaps CO2? It pushes the system past a threshold and the system establishes a new and emergent state.

If the control variable is still changing – it is additive to the new state and pushes the system – via the stadium wav -past a new threshold.

There is no substantive means of determining a priori what these new states will be – which is the essence of the problem in a chaotic climate.

I am inclined to think Judy understands this idea.


Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by Rob Ellison

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<I>Ed Barbar | September 29, 2014 at 9:21 pm | The stadium wave is part of a bigger idea. Do you mean it’s like one of many dynamic systems that interact? I could believe that. I could also believe it is a major component to climate. Do you disagree?</I> Yes and no I don't disagree. Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – <strong>can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability</strong>. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.

Comment on Week in review by Jim D

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The atmosphere works like an insulator. It prevents the ocean from cooling as much as if it did not have this insulator effect. Note that insulators work even when they are cooler than the surface that they insulate. Contrast the insulating effect at night of a cloudy sky and clear sky. Both are colder than the ground but cause the ground to cool at different rates. It is very important to understand how insulators work.

Comment on Week in review by Brian H

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Previously natural underground coal fires?

Comment on Week in review by Brian H

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Beth;
Yes, it would be a miracle for such a one to make it through the gauntlet of “qualifying” appointments and selection committees etc. The ones who look best are generally the ones who have best learned and applied the Grifter’s Motto: “Once you learn to fake sincerity, everything else is easy.”

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by Matthew R Marler

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Brandon Shollenberger: <i>Typically, precision is taken as a measure of consistency while accuracy is taken as a measure the proximity of results to the true value. MSE combines information from both of these. That means it combines the concepts of precision and accuracy I refer to in my comment. </i> Yes, I already wrote that. How does accuracy become irrelevant?

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by bob droege

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A mug is cylindrical and a cup is more cone shaped with a flat bottom.

Now all we need is a mechanism to predict what is being propagated.

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by DocMartyn

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Willard, are you the front end of an ass?


Comment on Week in review by Rob Ellison

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In a transient climate the global land surface temperatures (Tland) warm with greater amplitude than sea surface temperatures (SSTs), leading to a land/sea warming contrast. The ratio of land to sea warming tends to a value of around 1.5 (Sutton et al 2007, Lambert and Chiang 2007, Compo and Sardeshmukh 2008, Dommenget 2009). Previous studies have shown the land/sea warming contrast is not simply due to the larger heat capacity of the ocean when compared to land, but is a result of the dynamics of the climate system. Sutton et al (2007) described an energy balance argument; assuming the anomalous downward surface energy flux is equal over land and ocean the land/sea warming contrast is caused by the difference in the partitioning of the upward energy flux into sensible and latent heat. Lambert and Chiang (2007) proposed that the stability of land/sea contrast
47 over annual, 5 year and longer timescales is maintained by a land to ocean heat flux where the ability of the ocean to absorb the extra heat leads to a damping of Tland variability. In this scenario the value of the land/sea contrast depends on the ratio of the land and sea climate sensitivity parameters, and can be related to the results of Sutton et al (2007). However, as stated by Byrne and OGorman (2013) the energy balance argument does not give a sufficient quantitative value of land warming. Joshi and Gregory (2008) proposed a conceptual model to explain how the SSTs can force Tland, leading to a land/sea warming contrast above unity. There is a level in the atmosphere above which there is no significant land/sea contrast and thermal anomalies are transported efficiently around the globe. The lapse rate below that level is affected by temperature and moisture and different
land and ocean lapse rates cause the land temperatures to reach an equilibrium warmer than the oceans.’

The differing lapse rates are caused by moisture deficits affecting the partitioning of sensible and latent heat at the surface but not total energy in the troposphere.

I am bored with this game now – go away.

Comment on Week in review by Rob Ellison

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by Brandon Shollenberger

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Matthew R Marler: <blockquote>Yes, I already wrote that. How does accuracy become irrelevant?</blockquote> Huh? I said: <blockquote>The question should be how precise an answer can the models give <b>with a certain level of accuracy</b>.</blockquote> I'm not sure how you're interpreting that as suggesting accuracy becomes irrelevant. I was trying to say we should ask both how accurate and how precise the models are.

Comment on Two contrasting views of multidecadal climate variability in the 20th century by Mike Flynn

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This may be a litle off thread, but demonstrates the difficulties of practical predictions of supposedly well known things.

One might assume that the Earth would have constant rotational speed, or at least that its rate of slowing down due to tidal friction would be constant, to a usable degree. The assumption would be wrong.

The following is from an article written by the Director of the U.S. Naval Observatory, and a past head of the USNO’s Time Services Dept.

“During the mid-1930s, astronomers concluded the Earth did not rotate uniformly, basing their findings on measurements of the most precise clocks then available. We now know that a variety of physical phenomena affect the Earth’s rotational speed. This caused the second to be redefined in 1960 in terms of the Earth’s orbital motion around the Sun. The new second was called the “Ephemeris” second and the time scale derived from this definition was called Ephemeris Time (ET).”

Another quote –

“Although we have accurate estimates of the deceleration of the Earth’s rotation, significant variations prevent the prediction of leap seconds beyond a few months in advance. This inability to predict leap seconds, coupled with the growing urgency for a uniform time scale without discontinuities, makes it appropriate to re-examine the leap second’s role.”

Two points arise. The first is that observations show the Earth does not rotate uniformly. As an aside, I believe it slows down and speeds up erratically.

The second is that even with astronomical observations going back to the 1600s, and accumulated scientific knowledge to date, it is impossible to predict leap seconds more than a few months in advance. And we are talking about a fairly massive body here – slowing down and speeding up enough to be of concern. A GPS system depends on accurate timekeeping, and microseconds are important, let alone a million of the little beggars!

So, if accurately predicting the rotation of the Earth more than a few months in advance, at most, is impossible, how much more difficult must it be to predict weather and climate, if the atmosphere behaves chaotically?

If a butterfly flapping its wings in the Brazilian rainforest can cause a tornado in Kansas, imagine the effect the whole Earth slowing down or speeding up might have, Throw in a few factors such as continents slowing down and speeding up, changing direction at random, bobbing up and down without rhyme or reason, and it easy to see why highly trained and qualified experts, backed up by billions in research and with access to previously unimaginable computing power, cannot forecast weather any better than a reasonably intelligent 12 year old, given an hours coaching.

So yes, analysis of a data series, whether it be corn futures, stock market movements, temperatures, or any number of other things, can often lead to the conclusion that are composed, in part, of various regular waves. Unfortunately, the predictive power of such extracted waves is generally nil, as economists, hedge fund operators and others have discovered to their sorrow.

You may well find patterns, waves, synchronicities and correlations wherever you look. It is in our nature, I believe.

Just an opinion on the usefulness of waves extracted from the data produced by a probably chaotic system – the Earth on which we live.

Live well and prosper,

Mike Flynn.

Comment on Week in review by Mike Flynn

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Jim D,

You are quite correct. The insulator also prevents the ocean from heating as fast as it would without it. It is very important to understand how insulators work.

Live well and prosper,

Mike Flynn.

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