[andre]

The scientific method is about making predictions based on the past and what we think we learn from that. One could argue about what has happened and what will happen as a result, but judgement is there eventually

So what was the bet?

Quote

Almost at the last minute the programme-makers came up with the idea of a bet. It was for £100 that, using the HadCrut3 data set, there would be no new record set by 2011. It was made between climatologist James Annan and myself.

His work involves analysing climatic data and validating climate models. He accepted enthusiastically as he has a perchant for taking on 'sceptics.' The presenter said that if the global temperature didn’t go up in the next few years, “there would be some explaining to do.”Later today, January 13^th, “More or Less” returns to the bet, which I am pleased to say I won, though ...

but then again, how are predictions doing anyway?

[Andy Mayhew]

I guess the lesson is: multi-decadal or longer trends don't always manifest themselves in 5 years

I wonder if he'd care to make a similar wager over the next 20, 30 or 50 years?

[Uskys]

why try to discredit asap ?

[andre]

talking about discrediting asap, how was this moving-the-goal-posts prediction of James Hansen about 20 40 years?

[John Mason]

Hey Andre,

Would you seriously bet on anything in climatology based on such a short period as 2007-2011? I know I wouldn't! It would be completely insane to do so, which begs the question why it was taken up. You know quite well that in climatology trends are 3-decadal things. Far, far too much noise (El Nino/La Nina, big pops like Mt Pinatubo and so on) to make sense of things on a shorter timescale. Why do you think the scientifically challenged use the record 1998 El Nino as a start-point? I make this prediction: the next time there is a massive EN, it will be cited in a similar style until it is superceded! I would bet money on that, but given the vagaries of certain parts of the Blogosphere, seeing the wood for the trees would almost certainly be impossible!

If Annan took that bet, in the context the link suggests, he was wrong to do so.

I just prefer the science myself. This roustabout stuff is boring.

Cheers - JOhn

[ldavidcooke]

Hey John,

Hmmm, if science drives the conclusion then why will noone take up the experiment I proposed 5 years ago? It was a simple test to prove global warming. It is a simple matter of measuring the slope of the local temperature from solar maximum to solar minimum, daily with respect to local RH and the inverse slope angle.

By comparing the slopes a more rapid increase in rise then fall clearly would suggest GW that would be irrefutable. With a modern record base of hourly observation, the resolution should be good. (If we could get a measure on the half hour would be statistically significant.)

If we look at downwelling SW and LW data in the Western Pacific, at one of the global monitoring stations (in existance for roughly 8 years), I ran my own sample test... My conclusion was that the cooling rate sans cloud cover has not changed or may actually be steeper today then 6 years ago.

This then raises the question wrt cloud cover or optical depth as to the root cause of GW. If this can be established and agreed upon by all parties then the science can advance to next level.

Too many folks jump to a lightly supportable conclusion without building the basis of the theory. By building the data set correctly and by irrefutable means that anyone can monitor or calculate, then the issues that divide us go away. IMHO, resolution by applying the scientific method will go far to desolving barriers.

So far by my attempt at reviewing my local data wrt delta temperature/%RH, the values have changed about 1 deg. F towards a more rapid drop then rise. I am curious if this is just a factor at my locality or is it global? If the drop is more rapid then rise, the only conclusion would appear, if the global temperature is increasing, there has to be something other then GHG heat retention driving it... If you look at your weather station data do you see something similar or not and why is the science not being done to reduce the building of walls rather then reinforcing them?

[Uskys]

ldavidcooke, on 14 January 2012 - 14:19, said:

So far by my attempt at reviewing my local data wrt delta temperature/%RH, the values have changed about 1 deg. F towards a more rapid drop then rise. I am curious if this is just a factor at my locality or is it global? If the drop is more rapid then rise, the only conclusion would appear, if the global temperature is increasing, there has to be something other then GHG heat retention driving it... If you look at your weather station data do you see something similar or not and why is the science not being done to reduce the building of walls rather then reinforcing them?

My attempts, even more basic than yours I carried out while ago were just based on temperature data from 80 WMO sites on all continents picked at random. I studied the maximums and minimums and averages for each site from 1940 until the time I measured it and found an amazing similarity over that period - nearly 60 years but the end result was just in slightly negative territory.

I know about all the caviates involved but I had to find out for myself what was going on in even such a crude but unbiased way.

[John Mason]

I'm not entirely sure what you guys are getting at here, though!

In the meantime, over at WUWT, Monckton sets things straight for himself:

"Mr. Metzler, in a pointlessly angry posting, wonders whether anyone at WattsUpWithThat accepts the physical properties of CO2 that were established 200 years ago. My post explicitly mentioned, with approval, John Tyndale’s experiment of 1859, which established that the greenhouse effect is real and that CO2 contributes to it. It is really no longer possible for the climate-extremist faction to continue to maintain that the scientific debate between skeptics and alarmists is about whether CO2 causes warming. It does: get used to it. The debate is about how much warming the CO2 causes – a quantitative, not a qualitative, question. And, as I hope shortly to prove, the warming that CO2 causes is not enough to worry about, still less to spend trillions on."

Who agrees with The Lord, and who does not? In my time in the Climate Wars, I've met very many who would recoil like a disturbed slow-worm (and believe you me they move quick when annoyed) to Monckton's assertion. The Opposition does seem rather factional WRT this. No greenhouse effect, greenhouse effect yet it is minimal, it's the sun, it's cosmic rays and so on and so forth.

In the meantime, again, I've been busy elsewhere:

http://www.skeptical...helf-part1.html

This should be especially interesting to Andre - and the second bit with the interview will be coming soon.

If anyone wants copies of the heap of climatology PDFs I now have, please just call by with a clean memory-stick!

Cheers - John

[Peter H]

John Mason, on 14 January 2012 - 19:24, said:

I'm not entirely sure what you guys are getting at here, though!

In the meantime, over at WUWT, Monckton sets things straight for himself:

"Mr. Metzler, in a pointlessly angry posting, wonders whether anyone at WattsUpWithThat accepts the physical properties of CO2 that were established 200 years ago. My post explicitly mentioned, with approval, John Tyndale’s experiment of 1859, which established that the greenhouse effect is real and that CO2 contributes to it. It is really no longer possible for the climate-extremist faction to continue to maintain that the scientific debate between skeptics and alarmists is about whether CO2 causes warming. It does: get used to it. The debate is about how much warming the CO2 causes – a quantitative, not a qualitative, question. And, as I hope shortly to prove, the warming that CO2 causes is not enough to worry about, still less to spend trillions on."

Who agrees with The Lord, and who does not? In my time in the Climate Wars, I've met very many who would recoil like a disturbed slow-worm (and believe you me they move quick when annoyed) to Monckton's assertion. The Opposition does seem rather factional WRT this. No greenhouse effect, greenhouse effect yet it is minimal, it's the sun, it's cosmic rays and so on and so forth.

In the meantime, again, I've been busy elsewhere:

http://www.skeptical...helf-part1.html

This should be especially interesting to Andre - and the second bit with the interview will be coming soon.

If anyone wants copies of the heap of climatology PDFs I now have, please just call by with a clean memory-stick!

Cheers - John

Fascinating account.

Two questions/thoughts come to mind. 1, that, presumably, the great depth of permafrost in Siberia is in part there because during the ice age it both wasn't ice covered but was colder, overall, than now, and 2, that the under sea (relic?) permafrost is slowly being mlted from above by the 45m of sea and presumably it's time is limited and I'd wonder how fast it's being melting (or how far down you have to go form the sea bed to find permafrost) and how much the melt rate has quickened.

This post has been edited by Peter H: 14 January 2012 - 19:36

[Peter H]

Uskys, on 14 January 2012 - 15:09, said:

My attempts, even more basic than yours I carried out while ago were just based on temperature data from 80 WMO sites on all continents picked at random. I studied the maximums and minimums and averages for each site from 1940 until the time I measured it and found an amazing similarity over that period - nearly 60 years but the end result was just in slightly negative territory.

I know about all the caviates involved but I had to find out for myself what was going on in even such a crude but unbiased way.

I think that I simply don't have the ability to do these kinds of things - for a start I wouldn't know the correct technique to select randomly

If there is a problem with the temperature records of the Earth we have it's with GISS/NASA/NCDC/Hadley/AND the satellite records - because they ALL show much the same trend. ALL of these records are either broadly right or broadly wrong. Is it likely all these records are wrong? I think not, essentially because they all show the same trend, if one is they all are.

This post has been edited by Peter H: 14 January 2012 - 19:55

[John Mason]

Peter H, on 14 January 2012 - 19:35, said:

Fascinating account.

Two questions/thoughts come to mind. 1, that, presumably, the great depth of permafrost in Siberia is in part there because during the ice age it both wasn't ice covered but was colder, overall, than now, and 2, that the under sea (relic?) permafrost is slowly being mlted from above by the 45m of sea and presumably it's time is limited and I'd wonder how fast it's being melting (or how far down you have to go form the sea bed to find permafrost) and how much the melt rate has quickened.

Peter,

As Andre will confirm, the climate was cold but dry. As to the seabed, the geothermal gradient from the seafloor to any depth below it will change by increasing the seabed-temperature by 2-3C.

The permafrost has likely remained - in places - throughout the Quaternary. The Eemian was warmer than the current Interglacial - butI think the take-home is that for Heaven's sake, we should not go beyond that! Fossil-fuel excessiveness is taking us on a course towards the PETM.

Cheers - John

[Nigel Bolton]

John Mason, on 14 January 2012 - 19:24, said:

I'm not entirely sure what you guys are getting at here, though!


In the meantime, again, I've been busy elsewhere:

http://www.skeptical...helf-part1.html

This should be especially interesting to Andre - and the second bit with the interview will be coming soon.

If anyone wants copies of the heap of climatology PDFs I now have, please just call by with a clean memory-stick!

Cheers - John

This is very-very thought provoking............

N.

[John Mason]

Nigel Bolton, on 14 January 2012 - 20:35, said:

This is very-very thought provoking............

N.

Nigel - please email me with any questions!

Cheers - John

[Uskys]

John,

why is it dated 15th January 2012 .. you should have devoted a new thread to it here too?

[Peter H]

Uskys, on 14 January 2012 - 20:50, said:

John,

why is it dated 15th January 2012 .. ....

Because SkS is Australia based?

This post has been edited by Peter H: 14 January 2012 - 21:33

[John Mason]

Peter wins the plastic dinosaur! One reason I get up very early on many occasions is to actually talk to these guys

Cheers - John

[Nigel Bolton]

John Mason, on 14 January 2012 - 20:46, said:

Nigel - please email me with any questions!

Cheers - John

Will do. Need to read the article through once or twice more...

N.

[John Mason]

Also wait for part two - my interview with the guys actually doing the fieldwork: it might well answer some of your questions because I bet some of them will be the same as those I asked! It'll be out later this week.

Cheers - John

[ldavidcooke]

Hey All,

Sorry I missed participating today. (The neighborhood just added four new wireless routers so it has been a day of negotiating the channel and power levels to insure everything works well and eliminate hurt tootsies...)

Andy, most of the global average temperature (GAT) is generally noted in NW Canada and NE Siberia regions so your 80 stations may not show much change while the rest of the globe could be much warmer.

John, what did you not understand? 12 years ago it was likely we lived in an atmosphere with a higher absolute humidity. The odd thing is, the last 9 years seems to demonstrate that the local average humidity seems lower since 2003. (Heavy dew in Summer, Electronic zapping dryness in Winter... Well up through 2011...)

The point is, if the surface cooling rate by both radiation and convection has been degraded by GHGs, it would clearly be visable in an examination of optical depth and surface radiational cooling rates. An emission delay there in the face of no change in specific humidity (per noaa) or optical depth, would suggest there could be an issue of some other component of weather phenomena.

It really should be a simple matter of analyzing radiational cooling rates from the recent (last 20yrs) hourly recorded weather data. Though it would be smart to analyze it with regard to RH data. (Keeping in mind that Relative Humidity can be affected by temperature and barometric pressure.)