NOTE:
Some of the articles summarized here were presented at this blog last week. But this is a great summary of last week. I've been reading this post since 1997, when it was just a long list of links to climate science articles. Ken Haapala attaches his own "newsletter" to the list of links, making The Week That Was (at the link below) even better.
Ye Editor
"We begin with a discussion of a March 3 post by Roy Spencer on the false precision associated with measurements by instruments on satellites.
Satellites simply cannot measure things occurring on earth with the precision many modelers calculate. False precision is a problem in many studies ranging from sea levels to atmospheric radiation.
Models used for long term forecasts that contain false precision are factually meaningless. The model presented by Howard Hayden based on the work of William van Wijngaarden and William Happer will be discussed in this light.
As Hayden insists, his analysis is not suitable for prediction.
Jennifer Marohasy presents evidence showing h
ow the Australian Bureau of Meteorology
has tampered with the surface temperature
record entrusted to it. The city of Darwin
is the most glaring example.
Questions arising from the launch of a new satellite to measure sea levels will be discussed. The records from previous satellite differ from those from tidal gages at geologically stable locations. Merging different data sets with diverging records is a serious error common to many studies in climate science.
The assumptions that wind and solar can easily and affordably replace fossil fuels are being challenged by experience. Yet government promoters continue to claim that storage of electricity is easy. But they have no examples of its success except pumped-hydro storage which requires massive scale that would not be permitted. ...
In light of significant errors common to climate “science” that are not corrected and electricity storage issues that are not realistic, it is ludicrous, but serious, that the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) would announce new regulations to enforce climate policy on private corporations by requiring them to assess the risks they create in emitting greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide. ...
The energy minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has stated that in 2021 western politicians were vilifying oil producers, now they are glorifying them. Such actions must earn the contempt of those so treated.
False Precision: Even though Roy Spencer writes: “As a preface, I will admit, given the lack of evidence to the contrary, I still provisionally side with the view that warming has been mostly human-caused (and this says nothing about whether the level of human-caused warming is in any way alarming).”
Spencer explains why he thinks human causation is mostly a statement of faith. He writes: “ALL temperature change in any system is due to an imbalance between the rates of energy gain and energy lost. In the case of the climate system, it is believed the Earth each year absorbs a global average of about 240 Watts per sq. meter of solar energy and emits about the same amount of infrared energy back to outer space.
“If we are to believe the last ~15 years of Argo float measurements of the ocean (to 2000 m depth), there has been a slight warming equivalent to an imbalance of 1 Watt per sq. meter, suggesting a very slight imbalance in those energy flows.
One watt per sq. meter. “That tiny imbalance can be compared to the 5 to 10 Watt per sq. meter uncertainty in the ~240 Watt per sq. meter average flows in and out of the climate system.
We do not know those flows that accurately. Our satellite measurement systems do not have that level of absolute accuracy.” Global energy balance diagrams (which you have seen) have the numbers massaged, on the basic assumption that all of the imbalance is due to humans.
“I repeat: NONE of the natural, global-average energy flows in the climate system are known to better than about 5-10 Watts per sq. meter...compared to the ocean warming-based imbalance of 1 Watt per sq. meter.
“What this means is that recent warming could be mostly natural ... and we would never know it.
“But climate scientists simply assume that the climate system has been in perfect, long-term harmonious balance, if not for humans. This is a pervasive, quasi-religious assumption of the Earth science community for as long as I can remember.
“But this position is largely an anthropocentric statement of faith. “That doesn’t make it wrong. It’s just...uncertain. “Unfortunately, that uncertainty is never conveyed to the public or to policymakers.”
Two days before the above post, on March 1, Spencer reported the February 2022 update to the global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly:
“The linear warming trend since January 1979 still stands at +0.13 C/decade (+0.12 C/decade over the global-averaged oceans, and +0.18 C/decade over global-averaged land).”
There is nothing dangerous about the warming occurring in the atmosphere and certainly no reason to declare a climate crisis, imposing severe government restrictions on the use of fossil fuels.
The predictions / projections / forecasts of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its followers are a clear example of the importance of a comment by Richard Feynman: “If there is something very slightly wrong in our definition of the theories, then the full mathematical rigor may convert these errors into ridiculous conclusions.”
Claiming the globe is experiencing
a climate crisis is a ridiculous conclusion.
As explained in last week’s TWTW. Atomic, Molecular, and Optical (AMO) physicist Howard Hayden has posted ten essays on Basic Climate Physics on the SEPP website. The approach used avoids the mess involved in trying to model the weather for long range forecasts.
Unlike the slight energy imbalances noted by Spencer, the disagreement between radiative forcing by CO2 and the surface infrared radiation (IR) emission that would result from IPCC’s predicted temperature rise is very substantial.
The well-known Planetary Heat Balance equation applies to all planets that do not have a heat source. It says, that at equilibrium (which involves averaging over the complete orbit), the heat absorbed from the sun equals the heat radiated into space.
An important consequence is that—at equilibrium—any change in outgoing IR must be caused by a change in either the solar intensity or the overall albedo.
IPCC’s climate models often ignore this fact when calculating the Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity. Of course, both the solar intensity (known as Total Solar Irradiance, TSI) and the albedo can change. IPCC’s climate models assume no change in solar intensity.
Since the radiative forcing by CO2 is entirely inadequate to capture the increased surface IR from IPCC’s predicted warming, IPCC could speculate that the albedo might decrease by enough to send the excess IR to space; however, IPCC’s models show slight increases in albedo.
By contrast, Svensmark’s notion that the influence of the solar magnetic field on the cosmic ray flux, hence the albedo, gets the algebraic sign of the changes in albedo correct.
Some studies have shown correlations of climate with solar activity, the most notable of which is that the Little Ice Age coincided with the Maunder Minimum (of sunspots).
Hayden’s application of basic physics provides a good guide from which we can evaluate climate models. Use the model’s own numbers to see whether they make sense.
Jennifer Marohasy reviews 224 temperature series, which have been “homogenized” (altered) by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Fortunately, some datasets have been preserved as entered. The most glaring example of alteration is for Darwin, which was bombed during World War II. Marohasy writes:
“The extent of their remodeling is mind boggling, including for Darwin, where in the most recent iteration temperatures in the historical record are artificially cooled including for the period of World War 2.
“Darwin was bombed 64 times by the Japanese during World War 2. The first air raid destroyed the weather station at the post office and killed the postmaster, but Darwin also had a weather station at the airport that had been in operation almost a year.
“The Australian War Memorial would never change important historical war records, yet the Australian Bureau of Meteorology has remodeled Darwin’s temperature record dropping down maximum temperatures during World War 2 by on average 1°C for 1941 and on average 0.5 °C for 1942.
The Bureau has done this by changing daily temperatures.”
She then gives other examples of fiddling with the data.
Writing in WUWT, Kip Hansen describes the fanfare surrounding a new U.S.-European satellite to estimate sea levels. He presents graphs showing results from previous satellites, starting in late 1992. There is significant variation in the rate of rise.
There are many adjustments to the data. Yet, for some reason government agencies reporting sea levels ignore periods during which the data shows the rate of rise has fallen. Among his conclusions, Hansen writes:
“There is a new satellite up that, among other things, will measure sea level rise. It is in reality no more accurate than the previous sea level rise monitoring satellites, the Jason series, but it will continue the long-term effort begun in late 1992.
“Sea Level changes measured by satellite and reported in single digit millimeters are the result of computational hubris:
Hansen then defines the term:
“Computational Hubris: An inordinate and unjustified trust, or faith if you like, in the power of advanced computational machines and processes to produce highly accurate and extremely precise results from relatively inaccurate and imprecise, highly uncertain data using techniques and methods that have not been tested nor verified to be suited to, or sufficient for, the purpose.”
Also, in WUWT, Larry Hamlin goes through many of the false claims made about sea level rise since 1990, the beginning of the IPCC. US agencies, such as NOAA, USGS, and the Corps of Engineers have contributed to these false claims. In the long post, he discusses the report “Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States” endorsed by NOAA, EPA, DOD, Corps of Engineers, USGS, and FEMA.
Hamlin writes:
“The 2022 Global Sea Level Rise study ‘extrapolations’ and ‘trajectories’ used for assessing sea level rise during the 30-year period between 2020 and 2050 rely upon speculative and methodologically inadequate and uncertain claims of accelerating tide gauge measurements that are not supported by other well established global tide gauge data analysis. These inadequacies result in flawed claims of higher rates of global sea level rise during this 2020 to 2050 period asserted in the latest year 2022 GMSL [Global Mean Sea Level] study.”
Perhaps the most absurd part is the discussion
of uncertainties. As Hamlin writes:
“Specifically identified under Process Uncertainty is the following ‘For example, the sensitivity of the Antarctic ice sheets is not yet fully understood, (even though this process is the ‘dominant source’ of longer term global mean sea level rise as noted in both the 2017 and 2022 NOAA studies) leading to a substantial uncertainty in how sea level reacts to forcing changes.
“Additionally, the future conditions from processes, such as changes in ocean circulation and VLM, that impact RSL change more locally have uncertainty’.
“Emissions Uncertainty is noted as ‘Various forcing scenarios describe possible GHG emission pathways, which range from quick emissions reductions to unmitigated future emissions.’ ‘The uncertainty in the future pathway is referred to as emissions uncertainty.’
“Under Natural Variability it is noted that ‘Next to sea level changes caused by changes in GHG forcing, many physical processes cause natural variation (e.g., ENSO). The scenarios and uncertainty ranges for each scenario and for the observation-based trajectories in this report do not include variations due to natural variability.’
“The updated GMSL values in 2050, 2100, and 2150 relative to a 2000 baseline are shown for each of the five scenarios in Table 2.3.” [Table not shown here]
In section 3, “Emissions Matter”, the report itself states:
“Current and future emissions matter. About 2 feet (0.6 meters) of sea level rise along the U.S. coastline is increasingly likely between 2020 and 2100 because of emissions to date. Failing to curb future emissions could cause an additional 1.5 - 5 feet (0.5 - 1.5 meters) of rise for a total of 3.5 - 7 feet (1.1 - 2.1 meters) by the end of this century.”
The government cannot produce climate models that are capable of describing what is occurring in the atmosphere today, where the greenhouse effect occurs.
Yet, it produces reports with projections all the way to 2150 on what may happen? This truly is an example of using mathematics to convert small errors into ridiculous conclusions."