Tamino Resorts to Childish Attempts at Humor But Offers Nothing of Value

INITIAL NOTE:  This post includes a link to and title of a recent post by Tamino, in which he attempted sophomoric humor in an effort to amuse his audience.  While I realize responding to it at the same base level would be fun for many, please do not lower yourselves to his depths on this thread.

INTRODUCTION

My post No Matter How the CMIP5 (IPCC AR5) Models Are Presented They Still Look Bad was a discussion of the IPCC’s model-data comparison of global temperature anomalies in their Figure 1-4 from their 5^th Assessment Report. (Also see the cross post at WattsUpWithThat.)  I added an update to it that read:

As quoted above, Dana Nuccitelli noted (my boldface):

At the time, 1990 was an especially hot year. Consequently, if the models and data were properly baselined, the 1990 data point would be located toward the high end of the range of model simulations.

“Especially hot?” Utter nonsense.

Dana appears to be parroting Tamino from Tamino’s blog post here.

The reality:  1990 was an ENSO-neutral year, according to NOAA’s Oceanic NINO Index.  Therefore, “1990 was…” NOT “…an especially hot year”.  It was simply warmer than previous years because surface temperatures were warming then.  I’m not sure why that’s so hard a concept for warmists to grasp.  The only reason it might appear warm is that the 1991-94 data were noticeably impacted by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo.

Tamino was simply playing games with data as Tamino likes to do, and Dana Nuccitelli bought it hook, line and sinker.

Or Dana Nuccitelli hasn’t yet learned that repeating bogus statements doesn’t make them any less bogus.

That was not well received by Tamino.

BACKSTORY

This all began last December. The original Figure 1-4 (my Figure 1) from the IPCC’s draft of AR5 was presented in the WattsUpWithThat post Dr. David Whitehouse on the AR5 figure 1.4.

Figure 1

You’ll note that the data for 2011 is outside the ranges of all of the model generations, especially those from the 4^th Assessment Report (AR4).

Tamino was not impressed with David Whitehouse’s post or with the IPCC’s original model-data comparison in their Figure 1-4.   He expressed his displeasures in the post Fake skeptic draws fake picture of Global Temperature.  Toward the end of that rebuttal post, Tamino suggested that the IPCC should shift the data up 0.1 deg C and then he presents his renditions of the IPCC’s model-data comparison (See My Figure 2):

When I offset the observations by 0.1 deg.C, we get more realistic comparison of observations to projections:

Figure 2

Some of you will note that the 4th generation (AR4) models are not included in Tamino’s model-data comparisons.

The topic was resurrected when the IPCC released the approved drafts of their 5^th Assessment Report.  In it, the IPCC changed their model-data comparison of global temperatures in Figure 1-4. (See my Figure 3.) Steve McIntyre reported on the change in his post IPCC: Fixing the Facts.   Tamino’s post was referenced on that ClimateAudit thread numerous times.

Figure 3

Dana Nuccitelli presented his take in the SkepticalScience post IPCC model global warming projections have done much better than you think.  Judith Curry discussed the switch in Figure 1-4 in her post Spinning the climate model – observation comparison: Part II.  The switch in the IPCC’s Figure 1-4 was one of the topics in my post Questions the Media Should Be Asking the IPCC – The Hiatus in Warming, which was cross posted at JoNova.  Dana Nuccitelli once again added to the discussion with Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy at SkepticalScience.

Then Lucia commented on Tamino’s shift in the data in her post at TheBlackboard Tamino’s take on SOD AR5 Figure 1.4!  See my Figure 4.    

Figure 4

Lucia writes:

(Shifted projections in heavy black, observations dark red circles.)

I’m tempted to just let the figure speak for itself. But I think it’s better to always include text that describes what we see in the figure.

What we see is that if we followed Tamino’s suggests and the models had been absolutely perfect we would conclude the models tended to underestimate the observed temperature anomalies by roughly -.08 C and so were running “cool”. But in fact, our assessment would be deluded. The appearance of “running cool” arose entirely from using different baselines for “models” and “observations”: for the ‘projections’ we used the average over 1990 itself, for the second we used 1980-1990 itself. The shift arises because 1990 was “warm” in the models (and ‘projections’) compared to the average over the full 20 year period.

The same day, I published No Matter How the CMIP5 (IPCC AR5) Models Are Presented They Still Look Bad and Tamino took exception to my statement:

“1990 was…” NOT “…an especially hot year”.

There have been a number of additional posts on the subject of the IPCC’s Figure 1-4, including Steve McIntyre’s Fixing the Facts 2, but we’ll end the sequence there.

A CURIOSITY

My Figure 5 is Figure 1 from Rahmstorf et al. (2012) “Comparing climate projections to observations up to 2011”. Tamino (Grant Foster) was one of the authors.

Figure 5

And for those having trouble seeing the very light pink “unadjusted” data, see my Figure 6.  I’ve highlighted the unadjusted data in black.

Figure 6

Could the IPCC have based their original Figure 1-4 on Figure 1 from Rahmstorf et al (2012)?

NOTE:  We’ve discussed in numerous posts how the effects of El Niño and La Nina events cannot be removed from instrument temperature record using the methods of Rahmstorf et al. (2012).  For an example, see the post Rahmstorf et al (2012) Insist on Prolonging a Myth about El Niño and La Niña.  Also see the cross post at WattsUpWithThat.

Enough backstory.

TAMINO BELIEVES 1990 WAS ESPECIALLY HOT

As noted in the Introduction, Tamino didn’t like the update to my post No Matter How the CMIP5 (IPCC AR5) Models Are Presented They Still Look Bad.

Tamino’s response was his post Bob Tisdale pisses on leg, claims it’s raining, the title and text of which is sophomoric at best.

In it, Tamino presented annual long-term GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) data compared to an unspecified smoothed version (here).  He subtracted the smoothed data from the raw data and presented the residuals (here). And in response to my note about the impacts of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, Tamino presented the annual GISS LOTI from 1975 to 1990 along with a linear trend line (here).

After my first scan his post, it occurred to me that Tamino elected not to use the adjusted data from Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) “Global temperature evolution 1979–2010”, but more on that later.

Tamino presented data as Tamino wanted to present data.  That’s fine.  But there are other ways to present data. Apparently, Tamino assumed that I made a statement that I could not back.

Rahmstorf et al. (2012), of which Tamino was co-author, recommended averaging the five global temperature datasets (GISS LOTI, HADCRUT, NCDC, RSS TLT, and UAH TLT):

…in order to avoid any discussion of what is ‘the best’ data set.

So we’ll use that as a reference in the following example. If we average the five global temperature datasets for the period of 1979 to 2012 and simply detrend them using a what Tamino calls a “simple linear trend”, Figure 7, we can see that the residual temperatures for 8 years exceeded the 1990 value and that two others were comparable. Based on my presentation of data, I will continue to say that 1990 was NOT especially hot.

Figure 7

NOTE:  I enjoyed the comments on the thread of Tamino’s post. One of them even reminded me of the happy grammar school games of morphing people’s names: see the one by blogger Nick on October 5, 2013 at 8:39 pm.  But typical of those who comment at Tamino’s, Nick missed something that was obvious, and it was obvious back then even to six-year-olds.  He could have been even more clever and replaced “dale” with “pail”.  That would have been much funnier, Nick…to a six-year-old.   Then again, maybe Nick is a six-year-old.

WHY WOULD TAMINO AVOID USING HIS ENSO-, VOLCANO- AND SOLAR-ADJUSTED DATASET?

The answer should be obvious.  The adjusted data did not provide the answer Tamino wanted to show.

I mentioned both ENSO and volcanoes in the update to my post No Matter How the CMIP5 (IPCC AR5) Models Are Presented They Still Look Bad, stating that “1990 was an ENSO-neutral year…” and “…that the 1991-94 data were noticeably impacted by the eruption of Mount Pinatubo”.

It would have been logical for Tamino to present his global temperature data that had been adjusted for ENSO, volcanic aerosols and solar variations from his paper Foster and Rahmstorf (2011).   In fact, blogger WebHubTelescope’s October 7, 2013 at 3:55 am comment should have prompted Tamino to do so:

Since B-Tis leans on ENSO so much, why not correct the GISS using the SOI and throw it back in his face?

My Figure 8 is Figure 8 from Foster and Rahmstorf (2011).  It’s easy to replicate using any number of methods.  See my Figure 9. I simply used the x-y coordinate feature of MS Paint.

Figure 8

# # #

Figure 9

The 1990 value in Figure 9 does NOT look especially hot compared the linear trend. Let’s detrend the replicated adjusted data from Foster and Rahmstorf’s Figure 8 to see if that’s correct.  See Figure 10.

Figure 10

The residual values for nine years were warmer than the not-hot-at-all 1990.

Note to WebHubTelescope:  That’s why Tamino ignored you.

So what can we conclude from this exercise?  Tamino presents data as Tamino wants to present it, using methods that can differ depending on his needs at any given time.  But there are multiple ways to present data.  Tamino came to one conclusion based on how he elected to present the data, while I came to a totally different conclusion based on how I presented them.

MORE MISDIRECTION FROM TAMINO…AND, IN TURN, SKEPTICALSCIENCE

Tamino presented a graph at the end of his two posts I’ve linked herein. (See the model-data trend comparison here.) It illustrates the observed trends versus the trends projected from the models used in the IPCC’s 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd Assessment Reports.  Dana Nuccitelli must have believed that illustration was important, because he included it his post Why Curry, McIntyre, and Co. are Still Wrong about IPCC Climate Model Accuracy.  Or just as likely, Dana Nuccitelli was using it as smoke and mirrors.

The 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd generation climate models used by the IPCC for their earlier assessment reports are obsolete…many times over.  No one should care one iota about the outputs of the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd generation models.  The most important climate models are the most recent generation, those in the CMIP5 archive, which were prepared for the IPCC’s recently released 5^th Assessment Report.  Of second-tier importance are the CMIP3-archived models used for the IPCC’s 4^th Assessment Report.

And what do we understand about the models used in the IPCC’s 4^th and 5^th Assessment Reports?

Von Storch, et al. (2013) addressed them in “Can Climate Models Explain the Recent Stagnation in Global Warming?” (my boldface):

However, for the 15-year trend interval corresponding to the latest observation period 1998-2012, only 2% of the 62 CMIP5 and less than 1% of the 189 CMIP3 trend computations are as low as or lower than the observed trend. Applying the standard 5% statistical critical value, we conclude that the model projections are inconsistent with the recent observed global warming over the period 1998- 2012.

Focusing on the CMIP5 models, there’s Fyfe et al. (2013) Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years.  See Judith Curry’s post here.  Fyfe et al. (2013) write:

The evidence, therefore, indicates that the current generation of climate models (when run as a group, with the CMIP5 prescribed forcings) do not reproduce the observed global warming over the past 20 years, or the slowdown in global warming over the past fifteen years.

THE CURRENT GENERATION OF CLIMATE MODELS USED BY THE IPCC BELONG IN THE TRASH BIN

I was going to ignore Tamino’s recent post, and I managed to do so for about 3 weeks. But I figured, in addition to confirming why I believed the data showed 1990 was not unusually hot, I could also use my reply to once again illustrate examples of the flaws in the current climate models used by the IPCC.

In the post Questions the Media Should Be Asking the IPCC – The Hiatus in Warming, I illustrated how the model mean of the climate models used by the IPCC did not simulate the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO).  In that post, I used the method for presenting the AMO recommended by Trenberth and Shea (2006), which was to subtract global sea surface temperature anomalies (60S-60N) from sea surface temperature anomalies of the North Atlantic (0-60N, 80W-0). That model failing suggested that the observed Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation was not a forced component of the models.  See the left-hand cell of Figure 11.   Similarly, we illustrated that the dominant source of multidecadal variations in the sea surface temperatures of the North Pacific  (the sea surface temperatures of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension) were also not forced by manmade greenhouse gases, and that the models could not simulate those either. See the right-hand cell of Figure 11. (The sea surface temperature anomalies of the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension are inversely related to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.  See the graph here.)

Figure 11

And in the post Open Letter to the Honorable John Kerry U.S. Secretary of State, we illustrated how the climate modelers had to double the rate of warming of global sea surface temperatures (left-hand cell of Figure 12) over the past 31+ years in order to get the modeled warming rate for land surface air temperatures (right-hand cell of Figure 12) close to the observations.

Figure 12

In the post IPCC Still Delusional about Carbon Dioxide, we illustrated and discussed how the climate models used by the IPCC do not support the hypothesis of human-induced global warming, and that many would say the models contradict it.

FURTHER READING

Over the past year, I’ve presented numerous failings exhibited by the latest generation of climate models.  Those failings were collected in my book Climate Models Fail.

And as I’ve discussed in a multitude of blog posts here and at WattsUpWithThat for approaching 5 years, ocean heat content data and satellite-era sea surface temperature data both indicate the oceans warmed via naturally occurring, sunlight fueled, coupled ocean-atmosphere processes, primarily those associated with El Niño and La Niña events.  See my illustrated essay “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge” (42mb) and, for much more information, see my book Who Turned on the Heat?  Sales of my ebooks allow me to continue my research into human-induced and natural climate change and to continue to blog here at Climate Observations and at WattsUpWithThat.

CLOSING

Whenever someone, anyone, publishes a blog post that opposes Tamino’s beliefs in human-induced catastrophic global warming, he gets all excited and writes blog posts.  Often times, Tamino attempts to belittle those with whom he disagrees.  So far, Tamino has failed in his efforts to counter my blog posts that he objects to. In addition to what was discussed in this post, here are a few other examples:

Tamino expressed a complete lack of understanding of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation in his post AMO.  My reply to it is Comments On Tamino’s AMO Post.

Tamino objected a number of times to how I presented my model-data comparisons of ARGO-era ocean heat content data.  See the example here from the post Is Ocean Heat Content Data All It’s Stacked Up to Be?  As further discussed in that post:

See Tamino’s posts here and here, and my replies here and here. My replies were also cross posted at WattsUpWithThat here and here.  Tamino didn’t like the point where I showed the model projections intersecting with the Ocean Heat Content data. Then RealClimate corrected their past model-data comparison posts. Refer to the RealClimate post OHC Model/Obs Comparison Errata. As a result, Gavin Schmidt then corrected the ocean heat content model-data comparison graphs in his earlier December 2009, May 2010, January 2011 and February 2012 posts. Refer also to my discussion of the RealClimate corrections here. Now the comparison in [Figure 1 from that post] , which has been updated through December 2012, appears overly generous to the models—that I should be shifting the model projection a little to the left.

And as a reminder, while it would be fun, please refrain from sophomoric humor on the thread.   Most of the responses to Tamino are way too obvious anyway.

Regards