Global Warming w/o Tiggy

[grmorton]

As I was not responding to post 2 I missed no word whatsoever.

Post 2 was the context of the discussion. That was my first claim.
I responded to a specific claim that you made about the NOAA data, and that was not in post 2.

"Good question Roland. From the NOAA site http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/get-fi...nth=12&ext=gif
you can see a picture of the global temperatures as they calculate them. I think they are calculated too high because too many thermometers are near heat sources, but, if you look at the enlargement of the picture linked to above and posted below, you can see that 1998 hit a high temperature. 2006 was .02 deg C hotter than 1998 but most all the other years since 1998 are colder than 1998. The trend would be down for the past 10 years. Since this is global it should trump what is out there at either Miami or where you are."

That is what you said, that from the NOAA data the trend would be down for the past 10 years. No "about" in there at all.[/quote]

Once again the context was clearly the 'about 10 years' and by actually MENTIONING 1998 I made very clear even to a first grader that I was speaking of 1998 on. There is no lack of clarity on this. Now David, if you don't mind, lets discuss data rather than your inability to follow context.

It is your memory that is at fault here, I adressed a specific claim about the NOAA data and in that claim you did not say "about 10 years" you said "for the past 10 years".

No David, Let's see, I mentioned 1998 3 times and you cant seem to understand that I was speaking of 1998. It is your reading comprehension which is at fault here.

So you are wrong about whether the trend was cooling or warming and wrong about what you you wrote. All you can try and do is point to posts not part of the discussion between us.

No I specifically mentioned 1998 three times. What part of 1998 do you not understand???

[Roy]

Roy, I am going to ask something that I can't seem to get anyone to address, so I will ask you. You corrected me on the above, I appreciate that. Tell me what it is that causes modern thermometers to read too cool of a temperature requiring that GISS add half a degree of temperature to the modern thermometers.

I don't see anything in there that says that GISS is adding half a degree to modern readings. I do see what looks like a confusion between 'the raw data' and 'the RAW data'.

But there is an explanation given in the extract you quoted which explains why some adjustment might be necessary:

...a general shift away from evening observations to morning observations.

If the old observations were taken at a different time of day than more recent observations, then they may well need to be adjusted to make a direct comparison possible.

Roy

[Augustine2004]

Agreed CO2 in Venus is way over the top, my point was merely to show that Stefan-Boltzmann does apply to atmospheres. As to the difference in temperature, things are not quite as simple as Stefan-Boltzmann alone. There is the concept of optical depth, which is the number of times that radiation is emitted and absorbed before it escapes from the planet. That is the cause of the temperature difference. Venus has an optical depth of 68 (Goody and Walker, p. 57) From data given on page 58 earth has an optical depth of about 0.89.

The other issue above is that the radiating surface of a planet is not necessarily its surface. Because of the optical thickness issue, the radiating surface of Venus is high in the atmosphere, where the temperature is cooler. Remember, very little electromagnetic energy directly escapes from Venus' surface. It is absorbed and re-emitted 68 times on the way out (that is a simplistic way to look at optical depth) The Stefan-Boltzmann equation balances out at the radiative surface.

Why not monitor Earth's optical depth and average height of the thermosphere (I assume that's where the Stef-Boltz equation output balances the input), i.e., 'the radiative surface.' The average would be made over the area of the radiative surface or Earth's surface? I don't think it matters as long as one stays with either choice.

If both depth and height goes up, then we have a hotter Earth. If down then cooler.

No need to average temperatures whose recordings have too much noise, such as changing times of observations.

[grmorton]

I don't see anything in there that says that GISS is adding half a degree to modern readings. I do see what looks like a confusion between 'the raw data' and 'the RAW data'.

But there is an explanation given in the extract you quoted which explains why some adjustment might be necessary:

...a general shift away from evening observations to morning observations.

If the old observations were taken at a different time of day than more recent observations, then they may well need to be adjusted to make a direct comparison possible.

Roy

From a systems point of view, if either the raw data or the RAW data (whatever they used for subtraction) has to have half a degree added to it in order for GISS to think that it is representing the correct temperature, it means that GISS MUST (by logic) believe that either the raw data or the RAW data is half a degree too cool. And the pattern of monotonically increasing temperature corrections to either the raw data or the RAW data means that whatever is causing those stations to read too cool wasn't there in 1900 because they didn't make that correction or that much of a correction in 1900.

Please explain WHAT physical situation is causing either the raw data or the RAW data to read too cool. It was the MMTS which was introduced in the mid 1980s which allowed a recording of the midnight to midnight temperatures. They have no time of observation bias because they are automated. If someone finds that they do, then that is sloppy work on the part of the weather service. If the correction is due to time of observation bias, then that should have started having an effect in the mid-1980s, not in 1950, when the monotonic rise in correction starts. Thus, I would say that that can't be the problem.

So, is there a bias between the modern thermometers (MMTS) and the old Stevenson Screen methodology(CRS) methodology?.

Yes there is a bias between the CRS to the MMTS but it is only of a tenth of a degree, not half a degree.

Here are the reported bias from CRS to MMTS

K. G. Hubbard,"Air Temperature Comparison between the MMTS and the USCRN Temperature Systems," Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology 2004; 21: 1590-1597

"The results based on 424 MMTS stations and 675 CRS stations showed that average minimum temperature changes of +0.3°C and average maximum temperature changes of −0.4°C were introduced (Quayle et al. 1991)."

© source where applicable

Since the mean temperature is the average of the max and the min, the most the correction should be would be 0.1 deg C, not 0.5 degree C.

The above paper, which examines biases between the old CRS and the MMTS has the following histogram of the biases for daytime and nighttime
Such a bias can't account for several features seen in this record.

It can't account for the magnitude (0.5 deg C) of the bias.

It can't account for why the change gradually happens starting in about 1950, 35 years before the MMTS was introduced.

And there still isn't a good explanation for why the temperature of 2000 needs half a degree of warming compared to the corrections applied in 1900. to me that implies that GISS thinks the modern thermometers are crap.

But pearls to you for addressing the issue.

[grmorton]

Why not monitor Earth's optical depth and average height of the thermosphere (I assume that's where the Stef-Boltz equation output balances the input), i.e., 'the radiative surface.' The average would be made over the area of the radiative surface or Earth's surface? I don't think it matters as long as one stays with either choice.

If both depth and height goes up, then we have a hotter Earth. If down then cooler.

No need to average temperatures whose recordings have too much noise, such as changing times of observations.

I think that is sort of what the satellites are trying to do.

I went out and looked at the Climate at a glance page. The global climate at a glance has been down for over a year (government performance at its best) but the US page is alive and has new data.

the temperature of the US is trending down.

1998 55.08
1999 54.67
2000 54
2001 54.41
2002 53.94
2003 54.02
2004 53.83
2005 54.36
2006 55.04
2007 54.38
2008 53.02
2009 53.1

If you start in 1998, the trend is -.104 deg F per year or 1.04 deg F cooling per decade (compared to conventional claims for the 20th century of .11 deg F per decade.

If you start in 1999 (to satisfy David M) then the trend is -.8 deg F / decade For an entire decade the US has cooled while the CO2 above it has increased. Since CO2 affects radiation, this cooling is surprising to me.

[Roy]

From a systems point of view, if either the raw data or the RAW data (whatever they used for subtraction) has to have half a degree added to it in order for GISS to think that it is representing the correct temperature, it means that GISS MUST (by logic) believe that either the raw data or the RAW data is half a degree too cool. And the pattern of monotonically increasing temperature corrections to either the raw data or the RAW data means that whatever is causing those stations to read too cool wasn't there in 1900 because they didn't make that correction or that much of a correction in 1900.

Please explain WHAT physical situation is causing either the raw data or the RAW data to read too cool. It was the MMTS which was introduced in the mid 1980s which allowed a recording of the midnight to midnight temperatures. They have no time of observation bias because they are automated. If someone finds that they do, then that is sloppy work on the part of the weather service. If the correction is due to time of observation bias, then that should have started having an effect in the mid-1980s, not in 1950, when the monotonic rise in correction starts. Thus, I would say that that can't be the problem.

Then you'd be wrong. Quoting again, from the extract you provided earlier:

"...a
general shift away from evening observations to morning observations.
The general shift to the morning over the past century may
be responsible for the nearly monotonic warming adjustment seen
in Figure 2."

Time of observation bias should be applied when the times of observation change. According to your own source, this took place gradually over the last century, so the adjustment should take place then; this is consistent with it being first applied in the 1950s. Presumably at that time a sufficient number of stations had changed their routine for an effect to be noticeable. The bias was not applied because of the introduction of new technology in the 1980s, hence it does not date from that time. No adjustment would need to be made in 1900 because that was more than a century ago, and therefore before they started to change observation times.

You're a smart guy, Glenn. You should not be making claims that can be refuted by quoting your own sources and data back at you. I can only conclude that your position is does not come from your sources or on your data, but from that eponymous little demon.

Roy

[Roy]

I think that is sort of what the satellites are trying to do.

I went out and looked at the Climate at a glance page. The global climate at a glance has been down for over a year (government performance at its best) but the US page is alive and has new data.

the temperature of the US is trending down.

Does that mean people are using their air-conditioners less?

Roy

[Augustine2004]

Does that mean people are using their air-conditioners less?

Roy

I fail to see the point of this. If the weather was cooler, then airconditioners, people would either not use or run less.

Sarcasm? I just don't know.

[Augustine2004]

I’m thinking that a network of amateurs can measure the optical depth and the thermosphere’s average height. This video makes it seem possible http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOQG8DnA8wU
I have an hunch that given the optical depth and height data, one can calculate the Earth’s overall temperature.

[grmorton]

Then you'd be wrong. Quoting again, from the extract you provided earlier:

"...a
general shift away from evening observations to morning observations.
The general shift to the morning over the past century may
be responsible for the nearly monotonic warming adjustment seen
in Figure 2."

Time of observation bias should be applied when the times of observation change. According to your own source, this took place gradually over the last century, so the adjustment should take place then; this is consistent with it being first applied in the 1950s. Presumably at that time a sufficient number of stations had changed their routine for an effect to be noticeable. The bias was not applied because of the introduction of new technology in the 1980s, hence it does not date from that time. No adjustment would need to be made in 1900 because that was more than a century ago, and therefore before they started to change observation times.

You're a smart guy, Glenn. You should not be making claims that can be refuted by quoting your own sources and data back at you. I can only conclude that your position is does not come from your sources or on your data, but from that eponymous little demon.

Roy

Roy You too are a smart guy and shouldn't believe everything you think you are told. I have documented that the bias due to this effect is about a tenth of a degree, yet, you ignore that and beleive that a half a degree correction is ok. What is wrong with YOUR reasoning ability?

And I love how easy it is for you to assume that you have no demon of your own but only I have a demon because I wrote of one. That Roy, is really a bit arrogant, sad to say.. But, since I don't think it is logical argumentation to go around saying to anyone I disagree with that they have a Morton's demon on their shoulder, I don't do it. Such a claim is illogical, and not good argumentation. Facts matter not you seeing imaginary demons.

Please explain how a tenth of a degree bias in the MMTS becomes half a degree? I wait with bated breath for your answer.

[grmorton]

Does that mean people are using their air-conditioners less?

Roy

There is no data that I could find on that. The downward trend is correlated with the lack of sunspots. There were almost no sunspots last year. When that happens, it is a historical fact that the world cools. It cooled during the Maunder minimum between about 1200 and 1740 when there were very few sunspots. That is called the Little Ice age.

Every time the sun lacks spots the world gets cooler. I have little doubt that you will also accuse the Institute of Physics of having a demon but I will present the data anyway.

The Sun is more active at present than it has been for over 8000 years according to a new method for determining the level of sunspot activity in the past. Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute in Katlenburg-Lindau and colleagues in Finland, Germany and Switzerland have developed a technique that relates the number of sunspots to the concentration of carbon-14 in tree rings. However, the team insists that this high level of solar activity is unlikely to be the main cause of global warming (Nature 431 1084).

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/20675

I find their disclaimer interesting. they can present the correlation below, whereby the world's temperature goes up and down with sunspot number, and then turn around and deny that it is important to global warming. I go with data, not with Orwellian statements like that above.

The calculations also showed that there have been three prominent periods of high sunspot number -- with the average number exceeding 50 -- in the last 11,400 years. These occurred mainly before 6000 BC (figure 2). However, the present value of about 75 sunspots is the highest ever recorded in the last 8000 years. According to the team, this period of unusually high activity has lasted for an abnormally long time and should end within 50 years. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/20675

Statements saying that the sun can't be causing this heat wave in light of the strong correlation they show are like the journalistic illogic I heard today on the news. The news reader said,

"Initial jobless claims rose unexpectedly as the economy continues to improve." What an utter laugh, and what an utter laugh it is that prior to this century when there was little anthropogenic CO2 and when the Beryllium record shows that the sunspot number was high, the world was warm, we are expected to believe now that when the sunspot number is high it is mostly due to us.

Such illogic doesn't fly Roy.


Edited to add. Roy, I respect you and you used to respect me. And I thank you for saying I am a smart guy. I want to say that if one is going to use global warming to do irreparable harm to the economy, engage in eco-imperialism against the 3rd world (forcing them to remain backwards) I think the evidence should be absolutely indisputable. I don't think it is. I don't see how anyone can condone the placement of a thermometer next to a heat source and then with a straight face claim that we get good temperatures out of them. The first rule I learned in experimental physics--make sure your equipment is not biased. Can you honesty look yourself in the mirror and say that thermometers next to air conditioners are not going to be biased towards hotter temperatures? Don't answer, I think you know in your heart that they would be. If you don't, then YOU have the demon not me.

[Roy]

There is no data that I could find on that.

It was a joke, Glenn. Obviously not a successful one. Must read .sig more often.

The downward trend is correlated with the lack of sunspots. There were almost no sunspots last year. When that happens, it is a historical fact that the world cools. It cooled during the Maunder minimum between about 1200 and 1740 when there were very few sunspots. That is called the Little Ice age.

Before I respond to this and the remaining stuff on sunspots (reluctantly, since I don't really want to get dragged into a global warming discussion), do you want to check that it's correct?

Such illogic doesn't fly Roy.

I agree. If I ever use such illogic, I'll expect you to call me on it. But since I don't think I've ever discussed sunspot cycles here* I don't know why you're complaining to me about illogical sunspot arguments.

Edited to add. Roy, I respect you and you used to respect me. And I thank you for saying I am a smart guy. I want to say that if one is going to use global warming to do irreparable harm to the economy, engage in eco-imperialism against the 3rd world (forcing them to remain backwards) I think the evidence should be absolutely indisputable.

If I wanted to use global warming as an excuse to engage in eco-imperialism against the 3rd world I wouldn't care whether the evidence supported it or not. Since when were international relations based on factuality?

Can you honesty look yourself in the mirror and say that thermometers next to air conditioners are not going to be biased towards hotter temperatures? Don't answer, I think you know in your heart that they would be. If you don't, then YOU have the demon not me.

Why shouldn't I answer? I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that thermometers placed next to hot-air outlets won't give unbiased results. I have no idea why you imply I would have any reluctance to answer this.

Roy

*I may be misremembering of course, and there may be somewhere in my 4,500+ posts that I've mentioned sunspots. I'd check, but the TWeb search facility can't find my username...

[Roy]

Roy You too are a smart guy and shouldn't believe everything you think you are told. I have documented that the bias due to this effect is about a tenth of a degree, yet, you ignore that and beleive that a half a degree correction is ok. What is wrong with YOUR reasoning ability?

Nothing that I am aware of.

If I'm reading your source extracts correctly, you are conflating the correction due to observation time changes with the correction due to hardware changes.

Please explain how a tenth of a degree bias in the MMTS becomes half a degree? I wait with bated breath for your answer.

By including other sources of bias?

Roy

[grmorton]

It was a joke, Glenn. Obviously not a successful one. Must read .sig more often.

I thought it was an interesting question. Degree days are used by power companies. it is hard to get national degree days, at least I haven't found a source. That would tell what is really happening. Alternatively, one can find residential power usage. It has to be residential because the drop in electrical usage right now is due to the recession. But if residential cooling is down and heating is up, across the nation, that too would be a significant piece of data.

So if you thought it was a joke, it shows that you aren't thinking deeply about these issues. That was a fantastic question--still unanswered.

Before I respond to this and the remaining stuff on sunspots (reluctantly, since I don't really want to get dragged into a global warming discussion), do you want to check that it's correct?

What about the sun being more active than at anytime in the past 8000 years? It was in a peer reviewed journal, Nature as well. Nature as you must be aware, is not a friend of anyone who questions global warming.

Paula J. Reimer, “Spots from Rings,” Nature, 431(2004), p. 1048

Sun more active than 8000 years
“Climate variability on centennial to millennial timescales is documented in many palaeoclimate records going back at least as far as the end of the last glaciation, some 12,000 years ago. Whether solar activity is a dominant influence in these changes is a subject of intense debate.”

© source where applicable

cite=Paula J. Reimer, “Spots from Rings,” Nature, 431(2004), p. 1047] “The reconstruction shows that the current episode of high sunspot number, which has lasted for the past 70 years, has been the most intense and has had the longest duration of any in the past 8,000 years. Based on the length of previous episodes of high activity, the probability that the current event will continue until the end of the t wenty-first century is quite low (1%).” [/cite]

Then she illogically concludes in a throw away statement that it can't have anything to do with the currrent warming. Which is silly.

If you don't want to be dragged into an AGW debate, that is fine. Don't be. I don't think the data is good enough to justify preventing 3rd world countries like China from making the lives of their people better. Having lived there and seen the kind of lifestyle they live, most of us in the west wouldn't want to live as most Chinese live. Yet, we preach to them about how they can't build coal fired power plants, can't build the 3 gorges dam, we tell them not to move into the 20th century technologically speaking. Coming from rich fat westerners, that looks to them like a bunch of meddling hypocrites. After all, we live off our coal fired powerstations and surf the web thanks to them--then we turn around and act as if we are not responsible for the CO2 they produce but some greedy coal mine owner is.

I agree. If I ever use such illogic, I'll expect you to call me on it. But since I don't think I've ever discussed sunspot cycles here* I don't know why you're complaining to me about illogical sunspot arguments.

Then I don't understand the penultimate quote above. If you know there is a link between climate and sunspots, why would you want to check to see if it is true?

If I wanted to use global warming as an excuse to engage in eco-imperialism against the 3rd world I wouldn't care whether the evidence supported it or not. Since when were international relations based on factuality?

We fat, complacent westerners, with our easy lives think we can tell everyone in the world how to live. Years ago there was a thing called the divine right of kings. God granted the king power and wisdom and he took care of all the common folk. Yeah right.

But today we have a similar but unnamed thing. It is the divine right of the scientist, who gets to tell us all what we must do, when we must do it, and how much of it we can engage in an endeavor. Anyone who questions the conclusions of the divinely inspired scientist is denigrated.

I have spent my life in science, but I don't think I or any of my fellow scientists are smart enough to understand the highly nonlinear climate. We don't understand the human for similar reasons.A human is highly complex, and highly nonlinear matter-storm. They are born from small complex tissues called gametes, they, like a thunderstorm, imbibe energy and matter from the environment and eventually, like the thunderstorm, it dies out. We are matter storms. But we are also unpredictable in the extreme. Climate is not as complex as us, but it too is as unpredictable, Roy. Yet the AGW folks claim a linear prediction of increasing temperature from computer models that neither agree among themselves and which can not retrodict the past. Not a single computer model predicted the current flattening of the trend line. Yet we are told, by that divinely approved group of scientists, the climatologists, that we must trust their models. Ridiculous.

Why shouldn't I answer? I have absolutely no hesitation in saying that thermometers placed next to hot-air outlets won't give unbiased results. I have no idea why you imply I would have any reluctance to answer this.

Roy, I think you are the very first person on the AGW side who has agreed to that point. Silas never answered it, Technomage (who says he is somewhat doubtful of AGW) nevertheless pointed me to an article that said that those badly sited stations are not affected by their heat sources.

It is the fact that I can't get AGW folk to answer that question which is why I think they have a Morton's demon, all the while they cast that charge at me. Sure, we all have our biases, but it shouldn't extend to the violation of what good physics should allow.

Pearls to you Roy. You are the first that I can recall actually acknowledging that poing. Maybe I too misremember in this 4500+ sequence of posts, but it is because such acknowledgements are so incredibly rare.

[Littlejoe]

OK, so Glenn, we have talked about sun spot activity, have you ever looked into the Milankovitch Cycles Theory? A concise explanation is found here in a article at the Montana State University Geology website: LINK

From the article intro:

The episodic nature of the Earth's glacial and interglacial periods within the present Ice Age (the last couple of million years) have been caused primarily by cyclical changes in the Earth's circumnavigation of the Sun. Variations in the Earth's eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession comprise the three dominant cycles, collectively known as the Milankovitch Cycles for Milutin Milankovitch, the Serbian astronomer who is generally credited with calculating their magnitude. Taken in unison, variations in these three cycles creates alterations in the seasonality of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. These times of increased or decreased solar radiation directly influence the Earth's climate system, thus impacting the advance and retreat of Earth's glaciers.

Interesting that we never hear about this anymore...I say anymore, because I seem to remember learning about this in Jr. High Science class.

LJ