WSJ: Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

[LeafByNiggle]

Four significant digits.

It is true that we cannot measure historical CO2 concentration to four significant digits. But such accuracy is not needed to establish that there is a significant different between CO2 concentrations now and CO2 concentrations in 1800, which was your original concern.

From 1959 to 2014, the CO2 concentration has been measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory to have risen from 315 ppm to 399 ppm. These measurements are accurate to better than 2 significant digits, which is more than accurate enough to say that CO2 concentrations have risen by more than 25% in that period. (If we were trying to draw finer distinctions, more accuracy would be needed, but we are not trying to do that.) Correlating the Mauna Loa observations with ice core data (to establish the validity of using ice core data) and then using ice core data to look further back in time, we see that in the last 800,000 years, CO2 levels have oscillated between 170 ppm and 300 ppm. So 1950’s was the first time in 800,000 years that CO2 levels have been above 315 ppm, and they have gotten 25% higher than that since then. Asking for 4 digits of precision for measurements like these is like asking for a micrometer measurement to see if it is a long way from New York to Los Angeles.

 

[lynnvinc]

Not to 4 significant digits. I state that because the dire predictions of AGW require 4 significant digits as they regularly predict increases to the hundredths of a degree Celsius, so that would be XX.XX degree Centigrade measurements. Never happened and isn’t in the data set you provided.

Just the opposite for Catholics and people of good will.

They require much less precision and certainty to strive to thwart what could end up in annihilation of a good portion of people and others of God’s creatures.

 

[sps49]

Just the opposite for Catholics and people of good will.

They require much less precision and certainty to strive to thwart what could end up in annihilation of a good portion of people and others of God’s creatures.

Stunning example of the use of God given reason and logic.

 

[Monkey1976]

Just the opposite for Catholics and people of good will.

They require much less precision and certainty to strive to thwart what could end up in annihilation of a good portion of people and others of God’s creatures.

And the constant Chicken-Little/Person Who Cried Feral Canine is the problem. We have been told REPEATEDLY since Thomas Malthus first wrote about overpopulation in the early 1800s that some Catastrophe That Will Kill Us All™ was right around the corner. Last I checked, we’re still here.

AGW is only the latest in a long line of CTWKUA claimants that have been used to try and enforce a population-control agenda.

My answer to them is a simple question that still hasn’t been answered: To misquote Clara Peller, where’s the heat?

Atmosphere? Nope - 17 years of no increase while CO2 levels have risen.
Ocean surface? Nope - 17 years of no increase while CO2 levels have risen.
Deep ocean? Nope - NASA just reported no deep-water heating is going on after all.

Could we benefit from cleaner sources of energy and more efficient use? Absolutely. Just don’t try to force it on people with another CTWKUA. One cannot build a better world on a lie.

 

[lynnvinc]

And the constant Chicken-Little/Person Who Cried Feral Canine is the problem. We have been told REPEATEDLY since Thomas Malthus first wrote about overpopulation in the early 1800s that some Catastrophe That Will Kill Us All™ was right around the corner. Last I checked, we’re still here.

Malthus was not a climate scientist. This is quite a different problem from what he was focusing on. Very few people in his time thought that global warming would be a problem. We’re just now (in the past half century or so) finding out about the negative impacts.

Joseph Fourier is your man, not Malthus – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier#Discovery_of_the_greenhouse_effect

AGW is only the latest in a long line of CTWKUA claimants that have been used to try and enforce a population-control agenda.

My answer to them is a simple question that still hasn’t been answered: To misquote Clara Peller, where’s the heat?

In the ocean, and it has been underestimated, according to a brand new study that just came out this week: “Quantifying underestimates of long-term upper-ocean warming” nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2389.html

The purpose of mitigating AGW is to avoid “natural” population control or annihilation.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Not to 4 significant digits. I state that because the dire predictions of AGW require 4 significant digits as they regularly predict increases to the hundredths of a degree Celsius, so that would be XX.XX degree Centigrade measurements. Never happened and isn’t in the data set you provided.

I think you are misunderstanding the concept of the degree of accuracy of measurements. The predictions of hundredths of a degree Celsius are just averages of long-term trends when divided down into shorter time periods. No one is trying to predict individual temperature measurements to an accuracy of 0.01 degrees. It is a strawman argument to say that AGW requires that much accuracy in individual predictions.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

where’s the heat?

Atmosphere? Nope - 17 years of no increase while CO2 levels have risen.
Ocean surface? Nope - 17 years of no increase while CO2 levels have risen.
Deep ocean? Nope - NASA just reported no deep-water heating is going on after all.

You left out the upper half of the subsurface oceans.

 

[Monkey1976]

You left out the upper half of the subsurface oceans.

Exactly what depth range is that?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Exactly what depth range is that?

Everything other than the areas you cited as having no temperature increase.

 

[Monkey1976]

Everything other than the areas you cited as having no temperature increase.

Graphs are flat down to 700m for the past 17 years. Is the heat hiding below 700m? The graph is still flat down to 2000m. Below 2000m? According to NASA’s recent article, that’s flat too.

Exactly where in the ocean is the heat hiding that it is somehow not affecting anything above or below?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Graphs are flat down to 700m for the past 17 years.

Reference?

 

[Monkey1976]

Reference?

joannenova.com.au/2013/05/ocean-temperatures-is-that-warming-statistically-significant/

 

[estesbob]

Graphs are flat down to 700m for the past 17 years. Is the heat hiding below 700m? The graph is still flat down to 2000m. Below 2000m? According to NASA’s recent article, that’s flat too.

Exactly where in the ocean is the heat hiding that it is somehow not affecting anything above or below?

Its warming everywhere in the ocean except where its not.

 

[Ender]

Graphs are flat down to 700m for the past 17 years. Is the heat hiding below 700m? The graph is still flat down to 2000m. Below 2000m? According to NASA’s recent article, that’s flat too.

Exactly where in the ocean is the heat hiding that it is somehow not affecting anything above or below?

A point made by your reference that should be reinforced is that before the deployment of the Argo floats in 2003 the measurements of ocean temperatures even at the surface were inadequate to support the assertions that were made (and the graphs that were drawn). The idea that there was adequate data for the 700m-2000m depth range to make any kind of assertion is simply laughable.

Ender

 

[styrgwillidar]

You left out the upper half of the subsurface oceans.

Which the NASA article specifically stated was insufficient to explain the cessation in warming. At the same time they pointed out it isn’t in the deep ocean, but the missing heat must be somewhere because global warming is occurring. Despite their study eliminating the explanation to support that it is still warming, and confirming that the shallow ocean hasn’t warmed enough to support the theory either. But it’s still happening, even though we can’t find that heat. How about considering that there is no missing heat, that we have accounted for whatever temp changes there have been, and relooking at the MMGW theory vice assuming it’s correct as the starting point.

Which again might be that whatever temperature changes are driven by increasing CO2 are much smaller than postulated.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

joannenova.com.au/2013/05/ocean-temperatures-is-that-warming-statistically-significant/

I have two comments about this reference supporting your statement that temperatures have been flat for 17 years in the 0-700m range.

First, the author challenges an established statistical fact that N averaged random variables (the individual temperature measurements), each with an uncorrelated standard deviation of D has a standard deviation of D divided by the square root of N. That is not from global warming theory. That has been in all the statistics textbooks for ages. His excuse is that the individual measurements are not of the same exact quantity (as they might be if all the Argo floats were in one swimming pool). However that fact does not make any difference to the standard deviation. So right there I am suspicious of his conclusion. The only way the average could fail to have a tighter uncertainty is if the individual uncertainties were correlated - that is, systematic.

Second, even if we accept the notion that the averaged measurements are too uncertain to conclude that trend is upward, by the same token, the uncertainty of those measurements would mean that we cannot conclude, as you did, that the actual temperature was flat. The most you can conclude in that case is that we still don’t know. Therefore you would have to allow for the possibility that the extra heat is in fact in the oceans.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Which the NASA article specifically stated was insufficient to explain the cessation in warming.

Insufficient to explain all the cessation. But sufficient to explain a significant portion of it.

Which again might be that whatever temperature changes are driven by increasing CO2 are much smaller than postulated.

That’s not a theory. That’s an hypothesis. A theory is a comprehensive model that explains the observed facts.

 

[Ender]

First, the author challenges an established statistical fact that N averaged random variables (the individual temperature measurements), each with an uncorrelated standard deviation of D has a standard deviation of D divided by the square root of N. That is not from global warming theory. That has been in all the statistics textbooks for ages. His excuse is that the individual measurements are not of the same exact quantity (as they might be if all the Argo floats were in one swimming pool). However that fact does not make any difference to the standard deviation.

I’m no statistician but if I take (e.g.) three measurements of three different objects (sea, air, warm beer), does it make sense to look for a standard deviation? What exactly does the standard deviation mean if the things being measured are different? Is it a meaningful value?

Second, even if we accept the notion that the averaged measurements are too uncertain to conclude that trend is upward, by the same token, the uncertainty of those measurements would mean that we cannot conclude, as you did, that the actual temperature was flat. The most you can conclude in that case is that we still don’t know. Therefore you would have to allow for the possibility that the extra heat is in fact in the oceans.

If his claim that the heat is not in the oceans cannot be substantiated even though that is what the data appear to indicate, it is surely true that the claim that the extra heat is in the oceans is even less viable. Despite which, this is the more common claim.

Ender

 

[lynnvinc]

joannenova.com.au/2013/05/ocean-temperatures-is-that-warming-statistically-significant/

Why is that web-blogger afraid to publish her results in a peer-reviewed journal?

Here is a real study that just came out (1.5 years after that misguided blogger post) saying the ocean temps have been underestimated:
See nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2389.html
And the article about it: newscientist.com/article/dn26317-the-world-is-warming-faster-than-we-thought.html?cmpid=RSS%7CNSNS%7C2012-GLOBAL%7Cclimate-change#.VDXO4U0tDIV

“It’s worse than we thought. Scientists may have hugely underestimated the extent of global warming because temperature readings from southern hemisphere seas were inaccurate.”

 

[LeafByNiggle]

I’m no statistician but if I take (e.g.) three measurements of three different objects (sea, air, warm beer), does it make sense to look for a standard deviation? What exactly does the standard deviation mean if the things being measured are different? Is it a meaningful value?

Just to clarify, we aren’t talking about the standard deviation of the ensemble of measurements (in this case sea, air, and warm beer). We are talking about the standard deviation of the average of those three measurements, taken as a random variable. That is, if I performed the measurement of those three items 1000 times and reported the averages of each set of three, those 1000 averages will have some standard deviation. That standard deviation will be about 57% (1 divided by the square root of 3) as big as the standard deviation of the 1000 warm beer measurements, or air measurements, or sea measurements (assuming all three quantities, as disparate as they are, were measured with the same accuracy). Of course one may well ask why we are interested in the average of an air temperature, a sea temperature, and a warm beer temperature. And to that I have no answer. But assuming someone was interested in that average, they would also be interested in how the variability of the three components of the average related to the variability of the average.

In the case of averaging many Argo float readings, even though they are in different parts of the ocean and are expected to register markedly different temperatures, their average is exactly what we do want for the purposes of assessing total heat content of the world’s oceans. And therefore it is important to know that the variability of the average is much less than the variability of any one Argo float reading.

I will admit, though, that one thing worries me about applying that statistical principle in this case. Each individual measurement is modeled as a random variable with a mean equal to the exact temperature. What if there is a systematic error? For example, suppose all Argo float measuring systems were built with the same design error of 0.1 degrees? In that case each individual measurement would be biased in the same direction. So the average of all those measurements would also be biased to the same degree. There would be no square root of N advantage. I hope the makers of that system verified that there is no systematic error.

If his claim that the heat is not in the oceans cannot be substantiated even though that is what the data appear to indicate, it is surely true that the claim that the extra heat is in the oceans is even less viable. Despite which, this is the more common claim.

I would not argue that. I only dispute the claim that says the extra energy is definitely not in the oceans.