Weather-Manmade Global Warming Link Builds, Study Says

Stovepipe wrote:I find it hilarious that you keep attacking me personally rather than the evidence I've put forward. Notice I'm not the one calling you whacky. Someone is rather touchy this morning.

snowdog wrote:

Stovepipe wrote:You can't say that I don't read the stuff you post, even if it's from blogs of people like Tisdale. For all I know he doesn't even have a Phd in the earth sciences and if I had tried to put forth something from the other side with equal credibility you would have torn it to shreds. Regardless, I had a few minutes to kill and did some digging on SST data.

Go back and re-read my original post and look at the graphics. You seem to be getting confused. He doesn't show a cooling trend for global sea surface. He shows a cooling trend for the Pacific and Indian Ocean which makes up for 75% of the ocean. He shows a significant warming trend in the Atlantic which makes up the other 25%. Overall there has been a slight warming trend (.031 deg. C/decade) in the Global Sea temp anomaly. His graph closely matches your graph from 1995 onward.

So if we are being objective here, would you mind linking to some hard science that describes this cooling (or at least not warming) of ocean surface temps over the past 17 years? I'm a bit skeptical of the conclusions the blogger is drawing. Especially since this blogger has been busted hard in the past for cherry picking.

The links to the data are available in the article as well as a plethora of graphs.

Also he isn't arguing nanny nanny boo boo stick your head in doo doo global warming isn't real. His main point in showing the graphs were to show how bad the models are. From there one can draw their own conclusions.

Those super smart nerds that promote AGW thought the oceans would heat up. It was programmed into their model projections and hindcasts. Except mother nature didn't quite dance to the tune they thought she would.

Stovepipe wrote:I know what the man said, I read his article 3 times. Like most of the denier arguments, the only way they can attempt to poke holes in the science is to chop off part of the data, either by excluding coverage (only part of the ocean) or focusing only on part of the timeline. Hey lets put blinders on and see if we can show it isn't warming! It's similar to you arguing about the sea level falling or busting out that wood for trees chart with the 1998 starting point early in the thread. It's not a scientific way to conduct business. The good thing is most of the researchers in the field understand that and mouth breathers like Tisdale are mostly ignored. You lose credibility real fast when you try to use trickery to make your point.

snowdog wrote:

Stovepipe wrote:I know what the man said, I read his article 3 times. Like most of the denier arguments, the only way they can attempt to poke holes in the science is to chop off part of the data, either by excluding coverage (only part of the ocean) or focusing only on part of the timeline. Hey lets put blinders on and see if we can show it isn't warming! It's similar to you arguing about the sea level falling or busting out that wood for trees chart with the 1998 starting point early in the thread. It's not a scientific way to conduct business. The good thing is most of the researchers in the field understand that and mouth breathers like Tisdale are mostly ignored. You lose credibility real fast when you try to use trickery to make your point.

More intellectual dishonesty from you. You still haven't dealt with the meat of the graphs and data. Just more conjecture and character assassination. Ohh you did post something about Ocean Heat Content (off topic) and another one showing the earth has warmed (Duh!!). Care to actually discuss the topic?

By only taking parts of the ocean and only taking certain time frames one can better see the model errors. The models have done better in the Atlantic vs Pacific and Indian. Why is that? Why has the Pacific and Indian cooled while the model predicted it to significantly warm over the last 17 years? Should this not be pointed out? Is this cherry picking? As Bastardi says, if you think this is cherry picking it is because the orchard is loaded.

As for the junk science crap, give me a break. This coming from someone who supports a hypothesis that has no provable results and one of the godfathers of the movement admitted just that.

Stovepipe wrote:Buddy you were the one saying the super nerds were wrong about the oceans heating up. I showed you that not only was the ocean heat content rising but also the sea surface temps, from multiple data sources. You're original point was that what Tisdale is showing makes the AGW nerds wrong. That is a clown shoes silly generalization on your part.

Bringing out the ol' intellectual dishonesty attack again eh? Hilarious and typical.

Where you stepped out of line was trying to extrapolate that in such a way as to say that the "nerds" were all wrong about ocean warming.

snowdog wrote:Sea surface temps and ocean heat content aren't the same thing. You can show as many sources as you want on Global Sea Surface temps and they will all show the same thing. THERE ARE LARGE ERRORS IN THE MODELING VS REAL WORLD TEMPS. There is no generalization or cherry picking or whatever on my part. THE DATA IS THERE FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE. The models are wrong, and not only are they wrong but they take being wrong to a whole new level. Do you have data to show otherwise? If you do you could make a lot of money because right now there is no decent model at projecting sea surface temps.

The author is very upfront with his data set and why he uses the time period he did. This wasn't done in secret to hope no one catches it and try to pull a fast one over on the AGW folks. The data speaks for itself. If you have a rebuttal graph or rebuttal data I'd love to see it vs the model projections. Instead you posted a study on ocean heat content and showed some graphs that show the ocean has been warming since the LIA (which no one denies).

So where is the intellectual dishonesty on my part? I've been nothing but above board.

Stovepipe wrote:I know that sea surface temps and ocean heat content aren't the same thing. But if you are going to claim the oceans aren't warming (as you did when you posted your latest Teasedale article) you can't just ignore the latter.

But, the bottom line is that the surface of the earth is warming and the models have long predicted surface warming. You can scrutinize the models skill in terms of magnitude, but the trends are there. On the global scale they are not wildly off as you claim. In order to make such a claim you have to drill down to the regional level and look at relatively short time scales.

What I'm not sold on are the broad based conclusions that you are trying to draw from his write up. Everybody knows the models aren't perfect, but they have been skillful enough to illustrate the climate trend going forwards and backwards within a reasonable amount of error margin. Again, the magnitude of warming is debatable, but to say models have no clue is false. It's you painting with that broad brush of yours again.

I think you're comfortable hanging to your handful of talking points and when presented with hard science you tend to ignore it

Stovepipe wrote:If you get to hang your hat on Teasedale, I get to post articles from Skepitcal Science, it's only fair. Here's a recent one pertaining to John Neilson-Gammon's analysis on how the earth is indeed continuing to warm and any slowdown in warming in recent years makes since when considering ENSO patterns.

http://www.skepticalscience.com/john-nielsen-gammon-commentson-on-continued-global-warming.html

So we see a couple of recent La Niñas have caused the recent global temperature trend to level off. But be honest: doesn’t it seem likely that, barring another major volcanic eruption, the next El Niño will cause global temperatures to break their previous record? Doesn’t it appear that whatever has caused global temperatures to rise over the past four decades is still going strong?

So about that lack of warming: Yes, it’s real. You can thank La Niña.

Allow me to turn your attention to the Copenhagen Diagnosis. Since we are between IPCC assessment reports (next one due out in 2013) it is useful to look at what recent papers have shown. In summary, we have this:

Surging greenhouse gas emissions: Global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels in 2008 were 40% higher than those in 1990. Even if global emission rates are stabilized at present –day levels, just 20 more years of emissions would give a 25% probability that warming exceeds 2°C. Even with zero emissions after 2030. Every year of delayed action increase the chances of exceeding 2°C warming.

Recent global temperatures demonstrate human-based warming: Over the past 25 years temperatures have increased at a rate of 0.190C per decade, in every good agreement with predictions based on greenhouse gas increases. Even over the past ten years, despite a decrease in solar forcing, the trend continues to be one of warming. Natural, short- term fluctuations are occurring as usual but there have been no significant changes in the underlying warming trend.

Acceleration of melting of ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps: A wide array of satellite and ice measurements now demonstrate beyond doubt that both the Greenland and Antarctic ice-sheets are losing mass at an increasing rate. Melting of glaciers and ice-caps in other parts of the world has also accelerated since 1990.

Rapid Arctic sea-ice decline: Summer-time melting of Arctic sea-ice has accelerated far beyond the expectations of climate models. The area of summertime sea-ice during 2007-2009 was about 40% less than the average prediction from IPCC AR4 climate models.

Current sea-level rise underestimates: Satellites show great global average sea-level rise (3.4 mm/yr over the past 15 years) to be 80% above past IPCC predictions. This acceleration in sea-level rise is consistent with a doubling in contribution from melting of glaciers, ice caps and the Greenland and West-Antarctic ice-sheets.

Sea-level prediction revised: By 2100, global sea-level is likely to rise at least twice as much as projected by Working Group 1 of the IPCC AR4, for unmitigated emissions it may well exceed 1 meter. The upper limit has been estimated as – 2 meters sea-level rise by 2100. Sea-level will continue to rise for centuries after global temperature have been stabilized and several meters of sea level rise must be expected over the next few centuries.

Delay in action risks irreversible damage: Several vulnerable elements in the climate system (e.g. continental ice-sheets. Amazon rainforest, West African monsoon and others) could be pushed towards abrupt or irreversible change if warming continues in a business-as-usual way throughout this century. The risk of transgressing critical thresholds (“tipping points”) increase strongly with ongoing climate change. Thus waiting for higher levels of scientific certainty could mean that some tipping points will be crossed before they are recognized.

The turning point must come soon: If global warming is to be limited to a maximum of 2°C above pre-industrial values, global emissions need to peak between 2015 and 2020 and then decline rapidly. To stabilize climate, a decarbonized global society – with near-zero emissions of CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases – need to be reached well within this century. More specifically, the average annual per-capita emissions will have to shrink to well under 1 metric ton CO2 by 2050. This is 80-90% below the per-capita emissions in developed nations in 2000.

http://www.copenhagendiagnosis.com/

snowdog wrote:Also does Neilson not back-up what I showed you in the Wood for Tree's graph? That in fact the warming has stopped. Of course Neilsen wouldn't go so far as to tell the whole truth which is that global temps have actually cooled over the last 10 years.

jmundie wrote:I say we wait and see what happens this summer/fall/winter.

I hope to god that the JMA and CFS are right, even if there is serious AGW, just because it will be hilarious.

Stovepipe wrote:That one graph is trotted out all over the internet in AGW arguments by people trying to easily show that there is no warming. It is the weakest sauce of all the weakest sauces and it was one of the first things you whipped out in this thread.

Stovepipe wrote:Poor snowdog's 10 year weather graph is liable to get warped out of proportion though so there's that.

More than two decades after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) began publishing the latest scientific consensus on the globe’s changing climate, widespread doubts persist in the U.S. over whether there really is widespread agreement among scientists. It’s the primary argument of those who deny basic scientific foundations of warming.

But new and innovative survey results suggest the consensus among scientists might actually be stronger than the scientists themselves had thought.

The battles to define and debunk scientific consensus over climate change science have been fought for years. In 2004, University of California San Diego science historian Naomi Oreskes wrote about a broad consensus she found after studying 928 scientific papers published between 1993 and 2003.

Meanwhile, the blow-up over climate researchers’ hacked e-mails in 2009 fueled speculation among skeptics that “consensus” actually is the closely guarded creation of a small cabal of scientists determined to silence opposing views, accusations now widely dismissed as unsubstantiated. That perspective has been largely debunked, but the beat goes on.

On the heels of a January 26 skeptics letter (“No Need to Panic About Global Warming“) in The Wall Street Journal, there have been several follow-up commentaries. They include a vigorous rebuttal on March 22 in the New York Review of Books by Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus; a follow-up response in the April 26 edition of same journal by climate change skeptics Roger W. Cohen, William Happer and Richard Lindzen; and a second response by Nordhaus.

Now, from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Minnesota Institute on the Environment, comes a fresh study on the question of scientific consensus. Its findings offer something new: scientists appear actually to underestimate the extent to which they, as a group, agree on key questions related to climate change science.

In sum, the newly released poll results identified surprisingly common points of agreement among climate scientists; and yet for each point, those scientists underestimated the amount of agreement among their colleagues. The results:

- Human activity has been the primary cause of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures in the last 250 years. (About 90 percent of respondents agreed with this characterization, but those respondents estimated that less than 80 percent of their scientist colleagues held that view.)

- If governmental policies do not change, the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will exceed 550 parts per million between 2050 and 2059. (More than 30 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that just over 20 percent of their peers held that view.)

-If and when atmospheric CO2 concentrations reach 550 ppm, the increase in global average surface temperature relative to the year 2000 will be 2-3 degrees Celsius, or 3.2-4.8 F. (More than 40 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that less than 30 percent held that view.)

-If governmental policies do not change, in the year 2050, the increase in global average surface temperature relative to the year 2000 will be 1.5-2 degrees Celsius, or 2.4-3.2 F). (More than 35 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that just over 30 percent held that view.)

-The likelihood that global average sea level will rise more during this century than the highest level given in the 2007 assessment of the IPCC (0.59 meters, 23.2 inches) is more than 90 percent. (More than 30 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that less than 20 percent held that view.)

-Since 1851, the U.S. has experienced an average of six major hurricane landfalls (> 111 mph) per decade. The total number of major hurricane landfalls in the U.S. from 2011-2020 will be seven to eight. (Nearly 60 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that just over 30 percent held that view.)

-The total number of major hurricane landfalls in the U.S. from 2041 to 2050 will be seven to eight. (About 35 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that less than 30 percent held that view.)

-Given increasing levels of human activity, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere can be kept below 550 ppm with current technology — but only with changes in government policy. (Nearly 70 percent agreed, but those respondents estimated that just over 50 percent held that view.)

Vision Prize: What Do You Think Your Colleagues Think?

The specialized poll of scientists earlier this year is a project involving research director Peter Kriss, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. The poll concluded on March 31.

Dubbed the “Vision Prize,” the method of questioning is designed to poll experts on a range of scientific topics relevant to decisionmakers and financial markets. It asks scientists about their own views on a range of subjects, and asks them to also predict the views of their colleagues on those same subjects.

The poll was publicized on the listserves of various climate research centers, on the Real Climate blog, and by word of mouth — and 172 scientists participated, said Kriss. More than three-quarters of the participants identified themselves as working in academia, with the remainder working in industry, government and non-governmental organizations. Nearly half of all participants in the poll were academicians working in the earth sciences.

Questions for the poll were developed after consulting the IPCC Summary for Policymakers and various climate change blogs, Kriss said. An exchange between Kriss and Real Climate contributor Eric Steig on how to frame one of the questions led to the re-wording of the question on sea level rise, for example (see post #10 on January 23).

It is evident that some participants on the Real Climate blog had problems with various aspects of the poll — mostly with wording of the questions. Those can be found in the comment section of the January 22 announcement of the poll.

The Vision Prize poll used a new polling method designed to elicit carefully considered answers, particularly in regard to the views of others. MIT psychologist Drazen Prelec in 2004 described the polling method in the journal Science.

The method, as described in Science, assigns high scores not to the most common answers but to the answers that are more common than collectively predicted by the group. The scoring adjustment is designed to remove all bias favoring consensus.

A 2004 story on the polling method in New Scientist, titled “Mathematical ‘truth serum’ promotes honesty,” explained that the method encourages truthful responses by asking people questions in pairs.

The first question, suggests the New Scientist story, might be something like, “Will you vote in the next presidential election?” or “Have you had more than 20 sexual partners in the last year?” Then, the second question asks the respondent to estimate how many other respondents would answer similarly.

“It is this perception of what other people’s answer might be which gives hints as to whether the person is telling the truth — especially when their answer is the unusual or unpopular option,” according to the New Scientist story.

“Prelec says if people truly hold a particular opinion, they tend to give higher estimates that other people share it,” the story continued. “So if someone did have more than 20 recent sexual partners — but lied about it — that person would probably assume a higher rate of such behavior in general than someone who had not had so many partners.”
Scientists Predisposed to Assume Disagreements?

While the poll revealed consensus among scientists on key questions related to climate science, the question remains: Why do they believe — incorrectly — that consensus on those questions is lacking?

“It’s not just that they’re inaccurate,” Kriss said of the respondents’ assumption that there is not broader agreement on climate science. “They’re systematically underestimating the extent to which they agree. That’s the part that I found most surprising.”

Research going back decades shows that people generally overestimate the extent to which people agree with them. So, what’s going on with climate scientists?

The poll didn’t address that question, Kriss said. But he speculated that scientists may simply expect their views to be challenged. After all, science advances through vigorous questioning and debate. Perhaps that ingrained view shapes scientists’ assumptions about how much their colleagues agree — or more to the point, don’t agree — with them.

Kriss said he wanted to examine the views of scientists on climate change not only to test the polling method developed by Prelec, but also to inform a major policy topic.

“Our biggest concern is that people may underestimate the amount of agreement among climate experts … and we think that may hinder effective decisionmaking — that if people perceive disagreement, that would be a reason to not act,” Kriss said. “If that perception is inaccurate, it would be nice to correct it.”

As an academic studying behavioral science, Kriss added that the climate issue is an interesting case study of how groups form collective opinions and act or don’t act based on those views. Research shows that it’s a challenge for people to work together toward better outcomes, and Kriss said he hopes to help organizations improve decisionmaking.

“In some sense, it’s the mother of all collective action problems,” Kriss said of the climate challenge. “There’s uncertainty, there’s a long time scale, and there are all sorts of factors that make resolving it difficult. This seems like the biggest real world problem where I thought I could make some contribution.”

snowdog wrote:60% believe Hurricanes will increase this decade even though it has been shown that both Hurricanes and Tornadoes have been relatively quiet.

snowdog wrote:

:edit: added "recently" since I don't own a time machine nor do I know Doc Brown. GREAT SCOTT!!

snowdog wrote:Stove, have you looked much into Henrik Svensmark's theory? Pretty fascinating stuff.

The power plant described in the preceding passage is the Cimarron Solar Facility, built on Ted Turner’s 590,823 acre ranch in northern New Mexico. It is indeed true that most natural gas- and coal-fired power plants cost a lot more than $250 million to build. However, it’s also true that most natural gas- and coal-fired power plants have nameplate generating capacities a bit larger than 30 MW…

TVA to build natural gas power plant
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press
Posted June 4, 2009

KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday decided to build an $820 million natural gas power plant in northeastern Tennessee to comply with a North Carolina lawsuit over air quality.

The 880-megawatt combined-cycle gas plant would be as large as the 1950s-era, coal-fired John Sevier plant in Rogersville that a federal judge has targeted for new pollution controls on North Carolina’s behalf.

[...]

$820 million divided by 880 MW works out to $931,818 per MW.
$250 million divided by 30 MW works out to $8,333,333 per MW.

Assuming that the gas-fired plant managed an 85% capacity factor and a 30-yr plant lifetime, the initial capital expenditure would work out to $0.004/kWh… A bit less than half-a-cent per kilowatt-hour. Assuming a 25% capacity factor and a 30-yr plant lifetime for the Cimarron Solar Facility, the initial capital expenditure works out to $0.127/kWh… Almost 13 cents per kilowatt-hour! The average residential electricity rate in the US is currently around 12 cents per kWh… That’s the retail price. As a consumer of electricity, I know which plan I would pick. I’m currently paying about 9 cents per kWh. I sure as heck wouldn’t seek out a provider who would have to raise my current rate by about 50% just to cover their plant construction costs.

Solar photovoltaic electricity is bankruptcy the green way writ large. Here in Texas, Austin Energy has agreed to a long-term purchase agreement to pay $10 million a year for 25 years, for the electricity generated by the Webberville Solar Farm. That works out to more than 15 cents per kWh.

snowdog wrote:Good article today on Anthony Watts site. (I know Stove won't like the source, even I don't agree with everything on that site, but this article is pretty good)

It talks about the lunacy of solar power.

LINK TO FULL ARTICLE

The power plant described in the preceding passage is the Cimarron Solar Facility, built on Ted Turner’s 590,823 acre ranch in northern New Mexico. It is indeed true that most natural gas- and coal-fired power plants cost a lot more than $250 million to build. However, it’s also true that most natural gas- and coal-fired power plants have nameplate generating capacities a bit larger than 30 MW…

TVA to build natural gas power plant
By DUNCAN MANSFIELD, Associated Press
Posted June 4, 2009

KNOXVILLE — The Tennessee Valley Authority on Thursday decided to build an $820 million natural gas power plant in northeastern Tennessee to comply with a North Carolina lawsuit over air quality.

The 880-megawatt combined-cycle gas plant would be as large as the 1950s-era, coal-fired John Sevier plant in Rogersville that a federal judge has targeted for new pollution controls on North Carolina’s behalf.

[...]

$820 million divided by 880 MW works out to $931,818 per MW.
$250 million divided by 30 MW works out to $8,333,333 per MW.

Assuming that the gas-fired plant managed an 85% capacity factor and a 30-yr plant lifetime, the initial capital expenditure would work out to $0.004/kWh… A bit less than half-a-cent per kilowatt-hour. Assuming a 25% capacity factor and a 30-yr plant lifetime for the Cimarron Solar Facility, the initial capital expenditure works out to $0.127/kWh… Almost 13 cents per kilowatt-hour! The average residential electricity rate in the US is currently around 12 cents per kWh… That’s the retail price. As a consumer of electricity, I know which plan I would pick. I’m currently paying about 9 cents per kWh. I sure as heck wouldn’t seek out a provider who would have to raise my current rate by about 50% just to cover their plant construction costs.

Solar photovoltaic electricity is bankruptcy the green way writ large. Here in Texas, Austin Energy has agreed to a long-term purchase agreement to pay $10 million a year for 25 years, for the electricity generated by the Webberville Solar Farm. That works out to more than 15 cents per kWh.