Ledgers, Graphics, and Carvings
Ledgers, Graphics, and Carvings: Models, Water, and Temperature (4)
This is a series of blogs on models, water, and temperature (see Intro). I am starting with models. In this series, I am trying to develop a way to build a foundation for nonscientists to feel comfortable about models and their use in scientific investigation. I expect to get some feedback on how to do this better from the comments. In order to keep a solid climate theme, I am going to have two sections to the entries. One section will be on models, and the other will be on a research result, new or old, that I think is of particular interest.
Doing Science with Models 1.1: In the previous entry of this series I argued that if one considered the types of models used in design and engineering, then we use models all of the time. In fact, when we build or do just about anything, we use some sort of model to get us started. I ended the previous entry with the example of building a simple picnic bench that would hold three, two-hundred-pound men. Not only do the materials need to be of sufficient strength, but the legs of the bench need to be attached in a way that they form a solid and stable foundation. If the bench wobbles and the legs spread apart, then it will be unsafe. If we have experience of some sort, we construct a model from this experience. For example, if we have built or repaired tables and benches we have some ideas of good and bad construction. If we have no direct experience then we can find or ask about plans. These plans might be a schematic, a graphic model of the bench.
For those who do not build benches, but who, say, balance their checkbooks, there are models as well. The forms in a ledger represent models that have proven usable through practice or that have become standard approaches. Information is collected and organized: the check number, the date, the payee, the amount, the purpose and the category of expenditure.
These graphic, tabular, or touchable models are common enough that we develop intuition about their use. Introductory materials to climate models often use the words “mathematical,” “numerical,” and “computational.” These words take us not only away from our intuitive notions of models, but also into subjects that many of us find difficult and obscure. However, in the past couple of decades we have seen the tabular models of checkbook balancing coded as computational products such as Quicken. Design and architecture move to tools such as Computer-assisted Design. Recently, we have seen this combination of the world of digital models and touchable products come full circle with the advent of three-dimensional printing. In three-dimensional printing, solid objects made of plastic and metal are rendered from mathematical descriptions of the objects. I will return to this idea of mathematical descriptions of objects later. The point that I would like to make now is that using computers as tools to represent the real world has in the last two decades become routine. Therefore, in and of itself, the use of computers to make numerical calculations of the real world is common. It might not be as universally intuitive to people as a ledger or a wooden design of a boat, but there is large body of experience that affirms the value of computer-based modeling.
There are a number of steps that need to be taken from here to climate models. So far, I have been talking about models that are in the spirit of a work or a structure used in testing or perfecting a final product. In climate modeling, the final product of the construction is a model. It is the purpose of that model to provide a credible representation of the climate. That representation has a number of attributes. There is the attribute of representing what we have already observed. There is also the attribute of predicting what we will observe, that is, predicting the future. Therefore, the final product of the whole process is the simulation of and the prediction of the climate.
As with many words, there is more than one definition of model in the dictionary. Another relevant definition from my print edition (third) of the American Heritage Dictionary is “A schematic description of a system, theory, or phenomenon that accounts for its known or inferred properties and may be used for further studies of its characteristics.” (American Heritage Dictionary online) This definition is directly descriptive of a climate model. But like those introductions to climate models that I referred to above, it quickly goes to words like “system” and “theory” that are not quite as intuitive as I would like. This is where I will start next time.
Interesting Research: Attribution of 2011 Extreme Weather to Climate Change - Some might recall in 2011, I wandered into the contentious subject of the attribution of climate change to humans (collected here) and talking about communicating extreme weather events in the media (Shearer and Rood). The paper I highlight in today’s blog is a compilation of efforts to understand the role of planetary warming in some of the extreme events of 2011. The paper is Explaining Extreme Events of 2011 from a Climate Perspective edited by Tom Peterson and others and published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. This paper looks at six of the extreme events of 2011 and tries to attribute, in a variety of ways, the role played by human-caused global warming. (nice summary in New Scientist)
I want to focus on the part of the paper that discusses the extreme heat and drought in Texas in the summer of 2011. Much of that discussion is based on evaluating the effect of sea surface temperature, and specifically, the role of El Nino and La Nina. El Nino and La Nina are the names given to recurring patterns of sea surface temperature distributions in the eastern, tropical Pacific Ocean. The approach to this problem is to use models to make many simulations with sea surface temperature distributions similar to the La Nina conditions of 2011. Simulations were made for times in the 1960s and for the year 2008. The simulations provide an ensemble of many plausible outcomes, and it is possible to investigate the odds of a drought of similar extreme attributes as the 2011 drought occurring in the 1960s. The authors conclude that the warming climate made the 2011 drought 20 times more likely to occur now than in the 1960s. The authors point out that they cannot make statements about absolute probability. That is, they cannot state that in the absence of carbon dioxide increases and associated warming, that the drought would not have occurred.
This approach of using probability to discuss the impact of warming is an active area of research as well as an emerging way to communicate the relation between extreme weather and global warming. In the Washington Post, Jim Hansen has an op-ed piece that describes a paper which was released on Monday, August 6 (reference at end). In this paper Hansen revisits his metaphor that compares extreme weather in a warming climate with playing a dice game with loaded dice. That is, the dice are loaded in a way such that what used to be “extreme” will more likely occur. Going back to the Texas drought, that result mentioned in the previous paragraph says that the dice are loaded so that the extreme attributes of the 2011 drought are 20 times more likely. The takeaway message from Hansen is that we have, so far, underestimated how much the dice are loaded and that we have underestimated the probability of extreme events such as droughts, floods, heat waves, and yes perhaps, persistent cold snaps.
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Hansen, Early Edition, PNAS, Perception of Climate Change
Hansen, Perception of Climate Change, Public Summary
Reader Comments
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That is correct. It cannot be stated with any confidence that the trend of the last twelve years is up, down, or flat. So, can I assume that you will now stop claiming, "The warming has paused on all of the datasets."?
Why? That was done for you on your previous visit here with no apparent effect. Is there some reason that every time you pop up here and post the same refuted science that someone should have to refute it again? If you want refutation of your points in the scientific literature, you need only find the last thread on this blog in which you posted this stuff.
Observations are the golden standard for scientific research, especially in Climate Science. If the models disagree with observations, simply put, they are wrong. They are not portraying the way the Climate System actually behaves. There is no way around it. Since the majority of the AGW papers deal with numerical modelling, it is more likely that the numerous solar papers that deal with observations are correct instead of the papers dealing with modelling.
According to Google Scholar, Christl et. al 2004 has gotten 41 citations, which is a decent amount of citations for an 8 year timeframe.
Marchitto et. al 2010 has gotten 15 citations, which is pretty good for a 2 year timeframe.
Zhao et. al 2009 got 5 citations over a 3 year timeframe, which is not as impressive as the other two papers, but it has been getting some citations.
Tan et. al 2011 has gotten 3 citations in a year, which is not bad for a 1 year timeframe. We shall see if the number of citations per year increases or decreases per year in the future.
Shaviv and Veizer 2003 has gotten 193 citations in 9 years, which is extremely good, and scientists are taking this study seriously.
So it seems like scientists are taking these studies seriously.
The error bars are so small in recent years that a trend change can only change 0.05 Degrees C in order for a trend change to become significant.
You can not deny that we have stopped warming over the last 10 to 15 years. As I said, this may be an indicator that CAGW may be severely flawed.
HadCruT4 did not have all of the data available on WoodforTrees, so I did not use it. I also linked graphs for ALL of the datasets in my previous post, and you can clearly see that all of the datasets have significantly slowed down to a point where there is no temperature increase over the last 10-15 years.
Your last point indicates you have the mindest of a lawyer when you approach the issue of Warming stopping over the last 10-15 days. You first claim that it is still warming over the past 10-15 years, but then you claim that it has stopped, but "the weather still occurs and can at times swamp the AGW signal." Why can't the weather signal (internal climatic variability signal) have contributed to the acceleration of the warming over the last 30 years?
You are in denial. I can't help you.
No one has refuted anything that I have posted.
Look, you can't claim that the warming trend has stopped. It's silly. That is easily demonstrated by the fact that there are no twelve year periods (that I've heard of or can find) that are statistically significant. So any claims about a twelve year period are unfounded nonsense.
Sure they did. You just don't realize it and/or don't want to accept it. That's why you've come back, isn't it? ;^)
We can also look at the slope of the line and tell us if it is going up, down, or flatlining. Your claim that we can not tell is simply bizarre.
I came back because I wanted to see if anyone could poke holes into my theories about climate change, and improve on those errors. So far, no one has been able to debunk anything I have posted.
Blessed are we.
We have been visited by Cleopatra....
Via web sites.
No, you cannot for the simple...well, let me show you instead. Here is the HadCRUT3 for 2001 - 2012:
Take a good look at that ± and those curved lines to either side. You see, even in HADCRUT3 you don't know if it is warming or cooling.
Comparing two such non-statistically-significant periods merely compounds the difficulty. It is a pointless endeavor that tells you little to nothing whatsoever about the underlying trend.
Your statistical method is faulty and incapable of doing what you want it to do.
You are using a two sigma error range, in statistics, error is usually calculated in the one sigma range.
Why? It was all thoroughly debunked the first time --to any reasonably objective observer. You cherry pick data and papers while simultaneously ignoring the overwhelming majority of papers. You do that on the basis of faulty reasoning.
I'm not intending to be mean here, but Xulonn correctly points out that your critical thinking skills need some work. I agree. I would add that some study of statistical methodology would also help you.
This stuff is hard. That's why we have climatologists do it. They seem to like it. Don't ask me why.
That's nice. In climatology, a two-sigma range is generally used. Want to guess why?
Manufacturers cash in on system meant to slow climate change
NBCNews.com
RANJIT NAGAR, India - When the United Nations wanted to help slow climate change, it established what seemed a sensible system.
Greenhouse gases were rated based on their power to warm the atmosphere. The more dangerous the gas, the more that manufacturers in developing nations would be compensated as they reduced their emissions.
But where the United Nations envisioned environmental reform, some manufacturers of gases used in air-conditioning and refrigeration saw a lucrative business opportunity.
They quickly figured out that they could earn one carbon credit by eliminating one ton of carbon dioxide, but could earn more than 11,000 credits by simply destroying a ton of an obscure waste gas normally released in the manufacturing of a widely used coolant gas. That is because that byproduct has a huge global warming effect. The credits could be sold on international markets, earning tens of millions of dollars a year.
I have not denied that I, just like you, get some of my information from external sources (however unlike you, I do not copy and paste large content from blogs, your entire posts are usually just a cut and paste from a Skeptical Science blog post that involves no thought process whatsoever to complete).
However, I also have recently and extensively been doing my own research, and have come to conclusions about the Pro-AGW verses the Pro-solar papers that are circulating about in the scientific literature. I have also come to conclusions that CAGW is not as solid nor as certain as what people would like to believe it is.
Can you say the same?
So that when temperatures start to fall out of the IPCC confidence range they can claim that it is within the error margins? ;)
There is not an overwhelming amount of papers on the Pro-AGW side. Period. The observational evidence supports the solar hypothesis, not the other way around.
No, iirc the two-sigma standard in climate science pre-dates the IPCC.
Try again. (Hint: It starts with "N" and rhymes with "boys.")
Noise is important, but a 1 sigma range error margin can usually do the trick in removing much noise.
You mean the observational evidence that you don't throw out supports the solar hypothesis.
For instance, solar output is flat and has been for decades. Now, you discount that for some other than scientific reasons. That is why you are wrong and will remain wrong.
But that's not the case with climate. It is not part of your "usually".
ScienceDaily.com
ScienceDaily (Aug. 8, 2012) — An international research team led by the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Helsinki has discovered a surprising new chemical compound in Earth's atmosphere that reacts with sulfur dioxide to form sulfuric acid, which is known to have significant impacts on climate and health.
The new compound, a type of carbonyl oxide, is formed from the reaction of ozone with alkenes, which are a family of hydrocarbons with both natural and human-made sources, said Roy "Lee" Mauldin III, a research associate in CU-Boulder's atmospheric and oceanic sciences department and lead study author. The study charts a previously unknown chemical pathway for the formation of sulfuric acid, which can result both in increased acid rain and cloud formation as well as negative respiratory effects on humans.
ScienceDaily.com
ScienceDaily (Aug. 7, 2012) — Diseased trees in forests may be a significant new source of methane that causes climate change, according to researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies in Geophysical Research Letters.
Sixty trees sampled at Yale Myers Forest in northeastern Connecticut contained concentrations of methane that were as high as 80,000 times ambient levels. Normal air concentrations are less than 2 parts per million, but the Yale researchers found average levels of 15,000 parts per million inside trees.
"These are flammable concentrations," said Kristofer Covey, the study's lead author and a Ph.D. candidate at Yale. "Because the conditions thought to be driving this process are common throughout the world's forests, we believe we have found a globally significant new source of this potent greenhouse gas."
Satellites have measured increased solar radiation reaching Earth's surface, (Pinker et. al 2005)(Wild et. al 2005) Cosmic Rays have decreased, (Ogurtsov et. al 2003)(Carslaw et. al 2002)(Dorman 2012) Geomagnetic Activity has been on the rise (Mufti and Shah 2011)(Georgieva et. al 2005)(Cliver et. al 1998)(Palus and Novotna 2011)(Palamara and Bryant 2004)(Ponyavin 2004), and according to the ACRIM TSI dataset, TSI has also been on the rise(Scafetta and West 2007)(Willson and Mordvinov 2003).
Here is Palus and Novotna 2011.
You are using a 2 sigma range just like Skeptical Science (maybe that is where you get your 2 sigma argument from). Soon, the deniers at Skeptical Science will move on to the 3 sigma range and then the 4 sigma range once the temperatures fall out of the 2nd sigma range (they have already fallen out of the first sigma range of the IPCC predictions)(Scafetta 2011).
This graphic from Dr. John Christy's testimony also shows the Global Temperatures falling out of the CIMP5 one sigma error range.
LOL
I appreciate the time you took assigning a motive to me, but you needn't bother in the future. If you want to know my motive on any topic all you need do is ask.
Your IPCC conspiracy theory is nonsense based on nothing.
And I'm well aware of Christy's dissembling before the Senate Committee.
What is my "IPCC conspiracy theory?"
It's your theory. You tell me the particulars.
You always answer a question with another question. Is that mere sophistry or are you a Turing Machine?
You always answer a question with another question. Is that mere sophistry or are you a Turing Machine?
He's posted a lot. But he's made no impact.
If he continues just use the Ignore button. It's a great noise filter.
We have had our climate change web site taken over by entity 'Snowlover123' . plz help us conginue our discussions w/o said virus.
He/it/she has wasted thousands of hours of our critical thinking without ever intending or risking critical change of their own.
Dear Bob, I beg to disagree; we could be talking about amelioration and not whether there is a problem. Delay is a tactic and very effective.
I doubt it has been that bad. When one of these guys shows up it, I think, causes some of us to review the basis for our beliefs. That can't be bad. Some skepticism and willingness to consider other ideas is germane to science.
Then some of these folks will post something that brings new facts from others and I, at least, learn something new.
I've decided that I'm not going to waste a bunch of time on deniers. I'll give them a chance to present their best and I'll try to give it an honest chance to win me over. But when they move to just tossing the same stuff up over and over, especially when their errors are pointed out, I'm just wishing them a nice day and moving on.
There's a small portion of the population who will continue to believe that the Earth is flat, the Sun orbits the Earth, or whatever bogus belief they've locked on to. It's pretty much impossible to move them off their position, anything fact that doesn't fit their version of reality is simply tossed.
If they bug you, just put them on your ignore list.
I second this post. I decided Snolover was full of baloney the last time he showed up. THis time I just ignored him/her. I think he/she is just spam and doesn't approach his/her research professionally or with intellectual integrity, regardless of whether he/she takes it seriously emotionally. But like Bob wrote, anyone has the right to show up and argue whatever position they want to defend and they deserve to be listened to initially. It is only, like with Snolover, that after they demonstrate they have an axe to grind, that they should be ignored.
For myself, I think the physical changes are going to be what changes public opinion. You can argue that the world is not getting hotter, but when crops are lying in fields, there is no arctic ice, etc. that is what will convince people to change their habits and support climate restoring technology. I think when people start considering throwing serious money at the problem then lightweight/wrongheaded science like Snolovers will be given short shrift at best. (Not that the rest of us by then might not have time for more than a short shrift anyway.)
If you want to write amelioration, I am all eyes. (Though i probably won't respond much). Maybe we should start a blog about saving the world rather than debating if global warming exists since we all agree it does.
Spread across four western states, the projects have been deemed “nationally and regionally significant,” and the Obama Administration has set expedited target dates for completion of the federal review and permitting process. If they pass through successfully, the seven solar and wind projects would add another 5 GW (max rated) of clean, renewable power capacity to the national supply.
The Office of Management and Budget has been put in charge of overseeing the fast-track renewable energy projects that qualify to be included in Obama’s “We Can’t Wait” renewable energy strategy. The motivation is to oversee “a government-wide effort to make the permitting and review process for infrastructure projects more efficient and effective, saving time while driving better outcomes for the environment and local communities,” according to the White House.
Link
I spend some time here, some time watching the Arctic melt, but I try to work in a lot of what is happening to keep things from getting as bad as they could if we did nothing.
I think we've seen the economy get back to a place where people, while not happy, are at least starting to let go of the fear of a total crash. And now people are paying more attention to climatic problems.
It's going to take a lot of work to cut our GHG emissions to an acceptable level, but I think we're now going to see work start happening in earnest. Come November it will be sink or swim for the US.
I'm voting for swim.
theoryfact that humans are the primary cause of the observed warming of the past decades. If you and others of your ilk want to live in a fantasy world where there is "absolutely no consensus" on this issue, be my guest. But those of us who prefer reality know what's going on.We have all learned great deal from Sno's particpation but we are all still at climate's failure.
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