The Pro-Global Warming Folks Can No Longer Deny the Earth is Not Warming...

...and Roger Pielke, Sr. has a wonderful post about what the pro-GW folks have to say about the lack of warming.

What is fascinating to me the arrogance of some of these comments. It is the skeptics who have been pointing out the ever-increasing divergence between the pro-GW IPCC's forecasts and reality. Yet these scientists keep treating the skeptics with scorn.

I believe global warming is a small problem when all of its pluses and minuses are computed.  I readily acknowledge I could be wrong as no one knows that the earth's heat content will look like in 5, let alone 50, years.

It is easy to issue "highly likely" forecasts of the climate 100 years from now. No adult will be around to see how well that forecast worked out. One reason so many meteorologists view the dogmatic statements about the state of the atmosphere in 100 years is that Mother Nature frequently keeps us humble since our forecasts are subjected to public scrutiny every day.

ADDITION 8:00pm. Judy Curry says of Roger's post:

Well thank you IPCC authors for letting us know what is really behind that “very likely” assessment of attribution 20th century warming.   A lot of overbloated over confidence that cannot survive a few years of cooling.  The light bulbs seem to be just turning on in your heads over the last two years.  Think about all the wasted energy fighting the “deniers” when they could have been listening, trying to understand their arguments, and making progress to increase our understanding of the causes of climate variability and change.

Comments

  1. Curious on your thoughts

    http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348.html?fb_ref=wsj_share_FB_bot&fb_source=profile_oneline

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  2. @8:27pm: Already commented here: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/10/confirming-something-that-was-not-in.html

    I'm especially disappointed that Muller is engaged in "science by press release" which is bad no matter which side does it. Plus, there are professional statisticians who have SERIOUS disagreements with Muller's methodology (see posting referenced above for links).

    There is no question that earth is warmer than in 1975. There is also no question there has been no warming for 13+ years and none of the global warming models or scientists anticipated that warming would stop.

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  3. not anticipated sure, but climate models are long term, and as a meteorologist you know short term (<25 years) weather is not climate.

    AFAIK their work was funded by the Koch brothers, so no follow the $ theatrics (which I can't believe either side tries to use as it has nothing to do with the science really) just peer review.

    As for statisticians, I can't comment directly; I just find it ironic that independent physicists from the last 200 years can confirm each others work starting with Arrhenius, Plass, MacDonald and later Keeling, Suess & Revelle with somehow inaccurate maths.

    Imo It doesn't bode well for skepticism when you can find new data to stand on the shoulders of a previous hypothesis. There isn't a better theory as far as I know, so skepticism seems greater than evidence to suggest AGW is not real

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  4. @ 9:01pm. Thanks for the comment but it was the IPCC, not me, that put 95% confidence intervals around their forecast. Temperatures are well outside those confidence intervals on the cold side.

    That is my entire point: There is no basis for the arrogant "science is settled" or "highly likely" levels of confidence in their forecasts.

    Who cares who is funding the project? I care about good science.

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  5. Hmm, I suppose I don't quite understand exactly. So the overall confidence level is the issue

    Statistical significance suggests there is little chance climate alteration is random, or from another source (as far as i know) so heating is due to Co2, hence if heat is not being observed in the atmosphere at average increases confirming to models, then where is that heat... (I thought recent submissions suggested findings that much had gone into the deep ocean, or was it the change in the altitude of the stratosphere?) and therefore the models are limited (as to be expected)

    I am a bit confused as to why Biggs' work can suggest flaws from a peer reviewed submission that has been reviewed mathematically. IMO unless Biggs is well versed in physics I would assume he is at a loss as to what makes picking one date essential/non-essential. Looking at (http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=4525) picking any date has bias. Is that even possible to be eliminated? I'd be interested to see what Biggs suggests the numbers be from his own analysis, Has there been much work describing the confidence level as a different number %? i.e. what confidence level can/could/should be assigned to the synopsis by the 4/5th assessment of the IPCC?

    "Many climatologists have offered one theory...they cannot think of one better therefore their theory is true."

    understood, but Newtons classical mechanics was right enough to predict Neptune, yet so wrong as to be inaccurate with Mercury.

    I suppose I am under the impression that 150 years of basic confirmations are just good (enough) science as to be usable to make strong predictions.

    1) Co2 is a GHG (Fourier+Tyndall)
    2) X atmospheric Co2 will perturb climate roughly y1-y2 (Arrhenius)
    3) If Co2 is rising is temp rising? (Callendar)
    4) Co2 bands in the atmosphere & significance vs water vapor (Plass)
    5) How much Co2 is going into the atmosphere? (Keeling)
    6) Millions of years of sequestered C is being oxidized at rates unnatural to current era. This will have a punctuating effect on climate. (Suess+Revelle)

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  6. Biggs is both a statistician and meteorologist and is unusually well-qualified for that type of analysis.

    CO2 is a GHG, no one disputes that. However, it is a logarithmic relationship, not linear. The pure log curve indicates the CO2 heat trapping effect should be leveling out at these concentrations (i.e., little additional warming).

    If you wanted to trap the heat in a hot tub, a cover with 1" of insulation will trap the heat in a big way. The second inch will trap heat, but not as much as the first. By the time you get to the 23rd inch of insulation, it will have very little additional trapping effect. So it is with increasing concentrations of CO2.

    IPCC, however, comes to the conclusion of catastrophic AGW through assigning every feedback as positive (warming) even though there is little "real world" (as opposed to model) data to indicate that is correct.

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  7. ΔF = α ln(C/C0)
    ?

    Calculation doubling atmospheric Co2, Arrhenius had global mean increase at 5–6 °C. (IPCC puts it at about 2 - 4.5) while JASON(1979) made two models predicting polar amplification

    IIRC Polar amplification has been observed true to a high degree of specificity; The poles do experience 4 times the sensitivity. As far as I know that was (partially) the basis of alarmist positive feedback. (and part of the reason AGW gained wider support as well as the formation of the IPCC in the 90's)

    1) 2-4.5 global avg increase
    2) 4x sensitivity causing polar melting
    3) top layer ocean Co2 saturation
    4) ocean temp rise releases dissolved Co2
    5) increased water:land ratio
    6) increased water vapor
    7) assumed increases in human population
    8) assumed decreases in forest coverage
    correct?

    It doesn't seem like catastrophic warming is likely in < 75 years, but it does seem IMO population + emission growth has surpassed Cornucopian comfort.

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