Perhaps they simply cause each other? Warm periods cause cool periods cause warm periods….

It almost looks like a self-stabilizing system.

But then one is still left with a general upward trend. I got numbers using a different method (that is very close to the one in this paper) of 0.045C per decade.

Whether that is a natural recovery from the Little Ice Age or is the signal of GHGs/global warming is where the research should go next.

We would need a causitive mechanism for the Little Ice Age and its natural recovery since then if one were to take that explanation. The most likely causes would be Solar or Albedo changes or both.

—…—…—

And – after we leave politics and hate-energy attitudes (assuming we ever could!) – that IS the single question about climate research that matters!

1) What causes the three-solar-cycle up-and-down pattern over the 70 year short term periods?

What causes the long-term 900 year Roman Warming – Dark Ages – Medieval Warming Period – Little Ice Age – Modern Warming pattern we see repeating between the major 12,000 year Ice Ages?

- STATISTICS,

“NOAA uses no less than 30 years”

This is appeal to authority, and you didn’t even get the authority right. The thirty year convention originates with the World Meteorological Organization.

Appeal to authority is OK in science bud, why else would people specify in one aspect of science to become an expert? . NOAA is really good at weather, they have lots of records, and to determine climate they use 30 years.

How many weathers does it take to make a climate?

One last comment I want to make:
I really don’t think it is that complicated.

Hopefully routine data analysis methods of the future will not struggle so badly with complexity (…for example linear-correlations near-zero where there are purely-deterministic relations).

Cheers to all.
Thanks to Craig for giving us something to think about.

But then one is still left with a general upward trend. I got numbers using a different method (that is very close to the one in this paper) of 0.045C per decade.

Whether that is a natural recovery from the Little Ice Age or is the signal of GHGs/global warming is where the research should go next.

We would need a causitive mechanism for the Little Ice Age and its natural recovery since then if one were to take that explanation. The most likely causes would be Solar or Albedo changes or both.

And one should note that the upward trend that is left-over, is so small, we will never get anywhere near +3.0C by 2100 with it.

Thanks, both, for the citations. My comments, such as they were, didn’t make it through.

ShrNfr: I read several pages of the MIT grad students’ work – enough to see how complex the satellite and software programming must be. That this is less prone to mischief and mishandling is still a point that escaps me, and I would gladly leave this to the experts – if, as I said, I just saw someone questioning these records.

As for “first climate history”, I dare say that others have beat Christy and Spencer to the punch. Check your facts before you “correct” others.

H. H. Lamb, “Climate History and the Modern World”, 1982, comes to mind, but I would welcome hearing about any earlier works (or later, for that matter).

Thanks again.

ShrNfr (16:27:18) :

In particular see chapter 2 where the gore of the radiative transfer equation is described. Lotsa fun back then when cycles were expensive.

I read 15 pages from the beginning of Chapter Four of the student’s graduate thesis. Chapter four is called “The Temperature Experiment”, and gives a general description of the Scanning Microwave Spectrometer aboard a satellite. Overlooking the acronym (SCAM) for the moment, I concluded two things. One is that the paper itself seems to this layman clearly-written, thorough and objective (though I wonder – is the siting of one’s graduate thesis adviser and teachers pretty much de rigueur in grad thesis-writing?) The other conclusion (no surprise) is that, as a method of taking the Earth’s temperature, this one is extremely complex.

I’m not qualified to criticize the science, but, as I said above, I have seen very little in the way of skeptical examination of the methods and data derived from weather satellites. As has been shown by the Surface Stations project, a few misplaced Stevenson boxes can significantly mislead scientists in interpreting the temperature record. UHI issues alone may call a station’s temperature record into question. Shouldn’t we be eqully skeptical of satellite data? It looks to this outsider like it has infinitely more variables in its operation and interpretation.

I agree with you that what is most interesting is not the synchronized clocks, but rather the day.

- – -
Some more notes from Yndestad, Turrell, & Ozhigin (2008):

“The 18-year lunar nodal tide, however, results in a variation of only 3-5% in the semi-diurnal tide. So why does this tide have such a major influence on temperature and salinity variability in Atlantic water properties in these northern areas?”

“One answer may be that there is a fundamental difference between forced stationary long-term cycles and random short-term fluctuations. Small changes in stationary forced cycles have a major long-term influence on temperature variability when they are integrated over years in time and space.”

“As Wunsch and Ferrari (2004) note, the budget of mechanical energy input to the ocean is not well understood, and the relevance of models that do not account for such energy sources and the resulting mixing they provide may be in doubt when used to predict the impact of future climate change [...]”

“It is [...] the similarities between the identified tidal-period cycles and their phase, compared to the period and phase of the astronomical cycles, in all investigated time-series that demonstrate the robust nature of wavelet analysis.”

“Wavelet analysis of the oceanographic data series showed that there was no linear relationship between the 18.6-year amplitude tide and the identified 18-year temperature fluctuations.” – key words here: “no“, “linear“.

“Phase reversals can arise in forced oscillating non-linear systems (Stoker, 1950; Strogatz, 2000)”

“The thermohaline circulation is a dynamic process, and interactions between the forced tidal process and the delayed process may influence the cycle phase by interference.”

“The 18-year temperature cycle in North Atlantic Water and in the Barents Sea had phase reversals in about 1925. Phase reversals are well known in physical and communication systems.”

They list examples, citing Currie & others, stressing (like Currie does) the need for “regional” perspective.

What I wanted to point out is that correlations in time with one set of variables does not mean causation, particularly if those variables are in effect another clock for defining time.

The Yndestad link Judy provides upthread has been tossed around here upon a number of occasions. Coincidentally, I’ve just been studying another Yndestad paper:

Yndestad, H.; Turrell, W.R.; & Ozhigin, V. (2008). Lunar nodal tide effects on variability of sea level, temperature, and salinity in the Faroe-Shetland Channel and the Barents Sea. Deep Sea Research Part I: Oceanographic Research Papers 55(10), 1201-1217. doi:10.1016/j.dsr.2008.06.003.

p.1214, section 3.9. (Summary of results):
“The 18-year temperature cycles of NAW, MNAW and Kola section water had a phase-reversal when the 74-year cycle turned into a positive state in about 1925. The 18-year salinity cycle in NAW and MNAW had phase-reversal when the 74-year cycle has a polarity change in about 1925 and 1960.” [Note: NAW=North Atlantic Water; M=modified]

Some of you may recognize the connection with the timing illustrated by Landscheidt & Charvatova (putting aside the mechanisms they propose [see Yu.V. Barkin for alternatives]).

Also, note the consistency with both the Russian school of thought (Sidorenkov, Lyubushin, Barkin, Klyashtorin, +) and the papers by Tsonis+ (that anna v, myself, & others around here often cite). [I provide some of the links (drawing attention to parallels between figures) over here: http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/DRAFT_VaughanPL2009CO_TPM_SSD_LNC.htm ]

The talk about correlations ‘meaning nothing’ until mechanisms are known does not advance the discussion. There are unknowns and until they are knowns we are in the exploration phase. Even if/when the physicists (or whoever) have all the answers, they will have no authority to dictate what has ‘meaning’, but once the physicists (or whoever) produce AMO, PDO, ENSO, etc. tables that work like tide tables, others will naturally shift their focus to other phenomena that remain intriguing.

Regards.

That one thing is CO2.

It is claimed that humans are responsible for Climate Change because of our CO2 emissions and that we need to have limits imposed because we need to reduce our emissions of CO2.

So first simply ask yourself this:

Can CO2 trap in heat?

Answer: NO, nothing traps in heat, substances can only absorb and re-emit heat but they cannot trap heat.

Next question, does CO2 absorb heat more strongly than the other gasses in the atmosphere?

Answer: NO, CO2 is only 0.03811% of the atmosphere and remains as solid ice up to a temperature of 194.65 K

Nitrogen and Oxygen which make up 99% of the atmosphere on the other hand, begin to melt at temperatures as low as 50-60 K and so are much stronger absorbers of heat and at the same time, make up most of the atmospheric gasses.

This puts the effect of CO2 into context. CO2 cannot trap heat as no gasses in the atmosphere can. CO2 is a tiny proportion of the gasses in the atmosphere, so tiny in fact that compared to Oxygen and Nitrogen it is barely noticeable. The effect of such tiny amounts of CO2 being a much weaker absorber of heat than Nitrogen and Oxygen, also show that the warming effect of CO2 is insignificant.

So the final question is, are we responsible for Climate Change through our CO2 emissions?

Answer: NO WE MOST DEFINITELY ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE.

Take that to Copenhagen!

If you would like to know more about the AGW fraud and carbon tax, download this free .pdf book

[snip - self promotion ]