Today we are fortunate to have a guest contribution written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor of Capital Formation and Growth at Harvard University, and former Member of the Council of Economic Advisers, 1997-99. An earlier version was published by Project Syndicate.
How should one evaluate the agreement reached in Paris December 12 by the 21st Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)? Some avid environmentalists may have been disappointed in the outcome. The reason is that the negotiators did not commit to limiting global warming to 1 ½ degrees centigrade by 2050, nor will the new agreement directly achieve the 2 degree limit.
But such commitments would not have been credible. What came out of Paris was in fact better, because the negotiators were able to agree on meaningful practical near-term steps. Virtually all countries agreed concretely to limit their emissions in the near term, with provisions for future monitoring and periodic checkup and renewal. This is a more important achievement than setting lofty goals for the distant future while giving little reason to think that they would be met. The important thing is to get started.
In four key respects, the agreement is a good one, for those who see global climate change as an important problem and who want down-to-earth steps to address it.
First, and most salient, is comprehensive participation. More than 186 countries offered individual commitments, called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), to go into effect in 2020. These countries account for 96% of global emissions, compared with the current coverage of the Kyoto Protocol which is only 14% of global emissions. In the past, only advanced countries were expected to agree to commitments to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases; developing countries were explicitly spared that within the UNFCCC. One reason it is so important for them to make explicit commitments is that the growth in emissions is now taking place exclusively in developing countries, not among the advanced countries. Furthermore, countries like the United States would not agree to limit their emissions if they feared that the effect might simply be a migration of carbon-emitting industry to developing countries.
Second is the agreed process of future assessment and revision of targets. The decision was to take stock and renew the commitments every five years. (Some negotiators had been arguing for ten-year intervals.) Future steps can adjust targets to be either more aggressive or less, in light of future developments. Probably more aggressive, if the scientists’ predictions are borne out. The second set of INDCs is to be decided in 2018.
Third is transparency in monitoring, reporting and verifying each country’s progress. Countries are to report every five years, starting in 2023, how well they have done compared to what they had said they would do. The United States and Europe had to push hard on China and India to get agreement on this. But without it, the INDCs would not have been credible.
Fourth are mechanisms to facilitate international linkage, including scope for firms operating in rich countries to finance emission reductions in poor countries. This is important in order to achieve the environmental goals in an economically efficient way: it is cheaper to pay a poor country to refrain from building new coal-fired power plants than to shut down plants that are already operating in rich countries. [Achieving the first period’s NDCs at low cost will in turn be important for willingness to take further steps in future periods.]
Some may be disappointed that the Paris Agreement did not explicitly commit to more aggressive environmental goals, particularly limiting warming to 1 ½ degrees centigrade (above pre-industrial levels) or zero greenhouse gas emissions in the second half of the century, leaving these as aspirations. And in truth the INDCs are nowhere near enough in themselves even to limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the long-term global goal that was agreed at an earlier Conference of the Parties in Cancun in 2010.
Actually achieving such environmental goals would of course be desirable, in order to minimize risk of disaster scenarios. But proclaiming ambitious collective numbers is very different from achieving them. It is almost beside the point that a goal of 1 ½ degrees would be very high-cost economically. The plan needs to be credible if it is to determine myriad business decisions made today. But collective goals are not credible without assignment of individual responsibility; and leaders in any case can’t make credible commitments 35 years into the future.
Others, from developing countries, are disappointed for another reason: the figure of $100 billion in finance from rich countries does not appear in the legally binding body of the agreement. They did get an admission of moral responsibility to help small island states, for example, cope with “loss and damages” from sea level rise. But the rich countries rejected demands for concession of legal liability. I judge this a reasonable outcome in a difficult situation.
Rich countries can’t deny that their past emissions have inflicted harm on the world. The entity whose land was flooded would have a claim to compensation from the entity that had caused the damage, if they were operating within a domestic legal system. But sovereign countries are not operating in such a legal system. The $100 billion in finance has always seemed to me problematic. The developing countries fear that the rich countries won’t in the end deliver it, not in cash; and they are right. The rich countries fear that if they did send “reparations,” much of it would disappear into the pockets of local elites; and they are right. Better then not to make promises in the first place.
The poor countries do have a strong case. The average American still emits ten times as much greenhouse gases as a citizen of India. India cannot be deprived of the right to develop economically. But the best place to take account of these fairness concerns is in the agreed emissions targets. The efforts that the richer countries promise in these agreements should be – and generally are — greater than the efforts of poor countries. The richer a country is, the earlier the date at which its emission targets should peak. The richer it is, the more sharply its target should cut relative to emissions baseline. With targets that take into account their stage of development, i.e., that continue to grow in the short term, the poor countries can get paid for additional emissions cuts under the international linkage mechanisms. This fulfills the important principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities” that was and is a key feature of the UNFCCC under which the Paris Agreement has been reached].
The Paris Agreement incorporates both fairness and efficiency. In light of the daunting challenge, the negotiators were surprisingly successful in converging on a plan that offers hope of practical progress.
This post written by Jeffrey Frankel.
Too bad there was no discussion of the scientific method. Imaginary consensus trumps the scientific method.
Climate cycles take place without fossil fuels or human activity. See the “Last Glacial Maximum.”
PT writes: “Climate cycles take place without fossil fuels or human activity. See the “Last Glacial Maximum.”
Is there supposed to be something profound in that statement? Climate scientists are well aware of that fact. Indeed, it is their research that tells us the details of past climatic eras.
What you have forgotten is that without CO2 as an effective control know we’d *still* be ‘snowball earth’ conditions. You’ve also forgotten that today’s increase in atmospheric CO2 is not due to ‘natural’ processes, but are completely anthropogenic. The fact that the earth has undergone past climate changes is not an argument against AGW – it’s actually one of them main theoretical arguments *for* AGW. I.e., if we didn’t understand the radiative forcings required to produce past climate changes we wouldn’t understand the significance of GHGs.
Kevin, there’s no proof the human race has a significant or lasting effect on CO2 cycles.
And, in the warming cycle that began 25,000 years ago, the planet generally remains in a CO2 drought.
What’s “profound” is the Last Glacial Maximum shows how fast climate can change without human activity.
Peak Trader: “significant” and “lasting” are what are called weasel words unless they’re used in a well-defined context. Anthropogenic CO2 contributions are essentially all of the increase since pre-industrial. 67% increase of the 280ppm circa 1850. Or 30% of today’s 400ppm. Both numbers are well above the typical demarcation line for significance.
As for “lasting” – basic chemistry tells us that the CO2 we have emitted will be affecting the atmosphere for hundreds, thousands of years. If that isn’t within your definition of “lasting” – then you’ll have to define it for me.
So yes, there is proof contrary to both your assertions.
Meanwhile, you didn’t bother to answer any of the questions I raised. Are you learning at the knee of CoRev?
Kevin, you’re the “weasel” ignoring the proven forces of nature and blaming it on human activity.
And, you’re the weasel assuming CO2 can’t be absorbed. Nature will provide new CO2 for billions of years.
You should be thankful we’re in a warming cycle with a CO2 drought. And, I answered your question.
Also, I may add, even if that CO2 trend, since 1850, is accurate, it should be noted, many scientists have stated it’s easier to say temperature causes CO2 than CO2 causes temperature. NASA has stated the “Little Ice Age” ended in 1850. So, it seems, the warming cycle, since 1850, is one significant factor raising the CO2 level. Even today’s CO2 level is historically extremely low.
This is a typical exaggeration by alarmists: “… basic chemistry tells us that the CO2 we have emitted will be affecting the atmosphere for hundreds, thousands of years. ” Maybe, if we could track each and every CO2 molecule, from formation to final break down, we could time its total life. Alas, that is not probable, but not as improbable as Kevin’s latest claim. Maybe Kevin thinks we can name each and every molecule and follow its life, when ~99.5% of each release is absorbed annually.
PT and ConspiracyRev – Neither of you knows the simplest facts of science. Why do you even bother talking about subjects of which you are completely and utterly ignorant?
That is a serious question. You know nothing. Why do you think anyone would be interested in your gibberish?
Try reading some science – Millennial Atmospheric Lifetime of Anthropogenic CO2.
Kevin, if you knew anything about science, you’d know a model can be created to tell you whatever you want. For example, a scientist can create a model that assumes CO2 causes temperature and if that assumption is false, then his model is also false (why does the paper you cite say we’ll all “regret” using fossil fuels – sounds a little biased).
The University of Leeds did a study that shows 40% of CO2 from fossil fuels is absorbed each year. Are we to blindly accept that’s correct or accurate too?
Economists cannot even create an accurate general equilibrium model of a large economy. Yet, climatologists can create an accurate model many times more complex – to understand the interrelationships and interactions of hundreds of dynamic variables? I don’t think so.
Menzie, thank you. I was going by this reference within the paper: “submitted to Climatic Change
12/06/06” Your reference is dated: “October 2008,”. I do not intend to compare each to discover the changes/improvements made to pass peer review.
If you note: even in the early part of the decade we had quite a difference in estimates: “5 to 200” years. If you and Kevin want to rely on this as the seminal paper I will provide references to those more recent papers which estimate the lower temporal bounds.
Again, models-based studies are full of errors based upon the assumptions used within the models and the post-data analysis. Unless they accurately predict, and today they still do not, their outputs must be highly caveated. This is just one caveat in your reference: “Because this is a review of published model results and not a formal model intercomparison, there are many reasons to expect the model results to differ from each other. For example, the maximum airborne fraction is sensitive to the time scale over which the CO2 is released….” Strangely, if you read further you will find Peak Trader’s numbers confirmed. And my comment re time frame is again supported.
It also appears that your quote is not in the actual published paper. This version of the conclusions apparently did not make it through the peer review process.
corev
“For example, the maximum airborne fraction is sensitive to the time scale over which the CO2 is released….”
again you demonstrate your scientific illiteracy. scientists consistently run sensitivity studies on their models. this allows them to better understand how the various factors influence their results. sensitivity studies are good at showing which trends-up or down-are consistent across the spectrum of factors. the rates may be different, but the trends are important as well. you need to get past your “gotcha” mentality. of course, this would require that you come up with a sound scientific explanation for continued rise in sea level and ocean heat content in light of your observed “hiatus”. but this is rather hard to do when you cherry pick your valid data.
Menzie & Baffled, I prefer those analyses based upon actual data versus model outputs. I simply can not trust models that do not predict well, and these climate models still do not! So coincidentally the nuclear bomb testing has done us all a favor by injecting slugs of measurable Carbon 14 (C14) into the atmosphere some of which combine into CO2 molecules. Some references:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/01/the-bombtest-curve-and-its-implications-for-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-residency-time/ (interesting, but also provided to show how skeptical blog science works at that hated blog site) and
http://www.ctbto.org/nuclear-testing/the-effects-of-nuclear-testing/general-overview-of-theeffects-of-nuclear-testing/
(brief history of nuclear testing)
You might also be interested in this blog article for a more detailed discussion: http://euanmearns.com/the-residence-time-of-co2-in-the-atmosphere-is-33-years/
Be especially careful of the definition of residence time and other terms of atmospheric CO2 life cycles.
Menzie also understand that when the conversation shifts from CO2 to carbon cycle we have completely changed the subject from climate to life cycle of a carbon atom in its many chemical/molecular combinations.
corev,
“Menzie & Baffled, I prefer those analyses based upon actual data versus model outputs.”
well stated. here is some data related to sea level rise. explain your hiatus.
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
Peak Trader – As I said, you know nothing. Yes, CO2 cycles between the ocean and atmosphere. An individual CO2 molecule only has a *residence* time of a few years. That you don’t understand that individual molecules can be exchanged, but the overall composition remain the same is part of your know-nothingness. Do you not not understand the planetary carbon cycle?
Given that you didn’t even bother to reference the paper, I can’t tell what specifically you’ve misunderstood, but it’s clear you have.
This is not new science. It’s been known for decades. As I said, read some science.
CoRev – Do you even read the crap you cite? Even Willis wasn’t buying that C-14 nuclear testing garbage you cited. Says Willis:
“So sadly, I fear that the central thesis of this study is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. This is the conflation of two very different ideas—residence time (measured by the bomb tests and estimated by carbon cycle calculations) and pulse half-life (estimated from the emissions and atmospheric levels data).”
This why you should try to stick with peer-reviewed science instead of the crap posted at WUWT.
In short – no you can’t use the nuclear bomb testing to disprove the e-folding time of CO2 in the atmosphere.
We’ve had this discussion before on residence time vs lifecycle or e-folding time – you apparently didn’t learn anything the first time around because you’re still ignorant. Go back and reread the Nick Stokes series on airborne fraction that I pointed you to before. And take Peak Trader with you since he’s making the same ignorant mistake.
Nick Stokes : Why is cumulative CO2 Airborne Fraction nearly constant?
Kevin, no one really understands the “planetary carbon cycle.” To believe you know based on theories you choose to believe is a religion, not science.
For example, one study shows there’s a positive correlation between CO2 in the atmosphere and the capacity of the earth to absorb CO2. It’s a dynamic system with hundreds of influential variables.
Kevin, was your referenced paper ever accepted? Why do you think even another models-based paper is more valid than the data? I also thought the subject was how CO2 effect climate, and now how long a molecule may be sequestered in the oceans. Which the paper admits does not effect climate.
More importantly your reference confirms what I was saying about the CO2 molecule life cycle. Did you even read this paper? Understand it? It appears with your deep scientific background you failed to even understand my comment?
Please remember and relate your offering(s) to the subject of this article.
CoRev: The paper was published in Climate Change in 2006. Second to last paragraph:
CoRev – that you don’t even recognize the author says alot – mostly about you not reading science 🙂
David Archer has been a listed author on over 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers. He’s been the lead author on approximately half of them.
Curriculum Vita: David Archer
CoRev – Did you even *look* at the paper’s title? Millennial Atmospheric Lifetime of Anthropogenic CO2.
What part of *Millennial* don’t you understand? Try a dictionary.
Kevin, keep trying. Kevin, where do you come up with these ideas? “CoRev – that you don’t even recognize the author says alot – mostly about you not reading science :)” We just had a discussion over his basic internet science videos in the previous thread.
I find it interesting that someone claiming no one understands the science when they contest his points/references, but this one is one of your best: “In short – no you can’t use the nuclear bomb testing to disprove the e-folding time of CO2 in the atmosphere. ” So you now believe those old Oxygen atoms can discriminate and doesn’t form CO2g c14 to create CO2, ord once created the half life of the C14 atom magically changes.
Wiki, not my favorite source, says this:
“Formation during nuclear tests
Atmospheric 14C, New Zealand[18] and Austria.[19] The New Zealand curve is representative for the Southern Hemisphere, the Austrian curve is representative for the Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric nuclear weapon tests almost doubled the concentration of 14C in the Northern Hemisphere.[20]
The above-ground nuclear tests that occurred in several countries between 1955 and 1980 (see nuclear test list) dramatically increased the amount of carbon-14 in the atmosphere and subsequently in the biosphere; after the tests ended, the atmospheric concentration of the isotope began to decrease.
One side-effect of the change in atmospheric carbon-14 is that this has enabled some options (e.g. bomb-pulse dating[21]) ” (A list of non-related pulse dating examples follows)
I know your ego makes you believe the crap you spew, but it isn’t science. Its not even good, logical well supported opinion.
Please remember and relate your offering(s) to the subject of this article, COP21 and ACO2 baselines from the participating countries. You are again taking us down that road of straw. Carbon cycle?
CoRev – Your ignorance and cognitive dissonance make a really laughable pair of characteristics.
How long does an individual CO2 molecule stay in the atmosphere? How long is the e-folding time?
C14 dating involves analyzing the C14 absorbed or trapped by a substance. I.e., those molecules are no longer in the atmosphere – they’re in the substance being analyzed.
So, if a pulse of C14 is injected into the atmosphere today, we can identify it in substances that absorb or trap that C14. Once the C14 has been removed from the atmosphere, then the objects obviously won’t be trapping or absorbing it any longer. How long do individual CO2 molecules stay in the atmosphere? What is the e-folding time for CO2? It’s patently obvious you can’t use one to disprove the other. They’re several orders of magnitude different in longevity. I.e., the individual C14 molecules aren’t in the atmosphere long enough to disprove the e-folding time.
The amount of C14 in the atmosphere has almost nothing to do with its half-life. The half life is what we use for the dating. The residence time and e-folding time have nothing to with half-life either.
You don’t understand a single one of these scientific concepts. Your entire post is a mish-mash of confusion. Is there a subject you actually know something about that isn’t entirely and absolutely wrong?
Peak Denier: “Kevin, no one really understands the “planetary carbon cycle.””
LOL. I.e., *you* don’t understand the planetary carbon cycle. Don’t project your ignorance onto everyone else.
It’s quite clear that your ignorance leads you to believe many false things, such as: “…many scientists have stated it’s easier to say temperature causes CO2 than CO2 causes temperature…” No, this is just wrong. Please refer to the peer-reviewed literature that shows “many” scientists believe this. 1) It denies basic physics. 2)It fails to explain the earth’s actual temperature. 3) It provides no escape from past glacial maximums.
This is the typical problem that those that live in an echo chamber and do not actually read the scientific literature, have; they believe that a handful of cranks and deniers that are repeatedly quoted on WUWT, JoNova, etc represent a significant fraction of scientists. They don’t. You cannot, will not provide any support for your assertion. It doesn’t exist.
Similarly your idea that we need to track every molecule is misguided to say the least. Do we need to track every individual coin and dollar to calculate various economic statistics? Stocks and flows. We have a stock of CO2 in the atmosphere, in the oceans, in biomass, and in various carbonate rocks. We know how much we are emitting on an annual basis and we can measure the amount that’s in the atmosphere.
We can identify, using isotopes, different sources of CO2.
SkepticalScience has this as one of their many denier myths: Climate Change Cluedo: Anthropogenic CO2
The start of the growth in CO2 concentration coincides with the start of the industrial revolution, hence anthropogenic;
Increase in CO2 concentration over the long term almost exactly correlates with cumulative anthropogenic emissions, hence anthropogenic;
Annual CO2 concentration growth is less than Annual CO2 emissions, hence anthropogenic;
Declining C14 ratio indicates the source is very old, hence fossil fuel or volcanic (ie, not oceanic outgassing or a recent biological source);
Declining C13 ratio indicates a biological source, hence not volcanic;
Declining O2 concentration indicate combustion, hence not volcanic;
Partial pressure of CO2 in the ocean is increasing, hence not oceanic outgassing;
Measured CO2 emissions from all (surface and beneath the sea) volcanoes are one-hundredth of anthropogenic CO2 emissions; hence not volcanic;
Known changes in biomass too small by a factor of 10, hence not deforestation; and
Known changes of CO2 concentration with temperature are too small by a factor of 10, hence not ocean outgassing.
Now, in rebuttal what we have is: “no one really understands the “planetary carbon cycle”
Go buy a clue.
Fossil fuels raised living standards dramatically, along with extending life spans. So, the U.S , for example, could afford to pay for more and more environmental standards.. It’s a model developing countries should follow to maximize the well-being of people in both rich and poor countries.
When poor countries become rich enough, then they can afford greater regulations on fossil fuels. It’s bad enough when the U.S. Imposes excessive regulations on the American people. It’s much worse for rich countries trying to impose excessive regulations on the people of poor countries.
Physicist Richard Feynman:
“It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.”
Alan Watts writes:
John Hinderaker:
“Are the alarmists trying to set a low bar that will be achieved regardless of any changes in CO2 emissions, and then claim credit for saving the planet?”
“If that trend was to continue for another 63 years, the composite warming for the globe would be 1.1 C (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) for the century, Christy said.
you may dislike current climate model predictions. but this statement provided has absolutely no scientific basis behind it whatsoever. why do you believe this trend will stay consistent over the next 63 years. he is not simply predicting the curve, he is predicting what the derivative of the curve will be like for 63 years! and with no model whatsoever. and you drink this up as gospel. nonsense.
Surface temperatures. We live on the surface. We don’t live at 4km above it. Surface temperatures are already more than 1C above pre-industrial and have risen 0.8C since 1960 alone.
Why is it pseudoskeptics always fixate on 4km above the surface? Oh, that’s right – it’s the last piece of data that give them a glimmer of hope they’re right.
Ocean heat content, surface temperatures, dozens of phenological studies all point in one direction. So let’s put all our money in the one satellite LT basket and ignore all the other evidence. Makes sense – if you completely stop thinking.
It is the data set most relevant to model output. It’s what the models were designed to emulate.
It is absolute belief in speculative comments like: 1) “if the scientists’ predictions are borne out.”
2) “Rich countries can’t deny that their past emissions have inflicted harm on the world.”
3) and the false per capita argument: “The average American still emits ten times as much greenhouse gases as a citizen of India” where the total is supposed to be important to the science.
Having allowed your gang of pet trolls to plant this thread with their seeds of nonsense, Menzi, you can expect the blog post to yield a fine crop of disinformation.
You are letting them steal from you, and from James. People who might contribute useful discussion see that you don’t care enough about the blog to send the rude children out of the room, and will seek places that maintain higher standards of behavior.
Ottnot, I’ve seen a growing number of such comments on the blogs. What has happened to the scientific discovery and open scientific debate?
CoRev – the man who thinks Dr Roy Spencer is a neutral source 🙂
Funny how ‘scientific discovery’ take a backseat on the pseudoskeptic aisle anytime the results disagree with their ideology. And similarly how they promote any crackpot theory that *does* agree with their ideology. Look at WUWT – promoting claims that are mutually contradictory, continually misread scientific results (always with a bias towards ideology), yet replete with fanboy, sycophantic comments from the true believers not one of whom is willing to point out the emperor has no clothes on.
WUWT, Steve Goddard (aka Tony Heller), Jo Nova, Bishop Hill, Bob Tisdale, etc, etc. What do all of these pseudoskeptic sites have in common? Not one of them is an actual scientist. They’re ideological clickbait. From these sites you can variously *”learn”* that Co2 is not a well-mixed gas, that increased atmospheric CO2 isn’t anthropogenic, that global warming is a fraud, that CO2 can’t warm the planet, that back-radiation doesn’t exist, that sea level hasn’t increased, that arctic ice is increasing, that there was open water at the north pole in the 1950’s, it’s the sun, it’s the wind, it’s Jupiter, it’s natural cycles, it hasn’t warmed in XX years, it hasn’t warmed in XX.XX years, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc ….. on and on and on.
The fact that every one of these claims is wrong, misleading, goes against everything we know and understand about physics, scientific observations, and can only be reached by having a defunct, defective B.S. detector just doesn’t sink-in with some people. CoRev is one of them. These are his Go-To sites for science and analysis.
CoRev has been at this for almost a decade now (at least that long). He never learns. He’s stuck in a pseudoskeptic rut where regardless if his pet theory of the day is shown to be false he just plods along unable to change his beliefs and adjust. It’s actually quite sad.
Kevin, trolling is hard work. Keep at it! Perhaps you could give us that long list of successful predictions especially for for the past decade from the revised and improved models which DO NOT REPRESENT THE SCIENCE.
CoRev – perhaps you could give me a successful prediction from *any* of your pet theories?
CoRev – models don’t make “predictions” – that alone shows just how little you understand the science. Models run. Scientists analyze and interpret the results. Manabe and Wetherald made a prediction based on what they learned from model results. We don’t say the model made the prediction, Manabe and Wetherald did. So your whole worldview is so off-track it’s laughable. Especially since this has been pointed out to you before.
Since models aren’t advanced enough to produce high fidelity decadal simulations (something that has *also* been pointed out to you before), asking for a recent decadal “prediction” is nonsense on two counts.
In the meantime, we keep waiting for all the pseudoskeptic predictions of imminent global cooling to come true. If you bet red everytime eventually you’ll be right.
An opposing assessment:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/21/the-paris-agreement-chock-full-of-noble-intentions/
Prof. Frankel The agreement allows for future revisions to the targets. When you refer to “targets” I assume you mean something like either the levels or the rates of greenhouse emissions. This means the value of the emission permits will depend on the market’s guess as to how future targets are likely to be revised; which means the cap-and-trade agreement should create some kind of market to hedge against risk. Have there been any studies as to how these insurance markets might operate? My concern is that too-big-to-fail actors in these markets might game the system (think political donations) in such a way that the cap-and-trade market for permits traps rents rather than CO2. We would need either a lot of competition in the risk hedging business or a lot of government regulation across national boundaries.
it seems one big outcome of this agreement is the shear number of participants agreeing to the idea that global warming is bad, and the human contribution to warming is something we need to be aware of and mitigate. it moves the conversation forward, and essentially locks the deniers out of the conversation. this is a good thing. now we can better focus on the best steps forward, worldwide. i agree the current limits, as set, are not most favorable to eliminate our impact on warming. but they are a step forward, and the voices arguing for a step backwards are now drowned out. slowly, we are beginning to take responsibility for the changes we are making to the earth.
Bafled, no doubts about the greed of the have not countries? Before you ask the answer is still NO!
@slugs: “My concern is that too-big-to-fail actors in these markets might game the system (think political donations) in such a way that the cap-and-trade market for permits traps rents rather than CO2. We would need either a lot of competition in the risk hedging business or a lot of government regulation across national boundaries.”
Quite. That’s what it’s really about: a scheme for the owners of the Anglo-American and European corporate-state to monopolize the financialization of global natural resource rents of our finite planet in perpetuity.
Maybe we should run cap-n-trade thought the Clinton Foundation. What could go wrong if we let these two unselfish, dedicated, truthful public servants cure global warming, errrrrr climate change.
BC Just to be clear, on balance I think the Paris agreement was about as good as could reasonably be expected. I’ve always been torn between a carbon tax and a cap-and-trade arrangement. I guess it comes down to whichever one was politically possible. I wouldn’t want to overstate my concern about certain actors being able to game the system…I think it’s a risk but not an inevitability.
slug, that’s laudably pragmatic under the current circumstances.
But the US regressively taxes labor, production, productive capital accumulation, and savings, and subsidizes debt, financialization, and rentier speculation, and by extension inequality and never-ending imperial wars for oil empire, and then institutionalizes it, including globally; that’s what empires have done for centuries.
“Wealth” in the West has become the price of privilege for the top 0.001-1%, i.e., “rentier tax” imposed on the bottom 90-99%, to permit the top 0.001-1% to disengage from productive “economic” activity at the increasing cost to productivity, labor share, purchasing power, subsistence, and well-being of the bottom 90%+ (and eventually the next 9% above the bottom 90%). This is irrefutable from the data, but understandably there is no constituency to challenge the rentier Power Elite top 0.001% and their bankster oligarchs and plantation managers among the next 0.999%.
The neo-feudal, hyper-financialized, debt-based system of the imperial West is no less unsustainable and vulnerable to collapse than the Ancien Regime prior to the French and American Revolutions; the feudal Romanov dynasty before the Russian Revolution; the vulnerabilities of the Weimar prior to the Nazis; and the poverty, inequality, and insensitivity of the elites to the peasants’ plight, and resulting instability and civil war in China prior to Mao’s revolution.
Being an eCONomist today is like being an imperial, courtier, ministerial intellectual debating the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin; clinging to demonstrably fallacious, discredited theories about “the economy”; externalizing (and ignoring) the thermodynamics and net exergetics of the real world; ignoring the financial system, debt, and “money” and the debilitating effects of the costs of imputed compounding interest in perpetuity; minimizing, or apologizing for, the pernicious effects of inequality; and dismissing the relevance of the real-life experiences of the peasant bottom 90%+ because their existence does not fit with the detached nonsense for which the imperial ministerial academy’s elite sophists are paid so well to perpetuate on behalf of Wall St. and the rentier Power Elite top 0.001%.
since COP21, the US has decided to allow oil exports, India, Japan and Korea have announced new coal plants, and England and New Zealand have leased large tracks of public land for oil drilling…
seems like everyone is trying to get their fossil fuels plans on the board before 2020…
Atmospheric and ocean warming, should it persist, will likely be among the least of our concerns in the decades ahead given population overshoot, Peak Oil, peak Boomer demographic drag effects, fiscal constraints, resource depletion per capita, loss of topsoil and arable land, deforestation, depleting fisheries, drawdown of aquifers, nuclear waste disposal, and the risk of phosphorus shortages, reducing ag yields and food supply and utilization per capita.
And then there is the potential for the effects of the convergence of the Gleissburg-Suess/de Vries cycles (as in the early to mid-19th century and early 17th century) resulting in mega-drought and mid-latitude cooling for at least the duration of the next 2-3 Schwabe cycles, which, along with population overshoot and Peak Oil, risks reduced ag production, famine, failed states, social instability, mass population migration, ethnic-religious conflict, genocide, war, a collapse of “globalization”, and eventually peak human ape population and mass die-off my mid-century.
Happy Xmas and New Year (if you dare).
If you don’t feed the trolls, they eventually fade away…
On topic – nicely done analysis, but alas, whatever is done does seem to be about 20 years too late.
Then, the ability of our society to think and act about the future generally follows the inverse-square law…
Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a lawsuit on December 2, 2015, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia seeking records of communications from National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officials regarding methodology for collecting and interpreting data used in climate models. The lawsuit sought the same documents unsuccessfully subpoenaed by a House committee.
What conceivable reason can there be for a government agency to withhold climate information from the public?
“What conceivable reason can there be for a government agency to withhold climate information from the public?”
National (in)security?
The safety and security of the homeland must be our top priority, comrade.
NASA is so confused. Oh, but wait if the climate change is causing the earth to heat or to cool no problem. The answer is always the same. Government control.
Thanks for the link to the UN site. Looking at Pakistan’s submission:
“3. Pakistan’s development needs are expected to grow necessitating the requirement of affordable sources of power generation, development of infrastructure and enabling industry to take a lead role in meeting the transformation.
4. However Pakistan is committed to reduce its emissions after reaching peak levels to the extent possible subject to affordability, provision of international climate finance, transfer of technology and capacity building. As such Pakistan will only be able to make specific commitments once reliable data on our peak emission levels is available.”
Doesn’t sound like they have agreed to anything concrete.
Few understand and fewer still admit ther are more than one hypothesis for 20th century warming:
“Three competing hypotheses
Consider the following three hypotheses that explain 20th century climate variability and change, with implied future projections:
I. IPCC AGW hypothesis: 20th century climate variability/change is explained by external forcing, with natural internal variability providing high frequency ‘noise’. In the latter half of the 20th century, this external forcing has been dominated by anthropogenic gases and aerosols. The implications for temperature change in the 21st century is 0.2C per decade until 2050. Challenges: convincing explanations of the warming 1910-1940, explaining the flat trend between mid 1940’s and mid 1970’s, explaining the flat trend for the past 15 years.
II. Multi-decadal oscillations plus trend hypothesis: 20th century climate variability/change is explained by the large multidecadal oscillations (e.g NAO, PDO, AMO) with a superimposed trend of external forcing (AGW warming). The implications for temperature change in the 21st century is relatively constant temperatures for the next several decades, or possible cooling associated with solar. Challenges: separating forced from unforced changes in the observed time series, lack of predictability of the multidecadal oscillations.
III: Climate shifts hypothesis: 20th century climate variability/change is explained by synchronized chaos arising from nonlinear oscillations of the coupled ocean/atmosphere system plus external forcing (e.g. Tsonis, Douglass). The most recent shift occurred 2001/2002, characterized by flattening temperatures and more frequent LaNina’s. The implications for the next several decades are that the current trend will continue until the next climate shift, at some unknown point in the future. External forcing (AGW, solar) will have more or less impact on trends depending on the regime, but how external forcing materializes in terms of surface temperature in the context of spatiotemporal chaos is not known. Note: hypothesis III is consistent with Sneyers’ arguments re change-point analysis. Challenges: figuring out the timing (and characteristics) of the next climate shift.”
All the focus has been on the latter half of the 20th century and “anthropogenic gases” with little recognition off the “and aerosols” and no recognition of the other anthropogenic cause land use change which includes Urban Heat Islands.
If you ask someone who believes/relies on the IPCC hypothesis they will explain natural variation is overlaid on the inexorable AGW warming. (That is when forced to even accept the reality of natural influences.) What is missed is the inexorable cooling which is occurring. Nearly every interglacial shows the same pattern, higher temperatures early with slow cooling until the next glaciation with lower peaks throughout. That is exactly what the ice cores show for the Holocene.
To believe the IPCC hypothesis is the over riding explanation takes denial of all the glacial cycles evidence for the very, very short 50 year record. I don’t, and question those who would/do.
I forgot to provide the link for the above description of the hypotheses.
I also brushed on my issue with the COP21 agreement in the above comment, but wasn’t explicit enough to satisfy myself. This agreement is specifically based upon that fifty year window, which is not supported as unique even in the short ~136 years temperature measurement record with multiple periods of flat or diminishing trend periods. It is an example of correlation equals causation, and not a very good one.
“[N]o recognition of the other anthropogenic cause land use change which includes Urban Heat Islands. . . . To believe the IPCC hypothesis is the over riding explanation takes denial of all the glacial cycles evidence for the very, very short 50 year record. I don’t, and question those who would/do.”
Good point.
“Professor Anastasios Tsonis, [Meteorologist] of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee: “We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least. There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped.” September 2013.
So much for that hypothesis. And of course it’s put forward by CoRev, the fan of testable hypotheses – except when he’s not..
Not today!
CoRev, February 7, 2014 4:04 pm: “How many here know that we have had NO WARMING in the various datasets for many years? How many accept that? ” Well, most of us know that it’s always possible to cherry-pick, use many degrees of freedom, ignore that climate is typically accepted as a 30-year period and THEN show there’s been “NO WARMING”. The significance of this approach is nil. Unless you’re a pseudoskeptic.
One of my favorite albums is Ian Hunter’s You’re Never Alone With a Schizophrenic. CoRev is never alone, even when he’s by himself.
There’s been no global warming and even pseudoskeptics agree there is warming. Cognitive dissonance thy name is CoRev.
“Doesn’t sound like they have agreed to anything concrete.”
How did they have any time to discuss concrete? 🙂
The most efficient way for Pakistan to reduce emissions and improve prospects and well-being per capita over the next 20-40 years is to snip all males to prevent prodigious breeding of an additional 65-160 million more Pakistanis and the hardship per capita that is certain to accompany their existence.
Jeff,
Thanks for your post. I think you’ve made the case for the Paris agreement about as well as it could be made. But on this issue there is rare agreement between climate activists and conservatives: this agreement is just promises, promises, with no guaranteed actions. Nonetheless, conservatives should not be complacent about the Paris agreement, at least as far as US environmental policy is concerned. The Administration is busy trying to make good on those promises by circumventing Congress and using Administrative law in an expansive interpretation of existing law, such as the Clean Air Act, to meet its international pledges on greenhouse gas reductions. The Administration’s use of Administrative law to implement its environmental policies under the Paris agreement is law-making by executive edict, a characteristic of this Administration’s tactics that we’ve seen in other policy areas. Anyone who is concerned with the degradation of the rule of law should oppose the Administration’s environmental policy tactics regardless of what he may think about the need for climate change legislation.
The post says that “Some avid environmentalists may have been disappointed in the outcome.” I would submit to Menzie that if he is having a contest for the biggest understatement of the year on econbrowser, this statement should be a serious contender. James Hansen, the so-called father of climate change, said of the Paris agreement:
“It’s a fraud really, a fake. It’s just bullshit for them to say: ‘We’ll have a 2C warming target and then try to do a little better every five years.’ It’s just worthless words. There is no action, just promises. As long as fossil fuels appear to be the cheapest fuels out there, they will be continued to be burned.”
Friends of the earth had this to say:
“The draft Paris agreement puts us on track for a planet three degrees hotter than today. This would be a disaster. The reviews in this agreement are too weak and too late. The finance figures have no bearing on the scale of need. It’s empty. The iceberg has struck, the ship is going down and the band is still playing to warm applause.”
The conservative press tends to agree, whether you look at specialty blogs such as Wattsupwiththat or more general conservative news sites. The climate activists and conservatives are right that the agreement is fairly meaningless. The idea behind the Paris agreement is that each country submits an Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) document that lays out the country’s promises for how much it will reduce its emissions by some year, such as 2025. Although the post says “Virtually all countries agreed concretely to limit their emissions in the near term,” it’s important to understand that these INDCs are not agreements but rather just promises. True, they are concrete promises, since they propose specific numerical targets. And they have some credibility, since they spell out how, within the existing legal and policy structures, these promises will be met. There is even a mechanism for reporting and monitoring the results in each INDC. But, there is no enforcement mechanism if nations do not meet their goals. And, nations are free to leave the agreement upon meeting notice requirements. The fact that agreement has very broad participation is seen as a huge success. But when you look at the details you realize that the reason so many nations signed is that they are not promising to do anything that they don’t want to do or weren’t already planning to do. There are no penalties for failing to keep any promise and no penalties for exiting the agreement altogether.
Of course, both the climate activists and conservatives realize that such an agreement is likely to implode very quickly, since nations can only honor their promises subject to the constraints of their existing political processes. The US is a good case in point. In the US INDC, the Administration promised to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 26-28 percent by 2025, measured with respect to 2005 levels. Under existing environmental policy and law, the US is already on track to reduce by 17 percent. Where will the Administration get the extra 10 percent? They plan to bypass Congress and use an aggressive expansion of the regulatory state by means of Administrative law.
The extra 10 percent will come from the following Administrative actions:
1) Implementation of the Clean Power Plan, which uses EPA regulations to lower emissions
2) DOT and EPA fuel-economy regulations for heavy vehicles
3) EPA regulations on methane emissions of landfills and oil and gas and EPA regulations to reduce HFCs
4) DOE regulations on energy conservation for appliances and residential buildings
If we look at the Clean Power Plan (CLP), we can see the difficulties. The WSJ noted on the editorial page today that Congress forced the President to pocket veto legislation that would have nullified the CLP and Congress also cut the EPA’s budget. Plus, the CLP faces serious legal challenges from 27 states. The Administration has exploited the little-used section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act to reinterpret it in order to give the EPA the power to use it for climate change policy. The legal problem with this is that by some fluke the House and Senate versions were never reconciled, with the House version prohibiting using the Clean Air Act in the way the EPA wants while the Senate version allows it. The EPA is also exceeding longstanding constraints on its authority by promulgating rules that go “beyond the fenceline.” Moreover, the Administration’s actions are also being challenged in court under the anti-commandeering doctrine, which says that federal agencies may not coerce state agencies into implementing federally-determined policies.
Thus, it’s by no means clear that the Administration will be able to keep the promises made in Paris. Similar problems, I would think, exist in many other countries so that it is not likely the agreement will survive in the long run. But the fact that the agreement will not survive is not really the problem. The problem is that the attempt to satisfy these promises in the US represents a new, aggressive, pursuit of independent executive law making. Environmental policy, like anything else, should be decided by both Congress and the President. That’s the lesson from Paris.
JBH: “What conceivable reason can there be for a government agency to withhold climate information from the public?”
Climate information is not being withheld from the public by NOAA. All of the data, methods, mathematical models and analysis are publicly released. Anyone who wants to challenge the conclusions are free to go through the data and provide their critiques. That is the way science works.
What Judicial Watch wants is the private email of scientists. Whether they have a right to that email is subject to debate. Rather than address the science they want to go on an underwear sniffing expedition.
Joseph, I like the analogy of underwear sniffing. 🙂 This comment,though, is not correct: “Whether they have a right to that email is subject to debate.” They have an oversight role for operations of the agency. What you are saying is any Govt employee can thwart that role as they will. The only reason Congress backed down was mostly due to pressure mostly public opinion from a few of alarmist activists.
What makes climate science different from any other, especially that related to weapon systsms?
Joseph,
There is no debate here. NOAA is obligated to produce these documents in response to a FOIA request from Judicial Watch. I doubt they will fight on this point.
Ricardo: “NASA is so confused. Oh, but wait if the climate change is causing the earth to heat or to cool no problem.”
Ricardo, did you even read the article you linked? The study says that transient, local effects such as aerosols produce a bias in the data that results in a short-term under-measurement of CO2 warming. In other words, projected warming over the long term is greater than in previous estimates.
Yes, I did read their spin on why they don’t know what they are doing.
so ricardo has a deeper understanding of science than the actual scientists at nasa? dunning kruger effect at its finest.
I thought it interesting when Steve McIntyre researched the actual country-based CO2 data. Read carefully to see just what quicksand these fears and promises are based: http://climateaudit.org/2015/12/23/cop21-emission-projections/
One of McIntyre’s comments that caught my eye was this:
“A plugged line “Not Accounted For” particularly caught my eye – this ought to ring red bells for any data analyst and one would have expected that one of the 40,000+ COP21 would have paid attention to it. The values of this were surprisingly high: over 11 Gt COE eq in 2010 (over 20%) of the total – an amazingly high value given availability of EDGAR v4.2 data. ”
Remember this is the data from which billions $s if not trillions $ will be calculated.
CoRev – when will you learn? McIntyre says he can’t find the emissions targets for individual countries. My first Google search turned up dozens of websites listing the INDC’s and their pledges. For instance, here was the first result: Paris 2015: Tracking countries climate pledges One reads McIntyre for laughs (or to see how low one human being can stoop) – not for science or anything resembling truth.
Remember, this is the same man that was harassing NASA/GISS for data and code that was already publicly available. When instructed as to where he could find it he still kept asking for it.
There goes our #1 alarmist troll, Kevin, again. Kevin’s claim: “McIntyre says he can’t find the emissions targets for individual countries. ”
McIntyre’s actual comment: “Not a shred of data anywhere in the Synthesis Report on commitments of individual countries….”
and
“Conclusion
It seems really odd to me that the UNFCCC Synthesis Report did not contain supporting information showing emissions by country. ”
Just a reminder, the commitments are generally for the 2005 values. They had to be known and reported prior to the 11/2015 Synthesis Report submitted to establish the baseline(s) for the COP21 final discussions.
Moreover, Kevin like to make light of McIntyre’s inputs/questions raised. This is an example in the actual baseline data effected by this ?laughable? man’s effect:
“A couple of days ago, I notified Joergen Fenhann of UNEP of the Congo error, receiving a short thanking acknowledgement. I followed up on December 21 with questions about the plugged values:
The line item for Not accounted for has a plugged value from which some country values are deducted. Where does this plugged value come from? Why are some countries deducted but not others?
Fenhann did not reply to my question on December 21. However, this morning, I noticed that UNEP made major changes to their spreadsheet – without any notice of that a prior error had been corrected and, needless to say, without any acknowledgement. The 2020 MtCO2eq emissions (incl LULUCF) are now 63944 MT versus the former 58524 Mt, an overnight increase of 5.4 Gt.”
What Kevin can not admit is the impact that an investigation by McIntyre causes. Han anyone heard of the “Hockeystick” controversy?
CoRev – which Hockey Stick ?
From Seeing the Environmental forest: Enough hockeys sticks for a team
“One of the persistent denier myths is that the Hockey Stick (usually meaning Mann et al. 1999) has been discredited. Not only is that myth false but Mann et al. (1999) has been validated through the publication of numerous hockey stick graphs since 1999. Here is a brief list of the ones I know:”
Crowley 2000: Used both his own and Mann et al. (1999)’s hockey sticks to examine the cause of temperature changes over the past 1,000 years. Found that natural forcings could not explain twentieth century warming without the effect of greenhouse gases.
Huang, et al. 2000: Reconstructed global average temperatures since AD 1500 using temperature data from 616 boreholes from around the globe.
Bertrand et al. 2002: Reconstructed solar output, volcanic activity, land use changes, and greenhouse gas concentrations since AD 1000, then computed the expected temperature changes due to those forcings. Compared the computed temperature changes with two independent temperature reconstructions.
Esper et al. 2002: Reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperatures between AD 800 and AD 2000 using tree ring chronologies.
Cronin et al. 2003: Reconstructed temperatures between 200 BC and AD 2000 around Chesapeake Bay, USA, using sediment core records.
Pollack and Smerdon 2004: Reconstructed global average temperatures since AD 1500 using temperature data from 695 boreholes from around the globe.
Esper et al. 2005: Compared and averaged five independent reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures from AD 1000 to AD 2000.
Moberg et al. 2005: Combined tree ring proxies with glacial ice cores, stalagmite, and lake sediment proxies to reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures from AD 1 to AD 2000.
Oerlemans 2005: Reconstructed global temperatures from AD 1500 to AD 2000 using 169 glacial ice proxies from around the globe.
Rutherford, et al. 2005: Compared two multi-proxy temperature reconstructions and tested the results of each reconstruction for sensitivity to type of statistics used, proxy characteristics, seasonal variation, and geographic location. Concluded that the reconstructions were robust to various sources of error.
D’Arrigo et al. 2006: Reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperatures between AD 700 and AD 2000 from multiple tree ring proxies using a new statistical technique called Regional Curve Standardization. Concluded that their new technique was superior to the older technique used by previous reconstructions.
Osborn and Briffa 2006: Used 14 regional temperature reconstructions between AD 800 and AD 2000 to compare spatial extent of changes in Northern Hemisphere temperatures. Found that twentieth century warming was more widespread than any other temperature change of the past 1,200 years.
Hegerl et al. 2007: Combined borehole temperatures and tree ring proxies to reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past 1,450 years. Introduced a new calibration technique between proxy temperatures and instrumental temperatures.
Juckes et al. 2007: Combined multiple older reconstructions into a meta-analysis. Also used existing proxies to calculate a new Northern Hemisphere temperature reconstruction.
Wahl and Ammann 2007: Used the tree ring proxies, glacial proxies, and borehole proxies used by Mann et al. (1998, 1999) to recalculate Northern Hemisphere temperatures since AD 800. Refuted the McIntyre and McKitrick criticisms and showed that those criticisms were based on flawed statistical techniques.
Wilson, et al. 2007: Reconstructed Northern Hemisphere temperatures from AD 1750 to AD 2000 using tree ring proxies that did not show a divergence problem after AD 1960.
Mann et al. 2008: Reconstructed global temperatures between AD 200 and AD 2000 using 1,209 independent proxies ranging from tree rings to boreholes to sediment cores to stalagmite cores to Greenland and Antarctic ice cores.
Kaufman, et al. 2009: Used tree rings, lake sediment cores, and glacial ice cores to reconstruct Arctic temperatures between 1 BC and 2000 AD.
von Storch et al. 2009: Tested three different temperature reconstruction techniques to show that the Composite plus Scaling method was better than the other two methods.
Frank et al. 2010: A brief history of proxy temperature reconstructions, as well as analysis of the main questions remaining in temperature reconstructions.
Kellerhals et al. 2010: Used ammonium concentration in a glacial ice core to reconstruct tropical South American temperatures over the past 1,600 years.
Ljungqvist 2010: Reconstructed extra-tropical Northern Hemisphere temperatures from AD 1 to AD 2000 using historical records, sediment cores, tree rings, and stalagmites.
Thibodeau et al. 2010: Reconstructed temperatures at the bottom of the Gulf of St. Lawrence since AD 1000 via sediment cores.
Tingley and Huybers 2010a, 2010b: Used a Bayesian approach to reconstruct North American temperatures.
Büntgen et al. 2011: Used tree ring proxies to reconstruct Central European temperatures between 500 BC and AD 2000.
Kemp et al. 2011: Reconstructed sea levels off North Carolina, USA from 100 BC to AD 2000 using sediment cores. They also showed that sea levels changed with global temperature for at least the past millennium.
Kinnard et al. 2011: Used multiple proxies to reconstruct late summer Arctic sea ice between AD 561 and AD 1995, using instrumental data to extend their record to AD 2000.
Martin-Chivelet et al. 2011: Reconstructed temperatures in the Iberian Peninsula from 2000 BC to AD 2000 using stalagmites.
Spielhagen et al. 2011: Reconstructed marine temperatures in the Fram Strait from 100 BC to AD 2000 using sediment cores.
Esper et al. 2012: Used tree ring proxies to reconstruct Northern Scandinavian temperatures 100 BC to AD 2000. May have solved the post-AD 1960 tree ring divergence problem.
Ljungqvist et al. 2012: Used a network of 120 tree ring proxies, ice core proxies, pollen records, sediment cores, and historical documents to reconstruct Northern Hemisphere temperatures between AD 800 and AD 2000, with emphasis on proxies recording the Medieval Warm Period.
Melvin et al. 2012: Reanalyzed tree ring data for the Torneträsk region of northern Sweden.
Abram et al. 2013: Reconstructed snow melt records and temperatures in the Antarctic Peninsula since AD 1000 using ice core records.
Marcott, et al. 2013: Reconstructed global temperatures over the past 11,000 years using sediment cores. Data ended at AD 1940.
PAGES 2k Consortium 2013: Used multiple proxies (tree rings, sediment cores, ice cores, stalagmites, pollen, etc) to reconstruct regional and global temperatures since AD 1.
Rohde et al. 2013: Used proxy and instrumental records to reconstruct global temperatures from AD 1753 to AD 2011.
CoRev – here’s a simple question: For all the supposed work that McIntyre and McKitrick did, why did they never produce a reconstruction using their supposedly correct PCA analysis?
In fact, why has no alternative temperature reconstruction (NH or global) ever been published in the peer-reviewed literature by *any* pseudoskeptic.? Oh wait, they did – BEST. Funny how that turned out.
Do you find it the slightest bit odd that the ‘blade’ of the hockey stick consists of the most recent temperatures – i.e., the ones we *don’t* need proxies to calculate – we have observations that suffice for the last 150 years. So the hockey stick gets its blade from temperatures we have high confidence in.
But, but McIntyre ….. LOL. You are a hoot. Shall we revisit my prediction of your MWP spiel and the ‘one true graph’ ?
Kevin, Answer to question 1, because it wasn’t there without splicing the temp record. Which became labeled “Mike’s Trick” by his “ALARMIST” cohorts.
Answer to question 2: Quite amazing you conveniently forget about the satellite constructions, or Curry et al’s Stadium Wave construction. Or this: http://climateaudit.org/2006/03/13/mm-at-the-nas-panel/ (Go to the article to see Fig 1)
“If you have a set of proxies that are supposedly temperature proxies, then the most common “old statistical approach” would be to standardize the proxies and take an average. We showed the difference between the MBH reconstruction and a simple mean in the figure shown below. So the “new statistical approach” applied to MBH98 proxies obviously yields quite different answers than a conventional approach.
[Figure 1 was displayed here]
Figure 1. Top – mean of 415 proxies after standardization; bottom – MBH98.
We classified the principal aspects of the “new statistical approach” as being
1) temperature PCs reified as “climate fields”;
2) Mannian PCs applied to tree ring networks
3) a sui generis* multivariate methodology in the regression step applied to the post-tree ring PC proxies. (Need more???)
Answer to question 3: WHATTTT????!!!!???? The blade is from the temperture records being spliced to the proxies? Until proven, Mann and Jones both denied such a thing ever happened, and that “Mike’s Trick” was just normal math, Blah, blah. As I said earlier having McIntyre looking at your data can get embarrassing:
“The CA article prompted a Real Climate reader (citing http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1553#comment-340175 and here
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=7810#more-7810) to ask Mann about splicing (this was in the heat of Climategate and links to Climate Audit were temporarily not banned or tape delayed):
That leaves me with the simple question, “was the shape of a proxy record changed by including instrumental temperature record in in way that the proxy record was shifted from where it would have been in the 20th century?” Obviously, if the answer is yes, and this was bad science, then why was it done?
Even in the face of the Climate Audit demonstration two days earlier of splicing of proxy and instrumental data in the WMO 1999 diagram that had been the subject of the notorious email, Mann continued to deny that he and coauthors had ever grafted instrumental and proxy data into a single curve, the link below going to his original diatribe about “fossil fuel disinformation”:
The point that has been made a number of times is that the reconstruction (the raw annual values through 1980) has never been presented with the instrumental values (available after the end of the proxy record in 1980) as a single “grafted” curve by Mann and collaborators (here). Indeed, the instrumental values and proxy-reconstructed temperature values have always been demarcated and clearly labeled as distinct (e.g. in Mann et al ’98 and the extension back to AD 1000 in Mann et al ’99)
In the same inline comment, Mann opaquely conceded that instrumental and proxy data had been spliced in the smoothed Mann et al 1998, 1999 reconstructions:
In some earlier work though (Mann et al, 1999), the boundary condition for the smoothed curve (at 1980) was determined by padding with the mean of the subsequent data (taken from the instrumental record).
On November 24, 2009, in a press statement, one of Mann’s coauthors in the WMO 1999 graphic, Phil Jones of CRU, admitted the splicing in the WMO 1999 diagram, but Mann did not correct his previous denials.” http://climateaudit.org/2015/01/08/more-mann-grafting/
Now you admit that the blade is from splicing “…from temperatures we have high confidence in. ” Other than the poor English, your use of “high confidence” flies in the face of the past article re: satellite versus surface temp records.
Answer to your last comment: I often point out that you use strawman arguments, then attempt to argue that strawman. Your example was classic, because you proposed the strawman and then argued it all in the same comment” this was my immediate response to your reference last August:
”
CoRev
August 24, 2015 at 6:14 pm
How appropriate. Kevin has a complete discussion including rebuttal in his own head, and he shared with us. He even belittled and was sarcastic to his pseudo-self. 🙂 ”
Some one recently said: “Man you just can’t make this stuff up!” and “What a hoot!” There is so much misinformation provided when reading your comments it becomes a treasure trove of examples which is coupled with arrogance. To be clear, you exemplify the Alarmist “blind belief” mind set, while high lighting the failures of the science. 😉
G’day to you. I do not intend to follow you down your next blind path of straw.
corev,
quit arguing with how somebody manages and presents their data-its simply a distraction.
show me the science behind the following sea level graph and your “hiatus”
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
here is your chance to step up to the plate and discuss the science behind the hiatus in light of increasing sea levels and ocean heat content. we don’t have to discuss ridiculous distractions on how you do not like certain data sets and interpretations. lets talk real science. sea levels are rising. you claim a hiatus in global warming. show me a scientifically valid mechanism which reinforces your viewpoint. blogger pseudoscience is not acceptable.
CoRev – Question: Why didn’t McIntyre and McKitrick produce their own reconstruction? Answer: crickets chirping.
Question: Where’s the alternative temperature reconstruction? Answer: Red-herring. The “stadium wave” hypothesis was not a temperature reconstruction. And it has essentially already been disproved. It showed global cooling starting in 2010. Like Tsonis, it failed.
CoRev: ” If this was bad science ….” Sorry, thanks for trying to play. Removing errors and bad data is an essential part of science. The ‘hockey stick’ has been validated by dozens of subsequent studies.
CoRev – splicing of data on a WMO pamplet cover? Who cares? Not to mention that splicing of data is done all the time. Your satellite data series has multiple splicings in it. Do you think we’ve been using the same satellite for all these years? But you ignore the main argument: The blade of the hockey stick is the data we have the *most* confidence in. We don’t need proxies to see it. It’s there in the instrumental record alone. Complaining about the blade is a non-starter. You have to look elsewhere.
CoRev – You brought up the MWP in the comment I was responding to back in August. Once you brought up the MWP I merely anticipated your denialist garbage. That you cannot, will not defend your own statements is *exactly* what I predicted.
CoRev has an alarm clock that has always kept good time and been in agreement with other sources. He’s never late for work. Then over the course of a year he finds he’s late to work every now and then. Eventually he’s late to work more often than not. He notices that his clock does not seem to agree with the other sources any longer. When a supervisor suggests that maybe he should reset it or buy a new one, CoRev goes ballistic. How can such a thing even be suggested!?
Scientists, on the other hand, have learned that proxies (alarm clocks for those who miss the bleedin’ obvious) occasionally need to be reset or replaced when they no longer correlate with the variable of interest.
Moral of the story: It sucks to be CoRev.
Dr Carl Mears, physicist, senior scientist and VP of Remote Sensing Systems (RSS – the satellite people): “My particular dataset (RSS tropospheric temperatures from MSU/AMSU satellites) show less warming than would be expected when compared to the surface temperatures. All datasets contain errors.
In this case, I would trust the surface data a little more because the difference between the long term trends in the various surface datasets (NOAA, NASA GISS, HADCRUT, Berkeley etc) are closer to each other than the long term trends from the different satellite datasets. This suggests that the satellite datasets contain more “structural uncertainty” than the surface dataset.”
When the producer of the satellite data tells CoRev that the satellite data has larger structural uncertainties and that he trusts the surface data more, what does CoRev do? Well, we know he doesn’t reset his alarm clock 🙂
CoRev – Do you have a problem with the “orbital degradation trick” that Spencer & Christy used to “hide the decline” in correlation between satellite measured brightness temperature and actual temperatures measured by radiosondes? Was manipulating the data to hide this divergence fraud? And why is it UAH won’t publicly release the code for UAH V6? How many articles have Watts, McIntyre, JoNova et al written on this travesty of hiding the satellite code and expecting us all just to trust they haven’t made major mistakes (again)? How many other “tricks” are Spencer & Christy using to produce their data? LOL — the hypocrisy runs deep in some quarters – especially the pseudoskeptic ones.
Kevin, as I already said I would not follow you down your latest path of straw. That goes doubly for you Baffled, unless something changes.
However, Kevin has repeatedly claimed: “CoRev – Question: Why didn’t McIntyre and McKitrick produce their own reconstruction? Answer: crickets chirping.” and this “In fact, why has no alternative temperature reconstruction (NH or global) ever been published in the peer-reviewed literature by *any* pseudoskeptic.? Oh wait, they did – BEST. Funny how that turned out.”
To which I provided this response with a list: “Answer to question 2: Quite amazing you conveniently forget about the satellite constructions, or Curry et al’s Stadium Wave construction. Or this: http://climateaudit.org/2006/03/13/mm-at-the-nas-panel/ (Go to the article to see Fig 1)” Figure 1 in the list is a direct responsw to the M&M question.
Notice how Kevin conveniently ignored that list and repeated his inanity? Another coincidence, while looking through the McIntyre site for their various presentations I came across this direct reference: http://climateaudit.org/2014/09/24/kevin-oneills-fraud-allegations/ Let me repeat the name it references, Kevin Oneill. I found it interesting enough to read the comments, and guess who was not in them. Not one!
Kevin has been a Hockey Stick shill for years. From this example it is apparent Kevin does not want to be embarrassed. It’s so much easier to sit on the sidelines and snipe. Until Kevin her becomes the target. He then disappears. Too bad that is not happening here, instead of polluting a perfectly good political discussion.
BTW, for those who may still be following this discussion, if you want to see what McIntyre found on nearly every one of Kevin’s list of Hockey Stick papers, it can be found here: http://climateaudit.org/page/8/?s=Hockey+stick+graph
CoRev – “I found it interesting enough to read the comments, and guess who was not in them. Not one!”
Read harder: http://climateaudit.org/2014/09/24/kevin-oneills-fraud-allegations/#comment-732287
My comments at Climate Audit were not being shown when I posted them (surprise – not). They only appeared many hours later. McIntyre refused to address Judith Curry’s or Brandon Shollenberger’s use of ‘fraud’ in their blog posts, posts that I was responding to. Odd that a random commenter’s use of ‘fraud’ caused him such consternation that he wrote a post about it – but actual entities like Curry and Shollenberger accusing scientists of fraud didn’t warrant a sentence – not even in response to a direct query.
Note: Wegman was reprimanded for plagiarism. That is exactly the fraud I was talking about. Judith Curry defended Wegman when the initial accusations were made calling the accusations “reprehensible.” She has never apologized tho those that discovered the plagiarism and whose actions she deemed reprehensible or admitted she was wrong.
You really don’t have a clue what this was about – do you? It was about the Wegman Report – not M&M per se. Wegman never even caught on that M&M had done a top 100 cherry-pick from their 10,000 randomly generated hockey sticks. Nor did Wegman catch on to the fact the amplitudes were insignificant. But you’ve completely (again) missed the boat.
CoRev – I already responded once to your claims regarding an alternative temperature reconstruction. It is clear you do not know what a temperature reconstruction is. Just like your claims on ‘brightness temperature’ – you’re ignorant, you know nothing.
Here’s a clue via NOAA: “Reconstructions of past climate conditions are derived from paleoclimatology proxies. Included are reconstructions of past temperature, precipitation, vegetation, streamflow, sea surface temperature, and other climatic or climate-dependent conditions.”
Now, is the stadium wave a temperature reconstruction?
Is the satellite record a temperature reconstruction?
Your link to climateaudit does not contain any temperature reconstruction other than Mann et al’s (MBH98)
Your ignorance is all-encompassing.
😉 For heaven’s sake stop digging. You couldn’t fool the alarmists and skeptics at JC’s blog, Climate Audit, nor WUWT. Admitting you were “moderated” at lightly moderated blogs says it all.
For any still following this discussion, Kevin has expanded his tricks fro simple strawman arguments to goal shifting. he has always name called and denigrated when challenged.
Goal shifting example:
“CoRev – I already responded once to your claims regarding an alternative temperature reconstruction. It is clear you do not know what a temperature reconstruction is. Just like your claims on ‘brightness temperature’ – you’re ignorant, you know nothing.
Here’s a clue via NOAA: “Reconstructions of past climate conditions are derived from paleoclimatology proxies. Included are reconstructions of past temperature, precipitation, vegetation, streamflow, sea surface temperature, and other climatic or climate-dependent conditions.””
Kevin couldn’t even be consistent in his two sample sentences going from temperature construction to climate conditions. Using his latest goal moved definition even his examples, BEST and MBH98/99/03 etc do not qualify.
Name calling and strawman examples are replete in his comments. Latest Ex: “– you’re ignorant, you know nothing.” These traits must be so ingrained in his psyche/debate style that he does it unconsciously. He is well known on several other blogs where he has been put into “moderation” even when those blogs seldom use that tool to limit “trolling”.
Kevin exemplifies the worst from the Alarmist debaters.
corev,
“Kevin, as I already said I would not follow you down your latest path of straw. That goes doubly for you Baffled, unless something changes.”
what is the straw man argument i am presenting, corev? the data i presented to you is a representation of sea level rise:
http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/
i find it baffling that a scientifically sound individual such as yourself would consider my question regarding the rise in sea level versus your hiatus as straw. oh that is right, you are not scientifically literate, hence the silence and “straw” diversion. you have no business discussing the science of climate change, because you have no respect for science. to you, blogger pseudoscience is a respectable position. you probably believe evolution and creationism stand on equal scientific footing as well-because it was written in a nutter pseudoscience blog.
😉
cute corev. but it is interesting how silent you become when you are forced to actually consider and respond to the science itself, rather than repeating unsound commentary from pseudoscience blogs. at least you are smart enough to stay silent on the topic of rising sea levels and your “hiatus”, since any response will probably be a doozy!
Baffled cute? Then this must be doubly so! 😉
actually, this one is not so cute. sort of sad and pathetic. but you could liven it up if you could discuss some of the real science rather than denier nutter speak.