General Climate Change Discussion.......

[Iceberg]

..but in terms of the wildcard element with this branch of science then any guess is academic at this time.

and this is where we disagree Tamara. (I should add it's absolutely fine we disagree)

Just because there is uncertainty it doesn't mean that any guess is as good as anybody elses.

There is a difference between uncertainty and we haven't a clue, much as with AGW IMO.

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

and this is where we disagree Tamara. (I should add it's absolutely fine we disagree)

Just because there is uncertainty it doesn't mean that any guess is as good as anybody elses.

There is a difference between uncertainty and we haven't a clue, much as with AGW IMO.

ok fine, whatever.

On that basis then I would suggest that the chances of a Maunder min are 50/50...

[kippure]

http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/player.html?20090804,2589511,2589511,real,209

Check this out. Audio required.

[Gowon]

Anyone see that ridiculous report on Sky News about the fact we are coming out of a solar minimum and that we are headed into ever greater maximum and this will warm the world further. This apparently is coming from NASA...well isn't Hathaway NASA? Hasn't he lowered greatly his expectations of maxima? It was a very poor piece with a female scientist who came across very unsure of herself indeed.

So now there is agreement that the solar cycles do warm and cool the earth. So folks watch out for ever higher maxima to appraoch [and this is on top of AGW effects too].

BFTP

This is very patronising. They were also preaching about how most of our coastlines were about to disappear due to the acceleration of sea level rise, and how our oceans temps are at a new high on BBC news 24 at around 6 or 7pm. I think they're doing this incase the public are wondering where's this warming gone, especially with their outrageous barbecue summer prediction as well, they're probably feeling really stupid.

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

This is very patronising. They were also preaching about how most of our coastlines were about to disappear due to the acceleration of sea level rise, and how our oceans temps are at a new high on BBC news 24 at around 6 or 7pm. I think they're doing this incase the public are wondering where's this warming gone, especially with their outrageous barbecue summer prediction as well, they're probably feeling really stupid.

Yes indeed, I sense another BBC onslaught coming with a fresh salvo of dramatic climate change 'evidence' on news bulletins and the Gardeners World Team being primed to put tips into their presentation on how we should adapt our gardens for the warm and steamy decades ahead. Assuming you live high up enough that is to still have a garden.

[Methuselah]

and this is where we disagree Tamara. (I should add it's absolutely fine we disagree)

Just because there is uncertainty it doesn't mean that any guess is as good as anybody elses.

There is a difference between uncertainty and we haven't a clue, much as with AGW IMO.

Agreed Ice. Scientific uncertainty (not knowing every detail down to the nth degree) doesn't equate to everything having a 50/50 chance of happening. Is there a 50/50 chance of the Sun going nova tomorrow, for instance?

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

Agreed Ice. Scientific uncertainty (not knowing every detail down to the nth degree) doesn't equate to everything having a 50/50 chance of happening. Is there a 50/50 chance of the Sun going nova tomorrow, for instance?

Well if we are going to keep being silly, nit picking for nitpicking sake and pedantic about this, for my own benefit of course, lets just keep picking any number we like.

Although I am sure that just for me you will be quick to quibble that one too.

Better things to do today myself - I'll leave you and Iceberg to the next correction entry.

[Iceberg]

Genuinely sorry you feel like that Tamara, I don't think there was any nit picking, just a realisation that the nature of uncertainty is key to the entire AGW climate debate. Particularly the point that Pete made and that the nature of uncertainty is the biggest gulf that seperates the two camps.

[The Penguin]

Yes indeed, I sense another BBC onslaught coming with a fresh salvo of dramatic climate change 'evidence' on news bulletins and the Gardeners World Team being primed to put tips into their presentation on how we should adapt our gardens for the warm and steamy decades ahead. Assuming you live high up enough that is to still have a garden.

Could the Silly Season possibly be extending into coverage (and exposure) of the climate chaos debate? Perish the thought. We'll see when everone comes back from holiday and start making some real news.

Is there a 50/50 chance of the Sun going nova tomorrow, for instance?

Yes, and no...

[laserguy]

This cycle has prompted quite a few Solar scientists to scratch their heads, I think the pressure on NASA to come up with an answer is tempting them and Hathaway, to stretch the "we know what's going on" beyond the realms of credibility somewhat. Interesting times ahead for Solar science, I think any predictions should be taken with a large pinch of salt, we clearly haven't as yet found a way of accurately saying what the future holds.

NASA would go up in my estimations considerably if they came out straight and said "we don't know",instead of an endless stream of predictions which count for nought in subsequent,seemingly inevitable revisions. Just sayin'.

[Methuselah]

Genuinely sorry you feel like that Tamara, I don't think there was any nit picking, just a realisation that the nature of uncertainty is key to the entire AGW climate debate. Particularly the point that Pete made and that the nature of uncertainty is the biggest gulf that seperates the two camps.

I am sorry too, Ice. Because I certainly wasn't nit-picking what Tamara was saying; I was merely agreeing with what you were saying: namely, that there is indeed uncertainty and that we don't pretend to know everything; and that it sometimes helps to have an idea of why there is uncertainty and what it does/does not imply. Now, how is that being silly?

IMO, barring blatant rudeness, everyone has the right to be heard and be refuted.

NASA would go up in my estimations considerably if they came out straight and said "we don't know",instead of an endless stream of predictions which count for nought in subsequent,seemingly inevitable revisions. Just sayin'.

Agreed LG!

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

Genuinely sorry you feel like that Tamara, I don't think there was any nit picking, just a realisation that the nature of uncertainty is key to the entire AGW climate debate. Particularly the point that Pete made and that the nature of uncertainty is the biggest gulf that seperates the two camps.

Indeed - we all appear to agree about the uncertainty. I have always harped on about uncertainty - that is why I am not sure what the refutations have been over the last day or so, especially when primarily over word semantics, at least as far as my own posts go.

Of course one can refute what someone says, if it is reasonable to do so, but sometimes refutation appears too much to me like refutation for its own sake and not for the right reasons. That's where any apparent terseness from my own point of view comes in.

Anyway, I have seen your recent welcome contributions in the GWO thread, and when I get back home later today, I will try and catch up with that

Edited August 4, 2009 by North Sea Snow Convection

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

I agree re the uncertainty. I've never held one particular prediction up above others, to me it's more like a probability spread (very wide at that).

A 5% chance of a dalton, a 10% chance maybe of a very high solar peak and a spread in the middle pointing to a lower peak than average(the average of the last 50 years) for the next 5-10 years.

Although these figures are guestimates.

Ice

May I suggest that a Dalton seems more likely than a very high solar peak seeing as current sunspot numbers are much closer to a Dalton?

The whole thing is a sham. I think these people need to sit down and speak to each other and come to an agreed projection.

With some astrophysicists predicting correctly the way the sun is behaving and where we are headed I think the chances of a Dalton minimum have increased dramatically due to behaviour of 23 to 24 cross over.

BFTP

[Low Countries]

Record-breaking month of July in the US; but not the kind of records we've been used to:

http://www.accuweather.com/news-weather-features.asp?#extremes

Some suggest it's because of the inactive sun that the jetstream is behaving strangely.

If you browse a bit in the showed links there are also reports of absence of monsoons in India and a colder-then-average winter in the Southern hemisphere.

Just a coincidence?

[Iceberg]

You can suggest what you want BFTP. I fully admit that I am not well read on solar.

It would be nice if you could lock everybody together to come up with an agreed projection. The same thought has been refered to economists and various others as well.

I've been playing with the various natural drivers that we know of.

To hand I have PDO, ENSO, Solar, HADCRU, UAH and UAH tropics in a single spreadsheet which makes plotting against them easy.

If anybody would like a plot just shout.

Here's one showing PDO, ENSO and HADCRU from 1950 onwards.

Record-breaking month of July in the US; but not the kind of records we've been used to:

http://www.accuweather.com/news-weather-features.asp?#extremes

Some suggest it's because of the inactive sun that the jetstream is behaving strangely.

If you browse a bit in the showed links there are also reports of absence of monsoons in India and a colder-then-average winter in the Southern hemisphere.

Just a coincidence?

Seems to be due to the La Nina we've just been though IMO.

The coldest Summer prior to this was 1999 the year of the big La Nina.

[osmposm]

....However, who is NOT ACCEPTING we have warmed??? Yep way off the mark if one thinks that

BFTP

Blast - and Tamara, Noggin, Jethro and all those who inexplicably think I was referring to them, and feel that they have been continuously misrepresented:

First, I hope that I have never misrepresented your views. If I have I am genuinely sorry. Occasionally in the cut and thrust of debate opponents' positions are exaggerated, and none of us is a stranger to this fault. For every time you can complain that someone has implied you are an extremist in one direction, I can point out another when a reasonable, open-minded AGWist-with-reservations has been lumped together with extremists on the other side. As I said, I hope that is not generally a fault I display with regard to any individual, though I have certainly given some sharp retorts to some people - NOT, I emphasize, any of you - when they have expressed views deliberately designed to provoke. I hope that you would agree that there have been any number of such posts over the years.

Now to the specific question: are there any people on here who do not accept that there has been warming? By which, as I think I said somewhere, I mean people who do not accept that world and/or UK temps are higher now than 50 or 100 years ago.

We used to have a lot of arguments about this, particularly in the UK context - that our mild winters were merely the result of synoptic accident, that nothing had really changed, that extreme and prolonged cold was still likely to happen sooner or later. I can no longer find these discussions, the older stuff is no longer available, I think. But I accept that few people take this view any more (though a number suggested or implied that this last winter was a normal, 'old-fashioned' winter). It may well be that my impression of some people's beliefs is outdated - though please bear in mind that all I said was that I thought there were plenty who disputed warming had happened, and that "some even" were members here. Not that it was an opinion held by many. And I never meant to imply that it was a view held by almost any of the more active posters that I regularly kick the ball around with.

However, I will give you one quote from a well-known and active member expressed just two weeks ago:

"The contiguous United States is a vast land area, and so, like a bigger thermometer, is more representative of very recent historical global temperatures than a record like the Hadley CET which, because it is recorded on just a tiny island, can be pretty much thrown out.

As far as the rest of the world goes nowhere else has the systematic, nearly homogenous coverage over a huge land area that existed in the US as far back as 100 years ago.

As far as the contiguous United States is our most reliable proxy for global temperatures over 100 years ago, it is significant 1934 is the joint hottest year [on] record."

And a couple of posts later: "I'm using it as a proxy for global temperatures"

(the italics are mine)

I find it hard to avoid concluding from that, that the author believes global temperatures in the mid-1930s were very possibly as warm as they have been in the last decade. If I have misunderstood his position, I am sorry. It is certainly not the only time I seem to have misunderstood him recently, which suggests that either he needs to write with more care, or I need to read with more care. Or both.

Edited August 4, 2009 by osmposm

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

You can suggest what you want BFTP.

Ok quotation works now. Just a test folks and Ice chose this sentence because I liked it.

BFTP

Edited August 4, 2009 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[Hiya]

I agree re the uncertainty. I've never held one particular prediction up above others, to me it's more like a probability spread (very wide at that).

A 5% chance of a dalton, a 10% chance maybe of a very high solar peak and a spread in the middle pointing to a lower peak than average(the average of the last 50 years) for the next 5-10 years.

Although these figures are guestimates.

Still no UAH update btw, last month they got the figure out and the associated press release within 36 hrs of the month ending.......

I constantly find myself drawn to a lot of your posts for all the wrong reasons.

Yesterday you side stepped completely the point of my post, but someone else did put forward a more blunt account of your numbers.

Where do todays numbers come from? I mean there are guesses and then there are guesses, are we to take this as your informed opinion?

[Iceberg]

Are you sure that you have thought about those figures? Did you take them from somewhere else?

I'll go out on a limb here and say, I very much doubt that the relationship you present is linear. A 0.1% decrease in solar output could have a much larger difference on temperature than you think.

I constantly find myself drawn to a lot of your posts for all the wrong reasons.

Yesterday you side stepped completely the point of my post, but someone else did put forward a more blunt account of your numbers.

Where do todays numbers come from? I mean there are guesses and then there are guesses, are we to take this as your informed opinion?

Sorry Hiya, Really didn't mean to sidestep anything.

For both sets of figures I said that they were fag packet figures (obtained using a bit on analysis on the internet) and guesstimates again based on what I've read.

I've certaintly not pretended they are anything other than my limited opinion.

However I am quite happy for somebody to come back and say that they are wrong becuase of x, I wish they would tbh because I know they are estimates.

btw it's 3 lots of figures now, the gravitational effects on the moon, the temperature effects of solar variance over the last 50 years and solar variance probabilistic graphs.

[MR EXTREMES]

Anyone see that ridiculous report on Sky News about the fact we are coming out of a solar minimum and that we are headed into ever greater maximum and this will warm the world further. This apparently is coming from NASA...well isn't Hathaway NASA? Hasn't he lowered greatly his expectations of maxima? It was a very poor piece with a female scientist who came across very unsure of herself indeed.

So now there is agreement that the solar cycles do warm and cool the earth. So folks watch out for ever higher maxima to appraoch [and this is on top of AGW effects too].

BFTP

i tell you i get really annoyed by this crap they report.

firstly where very near 28 days without any activity lower than dalton,

and there does not seem to be much to say this is going to explode into a high maximum.

second is that indeed it suggest that it will warm alot,

so its ok to warm in a maximum but in a deep minimum it only cools by 0.1c haha omg how does that work.

mind you its possible we could flip into a maximum,

after all it was dramatic how we went into this minimum but where have to wait and see,

but its intresting to see that ive not seen a single media report of cooling earth.

[Thundery wintry showers]

This is very patronising. They were also preaching about how most of our coastlines were about to disappear due to the acceleration of sea level rise, and how our oceans temps are at a new high on BBC news 24 at around 6 or 7pm. I think they're doing this incase the public are wondering where's this warming gone, especially with their outrageous barbecue summer prediction as well, they're probably feeling really stupid.

Ocean temps were at a new high for June this year btw, but whether they expressed that "as is" is another matter! I do think some of the pro-AGW reporting does go OTT but cannot offer a strong opinion on something I haven't seen.

With regards uncertainty, I agree with what Pete and others were saying. You can talk of something being uncertain, but that only says that it isn't certain to happen or not happen, it doesn't stop one outcome from being more or less likely than another. So for example "X is uncertain" does not logically lead straight to the conclusion, "therefore my stance is equally as likely to be right as anyone else's". I think that's all that they were getting at.

Indeed I think that's the primary area of climate science in which there is tremendous room for argument. How likely is it that in a "business as usual" scenario we would get 3 or 4C of global warming by 2100? Or 5-6C, or 1-2C, or a cooling of 1-2C? How likely is it that more than 50% of the warming since 1950 is down to AGW? Those are the questions where as yet we have no definitive answers.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

i tell you i get really annoyed by this crap they report.

firstly where very near 28 days without any activity lower than dalton,

and there does not seem to be much to say this is going to explode into a high maximum.

second is that indeed it suggest that it will warm alot,

so its ok to warm in a maximum but in a deep minimum it only cools by 0.1c haha omg how does that work.

mind you its possible we could flip into a maximum,

after all it was dramatic how we went into this minimum but where have to wait and see,

but its intresting to see that ive not seen a single media report of cooling earth.

Indeed how can it warm more than the cooling effect. Re flipping into a maximum two points....we will reach a solar maximum by around 2013 as the 11yr Schwabe cycle will dictate that. The second crucial point here....even at a Schwabe maximum we can be in a Dalton or Maunder style minimum as these superimpose over the 11 year running cycle eg sunspots not getting above numder of say 50 per year during the cycle...this represents a true minimum.

The low level of cycle 24 IS lower than expected but not dramatic as many astrophysicists have cited that cycle 25 will be the start of a true minima.

The report I must say wasn't about AGW but that the likely maxima in cycle 24 being very high and producing further big warming.

Hi Os, I did get your point b4 your last post and I misread the scenario.

regards

BFTP

Edited August 4, 2009 by BLAST FROM THE PAST

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

Blast - and Tamara, Noggin, Jethro and all those who inexplicably think I was referring to them, and feel that they have been continuously misrepresented:

First, I hope that I have never misrepresented your views. If I have I am genuinely sorry. Occasionally in the cut and thrust of debate opponents' positions are exaggerated, and none of us is a stranger to this fault. For every time you can complain that someone has implied you are an extremist in one direction, I can point out another when a reasonable, open-minded AGWist-with-reservations has been lumped together with extremists on the other side. As I said, I hope that is not generally a fault I display with regard to any individual, though I have certainly given some sharp retorts to some people - NOT, I emphasize, any of you - when they have expressed views deliberately designed to provoke. I hope that you would agree that there have been any number of such posts over the years.

Now to the specific question: are there any people on here who do not accept that there has been warming? By which, as I think I said somewhere, I mean people who do not accept that world and/or UK temps are higher now than 50 or 100 years ago.

We used to have a lot of arguments about this, particularly in the UK context - that our mild winters were merely the result of synoptic accident, that nothing had really changed, that extreme and prolonged cold was still likely to happen sooner or later. I can no longer find these discussions, the older stuff is no longer available, I think. But I accept that few people take this view any more (though a number suggested or implied that this last winter was a normal, 'old-fashioned' winter). It may well be that my impression of some people's beliefs is outdated - though please bear in mind that all I said was that I thought there were plenty who disputed warming had happened, and that "some even" were members here. Not that it was an opinion held by many. And I never meant to imply that it was a view held by almost any of the more active posters that I regularly kick the ball around with.

However, I will give you one quote from a well-known and active member expressed just two weeks ago:

"The contiguous United States is a vast land area, and so, like a bigger thermometer, is more representative of very recent historical global temperatures than a record like the Hadley CET which, because it is recorded on just a tiny island, can be pretty much thrown out.

As far as the rest of the world goes nowhere else has the systematic, nearly homogenous coverage over a huge land area that existed in the US as far back as 100 years ago.

As far as the contiguous United States is our most reliable proxy for global temperatures over 100 years ago, it is significant 1934 is the joint hottest year [on] record."

And a couple of posts later: "I'm using it as a proxy for global temperatures"

(the italics are mine)

I find it hard to avoid concluding from that, that the author believes global temperatures in the mid-1930s were very possibly as warm as they have been in the last decade. If I have misunderstood his position, I am sorry. It is certainly not the only time I seem to have misunderstood him recently, which suggests that either he needs to write with more care, or I need to read with more care. Or both.

No, you were not being referred to by me, Mr Bookwriter!

To clear up any misunderstanding about synoptic changes etc and how there has been interpretation that 'not much has changed'. The basis of the argument here is that through natural and cyclical phases we have seen the jet stream move north over recent decades and that as these phases change once more then a further synoptical change back towards a more persistent southerly jet stream will occur. It is in that sense that people such as me said as such, and still do, so hence 'nothing has changed'.

I just think that the misinterpretation/misrepresentation was that some folk were determined to take that as meaning that somehow those same people (again including myself amongst them) were somehow denying that we had seen a synoptic shift at all. The people with the said misrepresentations tend to be those who subscribe to AGW as the principle forcing mechanism for synoptic change - and by dint of that don't believe that shift of jet stream and synoptics back to potentially colder winters once more (as a more regular feature) is likely to happen. In other words they see it as a steady and continuing same trend as the last decade or two away from the synoptics of the past on a permanent basis.

I am sure that a lot of the problems have stemmed from these mistakes in terms of not actually reading what people were saying, but tagging them as forlorn snow lovers etc who were in denial that winters past had gone. Unhelpful quotes seen such as hankering after a snowy NE'erly airstream on the SE coast being the reason for the 'denial'- and other nonsense. It can seen by a much more intelligent andf fairer analysis that the differentiation is in terms of opposing opinion in terms of whether synoptic change is temporary (cyclical/natural) or permanent (AGW)

In terms of the persisting nitpicking over this uncertainty issue wrt to the solar min question - it might be an idea if the likes of TWS et al didn't simply keep giving layered endorsements to each other at my own expense and at the same time misrepresenting my own point as a consequence of this . It is the exactly the same point as Jethro, BFTP and others have made and whom have been allowed to make their points without being subject to the same pickiness (and quite right too of course that they shouldn't be criticised).

Perhaps my own weariness in terms of the nitpicking resulted in me picking my 50% figure for MM out of the air as an illustration of the random uncertainty and having a 'whatever' moment with Iceberg. But of course it gets wrongly interpreted in the way that TWS felt necessary to re-state yet again, when it had already been done to death. Reading between the lines a bit more and crediting one with a bit of intelligence might not go amiss. Unless it is an attempted means of deliberate provacation of course?

I don't think in terms of the uncertainty and inability thus far to predict C24 with any accuracy that, regarding the solar min, much should be ruled out. C24 as Fred, BFTP, has said is proving deeper than anticipated and therefore possibilities in terms of depth of C25 can't also be ruled out. There is a train of thought that suspects C25 will be deeper still. So with such possibilities open - why all this quibbling and nitpicking over who said what about which percentage and a load of guff about analysing the proper use and understanding of what the law of averages means??

It's like being on different planets.

Edited August 4, 2009 by North Sea Snow Convection

[Thundery wintry showers]

It is the exactly the same point as Jethro, BFTP and others have made and whom have been allowed to make their points without being subject to the same pickiness (and quite right too of course that they shouldn't be criticised).

Firstly, I'm pretty sure they were all subjected to the same level of nit-pickiness because for example Osmposm's response addressed all parties involved. Secondly, there seems to be a popular perception among some of the sceptics that those with views that disagree with AGW should be spared a certain level of so-called "nit-pickiness", but that apparently, it's okay to be at least as nit-picky with the views of those who fail to disagree with AGW (I say "a popular perception"- this isn't aimed at any one individual).

Perhaps my own weariness in terms of the nitpicking resulted in me picking my 50% figure for MM out of the air as an illustration of the random uncertainty and having a 'whatever' moment with Iceberg. But of course it gets wrongly interpreted in the way that TWS felt necessary to re-state yet again, when it had already been done to death. Reading between the lines a bit more and crediting one with a bit of intelligence might not go amiss. Unless it is an attempted means of deliberate provacation of course?

No, it was nothing of the sort I'm afraid- I was making a general point that was in agreement with much of what Pete Tattum and Iceberg have been saying. Nothing to do with any specific references to a 50% figure, rather the general observation that if something is uncertain (such as AGW or something to do with it), it doesn't stop it from being likely (or for that matter unlikely) to be true.

With regards synoptic changes the general view among the mainstream scientists at the moment is that the recent global warming trend (irrespective of whether it is largely anthropogenic or natural in origin, or roughly 50-50 of both) has probably contributed to the northward movement of the jetstream, but that it does not account for anywhere near all of the changes we saw in the 1980s and 1990s in particular. Current climate models consistently suggest that a warmer world would have a more northerly tracking jetstream- but we all know how fraught with danger making strong assertions based on current climate models can be. If we have got just one variable wrong it could throw much of the rest of the predictions off course.

[Guest North Sea Snow Convection]

Firstly, I'm pretty sure they were all subjected to the same level of nit-pickiness because for example Osmposm's response addressed all parties involved. Secondly, there seems to be a popular perception among some of the sceptics that those with views that disagree with AGW should be spared a certain level of so-called "nit-pickiness", but that apparently, it's okay to be at least as nit-picky with the views of those who fail to disagree with AGW (I say "a popular perception"- this isn't aimed at any one individual).

No, it was nothing of the sort I'm afraid- I was making a general point that was in agreement with much of what Pete Tattum and Iceberg have been saying. Nothing to do with any specific references to a 50% figure, rather the general observation that if something is uncertain (such as AGW or something to do with it), it doesn't stop it from being likely (or for that matter unlikely) to be true.

.

No - incorrect. Ossie's post was nothing to do with the issue wrt to solar cycles.

And regarding the second bit, and for the umpteenth time, I never made any suggestion whatsoever that something that is uncertain is going to be prevented from being true