Where's the acceleration, dude?

We're constantly bombarded with portents of doom and gloom, and apparently, by extension "the end of civilisation as we know it". "Climate change" is accelerating, "global warming" is accelerating, sea level rise is accelerating, and (could, or may) threaten millions if not billions of people, "extreme weather events" are increasing in frequency and intensity. Of course, there's no actual evidence that these terrible events are occurring or that they will happen. They're all from model-based "projections", unjustified predictions, or just pure conjecture and general alarmism.

There's no doubt the Earth's been getting warmer in fits and starts, since the end of the last ice age. However, there's the flaw in the alarmists theories right there in that sentence - "fits and starts". The increase hasn't been on a relatively smooth upward trajectory; there's an irregular cycle built in, and no-one can explain the reasons behind the variability. Paleo-climatology has a stab at it, and there are some plausible theories, some "best-guesses", and some downright manipulation and cherry-picking of data, like Mann et. al.'s "hockey-stick". But there's no proof as to what caused the variations - there cannot be. Climatologists are looking back through a murky and distorting lens, and one which might be pointing in the wrong direction, or looking at the wrong data.

Let's look at some real data then, and see how the "x is accelerating" claims stack up. First temperature data, because most or at least may think this is the main indicator of things to come.

Latest Global Temps - UAH Satellite data to February 2012

HADCRUTt3 variance-adjusted global mean, 1979-present (Source: Wood for Trees)

I don't see much of an acceleration in either, rather a stasis, or a even a recent decline in the HADCRUT thermometer record, yet we are told "global warming has continued unabated, ar that it has accelerated. Where's the evidence for these assertions? "Habeus corpus" - "produce the body".

Variations in global mean sea level from a combination of TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1, and Jason-2 altimeter measurements, using 60-day and annual smoothing of 10-day average values. A glacial isostatic adjustment correction of 0.3 mm/year has been applied.
Source: Woodworth, P.L., W.R. Gehrels, and R.S. Nerem. 2011. Nineteenth and twentieth century changes in sea level. Oceanography 24(2):80–93, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2011.29

Where's the acceleration, dude?

“Peter Gleick’s great personal sacrifice”

From Junkscience - Susan C. Strong: “Peter Gleick’s great personal sacrifice”

Reframing Climate Change Now

Two big things have happened recently on the climate change front. The first, of course, is Peter Gleick’s great personal sacrifice–his desperate gamble taken to expose the Heartland Institute’s planned assault on climate science in our schools, funded by the Kochs and other fossil fuel interests.

I replied as follows:

Am I a lone voice in hoping that many more of Gleick's co-conspirators make such "great personal sacrifices"? In the mid-19th century, the British army organised bands of volunteers to storm the defences of besieged cities and towns. They were almost assured of death, but would achieve fame and reward if successful. They were known as the "forlorn hope", and carried weapons of choice.

The problem Mann, Trenberth, Hansen and others face is that there's no "city wall" to breach. They'll disappear into a jungle wilderness teeming with sceptic guerilla fighters, each armed with a brain and an internet connection. Let's not discourage them, but send them all invitations to "fair and open debate". Their heads will explode and they'll rush off brandishing their weapons of choice, be-it a hockey stick, a dubious correlation or even a scanner. Theirs is indeed "a forlorn hope", and time, like global temperature, is most definitely not on their side

"Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our junk science!". (apologies to the Bard)

Satire in the service of truth.

Dr. Richard Lindzen at the House of Commons

His simple eloquence encapsulates much of my own thinking, so instead of struggling to write my own summary of the thin and one-sided so-called arguments of the "team" and their fawning supporters, I've chosen to quote from his presentation to a public meeting at the House of Commons on 22nd. February. A pdf of his slides is available on Watts Up With That. Here's his well-crafted introduction to his talk.

I wish to thank the Campaign to Repeal the Climate Change Act for the opportunity to present my views on the issue of climate change – or as it was once referred to: global warming. Stated briefly, I will simply try to clarify what the debate over climate change is really about.

It most certainly is not about whether climate is changing: it always is.

It is not about whether CO₂ is increasing: it clearly is.

It is not about whether the increase in CO₂ , by itself, will lead to some warming: it should.

The debate is simply over the matter of how much warming the increase in CO₂ can lead to, and the connection of such warming to the innumerable claimed catastrophes. The evidence is that the increase in CO₂ will lead to very little warming, and that the connection of this minimal warming (or even significant warming) to the purported catastrophes is also minimal. The arguments on which the catastrophic claims are made are extremely weak – and commonly acknowledged as such. They are sometimes overtly dishonest.

Then he presents with devastating lucidity, point by point, the "warmist" case, and his rebuttal of those points, details some of the background science and finishes with

Perhaps we should stop accepting the term, ‘skeptic.’ Skepticism implies doubts about a plausible proposition. Current global warming alarm hardly represents a plausible proposition. Twenty years of repetition and escalation of claims does not make it more plausible. Quite the contrary, the failure to improve the case over 20 years makes the case even less plausible as does the evidence from climategate and other instances of overt cheating.

In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age. 

A two-part video of his presentation is available on Climate Realists - well worth taking the time to see the whole thing.

Peter Gleick Fools Himself

Peter Gleick, currently posited to be the author of the "fake" Heartland Institute briefing document, has an article on Forbes -"Global Warming Has Stopped"? How to Fool People Using "Cherry-Picked" Climate Data. He attacks one claim in particular, that “The last decade's 'rate of warming' is flat.” by showing this chart

Source: Forbes

He says

What about the last decade, as claimed above? The linear trend (the blue line) over the past decade is relatively flat, but in fact it still exhibited a warming trend, despite the temporary cooling forces that are masking the overall warming. As the British Met Office noted this week, in a reply to a misleading claim that the warming had stopped: “what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850.”

The blue line is "relatively flat", but "still exhibited a warming trend" he insists. That line looks pretty flat to me, but then I'm an evil denier with a Mark One eyeball and an aversion to incontrovertible facts, though with a picture editor in my arsenal of analytical tools. The interval (0.05°C) represented by the vertical ticks on the temperature axis is 18 pixels; the increase in height of the blue trend line is 1 pixel, therefore that line represents an increase of 1/18 * 0.05°C over 10 years, or a staggering 0.27°C in - wait for it - I love this - 1,000 years. Is this statistically significant? I hear you ask. It's a "warming trend" allright, just don't rush out and buy an air conditioner or move poleward just yet.

All of a Flutter in the Tropics

"Global warming threatens tropical birds" says Bob Berwyn, who's editor and apparently the only "journalist" on the Summit County Voice.

Global warming is likely to drive hundreds of bird species to extinction in coming decades, as more intense and frequent extreme weather events destroy habitat and make foraging impossible.

“Birds are perfect canaries in the coal mine – it’s hard to avoid that metaphor – for showing the effects of global change on the world’s ecosystems and the people who depend on those ecosystems,” said Çağan Şekercioğlu , an assistant professor of biology at the University of Utah.

Other sites used identical wording, with more or less detail, suggesting a press release, which none cited, or the version on EurekAlert, which is the most detailed:

Scenarios for Extinction

A 2008 study by Şekercioğlu and late climatologist Stephen Schneider calculated 60 scenarios of how tropical land bird extinction rates will be affected by various possible combinations of three variables: climate change, habitat loss and how easily birds can shift their range, meaning move to new habitat. Citing those estimates, the new review paper says that "depending on the amount of habitat loss, each degree of surface warming can lead to approximately 100 to 500 additional bird extinctions."

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has predicted 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius (2 to 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit) of global warming of the Earth's surface by the year 2100, which Şekercioğlu's study converted into a best case of about 100 land bird extinctions and a worst case of 2,500.

He says the most likely case now is considered to be 3.5 C (6.3 F) warming by 2100, resulting in about 600 to 900 land bird species going extinct. These estimates are conservative because they exclude water birds, which are 14 percent of all bird species.

Because they don't travel far, "sedentary" birds "are five times more likely to go extinct in the 21st century than are long-distance migratory birds," says Şekercioğlu.

My first observation is that the cited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) also predicted that warming would be less in the tropics, so any climate modelling based on the tropics should take that into account. Apparently this modelling exercise (for that, of course, is what it is) did not, a significant error. I suggest you read the EurekAlert article, if you're interested in doom and gloom. My second observation is that these and many other articles equate "global warming" and "climate change", and use them interchangeably. They are not the same thing. Climate consists of a lot more than temperature.

I responded to Mr. Berwyn's article before I'd spotted the error with "projected" temperature increases, quoting and commenting on the article thus:

"Climate change already has caused some low-elevation birds to shift their ranges, either poleward or to higher elevations, causing problems for other species"

Wouldn't the "other species" have moved "either poleward or to higher elevations" also? Birds and other species have been moving poleward and to higher elevations since the end of the last ice age.

"Birds with slower metabolisms often live in cooler tropical environments with relatively little temperature variation. They can withstand a narrower range of temperature and are more vulnerable to climate change"

So? This paper says explicitly that birds relocate to suit the conditions. There's nothing to suggest the "cooler tropical environments" wouldn't move poleward somewhat and the birds with them, nor that the "little temperature variation" would alter.

"Tropical mountain birds are among the most vulnerable to climate change. Warmer temperatures at lower elevations force them to higher elevations where there is less or no habitat, so some highland species may go extinct"

We're frequently told that plants, including trees, are moving higher with increasing temperatures. I would equate "plants, including trees" and suitable temperatures with habitat.

"Climate change and accompanying sea-level rise pose problems for birds in tropical coastal and island ecosystems, “which are disappearing at a rapid rate,” Şekercioğlu and colleagues write"

What rapid rate? What island ecosystems?

"Birds in extensive lowland forests with few mountains – areas such as the Amazon and Congo basins – may have trouble relocating far or high enough to survive"

Birds worldwide migrate thousands of miles each year but can't manage to move their nesting sites a few miles a decade?

"Rising sea levels will threaten aquatic birds such as waders, ducks and geese, yet they often are hemmed in by cities and farms with no place to go for new habitat"

Most aquatic birds nest and feed far away from cities and farms. There aren't many of either on estuary mudflats. cliffs and rocky islands.

"Tropical birds in arid zones are assumed to be resilient to hot, dry conditions, yet climate change may test their resilience by drying out oases on which they depend"

May.

"Mark One Eyeball" - an Effective Weapon Against AGW

About a year ago, I read with some amusement, a blog posting by someone who accused sceptics (of AGW) of "cherry picking" temperature data to prove their claims that climate warming had stopped in the current century. "They are looking at the wrong data" he opined "look at this". "This" was a temperature chart showing global temperature from 1900 to 2010. "It's the long-term trend that's important" he continued. I'll use his tip if my bank account goes into the red in the future. When I get the letter from the bank, I can tell them "You're cherry-picking data - It's the long-term trend that's important".

So what's the "Mark One Eyeball" I refer to in the title?

This term is actual British military slang for eyes or eye sight, derived from British Royal Navy nomenclature for distinguishing sequential variations of a piece of equipment (i.e., "Mark 13 Depth Charge"). Since the human eye has not changed, it is called the Mark I Eyeball. The term is typically used when someone relies too much on their equipment: "Use your Mark One Eyeball!". It is used likewise in the United States military and other predominantly English-speaking countries. 

The point I'm making is that the "Mark One Eyeball" used with our "Mark One Brains" (no better versions available currently) is a valuable tool for spotting trends in graphical data, and to a lesser extent in tabular data. The eye/brain combination seeks to identify shapes and lines in collections of dots, blobs or points on a graph. The MOE is also good at spotting conflicting scientific or statistical claims, sometimes made by the same person. In December 2009 Dr. Vicky Pope, who is head of the climate predictions programme at the Hadley Centre of the UK Met Office, was (apparently) quoted in a BBC report "figures indicate that the years since 2000 - the "noughties" - were on average about 0.18C (0.32F) warmer than years in the 1990s; and that since the 1970s, each decade has seen an increase of about the same scale". MOE was telling anyone who cared to look at ANY temperature dataset that this couldn't possibly be true. This is the Hadley Centre's own data for 1991-2009: