Thanks for the link, unfortunately it requires a subscription.

In summary: AGW is the primary cause. It's really a bit of a mess:In summary, the article discusses the lack of evidence for global warming man-made or otherwise and how the cooling effect of La Nina may be contributing to this.
  • #1
wolram
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  • #2
It'd probably be better if they actually linked these so called several peer reviewed papers. I could claim I was the second coming according to 11 peer reviewed papers too. :tongue:
 
  • #3
The main problem with the AGW hypothesis is there isn't any global warming man-made or otherwise,

Global warming 'dips this year'

By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.

The World Meteorological Organization's secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.

This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm

No matter how much the AGW alarmists try to obfuscate it, the fact remains despite mankind pumping out ever more CO2 for the past decade there has been no increase in global temperatures during this period. I wonder how long it will be before they do a 'U' turn and revert back to the AGC fear mongering of the 70's? :rolleyes:

In anticipation of a continuing lack of corroberating evidence the alarmists do seem to be covering both warming and cooling these days with all references now being to man-made climate change.
 
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  • #4
From Lubos' blog:
Bonus: 2007 was the coldest year of the 21st century so far

But according to NASA:
2007 Was Tied as Earth's Second-Warmest Year

Jan. 16, 2008

Climatologists at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City have found that 2007 tied with 1998 for Earth's second warmest year in a century.

NASA says 2007 was warmer than every year of the 21st century other than 2005. So clearly there's data that disagrees fundamentally with that quoted in the blog post. Note: NASA points out a data processing error of the order of 0.003K which was later found and fixed.

Going back to Lubos' blog, and clicking on the link, you find an entry which has a link to a erratum that says:
January 16, 2008

We discovered an error in our processing of AMSU data from NOAA-15 for TLT. A new version,version 3.1 is now available and should be used for all applications. This new versionis in much better agreement with other sources of tropospheric temperature. We apologize for any inconvenience.

What was the error?

Last January, I made a small change in the way TLT is calculated that reduced the absolute Temperatures by 0.1K. But I only used the new method for 2007 (the error).

If you add 0.1K to the 2007 data, then the supposed cooling trend, morphs into a warming trend of about +0.5K/cent. Now the blog does quote another group which I think still measures a cooling trend over the last decade. Need to look more carefully to determine which data exactly is being used where.

It's possible that one or more or all of these measurements (including NASA's) are fundamentally flawed, but I don't see a clear case made for a cooling trend in the blog, if you correct for the error in the analysis.

The peer-reviewed article being talked about is apparently in a Ukrainian journal, and we'll need to wait until a pre-print or translation is available somewhere. It doesn't say if the article is on ArXiv.
 
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  • #5
Art said:
The main problem with the AGW hypothesis is there isn't any global warming man-made or otherwise,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7329799.stm
Did you post that link to support your assertion of to refute it? Heck, even the skeptics that write the blog linked above agree on the warming trend of about +0.5K/cent for the 20th century.
 
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  • #6
It's really a bit of a mess:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080124121218.htm
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=895&tstamp=200801

The agency also determined the global surface temperature last year was the fifth warmest on record.

The UK Hadley centre talked tentative about rank 7 last year, before the rather cold december was logged.

Considering the satellite data, it's http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2 [Broken].

Averaging the years with the monthly data the ranking becomes as of 1979:

1; 1998 with +0.51 degrees
2; 2005 with +0.34 degrees
3; 2002 with +0.31 degrees
4; 2007 with +0.28 degrees
5; 2003 with +0.28 degrees

The first two months of 2008 would rank 20 of 29

See the uploaded graph showing the monthly data and a 12 month running average.
 

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  • #7
Gokul43201 said:
Did you post that link to support your assertion of to refute it? Heck, even the skeptics that write the blog linked above agree on the warming trend of about +0.5K/cent for the 20th century.
:confused: I never argued average global temperatures don't change. In fact the opposite. There is ample undisputed evidence that global temperatures are in a constant state of change going back to year dot and the recent warming trend which peaked 10 years ago which followed a prior cooling trend are all part of the same natural variation.

However man-made emissions of CO2 don't appear to have much if anything to do with it else why has there been no increase in global temperatures for the past 10 years? For AGW to be true then isn't a rise in temperatures a fundamental requirement? :rolleyes:
 
  • #8
According to NOAA

NOAA: Coolest Winter Since 2001 for U.S., Globe
March 13, 2008

The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during climatological winter (December 2007-February 2008) was the coolest since 2001, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. In terms of winter precipitation, Pacific storms, bringing heavy precipitation to large parts of the West, produced high snowpack that will provide welcome runoff this spring.

It was the 54th coolest winter since national records began in 1895.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080313_coolest.html
 
  • #9
The BBC link I quoted also cites AGW experts as saying in a roundabout way they don't expect any warming for possibly a further 5 years which means we will have had a 15 year continuous period of no warming. It seems in the absence of global warming the argument whether man-made emissions are contributing to global warming becomes a somewhat mute point.

If AGW proponents were as worried as they claim to be about the dire consequences they prophecy will result from global warming you would think they would be delighted by this and yet for some strange reason they're not. I wonder why that is??
 
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  • #10
Have you guys seen the article in the March Physics Today, making a case for solar cycle-earth temperature correlation?

It also makes a tongue-in-cheek reference to there being a "scientific consensus" regarding global warming.
 
  • #11
Yeah but Evo as I said on the other thread this year is expected to be cool because of La Ninja, I don't think one year means anything, not when the predominant weather cycle means global cooling.

I would actually be bizarre if North America wasn't very cool or the rest of the world cooler overall. This winter here has been pretty mild, one of the mildest on record, and that's because La ninja was predicted to cause a warm winter for us.
 
  • #12
Schrodinger's Dog said:
It'd probably be better if they actually linked these so called several peer reviewed papers. I could claim I was the second coming according to 11 peer reviewed papers too. :tongue:
There are links provided all through the piece, such as this one http://www.springerlink.com/content/g28u12g2617j5021/fulltext.pdf
 
  • #13
I already know there should be a drop in the next 20 years, this means nothing, global warming experts think there should be a drop during the quiet period of the sun cycle. I read about that about two years ago. I think there's too much conflicting guff around atm.

Scientists aren't looking at things they can account for but discrepancies that can't be accounted by other things. I think that's what confuses people.
 
  • #14
Schrodinger's Dog said:
Yeah but Evo as I said on the other thread this year is expected to be cool because of La Ninja, I don't think one year means anything, not when the predominant weather cycle means global cooling.

I would actually be bizarre if North America wasn't very cool.
What about 2001?

What about the cooling oceans that they just discovered that was a complete surprise? They said the oceans were getting warmer, but after actually testing, found they're getting colder.
 
  • #15
Evo said:
What about 2001?

What about the cooling oceans that they just discovered that was a complete surprise? They said the oceans were getting warmer, but after actually testing, found they're getting colder.

What about 2001? And was that this year, because if so La Ninja is a cold water current, that's what causes cooler atmospheric temperatures. Good for algal blooms and whales, bad for people.
 
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  • #16
Evo said:
There are links provided all through the piece, such as this one http://www.springerlink.com/content/g28u12g2617j5021/fulltext.pdf

I think that's the only one I saw in there...everything else seems to be dubious sites and more blog entries. One article does not a convincing argument make, especially when it contains gems like this:
Thereby, to answer this
question, it is primary to ravel whether the climatic
period (quasi-period) variation on different
timescales or the natural variation trend is affected
by the variety of CO2 concentration in
the atmosphere, or which climatic quasi period
is most affected by the increase of CO2 concentration
in the atmosphere.
I have to wonder just how much peer review it really got for sentences like that to appear in the final version.
 
  • #17
So why is this in GD and not in Earth Science forum?

Zz.
 
  • #18
Schrodinger's Dog said:
Yeah but Evo as I said on the other thread this year is expected to be cool because of La Ninja, I don't think one year means anything, not when the predominant weather cycle means global cooling.

I would actually be bizarre if North America wasn't very cool or the rest of the world cooler overall. This winter here has been pretty mild, one of the mildest on record, and that's because La ninja was predicted to cause a warm winter for us.

http://ten.web.infoseek.co.jp/japan/guide/n2.jpg"

Or "http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/lanina.html""?
 
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  • #19
Chi Meson said:

I'm to lazy to find the ~ thing, so I use the j to indicate a y. I know how to spell it. Fear not.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=1659135&postcount=15

Besides I like the idea of her being a ninja, she's stealthy and not a lot of people know about her, nor notice her. :smile:

ZapperZ said:
So why is this in GD and not in Earth Science forum?

Zz.

Indeed, well you have the power. :smile:
 
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  • #20
Schrodinger's Dog said:

La Niña (I found the ~thingy) is not about Antarctic sources, it's about upwelling colder water at the Columbian coast in the Pacific.

http://www.osdpd.noaa.gov/PSB/EPS/SST/anom_anim.html [Broken]

Comparing the numbers with earlier events, it's not that big either,.. yet.

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_ monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears. shtml [Broken]
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/mei.html
 
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  • #22
wolram said:

That source sure seems skeptical of the paper. So, this is really all about that single paper?

Looking at their figure showing the multiple models, there still seems to be an overall upward trend in temperature. One could have a 20 year periodicity of warming and cooling yet still have an overall shifting of the average upward if the nadirs never reach the same levels and the rate of cooling on the downswings is slower than the rate of warming on the upswings. So, maybe there is something to what they're predicting that is separate from the overall global warming trend. But, it sure is hard to comprehend what they'd trying to say given their poor writing.
 
  • #23
Moonbear said:
But, it sure is hard to comprehend what they'd trying to say given their poor writing.
The paper was translated.

The article was produced by Lin Zhen-Shan and Sun Xian of the Nanjing Normal University in China (obviously, English is not their first language, if you couldn’t tell from the title, and some of the following quotes from their article are a bit awkward).
 
  • #24
Evo said:
The paper was translated.

No, the journal is an English-language journal. There is usually an expectation that those who do not write English well get assistance from someone in the field who can to ensure it is clearly written.

Anyway, I have finally been convinced it's a peer-reviewed journal article that's being discussed (the rest of what's in the blog is NOT), so took some time to read and re-read to see if I could understand what they're trying to say.

The best I can understand it, since this isn't my field, is that they are taking global climate data and northern hemisphere climate data and looking for patterns within the larger pattern. So, there is the overall trend of warming in the past 120 years that they present, but within that 120 years, they're finding other smaller patterns of oscillations on a 60 year, 20 year, and 6-8 year time scale. They compare these smaller patterns within the larger pattern to CO2 patterns. While the overall trend over the entire 120 years corresponds, these smaller oscillations seem independent of the CO2 patterns, indicating additional factors contributing to climate change on shorter time scales (not too much of a surprise that there would be more than one contributing factor). They only briefly speculate what some factors might be, but that wasn't the focus of the study, so have no answers on that. What they basically seem to have done is just identify the time scale of these smaller "intrinsic" oscillations so that future studies can look for potential contributing factors based on oscillations on a similar time scale. In each of their figures, the top panel is the raw data I think (this is poorly explained), and then each panel below it shows the patterns of oscillations on the various time scales that are extracted from the larger pattern of the raw data.
 
  • #25
I can post more, but here is the gist of what they are saying.

Here we stress two points: (1) the variance
explained of the trend of global temperature is
only 40.19%, while that of the trend of CO2 concentration
in the atmosphere tops to 99.52%; (2)
Accordingly, the contribution of CO2 concentration
to global temperature variation is no more
than 40.19%, or in other words, 59.81% of the
weight of global temperature variation is caused
by non-greenhouse effect.

Despite the increasing trend of atmospheric
CO2 concentration, the components IMF2, IMF3
and IMF4 of global temperature changes are all
in falling. Thus, if CO2 concentration remains
constant at present, the effect of greenhouse
warming is deficient in counterchecking the natural
cooling of global climate change in the coming
20 years. Consequently, we believe global
climate changes will be in a trend of falling in
the following 20 years.

My take away from the article is that they have discovered that cooling trends in China preceed cooling in the Northern Hemisphere and globally. That the cooling cycle in China has already started. That their study shows that CO2 levels aren't significant enough to counter the cooling period we are entering. If they are correct, that is great news. But only time will tell. I do believe that this study has not been taken into consideration by AGW proponents in their predictions.
 
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  • #26
It seems part of the problem is due to the fact that most meterologists aren't very good at metrology.
However, there is now an on-going process where metrologists (of various specialities) are starting to work with meterologists (and other branches of science relevant to GW) on everything from data analysis to instrument calibration (there was a actually a workshop on this a few weeks ago where I work).
Hopefully this will mean that measurements errors are less likely to occur in the future and also that- at least some - procedures are standardized making it easier to compare data from various sources.
 
  • #27
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200804051322.htm

The OP's article article to me is a classic example of people who don't have any idea what they are talking about create a model that seemingly contradicts global warming, but which has been incorporated into models years before by people working in the area. I think the problem is the media latches onto anything that supports its case without necessarily worrying about context. It's cherry picking and it goes on on both sides of the debate, lest we forget the dreadful an inconvenient truth. All this shows is that laymen and even scientists aren't immune from losing objectivity either. No one knows if AGW is real or not for sure, the only people who do it seems are non scientists.
 
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  • #28
Schrodinger's Dog said:
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200804051322.htm[/URL][/quote]

Is that statement as peer reviewed as http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2006/2006GL027142.shtml?

[quote]...The sun might have contributed approximately 50% of the observed global warming since 1900...[/quote]

or [url=http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/ngeo156.html]this one?[/url] (link doesn't work for me at this moment but the ref:

[quote]Nature Geoscience Published online: 23 March 2008 | doi:10.1038/ngeo156

Global and regional climate changes due to black carbon
V. Ramanathan & G. Carmichael

Abstract

Black carbon in soot is the dominant absorber of visible solar radiation in the atmosphere. Anthropogenic sources of black carbon, although distributed globally, are most concentrated in the tropics where solar irradiance is highest. Black carbon is often transported over long distances, mixing with other aerosols along the way. ...

... In the Himalayan region, solar heating from black carbon at high elevations may be just as important as carbon dioxide in the melting of snowpacks and glaciers. The interception of solar radiation by atmospheric brown clouds leads to dimming at the Earth's surface with important implications for the hydrological cycle, and the deposition of black carbon darkens snow and ice surfaces, which can contribute to melting, in particular of Arctic sea ice.[/quote]

(It's also covered here:
[PLAIN]http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/umwelt_naturschutz/bericht-106086.html[/URL])

or [url=http://www.uah.edu/News/pdf/climatemodel.pdf]this one?[/url]

[quote]David H. Douglass, John R. Christy, Benjamin D. Pearson, and S. Fred Singer, 2007; A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model predictions, International Journal Of Climatology 27: (2007) ([url]www.interscience.wiley.com[/url]) DOI: 10.1002/joc.1651

...We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 ‘Climate of the 20th Century’ model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era). Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modeled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modeled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data. [/quote]

From the summary/conclusion:

[quote]On the whole, the evidence indicates that model trends in the troposphere are very likely inconsistent with observations, which indicates that, since 1979, there is no significant long-term amplification factor relative to the surface. If these results continue to be supported, then future projections of temperature change, as depicted in the present suite of climate models, are likely too high... [/quote]

[quote="Schrodinger's Dog, post: 1676055"]No one knows if AGW is real or not for sure, the only people who do it seems are non scientists.[/QUOTE]

Perhaps it's slightly more subtle. I don't believe that there is anybody seriously doubting greenhouse effect, it's only about the extent.

For instance on a recent http://www.heartland.org/NewYork08/program.cfm, [PLAIN]http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/commentaries_essays/manhattan_declaration.html[/URL] was issued

[quote]“Global warming” is not a global crisis
We, the scientists and researchers in climate and related fields, economists, policymakers, and business leaders, assembled at Times Square, New York City, participating in the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change,

Resolving that scientific questions should be evaluated solely by the scientific method;

Affirming that global climate has always changed and always will, independent of the actions of humans, and that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life;

(...)

Noting that warmer weather is generally less harmful to life on Earth than colder:

Hereby declare:

That current plans to restrict anthropogenic CO2 emissions are a dangerous misallocation of intellectual capital and resources that should be dedicated to solving humanity’s real and serious problems.

That there is no convincing evidence that CO2 emissions from modern industrial activity has in the past, is now, or will in the future cause catastrophic climate change.

(...)
That human-caused climate change is not a global crisis.

...cont'd
[/quote]
 
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  • #29
To be frank I don't see what any of that has to do with the blog in the OP. But again I'm not claiming AGW is real or unreal, I don't have the scientific knowledge to be that arrogant, and I wouldn't even if I did. I'm certainly not claiming that there aren't peer reviewed papers on either side of the debate. Just that that blog is severely lacking in rigour.

As I've said before I work along the lines of: until it is shown definitively to be real or unreal, I will carry on as if it is real, because it is a pragmatic strategy.
 
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  • #30
Schrodinger's Dog said:
To be frank I don't see what any of that has to do with the blog in the OP. But again I'm not claiming AGW is real or unreal, I don't have the scientific knowledge to be that arrogant, and I wouldn't even if I did. I'm certainly not claiming that there aren't peer reviewed papers on either side of the debate. Just that that blog is severely lacking in rigour.

As I've said before I work along the lines of: until it is shown definitively to be real or unreal, I will carry on as if it is real, because it is a pragmatic strategy.

Would you spend billions arming Earth against a possible invasion of little green men on this evidence?
 
  • #31
wolram said:
Would you spend billions arming Earth against a possible invasion of little green men on this evidence?

No, but can't we look upon this in the following way:
a serious effort to reduce CO2 emissions in the coming decades would help us find out whether or not the CO2 level in the atmosphere is human-generated and what climate impact it finally has.

In other words, the effort to reduce (after a serious rise) the CO2 emissions would be part of an experimental protocol, to see if the eventual correlation between human emissions and an eventual temperature change is actually a causal link.

In other words, the billions spend, are billions spend on an experiment. Any money spend on experiments is well-spend, I'd say, as a (lunatic) scientist :smile:
 
  • #32
vanesch said:
No, but can't we look upon this in the following way:
a serious effort to reduce CO2 emissions in the coming decades would help us find out whether or not the CO2 level in the atmosphere is human-generated and what climate impact it finally has.

In other words, the effort to reduce (after a serious rise) the CO2 emissions would be part of an experimental protocol, to see if the eventual correlation between human emissions and an eventual temperature change is actually a causal link.

In other words, the billions spend, are billions spend on an experiment. Any money spend on experiments is well-spend, I'd say, as a (lunatic) scientist :smile:

I would buy into the experiment idea if it could up with some facts that could be printed on the back of a postage stamp.
 
  • #33
wolram said:
I would buy into the experiment idea if it could up with some facts that could be printed on the back of a postage stamp.

The actual experiment in the long term actually saves everyone money. That should in theory please big businesses, but unfortunately governments aren't in office for more than 8 years. :smile:

I got to say I don't think your little green men analogy is valid, there is a wide body of scientific research on global warming. There isn't on being invaded by aliens. Thus I think it's a faulty preposition.
 
  • #34
No research on being invaded by little green aliens what are doing, hells teeth i will be up all night worrying.
 
  • #35
Evo said:
My take away from the article is that they have discovered that cooling trends in China preceed cooling in the Northern Hemisphere and globally. That the cooling cycle in China has already started. That their study shows that CO2 levels aren't significant enough to counter the cooling period we are entering. If they are correct, that is great news. But only time will tell. I do believe that this study has not been taken into consideration by AGW proponents in their predictions.

That's not my take on it at all, at least in terms of it being any sort of "great news." In other words, they ARE saying we are entering a cooling period, but they aren't claiming it's going to be the same magnitude as the preceding warming period.

In a way, you can think of it like watching stocks on different time scales. If you watch intra-day prices, you'll see little fluctuations all day long, if you watch daily fluctuations, you'll again see ups and downs, but if you look at the stock over a year, you'll see the bigger picture that it's steadily climbing...the downs don't come back low enough to hold it steady, just to dip a little before resuming the climb.
 

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