The Sun Is So Boring.....

[OICURMT]

Renato,

Can you please not quote previous posts in their entirety?

It makes it difficult to follow the thread... Not that I'm getting much out of it other than a good laugh....


OIC!

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by andyc

Renato, there's little point in having a discussion if you won't read what's written. I've twice pointed out that 93% of *observed* warming goes into the oceans, and yet you're still banging on about a non-significant short-term 'hiatus' in 2% of the climate system (the atmosphere) as if that proves Earth isn't still rapidly gaining heat.

You didn't follow the links to all the Antarctic sea ice research papers in the SkS link? Or was reading and following information to it's source too much?

Climate science is completely underpinned by *observations*. Old tired talking points about it only being models fall into the 'not even wrong' category.

You're wrong about so many things it is painful! I'm sorry to see a fellow astronomer in such a position. I only hope that one day you'll understand this and have the grace to accept it. I'd love to be wrong about climate, but based on the research literature, the chances of that are virtually nil.

Clear skies

Hi Andy,
As I replied in my response to N1 below, since having been trained and getting an A in my undergraduate studies on the perils of Global Cooling, I take anything I read about this subject with a grain of salt.

I note that you too, have adopted the position that this Hiatus doesn't matter.

So, suppose I had taken your advice and limited myself to John Cook's supposedly excellent site, with the deceptive name of Skeptical Science.

1. Up till last year, would I have read in it,
a. there are a whole bunch of nutters claiming that there has been a pause in global temperatures since 1998 or further back, which is plain wrong, or
b. how about that, there is a pause?

5th Assessment Report comes out, and the Heresy about no pause is dispelled, we have an Hiatus.

2. Up till last year, would I have read in it,
a. Michael Mann's work on the Hockey Stick graph has been invaluable, it became the centrepiece of the Assessment report, which has galvanized governments across the world to take action, and which shows that the Medieval Warm Period of the 11th to 12th century and Little Ice Age of the 18th century were essentially figments of people's imagination, (despite some 1800 or so peer reviewed geology papers which studied one or other or both of those periods), or
b. statisticians have been looking at Mann's work, and cannot reproduce his results using his raw data, when they try do what he said he did they get the opposite answer, and when they've asked to have a copy of his algorithms and computer code, he has refused to provide it citing intellectual property. The whole direction of the world's future is being predicated on results which can't be reproduced?

5th Assessment Report comes out, and the Hockey Stick is pushed to the side.

3. Up till last year, would I have read in it,
a. Global Warming is causing and will continue causing a large increase in extreme weather events - cyclones, hurricanes, droughts and floods (as recited by Wong, Brown, Rudd, Gillard, Flannery, and as still recited today by Bandt) or
b. there's one author of the IPCC report, who is a world expert on hurricanes and cyclones, who wrote for the Assessment report that the frequency and intensity of cyclones had been decreasing for decades, but when the final report came out, the exact opposite was written?


5th Assessment Report comes out, and in it it states there is limited evidence of changes in extremes during the 20th century, no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century, lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale, low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms, not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness.(So much for all the green alarmism that accompanies every bushfire, flood or cyclone reported on the evning news).

It appears to me that John Cook's orthodox site seems to lag significantly what is to become the new orthodoxy. I am glad I chose to take the three examples above with a grain of salt.

Cook's site does tell you about the 4 Hiroshima bombs a second of energy increase on earth due to global warming, and how that is now heating up the oceans (but not the atmosphere). The oceans are now the big thing, but they didn't rate much of a mention in the early assessment reports.

However, others have been quick to point out that Cook doesn't give additional information which may put things into a bit more perspective, like that the sun is hitting the earth with 1950 Hiroshima bombs every second, and that yes, the ocean's temperatures have been going up slightly, but only by the heat of half an Hiroshima bomb a second - thus 3.5 Hiroshima Bombs a second seem to be missing from the atmosphere and from the oceans.

So, I'll have fun waiting for the sixth Assessment Report to see what it has to say about this.
Cheers,
Renato

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by OICURMT

Renato,

Can you please not quote previous posts in their entirety?

It makes it difficult to follow the thread... Not that I'm getting much out of it other than a good laugh....


OIC!

Hi,
I don't like abridging posts - to me it may look like I'm trying to hide or divert something.

Well, I'm pleased you are getting amusement out of it.

Me - after all this discussion, I still feel like I'm not getting much value out of my PST. It's as if I'd gone to a fireworks display, and the fireworks consisted of stuff that we used to be able to buy in the corner store.
Cheers,
Renato

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by N1

Doesn't that assume that the factors causing both trends were the same, or at least were of the same causative force? Were they?

That the factors behind the cooling trend, the warming trend and the sideways trend were the same, I doubt, but I don't know. We haven't even raised the Pacific Decadal Oscillation factor in this discussion.
Regards,
Renato

[stephenb (Stephen)]

Sorry I haven't had the time to contribute to this thread, I've been to busy outside actually enjoying the real world around me

Originally Posted by Renato1

..... Well, I'm pleased you are getting amusement out of it.

Me - after all this discussion, I still feel like I'm not getting much value out of my PST. It's as if I'd gone to a fireworks display, and the fireworks consisted of stuff that we used to be able to buy in the corner store.
Cheers,
Renato

I've tried to read through all the guff posted here and I cannot find where you actually mention the make/model/aperture of your PST?

I remember sunspot activity of 25-30 years ago and I've experienced similar activity in the last 5-odd years with Ha and white light observing! People do seem to create this illusion that many things in their life were better in the good ol' days (some things actually were however)

[OICURMT]

Originally Posted by Renato1

Hi,
I don't like abridging posts - to me it may look like I'm trying to hide or divert something.


Cheers,
Renato

I honestly do not think that "abridging" a post in anyway diminishes your position, but rather focuses the reader on the most important aspects of your argument... I feel that quoting an entire post "veils" your arguement.


We have a saying in the USA... "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh!t..."


OIC!

[OICURMT]

Originally Posted by stephenb

People do seem to create this illusion that many things in their life were better in the good ol' days (some things actually were however)

I LOL'd at this comment...

I've been fortunate to travel all over the world. When ever I travel alone, I never take a camera. People ask me all the time why not. My reason?

"Because as the years go by and I get delusional with age, the images in my mind get more vivid"...

OIC!

[04Stefan07 (Stefan)]

Holy crap really?

I find the Sun very interesting to observe!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by andyc

Renato, there's little point in having a discussion if you won't read what's written. I've twice pointed out that 93% of *observed* warming goes into the oceans, and yet you're still banging on about a non-significant short-term 'hiatus' in 2% of the climate system (the atmosphere) as if that proves Earth isn't still rapidly gaining heat.

You didn't follow the links to all the Antarctic sea ice research papers in the SkS link? Or was reading and following information to it's source too much?

Climate science is completely underpinned by *observations*. Old tired talking points about it only being models fall into the 'not even wrong' category.

You're wrong about so many things it is painful! I'm sorry to see a fellow astronomer in such a position. I only hope that one day you'll understand this and have the grace to accept it. I'd love to be wrong about climate, but based on the research literature, the chances of that are virtually nil.

Clear skies

I am staying out of this but rest assured I and MANY others feel your frustration on this issue... I would like to say thanks for your succinct assessment on this matter

Amen

But the Sun is a little boring though

[raymo]

Regardless of which scientists are right [if any are] about the global warming issue, it's still good that at least a few governments are
trying to do something about man made air pollution, which, even if
it is not causing immediate worldwide serious problems, is seemingly
bound to eventually. Wow ! I just realised that that was a very long sentence. Bye bye.
raymo
P.S. Sorry about the levity when discussing such a serious issue.

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by stephenb

Sorry I haven't had the time to contribute to this thread, I've been to busy outside actually enjoying the real world around me



I've tried to read through all the guff posted here and I cannot find where you actually mention the make/model/aperture of your PST?

I remember sunspot activity of 25-30 years ago and I've experienced similar activity in the last 5-odd years with Ha and white light observing! People do seem to create this illusion that many things in their life were better in the good ol' days (some things actually were however)

It's the original 40mm PST - I didn't think there was any other one.

I bought my first Focal 114mm reflector in around 1981, but took it back. Then a year or so later bought a Focal 76mm reflector which was so fantastic the first night I used it - that I took it back to K-mart and swapped it for another 114mm. And then my solar viewing started.

In 1992 I got a C8 and Thousand Oaks filter. My thoughts were "great views - but not many sunspots compared to the Focal". Then I got an 80mm refractor and Thousand Oaks filter, so that I could use it more often to look at the sun without lugging the C8 out. My thoughts were, "great views, but not many sunspots. Then I got the PST about a year after it came out, and my thoughts were for several years "Where are the sunspots?"

Quite frankly, there wasn't much around around those days that I don't think is better today. But sunspots were better. Especially when projected through Huygens eyepieces that were close to melting.

Cheers,
Renato

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by 04Stefan07

Holy crap really?

I find the Sun very interesting to observe!

Well, it is interesting seeing those little solar flares which used to be impossible to see without an eclipse, and the occasional teensy sunspot group.

Just nowhere near as dramatic and exciting as it regularly used to be.

Cheers,
Renato

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by OICURMT

I honestly do not think that "abridging" a post in anyway diminishes your position, but rather focuses the reader on the most important aspects of your argument... I feel that quoting an entire post "veils" your arguement.


We have a saying in the USA... "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh!t..."


OIC!

Put it this way, if I'm replying to someone's post as a bypasser and I am only interested in one aspect of it, I'll abridge.

But if I abridge out something that has been put to me in a post, it can be taken as meaning I no longer want to talk about it, address it or acknowledge it - I dismiss it - probably because my position is untenable, and I don't want to acknowledge it.

I won't be doing that.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

I am staying out of this but rest assured I and MANY others feel your frustration on this issue... I would like to say thanks for your succinct assessment on this matter

Amen

But the Sun is a little boring though

Well, at least we're agreed on one thing.
Cheers,
Renato

[andyc (Andy)]

Originally Posted by strongmanmike

I am staying out of this but rest assured I and MANY others feel your frustration on this issue... I would like to say thanks for your succinct assessment on this matter

Amen

Thanks Mike! It's the price of a climate research training that you have to deal with vocally uninformed (or sadly misinformed) people claiming that you, and every single relevant national science academy, and virtually every one of tens of thousands of relevant academics on the planet is wrong. All repeating tired old talking points that have been debunked a hundred times over, and who have collective blindspots to such things as the last 15 years being the time of the fastest accumulation of heat in the part of the world that collects >90% of global warming (Levitus et al 2012). No, the 2% of surface temperatures which have slowed (not stopped), despite every natural forcing going negative, is somehow much more important . That even in surface temperatures, La Ninas in the late 2000s are warmer than every El Nino pre-1998, is apparently no problem. That if you extend the 1975-1998 trendline through the 2000s, there is no significant change - there is simply a positive trend in La Ninas, El Ninos and neutral years. I wonder if the 'hiatus' will be so popular among the blog skeptics after the next significant El Nino (absent a big equatorial volcanic eruption)?

I can't really be bothered dealing with each point of your latest Gish Gallop Renato, in which there is another worn list of long-debunked talking points, but I will address just one:

Mike Mann published one of the most talked-about papers in climate science in 1999, showing that average temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere had gradually trended slightly cooler over the past 1000 years, before very sharply warming in the past century. On a hemispheric (and subsequently a global) scale, the European historical periods known as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were not at all apparent. To cut a long story short, the MWP and LIA were found to be neither global in extent or in timing (as questioned by Hughes and Diaz in a seminal paper in 1994), and so while it was warm in Europe, other regions were cooler, and vice versa. This fits very well with the understanding that climate forcings were not changing too much over these periods except for the continuation long, slow cooling from a Northern Hemisphere precessional insolation peak which culminated in peak warmth in the mid-Holocene. Modern forcing from increased greenhouse gases is enormous by comparison. Mann's paper has been replicated something like a dozen or more times, many of which are shown in the relevant figure from the IPCC AR5 WG1 report. More recently than that, it was replicated by the massive PAGES 2k project, which you can read a summary of here, and yes, you can even go and read the actual sources too.

This area is of particular interest to me, as my PhD and postdoc were on studying Holocene palaeoclimate and glacier changes in the North Atlantic region (and where even the undergrads can see the scale of recent glacier retreat ). Now a couple of statisticians claimed to find errors in Mann's methods. Strangely, they didn't try and replicate the work (just throw mud at it), and when others examined the statisticians' work, it was found to have numerous serious errors of its own, including a chronic case of cherry picking, where the program they used pre-selected the results they wanted. But nowadays, that's all ancient history, as there are so many replications of the original study, with widely differing methods and proxy sources, that Mann's work has been verified beyond any reasonable doubt. That's the scientific process.

But still some would try and throw mud at Mike Mann. Including those who think an undergraduate essay mark is supposed to impress me

[Peter Ward]

Andy,

I'll happily echo Mike's remarks. Thank you for your insightful and well reasoned input.

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by Renato1

From what you cited,
"and the burning question is whether and how soon this retreat might escalate into irreversible collapse."
That is a prediction or fear of what may happen in the future.

One side of Antarctica loses some ice, the other side grows an unprecedented amount of it.
Regards,
Renato

It is happening NOW.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Ob...a_s_ice_losses

Cheers

[Peter Ward]

Originally Posted by astroron

It is happening NOW.

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Ob...a_s_ice_losses

Cheers

Thanks for the link....sadly it's disturbing that antarctic ice has been OBSERVED to have shrunk since that bird was put into orbit.

[Renato1 (Renato)]

Originally Posted by andyc

Thanks Mike! It's the price of a climate research training that you have to deal with vocally uninformed (or sadly misinformed) people claiming that you, and every single relevant national science academy, and virtually every one of tens of thousands of relevant academics on the planet is wrong. All repeating tired old talking points that have been debunked a hundred times over, and who have collective blindspots to such things as the last 15 years being the time of the fastest accumulation of heat in the part of the world that collects >90% of global warming (Levitus et al 2012). No, the 2% of surface temperatures which have slowed (not stopped), despite every natural forcing going negative, is somehow much more important . That even in surface temperatures, La Ninas in the late 2000s are warmer than every El Nino pre-1998, is apparently no problem. That if you extend the 1975-1998 trendline through the 2000s, there is no significant change - there is simply a positive trend in La Ninas, El Ninos and neutral years. I wonder if the 'hiatus' will be so popular among the blog skeptics after the next significant El Nino (absent a big equatorial volcanic eruption)?

I can't really be bothered dealing with each point of your latest Gish Gallop Renato, in which there is another worn list of long-debunked talking points, but I will address just one:

Mike Mann published one of the most talked-about papers in climate science in 1999, showing that average temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere had gradually trended slightly cooler over the past 1000 years, before very sharply warming in the past century. On a hemispheric (and subsequently a global) scale, the European historical periods known as the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age were not at all apparent. To cut a long story short, the MWP and LIA were found to be neither global in extent or in timing (as questioned by Hughes and Diaz in a seminal paper in 1994), and so while it was warm in Europe, other regions were cooler, and vice versa. This fits very well with the understanding that climate forcings were not changing too much over these periods except for the continuation long, slow cooling from a Northern Hemisphere precessional insolation peak which culminated in peak warmth in the mid-Holocene. Modern forcing from increased greenhouse gases is enormous by comparison. Mann's paper has been replicated something like a dozen or more times, many of which are shown in the relevant figure from the IPCC AR5 WG1 report. More recently than that, it was replicated by the massive PAGES 2k project, which you can read a summary of here, and yes, you can even go and read the actual sources too.

This area is of particular interest to me, as my PhD and postdoc were on studying Holocene palaeoclimate and glacier changes in the North Atlantic region (and where even the undergrads can see the scale of recent glacier retreat ). Now a couple of statisticians claimed to find errors in Mann's methods. Strangely, they didn't try and replicate the work (just throw mud at it), and when others examined the statisticians' work, it was found to have numerous serious errors of its own, including a chronic case of cherry picking, where the program they used pre-selected the results they wanted. But nowadays, that's all ancient history, as there are so many replications of the original study, with widely differing methods and proxy sources, that Mann's work has been verified beyond any reasonable doubt. That's the scientific process.

But still some would try and throw mud at Mike Mann. Including those who think an undergraduate essay mark is supposed to impress me

Hi Andy,
I must say you have me a tad confused. You give a link to all the major studies which you say confirm Mann and the Hockey Stick (i.e. WGI_AR5_Fig5-7.jpg) - and I see, for example, one solid-lined light blue graph, and a dark-blue broken line graph which give higher temperatures in the Medieval Warm Period than in 2000, and which give very low temperatures during the Little Ice Age. The dark green solid graph also gives a similar result, except that it goes a tiny bit higher by 2000. And there is a similar shape for the solid-lined dark blue graph

Thus how exactly do these graphs confirm Mann and his Hockey Stick graph, rather than disprove it?
Thanks for that graph - I think it actually proves my point. In 3rd Assessment Report the Hockey Stick was the centre piece. In 5th Assessment report, it is shoved in with a bunch of others that contradict it.

You praise Mann profusely, and claim there is no controversy. Even the Wikipedia article on the Hockey Stick Controversy (whose writers appear to be Mann supporters) wind up citing the Hans Storch review, which states at,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy

"Hans von Storch review

In May 2007, Hans von Storch reviewed the changes in thought caused by the hockey stick controversy writing:
In October 2004 we were lucky to publish in Science our critique of the ‘hockey-stick’ reconstruction of the temperature of the last 1000 years. Now, two and half years later, it may be worth reviewing what has happened since then.
At the EGU General Assembly a few weeks ago there were no less than three papers from groups in Copenhagen and Bern assessing critically the merits of methods used to reconstruct historical climate variable from proxies; Bürger’s papers in 2005; Moberg’s paper in Nature in 2005; various papers on borehole temperature; The National Academy of Science Report from 2006 – all of which have helped to clarify that the hockey-stick methodologies lead indeed to questionable historical reconstructions. The 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC now presents a whole range of historical reconstructions instead of favoring prematurely just one hypothesis as reliable."

More interesting is the testimony by fellow a Lead Author to Michael Mann at the time of the 3rd Assessment report to a US House of Representatives Committee about what happened, where he says Mann amputated Briffa's data, and shoved to never-never land Dahl-Jensen's ice bore reconstruction which showed warmer temperatures in the Medieval Warm Period than now.
https://science.house.gov/sites/repu...110331_all.pdf

Oh - and I noticed that you didn't want to debate what I raised, that after over 20 years and four assessment reports of hysterical alarmism over extreme weather events, they have finally been put to bed in this report. I wouldn't want to debate it either if I were you.
Cheers,
Renato

[andyc (Andy)]

Oh dear Renato, you're still going on about things upon which your knowledge is sadly lacking. I don't think you understand replication or any other topic you are pronouncing so confidently about. I confess, I got it wrong, there are much more than a dozen replications these days, 28 subsequent papers support the basic hockey stick shape (gradual/small change over past 1000years, rapid recent warming), 14 are post-AR4. But do please keep citing Von Storch as if he disputes the basic hockey stick shape, it really is rather entertaining! And have you read Marcott et al 2013. By "read", I don't mean a blog post about it?

But while you're there, please enlighten me. We understand the magnitude of forcings over the past thousand years or so, with small changes in solar and volcanic forcing dwarfed by the modern enhanced GHG forcing, which the world is now responding to (including Antarctica). Your bonus question for ten points is this:

Lets imagine that you are right, and 29+ research papers on late Holocene climate are wrong... (I know, it's a stretch!)... and that Medieval climate was much warmer than the early 21st Century. The forcings, to which global climate responds, were small at the time (while they are large now). Would a strong MWP mean climate sensitivity to forcing is low, or high? Bonus question: would a large MWP give us any comfort at all given the scale of modern climate forcing?

Seriously mate, I really don't think you understand the topic anywhere near as much as you think you do.

Little value in discussing increasing extreme weather with you, because if you don't comprehend signal and noise in a temperature record, you'll really be stuffed when it comes to a dataset with small numbers of extreme values! You'll probably try and quote me some of Roger Pielke's porkies and half truths (he drowns signals in noise then claims no signal). And you'll be hopelessly lost with the concept that a warmer world means both more droughts and floods (enhanced hydrological cycle, more evaporation, more precipitation). But do go and buy a house that is next to a large river and surrounded by bushland if you think I'm wrong.