In The National Science Foundation Funds Multi-Decadal Climate Predictions Without An Ability To Verify Their Skill Roger Pielke Sr. links GCM skill at predicting drought with natural variation: 2. “Future efforts to predict drought will depend on models’ ability to predict tropical SSTs.” In other words, there is NO way to assess the skill of these models are predicting drought as they have not yet shown any skill in SST predictions on time scales longer than a season, nor natural climate Read more [...] 2 com

My critique of models used in a major Australian drought study appeared in Energy and Environment last month (read Critique-of-DECR-EE here). It deals with validation of models (the subject of a recent post by Judith Curry), and regional model disagreement with rainfall observations (see post by Willis here). The main purpose is summed up in the last sentence of the abstract: The main conclusion and purpose of the paper is to provide a case study showing the need for more rigorous and explicit Read more [...] 5 com

More evidence of worthless model predictions from CO2 Science: All of the future flow-rates calculated by Steynor et al. exhibited double-digit negative percentage changes that averaged -25% for one global climate model and -50% for another global climate model; and in like manner the mean past trend of four of Lloyd's five stations was also negative (-13%). But the other station had a positive trend (+14.6%). In addition, by "examination of river flows over the past 43 years in the Breede River Read more [...] one

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 Read more [...] none

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 Read more [...] 9 com

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 Read more [...] 8 com

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 Read more [...] 12 com

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. Read more [...] 21 com

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, Read more [...] none

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 Read more [...] 14 com

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 Read more [...] 30 com

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 Read more [...] 53 com

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 Read more [...] 32 com

A couple of recent posts challenging global warming science have not been picked up by other observers. While real scientists find Climategate distasteful, it does not necessarily challenge the pillars of AGW logic. These latest developments do, and perhaps give the insightful a heads-up of the direction of challenges to come. The first is Loehle, Craig. 2010. The estimation of historical CO2 trajectories is indeterminate: Comment on "A new look at atmospheric carbon dioxide." Atmospheric Environment, Read more [...] 4 com

A short post, but it doesn't take much to show that CSIRO and BoM are telling porkies again in their just released State of Climate report. Just click here to get a graph showing the INCREASING trend in rainfall. The report states: 2. Rainfall While total rainfall on the Australian continent has been relatively stable ... The fine print at the bottom left says: "Linear trend of 6.33mm decade." Related Links: Some quick thoughts on CSIRO drought info. Debate on lack of skill of drought models. Little Read more [...] 78 com

It’s incredible that a global warming theory could agree with both the IPCC (discernable anthropogenic influence) and the sceptics (low long term risk from emissions) but there you are. The analysis of Greenstock suggests it is not the amount of greenhouse gasses, particularly CO2, in the atmosphere that contributes to global warming, but the change in the amount. That is, when the rate of CO2 produced is increasing -- as it was last century -- this increases the global temperature. Conversely, Read more [...] 98 com

A rash of stunning turnarounds have vindicated years of effort by climate sceptics. The day after ClimateGate broke I made three predictions: . Disband the entire Federal Department of Climate Change along with all the individual State Departments of Climate Change. . Vote down the Emissions Trading Scheme Legislation. . Cancel Copenhagen. Australia's Department of Climate Change has been 'watered down' to become the Department of Climate Change, Energy Efficiency and Water. The ETS was voted Read more [...] 7 com

Please discuss the new paper by Michael Beenstock and Yaniv Reingewertz here. Way back in early 2006 I posted on an exchange with R. Kaufmann, whose cointegration modelling is referenced in the paper, entitled Peer censorship and fraud. He was complaining at RealClimate about the supression of these lines of inquiry by the general circulation modellers. The post gives a number of examples that were topical at the time. ClimateGate bears it out. Steve McIntyre wrote a long post on the affair here. [R]ealclimate’s Read more [...] 73 com

An issue in question here is whether the recent snowfall at Law Dome is unusually high relative to the 750 year long record (and therefore, so the argument goes, probably due to AGW). Below is the snowfall at Law Dome from the ice core. Above is the actual snowfall, and below is the accumulation of the series minus the mean (using the R function cumsum) indicating where snowfall is above or below average. This simple approach is not used in the paper. While the accumulation of snow at present Read more [...] 18 com

The latest submission to arXiv:physics.ao-ph is entitled Interglacials, Milankovitch Cycles, and Carbon Dioxide by Gerald E. Marsh. Here is a review of the evidence regarding the timing of Termination II, the penultimate interglacial transition 140k years ago, and factors that may have caused it: CO2, Milankovitch induced insolation changes, or changes in solar magnetic flux, altering the Earth's albedo through cosmic ray flux. To appreciate the importance of this period, and a clear logical analysis Read more [...] 14 com

Innovation is not dead as Dyson eliminates the fan (maybe there is one inside though), showing the power of careful attention to shape. Rational policy analysis is not an oxymoron, as Peter Gallagher deconstructs the emissions trading scheme (ETS). John Robb suggests we are living in Extremistan: That's Nassim Taleb's term to describe areas of our experience that defy statistical analysis, modeling and thereby prediction. Essentially, he makes the persuasive case that all of the topics covered Read more [...] one

My comments on the topical 'Yamal' issue: My AIG article demonstrating reconstruction of a hockey stick with red noise, neatly illustrated the possibility of circular reasoning in screening trees by their response to temperature. Around 20% of random series (or 40% if you count the inverted ones) correlate significantly with the temperature instrument record of the last 150 years, and when averaged back beyond the present create the straight handle of the stick. While this was obvious to many, Read more [...] none

Many of my numerate readers will have read the account by Rick Trebino of Georgia Tech of trials and tribulations of responding to an error in the public record of the peer-reviewed literature, and have ideas of their own on what they would like to see. Record ideas for what you would like to see below. (I am on vacation on the Great Barrier Reef right now, so excuse the brevity, typing this from the resort.) My wish list is below. 1. Code and data allow replication 2. Reviewers can act as Read more [...] 5 com

Here is the abstract for our comment submitted to Geophysical Research Letters today. Bob Tisdale is acknowledged as the source of the idea in the first paragraph. Lets see how it goes. If you would like a copy, contact me via the form above. Update: Now available from arXiv Comment on "Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature" by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter David R.B. Stockwell and Anthony Cox Abstract We demonstrate an alternative correlation Read more [...] 35 com

Below are my replications of Figure 4 and Figure 5 of the controversial paper "Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature" by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter. Above is the comparison of global atmospheric temperature (RATPAC-A) with the SOI, smoothed with a flat 12 month filter. Above is the comparison of the 12 month differences (not derivative) of global atmospheric temperature (RATPAC-A) (lagged) with the SOI, smoothed with a flat 12 month Read more [...] 69 com

The revision of the Copenhagen Synthesis Report was advertised at the ANU Climate Change Institute, directed by Prof. Will Steffen. But they just can't seem to get it right. The ANU web site refers to Stefan Rahmstorf as Stefan Rahmonstorf. Ian Castles on the July 5th, 2009 compiled the list of amendments of errors. Below is an update of the current situation. A summary chronology: (1) According to the first sentence in the caption to Figure 3 of the Copenhagen Synthesis Report, as released Read more [...] 7 com

Renewable energy is a nice idea, but Peter Lang crunches the numbers and finds solar and wind power are crushingly expensive, do little for greenhouse gas reduction, and are ecologically dangerous. Cap and trade is actually a giant scheme to tax and redistribute, for the benefit of political insiders. A letter submitted by Peter Lang argues that the numbers prove nuclear power is the only way. Solar realities: Solar power is uneconomic. The capital cost of solar power would be 25 times more Read more [...] 36 com

Published in Science, this Rahmstorf 2007 article provides a high-end estimate of sea level rise of over a meter by the end of the century (rate of 10mm/yr). Linear extrapolation puts the rate of increase at only 1.4mm and 1.7mm per year depending on start date (1860 or 1950). The paper was followed by two critical comments, both bashing the statistics, and these are attached to the link above. Rahmstorf replied to those comments. The issues raised are familiar to readers of this, CA, Lucia, Read more [...] 21 com

Download: Structural break models of climatic regime-shifts: claims and forecasts Anthony asked if it would be difficult to statistically justify the breaks in temperature between 1976 and 1979 proposed by Quirk (2009) for Australian temperature. He has an interest in oceanographic regime-shifts and climate change. Sure, I said, a simple Chow test. We ended up rebutting the Easterling & Wehner (2009) claim that describing temperatures since 1998 as declining is 'cherry picking', finding a Read more [...] 49 com

Appearing in Energy and Environment (ee-20-4_7-stockwell2) is a note by myself on a paper by IPCC lead authors Rahmstorf, S., Cazenave A., Church J.A., Hansen J.E., Keeling R.F., Parker D.E., and R.C.J. Somerville, Recent climate observations compared to projections published in Science in 2007. As shown by 102 citations in Google Scholar already, Rahmstorf et al 2007 has been one of the main references for alarmist calls to action because the "climate system is responding more quickly than the Read more [...] 36 com