Unified Theory of Climate

Kim left a link to an interesting article at WUWT (originally at Tallbloke’s talk shop).   It claims that by integrating convection into the radiative transfer equations, that the surface temperatures of most planets can be calculated.  I’m working on other things (as always) and haven’t had time to thoroughly examine the work but I do have several questions, not the least of which is why a parametrized model with convection built in doesn’t replicate the same thing.   It is an interesting article though and worth considering for those with more time than myself.

Abstract

We present results from a new critical review of the atmospheric Greenhouse (GH) concept. Three main problems are identified with the current GH theory. It is demonstrated that thermodynamic principles based on the Gas Law need be invoked to fully explain the Natural Greenhouse Effect. We show via a novel analysis of planetary climates in the solar system that the physical nature of the so-called GH effect is a Pressure-induced Thermal Enhancement (PTE), which is independent of the atmospheric chemical composition. This finding leads to a new and very different paradigm of climate controls. Results from our research are combined with those from other studies to propose a new Unified Theory of Climate, which explains a number of phenomena that the current theory fails to explain. Implications of the new paradigm for predicting future climate trends are briefly discussed.

Merry Christmas Everyone

Photobucket

It looks so perfect from a warm couch!

Happy Capitalist Extravagance Day!

Their Side – Bloggers knew FOIA emails were coming

I just had a phone conversation with Leslie Kaufman of the NYT on the ‘hacker’. She was careful to call the FOIA people by that PC name. Rule 1 – Don’t offend the witness unless you want them upset. I didn’t really want to do the interview because these things don’t usually go well for me and it took me several days to make time. Unfortunately my Achilles heel is that I tend to say what I think. — I know you are all surprised.

She asked several questions about the hacker and said that her job was to investigate that aspect and not the climategate emails – which she believed had been covered. Of course I took a little time to explain the science of the issue and even brought up the conversations between the Dept of Energy and Phil Jones. In general, she seemed to repeat the opinions of the climategate committees despite the blindingly obvious problems in meshing any of their conclusions with reality. She said it was well covered that the researchers hadn’t been ‘open enough’. If that is the limit of the curiosity of your audience, it didn’t seem worth getting into.

John Christy and Roy Spencer on UAH

I have written often that the UAH dataset is the most accurate data available on the market.  Unfortunately its trend runs lower than other datasets excepting RSS in recent years.  This does not indicate that there are no problems with it but I do make that statement after a considerable amount of time examining the papers and documentation behind the data.  Unfortunately, the low trend makes it a  denier dataset in the eyes of the IPCC, a fact evident both in the AR documents as well as the disparaging comments in the climategate emails.  Please note, UAH has a statistically significant positive trend which is in agreement with AGW (or natural warming), just not with extreme AGW as presented by the models.

Anyway, Roy Spencer and Anthony Watts are carrying a post which replies to some of the often uninformed advocate critique of their data as well as where it differs from the AGW extremist message.   It is very much worth a read.   –JEFF

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Addressing Criticisms of the UAH Temperature Dataset at 1/3 Century

December 21st, 2011

The UAH satellite-based global temperature dataset has reached 1/3 of a century in length, a milestone we marked with a press release in the last week (e.g. covered here).

As a result of that press release, a Capital Weather Gang blog post by Andrew Freedman was dutifully dispatched as damage control, since we had inconveniently noted the continuing disagreement between climate models used to predict global warming and the satellite observations.

What follows is a response by John Christy, who has been producing these datasets with me for the last 20 years:

Many of you are aware that as a matter of preference I do not use the blogosphere to report information about climate or to correct the considerable amount of misinformation that appears out there related to our work. My general rule is never to get in a fight with someone who owns an obnoxious website, because you are simply a tool of the gatekeeper at that point.

However, I thought I would do so here because a number of folks have requested an explanation about a blog post connected to the Washington Post that appeared on 20 Dec. Unfortunately, some of the issues are complicated, so the comments here will probably not satisfy those who want the details and I don’t have time to address all of its errors.

Click here for the rest.

Nothing New Under the Sun

Sara Reardon was hardly alone when she wrote – “There’s nothing really new in a second massive cache of e-mails”, on the same day that the huge pile was released.  A “massive” cache with nothing new?….hmm.   Just how it is that she knew that is beyond me. But a lot of reporters seemed to teleconnect the same point made first by surReal Climate.  I have still read only a fraction (being tired of it) and today we have a unique new bit for the public.   Remember those august committees formed by the government to see if the  government might have screwed up?   Ya know, the ones who decided that the government funded people were innocent of wrongdoing?

One determination by the committees was that nobody had deleted any emails to cover anything up.  Well it looks like they may have accidentally gotten the answer right.  Instead of deletion, they were copied (cut and paste) to a personal portable USB drive. David Holland has an excellent guest post on the matter at Bishop Hill blog.

Climate audit has added some detail.

We have emails from all in Ch 6 to say the group doesn’t want emails made available.

I’ve read the USB quote by David Holland in the emails.  I’ve been slowly compiling them – very slowly.  It is fantastically boring reading the work of people who are poorly qualified. In the end, I have to agree with Sara on this one.  We already knew they did it, even though the skeptic-deaf adjudicators claimed they didn’t.

Crackdown – U.S. Representative Ed Markey (D-MA) – It’s time to bring them to justice!

I’ve been contacted by several reporters over the last few days asking what was going on with the seizure of Tallbloke’s computers.  I have responded to each by email pointing out some of what seem to be obvious facts in the DOJ case and then adding that they (the reporters) are looking into the wrong crime.  I tried to keep the tone nice but wasn’t always sucessful.  Several reporters asked me about why I thought it wasn’t a crime to release the emails, to which I replied, we didn’t do it.   We simply run climate blogs.  It may seem like an excuse to some of the less informed, but there is actually no mechanism for us to prevent the release of these emails.   Since we cannot prevent it, how is it that we are suspects in the act itself?   Yes, I know they told Tallbloke that he wasn’t a suspect, but does anyone really believe that?   Police say crap like that all the time.  It keeps the suspect calm while they investigate him.

Of course the police know that it is intimidating to enter a persons home and take all of their personal information but let’s think about this for a moment.  Michael Mann who is largely government paid, has been caught colluding with Phil Jones and others to hide data from the IPCC in order to make a stronger than actual case for unprecedented 20th century warming.  And by caught, I mean really really caught. Instead of actually looking into his other emials, on his government funded computer, they hold multiple completely fake investigations and clear the whole CRUe.  They didn’t go into Mike or Phil’s houses and check their personal computers to find context, instead they go to an anonymous bloggers house and take his machines telling him falsely that he is not a suspect.

What information could they possibly get from an innocent blogger who simply writes skeptically about bad science in climate that they couldn’t get from WordPress – the blog host?   There is only one thing I can think of, personal communications with the perpetrator.  Tallbloke is either a suspect in collusion with foia.org OR they want him to stop blogging.   Of course so are the rest of us on that list in the letter from the US DOJ, and I’m sure a few others are suspects who aren’t on the list.

“No Jeff, you guys are evil deniers.”, the advocates write.  “You are complicit in the release of the emials. ”

To which I reply — Ok geniuses, tell me how to stop it!

A full twenty five people had downloaded them before I noticed the link and over 160 had downloaded by my first post which was the first on the internet tilted Climategate 2.0.  Note the clever title I gave it.  I’m sure that the name was illegal somehow.   What should I have done instead?  Phone the internet and tell it to stop!

My guess is that the police are likely not happy about having to investigate fake crimes.  They know these simple facts about internet information very well and unlike the biased media, they can read hide the decline and understand the context quite well.   See, the police ain’t stupid.  They are used to being lied to and when the climate boys tell them – out of context – it requires a personal interpretation by the investigator to determine whether the suspect is telling the truth.   Yes, everyone is a suspect to them.  Of course they do have to follow orders from the boss.  Have you ever wondered why the Climategate 1 release required the highest and most political levels of the UK police to investigate?

Anyway, I sort of gave an earful to the various reporters that contacted me.  I even quoted one guys stuff back to him asking how the emails could be out of context 8 hours after their release when nobody could have possibly read them in that time – let alone attempt to put them all ‘out of context’.

Climategate Continued

Fox news has an article on one aspect of climategate featuring some famous bloggers.

UPDATE:  The search warrant issued for confiscation of Tallbloke’s computer’s is available at CA.

WG1 More Chapters Linked

Is this a good time?

Additional chapters released from WG1 of the IPCC.  All links are dead.

Crackdown – Shooting in the Dark

It seems that the world governments are escalating cliamtegate to the next level.   Tallbloke a fellow recipient blog of the climategate emails, and linked on the right, was raided today in what seems to be a coordinated effort by Metropolitan Police, the Norfolk Constabulary and the Computer Crime division and the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division.  His home was raided and computers were taken for ‘examination’.

Updates are coming shortly which will explain further.  The same is coming to a blogger near you.

Perhaps this post should be titled  –  “The Empire Strikes Back”

UPDATE : Steve McIntyre’s initial reaction.

Classical Values Reaction

An interesting post at WUWT on the matter.

Reaction from the blackboard.

Jonova reaction – I also finally linked the blog on the right.   Don’t know why I’m so lazy about these things.

 

UPDATE: Tallbloke and I both received the following notification from the U.S. Department of Justice Criminal Division and forwarded by Ryan at WordPress.  ClimateAudit is also mentioned yet I’m not certain that Steve Received notice.  It seems that the larger paid blogs may not have received any notice.  On pdf –WordPress Preservation Request-1

U.S. Department of Justice
Criminal Division
1301 New York Avenue, NW, 6th floor
Washington, DC 20005
PHONE: 202-353-2854
FAX: 202-514-6113
December 9, 2011
VIA ELECTRONIC MAIL

Automattic Inc.
60 29th Street #343
San Francisco, CA 94110
Attn: law-enforcement@wordpress.com
Re: Request for Preservation of Records
Dear Automattic Inc.:
Pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 2703(f), this letter is a formal request for the preservation of all stored communications, records, and other evidence in your possession
regarding the following domain name(s) pending further legal process: http://tallbloke.wordpress.com, https://noconsensus.wordpress.com, and http://climateaudit.org (“the Accounts”) from 00:01 GMT Monday 21 November 2011 to 23:59 GMT Wednesday 23 November 2011.

I request that you not disclose the existence of this request to the subscriber or any other person, other than as necessary to comply with this request. If compliance with this request might result in a permanent or temporary termination of service to the Accounts, or otherwise alert any user of the Accounts as to your actions to preserve the information described below, please contact me as soon as possible and before taking action.

READ THE LINK ABOVE FOR THE REST

Michael Mann Activist

I find him a far more effective communicator in person than in papers ‘ntttt’.   This is the same man who throws away data  that doesn’t agree with his conclusions ‘nttt’.  If the data won’t cooperate with climate policy, it is both scientific and fair to simply delete it ‘nttt’.

😀

Mike only wants one thing.  Why won’t you ignorant masses just stop driving and heating!!!

Business as Usual

Despite its now obvious flaws, Steig et al. (S09) appears destined for a prominent role in the upcoming AR5 report.   We are told a lot of things by climate scientists, one being publish your results because blogs are not peer reviewed.   It turns out that even when you publish your results, they go unnoticed. S09 is cited in at least 3 different chapters of AR5 initial drafts.  The O’Donnell refutation (O10) of S09 was orders of magnitude more thorough than S09 and various stages of it were reviewed in blogland. Therefore our work had accurate results. Apparently, accuracy counts for little in climate science™ as S09 is a mess and nobody seems to care. Instead of recognizing these widely discussed issues, IPCC authors have taken little notice of our unexciting blue/red plots (that match ALL previous work) and have gone instead to the pretty red colors of S09.

Apparently, the way to get noticed in climate science is to publish unreasonable hockey stick style warming trends written in such a confusing manner that even other scientists can’t work out how you succeeded in communicating the AGW message. If others notice some problems, you refuse to release your messy code and tease their skepticism. If they write in blogs, well that’s not credible because it hasn’t gone through peer review. If they fight back in print, count on your friends to allow you to review the critique. You can recommend to the journal editor that the work be changed to agree with yours and if they won’t, you can recommend it not see the light of day. If the skeptics of your work still manage to publish, you can count on the media to ignore it. Your friends in charge of the institutions will then pretend not to notice the problems and accept your original pretty warming plots with an uncritical eye.

Chapter 10 has some quotes which are relevant:

IPCC Chapter 10 ZOD Leaked

Chapter 10 ZOD released!

The advocacy in this one is a bit much….

 

 

The Message

The Air Vent hasn’t been as much fun lately. Sure there have been leaks but there has been little discussion of interest outside of the insane climategate garbage. Who wants to listen to a bunch of leftists complain in their emails about governments not repressing industry enough anyway? There is plenty of interesting stuff in science to discuss and since I can’t seem to quit blogging, I intend to re-direct myself to examining data. The pro’s seem to have no propensity for it, so we might as well. Unfortunately, the emails deserve more exposure and there is plenty to write about there but I am an engineer, not a historian. We know the story, a bunch of activists with degrees have taken over climate science – big shock. If any readers want to write on it, send an email. I’m working on a few big posts in the background but they will take time.

So Judith Curry (a very popular blogger) has a post on the communication of science. Willis Eschenbach made the point that communication isn’t the problem, we get it. From my perspective, his point was very welcome:

Public opinion is not “at odds with established scientific evidence”. It is at odds with the IPCC version, the Gavin-sanctioned version of model data that the IPCC and the modelers mistake for evidence.

There is no science communication problem at all in the US. The majority of the public sees the stage productions of the climate alarmists for what they are—pseudo-science and doomsday fantasies.

Like I said, the public sees it very well. They’ve gotten the message that a host of the most important leading lights among the AGW supporters are liars and cheats … so I’d say the communication is getting across very well.

I find this continued insistence that what we have is a problem with bad communication to be hilarious.

It is so blindingly obvious yet earlier today, I listened to Chicago radio and they had a college girl on who was a delegate from here university to Durban. She was blathering on about wanting a livable planet for her kids and how disappointed that she was that the US hadn’t committed enough industrial suicide to make her happy. I’m certain that she hadn’t paid for her plane ticket and passport with her waitressing receipts.

How many ways have we been told by “scienticians” that we’re doomed? If the endless re-wording hasn’t worked, why won’t they consider the content?

Answer: Because the sandwich board – end of the worlder’s –

 

are far smarter than us..

Cracking at the Seams

At WUWT:

freeinfo says:

December 10, 2011 at 12:49 pm

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TF234DCZ

Chapter 4 ZOD – Assessment report 5

History

The following paragraph is from the zero order draft of the IPCC on the controversial topic of polar amplification.   The topic is only controversial because one of the two poles is doing a poor job of cooperating with climate models.  Of course some of the pro’s will tell you different, but my understanding is that there is less warming in the Antarctic than was predicted in most models.  Like hide the decline in paleoclimatology, there are random theories for the anti-establishment behavior of the Antarctic thermometers (i.e. ozone), however my understanding is that the guesses are unsubstantiated outside of some models which have the ‘guess’ programmed right into them.  Please understand that I haven’t spent much time with the models (more than most) but as always, you should confirm my opinions yourself.

Kenneth noticed this next paragraph (from the AR5 ZOD on another thread which I’m not quoting or citing it but it happens to randomly appear below) that discusses ‘polar amplification’ – a phenomenon describing more warming over the poles than the rest of the planet.

Box 5.1: Polar Amplification
Instrumental temperature records show that the Arctic (Bekryaev et al., 2010) and the Antarctic Peninsula [(Turner et al., 2005; Turner et al., 2009)] are experiencing the strongest warming trends (0.5°C per decade over the past 50 years), almost twice larger than for the hemispheric or global mean temperature [(IPCC, 2007)]. West Antarctic temperature also displays a warming trend of about 0.1°C per decade over the same time period (Steig et al., 2009; [Reference needed: O’Donnell et al., ?]). A number of mechanisms can produce larger magnitudes of polar temperature changes compared to mid or low latitudes. These mechanisms involve the dynamics and variability of atmosphere (Alexeev et al., 2005; Serreze and Francis, 2006) and the ocean-sea ice system (Chylek et al., 2009; Polyakov et al., 2010; Semenov et al., 2010; Spielhagen et al., 2011b), as well as local radiative feedbacks linked with snow (Ghatak et al., 2010), ice albedo, water vapour, clouds (Graversen and Wang, 2009; Screen and Simmonds, 2010), and land surface vegetation changes (Bhatt et al., 2010). Each of these mechanisms has specific fingerprints in the seasonality, latitudinal and vertical structure of temperature changes. Detection/attribution studies conducted for the Arctic and Antarctic (Gillett et al., 2008) concluded that human influence dominated the recent polar warming.

The first claim of 0.5C/Decade in the peninsula region is easily confirmed as reasonable (slightly high) with this area plot derived from the raw temperature station data below.   The 50 year Antarctic continental trend from the station data is a statistically insignificant 0.05C/decade of warming.

Antarctic temps by ground thermometer. AWS and Manned