So all this emerges form the sensitivity study – and not more than a word about meta-uncertainty. The problem with sensitivity is twofold. The first is that the critical constraint on attributing temperature change to forcing changes is simply not available.

In the post war period we have had a complete cooling and warming regime to 1998. The temperature increase was some 0.4 degrees C. Assuming half of this was anthropogenic gives a transient sensitivity of about 0.9%. If all it is double that of course. With the best available data and the best will – it merely masks ubiquitous uncertainty with spurious precision.

Secondly – and more importantly – these ideas of sensitivity lack a fundamental theoretical justification. Climate sensitivity (γ) is variable. It is the change in temperature (ΔT) divided by the change in the control variable (Δμ) – the tangent to the curve as shown below. Sensitivity increases moving down the upper curve to the left towards the bifurcation and becomes arbitrarily large at the instability. The problem in a chaotic climate then becomes not one of quantifying climate sensitivity in a smoothly evolving climate but of predicting the onset of abrupt climate shifts and their implications for climate and society. The problem of abrupt climate change on multi-decadal scales is of the most immediate significance.

Dynamic climate sensitivity implies the potential for a small push to initiate a large shift. Climate in this theory of abrupt change is an emergent property of the shift in global energies as the system settles down into a new, emergent climate state. The traditional definition of climate sensitivity as a temperature response to changes in CO2 makes sense only in periods between climate shifts – as climate changes at shifts are internally generated. Climate evolution is discontinuous at the scale of decades and longer.

This traditional sensitivity is just playing the game by not challenging conventional ground rules. It is getting in the limelight under the big top of the climate circus – but it is not advancing understanding of the ‘meta uncertainty’ surrounding the theoretical framing of the problem. There are critically important ideas to get across – this is not one .It is not advancing science or society.

Analogies and metaphors–the death of dialogue, especially with regards to climate issues.

Fomd,

Are you up for a discussion of the second hand smoke papers you linked to early.Particular the one under the link ” guilty biologically” (this one- http://www.fasebj.org/content/26/5/1845.full.pdf ). I think I spot a great big whopping mistake that seems to have serious consequences for the conclusions.

My background is genetics/molecular biology, i don’t know to what extent you understand the science in the paper but I think the mistake is so basic it should be clear to most what I’m saying.

JimD

From the article. “There are simply too many unknowns at present to say that this paper makes a prediction that is useful for future flooding risks,” Severinghaus said. “But they have proposed an interesting hypothesis.”

Its all pure speculation once again promulgated by a publication (green Huff Post) that doesn’t have an objective bone in its body

tonyb

As a bowler my aim was to try to avoid the batsman finding the sweet spot. Nothing more discouraging than being hit for six. Mind you there are plenty of weak spots in this particular defence.

tonyb

@PA,

@Howard
What, to be able to persist in so called “climate skepticism,” did you scour my blog (not even the piece linked to) to see if you could pull out some mistake, irrelevant to the actual issue, used to suggest a tangential point?

I’m sure I could find a few too. It’s a blog. But let’s see, vetted scientific journal papers, they pretty much all support the central points you will find therein, and the data comes from leading science institutions and organizations,and those directly involved in the research, not some professor somewhere in Washington State who takes the data and simply changes it and then it is dispersed to about 50 million people through 10,000 channels and quasi new ideological sites, and 10m comments on the Internet in various forms as new “truth.”

Yet no vetted science journal papers actually support the notion – apart from the separate but conflated idea of various specific uncertainties – that the underlying “theory” of a a significant shift in climate from a significant net input of energy to the earth lower atmosphere system of time, is wrong or even sketchy.

But you found a tangential assumption on my blog buried deep in one of the earlier pages, so, yay! Climate change not real or significant, or suggestions I make here – all backed by most of the world’s leading climate scientists (as well as logic) fly out the window.

Congratulations. You’ve found another way to continue the self reinforcing process of a false belief, by focusing on that which doesn’t really go to the underpinning of the belief itself. Thereby helping you ignore points such as the one just made above, about papers, so long as we’re scouring sources, published in leading, vetted, Science journals. I’m sure, just as “Carter wrong because I found a mistake on his blog somewhere!” you find a way to dismiss that fact as well, and in fact all that get in the way of true “climate change” skepticism, which is the basic nature of it.

Let’s also contrast that with the direct claim by some climate skeptics that much of the warming is due to “ocean heat.” If warming is due to ocean heat, not ocean heat via more atmospheric re radiation as well as more directly through atmospheric re radiation, then the oceans would have to be cooling if more heat was leaving. Ocean heat comes from the atmosphere, so if heat was being lost, they would be cooling. They are warming. Geologically, at a very rapid rate. Which means they are pulling more heat out of the air – a lot more – than they emit back.

The basic point and the one relevant to climate change, is still relevant – oceans still have an enormous moderating effect on temperature over time (though if there is a huge increase or decrease in re radiated atmospheric heat it is going to then affect the oceans initially). So if oceans continue to rise in heat, and the atmosphere continues to trap a much higher amount of heat (let alone, as GG levels continue to rise, more and more of it) current air temperatures don’t come close to representing a stases condition, and can’t.

“

The issue is not about “PROOF>” We don’t know what will happen, nor can we. We can (k)now with a high to extremely high degree of probability that the climate will shift in a significant to radical way. That is very different from proof, and requires a completely different analysis of the issue.

*****

We don’t know what will happen, but we are highly certain we know there will be a shift in a radical way. Hmmm ….

———–

You know, is it just possible that most people aren’t good scientists, and yet are formulating opinions as if they are?

The above also wildly misconstrues. “We don;t know what will happen is consistent with the idea of a high risk of very significant climate shift, but the commenter, missing the entire point, phrases it the opposite. That is the whole point on this. IT is a risk range.

It is also not 100% that the ultimate change falls into that risk range. =- depending on how wide or how narrow, ( as well as what time frames) are used.

Given those two, if “we don’t know what will happen” refers to “We don’t know exactly what will happen, but that there is a range or risks – then it is not only true, IT HAS TO BE>

That is the whole point of risk.

This subject is complex, and the analyses even more complex, as it not only involves the direct science involved but the concept of variation, probabilities, and ranges (and types) of shifts over time.

Yet we have commenters – most – commenting on it who don’t understand this (or don’t want ot, or their skepticism is getting in the way of even being able to intelligently entertain the idea) yet who are profession opinions routinely on this site as if they have more knowledge on the subject than the world’s leading climate scientists, or are simply better scientists than them.

Yet don’t understand what a probability of a risk range actually means. Let alone why on this issue we couldn’t begin to know precisely how much and along what time line global climate will precisely shift, nor know why that is consistent with the issue itself given what the actual problem is. Most don’t even know that (the actual problem) either.

In short,, though simplified, its the confusion of non certainty of an outcome with belief therefore that there is no relevant knowledge about the range of outcomes, or that that knowledge can not support the existence of a problem or challenge that would be highly counterproductive to not address. Which is remarkably illogical.

And which, at its core, if seemingly complicated on this issue (and highly colored by non recognized bias, ideological belief, conflation of the topic with fear of redress, and a remarkable sea of misinformation) is about as basic a mistake as can be made. And it drives (or at least serves as a vehicle for, including by @jcurry) much of climate change “skepticism.”

And, though not simplified, but also in short, most people DON”T understand the issue. This, from the many posts I’ve read here, includes Curry (although not as much as many, as she has a lot of detailed info but doesn’t really understand what the issue IS). And I’d go through the posts and show why in a detailed analysis, with substantial support if it could be read by more than 15 people (and ideally our U.S. Congress); while Curry in the meantime is testifying before the U.S. Congress (along with many other who are misinformed, because our congress reflect us, in an increasing sea of rhetoric and talk radio information we are electing less and less qualified individuals, and they call in “experts” that support their biases and beliefs, that mirror ours in society).

This can be true for both sides of the AGW debate but more so for the warmists.

John C is certainly biased in favour of the AGW hypothesis being true but I doubt if he could quantify the extent to which natural variability contributes to the measured increases in global warming over the past 50 years. So far there has been no work on this apart from that of very few dedicated souls with no axe to grind.

Mr. Arno Arrak, Miskolczi’s theory is suggestive, specially because it tries to go to first physical principles. But for me the question is that, supposing it were correct, it would be correcto for a one dimensional atmosphere (a sort of vertical tube, with water and atmosphere gravitationally attached at the bottom) it would open other uncertainties because it depends a lot of albedo (which could change), it would implie a drop in H2O content in atmosphere, which could influence maybe the clouds in stratosphere, with new implications in albedo, etc. And it wouldn’t be in contradiction with those theories about new “forcings” in albedo (Svensmarka and others that are trying to quantifie the effect of cosmic rays on water drops nucleation, etc.)
Probably the theory is not refined with all those other feedbacks, and should have to be introduced in models, that take account of them, too.

PA wrote: “Huh? … Let me think about that… Nope, I wouldn’t go that far. [...]”

OK. I had misunderstood your argument. Sorry. Thanks for the clarification.

Robert
.
You wrote “Assuming half of this was anthropogenic”

You have no grounds for assuming this unless you can produce temperature data evidence that the most predominant greenhouse gas water vapour makes moist regions considerably warmer than dry regions where there may be less than 25% as much water vapour.

You have been asked questions which you cannot answer. Avoiding them does not impress one iota.

Paradigm shift (Kuhn, taken from the wikipedia)
When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, the scientific discipline is thrown into a state of crisis, according to Kuhn. During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones previously discarded, are tried. Eventually a new paradigm is formed, which gains its own new followers, and an intellectual “battle” takes place between the followers of the new paradigm and the hold-outs of the old paradigm. Again, for early 20th century physics, the transition between the Maxwellian electromagnetic worldview and the Einsteinian Relativistic worldview was neither instantaneous nor calm, and instead involved a protracted set of “attacks,” both with empirical data as well as rhetorical or philosophical arguments, by both sides, with the Einsteinian theory winning out in the long run. Again, the weighing of evidence and importance of new data was fit through the human sieve: some scientists found the simplicity of Einstein’s equations to be most compelling, while some found them more complicated than the notion of Maxwell’s aether which they banished. Some found Eddington’s photographs of light bending around the sun to be compelling, while some questioned their accuracy and meaning. Sometimes the convincing force is just time itself and the human toll it takes, Kuhn said, using a quote from Max Planck: “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

I remember to have read that, when a paradigm begins its crisis, there are a lot of data, experiments, observations, that are patched with “ad hoc” explanations. In some way, this may be happening with the “hiatus”. But in some other way it seems that there is not paradigm in climatological science, but instead a sort of permanent crisis or battle. Maybe it’s a different sort of science, or simply climatology science is more linked to “human sciencies” with a lot of schools rather than hard theories (in opposite to the “hard sciences”).

On all planets temperatures in any troposphere get hotter as you approach the base of that troposphere, whether or not there is a surface there, whether or not solar radiation reaches the lower troposphere and quite regardless of whether there is carbon dioxide or water vapour in the planet’s atmosphere.

There is absolutely no empirical evidence and no valid physics that you can produce which supports the ludicrous concept that radiation from colder regions in the troposphere produces more thermal energy to be transferred by radiation into a planet’s surface than entered the atmosphere at its top. But that is precisely what the K-T and IPCC energy diagramw claim to be the case on Earth.

Believe it if you’re that gullible!

The slope change suggests that the temperature rose above the equalibrium temp, and still is.

Jim D | October 20, 2014 at 7:16 pm |
“How did you explain the underwarming of the models in 1984-1998?”

That isn’t too difficult. The early models were running too hot so they adjusted them down. After a while they were running too hot so they adjusted them down again. Since you are trying to match the past and the rate of warming is decreasing it requires that your models run cool at earlier times. Don’t forget the expected rate of warming from AR1 was 0.3 C/ decade with the lowest warming expected in any one decade being 0.2 C.

pokerguy wrote:

(Quoting Jim D.) “without 1998 you have no pause”

“You would be pause deniers are a dogged bunch. So fine, for the sake of discussion let’s stipulate that there’s been no pause.”

There is a failure in logic there. If I claim that without HIV there would be no AIDS, that doesn’t make me an AIDS denier. That’s because I am not denying that there are HIV infections. Likewise Jim D isn’t denying that there has been a large El Nino warming in 1998. He rather is reminding forgetful skeptics that *this* likely is the largest contributor to the pause.

Travel behind the Iron Curtain is a good way to see the future for government sponsored lock-step consensus science in our country:

http://suyts.wordpress.com/2014/10/20/and-yet-there-is-no-supporting-evidence-any-of-this-actually-occurred/#comment-150326

When you’re in denial, you might just make $#!+ up.

Plutonic lessons for climate-change

Pluto’s atmosphere consists of a thin envelope of nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide gases, which are derived from the ices of these substances on its surface. Its surface pressure ranges from 6.5 to 24 μbar.

Pluto’s elongated orbit is predicted to have a major effect on its atmosphere: as Pluto moves away from the Sun, its atmosphere should gradually freeze out, and fall to the ground.

When Pluto is closer to the Sun, the temperature of Pluto’s solid surface increases, causing the ices to sublimate into gas. This creates an anti-greenhouse effect; much as sweat cools the body as it evaporates from the surface of the skin, this sublimation cools the surface of Pluto. In 2006, scientists using the Submillimeter Array discovered that Pluto’s temperature is about 43 K (−230 °C), 10 K colder than would otherwise be expected.

The presence of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, in Pluto’s atmosphere creates a temperature inversion, with average temperatures 36 K warmer 10 km above the surface.

Remark  When we apply the lessons of Pluto to Earth, we get  Hansen’s energy-balance climate-science.

Question  Why do Climate Etc numerous loner-scientists seemingly have *NO* disagreement with Pluto-science, yet *IMMENSE* disagreement with Earth-science?

The world wonders!

FOMD’s Principle  Not all loner-scientists are fruitjobs, but fruitjob-scientists all are loners.

Lesson-learned  Seek the discipline and self-knowledge that come with teaching and collaboration — as James Hansen and Naomi Oreskes many other prominent climate scientists do supremely well — oh Climate Etc loner-scientists!