CC3 -- Why I believe that a third option is needed for climate change

Oneiric 3 wrote: »

I'll take your word for it, but here is a small example of the effect cooler SST has on Valentia in the SW regarding RH values. Data is based on hourly RH values which are then averaged out over a running mean of 365 days.


(Met Eireann)

As we all know, the North Atlantic SSTs fell unusually low in 2015, peaking (or should that read 'troughing'?) in late summer 2015 before rising back to the normal modern era warmer state. Quite clearly, this intense but brief cooler state in 2015 had a marked effect on Valentia's RH values.

I think looking at relative humidity is not the best metric to use. Specific humidity or vapour pressure are better as they directly indicate the amount of water vapour in the air, taking air temperature out of the equation. With warmer seas we should see higher vapour pressure (content).

Below is the Water vapour curve for Valentia. It follows the annual sst curve, with highest vapour pressure July/August, the months of warmest sst. Note, though, there is no real longterm trend, up to 2010 at least.

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

I already pointed out that the two probabilities each referred to each temperature rise.



So you think we should listen to Wadhams? Have you actually seen what he's said in 2014? He just extrapolated the curve and came up with 2020.




I think instead of listening to Chief Wadhams we should instead listen to Chief Wiggam.

Why did you call him Chief Wadhams, is he in the police or something?

Wadhams jumped the gun on predicting the decline of sea ice but at least he’s arguing in the right direction. You have been downplaying the decline of the arctic sea ice as if it is not something to be concerned about. Whether the arctic is ice free in 2020, 2050 or 2100, at the end of the day, the problem is the collapsing sea ice and we’ll suffer the consequences sooner or later

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Now here's a rather depressing thought ... there may be no way for this debate (or the more general debate that already existed) to be resolved.

Let's say it continues to warm at a steady rate without much political action. The IPCC will claim this verifies their prediction, I might say it would have happened anyway except for 0.5 C of the warming. Not sure what other skeptics might say.

Then let's say it continues to warm even after a successful carbon limiting program by the international community (setting aside the political ramifications). Then the IPCC will no doubt claim we acted too late, set into motion an inevitable warming, while I would no doubt be saying this shifts the balance of probability to my view of natural variability driven warming. Skeptics of other kinds would still be treading water.

Then let's say it stops warming and goes into random fluctuation mode. In the absence of human activity modification, this would look very bad for the IPCC but I suspect they would claim a huge natural cooling effect finally large enough to do what we would not do, in other words, saved by nature. If this happened near the end of a more robust intervention in the carbon cycle, then the IPCC would no doubt claim both victory and credit. In either case, while my primary thesis would be defeated (by cooling and not warming) I would likely be saying this shows the dominant role of natural variability. Other skeptics would be most favoured by this outcome, saying they had been essentially proven right.

So in other words, it is difficult for me to foresee any situation between now and the end of the century that would end the debates going on, or to prove to some impartial observer that one side had things right and others were wrong.

The way to end the debate is for you to provide a credible scientific explanation for any observed warming that has at least as much evidence supporting it as the current best explanation.

When you’re criticizing the scientific consensus it’s a matter of put up or shut up. Anyone can ‘hurl from the ditch’ but until you can provide a better explanation than what we already have then nobody should believe you

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

You missed the (bad) joke.

He didn't just jump the gun, he shot himself in the foot with it. He got it spectacularly wrong. You talk about Lindzen. Well this guy is no better. 2013 he says ice-free in 2016. No joy, so a year later he changes to 2020. There is absolutely no merit to what he's said on this issue up to this point. He's been as alarmist as they come, and even ridiculed by other experts. Yet you see nothing wrong and think he's worth listening to.

I've not been downplaying the melt without at least putting forward some factual reasons based not just on extrapolating the curve of the previous decade (2000-10) downwards but highlighting a flattening that neither Wadhams or many other "experts" of the consensus either predicted or are currently communicating.

If you want to compare Wadhams to Lindzen, it is only a fair comparison if Wadhams was claiming that we have already had ice free arctic summers

Lindzen says climate sensitivity is about 1c we’re already higher than this without doubling our CO2 concentration.

Wadhams might be more pessimistic than many other scientists but at least he’s prepared to change his predictions when the data changes

I have read studies that say the 2012 record low extent was linked to wildfires darkening the snow. This is not a part of the IPCC models, but the next time there are record Siberian wildfires and the right wind conditions we could see a similar surge in arctic sea ice. It’s uncertain, there are lots of variables but Wadhams is not very far away from the range of plausible outcomes, it’s just on the extreme end of plausibility.

Lindzen is off that scale entirely

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

Is there any possibility that an ice free Arctic Ocean (in Sept-Oct before it does freeze up) would be a benefit in providing the possibility of additional snowfall in some arctic climate zones?

I don't think any of us here will be around to find out but I would imagine it would.

Akrasia wrote: »

When you’re criticizing the scientific consensus it’s a matter of put up or shut up.

That is somewhat severe as many people attempt to take a wider view of planetary temperatures and the causes for their fluctuations including daily and annual cyclical fluctuations. Attacking some else's conclusion is a waste of time and especially when everything is rigged towards supporting that conclusion.

Here is a basic temperature 'heartbeat' of the Earth where temperatures fluctuate daily in response to one complete rotation of the Earth each 24 hour day -

http://prairieecosystems.pbworks.com/f/1179343887/crerar%20temperature%20variation.jpg

A meteorologist should have no difficulty interpreting the extended period as demonstrating the link between rotations and temperature fluctuations across a period in much the same way a doctor can interpret an ECG as one complete action of the heart -

https://cdn4.vectorstock.com/i/1000x1000/67/23/heart-rate-heartbeat-neon-line-blue-graphic-vector-22216723.jpg

The experimental theorists following an exceptionally poor 17th century conclusion do not accept the interpretation that one 24 hour day and one rotation are the same thing even when daily temperature fluctuations maintain the correlation between cause and effect -

" It is a fact not generally known that,owing to the difference between solar and sidereal time,the Earth rotates upon its axis once more often than there are days in the year" NASA

If that is not dismaying then I do not know what is but then again, this is what happened when less careful people decided that the links between planetary motions and timekeeping took priority over planetary motions and Earth sciences like climate, the seasons and so on. Perhaps the advice of Pascal is more gentle when discussing issues -

"When we wish to correct with advantage, and to show another that he errs, we must notice from what side he views the matter, for on that side it is usually true, and admit that truth to him, but reveal to him the side on which it is false. He is satisfied with that, for he sees that he was not mistaken, and that he only failed to see all sides. Now, no one is offended at not seeing everything; but one does not like to be mistaken, and that perhaps arises from the fact that man naturally cannot see everything, and that naturally he cannot err in the side he looks at, since the perceptions of our senses are always true. People are generally better persuaded by the reasons which they have themselves discovered than by those which have come into the mind of others." Pascal

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

And current models are pants at accounting for what's going on right now (IPCC, 2019).

They’re not great, but they’re the best models we have, they have low spatial and temporal resolution but they are getting the general picture mostly right. The alternative is to go with gut instinct to overrule where you think the flaws in the models lie, and this is where Wadhams has gotten himself into trouble. He trusted his own expertise and instincts too much and discounted the expertise of the other scientists working on the same problem too much

Gaoth Laidir wrote: »

And yet you believe we should be listening to him before others.

We should listen to him before others who have less expertise and a much worse track record

Wadhams is mostly right on the science, most ‘skeptics’ are mostly ignorant of the science, and some of the prominent scientists who oppose climate action have spent the end of their careers promoting known falsehoods and misinformation about climate science

Akrasia wrote: »

The way to end the debate is for you to provide a credible scientific explanation for any observed warming that has at least as much evidence supporting it as the current best explanation.

When you’re criticizing the scientific consensus it’s a matter of put up or shut up. Anyone can ‘hurl from the ditch’ but until you can provide a better explanation than what we already have then nobody should believe you

Surely the history of our planet is proof enough of other "observed warnings"? Long before humans were around and much more extreme cooling/warming periods than what has happened in the last 100 years?

PokeHerKing wrote: »

Surely the history of our planet is proof enough of other "observed warnings"? Long before humans were around and much more extreme cooling/warming periods than what has happened in the last 100 years?

The speed of the current warming and ice loss is unprecedented according to the best records we have

And it is totally pointless to just say 'climate has changed before'
Every time climate has changed, something causes it to change.
There were different causes for different events, solar output was different in the past, the earths orbit was different, the continents were in different places so oceanic and atmospheric currents were different, there were different concentrations of gasses in the atmosphere, volcanic activity, asteroid impacts etc etc

We can rule out most of those causes as being the cause for the current warming, so when you rule out the causes of previous climate change, we are left with the question, what is causing the current climate change?

Akrasia wrote: »

The speed of the current warming and ice loss is unprecedented according to the best records we have

And it is totally pointless to just say 'climate has changed before'
Every time climate has changed, something causes it to change.
There were different causes for different events, solar output was different in the past, the earths orbit was different, the continents were in different places so oceanic and atmospheric currents were different, there were different concentrations of gasses in the atmosphere, volcanic activity, asteroid impacts etc etc

We can rule out most of those causes as being the cause for the current warming, so when you rule out the causes of previous climate change, we are left with the question, what is causing the current climate change?

Can we really rule out volcanic or solar activity for current trends? I'm not convinced either way but my opinion is as useful as a fart in a spacesuit.

The earth is billions of years old. I could just as easily say the 50 year life's work of some guy studying ice in the artic is totally pointless in the grand scheme of it.

And when you think about it, imagine spending your life studying something, noting these year on year changes and it's easy to understand why some scientists truly believe we're on a one way ticket to catastrophy but if they zoom out the argument becomes way less catastrophic IMHO.

I just can't understand how anyone could be anything other than skeptical about the doomsday predictions given the minuscule amount of data we actually have.

oriel36 wrote: »

What you are largely witnessing is a gang feud which is always enthralling to outside civilians (as academics see you) but ultimately the whole enterprise is fraudulent at best.

In the late 17th century, they decided to use timekeeping to model the motions of the Earth by switching to a new framework which allowed them to predict astronomical events using clocks and the 24 hour day. Whereas the previous framework used by Copernicus and Galileo had the Sun move directly through the constellations while the planets 'wandered', the celestial sphere framework had the Sun wander also.

This is the framework of Copernicus and Kepler -

http://community.dur.ac.uk/john.lucey/users/sun_ecliptic.gif

This is the framework of the 17th century empirical modelers where the Sun wanders against the celestial equator and gives them a 'clockwork solar system' -

http://community.dur.ac.uk/john.lucey/users/solar_year.gif

It gets worse, it gets much worse.

With a wandering Sun in RA/Dec, they now model the seasons using an Earth with a zero degree inclination and a pivoting circle of illumination, after all, they consider the Sun moves North and South of the Earth's equator on the equinoxes -

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170319.html

If ever there was a cry for help among those who follow the 'scientific method', it is found here.

Happy New Year to those who genuinely care about themselves and their families .

Are you trying to suggest that NASA don't understand the orbital inclination of the earth?

Akrasia wrote: »

Are you trying to suggest that NASA don't understand the orbital inclination of the earth?

I am not trying to suggest anything - they assign a zero degree axial inclination and a hideous pivoting circle of illumination off the Earth's equator to suit their RA/Dec modeling -

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170319.html

In the late 17th century they switched the rotation of the Earth away from the anchor of the sunrise/noon/sunset cycle along with the 24 hour day and shifted it to stellar circumpolar motion where there is no cause and effect between rotation and daily temperature fluctuations -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYy0EQBnqHI

So nowadays they describe the seasons in terms of the Sun crossing the Earth's equator moving South or North and with it that frankenstein's monster of an Earth with a zero degree rotational inclination.

On the Equinox, in this case the September equinox, the Earth actually looks like this -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_Space_Climate_Observatory#/media/File:EpicEarth-Globespin-tilt-23.4.gif


So now you know why modelers assign a ridiculous pivoting divisor as they lost the correlation between the motions of the planet and Earth sciences including climate.