Even though little change has been seen, there is some interesting news in the August RSS numbers. We are still cooler than one year ago, and the 12 month trend continues to drop.
The RSS (Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA) Microwave Sounder Unit (MSU) lower troposphere global temperature anomaly data for August 2008 was published today and has remained essentially unchanged, with a value of 0.146°C for a miniscule change (∆T) of -0.001°C globally from July 2008.
RSS
2008 1 -0.070
2008 2 -0.002
2008 3 0.079
2008 4 0.080
2008 5 -0.083
2008 6 0.035
2008 7 0.147
2008 8 0.146
The August 2008 number is 0.221°C lower than in August of 2007 which was 0.367°C
Click for a larger image
The RSS data is here (RSS Data Version 3.1)
While is was going to do my own analysis of the numbers, Walter Dnes did an excellent job of summarizing it all in comments on another thread, so I’ll give him the honor:
This brings down the 12-month running mean to +0.086, which is very slightly lower than the +0.091 12-month running mean to the end of November 1987. That’s almost 21 years ago.
What I’m really waiting for is Hadley and GISS 12-month means to drop below their 1995 values. Hadley might make it in the next couple of months. GISS by year end. Once we get annual means matching temperatures on the other side of 1998, global cooling will be undeniable.
We do indeed live in interesting times.
34 degrees F last night. Had to start a fire. Eventually got warm. Took more than the fire. You probably want to snip that part.
Reply: Naw, sounds sweet to me. ~ charles the moderator
Seventh Warmest August This Century
Slightly OT, but Mauna Loa is also out today. At 384.14, a bit higher than I would have expected, but the real surprise was that on top of after last month’s brouhaha, they bumped JULY’s number yet again (from 385.60 to 386.39, or another +0.79). WattsUpWithThat??
Pamela seems to have found the solution to a cooling climate. Seems to work for her. Way to go…
As for the new data, looks like it lends credence to that old maxim that if it’s colder than normal where you are, it’s warmer somewhere else. This slow change we’ve been seeing should be most interesting to watch play out over the next several years.
I read an interesting theory over on SolarCycle24.com to the effect that the spike in satellite temp readings for the last few days of August and first couple of days of September might be related to the quantity and intensity of tropical systems in play. No matter what the cause, the end-of-month spike lifted, probably only for the very short term, worldwide average temps. So, the underlying cooling a lot of people have been talking about anecdotally got masked. Even with the spike, the month was lower than last year and just about identical to July in terms of anomaly.
Second, the transfer of heat from the oceans, the Atlantic principally, to the atmosphere will leave SSTs cooler this winter, which could have consequences for the American northeast, Canadian maritimes, and Europe. As a surfer, it is always amazing when hurricane waves plow through a given stretch of coast and stir the water enough to make you need a wetsuit two days after being fine without one. This is different, of course, from the heat transfer to the atmosphere IN the hurricane system, but it is impressive nonetheless. Even a low-level, peripheral effect of a hurricane suggests the power that the storms possess, in this case the power to move a lot of water, churn it, and cool it.
Also per a post on SolarCycle24, tomato harvest numbers are 25% below average in the San Joaquin Valley of California, owing to cool nighttime temperatures this summer.
[…] Watts Up With That? […]
You would surely need to see it go as low as -0.3 to -0.4 before being satisfied that the warming trend is really over? I agree it looks to be moving south short term, but there is still, over the series, a decided though small upward trend which would emerge with a straight line fit. Still, if the sceptics are right, this level of negative anomaly is indeed what we will see in the next couple years.
Also slightly OT.
It’s good to see that the supply of airborne plant food is increasing (as measured at Mauna Loa).
Ahhh… the carbon cycle… It’s a beautiful thing, all that photosynthesis and chlorophyll – CO2 – greening the planet and keeping us all alive.
I think that the “*&%$” will hit the fan for the AGW crowd when crop yields start falling due to colder conditions, and food prices rise.
That has to be hard to reconcile. I assume that most of the AGW believers are essentially honest people who have been gulled by a small number of very unpleasant people with nefarious motives. Honest people will eventually question what is happening – especially once it hits their hip pocket $$$ nerve.
Besides the reduction in tomatoes in central valley, wine grapes are about 20% short in Napa, Sonoma and other No. Cal viticulture regions. Cool spring and cooler, but drier summer are blamed. Last year some areas in higher locales also lost crops due to cool growing season and early freezing.
“Once we get annual means matching temperatures on the other side of 1998, global cooling will be undeniable….”
Yes I agree Anthony.
But…. Like all empirical data the the AGW proponents use. They will “adjust” it so it fits their flawed hypothesis.
After all, they have already modeled a cooling to cover the next decade. So they are sitting pretty, laughing.
These people are going nowhere. Not as long as there is a dollar to be had. Take the Government funding away….. These people will become as scarce as hens teeth….. In the deafening silence, you’re liable to find a couple of old guys in white coats blinking myopically, holding all the data and conclusions we ever needed….
As long as Government “does” science…. We’ll have bad science.
Maybe I’m being pessimistic. But I keep noticing too much money being spent, for too little return and too many policies using Science as a prop for justification…. It’s not healthy.
Forrest Gump said “Stupid is as Stupid does.” Well I will let everyone decide for themselves. For the first time, the National Republican Platform has adopted an Environmental Protection Plank that addresses “Climate Change.” The platform was released from committee on Monday, September 2. It was an interesting fight.
The McCain Campaign wanted the following wording, “Increased atmospheric carbon has a warming effect on the earth. While the scope and long term consequences of this warming effect are the subject of ongoing research, we believe the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today.”
The final Environmental Protection plank states the following, “The same human economic activity that has brought freedom and opportunity to billions has also increased the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. While the scope and long term consequences of this are the subject of ongoing scientific research, common sense dictates that the United States should take measured and reasonable steps today to reduce any impact on the environment.” They also added a Climate Prize for scientists who solve the challenges of climate change.
You can read the platform at the following link. The Environmental Protection plank starts on page 35.
http://www.gop.com/pdf/PlatformFINAL_WithCover.pdf
In the 2004 platform, the term “global warming” was completely absent. It remains absent in the 2008 platform, too; however, “climate change” has been added. Maybe they wanted to include global warming as the cause of global cooling, and the only way to accomplish that is to use the term “climate change.” LOL
Actually, if you read the entire plank, it appears that they want to use climate change to advance nuclear power and other alternative zero-emission power sources, like solar and wind. I guess the “ends justify the means” in the GOP, too.
Opinion: It appears that Western Civilization is leaving the Age of Reason and Enlightenment and entering the Age of Stupidity. This plank and the implied “ends justify the means” is another example. The only thing that can save us from ourselves is honorable scientists who will tell us the truth and risk their reputation.
Could the decrease seen earlier this year be just another blip? In the 80’s and 90’s there are also sharp drops but these then recover to original temperatures…
Could temperature be on the rise again…
“Once we get annual means matching temperatures on the other side of 1998, global cooling will be undeniable.”
True, but the media will never report it, and that will be better than actually trying to deny it. As I recently read: the media are in the NEWS business, not the truth business. Global cooling is not a catastrophe (yet), so they won’t bother to report on it. It doesn’t go along with their woe-is-us-because-man-is-destroying-the-planet theme. And even if (or when) it does become catastrophic, they will never make the link between the two. Thus is the deception preserved, even while it is disproven.
I meant to add this to my last post but forgot. All the scientific findings against AGW will never matter much, other than to scientists and the well informed such as we here, because AGW is not about science. It is about politics pure and simple. Case in point, if you took politics out of this, AGW would be a relatively minor issue talked about by “geeks.” It would be tantamount to discussing Star Trek, or the fine points of nanotechnology, or what have you. It would be a total non-story. Since it is hurricane season, let me say that the science behind AGW is just the rain and clouds. The real “core” of the system is political. You can disprove it all you want, but until the core is destroyed it will never go away. Much like tropical storm Hanna, if you have been following it as I have.
Fred,
There is indeed an overall trend of 0.017K/yr (1.7K/century), as you can see from:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/trend
(get the numbers from http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/rss/trend)
but each month that goes by below trend (i.e. less than +0.33K anomaly) slightly reduces it – for example, up to December it would have been 1.8K/century:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/data/rss/to:2008/plot/rss/to:2008/trend
Keep watching!
@Mike bryant (21.02)
acutally 7th warmest august of this millenium.. WE are doomed
Is it just me or are others sick of hearing about “carbon” being put into our atmosphere when they are really talking about carbon dioxide, a compound and not an element. Aaargh!
The temperature observations are beginning to resemble scenario ‘C’.
http://www.realclimate.org/images/Hansen06_fig2.jpg
Alex wrote:
“Could the decrease seen earlier this year be just another blip? In the 80’s and 90’s there are also sharp drops but these then recover to original temperatures…
Could temperature be on the rise again…”
Its a good point. But i think not: We have the sun going sleeping and we see the ocean temperatures slowly decreasing. So where should that heat come from? There can allways be a bleeb in these curves both ways, but there will have to happen something new if the cooling trend should change.
ENSO (La Nina/El Nino) has gone to neutral around may, so the fact that 2008 temperatures are still lower than recent years is getting harder and harder to explain for the CO2-crew.
Alex.
Yes, certainly it can be a blip. On geological timescales entire human civilisations are blips. This is why it is so wrong to put straight lines through all the data on a graph and call it a trend. It gives far too much significance to the end points. See John Brignell’s “Numberwatch”site.
J. Hansford.
Yes, like you I mourn the demise of science. In my view, computer modellers are not scientists, as they do not gather data, form hypotheses and test theories etc. Any real scientist is automatically a sceptic – otherwise we’d still be sacrificing virgins and reading entrails. A computer modeller is in exactly the same relation to a scientist as the highly skilled glassblowers and machinists are to chemists and physicists. Obviously there are scientists who can devise their own programs, glassware and apparatus, but to call one who is primarily a computer programmer a scientist is like that irritating phrase “Rocket Science”, in that what is meant is engineering. There is very little science to be done on rocketry, virtually all concerned with chemistry and Newtonian mechanics.
That may sound disparaging. It is not so meant. We have quite enough scientists but what is really needed at the moment is engineers and technicians who can gather the airy-fairy notions of the ivory tower mob and make useful things out of them. It does no-one any good to let the “Meejah” confuse categories and people to manipulate words for status reasons.
(Sorry, drifted a bit OT there)
Fred:
You say;
“You would surely need to see it go as low as -0.3 to -0.4 before being satisfied that the warming trend is really over? I agree it looks to be moving south short term, but there is still, over the series, a decided though small upward trend which would emerge with a straight line fit.”
A “straight line fit” is meaningless.
Change to mean global temperature (MGT) is usually quoted as a linear trend (e.g. by IPCC) over a selected period of years. But this is a fundamental error because any (yes, any) choice of time period is not appropriate when using linear trends to assess the change, especially when attempting to discern any anthropogenic effect on the change.
Before explaining why the use of linear trends is not appropriate, I point out that IPCC 2007 provides an extreme use of linear trends to mislead concerning MGT changes, see
http://globalwarmingquestions.googlepages.com/howtheipccinventedanewcalculus
However, such deliberate – and extreme – misrepresentation is not the major problem.
Local and global climates tend to vary in cycles or oscillations. Some examples of well-documented climate cycles are Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), North Atlantic Decadal Oscillation (NAO) and El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Other cycles also seem to exist. For example, global climate seems to be bi-stable in that it is stable in a glacial state and in an interglacial state. Global climate fluctuates between these states apparently as a result of variations in the Earth’s eccentricity, obliquity and precession that are called ‘Milankovitch Cycles’ (after the Serbian civil engineer, Milutin Milankovitch, who discovered their correlation to the Earth’s glacial and interglacial conditions).
The climate cycles are overlaid on each other, and any anthropogenic global warming (AGW) must be overlaid on them.
So, the temperature variations induced by observed climate cycles must be identified and removed from the global temperature time series if AGW is to be observed. This is commonly recognized in terms of ENSO, for example. Indeed, IPCC admits this for ENSO.
But another apparent cycle has a length of ~1500 years with ~750-year-long phases of warm and cold. This appearance is because since the time of Christ there was
the Roman Warm Period, then
the Dark Age Cool Period, then
the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), then
the Little Ice Age (LIA), then
the Present Warm Period.
And another apparent cycle length is ~60 years because measurements suggest that globally there was
cooling to ~1910, then
warming to ~1940, then
cooling to ~1970, then
warming to 1998, followed by
no significant warming or cooling.
Until the global temperature exceeds the maximum in the paleo record (and present temperature seems to be less than the maximum in the MWP despite the very recent attempt of Mann et al. to revive the ‘hockey stick’), it is not possible to observe any AGW unless the temperature cycles are identified in terms of their forms, amplitudes and phases. This identification is not (yet) achieved. And in the absence of this identification linear trends tell nothing concerning AGW.
Consider the ~1500-year-cycle. Almost any period of time less than 1500 years will provide a linear trend of warming or cooling purely as a result of the sampling of part of the cycle (to understand this, assume a sinusoid and sample almost any fraction of a cycle length as demonstrated in the URL I cite above).
So, no time period for a linear trend in global temperature is appropriate because a linear trend is misleading.
However, as the URL I cited demonstrates, the use of linear trends allows anything to be suggested by choice of end points and time periods. Furthermore, as that URL clearly demonstrates, the IPCC uses this to provide untrue suggestions.
In summation, trends in the MGT data set mislead, but patterns in the MGT data set inform.
Richard S Courtney
Jeff Wiita (23:03:15)
‘In the 2004 platform, the term “global warming” was completely absent. It remains absent in the 2008 platform, too; however, “climate change” has been added. ‘
At least they used the trem “based on sound science”.
trem=term
Mike Bryant (21:02:02) :
Seventh Warmest August This Century
It didn`t feel like that in the UK.
Gloomy August wettest since 1992
Much of Wales has had the wettest August since 1992, and sunshine levels were among the lowest on record.
As long as we are near the modern peak temperature newspapers will keep reporting things like 5th hotest ever, 8th hottest ever and so on. But if temperature still refuse to increase the next years and recover it’s climb upwards to 0.6 – 0.8C annual anomaly it will be harder and harder to claim we are heading towards AGW-future of any significance. Also newsopaper will have a harder time to find record temperatures to report about.
If temperature should have kept increasing as expected by AGW ppl we would have roughly 0.5-0.6C anomaly now but we don’t. Looking back in the last 30 years of RSS/UAH data it is also clear that the temparature increase and decrease quite much and the dips can last for years. So if this is just a dip before we will resume the climb upwards again it could take up to 2 years more before we will know if this is a permanent shift against cooler/stalled warming or just a short break.
Until then AGW ppl will have no problem just claiming this is just a short time dip, which could be true. Time and nature will give the eventual answer on that question no matter what the models say.
Alex. Bluntly – no. The sun has got his shades on for one thing. The cyclomania so abhorrent to real scientists is biting and will continue for many decades.
Photosynthesis is a cooling process. The CO2 delta will experience some bumpiness as levels adjust to lowering temperatures and take-up by vegetation. It takes two to tango.
Lag is nearly everything.
Why is it that the temperature delta compared to the reference period is caller “anomaly”? It’s not abnormal, it’s a variation. The use of the term anomaly, especially when the temperatures are (still) higher than the reference period, seems to mean that the variation has to be attributed to abnormal factors, such as GW.
Just saw this new evidence!
Native elders in Alaska on climate change!
It is global cooling!
“Once we get annual means matching temperatures on the other side of 1998, global cooling will be undeniable.”
Except… not? This plays into this ridiculous notion that “global warming stopped after 1998.” Once again, 1998 was an extreme anomaly heavily influenced by a significant El Nino event. If anyone has any statistical experience, you might remember that the best way to treat a set of data with a significant outlier is to ignore the outlier when calculating trends.
If one follows this appropriate procedure, then there is still a distinct warming trend through late last year; one doesn’t need to calculate any best-fit lines because it’s apparent with the naked eye. The most recent dip is corroborated with a reversal to and from La Nina conditions. One doesn’t expect an instantaneous reversal of any pattern evolving from these conditions; it took how many months for the 1998 El Nino spike to reverse down to pre-spike levels?
Once again, it is way too early for skeptics to be popping champagne corks. There will be no evidence of “global cooling” until there is a plausible mechanism for such a reversal of phenomenon, and until there is a significant, multi-decadal negative trend to the temperature record. A dramatic reversal of CO2 trends would also signify global cooling; cold waters can dissolve more gas before becoming saturated, and a lowering of atmospheric CO2 is considered one of the necessary conditions for an ice age to occur.
rutger (01:10:47) :
I move that we recommend governments everywhere do something, anything, about August temperatures by the end of the current millennium. True, few of us who walk the good Earth today will be around for that glorious future, but we owe it to our children … of our children, of our children, of our children….
I’m telling ya’ll that the way the AGW crowd will deal with this, should the temperature trend go negative over the next few years is to more or less say, “LOOK!! An American Eagle.” Then, while we look, they’ll start talking about ‘Climate Chaos’ as though that is what the issue has always been. “Climate Chaos’ is wonderfully flexible, allowing them to claim that human increase in CO2 accounts for warming, cooling, stasis, slow increases, slow decreases, fast increases, and slow increases in planetary temperature and if we don’t ‘do something’ about it, it will just get worse.
I’ve already started getting this from my AGW friends (who alternately think I’m either amusingly daft or a sheep under the hypnotic sway of the American far right wing/industrial complex). “Oh, it’s really not about the warming, it’s that the climate is now chaotic and we’ll be seeing wild swings in temperatures (for the first time in history), more and increasingly violent ‘weather events’ (everything seems to be an ‘event’ now for some reason, it doesn’t just rain anymore, we have ‘precipitation events’, etc), etc. Since there are no scientific arguments and this appears to be simply a gratuitous assertion, there is little that can be provided by way of refutation, except, of course, the logical answer to a gratuitous assertion, which is a gratuitous negation.
Anyway, I bet we see more and more references to ‘climate chaos’ as time marches on.
and here is some news about NH ice
http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=12851&red=y#340331 so I don’t know what to make of it cryosphere today (pixels versus the german site here;
http://global-warming.accuweather.com/2008/09/the_arctic_is_now_an_island_of_1.html0
It seems to me from looking at this graph that yes indeed the temperature is on an upward slope for most of the time (30 years) but towards the end is starting to tale off. But one would think that if the climate is directly correlated with CO2 increase, as the greenies say it is, then there would not be large drops in temperature every couple years as seen in the graph along with whats happening now. Would i be wrong in saying that if it was correlated that there wouldnt be those big drops? I just dont see how they can make that gross assumption.
“All the scientific findings against AGW will never matter much, other than to scientists and the well informed such as we here, because AGW is not about science. It is about politics pure and simple.”
I am in danger of becoming a scratched record on this; it isn’t about politics, its about poor science. The variety of science that is mechanism lead, rather than data led.
The AGW scientists, the general public and the politicians have got “a mechanism”, namely increased CO2 causes increased temperature. The data gives very little support for this mechanism, but they have got their mechanism and like a terrier with a bone, they are sticking to it.
We sceptics have some possible mechaisms, cosmic rays, UV, etc. But to date I have not seen conclusive data proof of these mechanisms. In particular I haven’t seen any evidence to give a mechanism linking the recent decline in solar activity to the recent drop in temperatures.
Looking out of the window, on a grey cloudy, drizzly miserable London day (typical for October, but not early September), after the cloudiest August in recorded UK history, the mechanism seems pretty obvious.
I have scoured the internet for cloud cover data, but can’t find it.
Anthony, you are a meteorologist. Surely you and your colleagues can find the relevant cloud cover data (or UV data) etc and show the real mechanism for the recent cooling.
The day this proof is produced, the scientists, public and politicians will all change their minds.
Until then we will be ignored, but it is our own fault, instead of proving our own theories, we are merely attacking those of the AGW supporters, we only have ourselves to blame.
Well if you live in the southern hemisphere we are yet to see this so called warming everyone is talking about. Were feeling it, its in the stats and yet were being asked to lead the world in combating global warming – bah humbug!
“This brings down the 12-month running mean to +0.086, which is very slightly lower than the +0.091 12-month running mean to the end of November 1987. That’s almost 21 years ago.”
Are you serious on this? Discussing temperature anomalies of a 100th of a degree? Is that even beyond any tolerance?
Let me make it very clear, I’m a skeptic but this and the Arctic ice coverage is a complete nonsense and does not help the skeptics a bit.
Ever since this website decided to concentrate on sound bytes instead of the real issue it increases it’s traffic but unfortunately not ir’s creditbility.
Alex (00:01:13) :
“Could the decrease seen earlier this year be just another blip?”
Yes, the cooling at the beginning of the year was caused by the La Nina, temperatures are starting to rebound. If the theory that sunspot minima should result in cooling was correct then we wouldoff course be seeing a fall in temperatures. No mention anywhere on this blog of the 4,000 + year old Markham ice sheet breaking away from Ellesmere Island, or the study that reinforces the theory that global warming causes stronger hurricanes, typhoons and cyclones (the study showing that larger storms are more resistant to wind shear than smaller storms, the number of which has remained fairly constant). http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080903/full/news.2008.1079.html
Hurricane Ike will prove a good test of this as it encounters windshear as this looks a very large and intense storm.
Hopefully these will soon be points for discussion on this interesting blog.
This global warming is a strange phenomena. Cooler is a sign. Warming is a sign. Less ice is a sign. So is more ice. Higher precipitation is a sign. So is drougnt. Solid science. You have to love these geniuses.
Aars,
Concerning the Nature Magazine TC “Study”:
“The team statistically analysed satellite-derived data of cyclone wind speeds. Although there was hardly any increase in the average number or intensity of all storms, the team found a significant shift in distribution towards stronger storms that wreak the greatest havoc.”
Essientially, the scientists reanalysed and adjusted the TC intensity based on the subjective Dvorak Method. Funny how statistics always makes its way into these things. As far as vertical wind shear is concerned, the shear component comes into play early in the cyclogenesis of TC, that is, when deep convection is organized. Strong TC cannot develope if they cannot get past this stage. During the last weak El Nino year of 2006, the wind shear was storng enough to severely limit ANY TC, despite other factors. The Alarmists will not give up.
Aars Vyper (06:57:54) :
And, of course, CO2 drives the climate caused the oceans to cool.
‘No mention anywhere on this blog of the 4,000 + year old Markham ice sheet breaking….’ How would one know that the portion that broke off was 4000 years old? Please supply referance.
Jerry: Scientists dream. Engineers turn dreams into reality. Both are necessary.
Pamela: Fire comes in many forms. Stay warm.
Back OT, sort of. If a slight drop in temp from last year is just an anomaly and should be ignored, what should we do with a big hurricane, that ‘proves’ global warming?
The hockey stick is broken!
Any talk of a remaining upward straight-line trend in temperatures is completely disingenuous because it fails to factor in the significant cooling driven by volcanic eruptions in the 80’s and 90’s (Mt. St. Helen’s, Sierra Hudson, El Chichon, Pinatubo). The fact of the matter is that temperatures have gone nowhere for the better part of 30 years once volcanic impacts are accounted for.
Yes, temperatures did shoot up in the late 70’s as the PDO swung positive and the weak solar cycle 19 ended. But since then we may have seen a minimal jump in the late 90’s as the AMO swung positive. Now that the PDO has swung negative and the AMO will follow in the next 5-10 years and the sun is going into a funk, expect the now downward trend to continue. Note that reaction to lower solar activity tends to lag. After all, didn’t the warmers crow about “warming in the pipeline”! Well now “the pipeline is cooling” and this impact will be felt for years to come!
You could have a glacier moving across Texas and the warmers still won’t admit that they were wrong.
Christopher Hanley wrote:
Christopher, did you happen to notice that the date of the so-called latest observation was 2005? It is nearly 2009, and temps have fallen dramatically since the date of that graph.
Temperatures over here on this part of Vancouver Island are currently maxing out at 21-22 degrees Celsius. Records seem to indicate this is slightly lower than ususal.
http://www.tutiempo.net/en/Climate/Nanaimo_Airport/09-2007/718900.htm
Nothing to worry about, although August has felt rather unseasonably cool.
Temperatures since the satellite record began in 1979 have gone up and they have gone down. Overall, they are up slightly. 1976-1979 was the end of a cooling period which began in 1944 with 1976-1979 being a low starting point.
Over the sat period record, we have had impacts from ENSO (which has increased the trend overall, caused the increase in 1998 and the dip over the past 18 months), two major volcanoes (which caused dips in 1982 and 1991), increased CO2 and GHGs (which has increased the trend somewhat but by far less than global warming theory indicates) and a more active Sun (which increased the trend a small amount until the recent slowdown in solar activity.)
These 4 impacts explain almost all of the change in that RSS chart with natural variability explaining the rest.
Global warming theory indicates that temps should be close to 1.0C higher than the data indicates so that is the most important conclusion one should reach from the chart. It should be growing twice as fast as it actually does.
If CO2 and GHGs increase temperatures, even the most rapid warming period seen so far is much less than global warming predicts. It is so much lower, in fact, that global warming is most likely not a problem at all.
Whether global warming or global cooling, you can be sure that humans caused it. But not just any humans, no! Free humans who prosper under a market economy and open systems of government. They’re to blame! Try them, jail them, burn them at the stake!
Freedom and self-determination are anathema to all right thinking orthodoxers marching in lock-step to the CAGW (catastrophic anthropogenic global warming) banner. “Kill the heretics who doubt our truth”, is their motto!
Counters wants a plausible mechanism for global cooling, when the only plausible mechanism for global warming is specifically ignored by the warmists.
The solar theory is simple; When the Sun’s more active, it gets hotter, when less active, iot gets colder. This is quite a consistent theory that explains both warming and cooling. Yes, there are other astronomical factors, but all basically mean more or less Sun stuff falling on the Earth’s surface.
The CO2 theory purports to explain warming, but then Counters lacks a mechanism to explain cooling, except, of course “natural variation”.
Which theory would a reasonable person chose?
Apart from in the blog two below this one.
There will be no evidence of “global cooling” until there is a plausible mechanism for such a reversal of phenomenon, and until there is a significant, multi-decadal negative trend to the temperature record.
You mean like your “plausible mechanism” for AGW, C02? Oh wait, that was never proven, and in fact has been thoroughly debunked. Oops.
Significant, multi-decadal trend, eh? How convenient, counters. Until then (whenever that is), the fall-back theory is AGW – oops, nope, never proven, and in fact debunked. Guess we’ll just have to look at the climate record to see what has happened over thousands of years. Oops, AGWers don’t like history. Sorry, I forgot.
Counters…
You say that there will be no proof of global cooling until there is an established mechanism for it, and a negative multidecadal trend. Seems to me you have put the burden of proof solely on global cooling, while giving global warming generous leeway. After all, temperatures warmed for JUST 20 years 1978-1998 and AGW was announced the culprit. The 2000s, with ENSO effects taken out, have been flat. Therefore, the burden of proof should fall on AGW proponents to explain why the warming has halted. What mechanism would cause such a stall in warming?
The IPCC has predicted that at least half the years from 2009-2015 will be warmer than 1998, despite the fact that “it was an outlier”, as you say. If that doesn’t happen, what does that mean? AGW advocates have made some big claims, and now the burden of proof rests squarely on their shoulders.
Counters,
“There will be no evidence of “global cooling” until there is a plausible mechanism for such a reversal of phenomenon.”
I think you need to rethink that statement. So what you’re saying is that even if temperatures drop over the next 20 years to levels not seen since the Little Ice Age, that this would not constitute evidence of global cooling because we don’t have a plausible mechanism to explain it? This is most decidedly not a statement a scientist should ever make. It’s the equivalent of putting you’re fingers in your ears and chanting, “I can’t hear you!” over and over again.
I guess then that noctilucent clouds don’t exist because we ‘don’t have a plausible mechanism to explain it’.
I just last night figured out how the hockey stick graph and many other climate reconstructions are created (good use of an afternoon). What a joke. This type of analysis would never be accepted in any science other than climatology. They take excessively noisy data throw away any which doesn’t correlate to present temperature rise (at least loosely) and average what’s left. What you always will get from noisy data is a relatively flat line with a spike at the end. In fact the noisier the better.
I wrote to RealClimate about this and although it fit the thread perfectly and was not vulgar or unscientific they declined to print my post.
So I did my message on my own blog here
http://noconsensus.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/how-to-make-a-hockey-stick-paleoclimatology-what-they-dont-want-you-to-know/
This is much worse than I ever understood before.
Counters: You suggest we isolate the 97/98 El Nino because it was significant outlier. How would you propose we remove the long-term effects of the 97/98 El Nino? It created significant step changes in multiple indices, some of which have begun to return to pre-97/98 values. Others have not. The 97/98 El Nino caused step increases that are clearly visible in:
1. The annual maximum land surface temperature anomaly for the Northern Hemisphere,
2. The annual maximum global temperature anomaly,
3. The Pacific Warm Pool SST anomaly,
4. The Arctic Temperature (combined) anomaly,
5. The Mediterranean Sea SST Anomaly, and
6. The Gulf of Mexico SST Anomaly, to name a few.
Again I’ll ask, how do you propose to remove the long-term effect of the 97/98 El Nino?
Or would you prefer to continue to claim that the post 97/98 El Nino warming was a result of anthropogenic influences?
Counters:
La Nina officially ended in June and it was a weak one too.
PDO not plausible? Sun activity not even remotely plausible? Hmmm. Have you looked at the mass of the oceans compared to the atmosphere?
I know one thing. Evidence is suggesting CO2 driving catastrophic GW is becoming less and less plausible. Mind you, common sense pointed to that long ago.
I see three posts replying to mine, so I’ll address them in reverse order:
Jared:
I’m not giving any leeway to AGW. Several factors have indeed been compiled into a handful of explanations for why the global warming signal has, prima facia, appeared to “stall.” The best explanation is that various weather, or short-term oscillations of the climate system have lined up to sort of “down out” the warming signal. Skeptics deride this for some reason, because they tend to fail to visualize it using the principle of superposition: If you have two waves defined on an interval of time T, then the law of superposition states that the sum of those two waves is the sum of the amplitude of both waves each point along the interval T. If you think about it this way, you have an AGW wave which steadily slopes positively at about .2 degC/decade, and you have another one which might dip down at some points and then dip back up. Play around with this on a graphing calculator, and you’ll see very quickly how natural oscillation + warming signal can equal flat periods at times.
Furthermore, I’m unfamiliar with the specific claim about 2009-2015. If you could please cite it for me, I might be able to explain what they mean.
Bruce Cobb:
Just because you say AGW is debunked doesn’t in fact mean it is. As a matter of fact, research has continued to proceed at a fast pace and is constantly churning out data and revelations which help us tweak our understanding of the theory, verify predictions of it, and verify the underlying principles of it. Perhaps you should spend less time verbally abusing AGW and more time perusing the pertinent scientific literature. And by the way, your best friends MBH just published a new “Hockey Stick.” Funny, that – you’d imagine that Mann, the fraud-king of AGW himself, would at least change the names of his pyramid scheme when he attempted to sell it to the public (although in this case “sell it to the public” really means “produced new research which took into account a new decade’s worth of proxy records and other temperature records to weed out poorly performing older ones, thereby cleaning up the paleo-climate record to a level of accuracy far greater than what had previously been attained, all the while stumbling across the fact that dramatically altering the content of the record seems not to have affected the shape of it very much”).
Robert:
Much has been written on the subject of the “Solar Theory of Global Warming/Cooling.” I defer to the expert summary of Spencer Weart here.
Two more replies popped up in the time I wrote that entry –
Bob Tisdale:
Your question is irrelevant. My argument was for the sake of simple, visual analysis as a way of debunking this ridiculous “global cooling meme.” The bottom line is this: “skeptics” who try to claim that we are entering a period of global cooling typically start their temperature records at 1998 and go on from there, which skews the trend quite significantly.
We’re not talking about “removing the effect” of the 98 El Nino; the temperature record is the temperature record. We’re talking about people misrepresenting the data (so-called “lying with statistics”) to peddle a totally false argument with zero backing in reality, be it evidential or empirical.
Bill Marsh:
Here is my actual quote: “There will be no evidence of “global cooling” until there is a plausible mechanism for such a reversal of phenomenon, and until there is a significant, multi-decadal negative trend to the temperature record.” I have taken the liberty of bolding the important part that you left out. Pay particular attention to the punctuation mark after the word “phenomenon.” Yeah… that’s a comma, not a period.
The bottom line is that you have two things: evidence and empiricism/analysis. Evidence trumps the other, but in the absence of both, you have nothing. “Global Cooling” has neither.
Counters,
Explain, in your view, why in 1988, after only 10 years of warming, and much talk of and research into of cooling in the 1970’s leading up to the PDO shift of 77-78, Jim Hansen could go before congress and claim an impending global warming. As you point out, a ten year trend is not multidecadal. Explain this please: why does in JH’s case 10 years is enough, but the current 10 years we’ve been speaking of is “ridiculous” (your words).
When you start using words like ridiculous, it suggests emotion, rather than logic.
Counters:
Who are you? Why don’t you identify yourself?
counters:
A dramatic reversal of CO2 trends would also signify global cooling; cold waters can dissolve more gas before becoming saturated, and a lowering of atmospheric CO2 is considered one of the necessary conditions for an ice age to occur.
Not necessarily. CO2 lags temperature change; it doesn’t drive temperature.
Deep-sea temperatures rose 1,300 years before atmospheric CO2, ruling out the greenhouse gas as driver of meltdown, says study in Science.
“The finding suggests the rise in greenhouse gas was likely a result of warming and may have accelerated the meltdown – but was not its main cause.”
“If CO2 caused the warming, one would expect surface temperatures to increase before deep-sea temperatures, since the heat slowly would spread from top to bottom. Instead, carbon-dating showed that the water used by the bottom-dwelling organisms began warming about 1,300 years before the water used by surface-dwelling ones, suggesting that the warming spread bottom-up instead.”
Ice Sheets Drive Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Levels, Inverting Previous Ice-Age Theory
“Ruddiman concludes (as Milankovitch proposed) that ice sheets are initially driven by the Sun, but then the ice takes control of carbon dioxide changes, producing its own positive feedback (the amplifying effect) at the 41,000-year cycle.”
And here’s another interesting post:
Sun controlls CO2 levels and Ice age periods and some charts
OT, but at least the media is starting to come around. This article in Time, blames hurricane damage on the choices people make on where to live.
Click here for Time Article on Pielke/Landsea paper.
Question for Bill Illis: you mention 4 variables, including the Sun. The one variable I keep having problems with is the Sun. What data do you use as a variable to predict temperatures? Intuitively, I understand how the Sun should impact temperatures, but I can never seem to find the data that shows it. If you (or anybody else) could point me to the way the Sun could be added to a forecasting model, please let me know, I am interested. Regards, David.
@Bill Marsh(09:57:02)
Amen!
Counters, your response to Bill’s criticism of your post is not logically consistent. If your original post had said, “There will be no evidence of ‘global cooling’ until there is a plausible mechanism for such a reversal of phenomenon, or until there is a significant, multi-decadal negative trend to the temperature record.”, then it would be logically consistent.
Bill is spot on to say that empirical data alone is enough to disprove the AGW hypothesis. Do you disagree?
If this was a mistake, may I suggest you be more careful about the wording of your posts.
Lyman Horne
“… and until there is a significant, multi-decadal negative trend to the temperature record.”
Uhmm, the last several multi-decadal negative trends (Little Ice Age, 1878-1910, 1944-1978, 1998-2008) are totally ignored by the global warming community. In fact, they are doing their best to write them out of the historical record so …
… I believe your point is completely moot.
More Weather Anecdotality :
Normal High for Denver for September 5th: 80F
National Weather Service Forecast High for tomorrow: 55F
An interesting story was in the “Bristol Press” this morning with a comment from a meteorologist stating, no one knows if there is a link between solar activity and weather… My story on this is here: http://www.cardenchronicles.com/2008/09/link-between-solar-activity-and-weather.html
The main reason for providing this information to you is I do recommend WUWT to all my readers and suggest they volunteer or donate to surface stations.org. If after review of my article you wish me to withdraw my recommendation, endorsement, I will.
Thanks,
Matt Carden
The Carden Chronicles
REPLY:Thanks for the kind words and the link – Anthony
Cross Comment:
(∆T) of -0.001°C
We’re stuck.
SOI; up date 09/03/2008 = + 9,1
ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/sco/soi/soiplaintext.html
ENSO; up date 09/02/2008 (NOAA)
EvolutionThe latest weekly SST departures are:
Niño4……. -0.4ºC
Niño 3.4….. -0.1ºC
Niño 3……… 0.4ºC
Niño1+2….. 0.6ºC
John,
No doubt about cooling in Colorado. As a soccer player, I am keenly aware that autumn has been arriving progressively earlier over the last three years. We have had lots of games snowed out. This year it turned cool the first week in August, and it already feels like October.
The last two winters have been brutal. Parts of the state are more than five degrees below normal for the year, which I’m guessing is even larger than Mann’s 0.6 degree hockey stick.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/hprcc/co/YearTDeptHPRCC-CO.png
The amazing thing is that Boulder and Denver are full of AGW obsessed liberals who are oblivious to what is occurring right outside their window.
counters: …research has continued to proceed at a fast pace and is constantly churning out data and revelations which help us tweak our understanding of the theory, verify predictions of it, and verify the underlying principles of it.
Just because you say that, counters, doesn’t mean it’s so. What “revelations” are you talking about? New data tweaking the theory, verifying underlying principles? What rubbish you talk, counters! Perhaps it is you who needs to spend some time perusing pertinent scientific literature. I doubt that you will though, because, like Hansen and his ilk, you “aren’t interested” in anything that disproves your AGW pseudoscience.
counters (10:46:32) :
“The bottom line is that you have two things: evidence and empiricism/analysis. Evidence trumps the other, but in the absence of both, you have nothing. “Global Cooling” has neither.”
Let’s see what AGW has for these two points. Evidence? The earth is indeed warmer than it has been in the last 100 years, but not warmer than it has been during mulitple other peroids in earth’s history. We’re humans resposible for those other warm peroids? Conclusion – evidence is not conclusive.
Empiricism/analysis? All current data has been proven flawed in some way. No model of this data has ever been able to match the actual climate.
It looks as if AGW also has neither. Yet, we are relying on these models and precidented temperature increases to push through changes that will destroy economies around the world. If this was just about a science debate, no one would get so hysterical about it. Let the scientists gather more (unbiased/politicized) evidence until a theory can be proven.
I was just compairing wikipedia’s articles on extream weather events to the article on sunspots. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunspots) Someone realy needs to add a section to the sunspots article titled “Effects of Sunspots on earths climate”
welcome to the heat Counters:
“There will be no evidence of “global cooling” until there is a plausible mechanism for such a reversal of phenomenon”.
1)
Fact is, the temperatures in the ocean down to 2 km depths has been measured to be slightly falling since 2002.
Oceans holds 300 times more heat than the atmosphere.
Therefore i find it rather PLAUSIBLE that a significant increase in atmosphere temperatures is NOT around the corner.
Tell me, Counters, If you find it plausible that temperatures will be raising, where is the heat for this to happend when not found in the oceans?
6 years of measurements of ocean temperatures says more than even longer periods of atmosphere measurements, that you seem to rely on.
2)
Plausible:
ITS A FACT THAT COSMIC RAYS ARE DEPENDENT ON SUN ACTIVITY. Take the Oulo monitor and compare with sun activity. No doubt what so ever!
Its a fact that lower cloud formation oscillates very closely to kosmic rays.
its a fact that lower clouds mostly cools the planet.
So YES i find it very plausible indeed that the SUN controls temperature.
Some people then try to say that we don’t know 100% HOW this link work precisely, but no one can with solid arguments deny sun as a temperature controlling participant.
3) – And counters, here is your “plausible” CO2 theory:
The CO2 theory fell to earth 100 years ago, since adding extra CO2 hardly has any effect when you have more than around 50 ppm. The frequency is already blocked by the first CO2.
And yes, also by water.
The CO2 hypothesis then woke up again around 1950 because it was shown, that CO2 frequency was slightly different at much lower pressures. This could to some degree make CO2 spectra more free of ground CO2 and water.
Therefore, it was later “predicted” in models, that we would see a special warmer layer around 10 km up in the atmosphere especially around the tropics. The so called “HOTSPOT”.
But reality has shown, that the only place CO2 in theory could warm the air, 5-15 km up, no warming has taken place, on the contrary, these layers has cooled down.
So how plausible is a theory that is proven not to work at ground level AND not to work in higher layers?
And more: IF there had been this 1 degree Celsius warming in 10 km height around the tropics, this warm bubble would rather seek to move up than move down. That a law of nature, heat moves up.
Is your CO2-theory more plausible now?
OK, then some says: ITS the radiation from this warmer air up there…
Ok, air at 10 km height is around – 60 degrees Celsius, was supposed to warm to say -59 degrees C. Any material at these extreme low temperatures will radiate very very very weakly !
So Counters, how Plausible is it that a non-existing heating of 1 degree Celsius, that should have taken place 10 km up, in very thin airlayers, should be able to melt ice at the surface?
Counters, if this CO2-hypothesis – the poorest theory in modern science ! – is “plausible, then ANYTHING is plausible. And the sun theory is DEFINITELY more plausible that this embarrassing Co2-theory.
Counters…
Your explanation for why warming has stalled is not really a scientific explanation. If AGW theory can quantitively describe how exactly the earth is warming, why can’t it accurately account for the last 10 years? Just saying, “Natural weather patterns and variation” has caused the stall is not a well-thought out explanation at all. It’s a long enough period of no warming that there should be some natural cycle that it can be attributed to. AMO? Nope, we’ve still been in the positive phase there. PDO? Not really, still a mostly positive phase from 2002-06…most experts are saying we have just entered the negative phase in the past year. Solar? Well, Cycle 23 was slightly weaker than the previous two cycles. Bottom line: there has been no substantial, documented negative forcing that should be cancelling AGW out – according to AGW theory, at least.
Another thought for you: the early 1990s (late 1991-94) were cooled substantially by the volcanic eruption of Pinatubo. The 2000s have seen no such climate-altering eruption. Therefore, the temperature difference between the 1990s and 2000s would actually be a fair amount less if the Pinatubo influence was removed to even things out. Not only were the 1990s artificially cooler in part because of Pinatubo, but the 2000s have seen no rise in temperature thus far. This means that the .2C rise/decade predicted by models has not been verifying since at least 1990!
counters,
I’d have to say then the comma was misplaced. The first part of the sentence (the one I responded to) is a complete thought, the phrase separated out by a comma followed with ‘and’ makes it confusing and masks your apparent intent to include it as a criteria.
If 1998 was an outlier and cannot be counted in the cooling side of things, then it also cannot be counted on the warming side of things either then, can it? If that is so, then I don’t think you have a multi-decadal warming trend either.
In any case suggesting that a ‘plausible mechanism’ is a prerequisite for evidence of a trend (or warming trend) is not viable. There is either a cooling trend or there is not, there is either a warming trend or there is not, regardless if the mechanism that causes it is understood or not.
““Could the decrease seen earlier this year be just another blip? In the 80’s and 90’s there are also sharp drops but these then recover …”
At around 1976 we saw a “step” upwards in average temperatures when the PDO switched to “warm” phase. It has now switched back to “cool” phase and we see a corresponding step down in average temperatures. Yes, in the period between there were blips up and down when we had various El Nino and La Nina events, but overall there is a very obvious step up that the RSS graphs can’t show because it happened in 1976, three years before the satellite measurements started.
Status of the Sun notwithstanding, I expect there to be an obvious step down to a generally cooler mode over the next couple of decades, just as there was from about 1945 to 1975. From ’76 to ’06 it was warmer, now it is cooler. Climate changes. Always has, always will.
Interesting arguments… from all parties
Aars I am not convinced by your posts…who cares about a piece of ice the size of manhattan? Ice breaks and forms all the time. You didn’t even bother mentioning the Antarctic record highs in ice formation…
Hmmm typical cherry-picking alarmist!!!
If this really is just a La Nina blip then no-one will be right and we will all be watching in anticipation at what nature does next.
As a climate realist I do see solar variability as an important factor…but think about it… the solar cycle 1964-1977 was longer than the current one and nothing major happened right?? No ice age happened… Yes, yes the solar conveyer belt was faster in the 70s than it is now, but I think we must be careful on placing such bets on solar cycles. I remember reading on an earlier thread where someone predicted that “July 2008 will see massive flares and SC 24 will erupt,,,etc” ,,,well…that never happened. We must wait and see! 🙂
btw: I really hate it when people bring up the hurricane argument.. I mean give me a break. 70 years ago there were no satellites to track hurricanes that did’t reach land, nor did they have accurate instruments to measure “records”. And there was not a ship in every square km of the ocean to track non-landfall storms. Skeptics’ arguments are pathetic really. And to just ignore the CO2 lagging temp effect is ludicrous as this one fact destroys it all.
Ah good point about that step in 1976…what a pity the satellite wasn’t invented earlier! It would have answered a few questions. Agreed we all know that, what is the problem is that no-one really knows for sure who or what controls it and by how much and for how long…
The solar cycle isn’t totally abnormal yet…we must wait until may 2009…and if it hasn’t started by then…well then we should seriously start worrying!
ref: Paul
quote There is indeed an overall trend of 0.017K/yr (1.7K/century), as you can see from:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/plot/rss/trend unquote
I’ve only eyeballed it but it is instructive to look at the Hadcrut3 record from 1910 with the dodgy bucket correction removed. It falls into three parts, 1910 to 1939, 40 to 57, 57 to 97. The record since 97 looks like a natural spike and then an attempt by the system to get back to the long term trend of the two steady warming periods — just like the struggle back to the norm after the 1939 spike. If that is the case we should be able to make a prediction.
I make the underlying warming rate about .14 deg C/decade. If the system is tending back to its preferred rate, when should warming recommence?
JF
“If this really is just a La Nina blip then no-one will be right ”
I believe the La Nina has already returned to “neutral” and did so a couple of months ago. So right now we are in a “neutral” ENSO condition with a “cool” PDO and a cool NAO. In a “cool” PDO, one generally sees more La Nina events than El Nino events and the opposite is true in the “warm” phase of PDO. So chances would be better of slipping into another La Nina than an El Nino event.
counters:
You seem to be long on opinion, and short on facts. Leaving out 1998, here is a chart of four agencies [including NASA/GISS], plus the deep sea buoys, which all indicate global cooling.
If you can, please refute each one in turn.
February 1878 anomaly +0.364C
July 2008 anomaly +0.403C
[HadCRUT3]
By my math, that is only 0.039C per 130 years or 0.003C per decade.
Or, alternatively, just 1.5% of the temperature increase expected under global warming theory.
Actually, we might be starting into another La Nina. Looking at this graph it looks like the last La Nina ended, we blipped up a little warm in June and dropped back down cold again in July. August’s ENSO numbers aren’t in yet as far as I know.
counters (10:36:14) :
Ok, yeah, according to NOAA’s ENSO “Diagnostic Discussion” page, we are neutral and have been for some time:
So the fact that we are neutral and temps are still down would argue that we are no longer seeing much/any impact from La Niña and so I would posit that we are seeing a continuing “cool” PDO / NAO having the greatest impact on moderating temperatures at the moment. In other words, I believe we have stepped down from the 1976 step up. Now solar activity could well modify that to either moderate or amplify that cooling depending on what we see going forward but I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the current drop in temperatures is solar related … it would take a longer time for that to be noticed as the ocean stores a lot of heat. We aren’t much lower now than we have been at previous minimums.
I didn’t read all the comments, but I was just working on my monthly analysis of the data (I plan to write up a post on it tomorrow, if not tonight) and it is worth noting that, while the statement is true that the current 12-month temperature is slightly below the 12-month period ending November 1987, the statement seems a little misleading in that it is not the most recent occurrence of lower anomalies.
The current 12-month anomaly value of 8.6 last reached a level at least this low in the period ending December 2000, when the value reached 7.7. (It was as low as 4.2 earlier in the year)
I don’t put this out there to make any statement regarding warming or cooling, but rather for clarity. We’ve had periods like this before, and while I personally believe that we’re heading into an extended cooling phase, but the data at this point only suggests it and doesn’t prove it. We’ve had 12 consecutive months of year-over-year cooler anomalies, but from 1999-2000 we had a 15-month stretch.
Of significance is that a linear trend line (yes, I realize this is not the most appropriate measure, but it’s kind of the litmus test we all use to determine whether there is an overall trend of warming or cooling) can be stretched back to March 1997 with a negative slope.
I haven’t yet done my analysis on how the different slopes are changing.
Bill Illis –
“February 1878 anomaly +0.364C
July 2008 anomaly +0.403C
[HadCRUT3]
By my math, that is only 0.039C per 130 years or 0.003C per decade.
Or, alternatively, just 1.5% of the temperature increase expected under global warming theory.”
I just don’t believe arguments like this does anyone any good. Anybody can randomly (or purposely) select two individual months and make virtually any case they like. I think any reasonable person would understand that in a data set with hundreds of data points, you have variation, and that’s exactly why more rigorous statistical analysis is necessary.
I mean, in the past three months alone, we’ve seen global temperatures increase by nearly a quarter degree. If this continues, we’re all doomed.
Anthony,
I thought you and others would find this interesting if not very surprising. It’s baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack. Yes, the Hockey Stick liveth yet again!
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/09/hockey-stick-lives-not.html
Article from the New York times along the same lines.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/22/science/22cnd-climate.html?_r=2&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
The editors at EUReferendum conclude thusly:
“It is, of course, going to take some time to deconstruct the Mann paper, but it is worth noting that climatologists have difficulty deciding even today what is the current temperature. That Mann is so unequivocally able to assert what the temperature was 1300 years ago tells us all we need to know.
But then, as we have so often observed, we are not dealing with science here, so much as a belief system. Those who want to believe will continue to believe, while the rest of us stand back in amazement and marvel at the gullibility of the human species – or some of it.”
Here we go again!
REPLY: I’ve been aware of it for some time, but due to its Mannomatic nature which before relied on some questionable, and some would say, outright fraudulent methods, I’m waiting to see how the dust settles before wasting any column space on it. In short, I see the new Mann paper as a polished turd that was pulled from the old stinking heap for rework. Other than that it’s perfect.
[…] August RSS Global Temperature – holding steady, still cooler than 1 year ago Even though little change has been seen, there is some interesting news in the August RSS numbers. We are still cooler […] […]
Re the above, I agree wholeheartedly. There is nothing but tweaking being done in order to get it accepted.
Anthony,
As a plumber, I have to take exception to the fact that you referred to the new hockey stick graph as a “polished turd”. It cannot hold a candle to a turd. Turds make me alot of money. Please be more careful in the future.
Mike Bryant
Anthony, Flush that last commrnt if you wish it won’t hurt my feelings.
Matt Carden (11:44:59) wrote : ” My story on this is here: http://www.cardenchronicles.com/2008/09/link-between-solar-activity-and-weather.html
Matt, maybe it’s just me, but I find your site VERY difficult to read and a “turn off.”
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Anthony wrote: “In short, I see the new Mann paper as a polished turd that was pulled from the old stinking heap for rework.”
And Mann continuously attempts to hand the clean end to his colleagues!
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Diatribical Idiot – (Great Nick by the way) – “I just don’t believe arguments like this does anyone any good. Anybody can randomly (or purposely) select two individual months and make virtually any case they like. I think any reasonable person would understand that in a data set with hundreds of data points, you have variation, and that’s exactly why more rigorous statistical analysis is necessary.”
It actually does a lot of good to take the most extreme individual months in the record to provide a comparison. Cherry-picking to be sure, but it got a lot of people to actually look at the data and see the natural variability which occurs.
All we ever see is this GISS chart or the Hadley Centre chart of temperature (smoothed beyond all recognition but still) a straight line going up. It is all designed to drive an emotional reaction of the reader.
But when one looks at the significant variation which has occurred, even over this short period of time, one gets a better understanding of how the smoothed line could increase all by itself, simply by natural variation.
In addition, the smoothed line going up is less than half of what global warming theory says it should have increased.
1878 was an extreme El Nino event year. 2007-08 was a mild La Nina year. Obviously, the temp change between the two will be a minimal amount over the entire record. But the temps in 1878 are virtually the same as today.
All that really means is that GHGs and global warming is far, far less of a problem that the climate models predict it should be.
CO2 levels in 1878 were about 290 ppm. Today they are 385 ppm. Temperatures should have increased by 1.75C over this period if global warming theory was correct given the logarithmic impact of rising CO2. Instead, we see temps have increased by just 0.039C over the period (or a smoothed number of 0.7C). That just means the impact of GHGs is far, far less than the theory predicts and far, far less than any temp chart shown to the public today invokes.
I cherry-picked those two years to derive an emotional reaction from people just like the smoothed line going straight up is designed to invoke (even though it is still less than half of what global warming theory says it should be.)
Last year on this day in NE Oregon, Enterprise recorded a high of 83.4, a low of 56.5, and an average temp of 67.5. Today the high of 50.2 was recorded at 10:15 AM, and the low of 34.7 was recorded earlier at 6:28 AM. This degree of downturn has been happening for 3 weeks. I am already using my winter store of wood.
Regardless of what you think of global climate, there will be folks this winter here in the US and maybe in my county who will lose their lives due to what I predict will be extreme winter cold temps and no money for heating fuel or electricity. Weather is clearly relevant.
Pamela Gray (21:17:38) :
“I am already using my winter store of wood.”
Oh dear, does that mean you’re heading for a “Three Hubby Night?” Or just a one hubby and two dog night?
I only have one smallish dog, so one wife and one dog for me, except was 88 today, and still 66F and humid tonight. Dog gets pushed out of bed tonight.
average sun spots.
90 year cycle looks possable + or –
200 looks good too
1823
87.7/30=2.92
1913
87.6/30=2.92
2008 09-01
259/28=9.3
1798
229.1/30=7.64
any one know the weather for 1798 ?
Counters, two words, sun spots.
Anthony, I would like to help with the project, the FAYETTE 4SW
is a possiblity. no way to know for sure of a drive by but would like to go.
REPLY: Fayette is in what state? – Anthony
Oh dear, does that mean you’re heading for a “Three Hubby Night?” Or just a one hubby and two dog night?
Woe is me, I don’t even have dogs – so had to get a new chainsaw, stat. [I live in the same County as does Pamela. I think we had a whole two months of subjective “Summer” with virtually no “Spring” at all.]
And listen up, counters: if we don’t have a Fall Indian Summer where I live this year, Global Cooling is most certainly verified – hey, my logic is at least as good as yours and that of the ipcc “Climate Scientists”. After all, anything goes in “Climate Science” – it’s oso Progressive that way.
Frank Lansner (12:29:16) :
“Fact is, the temperatures in the ocean down to 2 km depths has been measured to be slightly falling since 2002.”
Hi Frank,
could you supply references to this? I think SST are influenced too much by cloud cover and surface winds to be reliable, the subsurface temps should be a much better indicator.
On Mann, it’s been great fun watching this
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/large/05.24.jpg
morph to this
http://www.global-warming-and-the-climate.com/images/Manns-hockey-stick.gif
to this
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/09/progress-in-millennial-reconstructions
Looking forward to the next installment.
re: counters
Data that is “counter” to the underlying theory, rejects the theory, not the data. Whether there is a “counter” theory or not is “counter” to the scientific method.
Those of us that have been through a few climate cycles are not going to fall for your “watermelon” theories. When I was born it was warm. Then it got cold. Then it got warm again. Now it is getting cold.
If you want respect, break out the man-made portion of that cycle, and show how much negative impact it has made. Until then you are just another phophet on the street corner, with a sign that says: ” The end is near”.
REPLY: Fayette is in what state? – Anthony
michigan
sorry LOL
Alex (13:51:39) :
As a climate realist I do see solar variability as an important factor…but think about it… the solar cycle 1964-1977 was longer than the current one and nothing major happened right?? No ice age happened…
Your facts have been adjusted. Cycle 23 is 12 years so far, could be longer. You have to go 100+ years back to find a longer cycle.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/solar_cycle_length.png
Carsten Arnholm
Thanks…interesting data piece,now problem is,,, which one is the most accurate one…
Alex, did you notice that around 1977 the global temperatures had sunk so much that leading scientists warned about ice age?
(Ok, after the 1980´ies all these graphs of global temperature changed back so the giss graph today mostly has the 1960´ies – 1970´ies looking like a plateau rather than a great fall in temperature, but it was not for nothing the scientists back then cried “ice age”.)
In the last 400 years whenever we have low solar activity / low sunspot numbers / Long sun circles, we see falls or even dramatic falls in temperature.
How responsible is it to say “Its probably not gonna happend this time” ?
UAH data for August is out: -.01C. Very chilly southern hemisphere.
http://climate.uah.edu/august2008.htm
Alex (11:51:16) :
How about
ftp://ftp.ngdc.noaa.gov/STP/SOLAR_DATA/SUNSPOT_NUMBERS/maxmin.new
Wordpress does awful things that even monospace fonts can’t fix, so I
recommend the FTP URL.
For the following, just us column 1 (cycle), column 2 (start date), and the last column (cycle length). I guess cycle 23 is up to 12.3 years or so.
MINIMA AND MAXIMA OF SUNSPOT NUMBER CYCLES
===============================================================================
Sunspot Year Smallest Year Largest Rise Fall Cycle
Cycle of Smoothed of Smoothed to Max to Min Length
Number Min* Monthly Mean** Max* Monthly Mean** (Yrs) (Yrs) (Yrs)
——————————————————————————-
– 1610.8 — 1615.5 — 4.7 3.5 8.2
– 1619.0 — 1626.0 — 7.0 8.0 15.0
– 1634.0 — 1639.5 — 5.5 5.5 11.0
– 1645.0 — 1649.0 — 4.0 6.0 10.0
– 1655.0 — 1660.0 — 5.0 6.0 11.0
– 1666.0 — 1675.0 — 9.0 4.5 13.5
– 1679.5 — 1685.0 — 5.5 4.5 10.0
– 1689.5 — 1693.0 — 3.5 5.0 8.5
– 1698.0 — 1705.5 — 7.5 6.5 14.0
– 1712.0 — 1718.2 — 6.2 5.3 11.5
– 1723.5 — 1727.5 — 4.0 6.5 10.5
– 1734.0 — 1738.7 — 4.7 6.3 11.0
– 1745.0 — 1750.3 92.6 5.3 4.9 10.2
1 1755.2 8.4 1761.5 86.5 6.3 5.0 11.3
2 1766.5 11.2 1769.7 115.8 3.2 5.8 9.0
3 1775.5 7.2 1778.4 158.5 2.9 6.3 9.2
4 1784.7 9.5 1788.1 141.2 3.4 10.2 13.6
5 1798.3 3.2 1805.2 49.2 6.9 5.4 12.3
6 1810.6 0.0 1816.4 48.7 5.8 6.9 12.7
7 1823.3 0.1 1829.9 71.7 6.6 4.0 10.6
8 1833.9 7.3 1837.2 146.9 3.3 6.3 9.6
9 1843.5 10.5 1848.1 131.6 4.6 7.9 12.5
10 1856.0 3.2 1860.1 97.9 4.1 7.1 11.2
11 1867.2 5.2 1870.6 140.5 3.4 8.3 11.7
12 1878.9 2.2 1883.9 74.6 5.0 5.7 10.7
13 1889.6 5.0 1894.1 87.9 4.5 7.6 12.1
14 1901.7 2.6 1907.0 64.2 5.3 6.6 11.9
15 1913.6 1.5 1917.6 105.4 4.0 6.0 10.0
16 1923.6 5.6 1928.4 78.1 4.8 5.4 10.2
17 1933.8 3.4 1937.4 119.2 3.6 6.8 10.4
18 1944.2 7.7 1947.5 151.8 3.3 6.8 10.1
19 1954.3 3.4 1957.9 201.3 3.6 7.0 10.6
20 1964.9 9.6 1968.9 110.6 4.0 7.6 11.6
21 1976.5 12.2 1979.9 164.5 3.4 6.9 10.3
22 1986.8 12.3 1989.6 158.5 2.8 6.8 9.7
23 1996.4*** 8.0 2000.3*** 120.8 4.0
——————————————————————————-
Mean Cycle Values: 6.1 113.2 4.7 6.3 11.0
——————————————————————————-
*When observations permit, a date selected as either a cycle minimum or maxi-
mum is based in part on an average of the times extremes are reached in the
monthly mean sunspot number, in the smoothed monthly mean sunspot number, and
in the monthly mean number of spot groups alone. Two more measures are used
at time of sunspot minimum: the number of spotless days and the frequency of
occurrence of “old” and “new” cycle spot groups.
**The smoothed monthly mean sunspot number is defined here as the arithmetic
average of two sequential 12-month running means of monthly mean numbers.
***May 1996 marks the mathematical minimum of Cycle 23. October 1996 marks the
consensus minimum determined by an international group of solar physicists.
April 2000 marks the mathematical maximum of Cycle 23. However, several
other solar indices (e.g., 10.7 cm solar radio flux) recorded a higher
secondary maximum in late 2001.
Here’s some numbers for Jan-Aug for the past 30yrs using RSS global anomalies averaged for these months.Also ENSO during these months.
1979 -0.219* neutral
1980 +0.050 neutral
1981 +0.031* neutral
1982 -0.202* neutral to strong El Nino
1983 +0.059 very strong El Nino to neutral
1984 -0.207* neutral
1985 -0.309* moderate to weak La Nina
1986 -0.165* neutral to weak El Nino
1987 +0.087 moderate to strong El Nino
1988 +0.134 weak El Nino to moderate La Nina
1989 -0.174* strong La Nina to neutral
1990 +0.014* neutral
1991 +0.189 neutral to moderate El Nino
1992 -0.147* strong El Nino to neutral
1993 -0.134* neutral
1994 +0.037* neutral to weak El Nino
1995 +0.191 moderate El Nino to weak La Nina
1996 +0.050 weak La Nina to neutral
1997 +0.044 neutral to very strong El Nino
1998 +0.671 very strong El Nino to mod La Nina
1999 +0.096 moderate La Nina
2000 +0.071 strong La Nina to neutral
2001 +0.224 weak La Nina to neutral
2002 +0.380 neutral to moderate El Nino
2003 +0.321 moderate El Nino to neutral
2004 +0.258 neutral to weak El Nino
2005 +0.389 weak El Nino to neutral
2006 +0.278 neutral to weak El Nino
2007 +0.364 weak El Nino to weak La Nina
2008 +0.042 moderate La Nina to neutral
You have to go back to 1997 to get a similiar average anomaly. Astericks indicate colder years(Jan-Aug) than this one.
Here’s a nice graph of eruptions and their SO2 emissions from 1979-2003.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f2/TOMS_SO2_time_nov03.png/800px-TOMS_SO2_time_nov03.png
Mary Hinge (01:25:25) :
Frank Lansner (12:29:16) :
“Fact is, the temperatures in the ocean down to 2 km depths has been measured to be slightly falling since 2002.”
I believe Frank was refering to Argo probes not SST.
I’m looking for the HadCRUT dataset which (like the whole CRU website) is inaccessible for hours now. Let I guess what they are doing… Maybe it’s high time to make some “corrections” or “adjustments”?
Frank:
Yes I agree but perhaps it is being a little over-exaggerated when it is said that we will enter the next Maunder minimum based on current events? Back in the 70s they were convinced of an impending ice age, and yes temps did drop but not to the conditions one would see in a maunder/dalton/sporer type minimum. It is safe to say that we will experience below normal temps,,, but a 2 degree C drop worldwide??
Ric:
It is quite intriguing that there is no 100% consensus on when SC 23 started…that really does pose a problem, this reminds me of the debate over wether “tiny tim” spots should be counted.
In South Africa we here are currently experiencing raging bush fires, strong winds and temperature swings…even port towns are getting damaged by storm surges washing onto roads…obviously the media attributes this to AGW…which is really pathetic since temps have generally been colder.
I would definately say that winter 2008 was definately cold but also wet, not like our typical dry winters…
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What about the hockey stick? Why did it spike in just the last 40 years or so?