De Lange and Leyland vindicated

Renowden hatchet job fail

Gareth Renowden, of Hot Topic, has produced a shabby critique of an NBR article by Willem de Lange and Bryan Leyland. I use the word “critique” out of politeness, for it’s merely an ill-mannered hatchet job.

The NBR article, Evidence doesn’t support rapid future sea level rise, was published on June 10.

In his blog post, Gareth expects us to believe the excellent Willem de Lange is “slapdash” and that both he and our friend Bryan Leyland have “a long history of climate denial.”

However, Bryan is a respected consulting engineer with years of experience in designing and installing medium-sized power stations, including hydro, wind and solar. Willem teaches earth sciences and climate change at Waikato University and supervises PhD students. That he might somehow deny the very subject that he and his students earnestly research is outrageous.

The truth is that Willem’s publishing record of over 160 papers and articles towers over Gareth’s achievements.

Regular readers know that Hot Topic posts are echoed in the Blogs section on the SciBlogs website. I tend to see SciBlogs as the fetid swamp down behind the Royal Society bike shed, the place climate scientists can smoke what they like, eat with their mouths open and scrawl rude words on the walls.

But they overlooked this post from Hot Topic—was it just too stupid? Gareth starts with: “the piece is riddled with errors and misrepresentations.” Watch as I point out his errors.

  • GR: The “recent” paper on sea level rise de Lange and Leyland (dLL) reference in their first paragraph is from 2010! The latest Royal Society of NZ climate info was published last month, and is presumably what dLL meant to refer to.

FAIL 1. Leyland and de Lange (LdL) didn’t supply this link, the NBR inserted it during editing. Gareth couldn’t know this because, happy with his presumption, he made no inquiries. I asked about it, but what do I know — Gareth’s the journalist. Shallow job, Gareth.

  • GR: The rise in sea level around NZ over the last 100 years was 17cm, not 14cm, according to the RSNZ (page 28 here).

FAIL 2. Sorry, Gareth, wrong century. Over the 20th century (100 years) SLR was about 14 cm. From 1915 to 2015 or thereabouts (100 years) SLR was about 17 cm. Sea level varies naturally, speeding up and slowing down on decadal scales, and was a little higher earlier this century, pushing the century rate up a bit.

FAIL 3. It would be strange indeed if the IPCC predictions published in 2007 and 2013 (AR4, AR5) were not reasonably accurate only 9 and 3 years later. But after 15, 20 and 25 years, it is certainly valid to test predictions from the first three IPCC Assessment Reports (else how much longer would you wait?). They over-estimate warming by 6.0, 3.8 and 4.5 times observed warming since January 2001. They fail. Incidentally, Gareth’s link doesn’t work. When corrected, it does indeed show a graph from AR5 in 2013 and, unsurprisingly, observations are within the lower range of model runs. Gareth clearly thinks readers are stupid and will accept that climate models work just fine.

  • GR: In discussing tidal gauge measures of sea level rise they refer to a denialist web site, not the primary sources.

FAIL 4. A denialist web site, eh? They should be arrested! But  “denialist” simply means their views differ from Gareth’s, and what of that? Since they make data available from NOAA and PSMSL, the very same “primary sources” Gareth himself cites, this is a ridiculous and petulant objection.

  • GR: They reference a textbook on sea level rise, but neglect to point out that it was published 15 years ago.

FAIL 5. No, they don’t mention the publication date, but they do say it reports SLR “during the 20th century” which was 15 years ago. That’s all you need. This is no flaw.

  • GR: dLL state that the current rate of sea level rise measured by satellite is 3.2 mm per year, with “indications of recent decline in the rate”. In fact it is 3.4mm per year, and shows no signs of any recent slowdown. If anything, there are hints of an acceleration in the underlying rate.

FAIL 6. Squabbling over differences less than the margin of error is pointless and it’s petty. If Gareth’s “hints of acceleration” refer to the CU Sea Level Research Group graph on the page he cites, he obviously hasn’t noticed that there’s no hint of acceleration for the last six months. Wrong on two counts.

  • GR: dLL claim that satellite measures are “about twice the tide gauge rate”. They’re not. They’re in good agreement. From Trends and acceleration in global and regional sea levels since 1807, Jevrejeva et al, Global and Planetary Change, 2013 (pdf)
    There is an excellent agreement between the linear trends from GSL12 [latest tide gauge data] and satellite altimetry sea level since 1993, with rates of 3.1 ± 0.6 mm/yr and of 3.2 ± 0.4 mm/yr respectively.

FAIL 7. This is an appalling attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. The rates that are apparently “in good agreement” obtained only between 1993 and 2009—just 16 years. The long-term tide gauge rates are similar to other studies: 1.9 ± 0.4 mm/yr during the 20th century and 1.8 ± 0.5 mm/yr since 1970. About half the rate of the altimeters. There’s no error.

  • GR: The latest RSNZ projections are not “much more than anybody else” – they’re based on the IPCC’s AR5 and draw on the current literature. Larger projected future rises are widely used in planning overseas.

FAIL 8. LdL didn’t say “much more than anybody else”, just “more than anybody else.” Well, more than most. LdL describe NASA’s 2011 prediction and the MfE-NIWA effort, merely saying the RS predicts a greater rise than them, which is perfectly correct. There’s no mistake here.

  • GR: dLL state: “All the observational evidence indicates that the sea level is likely to rise 0.1 to 0.2 m by 2100.” This appears to be nothing more than wishful thinking. The current SLR rate gives 30cm plus by end of the century as a minimum.

FAIL 9. Read #7. There’s no evidence that the current rate of rise (1.8 ± 0.5 mm/yr) will drastically increase. Well, unverified climate models predict it, but they are not any kind of evidence. In the absence of verified models, engineers have always applied historical averages to climate phenomena, from rainfall to temperature. With business as usual, SLR to 2100 will be about 15 cm. If Gareth disagrees, let him tell us when it will begin to accelerate.

  • GR: There’s strong evidence of increased and increasing ice sheet mass loss in Greenland and Antarctica, which will add significantly to the amount of sea level rise by the end of the century. If we’re lucky, that might only be a metre. If we’re unlucky, it might be a great deal more.

FAIL 10. There’s no evidence of a big problem. There has been increased ice loss, perhaps, but recent amounts of ice loss have been infinitesimal and cause no concern. At recent rates of loss, Greenland’s ice will last many thousands of years. Gareth kindly cited a page that confirms this.

“The surface mass balance for September 2014 through September 2015 … was the third least negative since the beginning of the record in 1990; not since … 1991-1992 … and 1995-1996 … has so little ice been lost.” (emphasis added)

Mr Renowden fails to address the other points made by Willem and Bryan but ramps up the hyperbole against Willem. He asks: “Do Christchurch ratepayers really want to pay for advice from an “expert” who can’t get his facts right, and who is apparently happy to put his name to rubbish?”

As I’ve shown, Gareth himself makes numerous errors in this attempted character assassination. His slapdash efforts mean he has earned no right to malign an honest scientist.

Willem and Bryan have shown that the Royal Society’s claim that SLR could be up to a metre by 2100 does not stand up under investigation. First, there’s no sign of an increase in the long-term rate of rise. Second, the Royal Society’s forecast is based on unverified climate models that show no long-term skill. Third, there has been little significant temperature rise for about 20 years. These are facts.

Why has the Royal Society ignored the fact that around New Zealand the land is rising or falling at different rates? Why have they assigned a single value of sea level rise to the whole country? Why do they collude with scientist activists in tacking satellite data on to the end of tide gauge data to show sea level acceleration? They must know it’s like comparing apples with bananas.

It marks a serious time in the history of science, to discover public servants ignoring the processes of solid science. There’s only one thing that might require the abandonment of good science: the desire to obtain an unscientific result.

Let us not banish honest, reliable scientists like Willem de Lange only to later regret that we failed to heed his calm counsel and, instead, we listened to a mischief-maker like Gareth Renowden.

 

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134 Thoughts on “De Lange and Leyland vindicated

  1. Dennis Horne on 21/06/2016 at 9:22 am said:

    Gosh, what’s wrong with me? Preferring the broad and profound consensus of scientists in the Royal Society, US National Academies of Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society and every other scientific society and institution on the planet to — well let’s be charitable — a few contrarians. Very few with any expertise and most displaying abysmal ignorance.

    No other time in history have these august bodies joined forces and gone public with their concerns. Putting their reputations on the line for what?

    What on Earth is the explanation for thinking thousands and thousands of scientists don’t know what they’re doing? I’d like to hear it.

    Of course we don’t know what will eventuate by the end of the century. Partly because governments around the world have accepted the science and are reducing dependency on coal. Even China plans to peak within a decade or so. The UK generates more electricity from wind and solar now.

    If mankind doesn’t see a sea level rise of >1 metre by the end of the century it won’t be thanks to cranks and contrarians alive today.

  2. Maggy Wassilieff on 21/06/2016 at 10:00 am said:

    Yes , I agree that Sciblogs undermines the credibility and integrity of NZ science by continuing to host such foul attacks on individual scientists.
    Does Hot Topic truly represent the views and attitudes of the scientists it promotes?
    If the evidence against de Lange’s research is so overwhelming, then it can stand alone without any recourse to belittling personal attacks.
    I am left wondering who orders the hatchet jobs?

  3. Andy on 21/06/2016 at 10:04 am said:

    What on Earth is the explanation for thinking thousands and thousands of scientists don’t know what they’re doing? I’d like to hear it.

    Are you able to provide the name of a scientist or paper that thinks that one metre of SLR in 100 years is likely or plausible?

    If there are thousands of them, it shouldn’t be hard.

  4. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 10:12 am said:

    Dennis

    >”What on Earth is the explanation for thinking thousands and thousands of scientists don’t know what they’re doing? I’d like to hear it.”

    Simply this Dennis. The “thousands and thousands of [climate] scientists” are NOT qualified and practicing applied heat specialists. Thet don’t know the laws of thermodynamics, let alone how to apply them. Consequently their conjecture violates the Clausius statement of the 2nd Law, and their models, that the IPCC admits 97% are wrong this century (“111 of 114”, Chapter 9 AR5), violate the Kelvin-Planck statement of the 2nd Law.

    Neither do they understand radiation-matter interaction particularly surface materials e.g. water. They think down-welling long-wave radiation is an ocean heating agent just like solar radiation but it certainly is not. Consequently, under that assumption for which they have NO science (AR5 Chapter 8, Chapter 3) they bypass the physics of the ocean-atmosphere interface and instead “impute” or “force” energy into the ocean that is not actually being transferred in reality. Consequently their models have ocean heat content amd temperature running too warm.

    And finally, the findings of their own IPCC AR5 report (Chapter 2) falsify the AGW/MMCC conjecture by the IPCC’s own primary climate change criteria: earth’s energy balance measured at top of atmosphere.

  5. Maggy Wassilieff on 21/06/2016 at 10:25 am said:

    Perhaps Dennis would like to come up to speed with some of the unsettled science around climate change.
    Here’s 21 papers from 2016 (thoughtfully compiled by Kenneth Richard).
    http://notrickszone.com/#sthash.qFDXwLOY.dpbs

  6. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 10:52 am said:

    >”The long-term tide gauge rates are similar to other studies: 1.9 ± 0.4 mm/yr during the 20th century and 1.8 ± 0.5 mm/yr since 1970.”

    These are global averages which, like globally averaged satellite data, are meaningless. I now refer to use of such as the “Global Average Illusion”. The average doesn’t apply anywhere on earth except maybe the odd exception. It certainly does NOT apply to the SW Pacific region (mm/yr):

    Townsville 1.48
    Bundaberg 0.58
    Brisbane 0.09
    Sydney 0.65
    Auckland 1.29
    Wellington 2.45
    Lyttleton 2.36
    Bluff 1.57

    From http://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/sltrends/southeastwestpacifictrends.htm

    The SW Pacific average “illusion” works out to 1.3 mm/yr but of what relevance anywhere? Only Auckland conforms.

  7. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 11:07 am said:

    I submitted graphed TG data, appropriate argument, and supported by reference and quotes from literature, nothing overly long, which Gareth allowed through at Hot Topic. But he commented thus:

    Gareth says: June 14, 2016 at 4:00 pm

    RichardC: Please do not spam this discussion with meaningless linkage. Make an argument, and support it with references to the literature, or I will have no alternative but to put you in moderation. Remember, brevity and clarity are a virtue.

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/christchurch-coastal-cock-up-sea-level-expert-de-lange-clueless-in-nbr/#comment-47781

    Apparently, for example, this argument of mine is “meaningless”:

    ……what you are effectively looking at in Pacific satellite sea leval (see Palanisamy et al Fig 1) is Indo-Pacific Warm Pool (IPWP) skew. There is NO typical satellite SLR rate in the Pacific. How can there be when much of Pacific satellite sea leavels are FALLING, and in some areas at a statistically significant of MORE THAN -4 mm/yr?

    I note there was no reply (of any substance) to my arguments. I bit difficult I suppose when I’m basically just drawing out facts from references – hence the need to censure instead.

  8. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 11:24 am said:

    Harry Twinotter says: June 14, 2016 at 10:00 pm

    Who is Treadgold?

    The atmosphere does indeed warm the ocean. I am not even a scientist and I know that. There was a myth circulating several years ago which claims that back-scattered infra red radiation cannot be absorbed by the ocean.

    Easy enough to refute. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere raise the global mean temperature by around 33C. If none of this worked it’s way into the oceans, they would be frozen to the bottom.

    Kindergarten stuff…

    http://hot-topic.co.nz/christchurch-coastal-cock-up-sea-level-expert-de-lange-clueless-in-nbr/#comment-47790

    # # #

    Heh.

    ‘Optical Absorption of Water Compendium’

    “The data is surprisingly consistent. Plot a couple for yourself, or you can just look at (Segelstein) or (Hale and Querry) or (Wieliczka).” [all three hotlinked]

    http://omlc.org/spectra/water/abs/index.html

    Max LW penetration about 100 microns, most effective about 10. 100 microns is about the thickness of a human hair.

    Then there’s the surface energy budget as cited in IPCC AR5 Chapter 2:

    Stephens et al (2012) Fig 1
    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/fig_tab/ngeo1580_F1.html

    Net LW COOLING flux at the surface of 53 W.m-2 (398 – 345).

  9. Dennis Horne on 21/06/2016 at 11:59 am said:

    So. Amongst the hundreds of thousands of scientists, professors and Nobel Laureates in physics, who belong to the Royal Society, US National Academies of Science and American Association for the Advancement of science and all the other institutions and societies that endorse the consensus, can’t do science.

    No.

    Nonsense.

    If they’re wrong publish a paper in Nature or Science. Don’t bellyache on a blog.

  10. Andy on 21/06/2016 at 12:02 pm said:

    Don’t forget NASA, Dennis

  11. Andy on 21/06/2016 at 12:13 pm said:

    “It’s just you vs every single science academy including NASA, just some lonely guy on the Internet”.

    Does anyone else miss Cedric Katesby? He seemed quite fixated on the “consensus” and NASA in particular.
    Ken P did something to upset him and he’s never been back.

  12. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 12:18 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”If they’re wrong publish a paper in Nature or Science. Don’t bellyache on a blog.”

    Don’t need to, we’ve got IPCC AR5. Did you not read this:

    “And finally, the findings of their own IPCC AR5 report (Chapter 2) falsify the AGW/MMCC conjecture by the IPCC’s own primary climate change criteria: earth’s energy balance measured at top of atmosphere.

    Climate science have proved themselves wrong in their own assessment report but either they don’t realise or the gatekeepers hushed it up. Watch this blog space, there will be a post on this soon.

  13. Richard Treadgold on 21/06/2016 at 12:28 pm said:

    Dennis,

    Gosh, what’s wrong with me?

    There’s nothing wrong with your belief in these time-honoured scientific institutions and I don’t want to change your mind on that. But I don’t know what motivates them (beyond wanting to change the world, and that’s understandable), nor do I want to explain their modern naked activism. I don’t have to explain it, and anyway I don’t know how.

    You have not listened to the points made in this post, because you haven’t responded to them. Read it again; the points are significant; the questions vital.

    I want to advertise the valid and substantial reasons why many are skeptical, because that might make up the minds of those who are uncertain.

    By the way, I don’t call you a crank, contrarian, denier or other derogatory term just because you disagree with me, because I don’t want to make you feel the way I feel when it’s done to me. So please don’t do it to me.

  14. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 12:33 pm said:

    >”If they’re wrong publish a paper in Nature or Science.”

    Why is this mandatory?

    ‘Newton, Einstein, Watson and Crick, were not peer reviewed’
    http://joannenova.com.au/2014/05/newton-einstein-watson-and-crick-were-not-peer-reviewed/

    Proving that a conjecture is wrong does not require publication in “Nature or Science” Dennis. Even less so when climate science, inadvertently or covered up, proves themselves wrong as they have done in AR5.

    And AGW violations of the 2nd Law of Themodynamics are simply laid out in the respectivre statements, Clausius for example (annotated for AGW):

    Clausius statement – “Heat does not of itself move from a cold object [troposphere] to a hot object [surface]”

    Why does that need to be peer-reviewed? This is everyday stuff for applied heat specialists.

  15. Andy on 21/06/2016 at 12:38 pm said:

    As a general point about “experts”, there is a certain Prof at Canterbury University who teaches his students that sand dunes cannot grow forward (i.e accrete).

    This is obviously false to anyone (like me) that can see sand dunes from their house, and have measuring sticks that show it, but “experts” disagree

  16. Dennis Horne on 21/06/2016 at 12:38 pm said:

    Sorry for the garbled comment. Should have gone to SpecSavers.

    Fortunately I can still see the wood for the trees…

    FACT: CO2 causes Earth to retain energy.
    FACT: More CO2 more energy. Oceans warming, habitat warming.
    FACT: World governments are working towards reducing CO2 emissions. The people need to encourage politicians, not give them excuses.
    FACT: If we don’t act to reduce GHGs (including methane and N2O), and the West Antarctic sheet collapses sometime in the future, mankind will be up the creek without a paddle. Literally.

  17. Andy on 21/06/2016 at 12:47 pm said:

    The people need to encourage politicians

    I very much disagree with that statement, in particular

  18. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 12:49 pm said:

    >Clausius statement – “Heat does not of itself move from a cold object [troposphere] to a hot object [surface]”

    The surface energy budget, cited by IPCC AR5 Chapter 2, conforms to this statement:

    Stephens et al (2012) Fig 1
    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/fig_tab/ngeo1580_F1.html

    The only transfers into the surface are SW down and LW down. Transfers out (up) are SW, SH, LH, and LW. Net LW is 53 W.m-2 (398 – 345) out (up).

    That leaves solar SW the only transfer in (down) to heat the surface. There is NO net downwards LW flux from troposphere to surface (net is up) but climate science is adamant that GHGs heat the surface, somehow, in complete contradiction of their own earth’s energy budget.

  19. Dennis Horne on 21/06/2016 at 12:59 pm said:

    Well, if you want your science widely read, a paper in Nature and Science is a good place to start. A sufficient not necessary condition.

    The laws of thermodynamics are probabilistic.

    A hot body radiates to a colder body and a hotter body.

    The GHE warms the oceans just as a blanket warms you, even though it has no energy source of its own and is colder.

    You know what? This conversation reminds me of the strange case of the woman in an aeroplane who got it into head the thing was flying upside down. of course it wasn’t, but nothing could persuade her otherwise. Just the brain playing tricks.

  20. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 1:26 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”FACT: CO2 causes Earth to retain energy.”

    No, that is NOT a fact Dennis, that is a conjecture (theory). Observations show the conjecture is false (1.9 W.m-2 CO2 conjecture TOA forcing, 0.6 W.m-2 TOA imbalance observed but cannot be attributed to CO2). The IPCC reports both theory (Chapter 8) and observations (Chapter 2) but does not apply theory to observations where it should (Chapter 10).

    CO2 is a coolant by definition, refrigerent code R744 i.e. a passive heat transfer medium. The latest El Nino proves CO2 does NOT “trap” heat, just the opposite. The temperature spike is on the way back down to neutral, the heat dissipating unhindered to space – no “greenhouse gas heat trapping” going on. The heat dissipation aided by the CO2 transfer medium.

    >”FACT: More CO2 more energy. Oceans warming, habitat warming.”

    Rubbish. CO2 is NOT an energy source. The sun is the energy source for oceanic heat (see earth’s energy budget upthread). Habitat warmth is supported by the solar heated ocean which is the planets largest heat sink by far. And what CO2-forced “warming” this century? The IPCC admits its CO2-forced models are NOT modelling 21st century temperature (Chapter 9).

    >”FACT: World governments are working towards reducing CO2 emissions…….”

    Well yes, fact. The governments are dupes in other words.

    >”FACT: If …….the West Antarctic sheet collapses sometime in the future, mankind will be up the creek without a paddle. Literally.”

    Huh?

    Study: The Antarctic Has Been Warmer Than Now For Most Of The Last 8000 Years
    https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2016/06/19/the-antarctic-has-been-warmer-than-now-for-most-of-the-last-8000-years/

    “We are also threatened with several meters of sea level rise as the Antarctic melts down. Yet the evidence of the last 10000 years shows that nothing of the sort happened, even though temperatures were much higher.”

    Relax Dennis.

  21. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 1:35 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”A hot body radiates to a colder body and a hotter body.”

    Yes it does but so what? The troposphere is relatively colder than the surface on average and in accordance with the Clausius statement there is no heat flow troposphere => surface. The heat flow is surface => space. The IPCC’s earth’s energy budget (see upthread annd below) conforms to this:

    Clausius statement – “Heat does not of itself move from a cold object [troposphere] to a hot object [surface]”

    Sure enough, earth’s surface heat (as a result of SW down) moves from surface to space (net LW is up):

    Stephens et al (2012) Fig 1 as cited by IPCC AR5 Chapter 2
    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/fig_tab/ngeo1580_F1.html

    Surely you can see this Dennis?

  22. Andy on 21/06/2016 at 1:59 pm said:

    Apparently all the world’s experts think that Britain should stay in the EU. Whether this happens is in the hands of the great unwashed this week.

    Why can’t simple folk just listen to experts?

    They know best, and always have our interests at heart..

    (Said me, never)

  23. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 2:01 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”The GHE warms the oceans just as a blanket warms you, even though it has no energy source of its own and is colder.”

    This is superficial piffle Dennis. From upthread repeated here for your benefit:

    ‘Optical Absorption of Water Compendium’

    “The data is surprisingly consistent. Plot a couple for yourself, or you can just look at (Segelstein) or (Hale and Querry) or (Wieliczka).” [all three hotlinked]

    http://omlc.org/spectra/water/abs/index.html

    Max LW penetration about 100 microns, most effective about 10. 100 microns is about the thickness of a human hair.

    Then there’s the surface energy budget as cited in IPCC AR5 Chapter 2:

    Stephens et al (2012) Fig 1
    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/fig_tab/ngeo1580_F1.html

    Net LW COOLING flux at the surface of 53 W.m-2 (398 – 345).

    There is no net LW flux down at the surface. Even if there was, LW is not the surface heating agent – SW is. The IPCC speculate (no science after 25 years and 5 assessment reports) that “air-sea fluxes” are the anthro mechanism for ocean heating (Chapter 8). But when they went looking for said fluxes they couldn’t find them (Chapter 3). Real SW heating fluxes are far greater, completely relegating their speculated LW fluxes to irrelevance. Surface Solar Radiation (SSR) is by far the dominant flux change over the past couple of decades, regionally in the order of 10 W.m-2/decade. CO2 flux change is in the order of 0.2 – 0.3+ W.m-2/decade by cpmparison.

    The sun heats the ocean in the tropics Dennis:

    ‘Cool-skin and warm-layer effects on sea surface temperature’
    C. W. Fairall, E. F. Bradley, J. S. Godfrey, G. A. Wick, J. B. Edson, G. S. Young
    ftp://ftp.etl.noaa.gov/users/cfairall/wcrp_wgsf/computer_programs/cor3_0/95JC03190.pdf

    ‘The upper ocean heat balance in the western equatorial Pacific warm pool during September-December 1992′
    Cronin and McPhaden (1997)
    http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/pubs/outstand/cron1713/cron1713.shtml

    ‘Clouds, Radiation, and the Diurnal Cycle of Sea Surface Temperature in the Tropical Western Pacific’
    P. J. Webster, C. A. Clayson, and J. A. Curry
    https://www.arm.gov/publications/proceedings/conf05/extended_abs/webster_pj.pdf

  24. Magoo on 21/06/2016 at 2:22 pm said:

    Dennis:

    Below is a graph from the IPCC’s AR5 report comparing empirical temperatures to the predictive computer models (Figure TS.14, page 87, Technical Summary, Working Group I, IPCC AR5 report):

    http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_TS_FINAL.pdf

    Here’s a quicker loading version from another source if you can’t be bothered waiting for the AR5 to load:

    http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/figures/WGI_AR5_Fig11-25.jpg

    Now tell me, which is correct – the empirical evidence from multiple sources published in the IPCC AR5 report showing all the computer models failing when compared to the observed temperatures, or the opinion of numerous scientific organisations that disagree with the empirical evidence? Which, in science, is more valid, empirical evidence from multiple sources or unsubstantiated opinion – data or opinion?

    If you say opinion, on what is the opinion based if not on the data?

    So called consensus is meaningless when contradicted by empirical evidence from multiple sources, yes?

  25. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 2:27 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”Well, if you want your science widely read, a paper in Nature and Science is a good place to start.”

    Not necessary as I’ve said previously. We have the internally contradictory IPCC AR5 report i.e. the science in question is already written in AR5 and is self-contradictory (Chapter 8 vs Chapter 2).

    IPCC AR5 was NOT published in Nature or Science was it Dennis?

    AR5 is simply a report (as the title “Assessment Report” states) The citation for Chapter 10, where the contradiction should heve been addressed, is this:

    This chapter should be cited as:
    Myhre, G., D. Shindell, F.-M. Bréon, W. Collins, J. Fuglestvedt, J. Huang, D. Koch, J.-F. Lamarque, D. Lee, B. Mendoza, T. Nakajima, A. Robock, G. Stephens, T. Takemura and H. Zhang, 2013: Anthropogenic and Natural Radiative Forcing. In: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA.

    The publication agency (not a science journal note) was Cambridge University Press – a printer. The chapter content was NOT subject to rigourous review, and it shows.

    So we are merely picking apart a report. We are not carrying out “your science” as you put it Dennis. There is no need whatsoever for publication in a scientific journal of matters arising from a report printed by Cambridge University Press.

  26. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 3:27 pm said:

    >”The chapter [10] content was NOT subject to rigourous review, and it shows”

    Here’s the comments on the draft:

    Expert and Government Review Comments on the IPCC WGI AR5 Second Order Draft – Chapter 10
    https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/drafts/Ch10_WG1AR5SOD_RevCommResponses_Final.pdf

    First up should be an admonition to address the IPCC’s primary climate change criteria: earth’s energy balance at TOA. I see nothing of this (but I’ll keep looking), just this sort of thing on “imbalance”:

    10-1788 What about a response to constant radiative forcing? You could imagine CO2 emissions that occur at a rate such that a given TOA radiative imbalance (forcing), once established, is maintained at a constant level over time. That would be slightly different than “a gradual increase in forcing”, which would imply a growing radiative imbalance over time (i.e., one that outpaces the rate at which the planet can reestablish equilibrium). [Francis Zwiers, Canada]

    Response was – “Noted. One could imagine this scenario, but why? It seems strange.”

    I agree. It also doesn’t get to the critical issue (neither does the response). One more for now on “imbalance”:

    10-228 “radiative imbalance is currently taken up by the oceans” is awkward and does not make physical sense. Please fix. [Chris Forest, United States of America]

    I think it makes perfect sense when the attribution is correct (solar change accounts for the 0.6 W.m-2 surface imbalance, same as TOA). Only the sun heats the ocean as upthread. Response was:

    Taken into account. Because this evidence is assessed in Chapter 3 this statement does not appear in the revised ES of chapter 10 for reasons of brevity and avoiding overlap with chapter 3.

    Yes the evidence was assessed in Chapter 3 (0.6 W.m-2 TOA imbalance observed), the theory was in Chapter 8 (net anthro 2.3 W.m-2, CO2 1.83 W.m-2), the discrepancy should have been addressed in Chapter 10. The response is hopelessly inadequate.

    Leaving TOA imbalance for the timebeing, we see the Chapter gatekeepers (who was the responder?) in action to suppress anything inconvenient:

    10-234 This claim is unsustainable. Downwelling radiation from CO2 penetrates only a few microns at the ocean surface and rapidly disappears in evaporation and convection. Not only is there no method by which anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions can cause dep ocean warming, but also chapter 3 failed to describe any physical process by which heat could sink. Remove the statement. [John McLean, Australia]

    Response
    Rejected. The assessment of chapter 3 shows robust evidence for ocean warming and sea level rise from
    observations and section 10.4 shows robust evidence for this warming being anthropogenic.

    This is scandalous.

    Yes there is evidence of ocean warming but Chapter 3 did NOT find evidence for anthropogenic ocean warming in accordance with Chapter 8 speculation (“air-sea fluxes”). 10.4 cannot then draw on any evidence from Chapter 3 in combination with speculation in Chapter 8 in order to make an attribution in Chapter 10 (10.4). John McLean is correct (but say 100 microns max), surface physics and spectroscopy supports him (see upthread).

  27. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 3:35 pm said:

    Should be:

    “Yes the evidence was assessed in Chapter 3 [and Chapter 2] (0.6 W.m-2 TOA imbalance observed [same as surface]),…..”

    Their “evidence” (actually observations which are not “evidence” unless they confirm theory) does NOT support their theory in Chapter 8.

  28. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 3:58 pm said:

    Gatekeepers again:

    10-1961 This comment astounds me. The underlying assumption is that climate models represent natural variability perfectly. By examining other parts of this and Chapter 9, this is obviously not true. Models, with little abiltiy to represent multi-annual and multi-decadal natural variability, are therefore inadequate to determine whether a fingerprint is natural or anthropogenic. Do the writers really believe that we understand everything about natural variability and can reproduce it accurately? in my opinion (based on the evidence) the answer is no (just look at the comparisons since 1979.) [John Christy, United States of America]

    Response
    Taken into account – we added text to indicate that climate models do not represent variability perfectly.
    However Ch 9 supports the contention that current models are sufficiently reliable to carry out attribution
    assessments.

    So climate models don’t model natural variability (final Chap 9 draft admits this in Box 9.2) but nevertheless “are sufficiently reliable to carry out attribution assessments”

    I call bogus.

  29. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 4:13 pm said:

    No way of knowing who, specifically, wrote each respective response to each Chap 10 comment (or any other chapter comment). I suspect this information is confidential to the IPCC to stop people like me from pointing the finger.

    Apparently responses are by “the authors”:

    “All comments submitted in the review period are considered by the authors in preparing the next draft and a response is made to every comment.”

    http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/ar5/statement/Statement_WGI_AR5_SOD.pdf

    “The authors” of Chapter 10 were:

    Coordinating Lead Authors:
    Nathaniel L. Bindoff (Australia), Peter A. Stott (UK)

    Lead Authors:
    Krishna Mirle AchutaRao (India), Myles R. Allen (UK), Nathan Gillett (Canada), David Gutzler (USA), Kabumbwe Hansingo (Zambia), Gabriele Hegerl (UK/Germany), Yongyun Hu (China), Suman Jain (Zambia), Igor I. Mokhov (Russian Federation), James Overland (USA), Judith Perlwitz (USA), Rachid Sebbari (Morocco), Xuebin Zhang (Canada)

    Contributing Authors:
    Magne Aldrin (Norway), Beena Balan Sarojini (UK/India), Jürg Beer (Switzerland), Olivier Boucher (France), Pascale Braconnot (France), Oliver Browne (UK), Ping Chang (USA), Nikolaos Christidis (UK), Tim DelSole (USA), Catia M. Domingues (Australia/Brazil), Paul J. Durack (USA/Australia), Alexey Eliseev (Russian Federation), Kerry Emanuel (USA), Graham Feingold (USA), Chris Forest (USA), Jesus Fidel González Rouco (Spain), Hugues Goosse (Belgium), Lesley Gray (UK), Jonathan Gregory (UK), Isaac Held (USA), Greg Holland (USA), Jara Imbers Quintana (UK), William Ingram (UK), Johann Jungclaus (Germany), Georg Kaser (Austria), Veli-Matti Kerminen (Finland), Thomas Knutson (USA), Reto Knutti (Switzerland), James Kossin (USA), Mike Lockwood (UK), Ulrike Lohmann (Switzerland), Fraser Lott (UK), Jian Lu (USA/Canada), Irina Mahlstein (Switzerland), Valérie Masson-Delmotte (France), Damon Matthews (Canada), Gerald Meehl (USA), Blanca Mendoza (Mexico), Viviane Vasconcellos de Menezes (Australia/Brazil), Seung-Ki Min (Republic of Korea), Daniel Mitchell (UK), Thomas Mölg (Germany/Austria), Simone Morak (UK), Timothy Osborn (UK), Alexander Otto (UK), Friederike Otto (UK), David Pierce (USA), Debbie Polson (UK), Aurélien Ribes (France), Joeri Rogelj (Switzerland/Belgium), Andrew Schurer (UK), Vladimir Semenov (Russian Federation), Drew Shindell (USA), Dmitry Smirnov (Russian Federation), Peter W. Thorne (USA/Norway/UK), Muyin Wang (USA), Martin Wild (Switzerland), Rong Zhang (USA)

    https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter10_FINAL.pdf

    The response to any one draft comment could be by any one of the authors listed. Seems to be joint and several responsibility to me unless the IPCC divulges the responder name(s) to each comment.

  30. Richard Treadgold on 21/06/2016 at 5:08 pm said:

    Maggy,

    Here’s 21 papers from 2016 (thoughtfully compiled by Kenneth Richard).

    Nice resource, thanks.

  31. Richard C (NZ) on 21/06/2016 at 5:25 pm said:

    10-179 10 3 43 Will ES [Executive Summary] readers know what a forcing is? [Dáithí Stone, United States of America]

    Response
    Rejected. Radiative forcing is a term in the glossary.

    # # #

    AR5 Glossary:

    Radiative forcing Radiative forcing is the change in the net, downward minus upward, radiative flux (expressed in W m–2) at the tropopause or top of atmosphere due to a change in an external driver of climate change, such as, for example, a change in the concentration of carbon dioxide or the output of the Sun. Sometimes internal drivers are still treated as forcings even though they result from the alteration in climate, for example aerosol or greenhouse gas changes in paleoclimates. The traditional radiative forcing is computed with all tropospheric properties held fixed at their unperturbed values, and after allowing for stratospheric temperatures, if perturbed, to readjust to radiative-dynamical equilibrium. Radiative forcing is called instantaneous if no change in stratospheric temperature is accounted for. The radiative forcing once rapid adjustments are accounted for is termed the effective radiative forcing. For the purposes of this report, radiative forcing is further defined as the change relative to the year 1750 and, unless otherwise noted, refers to a global and annual average value. Radiative forcing is not to be confused with cloud radiative forcing, which describes an unrelated measure of the impact of clouds on the radiative flux at the top of the atmosphere.

    https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_AnnexIII_FINAL.pdf

    The reader is no wiser that there is a distinction between a real natural forcing at TOA (e.g., solar) and a theoretical forcing at TOA (e.g., CO2). And see below.

    And the reader will be no wiser that there is a discrepancy between the observed TOA imbalance reported in Chapter 2 (0.6 W.m-2) and the theoretical anthro forcing stated in Chapter 8 (net anthro 2.3 W.m-2, CO2 1.83 W.m-2) because Chapter 10 does not address the discrepancy and none of the authors or reviewers thought that was critical in terms of the IPCC’s primary climate change criteria.

    Only readers of Chapter 2 AND Chapter 8 AND (from AR4) FAQ 2.1 will know of the critical discrepancy because Chapter 10 doesn’t address it.

    And the authors assume anthropogenic forcing is on a par with natural forcing i.e., they don’t make a further, and necessary, distinction between theoretical anthropogenic forcing and natural forcing or what is observed:

    10-74 10 3 3 39 52 In this paragraph and elsewhere in this chapter it would be good to distinguish better between: anthropogenic forcing, natural forcing and external forcing. Are external and anthropogenic forcing synonymous? If so use only the latter term. [European Union]

    Response
    Taken into account. The ES has been revised to be clearer about external forcings by explicitly referring to
    anthropogenic and natural forcings.

    But not nearly clear enough. Actually highly deficient, and totally misleading i.e., either incompetent or unethical.

  32. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 11:30 am said:

    I didn’t say it was necessary to publish in Nature or Science. Just if you have something important to say that you want other scientists to read and take seriously, then that’s a very good place to start. But it’s not obligatory.

    Nor did I call any person a crank or contrarian. But anyone is free to adopt the title or description should they so desire. If the cap fits wear it.

    Perhaps we need to find a nice new name for those who reject standard climate science — rooted in simple “proven” physics, investigated since Fourier in 1824, by thousands of highly trained scientists in top institutions, and endorsed by the RS, NAS, AAAS et al.

    Not to say predicted, observed and measured this very day at thousands of stations.

    Richard Lindzen tried to find some negative feedback to show warming wouldn’t happen. Failed. Judith Curry told Congress the satellite temperature dataset was the gold standard. But John Christy had made serious and fundamental errors. Planet Earth had warmed. No “pause”. Failed.

    The experiment continues. We continue to emit large quantities of CO2. Earth continues to warm. The ice continues to melt. The sea level continues to rise. What will you do when it reaches 1 metre? Clutch at straws?

    You really are flying upside down.

    Happy landing!

    (Thank you for letting me have my say. It show great sincerity and generosity.)

  33. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 12:02 pm said:

    I’m still not really sure what science we are supposed to be denying, or what all these experts agree on.

    Given that I have been following climate related issues for about 7 years, this is a concern.

  34. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 1:05 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”I didn’t say it was necessary to publish in Nature or Science. Just if you have something important to say that you want other scientists to read and take seriously, then that’s a very good place to start. But it’s not obligatory.”

    Just as the IPCC’s Assessment Report is in the public domain i.e. not the preserve of “other scientists” but for anyone to read and critique, then “something important” arising from that report is public domain stuff for everyone to make their mind up on – not just “other scientists”.

    And think Dennis that the public domain includes applied heat specialists with expertise far superior to any climate scientist when it comes to applied heat. Also there are lawyers, engineers, chemists, medical laser physicists (think oceanography and the physics of the AO interface), optics and microwave experts (think EM spectrum), technicians and technologists, data analysts, and so on. All of which have the intellect to comprehend and critique an IPCC assessment report in the public domain.

    And “something important” has come out of the AR5 report – a glaring omission (a legal term note), which at least is civil negligence (another legal term) and at worst criminal wilful negligence (yet another legal term). See below for the omission. Notice that this is out of the scope of science Dennis; we are talking ethics now (and that’s not even addressing economic ramifications).

    >”Perhaps we need to find a nice new name for those who reject standard climate science — rooted in simple “proven” physics…..”

    It certainly is NOT “proven” Dennis, it is conjecture (theory), and failing fast. This is the IPCC’s omission above. IPCC climate change theory is appied to the earth’s energy imbalance measured at the top of atmosphere. This is the primary climate change criteria, everything else including GMST is secondary according to the IPCC’s criteria.

    AGW theory, and the IPCC AR5 report (2013), states net theoretical anthropogenic forcing at the top of atmosphere is 2.3 W.m-2 and theoretical CO2 1.83 W.m-2 (Chapter 8). But in Chapter 2 the IPCC cite literature (2 papers) finding an observed 0.6 W.m-2 TOA imbalance. Time has moved on and now the theory is 4 times the actual real-world fact. In other words, the theory is falsified.

    The IPCC omits to address that critical theory-vs-fact discrepancy in the appropriate chapter (Chapter 10). Was this sloppy incompetance (negligence)? Or was it a coverup (willful negligence)? You decide Dennis.

    >” We continue to emit large quantities of CO2″

    Problem with that is there is a disconnect between atmospheric levels of CO2 and human emissions i.e. human emissions are not drivung atmospheric levels. This last El Nino proved that. Atmospheric levels bounded upwards more than normal but human emissions have had no growth in the last 3 years. Same in th GFC 2008, negative human emissions growth but positive atmospheric level growth. Negative growth cannot drive positive growth Dennis.

    Apart from that, Human emissions levels are lost in the uncertainties of the carbon cycle gross flows:

    Carbon cycle (from IPCC)
    http://www.metlink.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/6.1_nokey1.jpg

    >”You really are flying upside down”

    No Dennis, climate science flies upside down. It violates the laws of thermodynamics with heat flowing DOWN from cold troposphere to warm surface. As Abdussamatov (head of the Russian input to Int. Space Station) puts it – “heat rises up, not down”.

  35. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 1:49 pm said:

    Richard C (NZ)

    http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature14240.html

    Not me flying upside down.

    Just landed on my feet.

  36. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 2:06 pm said:

    Downward longwave radiation exists, therefore climate change is catastrophic, one metre SLR is inevitable, and we need to kick all coastal residents out of their properties asap

    Yes it makes complete sense

    Gosh, I hope Brexit succeeds this week. We might flush some of this nonsense down the drain at last.

  37. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 2:14 pm said:

    Dennis writes at Hot Topic

    “Once an unsure denier I am now an orthodox follower”

    In so few words he sums up the position of the Warmist Creed very succinctly

  38. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 2:21 pm said:

    Andy.

    Yep. I follow the orthodox science. Studied it. Understood it. Know it.

    Following in my father’s footsteps. From my mother I inherited a nose for bullsh*t.

    PS. Which one of the stuffed toys in the photo are you?

  39. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 2:35 pm said:

    I’m still looking for evidence that sea levels will be one metre higher in 100 years.

    Any “orthodox” paper will do, from the thousands out there.

  40. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 2:40 pm said:

    Orthodox:

    adjective
    1.
    following or conforming to the traditional or generally accepted rules or beliefs of a religion, philosophy, or practice.
    “Burke’s views were orthodox in his time”
    synonyms: conservative, traditional, observant, conformist, devout, strict, true, true blue, of the faith, of the true faith
    “an orthodox Hindu”
    2.
    of the ordinary or usual type; normal.
    “they avoided orthodox jazz venues”

  41. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 3:02 pm said:

    Isn’t it strange how one of the tactics used by the (nice name) is that science today doesn’t follow strictly some “scientific method” approved by them. Orthodox science, by their definition. Or to their liking.

    Yes, I am both contrarian and orthodox. The trick is knowing when to lead and when to follow.

    I can’t tell you when the sea level will rise 1 metre. All I can tell you is the science says it has in the past and it will in the future.

    Nor can I tell you when I will be six feet under. All I can say is science and the past tell me I will sometime in the future.

    Andy, I appreciate your dilemma, but I’m not a very nice person. I don’t actually give a fcuk.

  42. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 3:09 pm said:

    Yes I guessed that. Most of the inhabitants of the Church of Warmism don’t give a stuff either. This is why they find it funny when communities get decimated by stupid climate change policies

    I actually think that most of the Creed, and Leftists in general, are misanthropic psychopaths that hate all of humanity, and spend all their waking hours virtue signalling on how morally superior they are

    I hold them all in complete and utter contempt.

    They are the absolute dregs of humanity

  43. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 3:21 pm said:

    “I can’t tell you when the sea level will rise 1 metre. All I can tell you is the science says it has in the past and it will in the future. ”

    What a complete waste of human breath

    Doctor: I can’t tell you what will happen to your tumour. All I know is that stuff has happened in the past and always will in the future. That will be $60 please

  44. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 3:27 pm said:

    Dennis

    Re your link to Feldman et al which is the Berkeley Labs study. Yes I was aware of that. Problem is the CO2 component of DLR is a negligible amount, Feldman et al found “0.2 W m−2 per decade” change in the CO2 component. This is pathetically small. Surface solar radiation (SSR) forcing is in the order of 10 W.m-2/decade regionally in recent decades.

    SSR forcing is a real heating agent on surface material – CO2 forcing is not (see surface energy budget below). The entire DLR flux, of which the CO2 component is about 7 W.m-2 (6 W.m-2 1976 US Standard Atmosphere), is on global average 345.6 W.m-2. See surface energy budget in Stephens et al Fig 1:

    Stephens et al (2012) Fig 1 as cited by IPCC Chapter 2
    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/fig_tab/ngeo1580_F1.html

    There is no DLR surface heating, just the opposite. The net LW flux is 398 – 345.6 = 52.4 W.m-2. This is OLR i.e. a COOLING flux, negative (-ve) in the energy budget. So the surface budget sum is this:

    +188 -23 -24 -88 –52.4 = +0.6

    Obviously the surface heating agent, and source of the imbalance, is solar SW down (+188). There is no surface heating by CO2 even though there is a downwards flux from total DLR, 2% of which is the CO2 component which is only changing by 3% or 0.06% of total DLR. Total DLR fluctuates far more than that. See the BSRN or SurfRad stations for DLR data.

    And 0.6 is global average, oceanic sub-surface solar energy accumulation in the tropics is in the order of 24 W.m-2 (Fairall et al 1976). That accumulation is dissipated in the excta-tropics and sub-polar regions e.g. 11 W.m-2 in the Southern Ocean.

    The net LW flux is UP – not down Dennis. On global average -52.4 W.m-2 OLR. A tiny change in DLR from CO2 change doesn’t change the fact that heat is flowing from surface to space – not troposphere to surface. This is in accordance with thre Clausius statement of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and no, climate science hasn’t turned thermodynamics laws upside down despite their attempt to do so.

    And 21st century solar change (PMOD) is greater than CO2 change.

    So you’re still flying upside down Dennis. Maybe it’s time to change your airline.

  45. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 3:36 pm said:

    So I made a case at HT as Gareth requested, in reply to Simon. Gareth snipped most of it. Probably couldn’t stand my exposing the IPCC’s scandalous omission of the scientific discrepancy between AGW theory and real-world observation.

    What a phony.

    Not a problem because the issue is not going away – sorry Gareth.

  46. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 3:37 pm said:

    Well, Andy, do you want the truth or do you want the bullsh*t?

    Seems you’d rather have bullsh*t than uncertainty. What does that say about you?

    It’s not orthodox science that’s the religion, buddy. Anyone who thinks science is a religion is – in my judgement – insane.

    This consensus is too broad and too profound to be substantially wrong.

    We’ve all got problems, buddy. What are you offering to do about mine?

  47. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 3:42 pm said:

    Which specific BS are you referring to?

    I look at facts. I read papers, I solve equations

    The only BS comes from the council who just make up numbers to suit their agenda.
    I have documented proof of this

    And which “consensus” are you referring to?

    Can you describe the “consensus”, or is it too ethereal and nebulous for us to understand?

  48. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 3:47 pm said:

    Andy

    I ain’t playing hide and seek with you, buddy. If you don’t understand “consensus” you’ll just have to play by yourself.

  49. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 3:54 pm said:

    I’m not interested in playing games.

    Anyway, the Independent Hearing Panel have dropped sea levels from their review, so presumably that kicks the can down the road and we have been granted a temporary respite

    We’ll see on Friday, when the panel convenes

  50. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 4:00 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”Total DLR fluctuates far more than that. See the BSRN or SurfRad stations for DLR data.”

    Take a look at this for starters:

    Figure 10: Downwelling long-wave radiation for two BSRN stations [Alice Springs, South Pole] for July 2012. Comparison between observed values and first 24 h forecast for the two different radiation configurations HRES OP (SF_T6_GR) and PSrad (S30_T3_GF). Fluxes are averaged over the previous 3 h and gray areas indicate an average total cloud cover larger than 0.6 in the same time interval.
    https://www.researchgate.net/figure/268452380_fig5_Figure-10-Downwelling-long-wave-radiation-for-two-BSRN-stations-for-July-2012

    Now Dennis, just how significant is the minor CO2 component of DLR in those graphs?

    Next up, when I get time to dig them out, DLR changes at BSRN or SurfRad stations over a similar time period to the Feldman et al Berkeley Labs study.

    Warning: You’re not going to like what I produce Dennis,

  51. Alexander K on 22/06/2016 at 5:10 pm said:

    This thread has been highly entertaining for me, with Dennis tipping his hand as the sort of bloke who is totally unworried about making a spectacle of himself shouting nonsense and is not really interested in what anyone else has to say if it is contrary to his understandings, or lack thereof.
    Years ago, a former teaching colleague of mine observed, during a staff meeting, that ‘widening and deepening the pool of ignorance probably is not very profitable!’
    I dips me lid to Richard particularly, for his heroic efforts to point out the errors propagated by Renowden,
    but I am not sure Gareth or Dennis actually have any listening skills whatsoever.

  52. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 5:32 pm said:

    The documents I have seen are from Christchurch City Council’s “Climate Smart” strategy from 2010 that plans for 0.5-0.8 m SLR and 2 degrees of warming by 2100

    In a later policy document, the words are almost exactly the same, but the SLR bit has changed from 0.5-0.8 to 1.0m

    The previous numbers are consistent with MfE guidelines

  53. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 5:42 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”Next up, when I get time to dig them out, DLR changes at BSRN or SurfRad stations over a similar time period to the Feldman et al Berkeley Labs study”

    Just to get an idea, here’s Table Mountain Colorado OLR and DLR graphs:

    OLR: Table Mountain, United States (TBL) 20 June 2000
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_576a223f7eaa4.pdf

    DLR: Table Mountain, United States (TBL) 20 June 2000
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_576a1dcf9b8ae.pdf

    OLR: Table Mountain, United States (TBL) 20 June 2008
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_576a24297e01c.pdf

    DLR: Table Mountain, United States (TBL) 20 June 2008
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_576a1e6fc6b6a.pdf

    OLR: Table Mountain, United States (TBL) 20 June 2016
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_576a212dbc920.pdf

    DLR: Table Mountain, United States (TBL) 20 June 2016
    http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/tmp/surfrad_576a1c55cc641.pdf

    From SURFRAD Radiation Data Plots http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/surfrad/dataplot.html

    Clearly OLR is the greater flux.

    Feldman et al’s “0.2 W m−2 per decade” CO2 flux change is in amongst all that DLR, somewhere. In other words, it doesn;t matter what the CO2 flux is or how much it is changing, what matters is what the DLR flux is and how much and in what direction it is changing. And of course the residual net LW OLR flux when DLR is subtracted from OLR. This cools the surface of the earth. It is how ice is made in India and how a rudimentary refrigerator works in the outback. See Wiki on this:

    Radiative cooling
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_cooling

    Next up I’ll see if I can find some time series graphs of DLR over this century. I’ve dug them out before but it’s a mission.

  54. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 5:43 pm said:

    Yeah, well I’m quite relaxed about being found wanting by a bunch of (nice names). I’m in good company.

    Professor of physics at Berkeley is a former sceptic.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqPuKxXUCPY
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTk8Dhr15Kw

    Any one of you better qualified? Or is he “not a true Scotsman”?

    Even the thinking Americans know what needs to be done.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXr5xzkFoZM
    “The 2016 Reines Lecture was delivered by Nobel Laureate Steven Chu on March 9, 2016. Dr. Chu is co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light. He served as the 12th United States Secretary of Energy from 2009-2013 and currently he is Professor of Physics and Molecular & Cellular Physiology at Stanford University.”

    Any of you got a Nobel Prize in physics?

    Not offering this as proof, by the way, of anything except ability to do the science.

  55. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 5:54 pm said:

    Richard C (NZ)

    I am quite familiar with the technique of pointing at frayed pieces and saying they don’t fit the jigsaw properly.

    CO2 molecules gain energy from infrared and radiate in all directions, including to the surface. If you can’t accept that then you need very long sea cruise to clear your head.

  56. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 5:56 pm said:

    “Any of you got a Nobel Prize in physics?”

    Not me. Anyone else here got a Nobel Prize?

    Blog standards are high these days

  57. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 5:59 pm said:

    I’m still interested to know exactly which bits I/we are supposed to be denying

  58. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 6:06 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”Next up I’ll see if I can find some time series graphs of DLR over this century. I’ve dug them out before but it’s a mission.”

    This paper is paywalled but the abstract is interesting:

    ‘Variability of the surface radiation budget over the United States from 1996 through 2011 from high-quality measurements’
    John A. Augustine, Ellsworth G. Dutton (2013)

    Abstract
    [1] Sixteen years of high-quality surface radiation budget (SRB) measurements over seven U.S. stations are summarized. The network average total surface net radiation increases by +8.2 Wm−2 per decade from 1996 to 2011. A significant upward trend in downwelling shortwave (SW-down) of +6.6 Wm−2 per decade dominates the total surface net radiation signal. This SW brightening is attributed to a decrease in cloud coverage, and aerosols have only a minor effect. Increasing downwelling longwave (LW-down) of +1.5 Wm−2 per decade and decreasing upwelling LW (LW-up) of −0.9 Wm−2 per decade produce a +2.3 Wm−2 per decade increase in surface net-LW, which dwarfs the expected contribution to LW-down from the 30 ppm increase of CO2 during the analysis period. The dramatic surface net radiation excess should have stimulated surface energy fluxes, but, oddly, the temperature trend is flat, and specific humidity decreases. The enigmatic nature of LW-down, temperature, and moisture may be a chaotic result of their large interannual variations. Interannual variation of the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) ONI index is shown to be moderately correlated with temperature, moisture, and LW-down. Thus, circulations associated with ENSO events may be responsible for manipulating (e.g., by advection or convection) the excess surface energy available from the SRB increase. It is clear that continued monitoring is necessary to separate the SRB’s response to long-term climate processes from natural variability and that collocated surface energy flux measurements at the SRB stations would be beneficial.

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012JD018551/abstract

    # # #

    >”A significant upward trend in downwelling shortwave (SW-down) of +6.6 Wm−2 per decade dominates the total surface net radiation signal.”

    >” Increasing downwelling longwave (LW-down) of +1.5 Wm−2 per decade and decreasing upwelling LW (LW-up) of −0.9 Wm−2 per decade produce a +2.3 Wm−2 per decade increase in surface net-LW, which dwarfs the expected contribution to LW-down from the 30 ppm increase of CO2 during the analysis period.”

    This is not going so well for you is it Dennis? Don’t say I didn’t warn you – I did.

  59. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 6:12 pm said:

    Slightly on-topic, IHP decision to exclude sea level rise from High Flood Hazard zones (subject to closing submissions)
    http://www.chchplan.ihp.govt.nz/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Minute-regarding-the-reconvened-hearing-22-06-2016.pdf

  60. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 6:28 pm said:

    Richard C (NZ)

    Not sure what you think the paper proves.

    Maybe you think it shows Earth is retaining less energy with increasing CO2.

  61. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 6:32 pm said:

    The general “consensus” is that CO2 is a Greenhouse gas, and that the forcing is logarithmic with increasing concentrations of CO2.

    In other words, the “consensus” claims that CO2 will warm the planet, somewhat, and that effect will die down as CO2 increases

    It only becomes a problem if feedbacks are positive and large.

    I don’t think that last bit is part of the “consensus”

    Maybe there is a definition of the “consensus” on AGW-CO2, hidden away somewhere.

  62. Richard Treadgold on 22/06/2016 at 6:38 pm said:

    Slightly on-topic

    Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

    Oh, sorry. I get so used to these discussions flying away I forget there’s meant to be an ‘on’.

  63. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 6:40 pm said:

    Andy

    Here is Bryan Leyland’s part in effing around wasting our money and NIWA’s time:
    http://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/9600410/Failed-doubters-trust-leaves-taxpayers-at-loss

    You seem to have “forgotten” last time it was mentioned.

  64. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 6:46 pm said:

    So, if Earth were as close to the Sun as Venus, the temperature would be very high? Venus is 462C.

    The atmosphere of 96% CO2 on Venus has nothing to do with the high temperature?

  65. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 7:11 pm said:

    “Here is Bryan Leyland’s part in effing around wasting our money and NIWA’s time”

    The relevance of this is what, perchance?

  66. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 7:24 pm said:

    Andy

    Just putting you out of your misery. You said he wasn’t involved. I know you like to get things straight.

    But here is something else to remind you who you’re sleeping with:
    https://theconversation.com/an-insiders-story-of-the-global-attack-on-climate-science-21972

    In your attempt to change the science not the property you own on the coast near Christchurch.

  67. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 7:27 pm said:

    Speaking of wasting money, one of the bits of evidence that we were supposed to be rebutting in the IHP hearings on Friday was withdrawn, ostensibly because the author was not contactable in the UK , but more importantly, the original evidence wasn’t asked for by the panel and therefore was a piece of ratepayer funded consultancy that wasn’t actually needed

    I can’t say who the organisation was, except it begins with N and has 4 letters

  68. Andy on 22/06/2016 at 7:34 pm said:

    “Just putting you out of your misery. You said he wasn’t involved. I know you like to get things straight.”

    OK, thanks for the clarification

    And on the ratepayer troughing bandwagon again, an acquaintance has received a $70,000 grant for a private conference she is organising, at $3500 a head for 3 days (with corporate sponsors)

    I think that is more than the original cost of the Tonkin and Taylor report that had earmarked 18,000 properties for severe building restrictions, but then some temporary street art cost more that T&T

    Then again,CERA spent $5 million jetting its employees around the world on taxpayer funded jollies.

    We can’t get the pot holes fixed though, because “the science” tells us that we are wasting our time.

    If you are one of the great unwashed, go to the back of the queue. The troughers have priority.
    Funny how they get so upset about this NIWA case.

  69. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 7:52 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”Richard C (NZ) Not sure what you think the paper [Augustine and Dutton (2013) \proves. Maybe you think it shows Earth is retaining less energy with increasing CO2.”

    Maybe you’re dead wrong Dennis, not from this paper. I’ve already shown upthread from the IPCC AR5 report that the theoretical CO2 forcing at TOA (2 W.m-2 approx now) is ineffective i.e. the earth is NOT retaining energy due to CO2 forcing (or net anthro forcing of 2.4+ W.m-2). The actual measured TOA imbalance is static around 0.6 W.m-2 (IPCC Chap 2, Stephens et al 2012, Loeb et al 2012) and is simply solar accumulation at the surface where the imbalance is also 0.6 W.m-2. What this paper demonstrates is that theoretical CO2 forcing, falsified at TOA, is negligible at surface compared to the real heating agent and total DLR change.

    Don’t confuse theory with fact Dennis. 0.6 (observed fact) does NOT equal 2.4 (theory)

    Quotes from the paper abstract prove that CO2 effects, real or not, are negligible anyway.

    1) ”A significant upward trend in downwelling shortwave (SW-down) of +6.6 Wm−2 per decade dominates the total surface net radiation signal.”

    This (SSR change) is far greater than Feldman et al’s “0.2 W m−2 per decade” CO2 flux change. SW-down is the surface heating agent, LW-down from CO2 isn’t (see surface energy budget). Even if it was it is negligible compared to SSR change.

    0.2 is only a factor of 0.03 of 6.6 Dennis,

    2) ”Increasing downwelling longwave (LW-down) of +1.5 Wm−2 per decade and decreasing upwelling LW (LW-up) of −0.9 Wm−2 per decade produce a +2.3 Wm−2 per decade increase in surface net-LW, which dwarfs the expected contribution to LW-down from the 30 ppm increase of CO2 during the analysis period.”

    “The expected contribution to LW-down from the 30 ppm increase of CO2 during the analysis period” works out to 0.4 W.m-2 using dF = 5.35 ln (C/Co).

    1996 362.59 Co
    2011 391.63 C
    Data source ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_annmean_mlo.txt

    0.4 is only a factor of 0.17 of 2.3 Dennis.

    CO2 is negligible – a non issue. SSR “dwarfs” CO2, and DLR “dwarfs” CO2. “Dwarfs being the word Augustine and Dutton use in the second quote.

  70. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 8:03 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”Here is Bryan Leyland’s part in effing around wasting our money and NIWA’s time:”

    The NSCSC has been vindicated by publication of their 7SS paper in the peer-reviewed literature (de Freitas, Dedekind and Brill 2014) i.e. the law was an ass and so was J Venning for failing in his judicial duty to determine the facts from the evidence. He dismissed out of hand the key statistical evidence, reviewed by 3 independant professional statisticians, but it’s now enshrined in the literature.

    NIWA can’t match that. They have no published paper detailing their methodology so that their series can be reproduced.

    Your attempt at viification fails dismally. As did Justice for the NZCSC.

  71. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 8:14 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”CO2 molecules gain energy from infrared and radiate in all directions, including to the surface. If you can’t accept that then you need very long sea cruise to clear your head.”

    Where have have I said I don’t accept that Dennis? You’re making stuff up now. Look upthread and you will see that I know that perfectly well. I’ve even calculated the CO2 flux change 1996 – 2011 (0.4 W.m-2) using th IPCC’s simplified forcing expression.

    You’re not following my arguments are you Dennis?

    Or if you are you certainly don’t comprehend what I’ve written. Go waaaay back upthread and start again.

  72. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 8:40 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”Next up I’ll see if I can find some time series graphs of DLR over this century. I’ve dug them out before but it’s a mission.”

    Okay, this paper will do:

    ‘Trend analysis of surface cloud-free downwelling long-wave radiation from four Swiss sites’
    S. Wacker, J. Gröbner, K. Hocke, N. Kämpfer, L. Vuilleumier (2011)
    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010JD015343/full

    Figure 3 shows the time series graphs and trends. Table 4 has the trends again:

    Station, DLR (W.m-2/decade) 1996 – 2008 (1.2 decades)
    LOM 4.1
    PAY 4.7
    DAV 4.6
    JFJ 0.4

    Theoretical CO2 forcing over the same period was 0.33 W.m-2 by the IPCC’s forcing expression which divided by 1.2 decades gives 0.275 W.m-2/decade (Wacker et al round this up to 0.3). Note that this per decade rate is respectively 0.075 and 0.01 greater than Feldman et al’s 0.2 W.m-2/decade.

    dF = 5.35 ln (C/Co).
    1996 362.59 Co
    2008 385.59 C
    Data source ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_annmean_mlo.txt

    The paper states:

    3.1.2. Parameterization of Cloud-Free DLR and Remaining Radiative Forcing Components

    [21] The 0.3 W m−2/decade DLR increase caused by increasing CO2 concentration indicates that the CO2 accounts for only a small fraction of the overall DLR increase. Thus, the major part of the DLR increase that cannot be explained by rising temperature and humidity must be due to other causes. A possible explanation might be a change in the temperature lapse rate which we assumed to be constant over the 12 years. However, the observed trend of the long-wave anomaly of 1.9 W m−2/decade at Davos would require a lapse rate change of 0.4 K/decade. This is larger than any observed trends in the lapse rate [Hegerl and Wallace, 2002]. Therefore, there must be an other cause for the unexplained portion of the DLR trends

    Problematic isn’t it Dennis? – “there must be an other cause for the unexplained portion of the DLR trends” than CO2.

  73. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 8:59 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”CO2 molecules gain energy from infrared and radiate in all directions, including to the surface.”

    Yes Dennis, this is the property of a passive heat transfer medium, a coolant by definition. CO2 is a coolant, refrigerant code R744. The troposphere radiates to space completing the surface-to-space heat transfer process. And don’t forget heat transfer by molecular collision. That’s greater than radiative transfer in the troposphere.

    And outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) has no relationship whatsoever to CO2:

    OLR 90N – 90S
    http://www.climate4you.com/images/OLR%20Global%20NOAA.gif

    OLR 90N – 90S vs UAH LT temperature
    http://www.climate4you.com/images/OLR%20Global%20NOAA%20and%20UAH%20MSU%20since%201979.gif

    OLR 20N – 20S (Tropics) vs UAH LT tropics temperature
    http://www.climate4you.com/images/OLR%20Equator%20NOAA%20and%20UAH%20MSU%20since%201979.gif

    Clearly, the Earth is NOT retaining more energy with increasing CO2. There’s no CO2-driven trend in the OLR data Dennis. There SHOULD be if AGW theory was valid.

  74. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 9:04 pm said:

    Re Wacker et al comment should be:

    “Note that this per decade rate [0.3] is respectively 0.075 and [0.1] greater than Feldman et al’s 0.2 W.m-2/decade.”

  75. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 9:06 pm said:

    Still not right, should be:

    “Note that this per decade rate [0.275, 0.3] is respectively 0.075 and [0.1] greater than Feldman et al’s 0.2 W.m-2/decade.”

  76. Richard C (NZ) on 22/06/2016 at 9:25 pm said:

    Re Augustine and Dutton paper comment, forgot to convert to a per decade basis for direct comparison. Should be:

    “The expected contribution to LW-down from the 30 ppm increase of CO2 during the analysis period” works out to 0.4 W.m-2 using dF = 5.35 ln (C/Co). [ 0.4 / 1.5 = 0.27 W.m-2/decade]

    1996 362.59 Co
    2011 391.63 C
    Data source ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_annmean_mlo.txt

    [0.27] is only a factor of [0.12] of 2.3 Dennis.

    Where 2.3 was the per decade increase in surface net-LW i.e. CO2 is a negligible component of DLR.

  77. Dennis Horne on 22/06/2016 at 11:24 pm said:

    Richard C (NZ)

    You’re right of course, I’m not following your argument.

    You agree molecules of CO2 absorb infrared and radiate it in all directions, towards both hotter and colder bodies.

    You state that CO2 is a coolant, repeatedly.

    So just to be clear. What are you saying it’s cooling, exactly?

  78. Richard C (NZ)- on 23/06/2016 at 12:14 am said:

    Dennis

    >”What are you saying [CO2 is] cooling, exactly?”

    In a refrigerator that uses CO2 as a refrigerant or any other refrigerant, the coolant takes up energy from inside the fridge case, the coolant is pumped around a circuit to where the coolant releases the energy outside the fridge case. The inside of the fridge is cooled by this process. No different for any refrigerant uses in the system.

    Similarly in the troposphere but without the pump. The coolant takes up radiative energy emitted by the surface and transfers it to space but not necessarily immediately or directly or by radiation. The coolant medium is passive. Yes there is emission in all directions including down but the heat flux once the molecules are thermalized by radiation (energy of thermalized CO2 is heat i.e. molecular movement, radiation by itself does not produce heat) is from surface to upper troposphere (or directly to space). But the molecules are already thermalized to ambient temperature level by the gravito-mass-pressure effect (and see discussion linked below), consequently the molecule re-emits the photon or transfers the energy by collision. Mostly by collision at low altitude (see below)

    Ultimately the troposphere radiates to space. CO2, being an efficient coolant, is cooling the surface and the troposphere, leaving the troposphere (at the increasing pressure levels) at the temperature determined by mass, gravity, pressure, molecular constituency, solar energy input, and whatever. These factors are how the US Airforce Labs modeled the entire atmospheric temperature profile from surface to TOA for the space race without recourse to the greenhouse effect, radiation, or CO2 (neglected – insignificant).

    In the thermosphere and ionosphere at TOA, CO2 and NO2 reject massive amounts of energy directed at the atmosphere by solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) back out to space. So CO2 is also a coolant of the upper atmosphere.

    The notion that more CO2 “traps” heat is barmy. We are talking about radiation traveling at the speed of light and collision or absorption to re-emission in either 1 nanosecond or 1 second in which the energy is transferred. There is no “trapping” except for an extremely short time span. Check out this Q&A:

    1. At low altitudes, the mean time between molecular collisions, through which an excited CO2 molecule can transfer its energy to another gas molecule (usually N2) is on the order of 1 nanosecond.

    2. The mean decay time for an excited CO2 molecule to emit an IR photon is on the order of 1 second (a billion times as long).

    http://www.sealevel.info/Happer_UNC_2014-09-08/Another_question.html

    At low altitudes collision is by far the prevalent mode of transfer.

  79. Dennis Horne on 23/06/2016 at 6:54 am said:

    Richard C (NZ)

    “The coolant takes up radiative energy emitted by the surface and transfers it to space but not necessarily immediately or directly or by radiation”

    Please explain how the coolant transfers the energy to space except by radiation. Are there pipes, as in your refrigerator? A relief valve perhaps, blowing hot gas into space?

    “At low altitudes collision is by far the prevalent mode of transfer.”

    So what. That’s what makes it a gas. A hot body is still radiating.

    Actually, no need to answer. It is quite obvious you have your own fysiks.

    I’m sure much smarter people than me have tried to explain the physics to you, so I won’t disturb you anymore. You must be disturbed enough already to know the world’s greatest scientists don’t agree with you.

  80. Andy on 23/06/2016 at 7:31 am said:

    Dennis Horne, I don’t particularly want to butt into this particular conversation about the physics of CO2, but since you seem so keen on the consensus, I was wondering if you could define what that consensus is.

    I did ask sometime ago. Strangely, I never get an answer. People keep telling me that “97% of scientists agree” about something, without saying what that something is.

    Furthermore, they never explain what the 3%’s views are. Most odd

  81. Richard C (NZ) on 23/06/2016 at 10:35 am said:

    Dennis

    >”Please explain how the coolant transfers the energy to space except by radiation. Are there pipes, as in your refrigerator? A relief valve perhaps, blowing hot gas into space?”

    Again, you are making stuff up that I’ve never said Dennis. Read my comment again,

    Within the troposphere energy transfer is by a number of processses: Hs (molecular collision, conduction), Hl (latent heat), convection and radiation. CO2 transfers energy by collision and radiation for which I’ve given the timeframe. CO2 is also a constituent of the total air mass so is also part of convective transfer by a moving air mass (not unlike a refrigerator Dennis).

    But of the transfer to space I said:

    “Ultimately the troposphere radiates to space”

    This is the only transfer mechanism possible. Radiating matter in the air mass, of which CO2 performs its part, transfers energy from troposphere to space. I don’t know where you get “pipes”, “relief valve”, “blowing hot gas” out of that Dennis, but the warmist mind never fails to surprise me.

    I suggest Dennis, that you take more time to read and comprehend what I’ve written before making up some nut-case alternative to what I’ve actually said and, consequently, making an fool of yourself.

  82. Richard C (NZ) on 23/06/2016 at 10:48 am said:

    Missing tag after “Ultimately the troposphere radiates to space”. The rest is not a quote.

  83. Richard Treadgold on 23/06/2016 at 11:00 am said:

    Dennis,

    This post makes specific rebuttal to criticisms made by Gareth Renowden of LdL’s NBR article. I can’t see where you’ve addressed any of these rebuttals (though it’s refreshing to see you address what RC has mentioned), instead making vague references to “a few contrarians,” complaining about “Very few with any expertise and most displaying abysmal ignorance,” giving inane advice such as “Don’t bellyache on a blog,” regurgitating the propaganda bullet points from the alarmists “Fortunately I can still see the wood for the trees…” (well done in absorbing those, by the way, with no critical thinking) and citing a paper that finds increasing radiation at the surface from airborne CO2 (however, its magnitude is tiny, and you don’t explain why, during the period of the observations, global mean surface temperature failed to rise in response to this forcing, which seems to show its irrelevance). At least, though, you addressed the science and briefly eschewed ad hominem attacks. I would enjoy seeing you turn your attention to the post itself and at best comment on its merits or, at least, refute its arguments.

  84. Richard C (NZ) on 23/06/2016 at 11:07 am said:

    Dennis

    [Me] “At low altitudes collision is by far the prevalent mode of transfer.”
    [You] So what. That’s what makes it a gas. A hot body is still radiating.

    The point is that at low altitudes collision, not radiation, is the prevalent mode of energy transfer by CO2. CO2, and the air mass in total, are radiating anyway simply because of mass, gravity, pressure, solar input, determines the temperature. This has nothing to do with absoption and re-emission of a photon emitted from the surface.

    Dr Happer puts it thus in the discussion I linked to (his caps):

    THE AMOUNT OF RADIATION EMITTED BY GREENHOUSE MOLECULES DEPENDS ALMOST ENTIRELY ON THEIR TEMPERATURE. THE PERTRUBATION BY RADIATION COMING FROM THE GROUND OR OUTER SPACE IS NEGLIGIBLE. CO2 LASER BUILDERS GO OUT OF THEIR WAY WITH CUNNING DISCHARE PHYSICS TO GET THE CO2 MOLECULES OUT OF THERMAL EQUILIBRIUM SO THEY CAN AMPLIFY RADIATION.

    A CO2 molecule in the troposphere already has temperature at the ambient level of the altitude BEFORE absorption of a photon emitted by the surface.

    All this discussion is of no consequence though if CO2 fails the IPCC’s primary climate change criteria (earth’s energy imbalance measured at the top of atmosphere) – and it has failed by a factor of 3. The actual static imbalance is only 1/3 of theoretical CO2 forcing which is increasing.

  85. Richard C (NZ) on 23/06/2016 at 11:13 am said:

    Missing tag again. This is becoming an annoying habit, for me and everyone else I suspect. The slimmed down browser I prefer (Opera) doesn’t allow editing. Fast, but missing features.

    I have another full version browser that does allow editing, I might have to go back to it it I keep forgetting tags.

    Aplogies.

  86. Dennis Horne on 23/06/2016 at 12:35 pm said:

    Richard C (NZ)

    Did you or did you not write at 12.14 am:

    “The coolant takes up radiative energy emitted by the surface and transfers it to space but not necessarily immediately or directly or by radiation.”

    If so, what does “transfers it to space but not necessarily … OR BY RADIATION” mean if it doesn’t mean not by radiation? And if not by radiation, how?

    I didn’t spot your answer to my earlier question clarifying CO2 being a coolant. So may I ask again, what exactly are you saying it cools? Please tell me in your own words and be specific. Make a list.

  87. Richard C (NZ) on 23/06/2016 at 3:36 pm said:

    Dennis

    You’re being extremely obtuse in your last comment. You clearly cannot comprehend simple English.

    I clearly stated that “ULTIMATELY” transfer to space is by radiation only. However, within the troposphere, radiation is NOT the only means of transfer. I stated this:

    “Within the troposphere energy transfer is by a number of processses: Hs (molecular collision, conduction), Hl (latent heat), convection and radiation. CO2 transfers energy by collision and radiation for which I’ve given the timeframe. CO2 is also a constituent of the total air mass so is also part of convective transfer by a moving air mass (not unlike a refrigerator Dennis).

    This perfectly matches my other statement you quoted:

    ““The coolant takes up radiative energy emitted by the surface and transfers it to space but not necessarily immediately or directly or by radiation.”

    Collision and convection are not radiation Dennis, but in combination with radiation this is intermediate transfer within the troposphere. Some radiation goes directly to space from within the troposphere of course but then “ULTIMATELY”, from the top of troposphere, ALL transfer to space is by radiation.

    >”I didn’t spot your answer to my earlier question clarifying CO2 being a coolant. So may I ask again, what exactly are you saying it cools? Please tell me in your own words and be specific. Make a list.”

    Sure, go here for my answer:

    https://www.climateconversation.org.nz/2016/06/de-lange-and-leyland-vindicated/comment-page-1/#comment-1490325

    The list:

    1) In a refrigerator that uses CO2 as a refrigerant (coolant), the coolant cools the inside of the refrigerator (duh).

    2) In the troposphere, the coolants (H20 predominantly, and CO2) and other processes (e.g. convection collision), cool the troposphere from surface to top of troposphere (i.e. the temperature becomes cooler along the temperature gradient as altitude increases) and ultimately the radiative emitters e.g. CO2, cool the entire troposphere by radiating to space from whatever applicable “effective emitting height/level” (EEH/EEL, all of trop 5100m at 255K, CO2 about 4000m at 400ppm). The top of troposphere is the nominal emission height because that is what satellites effectively “see” when measuring tropospheric OLR from TOA. See:

    ‘Why the effective radiating level (ERL) is always located at the center of mass of the atmosphere & not controlled by greenhouse gas concentrations’
    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.nz/2015/09/why-effective-radiating-level-erl-is.html

    3) In the upper atmosphere, the coolants (CO2, NO2), cool the thermosphere and ionosphere by radiation to space.

  88. Dennis Horne on 23/06/2016 at 4:05 pm said:

    Richard C (NZ)

    Okay, let’s not bother what the other Richard C (NZ) meant when he wrote: “The coolant takes up radiative energy emitted by the surface and transfers it to space but not necessarily immediately or directly or by radiation.” Perhaps when he wrote “not … by radiation” he really meant “by radiation”. Who knows. I don’t. You don’t.

    Okay. Just to be clear, Earth surface is not on the list of objects cooled by your refrigerant CO2. Is it. NO.

    Next. You agreed earlier CO2 molecules absorb energy and radiate energy in all directions – towards both hotter and cooler objects? YES/NO

  89. Richard C (NZ) on 23/06/2016 at 4:43 pm said:

    Dennis

    >”Okay, let’s not bother what the other Richard C (NZ) meant when he wrote: “The coolant takes up radiative energy emitted by the surface and transfers it to space but not necessarily immediately or directly or by radiation.” Perhaps when he wrote “not … by radiation” he really meant “by radiation”. Who knows. I don’t. You don’t.”

    You are a scoundrel Dennis. You have bastardized by comment by YOUR omission (“not … by radiation”). Your first quote is correct – stick with that, viz:

    ““The coolant takes up radiative energy emitted by the surface and transfers it to space but not necessarily immediately or directly or by radiation.”

    This is is in no way contradictory to my accompanying statement, it complements it as I’ve already explained, viz,

    “Within the troposphere energy transfer is by a number of processses: Hs (molecular collision, conduction), Hl (latent heat), convection and radiation. CO2 transfers energy by collision and radiation for which I’ve given the timeframe. CO2 is also a constituent of the total air mass so is also part of convective transfer by a moving air mass (not unlike a refrigerator Dennis).

    If you can’t understand this you are out of your depth here intellectually Dennis. I’m just going round and round now because you refuse to understand or are incapable of understanding. It’s pointless continuing this with you.

    Good bye Dennis.

  90. Dennis Horne on 23/06/2016 at 7:40 pm said:

    Richard C (NZ)

    “If you can’t understand this you are out of your depth here intellectually Dennis. I’m just going round and round now because you refuse to understand or are incapable of understanding. It’s pointless continuing this with you.”

    Of course, that must be it.

    It wouldn’t be you know greenhouse gas molecules radiate in all directions, to hotter and colder bodies, and that includes Earth’s surface, making it warmer than it would otherwise be if that infrared radiation passed straight out to space unhindered. Which it would do if there were no GHGs. Wouldn’t it. Then Earth’s surface temperature would be -18, not +15.

    And without a greenhouse atmosphere of 96% CO2, the temperature on Venus wouldn’t be 462C. Would it.

  91. Andy on 23/06/2016 at 8:35 pm said:

    The atmosphere of Venus seems fairly irrelevant

    We know that Earth has gone through, in geological timescales, massive changes in CO2 yet temperatures seem unconnected (on geological timescales)

  92. Simon on 23/06/2016 at 9:13 pm said:

    The world was a very different place (on geological timescales). However, the correlation has been pretty strong between temperature and CO2 for at least the past 800,000 years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#/media/File:%22EDC_TempCO2Dust%22.svg
    Don’t bother with the CO2 lags temperature argument, the reasons are well documented elsewhere.

  93. Andy on 23/06/2016 at 11:14 pm said:

    *The world was a very different place….*

    before the Cretins took control

    Yes I agree Simon

  94. Mack on 24/06/2016 at 1:52 am said:

    Dennis says, …”….if there were no GHGs,,,,,Then Earth’s surface temperature would be – 18, not + 15.”
    Riiiiight… ahahahahahaha what lunacy. Your crackpot “greenhouse” theory is saying that the OCEANS would be FROZEN SOLID if it were not kept WARM by “BACKRADIATION” belting down from the ATMOSPHERE. …..yeah ….right. The last time I looked at the oceans, they were not frozen solid, Dennis.
    Nah, it’s the sun stupid. It’s the sun what keeps us at the nice , and real temperatures we have. Radiation from the sun , stupid.

  95. Dennis Horne on 24/06/2016 at 8:14 am said:

    Mack

    Oceans not frozen? Indeed, the loss of Arctic sea ice has been quite remarkable.

    Greenland ice sheet too. What has changed to account for this?

    No, not the Sun, or Earth’s orbit.

    Guess what? The greenhouse effect! By increasing the level of CO2 40% from 280 to 400ppm we have increased it!

    You don’t need to believe that, Mack. You’re amongst friends here.

  96. Andy on 24/06/2016 at 8:45 am said:

    So Dennis, somewhere in your scriptures it explains why Greenland ice disappeared in the MWP and Arctic Ice was disappearing in the early 20th C

    I’m sure as an orthodox follower of the Warmist Creed you have the answers?

    Perhaps some Hadiths from the Prophet John Cook?

    Allahu Akbah.

    (blessed and merciful be John Cook)

  97. Dennis Horne on 24/06/2016 at 8:57 am said:

    The Greenland ice sheet did not disappear in the MWP. The ice is thousands of years old.

    The was no synchronous global warming either. Some areas did become warmer. Internal variability.

    Are you thinking the Arctic sea ice will come back? Those high temperatures in the Arctic AND warming everywhere … the hand of god

    Have you looked up “consilience”, yet, Andy? You know what it means when all those different lines of evidence show warming…

    Anyway. Mack was saying the oceans were not freezing. And I was agreeing. Wasn’t I.

  98. Richard Treadgold on 24/06/2016 at 8:59 am said:

    Dennis,

    Guess what? The greenhouse effect! By increasing the level of CO2 40% from 280 to 400ppm we have increased it!

    It’s usually inadvisable to view the chaos of climate through a single lens, and in the Arctic, it’s true that temperature is not much featured in NOAA’s explanations of low summer-end sea ice. It’s actually wind and ocean currents that move ice out of the Arctic into the North Atlantic, where it melts.

    In each of the last three years, the ice minimum has recovered by more than half a million square kilometres from the record low of 2012 http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.area.arctic.png The CO2 didn’t decline in the years of ice recovery, but continued to rise, which shows that the mere existence of more atmospheric CO2 is not melting the ice, there are other factors at play.

  99. Andy on 24/06/2016 at 9:18 am said:

    I’m still waiting for a description of the theory that Dennis subscribes to, that apparently we don’t. It’s hard to tell, since he hasn’t told us what the theory is

    Dennis seems to think Russell’s proof that 2+2=4 is relevant.

  100. Richard C (NZ) on 24/06/2016 at 9:26 am said:

    Mack

    >”“BACKRADIATION” [DLR] belting down from the ATMOSPHERE”

    Which is less than the outgoing upwards OLR. On global average the net OLR-DLR flux is -52.4 W,m-2 i.e. an OLR cooling flux. Poor Dennis can’t grasp that.

    Easy to show from the surface energy budget as cited by the IPCC in AR5 Chapter 2:

    Stephens et al (2012) Figure 1 Surface budget
    http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v5/n10/images/ngeo1580-f1.jpg

    +SWdown -SWup -SHup -LHup -LWnet(up) = Surface imbalance

    +188 -23 -24 -88 -52.4 = +0.6 W.m-2

    Obviously it is solar energy (SWdown) that is the source of surface heat accumulation (+0.6) predominantly in the oceanic heat sink.

    Sadly the IPCC can’t grasp this either. They went looking for LW anthropogenic “air-sea fluxes” to support their anthro ocean warming speculation in AR5 Cjhapter 8 – couldn’t find them in AR4 Chapter 3 among the real SW heating fluxes. If they had just looked at the budget their own report cites in Chapter 2 they would have realized how silly they were.

    Keep an eye on this blog, there will be an article soon dealing with the TOA energy budget but it will touch on the surface budget too.

  101. Richard C (NZ) on 24/06/2016 at 9:29 am said:

    Should be – “couldn’t find them in [AR5] Chapter 3”

  102. Dennis Horne on 24/06/2016 at 9:30 am said:

    Of course there are several factors at play. It’s a complex system. Very complex. It’s a puzzle.

    That’s why scientists look at all the different lines of evidence together. Fit the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. Some pieces must be frayed, but fitting them together still shows a picture. Global warming.

    Quoting numbers for supposed recovery – and recovering from what – in any one (short) period is much less important than looking at the overall situation. In this case, ice is being lost. Everywhere. Masses of it.

    Maybe a bit more precipitation in the very high and cold mountains of East Antarctica, but a net loss. Shown by a gain in sea ice in the area, as the whole system changes.

    Doesn’t alter the fact Earth is retaining more energy. Not the Sun. Not the orbit. Not the gods.

  103. Andy on 24/06/2016 at 9:31 am said:

    I am surmising that the theory that Dennis subscribes to is that CO2 is a major driver of climate

    I don’t subscribe to this theory because it doesn’t make itself apparent in the geological record. I’m prepared to accept that CO2 causes some warming, or not, but it is the “control knob” argument I have difficulty with

  104. Simon on 24/06/2016 at 9:35 am said:

    Still focussing on outliers and extremes. The overall trend in arctic sea ice continues downward

  105. Dennis Horne on 24/06/2016 at 9:37 am said:

    Andy. Who cares what you understand?

    The global community of scientists understand the science and the governments of the world understand the scientists.

    You and your “nice names” are totally irrelevant.

    (Time to make porridge. I’ll see if I can get the radiant element to heat the pot.)

  106. Andy on 24/06/2016 at 9:46 am said:

    “Who cares what you understand?”

    Nobody I imagine

    And I don’t care what you understand either.
    Your worthless, shallow pointless existence is of no interest to me.

    Have a nice day

  107. Dennis Horne on 24/06/2016 at 9:50 am said:

    Andy. Let it all hang out, buddy. I know you own coastal property and the sea is rising and you’re trying desperately to find some quacks to tell CCC it isn’t so its value doesn’t go down before you can sell it to some sucker.

  108. Andy on 24/06/2016 at 9:50 am said:

    “The global community of scientists understand the science and the governments of the world understand the scientists.”

    It’s like reading the outpourings of a robot.

    A propaganda machine in human form.

  109. Dennis Horne on 24/06/2016 at 9:57 am said:

    Andy. I’ll apologise for impugning your integrity. Good luck and goodbye.

  110. Andy on 24/06/2016 at 9:58 am said:

    “Andy. Let it all hang out, buddy. I know you own coastal property and the sea is rising and you’re trying desperately to find some quacks to tell CCC it isn’t so its value doesn’t go down before you can sell it to some sucker”

    Actually the Independent Hearings Panel meeting today was cancelled due to a burst water main, oh the irony

    I do enjoy it when guys like Dennis imply that my motivations for the coastal hazards thing is purely selfish. Actually there are lots of good people putting time into this pro bono that have no skin in the game.

    Some people just want a fair outcome based on a reasonable assessment of the science

    hard to believe, I know, when the voices in your head are telling you it is all a conspiracy

  111. Andy on 24/06/2016 at 10:00 am said:

    “Andy. I’ll apologise for impugning your integrity.”

    OK, apology accepted

  112. Richard C (NZ) on 24/06/2016 at 10:20 am said:

    ‘CO2 hits record high: Antarctic temperatures do nothing’

    The terrifying effect of CO2

    Feel the panic.

    South Pole CO2 levels cross 400 ppm first time in 4 million years!

    WASHINGTON: The Earth passed another unfortunate milestone when carbon dioxide levels surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) at the South Pole for the first time in 4 million years, according to US scientists.The South Pole has shown the same, relentless upward trend in carbon dioxide (CO2) as the rest of world, but its remote location means it is the last to register the impacts of increasing emissions from fossil fuel consumption, the primary driver of greenhouse gas pollution, researchers said.

    In response, the South pole temperatures “pause”

    >>>>
    http://joannenova.com.au/2016/06/co2-hits-record-high-antarctic-temperatures-do-nothing/

    # # #

    In the “warmest ever”February temperature spike, which was NH-only, latitudinal breakdown of GISTEMP showed that latitudes south of 55S were at or below the 1951 – 1980 climatology i.e. no warming whatsoever.

    That’s this graph:

    GISTEMP LOTI February 2016 mean anomaly by latitude
    http://l2.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/ABpZjd4AnHFp.4g2goHRfg–/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3NfbGVnbztxPTg1/http://media.zenfs.com/en-US/homerun/mashable_science_572/bb88a1a459ed8b467290bac3540e39dd

    So much for the “unfortunate” CO2 “milestone”.

  113. Richard Treadgold on 24/06/2016 at 10:23 am said:

    Simon,
    The overall trend in arctic sea ice continues downward
    Thanks, but why?

    Average Arctic winter temperature is -34°C and average temperature from 70-90 N has risen maybe 1°C since the 1950s (http://www.climate4you.com/images/70-90N%20MonthlyAnomaly%20Since1957.gif). Hard to imagine that tiny rise of up to one Celsius degree might melt 14% of the Arctic ice during the short summer.

    Average Arctic temperatures: winter -34°C, summer 3-12° C.

    The Tamino ice graph showing year-on-year decline is misleading. For about the last ten years there’s been high variability but the trend has been small and mostly level. Compare NSIDC raw data http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png.

  114. Richard Treadgold on 24/06/2016 at 10:36 am said:

    Dennis, you’re being ridiculous. First you give this simplistic answer, claiming our contribution to increased CO2 is alone responsible for the liquid condition of the ocean:

    Guess what? The greenhouse effect! By increasing the level of CO2 40% from 280 to 400ppm we have increased it!

    I disagree, so then you agree with me:

    Of course there are several factors at play.

    You could have been mocking yourself, with a twisted sense of humour, but it’s hard not to think that with your manifest illogic you’re mocking the rest of us. Why should we bother with you when you don’t take yourself seriously? So you return to an established position, regardless of the evidence:

    Doesn’t alter the fact Earth is retaining more energy.

    No it isn’t. Richard C has been trying to explain to you that the IPCC has published observational data that shows the reverse — it is actually shedding energy to space.

  115. Richard C (NZ) on 24/06/2016 at 10:56 am said:

    RT >”Richard C has been trying to explain to you [Dennis] that the IPCC has published observational data that shows the reverse — it is actually shedding energy to space.”

    There is a static +0.6 W.m-2 accumulation of solar energy in the oceanic heat sink but yes, TOA OLR graphs upthread (or was that last post?) show that there’s no downward trend as a result of increasing GHGs i.e. energy is dissipating to space quite normally.

    Surface and tropospheric temperature is supported by ocean heat and ocean heat is supported by solar heat – period.

  116. Richard C (NZ) on 24/06/2016 at 11:04 am said:

    Arctic temperature just tracks the AMO + PDO:

    ‘Arctic Temperatures and Ice – Why it is Natural Variability’

    By Joe D’Aleo, CCM / November 1, 2010

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/01/arctic-temperatures-and-ice-–-why-it-is-natural-variability/

  117. Richard C (NZ) on 24/06/2016 at 11:16 am said:

    RT, I’m putting the finishing touches to my CCG submission: IPCC Ignores IPCC Climate Change Criteria.

    Expect it in your Inbox later this weekend. I want to take some time getting it right so I wont be rushing it out to you.

    A bit lengthy for one post (maybe) but it divides neatly into 2 parts, scientific reporting and author conduct. I’ll leave you to publish it as you wish.

    Should satisfy Mike Jowsey’s requirement for a thesis or such like. I’ve left out acronyms in my narrative but there’s still acronyms in quoted IPCC text (and IPCC being an acronym of course). I don’t think that will be an issue because the IPCC has a full glossary to refer to.

  118. Dennis Horne on 24/06/2016 at 11:19 am said:

    Eh? Greenhouse effect causes Earth to retain energy. More greenhouse gas — CO2 — means greater greenhouse effect. More energy retained. Global warming.

    Of course Earth is shedding energy to space. Otherwise it would be keep heating. Wouldn’t it. Because it keeps receiving energy. From the Sun. Doesn’t it.

    It’s really not difficult.

    Why not go on a nice sea cruise, get some fresh air and clear your head.

  119. Andy on 24/06/2016 at 11:35 am said:

    Is that it? Is the consensus that the Greenhouse effect exists?

    What do the other 3% think?

  120. Dennis Horne on 24/06/2016 at 11:45 am said:

    “What do the other 3% think?”

    Don’t know. Maybe the sun shines out their rrrrs.

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