Thursday, May 2, 2013

Have You Seen This Theory?


HiMy Name is Global Warming
Have You Seen Me? 
Rochester MN, 1 May 2013
This young theory has been missing for a decade, now,
and her parents are very worried

Anyone who thinks they have seen this theory should call 555-WARM immediately


20 comments:

  1. I live here.

    We had a great two days of summer. Now it's winter again.

    If you happen to have any global warming in your neighborhood, send it my way.

    Thank you for your support.

    ReplyDelete
  2. You can have mine, Australia just had its hottest summer on record.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. According to whom?

      Last I looked at the data, the AGC crowd was massaging the raw numbers from the Oz weather monitoring sites by adding upward "correction" factors to the temps toward the present and downward "correction" factors in the past, just the opposite of what one would expect with urbanization occurring. Example with link:

      http://climateaudit.org/2007/10/23/melbournes-historic-weather-station/

      http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/09/more-bad-siting-in-australian-weather-stations/

      http://joannenova.com.au/2012/07/boms-new-data-set-acorn-so-bad-it-should-be-withdrawn-954-min-temps-larger-than-the-max/


      JJB

      Delete
  3. In rebuttal, we have this Facebook post from Iowa: "Look outside and tell me we had nothing to do with this."

    Surely, the theory lives. In fact, it may be invincible, because there seems to be a high possibility that any and all future weather patterns can fit the theory.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sorry, Mike. Swing and a miss on this one. Mainly because you haven't differentiated between weather and climate. You're still a darn good author, though. How much longer before I get to read the next book, man?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Weather is only climate when it's a heat wave. That's why high temp records are touted as evidence while low temp records are "weather."

      What do you call it when it runs on for ten or twelve years?

      Besides, it's still funny.

      Delete
    2. Climate = weather for 30+ years.

      Since we are now in year 15 of the stationary/cooling phase, we're pretty much veering into "climate".

      JJB

      Delete
    3. We are not in a "cooling phase". There was one very hot year in 1998. Generally, the climate has been warming since 1999.

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    4. Brow, the climate has been warming since the 1600s, but hasn't hit Holocene normal yet. Yet even the IPCC has acknowledged that there has been no net warming for the past dozen years or so, since the sun hit the snooze button, very much like the period from the 1940s to the 1970s when the dip triggered the Global Cooling thingie. We are riding on the crest of a sine wave that rides on top of a trendline (either linear or logistic).

      Delete
    5. Flo (we are abbreviating each others name without asking, right?),

      If the net effect of trench (not a crest) is that temperatures basically hold steady, what happens when the trench is over?

      Yes, temperatures have been rising, but rose in the 20th faster than any other century, and don't show any sign that they will even level out in their acceleration.

      Delete
    6. There was not much in the way of thermometers in previous centuries, so we only know about the 20th. Even then, much of the worlds wasn't intrumented. Much of the data is surrogate data, which is then adjusted in a variety of ways that, in the modern era, coincidentally nearly always results in increasing the nominal temperature relative to the measured values. But certainly, considering that Niagara Falls froze over in 1911 and blizzards of heroic proportions once blanketed the plains in the previous century, things have become warmer since then.

      Of course, this is exactly what one would expect if a sine wave rode on the back of a trendline. There would naturally be a sharper increase when the trend was heading up, a slowing down to stationary when it peaks, and a modest decrease (a la 1940s-70s) when it cycles down. That is why forecasts coming out of Russia and Scandinavia are looking toward cooler temps until ca. 2030 in response to the multi-decadal solar cycle. Provided we are not plunging into another Maunder Minimum.

      Delete
    7. There was not much in the way of thermometers in previous centuries, so we only know about the 20th. Even then, much of the worlds wasn't intrumented. Much of the data is surrogate data, which is then adjusted in a variety of ways that, in the modern era, coincidentally nearly always results in increasing the nominal temperature relative to the measured values.

      Unless you worded this badly, you are saying that the surrogate from the early 20th century has been measured higher than it's real value, so the warming during the 20th century has been under-measured? Interesting.

      Of course, this is exactly what one would expect if a sine wave rode on the back of a trendline. There would naturally be a sharper increase when the trend was heading up, a slowing down to stationary when it peaks, and a modest decrease (a la 1940s-70s) when it cycles down.

      So, the current slowing is just the trenching of the sine wave, and as it returns to crest, we will experience rapid warming again. I agree.

      Delete
    8. as it returns to crest, we will experience rapid warming again.

      We can only hope. Cold kills. The warming has been going on since the late 1600s, but there is no reason to suppose it will go on forever. It coincided with the sun "waking up" after the Maunder Minimum and climbing up to a Grand Solar Max, lasting from ca.1900 to ca.2000. But the Grand Maximum is over, to all appearances. The solar magnetic field has all but vanished, pulling a protective blanket off the earth. The ~60 year cycle would normally start up back up ca.2030, but that's assuming that the multi-century oscillation has not kicked in.

      Delete
    9. Unless you worded this badly, you are saying that the surrogate from the early 20th century has been measured higher than it's real value,

      I did word it badly. The measured values for the early 20th century were adjusted downward, which made the 1930s and 40s seem cooler than what they were in the raw data. More recent data have been adjusted upward. This makes the recent warming seem steeper than in the raw data. For example: the raw data for DeBilt, NDL, shows a downward trend for 1840-2000; but the adjusted data shows a swift warming trend over the same period. (Although to an old quality engineer, both series show a set of regime changes (shifts) and no trends at all.)

      The thing that many scientists overlook is the quality of the data and the state of statistical control of the instruments they rely on. In laboratory work they do; but here they are dealing with reams of data recorded by other people for other purposes and for the most part they have never laid eyes on the instruments they are using, displaying a touching faith in the siting, calibration, and maintenance of the stations.

      There are perfectly legitimate reasons why raw data might need to be adjusted. Instrumentation does go awry. For example, when the thermometer at the National Observatory of Athens was changed in June 1995, temperatures jumped from a stable 0.6ºC±0.2ºC to a more widely fluctuating 0.8ºC±0.4ºC. Then, when it was finally calibrated in January 1997, it settled down to a stable 0.0ºC±0.2ºC. Efforts to adjust past data must ponder which thermometer was reading correctly, and when. Or did the true temperature at the observatory change abruptly between the retirement of the old thermometer and the calibration of the new?

      However, these adjustments must never be done blindly by a global computer-driven adjustment, as they have been. But no one has the time or inclination for a root cause analysis of each such event. One would have more confidence had the Team employed professional statisticians (or professional computer scientists, for that matter).

      Delete
    10. There is some useful comment by Judith Curry on the pause here:
      http://judithcurry.com/2013/05/07/more-on-the-pause/
      and a comment in the replies from Pielke Sr.

      Delete
  5. I'm not sure how accurate these predictions are, but here's German paper citing scientists who claim we're entering another 200 year mini-ice age. It seems I remember hearing that we were doing this back in the 70's, too.

    http://germanherald.com/news/Germany_in_Focus/2013-03-31/2331/Prof_Warns_Mini_Ice_Age_has_Started

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "...200 year mini-ice age." That's the most depressing thing I've read in a long time!

      Delete
    2. Saves on air conditioning bills. Also, you can always put on more clothes. But eventually you run out of clothes to take off.

      Delete
  6. Need more science in your fiction.

    Weather- instantaneous reading and maybe a prediction of the next week.

    Climate- average readings over a long period.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How long a period? Surely not a hurricane season or a summer heat wave! Or even a few centuries of solar max.

      Delete

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