Apocalypse Cancelled

Apocalypse Cancelled is an article by Christopher Monckton which originally appeared in the Sunday Telegraph on two successive Sundays in November 2006.

Monckton is not a climate scientist. The paper has not been published in any reputable peer-reviewed scientific journals, so has not been subject to proper academic critique. It has been attacked by George Monbiot in The Guardian, describing it as "cherry-picking, downright misrepresentation and pseudo-scientific gibberish"

Monckton asserts that Monbiot's response is libelous, that Wikipedia's reporting of Monbiot's remarks in the article on himself is libelous, and he appears to be the originator of claims that he was awarded £50,000 damages against The Guardian for libel - this assertion is false, no libel suit was filed. The Guardian did, as is its normal practice, allow Monckton, as subject of an article, to write a reply, which it published, but there is no evidence that this was anything other than voluntary.

Monckton is not above a little creativity in the media. In January 2007 The Scotsman revealed that Monckton had willingly colluded in the concoction of a false story that he had had to sell his ancestral home after the prize money on a puzzle he had developed was paid out earlier than expected. Monckton's response shows that he considered that publishing false information for personal financial gain was not a problem.

The paper
Monckton's paper is a retelling of partial truths, discredited theories and exaggerations cherry-picked from the climate debate by the numerous shills employed by the energy industry in order to play down the strong and increasingly influential scientific consensus in anthropogenic climate change.

"All 10 of the following points..."
Monckton claims that all of ten points he discusses below must be true if the global climate change consensus case is to be considered true. He notes that there is a consensus among climate scientists on the fact of global warming, with its cause being understood as due largely to human-caused production of carbon-dioxide (CO2). Arguably, the consensus is not concerned with upon the undesirablility of climate change or the policy implications. These latter two considerations are beyond the scope of scientific discussion, though the scientific literature frequently addresses them. Therefore, Monckton's last three points (on the efficacy of proposed carbon-emissions limits, on the cost-effectiveness of remediation of environmental harm, and on the principle of erring on the side of caution) widen the debate and are not strictly concerned with the scientific consensus.

Is there a scientific consensus about global warming?
Monckton argues that there is no scientific consensus on the degree of warming to be expected from the increased amount of CO2. He quotes Professor Lindzen of MIT as expressing doubt as to the large effect to be expected, as well as 41 scientists who had written to a UK newspaper to express their disagreement with the proposition that climate change may prove dangerous.

There is, however, a consensus among climate scientists that the amount of warming to be expected is large enough that it should be taken seriously as a definite threat to the environment, with predictable and negative consequences for humanity. A climate scientist is not, by field, to be expected to evaluate the human impact of climate change. However, when they can predict a reasonable probability of a 1.5oC to 4.5oC change in global average temperature (GAT) over 100 years, this is something that must concern us: the difference in GAT between now and the heart of the most recent ice age is only 6oC.

It must be understood that this consensus is not an imposed consensus, arrived at by some kind of political horse-trading or compromise. There is in fact no way to impose such a belief on a group of scientists, because if anyone has significant evidence in favour of a counter-conventional view, it is to his advantage to publicize it as much as possible, and begin dreaming of Stockholm. Instead, a scientific consensus is a reflection of the current state of the discussion among the relevant experts "when the shouting has stopped." When the experts in the field no longer wish to spend time debating the point, but have settled around a point of view, this is a pretty fair signal to the rest of the world that there is a consensus. Fundamentally, the issue of a consensus is a point that matters to outsiders: The insiders in the field know when it is worthwhile to pursue a topic. Outsiders must use such concepts as "consensus" to decide if the experts have agreed to a stable point of view on the topic. Monckton, however, cites numerous scientific papers that in one aspect or another do not fit the notion of a consensus as we have defined it.

On this last point, it seems clear that, in fact, consensus on the anthropogenic cause of the measured global warming, as due largely to human production of CO2, has been achieved. did a study of the abstracts of peer-reviewed literature on the topic of "global climate change" over the period 1993-2003 and found that none of these (out of 928) contradicted the presumption of the consensus defined above. There was a critical analysis by, claiming that she had omitted or ignored the meaning of certain abstracts from her study. There was some legitimate cause for confusion, due to the fact that she had originally reported the search phrase as "climate change" instead of "global climate change". However, after a detailed study of Peiser's analysis was undertaken by a team of readers, it became clear that his claim of finding 34 abstracts that contradicted the stated consensus was simply not true: there were only two such papers, one of which was the "position statement" of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, and the other was an autobiographical sketch. Neither fit the Oreskes' criterion of being a peer-reviewed scientific study. In the end, Peiser has dropped his claim to having found an error in Oreskes' work. , see near the bottom. (Even had he been right, it would have reflected that only 3% of the peer-reviewed literature disagreed.) This indicates that, in the medium in which the experts talk to each other, the peer-reviewed scientific literature, that the shouting has indeed stopped. On the other hand, papers critical of the consensus view continue to be published, and Monckton cites evidence that, in material respects, the climate has not responded as the UN's models predicted.

Some of the most prestigious scientific organizations in the world have gone on record as endorsing this consensus, including the American Meteorological Society, the American Geophysical Union , the Royal Society (together with the scientific academies of the G8 countries).

There are some prominent members of the relevant scientific community that do not agree to this point of view. We have mentioned Professor Lindzen above. But should the disagreement of numerous leading members of the relevant scientific community be sufficient to destroy this concept of consensus? Not necessarily. 100% agreement is not necessary to conclude that consensus has been reached. As Max Planck (as quoted by Einstein) once remarked, “An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: What does happen is that the opponents gradually die out.” Over time, discrepancies in the evidence for global warming have tended to be resolved, while new evidence for it has continued to grow.

Did rising carbon dioxide end the Ice Ages?
In his article, Monckton says that the IPCC has implied that increased CO2 was responsible for ending the ice ages, and says that the fact that the changes in temperature preceded the increase in CO2 refutes that implication. His backgrounder plots the temperature and CO2 concentration over the last 400,000 years, taken from the Vostok ice core.

In fact, neither point is true:

- The fact that the temperature rise began before the CO2 increase does not imply that CO2 played no role (though, admittedly, Monckton did not say that it played no role). It suggests that the increase of CO2 is likely to have been initiated by the increased temperature (there are many known mechanisms that would act in that way: the warming of frozen tundras, the decreased solubility of CO2 in warmer water, etc.). Since additional CO2 should give rise to an enhanced greenhouse effect, it should thus give rise to additional heating.

- To quote the IPCC's Third Assessment Report directly: "The Vostok record of atmospheric CO2 and Antarctic climate is consistent with a view of the climate system in which CO2 concentration changes amplify orbitally-induced climate changes on glacial/inter-glacial time-scales (Shackleton, 2000)." In other words, the TAR's stated view is that orbital forcing (not increased CO2) initiated the end of the ice ages, but the greenhouse effect of CO2 kicked in as a magnifying influence. However, Monckton points out that the IPCC's graphs are presented in such a way as to suggest a causative link between CO2 and the coming and going of the ice ages: certainly, this is the conclusion drawn by Al Gore in his film An Inconvenient Truth

Was there a medieval warm period?
Monckton begins this section with a reference to Michael Crichton's State of Fear, which he describes as "a best-selling techno-thriller giving an influential, sceptical and thoroughly-referenced account of the climate-change debate." However, an important adjective that is missing from that list is "accurate" - and for good reason. Crichton's presentation of the climate-change debate has been reviewed in detail by professionals in climate science and judged as misleading. Realclimate.org is the website run by scientists including two of the authors of the "hockey-stick" graph.

Monckton says that the Medieval Warm Period (WMP), c.950 - c.1450, was warmer than the current period by up to 3oC. He quotes three papers in support of this claim. However, when we look up these references, we find certain problems:


 * 1) . Villalba (1990): In summing up the variation in temperature during the period under study (and this is the only point in the entire paper where Villalba discusses absolute temperature variations), Villalba says, "The temperature departure mean for the coldest interval (1520-1670) is 0.33oC lower than for the warmer interval (1080-1260).".
 * 2) . Villalba (1994): As in his article above (1.), Villalba makes one statement about absolute temperature variations from his analysis. He says "The mean temperature departure for the coldest interval (A.D. 1520-1660) is estimated to be 0.26oC lower than the warmest interval (A.D. 1080-1250)." Neither of the these papers provide any encouragement for the idea that the MWP was warmer than now.
 * 3) . Soon & Baliunas (2003): This paper has been discussed at www.realclimate.org, at ;"MYTH #2: Regional proxy evidence of warm or anomalous (wet or dry) conditions in past centuries contradicts the conclusion that late 20th century hemispheric mean warmth is anomalous in a long-term (multi-century to millennial) context.", where certain methodological problems have been pointed out. See also . (Obviously, a more independent discussion of this paper would be very useful!)

Monckton goes on to say, "From c.1000 AD, ships were recorded as having sailed in parts of the Arctic where there is a permanent ice-pack now (Thompson et al. 2000; Briffa 2000; Lamb 1972a,b; Villalba 1990, 1994)." However, a review of his references sheds no light on this interesting claim:


 * 1) . Thompson et al (2000) : This paper is concerned with hydrology on the Tibetan plateau, as revealed by analysis of a high-resolution ice core from Dasuopu, Tibet. It has nothing to do with ships sailing in c.1000 AD. The last sentence of the paper says, "For the 20th century, the isotopically inferred temperatures on both Dunde and Dasuopu are the warmest of the millennium, and the recent warming is most pronounced at Dasuopu, the highest elevation site." This would not seem to support the concept of a Medieval Warm Period!
 * 2) . Briffa (2000) : This is a general review of analysis of tree-ring proxy data for reconstructing past climate. There is nothing in this review supportive of Monckton's claims. Indeed, in reviewing the work in this field, Briffa several times notes the unusual warmth of the 20th century as inferred from the tree-ring data. For example, he says "The authors of this work again stress the 'unusual' nature of the apparent 20th-century warmth." There are several similar remarks, especially about the particular warmth of the later 20th century. His figure 2 shows a composite figure of "Southern Hemisphere Temperature Reconstructions for Tasmania and Northern Patagonia". Each of these shows that the MWP was cooler than the present-day temperature, according to these proxy data. His figure 5, in the  section "A New Northern Hemisphere Summer Temperature Record", indicates that the mid to late 20th-century temperature as determined from tree-ring analysis is far warmer than any other period in the past that his analysis includes (as far back as 1400 AD).
 * 3) . Lamb (1972a): Any comment on these?

Villalba 1990 and 1994 have been discussed above; they lend no support. Monckton also states, without citation, the story that the Chinese sailed through the polar region in 1421, without encountering ice. The truth of that story has been debated, without conclusion. Monckton, however, withdrew this statement in the second of his articles, because, though it had been taken from a scientific journal, there was insufficient corroborative evidence.

Monckton says that the Viking settlement in Greenland was suddenly overcome by permafrost around 1425 AD, and remains under permafrost to this day. However, a recent study states, "Although there is no permafrost in the soils, the B and C horizons may not thaw until July. In some settlements, reasonably sophisticated arable agriculture is being carried out with tile drainage, cultivation, seeding and fertilization for improved pastures for sheep." Indeed, the reason for abandonment of the Greenland settlements seems to be an open question; but permafrost is not one of the causes under consideration. . On the other hand, at the Hvalsey settlement much of the settlement, including the burial-ground, is under permafrost.

Little Ice Age: Monckton describes the LIA as a 300-year period ending at about 1750 AD. He references Jones et al. 1998; Villalba 1990, 1994. Frost fairs on the frozen River Thames in London. He says the LIA showed up in the 1996 SAR, but not in the 2001 TAR.

What about the Hockey Stick?
One of the most dramatic displays of a sudden increase in temperature is the history, as pieced together by consolidated proxy-temperature methods, of global average temperature revealed in Mann et al. 1998. The high-point of the presentation is the famous "hockey stick", showing a sudden rise in temperatures beginning at about 1900. As illustrated by Monckton, this presentation has been the focus of a great deal of critical attention, ever since publication.

It would be tiring and tiresome to go through yet another blow-by-blow account of this controversy. However, in the last year, there were two very visible public reviews of this work.

- Three statisticians led by Wegner (2005) were asked by the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Energy & Environment to review the work of Mann et al. His team concluded that a particular statistical method employed by Mann et al. had been applied incorrectly, and had resulted in exaggerating the appearance of the "hockey stick"; and expressed concern that so many of the follow-up papers were written by scientific collaborators of Mann. Subsequent critiques of this report have pointed out that: i) after correction, the resulting graph was virtually the same (though McIntyre & McKitrick (2005) disagree); and ii) it is normal in the physical sciences for experts in a field to know and collaborate with each other: the natural concern for quality control is traditionally addressed by peer review, in which the reviewee does not know the identity of the reviewer.

- Shortly thereafter, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences was asked to convene a panel to review the work of Mann et al. as well. Monckton must regard their report as having some significance, since he attributes the following judgement to them:

This material needs focus.

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has since issued a statement that the "hockey-stick" graph was defective. Significantly, however, the [IPCC] has issued no statement of apology or correction. It continues to use the "hockey-stick" in its publications.

However, a fuller reading of the NAS report shows that, although they recommend some caution regarding temperature history reconstructions before the period of 900 AD, they support the overall conclusions of the paper:

Based on the analyses presented in the original papers by Mann et al. and this newer supporting evidence, the committee finds it plausible that the Northern Hemisphere was warmer during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period over the preceding millennium. The overall conclusion in the report's summary is: It can be said with a high level of confidence that global mean surface temperature was higher during the last few decades of the 20th century than during any comparable period during the preceding four centuries. This statement is justified by the consistency of the evidence from a wide variety of geographically diverse proxies.

Less confidence can be placed in large-scale surface temperature reconstructions for the period from A.D. 900 to 1600. Presently available proxy evidence indicates that temperatures at many, but not all, individual locations were higher during the past 25 years than during any period of comparable length since A.D. 900. The uncertainties associated with reconstructing hemispheric mean or global mean temperatures from these data increase substantially backward in time through this period and are not yet fully quantified.

Very little confidence can be assigned to statements concerning the hemispheric mean or global mean surface temperature prior to about A.D. 900 because of sparse data coverage and because the uncertainties associated with proxy data and the methods used to analyze and combine them are larger than during more recent time periods.

The NAS report also concluded that the validation skill of the "hockey-stick" graph was not appreciably different from zero. A validation skill of zero is generally taken to indicate that a statistical methodology is of no probative value.

Thus, although the accuracy of the hockey stick may be reduced, two points should be noted:

- The uncertainty pointed out in the NAS report is in fact within the (very wide) error bars pointed out by Mann et al. originally; and

- The message of the graph, that the current global average temperature is exceptional for the period of the last thousand years, is accepted.

The graph on p.12
On page 12, Monckton presents a graph showing a number of different historical temperature reconstructions (reproduced as figure 1). Note that the caption indicates that "In three of the studies (Esper, Briffa, and Moberg) the mediaeval warm period is shown to have been as warm as, or warmer than, the current warm period." This apparent conclusion is due to the fact that none of the temperature reconstructions includes "the current warm period."

'''I don't get this: in what sense is the current warm period not included? It looks like the graph runs to 1980 or so to me.''' (the question is where is the data beyond 1980.... around 50% of the warming since 1900 happened after 1980. Check the graph found here: where all relevant studies are included and updated to 2004 --Kim D. Petersen 09:24, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

monckton.jpg

Monckton points out that the paper by Soon & Baliunas (2003) was criticized because the data in some of the studies they reviewed were not temperature data. He also points out that four of the editors of the journal that published it resigned in protest at it's publication, and contrasting this with the fact that none of the editors of Nature, which had published Mann et al., have resigned in consequence. It should be pointed out that the resignations of the four editors were inspired not by the apparent error in the article, but by the violation of process by which the article was published without appropriate review. Indeed, one of the editors who resigned because of the Soon & Baliunas paper was Von Storch - a critic of Mann et al. There were no resignations from Nature when the failure of peer-review to identify the defects in the "hockey-stick" graph was demonstrated.

Figure 2 shows four temperature reconstructions for the northern hemisphere (Jones et al. 1998, Mann et al. 1999, Mann & Jones 1999, Moberg et al. 2005), plotted not as "normalized index" (as in Monckton) but as °C. The presence of a (mild) mediaeval warm period and little ice age is evident in all four reconstructions. To improve the readability of the graph, in figure 3 we show the smoothed time series, smoothed on a ten-year timescale by means of a local exponentially-weighted average. Again, the mediaeval warm period and little ice age are evident, and just as Monckton's version does, this graph gives the distinct impression that modern temperatures are not substantially higher than those of the mediaeval warm period.

recon1.jpg

recon2.jpg

Properly to compare historical temperature reconstructions with the modern era, we have plotted in figure 4 the same data as in figure 3, and the smoothed temperature time series as determined by thermometers (HADCRU, from the Hadley Centre/Climate Research Unit of the Univ. of East Anglia). When the "current warm period" is included in the graph, it is absolutely evident that all of the reconstructions contradict the idea that temperature in the medieval warm period was as high as that of the current warm period. There are, however, numerous papers in the peer-reviewed literature which come to a different conclusion.

recon3.jpg

South America
??????????????? Has Monckton made a mistake with his citation of Thompson et al (2000)? After all his reference list contains a Thompson et al (2002) and a Thompson et al (2003), so he could have clumsily referrred to Thompson (2000) when he meant Thomoson (2003) etc.

Neither of the other two Thompson et al papers is relevant to the point addressed here. However a comparison of how Monckton interprets the data in Thompson et al (2003) is a classical bit of cherrypicking of the most audacious kind. For he is not merely choosing one paper that supports his point of view, out of several or many that don't. Here he is dismantling a composite of data used by Thompson et al (2003) to make a point about warming in low latitudes, to pull out and discuss just one of the component data sets of the composite. This single data set in isolation supports Monckton's view (the latter being completely contrary to the conclusion of Thompson et al (2003). It goes something like this:

In the sections in which Monckton makes short precis of individual papers (see bottom of page 13 of the supplementary information that Monckton urls in his telegraph "article"), he says the following:

Monckton: "Thompson et al, 2003: These authors analysed decadally-averaged δ18O records [this is delta, superscript 18 Oxygen in ice cores] derived by them and their colleagues from 3 Andean and 3 Tibetan ice cores, demonstrating that "on centennial to millennial time scales atmospheric temperature is the principal control on the δ18O ice of the snowfall that sustains these high mountain ice fields", after which they produced "a low latitude δ18O history for the last millennium" that they used as a surrogate for air temperature. For the Quelccaya Ice Cap (13.95 oS, 70.83 oW), this work revealed that peak temperatures of the mediaeval warm period were warmer than those of the last few decades of the 20th century."

Now look at Thompson et al 2003:

Thompson LG, Mosley-Thompson E, Davis ME, et al. Tropical glacier and ice core evidence of climate change on annual to millennial time scales CLIMATIC CHANGE 59 (1-2): 137-155 JUL 2003

Here's the "conclusion" part of their abstract:


 * "Decadally averaged δ18O ice from three Andean and three Tibetan ice cores are composited to produce a low latitude δ18O ice history for the last millennium. Comparison of this ice core composite with the Northern Hemisphere proxy record (1000-2000 AD) reconstructed by Mann et al (1999) and measured temperatures (1856-2000) reported by Jones et al. (1999) suggests the ice cores have captured the decadal scale variability in the global temperature trends. These ice cores show a 20th century isotope enrichment that suggest a large scale warming is underway at low latitudes. The rate of isotopically inferred warming is amplified at higher elevations over the Tibetan plateau while amplification in the Andes is latitude dependent with enrichment (warming) increasing equatorward. In concert with this apparent warming, in situ observations reveal that the tropical glaciers are currently disappearing...."

In their Figure 7 Thompson et al display their overall conclusions. They compare the regional composites (Andes or Tibetan, or Andes + Tibetan as a crude low latitude history) with the Mann 1999 Northern Hemisphere reconstruction. The total composite looks rather like the Mann et al 1999 NH reconstruction - the Medieval Warm periods (MWP) and Little Ice Ages (LIA) are barely perceptible and the temperature proxy skies upwards (a bit like a "hockey stick"!) through the 20th century. They don't directly convert their 18O enrichment data intoδ a temperature, but instead represent is as 'Z score' with positive values being warmer and negative cooler than a base line. Their MWP averages around plus 0.2 on this score and the LIA around minus 0.3. The curve reaches a value of 2.3 by the year 2000. This is the "low latitude δ18O history for the last millennium" of which Monckton speaks.

So how has Monckton managed to take this straightforward data from Thompson et al (2003) whose conclusion concerning their "low latitude D18O history for the last millennium" is that in low latitudes (as judged by a composite ice core oxygen isotope enrichment analysis as a temperature proxy), the temperature has followed a pattern similar to that of the NH reconstructions with a little bit of a MWP, a small LIA and a very large late 20th century warmth...

...and concluded (Monckton) "....peak temperatures of the mediaeval warm period were warmer than those of the last few decades of the 20th century"?

Simple, he's taken just one data set of the composite (the Quelccaya Ice Cap) which can justifiably support his statement....and he's ignored all the rest.

Notice also how Monckton has worded his short precis in such a manner that there are no absolute errors of fact. He's just selected one out of the six data sets of the composite, and juxtaposed facts to come to a conclusion that is diametrically opposite of what Thompson et al (2003) concluded.

www.CO2Science.org's Reviews

For his examination of the medieval warm period, Monckton uses a series of reviews taken directly from the CO2science.org website. Taking one of these as an example it is possible to show that these reviews have not been critically verified and contain errors which render them unreliable. One was chosen at random: Rein et al 2005. The CO2science authors declare that:

"The authors derived sea surface temperatures from alkenones extracted from a high-resolution marine sediment core retrieved off the coast of Peru (12.05°S, 77.66°W), spanning the past 20,000 years and ending in the 1960s. From their Figure 11, adapted below, it can be seen that the warmest temperatures of this 20,000 year period (~23.2°C) occurred during the late Medieval time (AD 800-1250). Taking this value, 23.2°C, and comparing it with the modern monthly long-term means in sea surface temperature, which the authors characterize as between 15°C and 22°C, we estimate the peak warmth of the Medieval Warm Period for this region was about 1.2°C above that of the Current Warm Period."

Having analysed this article it became quickly apparent that the authors of Rein et al do not undertake any proxy temperature studies using their alkenone method post 1960 as this is when the data set ended. So this article can only inform about the apparent temperature anomaly during the medieval warm period. The data from Rein et al suggests that temperatures reach as high as 23.2oC as suggested and confirmed by CO2science. However, CO2science only compare this temperature peak to an instrumental record referenced by Rein et al which runs between 2000 and present, this excludes the 1998 El Nino event. A figure is contained within Rein et al showing the sea surface temperature anomaly during this event which appear to 5oC, and the baseline sea surface temperature is given as 18oC. It is therefore possible to estimate the magnitude of the 1998 sea surface temperature event as being 23oC. Comparison to the peak events evident during the medieval warm period seems shows that the current warming is of a comparable magnitude. Thus CO2science's assertion that the medieval warm period was 1.2oC warmer seems excessive and incorrect.

By how much have global temperatures risen since 1900?
Monckton begins by quoting different estimates of the mean global temperature increase over the period 1900 to 2000: 0.6oC from the IPCC, based on information from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia and the Goddard Institute for Space Studies; 0.45oC from AccuWeather; 5.3oC (??) from the U.S. National Climate Data Center. He seems to indicate a contradiction with the temperature rise over this period of only 0.3oC in the U.S., which he describes as having the longest record of reliable measurements. [Check the T rise for U.S. over the 20th century.]

However, there is no contradiction if the rise in one part of the world is less than the rise of the average. No one has ever said that the temperature increase would be uniform over the globe (though Monckton did not suggest that anyone had said this).

Monckton goes on to cast doubt on the temperature record.

Urban "heat-island" effects

Urban areas tend to be warmer than rural areas, especially at night. It has been suggested that increasing industrial activity in cities might bias estimates of the average temperature towards the high end, while not increasing the actual temperature of the globe significantly. Efforts have been made in the data analyses to correct for the possibility of this effect, but Monckton suggests that these corrections may underestimate the temperature rise specific to the cities.

This "urban heat island" (UHI) effect has been studied for some time as a potential source of systematic error.
 * Peterson et al. (1999): Taking measurements over the period from 1880 to 1998, they created two data sets: one being the whole set of data, the other from only the rural stations. If the UHI effect had biased the calculations, one would expect the first data set to show a significantly greater trend of temperature increase than the second; however, the trend from the first set was 0.65oC per century, while the trend from the second was actually greater, at 0.7oC per century.


 * Parker (2004): Windy conditions vitiate the urban heat island, so if the UHI effect were significant, it would be expected that the trend of data from only windy days would be less than the trend of the total data set. However, there was very little difference between the trends calculated from these two:

"This analysis demonstrates that urban warming has not introduced significant biases into estimates of recent global warming. The reality and magnitude of global-scale warming is supported by the near-equality of temperature trends on windy nights with trends based on all data."
 * Peterson (2003) [If this is the most comprehensive survey to date, why does the windy study come in 2004? -- because the wind study only looks at the relationships of UHI to urbanization, while this study examines its relationships to urbanization, latitude, elevation, instrument changes, and non-standard siting. BTW, the windy study is from Parker, not Peterson (I've fixed that).]: This survey studied the relationship of temperature records to urbanization, elevation, latitude, time of observation, instrumentation and non-standard siting. The conclusion:

"Contrary to generally accepted wisdom, no statistically significant impact of urbanization could be found in annual temperatures. It is postulated that this is due to micro- and local-scale impacts dominating over the mesoscale urban heat island. Industrial sections of towns may well be significantly warmer than rural sites, but urban meteorological observations are more likely to be made within park cool islands than industrial regions." ['''Grant: Could you check the wording here? It seems awkward. The wording is exactly as in the original paper; I just did a cut-and-paste from pdf.''']

Thus, some (but not all) detailed studies of the putative UHI effect lead to the conclusion that it cannot be used to sustain doubt concerning the temperature trend indicated by the record of thermometer measurements.

Incomplete historical record

Monckton goes on to argue that we have an Incomplete historical record, saying:

The only reliable records for the first half of the 20th century are from the US. In the UK and other European centres, the ratio of population to land area is too great to allow accurate comparisons; in most other areas, political instability prevents a complete record. Many historically-inaccurate or poorly-correlated records have been used in all reconstructions of 20th-century temperature.

To the contrary, reliable records cover large areas of the globe for the entire 20th century, and coverage of the northern hemisphere is especially good. Nor does the "ratio of population to land area" (aka population density) necessarily invalidate accurate comparisons; this is just the urbanization argument again.

'''[Grant: The following is interesting background information, but does it contribute to the argument? Perhaps it would be possible to cast it as a substantive response to the claim of an incomplete historical record, combining with your text above (and condensing).] [I think you're right; let me ponder exactly how to do this.]'''

The Thermomenter Record (moved from above)  Temperature records from thermometer measurements have been maintained over large areas of the globe for a century and a half, and in a few locations for several centuries. Numerous researchers have collected and organized these measurements, checking them carefully so that errors can be corrected if possible and eliminated if not, and compensating for all known biases and nonclimatological factors. The world's two leading scientific institutions maintaining accurate and consistent temperature records are the Hadley Centre for Climate Research in the U.K. (HadCRU) and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in the U.S. They further estimate global and hemispheric averages of temperature; these data are the source for most of the temperature graphs published in the mass media.

Incomplete geographical spread of temperature recordings

Monckton suggests that the paucity of temperature measurements taken at sea, and in the Southern Hemisphere, may affect the reliability of global mean temperature datasets.

Mass closure of weather stations

Monckton states that the number of weather stations has fallen from 5,000 or 6,000 (in 1970) to 2,000 today, and claims, in the first article, that this is an example of the IPCC's "growing reliance on computer guesswork rather than facts". (Someone pointed out that satellites make up for this; I'll find the text later.). There is evidence in the peer-reviewed literature that the discrepancy between satellite and ground-based temperature readings, though less than formerly, still persists.

Antarctica/Greenland/Iceland temperature anomalies

Monckton does not attack what he calls the "consensus" theory as implying that temperatures everywhere will rise.

(I stopped here today.)

One of the subjects Monckton treats at length is The Antarctic and Greenland/Iceland temperature anomalies. Regarding Antarctica, on pg. 18 he refers to, "See Sansom (1989) for the Antarctic temperature series," but Sansom studies only 30 years of temperature data (from 1957 to 1987) and finds no statistically signficant trend. On pg. 19 Lord Monckton states, "In Iceland, as in Greenland, the first half of the 20th century was warmer than the second half."

The whole argument is predicated on the assumption that "global warming theory" requires warming to be uniform. In fact Monckton concludes on pg. 19 with, "I conclude that the rise in temperatures since 1900 has been far from uniform globally." However, modern climate science does not predict uniform warming at all; it predicts that regional differences are expected, not contradictory. Even if Monckton's characterization of temperature trends in Antarctica, Greenland, and Iceland were true, these regions are not the world.

Antarctica is an isolated continent sitting on top of the south pole. As such it's expected to respond differently to global warming than other areas of the globe. The Antarctic peninsula is warming rapidly, as evidenced by thermometer records and by the recent collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf. Interior stations show a very small cooling over the last 20 years but no discernable trend over the 20th century. As for Iceland, its temperature since 1900 from stations reporting to the global historical climate network (ghcn) belies the claim that "the first half of the 20th century was warmer than the second half."

(picture of Iceland_ghcn goes here)

References:

Parker, D.E. 2004, Large-scale warming is not urban, Nature 432, 290

Peterson, T.C., K. P. Gallo, J. Lawrimore, T. W. Owen, A. Huang, and D. A. McKittrick, 1999: Global rural temperature trends. Geophysical Research Letters 26, 329

Peterson, T.C. 2003, Assessment of Urban Versus Rural In Situ Surface Temperatures in the Contiguous United States: No Difference Found, Journal of Climate 16, 2941

Sansom, J. 1898, Antarctic Surface Temperature Time Series, Journal of Climate 2, 1164

US DOE 2006, web site of the U.S. Department of Energy, http://www.eia.doe.gov/kids/infocardnew.html

What role has the Sun played in recent warming?
Monckton concludes that the sun has played a larger role in climate variation than assumed by the IPCC. He gives a literature review to support this. Somebody who is knowledgeable about this sort of thing must review pp. 20-22 of the backgrounder.

Could someone with more knowledge than me check how Monckton comes to the conclusion that Willson(2003) says that "the last two minima of the 10.6-year solar cycle TSI has risen at a rate equivalent to at least 0.68wm-2 per decade... I can only find a conclusion of 0.05% increase in TSI per decade: (0.05/100)*1366. This is a comparison between two specific solar activity minima. At times other than the minima, there is too much short-run fluctuation to allow reliable trend measurement.

Addition by CobblyWorlds.

It is first worth noting that there is debate about the magnitude of the Sun's role in changes in climate in quantitative terms. However there really can be no doubt that changes in both the activity of the Sun, and the Earth's relationship to it, do have a significant effect of the climate of the Earth. However this in no way dismisses the theory that changes in CO2 and for that matter other factors, such as tectonic changes in distribution of landmasses on the Earth, also have a role in changes in climate.

Mr Monckton questions the IPCC's 2001 statement of 0.3W, which is based on the 11-year solar cycle minimum values in 1744 and 1996. Yet the IPCC themselves draw attention to this in section 6.11.1.2," Clearly the starting date of 1750.. ..is crucial here: a choice of 1700 would give values about twice as large; a choice of 1776 would give smaller values.." The IPCC state a range of about 0.1 to 0.5 Watts per square metre. So his statement, supported by numerous papers cited by the IPCC itself, that the actual value taking 1900 as the start-date is likely to be higher does have some foundation in the literature. However, the IPCC itself is likely, in AR4, to challenge the papers which it had previously cited, and to reduce its best estimate of the forcing effect of the Sun since 1750 from 0.3 to 0.12W.

Mr Monckton uses the ACRIM composite (Willson & Mordvinov 2003) in his first graph on page 21 of his references. However Claus Frohlich of the Davos Solar Observatory has produced a different dataset, known as PMOD. This is signifcantly different in that the PMOD composite shows no variation of the sort that the ACRIM composite shows. Indeed Frohlich found that a "detailed error analysis shows that the PMOD composite has a long-term uncertainty of less than about 90 ppm per decade (Frohlich, 2004), which makes the observed difference between the minima not significantly different from zero."

But why should we trust PMOD over ACRIM? Well on page 10 of his paper Frohlich compares 3 data sets of TSI, (specifically PMOD, ACRIM and IRMB) with the Kitt Peak Magnetogram data derived by Wenzler 2005. It is found that the PMOD composite accounts for 83% of the variance, whereas ACRIM only accounts for 62%. So Frohlich's work agrees with measurements of the Sun's magnetic activity to a far greater degree than Willson and Mordinov's ACRIM dataset. This is important because the TSI and magnetic data are obtained by independent methods. On this basis Frohlich finds: "The close agreement with the reconstruction from Kitt-Peak magnetograms by Wenzler (2005), and with the 3-component proxy model supports the PMOD composite as the most reliable representation of the solar irradiance variability for the last 25 years."

Frohlich attributes this difference between ACRIM and PMOD to corrections applied during a gap in the ACRIM data saying on page 3 of his paper "The ACRIM composite neglects the corrections of the HF during the gap and this is the main reason for the claimed upward trend of TSI over the last 25 years."

This therefore raises the question, why does Mr Monckton prefer to use ACRIM rather than PMOD? Could this be because PMOD does not show that trend, whereas ACRIM does? If Mr Monckton used the PMOD dataset, which shows no trend, then he would not be able to rely upon solar changes to explain the recent warming, "0.6°C in the past three decades" according to NASA's Goddard Institute. Monckton responds that he regards Willson's work as compelling because the ACRIM satellites were designed and are operated under his direction, and because he provided a careful reconciliation between the ACRIM and ERBE measurements.

So from 1978 to 2005 we can reasonably conclude that there has been no change in the amount of TSI received from the Sun. Yet from 1975 to 2005 there has been a steady warming trend of almost 0.2 degC per decade leading to an increase of about 0.6degC over that period. However, Monckton's point was that in the past 50 years the sun had been hotter, for longer, than at any previous period in the past 11,400 years. He cited Solanki and Usoskin (2003), and drew the equally reasonable conclusion that the sun's effect might have been underestimated by the UN. However, in his calculations his base case assumed no more solar warming than that suggested by the UN.

Mr Monckton's discursive attempt to attribute changes over the 20th century is of course debatable. With the significant changes of contribution by factors such as the Sun, volcanoes, particulate polution and of course CO2 over the 20th century, it is simply too complex a picture for such simple reasoning to throw light on the interactions involved. The only option currently available remains the use of climate models in attribution studies, as published in scientific literature and incorporated into the IPCC's Assesment Reports. However, many authors have pointed out the limitations on the effectiveness and accuracy of models, given the limited state of climatic knowledge.

Frohlich, Solar Irradiance Variability Since 1978, Revision of the PMOD Composite during Solar Cycle 21. C. Frohlich, Space Science Reviews 00: 1–13, 2006. Available from here http://www.pmodwrc.ch/pmod.php?topic=tsi/composite/SolarConstant

NASA, GISS Surface Temperature Analysis, Global Temperature Trends: 2005 Summation. http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/

Willson, R. C., and A.V. Mordinov, Secular total solar irradiance trend during solar cycles 21 and 22, Geophys. Res. Let., 30, 1199-1202, 2003.

Wenzler, T.: 2005, ‘Reconstruction of Solar Irradiance Variations in Cycles 21-23 based on Surface Magnetic Fields’. Ph.D. thesis, ETH Nr 16199, Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zürich.

By how much has sea level risen, and by how much will it rise?
Monckton argues that the sea levels have not been rising; at least not consistently. The significance of any such scattered results can be questioned. Probably the most significant points to respond to: ' "I conclude that, though sea level is rising, and has been doing so for thousands of years, it is probably not rising at an accelerated rate globally. Given that Greenland is cooler now than in the mediaeval warm period, and given that most of the Antarctic land-mass including almost all the world’s 160,000 glaciers has cooled for 30 years, it is not likely that ice-melt will cause considerable rise in sea levels in the foreseeable future. Bearing in mind Lyman (2006) (LYMAN, John M., Willis, J.K., and Johnson, G.C. 2006. Recent cooling of the upper ocean''. Geophysical Research Letters, 33: L18604, doi:10.1029/2006GL027033), it is also unlikely that thermosteric expansion will cause more than an insignificant rise in sea level in the coming century." '''

The IPCC itself has realized that its previous projection for sea-level rise was overstated at the high end by more than 100 per cent. In the current draft of AR4, the upper bound of its projection for sea-level rise to 2100 is more than halved, from 0.88m to 0.43m. On this key point, the "consensus" does seem to be moving in Monckton's direction.

How much will temperature rise in response to CO2 forcing?
Monckton presents his "M-model" for the earth + atmosphere system, as a way of approximating the climate sensitivity: the change in temperature due to a given forcing.

Monckton builds his model on the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which relates the total heat radiation from a graybody to its temperature. The equation states: radiant energy flux integrated over frequency = epsilon * sigma * T**4

where sigma is the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, T is the absolute temperature of the body in oK (Kelvin), and epsilon is a variable called the "emissivity".

The Stefan-Boltzmann law is derived from the Planck distribution for blackbody radiation. By integrating the Planck distribution over all frequencies or wavelengths, one gets the Stefan-Boltzmann equation If we define the surface to be at the troposphere, at the frequencies of visible light, the atmosphere hardly absorbs at all, whereas at the infrared absorption band for CO2, every photon will be absorbed. To this extent, the Earth/troposphere system taken as a whole (as the UN takes it) is a badly-behaved graybody. Of course, the Stefan-Boltzmann equation must still be used to convert radiant-energy flux changes to temperature changes: for instance, the Boltzmann constant, which is a term in the Stefan-Boltzmann constant, is the scale-factor or unitization constant that allows the correct conversion between watts per square metre and degrees Kelvin. The UN takes emissivity as fixed, though in practice it varies as greenhouse-gas concentrations vary. Monckton does his calculations the same way as the UN, though he has pointed out in correspondence with interested scientists that he has his doubts about regarding emissivity as though it were fixed. However, if it is not fixed, the UN's treatment of all climate forcings as radiative forcings cannot produce like-for-like comparisons over time. A discussion of some drawbacks in the UN's methodology follows:

It is possible to force the equation to be true at one value of T and E, by simply defining epsilon so as to make the left-hand-side of the equation equal the right-hand-side. Effectively, one is just assuming that the radiant integrated flux is proportional to T**4, even though there is no reason to believe this. The significance of this will be in the relationship of a radiant forcing (a change in the radiant flux) to the resulting change in temperature. The result would be:

delta-flux = epsilon * sigma * 4 * delta-T * T**3, or

delta-flux = flux * 4 * delta-T/T, or

delta-flux/flux = 4 * delta-T/T

Using this equation, the value of lambda would be

lambda = delta-T/delta-flux

= T/(4*flux)

Gentlemen: I've taken a stab at explaining the incorrectness of Monckton's use of the SB equation (Grant)

Stephan-Boltzmann Equation On pg. 24 Monckton introduces the Stephan-Boltzmann equation, or simply SB equation. It gives the amount of radiant energy emitted per unit of time (the power output) by a "blackbody" at a given temperature T: $$E = \epsilon \sigma T^4$$. Here T is the temperature of the object, $$\epsilon$$ is its emissivity, $$\sigma$$ is a universal constant called the Stephan-Boltzmann constant, and E is the total power output per unit area of the object. Monckton states that the power output per unit area is expressed in units of "watts per square metre per second (wm$$^{-2}$$s-1: hereafter 'wm-2')." However, in his second article Monckton says that, though there is precedent in the peer-reviewed literature for this usage, the phrase "per second" is tautologous. If the temperature undergoes a small change from $$T$$ to $$T + \delta T$$, the emitted power will change from $$E$$ to $$E + \delta E$$. We can use the SB equation to compute the power change $$\delta E$$ in terms of the temperature change $$\delta T$$ $$\delta E = 4 \epsilon \sigma T^3 \delta T$$. We can now note that $${\delta E \over E} = {4 \epsilon \sigma T^3 \delta T \over \epsilon \sigma T^4} = {4 \delta T \over T}$$, which can be written as $${\delta T \over \delta E} = {T \over 4E}$$. If we apply this equation to the earth, we have an average temperature $$T \approx 288$$K ("K" denotes degrees on the Kelvin temperature scale), and an average radiated power (almost entirely infrared radiation) $$E \approx 236$$ W/m$$^2$$. This gives $${\delta T \over \delta E} \approx {288 \over 4 \times 236} = 0.303 \mathrm{W/m^2}$$. There is a similar quantity in climate science called the climate sensitivity. Let F be the climate forcing, which is the power input to the object per unit area from climate-changing forces. If the climate forcing makes a small change from $$F$$ to $$F + \delta F$$, we can expect the average temperature to change from $$T$$ to $$T + \delta T$$. If we take the ratio of the temperature change to the change in the climate forcing, we have defined the climate sensitivity $$\lambda = {\delta T \over \delta F}$$. Monckton argues that the earth's response to a change in climate forcing is governed by the SB equation, so we must have as a matter of course $$\lambda=$$0.305 K/(W/m$$^2$$). He mentions, both in his article and in the mathematical section of the supporting documentation, that climate feedbacks must also be taken into account, and also that the difference between the transient and equilibrium response of the climate to forcings must be allowed for. Here is a consideration of climate feedbacks: Suppose, for example, we add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and these greenhouse gases lead to an increased forcing of 1 W/m2 at earth's surface. This additional energy input to the climate system will warm the planet. A warmer climate means that less snow and ice will be present. But snow and ice are highly reflective; incoming sunlight which strikes snow or ice is mostly reflected right back to space. When snow/ice is replace by open land or sea, much more of the incident solar energy will be absorbed, and this means even more input power to earth's climate system. This is a classic feedback mechanism; an increase in a component of a system can bring about changes which lead to even more of that component (for positive feedback) or to less of that component (for negative feedback). The snow/ice albedo feedback is a positive one; it tends to amplify climate forcing. Another prominent climate feedback is water vapor: as temperature rises, more water vapor enters the atmosphere. Water vapor is also a greenhouse gas, trapping heat near earth's surface, leading to even more warming. Most of the feedbacks in the climate system are positive feedbacks, i.e., they tend to amplify whatever external change occurs. So, when we apply a forcing to the climate system (like greenhouse gases), we expect its effect to be amplified by climate feedbacks. If there were no feedbacks, then the response of global temperature to forcings could be governed by the SB equation, and the climate sensitivity $$\lambda$$ could be 0.305 K/(W/m$$^2$$). But there is no doubt that the climate system has feedbacks, and that the vast majority of them are positive (amplifying) feedbacks; snow and ice really do reflect more than land or sea, and water vapor really is a greenhouse gas. The only way the climate sensitivity can equal its SB-equation value is for all feedbacks to cancel each other out exactly, and that simply isn't realistic. What is realistic is that feedbacks tend to roughly double (or more) the climate sensitivity. Yet Lord Monckton performs all his calculations using only the SB equation, and demonstrates that even if one makes no allowance for climate feedbacks the UN's table of forcings alone is sufficient to explain the entire observed rise in temperature over the 20th century. He concludes, reasonably enough, that either the positive feedbacks are extinguished by negative feedbacks, or the table of forcings sums to an excessive total (and the UN will be reducing the total from 2.43 to 1.6 watts per square metre in its forthcoming report), or the ocean is absorbing the additional energy that would otherwise have been retained by the feedbacks.

Monckton’s calculation of lambda.
Monckton mentions the word ‘feedback’ in his pdf file. In particular he says in the abstract that his estimate 0.303 for lambda does not need to be corrected for the effect of feedbacks. However he demonstrates this by comparing the results from a simple model with the observed warming during the last century. The trouble is that this kind of comparison is impossible without knowing what the final values of the warming will be (assuming that the CO2 and the solar energy remain fixed). Monckton points out, therefore, that if one assumes that net feedbacks are positive one must also assume that the additional radiant energy represented by the feedbacks must be absorbed somewhere in the climate system, notably in the oceans. His article cites evidence for and against this proposition. Monckton's model is capable of providing information about feedbacks or time delays, but is confined - for the purposes of his article and the supporting document - to demonstrating that the sum of the UN's table of forcings is on its own sufficient to explain the entire rise in temperature, from which his conclusion about the approximate equivalence of the total net feedbacks and the difference between the transient and equilibrium climate responses follows.

The model which Monckton uses is quite promising because it is based on the conservation of energy which must of course be satisfied by any climate. This type of model is called an energy balance model of which there are many examples in the literature. Models do not always work from fundamental laws and the parameters in them can sometimes be fitted to the observations. But using them requires care; you may not use them to draw conclusions about effects which have deliberately been excluded from consideration. This restriction applies even when the models appear to agree with observation. Comparison with observation is also susceptible to pitfalls because the data may not be what they seem. These considerations, of course, apply as much to the UN's models (which do not match observation very well) as to Monckton's (which takes observed temperature as a starting-point).

The basis of the energy balance model and what it excludes. For simplicity the Earth and its atmosphere is assumed to begin in energy balance. i.e.

R(T)= S                                                       (1)

The brackets do not mean multiplication but ‘depends on’ or more formally ‘is a function of’. Here R refers to the infra-red power radiated from the Earth and atmosphere when the surface is at  temperature T.  S is the absorbed part of the incoming solar power. If S is fixed then the temperature T can determined by solving this equation. Following the IPCC convention it is usual to model the effect of any disturbance (e.g. a stronger Sun or increase in CO2) as an increase of S by an additional amount called a forcing F. This provides a new equation

R(T’) = S +F                                                   (2)

whose solution T’ is an estimate of the new temperature. Now we need some physics. Hot bodies radiate more than cold ones and conversely bodies which radiate more are hotter. Since the right hand side of Eq.(2) is greater than the right hand side of Eq(1) it follows that the system must have warmed. The extra radiative loss has restored energy balance. You can now get an estimate of the sensitivity lambda from the equation

lambda= warming /forcing = (T’-T )/F                           (3)

The main limitations of Monckton's model are :

1. The equations do not contain the time variable. This is an example of a model excluding a complicated effect. This does not mean that time is unimportant or that the equations above are wrong, it just means that we need care in interpreting the significance of the new value T' of the temperature. Monckton addresses this point in his article, saying that the additional radiant energy is said by some in the peer-reviewed literature to be taken up by the oceans. It refers to the final condition when energy balance is reached. How long will that take? A million years? It's no use asking the model. It isn’t there. Monckton does indeed refer to the oceans and to a paper by Hansen. He makes no assertion that the difference between transient and equilibrium temperature is minimal, though there is evidence for this in the peer-reviewed literature. He does not go beyond the information currently available, which is that the difference between the transient and equilibrium climate responses, an extremely difficult variable to estimate, has a value which varies so greatly between the models that, as yet, no reliable quantitative value can be given to it. http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/earth_energy.html you will find evidence that the Earth is not in energy balance. It is receiving more energy than it is losing by radiation. It appears that the whole argument of using energy balance is invalid; at least it would only apply if the existing levels of forcing were held fixed until the warming eventually stops.

2. The argument depends on assuming that the absorbed solar power S in (1) is the same as in (2). This is a useful simplification but it deliberately ignores an important climatological effect i.e that warming causes ice to melt and ice reflects about five times more of the incoming solar power than water. This is an example of a positive feedback caused by albedo and it was already used by Arrhenius in his 1895 theory. Modelers often make such simplifications. But Monckton says that his calculation of total forcings need no further adjustment for feedbacks to yield the observed rise in temperature. T

3. The actual estimate of the warming depends on the choice of radiation function used in equations (1) and (2). There are all sorts of reasons why this cannot be done easily. Let us take the linear function: R = k [T(1900) + 4 {T/T(1900)-1}]                             (4) where k is a constant and T(1900) is the absolute temperature in 1900. (In case your maths is a bit rusty; Eq.4 is said to be linear because its graph would appear as a straight line. It is the sum of a constant kT(1900) and a term proportional to the variable T). The function is fitted in the year 1900 but at higher temperatures the result depends on the coefficient 4 which originates in the Stefan Boltzann 4th. power law for black and grey bodies. The value of this coefficient determines the value of the climate sensitivity. So far we have done nothing new. (See e.g. Hartmann 1994, Global Physiical Climatology, p. 231). Monckton was correct in neglecting the non-linear behaviour present in the fourth power temperature dependence across the climatically-relevant frequency range.

Feedback effects are essentially non-linear phenomena and can only be modeled with non-linear mathematics. However, the UN does not do its calculations assuming non-linearity: it makes much of the fact that its models demonstrate the linearity of the various forcings and feedbacks. For instance, though the most important of all feedbacks - the water-vapour feedback - is exponential by virtue of the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, the UN considers that the energy response to that feedback is likely to be logarithmic, leaving the temperature effect of the feedback strongly positive but linear (and subject to a rapid and substantial lapse-rate). Once again it is very convenient to ignore all this complexity which is just what is done in introductory texts. But it is inadmissable to throw away the complexity and then claim tohave discovered anything about it e.g. by asserting that the model produces results which account for all the feedbacks. Monckton, of course, does not assert that his model accounts for all the feedbacks: merely - which is self-evident - that the base forcings alone are sufficient to account for the observed temperature rise.

There are further serious problems with Monckton’s argument which do not depend on the use of the energy balance model. His use of the IPCC table of forcing involves ignoring the error bars on the direct effect of the aerosols; it even takes zero as the net effect of all the aerosols. This value is at the extreme end of the uncertainty range and is an example of cherry picking because it leads to a low estimate of the ratio warming/forcing = sensitivity. His method of including solar forcing is to multiply it by a feedback correction of 2.67 unlike the greenhouse gas forcing. This feedback coefficient has various values in the literature, and Monckton presents a table of them in his supporting document. He says that the IPCC may have double counted feedbacks. This would be a most serious blunder, but the criticism is backed up by a model which has nothing to say about the topic.

In conclusion this comment supports and expands the lead article by Gavin Schmidt in Realclimate's page entitled "Cuckoo Science" In that article Schmidt highlighted Monckton's neglect of time delays, feedbacks and aerosols. However, as the responses on the climateaudit.org website make clear, Schmidt failed to take into account that Monckton had neglected none of these elements.

DRAFT RESPONSE to Monckton's article, organized by his main points
''I am going to start by giving provisional topic headings, ordered by Monckton's article of 5 November 2006. Under each heading, I believe we should first state what Monckton claims, and then refute it. The refutation will be based on the material above.''

'''For now, most of my effort is going into the previous section: the anti-backgrounder, a response to Monckton's backgrounder of references and calculations. This allows inclusion of more technical depth. After that is more-or-less settled, the anti-article should be a synopsis at the level of Monckton's article. This seems to be essentially the way his article was constructed, so I just want to follow suit.'''

Title: Climate chaos? Don't believe it
 * Date: 5 November 2006
 * Sunday Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/11/05/nosplit/nwarm05.xml

Introduction: Monckton's assertion that there is no scientific consensus
This section should be the general introduction to the anti-article. There's no point in writing this until the rest is finished.

Monckton: Failure of Hansen's "prediction" of 0.3oC in 1988
Monckton claims that the climatologist James Hansen told the U.S. Congress in 1988 that the global temperature would increase by 0.3oC by the year 2000, and that sea level would rise several feet by 2100; but the actual increases have been 0.1oC and one inch (to 2000).

If you look at the specific temperature difference between the two years 1988 (hot - presumably el niño year) and 2000 - you might get 0.1°C (actually 0.064) - however if you look at the smoothed data (Annual series smoothed with a 21-point binomial filter) then you get 0.211°C. There is some value to a comment presented here that Hansen did not use smoothed data, but to this we ask: Why did Monckton then use 1988 and 2000 as his benchmark test? Would it not have been more appropriate to use 1988 and 1998 (for a 10 year period) - this would have placed Hansen almost entirely on mark ? Or why not 2005 (the latest data), which would have put Hansen spot on for land temperature? Since all of these benchmarks give us varied results - we argue that the smoothed temperature curve is the correct benchmark test for Hansens projections. Monckton responds that Hansen chose to present his testimony in the very hot summer of 1988, and made his projections to the year 2000, and did so using annual and not smoothed data.

In his response to Gore's critique Monckton states:
 * Hansen’s three scenarios, presented to Congress during the very hot summer of 1988, projected global mean temperature increases of 0.3C, 0.25C and 0.45C respectively in the 12 years to 2000: an average of 0.33C. But 0.06C was the actual increase (NCDC, 2006). I fairly said 0.3C and 0.1C. The graph of Hansen's scenarios demonstrates this.

This stand in stark contrast to the graphs of Hansen's scenario's and actual temperature data:

Monckton: The mediaeval warm period was warmer than today
Monckton says that the exceptional nature of today's global warming is being exaggerated by ignoring the history of previous warm periods, specifically the Medieval Warm Period.

Later in the article, Monckton mentions historical evidence for the MWP: Viking farms in Greenland, now under permafrost; a Chinese sail through the North Polar region in 1421. Today, he points to the temperature and ice-mass of the Antarctic over the last 30 years. (He also mentions the (melting) snows of Kilimanjaro, as NOT being due to temperature increase. It probably doesn't matter.)

He also says that in some places, during Bronze-Age and Roman times, temperatures in some places have been warmer than they are now. We may add that the UN, in its forthcoming report, says that in the previous interglacial the temperature was 3 to 5C above today's value.

Monckton: Temperature increases precede CO2 increases, so...
Monckton says that CO2 increases follow rather than precede the temperature increases in the palaeoclimatological record. (Maybe the discussion on this should be delayed. I'll leave it for now.)

Monckton: The Hockey Stick temperature history has been broken
Monckton claims that the hockey stick is the key graph in the IPCC reports, and yet that it is scientifically flawed, and has been disproven by independent statistical analysis.

Monckton: The IPCC has been minimizing the warming effect of solar variation
Monckton says that the IPCC's calculation for feedback forcings, such as the response of water vapor to increased greenhouse gases, does not take into account the feedback that would follow from variations in solar flux. He quotes the solar physicist Solanki as attributing one-quarter of the past century's warming. He says that if the rather greater estimates of solar forcing since 1900 taken by the UN are amplified by the forcings-plus-feedbacks factor, it would already give 1.9 out of the 2 W/sq.m seen.

Monckton says


 * Sami Solanki, a solar physicist, says that in the past half-century the sun has been warmer, for longer, than at any time in at least the past 11,400 years, contributing a base forcing equivalent to a quarter of the past century's warming. That's before adding climate feedbacks.
 * The UN expresses its heat-energy forcings in watts per square metre per second. It estimates that the sun caused just 0.3 watts of forcing since 1750. Begin in 1900 to match the temperature start-date, and the base solar forcing more than doubles to 0.7 watts. Multiply by 2.7, which the Royal Society suggests is the UN's current factor for climate feedbacks, and you get 1.9 watts – more than six times the UN's figure.
 * The entire 20th-century warming from all sources was below 2 watts. The sun could have caused just about all of it.

Even if we assume that the solar irradiation numbers that Monckton gives us here are correct (which they aren't - since they are talking only about variations or delta's), the solar forcing only changed from 0.3 to 0.7 during that period. And then the additional forcing would according to Monckton be (0.7-0.3)*2.7 + 0.3 which only gives: 1.38 W/m2.

Solanki Solanki et al (2005) states that:
 * In ref. 3, reconstructions of solar total and spectral irradiance as well as of cosmic ray flux were compared with surface temperature records covering approximately 150 years. It was shown that even under the extreme assumption that the Sun was responsible for all the global warming prior to 1970, at the most 30% of the strong warming since then can be of solar origin.

Monckton cautiously mentioned 25% rather than 30%, having verified the position with a friend of Solanki.

Monckton points out that the IPCC's 0.3 W/m2 since 1750 here, gives a misleading result, because the sun was almost as active at that time as it is now. He takes 1900 as his start date, explaining that that is the date after which temperature began to rise. for 1750 and 1900. Note that the IPCC in fact states that :
 * The fundamental source of all energy in the climate system is the Sun so that variation in solar output provides a means for radiative forcing of climate change. It is only since the late 1970s, however, and the advent of space-borne measurements of total solar irradiance (TSI), that it has been clear that the solar “constant” does, in fact, vary. These satellite instruments suggest a variation in annual mean TSI of the order 0.08% (or about 1.1 Wm-2) between minimum and maximum of the 11-year solar cycle.

Monckton: IPCC says the natural greenhouse-gas effect is 20oC rather than the usual value of 33oC
Monckton reports Sir John Houghton as having said that the difference is attributable to the effect of clouds.

The Global-Cooling Myth
Monckton says that, 30 years ago, scientists were expecting a global cooling. We simply cannot afford to gamble against this possibility by ignoring it. We cannot risk inaction. Those scientists who say we are entering a period of climatic instability (ie unpredictability) are acting irresponsible. The indications that our climate can soon change for the worse are too strong to be reasonable ignored. Lowell Ponte 1972

William Connolley has a critique of Ponte found here, that might just be usefull in this section --Kim D. Petersen 09:39, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Temperature measurement uncertainties
Monckton says that the average temperature increase in the U.S. seems to be less than in the rest of the world. He suggests that this is influenced by the urban growth near temperature stations (i.e., the "urban heat island" effect).

He also suggests that the declining number of temperature stations (6000 in 1970, only 2000 now) indicates that the IPCC is relying on computer calculations rather than facts.

The relationship of forcings to temperature increase
Monckton says there is no warrant in the laws of physics or in actual observation for the IPCC's value of 0.5 or more for the relationship of the average global temperature increase to the forcing: the variable "lambda". He cites the Stefan-Boltzmann law as giving the value as 0.303 and falling. The UN seems to have accepted that its previous definition of "lambda" was defective: it now brings its methods of calculation much more closely into line with those proposed by Monckton by working through the following stages:

1. Sum all forcings. The total since 1750 is just 1.6 watts per square metre. For a doubling of CO2, the IPCC's current draft gives radiant energy as 5.3 ln(2) = 3.67 watts per square metre. 2. Use the Stefan-Boltzmann equation to calculate the temperature effect of the base forcings. At 3.67 watts per square metre for a doubling of CO2, the IPCC cites Hansen (2006) as taking a value of 1.2C. This gives dT/dE, which the IPCC used to call "lambda", a value of 0.327, quite close to the 0.303 suggested by Monckton. 3. Calculate "lambda", newly defined by the IPCC as dE/dT, the change in radiant energy as temperature changes, for each climate feedback, and sum all the feedbacks. 4. Use a rule-of-thumb formula to amplify the total feedbacks to allow for the fact that they reinforce each other. 5. Multiply the new total feedback figure by 1.2C to calculate the temperature effect of all feedbacks. 6. Add the temperature effect of feedbacks to that of forcings. 7. Estimate the amount of additional CO2 that will be outgassed to atmosphere by rising sea temperature in response to the temperature increase, and calculate the temperature effect.

This much more careful and detailed method is much less prone to challenge than the IPCC's previous definition of "lambda", which Monckton rightly criticized as inadequate. However, if one uses this method to calculate the total forcings, feedbacks and CO2 response since 1900, and deducts the observed temperature increase since that date, it is necessary to conclude that the difference between the transient and equilibrium climate responses is quite small.

The role of the oceans
Monckton says that the IPCC gives a factor of 3 too much temperature increase, and cites papers attributing the difference between the transient and equilibrium climate responses to the ocean. What is probably needed is a clear but brief explanation of how the oceans play into global climate models.

Monckton: Excessive rates of increase of CO2
Monckton says that the IPCC models assume a rate of atmospheric CO2 increase of 1% each year, instead of the 0.38% measured since 1958. He says this leads to the IPCC's projected range of temperature increase of 1.5oC - 6oC; for which Stern takes up to 10oC. IPCC does in fact use a standard technique for modelling the temperature response to CO2 stabilization which assumes an annual 1% increase in atmospheric CO2.

Monckton: The real range should be 0.1oC to 1.4oC in the next 100 years
Monckton says that a simple global model lacking the IPCC's scientific errors and taking reasonable data and assumptions gives a rise of 0.1oC to 1.4oC in the coming century, with a best estimate of 0.6oC; only a fifth of the IPCC's new central prediction, and within the temperature range of the MWP.

Presumably this simple model with reasonable assumptions is in the M-model in his backgrounder.

DRAFT ARTICLE: on Monckton's response to the Guardian
Title: This wasn't gibberish. I got my facts right on global warming
 * Date: 15 November 2006
 * The Guardian