More on ‘Vilifying Rose’
David Rose has been talking to David Whitehouse of the GWPF about the reaction to his Mail on Sunday article in which he criticised the global warming hype which we saw at the peak of El Nino warming earlier this year. He seems genuinely astounded by the reaction and one can hardly blame him. We are used to members of the global warming establishment slapping down as ‘unscientific’ any criticism in the popular press of accepted climate change wisdom, but this went a stage further. Not only was the ‘rebuttal’ of Rose’s article impolite and unprofessional, it went so far wide of the mark as to accuse him of stating things he did not say.
The vexed question of how much (or how little) El Nino has contributed to the significant warming which we saw in 2015/16 rumbles on across social media and blogs. Tamino in particular gets seriously stupid about this:
David Rose insists that he doesn’t deny the trend. But he keeps on saying stuff like this:
“Our story showed that these record high temperatures were triggered by naturally occurring but freak conditions caused by El Nino — and not, as had been previously suggested, by the cumulative effects of man-made global warming.”
The record high was due to man-made global warming: it made the latest el Niño peak hotter than it ever got before. But David Rose just denied that the record high was due to man-made global warming. That’s why I call him a denier.
Which brings me to something which I think needs pointing out, and which has not been made very clear, especially by scientists. To state the bleedin’ obvious, in comparison to the aggregate rise in global mean surface temperatures which we have seen since 1850, the contribution from the latest El Nino is modest. Hence Peter Stott tells Carbon Brief:
An estimate of less than 0.1C due to El Niño on 2015 global mean annual mean temperatures is less than 10% of the approximately 1C warming of 2015 relative to pre-industrial levels.
In other words, El Niño contributed “a small amount on top” of the warming greenhouse gases are already causing, says Stott.
Thus we see the origin of the ‘small amount on top’ quote. But when reported in much of the media, this vital context was either left out or blurred, giving the impression that the contribution from ENSO to the short term warming we saw in 2015 (which arguably was singly responsible for pushing that year into significant record territory) was just a small amount on top of the contribution from AGW. The real and significant contribution from El Nino was subtly downplayed as just the icing on the cake. Also, not even the IPCC attributes all post industrial warming to emissions, just most of that from 1950 on. But even accepting this distinction, scientists still maintain that the actual contribution to the record warmth in 2015 was of the order of 0.07C (Gavin’s estimate) to 0.09C. As the 2015 annual mean global temperature was almost 0.2C warmer than the previous ‘warmest year’ (2014), this leaves scientists having to explain how man-made global warming contributed 0.13C to 0.11C to the sudden spike in annual mean global temperatures after 2014; because that is basically what they are implying using the estimates quoted above.
Scientists estimate that the contribution to the annual mean global temperature in 2016 due to El Nino will be 0.2C (roughly the same as it was in 1998). So depending on what the global mean for 2016 comes out at, we may or may not be looking at a similar implied contribution from AGW in 2016.
I’ve tried on Twitter to get answers to this vexed question of how, seemingly, we saw a huge acceleration in the underlying global warming trend in 2015 (and 2016 too probably) over the trend from about 2001 to 2014. It’s clearly nonsense and I did at least get Ken Rice to concede that fact, but no scientist as far as I am aware has explained how the low estimate of El Nino’s contribution to record warmth in 2015 can be reconciled with the huge amount of global warming we saw that year. I get the impression that scientists would rather the question was not asked and that we all just carried on assuming that ‘global warming’ played a ‘big part’ (or will eventually be seen to have played a big part – via the magic of statistical long term trends) in the record warmth of 2015/16, whilst ENSO was just a bit player.
In this respect, if annual mean global temperatures in the next decade or so average out 0.2C or more above 2014, then we can definitely say that global temperatures have ‘stepped up’ and the long term warming trend may be reasserting itself in the data. But AGW science is in more difficulties if that doesn’t happen. As things stand, global temperatures have dropped sharply and 2017 looks like it may be a cool year. How cool is anybody’s guess. All we have at the moment are two very warm years standing head and shoulders above a decade plus series of other less warm years which marked a Pause or slowdown in global warming, and those two very warm years have just happened to coincide with the longest and probably most intense El Nino since NOAA started recording in 1950.
Climate Scepticism 
Like cornered animals, warmist will only get more desperate. They’ll try to take possession of the lukewarmer position.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Where is any evidence for ‘the approximately 1C warming of 2015 relative to pre-industrial levels’, except in the conspicuous downward adjustment of those same ‘pre-industrial levels’? What evidence exists for any physical\scientific meaning for some global surface temperature? Can someone\anyone please state that ‘meaning’, when the daily variance of temperature at some locations remains over 40C?
LikeLike
I started 2016 saying “This year global cooling” – I though it was almost a joke because it was so obvious that the El Nino would go and likely a La Nina replace it. So there was no real chance of being wrong.
Which makes all the claims that the warming was not due to El Nino look completely ridiculous. In fact, when I first saw the headlines – I just assumed they were joking in some way and didn’t even bother to read the articles.
LikeLike
Just been to look at the Tamino blog – and I found myself thinking: I really shouldn’t disturb the poor people – they’ve got nowhere else to sit and grumble about Trump, the lack of warming – they need their “safe space” The poor darlings! LOL
LikeLike
“….very powerful political forces”- Lew goes full conspirator.
“I’m here because science is under attack by very powerful political forces who are putting their own commercial interests ahead of the welfare of humanity,” said cognitive scientist Stephan Lewandowsky of the University of Bristol.
Lewandowsky has studied how false information, such as that about climate change or vaccinations, spreads through societies and what factors influence whether people accept scientific evidence or not.
https://www.desmogblog.com/2016/12/13/hundreds-scientists-and-supporters-gather-rally-against-attacks-science
LikeLike
Where are Brad’s Lewpaper JIFs, when we need them?
LikeLike
The people who have for years accused climate change sceptics of being whacko conspiracy nuts now have conspiracy theories coming out of their ears. ‘Powerful political forces’ are trying to undermine science worldwide. The Times tells us today that the Russians were probably responsible for the Climategate email hack. No doubt soon we will learn that Pachauri’s emails were also hacked by the Russian government.
LikeLike
Jaime Jessop says: 15 Dec 16 at 9:35 am
“The people who have for years accused climate change sceptics of being whacko conspiracy nuts now have conspiracy theories coming out of their ears. ‘Powerful political forces’ are trying to undermine science worldwide. The Times tells us today that the Russians were probably responsible for the Climategate email hack. No doubt soon we will learn that Pachauri’s emails were also hacked by the Russian government.”
Not only that, but testimony from those that know, “Pachauri had only a pencil dick!
LikeLike
Barry, Jaime
For once, Lewandowsky is half right. The future president of the United States is indeed a powerful political force, and something that calls itself science is indeed under attack. The tiny toehold of sanity in the media represented by David Rose and e.g. Benny Peiser’s recent interview on Radio Scotland
http://www.thegwpf.com/bbc-interview-with-benny-peiser-on-trumps-climate-energy-policies/
will upset some, and there will be a reaction. Monitoring that carefully, in order to determine who says what on what authority, and writing articles like Jaime’s may be the most useful thing we can do.
If global temperatures continue to fall and fail to rebound to what Schmidt and co consider an acceptably catastrophic level, it’ll no doubt be blamed on Trump’s appointees fiddling the data.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is a rather nuanced interpretation of what I was getting at. As Bart Verheggen and myself were trying to point out, AGW is really just about the energy imbalance. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere reduces the outgoing flux, causing energy to accrue in the climate system. That energy is then distributed through the climate system via various internal processes – there isn’t some specific physical phenomenon that we call AGW (other than the increase in atmospheric CO2 causing an energy imbalance). Of course, we often quantify AGW in terms of surface warming. However, sometimes the internal circulation that is distributing the energy through the system can lead to slower surface warming, sometimes faster – the rate of surface warming is not expected to simply be smooth and constant.
El Nino is, however, a specific event (warm water flowing across the Pacific producing a short burst of surface warming). We can quantify how much this contributes to surface temperatures. Most – if not all – estimates suggest that it is insufficient to be the main cause of the 2015 global record (i.e., 2015 would probably have beaten 2014 even without the El Nino). The fact that the difference between the expected El Nino contribution and the 2015 – 2014 difference is larger than one would expect from the underlying linear trend doesn’t suddenly mean that it was probably mostly El Nino. It probably means that the various other processes that distribute energy through the system happened to produce a period of faster surface warming.
LikeLike
ATTP
“AGW is really just about the energy imbalance.”
No it’s not. It’s about measuring warming
as globally (G) as possible with thermometers and stuff, and then estimating how much of it is anthropogenic (A). You do that with a substraction sum, with the warming you get with CO2 emissions on top and the warming you got before emissions underneath, and don’t forget to carry over the tens. Then you average it over a reasonable period, and that’s your AGW in °C/decade.
You’ll be telling us next that inhabited exo-planets are really about bent light rays.
LikeLike
I bet it was the tomatoes what done it
LikeLike
ATTP
So if the sudden rush of heat wasn’t mostly el Nino, what wasn’t the sudden rush of cold which is happening now?
LikeLike
People can judge for themselves how ‘nuanced’ my interpretation of that conversation was here:
“It probably means that the various other processes that distribute energy through the system happened to produce a period of faster surface warming.”
What ‘various other processes’ are you referring to? That’s all I’m trying to ascertain. Of course, having then identified these ‘other processes’ you must then prove that they were not merely redistributing energy around the system (as in natural internal variability) but that they were explicitly linked to GHG warming; otherwise, one could say that all internal variability (and indeed all ENSO variability) is just shuffling ‘excess energy’ accumulated via the GHE around the earth system. Then all periods of rapid warming and cooling would be attributable in a sense to AGW.
Frankly, I think the most likely ‘other process’ which explains the jump in warming we saw in 2015/16 is ENSO and related warming of the Pacific basin. Have you forgotten the ‘almost El Nino’ we saw in early 2014, which resurrected in late 2014 to become the 2014/16 El Nino proper? Have you forgotten the Pacific warm blob? If scientists can attribute these occurrences somehow to the accumulation of energy in the system via GHGs, then fine; please point to the relevant scientific literature. I suggest they were alone responsible for the anomalous warm years of 2015 and 2016 and that they were, as Bart indicated, ‘redistributing energy around the system’. If that energy does not stick around to haunt us in the coming decades, indeed if it disappears completely, AGW is in trouble.
LikeLike
Geoff Chambers says: 15 Dec 16 at 11:02 am
(“ATTP “AGW is really just about the energy imbalance.”)
ATTP has no way of describing the word ‘energy’ To Ken Rice all is but ‘word salad’ an opportunity others. for scamming
“No it’s not. It’s about measuring warming(W) as globally (G) as possible with thermometers and stuff, and then estimating how much of it is anthropogenic (A). You do that with a substraction sum, with the warming you get with CO2 emissions on top and the warming you got before emissions underneath, and don’t forget to carry over the tens. Then you average it over a reasonable period, and that’s your AGW in °C/decade.”
What total alphabet soup! Please describe ANY measurement of EMR exit flux to space at any wavelength interval decreasing with increasing altitude (absorption). With Earth’s atmosphere any increase in local atmospheric radiance can only decrease temperature at that altitude.
“You’ll be telling us next that inhabited exo-planets are really about bent light rays.”
Please discuss much more about bent light rays. Just what is some ‘light ray’? Please describe the method of ‘bending’ some light ray.
LikeLike
man in a barrel says: 15 Dec 16 at 11:04 am
“I bet it was the tomatoes what done it”
Have you observed the vast activity of all fungus\critters anywhere near your tomatoes? It is like a huge orgy. Except for those that consider themselves to be a scientist. A 97% scientist!
LikeLike
WILL JANOSCHKA
“To Ken Rice all is but ‘word salad’”
That’s exactly the point I was making, clumsily, no doubt. When a proper scientist says something is “just about” something quite different, when it’s so obviously not, we non-scientists are allowed to poke fun at him.
If AGW is “just about” anything, it’s about very bad and mostly retrospective data collection. The data shows nothing much that anyone can confidently interpret. In fact los Ninos and las Ninas are about the only things that show up. Claiming that practivcally the only visible feature in the data is not very important is – weird.
LikeLike
man in a barrel says: 15 Dec 16 at 11:04 am
“I bet it was the tomatoes what done it”
Perhaps. Can you enlighten us in what can be the ‘tomatoes what done it’ ?
All of my tomats say ‘go away silly earthling’
/
LikeLike
I don’t see why Jaime says Tamino’s article was stupid. Rose is clearly denying the effect of the existing trend. The trend is obvious, either from Tamino’s graph in the article link or, more crudely, here:
The excursion from trend-line to 1998 peak is perhaps a bit less than from trend-line to 2016 peak. It is the trend that has made that similar excursion into a record. The El Niño itself was a bit smaller than 1998.
LikeLike
Jaime,
The key word in my tweet was “your”.
LikeLike
Oops, img tags dont work. Here is the graph:
http://woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/trend
LikeLike
Len Martinez says: 15 Dec 16 at 12:47 pm
“I don’t see why Jaime says Tamino’s article was stupid. Rose is clearly denying the effect of the existing trend. The trend is obvious, either from Tamino’s graph in the article link or, more crudely, here:’
Please explain your meaning of ‘existing trend’. What meaning can “trend” have? Your BS is similar to some average tire pressure of all tires on the interstate. Now some ‘trend’ of average tire pressure on the interstate, clearly indicates some colossal CAGW doom for all! You Have no argument, you have nothing whatsoever!
LikeLike
Len,
I get it, so far, to be a bit less.
LikeLike
Len,
Rose is quoted by Tamino:
“Our story showed that these record high temperatures were triggered by naturally occurring but freak conditions caused by El Nino — and not, as had been previously suggested, by the cumulative effects of man-made global warming.”
The key word here is ‘triggered’. Rose is suggesting that El Nino pushed global temperatures into record territory, not the cumulative global warming long term trend, which of itself can’t do any pushing. This is an exercise in basic atmospherics physics logic. El Nino is ‘weather’; it produces weather like fluctuations in global and regional temperature.
Tamino then says:
“The record high was due to man-made global warming: it made the latest el Niño peak hotter than it ever got before. But David Rose just denied that the record high was due to man-made global warming. That’s why I call him a denier.”
This is just plain stupid. Of course the long term global warming trend got us to the end of the high plateau in 2014 from which short term El Nino warming took off. Naturally, the resulting peak would then be higher than it was, say in 1998. Rose was ONLY saying the short term warming itself was due to el Nino. For stating this, Tamino and others have called him a man-made global warming denier and accused him of dismissing the long term trend supposedly due in its entirety to GHGs. How many times does it have to be pointed out to you and other people that Rose did NOT say this?
LikeLike
ATTP, “I get it, so far, to be a bit less.”
So did I… Strange that I managed to write it the other way round, especially since I got it right about the 1998 EN being bigger. Never mind, the point is clear, I think. The trend is what made this EN peak a record.
Jaime, Rose cam squirm with all his might and you will believe him. But he has history and associations with those who want to deceive. He, along with his right and alt-right colleagues is reliably unreliable on science.
LikeLike
“This is just plain stupid. Of course the long term global warming trend got us to the end of the high plateau in 2014 from which short term El Nino warming took off.”
Please show any warming trend at any location on the surface of this planet Earth!
You seem to be some lukewarmer that accepts the total nonsense of academic meteorology, rather than measurement that clearly exposes the fraud of academic meteorology for political or financial gain.
LikeLike
As far as I’m concerned, if Rose really dislikes being regarded as a science denier, then he should be more careful about what he writes. Telling people what you meant later, isn’t really good enough.
LikeLike
— As far as I’m concerned… —
Natch.
We thank you for your concerns.
As Rose and Whitehouse discuss, what ‘concerns’ the concerned rarely concerns what was actually said.
LikeLike
Len says:
“Jaime, Rose cam squirm with all his might and you will believe him. But he has history and associations with those who want to deceive. He, along with his right and alt-right colleagues is reliably unreliable on science.”
Actually, it’s you doing the squirming because, no matter how hard you try, you just cannot prove Rose said something he did not. Having failed in that endeavour, you now switch to the equally bizarre tactic of accusing Rose of being on the ‘right or alt-right’, being engaged in some sort of conspiracy to deceive, and of having past form! My God, you people really have flipped.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Ben,
That video was rather pathetic. Two people who barely understand this topic pretending to be interested in science (and, pretending to actually understand it) and then complaining about all their critics without taking even the smallest amount of responsibility for what happened. I’m amazed that David Rose is happy to have it public.
You can’t write an article about global temperature records with the phrases “not man made” and “not due to human emissions” and not expect to be criticised (and not expect some to regard you as a science denier). You’d think David Rose would have worked this out by now. What he didn’t say isn’t the issue; it’s what he did say.
LikeLike
Ken,
“Jaime,
The key word in my tweet was “your”.”
Oh no, we’re not back to that again are we? So you want me to ‘own’ the huge acceleration in the global warming trend? OK, I’ll do that. It was my interpretation of the nonsensical implication of not ascribing the majority of the global warming in 2015 to El Nino.
Obviously, the global warming trend can’t do that; it was just the GHG energy imbalance being shuffled around by unknown atmospheric processes.
LikeLike
“You can’t write an article about global temperature records with the phrases “not man made” and “not due to human emissions” and not expect to be criticised (and not expect some to regard you as a science denier). You’d think David Rose would have worked this out by now.”
This is purely a consensus enforcer edict. It has nothing to do with science reporting or simple statements of fact.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We can note that though Ken gives us the benefit of his judgement — the discussion is pathetic, R&W don’t understand the science — he doesn’t show his workings. Granted, it’s a discussion, not a text. Nonetheless, the failure to respond to what R&W say is precisely mirrored in this hollow criticism. The same criticism, that is, which seems to be wheeled out at every juncture.
I think Ken’s comprehension of the discussion is ‘oh no we’ve been misinterpreted’. To most people, I think it points out that the inability to articulate coherent and measured responses to ‘denial’ says more about their critics than it says about Rose and Whitehouse. No matter the contest of credentials, what Schmidt doesn’t understand (nor, it seems, does Rice) is that wisdom that falls from such heights lands with more grace. which is odd, because Ken is preoccupied with perception. He doesn’t seem to understand that we are not concerned by being perceived by such a small number of people who think bandying the word ‘denier’ around with abandon is effective. Shouting “you don’t understand / believe in science” doesn’t cut it. Rose, and Whitehouse, meanwhile, seem somehow to punch well above their weight. Keep up the good work, Ken!
LikeLiked by 1 person
“Consensus enforcer” is your (Ben’s) term, but it doesn’t change the fact that you don’t get to decide whether or not others can criticise what you write. Either own it, ignore it, or write it differently.
LikeLike
Ben,
You may not, but David Rose really does seem to be concerned by this.
LikeLike
“Telling people what you meant later, isn’t really good enough.”
It’s a bit rich for Ken to write this when, most of the time, he responds to reactions to his writings by complaining that he has been misunderstood.
However, his earlier comment is intriguing. If I have interpreted it correctly – and as ever with Ken, there is doubt as to whether I have – he is saying that the way we currently measure warming, by averaging a fairly small number of poorly-sited thermometers in major population centres around the world, is not fit for purpose. This seems to align him with the denier community. However, it gives him the problem that it is the only dataset with any history behind it, or indeed any data. The top of atmosphere energy imbalance measures have only been running for a decade or so, the ARGO buoys for a decade….. However the uncertainties in the TOA measures are greater than the quantity they are trying to measure, as I understand it. What a bind for the committed warmist.
LikeLiked by 3 people
—You may not, but David Rose really does seem to be concerned by this.—
You think so? I thought he shrugged it off. Most of the discussion — by a large margin — in fact relates to the quality of the discussion with respect to science, and the ‘post-truth’ character of criticisms of the authors’ articles. You claim to interested in ‘science’, but again you’re more interested in perception.
LikeLike
” . . . . you don’t get to decide whether or not others can criticise what you write.”
Rose wasn’t doing that either. He was getting upset by people who criticised what he didn’t write! I think that’s rather understandable.
LikeLike
Either own it, ignore it, or write it differently.
Someone objects to being called a Consensus Enforcer. He can:
1. Own it.
2. Ignore it.
3. Write differently.
Which one does he choose?
LikeLiked by 3 people
Jaime, Rose and his writing have been a focus of scorn/fun for a long time. GWPF’s purpose does seem to be to deceive.
LikeLike
LM – “GWPF’s purpose does seem to be to deceive.” Can you explain why you think this – or why I should?
LikeLike
The whole foundation/forum thing seems designed to mislead. I’m sure they had a good laugh about such a clever wheeze though. And the graph in their logo is deliberately misleading too. Where on their site do they show a simple graph showing the real situation like https://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2016/12/nasa11.jpg
LikeLike
Len, when you say the “real” situation, you do of course mean the latest, adjusted situation. Hadcrut 3 from 1850 to about 2010 showed this:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut3gl/from:1850/to:2016.83
Compare it to the ‘new and improved’ Hadcrut 4.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut4gl/from:1850/to:2016.83
Quite a difference wouldn’t you say. Note especially how Hadcrut 4 diminishes the magnitude of the 1998 El Nino and replaces the pause after 1998 with a slight warming trend post 2000. Tell me which is “real” and which isn’t.
No wonder sceptics have so little faith in the surface temperature records.
LikeLike
Jaime Jessop says: 16 Dec 16 at 11:53 pm
“Quite a difference wouldn’t you say. Note especially how Hadcrut 4 diminishes the magnitude of the 1998 El Nino and replaces the pause after 1998 with a slight warming trend post 2000. Tell me which is “real” and which isn’t. No wonder sceptics have so little faith in the surface temperature records.”
Len refuses to produce even one piece of evidence That shows increasing atmospheric CO2 effects surface temperature in any way! He also cannot show that atmospheric CO2 absorbs any EMR exit power from a direction of nadir (below)!
LikeLike
Jaime Jessop says: 15 Dec 16 at 2:07 pm
“Oh no, we’re not back to that again are we? So you want me to ‘own’ the huge acceleration in the global warming trend? OK, I’ll do that. It was my interpretation of the nonsensical implication of not ascribing the majority of the global warming in 2015 to El Nino.”
Nonsense indeed!
“Obviously, the global warming trend can’t do that; it was just the GHG energy imbalance being shuffled around by unknown atmospheric processes.”
To what “GHG energy imbalance” are you referring? There is no atmospheric power imbalance (insolation) that is not spontaneously, and continuously , in correction toward an equilibrium state, at the speed of sound in that atmosphere.
LikeLike
Will,
“To what “GHG energy imbalance” are you referring?”
The same [hypothesised, but impossible to measure directly] one that Bart and Ken were referring to.
LikeLike
Jaime Jessop says: 17 Dec 16 at 8:59 am
(Will, “To what “GHG energy imbalance” are you referring?”)
“The same [hypothesised, but impossible to measure directly] one that Bart and Ken were referring to.”
The asymmetric insolation screws with anything reasonable of compressive fluid dynamics and continuum mechanics within this atmosphere. The difficult we do immediately, the impossible takes a bit longer. Have Bart or Ken any idea of what they were referencing? Do your Climate Clowns even notice that this Earth is rotating?
LikeLike
Jaime,
Clever, somewhat misleading, but clever.
Will,
No, really? Is that why it sometimes gets dark and then light again, and then dark again,…..?
LikeLike
Ken, let me know when TOA energy fluxes, measured directly and averaged globally, are able to provide a definitive, or even ballpark figure for the energy imbalance due to GHGs.
“But, ocean heat content”. . . . . .
LikeLike
It’s almost as if you think saying this somehow invalidates the OHC. Well, it doesn’t, but keep believing it if you wish.
LikeLike
and Then There’s Physics says: 17 Dec 16 at 11:48 am
(Will, “:Do your Climate Clowns even notice that this Earth is rotating? “)
“No, really? Is that why it sometimes gets dark and then light again, and then dark again,…..?”
Ken,
Perhaps. In all your bleating of “Catastrophic climate change from atmospheric CO2” where is any acknowledgement of “sometimes gets dark and then light again, and then dark again”?
What can you Ken, not others, demonstrate of “sometimes gets dark and then light again, and then dark again”? Can you explain such? How does this affect your “Catastrophic climate change from atmospheric CO2”
LikeLike
“It’s almost as if you think saying this somehow invalidates the OHC. Well, it doesn’t, but keep believing it if you wish.”
No Ken, I don’t think that invalidates measurements of OHC. What I think is that OHC, although more precisely defined than TOA flux imbalances, still cannot be measured precisely, with only a few thousand Argo floats at our disposal. FWIW, I’m fairly sure it has been increasing during the modern era. Is this due to the GHG radiative imbalance at the TOA which cannot be measured accurately? Maybe. But this paper suggests that very small [natural] radiative perturbations have in the past been amplified to produce large variations in OHC. So, we are left pondering how much of the increase in OHC is due to the hypothetical GHG energy imbalance and how much may be due to other ‘small changes in insolation. Isn’t science so infuriating at times, when all you want is a definite yes or no answer?
“The ocean constitutes the largest heat reservoir in the Earth’s energy budget and thus exerts a major influence on its climate. Instrumental observations show an increase in ocean heat content (OHC) associated with the increase in greenhouse emissions. Here we review proxy records of intermediate water temperatures from sediment cores and corals in the equatorial Pacific and northeastern Atlantic Oceans, spanning 10,000 years beyond the instrumental record. These records suggests that intermediate waters were 1.5–2 °C warmer during the Holocene Thermal Maximum than in the last century. Intermediate water masses cooled by 0.9 °C from the Medieval Climate Anomaly to the Little Ice Age. These changes are significantly larger than the temperature anomalies documented in the instrumental record. The implied large perturbations in OHC and Earth’s energy budget are at odds with very small radiative forcing anomalies throughout the Holocene and Common Era. We suggest that even very small radiative perturbations can change the latitudinal temperature gradient and strongly affect prevailing atmospheric wind systems and hence air-sea heat exchange. These dynamic processes provide an efficient mechanism to amplify small changes in insolation into relatively large changes in OHC. Over long time periods the ocean’s interior acts like a capacitor and builds up large (positive and negative) heat anomalies that can mitigate or amplify small radiative perturbations as seen in the Holocene trend and Common Era anomalies, respectively. Evidently the ocean’s interior is more sensitive to small external forcings than the global surface ocean because of the high sensitivity of heat exchange in the high-latitudes to climate variations.”
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379116304802
LikeLike
Jaime, there are coverage differences between Hadcrut3 and 4 that account for the changes you mention. I imagine they are documented. If you want a temperature index that has no ‘adjustments’ you’ll have to make your own – certainly not your favourite satellites, as they are adjusted more than any. But if you do make your own, it will show rising temperatures. See http://moyhu.blogspot.com/ for some non-offical indices that track the official ones quite well. But the question really is, if you knew there were biases in a dataset for your index, why wouldn’t you correct them? And moreover, if GWPF is ‘educational’ why doesn’t it show where the existing indices get it wrong and correct them?
Will, I don’t refuse, I just don’t see the point. We are all a bit cranky here, but you are in another league.
LikeLike
Jaime,
You’re confusing attribution with whether or not there is an energy imbalance. If the OHC is rising then (given that it has, by far, the greatest heat capacity in the system) there has to be an energy imbalance (more coming in than going out).
LikeLike
Len Martinez says: 17 Dec 16 at 2:26 pm
“Will, I don’t refuse, I just don’t see the point. We are all a bit cranky here, but you are in another league.”
Len,
Not even one claim that is repeatable or verifiable! EM surface, exit flux proportional to surface T^4 independent of opposing radiance in any frequency band in any direction? Never ever observed let alone measured. All is FRAUD! Actual thermal EM radiative flux at any wavelength, in a direction of higher radiance. Never ever observed let alone measured! All of your claims of EM power transfer are based on a corrupt misunderstanding of electromagnetic field theory, and a juvenile consideration of basic quantum mechanics. Quantum field theory, quantum electrodynamics, and the latest new thing quantum chromo dynamics. All of the quantum stuff need be considered but none invalidates Kepler’s elegant theory regarding motion of only two massive bodies. By the time you get to 10 significant bodies as this Solar system has, both Newton’s and Kepler’s equations become trivial garbage!
LikeLike
Good of Will to illustrate Len’s suggestion that there isn’t much point.
LikeLike
..and Then There’s Physics says: 17 Dec 16 at 2:29 pm
“:Jaime, You’re confusing attribution with whether or not there is an energy imbalance. If the OHC is rising then (given that it has, by far, the greatest heat capacity in the system) there has to be an energy imbalance (more coming in than going out).”
Just what “Ocean Heat Content”(OHC) may your be comment upon? Ocean temperatures may indicate local sensible heat. But has no indication of how that sensible heat may have been transfered or from\to where! (more coming in than going out), That is the sensible heat transfer , always rushing toward stable equilibrium never toward your fantasy catastrophe!
LikeLike
…and Then There’s Physics says: 17 Dec 16 at 4:34 pm
“Good of Will to illustrate Len’s suggestion that there isn’t much point.”
Indeed! there can be no point for SCAM! There is always repeatable measurement for any kind of Science!
LikeLike
Ken,
“Jaime,
You’re confusing attribution with whether or not there is an energy imbalance.”
I believe it was you that started this whole thing by talking about an energy imbalance due to GHGs.
LikeLike
Jaime,
Yes, the fundamental point about AGW is that adding GHGs reduces the outgoing flux, producing an energy imbalance. If the OHC is increasing then it indicates an energy imbalance. What are you suggesting?
LikeLike
— If the OHC is increasing then it indicates an energy imbalance. — << Presupposes 'balance'.
LikeLike
I’m suggesting that the empirical data used to quantify that energy imbalance is not sufficiently accurate to show that the actual energy imbalance tallies with the figure predicted by AGW theory. The paper I quoted to you suggests that, even if OHC is rising, it may not be wise to attribute that increase solely to the accumulation of GHGs. That is all.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ben,
No, it doesn’t. If it is changing, there is a difference between the amount coming in and the amount going out.
LikeLike
—If it is changing, there is a difference between the amount coming in and the amount going out. —
Change != ‘imbalance’.
The myth of balance is powerful. It causes all change to be seen/presented as destruction.
LikeLike
Ben,
A system that is in energy imbalance has a different amount of energy coming in than going out. In such a system the energy will change. Therefore, if one measure a change in energy over some time interval, then that system was in energy imbalance over that time interval.
LikeLike
— A system that is in energy imbalance has a different amount of energy coming in than going out. In such a system the energy will change.—
You only describe what you presupposed in the first place, with a trivial, somewhat incoherent truism as explanation. (In such a system .. that is in energy imbalance… [such that a] different amount of energy [is] coming in than going out… the energy will change — the energy has changed, therefore the energy has changed).
Leaving aside the problems of calling something which is incompletely understood and not closed a ‘system’, differences between inputs and outputs may well be a characteristic of the ‘system’ from time-to-time. It’s your expectation that one would see no deviation of X with respect to Y, (never mind that the deviation is barely observable) but that expectation isn’t necessarily a reasonable expectation.
Sure, you can hypothesise a system as part of a system. And you can use an absurd metric (i.e. astronomical quantities of joules, rather than tiny fractions of 1 degree C temperature, after much processing of the empirical data) to make the case that the hypothesised system has been observed. But you can’t rule out the possibility that the ‘system’ — if it exists as such — merely achieves a new equilibrium (of x with respect to y) rather than is in a state of ‘imbalance’. Putting my foot on the accelerator doesn’t cause my car to move increasingly closer to the speed of light, and the slower speed was no more ‘balanced’ than the faster. Adding insulation doesn’t cause my house to become as hot as the sun, and the lower temperature was no more ‘balanced’ than the warmer. The difference between the output and input at time A and time B may be different, but making the judgement that the difference at time A represents ‘balance’, whereas the difference at time B represents ‘imbalance’ is not easily justified. At each point in time of each ‘system’ during their changes, the inputs and outputs of the ‘systems’ were ‘balanced’ to use your term, yet they were changing.
This isn’t a semantic point. It’s the presupposition of ‘balance’, ‘homeostasis’ or ‘optimal’ ‘equilibrium’ that needs understanding before we can say anything about a system. I find it at least as much grounded in New Ageism and failed formulations of ecology and cybernetics as in science.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ben,
You’ve outdone yourself with that comment.
LikeLike
–You’ve outdone yourself with that comment.–
And you’ve left us none the wiser for your expert judgement.
So much for ‘science’ then.
LikeLike
Ben,
That you are none the wiser has nothing to do with me.
LikeLike
–That you are none the wiser has nothing to do with me.–
Of course it does — your hollow comment added nothing to the discussion except heat. Yet you claim to be able to use science to shed light on matters being discussed.
But we expected that. Nothing has changed. The disequilibrium between what you claim and what you actually are persists.
LikeLike
Ben, I think ATTP’s problem is that you and Will have something in common. See my comment to Will, from above:
Will, I don’t refuse, I just don’t see the point. We are all a bit cranky here, but you are in another league.
LikeLike
LOL. As is so often the case with blog discussions, we can all end up being better informed but none the wiser!
I can see what Ben’s getting at. This supposition that there exists or existed an ideal equilibrium state (like some mythical Golden Age), which persisted for many years until something came along (us, in this case) to disturb that equilibrium state. It’s a bit suspect to say the least. The ‘equilibrium’ state of earth’s climate may in fact consist of small damped oscillations about some hypothetical mean. Not only the high frequency ‘noise’ which we see in the long term trend, but the lower frequency ‘long term’ trend itself. AGW, of course, just extends this long term trend outwards, indefinitely, never envisaging a point where negative feedbacks overwhelm the anthropogenic signal. But the alternative is to look at earth’s climate as a pattern of small self-regulating perturbations (including those generated by us) repeated on different timescales, much like a Mandelbrot fractal. A couple of centuries is nothing compared to 12,000 Holocene years, during which earth’s climate has maintained relative stability, though it may not have ever been in true ‘equilibrium’ during that period.
You can argue that the Pleistocene glaciations and interglacials are just an extension of this ‘damped disequilibrium’ state, with perhaps only the unstable phases between ice age and interglacial qualifying as being ‘out of equilibrium’ – e.g. the very rapid, large magnitude climate fluctuations (interstadials) just prior to the Holocene. Then major tectonic (or volcanic or extraterrestrial) events become the force required to shift earth’s climate out of this quasi-equilibrium to a new state, e.g. the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and the cooling in the late Pliocene.
Which is perhaps why scientists are now arguing that, not only have we warmed the planet a little with CO2 emissions, but we now risk delaying the next glaciation by hundreds of thousands of years, effectively putting an end to the Pleistocene and obviously shifting earth’s climate out of ‘quasi-equilibrium’. Burning fossil fuels then becomes the equivalent of the epoch changing climate forcings of geological history – meteorites/comets, major volcanism, orogenesis, continental drift. That would be something.
LikeLike
–, I think ATTP’s problem is that you and Will have something in common. —
Be that as it may, wisdom that falls from such heights as you and Ken claim lands on Earth with more grace.
Ken’s response to Rose and Whitehouse (the latter an astrophysicist) is no better:
—pretending to be interested in science (and, pretending to actually understand it)…—
This speaks to what seems to be Ken’s understanding of science: it is for the anointed to speak on matters of science, rather than to explain their perspective to their lessers. Thus science is about authority not explanation. If it were otherwise, Ken would answer the inferior understanding in good faith. He can’t. His ‘science’ is in fact Scholasticism.
LikeLike
Jaime: — But the alternative is to look at earth’s climate as a pattern of small self-regulating perturbations (including those generated by us) repeated on different timescales, much like a Mandelbrot fractal. —
I try not to see it as self-regulation, which implies intentionality and other things. As I said to Mark Lynas,
Of course, I’m not against the view that systems exist, and come and go. But I think the failed promises of cybernetics and ecology are reminders of how much more complex the world is than politicians and their pet systems analysts want it to be. Wishful thinking is ‘political’…
LikeLike
Ben, from reading ATTP’s blog, I think he is pretty patient with people and is ready with help for people who want to understand. But some people don’t want to understand, thinking they know better; they do sometimes get short shrift. Many sceptics share that characteristic of seeming not to want to understand, or appearing to misjudge their own level of understanding.
So if you want a more helpful reply, don’t be so dogmatic.
LikeLike
Jaime,
I didn’t say this, and even though I realise Ben can’t get it, I really thought you could.
Len,
I don’t think Ben is really interested.
LikeLike
— from reading ATTP’s blog, I think he is pretty patient with people and is ready with help for people who want to understand. —
Indeed, Ken is here to tell us that we are not interested and don’t want to understand.
We thank him for his concerns.
LikeLike
— I didn’t say this… —
You said…
…balance…
Then you blustered.
LikeLike
Ben, perhaps ‘self-regulating’ was not the appropriate term to use. What I meant is that oscillations are constrained within physical limits inherent within the system. You don’t need ‘intention’ or ‘intelligent design’ to explain these constraints – at least I don’t think you do. With living systems of course, the situation is subtly different, in that the physical/biochemical constraints have evolved in response to external forcings. Hence when you cut yourself, the blood exposed to the air begins to clot immediately, sealing the wound. I guess this is what you would call self-regulating activity. There is no evidence that the planet itself has evolved to cope with external forcings, but there is evidence that life ON planet earth has evolved in order to be able to adapt to certain external forcings, which in turn might affect the magnitude and rate of any resultant climate change, ‘global greening’ in response to elevated CO2 being an obvious example.
Ken,
“This supposition that there exists or existed an ideal equilibrium state
I didn’t say this, and even though I realise Ben can’t get it, I really thought you could.”
Fair enough. You did not state that directly, but you did imply that the system had been put out of balance by GHGs, which naturally suggests that it was ‘in balance’ before. Are you willing to accept that, throughout the Holocene at least, there have probably been many periods during which incoming energy exceeded outgoing energy and vice versa, and that the system apparently did not spiral out of control as a result?
LikeLike
Jaime,
Adding GHGs reduces the outgoing energy flux and produces an energy imbalance. If you want to be completely precise, you could say “more of, or less of, an energy imbalance” if it were initially out of balance, but that doesn’t change that adding GHGs changes the energy balance by changing the difference between the incoming and outgoing flux. This says nothing about whether or not there is some kind of ideal equilibrium state. However, if there are no changes, then the system will tend towards an equilibrium with incoming and outgoing energy in balance.
Well, yes, of course, but you’ve introduce “spiral out of control” despite this not being even implied in the discussion so far (there is no real suggestion that the system will spiral out of control). In fact, it’s probably never exactly “in balance”, but it will tend towards balance (if there is less energy going out than coming in, it will warm and increase the outgoing flux, and vice versa). However, none of this changes that adding GHGs changes the energy balance by reducing the outgoing energy flux.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I thought sceptical argument had moved from disputing the GHE and the basics of climate physics to more subtle arguments about sensitivity and outcomes. Not so long ago it seemed that mantra had become “we are all the 97%”. So it is strange to see an apparent reemergence of more knuckle-dragging forms of argument. Is this a Trump effect? Having extreme sceptics coming to power in the US emboldens those who felt obliged by the “sceptic consensus” to moderate their scepticism. I’ve seen this, I think, in Will (ok, he was never in the 97%) and Geoff, and now perhaps Jaime and Ben. Interesting.
LikeLike
— Adding GHGs reduces the outgoing energy flux and produces an energy imbalance. —
We have to ask…
An ‘imbalance’ of what with respect to what? What is the mechanism of ‘balance’? What is the equality being asserted here, of the ‘system’ at point A, but not at point B?
— This says nothing about whether or not there is some kind of ideal equilibrium state. —
Except it does. It’s saying that at point A, the system is ‘balanced’, whereas at point B it is ‘imbalanced’. Until we change the tune:
— However, if there are no changes, then the system will tend towards an equilibrium with incoming and outgoing energy in balance.—
So, we learn that if a system changes, the system changes. Which is prosaic. Changing of the balance of output with respect to input doesn’t create imbalance. It’s merely a different ‘balance’ in the sense that ‘balance’ speaks to the relationship between any two quantities, related in some way or by some mechanism or not. The amount of paint on my walls is neither ‘balanced’ nor ‘imbalanced’ with respect to the amount of cheese in my fridge, yet the balance between them ‘exists’ and changes on approximately a daily and five-yearly basis. Neither state of ‘equilibrium’ either side of a change is more or less ‘balanced’ than the other.
—in fact, it’s probably never exactly “in balance”,
Aha…
— However, none of this changes that adding GHGs changes the energy balance by reducing the outgoing energy flux.—
Changing the balance is not the same thing as ‘imbalance’.
I think Ken wants to balance his cake and eat it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
— I thought sceptical argument had moved from disputing the GHE and the basics of climate physics… —
The question about ecological ideology informing an understanding of optimal equilibrium — and for that matter, a scholastic, rather than an enlightenment understanding of ‘science’ — is not a question about GHGs and the GHE.
LikeLike
Len,
“I thought sceptical argument had moved from disputing the GHE and the basics of climate physics . . . . I’ve seen this, I think, in Will (ok, he was never in the 97%) and Geoff, and now perhaps Jaime and Ben. Interesting.”
You’re seeing things. I think it must be the Trump Effect.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ben,
I really can’t tell if you’re taking the p**s, or not. With respect to energy. Energy is conserved. The total energy in a system can only change if there is a net addition of energy, or a net loss of energy. A system is in energy balance if the amount of energy it receives (per time interval) matches the amount it loses (per the same time interval). A system is out of energy balance if the amount of energy it receives (per time interval) does not match the amount it loses (per the same time interval). etc..
LikeLike
LEN MARTINEZ (18 Dec 16 at 5:16 pm)
“Seeing” things in people, seems to be a strange obsession of some commenters here, as if we were tea leaves – or do we have an “aura”?
If you really think that Ben and Jaime have been disputing the physics than you haven’t begun to understand the two quite different, but equally interesting, arguments that they are putting forward. I suggest you go back and read their comments from the beginning before commenting further.
Sometimes a single person may make two quite separate points in two different contexts. Len and ATTP (and Prof Lewandowsky, so they’re in good company) seem incapable of understanding this.
LikeLike
…and AfterTeaThere’sPhysics turns up while I was typing the above making the same kind of category mistake. Surely they can’t be doing it for fun?
LikeLike
— A system is out of energy balance if the amount of energy it receives (per time interval) does not match the amount it loses (per the same time interval). etc..—
You’re saying the energy is conserved in the ‘system’ rather than is lost to Space, though is detected in the OHC, rather than in transit outwards?
I think i’m getting somewhere towards understanding you, though I think your argument still presupposes the ‘system’, and its ‘balances’. (Though that’s not to say it’s incorrect).
We know that changing a ‘system’ produces a change. What you appeared to be saying was that prior to a reconfiguration of the system (A), it was in ‘balance’, and that subsequently (B) it was ‘imbalanced’. Hence I objected to this:
— the fundamental point about AGW is that adding GHGs reduces the outgoing flux, producing an energy imbalance. If the OHC is increasing then it indicates an energy imbalance. —
You then offered this explanation:
—A system that is in energy imbalance has a different amount of energy coming in than going out. In such a system the energy will change. Therefore, if one measure a change in energy over some time interval, then that system was in energy imbalance over that time interval.—
The problem of which is that the sentences are tautologous, as I tried to explain, but perhaps no better. I.e. that the ‘unbalanced’ system produces the increased energy within it by virtue of it being unbalanced, plus the fact that it wasn’t clear at which point one would measure the energy.
I would have expressed your argument like this:
A system which is in ‘energy balance’ has the same amount of energy going in as going out. Therefore, if one measures an increase in a system’s energy as temperature, we can say that the system has an ‘energy imbalance’.
The remaining concern of which you clarify later:
— In fact, it’s probably never exactly “in balance”, but it will tend towards balance (if there is less energy going out than coming in, it will warm and increase the outgoing flux, and vice versa). —
In an abandoned, more snarky comment, I wrote just the word ‘probably’.
And this where I find more with Jaime’s point about ‘unknown atmospheric processes’ that have in no small way buried the political problem of (hitherto lack of) atmospheric/surface warming under miles of water as minute statistical changes, amplified only by expression as joules, rather than temperature.
The search for warming was recast as a search for ‘imbalance’, and this is why I mentioned the stuff about ecology and cybernetics –i.e. environmentalism’s scientific failures — and why I think Jaime’s points hold here. Also Geoff’s — I’m more worried about warming than about ‘imbalance’. And while we’re on the point, I’m more interested in the definition of ‘balance’ than in the detection of ‘imbalance’ which presupposes it, and seems to lead us to an is-ought problem. We’ve done this balance thing, many times over. There is a problem — whether it is in your argument or not, unfortunately for you — that there is a conception of nature as homeostasis -everything held in beautiful balance — whereas in fact nature, to the extent it exists is a concatenation of violent, traumatic events, or we would all still be soup. The misconception causes any detection of change — a bit more energy in the ocean, a few less polar bears, slightly more or less green or white cover — to be read as destruction, a harbinger… An apocalypse.
But what I still don’t understand is how Argo buoys tell us that Rose and Whitehouse only pretend to like and understand science.
.
LikeLike
Geoff, indeed they can’t. It makes you wonder whether ATTP and Len are modern day Dominicans, charged with rooting out heresy on behalf of some Climate Pope. The fact that their arguments are couched in terms of semantic games for legalistic reasons, aka casuistry, rather than in broad debate is also cause for thinking about climate jesuits, or are they jesuits for climate?
LikeLike
My last comment recalls that mrme I only vaguely about the Jesuits, recruit a child and you have a recruiter for life. Len is obviously one of the Mann-recruited believers.
LikeLike
And, yet more esprits de l’escalier, the discussion about balance at TOA, the original hockeystick was obviously designed, or the bizarre mathematical processes that created it from noise, to promote the belief that there was an equilibrium that was disrupted once white men started burning charcoal and smelting steel. The slightly more rigorous but still derisory quasi hockey sticks that require strenuous thought by such as Brandon Gates to seem flat, like if you flatten the Himalayas, Tibet is as flat as Salisbury Plain, are like a casuistical tactical reversion from the absolute statement to something that can still be seen to be under God’s rule.
LikeLike
…and Then There’s Physics says: 18 Dec 16 at 5:37 pm
” With respect to energy. Energy is conserved. The total energy in a system can only change if there is a net addition of energy, or a net loss of energy. ”
Ken,
How can such ever apply to a planetary atmosphere, subject to a gravitational field? Ever hear about Emmy Noether?
LikeLiked by 1 person
…and Then There’s Physics says: 18 Dec 16 at 4:42 pm
” However, none of this changes that adding GHGs changes the energy balance by reducing the outgoing energy flux.”
Ken,
You have not even one piece of evidence that can confirm increasing atmospheric CO2 levels above 180ppmv “reduces the outgoing energy flux.” All is but political fantasy. Nor have you any evidence that atmospheric CO2 absorbs outgoing EMR flux at any altitude! At every increasing altitude at every frequency band EMR exit flux increases all the way to 200km. Just what are you claiming as being absorbed or reduced?
LikeLike
Len Martinez says: 18 Dec 16 at 5:16 pm
“I thought sceptical argument had moved from disputing the GHE and the basics of climate physics to more subtle arguments about sensitivity and outcomes. . I’ve seen this, I think, in Will (ok, he was never in the 97%) and Geoff, and now perhaps Jaime and Ben. Interesting.”
I have never had a skeptical argument! I have since 1977 maintained that meteorologists, now called atmospheric physicists, are wholly incompetent, void of any knowledge of electromagnetic field theory, and have no clue of how thermal EMR flux is generated or propagated in Earths atmosphere!! Since 1998 I have added that the same are wholly without any personal integrity!
LikeLike
Will,
Just for a laugh, maybe you could explain what you’re getting at here?
LikeLike
I hate to agree with Ken… But, come on, Will…
LikeLike
benpile says:
19 Dec 16 at 11:20 am
I hate to agree with Ken… But, come on, Will…
In 1918 Amalie Emmy Noether mathematically proved that ‘conservation of energy’ need not hold within a gravitational field. Such was not widely recognized until the 1970s! Besides the Earth and its atmosphere is not a closed system. Ken spouts from some undergraduate textbook. Science is not there!
LikeLike
Will,
Are you sure? I’m pretty sure that total energy is still conserved, even in a gravitational field.
I didn’t say it was.
LikeLike
…and Then There’s Physics says: 19 Dec 16 at 4:19 pm
(Will, ” In 1918 Amalie Emmy Noether mathematically proved that ‘conservation of energy’ need not hold within a gravitational field. “)
“Are you sure? I’m pretty sure that total energy is still conserved, even in a gravitational field.”
Yes Ken I am! Do you read anything but SKS? even A.Einstein:
Wj (“Besides the Earth and its atmosphere is not a closed system. “)
“I didn’t say it was.”
Where oh where, even in your undergraduate textbook that you lecture from drone on and on from, does it state that in an open system “energy need be conserved”? Do you just make this crap up to annoy others?ven A.Einstein: IN 1935, writing to the New York Times, Albert Einstein did not tame his praise. … Noether had risen against wall after wall of obstacles to work on such …
Wj (“Besides the Earth and its atmosphere is not a closed system. “)
“I didn’t say it was.”
Where oh where, even in your undergraduate textbook that you lecture from drone on and on from, does it state that in an open system “energy need be conserved”? Do you just make this crap up to annoy others?
LikeLike
Will,
Where in your comment do you illustrate that energy is not conserved in a gravitational field?
Nowhere, but the energy still has to come from somewhere. It’s not magic.
LikeLike
Interesting. I’d never heard of Noether until now. It seems that it was Hilbert who suggested the law of conservation of energy was violated in General Relativity and it was Miss Noether who proved him wrong, much to the approval of Einstein himself!
LikeLiked by 1 person
…and Then There’s Physics says: 19 Dec 16 at 5:38 pm
“Will, Where in your comment do you illustrate that energy is not conserved in a gravitational field?”
I never claimed is not conserved anywhere; only that Emmy proved that it need not be! This proof belies your claim that “energy is conserved”
wj (“Where oh where, even in your undergraduate textbook that you lecture from drone on and on from, does it state that in an open system “energy need be conserved”?”)
“Nowhere, but the energy still has to come from somewhere. It’s not magic.”
So you do just make things up to annoy others! Your concept of “conservation of energy” seems some fantasy far far removed from Lorentz invariance.
Jaime Jessop says: 19 Dec 16 at 5:55 pm
“Interesting. I’d never heard of Noether until now. It seems that it was Hilbert who suggested the law of conservation of energy was violated in General Relativity and it was Miss Noether who proved him wrong, much to the approval of Einstein himself!”
Scientific proof is very hard to come by. That is why most all atmospheric CO2 nonsense should, at best, be treated as unobserved conjecture (Wild-Ass Guess)! The preceding “S” comes in two flavors!
LikeLike
For the benefit of onlookers (although there may not be many) of course total energy is conserved in a gravitational field, and energy is conserved whether dealing with an open, or a closed, system. In the case of an open system, the total energy can only increase if there is a net flux of energy into the system, and it can only decrease if there is a net flux of energy out of the system.
LikeLike
…and Then There’s Physics says: 19 Dec 16 at 6:52 pm
“For the benefit of onlookers (although there may not be many) of course total energy is conserved in a gravitational field, and energy is conserved whether dealing with an open, or a closed, system. In the case of an open system, the total energy can only increase if there is a net flux of energy into the system, and it can only decrease if there is a net flux of energy out of the system.”
Net,net, net! is this something like like your claimed EMR flux from the surface to the atmosphere, then ‘back radiation’ flux from atmosphere to surface, ‘warming the higher radiance surface’, for some alleged ‘net’ that is claimed not to violate the physical laws? All political fraud!
Ken, You have no way of knowing the number of possible\probable ways that power, or its time integral energy, or the quantum time integral of that (action), that enters or leaves this Earth system. Measurable insolation\EMR exitance may well never go unstable.
LikeLike
Just a technical correction to my comment above where I say:
Which is perhaps why scientists are now arguing that, not only have we warmed the planet a little
with CO2 emissions, but we now risk delaying the next glaciation by hundreds of thousands of years,
effectively putting an end to the Pleistocene and obviously shifting earth’s climate out of ‘quasi-
equilibrium’
Technically, the Pleistocene ended when the Holocene began, but we are still in the Quaternary Period, so it’s the supposed end of Quaternary glaciations which human emissions of CO2 are being blamed for.
LikeLike
The imposition of human terms on the planetary system begs all sorts of questions that Ken and Len are intellectually ill – equipped to handle.
LikeLike
“but we now risk delaying the next glaciation by hundreds of thousands of years,” Jaime
And you’d think everybody would be moderately happy with that news… always assuming it was true. Much more missing warming and the only way they will be able to account for the gap between the models and reality will be to claim we are actually in an ice age.
LikeLike
Can anyone please state what Professor W K M Rice, ‘Personal Chair of Computational Astrophysics’,
may actually do to earn his keep?
LikeLike
During an El Niño event a pool of hot surface water spreads along the equator, cloudiness increases and the OLR drops below 200 w/m2 sometimes as low as 170. When a neutral or La Niña occurs cloud is less and OLR rises to 220-240 sometimes 260w/m2.
To apportion the blame for a hot year following an El Niño event, a rough approach would be to calculate the difference in these figures given atm CO2 at 280ppm and 400 ppm.
thanks
LikeLike