Hi BBD

Sure, but even if Zed wasn't either, I think the point needed making because a lot of people do do about 2 degrees in those terms.

Indeed. And so the confusion propagates.

As we shall see ;-)

BBD

outcomes range from bad to Armageddon.
Nov 9, 2011 at 3:09 PM | Unregistered CommenterZedsDeadBed

Those that do actually admit that the physical mechanism exists deny the clear evidence that equilibrium climate sensitivity is ~3C for 550ppmv CO2.
Nov 9, 2011 at 3:02 PM | Unregistered CommenterBBD

That's right: Zed's Armageddon theory and your interpretation of the effects of CO2. And don't tell me that there isn't a slew of papers (peer-reviwed and otherwise) that take a different view.
Which you disagree with and nothing I or the authors of those papers say is going to change your mind. Right?

Whatever the range, from bad to armageddon, alarmist predictions all seem to imply an instant and unavoidable change by the continual reference to the words like 'catastrophe'.
No catastrophe is EVER going to occur.
Any change, shoudl it happen, will be mitigated by time - and that time can be anything from decades to centuries.
To imply that AGW will lead to any 'catastrophe' is indeed alarmist.

Mike

That's right: Zed's Armageddon theory and your interpretation of the effects of CO2. And don't tell me that there isn't a slew of papers (peer-reviwed and otherwise) that take a different view.

This 'slew of papers (peer-reviewed and otherwise)' has not dented the hypothesis that RF from CO2 is emerging as the dominant influence on climate.

And it's not my interpretation that we are discussing.

It's time for a pretty picture.

From everyone's favourite land surface temperature reconstruction... look at the increasing rate of warming since 1900.

BEST 1900 – 2010.2 annual mean; trends 1900 – 2010.2; 1950 – 2010.2; 1975 – 2010.2

"It's time for a pretty picture"

Fair enough, but you could just as easily have show this or this, and taken a different conclusion.

"This 'slew of papers (peer-reviewed and otherwise)' has not dented the hypothesis that RF from CO2 is emerging as the dominant influence on climate."

How depressing. Does this mean you also wave away this as well?

BBD, I'm disappointed that you are still trying that trick from the IPCC, which has been exposed so many times.

Using the same trick, look at the decreasing rate of warming since 1900!

Paul: I'm sure he knows he's using that trick. I wish I could figure out why!

BBD used to be such a reasonable voice, and still is I think on energy. If I remember correctly, he said on another thread that he had spoken to some climate scientists who were in dread for the future - presumably echoing Brian Cox's blather in the Wheldon Lecture. Elsewhere, someone else contrasted Kevin Anderson's view to Richard Bett's. Perhaps, BBD spoke to Anderson? If so, and bearing in mind some other argumentation styles used recently by BBD, it might be interesting to compare Anderson's record with that of Richard Lindzen:-

Anderson
Lindzen

Reviewing these, I'd say gives more weight to Lindzen's scepticism than it does to Anderson's alarmism. And please, no Sourcewatch !

Philip

Lindzen's attempts to argue for a low climate sensitivity do not stand up to scrutiny. As you really should know. Run your eye over the abstracts of the following critiques of his 'infra-red iris' hypothesis (Lindzen et al. 2001).

Hartmann & Michelsen (2002)

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0477%282002%29083%3C0249%3ANEFI%3E2.3.CO%3B2

Lin et al. (2002)

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0442%282002%29015%3C0003%3ATIHANO%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Harrison (2002)

http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F1520-0477(2002)083%3C0597%3ACODTEH%3E2.3.CO%3B2

Fu et al (2002)

http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/2/31/2002/acp-2-31-2002.html

Critiques of Lindzen and Choi (2009):

Trenberth et al. (2010)

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2009GL042314.shtml

Lin et al. (2010)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022407310001226

Murphy et al. (2010)

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL042911.shtml

Dessler (2010)

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6010/1523.abstract

Critiques of Lindzen & Choi (2011):

Dessler (2011)

http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/pip/2011GL049236.shtml

Philip; Paul Matthews

Comparing trends for 110y, 60y and 35y is a correct and legitmate demonstration of the increasing rate of warming. The shortest trend (1975 - 2010.2) exceeds a 30y climatology.

To claim that this graph is misleading demonstrates bias on your part. Denial, even.

Your use of UAH/RSS TLT is weak.

Restrict the data sets to land only for comparision with BEST (a land-only reconstruction) and use a common baseline:

1979 – present BEST; UAH land only; RSS land only; CRUTEM3 land only (common 1981 -2010 baseline); annual mean.

Decadal trends (C):

BEST: 0.28

UAH land only: 0.14

RSS land only: 0.2

CRUTEM3 land only: 0.21

A decadal trend of 0.2C is plausible from the data.

UAH is very much the odd one out. This is interesting, as a comparison of global RSS TLT and global UAH TLT shows them to be in very good agreement.

This has me wondering about UAH (again).

Furthermore, there are proper, scientific questions raised about how accurate RSS and UAH actually are. Do read this. It's fascinating.

RP Sr over-states the impact of LUC. The errors are detailed here.

No doubt there will be further, highly-specific critiques of the published paper. I urge you to read them too.

Philip - I am a reasonable voice. Look to yourself.

"legitimate demonstration"

The IPCC pulled this trick in its last synthesis report. It is a fraud. If we were just rounding the corner of a catastrophe, it wouldn't have needed to have done that. Using fancy words like 'climatology' is not going to change that.

Shub

Please explain why a comparison of long-term trends (the shortest 5y longer than a 30y climatology) is methodologically suspect. Never mind a 'fraud'.

If you cannot do so, I must ask you to confirm that I have not committed a 'fraud'.

Thanks

BBD, if you have any wiggly signal, short term trends are generally going to be larger than long-term trends, so comparing short trends with longer ones is misleading.
Do you really not understand this?
Even when I've linked to an explanation?
Even when I've linked to an example showing that you can get the opposite answer by using the same trick?
It's you who is in denial.

BBD,
When we look at data, we should (try to) understand first the structure of data, and then choose methods of inference suited to its structure.

'Climate', as a continuous phenomenon has existed for billions of years. Leaving out all those prior billions, it would be incumbent upon us to choose a time frame that encompasses the range of variability, before drawing inferences (say, of trend changes).

Anyway, I am just repeated what Paul says, in a more roundabout way.

Paul Matthews

You are of course wrong to claim that fitting trends of over 30y is misleading. I am tired beyond belief with this nonsense. It really is denial. There's just no other word for it.

The data are unequivocal; the trends are cautiously fitted; the time-series are all longer than a 30y climatology and the acceleration of warming is obvious.

Since there's clearly no point in continuing this conversation, let's just stop.

You are so consumed by bias that you refuse to see what is right in front of you.

BBD,

I'm interested to know what has happened to you to change your approach so completely. Is it true that you spoke to one or more climate change scientists, who scared you? If so, who were they and what did they say? And anyway, what is it about YOUR background, that gives you a claim to certain knowledge, so much in advance of other peoples? You keep on insisting that people read YOUR references before commenting, and while I agree that people should try to do this, what about yourself? How much do you read? How many of your long lists of references do you cull from SkS or other similar sources? These are questions, not accusations. You know (or should know) the backgrounds of many on this thread including myself, but we know nothing whatsoever about you. To be honest, I've simply stopped trusting you over the past few days, and I'd really appreciate it if you gave me some reasons to change my mind about you again. How about it?

BBD
For heaven's sake, man; even an idiot like me can see the flaw and it's nothing to do with scepticism or a refusal to look.
It's perfectly clear that there have been three separate warming events over the course of the last 170 years interspersed with static or cooling periods. Each of those warming periods shows a similar trend.
To compare any one of them — especially the last one — with the whole 170 year record which also includes the cooling or static periods and then claim this shows warming is speeding up is bordering on the dishonest.
The figures show the trends for the 1850s-1880s, 1910-1940 and 1970 to 2000 were almost exactly the same. Any other comparison is misleading to put it politely.
I fear it is you that cannot see, or do not wish to see, what is right in front of you.

Philip

Is it true that you spoke to one or more climate change scientists, who scared you?

I've been emailing various climate scientists for over a year now. Far from scaring me, they have been almost embarrassingly helpful. Suggestions for reading, questions answered, misunderstandings clarified etc. I do not have consent to divulge names, nor does it matter anyway.

I provide references so that people can see where I am getting my arguments from. It is almost unbelievable that you should attack me for this (while claiming that you aren't; don't take me for a prat).

Now, stop trying to divert this conversation away from the comprehensive rebuttal of Lindzen, which you don't trouble to actually mention.

And what about RP Sr's errors? Not a peep about them either so far. How stupid do you think I am?

Face the facts and discuss the facts instead of clumsily trying to delegitimise me and avoid confronting stuff that you don't 'like' because it trashes your pet arguments.

Mike

The methodology I used is sound.

You are simply refusing to face up to what is in front of you. Instead you are manufacturing absurd 'arguments' to get around the obvious. This is classic denial. I finally begin to see why so many people refuse not to characterise 'sceptics' as deniers. I deeply dislike the word in this context, but it is the correct term for what you are doing.

BBD: "The methodology I used is sound."

Mann: "The methodology I used is sound."

What exactly are your statistics qualifications, BBD? Just asking.

My God, the symptoms of denieralism,...happening right in front of us....

BBD, why don't you email your 'cautious' graph to your climate scientists, maybe they can help you with this?

Well, what can I say, other than, ... this is embarrassing.

BBD, "How stupid do you think I am?"

I know nothing about you, other than your comments here, so I can only really guess. I suspect you are not stupid at all. You certainly seem uninterested in science as such, so I assume your background lies somewhere else, but that doesn't matter much to me. For myself, I have no pet theories, no pet arguments. I am concerned about our climate future, I am interested in science, I am sure that no one can reasonably claim the certainty that you seem to want to. To my eyes, you seem to be systematically moving your position away from that described by Richard's Tol and Betts, as well as the Pielkes, and probably the majority of atmospheric specialists. I don't know why you are doing this, and I sincerely wish you would think again.

"...stop trying to divert this conversation away from the comprehensive rebuttal of Lindzen"

Is it even possible to have a comprehensive rebuttal of a person? I'm happy to discuss any particular argument of his that you like, but I won't defend it unless I understand it and agree with it.