Given the way the components of the surface temperature record extracted from the SSA (singular spectrum analysis) line up with various potential causes of climate change in the previous post here, the temptation is to latch onto series 2, and say, aha, there is the forcing due to increase in CO2. It's the right shape, exponential. Its the right size, about 0.6C. But looking into fractal data is like seeing pictures in clouds. Be suspicious of magic methods that pull explanations out of the air. Read more [...] 26 com

A feel-good story of nature's resiliency, "Doom and Boom on a Resilient Reef: Climate Change, Algal Overgrowth and Coral Recovery" has been making press with headlines focusing on the state of mind of the authors: Marine scientists say they are astonished at the spectacular recovery of certain coral reefs in Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park from a devastating coral bleaching event in 2006. The paper is similarly emotive in parts, with words like "surprisingly" and "unexpectedly" describing Read more [...] one

Still on my way home, after the lecture at Newcastle University by Miklós Zágoni and myself, this will be short. The lecture was well attended, with around 50 people -- surprising considering the campus is on a break and parking at a premium. The lectures were well received with a very engaged and relevant question time. There were some suggestions of disruption by anti-skeptics, but they did not eventuate. Transcript: errors-of-agw-science Powerpoint: newcastle-presentation Press Release: Read more [...] 57 com

Some time ago I had a brief discussion with Leif Svalgaard on ClimateAudit blog inspired by an exchange between Leif and David Archibald when the latter complained that Leif's TSI reconstruction was "too flat". The sunspots exhibited cyclic variability in terms of the frequency of the cycles and that most thermostats work by pulse width modulation and some digital music with pulse frequency modulation. Both these work in a similar manner the thermal inertia of whatever the thermostat is controlling Read more [...] 23 com

Here is a graph that suggests something intriguing about climate dynamics -- global temperature from 1979-2009 from UAH satellite records for land, southern hemisphere ocean, and globe, each fit with a 3rd order polynomial. Also plotted is the difference between SH Ocean and Global temperatures, and the difference between SH Ocean and Land temperatures. Notice that the 3rd order polynomial of the differences is almost dead straight! The Ocean-Land difference tends to drop a bit in the last 5 years. This Read more [...] 15 com

Nir is is not a keynote speaker at the Heartland Conference, though billed as one on the poster. Here is the program. He is listed as a speaker around 4pm Monday on the program. This is a placeholder for news of his address when it comes in. none

TC Hamish has intensified to a Category 5 and will make landfall somewhere in the Hervey Bay region if it continues on its present course. On 24 January, 1974, Cyclone Wanda crossed the coast near Hervey Bay, caused significant flooding in Brisbane resulting in the inundation of over 6000 houses. Radar loop Read more [...] none

A concerned reader sent me this recent paper Water-vapor climate feedback inferred from climate fluctuations, 2003-2008, writing: The following (ala Hansen) IMO should never have been accepted in a "peer reviewed" journal. "The existence of a strong and positive water-vapor feedback means that projected business-as-usual greenhouse gas emissions over the next century are virtually guaranteed to produce warming of several degrees Celsius. The only way that will not happen is if a strong, Read more [...] 53 com

David R.B. Stockwell February 4, 2009 Abstract A review by independent Accredited Statisticians, Brewer and Other [KB09], suggested that some claims in the report “Tests of Regional Climate Model Validity in the Drought Exceptional Circumstances Report” [DS08] were premature. Additional tests suggested by KB09 support the claim made in the original report of “no credible basis for the claims of increasing frequency of Exceptional Circumstances declarations”. The contributions Read more [...] one

K.R.W. Brewer1 and A.N. Other1 28 January, 2009 1. K.R.W. Brewer is an Accredited Statistician of the Statistical Society of Australia Inc. (SSAI) and a long term Visiting Fellow at the School of Finance and Applied Statistics within the College of Business and Economics at the Australian National University. 2. A.N. Other is a pseudonym for another Accredited Statistician of the SSAI who prefers to remain anonymous. Full responsibility for the content is taken by K.R.W. Brewer. Abstract The Read more [...] 7 com

Below are Peter Gallagher's thoughts on the reviews of the submission to AMM. Contrast this with ac's impressions that "To my reading the reviewer’s criticisms are reasonable and pertinent." It goes to show, that reasonable and unrelated people can see things in different ways. Where is the resolvability of fact in the review process? Consensus? Hi David, Thanks for sending me these papers. Reading the reviews, it seems to me that your submission has been poorly understood by the Read more [...] none

The Financial Times recently reported on the Australian bushfires, linking them to increases in greenhouse gases. We take another look at the data in the DECR and find Australia is getting wetter not drier: Scientists say Australia, with its harsh environment, is set to be one of the nations most affected by climate change. “Continued increases in greenhouse gases will lead to further warming and drier conditions in southern Australia, so the [fire] risks are likely to slightly worsen,” Read more [...] 16 com

A number of familiar tests, often used to evaluate the performance of models: R2 correlation, Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency and similarity of trends and return period, were reported here, noting not much evidence of skill in the DECR models compared with observations at any of these. I also said what a better treatment might entail but left that for another time: The percentage of droughted area appears to be a ’bounded extreme value, peaks over threshold’ or bounded POT statistic. The Read more [...] one

Prediction is dangerous to your reputation. If you don't make a clear prediction (a climate cycle, a solar cycle, a financial trend...) then you are just doing your best. What comes does not damage your reputation. One way to predict is to reproject on a regular basis, called 'moving the goalposts'. David Hathaway of NASA illustrates this strategy, as show in a recent post at WUWT. Here is Hathaway’s most familiar graphic, which has an active sun in the background. Perhaps it is time to Read more [...] 20 com

This newly released study from the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville is getting a lot of press. An interview with the author Glen De'ath by the ABC claims a tipping point for coral growth has already been reached in 1990. Mongabay.com claims the growth of coral in Australia's Great Barrier Reef has slowed its lowest rate in at least 400 years as a result of warming waters and ocean acidification. The claims are made on the basis of data apparently showing the rate of calcification Read more [...] 26 com

Following up on the post from yesterday, I test the assumption underpinning the regional climate change work in Australia. The most common approach has been to assess how well each of the available models simulates the present climate of the region (e.g. Dessai et al. 2005), on the assumption that the more accurately a model is able to reproduce key aspects of the regional climate, the more likely it is to provide reliable guidance for future changes in the region. As far as I can see this is Read more [...] none