Based on new research, what are your thoughts on the tropical troposphere and global warming?

Question

Douglass, Singer, Christy et al came out with a paper about a year ago which concluded that regarding the temperature change in the tropical troposphere, “models and observations disagree to a statistically significant extent”. Many people took this as evidence that global climate models were fundamentally flawed.

A new study was recently published in the Journal of Climatology which concluded

"We found that there was a serious flaw in the “robust statistical test” that Douglass et al. had used to compare models and observations. Their test ignored the effects of natural climate “noise” on observed temperature trends, and the resulting statistical uncertainty in estimating the “signal component” of these trends"

"we found that most of our tests involving temperature trends in individual layers of the troposphere did not show statistically significant differences between models and observations."

An easy to understand fact sheet summarizing the paper can be read here:
http://www.realclimate.org/docs/santer_etal_IJoC_08_fact_sheet.pdf

Discussion of the paper:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/10/tropical-tropopshere-iii/

Abstract: http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/reference/bibliography/forthcoming/bds0801_man.html

Considering this new study, what are your thoughts regarding the tropical troposphere temperature and global warming?

Answer 1

I think it is about time Gavin got this long-awaited paper out (although he is only one of 17 authors).

Answer 2

Dana, I almost always disagree with you, but I always enjoy your questions and the answers you give to others.



This is not something that I've really spent any time looking at up to this point. Being a field geologist, I am instinctively suspicious of models as they are not really "laying hands" on the subject of their study, which is my preferred method.



I find myself worried, though, by the modelers who appear to discount all of the previous warming and cooling periods that the earth has gone through to prove that man is altering our solar system.



I'll read through your sources and get back to you (I'm supposed to be writing a sampling report right now, but as you can see, my attention has wandered).

Answer 3

Considering that models are modified to reflect observed findings, it isn't hard to believe that the models reflect those things. Does this mean that the models are reliable predicters or climate? No. It seems to me that they are dancing around the point of Douglass , Singer, and Christy's point. If your purpose is to discover the truth, you don't create a model to fit the facts you like and you don't ignore the contradictory evidence.

Answer 4

Given these new findings, I have to conclude the Sun's to blame for any and all climate change trends on this planet.

Answer 5

Science says sun and luddites say man, who is right?