Urban areas differ from rural areas in a number of well known ways, but the IPCC summaries maintain that these effects have been effectively removed when they talk about the recent (post 1960) increases in global surface temperature.

Continuing the series on how bad climate models really are, another paper is in the pipeline on the long-standing influence of urban heat effects (UHI) in the surface temperature data. Ross McKitrick reports that between 1/2 and 1/3 of the recent increase in temperature is due to this contamination (Ross’s website here).

The methodology uses the regression coefficients from the socioeconomic variables to estimate the trend distribution after removing the estimated non-climatic biases in the temperature data. On observational data this reduces the mean warming trend by between one-third and one-half, but it does not affect the mean surface trend in the model-generated data. Again this is
consistent with the view that the observations contain a spatial contamination pattern not present in, or predicted by, the climate models.

Note that this rather gross bias is not present in or predicted by the climate models, meaning the climate models do not have the physical mechanisms to model it. One consequence is that if the models are to fit the recent increase in temperature, some other (incorrect) mechanism must be used (such as H2O feedback perhaps – I don’t know).

Ross has written up the backstory of the all too common obstacles to publication of articles questioning the IPCC here:

In the aftermath of Climategate a lot of scientists working on global warming-related topics are upset that their field has apparently lost credibility with the public. The public seems to believe that climatology is beset with cliquish gatekeeping, wagon-circling, biased peer-review, faulty data and statistical incompetence. In response to these perceptions, some scientists are casting around, in op-eds and weblogs, for ideas on how to hit back at their critics. I would like to suggest that the climate science community consider instead whether the public might actually have a point.

Due to building the website for The Climate Sceptics I haven’t been able to post despite some important events. My site and other files were deleted in some kind of attack, so I have had to rebuild it as well. I now have the WordPress 3.0 multiuser system which enable easy creation and management of multiple blogs, so its an ill wind eh?

The important event I refer to is the release of “Panel and Multivariate Methods for Tests of Trend Equivalence in Climate Data Series” by Ross McKitrick, Stephen McIntyre and Chad Herman (2010). Nobody is talking about it, and I don’t know why, as it has a history almost as long as the hockey stick on McIntyre’s blog (summary here), and is a powerful condemnation of climate models in the PRL.

I feel a series coming on, as these results deliver a stunning blow to the last leg that alarmists have been standing on, i.e. model credulity. Also because I have a paper coming out in a similar vein, dealing with drought models in regional Australia.

Using a rigorous methodology on 57 runs from 23 model simulations of the lower troposphere (LT) and mid-troposphere (MT) with forcing inputs from the realistic A1B emission scenario, and four observational temperature series: two satellite-borne microwave sounding unit (MSU)-derived series and two balloon-borne radiosonde series, over two time periods from 1979-99 and 1999-2009, they tested a mismatch between models and observed trends in the tropical troposphere. This represents a basic validation test of climate models over a 30 year period, a validation test which SHOULD be fundamental to any belief in the models, and their usefulness for projections of global warming in the future.

The results are shown in their figure:

… the differences between models and observations now exceed the 99% critical value. As shown in Table 1 and Section 3.3, the model trends are about twice as large as observations in the LT layer, and about four times as large in the MT layer.

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• The Age reports that Climategate was a game changer. Judith Curry said Dr Jones had shown himself to be ”genuinely repentant, and has been completely open and honest about what has been done and why … speaking with humility about the uncertainty in the data sets”.

  So far its a case of the academic defense: “Oops, I lied.” Sir Muir Russell, the chairman of the Judicial Appointments Board for Scotland, notes that senior climate scientists say their world has been dramatically changed by the affair. We welcome senior climate scientists to the real world of professional transparency. Steve McIntyre has received overwhelming financial support from his readers for his trip to the Guardian’s debate in England.

• Senator Wong reminded a conference on the Gold Coast that scientists were responsible for this unpopular policy bind: “Remember why this debate started, why we all started talking about climate change and why people called for action?
  

  “It is because of you that we understand that climate change is real and it is because of you that we understand that climate change is happening now … and that it is caused by carbon dioxide emissions.”

  But she also challenged scientists to get their act together:

  … the science behind the political debate cannot be over-estimated. Unfortunately in the recent past, science has not been able to speak with one voice on climate change, making it impossible for politicians to enact practical measures to address the phenomenon.

  Reading between the lines, could it be that her political windsock no longer points towards the agenda of tenured liberal progressive moonbats and she is butching-up to the union bosses that put Ms Squiggle in command? Hmm…

• Lubos reviews a sloppy article by Rasmus Benestad on climate feedbacks. He explains the system as I see it, with many short run positive feedbacks in the atmosphere (and oceans) but stronger negative feedbacks in the long run, producing a “half-pipe” response profile.

Lubos makes me laugh:

Well, let me make it clear that there’s nothing controversial about negative feedbacks. In this battle between negative feedbacks and Rasmus Benestad, it is the latter who is an utterly controversial crackpot. The existence of crackpots may make basic concepts of science controversial among crackpots – and the remaining readers of Real Climate, if there are any – but it can’t make it controversial in the real science.

• CSIRO is making science more accessible to decision-makers by “trialling different ways of presenting climate information”. And if they couldn’t be more non-committal, they are presenting the regional forecasts of models that “are complex, and constantly being refined” in a slick interface. If as my upcoming publication shows, the model forecasts are worthless, then you have to wonder — What is the point?

  The rainfall simulations in the models are completely opposite to reality over the last 100 years. To make this clear to climate scientists, when rainfall decreases the models increase. When rainfall increases, the models decrease. The best way decision-makers could use CSIRO model forecasts is as contrary indicators, i.e. buy when they say “sell”, and sell when they say “buy”.

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Having just returned from my leg of the tour, I have been offline for awhile, but expect to catch up this week. Here is my powerpoint presentation “Tweeter and the Monkey M(e)an — Negating Climate Change Policy” (4.3MB).

The title comes from a song by the Traveling Wilburys. The message is that without proper validation, climate models are no more credible than Tweets, and from my (and others’) validation testing, the model forecasts are not fit-for-forecasting, showing no more accuracy than the “Monkey Mean” — the average temperature and rainfall. I critique CSIRO and BoM reports and conclude with an example of how to make rational business decisions under climate forecast uncertainty.

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Virial Paper 6_12_2010 submitted by Adolf J. Giger.

Allow me to make some more comments on the Virial Theorem (VT) as used by Ferenc Miskolczi (FM) for the atmosphere.

As I said on this blog back in February, a very fundamental derivation of the VT was made by H. Goldstein in Section 3-4 of “Classical Mechanics”, 1980, Ref.[1] : PE= 2*KE (potential energy=2 x kinetic energy). Then, he also derives the Ideal Gas Law (IGL), P*V = N*k*T as a consequence of the VT, and shows that PE=3*P*V and KE=(3/2)*N*k*T. The two laws, IGL and VT, therefore are two ways to describe the same physical phenomenon. Despite its seemingly restrictive name, we know that the IGL is a good approximation for many gases, monatomic, biatomic, polyatomic and even water vapor, as long as they remain very dilute. Goldstein’s derivations are made for an enclosure of volume V with constant gas pressure P and temperature T in a central force field like the Earth’s gravitational field. They also hold for an open volume V anywhere in the atmosphere. As to FM, he points out that the VT reflects the fact that the atmosphere is gravitationally bounded.
…
Ferenc Miskolczi in his papers [2,3] relates the total potential energy of the atmosphere, PEtot, to the total IR upward radiation Su at the surface. This relationship has to be considered a proportionality rather than an exact equality, or Su=const* PEtot. We see that this linkage makes sense since Su determines the surface temperature Ts through the Stefan-Boltzmann law, Su = (5.6703/10^8)*Ts^4 , and finally the IGL ties together Ts, P(z=0) and PEtot.
…
FM then assigns the kinetic IR energy KE (temperature) in the atmosphere to the upward atmospheric IR emittance Eu, or Eu=const*KE. The flux Eu is made up of two terms F + K , where F is due to thermalized absorption of short wave solar radiation in atmospheric water vapor, and K due to heat transfers from the Earth’s surface to air masses and clouds through evaporation and convection. Neither F or K are directly radiated from the Earth’s surface. They represent radiation from the atmosphere itself. There is an obvious limitation for such an assignment mainly because for the VT , or the IGL in general, the temperature (the KE) has to be measured with a thermometer, whereas Eu represents the radiative temperature (flux) that has to be measured with a radiometer, and these two measurements can give vastly different results as we see for the two following extreme cases:
…

In between these two extremes we have the Earth where FM’s version of the VT , Su = 2 * Eu applies reasonably well. We will see next in a discussion of FM’s exact solution how close, and for what types of atmospheres FM’s VT ( Eu/Su=0.5) holds, but we can say already that no physical principle is violated if it doesn’t. The VT that always holds for gases is not being violated, it is simply not fully recognized by FM’s fluxes that have to be measured by radiometers. This may be an indication that the VT is less important for FM’s theory than normally assumed.

…

On the other hand, the IPCC assumes a positive water vapor feedback and arrives at very imprecise predictions for the Climate Sensitivity ranging from 1.5 to 5K (and even more). It is clear that this wide range of numbers is caused by the assumed positive feedback system, which apparently is close to instability (or singing, as the electrical engineer would call it in an unstable microphone-loudspeaker system). With such large uncertainties in their outputs true scientists should be reluctant to publish their results.

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My rebuttal of Thomas’ computer models of massive species extinctions has been mentioned in a statement by Sen. Orrin G. Hatch before the United States Senate, on June 10, 2010.

1. Stockwell (2000) observes that the Thomas models, due to lack of any observed extinction data, are not ‘tried and true,’ and their doctrine of ‘massive extinction’ is actually a case of ‘massive extinction bias.’

[Stockwell, D.R.B. 2004. Biased Toward Extinction, Guest Editorial, CO2 Science 7 (19): http://www.co2 science.org/articles/V7/N19/EDIT.php]

The one extinct species mentioned in the Thomas article is now thought to have fallen victim to the 1998 El Nino.

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Ferenc sent out reprints of his upcoming manuscript, and graciously acknowledges the contribution of a number of us for support, help and encouragement. I particularly like the perturbation and statistical power analysis, checking that a change in the greenhouse effect due to CO2 would likely have been detected if it had been present in the last 61 years.

The Stable Stationary Value of the Earth’s Global Average Atmospheric Planc-weighted Greenhouse-Gas Optical Thickness
by Ferenc Miskolczi,
Energy & Environment, 21:4 2010.

ABSTRACT
By the line-by-line method, a computer program is used to analyze Earth atmospheric radiosonde data from hundreds of weather balloon observations. In terms of a quasi-all-sky protocol, fundamental infrared atmospheric radiative flux components are calculated: at the top boundary, the outgoing long wave radiation, the surface transmitted radiation, and the upward atmospheric emittance; at the bottom boundary, the downward atmospheric emittance. The partition of the outgoing long wave radiation into upward atmospheric emittance and surface transmitted radiation components is based on the accurate computation of the true greenhouse-gas optical thickness for the radiosonde data. New relationships
among the flux components have been found and are used to construct a quasi-all- sky model of the earth’s atmospheric energy transfer process. In the 1948-2008 time period the global average annual mean true greenhouse-gas optical thickness is found to be time-stationary. Simulated radiative no-feedback effects of measured actual CO2 change over the 61years were calculated and found to be of magnitude easily detectable by the empirical data and analytical methods used. The data negate increase in CO2 in the atmosphere as a hypothetical cause for the apparently observed global warming. A hypothesis of significant positive feedback by water vapor effect on atmospheric infrared absorption is also negated by the observed measurements. Apparently major revision of the physics underlying the greenhouse effect is needed.
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Terry McCran’s accusation that CSRIO ‘breached trust’ in The Australian this weekend sounds like an overly possessive lover saying he will never trust them again:

… our two pre-eminent centres of knowledge and public policy analysis across the social and hard sciences spectrum are now literally unbelievable.

In case you hadn’t heard, this is about the unseemly Treasury/Mining Co. cat fight over the RSPT, and Tom Quirk’s fracas with Paul Fraser, the Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO at Quadrant over his article CSIRO Abandons Science identifying a convenient omission in their State of the Climate position statement.

But the State of the Climate report has a number of very odd and questionable statements other than the one Tom wrote about. I will go through them in order:

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Now reading…

Empirical evidence for a celestial origin of the climate oscillations and its implications by Nicola Scafetta

Abstract: We investigate whether or not the decadal and multi-decadal climate oscillations have an astronomical origin. Several global surface temperature records since 1850 and records deduced from the orbits of the planets present very similar power spectra. Eleven frequencies with period between 5 and 100 years closely correspond in the two records. Among them, large climate oscillations with peak-to-trough amplitude of about 0.1 $^oC$ and 0.25 $^oC$, and periods of about 20 and 60 years, respectively, are synchronized to the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn. Schwabe and Hale solar cycles are also visible in the temperature records. A 9.1-year cycle is synchronized to the Moon’s orbital cycles. A phenomenological model based on these astronomical cycles can be used to well reconstruct the temperature oscillations since 1850 and to make partial forecasts for the 21$^{st}$ century. It is found that at least 60\% of the global warming observed since 1970 has been induced by the combined effect of the above natural climate oscillations. The partial forecast indicates that climate may stabilize or cool until 2030-2040. Possible physical mechanisms are qualitatively discussed with an emphasis on the phenomenon of collective synchronization of coupled oscillators.

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Almost a mea culpa in today’s publication of The impact of global warming on the tropical Pacific Ocean and El Niño (CSIRO and PDF) by a who’s who of atmospheric circulation research including Vecchi, and CSIRO/BoM researchers Cai and Power.

Therefore, despite considerable progress in our understanding of the impact of climate change on many of the processes that contribute to El Niño variability, it is not yet possible to say whether ENSO activity will be enhanced or damped, or if the frequency of events will change.

This is illustrated by figure 3, where some CGCMs show an increase in the amplitude of ENSO variability in the future, some show a decrease, some show no statistically significant changes.

Their paper flatly contradicts Power and Smith [2007] that increased El Ninos are caused by weakening of the pressure differential, indicated by the SOI:

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