Winter of 2011 and Beyond.. New Ice Age Upon Us?

[guardian]

http://www.liveweatherblogs.com/prometweatherblogs/12/2/3447/Winter-of-2011-and-Beyond..-New-Ice-Age-Upon-Us-

An interesting article on effect of sunspots on climate and cyclical global cooling/warming patterns for last 2500 years:

?w=655&h=473

[ret5hd]

1. So you expect a retracement of the arctic ice loss?

[Systematic Chaos]

3. He probably just expects to get paid another 50 cents.

:eyes:

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Garbage OP is garbage.

[Viking12]

4. So let me get this straight. Low sunspots = low temps, but we have low sunspots and high temps

Could there be another forcing involved? Hmmm....

[Nederland]

6. Yes

There are numerous forcings, and we have only begun to understand how they all interrelate. Our understanding of climate is so primitive it does not allow us to predict what things will look like in 10 years, let alone in 100...

[joshcryer]

7. Heh

Between 1 and 5 C. There's your uncertainty.

[Nederland]

11. Not even remotely accurate

Between 1 and 5 C is the uncertainty if you assume that the models are doing everything right. At this point in time I see no reason to make that assumption.

[joshcryer]

18. We're at 1.5 C already, that's nonsense.

2.0 or 3.0 C is extremely likely.

[Nederland]

22. Again...

...if you assume that the models are doing everything right. Not enough time has passed to verify them.

[Viking12]

8. Yep nobody predicted that 90s would be warmer than the 80s, the 00s warmer than the 90s

Oh wait, they did and they were right. I guess the can project what things will look like in a decade.

[Viking12]

10. Yawn

[Nederland]

12. Games with graphs

Lots of idiots play games with graphs. For example, here are some graphs from well known idiot Anthony Watts:








What do these graphs and your graph prove? Not a fucking thing.

They prove nothing because, as I said in my first post in this thread, climate has numerous forcings. If you plot only one of those forcings against temperature and see some sort of correlation the reason is just pure dumb luck. You might as well plot the start of stork nesting against human pregnancies.

[Viking12]

13. Focus grasshopper....the topic is sunspots and solar forcing.

OP claims correlation. Actual data show no correlation. Claimed correlation is demonstrated to be false, the graph actually disproves rather than proves.

[Nederland]

15. Totally missing the point

The point I am making is what every first year student of Philosophy learns: Correlation is not causation.

[Viking12]

16. ..and that point is relevant to my post how?

[Nederland]

17. Response

The fact that you were compelled to point out that the OP's assertion of a correlation was incorrect seems to indicate that you believe that the correlation matters. If I'm wrong and you were simply pointing out the error for the sheer joy of pointing out other people's mistakes I apologize.

[joshcryer]

20. Solar forcing does matter but it is a statistical anomaly.

It takes a millennia for the suns increased forcing to raise the temperature of the planet 1C.

[Viking12]

21. Correlation does matter.

It is a necessary condition for causation.

[Nederland]

23. Yes, but you can't always see correlation in the data

When multiple factors are involved it is perfectly possible for there to be absolutely no correlation visible in the data, but still be causation. This is because one factor can mask the effects of another, hiding its influence. In the case of climate, where there are 30+ factors involved, it is perfectly possible to have a factor that changes temperature without ever being visible by looking at the data. For example, we know for a fact that methane is a potent greenhouse gas, but if you plot methane concentrations against temperature you will never see any correlation between the two. The reason is that changes in all the other factors (CO2, cloud cover, surface albedo, etc.) are completely overwhelming the effect you should be seeing by the methane.

That is why, as I have been saying from the very beginning, all of these graphs that plot one particular factor against temperature prove absolutely nothing.

[joshcryer]

19. HIs graphs cut of just as divergence happens in sunspots and PDO.

What his graphs prove is that cherry picking can lie.

[Nederland]

24. True, but it wouldn't make much difference

Even if you added in the data after 2000 the correlation between temperature and PDO is still going to be much higher than it is between CO2 and temperature. Feel free to grab the extra data and recalculate the values, but I can't see how it would change things much. The bottom line is that the value of R² for PDO is nearly twice that of CO2, and an extra ten years of data can't possibly shift the numbers enough to change that ratio significantly, especially given that the correlation between CO2 and temperature for the 2000-2010 period isn't great either.

As I've said elsewhere though, the graphs prove absolutely nothing because there are numerous climate forcings.

[joshcryer]

25. It makes a huge difference because it falsifies the data.

If you have a correlation and then the correlation diverges, the correlation is false (unless there is an alternate explanation, of course).

As yet we know that CO2 is a molecule that absorbs and remits infrared radiation. When the quantum absorption profile is thrown into the simpliest of mathematical models we learn quite quickly that the planet would be a frozen ball of ice were it not for greenhouse forcing.

Watch these lectures to see why: http://geoflop.uchicago.edu/forecast/docs/lectures.html

For someone to create an alternate explanation for the warming that has been observed (and let's be clear, 2010 was tied with 1998, according to Roy Spencer), they would have to first discredit in large part the greenhouse theory, which is well established in many many many texts.

[Nederland]

26. Your post makes no sense

If you have a correlation and then the correlation diverges, the correlation is false.

As I said in the previous post, feel free to add the data from 2000-2010 and recalculate the value of R². Yes, the value of R² might drop a bit, but that does not make the correlation "false". In fact, that very phrasing makes me think you don't really understand the concept of correlation at all. If you think that adding in the data from 2000-2010 makes the correlation between the PDO and temperature "false" (the very phrase makes no sense), then you would have to say that the correlation between CO2 and temperature is also "false". I'm pretty sure you are very reluctant to say that, true?

[Odin2005]

27. great graph!

[DCKit]

5. I'll make a prediction that's guaranteed - 100% more fucked up weather. nt

[OnlinePoker]

9. When National Geographic published its first edition in 1888...

...at least a third of the journal was on weather related issues. This is something that people have been and will talk about until humanity is gone from this rock. There is no normal weather; it's always been and always will be fucked up.

[happyslug]

14. One theory holds we should be in a Ice Age at the present time...

but do to man's use of fossil fuels starting in the 1300s in England the world warmed not chilled(and elsewhere, but England show the greatest embracing of Coal) the push to an Ice age was stopped in the 1600s (People tend to forget James Watt's Steam Engine was built to pump water out of coal mines so more coal could be mined, English use of coal and export of coal was already big business by the 1600s).

It is like the man you seeing a bucket of water freezing in Zero Degree weather putting an electric heating unit in the Bucket to prevent it from freezing. The electric heating unit more then off sets the cold weather, the same with Global Warming and the potential Ice Age, the world was set for an ice age, but man through up so much carbon that it was stopped in the 1600s and again in the 1770s till so much carbon was in the air that any reduction in heat from the sum was more then made up by the increase level of Carbon in the Atmosphere. This was noted by the 1850s and we have good weather since that time world wide, only now the Carbon level is so high it is pushing the temperature world wide higher and higher, to high for any reduction in sunlight to slow down the warming of this planet.

Just a comment that this set of "Facts" may mean nothing, or at least just explain why the world is NOT as hot as some of the Computer simulations indict it should be.

[BeFree]

29. Yep

If we were headed into an ice age and it has been diverted, or held up, that means there is a pent-up force that can wreak havoc on the climates/weather. Which is what we seem to be living through these days.

Record highs and lows: not years apart, but in the same year.

Pretty much as was predicted over ten years ago. Instead of a smooth wave transition through the year, and abrupt up and down bouncing off the known upper and lower limits.

[wtmusic]

28. Any graph that employs an exclamation point is worthless.

A good maxim to live by.

Secondarily: avoid scientific conclusions made by TV personalities.