Except of course for those stuck scientists, entire expedition was to 'study' how much warmer south pole got since last expedition...
I think it would be more accurate to say they intended to study how things had changed since the Mawson expedition in 1912 and your assumption of a predetermined outcome is unwarranted.
It's impossible to debate a scientific subject with someone who doesn't know the science. You end up with a Gish gallop that's impossible to keep up with or refute reasonably.
The warming trend has continued. The slope is not as steep in atmospheric warming as it was in the 1980's and 1990's but it isn't flat. The oceans where over 90% of the warming goes are still warming. You have to look at warming in the atmosphere, oceans and land surface together to get the complete picture.
Well, it isn't exactly a flat line. It's just warming more slowly than in the 1980's and 1990's. But if you knew anything about climate models you'd know that they aren't expected to predict anything on 10 or 15 year time scales.
In my view using the 1990 First Assessment Report to compare to observations is just cherry picking. Use one of the last two reports (AR4 & AR5) if you want to compare the current state of the art science to observations. Or don't you believe in scientific progress?
Except Kelvins don't have degrees. I guess they didn't finish school.
Seriously though since Kelvins are an absolute measurement tied to absolute zero it was decided at the 13th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1967-1968 to drop the degree and just call them Kelvins.
Certainly, we don't have the kind of precision necessary to provide for sub-degree delta changes over the past 100+ years. The further back we go, the less precision we can have, meaning we have no idea just how "unprecedented" any of this is or whether any of this warming can be considered normal.
Very accurate thermometers have been available since the 1700's so it just took having enough weather stations around the world to form a coherent picture of global temperature. That happened in the mid-1800's. It is not necessary to have accuracy better than +/- 1 degree to measure "sub-degree" differences in temperatures over many measurements. For example in baseball a player at bat either makes a hit or an out (walks, etc. don't count as at bats) so they either get a 1 or a zero. Yet batting averages are commonly expressed to 3 decimal places. Same thing with temperature measurements. Thousands of measurements averaged together can be expressed more precisely than any individual measurement.
And AC is right. What the satellites are measuring is microwave emissions (mostly from O2 I think) and inferring temperatures for different regions of the atmosphere. They don't measure the surface temperature in any way but thermometers do. The correlation between satellite temperature measurements of the lower troposphere and the surface temperatures is fairly high but you always have to remember they're measuring different things.
There are some big picture things about climate change that are settled. Changes in the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere affect the amount of energy stored internally in Earth's geophysical system. The increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is primarily due to human burning of fossil fuels. Those and a few other things are pretty well settled. What isn't fully settled is lots of details that tweak the primary effects. This study is an example of that, comparing how different models handle water vapor mixing in the lower atmosphere to real world observations of water vapor.
Philosophically speaking science is never settled. It's always subject to revision or even complete overturning pending new knowledge. But practically speaking many things are well settled. It's what makes our technological civilization possible. When nobody but a few contrarians are still arguing about something in science then the laymen may as well consider it settled. That is the case with the big picture in climate science.
The Kelvin and Celsius temperature scales use the same sized degrees but Kelvin is an absolute temperature scale in that it's tied to absolute zero while Celsius is relative to the freezing and boiling points of water at standard atmospheric conditions. Since Kelvin is an absolute temperature scale it's more useful when comparing different temperatures. For instance a 1% increase in the average temperature of the Earth would be about 2.85 Kelvin. You couldn't use the Celsius scale to calculate that directly since it it only relative.
The study assumes that the models that show lower amounts of warming are the "less accurate" ones, and the models with higher warming are going to be "more accurate.
The study "assumes" nothing of the sort. It compared the differences in the way different climate models handle water vapor and cloud formation and found the ones that dry out the lower atmosphere more quickly do a better job of modeling real world observations.
As far as all climate models being wrong that probably has more to do with your misunderstanding of what climate models are designed to do than it does with the climate models themselves. As George Box said "All models are wrong but some are useful." Climate models are at best crude representations of the atmosphere, partly because it's impossible* at this point to model things on a small enough scale to capture everything, but they're still better than any other method we have.
If you think the global climate models are "busted" then it probably has more with your lack of understanding of what climate models are designed to do than it has with any failure of the models themselves. For instance many say the climate models haven't predicted the slow down in atmospheric warming since 1998. But climate models are not (and probably cannot be) designed to predict the unpredictable natural variations such as ENSO and volcanic eruptions. They aren't expected to predict climate on that short a time scale and it you think they should the problem is with your expectations.
I checked ClimateAudit out some when I first heard about it (years ago) but I just find it a font of misinformation. If you want to cite something I'd actually go read try Dr. Roy Spencer. At least he has the scientific knowledge to be coherent in what he writes.
I have some sympathy for Obama in this matter. Yes, the NSA is trampling on Constitutional rights but think of the pounding Obama would get from the media and right wing if something even 10% as bad as 9/11 occurred on his watch. He's kind of damned if he does and damned if he doesn't in a no win situation.
That's another LOL. I presume you're talking about the controversy over the Soon & Baliunas paper published in the journal Climate Research in 2003. That paper has methodological flaws that should have been caught in review and weren't. They used precipitation and drought proxies without assessing their temperature sensitivity and conflating regional temperature change proxies with global changes. Even the publisher of Climate research admitted as much. Five editors resigned from the journal rather than remain associated with such shoddy journalism. Climate scientist were protecting the integrity of the peer review process by calling out a failure in it.
If you have secret information that it's going to as you say "really start to chill out ca 2020" you should publish it so we can all see it. So far geophysical reality is not cooperating with your hypothesis. Climate scientists may be wrong about some things but if they are they're honestly wrong, not deliberately falsifying their work. With the scrutiny climate science has been getting over the past 20+ years if there was some fundamental problem with it we would have found it. Climate scientists may be wrong about some things but if they are they're honestly wrong not deliberately falsifying evidence.
LOL, what is shows is you can't get away with cheating in science in the long run. There is always the underlying reality that will catch up to you sooner or later. The fact that in 20+ years no one has been able to show any substantial fraud in climate research means you aren't likely to find any. The thought that all of the thousands of climate researchers are in on a multi-decade conspiracy to hide the truth is ludicrous. It puts you firmly in the camp of conspiracy theorists.
I actually have some respect for Roy Spencer. Yeah, he may be a YEC but he does have scientific training relevant to climate science. He is able to talk the science with other climate scientists on their level and having a contrarian like that around looking for holes is probably a good thing. It helps keep things real because they can't just dismiss him out of hand like a run of the mill denier without the training.
Slashdot Mirror
Except of course for those stuck scientists, entire expedition was to 'study' how much warmer south pole got since last expedition ...
I think it would be more accurate to say they intended to study how things had changed since the Mawson expedition in 1912 and your assumption of a predetermined outcome is unwarranted.
Hah! The CRU emails were just an exercise in quote mining.
You know, I'd really like to know why you have so much invested in the truth of AGW.
Just like we'd like to know why you have so much invested in denying the findings of climate science.
As an "AGW climate change person" you made me laugh and you're welcome to laugh at me. We'll see who gets the last laugh.
It's impossible to debate a scientific subject with someone who doesn't know the science. You end up with a Gish gallop that's impossible to keep up with or refute reasonably.
The warming trend has continued. The slope is not as steep in atmospheric warming as it was in the 1980's and 1990's but it isn't flat. The oceans where over 90% of the warming goes are still warming. You have to look at warming in the atmosphere, oceans and land surface together to get the complete picture.
Based on the trends in the various components of Milankovitch Cycles we should be cooling now as we were for the past 6,000+ years. But we're not.
Well, it isn't exactly a flat line. It's just warming more slowly than in the 1980's and 1990's. But if you knew anything about climate models you'd know that they aren't expected to predict anything on 10 or 15 year time scales.
In my view using the 1990 First Assessment Report to compare to observations is just cherry picking. Use one of the last two reports (AR4 & AR5) if you want to compare the current state of the art science to observations. Or don't you believe in scientific progress?
Except Kelvins don't have degrees. I guess they didn't finish school.
Seriously though since Kelvins are an absolute measurement tied to absolute zero it was decided at the 13th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1967-1968 to drop the degree and just call them Kelvins.
Certainly, we don't have the kind of precision necessary to provide for sub-degree delta changes over the past 100+ years. The further back we go, the less precision we can have, meaning we have no idea just how "unprecedented" any of this is or whether any of this warming can be considered normal.
Very accurate thermometers have been available since the 1700's so it just took having enough weather stations around the world to form a coherent picture of global temperature. That happened in the mid-1800's. It is not necessary to have accuracy better than +/- 1 degree to measure "sub-degree" differences in temperatures over many measurements. For example in baseball a player at bat either makes a hit or an out (walks, etc. don't count as at bats) so they either get a 1 or a zero. Yet batting averages are commonly expressed to 3 decimal places. Same thing with temperature measurements. Thousands of measurements averaged together can be expressed more precisely than any individual measurement.
And AC is right. What the satellites are measuring is microwave emissions (mostly from O2 I think) and inferring temperatures for different regions of the atmosphere. They don't measure the surface temperature in any way but thermometers do. The correlation between satellite temperature measurements of the lower troposphere and the surface temperatures is fairly high but you always have to remember they're measuring different things.
There are some big picture things about climate change that are settled. Changes in the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere affect the amount of energy stored internally in Earth's geophysical system. The increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is primarily due to human burning of fossil fuels. Those and a few other things are pretty well settled. What isn't fully settled is lots of details that tweak the primary effects. This study is an example of that, comparing how different models handle water vapor mixing in the lower atmosphere to real world observations of water vapor.
Philosophically speaking science is never settled. It's always subject to revision or even complete overturning pending new knowledge. But practically speaking many things are well settled. It's what makes our technological civilization possible. When nobody but a few contrarians are still arguing about something in science then the laymen may as well consider it settled. That is the case with the big picture in climate science.
The Kelvin and Celsius temperature scales use the same sized degrees but Kelvin is an absolute temperature scale in that it's tied to absolute zero while Celsius is relative to the freezing and boiling points of water at standard atmospheric conditions. Since Kelvin is an absolute temperature scale it's more useful when comparing different temperatures. For instance a 1% increase in the average temperature of the Earth would be about 2.85 Kelvin. You couldn't use the Celsius scale to calculate that directly since it it only relative.
The study assumes that the models that show lower amounts of warming are the "less accurate" ones, and the models with higher warming are going to be "more accurate.
The study "assumes" nothing of the sort. It compared the differences in the way different climate models handle water vapor and cloud formation and found the ones that dry out the lower atmosphere more quickly do a better job of modeling real world observations.
As far as all climate models being wrong that probably has more to do with your misunderstanding of what climate models are designed to do than it does with the climate models themselves. As George Box said "All models are wrong but some are useful." Climate models are at best crude representations of the atmosphere, partly because it's impossible* at this point to model things on a small enough scale to capture everything, but they're still better than any other method we have.
*Impossible because of limitations in computing horsepower. Current models use grid scales of around 100 km x 100 km x 1 km vertical x 30 minutes per step.
What makes you think they don't already do the calculations using the Kelvin scale and just convert to Celsius for reporting the results?
And the Jade Rabbit starts dodging wildly to escape the Eagle
They also believe time ends at 03:14:07 UTC on Tuesday, 19 January 2038.
Old enough to catch and evolved version of the flu I had 10 years ago.
May the Force be with you.
If you think the global climate models are "busted" then it probably has more with your lack of understanding of what climate models are designed to do than it has with any failure of the models themselves. For instance many say the climate models haven't predicted the slow down in atmospheric warming since 1998. But climate models are not (and probably cannot be) designed to predict the unpredictable natural variations such as ENSO and volcanic eruptions. They aren't expected to predict climate on that short a time scale and it you think they should the problem is with your expectations.
I checked ClimateAudit out some when I first heard about it (years ago) but I just find it a font of misinformation. If you want to cite something I'd actually go read try Dr. Roy Spencer. At least he has the scientific knowledge to be coherent in what he writes.
I have some sympathy for Obama in this matter. Yes, the NSA is trampling on Constitutional rights but think of the pounding Obama would get from the media and right wing if something even 10% as bad as 9/11 occurred on his watch. He's kind of damned if he does and damned if he doesn't in a no win situation.
That's another LOL. I presume you're talking about the controversy over the Soon & Baliunas paper published in the journal Climate Research in 2003. That paper has methodological flaws that should have been caught in review and weren't. They used precipitation and drought proxies without assessing their temperature sensitivity and conflating regional temperature change proxies with global changes. Even the publisher of Climate research admitted as much. Five editors resigned from the journal rather than remain associated with such shoddy journalism. Climate scientist were protecting the integrity of the peer review process by calling out a failure in it.
If you have secret information that it's going to as you say "really start to chill out ca 2020" you should publish it so we can all see it. So far geophysical reality is not cooperating with your hypothesis. Climate scientists may be wrong about some things but if they are they're honestly wrong, not deliberately falsifying their work. With the scrutiny climate science has been getting over the past 20+ years if there was some fundamental problem with it we would have found it. Climate scientists may be wrong about some things but if they are they're honestly wrong not deliberately falsifying evidence.
LOL, what is shows is you can't get away with cheating in science in the long run. There is always the underlying reality that will catch up to you sooner or later. The fact that in 20+ years no one has been able to show any substantial fraud in climate research means you aren't likely to find any. The thought that all of the thousands of climate researchers are in on a multi-decade conspiracy to hide the truth is ludicrous. It puts you firmly in the camp of conspiracy theorists.
I actually have some respect for Roy Spencer. Yeah, he may be a YEC but he does have scientific training relevant to climate science. He is able to talk the science with other climate scientists on their level and having a contrarian like that around looking for holes is probably a good thing. It helps keep things real because they can't just dismiss him out of hand like a run of the mill denier without the training.