Koonin - Part 2 Some definitions

After introducing Steven Koonin's new book here in Part 1, let's start the overview of it with some of the key definitions one needs to understand to even begin getting a grip on The Science.  Starting back in college stats class:

Every measurement of the physical world has an associated uncertainty interval (usually denoted by the Greek letter sigma: σ).  We can't say what the measurement's true value is precisely, only that it is likely to be within a range specified by σ.  Thus we might say the global mean surface temperature in 2016 was 14.85^o C with a σ of o.o7^o C.  That is there is a two-thirds chance that the true value is between 14.78 and 14.92^o C.  The measured annual increase of 0.04^o C between 2015 (14.81 +/- 0.07^o C) and 2016 is insignificant since it is smaller than the uncertainties--about half as large.  The media might well still scream "Temperatures Continue to Rise, either out of ignorance or to capture readers' attention.

Next, "weather" does not equal "climate".  A location's climate is the average of its weather over decades.  The UN's World Meteorological Organization defines climate as a thirty-year average, although some climate researchers will sometimes discuss averages over a period as short as ten years.  So changes in the weather from one year to the another do not constitute changes in the climate.

Alas, it isn't easy to measure the surface temperature over the whole earth, particularly when you are looking for changes of a fraction of a degree over decades.  You have to worry  about variations in the thermometers themselves, how they're housed, and exactly where they're located.  And even if a station hasn't been move over the years, urbanization around a site is a concern, since buildings, roads, and concentrated human activity make cities a few degrees warmer than their rural surroundings.

The global temperature anomaly is the deviation of the average daily temperature from its expected value, averaged over each day of the year and over the whole globe.  The rate of rise was twice as large as our 0.09^o C/decade long-term average during the forty years from 1980 to 2020 (0.02^o C) while it was negative during the forty years from 1910 to 1940 (-0.05^o C/decade).

That is just a little warm-up to the types of details, Koonin adds to the discussion.  The bit about measurement uncertainty is something I have known for years, but he really crystalizes it with the numbers.  As he looks at the models that are the source of the forecasts, we have to keep the uncertainty intervals in mind.

Comments

[Joe]

Little did I know that I would find a great example of climate confusion the same day I posted Part 2 that noted "weather is not climate". From the WSJ:

BERLIN—When German politicians flocked to the scenes of last week’s devastating floods that left more than 170 in the country dead, they all agreed on one thing regardless of their partisan persuasions: The record rainfalls and ensuing disaster were the product of climate change.

There is a broad scientific consensus that temperatures are rising and that this is increasing the amount of moisture in the atmosphere, which can result in heftier downpours. There is also some evidence that the frequency of extreme weather events—heat waves, droughts, floods and storms—has been increasing.

However, scientists say it can be hard to identify the cause of specific extreme events.
------------------
I will get into more in a future post, but Koonin p. 51 notes "on average, water vapor amounts to only about 0.4 percent of the molecules in the atmosphere. Even so, it accounts for more than 90 of the atmosphere's ability to intercept heat. His use of "intercept" instead of "trap" heat is important and we'll get to that soon.

In the meantime, we hear all the time about climate change causing our mega-drought while the Germans claim it causes heavy rains and flooding. How do you say BS in German? What's next: a movement against water?

[Joe]

While I'm at it, let's marvel that these same German politicians have been wrangling for the NordStream2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to be build so they can get twice as much natural gas as they do now. Good for Germany, not so much for Burlingamers who like to cook and heat with natural gas.

[Paloma Ave]

The climate nuts in Menlo Park are out to save the world. They want to ban all natural gas appliances WHICH ARE CURRENTLY IN USE!

Burlingame Council - Please don't drink the Kool-aid!

[Adam Smith]

Natural gas has been the biggest blessing in the war against global warming that we have. The anti-nuke people leave gas as the best alternative. Banning it in the US, Menlo Park or Burlingame is STUPID.

[Cassandra]

It’s no coincidence that as citizens have become complacent with government entities intruding on their freedoms, government has become bolder in their efforts to boss people around- now in their homes: come for guns, check at home for vaccine status, tear out your gas appliances. This, while letting people get away with not complying by simple rules such as, “Don’t steal.”

Things won’t get better until the government changes.

Vote Larry Elder.

[Christopher Cooke]

Koonin is a scientist but has no expertise in climatology. He is like Scott Atlas, who is a neurologist but has no expertise in epidemiology: He advocates views that resonate with conservatives but not with people with subject matter expertise. It is good to consider alternative views, because it forces us all to rethink long-held assumptions that may be wrong, but he reminds me of the Cal biologist (Peter Dusenberg?) who said HIV did not cause AIDS.

[Joe]

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to add the alarmists' argument that Koonin is not "one of us". At a minimum you should read the introduction to the book where he addresses much of that concern and presents sufficient bona fides to dismiss it. To say he "has no expertise in climatology" is just wrong.

[Phinancier]

That is the old trick of if you can't attack the message attack the messenger.

[Joe]

I noted in the BV 18th anniversary post that the local papers do a better job of presenting a full view of events than the SF Comicle. That post is here: https://www.burlingamevoice.com/2021/07/the-burlingame-voice-is-now-legal.html

The DJ today did us all a service by running one of the three Wall Street Journal pieces from the last week about the IPCC AR6 report. Earlier the DJ dutifully reprinted the Assoc Press pieces that screamed "No where to hide", "Climate crisis" etc. After reading about a dozen pieces by AP climate reporter Seth Borenstein, I don't see any evidence that he knows much about the climate. Back to the WSJ via today's DJ:

The biggest difference is the new report’s direct linkage of warming to catastrophic weather events such as hurricanes, severe heat waves or rain events, drought and so on. The summary says this is based on “new methodology” and evidence, which means computer models. We await what independent climate experts say as they dig into these models.

But we know climate models are far from perfect, which explains the varying “confidence” levels attached to the report’s predictions. Steven Koonin, the scientist and former Obama official, devotes an illuminating chapter to “many muddled models” in his recent book about climate science, “Unsettled.”

Keep in mind that the IPCC report is a political document. It is intended to scare the public and motivate politicians to reduce CO2 emissions no matter the cost, which by the way the report summary never mentions. No less than Al Gore admitted this on PBS in October 2018 when the IPCC issued an interim report: “The language the IPCC used in presenting it was torqued up a little bit, appropriately. How do they get the attention of policymakers around the world?”

The whole piece is here: https://bit.ly/37PBOK8

It is well worth 3 minutes of your time. Kudos to the DJ and perhaps there is room for Koonin's piece in the Journal from last week as well?