Science Links: 8/1/2015

Article #1: How Far Can the Human Eye See a Candle Flame?

The brightest stars, such as Vega, have a [apparent] magnitude 0. At what distance would a candle flame be comparable to a star like Vega, they asked. 

Some straightforward nighttime experiments with a candle suggested that the distance was 338 meters. “To our eyes the candle flame and Vega appeared of comparable brightness,” they say.

This is apparent magnitude. So, at 338 meters (about 370 yards or 0.2 miles) Vegas and a candle would be equally bright.

They compared the magnitude of the dimmest stars we can see with how far away the candle had to be in order for it to have the same magnitude. That distance was about 1.6 miles

Article #2: Earth's 'magnetic personality' much older than previously thought

By measuring the magnetic field of magnetite from Australian zircons, researchers concluded that the magnetic field of earth was at least or 4.2 billion years old. Or it has existed for at least 80% of earth's history.

Article #3: California ‘rain debt’ equal to average full year of precipitation

California averages about 20 inches of rain a year, but the actual amount in any given year swings fairly wildly.

California regularly experiences drought years, but this is the third year running that there has been a rain debt and the total over the last 3 years equals 1 year.

California has had larger rain debt, for example, "a 27.5 inch deficit of rain and snow occurred in the state between 1986 and 1994."

That was less of a crisis than today because the population was smaller, less agriculture was irrigated, and less water was diverted for environmental purposes.

There is a good discussion of the mechanics of the flow of air which creates both drought and surplus conditions, along with a discussion of how El Nino plays into the atmospheric dynamics.

Article: El Nino Could Be One of Strongest in Past 50 Years

Strong El Nino events are associated with a lot of weather changes, for example, increased rain to our West Coast. This is good news for them, as they are in the midst of an extended drought.

The bad news for the rest of us is that they are also correlated with warm global temperatures. The last time there was an El Nino this strong was 1998. That was the hottest year on record (unless the 1930's temperature data has been re-readjusted to show one of those years as the warmest).

[Updated] Article: Some of 2013's weirdest weather had the fingerprints of man-made climate change, studies show

Organized by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration...

Sorry, NOAA has lost a lot credibility with the real scandals surrounding its data. Their massaged weather data is beginning to differ more and more from the NASA satellite data which result, instead, from the direct measure of the temperature of the entire earth.

Researchers found that climate change increased the odds of nine extremes: Heat waves in Australia, Europe, China, Japan and Korea, intense rain in parts of the United States and India, and severe droughts in California and New Zealand. The California drought, though, comes with an asterisk.

A very large asterisk. A study in a post below notes that the California drought is due to a lack of warming. And I have read repeatedly that the drought is due to a normal weather pattern that recurs on a regular basis.

Additionally, all the most recent IPCC reports, including the leaked portions of the most current ones, downplay this exact claim.

Scientists couldn't find a global warming link to an early South Dakota blizzard, freak storms in Germany and the Pyrenees, heavy rain in Colorado, southern and central Europe, and a cold British spring.

These were not due to global warming. These were scientifically shown to be acts of God.

For years, scientists said they could not attribute single weather events — like a drought, heat wave or storm — to man-made global warming. But with better computer models and new research, in some cases scientists can see how the odds of events increase — or not — because of climate change. 

Are these the same models that have predicted the global warming that has not occurred in almost 20 years?

Other researchers question the usefulness and accuracy of focusing on single extreme events.

That is wise.

The editors of the 108-page compilation of studies wrote that people and animals tend to be more affected by extreme weather than changes in averages, so they pay attention to it. The public often connects extreme events to climate change, sometimes wrongly, so scientific analysis like this "can help inform the public's understanding of our changing environment."

So we now have science to confirm people's wrong view of extreme weather events?

The Stanford team ran computer models with and without man-made warming from the burning of coal, oil and gas. The warming from greenhouse gases showed that the rain-blocking ridge of high pressure was more than three times more likely with man-made factors than without, Swain said.

"There's definitely a climate change signal," Swain said.

Since we have had no global warming for almost 20 years, they found a connection between the nonexistent global warming and the real drought?

Even if the models were right, because of the lack of warming they say nothing about this drought.

The California drought research has an asterisk because only one of three studies claim to find a link between climate change and the drought. Third one should not have been published, given the obvious lack of validity.

[Update]. Three studies done and reported in the same issue of a journal. Two of them find no link to global warming. One does. Guess which one gets reported in the media?

If you guessed the one I noted above that is invalid, but claiming a connection between warming and the drought, you would be right.

Article: The fickle El Niño of 2014

As per a post below, computer models had predicted a major El Nino event for this year. However, reality failed to match the models.

The height of the ocean water relates, in part, to its temperature, and thus is an indicator of the amount of heat stored in the ocean below. As the ocean warms, the water expands and the sea level rises; as it cools, its level falls. Above-normal height variations along the equatorial Pacific indicate El Niño conditions, while below-normal height variations indicate La Niña conditions. The temperature of the upper ocean can have a significant influence on weather patterns and climate.

In other words, the oceans have not warmed as predicted by the global warming models and therefore the El Nino models were not accurate as well.

Climatologist Bill Patzert of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, says it's too early to know for sure, but he would not be surprised if the latest Kelvin waves are the "last hurrah" for this much-hoped-for El Niño. 

Major El Nino events are "much-hoped-for" because major events are connected to episodes of global warming. The last big "spike" in warming occurred during an El Nino year, 1998. We have had no warming (and maybe a slight cooling trend) since then.

Scientists warn that unless these developing weak-to-modest El Niño conditions strengthen, the drought-stricken American West shouldn't expect any relief.

In other words, the drought in the West is a natural event, not due to climate change or global warming. It is, in effect, related to the absence of warming.

Global warming - Three links.

The top two stories have some good research. However, they are either poorly written or deliberately deceptive on someone's part.  The third one is a fun read, but hyperbolic.

Article: Is the SUN driving climate change? Solar activity - 'and not just humans' - could be increasing global warming, study claims

I think that the general conclusion that the solar activity drives some climate change is obvious. The problem with this specific article is how badly it is written. For example, the following quote can be interpreted to say that ALL the climate change we have seen in the last century is driven solely by the sun, which is not what I think they found.

Dr Raimund Muscheler, lecturer in Quaternary Geology at Lund University and co-author of the study, told MailOnline that solar activity in the modern day was causing about 0.1 degrees of warming in the 11-year solar cycle.

'Bit it's quite debated how much it really contributed in the last 100 years, since solar activity increased a bit,' Dr Muscheler says.

'The long trend is debated, but most people don't think it's much more than 0.1 degrees.'

However, he warned that the sun was not the only factor in causing climate change.

"About 0.1 degrees of warming in the 11-year solar cycle." At nine cycles per century, that equals 0.9 degrees of warming per century, or almost all of the observed warming over the last century.

What I think that they mean is that 0.1 degree of the 1.0 degree of warming seen in the last century is due to increased solar activity.

'The study shows an unexpected link between solar activity and climate change,' Dr Muscheler said in a press release.

'It shows both that changes in solar activity are nothing new and that solar activity influences the climate, especially on a regional level.

"Unexpected?" I hope this is a misquote, because it would be ludicrous to say that solar activity does not have link to climate. Either that, or they are saying that the link that they did find was an unexpected link over and above the expected link. Again, poorly written.  

'The study also shows that the various solar processes need to be included in climate models in order to better predict future global and regional climate change.'

In other words, the existing models are over-simplified and this missing factor is one reason why they have failed to predict "global and regional climate change." So, yes, I agree.

Article: Why global warming is taking a break

The average temperature on Earth has barely risen over the past 16 years. ETH researchers have now found out why. And they believe that global warming is likely to continue again soon.

Global warming is currently taking a break: whereas global temperatures rose drastically into the late 1990s, the global average temperature has risen only slightly since 1998 – surprising, considering scientific climate models predicted considerable warming due to rising greenhouse gas emissions.

The models are based in hypotheses about how the atmosphere works, and, specifically, how the increasing levels of CO2 should increase global temperatures. The models have failed to correctly predict both the amounts of warming and how the atmosphere actually warms. These hypotheses have now been falsified, they are no longer valid, they are ex-hypotheses. [Insert Monty Pythonesque, dead parrot routine joke, here.] They need to be modified until they can reflect actual atmospheric conditions.

Two reasons are given for this failure.

#1 El Niño warmed the Earth

One of the important reasons is natural climate fluctuations, of which the weather phenomena El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific are the most important and well known. "1998 was a strong El Niño year, which is why it was so warm that year," says Knutti. In contrast, the counter-phenomenon La Niña has made the past few years cooler than they would otherwise have been.

So, no warming over the last 16 years. Last big warming event was the 1998 El Nino. Earth warms when there is an El Nino event. Therefore, I predict that no El Nino events have occurred since 1998, since these events cause warming. What? There have been El Nino events since 1998? Impossible!

Sorry, this is simply bad reasoning, or a poorly written article (see above). Maybe they are claiming that large La Nina events have countered small El Nino events, but that claim is not made, and I have not seen anyone make that claim.

#2 Longer solar cycles

According to the study, the second important reason for the warming hiatus is that solar irradiance has been weaker than predicted in the past few years. This is because the identified fluctuations in the intensity of solar irradiance are unusual at present: whereas the so-called sunspot cycles each lasted eleven years in the past, for unknown reasons the last period of weak solar irradiance lasted 13 years.

So, changes in solar activity responsible for changes in the climate? I have no issue with that conclusion.

"For unknown reasons." Yes, the global warming/climate change models have failed because they are over-simplified. Again, I agree.

Another reason is given for the hiatus:

Incomplete measured data

The discrepancy between the climate models and measured data over the past 16 years cannot solely be attributed to the fact that these models predict too much warming, says Knutti.

Why not? The models have predicted too much warming. That is why they failed. They were over-simplified. Fix them.

According to Knutti, measured data is likely to be too low, since the global average temperature is only estimated using values obtained from weather stations on the ground, and these do not exist everywhere on Earth. From satellite data, for example, scientists know that the Arctic region in particular has become warmer over the past years, but because there are no weather stations in that area, there are measurements that show strong upward fluctuations. As a result, the specified average temperature is too low.

Really? The same satellite data that they claim is showing increased warming in the polar regions is also showing less warming, overall. It is also showing less warming than the ground based weather station data shows. So global warming is not only lower than the models predict, but also lower than the weather station data is showing. So ALL of the actual data is wrong compared to what?

Last year, British and Canadian researchers proposed an alternative temperature curve with higher values, in which they incorporated estimated temperatures from satellite data for regions with no weather stations. If the model data is corrected downwards, as suggested by the ETH researchers, and the measurement data is corrected upwards, as suggested by the British and Canadian researchers, then the model and actual observations are very similar.

Ah, so you correct the best data there is, from the NASA satellites, by correcting it upwards, "then the model and 'actual observations' are very similar."

Of course.

Despite the warming hiatus, Knutti is convinced there is no reason to doubt either the existing calculations for the climate activity of greenhouse gases or the latest climate models. "Short-term climate fluctuations can easily be explained."

1. "No reason to doubt." The logical fallacy here is proof by assertion. It is coupled with an appeal to authority by the study's author. That is, he is appealing to his own authority. 

2. "Short-term climate fluctuations can easily be explained." Yes, but he failed to do that.

Article: Mann v Steyn: If This Trial Ever Goes Ahead Global Warming Is Toast

Compared to the other articles, this one is dessert; just plain fun to read.

Michael Mann, global warming scientist, is suing Mark Steyn and others for slander because of comments published in National Review Online.

I think the claim ("global warming is toast") is hyperbole. Michael Mann is refusing to be deposed. This refusal, alone, could force the judge to throw out his suit, or force the judge to give summary judgment. As the person who brought the suit, he has to answer questions under oath.

It is obvious that Michael Mann is hiding something. It is already known that the algorithms that produced the infamous "hockey stick" could generate a hockey stick diagram out of telephone numbers. (I exaggerate, but barely.) The hockey stick model of global warming during the Holocene has been repudiated by the most recent IPCC report, and other global warming scientists have distanced themselves from it.

Not noted here, but an "amici" brief has been filed in support of Mark Steyn by the ACLU and a large number of other organizations left, right, and center. They may not like Steyn's opinions, but they recognize that Mann's lawsuit, if successful, would create a huge chill in first amendment rights.

Latest Global Temperature: A Graph and Its Interpretation

Article: Global Warming Pause Puts 'Crisis' In Perspective
 
Article:  Latest Global temperature

Graph: Satellite-based temperature of the global lower atmosphere

The science and the graph.
The blue line represents the average monthly temperature, of the lower atmosphere, for the entire globe.

Since 1979, NOAA satellites have been carrying instruments which measure the natural microwave thermal emissions from oxygen in the atmosphere. The intensity of the signals these microwave radiometers measure at different microwave frequencies is directly proportional to the temperature of different, deep layers of the atmosphere.

The wavelength of electromagnetic energy is proportional to the temperature of an object. Planck's law is the mathematical expression of that relationship. Therefor, if one measures the electromagnetic radiation coming off an object (the earth, its atmosphere, the surface of a star or the sun) one can determine the temperature of that object.

Choose a starting point.

If we choose a starting point of mid-1998, the planet has cooled during the past 16 years. If we choose a starting point of late 1997 or early 1999, temperatures have been flat during the past 15 and 17 years. Examining the totality of the 35-year temperature record, we see approximately 1/3 of 1 degree Celsius warming during the period. Accordingly, global warming has occurred at a pace of approximately 1 degree Celsius per century over the duration of the satellite record.

The choice of starting and stopping points when looking at data can be manipulative.

Using the monthly averages, choose the Mt. Pinatubo cooling minimum and the El Nino warming maximum, and there is an increase of 1.2 degrees C (about 1.8 degrees F) in 5 years or 24 degrees C/century.

The El Nino warming maximum occurs just prior to the outbreak of global warming hysteria coinciding with the release of Al Gore's, "An Inconvenient Truth."

Choose the first and last monthly averages, and there is an increase of about 0.6 degrees C in 35 years. Or about 0.017 degree C/year or 1.7 degree C/century.

Choose the beginning of the running average, and there is an increase of one third degree C in 34 years. Or about 1 degree/century.

If one just looks at the graph, the temperatures pre-1998 (El Nino warming peak) are distinctly lower than the temperatures post-1998.

On the other hand, the bulk of the rise runs from about 1996 to 2002, if one ignores the El Nino maximum.

Because of a cooling trend ended in the 1970's, the 1970's are a frequent choice of starting time for discussions of global warming. When one is in the basement, everywhere is up.

The problem with the models. 

IPCC computer models dating from 1990 through the present have consistently predicted at least 2.4 degrees of global warming per century. Such warming would require at least 0.24 degrees Celsius per decade, for which we should see at least 0.80 degrees Celsius warming since 1979. However, real-world warming since 1979 is occurring at less than half that pace. And there has been absolutely no real-world warming during the past 17 years.

Computer models are simplifications of reality. Some factors are included in the model, others are left out. Everyone involved knows this and accepts it. However, if essential factors are left out, the models will be over-simplified, and will not work.

The models have never accurately reflected reality. They have always over-stated the amount of global warming that should happen. And that does not include the "hiatus" of the last 17 years.

Conclusions.

Pulling this all together, we can reach the following conclusions:

• The global warming pause is real.
• The global warming pause is significant.
• The global warming pause is not likely to be permanent.
• A future resumption of global warming at pre-pause rates – or even modestly accelerated rates – would not validate IPCC global warming predictions, and would instead continue to undermine the IPCC’s predictions of very rapid 21st century global warming.
• The most meaningful aspect of the global warming pause isn’t that temperatures have flattened for 17 years, but rather that the global warming pause extends and solidifies the longer-term record of smaller-than-predicted global temperature rise.

The 3rd point: I would argue that we do not know enough to be able to predict that global warming will resume.  We do not know why it paused in the first place. We do know if we are at the end of a warming trend that has been going on for the last 150 years. Or in the middle or what.

Atmosphere fails to conform to climate models.

Original article: El Niño indicators ease: Issued on Tuesday 29 July 2014 | Product Code IDCKGEWW00
 
Hat tip to: Climate scientists dub this year’s El Niño “a real enigma”

Despite the tropical Pacific Ocean being primed for an El Niño during much of the first half of 2014, the atmosphere above has largely failed to respond, and hence the ocean and atmosphere have not reinforced each other. As a result, some cooling has now taken place in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, with most of the key NINO regions returning to neutral values.

Given the current observations and the climate model outlooks, the Bureau’s ENSO Tracker has shifted to El Niño WATCH status. This means the chance of El Niño developing in 2014 is approximately 50%, which remains significant at double the normal likelihood of an event.

The climate model predicted an El Niño event for 2014. However, the "atmosphere above has largely failed to respond" as predicted, to the warming ocean water.

Climate models, by necessity, must be simplified versions of reality. No model can account for all of the varying factors that influence the real climate. The best that can hoped for is that the necessary and important factors are accounted for. Models can be simplified and work, or they can be oversimplified and fail.

The climate models used are oversimplified. That is, they are so simplified that they are wrong. However, that cannot be admitted, so the atmosphere itself has to fail.
The climate models did not fail. The researchers did not fail. No humans made a mistake. It was the atmosphere failed that us. We need to get a new, simplified atmosphere that matches our climate models.





Side note: I am a "generalizer." When I encounter a specific example of some phenomenon, I try to find an over-arching principle or concept, with examples.

The problem above is part of a general problem that Thomas Sowell noted in his book, "The Vision of the Anointed." He notes that the Left (usually) will claim that there is an issue, a problem, a crisis that needs to be addressed. And they, with their superior education, training, and ideas are just the people to solve that problem.

What happens next is often failure because of what is called the "knowledge problem." No one person or small group of people have sufficient knowledge of the real world to be able to actually plan successfully.

One of the major problems the old USSR had was a central, planned economy, also called a command economy. The government issued "5-year plans," controlling all aspects of production and distribution. It failed, and its failure marked the end of the Cold War.

On the other hand, the people of the US, by buying and selling, making billions of individual decisions, corporately running the economy from the ground up, produced one of the most amazing and dynamic economies in the history of human race.

Were there failures? Yes. No system is perfect. But capitalism beats the competitors silly. [For the sake of forestalling an argument, what we have now is called "crony capitalism." This is the bastard hybrid of Fascism/Socialism and capitalism. And, yes, Fascism is a type of socialism -- Mussolini said so.]

Global Warming Links #2

Second up, a set of articles concerning the ENSO and global warming

El Niño Southern Oscillation, or ENSO, refers to the effects of a band of sea surface temperatures which are anomalously warm or cold for long periods of time that develops off the western coast of South America and causes climatic changes across the tropics and subtropics. The Walker Circulation was discovered by Gilbert Walker at the turn of the 20th century. The 'Southern Oscillation' refers to variations in the temperature of the surface of the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean (warming and cooling known as El Niño and La Niña, respectively) and in air surface pressure in the tropical western Pacific. The two variations are coupled: the warm oceanic phase, El Niño, accompanies high air surface pressure in the western Pacific, while the cold phase, La Niña, accompanies low air surface pressure in the western Pacific. Mechanisms that cause the oscillation remain under study.

"Under study" means that no one know what causes them.

Article: Recent slowdown in atmospheric warming thanks to La Niña

There appears to be correlation between el Nino events and warming, and la Nina events and cooling (or, at least, a pause in warming). The hottest year in modern record keeping (if you discount the 1930's) coincided with a major el Nino event.

Climate modeling. Some problems with this research.They took a standard climate model that failed to predict the current hiatus, then modified it and compared the results. "The [modified] version used these same inputs but also forced the model to use the actual sea surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific rather than letting the model itself generate them."

In other words, they put in cooler sea surface temperatures for the equatorial Pacific and found that the model "predicted" cooler surface temperatures on earth. If you force your model to run on low temperatures, of course it is going to predict lower temperatures.

Now, they do make a testable prediction: that when we have a run of el Nino events in the future, global warming will return.

However, this is still a "correlation does not equal causation" logical fallacy. Just because the events are coincidental is not proof of causation.

It adds up to a pretty coherent picture pointing to a cluster of La Niñas as the cause of the slowdown in atmospheric warming. But why all the La Niñas? The researchers chalk it up to natural variability....

Except the Wikipedia article referenced above (with its accompanying graph) makes it clear that it is the el Nino events that are increasing in size and frequency.

Also in accordance with reality, energy trapped by greenhouse gases continued to increase in the model, with ocean heat content rising apace. The modeled climate system didn’t cease warming; it just didn’t show up strongly in the atmosphere.

Except it did not end up in the ocean. See the posting below.

Article: Lewandowsky and Oreskes Are Co-Authors of a Paper about ENSO, Climate Models and Sea Surface Temperature Trends (Go Figure!)

The author of this article rips into the Lewandowsky article for "a number of curiosities."

The first one is that the authors cherry-pick climate models that match the hypothesis (that is, selecting the results to prove the hypothesis). As Arthur Canon Doyle has Sherlock Holmes say, "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data.  Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Another "curiosity" is that after choosing the "best" and "worst" models, the authors do not actually say whose models. So that not only do they chose models that best fit their conclusions, but refuse to tell whose models they chose so that they cannot be tested independently.

This lack of transparency is means that their research cannot be checked, cannot be reproduced, and can neither be confirmed or refuted.

Additionally, THE ACTUAL AUTHORS OF THE MODELS can not comment on how their own models are being used.

It is not science to make statements that cannot be tested.

It is the classic "appeal to authority" logical fallacy. "We are scientists; what we say must be taken as true on the basis of our authority."

A third curiosity is that the four "best" models fit 15 years of the hiatus and simulate ENSO. However, out of dozens of models, they found 4 that "work" and they work for a 15-year period. There is not mention of whether or not they work for longer periods of time (and all models have much longer than 15 years of running time.)

In other words, it is another appearance of the "correlation is not causation" logical fallacy. Just because four (out of dozens) work for 15 years does not actually show causation.

There are several other curiosities. However, I am going to end here