The latest denialosphere nonsense is proving quite entertaining - not for the subject matter itself, for without exception no-one in the debate has troubled to read the gumpf - but for the mudslinging in the comment thread. If you want to see Bad William you can go over there.
Vinny, I think that pays you off, yes?
Wackos from the Dark Side: you can have the debate here if you want, but only if you're prepared to talk sensibly. As a teensy test of your interest in being sane, I'm making a special rule just for the comment thread: anyone unable to spell my name, or get my title right, or do the sensible thing and call me WMC instead, doesn't get published. Wabbit, you behave too.
Refs
* PaulB - some of the way, I think, but not quite.
* Gregory 2002 (I'm so old school I have a paper copy).
- Log in to post comments
Eli has always told you not to play with the Timmys of the world
[Timmy I like, and can learn from (not climate-related, of course). The people who comment there are... mixed -W]
Well, I didn't want to read all the junk there in too much detail, so maybe it was a wasted exercise. No denialist seemed to recognize that the recent 'plateau' of global warming is well within the error bars of continued global warming, even after it was pointed out to them a couple of times. Also disappointing, while a bunch of them are eager to say they've done the relevant reading, nobody actually demonstrates it. It would be nice if someone developed a widget to calculate the percentage of a blogpost thread that deals with science so people wouldn't have to search so hard to find any.
> Wabbit
Oooh, you naughty wascal.
Well, I lol'd.
Nic Lewis' writeup on this at Bishop Hill (link below) is interesting at first sight - a decrease in the estimate of the magnitude of aerosol forcing could in principle reduce the estimate of equilibrium climate sensitivity. But my understanding (which may well be wrong!) from reading around, is that Lewis' methodology isn't actually calculating equilibrium climate sensitivity as is commonly understood - it's *effective* climate sensitivity, something slightly different. This point was made in the comments.
[I'd missed that, which would be an important point -W]
In the post, Nic describes how he uses the methodology from Gregory et al (adjusted somewhat) to calculate climate sensitivity. Using the old aerosol forcing, the value is 1.83 °C; using the new aerosol forcing, the value is 1.5 °C. (He then uses additional data to get 1.62 °C) Please correct me if I'm wrong - but this doesn't appear to overturn our understanding (as reported by the IPCC) of climate sensitivity.
I'd be interested, however, in seeing what the updated AR5 aerosol forcings do to equilibrium climate sensitivity estimates using the constrained simple climate model approach (which may already exist somewhere).
Link: http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2012/12/19/why-doesnt-the-ar5-so…
the deniers at climate etc didn't like it much when I pointed out that 1.6-1.7C warming from CO2 wrecks their little global cooling theories and also means human ghgs will be the primary driver of global temperature in the 20th and 21st century.
It turns out none of them accept the figure. They promote it and demand the IPCC accept it, but they don't accept it themselves. Hard to both argue the "best observational evidence" shows 1.6C sensitivity but then refuse to accept it. But they manage to do so.
[It doesn't look like the folk at Timmy's are too keen on it, either -W]
Seems pretty clear to me – Lewis has a relatively low estimate of sensitivity which falls within the overall range.
[I think there is a bit more to it than that. Firstly (see above) he may not have calculated ECS at all. Secondly, I doubt his error estimates -W]
Ridley and the usual suspects choose to promote this above all other work because they like the conclusion.
Overall of interest to climate geeks, but won’t have any significant impact on understanding of the uncertainty in estimates of ECS.
Does that sound about right?
I enjoyed the thread at Timmy’s but I would suggest Dr WMC DPhil etc that it might have been wise to read the relevant bit of AR5 SOD and understand Lewis’s background before weighing in quite so forcibly.
[Yeah, might have been better. But relying on unpublished papers cited by "do not cite" drafts is trash -W]
Congratulations, you're in the club of people despised by Ben Pile!
I'd like to say that it is a small and exclusive group, but it includes me after he spent a while spouting his gibberish at the bad science forum and most of us couldn't really understand what he was on about.
Botheration! I went to that link. I really couldn't stand to read too much. Thought I was familiar with all those lalala-my fingers are in my ears types who turn up at odd occasions.
I suppose I need the occasional reminder of why I abandoned Curry and the others. All my admiration and thanks to those among you who can stick it out.
I find it amusing that Judith Curry endorses a reduction of the aerosol uncertainty and small error bars of Nic Lewis' estimate.
Just did a bit more reading, having just noticed there was a second page of comments (see link in my post above). There, Nic Lewis tries to respond to the comment by O. Bothe that his Gregory-based method is calculating effective CS rather than equilibrium CS. Effective CS, from what I understand of TAR (link below), is the linear interpolation of ΔT/ΔF for some time period to the case of ΔF=2xCO2. Of course, effective CS is the same as equilibrium CS if your time period is long enough, all things being equal, etc.
In his response at 10:30 AM on the BH blog (link above), Nic Lewis appears to accept this, but he (I believe incorrectly) argues that his calculation IS still equilibrium CS, even though his time period isn't long enough. He does this by quoting from Gregory et al and inappropriately inserting the word "equilibrium":
>"Although it is defined in terms of a steady-state climate, the
>[equilibrium] climate sensitivity can be estimated from any >climate state"
But if you actually read the Gregory et al paper (link below), Lewis has completely misunderstood the point that is being made: that you can indeed made any calculation of sensitivity for any climate state if you wanted to, but if it's not an equilibrium state it's called "effective" CS. The paper makes this clear a few lines down:
>called the "effective" climate sensitivity when calculated from an unsteady climate
As such, I believe that Bothe is correct by pointing out that we can expect the effective CS as calculated by Lewis to be more of a transient CS than equilbrium CS, on the grounds that the time period used by Lewis in his calculation is on the order of decades.
TAR link: http://www.grida.no/publications/other/ipcc_tar/?src=/climate/ipcc_tar/…
Gregory et al: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442%282002%29015%3C31…
[Interesting. I've pointed that out over at Timmy's place -W]
Another problem with Nic Lewis' result is the 'best observational estimate' he uses.
The IPCC does indeed state a mean and standard deviation of –0.73 and 0.30 W m-2 for satellite observation-based estimates. However, if you follow through to the references involved in this calculation, different satellite-based estimates have different scopes. The lowest in this range all relate only to aerosol indirect effects - they don't include the direct effect at all. Others relate to an RF, but not necessarily the full AF including all indirect effects.
You can account for these scope discrepancies either by adding in a direct effect using the IPCC best estimate of -0.4 or getting rid of values which don't represent direct+indirect, ignoring for now whether or not it relates to AF, which means it's likely to be an underestimate.
Either way, the result is a total forcing from satellite observation-based estimates of ~ -1.0 +/-0.3 W/m-2.
Since you've pointed out the lack of internal consistency within the skeptics' camp(s), I thought I'd highlight a rather glaring example of this.
So we've already established that Lewis (2012) is yet-to-be-published. I can't find a pre-print or even a submission date anywhere. As an aside, I think it would be *very* interesting to look into Lewis' link to M.W. Asten; there is a paper in discussion at Climate of the Past (http://www.clim-past-discuss.net/8/4923/2012/cpd-8-4923-2012.html) by Asten (which Lewis references in his WUWT article) which was absolutely thrashed in open review. It's the only paper anywhere that cites Lewis 2012, and I'm genuinely interested how Asten knew about that paper since there is no record of it anywhere.
But this is not my point. Rather, I was amused earlier this week by Donna LaFramboise's rant about IPCC deadlines essentially undermining Expert Reviewers' ability to, err, review the drafts (http://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2012/12/15/ipcc-declares-its-intent-to-c…). Her quibble is essentially that the final deadline for literature to be published occurs *after* the SOD review deadline, and she implicitly argues that ne'er-do-wells could slip in "unvetted" literature between the SOD and Government drafts which would undermine the entire IPCC process. Nevermind that inconvenient fact that only literature submitted by July 31, 2012 is eligible for consideration in the drafts...
But Lewis (2012) isn't published. It's a getting later and later in the game for an Early Release, which suggests the serious possibility that it won't be published at all. Certainly, that Asten (2012) article seems doomed for a significant re-write or outright rejection on a methodological basis... if it shares techniques with Lewis (2012), it could likely suffer the same fate.
So what then? Do references to Lewis (2012) have to simply be scrubbed from the draft AR5? Wouldn't retaining the Lewis reference be *exactly* the sort of misbehavior that Donna and friends are crying foul over potentially happening? Where's the consistency there?
Why didn't Lewis publish in an open-review journal if he knew he was going to injecting vitriol into the IPCC draft/review process? This isn't his first trip to the rodeo; he's published in JoC before (the infamous Steig fake-controversy) and he has to know that even a 10 month lead time was cutting it *awful* close to the IPCC publication deadline.
Just some musings before the end of the world. And before a deadline on my own damn papers :/
Yes, I'm happy to argue when you've read my papers and linked references therein ...
All should read the breaking news here, from which I quote:
" This story is huge. America’s prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and related government bodies found no greenhouse effect in Earth’s atmosphere. Evidence shows the U.S. government held the smoking gun all along – a fresh examination of an overlooked science report proves America’s brightest and best had shown the White House that the greenhouse gas effect was not real and of no scientific significance since 1979 or earlier."
For those who have been following the research by myself and others from among nearly 200 members at Principia Scientific International, I'd like to draw your attention to an Appendix now added to my current paper.
Have a Happy Christmas everyone!
[I admit to being astonished by the bare-facedness of your lies.
That the current IPCC AR5 draft tones down Clim. Sens. is bollocks: Estimates based on observational constraints continue to indicate that it is very likely that the equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is larger than 1.5°C. Evidence from observations also supports the overall assessment (box 12.1) that ECS is likely in the range from 2°C–4.5°C and that an ECS greater than about 6°Ç–7°C is very unlikely.
As for "shown that the greenhouse gas effect was not real" - I'm just not able to understand how you can be so shameless. You must known that no-one will believe you, that we can trivially check up, and that your credibility, if you had any, would sink. Atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide are steadily increasing, and these changes are linked with man’s use of fossil fuels and exploitation of the land. Since carbon dioxide plays a significant role in the heat budget of the atmosphere, it is reasonable to suppose that continued increases would affect climate. is from the foreword. Or try 3.1 RADIATIVE HEATING 3.1.1. Direct Radiative Effects. You aren't really stupid enough to have searched for "greenhouse effect", found no hits, and concluded it wasn't physically accepted, are you? -W]
Doug Cotton,
I appreciate that you put a lot of effort into that satire, but really Dr. Inferno does it better. Still though, thanks for the link. May be helpful swatting down some fools someday.
-blueshift
Gregory's method calculates ΔT/(ΔQ-ΔF), where Q is forcing and F is heat uptake. In what way would you expect the resulting effective climate sensitivity to be different from the equilibrium climate sensitivity?
[A reasonable question -W]
counter
It is puzzling. Aston hasn't previously published anything on palaeoclimatology.
But he has views.
I wonder if he knows Ian Plimer?
If anyone wishes to ask questions about my paper, or if you believe you have an alternative explanation for the Venus surface temperature, please post your question or response below this post as I wish to keep all discussion on the one thread. There is also discussion there regarding the article on PSI which I did not write myself, by the way.
OK I've asked this before and the only response was rudeness, obscenity and censorship from alameists but
Can anybody at all promoting the warmist "scientific conmsesnsus" name a single one out of the millions of scientists, worldwide, who aren't paid by the state, who support the catastrophic warming calims?
A single one.
[Its a silly question, and an ill-defined one, but one obvious answer is James Lovelock -W]
If not, and bearing in mind the Oregon Petition of 10s of theousands of scientists on the other side, it is obviouis that no claim of consensus on the alarmist side can be remotely honest (though saying their is a scirntific consesnsus againsy it is reasonable).
[My god, your spelling, it burns! As to "substance": the Oregon petition is notable for being signed mostly by non-scientists, even if you stretch the definition wide enough to call and folk with PhD's "scientists". You want Scientific opinion on climate change.
More simply, you need to get your memes straight. The denialist meme you're reaching for is not "there is no consensus", oh no, what you're looking for is "yes there is a consensus but that doesn't make it right". Of course, that isn't a logical argument either, just a form of words, and its wrong -W]
It's a game of Whack-a-Neil! Please, somebody else take a turn with the mallet.
Ohh, whack a neil! I have form at that.
Let's see....
First he doesn't define catastrophic warming, whatever that is. Then he implicitly blames all the climate science he doesn't like on government paid scientists, the further implication being that they are part of a leftie green nazi conspiracy to destroy capitalism.
The fact that the science is against Neil, no matter who funds it, escapes him, which is embarassing for someone who makes/ has made a living selling science fiction books.
So Neil, that's why you only get derisive answers - because you havn't a clue about the science and care only for the politics.
You get bonus derision for the totally wrong Oregon petition, which proves only that people with a scientific education can be idiots too.
P.S. learn to spell check before publishing.
Timmy I like, and can learn from
You could learn a lot more from Herman Daly, but then again, you called him the Pat Michaels of economics. :-)
Doug Cotton wrote:
All should read the breaking news here [link to O'Sullivan], from which I quote:
” This story is huge. America’s prestigious National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and related government bodies found no greenhouse effect in Earth’s atmosphere. ... "
Yes, and then go on to read the 1979 NAS report itself, which on page 1 says:
"The primary effect of an increase of CO2 is to cause more absorption of thermal radiation from the earth’s surface and thus to increase the air temperature in the troposphere."
O'Sullivan has really outdone himself this time!
Neil,
I know someone who signed the Oregon petition. My dad. He is a PhD physicist, but really knows nothing about climate. He did work on completely unrelated subjects professionally. He signed the petition because he doesn't want his taxes raised. That is the value of the Oregon petition -- a list of people who don't want their taxes raised.
[There are lots of problems with the Oregon petition. Even had it been done honestly, there would still have been problems. But fundamentally, you can't do science from petitions, nor can you learn scientific opinion. Its only value is as a political tool, not a scientific one -W]
There's a nice little demo that shows the existence of the greenhouse effect. This isn't really meant for Doug Cotton, but for anyone who might want a hands-on exercise for classroom or a public talk.
Get one of those hand-held infrared thermometers, the kind that people sometimes use for finding uninsulated spots in their walls. You can buy them for US$15-20 or so at a hardware (DIY) store or online.
Go outside at night. Point it at the sky and read the temperature. It will be a lot higher than absolute zero.
That's all the greenhouse effect is. Really. It's simply that there is a non-solar source of radiant energy coming in from the atmosphere to the surface. (Remember, the label on the box says it's an "infrared thermometer" so it works by detecting infrared radiation.) The energy can't vanish, and it's at a wavelength range where hardly any is reflected by Earth's surface, so it gets absorbed at the surface and warms it.
"Can anybody at all promoting the warmist “scientific conmsesnsus” name a single one out of the millions of scientists, worldwide, who aren’t paid by the state, who support the catastrophic warming calims?"
That would be no, not a single one then!
[Err, I've already answered you. What was the point of me bothering if you aren't even going to read? -W]
Gator, my commiserations to your dad. Half of all children turn out to be below their parent's average.
Yup that's right Neil, you win - it's all a government conspiracy aimed at taxing you to death. CO2 isn't a greenhouse gas, and the arctic ice isn't melting, nor is the ocean getting more acidic.
Neil, if you define your terms I'll be happy to assist. Meanwhile, assuming just for the sake of discussing the finances that mainstream AGW science is broadly correct, how do you think it should be funded? Would you find the science more convincing if solar cell and windmill manufacturers paid for it?
Neil - Yuck, yuck, you so funny.
Even if I'm half my dad, that is apparently about 10 x you and your ilk. Nice to see you dodge any discussion and go straight for a lame insult. That's about the total value of your insights, eh?
Wanna come back and play at Timmy's where the good Mycroft is trying to start a game of let's you and him fight?
What the hell. A wonderful Christmas to all, including thems for which it has already started or is over (the Earth being round)
mainstream AGW science is by definition mean, low class, as mainstream is never forefront of elite. therefore mainstream AGW science is in many respects poor or wrong:
- poor simuation models with terribly primitive realsations of clouds
- wrong global mean temperatures
- wrong sea level data
etc.
etc.
etc.
frank --- You've been had. For example, even BEST agrees with the three main global surface temperature products.
I suggest reading "The Discovery of Global Warming" by Spencer Weart:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/index.html
I'd like to repeat adelady's comment - what a lot of crazy!
American Idiot - ta for the IT thermometer tip. I have tried to explain how CO2 meters and CO2 lasers work to deniers without getting through to any. I'd love to get a denier in front of a CO2 laser just to see if for sure if their alternate reality may shield them, but no takers :)
"Since you’ve pointed out the lack of internal consistency within the skeptics’ camp(s), I thought I’d highlight a rather glaring example of this."
They are well aware of this, and call it a virtue.
So nobody can name a single "scientist" supporting alarmism who isn't being paid for it, as I thought.
[You appear to be having trouble reading. I've already answered your question. The internet isn't a write-only medium. Is it possible that you're so used to people ignoring you that you no longer bother check whether anyone has replied or not? -W]
PaulB real science involves sceptics. If the government funding of "climate research" were genuine science then fundinmg would go to sceptics as much as, or at least as much as, believers.
[Alas, you are suffering from a common confusion about the meaning of the word "skeptic". Try reading Septics and skeptics; denialists and contrarians. The people you call "sceptics" are what everyone else calls denialists - people who simply blindly oppose the IPCC synthesis. Naturally, people like that don't get funding to do science, because they have no interest in doing science. Genuine scientists are actually skeptics, in the sense that they require claims to be backed up by proof. But that also requires a second part - that once proof has indeed been shown, and evaluated as correct, it has to be accepted -W]
Yopu might find looking up the history of Lysenkoism enlighterning.
This should be so obvious as not to need explaining, and wouldn't to anybody who understood what science is.
[Science is many things, but certainly a part of it is genuine dialogue. You ask questions, but refuse to listen to the answers - putting you outside science -W]
Neil: indeed scepticism is essential for good science. However, you are using "sceptics" in the unusual sense of "people eager to believe any old rubbish that seems to confirm their prejudices".
If you think that climate non-conformists can't get funding, have a look at BEST.
“Can anybody at all promoting the warmist “scientific conmsesnsus” name a single one out of the millions of scientists, worldwide, who aren’t paid by the state, who support the catastrophic warming calims?”
Joe Romm.
So much fun to pop heads:)
Twice W has claimed to have named a scientist who promotes catastrophic warming without actually naming them. 'Nuff said)
[Your incompetence is truely impressive. If you're incapable of even reading simple English text, having been directed to it multiple times, how can you possibly hope to understand science? Let me quote for you, in the hope you'll be capable of reading it this time: "[Its a silly question, and an ill-defined one, but one obvious answer is James Lovelock -W]". I've put the bit you're looking for in bold type this time, perhaps that might help you -W]
To claim that nobody else ever refers to doubterrs of catastrophi8c global warming as anythingt other than "denialists" (not even "deniers" as if lengthening the word gives it gravitas) is obviously unture. "Denier" (or extensions thereof) is gratuitous rudeness deigned to draw a flase comparison with Holocaust deniers. Use of the term merely shows that the user is engaged in a heresy hunt rather than science.As a matter of cold fact the only people who actully "deny" climater change has always taken place are the "we must get rid of the Medieval Warming Period" alarmistt pseudo-scientists.
[Nope. "Denier" is entirely appropriate for people who refuse to examine the evidence -W]
I await William actually producing some of the "answers" he claims to have rather than relying on censorship again.
Eli thank you for attempting to name the sole scientist independently promoting alarmism. Unfortunately he works for the Obama supported "Centre for American Progress" which "declines to release any information on the sources of its funding" and has previously worked for the government so, though he is clearly the closest in the world, his independence is, at best, unproven.
Paul I think you will find BEST is not widely accepted as promoters of scepticism. Again I grant they are the very best you can come up with.
Both cases prove the rule.
Neil Craig -- "So nobody can name a single “scientist” supporting alarmism who isn’t being paid for it, as I thought."
Strangely enough, I can't think of a single "scientist" on Neil's side of the reality divide who isn't being paid for it, either. And very handsomely in some cases. I wonder what the payments of all of those "advisory" roles and "special reports" for "think" tanks and PR spivs add up to. Even Lindzen's been underwritten by OPEC and has charged a pretty penny for his services.
The difference is that the scientists who NC thinks are scamming are under the strictest scrutiny, and subject to career-busting consequences for any malfeasance. Not so with the quacks, cranks and PR shills he prefers who will trot out any old crap.
I make an exception for Dr van Geel, but then he's paid by his university. So much for NC's mythology.
>>
I think you will find BEST is not widely accepted as promoters of scepticism
<<
That's the point. BEST is undeniably sceptical in its reluctance to accept the findings of climate science.
Your whole argument depends on confusing two meanings of "sceptic". It is not the duty of scientists, howsoever funded, to promote beliefs which run counter to the scientific evidence. Not even if some group of people chooses to label those beliefs "sceptical".
Mr Connolley
[I've got a doctorate. The correct form of address is "Dr"; but you are free to use "WMC". Just for you, to teach you politeness, any further comments that get this wrong will be binned -W]
I am amazed at the extent of your ignorance of the climate debate. The moreso because you are clearly employed to rewrite articles on Wikipedia on the subject and your endless pontificating on sceptic sites (which, unlike yours, do not depend on censorship).
One would have thought Wiki would have wished to limit "editings" from those who are so basically uninformed.
Your claim Professor James Lovelock as the main/sole independent scientist who supports the catastrophic warming scam, is simply ignorant.
[No. I didn't claim that he was either the main, or the sole such. I merely said that he was one such.
I notice a total lack of apology from you for your repeated failure to read what I wrote -W]
It is true that the professor did initially accept this but he is a man of scientific principles and when the climategate emails surfaced and it became obvious the warming pseudo-scientists were frauds he changed his mind (as real scientists do in the face of evidence).
His remark
"“I think you have to accept that the sceptics have kept us sane"
http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.co.uk/2010/03/i-think-that-sceptics-ha…
would not normally be considered an endorsement of warming alarmism (though I grant one could say that accusing alarmists of being insane is a defence to a charge that they are all complete frauds which fits the facts at least as well)
[That's because you've started from an ill-defined position of "alarmism". Sigh. OK, piece by piece:
* you've omitted "— some of them, anyway" from Lovelock's words
* you don't know what he means by "sceptics". Its a word with meanings ranging from denialist nutters like you, though to genuine scientists
* as I said at the start, your original question is ill-posed. If you're really asking "are there any scientists who support the strawman fantasies of CAGW that the denialists make up?" then the answer is clearly no. If you're asking "are there scientists who are more alarmed than the IPCC" then the answer is Yes, and Lovelock is one such -W]
I ask you to retract the claim that Lovelock is a supporter of CAGW alarmism. I also ask you to either name some other independent scientist who is or acknowledge that, out of the many millions of scientists worldwide, you cannot name one who is independent and part of your alleged "consensus". I note we stil have no example from anybody else here.
[You'll have to try actually defining "CAGW alarmism" first. Remember, it needs to be not a denialist strawman, so you need to define it without reference to denialist sites -W]
Neil: I don't know what you mean by "CAGW alarmism", but all Lovelock has done is to abandon his previous extreme positions (" before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable") and join the IPCC consensus. You should do the same.
Watch Dancing Neal move the goalposts. Who is funding you Neil?
"Just for you, to teach you politeness"
I note your definition of "politeness" includes you calling me a "denialiist nutter"
[It's my blog I'm afraid. Impoliteness from you snipped -W]
Now as to the issues.
You have declined to retract your claim that Lovelock is the "single “scientist” supporting alarmism who isn’t being paid for it" though it clear from context that you know your ignorance of his views has led you to make the false claim.
OK we must accept that as representing the standard of honesty to which you aspire, rather than merely ignorance.
Do you (or anybody else) wish to put forward a second candidate?
Instead we have nonsense about not undertstanding what "catastrophic anthropogenic global warming alarmism" is. It is raising alarm about anthropogenic global warming alleged to be catastrophic. Not that difficult, eh?
Obviously a minimum for a catastrophe would be something far worse than the costs incurred in "fighting climate change" (Kyoto alone being estimated at $800 mill a day).
[Sigh. This is pointless. You don't seem to be able to accept Lovelock as satisfying your criteria, and you won't define your criteria, so proposing others is all rather pointless. And now - looking again at the link you provided, which turns out to be your blog - its clear you knew Lovelock's name all along. So your question was dishonest - you already knew there was a name satisfying your question -W]
While asking for definitions you might wish to explain what "alarmed as the IPCC means"? Do you stand by the whole range of IPCC predictions, or simply the most recent ones? Do you stand by their original endorsement of Mann's "hockey stick"? Or the melting Himalayas lie? If not is it the recent assertions in the final document or what the scientists actually said before it was edited?
[You are silly. The IPCC has made a range of evolving reports, all of them quite consistent. If you'd read any of them you'd know they aren't "prediction"s. "Alarmed as the IPCC" would mean accepting the std.IPCC_position. One day, you should try reading the reports, then you too could know what that is -W]
Perhaps you could also define "the strawman fantasies of CAGW that the denialists make up?" would that include the 20 foot sea level rise of well known denialist Al "mostly got the science right" Gore or the 0.5C decadal temperature rise from 1979 of "denialist" James Hansen, or the IPCC's Himalayan glaciers melted by 2035 lie?
[All you're doing is re-hashing the std.denialist strawmen. The 2035 thing wasn't a lie, it was an error, in the WGII report not the WGI report. Trying to use it like some kind of trump card makes you look a fool when talking to people with a clue, however well it may work down your local pub. Ditto the rest -W]
[Trolling snipped -W]
Matter of record? Oh yes? You have evidence of him being paid to edit wikipedia climate articles?
[I snipped his trolling I'm afraid -W]
"sceptic sites (which, unlike yours, do not depend on censorship). "
That's rich. You believe this why? Because they haven't deleted your posts? Actually, I don't believe you believe this, I believe you are lying ... one of many you told here.
Sorry to join the party so late, and I truly enjoyed the responses from the Sec. of the UKIP Glasgow Branch. Very re-assuring of the political intelligence (or lack thereof) that climate scientists are up against in the real world explaining how much this planet is going to change if we keep on burning fossil fuels in a business-as-usual scenario.
But back to the subject of Lewis' "analysis" of climate sensitivity, I'd like to make a few comments.
First off, I'm surprised how much attention Lewis gets for posting a back-of-the-envelope calculation on a blog post, versus the attention that peer-reviewed papers get that obtain largely the same result.
[I think he timed it well. Since the AR5 is still in draft, no-one can cite from that legitimately. And people always like estimates of CS. But you may be wrong about the attention: obviously our bit of the blogosphere is excited, but it didn't get much further -W]
I would expect that, if Lewis really thinks that his estimate of 1.6 C climate sensitivity is relevant, that he would at least write a decent scientific paper on that and get it reviewed and published.
Especially since Lewis does not actually calculate the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity factor that is commonly referred to by the IPCC and paleo-climate analyses, but instead the on-going "effective" climate sensitivity as Gregory et al 2002 already pointed out.
Apart from this difference in definition of what Lewis is actually trying to calculate versus what the IPCC CSE definition stands for, I think his number of 1.6 C/doubling-of-CO2, if accepted by the climate "skeptic" community, would be a significant achievement. After all, it is more than a factor 3 higher than previous "skeptic" assessments of climate sensitivity such as by Lindzen and Monckton.
Do "skeptics" disagreeing with IPCC assessments really accept Lewis' results ?
If so, then maybe Lewis unpublished back-of-the-envelope calculations can be the start of a real dialogue between "alarmists" and self-proclaimed "skeptics".
If not, and "skeptics" go back to long-debunked arguments of climate sensitivity below 1 C/doubling, then why would any scientist even want to look at Lewis' unpublished back-of-the-envelope calculations ?
[Well yes. Perhaps why this hasn't been pushed too hard. The denialists are happy to push "your est of CS is too high" but they aren't going to commit themselves to 1.6 either (those that have been paying enough attention to even understand the numbers). There are only so many posts you can write saying "ha ha, your numbers are too high, here let me prove it with these numbers which, err, we don't actually believe either" -W]
[Burrowed trolling. Feel free to continue the discussion there -W]
Just in case Lewis' back-of-the-envelope calculations show up elsewhere, here is my non-expert opinion on his results :
It seems to me that Lewis' calculations are reasonable, but they lowball temperature change, ignore ocean heat absorption below 2000 m, and high-ball radiative forcing.
As a result, the number 1.6 C he ends up with is at the low end, just as James Annan already asserted.
For corrections to Lewis number of CS, the following comments may relevant :
(1) Lewis picked HADCRUT for global temperature, and calculated 0.727 C since 1880.
However, we know that HADCRUT has poor coverage over the Arctic, where significant warming is happening over the past couple of decades.
If we take GISS LOTIinstead, we obtain something like 0.85 C since 1880.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
(2) Lewis' assessment of 0.4 W/m^2 ocean heat uptake (up to 2000 m) over the 2001-2010 period may be an underestimate.
Loeb et al 2012 obtained 0.5 W/m^2 based on a combination of ocean measurements and satellite data.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo1375.html
(3) Lewis assumed heat uptake below 2000 m to be negligent, which is almost certainly an underestimate.
The deep Southern Ocean alone is very likely warming at 0.03 C/decade, for which AR5 reports 48 TW warming since at least 1992.
This Southern Ocean warming translates to approximately 0.1 W/m^2 increase in the Ocean Heat Flux number that Lewis used.
I'm pretty sure this number is also an underestimate, but unfortunately we have very little (or no) data for deep ocean warming in other oceans.
(4) The last, and largest, adjustment to Lewis' numbers is radiative forcing. He obtains 2.09 W/m^2 from Figure 8.18 in AR5.
However figure 8.18 shows that 2.09 W/m^2 for the total radiative forcing since 1750, instead of the 1880 timeframe that he based his temperature number on.
By 1880 there is a 0.25 W/m^2 forcing in place, so Lewis RF needs to be adjusted down by some 0.25 W/m^2.
Taking all these 4 adjustments into account, for climate sensitivity we obtain 3.7 * (0.85 / (2.09 - 0.25 - 0.1 - 0.5)) = 2.53 C/doubling.
Now, I'm not saying that my "analysis" of the factors involved are any better than Lewis' numbers, but I also can't see that they are any worse.
Rob all of your figures are just estimates of estimates of guesses.
If climate sensitivity were more than 1 the medieval & late roman wormings and climate optimum would all not have been followed by coolings. I presume W knows this to be true and will censor it.
[Your imaginary complaints about censorship are tedious. And you're completely wrong about everything else you say, above. That there was an MWP/LIA requires a moderate-to-high climate sensitivity. They wouldn't have happened at all if clim sens was as low as whatever you imagine it to be. But thank you for "If climate sensitivity were more than 1" - this means you reject Lewis's estimate -W]