The Great Climate Change Debate- Continued

[BUSHY]

Now, I'll say I think there may indeed be issues with the NOAA October data GISS use so there may be an error - though how much it might effect the global figure is more doubtful. But, I'm going to wait to see what GISS say or do before I say more. They are the experts not us.

I think it is totally justifiable to say that this state of affairs is totally unacceptable. To not query and double check an obviously suspect anomaly, especially when compared with the satellite numbers that had already been released is inexcusable.

This of course raises the question with reference to all the rest of the GISS published data regarding anomalies over the years.

I think that all raw data etc. needs to be made freely available for analysis and scrutiny so that an unbiased assessment of the situation can be conducted.

[Devonian]

I think it is totally justifiable to say that this state of affairs is totally unacceptable. To not query and double check an obviously suspect anomaly, especially when compared with the satellite numbers that had already been released is inexcusable.

This of course raises the question with reference to all the rest of the GISS published data regarding anomalies over the years.

I think that all raw data etc. needs to be made freely available for analysis and scrutiny so that an unbiased assessment of the situation can be conducted.

You've been reading toooo much wattsupaudit Bushy

All (that's ALL) the climate data sets have had errors - to single out one for special attention shows your bias.

[Solar Cycles]

Just for once Devonian, try no to look at this from your wamist point of view. Yes the data is flawed, the question being asked is how the hell did GISS allow such a simple error pass them by!

[VillagePlank]

I think it is totally justifiable to say that this state of affairs is totally unacceptable. To not query and double check an obviously suspect anomaly, especially when compared with the satellite numbers that had already been released is inexcusable.

I don't think so.

Whilst I am particularly guilty of being a pedant, I can still see how human error can creep in; but even better, in this case, it was identified and corrected. If you want to look for conspiracy look for where there is error and no one is owning up.

I don't really want to dwell on this point, but next time you create a Cartesian product of around 10 billion rows (think of it as a spreadsheet) and conduct a quality assurance review on it, you let me know how to guarentee it's correctness, huh? I could employ a zillion staff to go through it, but, generally, it's done in a statistical way using random sampling. And yes, there are mistakes that slip through.

You want big data, you want big data sets, you want 100% guarentee of correctness? Sorry, mate. It doesn't exist, and if this feeds your scepticism then so be it.

Now, me, for instance, I am a sceptic for completely different reasons, not least the vocifericty that the AGW claim has both for and against. In general most of life is just a shade of grey. An average, if you will, but not so on this debate - there's far too much black and white - and that makes me suspicious. I am, if you like, a sceptic of both sides of the debate; and remain unconvinced by quite a few of the arguments from both sides.

Just for once Devonian, try no to look at this from your wamist point of view. Yes the data is flawed, the question being asked is how the hell did GISS allow such a simple error pass them by!

See above - and you will note that I am far from a Devonian bed-fellow, too!

Edited November 11, 2008 by VillagePlank

[Devonian]

I don't think so.

Whilst I am particularly guilty of being a pedant, I can still see how human error can creep in; but even better, in this case, it was identified and corrected. If you want to look for conspiracy look for where there is error and no one is owning up.

I don't really want to dwell on this point, but next time you create a Cartesian product of around 10 billion rows (think of it as a spreadsheet) and conduct a quality assurance review on it, you let me know how to guarentee it's correctness, huh? I could employ a zillion staff to go through it, but, generally, it's done in a statistical way using random sampling. And yes, there are mistakes that slip through.

You want big data, you want big data sets, you want 100% guarentee of correctness? Sorry, mate. It doesn't exist, and if this feeds your scepticism then so be it.

Now, me, for instance, I am a sceptic for completely different reasons, not least the vocifericty that the AGW claim has both for and against. In general most of life is just a shade of grey. An average, if you will, but not so on this debate - there's far too much black and white - and that makes me suspicious. I am, if you like, a sceptic of both sides of the debate; and remain unconvinced by quite a few of the arguments from both sides.

See above - and you will note that I am far from a Devonian bed-fellow, too!

I should hope so!

But, I like you approach, you are a credit to scepticism. Analytical rather than those who are: nit picking, insult slinging and, after this data is corrected, no doubt smug as he** for a few days

[Admiral_Bobski]

Hi C-Bob!

you'll have too let me know why you feel that past links to CO2/methane releases are not held as responsible for the temp rises thereafter. The first example of such(I believe) is the 'release' that freed up 'snowball earth' (635 million years ago?). I have been unable to find anything other than the methane/CO2 releases being held responsible for the 'melting' of the global ice sheets back then and would be very interested to hear the current thinking.

I also have problems in understanding geological 'climates' without resorting to 'atmospheric CO2's' 'greenhouse properties as a driver. It appears very 'convincing' to me that warmer global periods/epochs have higher CO2 concentrations in their atmosphere.

As such your apparent 'certainty' of the lack of evidence supporting atmospheric CO2/Methane's roles in past 'warm' periods and ,conversely, their absence in cool periods, has me a tad confused as I have not yet been able to find widespread acceptance of the negligible impacts of what we hold (held?) to be 'greenhouse gasses'.

It's really quite simple, GW. Here's a point by point:

1. Historically, temperatures have risen prior to CO2 levels.

2. Therefore there has been some other initial driver for those temperature increases.

3. It is postulated that increasing CO2 levels have then fed back and driven further warming.

4. If CO2 has had a gradual effect on temperatures, increasing as levels increase, then there should be a pronounced curvature of the warming trend as this feedback adds to the existing driver.

5. The absence of such curvature implies that either the main driver's effect decreased at the same rate that CO2's effect increased, which would require an extraordinary degree of coincidence, or else the supposed feedback effect of CO2 is not correct.

In essence then, one would expect there to be increased CO2 levels in a warmer world, but this does not mean that CO2, in and of itself, is responsible for the warmer world.

CB

[Roo]

It's really quite simple, GW. Here's a point by point:

Call me a duh-brain, but this offers a perfectly reasonable and evidenced explanation:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...n-temp-and-co2/

[osmposm]

Well David Attenborough's still doing ok for an oldie,but then he's a fully paid-up believer .

OT,but would you care to reveal yourself,Ossie (ooh,missus!). I'm referring to some of the characters you've played that we might recognise - might be a little difficult for me due to the tiny amount of tv I watch,but y'never know!

Attenborough is, of course, one of my "handful of exceptions" - for reasons that Roo has eloquently described. He is a television "great", and I am thankful that the industry has not turned him out to grass with most of the others.

Not sure I really want to start blowing my feeble professional trumpet on here in that much detail, Barrie. I will reveal, though, that in 1975 I was a sad, if handsome young ex-soldier who killed himself for love of Lesley-Ann Down in Upstairs Downstairs; and exactly thirty years later I was a sad and rather less handsome & young, secretly gay auctioneer who was attacked and thrown off a train in Hearbeat! In between there's been everything from Minder and Morse to Silent Witness and Frost, and of course The Bill....every actor who can stand vertical and remember a line has done an episode of The Bill.

But you'll get no names.....though if you look out for a film drama this Christmas starring that girl who got to play Maria in The Sound of Music....well, think 'auctioneer' again.

All of which is about as far off-topic as it gets - though obviously my faded career is entirely down to my warmist views: it's the first thing they ask about when you go for a casting, naturally.

[BUSHY]

Whilst I am particularly guilty of being a pedant, I can still see how human error can creep in; but even better, in this case, it was identified and corrected. If you want to look for conspiracy look for where there is error and no one is owning up

I am not looking for conspiracy as you put it and it has not been corrected. Data sets have been deleted but no correction. This has to do with the path politicians take to shape, tax,change and make crucial decisions so we cannot afford to poo poo this issue.

Your comment about 100% correctness is rubbish. This is straightforward and unacceptable incompetence.

[Admiral_Bobski]

Call me a duh-brain, but this offers a perfectly reasonable and evidenced explanation:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archi...n-temp-and-co2/

I am not implying that anyone on these boards is stupid (I only said "It's really quite simple" because GW completely overlooked my point, as have you). The realclimate article is nicely written, but it still fails to address the issue of why the historic temperature increases are obviously linear. For there to be a linear temperature trend, the supposed feedbacks must perfectly balance against the decrease of other forcings - the initial driver must decrease proportionately to the feedbacks to give us a straight line, or else the feedbacks would add to the initial driver, and to each other, to produce a distinctly curved trend line.

CB

[Roo]

though obviously my faded career is entirely down to my warmist views: it's the first thing they ask about when you go for a casting, naturally.

Awww...poor Ossie! Methinks you should harness the Exxon dollar and go on a world tour!

[BUSHY]

Quite so captain Bob. It is really easy to waffle lyrical to try and make a point.

[Roo]

address the issue of why the historic temperature increases are obviously linear.

Could you show me a graph? [i'm not being troublesome, I'm just going to back to basics, so we all know what we're talking about]

[DAVID SNOW]

I suggest we all do our bit to save the planet :lol. I for one, have just amputated both my feet, thus reducing my carbon foot print{both ], and am now going to take a pickaxe handle to the greenhouse,thus reducing all my nasty emissions

[Admiral_Bobski]

Could you show me a graph? [i'm not being troublesome, I'm just going to back to basics, so we all know what we're talking about]

Sure thing:

CB

[Roo]

Sure thing:

Can we have the 58 years at the end on the graph aswell?

Edited November 11, 2008 by Roo

[Admiral_Bobski]

Can we have the 58 years at the end on the graph aswell?

Recent years are completely irrelevant to the point I am making.

CB

[Roo]

I am not implying that anyone on these boards is stupid (I only said "It's really quite simple" because GW completely overlooked my point, as have you). The realclimate article is nicely written, but it still fails to address the issue of why the historic temperature increases are obviously linear. For there to be a linear temperature trend, the supposed feedbacks must perfectly balance against the decrease of other forcings - the initial driver must decrease proportionately to the feedbacks to give us a straight line, or else the feedbacks would add to the initial driver, and to each other, to produce a distinctly curved trend line.

CB

Right, been thinking about this a bit:

1) Who ever said it was all CO2? I don't think that anyone has said that, have they? I always thought it was a mix of natural and man made contributors, with the human caused portion being far the greatest and causing the trouble.

2) Why does the initial driver have to continue?

3) Why are we looking at the historical (pre-historical perhaps?) picture when the recent trends clearly show that something very unusual is happening?

Recent years are completely irrelevant to the point I am making.

CB

But are they, because surely the whole point is that the climate has been balanced by natural mechanisms until humans tipped the balance: to put it another way, why have we not seen data like those of the christmas pudding in prehistoric records? What makes now so different that it cannot be included in the historic dataset?

Edited November 11, 2008 by Roo

[Admiral_Bobski]

I'm going to start with your second point first about the last 58 years being irrelevant:

But are they, because surely the whole point is that the climate has been balanced by natural mechanisms until humans tipped the balance: to put it another way, why have we not seen data like those of the christmas pudding in prehistoric records? What makes now so different that it cannot be included in the historic dataset?

You say yourself that you want to get back to basics - well, what could be more basic than looking at the situation without man's interference? If you want to do comparisons between modern and historical climate then by all means go ahead, but let's try to establish the historical facts first, shall we?

Right, been thinking about this a bit:

1) I'm not sure what you mean by 'linear', in this case, and where you can see such a trend?

2) Who ever said it was all CO2? I don't think that anyone has said that, have they? I always thought it was a mix of natural and man made contributors, with the human caused portion being far the greatest and causing the trouble.

3) Why does the initial driver have to continue?

4) Why are we looking at the historical (pre-historical perhaps?) picture when the recent trends clearly show that something very unusual is happening?

1) By linear I mean "a straight line" - look at the Vostok graph I posted a short while ago and you will see that virtually every temperature increase is a straight diagonal line. Where are the tell-tale curves of superimposed feedbacks reinforcing one another?

2) I never said it was all CO2 either, but it is the factor which everyone - pros, antis and media alike - focuses on, and the Vostok graph shows this wonderful apparent correlation between CO2 and temperature.

3) Why does the initial driver have to continue? Good point, but for the temperature increase to continue in such a regular fashion then the "handover" from initial forcing to feedback forcing(s) would have to be a very smooth one to not cause any disruption in those lovely straight lines. Is it not an amazing coincidence that the feedback forcings would continue the warming trend at the same rate as the initial forcing?

4) We are looking at (pre) historical trends in an effort to establish the true effect of CO2 (and other geenhouse gases) on global climate. Without an understanding of these gases in their historical context, how can we claim that "something very unusual" is happening now?

CB

[Gray-Wolf]

I am not implying that anyone on these boards is stupid (I only said "It's really quite simple" because GW completely overlooked my point, as have you). The RealClimate article is nicely written, but it still fails to address the issue of why the historic temperature increases are obviously linear. For there to be a linear temperature trend, the supposed feedbacks must perfectly balance against the decrease of other forcings - the initial driver must decrease proportionately to the feedbacks to give us a straight line, or else the feedbacks would add to the initial driver, and to each other, to produce a distinctly curved trend line.

CB

Hi C-Bob!

I'm not overlooking the 'shape' of the graph but feel that the information it conveys is likely to be a more accurate representation of the facts than the graphs 'shape'.

Luckily we appear to be in a unique position to witness whether in fact the temps do indeed follow a steep curve upwards (as nature adds her load of CO2 in the various feedback mechanisms that I oulined...and those I omitted of course) or are indeed a straight line increase.

If a 'straight line' then we also be nicely positioned to assess why this should be.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For myself I would imagine that the line will start out by being 'staged' with natural variability showing as steps or flat spots. Depending on the severity/scale of the temp increases the 'natural variability signal' will lessen and we will ,indeed, tend towards a straight line ,year on year, increase.

As the GISS warn, the next El-Nino will punch through existing planet record temps (for this era) and I personally feel that this will herald the period of rapid climate shift as the positive feedback mechanisms we are currently starting to experience (perennial ice loss,carbon sink failures,permafrost melt,jet-stream migration etc,etc) intensify, we will then see the natural variability signal lessen further.

To me, this will have been the pattern throughout all the earths past warming periods and if we had the space on such graphs to express such 'details' it would ,of course , show them.

When dealing in tens of thousands of years (or indeed 'millions') this 100yr 'fluctuation period' must be very difficult to reproduce and so we are left with the 'line of best fit' which is ,of course, straight.

[Roo]

1) By linear I mean "a straight line" - look at the Vostok graph I posted a short while ago and you will see that virtually every temperature increase is a straight diagonal line. Where are the tell-tale curves of superimposed feedbacks reinforcing one another?

2) I never said it was all CO2 either, but it is the factor which everyone - pros, antis and media alike - focuses on, and the Vostok graph shows this wonderful apparent correlation between CO2 and temperature.

3) Why does the initial driver have to continue? Good point, but for the temperature increase to continue in such a regular fashion then the "handover" from initial forcing to feedback forcing(s) would have to be a very smooth one to not cause any disruption in those lovely straight lines. Is it not an amazing coincidence that the feedback forcings would continue the warming trend at the same rate as the initial forcing?

4) We are looking at (pre) historical trends in an effort to establish the true effect of CO2 (and other geenhouse gases) on global climate. Without an understanding of these gases in their historical context, how can we claim that "something very unusual" is happening now?

CB

OK...cheers for this.

1) Linear...yep gotcha. What I was trying to say is why is that surprising? Historically, nature has regulated itself. As for curves: isn't that exactly what the recent data shows?

2) I thought CO2 was only a part: all the AGW stuff I've read acknowledges that too.

3) But then amazingly fragile and balanced systems are not unknown in nature, ecosystems for example.

4) I think that that the last 58 years of that graph shows that something very unusual IS happening.

Anyways, doesn't matter what I think: I know diddly squat about this. I'm just glad that there are people who do.

Edited November 11, 2008 by Roo

[Admiral_Bobski]

Hi C-Bob!

I'm not overlooking the 'shape' of the graph but feel that the information it conveys is likely to be a more accurate representation of the facts than the graphs 'shape'.

Luckily we appear to be in a unique position to witness whether in fact the temps do indeed follow a steep curve upwards (as nature adds her load of CO2 in the various feedback mechanisms that I oulined...and those I omitted of course) or are indeed a straight line increase.

If a 'straight line' then we also be nicely positioned to assess why this should be.

Thanks for that GW (sorry - I hacked off the second half of your post for brevity!). I appreciate your stance on this subject. The way I see it is that there should be some tell-tale sign of feedback effects to prove the point (especially as there is a surprising amount of detail in the graph, especially in the second half of it), but I don't see it. I admit that a big part of it is how one reads the graph, and what one reads into it, and so in the end there's an element of interpretation.

We certainly are in a unique position (whether that makes us lucky or unlucky is a question for the philosophers, I suppose!). I am intrigued by the oft-repeated fact that temperatures have held relatively steady over the past decade despite the "record" CO2 levels that we have had for some time now, so it will be interesting to see how temperature varies over the next decade or two.

Much like a spokesperson for the treasury, I'm not ruling out further increases. My gut tells me that temperatures will hang around for a few years before sliding slowly downwards, but then my gut tells me all sorts of things (like "gimme a beer!"). It is influenced by the information I have read over the years, but in the end it's not a scientific prediction, projection or assessment.

Time for a coffee!

CB

[laserguy]

Flying visit. Apologies to Dev,Roo and everyone else I may have antagonised today. I appear to have gone off on one! Gonna take a short break to calm down. Ossie - are you John Gielgud (in the Bill?!)? Don't now if he's still around but the mental picture I have in my head of you resembles him in his prime. Hope I've not offended - again!

[Admiral_Bobski]

OK...cheers for this.

No probs!

1) Linear...yep gotcha. What I was trying to say is why is that surprising? Historically, nature has regulated itself. As for curves: isn't that exactly what the recent data shows?

2) I thought CO2 was only a part: all the AGW stuff I've read acknowledges that too.

Yes, nature regulates itself, but that regulation is all about finding equilibrium - emphasis on "finding". Things never balance out in nature instantaneously, and generally not even over short- to medium-term time scales (isn't that part of the problem we are told we have made - even if we stop producing CO2 instantly it's still going to take a while, a long while, for the Earth to right itself?).

The funny thing is that if we start throwing in all the other feedbacks - methane, ice extent and albedo and so on - the graph should be surely even more chaotic, with forcings superimposing on feedbacks superimposing on forcings and so on.

3) But then amazingly fragile and balanced systems are not unknown in nature, ecosystems for example.

True, but that balance is always dynamic.

4) I think that that the last 58 years of that graph shows that something very unusual IS happening.

What, exactly?

CB

[osmposm]

Flying visit. Apologies to Dev,Roo and everyone else I may have antagonised today. I appear to have gone off on one! Gonna take a short break to calm down. Ossie - are you John Gielgud (in the Bill?!)? Don't now if he's still around but the mental picture I have in my head of you resembles him in his prime. Hope I've not offended - again!

Entirely accepted, Barrie - by me at any rate...though we have been here before, and will doubtless come here again!?!

Um, no....JG has sadly been dead for eight years, and would be 104 if he wasn't. And it was the last (decent) role that was secretly gay, not me. I'm sure, too, that (unlike me) Sir John would have leapt at the chance of a ride on your bike, especially if you promised to wear your leathers.....

ANYWAY.....back to the matter in hand. Roo/Cap'n Bob/G-W, I am very much enjoying your current exchange. Interesting, educative and refreshingly respectful (yet still sparky). See, everybody? We can do it. Thank you!

Ossie

Edited November 11, 2008 by osmposm