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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

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Skeptical Science New Research for Week #15 2024

nigelj at 05:19 AM on 12 April, 2024

"Rebutting 33 False Claims About Solar, Wind and Electric Vehicles, Eisenson et. al., Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, Columbia University."

Very interesting, informative and useful resource. Thanks!

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

scaddenp at 13:00 PM on 2 April, 2024

Two Dog, I don't want to be dog-piling, but I am very curious as to how you assess evidence when you are examining a question like global warming? We are seeing the same information, and yet to my mind you are fixating on the very unlikely or what you seem to think is unknownable rather than the obvious, the observable and the extremely likely. Other commentors have commented on your tendency to push what they see as straw-man arguments - you seem to be confident the scientists say things or work in ways that they dont. I am curious as to what informed assertions like these?

Can I assume that you comfortable with conservation of energy? So that any change in temperature involves moving or transforming energy. Consider total ocean heat content - a much less noisy measure than surface temperature and the ocean is where most of the heat is going.

The blips you see here in the red on this record are the near-surface action of ENSO - when the upwelling of warm water to surface heats the atmosphere but cools the ocean.

Do you agree that all that heat has to come from somewhere whether it is natural or anthrogenic? If your priors are to assume it is natural, then how do you start to think about what might be causing it and what measurements would you like to make to verify or falsify?

Also, you do realise that increased radiation from the CO2 has been directly measured? In terms of likelihood, the match between the amount of excess radiation and increased ocean heat content would be strong evidence for anthropegic warming for most people. I am assuming your priors would try to discount that so again, what do you think happens to excess radiation from the greenhouse effect and what kind of measurements would you use to verify?

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

nigelj at 04:41 AM on 2 April, 2024

Two Dog @55

"You make the same point I am searching for - namely that "blips" in the temperature record can be driven by natural factors. What puzzles me is others on this thread, whilst they recognize these natural impacts, appear confident that the natural factors that we are aware of are "temporal and not significant" (my words) when pitted against the powerful impact of human GHG emissions"

Nobody has claimed natural factors are all 'insignificant' forcings. Only that the natural cycles are in a cooling or flat phase in recent decades so cannot explain the recent warming trend. However the solar cycle is not a particularly powerful factor, and if it was in a warming phase it would struggle to explain more than a small amount of the recent warming. Refer to the climate myth "It's the sun" on the left hand side of this page.

"They rely on climate scientists for this - a group who are highly unlikely to admit the strength and frequency of natural factors is unpredicatble and hard to measure."

Incorrect. Climate scientists freely admit that the frequency of natural factors can be unpredictable to an extent. I provided you with data on the solar cycle, ENSO, and The PDO oscillation which depicts the degree of regularity of these cycles. You can see there is a repeating cycle bit its not perfectly regular.This data is prepared by climate scientists.

In addition whether they are not precisely predictable doesnt stop us detecting how they are affecting temperatures at any given time.

Climate scientists are quite open about accuracy of data. If you dig into the details the data has error bars. However the data has generally good accuracy. Solar irradiance in particular is meaured by satellite sensors with reasonable accuracy, and the Sorce network used since 2003 is highly accurate:

www.ngdc.noaa.gov/stp/solar/solarirrad.html

ENSO index is not that hard to measure with decent accuracy:

www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/enso/technical-discussion

"I think this is where the climate scientists tend to differ from the physicists and geologists, whose very existance does not require them to claim knowledge of all factors that impact the climate."

Incorrect. Most climate scientists are in fact physicists, geologists, chemistry graduates etc. There is a degree in climatology, but its very recent and not many climate scientists have that degree. It typically has modules in physics and geology anyway. I suggest google it for your local university.

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

nigelj at 05:40 AM on 1 April, 2024

Some sources related to my comment @49:

PDO cycle in negative (cooling phase) mid last century:

www.researchgate.net/figure/PDO-over-the-last-100-years-Nine-years-moving-average-PDO-index-is-indicated-in-black_fig1_323553944

Weak el ninos mid last century:

psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei.ext/

Solar irradiance trend flat after 1950:

skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

LaPichardo73 at 13:47 PM on 26 March, 2024

I just want to th you for the great job of debunking and putting together such a great and helpful post just two days after this "documentary " was released. As usual, the denier crowd is talking about the movie being "shadowbanned" and "censored". I didn't ask for it and found it in my video suggestions on YouTube.

I endured the whole thing and could detect lots of details by myself, but your research helps me a lot... and I discovered this site. Thanks again!

Climate - the Movie: a hot mess of (c)old myths!

nigelj at 05:51 AM on 26 March, 2024

The greening of the Earth is approaching its limit.

When plants absorb this gas to grow, they remove it from the atmosphere and it is sequestered in their branches, trunk or roots. An article published today in Science shows that this fertilizing effect of CO2 is decreasing worldwide, according to the text co-directed by Professor Josep Peñuelas of the CSIC at CREAF and Professor Yongguan Zhang of the University of Nanjin, with the participation of CREAF researchers Jordi Sardans and Marcos Fernández. The study, carried out by an international team, concludes that the reduction has reached 50% progressively since 1982 due basically to two key factors: the availability of water and nutrients.

"There is no mystery about the formula, plants need CO2, water and nutrients in order to grow. However much the CO2 increases, if the nutrients and water do not increase in parallel, the plants will not be able to take advantage of the increase in this gas", explains Professor Josep Peñuelas. In fact, three years ago Prof. Peñuelas already warned in an article in Nature Ecology and Evolution that the fertilizing effect of CO2 would not last forever, that plants cannot grow indefinitely, because there are other factors that limit them.

If the fertilizing capacity of CO2 decreases, there will be strong consequences on the carbon cycle and therefore on the climate. Forests have received a veritable CO2 bonus for decades, which has allowed them to sequester tons of carbon dioxide that enabled them to do more photosynthesis and grow more. In fact, this increased sequestration has managed to reduce the CO2 accumulated in the air, but now it is over. "These unprecedented results indicate that the absorption of carbon by vegetation is beginning to become saturated. This has very important climate implications that must be taken into account in possible climate change mitigation strategies and policies at the global level. Nature's capacity to sequester carbon is decreasing and with it society's dependence on future strategies to curb greenhouse gas emissions is increasing," warns Josep Peñuelas.

The study published in Science has been carried out using satellite, atmospheric, ecosystem and modeling information. It highlights the use of sensors that use near-infrared and fluorescence and are thus capable of measuring vegetation growth activity.

phys.org/news/2020-12-greening-earth-approaching-limit.html#:~:text=The%20study%2C%20carried%20out%20by,nutrients%20in%20order%20to%20grow.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #12 2024

Paul Pukite at 07:41 AM on 22 March, 2024

NigelJ mentioned "extreme marine heatwaves"

Heatwave spikes in the each of the major ocean basin indices — Pacific (Nino 3.4), Atlantic (AMO), and Indian (IOD). These are additive in terms of a global anomaly.

NINO34

It's a natural cycle

Paul Pukite at 06:55 AM on 22 March, 2024

For the context of this thread, the important observation will be whether the anomalous global temperature rise of 2023 will recede back to "normal" levels. If that's the case, it will be categorized as a natural cycle.

So far it appears that there are simultaneous spikes in the temperature of 3 different ocean indices ENSO (Pacific), AMO (Atlantic), IOD (Indian). The last time that happened was in 1878, the year known for a super El Nino. Can see the 2 spikes in AMO for 1878 and 2023 in the following chart.

AMO spikes

That holds interest to me in Minnesota in that this year's ice-out date for Lake Minnetonka almost broke the record for earliest date (in 1878 it occurred March 11, this year March 13)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/03/12/lake-minnetonka-ice-out/72941498007/

All this climate data is wild

BaerbelW at 07:15 AM on 7 March, 2024

This article brings back memories from almost 10 years ago, when I was lucky enough to get in touch via email with scientists doing just this kind of research, tagging elephant seals in Antarctica with sensors to gather data. Here is the link to the resulting blog post:

Seal of approval - How marine mammals provide important climate data

2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

MA Rodger at 19:54 PM on 12 December, 2023

Dessler's post does rather hedge its bets by suggesting it might be "due to natural variability persisting over an extended period" which will at some point come to an end (so as per the 2007-12 slowdown but in reverse). But he also points to the recent deep La Niña which may be amplifying the impact of the less-than-massive El Niño.

The ENSO indices do show the build-up to present weak El Niño conditions were unusually preceded by strong La Niña cinditions which had been, if anything, strengthening through the period rather than, as is usual, weakening as El Niño conditions approach. (The MEI perhaps shows this situation best.) Yet the big 1997-98 El Niño also strengthened quite suddenly and showed nothing like this 2023 bananas situation.

MEI el nino profiles

The bananas (sudden appearance of an additional +0.2ºC in the global average temperatures) won't be some sudden forcing as there is no sign of anything (or things) approaching the required force. That means we have a natural wobble.

But is that wobble reversing something that has been shielding the impacts of AGW and so it won't reverse? Or is going to abate in coming months/years? Dessler looks to the climate models as suggesting it is the latter. But the question is still an open one!!

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

One Planet Only Forever at 06:48 AM on 7 December, 2023

Regarding the discussion of ENSO patterns, modelling and forecasting.

The SkS Argument/Myth item "Global warming and the El Niño Southern Oscillation" that John Mason @31 suggested as a more appropriate thread has some potentially very relevant points made in the latest comments starting with comment 198 (from 2019).

Another location of potentially helpful information is the Australian Bureau of Meteorology's "Climate Driver Update" website (linked here). The "Pacific Ocean" tab (linked here) presents a broad range of forecasts for the NINO3.4 SST from multiple forecasters. There is approximately a 1.0 degrees C range of forecasts for January 2024.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

michael sweet at 23:20 PM on 6 December, 2023

Paul Pukite:

So a monograph that I cannot access and a paper with 21 citations. Not very impressive. How well did the group that published the paper predict in advance the last 5 years of La Ninas and the current El Nino? I am always skeptical of claims that tidal forces can cause changes in weather a year later.

It appears to me that the general description that ENSO is random and not predictable in advance is correct. Your claims at post 34 do not hold up to close inspection. You are welcome to believe anything you like.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Paul Pukite at 11:59 AM on 6 December, 2023

"I note that your post at 34 contains several completely unsupported assertions."

No problem. Concerning the points that ENSO is not chaotic, not random, and not driven by wind, there are a couple of citations I can point to. The most comprehensive is a monograph that I co-authored titled Mathematical Geoenergy (Wiley/AGU, 2018, chapter 12: Wave Energy) . Another coincidental finding was reported Lin & Qian "Switch Between El Nino and La Nina is Caused by Subsurface Ocean Waves Likely Driven by Lunar Tidal Forcing" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-49678-w

These of course havee nothing to do with climate change, as according to the definitions at this site, ENSO is apparently not considered climate change, but as climate variability.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Daniel Bailey at 10:53 AM on 6 December, 2023

@michael sweet @38

The graphic uses the GISS temperature data, color-coded by ENSO phase, updated through the end of 2021. When the full-year data for 2023 comes out, it should get updated then. The slopes will change somewhat as the background phase states change, but the underlying exogenous driver is still human activities. As a result, ocean heat content rates are accelerating (from Li et al 2023, Figure 1), further warming all ENSO phases over time:

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Daniel Bailey at 06:20 AM on 6 December, 2023

Yes, this is getting off-topic. Risking pushing the envelope, all ENSO phases are clearly warming, due to the underlying and overburdening human forcing of climate becoming increasingly pervasive. Perhaps a better thread can be suggested for such (but not here).

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

nigelj at 05:17 AM on 6 December, 2023

Paul Pukete. While this website is called scepticalscience.com its obviously about climate change and so your comments about the causes of ENSO are strictly speaking a bit off topic. You might consider combining commentary on climate change with some comments on the causes of ENSO. People generally like off topic up to a point, as long as its interesting and people are not constantly off topic and clearly pushing personal agendas. I have generally found your comments interesting.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Paul Pukite at 01:45 AM on 6 December, 2023

But you asked why I commented on this post with respect to ENSO, when it was you that mentioned La Nina in the the post itself. But we're no longer in a La Nina regime but in El Nino.

I just wanted to test the waters here again to see if this site has changed its approach to being more about research than gatekeeping. I keep thinking that the name Skeptical Science describes the charter.

I am skeptical that ENSO is chaotic.
I am skeptical that ENSO is random.
I am skeptical that ENSO is triggered by a change in prevailing winds.

I think I get it — the skepticism is directed not at current models of bleeding edge climate science where millions of $$ are being poured into machine learning for ENSO predictions by the likes of Google and NVIDIA, but at skepticism to combat crackpot models that claim AGW is being generated by subsurface volcanic activity.

Cheers. I think I'm good now.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

John Mason at 15:12 PM on 5 December, 2023

@Paul #32:

"As it turns out we are now in the midst of a definitely emerging El Nino. The ENSO cycles can transiently override the gradual warming of AGW, so this is a factor to point out. "

I think most readers on here are well aware that the EN phase of ENSO overdubs the AGW signal on a temporary basis!

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Paul Pukite at 03:01 AM on 5 December, 2023

Because the present post is mentioning ENSO

"Sea-surface temperature patterns in the tropical Pacific were characteristic of La Niña, a phenomenon that should have mitigated against atmospheric heat gain at the global scale. However, the annual global surface temperature across land and oceans was among the six highest in records dating as far back as the mid-1800s. 2022 was the warmest La Niña year on record.

At the time of writing, there is still about a month of 2023 to run. Yet once again we have record-breaking temperatures, with some records smashed by huge margins, so that 2023 looks as though it may well go down as the hottest on record."

As it turns out we are now in the midst of a definitely emerging El Nino. The ENSO cycles can transiently override the gradual warming of AGW, so this is a factor to point out.

concerning

https://skepticalscience.com/el-nino-southern-oscillation.htm

There was a long-running discussion on ENSO at the Azimuth Project forum started in 2014 that recently ended. The original motivation was to collaborate and analyze ENSO data and consider different math approaches to modeling the cycles, as the organizers of the project were skeptical as to a chaotic or random origin for ENSO. Alas, the owner of the site shut it down and wiped out the entire archive. Fortunately, some of the open source code for the effort was kept on a GitHub repo and I was able to grab ownership and keep that alive, so a remnant discussion is available for those that have GitHub accounts. https://github.com/azimuth-project

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

John Mason at 18:16 PM on 4 December, 2023

@Paul #30:

Fair enough and I have encountered you at RC too, but it might be more appropriate to post about ENSO in a thread specifically about ENSO, for example:

https://skepticalscience.com/el-nino-southern-oscillation.htm

That page has not yet been updated like many of our rebuttals, but it will be in due course.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Paul Pukite at 15:46 PM on 4 December, 2023

"If that's your motivation it seems well and good, but why did you choose to interject on this thread?"

Had an account here for many years and thought I would test the waters for discussion on bleeding-edge research, which is what ENSO is all about. I do have my own blog so it's not like an alien thing for me to raise a discussion point,

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

One Planet Only Forever at 07:28 AM on 4 December, 2023

Paul Pukite,

I like John Mason’s question @26. But would extend it as follows: “...why did you choose to interject on this thread...” the way that you did @2?

Though you have not directly addressed the questions I raised @4 regarding your comment @2, your latest comments appear to indicate an awareness that it was incorrect to state that there was no similar warming in “the middle of the equatorial Pacific” [quote from you @2] (I agreed that it is worthy of being thrown away). But I still do not see indications of awareness that it was also wrong to try to justify that incorrect assertion by misrepresenting the paper you linked @2 with a ‘quote-clearly-out-of-context’.

Making incorrect statements with questionable or made-up justifications and then arguing against attempts at clarification and correction of the incorrect belief is similar to the behaviour of the regular denizens of sites like WUWT and Dr. Roy Spencer.

I wish you luck in your endeavours to ‘constantly learn more about ENSO – constantly changing your mind as you learn more’.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

michael sweet at 00:07 AM on 4 December, 2023

Paul Pukite,

At post two you said "Not the middle of the equatorial Pacific." Referring to the comment "All these show a similar warming trend."

At post 7 you said "when one searches for equatorial Pacific ocean SST time-series, you only get NINO34, NINO4, etc data. These show no or very little trend,"

I entered the thread to show that your comments were false. My illustration at post 9 clearly demonstrates that you were incorrect. You posted a graph at post 13 claiming no trend, asserting that the graph had not been detrended. My post at 21 showed your graph was detrended and your claims of no trend in the tropical ocean are simply false.

Now at 23 you post a graph that is actually not detrended and use your eyecrometer to claim your graph is more informative than my illustration. Using my eyecroneter on my illustration I see clearly that the trend is closer to one degree. If you put a least squares line on your graph we would have data instead of idle speculation. All these trends can easily be Googled, you are simply not looking.

I have proved beyond doubt that your claim that the tropical oceans "show no or very little trend," is completely false. The fact that you produced a graph that was not detrended and showed a trend after claiming a detrended graph showed there was no trend indicates that you are not interested in a discussion of the science here.

If you want to speculate on ENSO causes go for it As I understand it, ENSO is essentially random on a yearly basis.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Paul Pukite at 16:27 PM on 3 December, 2023

I don't think you have any idea what my objective is. I frankly don't worry about modeling AGW as that's in good hands, IMHO. Instead, what I have been trying to do the last several years is model natural climate variations such as ENSO, AMO, PDO, etc. You may find it odd, but not observing a large contribution of an AGW signal in a time-series such as NINO34 actually makes it easier to do the modeling since the signal vs noise discrimination is more apparent. In other words, the underlying trend is so small relatively speaking that it doesn't matter if the time-series is detrended or not when fitting a model to the data.

So based on my actual research interests, I would much rather discuss ideas concerning forcing factors behind ENSO — including tidal & annual — than deconstructing my phrasing in a tossed-off comment. If you want to delve into modeling of the geophysical fluid dynamics and how neural nets and machine learning may be helping in revealing patterns instead of pedantic point-scoring, I am game. I will grant you a win on all the petty stuff as you seem so determined to play gotcha on a comment I made based on dealing with the data for years now.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

One Planet Only Forever at 14:11 PM on 3 December, 2023

Paul Pukite @23,

I will continue to pursue the points I raised regarding your comment @2.

I am confident that nigelj’s comment about similar trends was regarding ‘a trend like the global average surface temperature data - warming rather than cooling with more significant warming occurring after 1950 than prior to 1950’.

Your comment @2, and later comments except for your latest @23 (sort of), appear to insist that it is not possible to have confidence regarding a warming trend in the NINO 3.4 region (the middle of the equatorial Pacific).

Your comment @2 starts with:

"All these show a similar warming trend." [nigelj’s point]
Not the middle of the equatorial Pacific. (your response)

As my comments should indicate, I learned from and accepted nigelj’s finding of an explanation about the current models indicating a larger amount of warming in the equatorial Pacific (especially the east part) than the actual observations. However, as I commented, that does not alter the incorrectness of your comment @2. But you do appear to have finally accepted your incorrectness (sort of) by ‘seeing’ a warming trend in the NINO 3.4 SST data.

However, I am still confident that it is incorrect to declare that having confidence that ‘the NINO 3.4 SST historical data indicates warming similar to the global average surface temperature data’ requires an accurate explanation for the trend being lower than the current global climate models for that region and it requires that understood influence to be removed from the SST values.

The data is what it is regardless of the mechanisms producing it. Large variations of the temperature data simply requires a longer duration of the data set to have confidence that there is a warming trend. And a lower trend rate will also require a longer data set to establish confidence.

The NOAA presentation of the centered 30-year base periods (linked here) that I provided a link to in my comment @16 helpfully presents the trend of the SST NINO3.4 data set in spite of significant variations in the data values. Each 30-year period contains a substantial variety of the variation. Comparing the 5 year steps for the data starting in 1936 shows that there is indeed a recent trend (more significant after 1950 than before 1950 – consistent with the NINO3.4 chart you included in your comment @23). The 1966 to 1995 values, and all the more recent ones, are clearly warmer than the earlier ones. However, it also shows that the ENSO perturbations in the data are large enough to make the warming trend hard to be confident of, even appearing to potentially be a cooling trend in a shorter data set. The 1981 to 2010 results are not clearly warmer, and may even be cooler, than 1976 to 2005.

Global average surface temperature data evaluations using the SkS Temperature Trend Calculator (linked here) can also provide an example supporting my confidence that the ‘noise’ of ENSO variations do not need to be removed to be able to have confidence regarding a trend.

As I indicated in my comment @17, using the GISTEMPv4 dataset in the SkS Temperature Trend Calculator (linked here) the trend of the data after 1950 is 0.152+-0.018 C / decade (high confidence of a warming trend). I add the following set of shorter recent time periods and the resulting trend and level of confidence (2 sigma value compared to trend value):

Years Trend +- 2 sigma
2016 to 2023 = -0.148 +- 0.513
2015 to 2023 = -0.066 +- 0.428
2014 to 2023 = +0.074 +- 0.379
2013 to 2023 = +0.180 +- 0.331
2012 to 2023 = +0.244 +- 0.289
2011 to 2023 = +0.284 +- 0.249
2010 to 2023 = +0.262 +- 0.220
2005 to 2023 = +0.229 +- 0.129

The longer the time period is the more confidence there is in the evaluated trend. Admittedly the global average surface temperature variation in the evaluations is only about 2 degrees C. So a longer time period would be expected to be required for the NINO SST values because they have larger variation of temperature and a smaller trend. But confidence regarding the trend can still be established without a detailed understanding of the mechanisms at play. And I am confident that the authors of 2012 report you (mis)quoted in your comment @2 had reason to be confident with their evaluation and reporting (repeating part of the quote I had included in my comment @4)

“...While centennial trends are not assessed here, we note that using a reduced period results in more consistent linear trends in SSTs over the 61-year record (Fig. 1), which are significantly positive throughout the tropical Pacific Ocean.”

What the authors of the paper observed and explained, was that the pre-1950 data was not as reliable as the post-1950 data. And since the main interest is ‘warming similar’ to the global average surface temperature which has more significant warming since 1950 than before 1950, the earlier SST values are not that important.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Paul Pukite at 06:57 AM on 3 December, 2023

It's interesting to compare NINO34 almost-raw (annual cycle is still removed) and de-trended

This is raw from KNMI explorer site

This is de-trended

So there appears to be a ~0.5 degree trend removed over the time span. All my original comments stated were that the trend was difficult to discern because of the dominating ENSO variations and those are not understood very well. That's all I said, go back and check.

In terms of optimal control theory, properly removing the signal (a warming trend) from the noise (ENSO variations) is only possible if a model for the noise is known. If the noise is statistically random with no trend, it's practical to create e.g. a Kalman filter to optimally remove the noise. However, if the noise of ENSO carries long-period multidecadal fluctuations, such as is observed with the AMO on the Atlantic side or the decadal PDO in the north Pacific, then it becomes much more challenging to discriminate the noise from the signal. That's because climate scientists still have no validated model for ENSO, being unable to predict it more than a few years in advance.

The ~1/2 degree warming in the NINO34 time-series above is in all likelihood a real AGW effect but my original remark was only in pointing out that the comment by Nigel J: "All these show a similar warming trend" could be challenged. He was OK with my remark as he found the case of the Pacific cold tongue research, which is described by NINO12 (and even more diffficult to extract the trend) and that the map by MS doesn't show this at the granularity needed. So are the rest of you speaking for him?

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

michael sweet at 23:24 PM on 2 December, 2023

Paul Pukte @10,

When you present a graph and say "my eyecrometer detects no trend" with no statistical analysis you are wasting our time. Likewise when you say "I am pretty certain this is not detrended" you are wasting our time. If you are not absolutely certain the data is not detrended go find out for sure.

When I go to your data source I find the graph you have presented has this label:

"cutting out region defined by mask ersstv5 nino3 mask.nc, operating on NOAA ERSSTv5 (in situ only), SSTA normalized to 1981-2010, Nino3 index minus 20S-20N average SST, normalised by a factor" my emphasis

It appears to me that your graph shows the anomaly in the Nino3 area minus the trend in the tropical oceans. Since the illustration that I posted in post at 9 shows that the tropical ocean has a clear waring trend. You have ignored since it contradicts your claims. It appears to me that your graph shows that the ENSO anomally has not changed compared to the rest of the ocean, not that the temperature has not risen in the Nino 3 area as you claim.

I note the the older data in your graph must have large error bars. I also note that small areas of the globe have much more noise so it is hard to detect the warming signal, especially by eyecrometer.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

One Planet Only Forever at 17:09 PM on 2 December, 2023

Paul Pukite,

The SkS Temperature Trend Calculator does a statistical analysis of the temperature data that 'includes ENSO nuisance'. The same can be done for the SST data.

And you still have not addressed the points I have made regarding your inaccuate and incorrect beginning. WUWT?

I will agree that improving the ability to forecast ENSO events is important and helpful work. But the points you have tried to make-up on this string are not helpful.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Paul Pukite at 16:23 PM on 2 December, 2023

There could be a warming trend buried in the NINO3 time-series but it's difficult to extract because of the large El Nino and La Nina excursions — note that they exceed 4C on the positive side and almost that much on the negative side. Remember that this region is the source of energy (or sink of energy) which can heat up (or cool down) the world for months at a time so it may be understandable that the AGW trend gets buried.

It's difficult to do statistical trend analysis on such a time-series without a model of the underlying "nuisance" signal. Since I have been doing mainly ENSO research, having published and presented at several AGU/EGU meetings on the topic, I tend to think of the AGW as the nuisance — tho, since it's so small it's not much a nuisance. On the other hand if you're iterested in the AGW trend here, the ENSO signal is a huge nuisance.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

One Planet Only Forever at 13:41 PM on 2 December, 2023

Paul Pukite @13,
Your latest comment does not address the questions I raised regarding your initial comment and the ways you have commented regarding this point.
@2 You said “...Not the middle of the equatorial Pacific. The temperature variation there is also not well understood because El Nino & La Nina cycles dominate and these are difficult to predict more than a year in advance.”

I am open to learning (even though I still struggle with right vs left hand). Years ago I learned that the difficulty in ‘predicting the ENSO’ does not affect the ability to evaluate trends in the equatorial Pacific SST. Due to the trend of SST in the Niño 3.4 region (the middle of the equatorial Pacific) NOAA had revised their methodology for the Ocean Nino Index (ONI) values to be relative to a regularly updated baseline.

The following is from the NOAA webpage (linked here) that presents the ONI values identifying the “Cold & Warm Episodes by Season”.

“DESCRIPTION: Warm (red) and cold (blue) periods based on a threshold of +/- 0.5oC for the Oceanic Niño Index (ONI) [3 month running mean of ERSST.v5 SST anomalies in the Niño 3.4 region (5oN-5oS, 120o-170oW)], based on .”centered 30-year base periods updated every 5 years.”\

And the linked NOAA webpage for “centered 30-year base periods updated every 5 years” shows the annual temperature curves for each of the 30-year base periods. In that presentation there is an undeniable warming trend since 1950.

What you will notice is that the NOAA ONI and the related base periods start in 1950. This ties directly to the paper you made the unrepresentative quote from mistakenly believing that it supported your incorrect ‘declared belief’ about the middle of the equatorial Pacific.

In closing I will say that a statistical evaluation of the data points is the proper way to determine a trend in the data. However, when I look at the NINO3 graph you have chosen to share I see a warming trend for the portion from 1950 to 2010. That would be consistent with the more valid evaluation of the data done by the authors of the paper you misrepresented in your comment @2.

At a glance - Evidence for global warming

Paul Pukite at 01:16 AM on 1 December, 2023

one has to look fairly hard for maritime areas that do not show a "similar warming trend"

As far as I can tell, when one searches for equatorial Pacific ocean SST time-series, you only get NINO34, NINO4, etc data. These show no or very little trend, being dominated by ENSO variations. As far as I can tell, they have not been detrended, but do have the annual seasonal temperature cycle removed.

Proxy records to demonstrate the hockey stick contain many samples from coral ring measurements. Yet, these also show very little trend which is not surprising as most coral is found in tropical or equatorial waters, where the SST also shows little trend. That's why most hockey stick discussion is on tree ring data.

Disinformation campaigns are undermining democracy. Here’s how we can fight back

nigelj at 10:59 AM on 28 November, 2023

Regarding David Acct's comments where he says some of the authorities did exaggerate the effectiveness of the masks. I agree that was the wrong thing to do, but I'm prepared to be a bit forgiving as they were simply trying to encourage use of maks to save lives, and remember we were in a quickly evolving emergency situation with some uncertainty about how effective masks were. We are now looking back with the benefit of hindsight. I agree with Bob it was not misinformation.

David seem to be narrowly focused around whether face masks stop people catching covid. Obviously masks won't do much to stop you getting infected because they dont fit tightly enough and it only takes a very small number of cells to cause an infection. The studies seem to show that areas with high mask use had only slightly lower rates of infection. About what you would expect.

But masks do greatly reduce the viral load on the lungs and that initial viral load is closely related to severerity of symptoms. Its no accident that places with high mask use had a much lower mortality rate (25% in one study). So on balance it appears to me mask wearing does have value.

David does a rant about the virtues of free speech and the evils of censorship. I lean towards free speech, but I would boldly say that some censorship is required in some circumstances. It's common in times of war,and in New Zealand we have sensible laws against defamation, inciting violence and racist speech (which effectively incites violence) and as a result many websites will not publish public comments that infringe those laws. That is censorship, so lets call it what it is, but only a fool would suggest such laws and censorship is wrong.

But how much further should we go? Because every restriction on free speech does risk shutting down discussion and debate, which is a very unhealthy outcome. I believe restrictions and "censorship" should be small in number and only be if there is a risk of comments inciting criminal law breaking or leading to serious physical harm or in other exceptional circumstances.

For example during covid our media mostly allowed people to post comments on their websites with robust views or even crazy views on covid, but they generally wouldn't permit views undermining the use of vaccines, such as views making wild claims that vaccines dont work or that they kill people.

This seemed like a reasonable restriction because it was narrowly focused and related to potential loss of life. The country was actively trying to get vaccination rates as high as possible and we got to 95% double vaccinated. America land of free speech only got to about 65%. A lot of people died but they preserved their precious right to spread lies about vaccines. I find this approach rather bewildering and lacking in commonsense.

On the other hand, attempts to censor so called 'hateful' views and criticism of religion mostly seem to go too far and run into awful difficulties of defining what hate speech is.

Yes all of this means free speech is not a simple black and white thing and difficult judgement calls have to be made. I think we are just stuck with this and have to do the best we can.

Disinformation campaigns are undermining democracy. Here’s how we can fight back

One Planet Only Forever at 07:27 AM on 28 November, 2023

David-acct @4 (Note: I prepared this before seeing Bob Loblaw’s recent post)

I agree with BaerbelW @5. And I agree with you, sort of (see my ending PS).

Censorship, like ‘efforts to ban school books because they would increase awareness and improve understanding of how to be less harmful and more helpful to Others’, is indeed unacceptable. It is especially unacceptable to ‘censor education’ to only teach ‘reading-writing-math’ and ‘incorrect but preferred versions of history’.

However, a rational justification can be made for improving public education, a requirement for democracy to be sustainable, by limiting the success of authoritarian attempts to popularize inaccurate information. Those limiting actions are justified even if fans of the misunderstandings, people who idolize undeserving authority figures, claim that such corrective actions are ‘censorship’ or ‘evil re-education’.

An example in schools would be moving texts that incorrectly portray the history of what has occurred into a ‘special section’ where the inaccuracies are explained in detail for anyone interested in learning about that (regardless of the preferred beliefs of ‘winners of elections’).

In addition, being addicted to the pursuit and promotion of harmful misunderstanding is understandable, especially when the addiction is to unjustified perceptions of status relative to Others. However, an addiction to the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of what is harmful and required corrections of unjustified developments and perceptions of success and status is also understandable.

Something like Addiction (or censorship) is not the problem. The problem is opposition to, rather than support for, ‘learning to be less harmful’. The same applies to political positions. Positions on the Left-Right spectrum are not ‘the problem’. The problem is ‘arguing and fighting against the pursuit of increased awareness and improved understanding of what is harmful and the diversity of justified corrective actions’. The corrective actions include actions that would limit the success of misinformation and disinformation efforts.

Misleading claims about ‘censorship’ are understandably expected from easily impressed victims or wilful perpetrators of misleading disinformation campaigns in the ‘War on increased awareness and improved understanding of undeserved perceptions of superiority and status’.

Ibram X. Kendi, in his many well researched books, provides a very robust understanding about the continued ‘progress of racist actions to defend unjustified perceptions of superiority relative to Others’. The reality that climate science also challenges unjustified perceptions of superiority makes it another front in the war efforts of people opposed to learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others.

There are many valid justifications for restrictions on freedom. Helpful, justified, educational actions, including restrictions, are not censorship. Limiting the ability to spread harmful misunderstandings is not censorship. Arguing for the unrestricted sharing of misinformation would be like arguing for no efforts to limit the popularity of any of the many misleading harmful ‘social media popular challenges’ (share a video of biting a laundry-pod).

Limiting and correcting the popularity of harmful misunderstandings, especially with actions like educational inoculation, is not censorship. It would be more accurate to call such actions ‘Helpful Public Education’.

PS. Regarding the spread of a disease like COVID-19, I would agree that limiting-restricting contact between people is more effective than ‘mask wearing’ (and the type of mask also matters).

Disinformation campaigns are undermining democracy. Here’s how we can fight back

Bob Loblaw at 05:26 AM on 28 November, 2023

I see that David-acct has returned to inject another (likely one-off) comment on a thread, in an attempt to discredit the science. This time, he is yelling "censorship", in spite of the fact that the blog post does not advocate for the "suppression" he claims is a "far greater threat to democracy".

The blog post does refer to EU efforts "to make democracies more resilient against misinformation and disinformation", and about efforts "to boost the public’s resistance to misinformation". The paper on which the blog post is based gives more details: mentioning EU Codes of Practice and legislation attempting to "curtail misinformation and hate speech online". It also mentions the use of moderation policies "to remove online misinformation and hate speech under certain circumstances". In other words, "free speech" has limits.

In David-acct's world, it seems that helping people recognize and resist misinformation is "censorship". It would seem that David-acct's desired world is one where nobody is allowed to speak against misinformation. To me, there seems to be a pattern in many of these discussions - the "advocates' screaming about free speech and censorship seem to only approve of "free speech" by people they agree with. They appear to want "my free speech, unopposed". "Free speech" is not limited when people speak against you, and "free speech" does not mean that every online discussion group must provide you with a bull-horn. When someone violates a code of conduct on a commercially-run discussion group, and is barred from further participation, it is not "censorship". They are always free to set up their own web site and discussion network.

[Disclaimer: Skeptical Science has its own code of conduct for participants, known as the Comments Policy.]

David-acct then wanders into a Covid discussion, and finishes with an unsubstantiated claim that "the health authorities pushed as much or more covid disinformation than the denialists." He provides a link to a paper that he claims is "a good article on the effectiveness of masking". If we actually read the paper, what we find is an article that includes things like the following, where they discuss possible bias in their study:

The participants in the study were not randomly assigned to wear or not wear face masks, and they were not provided with or encouraged to use face masks. During the study period, official guidelines for face mask use changed, with mandatory use in certain situations. This may have affected the participants' use of face masks, with some choosing to wear them based on their own assessment of risk and effectiveness.

Additionally, there may be other factors that could confound the relationship between face mask use and study outcomes, such as participants in high-risk professions or with risk factors for severe COVID-19. Both groups may be more or less prone to wear face masks, while also observing different social distancing practices than the average population. We also cannot rule reverse causality, in which those testing positive for COVID-19 were more prone to wear masks afterwards in order to protect others. Finally, there could be an association between the inclination to test and the propensity to wear a face mask.

They conclude that section with the following statement:

However, it is important to interpret the results with caution and not infer that our estimates represent the true causal relationship between face mask use and infection risk.

So, the "good article" David-acct wants us to read is hardly the definitive source that David-acct is pretending it is. What David-acct has done is cherry-pick one study, and present it as far more conclusive than it is. If he had read even just the abstract, it finished with a general cautionary note (applicable to all studies):

We believe the observed increased incidence of infection associated with wearing a face mask is likely due to unobservable and hence nonadjustable differences between those wearing and not wearing a mask. Observational studies reporting on the relationship between face mask use and risk of respiratory infections should be interpreted cautiously, and more randomized trials are needed.

Also note that the paper David-acct refers to is a pre-print of an accepted paper, published online on November 13, 2023. Can anyone think of a possible reason why a study published in late 2023 was not used to guide policy decisions in early 2020? Does David-acct think that the 2020 policy decisions should have been "let's just wait, and do nothing, and see what happens, until we get moire data a few years from now"?

When Covid hit, there were a lot of unknowns about it. Policy decisions were needed, and may have been made in times of insufficient information. That is not the same thing as misinformation.

Sadly, this sort of comment has been typical of what David-acct tends to post here.

Disinformation campaigns are undermining democracy. Here’s how we can fight back

BaerbelW at 15:35 PM on 27 November, 2023

David-acct @4

Inoculation against mis- and disinformation doesn't involve censorship but making people aware of the techniques involved with spreading it. The only people who could have anything against that are the spreaders of disinformation, everybody else should be happy about those efforts in order to no longer fall for it.

Disinformation campaigns are undermining democracy. Here’s how we can fight back

David-acct at 11:44 AM on 27 November, 2023

he calls to suppress "disinformation" are effectively calls for censorship. In the long term, Censorship is far greater threat to democracy and the freedom of expression and scientific thought than the spreading of disinformation. Even if its called stopping disinformation, the reality is it a call for censorship.

I agree that there was a lot of disinformation regarding covid coming from the denialists such as vaccine safety, ivermectin, Hcx. Those claims persisted in spite of good research demonstrating that those claims were crap. However, the amount of disinformation coming from the political leaders and the CDC using low quality studies overhyping the effectiveness of the lockdowns, overhyping the effectiveness of masking and overhyping the effectiveness of the vaccines was extensive. As of the end of 2022, the CDC still had listed 45+ studies showing the "positive effectiveness" of masking, yet at least eight of those studies have serious shortcomings. For example, the Kansas mask mandated counties vs non mask mandated counties for example, the study period was intentionally cut short because the infection rate was higher in the mask mandated counties post the end of the study period.

here is a good article on the effectiveness of masking

www.cambridge.org/core/journals/epidemiology-and-infection/article/association-between-face-mask-use-and-risk-of-sarscov2-infection-crosssectional-study/0525AD535D10FDCDF0C52603B50E7A1E#article

in summary, the health authorities pushed as much or more covid disinformation than the denialists. While the push for stopping disinformation is reality is a push for censorship in which everyone loses

SkS Analogy 26 - Earth's Beating Hearts

Paul Pukite at 17:01 PM on 15 November, 2023

The nodal crossing is also responsible for ENSO

2023 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #44

MA Rodger at 20:48 PM on 10 November, 2023

Just Dean @20.

It is not correct to make a comparison of 2023 with El Niño years 1998 & 2016. We are in the first year of a 2023/24 El Niño and the earlier ones were 1997/98 and 2015/16. 2023 is not the El Niño year in which the temperatures jump.

(Using ERA5 numbers), if we assume the October anomalies coutinue for Nov/Dec, 2023 would show a record year averaging +0.16ºC above all previous years. 1998 & 2016 saw similar +0.15ºC & +0.18ºC respectively. But 2023 is not another 1998 or 2016. We would have to wait for 2024 to make a comparison with previous El Niño years. And the coming El Niño is not looking anything like 1998 or 2016. It is forecast to be "moderate El Niño event", so more like 2010.

That is why 2023 is being described as "Staggering. Unnerving. Mind-Boggling. Absolutely gobsmackingly bananas." The big question, which is yet to be answered, is 'Why?'

2023 temps drivers

You'll be familiar with this graphic if you follow Jason Box. It well-explains the temperature rise 2014-2023 but it does not show anything that would explain the "staggering, unnerving, mind-boggling & absolutely gobsmackingly bananas" temperatures we've seen over the last five months.

(If you want to see how bananas, have a play on the UoMaine Climate Reanalyser and compare 2023 with previous years, then blank off 2016-23 and repeat for 'pre-El Niño' 2015. And again for 1997.)

My suggestion as to 'Why?' is that the Jan 2022 Hunga Tonga eruption which was exceptionally large and being sub-ocean blew large amounts of both SO2 and H2O into the stratosphere. These two would cancel each other out so the rather chilly 2022/23 winter (globally) with the SO2 marginally more powerful. But that SO2 has dropped out now and the remaining H2O is still there providing us the bananas. If this is the situation (& there is satellite data showing SO2 dropping out quicker than the H2O), the bananas do thankfully have a shelf-life.

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Rabelt at 23:22 PM on 18 October, 2023

MA Rodger,

[snip]

Fearing the abuse of power some people here want to exert and the complete arbitrarity of censorship I will have to keep it short and pray that Mister Bob is not angry enough at me.

LUC is a measure that requieres immense amounts of precise knowledge about human activity and the specific happenings in the carbon cycle during that year, something we completely lack in both departments, so I would not give it much accuracy

From the eMail Bag: Carbon Isotopes, Part 2: The Delta Notation

Rabelt at 23:13 PM on 18 October, 2023

wow censorship, great job Bob, I suppose your inability to see that I am having a different conversation with other people and explaining in more detail to that other person because they are asking for clarification doesnt matter for a child that cares more about his ego than for science comunication; contrary to you Bob, I care, so I dont repeat the same term multiple times instead of explaining like the other people that partake in the discussion

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

MA Rodger at 07:57 AM on 12 September, 2023

Bob Loblaw @61,

I did say up-thread I wasn't going to burrow down into the rabbit holes of Frank's argument. So I haven't look into the references Frank uses to defend his equ 5 & 6. If he were honest about his methods, it should be him explaining why he is right and everybody else wrong. But I note for equ 5 & 6, he only "stands by them."

The nearest Frank comes to an explanation for his equ 5 & 6, for using the RMS for the uncertainty of the combined average of N uncertainties (rather than dividing by N^1/2) is found in the first version of nonsense**, Frank (2010). [**Note this is Frank's temperature record nonsense not him climate model nonsense.]

Frank (2010) sets out four 'Cases' for combined uncertainties: 1, 2 3a and 3b. All but Case 3b are as you would expect with the RMS being divided by N^1/2 and thus for large combinations, uncertainty will tend to negligable values. But Frank (2010) designates the combination of SAT data as Case 3b for which it says:-

"When sensor noise variances have not been measured and neither their stationarity nor their magnitudes are known, an adjudged average noise variance must be assigned using physical reasoning [see Gleser (1998), 'Assessing uncertainty in measurement' - for PDF download]".

I've not looked to see if the Gleser reference supports such an assertion but it doesn't sound unreasonable although perhaps for the individual variances rather than for the average of those variance.

But Frank then goes on to tell us:-

"For multiple sensors of unknown noise provenance, or for a time series from a single sensor of unknown and possibly irregular variance, an adjudged estimate of measurement noise variance is implicitly a simple average ... of the nominally unique ... noise variance(s) of the N measurements. The primed sigma [in the shown equation] indicates an adjudged estimate [not a standard varriance] and distinguishes Case 3b noise uncertainty from those of Cases 1-3a.
"In the case of an adjudged average noise uncertainty, each temperature measurement must be appended with the constant uncertainty estimate.
[For Case 3b] the mean of a series of N measurements [of t] is the usual Σ(t_i)/N, but the average noise uncertainty in the measurement mean is [the RMS x N/(N-1)] [see Bevington & Robinson (2003) 'Data Reduction and Error Analysis for the Physical Sciences' 3rd edn, McGraw-Hill, Boston, p. 58, w_i = 1 PDF], with one degree of freedom lost because the estimated noise variance in each measurement is an implied mean. Thus when calculating a measurement mean of temperatures appended with an adjudged constant average uncertainty, the uncertainty does not diminish as 1/N^1/2. Under Case 3b, the lack of knowledge concerning the stationarity and true magnitudes of the measurement noise variances is properly reflected in a greater uncertainty in the measurement mean. The estimated average uncertainty in the measurement mean is not the mean of a normal distribution of variances, because under Case 3b the magnitude distribution of sensor variances is not known to be normal."

I have not delved into the reference to see how it would support Frank's assertion. Well, not yet.

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

Bob Loblaw at 08:40 AM on 2 September, 2023

ICU: I think you posted comment 56 while I was preparing comment 57.

In the OP, the MANOBS chart of temperature correction is an excellent example of systematic error in a temperature sensor - and how to account for it. Here it is again, for convenience.

MANOBS temperature correction

If this correction is ignored, we see that there is an additional uncertainty of up to 0.2C in the readings - with the exact value depending on temperature. Since each thermometer is calibrated against a better temperatuer sensor (in a lab), we can adjust the reading based on that known systematic error.

But error is not uncertainty... but even if we do not know the error, we can account for any fixed error (e.g., Mean Bias Error) by subtracting each individual reading from the mean (i.e, an anomaly). That fixed error is non-random, so it is present in every reading in the same amount - even if we do not know that amount.

Let me try with a simple equation set: (I know, not that math $#!^ again).

T1_true = T1_reading + error₁

T2_true = T2_reading + error₂

Since we don't know the error (we never can, because anything we compare our reading to also has errors), the unknown is an uncertainty. If error₁ and error₂ are independent, then all the "combined in quadrature" equations that Pat Frank uses are applicable.

But what if they are related? In the simple case, where the error is completely systematic and fixed (the MBE describes it all), then error₁ = error₂. In that case when we do T2_reading - T1_reading, [error₂ - error₁] = 0, and we get exactly the correct answer for T2_true-T1_true, even though we have uncertainty in each individual reading.

Comments 49 and 50 demonstrate this using real data. The errors are not purely MBE, but correcting for MBE on a monthly basis greatly reduces the uncertainty.

Much of the literature that Pat Frank references, related to different ventilation shields, different measurement systems, changes in station locations etc., is designed specifically to ferret out the MBE and other systematic errors in temperature measurements. Once that systematic error is identified, it is accounted for through the process of homogenization.

Pat Frank has no idea how any of this actually works.

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

Bob Loblaw at 08:11 AM on 2 September, 2023

ICU: I mentioned the randomness issue briefly above, in the blog post and in comments. He makes the argument for non-randomness saying he finds a non-normal distribution. I point out in comment 46 that he is wrong: you can have non-normal, but still random, distributions.

And he keeps using equations to combine uncertainties that require independence of the variances, which is contrary to his claim of non-randomness. And he uses a multiplier of 1.96 to get 2-sigma from 1-sigma, even though he says that distributions are non-normal.

In the NoTricksZone post, he argues that covariance is not relevant (in fact, that statistics equations combining variances) are not relevant because uncertainty is different from statistics. So he dismisses the equations I have present in the OP - in spite of the fact that they are listed in Wikipedia's "Propagation of Uncertainty" section. Yet covariance is the key concept that needs to be included when things are not random.

In comment 21, bdgwx provided a link to JCGM 100:288, which is basically the same as the 1995 ISO Guide to Uncertainty in Measurement. Section 5.2 talks about Correlated input quantities. If you look at section 5.2.1 on page 33, it says (emphasis added):

Equation (10) and those derived from it such as Equations (11a) and (12) are valid only if the input quantities X are independent or uncorrelated (the random variables, not the physical quantities that are assumed to be invariants — see 4.1.1, Note 1). If some of the Xi are significantly correlated, the correlations must be taken into account.

The internal inconsistencies in Pat Frank's work are numerous and critical. It's not random, but you don't need to use equations that are designed for correlated inputs. It's not normally-distributed, but you can still get to 95% confidence levels by using the proportions from a normal curve and 1-sigma/2-sigma ratios.

He's picking equations and terms from a buffet based on taste, having no idea how any of the dishes are made, and claiming that he can cook better than anyone else.

In comments 49 and 50, I show data from real world measurements comparing three equivalent temperature sensors, and how you need to properly divide Root Mean Square Error into the Mean Bias Error and standard deviation of differences between pairs to properly evaluate the uncertainty. And how accounting for the Mean Bias Error across sensors (by using anomalies) shows that all three sensors agree on how different the current temperature is from the monthly mean.

Nowhere in Pat Frank's paper does he discuss Mean Bias Error or any other specific form of systematic error. Every single one of his equations ignores the systematic error he claims is a key point.

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

Bob Loblaw at 05:07 AM on 30 August, 2023

...and, to put data where my mouth is....

I claimed that using anomalies (expressing each temperature as a difference from its monthly mean) would largely correct for systematic error in the temperature measurements. Here, repeated from comment 49, is the graph of error statistics using the original data, as-measured.

Error statistics - three temperature sensors

...and if we calculate monthly means for each individual sensor, subtract that monthly mean from each individual temperature in the month, and then do the statistics comparing each pair of sensors (1-2, 1-3, and 2-3), here is the equivalent graph (same scale).

Error statistics - three temperature anomalies

Lo and behold, the MBE has been reduced essentially to zero - all within the range -0.008 to +0.008C. Less than one one-hundredth of a degree. With MBE essentially zero, the RMSE and standard deviation are essentially the same. The RMSE is almost always <0.05C - considerably better than the stated accuracy of the temperature sensors, and considerably smaller than if we leave the MBE in.

The precision of the sensors (small standard deviation) can detect changes that are smaller than the accuracy (Mean Bias Error).

Which is one of the reasons why global temperature trends are analyzed using temperature anomalies.

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

Bob Loblaw at 22:53 PM on 29 August, 2023

I will not try to say "one last point" - perhaps "one additional point".

The figure below is based on one year's worth of one-minute temperature data taken in an operational Stevenson Screen, with three temperature sensors (same make/model).

The graph shows the three error statistics mentioned in the OP: Root Mean Square Error (RMSE), Mean Bias Error (MBE), and the standard deviation (Std). These error statistics compare each pair of sensors: 1 to 2, 1 to 3, and 2 to 3.

The three sensors generally compare within +/-0.1C - well within manufacturer's specifications. Sensors 2 and 3 show an almost constant offset between 0.03C and 0.05C (MBE). Sensor 1 has a more seasonal component, so comparing it to sensors 2 or 3 shows a MBE that varies roughly from +0.1C in winter (colder temperatures) to -0.1C in summer (warmer temperatures).

The RMSE error is not substantially larger than MBE, and the standard deviation of the differences is less than 0.05C in all cases.

This confirms that each individual sensor exhibits mostly systematic error, not random error.

Error statistics - three temperature sensors

We can also approach this my looking at how the RMSE statistic changes when we average the data over longer periods of time. The following figure shows the RMSE for these three sensor pairings, for two averaging periods. The original 1-minute average in the raw data, and an hourly average (sixty 1-minute readings).

We see that the increased averaging has had almost no effect on the RMSE. This is exactly what we expect when the differences between two sensors have little random variation. If the two sensors disagree by 0.1C at the start of the hour, they will probably disagree by very close to 0.1C throughout the hour.

RMSE - three temperature sensors

As mentioned by bdgwx in comment 47, when you collect a large number of sensors across a network (or the globe), then these differences that are systematic on a 1:1 comparison become mostly random globally.

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

Bob Loblaw at 07:01 AM on 29 August, 2023

Yes, bdgwx, that is a good point. The "many stations makes for randomness" is very similar to the "selling many sensors makes the errors random when individual sensors have systematic errors".

The use of anomalies does a lot to eliminate fixed errors, and for any individual sensor, the "fixed" error will probably be slightly dependent on the temperature (i.e., not the same at -20C as it is at +25C). You can see this in the MANOBS chart (figure 10) in the OP. As temperatures vary seasonally, using the monthly average over 10-30 years to get a monthly anomaly for each individual month somewhat accounts for any temperature dependence in those errors.

...and then looking spatially for consistency tells us more.

One way to look to see if the data are random is to average over longer and longer time periods and see if the RMSE values scale by 1/sqrt(N). If they do, then you are primarily looking at random data. If they scale "somewhat", then there is some systematic error. If they do not change at all, then all error is in the bias (MBE).

...which is highly unlikely, as you state.

In terms of air temperature measurement, you also have the question of radiation shielding (Stevenson Screen or other methods), ventilation, and such. If these factors change, then systematic error will change - which is why researchers doing this properly love to know details on station changes.

Again, it all comes down to knowing when you are dealing with systematic error or random error, and handling the data (and propagation of uncertainty) properly.

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

Bob Loblaw at 00:12 AM on 29 August, 2023

Getting back to the temperature question, what happens when a manufacturer states that the accuracy of a sensor they are selling is +/-0.2C? Does this mean that when you buy one, and try to measure a known temperature (an ice-water bath at 0C is a good fixed point), that your readings will vary by +/-0.2C from the correct value? No, it most likely will not.

In all likelihood, the manufacturer's specification of +/-0.2C applies to a large collection of those temperature sensors. The first one might read 0.1C too high. The second might read 0.13C too low. And the third one might read 0.01C too high. And the fourth one might have no error, etc.

If you bought sensor #2, it will have a fixed error of -0.13C. It will not show random errors in the range +/-0.2C - it has a Mean Bias Error (as described in the OP). When you take a long sequence of readings, they will all be 0.13C too low.

You may not know that your sensor has an error of -0.13C, so your uncertainty in the absolute temperature falls in the +/-0.2C range, but once you bought the sensor, your selection from that +/-0.2C range is complete and fixed at the (unknown) value of -0.13C.

You do not propagate this fixed -0.13C error through multiple measurements by using the +/-0.2C uncertainty in the large batch of sensors. That +/-0.2C uncertainty would only vary over time if you kept buying a new sensor for each reading, so that you are taking another (different) sample out of the +/-0.2C distribution. The randomness within the +/-0.2C range falls under the "which sensor did they ship?" question, not the "did I take another reading?" question.

When you want to examine the trend in temperature, that fixed error becomes part of the regression constant, not the slope.

...and if you use temperature anomalies (subtracting the mean value), then the fixed error subtracts out.

Proper estimation of propagation of uncertainty requires recognizing the proper type of error, the proper source, and properly identifying when sampling results in a new value extracted from the distribution of errors.

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

Bob Loblaw at 09:59 AM on 16 August, 2023

Bdgwx:

Thanks for the additional information. From the Bevington reference you link to, equation 3.13 looks like it matches the equation I cited from Wikipedia, where you need to include the covariance between the two non-independent variance terms. Equations 4.13, 4.14, and 4.23 are the normal Standard Error estimate I mentioned in the OP.

Of course, calculating the mean of two values is equivalent to merging two values where each is weighted by 1/2. Frank's equations 5 and 6 are just "weighted" sums where the weightings are 30.417 and 12 (average number of days in a month, and average number of months in a year), and each day or month is given equal weight.

...and all the equations use N when dealing with variances, or sqrt(N) when dealing with standard deviations. That Pat Frank screws up so badly by putting the N value inside the sqrt sign as a denominator (thus being off by a factor of sqrt(N)) tells us all we need to know about his statistical chops.

In the OP, I linked to the Wikipedia page on MDPI, which largely agrees that they are not a reputable publisher. I took a look through the Sensors web pages at MDPI. There are no signs that any of the editors or reviewers they list have any background in meteorological instrumentation. It seems like they are more involved in electrical engineering of sensors, rather than any sort of statistical analysis of sensor performance.

A classic case of submitting a paper to a journal that does not know the topic - assuming that there was any sort of review more complex than "has the credit card charge cleared?" The rapid turn-around makes it obvious that no competent review was done. Of course, we know that by the stupid errors that remain in the paper.

It is unfortunate that the journal simply passes comments on to the author, rather than actually looking at the significance of the horrible mistakes the paper contains. So much for a rigorous concern about scientific quality.

The JCGM 100:2008 link you provide is essentially the same as the ISO GUM I have as a paper copy (mentioned in the OP).

A Frank Discussion About the Propagation of Measurement Uncertainty

bdgwx at 06:23 AM on 16 August, 2023

I have had numerous discussions with Pat Frank regarding this topic. His misunderstanding boils down to using Bevington equation 4.22. There are two problems here. First and foremost, 4.22 is but an intermediate step in propagating the uncertainty through a mean. Bevington makes it clear that it is actually equation 4.23 that gives you the final result. Second, Equations 4.22 and 4.23 are really meant for relative uncertainties when there are weighted inputs. Frank does not use weighted inputs so it is unclear why he would be using this procedure anyway.

Furthermore, Frank's own source (Bevington) tells us exactly how to propagate uncertainty through a mean. If the inputs are uncorrelated you use equation 4.14. If the inputs are correlated you use the general law of propagation of uncertainty via equation 3.13.

A more modern and robust exploration of the propagation of uncertainty is defined in JCGM 100:2008 which NIST TN 1900 is based.

And I've told Pat Frank repeatedly to verify his results with the NIST uncertainty machine. He has insinuated (at the very least) that NIST and JCGM including NIST's own calculator are not to be trusted.

Another point worth mentioning...he published this in the MDPI journal Sensors. MDPI is known to be a predatory publisher. I emailed the journal editor back in July asking how this publication could have possibly made it through peer review with mistakes this egregious. I basically explained the things mentioned in this article. The editor sent my list of mistakes to Pat Frank and let him respond instead. I was hoping for a response from the editor or the reviewers. I did not get that.

Increasing CO2 has little to no effect

Paul Pukite at 22:27 PM on 18 July, 2023

Most of the major climate indices (ENSO, AMO, PDO, QBO, AO, SAM, MJO, NAO, SOI) show no signs of AGW, as the characteristic secular trend is missing, The only one that does is the IOD, as the West IOD shows a much larger trend than East. In any case, all the indices can be explained by a tidal mechanism, which should be good news to those that worry that natural climate change has no constraints — tides always revert to a mean of zero => https://geoenergymath.com/2023/07/17/the-big-10-climate-indices/

Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

daveburton at 21:53 PM on 12 July, 2023

Bob Ludlow wrote

[Contents snipped]

"You have no objective criteria to declare that The Battery and Honolulu are "the best" at representing anything other than local effects..."

The Battery has 1825 months of sea-level measurements. No other NOAA Atlantic site has that much. Only San Francisco has more, but it has only 1404 months of measurements since the 1906 earthquake. The downside to The Battery's measurement record is its high (atypical) rate of subsidence, which roughly doubles the local ("relative") sea-level trend there.

There are some European sites with longer, better Atlantic / North Sea / Baltic measurement records, and Australia has an excellent Pacific measurement record, but there are substantial delays getting data for those locations. My sealevel.info stie pulls data from NOAA frequently, so it's much more up-to-date.

Some of the European sites, have recorded a slight acceleration; it was most noticeable at Brest, which saw a 0.0 mm/year trend in the19th century, but a 1.6 mm/year trend since then, though there are substantial gaps in ther record.

Several German sites have particularly excellent measurement records; here's one of them:

In the Pacific, Honolulu has 1421 months (>118 years) of continuous sea-level measurements, without even a single missing month. Just as importantly, Honolulu is a near-ideal measurement site, near the middle of the world's largest ocean, on an "old" island with near-zero vertical land motion, small tides, and (unlike most places!) almost no seasonal cycle. What's more, its mid-Pacific location is near the pivot point of the east-west Pacific "teeter-totter," so it is little affected by ENSO "slosh." That is, El Niño and La Niña don’t affect sea-level there much at all. It really is a superb dataset.

Bob continued, "Just because they have long records does not mean that they accurately reflect regional or global trends."

That's true. As I've mentioned, NYC's sea-level trend is atypical, because of the high rate of subsidence there.

However, if subsidence / uplift are due to very long term processes, like PGR, there's reason to hope that they are fairly consistent over the duration of the measurement record. In that case, even if the linear trend is greatly affected by uplift or subsidence, the acceleration won't be. (Of course, that doesn't work in places, like Manila, where changing local factors, like groundwater pumping, cause varying subsidence.)

So it should not surprise you that, even though The Battery and Honolulu have seen quite different linear trends over the last century, the measured acceleration in both places is very similar (negligible).

Bob wrote, "You are clearly picking locations to try to tell the story you want to tell."

That's a false accusation. You just find the data surprising, so you make baseless accusations, without evidence. That is not conducive to constructive dialogue, nor to learning.

If you think I chose unrepresentative sites, or sites with inferior quality measurement data, then YOU tell me what sites YOU think are better, and why.

Bob wrote, "As for your quadratic fits: it has been pointed out to you over the past 10 years that quadratic fits mean nothing when the underlying data does not resemble a quadratic relationship."

Nobody competent makes that claim in the context of sea-level analysis.

If there were a step-change in some climate system input, then you could look for a step-acceleration as a consequence. But there's been nothing like that. The radiative forcing trend from CO2 has been very gradual, and strikingly linear (just barely more than linear) for the last forty years. It's been quite gradual for much longer than that.

Quadratic regression is the cannonical way of detecting gradual acceleration. It's how Church & White did it, and how every competent sea-level analyst since then has done it. When Hogarth reported that, "sea level acceleration from extended tide gauge data converges on 0.01 mm/yr²," that's what he was talking about.

CO2 effect is saturated

bobhisey at 21:30 PM on 12 July, 2023

My arguement is not against global warming, but in falsely ascribing it to CO2.

The NASA data on the absorption of earth's radiation show clearly that no energy is leaving the earth in the 14-16 micron band. This is the only significant absorption band for CO2 absorbing our radiation. Snce it is saturated/opaque, more CO2 has no effect.

This causes the earth to warm up a bit to increase radiation in other wave lengths and balance out the loss in the 14-15micron range.

This very detailed Nasa data can now be found at NASA Technical Memorandum 103957, Appendix E. All 90 pages of it. It was produced in 1992, but was unavailable to the public till now. However, it has been in use by theNASA Infra-red astronomy project Gemini, for over 20 years, proving its validity.

Previously the best data available was from the 1960's NASA Nimbus satellite. This utilized a very broad band sensor, seemingly like 20microns. This obviously could not pick up a 2 micron minimum band and gave a gently curved spectrum showing a maximum absorption of about 50%.

A full discussion can be seen in "Carbon Dioxide - Not Guilty" on kindle for 99c.

My conclusion is the CO2 is not the cause of our global warming, and I have no idea as to what is the cause. We are wasting our time and money on a false premise, and should rather find the real cause.

7 TV meteorologists discuss their coverage of climate change and weather

One Planet Only Forever at 06:19 AM on 12 July, 2023

An update regarding a couple of the passionate helpful meteorologists covered in this article:

Eric Sorenson won his 2022 run to be a House of Congress representative for Illinois. (Eric Sorenson's Congress.gov webpage)

Chris Gloninger has quit his TV job due to the threats he received. But he has moved to a potentially more 'annoying to the science denial troop' role with Woods Hole Group. (USA Today "An Iowa meteorologist's climate change coverage led to a death threat. He's now resigning.")

Nasty 'learning resistant people' will always be around. But it is very important, and very challenging, to keep on disappointing them no matter how angry they get ... as long as others are also being communicated to and can see how harmfully incorrect the 'learning resistant people', and their preferred type of leaders, are.

Hansen predicted the West Side Highway would be underwater

daveburton at 07:21 AM on 7 July, 2023

Michael wrote, "the last time Carbon dioxide was over 400 ppm the sea level was more than 20 meters higher than current sea level."

Yes, many things were different 4.5 million years ago. They weren't all caused by CO2.

For example, the highest-quality Pacific sea-level measurement record is from Honolulu, on Oahu. But it would be difficult to say anything meaningful about how sea-level there has changed since CO2 levels were last this high, because Oahu (and the Big Island) didn't exist 4 million years ago!

Michael wrote, "Your sea level graphs are obviously flawed."

I guarantee that they are not flawed.

They are accurate plots of sea-level measurements at those two sites, which are the best long NOAA Atlantic sea-level measurement record (The Battery, NYC), and the best long NOAA Pacific sea-level measurement record (Honolulu, HI). The linear and quadratic regressions are accurately calculated from the most recent 100 years of data at each site, shown with deep blue traces. Earlier data (not included in the regressions) is shown in light blue.

If you click the links, you can adjust the measurement periods over which the regressions are calculated, and see the effect of those adjustments. You can also smooth the plots, and choose whether to plot linear and/or quadratic fits, as well as confidence and/or prediction intervals. At the top of each graph you'll also find links to the corresponding NOAA and PSMSL web pages for those sites. You can also do the same analyses for other NOAA measurement sites, and for over 1000 sites with data available from PSMSL (though the PSMSL data aren't as up-to-date as the NOAA data).

Michael wrote, "you have cherry picked two single locations to do your calculations without justifying your choice."

They aren't "cherry-picked," I told you why I chose them: they are "the best long U.S. Atlantic and Pacific sea-level measurement records, respectively."

The analysis period of 100 years is arbitrary, of course, but if you click the links which I provided you can easily change it:
https://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=Battery&c_date=1923/6-2023/5
https://sealevel.info/MSL_graph.php?id=Honolulu&c_date=1923/6-2023/5

I also reported the conclusion of a comprehensive study: "Hogarth studied many long measurement records, and concluded, 'Sea level acceleration from extended tide gauge data converges on 0.01 mm/yr²'" (That's negligible, BTW.)

Beware of "global" sea-level analyses which use varying mixes of measurement locations. As you can see from the striking difference between Oahu and New York, sea-level trends vary considerably from one location to another. So if you use a different mix of measurement locations for the left and right ends of a plot, you can easily create the illusion of a sharp acceleration or deceleration which is not evident in the individual measurement records.

Also, beware of the fact that there are also regional effects, in some places. For example, ENSO causes changes in low-latitude easterly Pacific trade winds. During El Niños easterly Pacific equatorial trade winds diminish, so the Pacific ocean sloshes east, raising sea-level in the eastern Pacific, and lowering it in the western Pacific. This is very striking when you compare the sea-level measurement records of Kwajalein (in the western Pacific) and San Diego (in the eastern Pacific). They are almost perfect mirror images!
https://sealevel.info/1820000_Kwajalein_San_Diego_2016-04_vs_ENSO_annot4.png

Correlation of sea-level with ENSO at Kwajalein and San Diego

(One of the nice things about Honolulu is that it is near the ENSO "teeter-totter pivot point," so, unlike other long Pacific sea-level measurement records, Honolulu's is scarcely affected by ENSO.)

Another example of regional effects is the southeastern United States, where Gulf Stream variations are apparently the cause of well-known multi-decadal fluctuations in sea-level trends. For a discussion see Zervas (2009), NOAA Technical Report NOS CO-OPS 053, Sea Level Variations of the United States, 1854-2006. Here's a relevant excerpt:
Excerpt from NOAA Tech rpt 53 p.xiii

Gas stoves are even worse for our health than previously known, new study finds

nigelj at 06:45 AM on 4 July, 2023

Moderator's comment @ 3

"To simple keep making the same arguments, without responding to criticisms or correcting errors, borders on several aspects of the Comments Policy, such as excessive repetition and sloganeering."

This is very good. Its very annoying when people don't reply to criticisms. Its not in the spirit of open debate and discussion. Its discourteous.

In my view websites are entitled to require people to respond to their critics, at least in situations like the above. Nobodies opinions are being censored doing this. If you dont like being required to actively participate in discussions you dont have to use the website.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #25 2023

One Planet Only Forever at 06:24 AM on 25 June, 2023

BaerbelW,

The education-related action by Finland is a helpful action in parallel with, but not part of the scope of, the UN actions regarding Information Integrity on Digital Platforms.

A major 'non-censorship' action discussed in the UN document is developing ways to effectively keep disinformation, misinformation and hate messages from being profitable, especially by controlling advertising placement. A related action would be for responsible advertisers to stop advertising on platforms that do not effectively do that.

During my MBA education in the early 1980's my course on Marketing began with the professor telling us that we will be learning about the ability to be temporarily successful by being misleading and warning us about the unsustainability of that Marketing approach.

Attempts to benefit from Disinformation are nothing new. Digital Platforms are just the latest, and potentially most damaging, development that can be abused that way, especially with the rapid unregulated development of AI.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #25 2023

One Planet Only Forever at 05:47 AM on 25 June, 2023

Nigelj,

I am responding hoping to encourage you to read the UN document about Information Integrity on Digital Platforms.

I agree that Harari’s “21 Lessons for the 21st Century” (and “Sapiens”) are helpful presentations. I read both books a while ago. Your comment prompted me to revisit “21 Lessons ...”

“The Ecological Challenge” sub-section of the “Nationalism (Global Problems Need Global Answers)”, a chapter about the problems caused by nationalism, is aligned with the new UN initiative regarding the harm of successful disinformation production and promotion. Another tragically relevant chapter today is the “Post-Truth (Some Fake News Lasts Forever)” chapter.

The item from Harari’s book that seems most relevant to the new UN initiative is from the “Education (Change Is the Only Constant)” chapter. Though not explicitly stated, the implication is that people who resist increasing their awareness and resist improving their understanding of what is harmful and helpful to the development of sustainable improvements for the future of global humanity ‘will potentially need legal or other government actions to limit the harm done by their preference for preserving a misunderstanding or lack of awareness’.

In the chapter on Education, Harari makes the following important point:

So what should we be teaching? Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching “the four Cs” – critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. More broadly, they believe, schools should downplay technical skill and emphasize general-purpose life skills. Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, learn new things, and preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations.

The new UN initiative regarding the harm of disinformation, misinformation and hate on digital platforms, including its further development and implementation, is a “four Cs” type of action.

I would encourage you to read the complete UN document. Though I can quickly scan a document, when reading I am usually slower than others because I tend to read every word. It took me 40 minutes to read the entire text (not reading footnotes). For comparison, the Harari sub-section on The Ecological Challenge was a 10 minute read. And it is only 1/4 of the important “Nationalism” chapter. And that entire chapter is only 6% of the book’s ‘well worth reading’ content.

Regarding your stated concern:

However I'm not too keen on governments or the news media or other organizations becoming censors of information. I read George Orwells book 1984 recently and it certainly does a good job of raising awareness of the dire consequences of governmnet and media censorship even if it's well meant.

Of course we do have some established and reasonable limits on free speech, like laws against inciting violence but they are minimal and related to law breaking. I'm talking about going beyond this.

Your concern is addressed in the UN document. Also, the interventions you are accepting are ‘interventions to limit harm done’. That is, or should be, the fundamental principle of laws and their restrictions of freedom. Tragically, I agree that sovereign national or regional governments and pursuers of profit cannot be trusted to constantly govern their law-making, regulation-creation, enforcement or other actions to limit harm done. Pursuits of popularity and profit can create interests for individuals and sub-groups of global humanity that are in conflict with correcting harmful developments and conflict with developing sustainable improvements for global humanity. Those damaging ‘developed and developing conflicts if interest’ include the potential for the sub-group of ‘all of current-day humanity’ having interests that conflict with the development of a sustainable improving future for global humanity.

So, Harari’s book is informative and exposes many important issues. However, the UN document is doing the harder work of applying the ‘four Cs’, to develop global change regarding the integrity of digital information to limit harm done. The section titled “What is the relevant international legal framework?” (page 9) addresses the matter of free speech (as do other parts of the document). It is less than a 3 minute read and opens and ends with:

The promotion of information integrity must be fully grounded in the pertinent international norms and standards, including human rights law and the principles of sovereignty and non-intervention in domestic affairs. In August 2022, I transmitted to the General Assembly a report entitled “Countering disinformation for the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.¹⁵ In the report, I laid out the international human rights law that applies to dis-information, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Under these international legal instruments, everyone has the right to freedom of expression.¹⁶
...
In its resolution 76/227, adopted in 2021, the General Assembly emphasized that all forms of disinformation can negatively impact the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, in its resolution 49/21, adopted in 2022, the Human Rights Council affirmed that disinformation can negatively affect the enjoyment and realization of all human rights.

And the following is a quote from the beginning of the section titled “Towards a United Nations Code of Conduct UN” (page 21):

The United Nations Code of Conduct for Information Integrity on Digital Platforms, which I will put forward, would build upon the following principles:
• Commitment to information integrity
• Respect for human rights
• Support for independent media
• Increased transparency
• User empowerment
• Strengthened research and data access
• Scaled up responses
• Stronger disincentives
• Enhanced trust and safety

I encourage people who are concerned about the harm of disinformation to take the time to read the full UN document.

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #25 2023

BaerbelW at 04:42 AM on 25 June, 2023

nigelj @2

"However I'm not too keen on governments or the news media or other organisations becoming censors of information."

There are other means organizations can prevent - or at least minimize - the spread of misinformation. Warning messages that content has been contested for example, or a setup that would-be commenters or sharers first have to answer a question related to the article before they can do either.

And then, there's that whole idea of inoculation, that goes along with improving media literacy of large swaths of the population. Imagine how effective it would be, if nobody falls for all the FLICC-techniques any longer and mis- and disinformation than no longer gets shared? Finland seems to be well ahead of many other countries in that regard, based on this article published recently:

Finland’s ‘visionary’ fight against disinformation teaches citizens to question what they see online

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #25 2023

nigelj at 08:37 AM on 24 June, 2023

OPOF, thanks for the very useful copy and paste quote.

The misinformation is very troubling. The climate denialists are still very active although its swiched to some extent from denialism about the science, to denialism about the impacts of climate change and the solutions.

However I'm not too keen on governments or the news media or other organisations becoming censors of information. I read George Orwells book 1984 recently and it certainly does a good job of raising awareness of the dire consequences of governmnet and media censorship even if it's well meant.

Of course we do have some established and reasonable limits on free speech, like laws against inciting violence but they are minimal and related to law breaking. I'm talking about going beyond this.

But at he same time the way Musk has allowed twitter to revert to an open slather for hate and misinformation is equally as troubling. It all leaves me unsure what the best solution is.

However there is no justification for algorithms that send people a deluge of climate denial. This is just manipulation to increase profits.

I recommend this book to people: 21 lessons for the 21st century by Yuval Harari. Very good chapter on climate change and other environmental issues. IMO this man has a great grasp of reality.

Antarctica is gaining ice

scaddenp at 07:54 AM on 23 May, 2023

"Nobody knows.." Hmm. Certainly investigated. See "Interannual ice mass variations over the Antarctic ice sheet from 2003 to 2017 were linked to El Niño-Southern Oscillation"

Shows correlation of AP and WAIS with ENSO and anticorrelation of EAIS.

Hmm. ok, only 2017. What about GFO and recent records. There is some detailed analysis in "Spatially heterogeneous nonlinear signal in Antarctic ice-sheet mass loss revealed by GRACE and GPS (2023)"

and another study of links with other quasi-periodic cycles in Antarctica in "Antarctica ice-mass variations on interannual timescale: Coastal Dipole and propagating transports"

Evidence to date - based on correlations of where the changes in ice mass are occurring - links interannual change to short term (2-8 year) quasi-periodic weather cycles (ENSO, Antarctic Circumpolar Wave, Antarctic Occillation) influencing Antartica.

My money (literally) would be on continued long term ice loss. Short term variation as observed here to date would certainly NOT be a reason for change in climate mitigation policy.

Two attempts to blame global warming on volcanoes

JohnSeers at 23:06 PM on 4 April, 2023

There is a third argument made that volcanoes cause global warming. Many underwater volcanoes heat the ocean and transfer heat via the PDO, AMO, ENSO etc.

Is there any debunking of that anywhere?

It's the sun

MA Rodger at 02:10 AM on 12 February, 2023

The link given @1305 leads me to a bunch of YouTube adverts but if you specify a time with the link, the Curry/Peterson nonsense appears. Thus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q2YHGIlUDk&t=60s
Below the video there is a box that can be expanded with a 'show more' tab and that shows a list of a couple of dozen parts to the video (called Chapters) and one of these does mention things solar (which was what panhuag @1306 was asking about) 'The Challenger explosion, how the sun affects climate'. This provides the following from Curry:-

"Once you get into the sun, it's even crazier. The IPCC has pretty-much dismissed the role of the sun in the last 150 years but the interesting AR6.6 finally acknowledged the great uncertainty in the amount of solar forcing in the late 20th century and this arises from ... a gap in the satellites measuring the sun's output that occurred at the time of the Challenger shuttle disaster... So one solar sensor was running out and they were supposed to launch another one but all the launchers were put off for a number of years until they sorted out... (the launchers). So there's a so-called gap which depending on what was happening in that gap, you can tune the solar variability to high variability or low variability. So all the climate models are being run with low solar variability forcing.
For the first time in AR6.2 (2.2.1), the observational chapter acknowledges this issue, that there are huge amounts of variability.
And this doesn't even factor in the solar indirect effects.... It's not just the heat from the sun. There's a lot of issues related to UV and stratosphere and cosmic rays and magnetic fields and all these otehr things that really aren't being factored in. They're at the forefront of research but they're certainly not factored into the climate models so there are so many uncertainties out there that affect certainly the projections of what might happen in the 21st century but also our interpretation of what's been going on with the climate for the last 100 years and exactly what's been causing what.

A quick look at AR6.2.2.1 shows Curry is doing particularly well ast spouting nonsense here.

Scafetta's Widget Problems

MA Rodger at 00:56 AM on 14 January, 2023

sailingfree @68,

Note that the data for global temperatre you plot is NOAA data but not GISS (LOTI) data. Both use the same raw data but process them differently. Thus in NOAA 2015 is warmer than 2017 by +0.02ºC while in GISS 2015 is cooler than 2017 by -0.02ºC.

And both have published the 2022 figure which slots into the record above 2021, although not by much in NOAA.

As you rightly say, the present La Niña is depressing the global average SAT, a La Niña which is expected to end through the coming year, and expected to end a lot more suddenly than previous strong La Niñas (like 1988, 1999 & 2008 which were more sudden transitioning into La Niña and more gradual transitioning out).

MEI.v2 La Nina evolution

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

One Planet Only Forever at 15:15 PM on 4 January, 2023

Peppers @91,

The population issue may be better understood by performing the mental exercise of considering a case where the global population did not increase above 800 million.

If, by today, the 800 million developed to be as harmful ‘annually in total’ as the current most harmful 800 million are, then the magnitude of harm done so far, and rate of harm done, would be less than the current problem of the 8 billion today. More people being harmful, even if they are less harmful people, will produce harm more rapidly. But the continued increase of harm done at a lower rate would eventually produce a similar level of harmful results.

Once the harm being done was recognized (understandable) as something that had to be ended and undone (in spite of harmful efforts to promote misunderstanding, and ask questionable questions that have understandable answers, to delay the awakening of that understanding – prolonging understandably harmful misunderstandings that delay the reduction of harm being done), if each of the 800 million had developed a reasonably comparable level of harmfulness then they would all have a comparable responsibility for reducing their harmfulness. However, if the distribution of harmfulness was similar to the current distribution (refer to my comment @82 - the top 10% of the 800 million being as harmful as the top 1% of 8 billion, and the top 1% being like the current top 0.1%) then the common sense would be that the more harmful people, all of them, would need to more rapidly and more dramatically lead the learning and correction of behaviour.

The problem is the examples being set by the supposedly more advanced portion of the population, combined with the development of desires in more people to develop to live that way (as you say “they too want to live as full a life as possible” incorrectly believing that ‘desiring to be more harmful’ is ‘Living fuller’ or that ‘living fuller’ excuses the harm done). That harmful result is unjustified and relies on harmful misunderstandings like the following (refer to my comment @90 for an alternate presentation of the same point):

those who are first to develop more harmful ways of living get to be more harmful

harmfulness has to be accepted, because some people desire things that are understandably harmful

My point, unaltered by anything you have presented, is that unless there is a systemic ideological change that establishes the common sense that it is unacceptable for ‘desires’ to be obtained harmfully then any ‘solutions’ will likely be harmful and ultimately unsustainable.

Fundamentally the developed common sense understanding includes:

the harmfulness of people continuing to ‘pursue desires (not needs)’ via harmful fossil fuel use is now undeniable because of climate science.

the development and proliferation of misunderstandings about climate science, including questionable questions related to the need for the most harmful people to most rapidly limit their harmfulness, is undeniably harmful because it delays the limiting of the harm done.

pursuing ‘solutions’ without acknowledging that only ‘meeting everyone’s basic needs’ is allowed to be harmful (with as little harm done as possible) will not produce sustainable solutions.

The problem is not solved by the development of new technology or 'other solutions' in a system that does not recognize the need for ‘desires beyond the basic needs of living’ to be harmless. The desire for people to maintain and increase developed perceptions of ‘fuller’ living does not justify the added harm done while they try to delay the understanding of the growing urgency for their desired harmful actions to be more rapidly ended.

Also, harmful climate change impacts due to fossil fuel use were the result of the pursuits of status through technology development competition in a system with success measured by popularity and profit. It is also common sense that some people harmfully resist learning about the harmful results of persistent and prolific presentations of misunderstandings regarding climate science. Even without the harmful delay of persistent misunderstanding, it is understandably unacceptable to ‘wait for the obviously harmfully inclined competition to end the harm it developed’. There is abundant evidence that limiting of harm done by activity related to fossil fuels (and other activities) has almost only ever happened through ‘regulation and restriction by Others who govern based on the pursuit of increased awareness and understanding of what is harmful’. Examples abound including: ending lead in gasoline, reduction of sulphur emissions, reduced particulate emissions, and improved fuel efficiency.

As for your point “I cannot censor others because I now want to call their opinion harmful misunderstandings”. That is a version of an already pointed out misunderstanding/misrepresentation of my presented points. One more time, stated a different way:

the most serious population problem related to ‘climate science and understood to be harmful climate change impacts of human activity’ is the most harmful impacting portion of the population.

the harmful portion of the population is not excused by claiming that ‘others want to be like them’.

the small percentage who are most harmful are not excused by claiming that large numbers of other less harmful people are a bigger concern.

continuing harmful activity that is unnecessary for decent basic living is not excused by claiming that harmless ways to do the desired things ‘will be developed’. Maybe they won’t be developed. Maybe harmful replacements, only a little less climate change harmful or harmful in other ways, will be used. Note that stopping unnecessary harmful activity would limit the harm done ‘and’ motivate the development of harmless ways to meet those unnecessary desires.

it is harmful to maintain a misunderstanding that evades learning that fossil fuel use must be rapidly ended by the people who cause the most harm due to their harmfully over-developed ‘unnecessary’ fossil fuel use.

the real root of the problem is the development of desires for over-consumption including energy over-consumption.

You say “Yet we have let 11 million (from lower per capita impact nations) in to our 15.52 per capita USA.” That is an argument against yourself. You have essentially stated that it is expected and OK for lower impact people to develop higher impact ways of living. Also, people moving to the USA would not be a problem if all of the USA, not just some portions of its population, were leading the awakening of the understanding of the need for a rapid transition away from the ideology that harmful ways of obtaining ‘desires’ are excusable.

In conclusion, I believe it is important for SkS to continue to raise awareness (awaken people) regarding the climate science understanding that results in people learning to be less harmful, including voting for representatives who will be less harmful and more helpful leaders. That includes efforts on Twitter until it becomes clear that there is no longer a significant number of people remaining on Twitter who are interested in developing the common sense understanding of the need to rapidly end fossil fuel use and curtail other harmful ‘desired activity’.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

peppers at 10:25 AM on 3 January, 2023

HI One Plant,

I really appreciate discussing this w you. Much of this topic of population is to be based in common sense. The new input taking us from 1 to 8 billion now, it happened all across the world. America tripled, China tripled adding a billion. The starving areas represent about a billion, just under I hope, and once they get past finding food security, they too want to live as full a life as possible. So I think there is a narrowing as new tech makes more available, more will step up wanting it and being able to access it. Many examples of tech/competition working toward that. And as we get back on track to solve world hunger, there is another original billion, as the number we started with in 1900 again, ready to add thier consumerism, for a better life, for the same reasons we chose it as well.

I think a larger solution needs considering, and atomic would fill that bill.

The fossil fuel is why the co2 has increased, and mostly its manmade. But we cannot undo 8 billion, going to 10 they say.

This is my opinion, and it is where all ideas begin, as opinions. I cannot censor others because I now want to call their opinion harmful misunderstandings. Thats the primary point I had. Its that you cannot say you are right and all others are wrong, because we cant do that. Its not aggresive or meant to down anywhere. But we have to keep thinking to work on anything, and freedom to think and express is very much desirable. If you say I am right and all else are harmful misunderstandings. Well.

Mexico is a per capita rate of 3.58 for Co2, Venesuela 5.89. Yet we have let 11 million in to our 15.52 per capita USA. Political is against us. Natural thriving is against. This is only for me Forever, but an approach that can address this has me running in to all these factors, as I try and understand it to formula a solution.

But this does not make me a harmful misunderstander.

Thanks tons, D

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

One Planet Only Forever at 12:29 PM on 31 December, 2022

Reviewing all of the comments helped me develop the following response to peppers @86. I hope it is helpful.

The following questions hopefully establish a common understanding regarding the harm done by the proliferation of misunderstandings on a public-service system like Twitter.

Note: The harmful results of efforts to delay or diminish the awakening of understanding of harm being done, including the attempts to over-power or threaten people who try to help others learn to be less harmful, is not restricted to climate science.

Important questions for everyone:

1. Do you understand how Bayes’ theorem explains the way (perhaps the only way) that humans ‘minimize conflict of interests by developing and improving common sense understanding’? Ideological indoctrination will make people resist following Bayes’ theorem and fail to develop common sense understanding. Problematic beliefs include:

cheaper and easier (or more profitable, or more desired) justifies/excuses harm done

richer and more powerful people are excused for being more harmful because they can afford to, and are able to, be more harmful

harm done (to Others) can be excused if benefits are obtained (by the In Group).

Ideological beliefs can reduce conflicts within a group (or nation or group of nations). But the resulting group will increase their conflict with Others. Limiting the harm of global conflict requires everyone, or at least all leaders, to apply Bayes’ theorem in pursuit of improved awareness and understanding of what is harmful and how to be less harmful and more helpful to Others (that is the origin of important learning and presentations of understanding like the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the IPCC, and the Sustainable Development Goals).

2. Do you accept that all of the Climate Myths presented under the Arguments tab are misunderstandings that everyone can learn to better understand? If not, revisit the Arguments after understanding the next question.

3. Do you accept that it is harmful to believe and propagate misunderstandings that would delay learning about the importance of rapidly ending fossil fuel use? Wouldn’t it be easier for everyone to learn to be less harmful and more helpful if there was less repetition of harmful misunderstandings, less temptation to excuse harmful actions? Wouldn’t it be better if there was a public gallery of misunderstandings with comprehensive, open to improvement, explanations everyone could learn from (like the SkS Arguments list)? Wouldn’t it be great if every posting that included a repetition of a misunderstanding directed viewers to the appropriate, already established, educational rebuttal?

4. Do you accept that a high level Ethical/Moral Rule is “Be less harmful (when possible)”? I admit that being harmless is not possible. To live you have to harm other life. But sustainable living is possible. It requires distinguishing ‘Needs essential to living’ from ‘All other desires’. The harm done by meeting essential needs can only be limited to ‘pursuing the least harmful ways to ensure those essential needs are met – By/For Everyone’. Desires, however, are not necessary. Desires should be screened/governed/limited so that the only desires acted on would be sustainable (without accumulating harm) if everybody did the desired action to the same degree (relates to the problem of developing people being tempted to want to live like the harmfully over-developed who are perceived to be superior).

That brings us to the population question raised by peppers. More people on the planet does result in more restrictions on ‘desired actions’. It also makes the provision of everyone’s essential needs more harmful. An understood solution is pursuing, and improving on, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Learning about the SDGs leads to understanding that pursuit of the goals would reduce the harmfulness of the developed and developing populations. And a recent research report in the Lancet “Fertility, mortality, migration, and population scenarios for 195 countries and territories from 2017 to 2100: a forecasting analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study” indicates that achieving the SDGs would also be expected to reduce the peak global population, primarily due to the birth-rate reductions expected to occur in societies with ‘more educated and freer women’.

Also, the more harmful the climate change impacts are the harder it is to achieve the SDGs. Exceeding 1.0 C of impact has been identified as entering the realm of significant risk of harm. Refer to my comment regarding the Story of the Week “1.5 and 2°C: A Journey Through the Temperature Target That Haunts the World” in the “2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #50”

With the above established, responses to specific statements made by Peppers @86 are as follows:

Responding to the population question point that “The causation is fossil fuels, the proliferation of them. But if it is the explosion of bodies from 1 to 8B, exactly matching the rise of Co2, is ID'd as the cause, then our solution would be re-thought as well.”

nigelj’s response @88 is great. But there is more.

The problem is admitted to be fossil fuels. But there is no admission of the need to ‘end the harm of fossil fuel use’. Not mentioning the harmful unsustainability of the ways of living developed by the ‘supposedly more superior people that Others aspire to be like’ indicates a lack of understanding of the basics of the issue (refer to the questions above).

Also, saying “An important part of my 8 billion comment goes past the division of consumption calcs, which I understood too...”, indicates more may be going on than a lack of understanding. Claiming that the comment regarding population “looks past” the fact that a small portion of the population has massive harmful impact is questionable. It is looking through, or looking around, or looking away from the understanding that more harmful people have to make more, and more rapid, corrections of how they live and that developing people should be helped to develop more sustainable lives with the least harmful transition through the fossil fuel use phase of development (waiting for technological developments that will be cheaper and more popular to end the harm done will fail without increased awareness and effective governing to limit misunderstanding and related harm done. Technological solutions, like nuclear, could be unsustainable and harmful like the problem they were believed to solve).

The problem is made worse by people perceiving the more harmful people to be superior. That misunderstanding could cause people to want to develop to be ‘part of that group and live like they do’. Developing a sustainable solution requires all of the ‘perceived to be superior people (not just the ones who care to learn to be less harmful and more helpful to Others)’ leading the rapid transition/correction past (away from) fossil fuel use.

Responding to the “One Planet, If you can decide your are so correct in defining that more input is deemed impossible to add anything, then you could move forward with the censoring and re-education plan. The world has seen that before however, and they are still reflecting, what were we thinking?”

Common sense understanding of the pursuit of improved awareness and understanding of what is harmful and how to be less harmful and more helpful to Others is not ‘my decision or definition’. It is common sense ethics/morality.

Claiming that limiting the influence of the proliferation of misunderstanding is ‘censorship’ is a misunderstanding.
Using the term re-education rather than saying ‘learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others’ is a misrepresentation because re-education has negative connotations that do not apply to learning to be less harmful and more helpful.

What the world ‘has seen before’ is the result of harmful misunderstandings becoming popular and powerful. That results in ideological indoctrination of populations (with nationalism and other selfish interests). And that causes the resulting population to powerfully and harmfully conflict with Others. They collectively resist learning to be less harmful and more helpful to Others. People should reflect on ‘Seeing what happened’ (continues to happen) within many political groups in many nations. Many groups become increasingly resistant to learning about ‘the harmful results’ of fossil fuel use. People should also reflect on and how other harmful beliefs are embraced by those groups as they ‘wrap themselves in flags’ and pursue the ability to have more influence to be more harmful.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

peppers at 21:19 PM on 29 December, 2022

One Planet, thanks for quoting me.

An important part of my 8 billion comment goes past the division of consumption calcs, which I understood too; the case load on affecting Co2 is more in the developed nations. But all these new people are not static. They all want how others live as well, once they get past that days meals. 91% of the world having a smartphone just indicates, everyone wants one. And everyone wants to live as involved a life as they can achieve the lifestyle of. The causation is fossil fuels, the proliferation of them. But if it is the explosion of bodies from 1 to 8B, exactly matching the rise of Co2, is ID'd as the cause, then our solution would be re-thought as well. Corobaration of this would involve; has there been a rise in fossil burning vehicles and equipment, the movement of the secondary market of prior technology in to 3rd world areas, etc. As technology progresses to solve these emitters, as anything becomes cheaper and more prevalent, it will also increase in quantity of use as there is a horde of new people waiting to rise in comsumptive activity. This cannot be a toss away factor. I am interested in this 800% population increase factor.

Free speech is a nessesity in seeking truth. It may be inconvienient, but I would not want to be wrong because I wouldnt listen anymore.

NIgelj, your Regarding Hate Speech in 83 nails it. It is deciding definitions that is the core of the concepts problem.

One Planet, If you can decide your are so correct in defining that more input is deemed impossible to add anything, then you could move forward with the censoring and re-education plan. The world has seen that before however, and they are still reflecting, what were we thinking? There is no solice in numbers. Its an understandable impatience but a wrong conclusion (for me).

You have good input about my mention of sueing people who make false statements about someone/something. If categorized as regulating, I would not want more regs to even more regulate an area. Do we need more legal, etc.? To combat disinformation, maybe an action in to journalism, which starkly divides news from editorial. The news area would have to be heavily proved (or not stated there then) and all else can exist in editorial. Disinformation would be harder or not possible to pass as fact then?

Thx all, D

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

nigelj at 16:01 PM on 28 December, 2022

Regarding twitter. I think OPOF is right about twitter. If it was to devolve into a cess pool of mostly obnoxious people spreading hate or misinformation you would probably not want to be part of that. Even if you used twitter just to connect with sensible people, it may be a bad look to be part of the twitter system.

Regarding free speech and suing people. If people had the ability to sue other people in civil court just because they didnt like what someone said, or they felt it was misinformation or hateful speech, I fear this would have a destructive effect on discussion, because plenty of people would no longer participate in discussions out of fear of being sued. So such a proposition would be anti free speech.

I understand that Alex Jones was convicted for making false claims about a school schooting, but that was under a fairly narrowly focused existing law and that seems entirely appropriate to me. Hopefully it gets through to the totally obnoxious man that his conspiracy theory had no basis in fact and that he should reconsider his views. However sadly some people become stubbornly attached to their views and unable to move on.

Regarding hate speech. The New Zealand did consider hate speech law. The problem was the governmnet defining "hate" and defining which things should be included and gender, race, religion and disabled people were considered. There was a lot of public pushback that for example you would no longer be able to criticise religion or discuss gender issues even if done politely. So while I intensely dislike bigotry and so forth I lean towards free speech with just a few minimal and focused restrictions. Yes if you had strong censorship smart people can find a way of discussing whatever they want through careful language but I believe most people would just give up participating out of fear and this is to everyones detriment.

We have to be able to discuss things, fairly easily and openly and without fearing that just about anything we say could get us sued, convicted, fined or thrown off websites or comments deleted, so restrictions need to be fairly minimal.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

peppers at 12:02 PM on 28 December, 2022

Rob, I mixed you w Bob again! So sorry. Thats two!

NIgelj,

If they open some ability for all to sue if false statements, liable or defamation is there, then the market will take care of this. That would be better than even more regs.

This site and folks do fine, and this is a hard place to manage. I have spoken of tolerance but Im not sure how I would hold up here, every time I mean.

I watch old Johnny Carson reruns and they were not allowed to say the name of a competing network if they needed to ID a show elsewhere. I am sure I will also evolve and there are more than several levels of censorship, some I agree with. Such as business competition. But not in other locates.

Best again, D

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

nigelj at 05:51 AM on 28 December, 2022

Bob Loblaw at 74

Thanks for the comments. I get where you are coming from.

One clarification. I didnt mean that this website specifically deletes comments and I wasn't being critical of them for doing that. I was just speaking generally.

This websites moderation policy actually seems generally quite well considered to me. Comments are deleted if they ramble off topic, make wild claims without reference to scientific literature or that just get repetitive. People only have to obey a few simple rules to get their opinion published. Some people just resist this then get all agitated. They are either arrogant or just not very bright.

The point is this website doesnt delete opinions just because it doesnt agree with them. People get a generally fair go. So the level of 'censorship' on this website is acceptable, but I would say its right at the upper limit of whats appropriate.

Yes Fox News is absolutely selective and biased. However this is not an excuse for us to do ever do the same. We should always strive to be objective. If there is a bias or adherence to some ideology it should be advertised: The economist.com does this nicely in its mission statement but I cant find thething now to copy and paste. It was something along the lines that they lean centre right economically and towards free trade but are not adverse to governments having some involvement in the economy. And that they lean liberal socially. So readers know their philosophical leaning

Yes we all get that there have to be some limits on free speech. Its entirely about where one draws the line in the sand. Governments impose some limits on free speech. I have no problem with that in principle and generally they are fairly minimal in western countries and that is to my preference.

The NZ governmnet goes slightly beyond some countries because it has laws against racist speech and this makes sense to me for reasons stated up thread. Its been considering hate speech law but has given up for now, because its so difficult to define hate speech and there has been a lot of push back against potentially suppressing discussion because almost anything could be labelled hate. This seems like a valid concern to me.

But its not only governments that can limit free speech. My main concern is what websites do and I lean towards fairly minimal moderation. You and Electic seem to lean towards quite strong censorship on websites. Six months ago my views were virtually identical to Electics on this. So similar its quite startling. Now I just wonder if strong censorship might do more harm than good. I think the trigger was our governmnets attempts to bring in hate speech laws. It just doesnt seem possible to define adequately or practically viable and is too likely to suppress opinion, and just too Orwellian for me.

I'm sure you and Eclectic would do a good fair minded job of moderation of such issues, but its other people I worry about.

So back to Twitter. It is not entirely clear what Musk is up to yet. However it appears he leans strongly towards libertarian values and free speech and against censorship, and it appears he is not going to be banning people or deleting comments unless they are inciting criminal activity or are just being extremely verbally abusive and bullying.

One problem is there isnt another website offering a similar service to Twitter to my knowledge. Given I have my doubts about hate speech laws, and the lack of alternatives to Twitter, I dont think this website should feel it has to abandon Twitter at this stage. FWIW.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

Eclectic at 15:04 PM on 27 December, 2022

Nigelj @67 :

Agreed. Woke is nowadays an ugly term. AFAICT it started as a somewhat light-hearted label, and then was seized by the non-woke and used as an all-purpose bludgeon in the identity-politics game. The word has now become almost meaningless, other than distinguishing "them" from "us the good people".

Sad when any meaningful word loses its meaning. For example, in the USA the word "socialist" has no actual meaning for 90% of the population. It is just a bludgeon used by many politicians. Impossible to have a genuine discussion using that word, because the hearer automatically short-circuits his brain into "evil enemy ... evil enemy ... Spawn of Satan ... etc." [Shades of "1984" language-shaping, eh!] And yet the same hearer is happy to accept his farm subsidy or his Social Security cheque or his Medicare-ized hospital treatment, etcetera.

Possibly, in time, the term Woke can be rehabilitated into something light-hearted and useful . . . by overusing the word and applying it to everything in sight (and especially to right-wing attitudes & activities). By making it so greasy that it can't be grasped as a weapon.

Back on topic ~ for Twitter etcetera I would prefer to be over-censored than under-censored. Much less harm done, that way. Those who wish to have an intelligent public conversation, can find indirect ways & allusions to discuss issues (by treading a tad carefully). And the truly anti-social citizens will always continue to use their echochambers & dark spaces ~ but they won't get condoned or "normalized" in the public gaze.

To some extent, laws follow public sentiment. But the converse also applies ~ and George Bernard Shaw points out how laws can shape public sentiment, over time. Useful, to start with good laws. (Think: the Anti-Slavery laws).

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

nigelj at 12:14 PM on 27 December, 2022

Eclectic @66

The woke label annoys me as well, however these days Im quite happy to be labelled woke and I tend to respond that yes Im woke because I dont like bigotry and racism. Whats wrong with that? They grind their teeth about that.

I promoted the normally accepted minimal constraints on free speech, and Peppers did agree, but one gets the suspicion its with reluctance and a certain lack of commitment.

Thanks for your clear statements on the censorship issue. I have contemplated the same approach to things and I tend to agree it comes down to commonsense. However I just dont know if I trust some team at google or whatever organisation to use much commonsense. There is enormous possibility of over moderation, and of shutting down discussion and sending it onto the dark web to fester, or non moderated websites, and thus reinforcing tribalism and group think and of further alienating the conservative leaning section of society by shutting down their views. And you have people like Musk who clearly lean towards very free speech.

Our government has actually made racist speech illegal. This all well intended and I loathe racist views, but as a result some of our websites wont allow the public to post comments on articles discussing racial issues, and also issues connected to gender, presumably because they are afraid of transgressing the law by letting a bad comment slip through their moderation, or getting a lot of complaints. This is a serious unintended consequence of censorship. Some racial issues should be discussed and debated, sensitively of course.

So yeah I totally get where you are coming from, but censorship needs a light touch and a lot of commonsense.

Existing long standing laws against inciting criminal activity can be used to shut down the worst of the hate speech. Sometimes we already have the tools, and generally accepted tools but just dont use them well enough.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

Eclectic at 10:45 AM on 27 December, 2022

Nigelj @63 ,

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year ! . . . or should I more wokely say "Happy Holidays" ?

Judging by his earlier comments, "he" is clearly very much opposed to any limitations/restrictions in the public sphere [includes privately-owned media platforms]. In trying to untangle later comments of his, it still seems to me that he is emotionally attached to the idea "Four Legs Good; Censorship Bad". Outright. And, he completely steered away from debating any of my instances of the desirability of censorshipping.

Putting all that aside, I return to the ideas that:

(A) since censorship is essential in a functioning society, the real question is where the (fuzzy?) line is drawn. A difficult matter. IMO, the practical criterion/standard must be common sense. Of which there is not enough in the world. Yet a sort of committee of respectable Google employees is an example of a good start [Musk-free]. Not perfect ~ but like "democracy" it is perhaps the best we can do. ~And disagreements should be devolved to the Lowest Common Denominator level (so to speak).

and (B) there is a strong reason for censorship in the public sphere (and it is reinforced by the range and flash-fire speed of modern electronic communications). It is not that our delicate ears may be offended by statements which are unsuited to genteel Drawing Room conversations. But it is that multiplier effect which I mentioned earlier. The madness of crowds, the amplification of the more evil tendencies in human nature.

~ Whether by open statements, or by dog-whistles : the Overton Window of thoughts & actions can shift rapidly in an evil direction. (Witness recent hate crimes and recent political events.)

In other words, there should not be vastly different censorship thresholds in the various large & small social settings (public or private). Sadly, it is human nature ~ but minimal censorship produces minimal health in society. Mr Alex Jones is just one tip of a nasty & dangerous iceberg.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

nigelj at 10:12 AM on 27 December, 2022

Bob Loblow @64,

"Shouting "my free speech was censored/suppressed/violated" if a web service refuses to allow it is not my idea of "free speech"."

I agree with you if you mean the website is refusing to allow people to post any comments at all, or refusing to allow abusive, or off topic comments. Websites are as you say privately owned and totally entitled to do that, and it doesnt suppress opinion which is the essence of what matters.

But what about the website refusing to allow comments or opinions that they just dont like, for example climate denialist comments, warmist comments, comments that promote creationism or that criticise evolution, or that express hatred, or are are factually innacurate, (eg the world is flat or covid has only killed 20,000 people globally) ? They are entitled to do that if they want, but to me that is suppressing free speech. Its intruding a long way into what opinions are allowed, and is censorship that goes right against the liberal world view. Although I might make an exception for the covid claim on grounds that blatant lies like that can fool some gullable people and end up killing lots of people.

I'm trying to get some sense of where you think the line in the sand should be drawn on moderation of what people post. I confess I'm having some trouble deciding just how far websites should go with that form of moderation, although I did try to express what I think above thread and it leans towards minimal moderation. Yes its their business if they are privately owned, but to me that is not the point.

"Shouting "my free speech was censored/suppressed/violated" when someone else says something against what you said is also not my idea of "free speech"."

Agree totally. See this all the time, unfortunately. I constantly challenge these people and point out they are confusing things and their claim is illogical.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

Bob Loblaw at 09:05 AM on 27 December, 2022

nigelj @ 63.

...but web sites are not "public spaces". Web sites are more like publications, such as newspapers. Publicly visible for reading, but not necessarily publicly accessible for writing.

Newspapers usually invite Letters to the Editor, but very few are actually published. They may accept unsolicited opinion pieces, but few of those will make it into print. Newspapers with online material may or may not allow comments, and these may or may not be moderated. It's up to them.

"Free speech" means that someone can set up their own web page. It does not mean that any web page needs to allow any material from anyone. "Free speech" does not mean that anyone has to listen to you or pay attention to you.

Shouting "my free speech was censored/suppressed/violated" if a web service refuses to allow it is not my idea of "free speech".

Shouting "my free speech was censored/suppressed/violated" when someone else says something against what you said is also not my idea of "free speech".

Far too often, it seems that the people shouting "my free speech was censored/suppressed/violated" are really wanting to speak unopposed - they want their "free speech", but they don't want others to have the same right (whatever that "right" is). Do as I say, not as I do.

You can argue whether Twitter is a service that must accept all and everything - I raised the issue of a "common carrier" in comment #11. Web services need to be careful with what they allow and support, as they may become legally liable for material they publish. I'm not sure Alex Jones is the "free speech" model we want to follow.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

nigelj at 07:49 AM on 27 December, 2022

Eclectic @60, I largely agree with you, but my comment was restricted to peppers views on censoring of free speech, and he clearly does accept some limits. So its not black and white for him.

I've expalined my views on free speech in my previous comment, and that limits should be fairly minimal in public doman places like websites. Would be interested in your feedback on that even if you violently disagree. If you have a spare moment. I'm wrestling a bit with the issue because free speech is important, but the internet has turbo charged the spread of misinformation and this is very bad news. Reconciling the two is not looking easy.

Bob Loblaw @61

Yes. Like I said his views are rather opaque!

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

Bob Loblaw at 07:22 AM on 27 December, 2022

nigelj:

The problem with reading between the lines in Peppers posts is that you can find bits that show him sort of agreeing with those reasonable controls, but then he posts additional stuff that sounds like it comes from a point of "everything is fair game" viewpoint. Add in a few bits that look like "everyone's opinion is as good as any other, and there is no right answer" and it looks like an apologist's perspective on defending the behaviour you think he (Peppers) agrees is wrong.

There is a tremendous inconsistency in Peppers' stated positions. He uses "free speech", "censorship", "woke movement", "cancel culture", and similar terms in exactly the sort of pejorative dog-whistle style that is toxic for reasonable discussion. I am willing to entertain the possibility that he does not realize he is doing this - but he really needs to sit back and think about his position(s) and how to choose to communicate them.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

nigelj at 06:33 AM on 27 December, 2022

Guys, I agree with you on most things, but you might be misinterpreting what Peppers is saying on free speech. The trouble is his stuff is a bit opaque. Just have a closer read and read between the lines.

I believe hes saying he is strongly in favour of free speech in the public domain but he does accept some limitations / censoring, such as laws against inciting criminal activity, defamation law, and moderation policy forbidding name calling, off topic and spamming. He is pretty obviously saying keep limitations very minimal, and dont censor peoples opinions even if they are crazy or a bit unpleasant. I dont want to have to speak for others like this, but it needs something to stop things going off the rails. Although all individual comments are interesting to me.

I'm inclined to agree Peppers on the free speech issue (but not much else). Free speech seems very fundamental and having too many limitations on free speech is a big problem. Facebook and Twitter have tried to eliminate misinformation and so called hate speech, and they mean well but it needs an army of people and could easily be abused to delete content they simply disagree with. George Orwells novel 1984 sums up the problem perfectly.

Its better to have the nonsense largely out in the public domain where it can be debunked. Maybe with a few exceptions that are life threatening (promoting that "covid is harmless"). I can accept censoring that sort of thing if experts are saying it and so could be taken seriously.

And nobody has to host sub groups like 8chan devoted to obvious and blatant denigration of minority groups that is bordering on inciting violence. A bit of commonsense does come into it.

This websites moderation policy seems pretty good and sophisticated, and its limits on speech are fairly minimal and appropriate. People are also given plenty of warnings.

Quite willing to change my view if anyone can convince me with sensible reasoning.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

Eclectic at 12:41 PM on 26 December, 2022

@53 Peppers ~ you are under a severe misapprehension.

There has never been a human society with a broad "right to speak" (in the sense you mean: of unrestricted broad freedom). You are imagining a Golden Age which never actually existed.

Not even in the micro-society of your own household is there an unrestricted freedom to be abusive/ insulting/ threatening/ demeaning, etcetera. Or if your household does indulge in such behavior, then I confidently predict an early demise of the household.

No "broad right" in the time of Socrates or Cyrus, or in any century before or since. Not even in the time of Jefferson or Lincoln, Eisenhower or Bush snr. Every functioning society has restrictions ~ restrictions applied through good laws and/or bad repressive laws, through politeness or customary etiquette, or through plain old common sense and decency.

Peppers, you are out of touch with human reality. Please come down to Earth, and have a major re-think of your opinions.

Twitter and free-speech/censorship are very much the topic of this thread. The Original Post said it well, though narrowly. IMO it is the right decision for Twitterati to stay on Twitter and continue to fight the good fight . . . preferably without investing a debilitating amount of effort. Conceivably, the pendulum will eventually swing in a healthier direction sometime in the future. [Post-Musk!] Mastodon deserves to thrive, but may not be able to achieve the more universal usefulness of Twitter.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

peppers at 06:53 AM on 26 December, 2022

BaerbelW

That was not the angle of the topic. In your sense, yes you can. There was a prior post about harm and retraining folks not agreeing, etc.

The only thing I would add would be about being welcoming to new posters. Its frustrating to hear the same ole, over again. But generally newly in's will bring those. And it will feel like work to repeat it all, but you may convert more. This is a small point.

And I have just said its best to close. There is a lot of disagreement around free speech Im surprised to find. Maybe there isnt as broad a right to speak anymore.

We recently heard about some peoples calling something foreign disinformation, censoring it and falsely advancing their group. I thought that was cheating and they were acting badly. They quelled free speech. Maybe this is just ok now and thats the new baseline. I hope to always hear the truth here.

Merry Christmas, D

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

BaerbelW at 04:41 AM on 26 December, 2022

peppers

What you fail to understand is, that we can make rules for what can be posted as comments on our website, it's called the comments policy and when you and others registered you agreed to abide by it. One of the rules states:

No sloganeering. Comments consisting of simple assertion of a myth already debunked by one of the main articles, and which contain no relevant counter argument or evidence from the peer reviewed literature constitutes trolling rather than genuine discussion. As such they will be deleted.

So, we expect commenters to make sure that they are not simply repeating already and long-debunked myths about human-caused global warming before posting a comment. If they still do and we delete the comment, it's not censoring by any stretch of the imagination and it's also not an infringement on the commenter's right to free speech as others have already pointed out. Our website, our rules. Nobody is forcing you to post comments here after all.

As a general aside: We also have a rule for "All comments must be on topic." and I'm not really sure how many of the comments posted in this thread are actually on topic as far as our Twitter & Mastodon involvement go. How about calling it quits instead of running - or posting - in circles?

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

nigelj at 08:20 AM on 25 December, 2022

Peppers @40

"The definition of what is a harmful misunderstanding from one people, one culture, one gender, class standing, etc., to another cannot be defined to concluded that all should be and think and do only as you do. "
I disagree. Harmful misunderstandings are defined where there is good scientific evidence and consensus. Science is also a universal language that cuts across cultures.

However I do think people should still be allowed to challenge all consensus scientific positions, and other views, in the public realm like websites and in the scientific literature.

Censorship of opinion and information worries me, (with very limited exceptions like inciting violence, defamation law, etc, etc) because a well intended process can so easily be abused and go terribly wrong, and you would need a huge army of people trying to enforce it. People should read George Orwells 1984.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

Eclectic at 20:19 PM on 23 December, 2022

Peppers @25 and prior : with your permission I will add a comment on your statements.

You have allowed your thinking to become muddled, and you are not looking clearly at the reality of the situation. (But why is that the case?)

For example : you are making the logical error of using binary thinking in regard to "death threats". Sorry, Peppers, but death threats are not a separate category, but are toward one end of a spectrum - a continuum - of antisocial thoughts/actions.

And individuals (at various times) can slide back & forth along that spectrum. And they can by their speech influence other individuals, pushing those ones further along the spectrum. In other words, a multiplier effect occurs (the madness of crowds is an example - but there are many other examples).

Peppers, it is disappointing that you are not very aware of such tendencies of human nature. The lessons of history, and your own personal observations of life experience, should have educated yourself about it all.

Rather than taking a doctrinaire/dogmatic view against censorship, it would be better if you simply applied common sense to the issue. And there, a possible short-cut is to ask yourself :- "What view would Ben Franklin or Abe Lincoln or other wise/ heroic/ saintly (etc) historical person take, in the modern hi-tech situation?"

The second question to ask yourself is :- What deep emotional influences are causing my (Peppers) extraordinary amount of motivated reasoning in arguing for a position so opposed to common sense.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

nigelj at 15:52 PM on 23 December, 2022

Peppers @25

At no point have I promoted censorship of information. In fact @15 I indicated I oppose censorship of information and opinion other than 1)the usual time and place restrictions, and 2) website moderation rules forbidding personal abuse, off topic and spamming 3) racism and inciting violence. Defamation law also has its place. Do you oppose any of those sorts of limits?

To briefly answer your other questions. Disinformation is deliberately spreading false information. Misinformation is spreading false information. These are standard dictionary definitions. False information is determined by a consensus view of experts and sometimes by the courts. They are always open to challenge but until the consensus changes false information is false information.

I will label peoples views harmful If I deem them to be harmful. I assume you agree that theives, murderes and environmental polluters to be harmful? I also consider covid deniers to be harmful. Its normal for humans to make judgements about harm, and sometimes require penalties to discourage harmful activities (like theft) or to compensate people, because its part of how we survive and prosper. Sometimes we make the wrong judgements, but making no judgements will get us all killed.

Of course its needs to be genuine and significant harm based on evidence and responses need to be proportionate to the type of harm. Taking some level of risk in life is also healthy. So its a nuanced issue. IMHO.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

peppers at 13:26 PM on 23 December, 2022

Hi Nigel, What determines this disinformation? Is it what you say it is, or your group? That is censoring. That would be hubristic to determine you alone are right, or higher right. Let people speak. What is harmful to others? Is your censoring harmful to the freedom of others? Is something someone says you do not like or agree with, now recategorized as harmful, allowing you to censor and silence them in your estimation. Is that your process? That would be very wrong. Let people speak. It is the opposite of hubris to know, without losing your stance, what are the motivations, meanings, precedence, progeny, needs, desires and fears of other viewpoints, which can strengthen your own original stance. Or allow you to benefit from it if impressed. Or you will also watch it whither on itself if wrong. But let everyone speak. My grandmother said to give everyone a clean sheet of paper, and let them mark it up themselves. Dont label me (or someone) as 'harmful', simply in your limited view ( lacking other input), and assail my rights to influence my world too. All should speak. Nor is this the function of government or leaders, to influence freedom of speech in any way. BTW, death threats are another category. But absent that phenom, it is too dangerous to call anything else 'dangerous' to eliminate other rights of speech and assembly.

I am referring to within the zone of your own comments about the spirit of free speech. Not within science processes.

We’ll keep tweeting (for now) but have also started tooting.

peppers at 22:17 PM on 22 December, 2022

Rob Honeycutt, free speech is in the category of free culture and religion, etc. You may be christian but some worship muslim, judaism, et al. You cannot decide yours is only it and call all others as toxic. For speech, you also seem to reference free speech in only one category, death threat, and apply that backwards up the rope. Free speech includes hate speech becuse you cannot say just your viewpoint counts. America allowed the Nazi party to continue through the 50's here, based on freedom rights to religion, to assemble, freedom of points of view. ( do we assemble online now?). I think sad and dangerous viewpoints have their own reward anbd you do not need to operate using the tactics and pronouns so that you can homogenize america to just your viewpoint. We already agree that the content of the hate speech is wrong, even dispicable. You end up commiting a greater unamerican behavior to toss out pronouns and censor others, than the failure destined opinions they may state which will sink them on their own when left to the public.

2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #48

Eclectic at 18:10 PM on 8 December, 2022

TahitiSunset @2 : You are absolutely correct. Censorship is a deadly weapon leading inevitably to the collapse of Western Civilization and all we hold dear.

Everyone has the right to free speech : even in favor of child pornography & child sexual abuse, and including discussing construction of terrorist bombs (and how best to shoot-up electrical transformer stations) or how to make/release poison gas or to spread anthrax or how to assassinate public officials (in the Capitol or elsewhere) . . . and so on. Censorship is absolutely wrong and can never ever be justified.

I also admire your stand on the strawman argument regarding mass exterminations (except where ordered by the Anonymous Q , for the purpose of countering the Great Replacement). We are in furious agreement about that !

TahitiSunset , it seems you have been comatosely unaware of social developments during the past 30+ years. And unaware of human nature ~ and the madness of crowds.

2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #45

One Planet Only Forever at 09:27 AM on 14 November, 2022

wayne,

The past few years have been 'weak la nina'. The history of ENSO can be seen in the NOAA ONI values.

Though the ONI is not the only factor determining ENSO events (there is also the SOI and other factors), the ONI values indicate that 2019 was the end of a weak el nino event. And that el nino condition may have been reflected in the higher 2020 value (note that 2020 was a little warmer than 2019). The weak la nina condition started in 2020 and continues through today. And ENSO isn't the only 'variable influence' causig temporary global average values to peak above or below the 'long term average line'.

The point remains that the 1.2 C warmer global average of 2020 does not represent the value of average warming as shown by 2021 and 2022.

2022 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #42

scvblwxq1 at 10:55 AM on 1 November, 2022

Dear Moderator,

My only point about the robot CO2 sensor was that it measured both CO2 release and absorption by the ocean so both those two actions are happening. I saw it on a video a while back so I didn't have a link to post.

No, a cherry-picked analysis doesn’t demonstrate that we’re not in a climate crisis

Bob Loblaw at 23:37 PM on 10 October, 2022

Eric:

Ahhh, you're familiar with and participate in CoCoRaHS. That's good. That is an important volunteer network that helps fill in a lot of gaps in the North American precipitation monitoring network.

The 1-minute record precipitation value you link to is interesting. The paper chart system used in that measurement is very simlar to what you see in this Wikipedia image of a thermo-hygrograph:

The paper is mounted on a drum that rotates on a clock mechanism. The measurement system controls a pen that moves up and down. Since the pen follows an arc, the lines of equal time on the chart are curved. In the case of the Fischer-Porter precipitation gauge, full travel covers 6 inches of precipitation - but the mechanism is double-jointed: you get 0-6" on an upward arc, then 6-12" on a downward arc. In the chart image on your link, you can see the 1,2,3,4,5 - 7,8,9,10,11 markings on the left-most chart. Quite the mechanical design!

The link that I gave in comment #12 has further details on the recording of precipitation from the US Fischer-Porter network, including a mention of the 15-minute measurements. Although they talk of a "Fischer-Porter" network, most of the automated systems in the US have been using the Geonor T-200 gauges for quite a long time. MSC also makes extensive use of those gauges, but is replacing them with Ott Puvio2 gauges. Fischer-Porter also morphed into Belfort (which still makes gauges), so you'll see that name commonly, too.

The US and Canada have been moving to more frequent readings than 15-minutes, but as I mentioned the character of the gauges is that the noise makes it very hard to detect small precipitation amounts.

Here are a few references to processing of data from the US network:

Baker, B. C., R. Buckner, W. Collins, and M. Phillips, 2005a: Calculation of USCRN precipitation from Geonor weighing precipitation gauge. NOAA Tech. Note NCDC-USCRN-05-1, 27 pp.

Baker, B. C., L. Larson, E. May, H. Bogin, and B. Collins, 2005b: Final report: Operational testing of various precipitation sensors in support of the United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN). NOAA Tech. Note NCDC-USCRN-05-2, 69 pp.

Leeper, Ronald D., Michael A. Palecki, and Egg Davis, 2015: Methods to Calculate Precipitation from Weighing-Bucket Gauges with Redundant Depth Measurements. J. Atmos. Oceanic Technol., 32, 1179–1190.

As for tipping buckets: at least in Canada they do collect data at one-minute intervals, although that data is not automatically visible to the general public. It is used in the IDF curve analysis I linked to earlier.

How climate change spurs megadroughts

Eric (skeptic) at 11:09 AM on 10 September, 2022

Thanks for the reference to the "History of ENSO..." and for the link that worked for me too. The paper references some of the same authors earlier work (e.g. Stahle 1998) for part of the reconstruction: Google Scholar for Stahle 1998. In that 1998 paper they say:

The reconstruction model relies heavily (though not exclusively; Table 1) on the tree-growth response in subtropical North America to wet conditions during El Nino years and dry conditions during La Nina years. However, this model does not uniquely fingerprint ENSO extremes because other circulation patterns can bring drought or wetness to the Texas-Mexico region

It is complicated and the correlation is being used for a reconstruction, not a study of North American drought or causation. As Stahle 1998 points out the drought and wetness has other causes.

I looked through some of the references from History of ENSO and found there were suggestions of more intense and/or prolonged ENSO as early as 1996 (Trenberth and Hoar):

The late 20th century contained a number of extreme and prolonged ENSO episodes (Trenberth and Hoar 1996), including the two most intense El Niños (1982– 1983 and 1997–1998) and La Niñas (1988–1989, 1973–1974).

I think the evidence for prolonged and more intense ENSO cycles is stronger now. Some papers that cite the History of ENSO paper and use that same history to study other drought and rainfall effects. One is Multicentury Evaluation of Recovery from Strong Precipitation Deficits in California which looks at the role of very strong El Nino (e.g. 2016) in drought recovery (2012-15 drought) in California. Note that paper does not look at what role if any that La Nina had, just the role of strong El Nino in drought recovery.

We know from further experience that the 2016 recovery didn't last long. Any effect of global warming on the sign of ENSO will be important if ENSO is an important factor in drought and drought recovery. Also prolonged La Nina like the current one will be problematic if it causes drought and is prolonged by global warming.

How climate change spurs megadroughts

One Planet Only Forever at 06:20 AM on 10 September, 2022

Doug Bostrom,

The potential ENSO problem is indeed a significant concern, and is well summarized in the following quote from the abstract:

"Although extreme ENSO events are seen throughout the 478-year ENSO reconstruction, approximately 43% of extreme and 28% of all protracted ENSO events (i.e. both El Niño and La Niña phase) occur in the 20th century. The post-1940 period alone accounts for 30% of extreme ENSO years observed since A.D. 1525. These results suggest that ENSO may operate differently under natural (pre-industrial) and anthropogenic background states. As evidence of stresses on water supply, agriculture and natural ecosystems caused by climate change strengthens, studies into how ENSO will operate under global warming should be a global research priority."

Of course, a major part of the problem is the powerful developed bias against any research that is considered to:

be less likely to produce short-term economic benefits than other research

potentially require external governing to limit harm done by desired activity that is beneficial to some but harmful to others (popular or profitable among beneficiaries who are able to compromise 'governing actions' - misguiding research funding and other ways of penalizing 'Institutions of Learning' to make them more compliant 'pursuers of desired types of learning')

potentially require the rapid ending of a developed popular or profitable activity by external governing and penalty to bring about a more rapid ending of the activity to limit the total harm done.

Undeniably climate change research unintentionally produced these 'learning and research fears and threats' triggering a massive harmful aggressive response from people who like to benefit from:

harmful unsustainable beliefs and actions

a lack of awareness of the harm done

excusing the harm done because of the benefits obtained

claiming that the future is always better so future generations will naturally create amazing improvements in spite of the harm being done to the ability of others, especially future generations, to live better lives.

Human willingness to be harmfully misled, or excuse and ignore the harm done, puts more than "Breakfast, lunch and dinner are under threat".

How climate change spurs megadroughts

One Planet Only Forever at 05:43 AM on 10 September, 2022

Doug @7,

That link did not work for me.

The link (here) got me to a page where a pdf of "A history of ENSO events since AD 1525: implications for future climate change" could be downloaded for Free.

How climate change spurs megadroughts

Doug Bostrom at 07:35 AM on 9 September, 2022

Germane by topic and extra useful thanks to its nature and hence collection of citations, Eric:

A history of ENSO events since AD 1525: implications for future climate change

Actually, not only Eric ought to take a look. We've got hydrometeorological problems. "People gotta eat." Breakfast, lunch and dinner are under threat.

How climate change spurs megadroughts

Eric (skeptic) at 00:31 AM on 9 September, 2022

Thanks for the feedback and suggestions. I want to clear up the dates for weaker monsoon since 2000 and La Nina since 1999. They are not related as far as I know, but they could be. The Pacific is cooler during La Nina and it is one of the two monsoon moisture sources for the SW US monsoon. Could be related in some other ways.

Monsoon weaker starting in 2000: NWS Phoenix monsoon data. Predominant La Nina starting in 1999: MEI Time Series (NOAA) from psl.noaa.gov/enso/mei/ Note that the monsoon statistics are only Phoenix AZ so a somewhat limited depiction. Also note that the MEI is one of several ENSO indexes. The Jan Null link provided above uses Nino 3.4 ocean temperatures. The regime change from El Nino (red in MEI link) to La Nina (blue in MEI link) doesn't show up nearly as much in the Nino 3.4 data.

I acknowldege my data is limited. But I believe drought is a natural occurrence affected by global warming. Drought will be more intense since warmer air holds more moisture from evaporation and transpiration. It can start sooner and end later for the same reason.

The climate.gov ENSO change analysis is very helpful. I believe however they should say the "switches" are affected in various ways by warming. It's not particularly useful to use "climate change" to describe cause and effect since climate change (not further defined) can be either cause or effect. The increase in amplitude is notable but their caveat is noted. I agree that the modeling is difficult and adding warming doesn't make it any easier. I think that added warmth doesn't necessarily change the sign of ENSO but wil enhance precipitation as they note, without adding much drought over the ocean (except possibly drier in the mid and upper levels). That could increase ENSO intensity since it is primary driven by precipitation.

I'll look at the hydrology material next.

How climate change spurs megadroughts

scaddenp at 09:13 AM on 7 September, 2022

Some analysis of whether ENSO has changed here. "There is no clear evidence that any changes since 1950 in ENSO are all that unusual." Even more so if proxy records are used. Also, it is incredibly unclear how global warming will change ENSO. "But regardless of any changes in ENSO sea surface temperatures, in intermediate to very high GHG scenarios, it is very likely that rainfall variability over the east-central tropical Pacific will increase significantly (4). Basically, we may expect El Niño to be wetter in this region and La Niña may be drier. "

That prediction seems to be holding.

How climate change spurs megadroughts

One Planet Only Forever at 06:17 AM on 7 September, 2022

Eric,

Please share more details of the basis for your comments regarding El Nino and La Nina. The presentation of the history of El Nino and La Nina by Jan Null (here) based on the NOAA ONI evaluations does not appear to show the dramatic difference before and after 2000 that you infer. I am also curious about the choice of 2000 for the dividing year and the limit of 1980, note the significance of La Nina in the 1970s).

Also, what is the basis for the claim about monsoons. My understanding is that changes of monsoon timing and intensity affect agriculture that has developed in monsoon affected regions (earlier or later can be a problem, significantly more or less rain can be a problem).

How climate change spurs megadroughts

Eric (skeptic) at 21:27 PM on 6 September, 2022

The connection between drought intensity and global warming is clear. However droughts start and end naturally and they should mention that there has been persistent La Nina since 1999. There have been four major La Nina and one major (super) El Nino. From 1980 to 1998 the numbers were reversed: four major El Nino and one major La Nina.

While persistent La Nina creating the present drought in the western US, it may be also be true that persistent El Nino and it's excess moisture masked the drying effects of global warming in 80's and 90's. Possibly separate from ENSO (not sure), there was a lack of monsoon rains starting in 2000. There was substantial monsoon this year which tempers evaporation in some locations.

Lawns will dry up; lush golf courses will disappear. The very character of the West - and of many arid parts of the globe - will be transformed

I would say "revert" and mostly for the better.

CO2 effect is saturated

Bob Loblaw at 23:28 PM on 6 August, 2022

OldHickory @ 646 and 648

Although you have not explicitly stated your definition of "saturation", the reference you provide to Barton Paul Levenson's web page suggests that you are making the argument based on transmission through a finite distance of a medium, as calculated from the Beer-Lambert law.

The Beer-Lambert Law is an exponential decay, and as a result the absorption never reaches 100%. Thus, to use it as an argument for "saturation", you need to make an argument of the form "this is close enough to 100% for all practical purposes". On Levenson's page, he uses 99% to perform the calculations he presents in his table 1.

The catch is, for any given distance you choose where absorption is 99% (and transmission is 1%), I can give you a shorter distance where absorption is less than 99% - even as low as 1%, if I make it short enough. Even if you choose something more that 99%, I can always choose a shorter path with a much lower absorption total.

Let's call your distance L₁, and my distance L₂. Your "saturation" argument is that increasing CO2 will have a negligible change on tramission through the layer to L₁, since it is already almost 100%. But it will have an effect. If the original result is 99%, and increasing the absorption so that it is now 99.6%, is the change important? Well, you will probably argue that 99% and 99.6% are "the same for all practical purposes" - in fact, your "saturation" argument is completely dependent on making such a claim.

But what is the difference if we look at my distance. L₂? What was 1% absorption is now 1.2%, and your saturation argument also depends on claiming that 1% and 1.2% are "the same for all practical purposes". The catch is, they are not. We are nowhere close to "saturation", and absorbing 1.2X greater radiation is significant.

One of the major factors in the radiative transfer equations is that absorbed radiation energy will most likely eventually be emitted again, and that emission will be equally likely to be up or down. Small changes in absorption lead to a larger number of absorbed/reemitted cycles before radiation is lost to space from the upper atmosphere, and as that number increases, so does the radiative greenhouse effect.

Your "saturation" argument depends on looking at the process as a single layer, thick enough that you reach "close enough to 100% for all practical purposes", and it fails because you are rolling the effect of many atmospheric layers into one.

I suggest that you read this post on the Beer-Lambert Law (including the comments).

CO2 effect is saturated

OldHickory at 11:56 AM on 6 August, 2022

After reviewing several papers on the topic, I can only conclude that the water vapor feedback loop (from Climate Myth 36) is not possible due to saturation of the CO₂ greenhouse effect. As noted in The Irrelevance of Saturation: Why Carbon Dioxide Matters, the saturation length for the (most important) 14.99 micron CO₂ absorption line at a partial pressure of 0.0004 atm is about 18 meters. Also, the author dana1981 of the rebuttals for this Is the CO₂ effect saturated? forum stated the claim is true that adding more CO₂ won't absorb much more IR radiation at the surface.

Now I realize that the bottom layer of the atmosphere (near the surface) will warm the layers above it, but that is irrelevant regarding the water vapor feedback loop. In this case, we are only interested in what warming occurs at altitudes where there is still liquid or solid state H₂O available in order to complete the loop.

In general, we can expect that adding more CO₂ to the atmosphere will increase the CO₂ greenhouse warming, but at altitudes well above that which would result in a CO₂ "control knob" or disruptions to the weather or climate. Therefore, atmospheric H₂O is in fact the dominant and controlling GHG and Climate Myth 36 actually isn't a myth.

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