CO2 on the Brain

I was sitting here this morning and from memory just realized that I forgot the best part of Chris Colose’s post ‘Even Princeton Makes Mistakes”.   I was going to add this at the end and just tired myself right out – or bored myself to death.  Here’s the best quote I’ve read in a  long time from the pseudoscience of climate (my bold):

Personally, I have little interest in the legality of making CO₂ a “pollutant” or not.  I’m quite sure different people here have their own perspective on this, but to me whether we call it a “pollutant” or a “banana” doesn’t change its physical properties: CO₂ is a strong greenhouse gas, and it is important in impeding how efficiently our planet loses radiative heat to space.  We don’t often think of CO₂ as a “pollutant” on Venus, yet it still allows the planet to support temperatures well above the melting point of lead or tin.

Now, just what the HELL do they teach Atmospheric Science students in school?  I’m just an Aeronautical Engineer so perhaps someone will have to help me figure this idiocy out. Venus does have a more reflective atmosphere but it is also closer to the sun than the Earth.  For the thinking mind, it is difficult to ignore that the atmosphere is a ridiculous 90 times more dense.   The Russians landed probes on Venus without using parachutes at the end of the decent because the atmosphere is so thick.  The point is that if you replaced Venus’s atmosphere with one of Earth’s composition, you would still have plenty of heat at the surface -even if you took the CO2, Water and Methane out.  In fact, if you just used Nitrogen alone at the same mass you would get a ton of heat just by the insulating properties of a gas.  Is there a single gas in the known universe which wouldn’t cause a hot Venus surface?  Better yet, one wonders if Chris would still blame any trace amounts of CO2?

Perhaps Chris shouldn’t be lecturing to Princeton Physicists.

Bart’s Bud

Bart Verheggen left a link to atmospheric sciences student Chris Colose’s reply to Dr. Happer’s article featured at WUWT and here.  The article is titled ‘Even Princeton Makes Mistakes’ which is certainly true.  This is all Bart had to say on the matter:

I’m sure most here won’t appreciate the post, but Chris Colose over at SkS disagrees with Happer:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/even-princeton-makes-mistakes.html

It was published at ‘skeptical science’, a blog skeptical of anything which doesn’t support leftist science – a form of politically motivated science which has invaded our universities (like Princeton and UEA) in replacement for ‘actual’ science.  Ya know, save the planet by growing your own vegetables, riding bikes and building wind farms.  That sort of thing.

It is an ironic post to say the least as it critiques the lack of content of of Happer’s excellent and well written article The Truth about Greenhouse Gasses, while providing little content of its own.  You have to wonder what they are teaching in college these days. I’m certain from the papers I’ve run across, that math is not heavy enough in the atmospheric sciences department.  Still, in an ever expanding effort to tell us how to live and what to think, the head in the sand opinions keep coming.  Chris though likes to take his shots where he can:

Future Perfect

Pat Frank has kindly offered another guest post this week.  Since I’m completely out of time, there can be little input of my own so I am grateful for those who want to discuss interesting matters.  – Jeff

By

Pat Frank

22 May 2010

In my recent “New Science of Climate Change” post here on Jeff’s tAV, the cosine fits to differences among the various GISS surface air temperature anomaly data sets were intriguing. So, I decided to see what, if anything, cosines might tell us about the surface air temperature anomaly trends themselves.  It turned out they have a lot to reveal.

As a qualifier, regular tAV readers know that I’ve published on the amazing neglect of the systematic instrumental error present in the surface air temperature record It seems certain that surface air temperatures are so contaminated with systematic error – at least (+/-)0.5 C — that the global air temperature anomaly trends have no climatological meaning. I’ve done further work on this issue and, although the analysis is incomplete, so far it looks like the systematic instrumental error may be worse than we thought. J But that’s for another time.

Wegman and the ?

Roman M, famous blogger and oft published professor, cursed in the eyes of cheerleaders for being afflicted with an unfortunate statistical ability, 😉 has posted on the retraction of an 8 page 3 reference statistics paper by Edward Wegman.

Wegman and the Ankle-Biters

Worth the Time

The Truth About Greenhouse Gases

The dubious science of the climate crusaders.

by William Happer

———

If you haven’t read the article already at WUWT, it is nice to hear from some in the science community that there is recognition of the problems in AGW.  William Happer goes through much of the history of global warming skepticism on blogs and the rationale behind our existence.   Why are there so many of us?  Why are we gaining ground against all that money? I don’t think readers here will learn much but it is well written and dead on target.

.

Actually, I don’t recall anything in it that I disagreed with.   Weird.

If you don’t know the answer, Scream it as loud as you can!

I found a link to Wegman Said’s paper recently retracted by the journal for improper citation.   It has created a bit of a stink in the believer world as it shows that Wegman, the man who confirmed for congress the obvious fact that decentered PCA is stupid, was accused of plagiarism by a Canadian guitarist/ global warming groupie.

http://www.dean2016.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/wegman-retracted.pdf

Since the link is public, I guess we can discuss any part of it we want openly. First, we should look at some of the Earth shattering conclusions and claims as they certainly affect all aspects of anthropogenic global warming.

Here is a doozy:

Wegman et al. (2006) suggested that the entrepreneurial style could potentially lead to peer review abuse. Many
took umbrage at this suggestion. Nonetheless, there is some merit to this idea. Peer review is usually regarded as
a gold standard for scientific publication. Clearly it is desirable that the peer reviewer have three important traits:
independent, unbiased, and knowledgeable in the field. As any hard-working editor or associate editor knows, finding
independent, unbiased, and knowledgeable referees for a paper or proposal is a difficult chore. This is especially true
in a rather narrow field where there are not many experts so that issues of independence arise quickly. Clearly as a
field becomes increasingly specialized, there are not as many independent experts. Thus finding someone who is both
independent and knowledgeable is difficult.

Models

After Willis Eschenbach’s post on the linearity of climate model results, I’ve realized there is a need to explain why some of us find that a significant conclusion.  Nick Stokes made the correct point that with enough parameters you can fit equations to most anything.  My reply was that if the parameters are all linear the fit is far less likely.  A lot of this is Greek to English blog readers.

No idea who to credit for this model except God and his/her supervisors. Proof that Physics is real.

I really did intend to quit blogging due to time constraints and I am avoiding necessary work but this is my relaxation time. Don’t tell my wife- she doesn’t read often. However, I cannot spend enough  time to work through the equations of different aspects of models to demonstrate why I disagree with those who claim that these simple linear fits Willis demonstrated are expected or even that they should be expected.  What I can do is provide a few directions for the interested and technically inclined such that others can work it out for themselves.   Lets start with statements and answers.

Steve McIntyre Global Climate Model

First, climate models are claimed to be based purely on physics.  This is true except that our physics knowledge is limited requires a few assumptions.

Climate models/scientists are claimed by uninformed to agree with each other.  This is demonstrably false.

Climate models demonstrate warming due to CO2. This is true.

Climate models are useless junk.  This is false although GIGO applies.

My point in the amazing match to Willis’s fit was that climate model results are way way too linear.  Nobody expects convection instability to react linearly to heating  — at least to my knowledge.  Nobody would expect ocean temps, aerosols, cloud formation, condensation, ocean currents, ice melt, to simply increase linearly to forcings — right?

Maybe they do but it is news to me.

So Nick stokes pointed out that I’m too broad in my statements calling models linear.   He’s right, they aren’t linear.  Linear being an equal percent increase in response to any given input.  Yet the non-linear components are so damned small that the whole global climate model can be represented by a linear equation with a few terms and near zero error.  If you have any math wits, that is something interesting.  Nick knows this IMO but likes to work the crowd.

I’ll narrow this down with a few words from the CAM documentation.  CAM is a fine climate model with mainstream focus and excellent documentation.

What Matters, the Content or the Container

It seems that someone has discovered and of course published the name of Deep Climate. It was done to me by the British press, I believe in conjunction with the secret service whom I had been in contact with so I understand the wish to remain anonymous.  Of course, I cannot verify the post linked above but it is no secret that I don’t like DC even before his recent activities.

DC has successfully caused the retraction of a paper by Wegman and Said where the paper apparently didn’t provide proper citation for some of its work.  I believe he is correct that some quotes were improperly cited, however, the lack of citation was discussed here and elsewhere and seems quite probably just overlooked as they relate to basic background paleoclimatology statements.  For those oversights, DC has long accused Wegman of plaigerism in his submission to congress on the McIntyre Mann dustup which led to the initial exposure of the bogus Mannian hockey stick paleo reconstructions.   This is reason for celebration in his circles apparently, as attacking the messenger is acceptable methodology when the message cannot be discounted.  Also, if proper attribution of a quote was such a problem, why isn’t an amended document citation the solution?  It seems our guitar hero must have other motivations.

I don’t like DC much already as he has a history of accusations against people including myself of non-existent crimes.  He still hasn’t apologized for the false accusations even though the evidence has fully supported my statements.

Ironically, I was accused of saying CRU manipulated graphs to tweak their data by DC well before climategate, an accusation I had not yet made.  Although my reply linked above demonstrated that CRU was doing exactly that. Since that time, one of my favorite quotes from the climategate emails though bears out the truth of the matter and always reminds me of the scuffle with Dr. Deep.

From: Mick Kelly
Subject: RE: Global temperature
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 09:02:00 +1300

Yeah, it wasn’t so much 1998 and all that that I was concerned about, used
to dealing with that, but the possibility that we might be going through a
longer – 10 year – period of relatively stable temperatures beyond what you
might expect from La Nina etc.

Speculation, but if I see this as a possibility then others might also.
Anyway, I’ll maybe cut the last few points off the filtered curve before I
give the talk again as that’s trending down as a result of the end effects
and the recent cold-ish years.

Enjoy Iceland and pass on my best wishes to Astrid.

Mick

I left the full name up of the CRU scientist (for DC) such that proper attribution of the quote could be made and no plagiarism charges could be levied.  My bold of course. Anyway, welcome to the internet DC, you have now achieved infame.

Ouch

Steve McIntyre has followed up on Willis Eschenbach’s simple replication of global climate models.   Steve also replicated Giss from forcings using the same simple equations.   The result demonstrates that the models are simple linear combinations of assumed forcings.  The heart of a top global warming model is exposed in these posts.  Ocean currents, hadley cells, cloud formation, aerosols, all pre-assumed linear factors. This is proof that there is no magical attachment to complex physics which would cause models to EVER give unexpected results.  Instead, it is a clear demonstration that the opposite problem exists, the result was written before the conclusion.

Over Parameterization

Willis Eschenbach has an excellent post on climate models at WUWT.  I would suggest people read it carefully.  From reading through the CAM3 code, I’m not terribly surprised at the result, but a heck of a lot of alarmist climate scientists should be based on what they write.

Reflection in Skeptic Stew

People sometimes ask me how I got interested in climate.  Oddly enough I often answer that I’m not.  I’m more interested in the math and dynamics of the global political situation created by a movement which has been grown well beyond its deserved limits.  Still,  I must find something interesting – got a blog and all- and am a self certified climate skeptic so being a person of reason there must be something behind the fact that I can’t seem to quit reading and blogging on climate.

What keeps me/us going?

1 – I like puzzles and very much enjoy learning.  Doesn’t it drive you nuts when idiots claim you can’t understand or don’t know or it is simply too complicated for a feeble mind to grasp.  Something few realize is that to write even the simplest articles on the science by a non-expert, requires many hours of study.   There is another curse for some of us though in that the need to find an answer sometimes drives to the point of obsession. Fortunately I have an innate laziness which can turn that obsessed behavior into a shoulder shrug when required.  I suppose life is a balance.  It’s too bad that I don’t have time for this because there is so much more entertainment to be found.  I was warned by several infamous bloggers that when I started that I should be careful to not be wrong, my reply was that I would simply admit it.  It’s kind of  funny but for some reason so many people in blogland think you lose credibility when you make mistakes and admit them.  Well I haven’t been chucked to the curb yet for my mistakes but most blogs I read fight tooth and nail to avoid it.  Of course the challenge of this is only one reason for blogging.

2 – The politics of climate science are more certain than the results themselves.  As what most of my European friends consider a borderline anarchist, the mere possibility that Hugo Chavez’s anti-capitalist rants were even attended yet alone applauded at clappinhagen is an absolute insanity to me brought about by decades of state funded propaganda.   It is clear from the writings that the IPCC and UN have goals which reach far beyond climate, they don’t hide their goals in the least either, you just have to read their work.  An effort of attention span and 4 syllable words well beyond American youth and most adults I’ve met (outside of this blog).

Delta T

The New Science of Climate Change

By

Pat Frank

6 May 2011

Some of you may know I‘ve been looking at systematic error in the surface air temperature record [1]. My interest is in basic instrumental error, which complements the great and more exhaustive work Anthony Watts and Joe D’Aleo are doing.

But anyway, looking at instrumental error in surface temperatures made it seem like a good idea to have the global average surface air temperature data sets, just for reference. You never know when they might come in handy.

I already had GISSTEMP 2007 and 2010 from the GISS website [2], and the CRU 2005 data downloaded from the Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center (CDIAC) [3]. But getting prior data sets also seemed like a good idea. As you might expect, they turned out to have interesting properties.

Well Done

Everyone who reads here has probably figured out that I don’t like government in general.  I’m a conservative American who also has an extraordinary dislike for our president.  He’s an awful person IMO, who is flatly unqualified to be in his position.   He is destroying our way of life with intent, yet he has done something good.   He had the guts to give Osama the trial he deserved with the proper outcome.

I dislike Obama a little less.  He’s still immoral, narcissistic to an extreme and flatly intends to destroy capitalism but he did send in a team across Pakistani borders to take out an even more evil man. The Pakistan government obviously was fully aware of Osama’s location and the news/public in Pakistan was less than excited about the outcome.  Obama actually stepped up to the plate, slapped the Pakistani extremist government in the face and said — don’t F…. with the US.  He even took the time to call the Pakistani Prez. and say thanks for the help which is probably standard operating procedure but reads a little different to the rest of the Muslim extremist world.   I wonder how those choppers just flew through Pakistani defenses right to the building they wanted — don’t you?

Was it done for poll points — who cares?

Billions in government aid yet no phone call for the strangely huge compound like 60 miles from the capital.  Imagine hiding Hitler 60 miles from Washington in a military city.  It is obvious that Pakistan was fully compliant in hiding Osama from us.

Well done Obama.  Now fix the rest of your insane policies and we’ll get along much better.

Correlation is Not Causation

On the internet, you can meet an amazing set of personalities.   Kim øyhus, a physicist, has an unusual website with some interesting commentary and a near megalomania tone to it (think I’m kidding).  There are two ‘proofs’ on it,  one we’ve been discussing on a different thread and a second which states the following.

Correlation is Evidence of Causation

A proof done with conditional probability.

Definition 1 correlation : c
Definition 2 causation : a
Definition 3 not everything correlates : P(c) < 1
Definition 4 causation give correlation: P(c|a) = 1

P(a|c) : evidence for causation
= P(c|a) P(a) / P(c) : Bayesian inference
= 1 P(a) / P(c) : definition 4
> P(a) : definition 3

Conclusion: P(a|c) > P(a) : Correlation is evidence of causation. Q.e.d.

Which we can all agree with.  Correlation is most certainly evidence of causation.  Like Kim’s other proof though, this one is also over-interpreted in the conclusion.

Quote from Daniel Dvorkin: The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using “correlation is not causatison” as an argument is close to 1.

So since anyone who puts the effort in can work the math above, and we can all agree that correlation is evidence of causation, why is it that Dvorkin and apparently Kim have such a hard time seeing the other side of the > sign.