Change in Met Office "Global Warming" "forecast"

[aubrey]

Jan 14, 2013 10:12:17 GMT marchesarosa said:

The point is, weather forecasters have always got it wrong, and people have always criticised them for it. Since about October, the Daily Express has been promising the worst snow for years, to fall within about two weeks (exaggeration: but they did it in October, and they've done it 2 or 3 times since).

So why are YOU so enamoured of prophecies of doom, aubrey? One would have thought a highly sophisticated chap like you would be immune to scare-mongering. Like wot I am, in fact.

I'm not. For eg, I don't think we're going to turn into a Sharia State. In fact I don't think there's any chance of it at all. (Unless, maybe, there's some kind of catastrophe, as in Gene Wolfe's Seven American Nights.)


I don't know about AGW but I do know that by the time that "Time [does] tell," it will be too late. And I know that a huge majority of scientists agree with the idea of AGW. And the majority of people who don't agree with it are right-wingers like Monckton and Lawson and Delingpole.

You can't say that it isn't political. Every decision made about AGW, whatever happens, will be political.

[ncsonde]

Jan 15, 2013 18:04:16 GMT aubrey said:

I don't think we're going to turn into a Sharia State. In fact I don't think there's any chance of it at all. (Unless, maybe, there's some kind of catastrophe, as in Gene Wolfe's Seven American Nights.)

You seem to have missed out on the nature of this debate entirely. The issue is not whether the State will adopt Sharia, but whether certain communities within it should be allowed to.

I do know that by the time that "Time [does] tell," it will be too late.

No you don't. That time is already here - read the thread again. The planet has not warmed for 16 years, despite a huge increase in CO2 emissions in that time. In science, that's called a theory falsification.

And I know that a huge majority of scientists agree with the idea of AGW.

No you don't. You know that's what you've been told, that's all. It's unlikely that it was ever true - it certainly isn't now.

And the majority of people who don't agree with it are right-wingers like Monckton and Lawson and Delingpole.

You don't know that either. Even if it were true, which it isn't, it would be easily explicable by the self-evident fact that the AGW thesis is immensely attractive to those on the Left, because if it were true the only effective response to it would be ever more powerful State control of economies and the rapid move to technocratic world government. It's why the Green movement has been taken over by extreme socialists.

You can't say that it isn't political. Every decision made about AGW, whatever happens, will be political.

That's exactly what the "right-wingers" you're so certain you detect everywhere object to. For some people the matter is a scientific question. The corruption of the scientific community and the suborning of the media for political purposes should be highly repugnant, whatever side of the political spectrum you happen to support.

[marchesarosa]

Monckton and Lawson and Delingpole are not climate scientists, aubrey. They are commentators and popularisers.

There are however, plenty of top class climatologists and physicists who are not AGW alarmists - like Professors Richard Lindzen, John Christie, Roy Spencer, Chris Landsea, Judith Curry, Nils-Axel Morner, Fred Singer, Vincent Courtillot, Henrik Svensmark, Roger Pielke Sr, Nir Shaviv and others. You seem to have overlooked these folk and also those working in related subjects like Professors Ross McKitrick and Roger Pielke Jr plus a whole host of professional meteorologists.

You are also adrift in your apparent belief the fact that science proceeds via "consensus" and that the more people who endorse a given fad, the more likely it is to be correct. If you pay any attention at all the current climate-related research you may be aware of the huge amount of findings now coming forward that contradicts IPCC orthodoxy particularly with respect to the role of the sun being the main climate driver.

Your apparent belief that science can be designated "right" or "left" wing also shows how crass your stance is. You should remember in whose company you find yourself in in this sort of judgement. Remember the Nazi disparagement of Einstein's "Jewish" science? Science stands or falls on the accuracy of its predictions, nothing else. So far the IPCC's AGW alarmists have been lamentable in predicting anything. And their "models" even have trouble hindcasting the past.

[ncsonde]

I have a strong sense that Aubrey doesn't really know what the AGW theory is. It is not that CO2 is a greenhouse gas. There are a very small number of people who disagree with this - usually engineers with a grounding in thermodynamics - but they're a tiny minority of the "sceptical" side of this argument, and to all intents and purposes insignificant. The dispute is to what extent the measured global warming since industrialisation has been caused by that greenhouse gas - to what extent, if any, CO2 emissions have contributed to the 0.8 degree +/- O.2 degree increase in global temperature.

The AGW theory asserts that this rise in temperature is almost entirely due to our emissions: it is by far the most significant factor. Other possible causes, factors of natural climate variability, are deemed to be insignificant in comparison - when the theory first began to gain traction, in the 60s and 70s, it wasn't even recognised that there were any such alternative causes, in fact (and the AGW lobby still go to great lengths to try to deny and conceal their now proven existence.)

Now, the science is settled on this matter. The AGW theory in this most basic form is wrong. It's been proven to be wrong, both by better alternative theories, confirmed by comparison with objective data, and by the actual facts that have now transpired in the real world (as opposed to the very definite predictions that the theory has made.) It's been falsified. For the past 15 and more years the world has been emitting record-breaking amounts of CO2 (and other, far more powerful, greenhouse gases.) The global temperature has not risen. Therefore there is at least one other causative factor operating that is determinately more powerful in its effects on our climate than greenhouse gases. It is very clear that the principal other factor is the variability of the output of the sun - its irradiance, in part, but also its magnetic and ionic flux. Together, these outputs are now known to account for at least two thirds of the afortementioned increase in global temperature. It's very likely that it accounts for a good proportion of the other third, too - the uncertainty is down to incomplete data and insufficient understanding, that's all. There are also known other factors that have not yet been taken into account - the increase in plasma density in interplanetary space, for example, as a result of the particular part of the galaxy we happen to have been passing through since the 70s. No one knows how much of the temperature rise this accounts for, but it's likely to be a significant proportion, given what we now know about the effects of increased ionisation in the atmosphere on cloud formation.

So - it's now known that at least three quarters and probably more of the temperature increase since the Little Ice Age has been entirely produced by extraterrestial influences that, of course, have nothing to do with man or his emissions. That is, about a quarter of a degree centigrade at the very most: less than half of the difference in average temperature between Birmingham and Sheffield. It's also now known that the main driver of this temperature rise is, and always has been, the magnetic condition of the sun - indicated without equivocation by the sunspot cycle. And the sunspot cycle has drastically changed in the past three years. The magnetic field of the sun has altered dramatically, from having steadily doubled in strength over the past century, when temperatures have risen (perfectlly in proportionate step), to a virtual complete collapse. This very strongly indicates that for the next thirty or so years the global temperature is going to fall, as it always has done in every other period of sunspot minima. The calculations so far predict a fall of about 1.5 degrees, based on past records. We'd better hope this is an over-estimate for some reason; we'd better hope that the quarter of a degree of warming possibly due to CO2 is in fact down to that cause, and our total inability to prevent ever-increasing emissions continues - because at the moment the slight increase due to our current emissions is almost certainly going to be entirely counteracted by the far more powerful natural solar driver, and then some.

All of the above is what the "vast majority of scientists" would agree with, if anyone ever went to the trouble of polling them. Because the vast majority of scientists respect above all proven facts.

I do not believe it was ever different. Maybe before the early 90s, most scientists would have erred on the side of caution, and said they believed CO2 was the main cause of global warming. I took such a view myself. Then the link with the sunspot cycle was definitively demonstrated, and the issue again became a complete unknown. That's what the vast majority of scientists would have said, to the extent they knew anything about the subject at all, and to the extent they had any integrity. The claim that there was a majority consensus asserting any differently after about 1994 came from that distinguished climate scientist Al Gore, I believe, and has been spread relentlessly, without a shred of supporting evidence, by the politicised AGW lobby ever since.

[ncsonde]

Oh - one more point that's worth stressing. Thw world is still some way off from its average temperature for the past ten thousand years. Still needs a lot of warming up before we return to where we were in the Roman period, for example, when Britain was a major wine-producing region; as it was again a thousand years ago, during the somewhat inaccurately named "Medieval Warm Period". Compared to the average, the world is cold - and it's going to get a lot colder.

[aubrey]

I don't say that science can be left or right wing, just that the decisions that are supposed to based on science are always made for political reasons.

The last Labour Govt made a big thing of having evidence based science governing their drug policy, but they soon dropped that whwen the evidence didn't agree with what they already thought: drug policy has always been entirely based on political expedience, and AGW policies will be/are exactly the same.


I know that Monckton, etc are not scientists (though didn't Monckton once claim that he was? Something like that, anyway). But just about everyone who makes a big thing about not believing in AGW are right wing: and that this is that they associate green ideas with bloody hippies and treehuggers.


Nick, I've been told many times that science is never settled. Usually by Marchesa.

[aubrey]

You seem to have missed out on the nature of this debate entirely. The issue is not whether the State will adopt Sharia, but whether certain communities within it should be allowed to.

You haven't read any posts about the "demographic timebomb," then.

The idea is that Muslims, with their high birthrate etc, will become the majiority and that we will all have to live under Sharia law.

If individual groups of muslims want to have their own Judge Judys, that don't interfere with national law, what's the problem?

[ncsonde]

Jan 16, 2013 17:45:57 GMT aubrey said:

I don't say that science can be left or right wing, just that the decisions that are supposed to based on science are always made for political reasons.

It's a pointless point, Aubrey. You're merely saying governmental decisions are taken by politicians. Apart from that, it's not true anyway. When the science is genuinely "settled" and proven, as it was over the spread of cholera, smallpox etc., CFCs, DDT, aluminium in water, thalidomide, the dangers of X-rays and other radiation poisoning, etc etc etc the consequent political decisions are completely based on science.

The last Labour Govt made a big thing of having evidence based science governing their drug policy, but they soon dropped that whwen the evidence didn't agree with what they already thought

I don't think so. Most evidence in science is not definitive, but a matter of interpretation, that's all. And in this case it's not simply a scientific matter, but one involving social policy - science has nothing to say about that.

: drug policy has always been entirely based on political expedience, and AGW policies will be/are exactly the same.

No. It is very far from expedient to waste billions on wind farms, for example. It's been a decision based on faulty scientific theories, totally inaccurate data, and now disproven predictions. One could say the same about most of this and the previous government's energy policy decisions. And not just here - in the last US budget, for example, when the whole government is on the edge of being brought to a standstill because they can't agree how much (not whether) of the deficit spending to cut, Obama managed to sneak through over $75 billion of extra spending - most of it going to free bungs to wind farms.

I know that Monckton, etc are not scientists (though didn't Monckton once claim that he was? Something like that, anyway).

He's as much of a qualified scientist as the head of the IPCC, or the idiot visitor's just quoted mouthing nonsense in Australia. Certainly more of a scientist than Al Gore.

But just about everyone who makes a big thing about not believing in AGW are right wing

Utter rubbish. You can't make such an absurd generalisation based on a couple of Telegraph columnists you don't happen to like. The overwhelming majority of people who make a big thing about the inaccuracies of the AGW theory are scientists - just like the list Marchesa has just given you. Their political views - whatever they may be - have nothing to do with it.

: and that this is that they associate green ideas with bloody hippies and treehuggers.

If only it were still so innocent.

Nick, I've been told many times that science is never settled. Usually by Marchesa.

Some things in science are settled - that's how it progresses. The accumulation of observational facts, primarily. I doubt very much Marchesa has ever disagreed with this basic truth.

[ncsonde]

Jan 16, 2013 17:58:34 GMT aubrey said:

You seem to have missed out on the nature of this debate entirely. The issue is not whether the State will adopt Sharia, but whether certain communities within it should be allowed to.

You haven't read any posts about the "demographic timebomb," then.

The idea is that Muslims, with their high birthrate etc, will become the majiority and that we will all have to live under Sharia law.

If individual groups of muslims want to have their own Judge Judys, that don't interfere with national law, what's the problem?

I don't believe you're that naive, or indifferent to the fate of those who would suffer from such a change. In any case - this question has been exhaustively discussed on another thread a few months ago.

[aubrey]

Utter rubbish. You can't make such an absurd generalisation based on a couple of Telegraph columnists you don't happen to like. The overwhelming majority of people who make a big thing about the inaccuracies of the AGW theory are scientists - just like the list Marchesa has just given you. Their political views - whatever they may be - have nothing to do with it.

Their spokesmen are mainly right wing. Their main political supporters are mainly Conservative and Republican. The blogs that spout their views are mainly right wing.

It doesn't matter though, because nothing's going to be done about it anyway.

The Sharia law thing I was on about was against the usual thing that I've seen people argue on here or other places about britain being taken over by Muslims, and us having Sharia law imposed - this is something to do wioth too much immigration and Muslims having a lot of babies. Peopple believe this, for some reason. Yes, I know. Not my fault.

The way Sharia Law works here does not allow it to over-ride British Law, and you know that. people agree to abide by certain aspects of it. They don't have to.

[aubrey]

Do you think that the criminalisation of the drug known as Miaow Miaow (by journalists and by no one else) was done on scientific evidence? It was done after a newspaper and TV campaign after a couple of deaths, that scared the Govt into doing something. Weeks later, it was found that the people who had died had not touched the stuff. But it was a "brand new drug," a lot like Chris Morris's Cake, and something had to be done. If it was dangerous before, it's a lot more dangerous now: like pretty much all illegal drugs (what makes them dangerous is mostly their illegality).

C Monckton would have done a lot more good for his cause by joining the Greens.

[marchesarosa]

Time and again the proponents of catastrophic climate change use the mantra of “settled science” to shout down their critics. This is nothing less than blind faith that science actually knows what is going on in the complex environment that regulates this planet's climate. Imagine a part of that system that is literally only 10km from anywhere on Earth, a component of our environment that science thought it understood quite well. Now imagine the embarrassment when a major review in a noted journal finds that previous datasets associated with this component are wrong and have been wrong for more than a quarter of a century. Yet that is precisely what has happened. The area in question is Earth's stratosphere and the impact of this report is devastating for climate scientists and atmospheric modelers everywhere.

Scientists have been launching instrument packages into the upper portions of Earth's atmosphere for a long time. Instruments used for such research were standardized decades ago and programs to collect such data on a world wide basis put into place. If any part of atmospheric science was considered well in hand, if not actually “settled” (a phrase seldom used by real scientists) it would be the long term monitoring of global stratospheric temperatures. However, a report in the 29 November 2012 issue of Nature, “The mystery of recent stratospheric temperature trends,” www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7426/full/nature11579.html says that things are not so.

The perspective article by David Thompson, et al., reports that what we thought we knew well we hardly knew at all. A new data set of middle- and upper-stratospheric temperatures indicates that our view of stratospheric climate change during the period 1979–2005 is strikingly wrong. Furthermore, “[t]he new data call into question our understanding of observed stratospheric temperature trends and our ability to test simulations of the stratospheric response to emissions of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting substances.”

What is particularly troublesome about this report is the scope of the damage done. The problem involves two different sets of historical data from two respected agencies: the UK Met Office and America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). How significant the error and the puzzlement over what to do about it is shown in the article's title, where it is referred to as a mystery. The background of the problem is stated by the authors this way:

The surface temperature record extends for over a century and is derived from multiple data sources. In contrast, the stratospheric temperature record spans only a few decades and is derived from a handful of data sources. Radiosonde (weather balloon) measurements are available in the lower stratosphere but do not extend to the middle and upper stratosphere. Lidar (light detection and ranging) measurements extend to the middle and upper stratosphere but have very limited spatial and temporal sampling. By far the most abundant observations of long-term stratospheric temperatures are derived from satellite measurements of long-wave radiation emitted by Earth’s atmosphere.

The longest-running records of remotely sensed stratospheric temperatures are provided by the Microwave Sounding Unit (MSU), the Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU), and the Stratospheric Sounding Unit (SSU). The SSU and MSU instruments were flown onboard a consecutive series of seven NOAA polar-orbiting satellites that partially overlap in time from late 1978 to 2006; the AMSU instruments have been flown onboard NOAA satellites from mid-1998 to the present day.

The widely accepted, continuous record of temperatures in the middle and upper stratosphere going back to 1979 was based exclusively on SSU data. The SSU data were originally processed for climate analysis by scientists at the UK Met Office in the 1980s and further revised as newer satellite data became available in 2008. Here is were things begin to get a bit dodgy.

There are rules that scientists must follow in order for their work to be judged valid. The work must be done openly, transparently—there can be no secret steps or hidden incantations. This is because the work must be reproducible, not just by those who originated it but by outsiders as well. Things began going off the rails when NOAA recently reprocessed the SSU temperatures and published the full processing methodology and the resulting data in the peer-reviewed literature. This is as it should be, NOAA followed the rules. But it soon became obvious that there were grave discrepancies between the new NOAA data and the older Met Office data.


Time series of monthly mean, global-mean stratospheric temperature anomalies.

The global-mean cooling in the middle stratosphere, around 25–45 km in altitude, is nearly twice as large in the NOAA data set as it is in the Met Office data set (see the figure) The differences between the NOAA and Met Office global-mean time series do not occur in a single discrete period of time, but begin around 1985 to increase until the end of the record. According to the Nature article: “The differences between the NOAA and Met Office global-mean time series shown in Fig. 1 are so large they call into question our fundamental understanding of observed temperature trends in the middle and upper stratosphere.”

How did the Met Office get their data so wrong? Well there's the rub. You see, the methodology used to develop the Met Office SSU product was never published in the peer-reviewed literature, and certain aspects of the original processing “remain unknown.” Evidently the boffins at the Met didn't bother to write down exactly how they were massaging the raw data to get the results they reported. Indeed, those who did the data manipulation seem to have mostly retired.

“The methodology used to generate the original Met Office SSU data remains undocumented and so the climate community are unable to explain the large discrepancies between the original Met Office and NOAA SSU products highlighted here,” Thompson et al. summarize. And the damage doesn't stop there.

The data from the erroneous dataset has been used widely to help drive and define computer climate models, the same models used to prop-up alarmist claims of impending catastrophic climate change. According to the report: “Two classes of climate models commonly used in simulations of past climate are coupled chemistry–climate models (CCMs) and coupled atmosphere–ocean global climate models (AOGCMs). By definition, the CCMs explicitly simulate stratospheric chemical processes, whereas the AOGCMs explicitly simulate coupled atmosphere–ocean interactions... A key distinction between the model classes that is pertinent to this discussion is that in general the CCMs resolve the stratosphere more fully than do the AOGCMs.”

One of the predictions made by climate models is that as surface temperatures rise temperatures in the stratosphere should drop. Precisely why this should be so is complex and not important to the point being made here. Suffice it to say, the Met Office version of the SSU data suggests that the models overestimate the observed stratospheric cooling, whereas the NOAA SSU data suggest that the models underestimate it. As the authors put it:

If the new NOAA SSU data are correct, they suggest that the stratospheric mass circulation is accelerating at a rate considerably higher than that predicted by the CCMs, at least in the middle and upper stratosphere (that is, at the altitudes sampled by the SSU instrument). Again, it is possible that the models are correct and that the SSU data are in error. But the fact that the discrepancies between the magnitudes of the simulated and observed cooling in the tropical stratosphere extend to MSU channel 4, which samples the lower stratosphere and exhibits trends that are fairly reproducible from one data set to the next suggest that model uncertainties should not be discounted

[/b].[/blockquote]

The bottom line here is that models based on this almost universally accepted data are wrong. “If the NOAA SSU data are correct, then both the CCMVal2 and CMIP5 models are presumably missing key changes in stratospheric composition,” the report plainly states. The article goes on to suggest corrective actions to prevent such a travesty being repeated in the future. Alas, the damage has already been done.

What is documented here is simply astounding. That which was thought to be understood is found to be misunderstood. Readings thought to be accurate are shown to be inaccurate. How the data were derived is found to be a secret now lost. The impact of the bogus data ripples through past results and, in particular, climate models, rendering old assumptions invalid. What was that line again about “settled science?”

This is an egregious example of sloppy science, slipshod science, bad science. How other climate scientists blindly accepted the Met Office's manufactured data, even when their models could not be reconciled with nature, leads one to question the scientific integrity of many of those in the field. This is not acceptable behavior in any realm of scientific endeavor, and when the results of research are used to inflame the public and drive questionable socioeconomic programs the malfeasance could be considered criminal. This is what happens when the race for fame, government funding and political advantage collide with science—the validity of the science is destroyed.

Be safe, enjoy the interglacial and stay skeptical.



Courtesy of Doug L Hoffman
The Resilient Earth
theresilientearth.com/?q=content/science-gets-stratosphere-wrong

[marchesarosa]

Did you get as far as this bit, aubrey?

According to the Nature article: “The differences between the NOAA and Met Office global-mean time series shown in Fig. 1 are so large they call into question our fundamental understanding of observed temperature trends in the middle and upper stratosphere.”

Seems the "climate science" is not settled in very fundamental aspects after all.

[marchesarosa]

"For the past 15 and more years the world has been emitting record-breaking amounts of CO2 (and other, far more powerful, greenhouse gases.) The global temperature has not risen."

Just to put this in perspective for Aubrey, one third of ALL estimated HUMAN emissions of CO2 have occurred SINCE 2000. And still the purported temperature rise of 1979-98 has stalled. If you are not aware of this or if you have no answer for this, aubrey, you really should not be trying to participate in the fossil fuel debate at all because this is one field of human discourse where YOUR opinion is certainly not as good as anyone else's and where having your heart "in the right place" is totally irrelevant.

I'm getting tired of your nauseatingly simplistic right-left worldview where the left is always right and the right is always somehow self-serving. Get your brain off these silly tram lines, aubrey, and join the thoughtful folk, eh?

[ncsonde]

Jan 16, 2013 21:06:58 GMT aubrey said:

Utter rubbish. You can't make such an absurd generalisation based on a couple of Telegraph columnists you don't happen to like. The overwhelming majority of people who make a big thing about the inaccuracies of the AGW theory are scientists - just like the list Marchesa has just given you. Their political views - whatever they may be - have nothing to do with it.

Their spokesmen are mainly right wing.

What "spokesmen"? It's not an organised movement.

Their main political supporters are mainly Conservative and Republican.

As I said, easily explicable. The AGW thesis suits the Left and liberal politicians perfectly - right or wrong, they see it as an idel opportunity. If conservatives have been alarmed by this opportunistic power-grab and been moved to examine what evidence it's really based on, it's hardly surprising.

The blogs that spout their views are mainly right wing.

Like what? I doubt very much you read the main climate sceptic blogs - if you do, why don't you know more about the subject? As far as I can tell, the leading ones are apolitical - they're concerned with the science.

It doesn't matter though, because nothing's going to be done about it anyway.

You're unaware then of the hundreds of billions already spent in subsidies to the "renewable energy" lobby? The billions earned by people like Al Gore in the carbon credit trading scam? The enforced closure of fossil fuel power plants? The raft of "green taxes" now imposed throughout the developed world? The whole "recycling" scam?

The Sharia law thing I was on about was against the usual thing that I've seen people argue on here or other places about britain being taken over by Muslims

I suspect that's your usual overactive imagination leaping to the most lurid exaggerated picture again.

, and us having Sharia law imposed - this is something to do wioth too much immigration and Muslims having a lot of babies. Peopple believe this, for some reason.

My suspicion confirmed.

Yes, I know. Not my fault.

Yes it is. Try responding to the arguments people actually present for once.

The way Sharia Law works here does not allow it to over-ride British Law, and you know that.

I know nothing of the sort. Most aspects of Sharia directly contradict British Law - the principles they're built on are in direct conflict. In matters of family law, which is the vast majority of cases that is argued should be determined by Sharia for the Islamic community, women do not have equal rights or value to men. Their word has two thirds of a man's weight; their demands are in principle secondary to the man's. This conflicts with the values and therefore determinations of British Law. If you are making the unbelievably naive point that a woman who objects to any findings of a Sharia court could always go to a British court and get those decisions reversed - why have this conflict in the first place?

people agree to abide by certain aspects of it. They don't have to.

Is that right? You know this, do you? You've asked all those muslim women who have "agreed" to be so subjugated, have you?