TT's Lost in Tokyo — by TokyoTom

Inspired by Bob Murphy’s Mises post on “Economic and Climate Models“, I decided to put together a few links to (i) further information on global climate models, (ii) criticism of them (and responses), and (iii) the state of the science on climate “sensitivity” (that is, the range of temperature increases that are expected to eventually result from a doubling of atmospheric levels of CO2).

1. General information on climate models

Spencer R. Weart, “Simple Question, Simple Answer … Not”, Forum on Physics & Society, October 2008, American Institute of Physics

Discovery of Global Warming site at the American Institute of Physics, created by Spencer Weart with support from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm

http://www.aip.org/history/sloan/gcm/

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm 

Modelling the climate, by climateprediction.net

A model approach to climate change (Feb 1, 2007, physicsworld.com), by Adam Scaife and Chris Folland of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Met Office, UK, and John Mitchell, chief scientist at the Met Office, UK.

The physics of climate modeling (Physics Today, Jan 2007), by Gavin Schmidt, research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The IPCC:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter8.pdf

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter11.pdf (regional models)

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model

Principles of Planetary Climate, detailed online book on the physics and modelling of climate by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert (U. Chi.)

The Global Warming Debate, 8. Climate Models, 

2. Shortcomings of Models

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Climate_change_FAQs#What_are_the_shortcomings_of_climate_models.3F, Environmental Information Coalition (EIC), National Council for Science and the Environment.

“A climate of alarm”, Feb 1, 2007, http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/26945 (interview of Richard Lindzen)

http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/230_TakingGr.pdf (Lindzen PowerPoint)

http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/222_Exchange.pdf (Lindzen – Stephan Rahmstorf dialogue)

“The Sloppy Science of Global Warming”, Roy W. Spencer, Mar. 20, 2008, http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=828

Roy Spencer interview, http://ohjelmat.yle.fi/mot/viikon_ohjelma/lisatietoa/roy_spencerin_haastattelu_huntsville_kesakuu_2008

Lay criticism:

http://www.coyoteblog.com/Skeptics_Guide_to_Anthropogenic_Global_Warming_v1.0.pdf, Warren Meyer, who describes himself as “a small business owner and author of Coyote Blog” with “an engineering degree from Princeton and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.”

Responses to critics:

The following posts at Skeptical Science by John Cook, an ex-physicist (majored in solar physics at the University of Queensland):

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm

http://www.skepticalscience.com/model-uncertainty-global-warming-projections.html

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Empirical-evidence-for-positive-feedback.html

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity.htm

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Iris/iris2.html (review of Lindzen’s “iris” theory)

Brian J. Soden, Darren L. Jackson, V. Ramaswamy, M. D. Schwarzkopf, Xianglei Huang, The Radiative Signature of Upper Tropospheric Moistening

“Climate models predict that the concentration of water vapor in the upper troposphere could double by the end of the century as a result of increases in greenhouse gases. Such moistening plays a key role in amplifying the rate at which the climate warms in response to anthropogenic activities, but has been difficult to detect because of deficiencies in conventional observing systems. We use satellite measurements to highlight a distinct radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening over the period 1982 to 2004. The observed moistening is accurately captured by climate model simulations and lends further credence to model projections of future global warming.”

3. The state of the science on climate “sensitivity”

“Sensitivity” refers to the expected equilibrium temperature increase expected to result from a doubling of atmospheric levels of CO2.  The sensitivity reflects not simply the direct warming effects of increased CO2 levels, but the short- and long-term of feedbacks, which are generally expected to be positive, such as increases in atmospheric water vapor resulting from higher temperatures, reduced surface reflectivity (albedo) as ice melts and darker ocean and land surfaces absorb greater solar radiation, and releases of methane (a much more potent GHG than CO2) from permafrosts (and possibly also ocean floor deposits).  Equilibrium effects are expected to be felt over hundreds and thousands of years, so we are already committed to future climate change – of an imperfectly known degree – as a result of the current 1/3 increase of atmospheric CO2 over preindustrial levels.  Plus, atmospheric levels continue to increase, and at increasing increments, as fossil fuel use grows worldwide.

Climate models have been used to estimate a fast-feedback (changes of water vapor, clouds, climate-driven aerosols, sea ice and snow cover) CO2 sensitivity of 3 ±1.5°C., but models cannot define climate sensitivity more precisely, as it is unknowable whether models realistically incorporate all feedback processes.  The model results reported by the IPCC do not include long-term sensitivity (including the effects of changes to long-lived atmospheric gases, ice sheet area, land area and vegetation cover).  Further, as a recent paper (Dana L. Royer, Robert A. Berner & Jeffrey Park) notes, “Most estimates of climate sensitivity are based on records of climate change over the past few decades to thousands of years, when carbon dioxide concentrations and global temperatures were similar to or lower than today, so such calculations tend to underestimate the magnitude of large climate-change events and may not be applicable to climate change under warmer conditions in the future.”

Studies of the Earth’s history provide empirical inferences of both fast feedback climate sensitivity and  long-term sensitivity.  Climate sensitivity has been estimated based on the 20th Century data, the constraints from responses to volcanic eruptions, and the last glacial maximum (LGM); these data have been combined on a Bayesian basis by one group to conclude that fast-feedback sensitivity is very unlikely (< 5% probability) to exceed 4.5°C, but some evidence is inconsistent with this range.  Jim Hansen has argued for a long-term sensitivity of up to 6°C.

A recent paper concludes, based on a comparison of estimations of carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 420 million years with a proxy record, that (1) “a climate sensitivity greater than 1.5 °C has probably been a robust feature of the Earth’s climate system over the past 420 million years, regardless of temporal scaling”, (2) “deep-time geological records exclude the possibility of weak climate sensitivities … the amount of warming for every doubling of carbon dioxide must be at least 1.5 °C.”, and (3) although high climate sensitivities cannot be entirely excluded, their best fit for the past 420 million years was about 2.8 °C per doubling.

Further, scientists have shown that, given the existence of net positive feedbacks, that there is an irreducible uncertainty about the climate effects of GHG increases, but that this uncertainty is not symmetric – rather, physics-based models and empirical evidence force the conclusion that climate change has a long tail on the “bad” side and a very short tail on the “good” side.   Gerard H. Roe and Marcia B. Baker recent article in Science “Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable?” concludes:

“we show that the shape of these probability distributions is an inevitable and general consequence of the nature of the climate system. Further, we show that the breadth of the distribution and, in particular, the probability of large temperature increases are relatively insensitive to decreases in uncertainties associated with the underlying climate processes.”

“… it is evident that the climate system is operating in a regime in which small uncertainties in feedbacks are highly amplified in the resulting climate sensitivity. We are constrained by the inevitable: the more likely a large warming is for a given forcing (i.e., the greater the positive feedbacks), the greater the uncertainty will be in the magnitude of that warming.” (italics added)

A quick explanation of the Roe and Baker paper is laid out by John Cook here:  Does model uncertainty exaggerate global warming projections?

PhysOrg.com reports that a team of scientists led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has “helped reconcile the differences between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics.”

“Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from computer model simulations archived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL researchers and colleagues from 11 other scientific institutions have refuted a recent claim that simulated temperature trends in the tropics are fundamentally inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets.

“Until several years ago, however, most satellite and weather balloon records suggested that the tropical troposphere had warmed substantially less than the surface.

“For nearly a decade, this apparent discrepancy between simulations and reality was a major conundrum for climate scientists. The discrepancy was at odds with the overwhelming body of other scientific evidence pointing toward a “discernible human influence” on global climate.

“A paper published online last year in the International Journal of Climatology claimed to show definitively that “models and observations disagree to a statistically significant extent” in terms of their tropical temperature trends. This claim formed the starting point for an investigation by a large team of climate modelers and observational data specialists, which was led by LLNL’s Benjamin Santer.

“In marked contrast to the earlier claim, Santer’s international team found that there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in tropical temperatures.”

(emphasis added)

Or a frightful thought – corporations cooperating with greenies to advance shared goals?  By sharing patents for free in order to clean up the environment and limit environmental footprints, are corporations being co-opted by socialists?  What corporations in their right minds would do such a thing – give away patent rights and cooperate with Environazis in establishing an “Eco-Patent Commons“? 

How about Bosch, DuPont, IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes, Sony, and Xerox?

A cynic might say this could be just good “corporate citizen” PR.  But an Austrian would applaud voluntary efforts to contribute to shared resolutions to shared problems, and note that it may make sense for corporations to enhance not only their public image but to strengthen internal cooperation by expressing widely shared preferences and aspirations.

Allow me to quote from a recent press release:

“Geneva, 8 September 2008 – Bosch, DuPont and Xerox Corporation have joined the Eco-Patent Commons, a first-of-its-kind business effort [launched in January 2008 by IBM, Nokia, Pitney Bowes and Sony in partnership with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)] to help the environment by pledging environmentally-beneficial patents to the public domain. The three companies and founding member Sony pledge environmentally friendly patents to the public.

“The newly pledged patents include:

• A cutting edge, Xerox technology that significantly reduces the time and cost of removing hazardous waste from water and soil;
• A technology developed by DuPont that converts certain non-recyclable plastics into beneficial fertilizer;
• Automotive technologies from Bosch that help lower fuel consumption, reduce emissions, or convert waste heat from vehicles into useful energy;
• Technologies developed by founding member Sony that focus on the recycling of optical discs.

“The Eco-Patent Commons … provides a unique opportunity for global business to make a difference — sharing innovation in support of sustainable development. The objectives of the Eco-Patent Commons are to facilitate the use of existing technologies to protect the environment, and encourage collaboration between businesses that foster new innovations.

“Today’s pledges more than double the number of environmentally friendly patents available to the public. They are available on a dedicated Web site hosted by the WBCSD (http://www.wbcsd.org/web/epc). Patents pledged to the Eco-Patent Commons may involve innovations directly related to environmental solutions or may be innovations in manufacturing or business processes where the solution also provides an environmental benefit, such as pollution prevention or the more efficient use of materials or energy.

“Since the launch of the Eco-Patent Commons in January, many of the patent holders have been contacted directly about their patents and at least three patents have already been used by others. “We are pleased that the commons is beginning to have an impact,” said Bjorn Stigson, president of the WBCSD. “We hope it will be a positive contribution to the challenge of technology diffusion around the world.”

Press release here.  Here is the full document.

Maybe the collapse of our financial deck of cards will introduce a small reordering of Americans’ priorities – enough to stiffen spines and to provide a reality check on the misuse by politicians and defense industry insiders of foreign “threats” for political and financial gain.

FOX offers soapbox for Pickens mouthpiece Warren Mitchell (former chairman of Southern California Gas Company and San Diego Gas & Electric, and director and head of the compensation committee of Pickens’ owned Clean Energy Fuels); Steven Milloy responds.

Keep up the good work, Steve!

Some of my own thoughts on Pickens’ actions are here and here.

See this surprising decision in the UK, letting climate-change protesters/trespassers off the hook for damages resulting from spray-painting a coal plant smokestack, on the grounds that a UK law “allows damage to be caused to property to prevent even greater damage.”

Why is this single jury verdict supposedly the end of the world (as Iain Murray of CEI, blogging at NRO’s Planet Gore would have it)?  Libertarians (Rothbard, Block, Bratland, Cordato) have long argued that:

– we should move away from the statist regulation of polluters and return to a simpler world of a resort towards common law and courts (permitting injunctions on industrial activity for the slightest damage) to defend property; and that

– the issuance of a license allowing a firm lawfully “to pollute and, hence, invade or damage property of other parties” “entail[s} a fundamental and pervasive violation of property rights”; that

– one “observes that any detectable man-made climate change has occurred during periods of inadequate or nonexistent tort protection from air pollution”; and that

– “A sensible and thoughtful first crucial step in assuring a sustainable atmosphere for future generations is to assure adequate tort protection of the personal property rights for current generations“?

It is clear that I am on firm ground in expecting in response to this decision a rush by “skeptical” libertarians and conservatives to demand MORE action by government, rather than less of it.  After all, the defense offered by the greenies in the UK was based on a statute that can be simply amended, and thereby order restored (with nary a pang of concern for fusty old common-law doctrines).

And if this is what we get from libertarians, is there any wonder that greenies – including radicals like Austrian Ed Dolan and libertarians Jon Adler and Ron Bailey – think that resort to some sort of globally coordinated multi-state action is needed to deal with a global issue?

Oh, and let me add – it seems like a “wrong” decision to me, too.

[UPDATE:  Unfortunately I’ve confused the 1979 JASON report with the Charney report that followed it (and referred to it) later that year.  My bad!  The Charney report is available online and is summarized in item 2 below; I could not find a copy of the JASON report online, but report some available info on it in item 1]

1.   The 1979 JASON report: “The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate”

The bibliography to the Charney report provides the following information on the JASON report:

MacDonald, G.F., H.Abarbanel, P.Carruthers, J.Chamberlain, H.Foley, W.Munk, W. Nierenberg, O.Rothaus, M.Ruderman, J.Vesecky, and F.Zachariasen (1979). The long term impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide on climate, JASON Technical Report JSR-78-07, SRI International, Arlington, Virginia.

There are two slightly different descriptions of this report in government publication databases here:

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5851500

“Title Long term impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide on climate. Technical report JSR-78-07

Publication Date 1979 Apr 01
OSTI Identifier OSTI ID: 5851500
Report Number(s) SAN-115/136-2
DOE Contract Number EY-76-C-03-0115 P.A. 136
Resource Type Technical Report
Research Org SRI International, Arlington, VA (USA)

Format Pages: 184
Availability Dep. NTIS, PC A09/MF A01.

“Description/Abstract  If the current growth rate in the use of fossil fuels continues at 4.3% per year, then the CO/sub 2/ concentration in the atmosphere can be expected to double by about 2035 provided the current partition of CO/sub 2/ between the atmosphere, biosphere, and oceans is maintained as is the current mix of fuels. Slower rates of anticipated growth of energy use lead to a doubling of the carbon content of the atmosphere sometime in the period 2040 to 2060.

“This report addresses the questions of the sources of atmospheric CO/sub 2/; considers distribution of the present CO/sub 2/ among the atmospheric, oceanic, and biospheric reservoir; and assesses the impact on climate as reflected by the average ground temperature at each latitude of significant increases in atmospheric CO/sub 2/. An analytic model of the atmosphere was constructed (JASON Climate Model). Calculation with this zonally averaged model shows an increase of average surface temperature of 2.4/sup 0/ for a doubling of CO/sub 2/. The equatorial temperature increases by 0.7/sup 0/K, while the poles warm up by 10 to 12/sup 0/K. The warming of climate will not necessarily lead to improved living conditions everywhere. Changes in sea level, in agricultural productivity, and in water availability can be anticipated, but the dimensions of their economic, political, or social consequences can not.”

http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=5829641

“Title JASON. Long term impact of atmospheric carbon dioxide on climate. Technical report

Publication Date 1979 Apr 01
OSTI Identifier OSTI ID: 5829641
Report Number(s) SRI-5793;JSR-78-07
DOE Contract Number EY-76-C-03-0115-136
Resource Type Technical Report
Research Org SRI International, Arlington, VA (USA)

Format Pages: 197
Availability Dep. NTIS, PC A09/MF A01

“Description/Abstract  The questions of the sources of atmospheric carbon dioxide are addressed; distribution of the present carbon dioxide among the atmospheric, oceanic, and biospheric reservoirs is considered; and the impact on climate as reflected by the average ground temperature at each latitude of significant increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide is assessed.

“A new model for the mixing of carbon dioxide in the oceans is proposed. The proposed model explicitly takes into account the flow of colder and/or saltier water to great depths. We have constructed two models for the case of radiative equilibrium treating the atmosphere as gray and dividing the infrared emission region into nine bands. The gray atmosphere model predicts an increase of average surface temperature of 2.8/sup 0/K for a doubling of CO/sub 2/, a result about a degree less than the nine band model. An analytic model of the atmosphere was constructed (JASON Climate Model). Calculation with this zonally averaged model shows an increase of average surface temperature of 2.4/sup 0/ for a doubling of CO/sub 2/. The equatorial temperature increases by 0.7/sup 0/K while the poles warm up by 10 to 12/sup 0/K. The JASON climate model suffers from a number of fundamental weaknesses. The role of clouds in determining the albedo is not adequately taken into account nor are the asymmetries between the northern and southern hemisphere.(JGB)”

Naomi Oreskes and Jonathan Renouf describe the 1979 JASON report as follows in The Sunday Times:

“In 1979 they produced their report: coded JSR-78-07 and entitled The Long Term Impact of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide on Climate. Now, with the benefit of hind-sight, it is remarkable how prescient it was.

“Right on the first page, the Jasons predicted that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would double from their preindustrial levels by about 2035. Today it’s expected this will happen by about 2050. They suggested that this doubling of carbon dioxide would lead to an average warming across the planet of 2-3C. Again, that’s smack in the middle of today’s predictions. They warned that polar regions would warm by much more than the average, perhaps by as much as 10C or 12C. That prediction is already coming true – last year the Arctic sea ice melted to a new record low. This year may well set another record.

“Nor were the Jasons frightened of drawing the obvious conclusions for civilisation: the cause for concern was clear when one noted “the fragility of the world’s crop-producing capacity, particularly in those marginal areas where small alterations in temperature and precipitation can bring about major changes in total productivity”.

2.  Here is basic information on the Charney Report, which Orsekes and Renouf also mention

The Charney report appears to basically have been a “summary for policymalers” of the Jason report.  I’ve clipped below relevant summary parts from the .pdf that is available at the National Academies Press:

Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment

Report of an Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, July 23-27, 1979, to the Climate Research Board, Assembly of Mathematical and Physical Sciences, National Research Council

ISBN: 978-0-309-11910-8,34 pages, 6 x 9, paperback (1979)

“NOTICE:  The project that is the subject of this report was approved by the Governing Board of the National Research Council, whose members are drawn from the Councils of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine. The members of the Committee responsible for the report were chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.

This report has been reviewed by a group other than the authors according to pro­cedures approved by a Report Review Committee consisting of members of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the Institute of Medicine.”

Ad Hoc Study Group on Carbon Dioxide and Climate

Jule G. Charney, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chairman

Akio Arakawa, University of California, Los Angeles

D. James Baker, University of Washington

Bert Bolin, University of Stockholm

Robert E. Dickinson, National Center for Atmospheric Research Richard M. Goody, Harvard University

Cecil E. Leith, National Center for Atmospheric Research

Henry M. Stommel, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Carl I. Wunsch, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

STAFF

John S. Perry

Robert S. Chen

Doris Bouadjemi

Theresa Fisher

Climate Research Board

Verner E. Suomi, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chairman

Francis P. Bretherton, National Center for Atmospheric Research Dayton H. Clewell, Mobil Oil Corporation (retired)

Thomas Donahue, University of Michigan

Herbert Friedman, Naval Research Laboratory

J. Herbert Hollomon, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Charles W. Howe, University of Colorado

John Imbrie, Brown University

Robert W. Kates, Clark University

John E. Kutzbach, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Cecil E. Leith, National Center for Atmospheric Research

William A. Nierenberg, Scripps Institution of Oceanography

Roger R. Revelle, University of California, San Diego

Joseph Smagorinsky, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Frederick E. Smith, Harvard University

Karl K. Turekian, Yale University

John Waelti, University of Minnesota

Sylvan H. Wittwer, Michigan State University

Warren Wooster, University of Washington

LIAISON WITH FEDERAL AGENCIES

Eugene W. Bierly, National Science Foundation John G. Dardis, Department of State

Edward Epstein, National Climate Program Office, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Steven Flajser, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, U.S. Senate

Elbert W. Friday, Department of Defense

Lawrence R. Greenwood, National Aeronautics and Space Administration Galen Hart, Department of Agriculture

Keith Howard, Department of the Interior

Gerald J. Kovach, Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, U.S. Senate

Ian Marceau, Subcommittee on Natural Resources and Environment, U.S.

House of Representatives

Lloyd J. Money, Department of Transportation

Douglas H. Sargeant, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration David Slade, Department of Energy

Herbert L. Wiser, Environmental Protection Agency

STAFF

John S. Perry, National Research Council, Executive Secretary

Robert S. Chen, National Academy of Sciences, Resident Fellow

Summary and Conclusions

“We have examined the principal attempts to simulate the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on climate. In doing so, we have limited our considerations to the direct climatic effects of steadily rising atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and have assumed a rate of CO2 increase that would lead to a doubling of airborne concentrations by some time in the first half of the twenty-first century. As indicated in Chapter 2 of this report, such a rate is consistent with observations of CO2 increases in the recent past and with projections of its future sources and sinks. However, we have not examined anew the many uncertainties in these projections, such as their implicit assumptions with regard to the workings of the world economy and the role of the biosphere in the carbon cycle. These impose an uncertainty beyond that arising from our necessarily imperfect knowledge of the manifold and complex climatic system of the earth.

“When it is assumed that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is doubled and statistical thermal equilibrium is achieved, the more realistic of the modeling efforts predict a global surface warming of between 2°C and 3°C, with greater increases at high latitudes. This range reflects both uncertainties in physical understanding and inaccuracies arising from the need to reduce the mathematical problem to one that can be handled by even the fastest avail­able electronic computers. It is significant, however, that none of the model calculations predicts negligible warming.

“The primary effect of an increase of CO2 is to cause more absorption of thermal radiation from the earth’s surface and thus to increase the air tem­perature in the troposphere. A strong positive feedback mechanism is the accompanying increase of moisture, which is an even more powerful absorber of terrestrial radiation. We have examined with care all known negative feed­back mechanisms, such as increase in low or middle cloud amount, and have concluded that the oversimplifications and inaccuracies in the models are not likely to have vitiated the principal conclusion that there will be appreciable warming. The known negative feedback mechanisms can reduce the warming, but they do not appear to be so strong as the positive moisture feedback. We estimate the most probable global warming for a doubling of CO2 to be near 3°C with a probable error of :i: 1.5°C. Our estimate is based primarily on our review of a series of calculations with three-dimensional models of the global atmospheric circulation, which is summarized in Chapter 4. We have also reviewed simpler models that appear to contain the main physical factors. These give qualitatively similar results.

“One of the major uncertainties has to do with the transfer of the increased heat into the oceans. It is well known that the oceans are a thermal regulator, warming the air in winter and cooling it in summer. The standard assumption has been that, while heat is transferred rapidly into a relatively thin, well-mixed surface layer of the ocean (averaging about 70 m in depth), the trans­fer into the deeper waters is so slow that the atmospheric temperature reaches effective equilibrium with the mixed layer in a decade or so. .It seems to us quite possible that the capacity of the deeper oceans to absorb heat has been seriously underestimated, especially that of the intermediate waters of the subtropical gyres lying below the mixed layer and above the main thermocline. If this is so, warming will proceed at a slower rate until these inter­mediate waters are brought to a temperature at which they can no longer absorb heat.

“Our estimates of the rates of vertical exchange of mass between the mixed and intermediate layers and the volumes of water involved give a delay of the order of decades in the time at which thermal equilibrium will be reached. This delay implies that the actual warming at any given time will be appreciably less than that calculated on the assumption that thermal equilibrium is reached quickly. One consequence may be that perceptible temperature changes may not become apparent nearly so soon as has been anticipated. We may not be given a warning until the CO2 loading is such that an appreciable climate change is inevitable. The equilibrium warming will eventually occur; it will merely have been postponed.

“The warming will be accompanied by shifts in the geographical distributions of the various climatic elements such as temperature, rainfall, evaporation, and soil moisture. The evidence is that the variations in these anomalies with latitude, longitude, and season will be at least as great as the globally averaged changes themselves, and it would be misleading to predict regional climatic changes on the basis of global or zonal averages alone. Unfortunately, only gross globally. and zonally averaged features of the present climate can now be reasonably well simulated. At present, we cannot simulate accurately the details of regional climate and thus cannot predict the locations and intensities of regional climate changes with confidence. This situation may be expected to improve gradually as greater scientific understanding is acquired and faster computers are built.

“To summarize, we have tried but have been unable to find any overlooked or underestimated physical effects that could reduce the currently estimated global warmings due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 to negligible propor­tions or reverse them altogether. However, we believe it quite possible that the capacity of the intermediate waters of the oceans to absorb heat could delay the estimated warming by several decades. It appears that the warming will eventually occur, and the associated regional climatic changes so important to the assessment of socioeconomic consequences may well be significant, but unfortunately the latter cannot yet be adequately projected.” 

Hockey-stick artist Michael Mann is back, along with the rest of his team from Penn State’s Earth System Science Center, with his hockey stick, this time supported by more proxy data.  

Although McIntyre and McKitrick had some valid criticisms of Mann’s initial work, the National Academy of Sciences and others have essentially supported him, both with respect to the blade of the hockey stick and the longer-term handle.

Unlike Mann’s initial paper, which was based on temperature reconstructions from tree-ring data, Mann’s latest version of the “hockey stick” has been upgraded by a greatly expanded set of proxy data for decadal-to-centennial climate changes and recently updated instrumental data, and has been extended to cover temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere for the past 1,700 years.  

The results?  As the Christian Science Monitor notes:  

And the graph illustrating the take-home message? It still looks a lot like the much-battered, but still rink-ready stick of 1998. Today the handle reaches further back and it’s a bit more gnarly. But the blade at the business end tells the same story.

The latest hockey stick paper appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (the revised hockey stick chart appears as Figure 3).

The relative sharpness of the hockey stick blade is even more apparent in a 10,000 year view of temperature changes.

A discussion of the relevance of the temperature reconstructions is here.

In the context of a review of the focus on “creationism” that Alaska governor Sarah Palin has injected in the presidential election, Christopher Caldwell, a senior editor at The Weekly Standard, has attempted to explain (in The Financial Times, oddly enough) to his readers in the UK the strange American politics of “intelligent design”.  While insightful, Caldwell has missed an important part of the bigger picture (which few Americans seem to have grasped).

Caldwell’s key points are below; I follow with my own views.

“The point of intelligent design is to take science down a peg. To warn enthusiasts that they risk “discrediting science itself” is a bit dense. For them, evolution is a potent symbol of the way “scientific materialism” leaves people feeling demeaned, disenfranchised, stripped of prerogatives and less free. This feeling is not groundless. Dostoyevsky and Marx said similar things. The scientific world-view poses challenges to religion only in the course of posing challenges to a whole lot besides. To take one obvious example: fewer offices permit smoking today, but it is a stretch to call this a choice. In the US, at least, there was little democratic participation in the decision. There was scientific research and then there were mandates from health boards and courts. Maybe these mandates were “all to the good”. That does not make them democratic.

“The anti-evolution activists in America’s small towns are wrong on the science – but wrong in a way that is of absolutely no consequence to them unless they choose a career in horse-breeding or molecular biochemistry. Their feelings of disenfranchisement, on the other hand, are real and consequential. Experts control an ever larger share of decisions about where roads can be built, what people can ingest, what can be taught and whether the decisions of democratic bodies pass constitutional muster. Like so much else in US public life, the battle over evolution is a class conflict disguised as a religious or moral conflict. It is comforting to look at the fight over evolution as one that pits the educated against the ignorant. It is that. But it is also a fight that pits technocrats against democrats.”

Roger Pielke Jr., a science policy analyst (who comments frequently on climate change matters) posted the above paragraphs without comment other than to praise Caldwell’s “incisive analysis”; I cross-post below verbatim my own comments to Roger:

Roger, I’d say that Caldwell has a thoughtful analysis, but it misses at least as much as it sees.

Some of what Caldwell misses is captured by Francois’ fears about a “scientist caste” that depends on public funding and is seen as part of a rigid, “dictatorship-like” social order who presume to have “ultimate authority”.

Caldwell is closest when he notes the feelings of disenfranchisement by “the anti-evolution activists in America’s small towns”, but this is NOT a “class conflict disguised as a religious or moral conflict”. Rather, it is a struggle between local parental choice over what their children are taught and state and federal governments and courts, on a battle ground created by the continued legacy role of governments in providing public education.

One simply does not see the creationist debate in private schools, and if state governments ever got out of the business of being educators (as opposed to providing support to parents to have their children educated in schools of their choice), the whole issue would disappear. As a legal matter, the legal battle is about the separation of church and state – if the state isn’t the educator, then the issue dries up. If we left school choice and education up to parents, most parents would prefer the best education. So the problem is chiefly one of parents being upset that organs of governments over which local parent have little influence – courts, legislatures and distant bureaucracies (Caldwell’s “technocrats”) – trump parental rights. This in turn is played into a larger power struggle between the rights of local government and more distant state and federal ones.

While the teaching profession itself leans Democrat, the NEA doesn’t run the courthouses or state houses, so this is hardly a “class” struggle. That does seem to be somewhat of a meme from the Right, however – that the evolution debate is about Godless communist lefties trying to dictate to small-town America. The irony, of course, is that while Republicans like to foster that resentment (as well as other resentments and fears – of ragheads, enviros, gays and French-speakers) for political gain, Republicans have consistently exacerbated the real concerns of small-town America by further federalizing education, increasing the power of federal government and doing nothing to put political power back in the hands of local citizens.

Last week the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed by James P. Lucier, Jr., a managing director of Capital Alpha Partners, LLC, in Washington, D.C.

Lucier`s piece describes how Alaska shares its oil revenues with residents, and suggests that John McCain adopt a page from Alaska`s book to get popular support for oil and gas drilling in the OCS (on top of revenue sharing with the relevant states).  Here are Lucier’s key points:

this year every Alaskan will receive a $1,200 check as a share of the oil bonanza. (The check comes in addition to the
approximately $2,000 every Alaskan will receive this year as a dividend from the Permanent Fund, which was established by state constitutional
amendment in 1976 as a way of sharing the state’s mineral wealth with the people.)

A direct share in oil profits for every citizen is the ultimate incentive for more drilling. That’s why in Alaska drilling for
oil seems almost universally popular, while other states are drill-phobic.

The real comparison is …  between Alaska’s constitutional rule — that the people must share
directly in the state’s mineral wealth — and Mr. McCain’s proposal that coastal states should share in federal offshore oil revenue. His
plan is for the funds to be used for public purposes like roads, schools and conservation. A share of royalties dramatically improves
the coastal states’ incentive to support drilling. But if Mr. McCain offered every individual American a royalty check too, he might find it
easier to sell his program.

(emphasis added)

As I’ve previously noted, this makes eminent sense to me!

Let`s hope this good idea for royalty-sharing snowballs.  It`s something alot of people could get behind, even enviros – and if extended could vastly improve federal land management and could as well point the way to a rebated carbon tax.