Cool sea surface temperatures overrode warming
December 4, 2009
Left side: 1970-2007 trend in annual surface air temperature. Right sid: 2008 annual surface air temperature, shown as a departure from the 1971-2000 climatology.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.
“Our work shows that there can be cold periods, but that does not mean the end of global warming. The recent coolness was caused by transitory natural factors that temporarily masked the human-caused signal,” said Judith Perlwitz, lead author of the study and a researcher with the Cooperative Institute for Research Environmental Sciences, and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, both in Boulder, Colo. The paper will be published Dec. 8 in Geophysical Research Letters.
[NOTE: We have it here – see link below]
Using computer-generated models as well as observations, the team analyzed causes for climate variations in the recent decades. Special emphasis was given to the reasons for North American coolness in 2008. The research is an exercise in climate attribution, a scientific process for identifying the sources of observed climate and weather patterns. Climate attribution is a vital part of NOAA’s climate services.
“We found that North American coolness resulted from a strong bout of naturally caused cooling in the tropical and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures,” said Martin Hoerling, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author. “This illustrates how regional patterns can vary independent of the overall global average. In 2008, global land temperatures were the sixth warmest on record, whereas it was the coldest year in North America since 1996.”
The analysis included historical data and climate model simulations that were conducted in the U.S. and internationally. The science team discerned both natural and human-caused influences for 2008.
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.
The scientists conclude that the North American temperatures are likely to resume increasing again, and do not see the recent coolness as an emerging downward trend.
“Our work shows the importance of the role of natural climate variability in temporarily masking or enhancing human-induced climate change. Through diagnosis, we ensure that natural changes, when occurring, are not misunderstood to mean that climate change is either not happening or is happening more intensely than the expected human influence,” said Arun Kumar, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author.
Authors of A strong bout of natural cooling in 2008 are Judith Perlwitz, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, Colo., and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; Martin Hoerling, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; Jon Eischeid and Taiyi Xu, both of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, Colo., and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; and Arun Kumar, NOAA Climate Prediction Center, Camp Springs, Md.
The work was funded by the NOAA Climate Program Office.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
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Link to GRL Paper is here
(Thanks to Leif Svalgaard)
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ha-ha-ha-grumupnnmkorgdzzzz (sorry, I swallowed my tongue) That is TOO funny.
Someday they will hop on this train.. http://www.forbes.com/2009/12/03/climate-science-gore-intelligent-technology-sutton.html
… and when I see the 2009 results I’m likely to pee my pants
“It will get warmer if it doesn’t get colder”. Sounds like a typical weather forecast.
Gee don’t you wish we hadn’t influenced the weather with our CO2 so we could have really frozen our rear ends off in 2008.
“Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.”
Yeah, according to at least two of those emails, when sunspots return, so will the warming.
And Leif, don’t scold me, I’m just noting what I’ve read from some of those scientists at CRU.
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.”
Words fail me. We are back in Stalin’s time when all science papers had to mention how they were inspired by Stalin’s thoughts. Now we have to confess how awful a species we are.
Well of course they don’t think the 2008 cooling is the beginning of a cooling trend — their a priori assumption that man is responsible for global warming cannot accommodate this possibility. Once again, another example showing how this kind of prescriptive thinking is unscientific.
Watt,
Did WW2 increase global CO2 significantly and does that show up in the temp record? The manufacturing effort of the war was huge, not to mention the blowing up and burning of cities and equipment.
We’ve had a HUGE global housing bubble in this decade with a huge manufacturing cycle in China and all over the world, presumably spewing lots of CO2 yet global temps have stayed the same. We’ve also had 2 wars in Iraq and Afganistan and the extra burning of fossil fuels attributed to that, yet temperatures have stayed the same.
Yes, it’s the cool sea surface. Now, make a leap, WHY is the sea cold?
It’s the PDO, stupids…
Wow, my brain hurts from the spectacle of insanity beyond insanity of today’s events.
“Our work shows that there can be cold periods, but that does not mean the end of global warming.”
Yeah, the planet is either cooling, staying the same or warming. Dah.
What amazes me is that they think they can find the causes in such a complex system and assign with any accuracy the percentage warming from each of their selected causes of warming or cooling or staying the same.
Not allowed to exhale anymore. You can inhale but no exhaling anymore. No running. No exercise. No mice that roar! Nope, can’t have CO2. Grrr… Arrrgg…
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/12/07/epa-moves-to-cut-off-essential-nutrient-for-plants-and-wants-you-to-stop-breathing
Somewhat off topic but why did the JAXA sea ice extent drop today? More algorithm adjustments or a change in wind moving the ice around. Lost about 100,000 km from yesterday.
Oh yeah, another excellent find.
“The scientists conclude that the North American temperatures are likely to resume increasing again, and do not see the recent coolness as an emerging downward trend.”
See, that is the part that gets me. They always have to reach for the crystal ball and forecast warming no matter what the climate is doing.
5 years ago hey would never have forecast this cooling. So it comes to pass. So they say “oh, no big deal, watch out, though, because warming is right around the corner”.
Now really that is a pretty safe bet. Periods of warming generally follow periods of cooling. And periods of cooling generally follow periods of warming. The way they have spun this is that when things naturally move in the other direction they will be standing there saying “see! Told ya! its WARMING!”. And since they have everyone convinced that ANY warming is a horrible thing, at any given time in the future they have a 50% chance of being in a condition that furthers their agenda because it is generally always cooling or warming.
So the only interesting part is that North America cooled. The rest is blather.
Will they pull Mike’s Nature trick to hide the decline?
When there is warming, it’s due to CO2 and human emission of GHGs.
When there is cooling, it’s due to natural factors. What a great logic.
Oh, and NOAA, via NCDC, has cooked the books on the thermometer record via buggering GHCN. It’s in the data:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/ghcn-the-global-analysis/
For example, why would South America be “warmer” in the record?
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/ghcn-south-america-andes-what-andes/
Perhaps taking all the thermometers out of the mountains had something to do with it.
Or the half of the planet that is the Pacific basin?
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/13/ghcn-pacific-islands-sinking-from-the-top-down/
Yeah, cooked books again.
NOAA / NCDC is as crooked as UEA / CRU in my opinion. It needs investigation.
If anyone knows how to do a FOIA for the records of meetings and emails about the decision to redact the thermometers, it’s a giant “Dig Here!”
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.”
As a resident of one of those big blue blobs, I say bring on the human-induced warming!
What is s/he talking about? That sentence makes no sense at all; unless, of course, s/he is talking agenda science and not, um… natural science, aka reality.
“We found that North American coolness resulted from a strong bout of naturally caused cooling in the tropical and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures.”
For sure. So what caused the cooling in sea surface temperatures?
Scientific hypotheses are supposed to fall when they fail to make predictions and another hypothesis comes along that can predict better.
The AGW Hypothesis has failed to predict the cooling trend and now they are looking to explain it after their hypothesis was falsified by Mother Nature.
The Solar Weather Technique gets better results! Sometimes as accurate as 85% a year or so into the future! Now that’s impressive.
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/11/29/when-soothsaying-ahem-predicting-the-future-weather-and-climate-accuracy-matters-and-as-such-the-agw-hypothesis-fails-while-the-solar-weather-technique-succeeds
As it stands the Solar Weather Technique is doing better than AGW!
Furthermore, “Bad explanations are easy to vary while good explanations are hard to vary.” – David Deutsch, a physicist at the University of Oxford.
The fact that the AGW Hypothesis Alarmist crowd keeps having varying explanations indicates that they hypothesis has once again failed as it shows little if any predictive powers beyond soothsaying with dead tree entrails!
http://pathstoknowledge.net/2009/12/05/bad-explanations-are-easy-to-vary-while-good-explanations-are-hard-to-vary
So when it’s warm it’s CO2, and when it’s cold it’s natural? And they can’t see the stupidity of this?
cool
“When you say model, you’ve said it all.”
Right, “We don’t understand why things haven’t been getting hotter,” and immediately “Oh, it is natural causes.”
I wonder what other “Natural” causes these people don’t understand?
I’m sure it’s a just an amazing coincidence that this ‘convenient’ paper and the EPA CO2 pronouncement occur during the opening day of Copenhagen.
Improbe Neptunum accusat qui iterum naufragium facit.