Another whack at the climate change mole - Solar Notch Delay Theory

3

Link to various criticisms

this looks lucid

http://www.webcitation.org/6QRooH7OO

this looks worth considering

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2014/06/18/force-x-f...

and this looks inane

http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2014/06/nova-and-evans-...

Cheers

Greg Locock


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One thing I've always found in both statistics and signal analysis is that any innovative super complex approach needs to be checked back against simple arguments based on the fundamental maths. As an example, if you have a set of 500 datapoints (lucky you) use 400 to train your model and 100 to test it. This gives you 5 independent sets of training vs testing. That doesn't work so well with time series data, as a random selection for the training set merely leaves a skill in interpolation as a measurable.

In the case of this model, it should be possible to train it up to say 1990, and then see what it predicts up til 2014, as well as forecasting to 2020 or 2030 (ha). This'll give some idea of the predictive ability of the thing.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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I don't like this graph taken from the CO2 page, it is not clear to me. Is the green line supposed to be the integral of the red one?

If it is, then the result is rather funny, the environment is successfully reabsorbing 75% (and rising) of the anthropogenic CO2. Looks like a negative feedback loop with a slow response time.

That's excellent news if you want to maintain the current temperatures and think CO2 matters, bad news if you're a fossil fuel hater.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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• http://files.engineering.com/getfile.aspx?folder=58c0aa68-0f5b-4a35-a1ae-7b

I like that Greg found something different (like McIntyre's (sp??) approach to Mann's data)
and posts critical reviews,
and poses questions about it

but if it ain't orthodox (we know CO2 is the problem ...), well then it ain't ...

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

Do we know CO2 is THE problem, or simply one of many teeth in the cog, many of which remain unknown?

It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to be always right by having no ideas at all.

having just started to read the posts, so it's early days, but I hear myself saying "just because we can model it, doesn't make it so". It is a key criticism of conventional GCMs ... modeling the climate is one thing, understanding it is something else. we can make a bunch of dots behave like a flock of birds, but that doesn't mean that's what they're thinking ...

and I think Greg has already touched on this with "Not purely physics based".

how does "the environment is successfully reabsorbing 75% (and rising) of the anthropogenic CO2" sit with your "fag packet" calc that all the anthropogenic CO2 is still there ? I think you estimated the amount of CO2 released since 1800 and reconciled that with the increase in atmospheric CO2.

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

What is the current CO2 absortion rate from the enviroment? What percent of production? Is it increasing or decreasing?

No guessing, just facts.

And would reducing the population (of horses in the west) reduce the rate of CO2 production, directly, as well as indrectly for the feed that is given the captured anamials?

and the methane ...

Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati

It would increase the amount of CO2, moving the animals from the west to the east would most definitely consume a lot of fuel.

==> moving the animals from the west to the east
Who said anything about moving the animals? The question was about decreasing the population.
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An interesting theory Greg, and the next few years may provide support (not prove, but support) or refute entirely.

Good Luck
--------------
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

"how does "the environment is successfully reabsorbing 75% (and rising) of the anthropogenic CO2" sit with your "fag packet" calc that all the anthropogenic CO2 is still there ? I think you estimated the amount of CO2 released since 1800 and reconciled that with the increase in atmospheric CO2."

Good question

As I feared the graph is misleading. the blue curve is in ppm the other two are in MT of C equivalent. Why do that? My more detailed estimate is that since 1750 atmospheric CO2 has increased by 8.4E11 Mg, and burning fossil fuels would produce 1.24e12 Mg of CO2, so roughly 68% of the CO2 we've ever produced is still in the atmosphere, ignoring volcanoes and the like.

Bizarrely between 1750 and 1950, according to these measurements and estimates, atmospheric CO2 rose MORE than could be obtained by burning fossil fuels, so there must be other factors at play. There are some bumps visible in the total CO2 trace, presumably some big forest fires or volcanoes. or else one set of measurements or estimates or both has some horrible errors. Or my maths is wrong. I'm using a conversion factor of 2.17e12 Mg of CO2=276.77 ppm, and C equivalent = CO2 mass*12/44

Cheers

Greg Locock


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Incidentally, another reason why DAMHOT is not useful as a predictor

http://www.livescience.com/46694-magnetic-field-we...

Changes in the circulation of the Earth's molten core are afoot. This has two effects 1) direct variable heating of the seabed and 2) changes in magnetic field varies the number of particles that get into the atmosphere. these are nuclei for cloud formation.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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{

We assume the system from solar radiation (TSI) to surface temperature is linear and invariant, so we use sinusoids and frequencies to do the analysis. The TSI peaks every 11 years or so, yet there is no detected corresponding peak in the temperature, which is unexpected. This implies there is a natural notch filter that filters out the 11-year hum from the Sun

}

The radiant intensity appears to vary less than 0.14 % over the peak and minimum.

Lost in the measurement noise I would suspect.

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

So you think it is a coincidence the Maunder minimum and Dalton minimum coincided with very nasty bouts of cold climate?

Cheers

Greg Locock


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I’ll echo rb1957’s comment. I do appreciate presenting the argument alongside criticism.

…however, even without reading the criticisms of the theory, the holes are so obvious and so fundamental that I have no idea why you gave this “theory” the light of day. It’s so bad that even “skeptics” at WUWT have been tearing it apart. Furthermore, it perfectly represents all of your major criticism about (your view of) the CO2 theory – models, non-physical explanation (untrue for the CO2 theory but whatever), uses temperature not energy (again untrue for CO2 but whatever), hindcasts to prove model accuracy (only half true for CO2 but whatever), heavily reliant on statistics instead of physics (untrue for CO2 but whatever). But it’s so much worse; it’s entirely non-physics based. And then functional analysis is used, incorrectly, to make two errors equal a “plausible” “theory”.

From David Evans: “We assume the system from solar radiation (TSI) to surface temperature is linear and invariant, so we use sinusoids and frequencies to do the analysis. The TSI peaks every 11 years or so, yet there is no detected corresponding peak in the temperature, which is unexpected. This implies there is a natural notch filter that filters out the 11-year hum from the Sun”.

David Evans assumes, axiomatically (and I know how much you love axioms), that the recent climate change is caused by the sun. Unfortunately, it’s painfully obvious that there is no correlation between recent climate change and solar activity (i.e. they are going in COMPLETELY opposite directions). BUT WAIT! There’s this magical force that is masking the effect (I mean he calls it Force X for goodness sake, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried!). This magical Force X, which occurs on/in the Sun apparently, just so happens to have the same cycle as the solar cycle. Don’t worry about the fact that he has no clue what Force X is, how it works, what it affects, etc., just look at that notch! It must be true! Oh ya, and then there’s the whole (unproven, unsupported) “atomic bomb tests” aspect of the theory to help with the bits that really don’t agree (again, I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried). It’s fantastic!

As stated before, this is a product of two errors. If you assume that solar activity (which peaks every 11-years) is driving climate change (error #1) and assume there is a new phantasmagoric force, Force X, (error #2) then the Fourier spectral analysis will always make Force X appear as if it is masking the effect of your driver, the sun in this case. This is illustrated nicely in the first critic Greg posted. The hilarious thing is that the strength of the notch is because the assumed driver (the Sun) does not have a notable affect on recent temperature changes. To quote Motl, “What the near-vanishing of R~(f) for 1/f close to 11 years really means is that the most obvious possible proof of the direct effect of the total solar irradiance doesn’t exist – the 11-year cycle isn’t present in the temperature data.”

But let’s ignore all this for a second and assume that his assumption and analysis are correct. What is Force X? How does it work? What does it affect? Is it epiphenomenal? Even if correct, we’ve gone from a theory (CO2 theory) that agrees with various observations, agrees with our physical understanding and contains a valid physical mechanism, to a theory (Notch Delay) that doesn’t agree with observations, requires statistical analysis to produce an unknown force to account for the lack of correlation and has no physical explanation of what this unknown force is or how it works. How is this an improvement? How is this more valid or more reasonable than the thousands of peer reviewed studies that agree with the CO2 theory?

This is a perfect example of what I mean by “skepticism” (in quotes) – an a priori rejection of all data, evidence and research that supports the CO2 theory and a blind, unscrupulous acceptance (or at least welcoming with open arms) of all things counter to the CO2 theory.

No worries. Azolla will save us. Adaptation is what the earth does well.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-the-...

And some more good news. The iniquitous carbon tax in Australia has been repealed.

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2014/07/17/10/52/...

(ignoring hokie66's attempt to change the conversation to a completely unrelated topic) I also forgot to mention that there is serious questions regarding the input data they used for TSI and they apparently fabricated 900 days worth of data onto the end and applied the worst possible smoothing function onto the data.

But you know what "skeptics" say - ABC, Anything But Carbon.

Yeah, and "enthusiasts" say Anything at Any Cost. Like 8 billion dollars to avert 0.02 degrees worth of rise over 100 years, and the glaciers still melt.

Hydrology, Drainage Analysis, Flood Studies, and Complex Stormwater Litigation for Atlanta and the South East - http://www.campbellcivil.com