"The strong global warming trend between 60 and 50 My ago was presumably a consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2, as the Indian plate subducted carbonate-rich ocean crust while traversing the Tethys Ocean (Kent and Muttoni, 2008). The magnitude of the CO2 source continued to increase until India crashed into Asia and began pushing up the Himalaya Mountains and Tibetan Plate."

So a paper written in 2008 which says that the warming that occurred at the end of the PETM and beginning of the Eocene was "presumably a consequence of increasing atmospheric CO2" is sufficient for you. Let me remind you BBD for the last time, you said that the warming in the Eocene was caused by India colliding with Eurasia, an event that hadn't occurred at the beginning of the Eocene when the temperatures were at their peak. No amount of pseudo scientific bluster will erase that, clearly incorrect, assertion, so please stop trying to knock the dead parrot to give me the impression it's still alive, I don't buy it. You were obviously pontificating on a topic you knew nothing about, and the papers you've now rustled up through the good offices of Skeptical Science won't change that fact.

geronimo

Let me remind you BBD for the last time, you said that the warming in the Eocene was caused by India colliding with Eurasia, an event that hadn't occurred at the beginning of the Eocene when the temperatures were at their peak. No amount of pseudo scientific bluster will erase that, clearly incorrect, assertion, so please stop trying to knock the dead parrot to give me the impression it's still alive, I don't buy it. You were obviously pontificating on a topic you knew nothing about, and the papers you've now rustled up through the good offices of Skeptical Science won't change that fact.

Mea culpa. But 'knows nothing' vs nitpick...? I think you are over-extending your misdirection :-)

Here's my reply to shub, Aug 2, 2012 at 7:18 PM:

If you would take the trouble actually to read H&S12, you would understand that the relationship between CO2 and T over the Cenozoic. The release of CO2 from geological sinks by the northward migration of the Indian plate and its eventual collision with Eurasia is the geological scale driver of climate change. It's the only reason we can discern why it got so hot during the Eocene. At a fundamental level there is no disconnect between the geological and the decadal time-scales, except in your mind. Forcing is forcing.

And here's your money quote, Aug 2, 2012 at 8:35 PM:

The PETM was an exceptional, relatively short-lived spike of super-warming on the up-slope leading to the peak of the Eocene hothouse climate (forced by the Indian/Eurasian collision). Argument as to what caused it continues, but nobody disagrees that a large carbon isotopic excursion is associated with the initial warming.Seafloor methane hydrades are a key suspect for the source, arguably warmed to instability by the general increase in GAT. So the PETM was was an indirect consequence of the ongoing tectonic forcing.

Ho hum.

Ho Hum indeed, but I'd now like to move on to your assertion that the OHC is rising using the Leviticus paper: Read this exchange between Drs. Trenberth, Peilke Sr and Willis on OHC:

http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/further-feedback-from-kevin-trenberth-and-feedback-from-josh-willis-on-the-ucar-press-release/.

This is what you said: "Observations show warming to 2000m so unless the ocean is being heated from below it is being warmed from above."

This is what the scientists were saying one year after the paper you referred us to:

Dr. Tenberth: "I do not agree with your comments. We are well aware that there are well over a dozen estimates of ocean heat content and they are all different yet based on the same data. There are clearly problems in the analysis phase and I don’t believe any are correct."

Dr.Willis:"I think that it is still premature to make claims about the Earth’s energy imbalance based on satellite observations and ocean heat content data over ANY period. As with the satellite observations, the ocean heat content data continue to undergo refinement and removal of systematic errors. Since the satellite data are insensitive to the absolute value of the imbalance, they rely on ocean heat content data to estimate it. However, I personally belive that there is not a long enough common period between the satellite observations and the RELIABLE ocean heat content record to make any strong claims about the energy budget."

Dr. Willis: "Hi Kevin and Roger,

Incidentally, you two might be interested in this recent paper by Sarah Purkey and Greg Johnson:

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/people/gjohnson/Recent_AABW_Warming_v1.pdf

They looked at the prospect of deep warming on decadal time scales using the sparse, but highly accurate repeat hydrographic sections and found that below 3000 m in the global oceans, and below 1000 m in the southern ocean, the ocean is taking up an energy equivalent of about a 0.1 W/m^2 energy imbalance at the top of the atmosphere. So while this is significant, it suggests to me at least that the deep ocean is probably not taking up a bunch of heat really rapidly and the traditional idea that most of the action is in the upper several hundred meters is probably going to hold up. (did I get that right, Greg?)"

Dr. Peilke: "However, from 2005 onwards, as you confirm today in your e-mails, the upper ocean is well sampled since then and there is relatively little accumulation of heat over this time period deeper in the ocean.

Where do you conclude that the “missing heat” could be, if it is missing?"

Dr. Tenberth: " Roger I don’t believe any of the current dozen or so estimates of ocean heat content are correct. The TOA estimates are probably closer to being correct but they too have problems. The data may be robust since 2005 but the analysis methods are not."

Dr. Trenberth: "The leveling off of ocean heat content since 2003 is only in the upper 700 m. von Schuckmann et al have 0.54 W m-2 globally for 2003 to 2008 for depths to 2000m. There is good reason to believe this is an underestimate because of the way they analyzed the data."

Dr. Willis: "Hi Kevin,

I’m not sure why you think that the analysis methods of recent ocean heat content estimates are not robust. Since about 2005, most any analysis method that makes use of the Argo data should get approximately the same answer, which is that there is little net warming over this period."

Dr. Peilke Sr. "Hi Kevin

I was not aware of your paper below and will read. We are in agreement that better data quality is needed. I still, however, can not understand how heating can occur below 700m without it being seen transiting through that upper level."

Dr. Trenberth: "Well of course any deep warming goes thru the surface layers but that requires detailed measurements far beyond Argo to track that flux. It can relate to MOC, convection, ENSO etc."

Dr. Trenberth: "Josh

It is simply that there are many OHC estimates and although they all seem to have a slow down in warming in recent years they are all different. Indeed not accounting for a global warming signal in the analysis is a general flaw (assuming stationarity) and how one interpolates in space and time. Regardless of the details of vs et al. they do show a signal from below 700 m, right?"

Dr. Willis: "Finally, I do not think that any of the techniques used by various groups should be supressing the global warming signal in the data over the period from 2005 to the present. As I mentioned above, the Argo data coverage during this period is such that any reasonable interpolation technique should do. Capturing the trend over 50 years, however, is another story."

Peilke appears to want the OHC to be measured in Joules as a more reliable way of detecting it, and the others appear to agree. But none of them agree with you (or is it John Cook?) that they can measure OHC down to 2000 metres accurately. And that in a nutshell is the whole problem with this slanging match, it is easy for either side to cherry pick papers and hope that no one looks further. There is clearly no consensus among the consensusists that the OHC has risen, in fact from this exchange all parties say it hasn't, and want more accurate data.

Read it all, I've tried to cherry pick the bits that make my point, so it's best if you read it all, maybe you'll be blessed with the uncertainty you see in real scientists discussing things in private, who knows?

geronimo

There is clearly no consensus among the consensusists that the OHC has risen,

No, that's not what the Trenberth, Willis, Pielke Snr conversation says *at all*. There is disagreement over the exact amount of increase in OHC over ~50 years.

And I repeat, I'm not getting my information from SkS. I only mention this as for some mystifying reason you seem to think that I am and that it somehow delegitimises me which is, frankly, odd.

rhoda

The problem with BBD is not that he or she cherry-picks, but that the information is then presented with a degree of certainty which he knows damn well is unjustified. That is mere disputation, it isn't really argument.

Might I suggest re-reading your own commentary before making remarks like this?

rhoda, your comment at 8:58 is IMHO right on. It took me, for instance, just a few minutes to spot the first thing in the "disaster paper" H&S12 (Hansen and Sato, 2012) (the paper BBD cites repeatedly) that fueled my distrust in Hansen et al. (cf. my comment here) - and in BBD. You can read H&S12 here (including - what I find inappropriate - Jenkins on page 40 WRT "nonlinear processes"). On page 44 H&S12 write for example: "The carbon cycle response time, i.e., the time required for CO2 from fossil fuel burning to be removed from the surface carbon reservoirs, is many millennia (Berner 2004; Archer 2005)." They do not say that this are model results.

One can wonder what BBD meant at 6:54 PM.

Mike

By their deeds ye shall know them and Hansen's deeds speak loudly enough to mark him out as an environmental activist whose regard for the science of climate has long been abandoned in favour of eco-advocacy.

Please back this up in the specific case of the discussion of HS12. What explains the general shape of the Zachos curve *better* than the apparent relationship between CO2 and T over the Cenozoic? Where are the errors in the calculated paleoclimate forcings set out in the study?

in my view quite unsuccessfully

You need more than an opinion here.

If you find providing a sound rebuttal to HS12 difficult, is it unreasonable for me to ask you to think about why?

The completed Lunar Diviner data say it all.

There is NO WAY [on Earth] For so called greenhouse gasses to raise the temperature of grey body Earth by 133K [not 33K] due to Atmospheric Thermal Effect.

Not even copy and paste whizz kid BBD can show EVIDENCE to disprove it.

Funny how we spend so much intellectual energy indulging this character with his child like repeated contrary behaviour.

Mike

To ask anyone to point out errors in calculating palaeoclimate forcings is itself laughable. Palaeoclimatology is guesswork allied to wishful thinking.

Clearly unable to provide a coherent reason why HS12 is *in any way* demonstrably flawed, you've resorted to ad hominems against Hansen and started spouting tripe. I note the use of the word 'sheeple' - a certain indicator that ranting has replaced rational discourse. The conversation appears to be over.

Mike

especially where it refers to Hansen — more so than any other of the so-called "climate scientists".

That is ad hominem: you clearly question Hansen's professional competence (and that of the entire field of climate science, so we have a rather fine twofer here).

There is probably more empirical evidence for his fiddling of temperature readings than there is for CO2 as the main cause of global warming.

This is a direct accusation of scientific misconduct. You have doubled down!

The CO2 causes warming argument was found to be false when it was finally established that warming precedes the rise in CO2. The un-scientific and unproven conjecture that, regardless of the facts, CO2 nonetheless causes warming as well as being caused by it was and remains a desperate attempt by the environmental extremists to salvage "global warming" as the vehicle of choice to progress their agenda.

Hansen's work continues to be based entirely on this error.

I thought we'd sorted this out :-)

The CO2-warming lag during deglacials doesn't 'falsify' anything. CO2 is a feedback to the initial orbital forcing. Hence the lag. Its effect is to amplify the initial forcing (it's a positive feedback) which makes CO2 a necessary part of the process that leads from orbital forcing to interglacial. The process itself is a demonstration that feedbacks net positive.

One of the interesting things about orbitally forced deglaciation is that the total amount of solar energy reaching the earth's surface is barely increased. Yet it's enough to end an ice age. It's the *regional and seasonal* effect that triggers melting of the NH ice sheet which gets the feedback ball rolling. Just increased summer insolation at high Northern latitudes. How could this end an ice age unless feedbacks net positive?

Put another way, how can an insensitive climate system dominated by negative feedbacks behave like earth's climate system under these circumstances?

Rest assured, this is not:

a desperate attempt by the environmental extremists to salvage "global warming" as the vehicle of choice to progress their agenda.

It's the mainstream scientific position.

Mike

Rather than abandon the theory, scientists fell back on the notion that the data jibed with the possibility that rising carbon dioxide levels were reinforcing the warming trend in what's called a positive feedback loop. Maybe-but there's still no empirical evidence that this was a significant effect compared with a continuation of whatever first caused the warming.

Summer insolation at high northern latitudes peaked 12,000 years ago and has fallen throughout the Holocence, bottoming out about 2,000 years ago. I don't understand what 'continuation of whatever first caused warming' means in this context. Nor by the sound of it, does Ridley.

Mike

WTF are you talking about?
Ridley is not — repeat not — referring to 12000 years ago or even 2000 years ago. He's talking about the 1990s. He's talking about the ice cores. He's talking about the evidence that CO2 preceded warming being found to be wrong.

Yes he is. And he's mistakenly conflating the ice core data from 12ka with modern warming. And so adding to the general confusion.

Ice cores show that CO2 is a lagged response to orbital forcing. Glacial terminations under weak orbital forcing which peaked 12,000 years ago and declined since are compelling empirical evidence that the earth's climate system is dominated by positive feedbacks. Or how else do we account for known climate behaviour?

Nobody is arguing that CO2 preceded warming during glacial terminations. See above. CO2 lags T during deglaciation because it is a feedback, not the initial forcing, which is increasing NH high latitude summer insolation.

But back to the present. Rather than hot high latitude NH summers, we've got a generalised, low-level forcing from CO2. Mind you, compared to CO2 forcing over the entire Holocene, it's a big jump up. Unsurprisingly, GAT has begun to rise, along with OHC and SSTs.

Continuing the fun with data visualisations, how about the old one two three...

one

two

three

Also, you still haven't explained why HS12 is mistaken in finding a relationship between CO2 and T over the last 65 million years. Pending that, the overall shape of the Zachos curve remains a part of the mainstream scientific position on the relationship between CO2 and T over geological timescales.

Plus ça change...

;-)

Aug 7, 2012 at 11:45 PM | BBD>>>>>>>>>>>

Watts et al have shown that half of US temperature stats [the largest collection of measuring stations on the planet?] have misreported the temperature anomalies by up to plus 300%.

New Zealand government stats are being challenged in court for almost exactly the same amount of overstatement in an effort to influence policy. As usual, as per Mann and CRU, they try to hide them or say they've been 'mislaid'

Why on earth do you think any sane person is going to take any notice of your continual reference to these flawed data as evidence?

You seem to be relentlessly banging an empty barrel in order to make the most noise.

Aug 7, 2012 at 9:05 PM | BBD>>>>>>>>>>>

Dr James Hansen has been passing himself off as a climatologist. He is no such thing, as he is an astrophysicist by training and knows next to nothing about the atmosphere or meteorology. His duties include maintaining the costly database of historical weather reports. He has no training in such undertakings, and the internal email documents reveal that the librarian function has been badly mishandled jeopardizing the faith in the accuracy of the historical records entrusted to his care. The evidence is that the records have been changed and “adjusted” repeatedly, but with no track of changes made.

Re:Aug 7, 2012 at 4:28 PM | BBD

"Clearly unable to provide a coherent reason why HS12 is *in any way* demonstrably flawed, you've resorted to ad hominems against Hansen and started spouting tripe. I note the use of the word 'sheeple' - a certain indicator that ranting has replaced rational discourse. The conversation appears to be over."

Well perhaps if you don't follow Mike's argument then you'll listen to that of

"Dr. Pat Michaels, former Virginia State Climatologist:

Hansen is simply wrong.

Hansen claims that global warming is associated with increased drought in the US. This is a testable hypothesis which he chose not to test, and, because PNAS isn’t truly peer-reviewed for Members like him, no one tested it for him.

I have [examined] drought data [that] are from NCDC, and the temperature record is Hansen’s own. His hypothesis is a complete and abject failure.

It is hard for me to believe that Hansen did not know this, and yet he went ahead with his paper. This must be true because Hansen has published papers on the Palmer Drought Index and future warming. Administrator Bolden is obligated to investigate the ethics of publishing a paper that the Director of the GISS laboratory knew could not pass the most simple test of hypothesis.

The following excerpt from his PNAS paper tells you everything you need to know about James Hansen’s paper:

“Although we were motivated in this research by an objective to expose effects of human-made global warming as soon as possible…” "

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/08/07/editorial-hansen-is-simply-wrong-and-a-complete-and-abject-failure/#more-68784

And I see you're still running witht he 'mainstream'/'consensus' meme despite my earlier post -

"Jul 26, 2012 at 10:50 PM Marion-

Pleeeease BBD not back to that red herring. Science simply isn't done by 'consensus' and I would have thought that by now you after all your input here you would have realised how the 'consensus' has been manufactured.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/about-that-overwhelming-98-number-of-scientists-consensus/

Barry Woods did an excellent post quite recently on the comments made by some of the contributors to that survey.

Perhaps you didn't see the link

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/

Besides which if you'd read the Climategate 2 emails you'd have realised the scientists themselves couldn't even agree as to where the heck is global warming (read from bottom up, same thread breaks into two)

http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=6356

http://foia2011.org/index.php?id=198

Not so much of a 'consensus' there then, so who do we believe -

The IPCC scientists and what they tell us in public and the IPCC reports, or

The IPCC scientists and what they tell each other in 'private'.

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

......Never did get a response to that!!