Just a heads up . . .

then why is it not raining?

 

Getting your science from American Thinker is like getting your news from Fox.

 

Here's an interesting and sometimes fruitful strategy. When I see somebody make an outlandish statement -- for example, that some observed phenomenon violates some basic laws of physics -- I look look at the criticisms of that statement first, before I swallow it hook, line and sinker.

So for benefit of those who are undecided on this issue, I'll take just one of the many questionable statements in the Heartland quote above and point to a straightforward explanation.

" ... Other IPCC scientists search for elusive physical evidence for such a lack of warming. One favorite explanation has it that the heat is "hiding in the deep ocean;" but the IPCC fails to explain that heat cannot transfer into the deep ocean without first passing through the shallow ocean, which has not warmed since 2003 ..."

If I read that right, the author is saying that it is physically impossible for the deep ocean to warm without seeing warming in the shallow ocean. Have I misread that? That certainly seems to be the intent.

If it really were impossible for that to happen, given that the instruments show that this has happened, that's a real dilemma. Shouldn't there be some sort of scientific commentary about it? Wouldn't the instrument readings be controversial? Wouldn't there at least be some back-and-forth in the scientific community about this apparent miracle occurring?

Yet there isn't. So I'm logically left with just two alternatives. One, there is some vast international conspiracy of silence among climate scientists. Or, alternatively, as mentioned above in this stream, if it's from the Heartland Institute, it's probably wrong.

It's the latter.

Here's a nice writeup.
RealClimate: What ocean heating reveals about global warming

Search for "shocking lack of understanding of basic physics" to get to the discussion of this exact point.

If you don't like my citation, just follow the links to the underlying research.

Here's one simple mechanism by which this can occur. In some sense this is a crude depiction of La Nina.



But there are numerous ways in which the deep ocean can warm faster than the shallow ocean. And this appears to be an intrinsic property of the couple atmosphere and ocean (http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v1/n7/full/nclimate1229.html ).

On the other hand, if you have to form your opinions based on whom you trust, you could get some take on this from a well-known global warming skeptic, Roy Spencer:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/more-on-trenberths-missing-heat/

Not that I believe most of Spencer's arguments, but if you'll only trust a skeptic, then (emphasis mine) at least see that he understands that deep waters can warm without surface warming.

"While I don’t necessarily buy Trenberth’s latest evidence for a lack of recent surface warming, I feel I need to first explain why Trenberth is correct that it is possible for the deep ocean to warm while surface warming is seemingly by-passed in the process."

So not only does Heartland have to ignore mainstream science to say what it says, it's even ignoring prominent skeptics.

Now take it to the final level. If this report highlights this as a significant issue, I can feel fairly confident that the rest of the analysis is likely to be spin as well.

 

Foiled again TREB!

Remember, folks over here, (unlike the swamp that is FhoPol) actually know how to think and reason, and understand what organizations like " The Heartland Institute" , and "Wattsup" are all about. Shame that you don't.

Carry on,


Icarus

 

Reminds me of the old story about the boy who call 'wolf' once to often . . . only it was a FOX.

Bob Wilson

 

Actually it has to do with two different world views:

• top-down -> those who slavishly follow 'the word' as passed by some higher authority
• those who don't - the empiricists and scientist of the world

The "top-down" believe if they can just discredit the right IPCC report or expert or Al Gore, all of the global warming will collapse. So they continue to copy-and-paste from their 'authorities' completely oblivious to how they have given up independent though and critical thinking. Slaves to their tribal culture, any other way of behaving or thinking, well you might as well teach a genus Sus to sing opera.

In contrast, empiricists and scientists and like minded folks face everyday as a new discovery. We make experiment of everything including . . . denier behavior. It is one the reasons I admire John Cook's work at Global Warming and Climate Change skepticism examined. He treats denialism much as any other aspect of the natural world. It doesn't matter that some of our species have these behaviors any more or less than someone with Tourette or narcolepsy.

If you are after someone to argue about nonsense posted at Home | Heartland Institute, well you've already gotten one excellent reply:
Just a heads up . . . | PriusChat

No need to add to what has already been well stated by 'chogan2'. It is called a consensus.

Bob Wilson

ps. Here is photo of an Arctic shore:

Guess what happens when warmer ocean meets permafrost earth.

 

...below is the latest from Joe Romm... Hottest September on record, Fastest Pacific warming in 10000 yrs and warmist Arctic in 120000 years. Not saying I believe it, just saying here's the environmentalists side of story.
Al Gore has been very vocal lately too. It's just gotta be coming to a head soon...something's gotta give...either the sky is falling or its not.

h ttp://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/11/03/2876491/hottest-september-record/

 

OK we have heartland, climate progress, and real climate here. These have something in common, they are affinity sites. Heartland is the worst IMHO, but they all pick and choose their data, and all have been guilty of cherry picking.

If you actually read the IPCC report, even just the summary you will note there is an explanation. Global temperatures go up and down in the short term, and if you cherry pick dates, as I have seen all three of these sources do, you can make it seem as if there is huge ghg forcing, or none at all. Climate Progress and Real Climate have both been guilty in the past of picking dates where warming looks greater than it actually is. Heartland less. There is natural variation, and ENSO is the one pointed out for the high temperature 15 years ago, but again it could be something else. In anouther 15 years someone will pick a trough, and the sky will be falling again. Heartland has nothing but misinformation there, and that is their tendency.

 

That doesn't sound very scientific to me...

 

No it is not, but it is quite practical. There are only 24 hours in a day and if one section of a report is deeply flawed (regardless of which viewpoint is preached), then there are probably many better sources to shift to. Same with car dealers, if the first salesman is determined to deceive me, it's probably more productive to go to a different dealer than try and find a good salesman at the same crappy dealer.

 

As noted, its expedient. It's also good science, you just have to understand that the science in question isn't climate science, it's epistemology.

The backstory on Heartland pretty much tells you all you need to know. Their last big meal ticket issue was denying that smoking causes cancer. Their latest one is denying global warming. Same staff, same techniques. From that, you have to realize that whatever expertise they have, it isn't expertise in climate science. So ask yourself, what is their expertise? What is their line of business? How did they stay in business when the subject changed from smoking-doesn't-cause-cancer, to global-warming-doesn't-exist? Their line of business is propaganda, being able to dupe people. That's what they do for a living. And they are moderately good at it.

So, in a nutshell, if I want to see what's not true, I look at people like Heartland. Because if you had the facts on your side, you wouldn't have to hire people like them. So they are reasonably good indicator of what's incorrect.

By contrast, when I want a clear-text explanation of the science, RealClimate is the first place I turn to. It is run by and for scientists, they only post articles by top scientists in climate and related fields, and they stick to the science. That's not just my opinion, that's the opinion of the best minds in climate science:
Inaugural Climate Communications Prize Winner Announced | AGU Newsroom

So in some sense it's really pretty simple. I can pay attention to an organization whose prior line of business was trying to convince me that second-hand smoke is harmless, or I can pay attention to people who've been awarded the highest honors that the American Geophysical Union has in this area.

It's not really hard to decide where to spend my time.

 

And in keeping with the theme that RealClimate is arguably the best source of readable and reliable information on this topic, I'd suggest you look at the model-versus-observation comparison that they do each year. It's the single best place to see the actual extent of discrepancies between climate model predictions and observations. The most recent one is now almost a year old, but still worth reading.
RealClimate: 2012 Updates to model-observation comparisons

The key graphic from the 2012 comparison is below. The gray band is something like the 95% confidence interval, so you would expect the observations (colored lines) to run outside of that gray band only once every two decades or so. This will change with the revision of the set of models used for the most recent IPCC report, but this is the gist of where things stood as of the start of this year.



I've looked at this section of the IPPC AR5 but can't yet claim to understand it. But I did finally find the graphic on-line (below). They show a narrower range of uncertainty, that's what I'm mostly uncertain about. E.g., not only is the current observation near the bottom of the range, the 1998 outlier year hit the top of the range. Possibly, the graphic above combines observational and model uncertainties (which you would have to do to test whether the observations fall within the range of uncertainty around the model.) They also slide the baseline forward relative to the graphic above (baseline ending 1999 above, baseline ending 2005 below). At the risk of posting apples and oranges, here's how the model-observation comparison looks in the AR5.

Addendum: I'd better clarify this up front. Because a lot of people here aren't going to be familiar with "confidence intervals", or with the fact that this is only testing the near-term (short-term) ability of climate models. Take a look at the middle graph below. You would declare that observations lie outside the predicted range (at the given statistical significance level, which unfortunately appears to be the 90% instead of the more traditional 95%), when the upper red line around the observations no longer touches the gray area (i.e., when the confidence interval around the observations and the predictions no longer overlaps). So as I read this, over the interval examined, this ensemble of models said there was only a one-in-ten chance of seeing a temperature as low as was observed at the end year. Likely, the main reason for the larger confidence interval (gray area) on the graph above is that its the more traditional 95% confidence interval.

 

OK, how is this: Heartland is a right-wing think tank that has a political agenda that has nothing to do with science. If you subscribe to their way of approaching science, then you ARE the message. God forbid there be any fallacies!

 

I think the title of this thread ought to be "TREB's head is up his rear!"

Icarus

 

19 posts and austingreen is the only one who addressed the content and didn't attack the source.

Way to be scientific austin! You win!