There is also no past experience to guide us, nobody having tried to double the CO2 concentration before.

May 24, 2015 at 3:36 PM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

Except when it was double.

A good point.

If you accept that paleo evidence that CO2 was once higher, do you also accept the evidence for high sea level and high temperature that accompanied the high CO2?

If not, why not?

If you do accept the full package, why do you still feel that no policy for adaptation is necessary?

Radical, why are you bothered about accuracy? We don't care whether the world is 12C or 12.1C, we are interested in how it is changing. Averaging many sources does not increase the accuracy, but it clearly removes uncorrelated noise. That is clear, I hope.

Micky, in that entrance test question, nobody who gets to the sentence "Estimate January's units for Year 6?" and doesn't go "WTF?" would have the basic logic to call themselves an engineer. The question has no relation to engineering or safety - it is a test of simple reading comprehension and commonsense.

Scientifically I could estimate A assuming the obvious linear relationship. Or it might be B as winter produces less yield.

No you couldn't. There is no "obvious linear relationship". There is zero information about any other month apart from commonsense, which says that wheat is not harvested in January. Winter does not produce less yield, it produces no yield.

Your response to that question is a perfect illustration of why engineers should be let nowhere near anything concerning natural sciences and why they have nothing to add to the debate about climate science. Quite apart from your "can't do" attitude - quite remarkable really as engineers despite having no understanding of the natural world are usually practical people who will make the best of a situation. My uncle, who also worked at RR, would have whipped out his slide rule (metaphorically speaking) and worked out a best estimate of warming using the available data while pointing out the limitations of the data and giving the likely error margins. Exactly what the big indices do. He would have been shocked to hear an "engineer" saying in effect, the data isn't perfect so I can't do anything.

It doesn't matter whether it was cumulative. When did you ever hear of a wheat harvest in a winter January?

If you want to "get more clarity", explain (as both EM and I have asked you to) how you would improve on the indices given that the historical data is not going to improve. If you can do that I'll reconsider whether yo have a "can't do" attitude, but from what you have said so far, your answer is, the data is bad, can't do it!

Measurements in 1930 changing? The GISS indices are calculated with reference to current anomalies and so all anomaly values of every month in their historical dataset change every month. Although this confuses various sceptics who are looking for villainy, it is not some nefarious process but the result of the reference used. It make no practical difference and is clearly documented somewhere or other.

On African power plants, perhaps you can comment on how to pay for them (since the Africans can't and the private market won't) at http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2015/5/20/the-inhumanity-of-the-true-green-believer.html?lastPage=true

If the indices were perfect we wouldn't need half a dozen of them. Everyone knows they are imperfect tools and if they were all we had to go on, you would be right. But they don't exist within a vacuum. There's all sorts of other data that points to warming with the indices as just another tool for trying to quantify by how much.

Raff you say May 24, 2015 at 10:36 PM

The GISS indices are calculated with reference to current anomalies and so all anomaly values of every month in their historical dataset change every month. .... It make no practical difference and is clearly documented somewhere or other.

Raff, like everybody else you do not properly understand the data. Neither do I, but I would suggest that a fuller understanding needs to take into account:-
1. Temperature data is of poor quality, with various measurement biases and spatially the spread is highly uneven.
2. These problems are greater the further back in time you go, particularly prior to 1950.
3. Temperature homogenisation (to smooth out local variations and measurement biases) is done by comparing data by an iterative process. That is by a series of approximations.
4. Rates of temperature change vary greatly across the globe. Have a look at the NASA GISS maps. The default setting comparing April 2015 with the April average for 1951-1980 shows an average increase of 0.69. But in Northern Siberia temperatures have risen by over 4 degrees, whilst in Central Australia, Eastern Antarctica and Eastern India they have fallen.
Combining these factors can lead to errors in the adjustment process. One example is that the map shows 2-4 degrees of warming in Central South America. This was due to errors in the homgenisation process in Paraguay, where sudden cooling at the end of the 1960s was adjusted to net warming, due to this being different from the surrounding areas.
Another example is in the Gistemp temperature anomaly for 64S-90S - basically Antarctica. This shows a rapid cooling trend for the period 1880-1930. There was no temperature data being collected at all until the 1950s. The proxy data used appears to be from Base Orcadas despite in recent decades the temperature trends being out of line with Antarctica.
In general, any attempt at temperature anomalies will create errors. We can only become partly aware of these errors by exploring and modelling. The first thing to realize is the data deficiencies alongside the extremely complex patterns of temperature trends. Supporters of Climate Science, like yourself, will fight against such as understanding for the simple reason it undermines the subject. From Wikipedia

Climatology or climate science is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time.

When one recognizes the disparity in temperature trends along with the data issues, it is very difficult to see how an average can have any scientific meaning except in the vaguest terms. But because the variations and data issues are not recognized, the figures are pretty much meaningless.

Micky H Corbett

I rather think you have missed the point of statistics.

What engineers often fail to understand is that uncertainty is not a two-value variable. Your previous statements indicate that you see a world in which you can measure to high accuracy or not at all.

Global temperature measurements are harder than measuring the oil temperature of a Trent because you have to take multiple measurements of a large and variable system, instead of a single spot measurement.

Statistics such as 95% confidence limits define the size AND THE LIMITS of that uncertainty.

To a biologist such as myself, or to a climatologist, some uncertainty is a fact of life. The key is that the uncertainty in your data is smaller than the trend or difference you wish to study.

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

Regarding past climates, the planet tends to settle into four default equilibrium states.

Houthouse Earth is 5C warmer than the present. Sea levels may be 20M higher. CO2 is above 400ppm. There is little ice, even near the poles.

Interstadials/interglacial are warm intermissions in a glacial period. Temperatures and sea levels stabilise around current levels. CO2 is around 280ppm. Ice at high latitudes.

Glacial periods are 5C cooler than today, with sea levels much lower and CO2 levels around 200mppm. Extensive glaciation to mid latitudes.

Snowball Earths with very low CO2, temperatures 10C below today's and extensive glaciation and sea ice to low latitudes.

Note the correlation and feedback link between CO2 and temperature. You find this link breaking down during transition periods, but not at equilibrium.

EM, Raff, your arguments seem to amount to little more than how we would get a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. The basic answer is ‘you can’t’, it will always be a sow’s ear. The first step is to admit the poor nature of what you’re working with. That doesn’t mean you bin what you’ve got but you keep in mind its quality.

Raff writes “and is clearly documented somewhere or other.” So is it clear or is it ‘somewhere’ because part of the process of clarity is knowing where the documentation is and that it wasn’t thrown out 20 years ago or actually never existed in a coherent fashion. So the reasons for any adjustments should be observable and testable. However, I suspect that many of the adjustments are actually algorithms, designed to change large portions of data at once. So when the algorithm changes, a ripple spreads through parts of the data. Is that suitable? It certainly doesn’t spot flaws a human eye might catch. eg in some very cold stations a big minus temperature sometimes loses its minus sign (various reasons). The colder the original temperature the more impact it has on the monthly total. That kind of error cannot be detected automatically and at least a couple of years ago they still existed despite repeated reports of the errors. The automatic systems also make adjustments when local Met Offices swear no such changes need to be made (see Iceland). Both WUWT and Not A Lot Of People Know That have had posts about that kind of error.

Continual changes to the data also partly invalidates research papers built upon them. Since it’s not practice to file data with papers, what happens when the data they were based on changes? What base line should proxies be compared with? Each version of the data should be kept as an accessible archive and papers should either include their own data or reference an official copy.

So after they’ve justified any changes and made the documentation and data freely available, there needs to be auditing. That’s a paid, professional body with the duty to look for flaws in the official data and theory. They need to have powers to demand what they need to validate or invalidate the science that is used for the official position. Their findings also need to be made public and there should be sanctions for those scientists/institutions that don’t comply. The least of those punishments is that the science under question is dropped from official use, as would any subsequent work that relies on it. Intellectual property rights should not be an excuse where a person is claiming the world in imperilled.

Those are the sorts of things that need to be done to turn climate science into a professional product. Or not. If you or anyone else doesn’t want climate change to be taken seriously then carry on as you are. You keep demanding we justify our scepticism as if you lose sight of the fact that YOU need to convince US. And by us, I mean everyone who isn’t signing that blank cheque you want for action on AGW.

TinyCO2

"YOU need to convince US. "

Actually we don't.

Dung is right. The policy debate has moved on and left you stranded in backwaters like BH. Your opinions are no longer relevant.

Dung is right. The policy debate has moved on and left you stranded in backwaters like BH. Your opinions are no longer relevant.
May 25, 2015 at 11:38 AM | Unregistered CommenterEntropic man

lol
It's very kind of you to take the trouble visit us so often in our splendid isolation.

game set, and match michael hart.

EM, an isolation that explains why CO2 is falling so fast and the public is so enthusiastic... oh hang on, those things aren't happening, are they? The debate hasn't moved on, it just died a natural death. As I've written before, sceptics are just a symptom, the visible tip of a very big iceberg. The public and even most politicians are not buying what you're selling. It doesn't even matter if governments sign on the dotted line in Paris, those people will be making promises nobody has any intention of keeping or even the ability.

Kevin, "Have a look at the NASA GISS maps." ...

One example is that the map shows 2-4 degrees of warming in Central South America. This was due to errors in the homgenisation process in Paraguay, where sudden cooling at the end of the 1960s was adjusted to net warming, due to this being different from the surrounding areas.

That doesn't make sense. The map shows April this year being much hotter than the baseline period 1951-80. But if Paraguay was adjusted UP in the 1960s as you say, that would have raised the baseline and decreased the anomaly for this April. In other words, without the adjustment the anomaly would be even greater, the very opposite of what you are complaining.

A lot of temperature data from the early 20th century is bad, so why not discard that data. Start from 1950, or 1970. Is the message you get from the indices more comforting?

Tiny, the way the indices are created is well documented. But I would be surprised if 1 in a 100 of you has ever read all the various FAQs and amazed if 1 in 1000 (if there are 1000) has read the scientific papers on which the methods are based or those testing and analysing the method and results. The FAQ here say why historic anomalies can change (search for "the algorithm seeks"): http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ghcn/v3/GHCNM-v3.2.0-FAQ.pdf There are other descriptions of this. Look for them yourself. But beware; if you understand the hows and whys, that blunts your ability to condemn.

Dung, "convince BH"? I doubt that is possible. Any fool can see that adding TEL to fuel is folly whether you can measure the health effects directly or not. Those here who defend it nevertheless are beyond logical persuasion. And for example MartinA, whose 2 best arguments in favour of Salby are demonstrably deficient will still be rooting for the ex-prof. Some might learn that they are wrong, and will quietly slink away. Or occasionally openly, such as BBD. So BH might bleed support and wither but it will never be convinced.

Michael hart, TinyCO2, Dung

I come here occasionally for three reasons.

1) There are still a couple of people here with whom I can have an enjoyable debate.

2) For the rest of you; like visiting the zoo, it entertaining to watch the monkeys in their cage. Fortunately the only audience would seem to be Raff and myself.

3) Perhaps an American urban myth would be illuminating. Once every hundred years God rolls back the smog to see if Los Angeles is still there. Then he restores the smog so he does not have to look at it.

Having confirmed that BH is still its old self I will wish you farewell.