Dim Sun Anyone?

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat May 30, 2009 12:17 am

TallDave wrote:Re the forecasting scientists: it seems you've only read the RealClimate rebuttal, which gives a fairly silly argument. Essentially, they're saying "Well, our predictive model is physical, so we don't have to follow rules like these." But the actual report is quite damning for any predictive system, and it did not just address GCMs but also the impact studies.

It is actually worse than that. They often leave out known effects where the numbers are not fully verified - cosmic rays. And of course they can't include as yet unknown effects.

So all you can say about the models is that they include known quantified effects and all unknowns from the 1980-2000 period are assigned to CO2 because any other possibility is unknown. Which hasn't stopped the estimation fun for water vapor.

And you know - they have modified the GCMs to account for the PDO (cooling for a decade or two). But they did not modify their numbers for CO2 sensitivity. Which sensitivity was developed during the positive PDO.

So the attitude now is alarmism - with a pause.

All that may be good for funding. It is bad science though. The models have been decoupled from observation except tangentially. It is as though they were working through F=ma by dropping bags of loose feathers. And then when they found that feathers kept in a bag fall faster they came up with an adjustment in order to maintain their original results.

And the crockey stick was still featured a number of times in the last IPCC report despite having been falsified. Naughty. Naughty.

Not to worry Tom. Us deniers (along with colder temps) are getting the upper hand. The politicians are starting to worry. Right where us deniers want them.

About 1/2 my blog traffic of 4K a day is from searches. That is 700K new visitors a year. If 1/4 of those click on a climate article that is 200K (roughly) people getting the denier side of the story. In the 5 years I have been blogging that would be a million. We in the denier community must be changing a few minds because the popular support for AGW is going down. Like a rock.

As I have pointed out: I used to get lots of rebuttals a couple of years ago. Now? Not even the true believers come around. I'm going to have to do more posts on stuff that generates real traffic. Like pretty girls and sex toys.

Perennial favorites. BTW keep an eye out for my yearly July 4th bikini edition. I may have talked a lovely 19 year old Brit from the Manchester area into posing. Actually she is rather a girl chester. No promises yet though.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat May 30, 2009 8:17 am

Clouds are modulated by cosmic rays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTqBrML4nsc

It is at the end of the video. Now where in the GCMs is the cosmic ray (definitely a physical process) code? I believe, due to some oversight, they have left that one out. Perhaps they will include something in their next rewrite.

Links to all the videos and my articles on the subject can be found here:

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... s-not.html

Now Tom, how could the IPCC and GCM folks leave this out? Not physical enough for them?

Now suppose CO2 has been aliased for cosmic rays? That would be most unfortunate wouldn't it?

I think it was in video #1 of the series that the reaction of the IPCC scientists was given. And you know they had their whole lives invested in CO2. I think it is not too much different to the ITER folk's reaction to Polywell. If the cosmic ray/cloud connection is proven and definite values given not just from empirical studies but also at the experiments at CERN the CO2 bandwagon folks are going to be discredited. It will be a black mark on their careers. It would really suck to be them under the circumstances.

You would be really surprised how careerism affects science. And not in good ways. As you point out though it is ultimately self correcting. But the corrections take longer when politics is involved. I think Galileo had some experience with that.

Edit:

The experiment at Cern is to verify the results from experiments done in the SKY Experiment at the Danish National Space Science Center.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrik_Svensmark

Video #3 gives some details and videos of the construction of the SKY experiment.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat May 30, 2009 9:22 am

Tom,

You might be especially interested in what Professor Eugene Parker of the University of Chicago (yea! my old school) has to say about scientific suppression in climate science.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pRmbBsdhNE

About 5:40 into the video. Evidently the church of AGW does not brook dissent or heretics. I just hate it when that happens don't you? You do understand that the original purpose of peer review was not only to keep out ridiculous papers from the approved literature but also non-conforming ideas.

It seems to still perform that function. But not near as well as it used to. Although if you compare Svensmark's original work to the start of the experiments at CERN (about 10 years) they haven't done too bad given that this is the age of the Internet.

tomclarke · Post by **tomclarke** » Sat May 30, 2009 1:08 pm

Simon -

Well no system is perfect. Peer review will tend to disfavour weird ideas (when people think they are not well substantiated) but equally favour them (because one of the key metrics is for the research to be innovative and any half-way convincing arguments for something unusual therefore are weighted higher). No doubt there are some editors with an axe to grind and prejudices. There are probably enough respectable journals for good work to get published.

There are two issues here:

(1) Is peer-review severely distorting what gets published so that the science if therefore skewed.

(2) shall we look at the totality of evidence in svensgaard's paper, the discussion an comments on it (and comments on comments) and try independently to come to the truth? It will take a little while but not be too dificult. the evidence for/against the effect of GCRs on climate is a manageable definite topic. (We can also look at any future studies which ar relevant).

I would welcome doing this. After all, GCR-driven climate change is one of the big anti-AGW arguments. Shall we try to sort out what is true and what not?

Just to preempt superficial parrotting of blog comments here is one of many pro-AGW blog comments analysing the whole issue (not specially selected by me). Of course I do not expect you to trust it. I am not sure that I trust it.
http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptic_a ... oblem.html

before looking in detail at the papers here are two issues that I can't yet answer. (Doing your work for you):

A. One of the issues is: are the much quoted GCR measurements (which have no obvious long-term trend and therefore can't be sued easily to explain the temperature record) characteristic of GCRs at the height in the atmosphere where they can have climate effects?

B. Another issue (subtle, this, I am indebted to a comment at RC from a pro-AGW scientist who was playing devil's advocate, as any good scientist should). Maybe although the GCR long-term trend in last 70 years is flat, there was a jump some time before this. The temperature increase is then because the climate has not yet reached equilibrium as the result of this (historic) chnage in forcing, and the time constant is very long.

tomclarke · Post by **tomclarke** » Sat May 30, 2009 1:16 pm

Talldave.

The things which you state as obvious, are not obvious to me, nor (obviously!) to many others. rather than rebut (in some cases again) each of your many points I would like to stick to a small compass so that it can be properly argued on both sides.

I propose having this argument about the proposed link between AGW and GCR, and whether this invalidates GCMs.

BTW - in response to your & Simon's comments on this topic:

(1) If there is no long-term trend in GCR - as the pro-AGW people claim - they are not relevant to GCMs though will make the wiggles more accurate.

(2) there is no agreement yet as to how large are the causal physical mechanisms, what other factors do they depend on, etc. therefore adding GCMs to climate models is doing exactly what you accuse GCMs of - stochastic modelling and adding parameters for each of the many possible causes. If you do not understand this point it is not surprising you argue incorrectly.

A moments reflection (if you know anything about statistical modelling) will tell you that adding extra parameters which can only be determined by fitting to results is A BAD IDEA. Notice the italics - parameters which are determined soundly in ways independent of the result fitting do not add extra degrees of freedom and are therefore not pernicious.

Best wishes, Tom

tomclarke · Post by **tomclarke** » Sat May 30, 2009 1:27 pm

Still not doing the real work and reading all the papers for myself. But here is a better blog article with some useful comments:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Svensma ... paper.html

Tom

tomclarke · Post by **tomclarke** » Sat May 30, 2009 3:13 pm

All those "decade of flatter temperatures" comments.

I wonder if those who believe last 10 years temperature data in any way contradicts upward trend in global temperature would care to read and comment on this analysis from late 2008:
http://climaticidechronicles.org/2009/0 ... ing-ahead/

A little vignette:

In the past our procedure has been to run the analysis program upon receipt of all three data sets and make the analysis publicly available immediately. This procedure worked very well from a scientific perspective, with the broad availability of the analysis helping reveal any problems with input data sets. However, because confusion was generated in the media after one of the October 2008 input data sets was found to contain significant flaws (some October station records inadvertently repeated September data in the October data slot), we have instituted a new procedure. The GISS analysis is first made available internally before it is released publicly. If any suspect data are detected, they will be reported back to the data providers for resolution. This process may introduce significant delays. We apologize for any inconvenience due to this delay, but it should reduce the likelihood of instances of future confusion and misinformation. [Thank you denialists/delayers and gullible Traditional Media for your hysterical response to the error and use of it as a political weapon. Now we will have to wait longer in future for the global surface temperature results--JR]

And in response to the claim that current relatively flat temperatures indicate a flattening in the GW signal:

Finally, in response to popular demand, we comment on the likelihood of a near-term global temperature record. Specifically, the question has been asked whether the relatively cool 2008 alters the expectation we expressed in last year’s summary that a new global record was likely within the next 2-3 years (now the next 1-2 years).

Response to that query requires consideration of several factors:

1) Natural dynamical variability: the largest contribution is the Southern Oscillation, the El Nino – La Nina cycle. The Nino 3.4 temperature anomaly, bottom of Figure 2 (top), suggests that the La Nina may be almost over, but the anomaly fell back (cooled) to -0.7°C last month (December).

It is conceivable that this tropical cycle could dip back into a strong La Nina, as happened, e.g., in 1975. However, for the tropical Pacific to stay in that mode for both 2009 and 2010 would require a longer La Nina phase than has existed in the past half century, so it is unlikely. Indeed, subsurface and surface tropical ocean temperatures suggest that the system is “recharged”, i.e., poised, for the next El Nino, so there is a good chance that one may occur in 2009. Global temperature anomalies tend to lag tropical anomalies by 3-6 months.

2) Solar irradiance: the solar irradiance remains low (Figure 4), at the lowest level in the period since satellite measurements began in the late 1970s, and the time since the prior solar minimum is already 12 years, two years longer than the prior two cycles. This has led some people to speculate that we may be entering a “Maunder Minimum” situation, a period of reduced irradiance that could last for decades. Most solar physicists expect the irradiance to begin to pick up in the next several months – there are indications, from the polarity of the few recent sunspots, that the new cycle is beginning. However, let’s assume that the solar irradiance does not recover: in that case, the negative forcing, relative to the mean solar irradiance is equivalent to seven years of CO2 increase at current growth rates. So do not look for a new “Little Ice Age” in any case!

Assuming that the solar irradiance begins to recover this year, as expected, there is still some effect on the likelihood of a near-term global temperature record due to the unusually prolonged solar minimum. Because of the large thermal inertia of the ocean, the surface temperature response to the 10-12 year solar cycle lags the irradiance variation by 1-2 years. Thus, relative to the mean, i.e, the hypothetical case in which the sun had a constant average irradiance, actual solar irradiance will continue to provide a negative anomaly for the next 2-3 years.

Figure 4. Solar irradiance through November 2008 [Reference 8].

3) Volcanic aerosols: colorful sunsets the past several months suggest a non-negligible
stratospheric aerosol amount at northern latitudes. Unfortunately, as noted in the 2008 Bjerknes talk [http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/], the instrument capable of precise measurements of aerosol optical depth (SAGE, the Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment) is sitting on a shelf at Langley Research Center. Stratospheric aerosol amounts are estimated from crude measurements to be moderate. The aerosols from an Aleutian volcano, which is thought to be the primary source, are at relatively low altitude and high latitudes, where they should be mostly flushed out this winter. Their effect in the next two years should be negligible.

4) Greenhouse gases: annual growth rate of climate forcing by long-lived greenhouse gases (GHGs) slowed from a peak close to 0.05 W/m2 per year around 1980-85 to about 0.035 W/m2 in recent years due to slowdown of CH4 and CFC growth rates [Reference 6]. Resumed methane growth, if it continued in 2008 as in 2007, adds about 0.005 W/m2. From climate models and empirical analyses, this GHG forcing trend translates into a mean warming rate of ~0.15°C per decade.

Summary: the Southern Oscillation and increasing GHGs continue to be, respectively, the dominant factors affecting interannual and decadal temperature change. Solar irradiance has a non-negligible effect on global temperature [see, e.g., Reference 7, which empirically estimates a somewhat larger solar cycle effect than that estimated by others who have teased a solar effect out of data with different methods]. Given our expectation of the next El Nino beginning in 2009 or 2010, it still seems likely that a new global temperature record will be set within the next 1-2 years, despite the moderate negative effect of the reduced solar irradiance.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat May 30, 2009 3:46 pm

And Tom did you notice the guy in the video (a meteorologist I believe) who was absolutely livid the Svensmark experiment was even being done? There is a man who is insecure in his position. The folks in the audience seemed to be rather more approving of Svensmark. Probably a bunch of astronomers and physicists whose funding doesn't depend on being AGW believers.

In fact the whole AGW crowd seems rather insecure to me. Almost like they are invested in the politics.

Whether Polywell works or fails (I hope it works) I will still be an engineer. What was with that guy that he had his BEING invested in CO2? So why do I promote Polywell you ask? I want to see the experiments done - however they work out. Open the door or close it.

And you will also notice that most of the criticism for the CO2 hypothesis comes from outside the field? That is suspicious. The critics in the video were astronomers and physicists.

We are in the fortunate position that different fields have different ideas on how things work. Right now I'm reading Feynman on cloud formation and atmospheric electrostatics. Fascinating. I'll be doing a book report when I finish. What I like is seeing how many things he mentions as hard to do as easy these days. We have come a ways since he gave his lectures.

On another note: re: politics. the stats for "Watts Up With That" are going up and those for "Real Climate" are going down. If popular consensus is any guide (and it isn't other than to politics) the sceptics are winning the publicity wars. In the popular mind they have the better argument. In my mind, having given more than a bit of attention to both sides, I'd have to agree.

It has been noted that frequently "Real Climate" removes unfortunate questions. Or unfortunate answers to questions. The sceptics seem rather more open. Which is good. The better your critics the better the arguments. Something the "Real Climate" folks seem to miss.

BTW the Svensmark hypothesis does a rather good job of explaining why the sun's output correlates with climate despite the fact that solar energy variation is inadequate for the job.

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat May 30, 2009 4:39 pm

First off: GCRs have only been measured for 50 years and solar output has maxed with increasing magnetic field for the last 100.

A. One of the issues is: are the much quoted GCR measurements (which have no obvious long-term trend and therefore can't be sued easily to explain the temperature record) characteristic of GCRs at the height in the atmosphere where they can have climate effects?

It is thought that only GCRs above 1GEV affect climate (low clouds dominate). This affects the so called "no trend" argument. Only the trend of 1 GEV rays matters (significantly). (It may be that I am wrong in that it is 10 GEV rays that count - my memory is not what it once was. But that would only strengthen my argument.)

B. Another issue (subtle, this, I am indebted to a comment at RC from a pro-AGW scientist who was playing devil's advocate, as any good scientist should). Maybe although the GCR long-term trend in last 70 years is flat, there was a jump some time before this. The temperature increase is then because the climate has not yet reached equilibrium as the result of this (historic) chnage in forcing, and the time constant is very long.

I have been looking for a chart of solar magnetism (I think there is at least 150 years of history) but couldn't find anything.

But I did find this:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/12/09/2 ... in-a-funk/

A sharp drop in the solar field in 2005 (Planetary Ap Index) and we see a sharp drop in Earth temps about three years later (the lag in my estimation is 5 years). You see that in the downward curl in the graphs you recently provided. Now if my estimate is correct, that means a very steep drop in energy input. Or it could mean that the lag is shorter - 1 to 3 years. I really hope it is the case of a short lag. Otherwise we are in for some very severe cooling in the next few years. Because the magnetic field has not recovered.

I did find this:

In addition to historical records of low solar activity during the LIA, further evidence can be found in tree rings. Not only are the rings from the LIA closely spaced, they also contain high levels of carbon-14. Carbon-14 is produced in the atmosphere by cosmic rays — energized particles from space — and is incorporated into materials such as trees. However, cosmic rays are affected by the solar wind. When the solar wind is strong, it prevents cosmic rays from entering into Earth's atmosphere, resulting in less carbon-14 in the atmosphere. Alternatively, during years of low solar activity, there is less solar wind and more carbon-14 is produced.

http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/ ... magnetism/

LIA is Little Ice Age.

tomclarke · Post by **tomclarke** » Sat May 30, 2009 11:01 pm

the stats for "Watts Up With That" are going up and those for "Real Climate" are going down. If popular consensus is any guide (and it isn't other than to politics) the sceptics are winning the publicity wars. In the popular mind they have the better argument

People are simple minded. A few hot Northern hemisphere years and AGW will be popular again. Hansen's explanation for a few COLD years (not absolutely cold, but below trend) seems one even you would agree with: low solar irradiance, negative ENSO (roughly => PDO).

OK - you have to be careful about stochastic arguments. Consider. There are an AWFUL LOT of possible parameters that can be chosen as potential climate forcings. once you start slicing and dicing GCRs by energy you have just given yourself a lot more parameters to play with.

Finding correlation between one of a large potential set of parameters and a given result is not very convincing - the larger the parameter set the less convincing. We will need to look at the science properly on this one.

To start, what is the data for trending GCRs (or trending >10Gev GCRs etc)?

tomclarke · Post by **tomclarke** » Sat May 30, 2009 11:26 pm

Climax neutron monitor is on earth surface and therefore counts represent extent to which GCRs are stopped by the (variable) earth magnetic field.

http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/SOLAR/COSM ... osmic.html

Counts are available for last 60 years which is certainly enough to compare with global temperatures.

There is a strong variation with sunspot cycle but no obvious linear trend.

Whatever cuttoff for GCRs you take you would expect counts to be related to the Climax count, which includes low energy up to 15GeV.

So - where is your trending GCR data?

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat May 30, 2009 11:46 pm

OK - you have to be careful about stochastic arguments. Consider. There are an AWFUL LOT of possible parameters that can be chosen as potential climate forcings. once you start slicing and dicing GCRs by energy you have just given yourself a lot more parameters to play with.

Well we do know that the distance a particle travels is dependent on its charge and its energy and the density of the medium of is traveling in.... Of course if you dispute the physics....

Re: forcings. It all depends. If you have chosen the right parameters you can make predictions. If you have chosen the wrong ones well...

In any case I was under the impression that the models were PHYSICAL. And I think even you would admit the GCRs are physical. And where GCRs are absorbed (scattered) depends on energy. Higher energy GCRs will on average be absorbed lower in the atmosphere.

And why only high energy GCRs? According to the physicists the low clouds are the most effective in modulating albedo and retained warmth. High energy GCRs will penetrate further into the atmosphere. So you either trust the physicists or you don't. Of course if you don't there is supposedly a LOT of physics in the GCMs......... Or so you keep telling me.

I am hopeful though. It only took 10 years for ENSO/PDO to get included in the models. And only after the modelers found that they needed it to explain current events. So if the GCRs get included in 10 years or less it will be par for the course. My guess is we will not see the GCRs in the models for 40 years and it will be once the PDO goes positive and temps keep dropping. If that happens.

The best thing to happen for the climate modelers is a Maunder Minimum. The worst thing that could happen to humans is a Maunder Minimum. It is out of our hands fortunately and I can wish for what ever I want to and it will make no difference.

Except if we go the carbon tax route and people need to burn stuff to keep warm. Well there are always forests. Until we have cut them down.

If the climate modelers have way overestimated CO2 there will eventually be heads on pikes. The modelers and climate scientists are playing a very dangerous game if they are cooking the books. And the suspicion of that is already rampant with conditions relatively benign.

My hope is that we can get Polywell to work (at least for D-D) and the Greens will accept it. If not......

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sat May 30, 2009 11:59 pm

Tom,

Neutrons are interesting. If they are a proxy for something. Are the neutrons of solar or galactic origin? A chart of neutrons vs local time over a year would be interesting.

What I would like to see is a chart of GCRs vs energy vs time. Or a solar magnetic field chart vs time. And a particle energy distribution vs solar magnetic field.

I am digging into Feynman and he has a lot of very good stuff on charged particles that the climate boys seem to have ignored. As I said. Once I have read it all and digested it I will do a report.

By leaving out physical stuff the modelers may very well be aliasing one effect for another to make things come out "right". OTOH there is the over fitting problem. And from this predictions can be made? Well, you know I'm a sceptic.

TallDave · Post by **TallDave** » Sun May 31, 2009 2:46 am

The things which you state as obvious, are not obvious to me, nor (obviously!) to many others

Well, here's something fairly obvious: forecasting scientists spent decades developing ways to determine the accuracy of predictive models.

So, why do you trust the consensus forecasts of people who are not forecasting scientists, but dismiss the work of people who actually evaluate forecasts scientifically? Seems... unscientific. It's especially so given the naturally skeptical position is the anti-AGW position.

I wonder if those who believe last 10 years temperature data in any way contradicts upward trend in global temperature would care to read and comment on this analysis from late 2008:

You sure you want to go there? The fact they made such an elementary error in data they are advocating as a basis for spending trillions of dollars is egregious, but there are so many other problems with GISS it's almost beside the point.

The GISS data is based on a terribly flawed set of measurement stations, has been extensively massaged with undisclosed algorithms, and is controlled by a man who says coal trains are like the trains that carried people to the gas chambers at Auschwitz and who has called for the criminalization of global warming skepticism. Do you see the problem there? This would be a serious problem is any field of science.

Try to imagine, for a moment, if Bussard or Nebel compared ITER to the Holocaust and said people who questioned Polywell's potential should be tried for war crimes. Would that make you a bit more skeptical of Polywell?

MSimon · Post by **MSimon** » Sun May 31, 2009 2:55 am

(2) there is no agreement yet as to how large are the causal physical mechanisms, what other factors do they depend on, etc. therefore adding GCMs to climate models is doing exactly what you accuse GCMs of - stochastic modelling and adding parameters for each of the many possible causes. If you do not understand this point it is not surprising you argue incorrectly.

The experiment has been done in Copenhagen and is being verified at CERN.

And of course lack of a physical theory for Water Vapor (which the CERN experiments may verify) has not stopped the GCM boys from going all empirical on the subject.

Now I understand your scepticism of the sceptics. I'm sceptical myself. But you should be equally sceptical of the AGW crowd. I see sparks of that scepticism from time to time and then I see you going all believer.

Remember the epicycle theory had pretty good predictive ability and so it worked. And the competing gravitational solar centric theory (which came much later) made no serious headway until Newton worked out the theory of gravity and the calculus required to compute it. And we currently have a lot more unknowns re: climate than Newton had with gravity.

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast121/lectures/lec02.html

So you can have models that explain what is going on and even some predictive ability and still be wrong.

However, previous models of the climate system had no predictive ability and were only adjusted post facto (epicycles) once prediction fell away too far from reality. This does not give confidence that the modelers (who are fixated on CO2) have got it right this time.

The meteorologist who was at the Svensmark lecture in the video seems typical of the AGW crowd. He said in effect: "Why are you studying this? We already understand it." And if it is wrong we can just add an epicycle.

It all comes down to the alias problem. The question you don't see the modelers and AGW crowd asking: "Have we imputed to CO2 that which is caused by another mechanism?" That would be real science. They would be looking to blow holes in their own theory to make it more robust.

It is a hard thing to do. Typically in software development you do not allow the code developer to try to find holes in his own code. I'm rather unusual in that respect. I love poking holes in my own designs. An attitude I got from working in the nuclear industry.

I had developed an overspeed control for an aircraft generator and once out of many hundreds of times in the start up mode it would go nuts. A reset would make it go away. I missed a quirk in the 8051 counter input vs the same bit as a port input. They were not synchronized. It was in the data book but I had missed it. By stress testing the counter/pin software at 10X the design frequency (the engine had already thrown the blades so it was a physically impossible occurrence) I made the error come up every time. Delayed deliver for a week. Greatly pissed off my boss. But it saved a failure (not dangerous) on one restart in a thousand (switch the breaker and force a restart). Saving fuel and time.

But that attitude is rare in developers. Few like to poke holes in their "children". I love it.

Most engineers want to make things work. That is of course the first step. Then you have to want to make things fail. Psychologically a difficult shift for most. So you separate testing from development. If you have a good system.

BTW I am a terror in design reviews. And I love being reviewed.

So in general I don't expect good critiques from the AGW crowd. It goes against human nature. And with the "sky is falling" mentality none of the AGWers want to wait for results. So all we have is their past history to go by and it is not impressive. Mann does not impress and any paper with his name on it is automatically suspect. Leaving out the PDO for 10 years does not impress. That leaves out all the modelers. What is left? Hope and change.

Edit: corrected the chip number.