WSJ: Whatever Happened to Global Warming?

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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.”
Given the well-documented actions by AGW proponents to keep dissent out of peer-reviewed journals it is no surprise he has not published there
 
Here’s another study that discusses the hiatus and reasons for it, which I like better, bec it takes a more holistic approach, including the longer and deeper solar minimum:

“Natural variability, radiative forcing and climate response in the recent hiatus reconciled,”
Markus Huber & Reto Knutti, Nature Geoscience 7, 651–656 (2014)
nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n9/full/ngeo2228.html

and an article about it:
reportingclimatescience.com/news-stories/article/study-natural-variations-and-solar-irradiance-cause-pause.html

Global warming is currently taking a break: whereas global temperatures rose drastically into the late 1990s, the global average temperature has risen only slightly since 1998 – surprising, considering scientific climate models predicted considerable warming due to rising greenhouse gas emissions…

Researchers have been looking into the possible causes of the warming hiatus over the past few years. For the first time, Reto Knutti, Professor of Climate Physics at ETH Zurich, has systematically examined all current hypotheses together with a colleague.

El Nino warmed the Earth [but] …La Nina has made the past few years cooler than they would otherwise have been. Although climate models generally take such fluctuations into account, it is impossible to predict the year in which these phenomena will emerge…

Longer solar cycles - … solar irradiance has been weaker than predicted in the past few years. This is because the identified fluctuations in the intensity of solar irradiance are unusual at present: whereas the so-called sunspot cycles each lasted eleven years in the past, for unknown reasons the last period of weak solar irradiance lasted 13 years. Furthermore, several volcanic eruptions, such as Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland in 2010, have increased the concentration of floating particles (aerosol) in the atmosphere, which has further weakened the solar irradiance arriving at the Earth’s surface.

Incomplete measured data - The discrepancy between the climate models and measured data over the past 16 years cannot solely be attributed to the fact that these models predict too much warming, says Knutti. The interpretation of the official measured data should also be critically scrutinised. According to Knutti, measured data is likely to be too low, since the global average temperature is only estimated using values obtained from weather stations on the ground, and these do not exist everywhere on Earth. From satellite data, for example, scientists know that the Arctic region in particular has become warmer over the past years, but because there are no weather stations in that area, there are measurements that show strong upward fluctuations. As a result, the specified average temperature is too low…
 
Why is that suddenly a qualification? 😃
It’s not. Monkey1976 mentioned Malthus as an example of what is wrong with global warming proponents. Lynn pointed of that Malthus was not a climate scientist, and I might add, he also didn’t write about climate issues, to show how mentioning Malthus in the first place was an irrelevant distraction.
 
Given the well-documented actions by AGW proponents to keep dissent out of peer-reviewed journals it is no surprise he has not published there
Well then why don’t they just create their own science with science journals and all. It could be called “reverse parallel universe science.” 🙂

The point is dissent has to be really good and rock solid to make peer-review. The process is highly competitive. If someone submits something that counters what others write but they don’t have the extremely good evidence and analysis to back it up, the peer reviewers will point that out. If the authors have anything worthy of publication, they will be given chances to correct and improve their manuscript. It’s a tough process, but in general fair. If one jnl doesn’t accept (or accept with revisions), there are other journals, even a few with lax peer review, in which you can see more dissenting articles that question AGW or various aspects of it.

But apparently that blog author didn’t even make it to those lax (more pro-skeptic) science journals.
 
El Nino warmed the Earth [but] …La Nina has made the past few years cooler than they would otherwise have been. Although climate models generally take such fluctuations into account, it is impossible to predict the year in which these phenomena will emerge…
A truly bizarre thing to say. If you look at the Pacific, there is an opposite effect of each in the western Pacific. When the eastern Pacific is unusually warm (El Nino), the western Pacific is unusually cool, and vice versa. That’s why Australian ranchers and American ranchers in the center of the U.S. prepare in exactly opposite ways for exactly opposite conditions in those years. In the far west of the U.S., El Nino conditions make it hot and dry. In the center of the country, they bring cooler, wetter weather.

And 2014, by the way, has had El Nino conditions, but no unusual warming. And the conditions in the central U.S. and in the far west are exactly what one would expect in an El Nino year.
 
Well then why don’t they just create their own science with science journals and all. It could be called “reverse parallel universe science.” 🙂

The point is dissent has to be really good and rock solid to make peer-review. The process is highly competitive. If someone submits something that counters what others write but they don’t have the extremely good evidence and analysis to back it up, the peer reviewers will point that out. If the authors have anything worthy of publication, they will be given chances to correct and improve their manuscript. It’s a tough process, but in general fair. If one jnl doesn’t accept (or accept with revisions), there are other journals, even a few with lax peer review, in which you can see more dissenting articles that question AGW or various aspects of it.

But apparently that blog author didn’t even make it to those lax (more pro-skeptic) science journals.
So if you wanted to dissent you have to found your own magazine ? The suppression of dissent by the AGW side is well-documented ranging from blocking the publication of articles to ostracizing anyone who dares stray off the AGW reservation . And now we even have AGW advocates calling for the imprisonment of those who disagree
 
Well then why don’t they just create their own science with science journals and all. It could be called “reverse parallel universe science.” 🙂

The point is dissent has to be really good and rock solid to make peer-review. The process is highly competitive. If someone submits something that counters what others write but they don’t have the extremely good evidence and analysis to back it up, the peer reviewers will point that out. If the authors have anything worthy of publication, they will be given chances to correct and improve their manuscript. It’s a tough process, but in general fair. If one jnl doesn’t accept (or accept with revisions), there are other journals, even a few with lax peer review, in which you can see more dissenting articles that question AGW or various aspects of it.

But apparently that blog author didn’t even make it to those lax (more pro-skeptic) science journals.
In a way you’re right, but it’s anything but “fair”. “Peer review” in many instances is a matter of “peer consensus”. It’s practically the antithesis of “fair”. If you “go with the flow”, it’s smoother sailing. If you “fight the tide”, you face a tidal wave of opposition to your even being heard.
 
So if you wanted to dissent you have to found your own magazine ? The suppression of dissent by the AGW side is well-documented ranging from blocking the publication of articles to ostracizing anyone who dares stray off the AGW reservation . And now we even have AGW advocates calling for the imprisonment of those who disagree
The MMGW ideology is on the wane along with the political ideology upon which it’s based. Probably in ten years we’ll hear people snicker about “predictions of global warming” just like people now snicker at earlier predictions of “global cooling”.

Possibly the “global cooling” thing will be making a comeback in the political arena, though. Seems it’s gaining adherents.
 
Why is that web-blogger afraid to publish her results in a peer-reviewed journal?
This is perhaps the most common response to arguments against global warming: ignore them, dismiss them, anything other than refute them. The arguments are either valid or invalid; they are not right because they are peer-reviewed or wrong because they are not. LeafByNiggle raised an objection to that particular article and defended his position. I don’t know if he’s right or not but he at least addressed the issue. If you are concerned about “the science” involved then it is necessary to respond to the scientific issues raised, no matter who raises them.

Ender
 
Just to clarify…
Thank you for taking the time to write that explanation. I am unfortunately not clarified but I appreciate your making the effort.
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.
I had just given up trying to understand this subject and now your raise another point I don’t follow. If I am trying to measure change then the bias in my thermometers doesn’t matter; whether they increase from 20.0 to 20.1 or 21.0 to 21.1, the change is the same. How does the sqrt N advantage figure into this?

Ender
 
It’s not. Monkey1976 mentioned Malthus as an example of what is wrong with global warming proponents. Lynn pointed of that Malthus was not a climate scientist, and I might add, he also didn’t write about climate issues, to show how mentioning Malthus in the first place was an irrelevant distraction.
I mentioned Malthus as an example of letting a catastrophe that will kill us all (CTWKUA) being a driving force for political, legal, and social movements to control the population. In Malthus’ case, it was the supposed imminent famine from overpopulation that led to opposition to programs which helped the poor. Today, it’s AGW and the “find the heat” shell game.

If we want to worry about a CTWKUA that definitely IS going to happen someday and which no government is taking seriously at all, look into asteroid impacts. Anything over 10km is enough to take out civilization across the globe.
 
I mentioned Malthus as an example of letting a catastrophe that will kill us all (CTWKUA) being a driving force for political, legal, and social movements to control the population. In Malthus’ case, it was the supposed imminent famine from overpopulation that led to opposition to programs which helped the poor. Today, it’s AGW and the “find the heat” shell game.

If we want to worry about a CTWKUA that definitely IS going to happen someday and which no government is taking seriously at all, look into asteroid impacts. Anything over 10km is enough to take out civilization across the globe.
Sorry, Off topic but-- I’ve always seen the acronym “TEOTWAWKI” The End Of The World As We Know It for the castrophic scenarios.
 
I mentioned Malthus as an example of letting a catastrophe that will kill us all (CTWKUA) being a driving force for political, legal, and social movements to control the population. In Malthus’ case, it was the supposed imminent famine from overpopulation that led to opposition to programs which helped the poor. Today, it’s AGW and the “find the heat” shell game.

If we want to worry about a CTWKUA that definitely IS going to happen someday and which no government is taking seriously at all, look into asteroid impacts. Anything over 10km is enough to take out civilization across the globe.
If Malthus were alive today her would be a climate scientist
 
I had just given up trying to understand this subject and now your raise another point I don’t follow. If I am trying to measure change then the bias in my thermometers doesn’t matter; whether they increase from 20.0 to 20.1 or 21.0 to 21.1, the change is the same. How does the sqrt N advantage figure into this?

Ender
What you say about measuring change is true. But if the Argo measurements are ever to be compared with absolute measurements from other sources, they need more than just relatively stability. They need absolute accuracy too. I thought that was what was being questioned.

The sqrt N advantage comes in when you average N readings, each with a random error added on. The error in the average is down by a factor of sqrt N from the individual errors, as long as those errors are not correlated.
 
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.
Huh?

If I take a data set of measurement to 3 significant digits, say XX.X, then I multiply, divide, or whatever and end up with XXX,XXX.XXXXXX, the only significant digits are the first three digits and the rest are meaningless and zeroed out, such as XXX,000. To give an answer that goes beyond the number of significant digits in my final answer is misleading garbage. When I see predictions of XX.XX that means they are referencing FOUR significant digits and that would be in the form of XX.XX in regards to temperature measurements.

When I look at temperature data sets I only see XX.X so there is no way a legit prediction can point to anything like 0.05 degrees of change in a data set that ranges from -XX.X to XXX.X at the top end. The smallest significant digits of measure limit the final number of digits of accuracy.

Most of the early 19th century records were TWO significant digits. The temperature proxies are only three significant digits. But to predict temperature changes to 0X.0X we need FOUR significant digits not three, and certainly not TWO.
 
Shale oil and gas producers have, arguably, saved America’s industrial future and global strategic position. They are not doing quite so well for their investors.
Consider the share price of the most innovative exploration and production companies in the northeastern US, our new Texas. Range Resources’ shares have declined by 18 per cent this year, Cabot Oil and Gas is off by 17 per cent, and Chesapeake is down nearly 7 per cent. One would think developing a nation-saving set of miracle technologies would pay better.
The E&P’s collective problem is that they are victims of their own success in producing more oil and gas for fewer dollars than almost anyone would have thought possible.
Unfortunately, economy of fracking is nothing like the economy of a conventional oil:

news.vice.com/article/the-end-of-fracking-is-closer-than-you-think
Hughes found that the production rates at these wells decline, on average, 85 percent over three years.
“Typically, in the first year there may be a 70 percent decline,” Hughes told VICE News. “Second year, maybe 40 percent; third year, 30 percent. So the decline rate is a hyperbolic curve. But nonetheless, by the time you get to three years, you’re talking 80 or 85 percent decline for most of these wells.”
In other words, the market is being flooded with oil from new wells, but these wells decline were quickly – they are at 15% of the original output by year three. So, of course, the O&G industry must keep drilling new wells to offset this:
In just the Bakken, Hughes calculates that 1,400 new wells are needed per year to offset current production decline, which right now is 45 percent of current production rates of about a million barrels per day, or 450,000 barrels per day each year.
“You need 1,400 $8 million wells to keep production flat, and they’re drilling more than that — they’re drilling 2,000 wells per year,” he explained. “So production in the Bakken will continue to go up. But it’s because at the moment they’re continuing to drill the sweet spots.”
Of course you drill the most accessible deposit first and then move to worse ones. Thus a few years from now:
In order to maintain current levels of shale gas production, Hughes estimates that the high rates of deterioration of such wells across the country will require the drilling of 7,000 new wells a year at a cost of $42 billion annually. For maintenance of the overall production of shale oil, some 6,000 new wells would need to be drilled every year, an endeavor that would cost $35 billion.
In other words, $80B per year just to maintain the current levels of productions – with no mention of increase.

Until they run out of space to drill, of course. Then the fracking companies will go under, and nobody will pay for maintainence of the wells, which will start to leak, so the next thing you know you will have fracking chemicals in drinking water.

The scenario playing out right now is exactly the kind of thing that collapse proponents were predicting back in 1970s.
 
Shale oil and gas producers have, arguably, saved America’s industrial future and global strategic position…
…and are destroying life on planet earth.

“Frackers are dumping toxic waste into California’s groundwater” grist.org/list/frackers-are-dumping-toxic-waste-into-californias-groundwater/?utm_source=syndication&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=feed

“Massive Methane Hot Spot Detected by Satellite” ecowatch.com/2014/10/10/methane-hot-spot-nasa/

“A new look at what’s in ‘fracking’ fluids raises red flags” acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2014/august/a-new-look-at-whats-in-fracking-fluids-raises-red-flags.html

Fracking operations get even closer to drinking water sources than we thought | Gristgrist.org/news/fracking-operations-get-even-closer-to-drinking-water-sources-than-we-thought/

“At Universities Fracking Research Funded by Oil and Gas Companies” texasobserver.org/at-universities-fracking-research-funded-by-oil-and-gas-companies/

Plus it (like coal) uses up a tremendous amount of water.

The glycol ether in fracking fluids eats thru reverse osmosis membranes, renders them useless to filter out contaminants.

Fugitive methane is a much stronger GHG than CO2.

The air pollution from fracking up at the Eagle Ford area north of us is so bad people are getting sick and dying (the nearest TCEQ monitoring is 30 miles away :(). See youtube.com/watch?v=l4UR3ELYT6U

Fracking releases brine from soil that gets into groundwater and when it meets with city chlorine produces trihalomethanes, causing cancer, etc.

Those externalities need to be internalized, then we will see how costly fracking is. However, in my books you can’t put a price on life. Life supersedes money (which should only be a means to help promote, not destroy life).
 
Huh?

If I take a data set of measurement to 3 significant digits, say XX.X, then I multiply, divide, or whatever and end up with XXX,XXX.XXXXXX, the only significant digits are the first three digits and the rest are meaningless and zeroed out, such as XXX,000. To give an answer that goes beyond the number of significant digits in my final answer is misleading garbage. When I see predictions of XX.XX that means they are referencing FOUR significant digits and that would be in the form of XX.XX in regards to temperature measurements.

When I look at temperature data sets I only see XX.X so there is no way a legit prediction can point to anything like 0.05 degrees of change in a data set that ranges from -XX.X to XXX.X at the top end. The smallest significant digits of measure limit the final number of digits of accuracy.

Most of the early 19th century records were TWO significant digits. The temperature proxies are only three significant digits. But to predict temperature changes to 0X.0X we need FOUR significant digits not three, and certainly not TWO.
If you think over decades, one decimal is all you need. If you think over centuries, you can forget the decimals.

The temperature goes up by 2-3 degrees for every doubling of CO2. We managed to get to 400 ppm from the pre-industrial 280 ppm. In a few decades we’ll hit 560 ppm and I can’t see it stopping there either.
 
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