All posts for the month August, 2014

Hiroshima Bombs of Heat Accumulation – Skeptical Science reversing scientific reality

Skeptical Science blog has a little widget that counts the heat the climate has accumulated since 1998 in terms of Hiroshima Atomic Bombs.

One the first uses of the Hiroshima bomb analogy was by skepticalscience.com stalwart Dana Nuccitelli, in the Guardian.

The rate of heat building up on Earth over the past decade is equivalent to detonating about 4 Hiroshima atomic bombs per second. Take a moment to visualize 4 atomic bomb detonations happening every single second.

But what does this mean in actual heat energy? I did a search, and found out the estimated heat generated by the Hiroshima bomb was about 63TJ, or terra joules, or 63 x 1012 joules. A quick calculation reveals the widget actually uses 62TJ, so I will use that lower value. It is a huge number. The energy was sufficient to kill over 100,000 people, cause horrific injuries to many more, and destroying every building within a large radius of the blast site. Yet in the last 17 years the climate system has accumulated over two billion times that energy.

Most of that energy goes into the oceans, so I was curious to estimate the impact that phenomenal heat accumulation would have on the average temperature of the oceans. Specifically, how long would it take to heat the oceans by 1oC.

The beauty of metric measurements is that weight and volume are combined all around the unit of water. I will ignore the slight differences due to the impurities of sea water for this exercise.

The metric unit of energy, a joule, is not quite so easy to relate to water. The old British thermal unit is better, being the quantity of energy sufficient to raise a pound of water through 1oF. Knowing that 1lb=454g, 1.8oF = 1oC and 1btu ≈ 1055J, means that about 4.2 joules is the energy sufficient to raise 1 gram of water the one degree.

So the Hiroshima bomb had the energy to raise (62 x 1012)/4.2 ≈ 15 x 1012 grams of water through one degree.

That is 15 x 109 kilos (litres) of water, or 15 x 106 tonnes (cubic metres) of water. That is the volume of a lake of 1 kilometre in area, with an average depth of 15 metres.

The largest lake in England is Lake Windermere, which has approximately a volume of 1 cubic kilometre of water, or 1 billion tonnes of water. (The biggest freshwater lake in the United Kingdom by volume is Loch Ness, with about 9 km3 of water.)

It would take the power of 67 Hiroshima bombs to heat Lake Windermere by 1 degree. Or the oceans are accumulating heat at a rate that would the temperature of this lake by one degree in 16.67 seconds.

Although Lake Windermere can look quite large when standing on its shoreline, it is tiny in relative to the Great Lakes, let alone the oceans of the world. With a total area of about 360,000,000 km2, and an average depth of at least 3000 metres, the oceans have a volume of about 1,080,000,000 km3, or contain 108 x 1018 tonnes of water. If all the heat absorbed by the global climate system since 1998 went into the oceans, it would about 18 billion seconds to raise average ocean temperature by 1oC. That is 5,000,000 hours or 208,600 days or 570 years.

Here I am slightly exaggerating the warming rate. The UNIPCC estimates that only 93% of the warming from extra heat absorbed by the climate system was absorbed by the oceans.

But have I got this wrong by a huge margin? The standard way of stating the warming rates – used by the UNIPCC – is in degrees centigrade per decade. This is the same metric that is used for average surface temperatures. Warming of one degree in 570 years becomes 0.0175°C/decade. In Chapter 3 of the UNIPCC AR5 Working Group 1 Report, Figure 3.3 (a) on page 263 is the following.

The ocean below about 1000 metres, or more than two-thirds of the water volume, is warming at a rate less than 0.0175°C/decade. This may be an overstatement. Below 2000 metres, average water temperature rise is around 0.005°C/decade, or 1oC of temperature rise every 2000 years.

The energy of four Hiroshima bombs a second is trivial on a global scale. It causes an amount of temperature change that is barely measurable on a year-on-year basis.

There are two objectives that I believe Skeptical Science team try achieving with their little widget.

The first objective is to reverse people’s perception of reality. Nuclear explosions are clearly seen by everybody. You do not have to be an expert to detect it if you are within a thousand miles of the detonation. Set one off anywhere in the world, even deep underground, and sensitive seismic detectors will register the event from the other side of the globe. Rejection of the evidence of a blast can only be on the basis of clear bias or lying.

But trying to measure changes of thousands of a degree in the unimaginable vastness of the oceans, with changes in the currents and seasonal changes as well is not detectable with a single instrument, or even thousands of such instruments. It requires careful collation and aggregation of the data, with computer modelling filling in the gaps. Small biases in the modelling techniques, whether known or unknown, due to technical reasons or through desiring to get a particular result, will be more crucial than accuracy of the instruments. Even without these issues, there is the small matter of using ten years of good quality data, and longer periods of sparser and lower quality data, to determine underlying trends and the causes of it. Understanding of the nature of the data measurement issue puts the onus on anyone claiming the only possible answer to substantiate those claims.

The second objective is to replace a very tiny change in the very short period for which we have data, into a perception of a scientifically-validated catastrophic problem in the present. Whether it is a catastrophic problem relies on the projections of climate models.

It is easy to see why Skeptical Science needs this switch in the public perception of reality. True understanding of climate heat accumulation means awareness of the limits and the boundaries of our current knowledge. That requires a measure of humility and recognition of when existing knowledge is undermined. It is an inter-disciplinary subject that could result in a whole range of results of equal merit. It does not accord with their polarized vision of infallible enlightened scientists against a bunch of liars and ignoramuses who get nothing right.

Kevin Marshall

by manicbeancounter on 31/08/2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Eco-Fanatics, Science & Non-science, Skeptical Science
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 31/08/2014

https://manicbeancounter.com/2014/08/31/hiroshima-bombs-of-heat-accumulation-skeptical-science-reversing-scientific-reality/

The Logic and Boundaries of Scepticism

In response to a couple of my recent postings, William Connolley has made what I consider to be some pretty absurd statements. The lack of logic and the imprecision of language he uses have elements in common with the more mainstream believers in “climate science”. I consider some of these below, along with other statements.

__________________________________________________________

Consider the statement

You’ve failed to realise that using the label “skeptic” doesn’t actually make you a skeptic.

Equally it does not mean that a person is wrong in using the label. Given the word has multiple broad definitions, demonstrating that another is not a genuinely a sceptic1 is extremely difficult.

___________________________________________________________

I am sceptical of the statement “the majority of twentieth century warming was caused by the increase in GHGs“. In a respected dictionary I find two definitions that both apply to my scepticism

  1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.
  2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.

If someone states a different definition of “sceptic“, (which they may have made up) it does not mean I am not sceptical. It just means that they are playing with words.

If someone says the statement is proven by scientific evidence they are wrong. Scientific statements are never proven, just failed to be falsified by the evidence.

If someone says that there is overwhelming scientific evidence in support of the above statement then they are wrong. There is insufficient data to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt at the moment. There may never be the evidence, as much of stored heat energy of the climate is in the oceans. Most of the twentieth century data necessary to establish the hypothesis is missing.

If someone says of the statement I am not sceptical, but instead denying the scientific consensus they would be wrong. Firstly, the consensus IPCC does exclude the possibility that a minority of the warming was increased by greenhouse gases. Check out the 2013 AR5 WG1 SPM to verify. Secondly, even if they did make the claim, given that the IPCC has in the past made knowledge claims that it no longer holds to (e.g. radiative forcing components and the hockey stick), I am justified in being sceptical of their abilities to get it right this time.

Further, if someone says of the statement I am not sceptical due denying the scientific consensus, they are using an evaluation criteria that I reject. They are free to believe it is a valid criteria, but I believe it is equivalent to “hearsay” evidence in law.

My rejection of the claim that the statement “twentieth century warming was human caused” as being “essentially true“ does not make me unsceptical of the weaker first statement. Nor is it sufficient to claim that I reject the IPCC Consensus, as they make even weaker statements.

___________________________________________________________

If someone were to demonstrate beyond reasonable doubt that a statement were true, then I would cease being sceptical. Personally I would accept the scientific evidence at a much lower level than that in support of the statements “smoking causes lung cancer”2 or “HIV causes AIDS”3.

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On reflection the last statement is not quite correct when applied to climatology. In the past I would have accepted a scientific statement based on expert opinion, or reasonable scientific evidence. But on many levels the climate community have breached the trust which any reasonable member of the public might bestow on an expert. They have failed to draw upon the accumulated wisdom of other areas, such as philosophy of science, decision theory, diplomacy or public choice economics. They have rejected things I value, such as comparing and contrasting different viewpoints, recognizing one’s own bias and listening to others. They have embraced principles I dislike, such as marginalizing opponents, and censoring of opposing opinions. But most of all many will never countenance the possibility of their own fallibility.

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If someone does not reject out of hand statements of Murray Salby (who rejects the notion that the rise in CO2 levels is human caused), it does not automatically mean they accept wholeheartedly what he says. Neither does posting articles on their blog mean they believe in what Salby says. There are a number of alternative reasons. For instance, they could feel that his sacking was not justified. Or they could mean the website owner is a pluralist in science, who believes that you should not reject new ideas out of hand. Or they could believe in academic freedom. Or they could be trying to act as a forum for different ideas. Instead, using that, or similar arguments shows an inability to consider other possibilities, or to countenance that those you oppose may have valid alternative positions. It is a normal human failing to deny the humanity of others, and one that I believe we should strive to counter. Further, those with high intelligence, coupled with dogmatic beliefs, are often those most guilty of casting those with opposing beliefs as being incapable of understanding their viewpoint.

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Claims that doctorates in climatology (or related subjects) confer special skills or abilities, that non-scientists do not possess is just bluster. The subject has no established track record of understanding the climate system, but has plenty of excuses for failure. It ignores many distinctions learnt in other empirically-based subjects. But most of all, the subject demands belief in a particular scientific hypothesis. Any criticism of that hypothesis, or contradictory evidence, undermines their core beliefs. Thus being too close to the subject may be a positive disability in engagement. To counter this more traditional sciences have promoted belief in the scientific method rather than belief in the scientific hypothesis. Those areas with strong ideological beliefs, such as economics and politics, have in free societies recognized the values of pluralism.

Kevin Marshall

  1. In Britain, “skeptic” is spelt “sceptic”. So I use that spelling, except when quoting others.
  2. I discussed the evidence from Cancer Research UK here following an article at “The Conversation“.
  3. AVERT, an HIV and AIDS Charity based in the UK, gives a long and through article on the case for “HIV causes AIDS“. In terms of communication of their case, there is a lot that the climate community could learn from.
by manicbeancounter on 25/08/2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Science & Non-science, Science - the Boundaries
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 25/08/2014

https://manicbeancounter.com/2014/08/25/the-logic-and-boundaries-of-scepticism/

William Connolley’s “correction” of the dictionary

William Connolley, at Roy Spencer’s blog, claims that those who disagree with him are not skeptics.

He hyperlinks to his 2004 posting “Septics and skeptics; denialists and contrarians”

Consider his definition of the word “skeptic”

the true definition of skeptic in this context is something like: 

skeptic [Gr. skeptiko`s thoughtful, reflective, fr. ske`ptesqai to look carefully or about, to view, consider] 1. One who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after facts or reasons. 

(I got that from here and edited it lightly (update 2004/12/11: but! they’ve changed the page. Argh. OK, so for the moment you can get the version I saw from googles cache, and if that fails, the original source is Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary. I’ve also created an entry atwictionary in frustration; and the same defn is also available from BrainyDictionary. Anyway you know what I mean…)). 

“I got that from here and edited it lightly” is a confession that he manipulated the definition to suit his purposes.

The “light” editing is from to dictionary.com, whose current definition is.

1. a person who questions the validity or authenticity of something purporting to be factual.

2. a person who maintains a doubting attitude, as toward values, plans, statements, or the character of others.

3. a person who doubts the truth of a religion, especially Christianity, or of important elements of it.

4. (initial capital letter) Philosophy.

a. a member of a philosophical school of ancient Greece, the earliest group of which consisted of Pyrrho and his followers, who maintained that real knowledge of things is impossible.

b. any later thinker who doubts or questions the possibility of real knowledge of any kind.

The first definition is about questioning something “purporting” to be factual. If somebody makes a claim that they earnestly believe to be true, they may not comprehend how anybody can be somewhat sceptical (or even incredulous) about those claims. Those who believe in alien abductions, for instance, may present “overwhelming” evidence to support that belief. If you try to convince them otherwise, you will be called stupid, or even as part of the conspiracy to discredit the truth.

The second definition is about a doubting attitude. There is nothing in those definitions that demarcates between good and bad scepticism. There can be a huge number of reasons for the doubt. For instance, a good marriage depends on trust. If one party has an affair, there will likely be a breakdown in that trust. The betrayed will now questions every statement and every motive. Once lost, that trust, it is very hard to regain – a point that Dale Carnegie makes in “How To Win Friends And Influence People“. Shifting blame, or failing to acknowledge fault, will only make matters worse.

However, given that it is worth having a healthy scepticism to any claims on the internet, a more reliable source is the printed word. My dictionary is a Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 1983 reprint edition. William Connolley, with a Dhil from Oxford, can hardly dispute its authority. This is what I wrote a couple of years ago:-

Definition 1 pertains to a school of philosophy after the Greek Pyrrho, which doubts the possibility of knowledge of any kind.

Definition 2 is someone who doubts the validity of knowledge claims in a particular area of inquiry. This includes, but is not confined to the natural sciences.

Definition 2.1 is “one who maintains a doubting attitude with reference to a particular question or statement”. The OED has this as the popular definition.

Definition 3 is one who doubts the truth of Christianity.

Definition 4 is one who is seeking the truth. That is “an inquirer who has not arrived at definite convictions”. This is only occasionally used, at least in the late 20th century.

Like with the dictionary.com definitions, there is no implied demarcation, between scepticism and denial of the truth. William Connolley’s definition is nearest to 4, implying that scepticism is transitional stage on the road to enlightenment or denial. But the oldest definition is denial of knowledge in general, and doubts of the truth of Christianity, can be a static state.

There are a huge number of possible reasons for the doubt that is scepticism. For instance, a good marriage depends on trust. If one party has an affair, there will likely be a breakdown in that trust. The betrayed will now question every statement and every action. Once lost, that trust it is very hard to regain – a point that Dale Carnegie makes in “How To Win Friends And Influence People“, although mostly with business relationships in mind. Shifting blame, or failing to acknowledge fault, will only make matters worse. William Connolley has helped betray the trust that people bestow on the authority of Wikipedia and in the authority of science. Rather than trying to restore that trust, he just makes comments that confirm people’s scepticism.

Kevin Marshall

 

 

by manicbeancounter on 23/08/2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Censorship, Public Relations and Climate Change, Science & Non-science
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 23/08/2014

https://manicbeancounter.com/2014/08/23/william-connolleys-correction-of-the-dictionary/

Michael Mann and John Cook at Bristol University

Lucia at The Blackboard last month publicized that the John Cook is to speak at Bristol University on Dogma vs. consensus: Letting the evidence speak on climate change on Friday 19th September. There are still 395 free tickets left for the event.

Stephen Lewandowsky also notes that Michael Mann is to lecture at the same event on Tuesday 23rd September on The Hockey Stick and the climate wars – the battle continues. Just 102 free tickets left for this event.

Given the Mann’s belief that the continued climate denial is due to “massive funding of climate change denial by monied interests” (HuffPo), it might provide some light entertainment for the students.

Update 19th Sept. There are still 309 tickets left for the John Cook lecture for tomorrow – Friday 20th September. See http://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/events/2014/488.html

The Michael Mann lecture is now SOLD OUT, or more accurately, all the tickets have been given away.

by manicbeancounter on 16/08/2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Uncategorized
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 16/08/2014

https://manicbeancounter.com/2014/08/16/michael-mann-and-john-cook-at-bristol-university/

William Connolley supports the climate faith against expert opinions

Of the current litigation by Prof. Michael Mann against The National Review and Mark Steyn, William Connolley (the Stoat) states:-

By supporting the SLAPP filing, Steyn is running away.

My reply is

You are wrong.

Steyn’s Amicus Curiae states

In particular, Steyn supports the use of the D.C. Anti-SLAPP Act to combat attempts by Plaintiff-Appellee and others to stifle public debate via the threat of protracted and inevitably expensive litigation. But in this case the anti-SLAPP process itself ……… has been manipulated by plaintiff-appellee Mann to become merely an additional phase of protracted procedural punishment.

Steyn further accuses Mann of “venue shopping” (as neither party has any connection with D.C.) and of delaying trial. He also ups the ante by accusing Mann of fraudulent claims, including that Mann was a Nobel Laureate, and that he was “exonerated” by a British Climategate Enquiry that never even mentioned him.

Steyn added:

It is clear from the ease with which Mann lies about things that would not withstand ten minutes of scrutiny in a courtroom that he has no intention of proceeding to trial.

Steyn is supported in his appeal by a separate brief undersigned by numerous organisations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Time Inc, The National Press Association, and Bloomberg.

To cap it all, Steyn is further supported by another brief from the District of Columbia, who view Mann’s case as being the opposite of what their anti-SLAPP legislation intended.

So there seems to be a choice here:-

Either

You view that acceptance into the consensus cult of climatology gives you superior insights into everything, including statistics, philosophy of science, economics, public policy making, evidence evaluation, etymology and ethics.

Or

You believe that by specializing in particular applied subject area; and comparing and contrasting views within that area; and learning from what others say in areas that impinge upon the applied specialism; and by having a wider understanding of other areas – that you may through study and application possibly gain both a deep understanding of that specialism and be able to assess the specialism in the wider context of other academic subjects and extent of knowledge and boundaries of the specialism.

 

by manicbeancounter on 14/08/2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Censorship, Eco-Fanatics, Science & Non-science
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 14/08/2014

https://manicbeancounter.com/2014/08/14/william-connolley-supports-the-climate-faith-against-expert-opinions/

The Lewandowsky Smooth

Summary

The Risbey at al. 2014 paper has already had criticism of its claim that some climate models can still take account of actual temperature trends. However, those criticisms did not take into account the “actual” data used, nor did they account for why Stephan Lewandowsky, a professor of psychology, should be a co-author of a climate science paper. I construct simple model using Excel of surface temperature trends that accurately replicates the smoothed temperature data in Risbey et al. 2014. Whereas the HADCRUT4 data set shows the a cooling trend since 2006, a combination of three elements smooths it away to give the appearance of a minimal downturn in a warming trend. Those element are the use of the biases in Cowtan and Way 2013; the use of decadal changes in data (as opposed to change from previous period) and the use of 15 year centred moving averages. As Stephan Lewandowsky was responsible for the “analysis of models and observations” this piece of gross misinformation must be attributed to him, hence the title.

Introduction

Psychology Professor Stephan Lewandowsky has previously claimed that “inexpert mouths” should not be heard. He is a first a psychologist, cum statistician; then a specialist on ethics, and peer review; then publishes on the maths of uncertainty. Now Lewandowsky re-emerges as a Climate Scientist, in

“Well-estimated global surface warming in climate projections selected for ENSO phase” James S. Risbey, Stephan Lewandowsky, Clothilde Langlais, Didier P. Monselesan, Terence J. O’Kane & Naomi Oreskes Nature Climate Change (Risbey et al. 2014)

Why the involvement?

Risbey et al. 2014 was the subject of a long post at WUWT by Bob Tisdale. That long post was concerned with the claim that the projections of some climate models could replicate surface temperature data.

Towards the end Tisdale notes

The only parts of the paper that Stephan Lewandowsky was not involved in were writing it and the analysis of NINO3.4 sea surface temperature data in the models. But, and this is extremely curious, psychology professor Stephan Lewandowsky was solely responsible for the “analysis of models and observations”.

Lewandowsky summarizes his contribution at shapingtomorrowsworld. The following is based on that commentary.

Use of Cowtan and Way 2013

Lewandowsky asks “Has global warming “stopped”?” To answer in the negative he uses Cowtan and Way 2013. This was an attempt to correct the coverage biases in the HADCRUT4 data set by infilling through modelling where the temperature series lacked data. Principally real temperature data was lacking at the poles and in parts of Africa. However, the authors first removed some of the HADCRUT4 data, stating reasons for doing so. In total Roman M found it was just 3.34% of the filled-in grid cells, but was strongly biased towards the poles. That is exactly where the HADCRUT4 data was lacking. A computer model was not just infilling for where data was absent, but replacing sparse data with modelled data.

Steve McIntyre plotted the differences between CW2013 and HADCRUT4.

Stephan Lewandowsky should have acknowledged that, through the greater use of modelling techniques, Cowtan and Way was a more circumstantial estimate of global average surface temperature trends than HADCRUT4. This aspect would be the case even if results were achieved by robust methods.

Modelling the smoothing methods

The Cowtan and Way modelled temperature series was then smoothed to create the following series in red.

The smoothing was achieved by employing two methods. First was to look at decadal changes rather than use temperature anomalies – the difference from a fixed point in time. Second was to use 15 year centred moving averages.

To help understand the impact these methods to the observations had on the data I have constructed a simple model of the major HADCRUT4 temperature changes. The skepticalscience.com website very usefully has a temperature trends calculator.

The phases I use in degrees Kelvin per decade are

The Cowtan and Way trend is simply HADCRUT4 with a trend of 0.120 Kelvin per decade for the 2005-2013 period. This simply coverts a cooling trend since 2005 into a warming one, illustrated below.

The next step is to make the trends into decadal trends, by finding the difference with between the current month figure and the one 120 months previous. This derives the following for the Cowtan and Way trend data.

Applying decadal trends spreads the impact of changes in trend over ten years following the change. Using HADCRUT4 would mean decadal trends are now zero.

The next step is to apply 15 year centred moving averages.

The centred moving average spreads the impact of a change in trend to before the change occurred. So warming starts in 1967 instead of 1973. This partly offsets the impact of decadal changes, but further smothers any step changes. The two elements also create a nice smoothing of the data. The difference of Cowtan and Way is to future-proof this conclusion.

Comparison of modelled trend with the “Lewandowsky Smooth”

Despite dividing up over sixty years of data into just 5 periods, I have managed to replicate the essentially features of the decadal trend data.

A. Switch from slight cooling to warming trend in late 1960s, some years before the switch occurred.

B. Double peaks in warming trend, the first below 0.2 degrees per decade, the second slightly above.

C. The smoothed graph ending with warming not far off the peak, obliterating the recent cooling in the HADCRUT4 data.

Lewandowsky may not have used the decadal change as the extra smoothing technique, but whichever technique that was used achieved very similar results to my simple Excel effort. So the answer to Lewandowsky’s question “Has global warming “stopped”?” the answer is “Yes”. Lewandowsky knew this, so has manipulated the data to smooth the problem away. The significance is in a quote from “the DEBUNKING Handbook“.

It’s self-evident that democratic societies should base their decisions on accurate information. On many issues, however, misinformation can become entrenched in parts of the community, particularly when vested interests are involved. Reducing the influence of misinformation is a difficult and complex challenge.

Lewandowsky is providing misinformation, and has an expert understanding of its pernicious effects.

Kevin Marshall

by manicbeancounter on 07/08/2014  •  Permalink
Posted in Climate Change, Science & Non-science, Spin (Propaganda)
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Posted by manicbeancounter on 07/08/2014

https://manicbeancounter.com/2014/08/07/the-lewandowsky-smooth/