By WUWT regular “Just The Facts”
I recently came across a January 21st, 2012 Peter Gleick article 2011 Climate Change in Pictures and Data: Just the Facts, which appears to mimic the format and approach of my January 1st, 2012 article A Big Picture Look At “Earth’s Temperature”.
What I find particularly amusing about Peter’s article is that a week after noting that, “Lost in this verbal debate are often the simple facts and data of climate change and the immense and definitive global observations of the ways in which our climate is actually changing around us.” Peter Gleick was perpetrating Fakegate. Why, if the “simple facts and data” support his viewpoint, would Peter resort to subterfuge and fakery?
If you read through Gleick’s article, you’ll see some of his “immense and definitive global observations”, like “anyone watching or reading the news or looking out the window probably had a sense that 2011 was a weird year with one bad, extreme weather disaster after another”…
Anyway, in honor Peter’s reinstatement as President of the Pacific Institute I figured that an update on the “simple facts and data” was in order.
Please note that WUWT cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data/graphics within this article, nor influence the format or form of any of the graphics, as they are all linked from third party sources and WUWT is simply an aggregator. You can view each graphic at its source by simply clicking on it.
Global Surface Temperatures:
Generally, when referring to Earth’s “climate” warming, proponents of the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) narrative, refer to Earth’s Surface Temperature, e.g. “Global warming is the unusually rapid increase in Earth’s average surface temperature over the past century primarily due to the greenhouse gases released by people burning fossil fuels.” NASA Earth Observatory
As such, here’s NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) Monthly Mean Surface Temperature Anomaly – 1996 to Present;
NOAA’s National Climate Data Center (NCDC) Annual Global Mean Temperature Anomaly Over Land & Sea – 1880 to Present;
Note: The chart above hasn’t been updated with 2011 data for unknown reasons. The chart resides here and the data to update it is here.
It appears that a significant decline in temperatures occurred during the last 17 months:
2010 1 0.6335
2010 2 0.6708
2010 3 0.7815
2010 4 0.7518
2010 5 0.7064
2010 6 0.6764
2010 7 0.6581
2010 8 0.5783
2010 9 0.4975
2010 10 0.5655
2010 11 0.7182
2010 12 0.4226
2011 1 0.3962
2011 2 0.4200
2011 3 0.5226
2011 4 0.5894
2011 5 0.5093
2011 6 0.5882
2011 7 0.5687
2011 8 0.5401
2011 9 0.5264
2011 10 0.5739
2011 11 0.4347
2011 12 0.4800
2012 1 0.3630
2012 2 0.3678
2012 3 0.4477
2012 4 0.6514
(Source: NOAA NCDC)
UK Met Office’s – Hadley Center – Climate Research Unit (CRU) Annual Global Average Land Temperature Anomaly – 1850 to Present;
and the UK Met Office – Hadley Center – Climate Research Unit (CRU) Monthly Global Average Land Temperature – 1850 to Present
Depending on the time frame, it certainly seems that Earth’s Surface Temperature has increased, but it does not appear to be warming rapidly and there is no indication of acceleration. Furthermore, the surface temperature record is burdened with issues of questionable siting, changes in siting, changes in equipment, changes in the number of measurement locations, modeling to fill in gaps in measurement locations, corrections to account for missing, erroneous or biased measurements, and the urban heat island effect. Thus to see the big picture on the temperature “Earth’s Temperature”, it also helps to look up.
Atmospheric Temperatures:
Since 1979 Earth’s “temperature” has also been measured via satellite. “The temperature measurements from space are verified by two direct and independent methods. The first involves actual in-situ measurements of the lower atmosphere made by balloon-borne observations around the world. The second uses intercalibration and comparison among identical experiments on different orbiting platforms. The result is that the satellite temperature measurements are accurate to within three one-hundredths of a degree Centigrade (0.03 C) when compared to ground-launched balloons taking measurements of the same region of the atmosphere at the same time.” NASA
The following are 4 Temperature Anomaly plots from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), each one increases in altitude as is illustrated here:
RSS Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly- 1979 to Present;
RSS Temperature Middle Troposphere (TMT)- Brightness Temperature Anomaly- 1979 to Present;
RSS Temperature Troposphere / Stratosphere (TTS) -Brightness Temperature Anomaly- 1987 to Present;
RSS Temperature Lower Stratosphere (TLS) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly – 1979 to Present:
According to Remote Sensing Systems, “For Channel (TLT) (Lower Troposphere) and Channel (TMT) (Middle Troposphere), the anomaly time series is dominated by ENSO events and slow tropospheric warming. The three primary El Niños during the past 20 years are clearly evident as peaks in the time series occurring during 1982-83, 1987-88, and 1997-98, with the most recent one being the largest.” RSS
Also, the 2009 – 10 El Niño event is also called out on this RSS Latitudinal Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT) Brightness Temperature Anomaly from 1979 to Present;
and the 1998 El Niño event, along with the tropospheric cooling attributed to the 1991 eruption of Mt Pinitubo, is called out on this University of Alabama – Hunstville (UAH) Lower Atmosphere Temperature Anomalies – 1979 to Present:
Note: Per John Christy, RSS and UAH anomalies are not comparable because they use different base periods, i.e., “RSS only uses 1979-1998 (20 years) while UAH uses the WMO standard of 1981-2010.”
The May UAH Lower Atmosphere Temperature Anomaly was 0.29 degrees C above the 30 year average. Keep this mind the next time you see claims that recent weather was caused by Global Warming.
There are also regional variations in Lower Troposphere that contribute nuance to the picture. For example, RSS Northern Polar Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT) Brightness Temperature Anomaly;
shows a .337 K/C per decade increase, whereas the The RSS Southern Polar Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT) Brightness Temperature Anomaly;
shows a .011 K/C per decade decrease. I am still not aware of a compelling explanation for the significant divergence in the Lower Troposphere temperature trends between the poles.
The satellite record seems to show slow warming of Lower and Middle Tropospheric temperatures, overlaid with the El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, including four comparatively large El Niño events. Lower Tropospheric temperatures appear to have flattened since the large El Niño in 1998 and offer no indication of Earth warming rapidly.
Moving higher in the atmosphere, RSS Temperature Troposphere / Stratosphere (TTS) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly- 1987 to Present;
has been incredibly flat since, with a trend of just -.010 K/C per decade. The 1997-98 and 2009 – 10 El Niño events are still readily apparent in the plot, as is a spike from the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. Note that the effect of Mt. Pinatubo is the opposite in the Lower and Middle Troposphere versus the Troposphere / Stratosphere (TTS), i.e. “Large volcanic eruptions inject sulfur gases into the stratosphere; the gases convert into submicron particles (aerosol) with an e-folding time scale of about 1 year. The climate response to large eruptions (in historical times) lasts for several (2-3) years. The aerosol cloud causes cooling at the Earth’s surface, warming in stratosphere.”
Ellen Thomas, PHD Wesleyan University
It is interesting that, incorporating the impact of three significant surface driven warming events, Troposphere / Stratosphere Temperatures (TTS) have been quite stable, however there is nuance to this as well.
RSS Northern Hemisphere Temperature Troposphere / Stratosphere (TTS) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly- 1987 to Present;
has been increasing by .046 K/C per decade, whereas the RSS Southern Hemisphere Temperature Troposphere / Stratosphere (TTS) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly- 1987 to Present;
has been decreasing by -.066 K/C per decade.
Moving higher still in the atmosphere, the RSS Temperature Lower Stratosphere (TLS) – Brightness Temperature Anomaly – 1979 to Present;
“is dominated by stratospheric cooling, punctuated by dramatic warming events caused by the eruptions of El Chichon (1982) and Mt Pinatubo (1991).” RSS
The eruptions of El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo are readily apparent in the Apparent Atmospheric Transmission of Solar Radiation at Mauna Loa, Hawaii:
“The stratosphere” … “in contrast to the troposphere, is heated, as the result of near infrared absorption of solar energy at the top of the aerosol cloud, and increased infra-red absorption of long-wave radiation from the Earth’s surface.”
“The stratospheric warming in the region of the stratospheric cloud increases the latitudinal temperature gradient after an eruption at low latitudes, disturbing the stratospheric-troposphere circulation, increasing the difference in height of the troposphere between high and low latitudes, and increasing the strength of the jet stream (polar vortex, especially in the northern hemisphere). This leads to warming during the northern hemisphere winter following a tropical eruption, and this warming effect tends to be larger than the cooling effect described above.” Ellen Thomas, PHD Wesleyan University
The Lower Stratosphere experienced “dramatic warming events caused by the eruptions of El Chichon (1982) and Mt Pinatubo (1991).” RSS “The long-term, global-mean cooling of the lower stratosphere stems from two downward steps in temperature, both of which are coincident with the cessation of transient warming after the volcanic eruptions of El Chichon and Mt. Pinatubo.” … “Here we provide observational analyses that yield new insight into three key aspects of recent stratospheric climate change. First, we provide evidence that the unusual step-like behavior of global-mean stratospheric temperatures is dependent not only upon the trend but also on the temporal variability in global-mean ozone immediately following volcanic eruptions. Second, we argue that the warming/cooling pattern in global-mean temperatures following major volcanic eruptions is consistent with the competing radiative and chemical effects of volcanic eruptions on stratospheric temperature and ozone. Third, we reveal the contrasting latitudinal structures of recent stratospheric temperature and ozone trends are consistent with large-scale increases in the stratospheric overturning Brewer-Dobson circulation” David W. J. Thompson Colorado State University
Above the Stratosphere we have the Mesosphere and Thermosphere, neither of which have I identified current temperature time series for, but of note is that on “July 15, 2010” “A Puzzling Collapse of Earth’s Upper Atmosphere” occurred when “high above Earth’s surface where the atmosphere meets space, a rarefied layer of gas called “the thermosphere” recently collapsed and now is rebounding again.”
“This is the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years,” says John Emmert of the Naval Research Lab, lead author of a paper announcing the finding in the June 19th issue of the Geophysical Research Letters (GRL). “It’s a Space Age record.”
The collapse happened during the deep solar minimum of 2008-2009—a fact which comes as little surprise to researchers. The thermosphere always cools and contracts when solar activity is low. In this case, however, the magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.
“Something is going on that we do not understand,” says Emmert.
The thermosphere ranges in altitude from 90 km to 600+ km. It is a realm of meteors, auroras and satellites, which skim through the thermosphere as they circle Earth. It is also where solar radiation makes first contact with our planet. The thermosphere intercepts extreme ultraviolet (EUV) photons from the sun before they can reach the ground. When solar activity is high, solar EUV warms the thermosphere, causing it to puff up like a marshmallow held over a camp fire. (This heating can raise temperatures as high as 1400 K—hence the name thermosphere.) When solar activity is low, the opposite happens.” NASA
In summary, Earth’s Lower and Middle Troposphere appear to have warmed slowly, overlaid with the El Niño/La Niña Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, including four comparatively large El Niño events, and tempered by the cooling effects of the eruption of El Chichon (1982) and Mt Pinatubo (1991). Lower and Middle Tropospheric temperatures appear to have flattened since the large El Niño in 1998 and offer no indication of warming rapidly or warming at an accelerating rate. Tropospheric / Stratospheric temperatures appear to have been influenced by at least three significant surface driven warming events, the 1997-98 El Niño, and the eruptions of El Chichon in 1982 and Mt Pinatubo in 1991, but to have maintained a stable overall trajectory. Stratospheric temperatures appear to have experienced two “dramatic warming events caused by the eruptions of El Chichon (1982) and Mt Pinatubo (1991).”, and “unusual step-like behavior of global-mean stratospheric temperatures” which has resulted in a significant stratospheric cooling during the last 30 years. Lastly, “during deep solar minimum of 2008-2009” “the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years” occurred and “The magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.”
Ocean Temperatures:
“The oceans can hold much more heat than the atmosphere. Just the top 3.2 metres of ocean holds as much heat as all the world’s air.” Commonwealth of Australia – Parliamentary Library
As such, changes inOcean Heat Content are important in understanding Earth’s “Temperature”. Here is NOAA’s NODC Global Ocean Heat Content from 0-700 Meters – 1955 to Present;
and here is the same from Ole Humlum’s valuable climate data site Climate4you.com, NODC Global Ocean Heat Content – 0-700 Meters – 1979 to Present:
It seems apparent from the plots above that Global Ocean Heat has increased over the last several decades, however Global Ocean Heat doesn’t appear to be warming rapidly. Furthermore, there is no evidence or indication of an accelerating rate.
Sea Level:
“Global sea level is currently rising as a result of both ocean thermal expansion and glacier melt, with each accounting for about half of the observed sea level rise, and each caused by recent increases in global mean temperature. For the period 1961-2003, the observed sea level rise due to thermal expansion was 0.42 millimeters per year and 0.69 millimeters per year due to total glacier melt (small glaciers, ice caps, ice sheets) (IPCC 2007). Between 1993 and 2003, the contribution to sea level rise increased for both sources to 1.60 millimeters per year and 1.19 millimeters per year respectively (IPCC 2007).” Source NSIDC
Global Mean Sea Level Change – 1993 to Present:
Global Mean Sea Level Change Map with a “Correction” of 0.3 mm/year added May, 5th 2011, due to a “Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA)” – 1993 to Present:
Snow and Ice:
A proxy often cited when measuring “Earth’s Temperature” is amount of Snow and Ice on Earth. According to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), “The vast majority, almost 90 percent, of Earth’s ice mass is in Antarctica, while the Greenland ice cap contains 10 percent of the total global ice mass.” Source USGA
However, there is currently there is no generally accepted measure of ice volume, as Cryosat is still in validation and the accuracy of measurements from Grace are still being challenged. Sea Ice Area and Extent are cited as proxies for “Earth’s Temperature”, however there is significant evidence that the primary influences on Sea Ice Area and Extent are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations. With this said, here are
Global, Arctic & Antarctic Sea Ice Area from 1979 to Present;
Global Sea Ice Area Anomaly – 1979 to Present:
Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area Anomaly, 1979 to Present;
Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area Anomaly, 1979 to Present;
Arctic Sea Ice Extent – 15% or greater
Antarctic Sea Ice Extent – 15% or Greater
There appears to have been a negative trend in Northern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area and Extent and a positive trend in Southern Hemisphere Sea Ice Area and Extent, thus the resultant Global Sea Ice Area trend appears to be slightly negative.
In terms of land based data, here is 20 Year Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover with 1995 – 2009 Climatology from NCEP/NCAR;
Northern Hemisphere Snow Cover Anomalies 1966 – Present from NCEP/NCAR;
Northern Hemisphere Winter Snow Extent – 1967 to Present from Rutgers University;
Northern Hemisphere Spring Snow Extent – 1967 to Present:
Northern Hemisphere Fall Snow Extent – 1967 to Present:
While none of the Snow plots offers a global perspective, when looking at the Northern Hemisphere, there appears to have been a slight increase in Snowcover and Winter Snow Extent, a decrease in Spring Snow Extent and no change in Fall Snow Extent over the historical record.
Based on the limited Global Ice and Snow measurements available, and noting the questionable value of Sea Ice Area as a proxy for temperature, not much inference can currently be drawn from Earth’s Ice and Snow measurements. However, there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid warming in Earth’s Ice and Snow measurements.
Conclusion:
“Earth’s “Temperature” appears to have increased during the last several decades, but there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or accelerating warming.
Additional information on “Earth’s Temperature” can be found in the WUWT Reference Pages, including the Global Temperature Page and Global Climatic History Page
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
All on one page!! MUST READ!
Okay, any bets as to which of the Usual Suspects will be the first to chime in and remind us that Gleick was exonerated by that HR investigative team?
The “selection on the dependent variable” problem is well recognized in other fields. In climate science, temperature is the independent variable and trees (growth rings) are the dependent variable.
Climate science selects only those cases where the dependent variable correlates with the independent variable. Substitute “climate science” for “comparative politics” in the paper below:
How the Cases You Choose Affect the Answers You Get:
http://cooley.libarts.wsu.edu/schwartj/pdf/Geddes1.pdf
….
Most graduate students learn in the statistics courses forced upon them that selection on the dependent variable is forbidden, but few remember why, or what the implications of violating this taboo are for their own work. And so, comparativists often ignore or forget about it when carrying out or assessing nonquantitative comparative research.
….
This is not to say that studies of cases selected on the dependent variable have no place in comparative politics. They are ideal for digging into the details of how phenomena come about and for developing insights. They identify plausible causal variables. They bring to light anomalies that current theories cannot accommodate. In so doing, they contribute to building and revising theories. By themselves, however, they cannot test the theories they propose and, hence, cannot contribute to the accumulation of theoretical knowledge (compare Achen and SnidaI1989). To develop and test theories, one must select cases in a way that does not undermine the logic of explanation.
If we want to begin accumulating a body of theoretical knowledge in comparative politics, we need to change the conventions governing the kinds of evidence we regard as theoretically relevant. Speculative arguments based on cases selected on the dependent variable have a long and distinguished history in the subfield, and they will continue to be important as generators of
insights and hypotheses. For arguments with knowledge-building pretensions,however, more rigorous standards of evidence are essential.
This is not to say that studies of cases selected on the dependent variable have no place in comparative politics. They are ideal for digging into the details of how phenomena come about and for developing insights. They identify plausible causal variables. They bring to light anomalies that current theories cannot accommodate. In so doing, they contribute to building and revising theories. By themselves, however, they cannot test the theories they propose and, hence, cannot contribute to the accumulation of theoretical knowledge (compare Achen and SnidaI1989). To develop and test theories, one must select cases in a way that does not undermine the logic of explanation.
If we want to begin accumulating a body of theoretical knowledge in comparative politics, we need to change the conventions governing the kinds of evidence we regard as theoretically relevant. Speculative arguments based on cases selected on the dependent variable have a long and distinguished history in the subfield, and they will continue to be important as generators of insights and hypotheses. For arguments with knowledge-building pretensions,however, more rigorous standards of evidence are essential.
Lastly, “during deep solar minimum of 2008-2009″ “the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years” occurred and “The magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain.”
========
It cannot be explained if you rely on TSI as the measure of solar activity.
The sun varies in wavelength more than it varies in intensity. Einstein showed in 1905 that photon energy levels are determined by frequency, not intensity and won the Nobel for this work. And the solar magnetic and particle activity varies even more.
Yet the notion persists that intensity is the measure of solar activity. Even though it cannot explain what is observed. In climate science, theory trump observation once again.
The NODC global heat content and the following global mean sea level look like the same chart on this page!
I left a blog over at Open Mind yesterday and I received some interesting replies. I was told I was ignorant and that I was suckered by skeptics. Not much room for suckering on this post. “Shot with his own gun” probably isn’t the right phrase but it’s the first one that comes to mind. Thanks for the post, “Just the Facts” I appreciate the information.
Conclusion:
“Earth’s “Temperature” appears to have increased during the last several decades, but there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or accelerating warming.
——————
So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme? “Yes, it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster”.
Of course, it if does get faster, you can always move on to “yes, it’s getting faster, but the rate of increase isn’t increasing.” And so on to ever higher differentials…
🙂
It boggles the mind one can seriously discuss ‘warming’ when it’s expressed in numbers smaller then 1. That’s only warming in the absolute sense, like the economy of Jemen rose by 10% ffrom 0.1 to 0.11. A totally meaningless number arrived at by very iffy means. No data input is free from contamination.
On a more realistic scale it’s flat. No change, we are just ants and there need to be a whole lot more of us to make a real difference in the long run.
I’m glad it all ends in december 2012, or was that retracted too?
Lots of useful info here and much water shall pass by below the bridge before my little brain has sorted it all out. – But at my first reading I have, so far, found no clear (or smudged) fingerprint proving the nasty CO2 as being the major temperature driver on any occasion. – Then again, what should that “fingerprint” look like?
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
To-day, when I awoke it was ~510 Rankine. Right now it is ~540 Rankine. Is it warming or cooling? What will the temperature be in 8 hours?
I eye-strapolated the GISS chart’s 2009→ trend, and it’s clear the anomaly will reach 0.0° in 2015. Seems about right.
“California Penal Code Section 528.5.
(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person
who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another
actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other
electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening,
or defrauding another person is guilty of a public offense punishable
pursuant to subdivision (d).
(b) For purposes of this section, an impersonation is credible if
another person would reasonably believe, or did reasonably believe,
that the defendant was or is the person who was impersonated.
(c) For purposes of this section, “electronic means” shall include
opening an e-mail account or an account or profile on a social
networking Internet Web site in another person’s name.
(d) A violation of subdivision (a) is punishable by a fine not
exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by imprisonment in a
county jail not exceeding one year, or by both that fine and
imprisonment.
(e) In addition to any other civil remedy available, a person who
suffers damage or loss by reason of a violation of subdivision (a)
may bring a civil action against the violator for compensatory
damages and injunctive relief or other equitable relief pursuant to
paragraphs (1), (2), (4), and (5) of subdivision (e) and subdivision
(g) of Section 502.
(f) This section shall not preclude prosecution under any other
law.”
“California Penal Code Section 530.
Every person who falsely personates another, in either his
private or official capacity, and in such assumed character receives
any money or property, knowing that it is intended to be delivered to
the individual so personated, with intent to convert the same to his
own use, or to that of another person, or to deprive the true owner
thereof, is punishable in the same manner and to the same extent as
for larceny of the money or property so received.”
Why has Peter Gleick not been arrested and all the computers he might have used been seized for forensic examination? Which person or people in the police and state authorities has failed to make a public decision and why?
JTF”
Here you wrote:
” however there is significant evidence that the primary influences on Sea Ice Area and Extent are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations.”
There you wrote:
“I can help to alleviate these concerns. There is abundant evidence that wind and atmospheric oscillations have a major influence on Arctic Sea Ice. In this October, 1 2007 NASA article;
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
Son V. Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that “the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “
Do you not understand the difference between explaining that the rapid decline in TWO years
is not the same as explain the decline over the whole period.
The arctic has warmed, most significantly the surrounding SST has warmed over this period.
That contributes to a decline in ice cover. IN ADDITION, there were years ( like 2007) where
winds played a significant role. The fact that winds played a significant role in the record year is NOT evidence that the winds explain all of the decline from 1979 on.
Just as CAGW folks often try to attribute all warming to C02, do not make the same mistake of simplifying what is happening in the arctic.
Erratum:
USGS Refers to the the United States Geological Survey, not Geographical.
Sorry, being a geologist it sort of jumps out at me.
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
He didn’t say what you think he said. Earth’s temperature appears to have increased… is not the same as … it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster … except in your head.
Regarding the second chart (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201001-201012.gif), the link (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat) to the relevant data shown in the paragraph directly below the graph appears to be incorrect. The correct link : ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat is shown below the last 17 month anomalies.
@JohnB:
You appear to have bought the “climate change” meme. The argument has never been that the climate is changing, because it always does. Nor has there been an argument against the plain and observable fact that the Earth has undergone a gradual warming trend for the past 12,000 years or so. The argument is whether recent observed changes are caused by human activities that accelerate what Nature has always been doing. Mann’s “hockey stick” was an attempt to make that argument. But based on the graphs shown here, nothing unusual is going on. Get it?
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme? “Yes, it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster”.
Of course, it if does get faster, you can always move on to “yes, it’s getting faster, but the rate of increase isn’t increasing.” And so on to ever higher differentials…
I have discovered a correlation between a warmie mentality and a lack of comprehension of the English language. My hypothesis, based on several decades of observation, is that both phenomena result from exposure to what has been oxymoronically described as “progressive education”…
My take on the global outlook starts with ‘polar amplification’
compare illustrations #2 &3.in this link
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/Arctic.htm
Climate science view:
“Polar amplification is thought to result primarily from positive feedbacks from the retreat of ice and snow. There are a host of other lesser reasons that are associated with the atmospheric temperature profile at the poles, temperature dependence of global feedbacks, moisture transport, etc.”
Or in short they don’t know.
I think “Justthefactcs” forgot to add http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full
showing CO2 increase from 310ppm in 1960 to 394.16ppm in May 2012.
Personnally I am a sceptic along the lines of Prof. Lintzen and Dr Spencer because simply I cannot see any acceleration in the determining indicies and without that all the alarmism is totally misplaced. To me the lack of acceleration towards 3C warming by 2100 and the wild forecasts of sea level rises to 1-5 meters (depending on who you believe) just does not make sense when there is no acceleration and a general opinion is that the effect of CO2 is logarithmic so that most of the effect of a doubling has already been felt within the first 100ppm since 100 years ago.
I would like to see a post November US Congress to investigate GISS for the gradual lowering of temperatures in the thirties in order to produce “man made global warming” as a start on returning to fact based science.
Kelvin Vaughan says: June 10, 2012 at 9:47 am
The NODC global heat content and the following global mean sea level look like the same chart on this page!
Corrected, thanks.
Steven Mosher says:
June 10, 2012 at 10:55 am
“Just as CAGW folks often try to attribute all warming to C02, do not make the same mistake of simplifying what is happening in the arctic.”
Any argument is moot until the greatly revered climate scientists can demonstrate in the laboratory the warming of the atmosphere by addition of any amount of CO2.
A wonderful collection of temperatures. data and information all in one tidy package. This is a great resource/reference I shall keep.
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme? “Yes, it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster”.
You’re new to WUWT aren’t you! Your ignorance is showing!
JohnB
You said;
“So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme? “Yes, it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster”.
Of course, it if does get faster, you can always move on to “yes, it’s getting faster, but the rate of increase isn’t increasing.” And so on to ever higher differentials…”
Let’s look at the warmists meme: “It’s hotter than it’s ever been due to mans CO2” Then skeptics bring up the MWP and the warmists reply; “Not hotter but the rate of warming has never been seen before and can only be explained by mans CO2”. Then the skeptics bring up that the rate has been flat for XX years. The warmists now say that the heat is being stored in the ocean and we are going to be in real trouble in a few years because of man’s CO2.
This would actually be a fun debate if it wasn’t for the politics and money involved.
Drawing a straight line through a non-linear temperature curve as several examples above do is an invalid representation of what really happens to temperature. In particular, it hides the fact that there was no warming in the eighties and nineties which was then followed by a step warming initiated by the super El Nino of 1998. That step is totally hidden by an upsloping straight line. It deceives us into thinking that temperature rise was smooth and continuous which is false. In fact there were two standstills separated by a step warming. Secondly, the presence of El Nino peaks is wiped out by this procedure. In the eighties and nineties there were five of them but they go unacknowledged. You will find the correct representation of the average temperature in the presence of the ENSO oscillation in my book “What Warming?” The ENSO oscillation is an integral part of all temperature curves at all times. BEST gives a a good idea of it when it compares four different sources of global temperature going back to 1880. It is actually amazing how well the El Nino peaks register from these disparate sources.
JohnB says: @ June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme? “Yes, it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster”.
Of course, it if does get faster, you can always move on to “yes, it’s getting faster, but the rate of increase isn’t increasing.” And so on to ever higher differentials…
____________________________________
No it means we are well aware that 1300-1850 was the Little Ice Age. Even the Council on Foreign Relations says The Little Ice Age: The Prelude to Global Warming, 1300-1850 Note how the second, third and fourth graphs of temperature START at the end of the Little Ice Age and warm at pretty much the same rate until know when we are plateauing. (Note Dr. Feynman’s validation of the 200 yr cycle)
What the CAGW alarmists forget to mention is the Ice Age was a miserable time for humans, plants and animals. It was a time of failed crops, and starvation. The Black Death in the 14th Century is thought to have wiped out up to 60% of Europe’s population.
Earth’s climate is cyclical so if we didn’t warm coming out of the Little Ice Age the other option is repaid cooling into another glacial.
One commenter here who is a Geologist said that while the cycles do not always lift the earth out of an Ice Age they ALWAYS dump it into one. (sorry no link)
Gerry Roe’s 2006 paper In Defense of Milankovitch, Geophysical Research Letters fine tunes the Milankovitch model and get a very good match with the ice core data. See In Defense of Milankovitch by Gerard Roe over at Luboš Motl website for an easy to read article and pointers to the paper.
Dr Feynman – Maunder Minimum Evidence of a Chaotic Sun: http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=x176761610l512x3&size=largest
Why did the author not choose to use Cruv4 but instead Cruv3? That seems like a major issue?
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
Conclusion:
“Earth’s “Temperature” appears to have increased during the last several decades, but there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or accelerating warming.
=====================================================================
Excuse me, but isn’t all the fuss based on Hansen’s predictions? MAN made CO2 rises and a catastrophic rise in global temperatures is the result? Have his predictions come true? We should be seeing it happen by now, according to him. All we’ve seen is the ol’ “bait and switch” from “global warming” to “climate change”. If it’s cold in a particular area, the news there is “climate change”. If it’s warm in a particular area, the news there is “global warming”. Some of us sheep have a shepherd who’s name isn’t Mann.
JTF, you repeatedly say that temperatures do not “appear to be warming rapidly”. Could you please define “rapid warming” for us?
You also say, “It appears that a significant decline in temperatures occurred during the last 17 months…” Could you please provide a baseline reference for that statement? JP
JohnB says:
So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme? “Yes, it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster”.
~ Since when has ANY skeptic said it hasn’t been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age? Your ‘new meme’ idea is about 5 decades out of date.
Of course, it if does get faster, you can always move on to “yes, it’s getting faster, but the rate of increase isn’t increasing.” And so on to ever higher differentials…
~ Too bad for you it is DECLINING, now, eh? No acceleration in temperatures. NO acceleration ins sea-level rise, in fact, it is going the other way. No ‘death spiral’ in the arctic; no ‘death spiral’ in the polar bear population, NO increase in severe hurricanes… You just don’t seem to be having any luck. And your luck is going to get worse.
Buy a clue. And a brain.
Just as an addendum to my previous comment (June 10, 2012 at 10:14 am): JohnB has on many previous occasions given me the impression that he is a man who knows for sure that atmospheric CO2 causes the Earth to warm up. And here he is again (June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am) saying: “So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme? “Yes, it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster”.
Of course, it if does get faster, you can always move on to “yes, it’s getting faster, but the rate of increase isn’t increasing.” And so on to ever higher differentials…”
================
I am open minded myself and kind of hoping the warmists are, at least, partially right and that CO2 really does have some warming potential in order that the next “Ice Age”, be it a big or a little one, can be averted. – Data show that the Earth has slowly been cooling ever since “The Holocene Optimum” many thousands of years ago. Unless a miracle happens the Earth will continue cooling.
So then JohnB, as you are clearly not a “skeptic” I can only assume you are a person known as a “warmist” (AGW or CAGW believer). Please tell me what makes you so certain that CO2 is capable of causing “Global Warming”. – And don’t tell me CO2 is the miracle happening.
What should that “fingerprint” look like?
Steven Mosher says: June 10, 2012 at 10:55 am
Here you wrote:
” however there is significant evidence that the primary influences on Sea Ice Area and Extent are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations.”
There you wrote:
“I can help to alleviate these concerns. There is abundant evidence that wind and atmospheric oscillations have a major influence on Arctic Sea Ice. In this October, 1 2007 NASA article;
http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/quikscat-20071001.html
Son V. Nghiem of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said that “the rapid decline in winter perennial ice the past two years was caused by unusual winds. “
Do you not understand the difference between explaining that the rapid decline in TWO years
is not the same as explain the decline over the whole period.
Did you read the entire comment you reference?, i.e.;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/02/hurricanes-and-global-warming-opinion-by-chris-landsea/#comment-816893
as it clearly addresses “the decline over the whole period” versus “TWO years” as you erroneously infer, i.e.;
“Observations reveal a strong correlation between the ice fluxes through the Fram Strait and the cross-strait air pressure difference.”
“Although the 1950s and 1990s stand out as the two decades with maximum flux variability, significant variations seem more to be the rule than the exception over the whole period considered.”
“A noticeable fall in the winter air pressure of 7 hPa is observed in the Fram Strait and the Barents Sea during the last five decades.”
“The corresponding decadal maximum change in the Arctic Ocean ice thickness is of the order of 0.8 m. These temporal wind-induced variations may help explain observed changes in portions of the Arctic Ocean ice cover over the last decades. Due to an increasing rate in the ice drainage through the Fram Strait during the 1990s, this decade is characterized by a state of decreasing ice thickness in the Arctic Ocean.”
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/1520-0442%282001%29014%3C3508%3AFSIFAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2
“Perennial-ice extent loss in March within the DM domain was noticeable after the 1960s, and the loss became more rapid in the 2000s when QSCAT observations were available to verify the model results. QSCAT data also revealed mechanisms contributing to the perennial-ice extent loss: ice compression toward the western Arctic, ice loading into the Transpolar Drift (TD) together with an acceleration of the TD carrying excessive ice out of Fram Strait, and ice export to Baffin Bay.”
http://seaice.apl.washington.edu/Papers/NghiemEtal2007_MYreduction.pdf
The arctic has warmed, most significantly the surrounding SST has warmed over this period.
That contributes to a decline in ice cover.
As I point out in my article, Northern Polar Lower Troposphere temperatures;
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/rss_ts_channel_tlt_northern-polar_land_and_sea_v03_3.png?w=640
have increased by approximately 1 degree Celsius during the last three decades, which likely contributed to a decline in Arctic ice cover. In terms of Arctic Sea Surface temperatures, according to this 2007 paper Arctic Ocean surface warming trends over the past 100 years by Michael Steele, Wendy Ermold and Jinlun Zhang;
http://www.polarwinds.org/UpTempO/docs/2007GL031651.pdf
“Ocean temperature profiles and satellite data have been analyzed for summertime sea surface temperature (SST) and upper ocean heat content variations over the past century, with a focus on the Arctic Ocean peripheral seas. We find that many areas cooled up to _0.5_C per decade during 1930–1965 as the Arctic Oscillation (AO) index generally fell, while these areas warmed during 1965–1995 as the AO index generally rose. Warming is particularly pronounced since 1995, and especially since 2000. Summer 2007 SST anomalies are up to 5_C. The increase in upper ocean summertime warming since 1965 is sufficient to reduce the following winter’s ice growth by as much as 0.75 m. Alternatively, this heat may return to the atmosphere before any ice forms, representing a fall freeze-up delay of two weeks to two months.”
The fact that winds played a significant role in the record year is NOT evidence that the winds explain all of the decline from 1979 on.
Your words not mine, I wrote that, “the primary influences on Sea Ice Area and Extent are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations.”, not that ” winds explain all of the decline from 1979 on.” Clearly there are numerous secondary influences, including atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, however the body of evidence indicates that the primary influences are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations, not atmospheric and sea surface temperatures.
Just as CAGW folks often try to attribute all warming to C02, do not make the same mistake of simplifying what is happening in the arctic.
I don’t see how you can read my comment as “simplifying”. “CAGW folks often try to attribute all Warming to CO2” and try to attribute the entire decline in Sea Ice Area and Extent to warming. I am pointing out that the primary influences on Sea Ice Area and Extent are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations, how does that make anything simpler?
Earle Williams says: June 10, 2012 at 10:57 am
Erratum:
USGS Refers to the the United States Geological Survey, not Geographical.
Sorry, being a geologist it sort of jumps out at me.
Corrected, thank you.
Phil says: June 10, 2012 at 11:04 am
Regarding the second chart (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201001-201012.gif), the link (ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat) to the relevant data shown in the paragraph directly below the graph appears to be incorrect. The correct link : ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat is shown below the last 17 month anomalies.
I think that’s what I meant, i.e. the first link;
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
shows the annual data, i.e. “2011 0.5100”, which would be used to update the NOAA annual chart through 2011, the second link;
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
shows the monthly data, which helps to illustrate the decrease over the last 17 months.
In order to avoid confusion I’ve added a break in the article between these two points.
Regarding the NOAA 0-70 m Global Ocean Heat Content – how can the top 700m contain -50,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 joules?
It doesn’t say so but I assume this must be an anomaly?
Thats minus fifty thousand million million million ( the word wrap was funny on scren for such a big number ). Epic post, positively “Tisdalian”!
John Peter says: June 10, 2012 at 11:07 am
I think “Justthefactcs” forgot to add http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full
Not forgetting, this article is just focused on measurements of “Earth’s Temperature” versus measurements of potential climatic variables. If I included CO2, then I’d be inclined to include various Oceanic Oscillations, Atmospheric Oscillations, Cloud Cover, etc. and this article would become more unwieldy.
Oh please please please will this never end? Do these people really think that anyone believes this nonsense about the temperature of the Earth unless their livelihood depends on it. The EARTH !!! ??. I could not tell you the temperature of my house !! I have three thermometers in my living room, three in my study, one each in my kitchen, my bathroom ,my bedroom, and my carport. I carefully calibrated them against each other and they are all showing different temperatures.
And these people tell me they can measure the temperature of the EARTH!!! in tenths of one degree. 0.8 degree increase in 150 years !! Look stop it –you make fools of yourselves. This worrying about minute increases in the temperature of the EARTH !!! is more stupid than discussing how many fairies can stand on the head of a pin.
Where I live some months are hotter than usual and some years they are cooler.
And guess what? We survive no matter what. Like humans survive in Greenland or Gabon.
I’m losing interest in this navel gazing twaddle now because it is nonsense and corrupt distorted manipulated twaddle at that. I despair. Sorry.
Robert says: June 10, 2012 at 12:24 pm
Why did the author not choose to use Cruv4 but instead Cruv3? That seems like a major issue?
The only HadCRUT4 chart I’ve seen is this one;
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/diagnostics.html
which only contains data through 2010, and thus not acceptable for these purposes. If you have a current HadCRUT4 chart please post a link to it in comments for consideration.
Re. the change from “GW” to “CC”:
It ‘s been the IPCC (not the IPGW) since it was formed in 1988. And who do you think suggested that the term CC should be used in preference to GW (because it is less scary):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Luntz
“Although Luntz later tried to distance himself from the Bush administration policy, it was his idea that administration communications reframe “global warming” as “climate change” since “climate change” was thought to sound less severe. Luntz has since said that he is not responsible for what the Bush administration did after that time. Though he now believes humans have contributed to global warming, he maintains that the science was in fact incomplete, and his recommendation sound, at the time he made it.”
But that’s just a distraction. Really, take another look at those graphs (e.g. 2nd, 3rd and 4th graphs) and tell me, honestly, that you cannot see that late 20th century to present day warming is not “anomalous”. Then, even if you are only slightly suspicious that there may be something to AGW (nobody on the science-accepting side uses the term “CAGW”, only “skeptics” do that) go look at some science.
Cue Smokey’s cherry-picks and inappropriate linear trends…
Posted this before but can’t resist a re-posting…
atarsinc says: June 10, 2012 at 12:31 pm
JTF, you repeatedly say that temperatures do not “appear to be warming rapidly”. Could you please define “rapid warming” for us?
No, I will leave that up to those who claim rapid warming to try to define it. Do you think it’s warming rapidly? If so, please indicate the data/charts that support this point of view.
You also say, “It appears that a significant decline in temperatures occurred during the last 17 months…” Could you please provide a baseline reference for that statement? JP
The 12 months prior, i.e. 2010. The question here is why hasn’t NOAA/NCDC updated their temperature chart to reflect the temerpature decline that occured in 2011?
Oops.
“tell me, honestly, that you cannot see that late 20th century to present day warming is anomalous”
A lot of hard work, but I can not trust anything that NASA or NOAA has to say. Period.
Whatever reason they wish to state for modifying historical data is, in my opinion, total bullshit. Using any product from their archive now leaves me with questions as to it’s integrity.
How can you trust it?
John Peter says:
June 10, 2012 at 11:07 am
I think “Justthefactcs” forgot to add http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full
showing CO2 increase from 310ppm in 1960 to 394.16ppm in May 2012….
___________________________
Speaking of CO2 Kaplan’s Graph is interesting. He found an increase in CO2 lagged an increase in Sea Surface Temp by about a year. link
Tony Brown, who sometimes comments here did a nice history of CO2 measurement over at The Air Vent If I recall correctly he has access to a really good library. I found this bit of information interesting
atarsinc says:
June 10, 2012 at 12:31 pm
JTF, you repeatedly say that temperatures do not “appear to be warming rapidly”. Could you please define “rapid warming” for us?
You also say, “It appears that a significant decline in temperatures occurred during the last 17 months…” Could you please provide a baseline reference for that statement? JP
____________________________________
That is kind of hard to do when the raw data has been manipulated to show warming now isn’t it?
Here is a data set they forgot to manipulate: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Study_finds_stream_temperatures_dont_parallel_warming_climate_trend_999.html
http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/01/data-tamperin-giss-caught-red-handed-manipulaing-data-to-produce-arctic-climate-history-revision/
THe Goat Ate my Homework (now where have we heard that one before Mr. Jones?) http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2010/02/breaking-news-niwa-reveals-nz-original-climate-data-missing.html
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/giss/hansen-giss-1940-1980.gif
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_urb-raw_pg.gif
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/07/an-update-on-my-climate-reference-network-visualization-project/
http://joannenova.com.au/2012/03/australian-temperature-records-shoddy-inaccurate-unreliable-surprise/
http://diggingintheclay.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/canadadt.png
http://diggingintheclay.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/canadadt.png
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/08/17/thermometer-years-by-latitude-warm-globe/
http://regator.com/p/238474965/which_nasa_data_to_believe/
Analysis of error in the temperature Record: http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/11420
At this point there are not any “official” data sets where the actual warming can be figured out with any degree of certainty.
JohnB says: June 10, 2012 at 1:33 pm
“tell me, honestly, that you cannot see that late 20th century to present day warming is anomalous”
Honestly, I’m not seeing it, please point it out for me. On this NOAA NCDC chart;
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201001-201012.gif
doesn’t the warming from 1975 to 2005, look almost identical to the warming that occurred from 1910 – 1940?
Matt says:
June 10, 2012 at 1:13 pm
Oh please please please will this never end? Do these people really think that anyone believes this nonsense about the temperature of the Earth unless their livelihood depends on it. The EARTH !!! ??. I could not tell you the temperature of my house !! I have three thermometers in my living room, three in my study, one each in my kitchen, my bathroom ,my bedroom, and my carport. I carefully calibrated them against each other and they are all showing different temperatures.
=================================================================
Those behind this aren’t interested in the temperature in your bathroom but the money in your wallet. (And in telling you when you’re allowed to use your bathroom.)
You can’t meaningfully say whether there is or is not an acceleration unless you specify a time interval. Over 1950-2010 there is an acceleration. Over 1990-2010 there is not. From 1880 to 2010 it seems that there is because we had cooling for the first 30 years.
I wasn’t going to comment on JohnB’s post since several others corrected him very effectively. And I haven’t posted on this thread, I was just enjoying reading the comments. But then JohnB dragged me into the discussion for no reason that I can see, with his comment: “Cue Smokey’s cherry-picks and inappropriate linear trends…”
Not being one to turn the other cheek, I will take this opportunity to set JohnB straight. Not that it will make any difference to JohnB – his mind is closed – but the following links may help other readers understand some of the scare tactics employed by the alarmist crowd. JohnB says:
“Really, take another look at those graphs (e.g. 2nd, 3rd and 4th graphs) and tell me, honestly, that you cannot see that late 20th century to present day warming is not ‘anomalous’.”
There is nothing unusual happening regarding the late 20th Century. It has all happened routinely in the past, as we see here.
The planet has been gradually warming since the Little Ice Age [LIA] along the same long term trend line [thus falsifying JohnB’s accusation of “cherry-picks”]. That long term trend has not accelerated, as ‘justthefactswuwt’ states in the article:
Depending on the time frame, it certainly seems that Earth’s Surface Temperature has increased, but it does not appear to be warming rapidly and there is no indication of acceleration.
So what about those scary charts that have convinced JohnB that runaway global warming is occurring? The answer is that just like you can lie with statistics, you can also lie with charts.
A chart showing a long term trend should not use an arbitrary baseline, such as zero [or any specific temperature number]. It should just show the long term trend line [like the green line in this chart].
Using an arbitrary baseline chart fools the eye by making recent temperature rises appear more significant than they are. Look at the top and bottom charts here. They contain the same data. But the top chart uses a zero baseline, which makes it appear that temperatures are accelerating. In reality, the rise in global temperatures since the LIA is well within its long term parameters, with no acceleration taking place.
That is not to say there is no global warming. The planet is still recovering from the LIA – one of the coldest episodes in the entire 10,000 year Holocene.
The recent warming is a natural recovery from the LIA. If CO2 has any effect, it is too minuscule to measure. And if CO2 had the effect claimed by the alarmist crowd, then the ≈40% rise in that beneficial trace gas would certainly have caused accelerated global warming – which is shown to be not accelerating at all. Quite the opposite.
And even if the [natural] 0.8ºC rise over the past century and a half worries folks like JohnB, it’s best to take a step back and look at the data realistically.
I’ve often wondered.. if the concentration of CO2 goes up by say 50ppm, that must mean that the combined concentration of other gases must come down by 50ppm.
Does the O2 concentration drop by 50ppm (oh no, we are running out of oxygen ;-))
Or is it spread equally among the main gases?
Any data about this anywhere?
Gleick? Who is Gleick?
http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/opinions/base-climate-change-on-facts-and-not-emotion-6912.html
Smokey says:
June 10, 2012 at 3:13 pm
I wasn’t going to comment on JohnB’s post since several others corrected him very effectively.
And I haven’t posted on this thread, I was just enjoying reading the comments. But then JohnB dragged me into the discussion for no reason that I can see, with his comment: “Cue Smokey’s cherry-picks and inappropriate linear trends…”
Not being one to turn the other cheek, I will take this opportunity to set JohnB straight…..
__________________________________________
Talking of graphs, I have always liked Lucy Skywalker’s Super Flick Graph for putting the whole ridiculous mess into perspective.
However I really like your graphs too. Much easier to understand what is going on if you can look at a graph.
Possibly the the best statistical graphic ever drawn is Charles Joseph Minard map of the losses suffered by Napoleon’s army in the Russian campaign of 1812 (Little Ice Age strikes again). Note that these losses were do to the bitterly cold winter and the map ties the loses to temperature and time scales. http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/graphics/poster_OrigMinard.gif
I have a copy of the map framed and hung BTW.
Smokey says:
There is nothing unusual happening regarding the late 20th Century. It has all happened routinely in the past, as we see here.
=====================================================
The great Myth of Global Warming is that there even is such a thing as “normal” global climate and that Man is somehow messing with it.
JohnB says:June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
said: “So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme?”
Ha ha John, speaking of memes, I predict that your next statement will be;
“97% of climate scientists agree…”
🙂
AndyG55 (from down-under) says:
June 10, 2012 at 3:38 pm
I’ve often wondered.. if the concentration of CO2 goes up by say 50ppm, that must mean that the combined concentration of other gases must come down by 50ppm.
Does the O2 concentration drop by 50ppm (oh no, we are running out of oxygen ;-))
Or is it spread equally among the main gases?
Any data about this anywhere?
_______________________________
It would be spread evenly. Think about it the relative humidity (water vapor) varies between near zero and 4%. Also an increase in CO2 increases photosynthesis all else remaining the same. Photosynthesis uses the carbon atom to make sugars/starches and chucks out the two oxygen atoms as O2 so an increase in CO2 + sunlight => more food and more oxygen to breath.
What’s not to like? Even if it means a slight increase in temperature, that means a faster water cycle, more rain and more crops. Isn’t the human picture of paradise a tropical island? It is the DECREASE in temperature that is the major problem as in famine, rebellion and civilization collapses. ChiefIO documents them HERE and HERE
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:54 am
So, is this the first sighting of a new “skeptic” meme? “Yes, it’s warming, but at least it’s not getting any faster”.
justthefactswuwt says:
June 10, 2012 at 1:17 pm
The only HadCRUT4 chart I’ve seen is this one;
Global warming stopped between 10 years and 8 months to 15 years and 6 months ago, depending on your data source. And this includes Hadcrut4. See my analysis at the bottom.
On all data sets, the different times for a slope that is flat for all practical purposes range from 10 years and 8 months to 15 years and 6 months. Following is the longest period of time (above 10 years) where each of the data sets is more or less flat. (For any positive slope, the exponent is no larger than 10^-5, except UAH which was 0.00103655 per year or 0.10/century, so while it is not significant, it could be questioned whether it can be considered to be flat.)
1. RSS: since November 1996 or 15 years, 6 months (goes to April)
2. HadCrut3: since January 1997 or 15 years, 3 months (goes to March)
3. GISS: since March 2001 or 11 years, 2 months (goes to April)
4. UAH: since October 2001 or 10 years, 8 months (goes to May)
5. Combination of the above 4: since October 2000 or 11 years, 6 months (goes to March)
6. Sea surface temperatures: since January 1997 or 15 years, 4 months (goes to April)
7. Hadcrut4: since December 2000 or 11 years, 5 months (goes to April using GISS. See below.)
See the graph below to show it all for #1 to #6.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.16/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.75/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend/plot/uah/from:2001.75/trend
For #7: Hadcrut4 only goes to December 2010 so what I did was get the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the end of December 2010. Then I got the slope of GISS from December 2000 to the present. The DIFFERENCE in slope was that the slope was 0.005 lower for the total period. The positive slope for Hadcrut4 was 0.004 from December 2000. So IF Hadcrut4 were totally up to date, and IF it then were to trend like GISS, I conclude it would show no slope for at least 11 years and 5 months going back to December 2000. (By the way, doing the same thing with Hadcrut3 gives the same end result, but GISS comes out much sooner each month.) See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/to:2011/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2000.9/trend
atarsinc says:
June 10, 2012 at 12:31 pm
You also say, “It appears that a significant decline in temperatures occurred during the last 17 months…” Could you please provide a baseline reference for that statement?
Here is how I would answer that:
2012 in perspective so far
With the UAH anomaly for May at 0.289, the average for the first five months of the year is (-0.089 -0.111 + 0.111 + 0.299 + 0.289)/5 = 0.0998. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 12th. This compares with the anomaly in 2011 at 0.153 to rank it 9th for that year. (1998 was the warmest at 0.428.)
With the RSS anomaly for April at 0.333, the average for the first third of the year is (-0.058 -0.12 + 0.074 + 0.333)/4 = 0.05725. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 21st. This compares with the anomaly in 2011 at 0.147 to rank it 12th for that year. (1998 was the warmest at 0.55.)
With the GISS anomaly for April at 0.56, the average for the first third of the year is (0.34 + 0.39 + 0.46 + 0.56)/4 = 0.4375. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 13th. This compares with the anomaly in 2011 at 0.514 to rank it 9th for that year. (2010 was the warmest at 0.63.)
With the Hadcrut3 anomaly for April at 0.482, the average for the first four months of the year is 0.2995. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 14th. This compares with the anomaly in 2011 at 0.34 to rank it 12th for that year. (1998 was the warmest at 0.548.)
With the sea surface anomaly for April at 0.292, the average for the first four months of the year is 0.242. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 14th. This compares with the anomaly in 2011 at 0.273 to rank it 12th for that year. (1998 was the warmest at 0.451.)
So on all five of the above data sets, for their latest anomaly average, the 2012 average is colder than their 2011 average value.
Gleick is to believability, as Madoff is to shares.
Gleick is the ideal man for any organization that needed a man like him. The Pacific Institute must desperately need the skills of a dishonest man like him.
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Oops.
“tell me, honestly, that you cannot see that late 20th century to present day warming is anomalous”
I see no difference between the last 30 years and a period of 30 years 70 years ago on the following:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1900/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1912.33/to:1942.33/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1982.25/to:2013/trend
AndyG55 (from down-under) says:
June 10, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Does the O2 concentration drop by 50ppm (oh no, we are running out of oxygen ;-))
Oxygen gets used up. See
http://www.disclose.tv/forum/atmospheric-oxygen-levels-fall-as-carbon-dioxide-rises-t29534.html
“…we are losing nearly three O2 molecules for each CO2 molecule that accumulates in the air.
“if the oxygen level in such an environment falls below 19.5% it is oxygen deficient, putting occupants of the confined space at risk of losing consciousness and death.”
Smokey,
Like “CAGW”, “runaway global warming” is a phrase only used by “skeptics”. Reality is that the world is warming, as even JTF acknowledges, the warming is anomalous, which is why we now have a hockey league, not just a single stick, and CO2 is almost certainly the cause, as the vast majority of climate scientists, looking at the overwhelming evidence, recognize. When will you guys join the real debate on what we do about it? Maybe “nothing” or “just wait” is the right answer. But you can’t take part in that debate as long as you continue to ignore reality.
John
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 1:33 pm
Honestly, no.
I’ve been hanging around these parts (WUWT) looking at graphs for what–4 years now? Before that, and to this day, I’ve been “eyeballing” more graphical trends than the 99%. And this 1-percenter can’t see anything anomalous. Honest!
But I’m simply echoing several others above who have taken you to task, JohnB. Which should either leave you in a rage that you’ve wasted–what–two to three decades laboring over the (dishonest) catastrophic implications of your “anomalosity” (but a waste nonetheless), or your current employment somehow–either directly or from a guilty conscience–prompts you to believe.
So really, the counter question boils down to this: What drives YOU to think this current temperature trend is anomalous? And the corrollary–what is your vested interest in your participation?
Personally, I have no past income directly or indirectly linked to earth’s temperature; I’m currently unemployed and the employment I secure in the future will also have no link to this discipline. My own participation is simply driven by the pursuit of truth.
But what is yours? And what is your vested interest?
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Don’t confuse science with engineering, John. The “science” must first be established before engineering can be engaged (and I have master’s degrees in both science and engineering).
Because if this temperature trend (may I call it a “bubble” because it went up for a couple of decades, it has stayed at the top of the bubble for more than a decade, and all indications are that it will slide down the other side of the bubble for the next several decades, but we’ll see) isn’t a problem, there’s no reason to spend time and resources on a non-problem. (We face far more pressing problems.)
But accusing most of us that post here of “ignoring reality” is laughable. It won’t work except to counter your prior argument.
@Smokey: Picking thermometer data from a few cities and picking one proxy data set from Greenland is called cherry picking. Scientists look at as much of the data as they can. I will grant that the statical tools used to blend data sets are tricky and reasonable experts will not always agree on which methods are most suited. But they all – even Wigman – show hockey stick patterns.
That in itself does mean this is trend will continue, is human caused or that it is bad. Those are separate issues.
@Andy,
Yes. We are converting O2 into CO2. But the decline in O2 is not, as far as I know, biologically significant.
vukcevic says:
June 10, 2012 at 11:05 am
Climate science view:
“Polar amplification is thought to result primarily from positive feedbacks from the retreat of ice and snow. There are a host of other lesser reasons that are associated with the atmospheric temperature profile at the poles, temperature dependence of global feedbacks, moisture transport, etc.”
Or in short they don’t know.
Nor do they appear to understand how the climate works.
The primary determinant of whether the Earth’s climate is warming or cooling is the rate of heat loss from the oceans. Remove the ice from the Arctic sea surface and you remove an effective insulator. The atmosphere above it will warm, but this is because the ocean is losing heat more rapidly.
They have cause and effect the wrong way round. The warmer Arctic atmosphere results from the loss of ice.
Note figure 1 in the link below. Near surface atmospheric warming in autumn and winter, and a complete absence of mid to upper troposphere warming, the supposed signature of GHG warming.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/print.php?r=67
JohnB says June 10, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Reality is that the world is warming, as even JTF acknowledges
Clearly warmer.
the warming is anomalous
On what basis? You haven’t replied to my comment here;
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/06/10/a-big-picture-look-at-earths-temperature-peter-gleick-edition/#comment-1006084
where I provided an opportunity for you to demonstrate the existence of anomalous warming. I want to be convinced, please show us some evidence of this anomalous warming.
“and CO2 is almost certainly the cause, as the vast majority of climate scientists, looking at the overwhelming evidence, recognize”
That is so pathetic JohnB – an appeal to the authority of some nameless vast majority of climate scientists who have some imaginary overwhelming evidence of causation that they never show.
If it’s so overwhelming, why don’t you post it? You’ll be the first.
Anthony the ABC in Australia have this morning been trumpeting a new multi nation study that proves that man has definitely changed ocean temps over the last 50 years. This is from the CSIRO and others and has been published in Nature climate change, but their links don’t work for me.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3522242.htm
Just thought others should know about this new study especially those with a lot more expertise than myself.
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Smokey,
Like “CAGW”, “runaway global warming” is a phrase only used by “skeptics”. Reality is that the world is warming, as even JTF acknowledges, the warming is anomalous, which is why we now have a hockey league, not just a single stick, and CO2 is almost certainly the cause, as the vast majority of climate scientists, looking at the overwhelming evidence, recognize. When will you guys join the real debate on what we do about it? Maybe “nothing” or “just wait” is the right answer. But you can’t take part in that debate as long as you continue to ignore reality.
==============================================================
Reality is that the hockey sticks are being snapped as quickly as they’re made.
Now, how are Hansen’s predictions about man-added CO2 and temperatures holding up?
That is the bottom line, isn’t it?
ferd berple said (June 10, 2012 at 9:42 am), referring to the post “…Lastly, “during deep solar minimum of 2008-2009″ “the biggest contraction of the thermosphere in at least 43 years” occurred and “The magnitude of the collapse was two to three times greater than low solar activity could explain…”
“…It cannot be explained if you rely on TSI as the measure of solar activity.
The sun varies in wavelength more than it varies in intensity…”
True. And I’ve yet to hear any of the “climate scientists” refer to the data coming in from the SORCE satellite (especially the SIM, spectral irradiance monitor). This satellite has proven that while the TOTAL irradience remains relatively constant, the SPECTRAL irradience changes drastically (especially the IR and UV portions).
Mentioned here: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/solarsystem/features/solarcycle-sorce.html
“…Some of the variations that SIM has measured in the last few years do not mesh with what most scientists expected. Climatologists have generally thought that the various part of the spectrum would vary in lockstep with changes in total solar irradiance.
However, SIM suggests that ultraviolet irradiance fell far more than expected between 2004 and 2007 — by ten times as much as the total irradiance did — while irradiance in certain visible and infrared wavelengths surprisingly increased, even as solar activity wound down overall.
The steep decrease in the ultraviolet, coupled with the increase in the visible and infrared, does even out to about the same total irradiance change as measured by the TIM during that period, according to the SIM measurements.
The stratosphere absorbs most of the shorter wavelengths of ultraviolet light, but some of the longest ultraviolet rays (UV-A), as well as much of the visible and infrared portions of the spectrum, directly heat Earth’s lower atmosphere and can have a significant impact on the climate…”
So it will be interesting to see not only a full solar cycle, but possibly a rare, diminished one (Maunder style), and how the full spectrum behaves over that period.
After all, that’s what science is all about…
For those that want to examine the SORCE data for themselves, look here:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/ssi_data.htm
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 4:55 pm
“Like “CAGW”, “runaway global warming” is a phrase only used by “skeptics”. Reality is that the world is warming, as even JTF acknowledges, the warming is anomalous, which is why we now have a hockey league, not just a single stick, and CO2 is almost certainly the cause, as the vast majority of climate scientists, looking at the overwhelming evidence, recognize. When will you guys join the real debate on what we do about it? Maybe “nothing” or “just wait” is the right answer. But you can’t take part in that debate as long as you continue to ignore reality…”
Exatly as I expected, JohnB has once again exhibited a closed mind. May I deconstruct? Thank you:
1. “Runaway global warming” was a phrase widely [and seriously] used by Algore and his ilk – until the planet stopped cooperating. Then the goal posts were moved to “climate change” and “climate disruption”. The only use of ‘runaway global warming’ by scientific skeptics was as a term of derision and ridicule. Skeptics still use it that way. And Kevin Trenberth is still scratching his head, wondering where that runaway global warming ran away to. He’s sure it’s in a pipeline somewhere. But as ‘Just The Facts’ accurately notes: “…there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or accelerating warming.”
2. The word ‘anomalous’ simply means a deviation from the average. In either direction.
3. Mann’s ‘Hokey Stick’ paper was so thoroughly debunked by McIntyre & McKittrick that Nature was forced to publish a rare Correction. And the UN/IPCC can no longer publish Mann’s original hockey stick chart. See my post above explaining exactly why zero baseline charts, like Mann’s hockey stick chart, misrepresent the real world. They purport to show accelerating warming. But that is just an artefact of zero baseline charts. When the actual trend line is shown, the artefact vanishes.
4. JohnB has an unsupported opinion that CO2 is “the cause” of rising temperatures. Not part of the cause, but the cause. Even über-alarmist Phil Jones admits that the [natural] warming since the LIA has repeatedly occurred the same way at different times; times when CO2 levels were far different. Therefore, CO2 cannot be “the” cause of global warming. QED
5. There is no “vast majority of scientists” that accept the CO2=CAGW conjecture. Many scientists accept that CO2 may cause some warming. How much, if any, is endlessly debated. But after a 40% increase in CO2, the fraction of warming is still too small to measure. In addition, the rise in CO2 has been a net benefit. It has caused no global harm. None. So the sensible course of action is: no action.
6. JohnB writes about debates as if his side doesn’t run and hide out from any public debate. But they refuse to debate. They are terrified of any real debate, because they do not have the facts supporting their belief system. And back when they were willing to debate, they always lost. Why? Because they don’t have the facts to support their arguments.
7. There is not only no “overwhelming evidence” that CO2 causes a measurable rise in temperature. There is no testable, empirical evidence at all. That is why CO2=AGW is a conjecture, and not a hypothesis; a hypothesis must be testable. JohnB cannot accept that, so as we see, he writes opinion posts based on his beliefs.
It is amazing to me that every assertion JohnB made in his comment above is factually wrong. Most people are embarrassed if they get even one fact wrong.
JohnB probably really believes that the ‘vast majority’ of scientists believe what he believes. But it is a fact that the alarmist contingent of scientists is relatively small. It would be smaller still, but many are bought and paid for. And they have consistently failed to get more than a small fraction of the 31,000 signatures collected by the OISM Petition Project, despite several attempts. The reality is, for what it’s worth, that the real “consensus” thinks the AGW scare is mostly hype, driven by $billions in annual grants.
Of course, none of this will pry open JohnB’s mind. History teaches us that when religion is involved, facts don’t matter.
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 4:55 pm
John,
Just out of curiosity, what should the temperature be at Dallas Love Field at 2330 UTC on September 4?
Babsy says:
June 10, 2012 at 7:17 pm
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 4:55 pm
John,
Just out of curiosity, what should the temperature be at Dallas Love Field at 2330 UTC on September 4?
=================================================
He’ll get back with you September 5th.
mfo says:
June 10, 2012 at 10:48 am
“California Penal Code Section 528.5.
(a) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, any person
who knowingly and without consent credibly impersonates another
actual person through or on an Internet Web site or by other
electronic means for purposes of harming, intimidating, threatening,
or defrauding another person is guilty of a public offense punishable
pursuant to subdivision (d).
Why has Peter Gleick not been arrested and all the computers he might have used been seized for forensic examination? Which person or people in the police and state authorities has failed to make a public decision and why?
++++++++++++
This is a very good question. If you live in California demand an explanation from your representatives.
Mike says:
June 10, 2012 at 5:34 pm
“@Smokey: Picking thermometer data from a few cities and picking one proxy data set from Greenland is called cherry picking. Scientists look at as much of the data as they can…”
Mike reminds me of Joel Shore. When Joel accused me of ‘cherry-picking’ a particular chart, I took the time to post fifty (50!) separate charts that showed what the first one did. All of them had different time scales, various X and Y axes, and they were from dozens of different sources. So, guess what: Joel Shore argued about every one of them – and then he accused me again of “cherry-picking”! Sheesh!
A couple of things to note here: First, Mike is just emitting his personal opinion. He provides no charts of his own to counter the ones I posted. Therefore, Mike’s accusation of “cherry-picking” is just his weak fallback position. He uses it because he hasn’t got a credible argument. It’s the alarmists’ version of calling someone a ‘racist’. The intent is to shut down the side with the real data. Because the side with zero data has already lost the argument.
And second, I provided the data that is available. Data that is a couple of centuries old may be far from perfect. But it is the data that we have. Mike has nothing.
And there is something to be said for using the same mercury thermometer every day for a few hundred years. It is not a global proxy – but there are eight other cities in that link, and their mercury thermometers all show the very same upward trend from the LIA. No acceleration of temperatures is taking place in any of those cities – despite a 40% increase in [harmless, beneficial] CO2.
With such a big increase in CO2, maybe Mike can explain why we are not seeing accelerating global temperatures. Could it be that the effect of CO2 is insignificant compared with many other factors? If so, that kills the AGW argument, doesn’t it?
I will be happy to look at any evidence Mike can provide, showing that global temperatures are accelerating above their past parameters. But as we’ve seen so far, Mike has nothing.
Semantics aside, Neville’s post @ June 10, 2012 at 6:25 pm pretty much confirms what JohnB has been asserting:.
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3522242.htm
“A new American-led study featuring research by Tasmanian scientists has concluded that warming ocean temperatures over the past 50 years are largely a man-made phenomenon.
The researchers from America, India, Japan and Australia say theirs is the most comprehensive work to date on how the ocean’s have warmed.”
Reality happens. Pay attention.
JohnB says:
June 10, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Smokey,
Like “CAGW”, “runaway global warming” is a phrase only used by “skeptics”. Reality is that the world is warming, as even JTF acknowledges, the warming is anomalous, which is why we now have a hockey league, not just a single stick, and CO2 is almost certainly the cause, as the vast majority of climate scientists, looking at the overwhelming evidence, recognize. When will you guys join the real debate on what we do about it? Maybe “nothing” or “just wait” is the right answer. But you can’t take part in that debate as long as you continue to ignore reality.
John
Haha very funny John – HS league indeed – aren’t they all broken! I haven’t an axe to grind either way, just listen to both sides of the debate and quite frankly can’t see anything anomalous going on. Until recently just a continuation of a gentle increase in temps since the LIA. You say CO2 is almost certainly the cause – really? show me some empirical evidence then. Show me how the global system is operating outside normal variation. And no I’m not ignoring reality as you say, just that, like virtually everybody I know, WE do NOT believe anything unusual is going on. You are apparently part of a decreasing minority of true believers while the rest of us become more informed.
another version of the umpteenth definitive proof CAGW is real:
11 June: Radio Australia: Research shows humans main cause of global warming
A US-led research group is claiming to have bolstered the argument that global warming is real, and humans are largely to blame…
The research has been published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The team looked at rising ocean temperatures over the past 50 years, and a dozen models projecting climate change patterns.
Australian based co-author, Dr John Church from Australia’s island state of Tasmania says there’s no way all of the world’s oceans could’ve warmed by one tenth of a degree Celsius without human impact…
He says nature only accounts for 10 per cent of the increase.
Leading climate change and oceanography expert, Professor Nathan Bindoff says scientists are now certain man-made greenhouse gases are the primary cause.
“The evidence is unequivocal for global warming,” he said…
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2012-06-11/research-shows-humans-main-cause-of-global-warming/958298
Mike says:
“Reality happens. Pay attention.”
Pay attention to the satellite reality, Mike:
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/paintimage2111.jpg?w=640&h=422
As we see, sea levels are decelerating. Look up ‘steric sea level rise’. And the ARGO buoy network falsifies that ‘study’. Reality trumps your “study”.
Have you ever considered that financial grants have the effect of consistently placing the blame for natural events on human activities?
“And no I’m not ignoring reality as you say, just that, like virtually everybody I know, WE do NOT believe anything unusual is going on.” –James Alison
This is actually evidence that you are ignoring reality and just going along with what your peer group thinks. Notice how different scientists react to criticism: when some people, including
“skepitics,” found flaws in the work on Australian temps they admitted their mistake and withdrew the paper. (I am not saying they are all perfect; actions by Gleick and Jones show they can be ethically flawed. But as a system the scientific methods of peer review and debate work well in that they produce knowledge reliable enough to make policy decisions.) As for evidence CO2 warms the Earth pick up any textbook on climatology. Evidence comes from lab experiments, basic physics and paleoclimatic studies. The issue is will the amount of CO2 (and other GHGs) we are pumping into the atmosphere cause enough warming to be ecologically and economically disruptive; and will human CO2 emissions cause serious ocean acidification.
@Smokey,
I never claimed sea level rise was accelerating. I imagine it again depends on what time interval one looks at. But thanks for dodging the issue. That shows where you are coming from.
pat says:
June 10, 2012 at 8:26 pm
another version of the umpteenth definitive proof CAGW is real:
Nobody’s saying that the Cult of Anthropogenic Global Warming doesn’t exist — except the cultists, obviously.
quite the misleading headline, about misleading data, that gives CO2 trading even less credibility:
10 June: Reuters: China emissions study suggests climate change could be faster than thought
By David Fogarty and David Stanway
Editing by Jonathan Thatcher
China’s carbon emissions could be nearly 20 percent higher than previously thought, a new analysis of official Chinese data showed on Sunday, suggesting the pace of global climate change could be even faster than currently predicted…
“The sad fact is that Chinese energy and emission data as primary input to the models will add extra uncertainty in modelling simulations of predicting future climatic change,” say the authors of a study in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The team of scientists from China, Britain and the United States, led by Dabo Guan of the University of Leeds, studied two sets of energy data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics. One set presented energy use for the nation, the other for its provinces.
They compiled the carbon dioxide (CO2) emission inventories for China and its 30 provinces for the period 1997-2010 and found a big difference between the two datasets.
“MORE UNCERTAIN THAN EVER”
“The paper identifies a 1.4-billion tonne emission gap (in 2010) between the two datasets…
Guan added the China is not the only country with inconsistent energy data…
The findings also expose the challenges China faces in introduce emissions trading schemes, which need accurate measurement, reporting and verification of energy use and carbon pollution at the local and national level…
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/10/us-china-emissions-idUSBRE8590AD20120610
Neville says:
June 10, 2012 at 6:25 pm
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3522242.htm
Just thought others should know about this new study especially those with a lot more expertise than myself.
A sentence from this study says:
EMILY WOODGATE: He says there’s simply no way the upper layers of every ocean in the world could have warmed by more than one-tenth of a degree Celsius through natural causes alone.
They specifically mention “upper layers”. See the graph below to see what happened to sea surface temperatures over the last decade and a half. There has been no change for 15 years and 4 months, and over the last 10 years, there has been a cooling.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002.33/trend
P.S. The April value of 0.292 is not on WFT yet, but that will not change what I have written above.
Mike says:
“…thanks for dodging the issue. That shows where you are coming from.”
A perfect example of psychological projection [imputing your own faults onto others]. Mike totally avoids all responses to his posted nonsense, and simply moves on to other talking points.
Mike continues: “The issue is will the amount of CO2 (and other GHGs) we are pumping into the atmosphere cause enough warming to be ecologically and economically disruptive; and will human CO2 emissions cause serious ocean acidification.”
OK, bigboy, produce your evidence – falsifiable and testable, per the scientific method – showing evidence that “pumping into the atmosphere cause enough warming to be ecologically and economically disruptive; and will human CO2 emissions cause serious ocean acidification.”
Pay attention to the term ‘evidence’, which excludes computer models, appeals to authority, and other emo-alarmist claptrap. Evidence is testable, verifiable data.
So far, there is no such data. There is no evidence of global harm due to anthropogenic CO2; and there is plenty of satellite data showing that the planet is greening in lockstep with the rise in CO2. Greening is good, no? Therefore, CO2 is good. More is better.
All the available evidence points to the fact that more CO2 is beneficial to the biosphere. And because there is no evidence showing any global harm due to the rise in CO2, then ipso facto CO2 is “harmless”.
Mike is arguing from emotion, religion, and talking points. He wouldn’t know the scientific method if it bit him on the a… nkle. The fact is that AGW is an untestable conjecture, fed by enormous piles of grant money. But when the rigorous scientific method holds the alarmists’ feet to the fire, they have no credible facts to support their belief system. And that is the difference between real scientists, and religious witch doctors.
“Like “CAGW”, “runaway global warming” is a phrase only used by “skeptics”.”
Or you can see “runaway global warming” by looking at IPCC projections. I.e., A2 or A1B. IPCC must be full of sceptics then…
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/spmsspm-projections-of.html
For those that are interested, Michael Mann’s “The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars” has been posted on all the usual pirate sites. I am reliably informed that you could try: http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=michael+mann
Note that this notification is for research purposes only; I strongly condemn illegally downloading Mann’s work.
Got a 404 error with the provided ink.
“The stratospheric warming in the region of the stratospheric cloud increases the latitudinal temperature gradient after an eruption at low latitudes, disturbing the stratospheric-troposphere circulation, increasing the difference in height of the troposphere between high and low latitudes, and increasing the strength of the jet stream (polar vortex, especially in the northern hemisphere). This leads to warming during the northern hemisphere winter following a tropical eruption, and this warming effect tends to be larger than the cooling effect described above.” Ellen Thomas, PHD Wesleyan University
Thank you for that quote and link.
Winter warming due to volcanoes is something I have been suggesting for about 18m now, I was not aware of any recognised sources noting this effect. Since the stratospheric warming clearly shows incoming energy is getting blocked, the statement that the winter warming is larger than the summer cooling shows a fast negative compensates for the reduced incoming solar energy.
This means that current estimates of a strong negative “forcing” due to late 20th c. volcanoes is a mistake. This mistake is used to justify pumping up the CO2 “forcing” to compensate. This is further exaggerated by Hansen , who’s volcanic forcings are even bigger.
This is a key effect in understanding how climate models have been so badly wrong since 2yk.
Conclusion:
“Earth’s “Temperature” appears to have increased during the last several decades, but there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or accelerating warming.
This statement or something similar is made several times in this excellent article but it is fundamentally flawed. There *is* an acceleration in temperature: it’s negative !
Just about all the evidence that has been presented here: temps, OHC, mean sea level ALL show a reduced rate of warming since around y2k. That is a (negative) acceleration.
It should be made clear that there is an acceleration in climate indicators and it’s unequivocally NEGATIVE.
Otherwise excellent. Thanks.
Mike says:
June 10, 2012 at 8:46 pm
…….. Notice how different scientists react to criticism: when some people, including
“skepitics,” found flaws in the work on Australian temps they admitted their mistake and withdrew the paper. (I am not saying they are all perfect; actions by Gleick and Jones show they can be ethically flawed. But as a system the scientific methods of peer review and debate work well in that they produce knowledge reliable enough to make policy decisions.) As for evidence CO2 warms the Earth pick up any textbook on climatology. Evidence comes from lab experiments, basic physics and paleoclimatic studies. The issue is will the amount of CO2 (and other GHGs) we are pumping into the atmosphere cause enough warming to be ecologically and economically disruptive; and will human CO2 emissions cause serious ocean acidification.
===================================================
Holy crap, I wasn’t going to comment on this thread until I read these absurd statements!
Mike, that was one study which had to be withdrawn because of the quick exposure. There are many more studies with errors that haven’t been withdrawn. The peer review process is broke, and the recent studies demonstrate it. Take Foster and Rahmstorf 2011, for example. It’s a study that states if things were different things would be different. And they pretended to understand all of the variables which went into our global temps, when obviously, no one knows all of the variables. Year after year we’ve seen an endless parade of idiotic papers which fly through “peer-review”. Dessler’s rebut to Spencer/Braswell, was another fine example of idiocy run amok. The damned thing couldn’t even get printed after being accepted for publication. Anyone believing the peer-review process in climate science is providing reliable knowledge should go measure the ice in the Himalayas, no, I’m not talking about the absurd IPCC debacle. I’m talking about the explanation about why the satellite measurements were so far off from the other estimates.
You can read some more inanities here….. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/yes-yes-they-really-are-that-dumb/
What peer review science do you believe is adequate? Please be specific, because I haven’t seen one in the last year and a half that didn’t get me laughing at the authors and the journals.
But, you weren’t content to end your absurd statements there. Proof that CO2 warms the earth through experiments? Really? No, no experiment ever confirmed that statement. The only thing they’ve confirmed is that CO2 will absorb small frequency bands of IR and when excited will emit IR omnidirectional, which confirms some basic physics. But, they say nothing of the responses to such action. But, your statement about “paleoclimatic studies” confirming this goes beyond absurd and reaches the level of utter falsehood. In fact, of the paleo which has survived (likely because skeptics haven’t looked at them all, yet) some suggest quite the opposite, as we note that in times past CO2 levels were much higher than today and yet, some indicate that the temps weren’t much different than today, and others suggest a cooler globe. But, regardless of what they show, they can only show correlation, not causation.
And this is the difficulty with the discussion. Alarmists substitute journal papers for truth, and assumptions for observation. It doesn’t matter how many times skeptics show the assumptions wrong or how many times observations destroy the assumptions, alarmists won’t let go of their belief that peer-review is some sort of magical thing which trumps reality.
I’ll let others destroy the “ocean acidification” meme, but you need to understand what happens to CO2 when it enters the oceans, what uses the CO2 and how it is transformed. What keeps it in the oceans and what causes it to be expelled from the oceans.
If that sounded harsh, sorry, I didn’t mean for it to be, but, the rest of the rational world has moved beyond these talking points.
Will Nitschke says:
June 10, 2012 at 9:35 pm
I took that fellow’s statement to mean that things like the following do not exist . . .
http://www.zero-carbon-or-climate-catastrophe.org/runaway-heating.html
. . . and insofar as they obviously do, nothing else he said can be assumed to be true either.
Was mooching about and found this article from 1994, when it was still possible to use words like “if” and “maybe” about manmade global warming. Some of the things it says about CO2 levels and climate in the distant past are quite interesting – am wondering how they compare to more recent reconstructions
http://discovermagazine.com/1994/dec/locationlocation463
“Since the stratospheric warming clearly shows incoming energy is getting blocked, the statement that the winter warming is larger than the summer cooling shows a fast negative compensates for the reduced incoming solar energy.”
That should have read : “… shows a fast negative _feedback_ compensates for the reduced incoming solar energy.”
Despite significant changes in internal and external “forcings” over billions of years the atmosphere has not evaporated into space. The dominant climate feedbacks are negative, otherwise we would not be here to argue about it.
Neville says:
June 10, 2012 at 6:25 pm
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2012/s3522242.htm
What they are saying is that because the models can’t simulate the measured warming using natural causes, the cause must be anthropogenic.
This is, of course, nonsense. There are multiple other possible explanations. Starting with measurements of southern ocean temperatures, pre-Argo, were very sparse, and highly biased to certain locations. And ending with Southern Ocean circulation is poorly understood and poorly represented in the models. They basically ignore it.
You should also google ‘omitted variable fraud’, which should lead you to a good recent explanation here at WUWT.
Just a small observation. Looking at the ocean temperature chart, it is evident that the oceans have been warming. The IPCC’s 2007 AR4 indicated that 97% of Co2 entering the atmosphere each year is from natural sources. As the oceans store so much Co2, I would suggest that most of the rising atmospheric Co2 in the atmosphere is actually Co2 released by the warming oceans. Just how much, god knows… but if any physicist did an estimation, my guess is it would dwarf the Co2 emitted by the burning of fossil fuels. People should step back and reflect just how huge the oceans of the world are… then try and pin point the industrialised areas of the world in comparison, and try and make some common sense of what I am implying.
O H Dahlsveen says:
June 10, 2012 at 12:40 pm
So then JohnB, as you are clearly not a “skeptic” I can only assume you are a person known as a “warmist” (AGW or CAGW believer). Please tell me what makes you so certain that CO2 is capable of causing “Global Warming”. – And don’t tell me CO2 is the miracle happening.
What should that “fingerprint” look like?
I don’t believe he’s ever thought about it, otherwise he’d have had some kind of answer for you by now.
Oh, wait. You took the “miracle” option away from him — he *can’t* answer your question.
This leads to warming during the northern hemisphere winter following a tropical eruption, and this warming effect tends to be larger than the cooling effect described above.” Ellen Thomas, PhD Wesleyan University
This would also confirm what Willis pointed out recently with this “spot the volcano” game, where he demonstrated it was pretty much impossible to identify eruptions by looking at the temperature record if you did not have the dates to guide you.
I managed to get about 2/3 of them right by spotting the pattern of warmer winters
http://oi44.tinypic.com/16k1iiu.jpg
here we can see the cool summer warmer winter patterns after Pinatubo and El Chichon but not notable effect after Mt Agung. The latter was followed by a warmer than normal summer, only a year later was it cooler.
The four years after El Chichon average out at about net zero.
There was a cooler period after Mt Pinatubo but it is no bigger than the other non volcanic variations of the whole period (which was Willis’ basic point).
The idea of a net negative volcanic forcing is a fallacy used to justify “enhancing” the true calculated CO2 forcing with mythical positive feedbacks.
quidsapio says:
June 10, 2012 at 11:16 pm
Was mooching about and found this article from 1994, when it was still possible to use words like “if” and “maybe” about manmade global warming. Some of the things it says about CO2 levels and climate in the distant past are quite interesting – am wondering how they compare to more recent reconstructions
http://discovermagazine.com/1994/dec/locationlocation463
From that link:
“But Crowley and Baum calculated that the net greenhouse effect was still equivalent to what you’d get by quadrupling CO2 levels today. In other words, an ice sheet should have stood little chance of surviving. ”
Little chance that is if climate sensitivity is 4.2K per doubling, if we remove the fallacy of positive feedback and get a value like 1.2K per doubling the paradox disappears.
Just sayin’.
P. Solar says:
Little chance that is if climate sensitivity is 4.2K per doubling, if we remove the fallacy of positive feedback and get a value like 1.2K per doubling the paradox disappears.
The whole CO2 spectrum absorption debate has dropped out of sight. The AGW crowd must have realized they were onto a loser.
Essentially the discussion was about how saturated the spectrum ranges at which CO absorbs were. And in the opinion of many physicists there was almost no additional radiation for increased CO2 to absorb.
That CO2 is a greenhouse gas, is therefore irrelevant, because increasing CO2 levels at current concentrations produces no significant greenhouse effect.
BTW, your graphic needs labelling. I’m interested in volcanic aerosols and would like to understand it.
http://oi44.tinypic.com/16k1iiu.jpg
I came across another article with “simple facts and data”. This one from 1958, from the Nautilus, the first submarine to clear the Arctic ice and reach the North Pole from the Pacific.
The first attempt in early June (right around now) failed, due to excessive ice in the Bering and the Chukchi :
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/cno/n87/usw/usw_summer_09/nautilus.html
Some people claim that because there were few observations before 1978, that we can thus discard the fact that Arctic climste is changing profoundly.
This year, after this harshest winter in satellite-recorded history, how thick is the ice in the Bering and the Chukchi ? 1 meters ? 2 ? 3 at most ? open water in many places ?
How times have changed….
Smokey- you say “The planet is still recovering from the LIA – one of the coldest episodes in the entire 10,000 year Holocene. The recent warming is a natural recovery from the LIA.”
as a new comer to this site can you explain the mechanism? why would there be a recovery and when will it be finished? does this imply that there is a normal temperature that we have yet to reach?
Wan says:
June 11, 2012 at 3:04 am
Smokey- you say “The planet is still recovering from the LIA – one of the coldest episodes in the entire 10,000 year Holocene. The recent warming is a natural recovery from the LIA.”
as a new comer to this site can you explain the mechanism? why would there be a recovery and when will it be finished?
Very good questions. For which there aren’t good answers.
‘Recovery from the LIA’ is used as if were an explanation, which it isn’t. Probably the commonest explanation is solar cycles, but I don’t find this convincing.
The AGW crowd argue its increased CO2 from fossil fuel burning, but I don’t find this persuasive either.
I prefer that the LIA was part of the interglacial progression toward the next glacial phase and something interrupted it. That something was primarily reduced aerosols from the switch from wood to coal/oil as the principal fuel.
Rob Dekker says:
June 11, 2012 at 2:40 am
Some people claim that because there were few observations before 1978, that we can thus discard the fact that Arctic climste is changing profoundly.
The Arctic climate has always been “changing profoundly.” Just because it’s now doing so in your lifetime is inconsequential.
How times have changed….
That’s what times and nature do in Real Life. They change.
Wan says:
June 11, 2012 at 3:04 am
Is there a mechanism – yes, almost certainly! What is it? – Hmm, lets just say its likely a mixture of extraterrestial influences, solar, cosmic rays, gravitational, etc and of course NATURAL changes in the GHG composition (remember water vapour and CO2 varies naturally too!). and then there are circulatory changes in oceans and the atmosphere…
…..the net result of which is that a combination of ‘events’ and ‘cycles’ probably join together to cause a ‘warm’ or ‘cold’ period….and that’s about as accurate a description of ‘the mechanism’ you will ever likely get….the planet and influences are simply too large, complex and interconnected, and far too variable to pull together as a simple identifiable ‘mechanism’…
The planet is ALWAYS in a state of flux between one of the climatic extremes (i.e. an ice age or warm period). It’s always moving from one extreme to the other. I suppose you could say that at some given point during the cycle(s), there are ‘steady state periods’ in the climate – but no-one can say those periods are ‘normal’ or not. Just like our current warm period isn’t necessarily ABNORMAL (see warming in the 30’s). You have to look over a much longer timescale to consider where we are ‘currently’ on the climatic cycle. There is therefore NO normal temperature!! It is not unreasonable to consider the recent temperature (since last ice age) as being more ‘normal’ to human existence – but it is not normal relative to climate history going back a few hundred thousand to few million years….
Perhaps, if you think of a journey across a continent – you start at sea level and go up and down across mountain ranges, etc – and eventually come ‘full cycle’ back top sea level – what is the average height above sea level? is that the ‘normal’ height? Now – try and imagine how you could pick a ‘normal’ temperature from within the earths climate history? It’s not possible….hence, we have some who feel that an ice age is just around the corner (it’s time for the cycle to downturn!) and it’s a reasonable bet we will enter a cold period – but when, is anyone’s guess.
Bill Tuttle says:
June 11, 2012 at 12:09 am
O H Dahlsveen says:
June 10, 2012 at 12:40 pm
So then JohnB, as you are clearly not a “skeptic” I can only assume you are a person known as a “warmist” (AGW or CAGW believer). Please tell me what makes you so certain that CO2 is capable of causing “Global Warming”. – And don’t tell me CO2 is the miracle happening.
What should that “fingerprint” look like?
I don’t believe he’s ever thought about it, otherwise he’d have had some kind of answer for you by now.
Oh, wait. You took the “miracle” option away from him — he *can’t* answer your question.
—————————-
OK, try this:
http://aip.org/history/climate/index.htm
If you haven’t read it, please do so, no matter what your preconceptions.
And to answer the earlier question about my stake in all this, I have none except that I get worked up at intellectual dishonesty and laziness. The last time I got involved in anything like this it was debating creationists. And there are a few of those here, to be sure!
AndyG55 (from down-under) says:
June 10, 2012 at 3:38 pm
Does the O2 concentration drop by 50ppm (oh no, we are running out of oxygen ;-))
__________________________________
Werner Brozek says:
June 10, 2012 at 4:44 pm
Oxygen gets used up. See
http://www.disclose.tv/forum/atmospheric-oxygen-levels-fall-as-carbon-dioxide-rises-t29534.html
“…we are losing nearly three O2 molecules for each CO2 molecule that accumulates in the air.
“if the oxygen level in such an environment falls below 19.5% it is oxygen deficient, putting occupants of the confined space at risk of losing consciousness and death.”
__________________________________
That sounds like the next “Scare Tactic”
Mervyn says:
June 10, 2012 at 11:58 pm
Just a small observation. Looking at the ocean temperature chart, it is evident that the oceans have been warming. The IPCC’s 2007 AR4 indicated that 97% of Co2 entering the atmosphere each year is from natural sources. As the oceans store so much Co2, I would suggest that most of the rising atmospheric Co2 in the atmosphere is actually Co2 released by the warming oceans….
_____________________________________
Here is the graph of SST and CO2 (there is about a one year lag) http://www.biomind.de/realCO2/bilder/CO2-MBL1826-2008-2n-SST-3k.jpg
Philip Bradley says: @ June 11, 2012 at 2:13 am
….The whole CO2 spectrum absorption debate has dropped out of sight. The AGW crowd must have realized they were onto a loser….
_________________________________
Lucy Skywalker has a chart of the logrithmic response up at her site: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/CO2/logwarming-CO2.gif
Wan says:
June 11, 2012 at 3:04 am
Smokey- you say “The planet is still recovering from the LIA – one of the coldest episodes in the entire 10,000 year Holocene. The recent warming is a natural recovery from the LIA.”
as a new comer to this site can you explain the mechanism? why would there be a recovery and when will it be finished? does this imply that there is a normal temperature that we have yet to reach?
_______________________________________
Earths climate is cyclical. Lucy’s flick graph shows it the best. She shows the temperature at various time intervals: http://www.greenworldtrust.org.uk/Science/Images/ice-HS/noaa_gisp2_icecore_anim_adj.gif
John B says:
June 11, 2012 at 6:08 am
OK, try this:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So I did, and found this:
“ Also as predicted only sooner, the world was beginning to suffer historically unprecedented heat waves, droughts, floods and storms. The sea level was rising while mountain glaciers, the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, and Arctic sea ice melted back, all at accelerating rates. Important ecosystems from alpine meadows to coral reefs were showing signs of stress. For the scientists, as one of them remarked, “Seeing their own predictions come true has been a frightening experience.”(62)
Site is filled with the likes of . . . unprecedented, soaring, accelerating, 2 degrees = severe, take serious action, and other CAGW, and UN one-world democratic government stuff.
Sorry, John B., don’t expect many reading here on WUWT to be impressed by such a summary.
John F. Hultquist says:
June 11, 2012 at 7:58 am
I also found this at the very beginning of his opened link:
“A hypertext history of how scientists came to (partly) understand what people are doing to cause climate change. ”
Partly? They expect us to abandon the economic engine of the Western world when all they can muster is ‘partly’? Oh, yeah! They really have it all worked out, don’t they?
@Steve mosher
well ho ho ho. Once again, you are trying to defend with no stats. We did this at Lucia’s already and I owned you but here we go again. If its the temperature like you insist, please link or tell me where I can see these massive temperatures changes that must be occuring to melt the otherwise.
Otherwise, Mosher, shove it. If you do not have the temperature records to back up your claim, you’ve got nothing. The fact is there is almost no temperature change and so the ice loss must be attributed to wind patterns.
a whole 20 people think you and Lucia are smart, I am not one of the 20.
here is another question I would love Anthony or somebody smart to answer.
For the past 600 millions years, GAT was 22C. Currently, it is about 15C.
So in realville, earth is 7 degrees Celsius below average temperature. WHY THE HELL DOES NOBODY USE THIS STATISTIC?
furthermore, earth is below avearge atmospheric co2. SAME QUESTION!
John B says:
June 11, 2012 at 6:08 am
And to answer the earlier question about my stake in all this, I have none except that I get worked up at intellectual dishonesty and laziness. The last time I got involved in anything like this it was debating creationists. And there are a few of those here, to be sure!
Speaking of intellectual dishonesty, O H Dahlsveen asked you “Please tell me what makes you so certain that CO2 is capable of causing ‘Global Warming’….What should that ‘fingerprint’ look like?
And your reply was a recommendation to visit a website about “The Discovery of Global Warming”?
Allow me to specify what the “fingerprint” of AGW should look like:
1. There should be a tropospheric “hot spot” near the equator. Satellite and radiosonde temperature measurements say it doesn’t exist.
2. There should be a direct and constant correlation between temperature and CO2 — as CO2 increases, the temperature should increase. The data we have shows that a rise in CO2 *follows* changes in temperature (the “800-year lag”), it doesn’t cause them.
3. The altitude of the tropopause over the equator should constantly be increasing due to heating of the lower atmosphere. The altitude of the tropopause continues to behave like waves on the ocean, sometimes rising, sometimes falling.
Three fingerprints — missing any one of them, AGW falls flat. Missing all *three* is Epic Fail.
One of these days I am gonna have to take time to read through all the comments.
😉
Wayne
John B says:
June 11, 2012 at 6:08 am
And to answer the earlier question about my stake in all this, I have none except that I get worked up at intellectual dishonesty and laziness. The last time I got involved in anything like this it was debating creationists. And there are a few of those here, to be sure!
___________________________________________
John B, You seem to think we make decisions without data, so here is some of the data. It is a heck of a lot more data then I have seen from the “CO2 is going to cook us all” side of the debate.
The heat capacity of the oceans is about 1000 times greater than that of the atmosphere. (The specific heat of water is about 4000 J/kg/K, while that of air is 1000 J/kg/K.) Even if you only consider the top of the ocean (50 meters) the oceans are still at least 10X the air. ~ from an oceanographer at http://www.radix.net/~bobg/climate/heating.rates.html
Next take a look at the solar spectra:
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/4/4c/Solar_Spectrum.png
CO2 spectra included here: http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/7/7c/Atmospheric_Transmission.png notice how CO2 is a minor bit player compared to water, if that.
Incoming vs outgoing radiation: http://www.udel.edu/Geography/DeLiberty/Geog474/energy_wavelength.gif
Solar spectra with oceans included: http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/images/instruments/sim/fig01.gif
Solar radiation at various ocean depths. http://www.klimaatfraude.info/images/sverdrup.gif Notice the high energy wavelengths, visible and UV penetrate the deepest.
This increasing variability from the visible to EUV are the wavelengths that penetrate the oceans. So TSI does not by any means tell the whole story. The total insolation can remain constant while the amount of energy penetrating the oceans increases or decreases. The ocean oscillations have already been linked to changes in weather/climate
Cosmic rays are thought by some to influence cloud cover: http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/3779-henrik-svensmark-the-cosmic-raycloud-seeding-hypothesis-is-converging-with-reality.html
Cosmic rays hit space age high
“In 2009, cosmic ray intensities have increased 19% beyond anything we’ve seen in the past 50 years,” says Richard Mewaldt of Caltech. “The increase is significant
<a href="http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startdate=1964/05/22&starttime=00:00&enddate=2010/06/22&endtime=15:39&resolution=Automatic%20choice&picture=on"/a>
Solar wind is linked to cosmic ray intensities.
Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low “The average pressure of the solar wind has dropped more than 20% since the mid-1990s,” says Dave McComas of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas. “This is the weakest it’s been since we began monitoring solar wind almost 50 years ago.”
NASA: TSI lower during minimum from cycle 23 to 24
The sun seems to be settling down from a more active state.
NOAA:GRAPH From the late 50’s the sun has been at its most active than for more than 11,500 years
Do Satellites Detect Trends in Surface Solar Radiation? July 2004.
Abstract
Long-term variations in solar radiation at Earth’s surface (S) can affect our climate, the hydrological cycle, plant photosynthesis, and solar power. Sustained decreases in S have been widely reported from about the year 1960 to 1990. Here we present an estimate of global temporal variations in S by using the longest available satellite record. We observed an overall increase in S from 1983 to 2001 at a rate of 0.16 watts per square meter (0.10%) per year; this change is a combination of a decrease until about 1990, followed by a sustained increase….
Graph: Solar radio flux, F10.7 is STILL low
Graph of solar TSI variability from above article (scale 1366 to 138W/metersq
I doubt this will penetrate your mind John, but at least those with a more open mind can see who is closest to a “creationist” aka all they really have is their “Faith” and no data.
@ Smokey,
The topic of this thread is whether or not the warming has accelerated. It of course depends on the time interval used. You have basically conceded, by trying to change the subject, that over the period 1880-2010 there has been an acceleration. What this acceleration means is a topic for another thread or threads.
@ Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.
During most of the last 600 million years there were no people around. Likely there were many periods where the climate was incompatible with the development of human civilization. This may happen again in the distant future through natural causes. The issue today is whether we are causing artificial climate change that will be ecologically or economically disruptive and what we should or should not do about this.This thread was initially about whether the warming trend of the last 100 hundred years shows an acceleration. The “skeptics” have basically conceded that it does. The possible implications of this go will beyond the scope of this thread.
@ Babsy ,une 11, 2012 at 8:20 am
“They expect us to abandon the economic engine of the Western world when all they can muster is ‘partly’? ”
No serious person is proposing anything like what you suggest. It is a straw-man augment you are making.
Mike says:
“The topic of this thread is whether or not the warming has accelerated. It of course depends on the time interval used. You have basically conceded, by trying to change the subject, that over the period 1880-2010 there has been an acceleration.”
Wrong again. How many times do we have to explain it to you that there is no acceleration in the gradual warming since the LIA? The basic time frame used is from before the LIA to now, with more recent charts showing recent temperature declines. That is not cherry picking, that is empirical evidence showing what is happening. And it isn’t what you believe.
Are you completely dense?? Can you not understand a temperature graph? Or is your religious CAGW belief so strong that White is Black, Down is Up, and Ignorance is Strength?
Real world evidence shows conlusively that the natural warming since the LIA has not accelerated.
In fact, global temperatures have started to decline.
I would prefer a science-based discussion with you and JohnB, but that is impossible because you both express this attitude toward real world facts. Wise up. The planet is falsifying your belief system. Your opinions, like JohnB’s, are flat wrong. Global warming is not accelerating. Deal with it.
Mike says:
June 11, 2012 at 10:36 am
@ Smokey,
The topic of this thread is whether or not the warming has accelerated. It of course depends on the time interval used. You have basically conceded, by trying to change the subject, that over the period 1880-2010 there has been an acceleration.
The warming acceleration over the past decade has been negative.
In simpler terms, it’s been *cooling*.
Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. says:
June 11, 2012 at 8:55 am
here is another question I would love Anthony or somebody smart to answer.
For the past 600 millions years, GAT was 22C. Currently, it is about 15C.
So in realville, earth is 7 degrees Celsius below average temperature. WHY THE HELL DOES NOBODY USE THIS STATISTIC?
furthermore, earth is below avearge atmospheric co2. SAME QUESTION!
_____________________________
Dr. Jay, I do not use the first statistic (not a physicist) but I do use the gradual cooling over the Holocene, however lets face it we are STILL in an ice age, just a warmer part of an ice age. After all that is what an “Interglacial means”
The other reason for not using that statistic is it gives the CAGW warmists ammo. “SEE the Earth can warm another whole 7C we are going to fry” – while running around like the headless chickens they are.
furthermore, earth is below avearge atmospheric co2. SAME QUESTION!
Now THAT I do use.
Plants are pretty close to starvation levels. A wheat study showed an open field of wheat sucked the CO2 levels down to 300 ppm +/- 5 ppm every day during growing season. Other studies show C3 type plants (most food crops) cease growing at 200 ppm. Another website shows the USA has increased from producing 100 bushels of wheat on 5 ac (1930) to 100 bushels of wheat on 3 ac (1975)
How anyone can demonize such a beneficial gas is beyond me. Next there will be a campaign for the EPA to regulate dihydrogen monoxide. After all dihydrogen monoxide has been documented as the cause of many human deaths and is very closely linked to changes in the weather/climate. (snicker)
Bill Tuttle says:
June 11, 2012 at 11:24 am
….The warming acceleration over the past decade has been negative.
In simpler terms, it’s been *cooling*.
__________________________________
The “warming acceleration” over the past ten millenia has also been negative. GRAPH
Can’t win the argument at either time scale.
Mike says:
June 11, 2012 at 10:48 am
@ Babsy ,une 11, 2012 at 8:20 am
“They expect us to abandon the economic engine of the Western world when all they can muster is ‘partly’? ”
No serious person is proposing anything like what you suggest. It is a straw-man augment you are making.
___________________________________
GEEZ, do you even bother to read the news?
Poles refuse to set greenhouse-gas reduction targets for after 2020.
Environment ministers on Friday (9 March) were unable to adopt conclusions on the European Commission’s low-carbon roadmap for 2050 after Poland wielded its veto.
Poland objected to the roadmap’s identification of milestones beyond what has already been agreed – a 40% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2030 and a 60% reduction by 2040. The EU has committed itself to a 20% reduction by 2020 and to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050.…..
That means reducing our civilization to below the energy use of the 1800s!!!
I did the analysis Here
It is all about ushering in global Governance not about the Environment.
We get all types of “Soothing” crap from the propaganda machines and economic model projections about how it really is going to be “painless”
Up until the 1850′s dung and wood were the major source of energy. http://dieoff.org/page199_files/image002.gif
In other words for the USA to use HALF the energy per person that was used in 1800 we must abandon ALL factories and 90% of the population must return to subsistence farming using animals.
In the USA even if you reduced the energy use per capita to the level in 1800 you would still be DOUBLE that target of 80% reduction ~ PER CAPITA. The figures are probably worse since the USA in 1790 was 90% self sufficient farmers with very little industry unlike the UK where the first industrial revolution started in the mid 1700’s.
It only takes a day trying to clear brush from land with loppers and a buck saw to really appreciate a tractor or bulldozer and the harsh reality of what labor saving devices really are all about. For comparison in 1987 it only took 3 labor-hours to produce 100 bushels of wheat from 3 acres of land (Ain’t CO2 fertilization great) with tractors, 35-foot sweep disk, 30-foot drill, and a 25-foot self-propelled combine. By 1970 one American farmer was supplying over 75 people with food.
Wayne says:
June 11, 2012 at 9:42 am
One of these days I am gonna have to take time to read through all the comments
I just did and it made me think of something I read earlier.
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/020413.html
Mike says:
June 11, 2012 at 10:43 am
@ Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd.
….The issue today is whether we are causing artificial climate change that will be ecologically or economically disruptive and what we should or should not do about this.This thread was initially about whether the warming trend of the last 100 hundred years shows an acceleration. The “skeptics” have basically conceded that it does. The possible implications of this go will beyond the scope of this thread.
___________________________________
NO WE HAVE NOT!
We have agreed that there was a natural cyclical warming from the depths of the Little Ice Age that ended in 1850. ~ A period of Famine, Rebellion and the Black Death.
There has been no “ACCELERATION” that is no real change in “the rate of change” It is natural and the same until about fifteen years ago when we saw a DECELERATION. This despite all the manipulations of the data bases to exaggerate the warming by decreasing the value of old temperatures and increasing the values of new temperatures. EXAMPLE 1 and Example 2
…The Climate Conversation Group (CCG) said this morning that NIWA’s confession that it lost the Schedule of Adjustments (SOA) for the official New Zealand temperature record is the latest event in a long-running scandal….
@ Gail Combs says:
June 11, 2012 at 12:55 pm
“The EU has committed itself to a 20% reduction by 2020 and to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050.…. That means reducing our civilization to below the energy use of the 1800s!!!”
That is a reduction in emissions not energy. Some energy use reduction will be derived from higher efficiency and conservation. But I think most of the emissions reduction are to be achieved through new energy sources and nuclear power. You may disagree with this goal or think it cannot be obtained. The current flight from nuclear power may indeed undermine this goal. But that is a different question.
“There has been no “ACCELERATION” that is no real change in “the rate of change” It is natural and the same until about fifteen years ago when we saw a DECELERATION.”
As I have said before whether or not there is an acceleration depends on the time interval used. It you use 1880-2010 there is an acceleration. What this means is a separate issue.
@smokey, http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/14.jpg
Your chart shows an acceleration over the last 100 years. That is the period of human emissions of CO2. That may or may not be a coincidence but it is a fact. This acceleration may or may not be a natural variation. The recent pause in surface warming may or may not be part of a new longer term trend. One cannot tell from a data plot. For these questions one needs to consider the physical mechanisms involved.
You seem to have this idea the Earth’s temperature is bouncing back from the LIA. But thermal systems don’t bounce. The physics is not the same as mass-spring systems. Any warming or cooling must have a cause in the energy flow. It is clear that natural causes can cause temperature change. But the specific analysis by most climate scientists shows that the current warming is not natural. If they are right then the mild warming we have seen will increase over the next century to levels that will likely be disruptive. Longer term proxy studies with their “hockey stick” shapes support but do not in themselves prove this hypothesis.
Also I have no idea what source for your chart is.
Mike says:
“It you use 1880-2010 there is an acceleration.”
Wrong. There is no acceleration. Do you not even look at all the links posted here, because they flatly contradict your belief system?
The Wood For Trees graph above shows the long term temperature trend line, back to the mid-1800’s. Notice that despite CO2 levels rising from ≈280 ppmv to more than 390 ppmv, there has been no acceleration in the gradually rising temperature trend. Temperatures have remained within clearly defined parameters, thus falsifying your assertion that the trend is, or ever was, accelerating. The rise in global warming is due to the recovery from the LIA. There is no measurable indication that the increase in CO2 has added to the natural warming trend.
Mike, you are just not paying attention to the extensive charts, graphs, and peer reviewed papers posted here by Gail Combs and others, which absolutely refute your wrong-headed belief that global warming since the LIA has accelerated.
The failure of temperatures to accelerate when CO2 has risen by ≈40% means that CO2 does not have the effect claimed. In fact, there is no testable, measurable evidence showing that CO2 has any effect [although I personally think it has a small – and wholly beneficial – effect].
Time to stop digging, Mike. The ultimate Authority – Planet Earth – is proving you wrong.
Smokey says:
June 11, 2012 at 2:19 pm
“…The failure of temperatures to accelerate when CO2 has risen by ≈40% means that CO2 does not have the effect claimed. In fact, there is no testable, measurable evidence showing that CO2 has any effect [although I personally think it has a small – and wholly beneficial – effect]….”
Absolutely, Smokey – but the likes of Mike don’t seem to grasp that!
I can’t see the likes of Mike doing anything but burrowing deeper into their holes. There’s none so blind as those that will not see! But of course, THEY think we are the ones who cannot see! The funny thing is, there is flip all for us to see – otherwise we’d all be believers too! We skeptics are not trying to say there is no warming – we are saying that the warming is clearly NOT directly and solely related to CO2 (and hence, by default, any CO2 restrictions are pointless – as well as being destructive to various economies, etc).
Now, if Mike wants to provide the allegedly ‘conclusive’ proof – something which has yet to be shown by ANYBODY – perhaps, we can have a proper debate?
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/global-land-ocean-mntp-anom/201001-201012.gif
Do a parabolic fit and you’ll see the concavity is positive. That is called acceleration. If you do a linear fit of course it will have zero concavity. If you do a cubic fit like Spencer does you’ll see a period of positive concavity followed by a period of negative concavity. Which if any of these is physically significant depends on the physical processes involved.
Mike clearly does not comprehend that what others are discussing about acceleration is simply not what he misunderstands acceleration to be.
Mike, acceleration would be a positive change in the rate of change. On a graph that would give you a line that curved upwards, a bit like a hockey stick some might say.
What you are observing on the graph is a simple small but constant positive trend. Which shows no acceleration in the rate of positive change.
and then there is the small matter that there is no empirical evidence or testable replication to show that CO2 is doing anything but respond to that warming ( which I personally think is a simple matter of ocean sinks being less able to sequester as much CO2 as the volume of cold water needed to hold it is slightly reduced by a positive temperature anomaly trend [which is not an acceleration either for your information ])
There. Hope that helps.
Speaking of the Big Picture – is there an easy to digest graph of average solar irradiance over several Milankovitch cycles? I would love to see where we are in the expected impact of the Milankovitch (and other) orbital cycles impact on average incoming radiation.
justthefacts,
you wrote upthread in reply to Mosher,
Your sources do not quantitatively support your emphasis. Eg,
Influence of winter and summer surface wind anomalies on Summer Arctic sea ice extent Ogi and Wallace (2009)
That was the only reference I could find amongst your sources to an estimate of contribution. The focus of many of the studies you linked is on factors aside from temperature increase, so naturally the emphasis is on (winds, AO or whatever). Some papers focus on less than five years of data. None that I could see give an estimate as to the percentage contribution of various factors to long-term sea ice decline. Highlighting these papers could give the casual reader the impression that this is the balance of understanding of multidecadal Arctic sea ice decline. But the fact is that while other factors contribute, temperature changes are understood to be a major, if not the primary, factor. Eg,
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/comiso_etal_2008.pdf
In a couple of your cites, and others i’ve read, it is suggested that sea ice transport has increased in recent years. This may well be a result of long-term temperature-forced sea ice decline/thinning (also suggested here and there). The possible increased effectivenes of wind-driven ice transport may itself be a result of Arctic warming.
I found one source that nearly corroborates your view of GHG/temperature forcing being a minor player in Arctic sea ice trends.
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/mholland/papers/Polyak_2010_historyofseaiceArctic.pdf
Finally, Arctic sea ice decline has definitely accelerated, as testified in several of the papers and articles you cite. This is so for global sea ice also, despite the slight Antarctic increase.
Barry says:
“Finally, Arctic sea ice decline has definitely accelerated…”
Wrong, Barry. Go stand in the corner with Mike and JohnB. We have another dunce cap just for you, too.
As has been shown in numerous articles here over the last couple of years, Arctic ice cover is always cyclical. It is affected by wind and currents, not by CO2. It has been both greater and less during recorded history. The North Pole was ice free only a few decades ago. Today’s Arctic ice is well within its historical parameters, thus the null hypothesis remains unfalsified, and your alternate conjecture is falsified by the null parameters, which have not been exceeded. Not to mention your blatant cherry-picking of only one Hemisphere.
The Antarctic contains close to ten times more ice than the Arctic, and the Antarctic is steadily gaining ice. Therefore “carbon” has nothing to do with it. Pointing to cyclic Arctic ice cover is pure desperation. It is the ultimate in cherry-picking, because you never mention the Antarctic.
Antarctica is losing land ice. As Berry said there has been as increase in Antarctic sea ice. On net the cryosphere is losing mass.
[REPLY:
1. This is still an invalid e-mail address.
2. Citations for assertions are good.
3. Your Climate Change page lists only 4 skeptic websites, including Foxnews(?????). WUWT is not one of them. It would be decent of you to repair the oversight as we are one of the most viewed and influential blogs on the net.
4. I did mention that site policy requires a valid e-mail address to comment….
Thank you. -REP]
barry says: June 11, 2012 at 5:10 pm
you wrote upthread in reply to Mosher,
I wrote that, “the primary influences on Sea Ice Area and Extent are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations.”, not that ” winds explain all of the decline from 1979 on.” Clearly there are numerous secondary influences, including atmospheric and sea surface temperatures, however the body of evidence indicates that the primary influences are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations, not atmospheric and sea surface temperatures.
Your sources do not quantitatively support your emphasis. Eg,
“the combined effect of winter and summer wind forcing accounts for 50% of the variance of the change in September Arctic sea ice extent from one year to the next ( Δ SIE) and it also explains roughly 1/3 of the downward linear trend of SIE over the past 31 years..”
Influence of winter and summer surface wind anomalies on Summer Arctic sea ice extent Ogi and Wallace (2009)
This reference only refers to the wind component and it attributes roughly 33% “of the downward linear trend of SIE over the past 31 years to wind forcing.” The inclusion of the contribution from Atmospheric Oscillations supports my assertion that “the primary influences on Sea Ice Area and Extent are in fact wind and Atmospheric Oscillations”, i.e.:
“The decreases in recent decades, which are also partially due to circulation-driven ice export through the Fram Strait between Greenland and Svalbard (Vinje, 2001), have coincided with a positive trend in the NAO, with unusually high index values in the late 1980s and 1990s. During this period, the variability of ice motion and ice export through the Fram Strait was correlated strongly with the NAO; r∼ 0.86 for the ice area flux (Kwok and Rothrock, 1999) and r∼ 0.7 for the ice volume flux (Hilmer and Jung, 2000), although the relationship was insignificant (r∼ 0.1) before the mid 1970s (Hilmer and Jung, 2000). Deser et al. (2000) analysed a 40-yr gridded data set (1958–97) to determine the association between arctic sea ice, SAT and SLP, concluding that the multidecadal trends in the NAO/AO in the past three decades have been ‘imprinted upon the distribution of Arctic sea ice’, with the first principal component of sea-ice concentration significantly correlated (r∼−0.63) with the NAO index, recently cause-and-effect modelled by Hu et al. (2002). None the less, our calculations and those of Deser et al. (2000) indicate that, even in recent decades, only about one third of the variability in arctic total ice extent and MY ice area (Johannessen et al., 1999) is explained by the NAO index ”
” The decadal-scale mode associated with the Arctic Oscillation (AO) and a low-frequency oscillation (LFO) with an approximate time scale of 60-80 years, dominate. Both modes were positive in the 1990s, signifying a prolonged phase of anomalously low atmospheric sea level pressure and above normal surface air temperature in the central Arctic. Consistent with an enhanced cyclonic component, the arctic anticyclone was weakened and vorticity of winds became positive. The rapid reduction of arctic ice thickness in the 1990s may be one manifestation of the intense atmosphere and ice cyclonic circulation regime due to the synchronous actions of the AO and LFO. Our results suggest that the decadal AO and multidecadal LFO drive large amplitude natural variability in the Arctic making detection of possible long-term trends induced by greenhouse gas warming most difficult.”
Igor V. Polyakov and Mark A. Johnson, 2000
http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/twimberley/EnviroPhilo/Decadal.pdf
“Hilmer and Jung (2000) note a secular change in the relationship between the Fram Strait ice flux and the NAO; the high correlation noted by Kwok and Rothrock (1999) from 1978 to 1996 was not found in data prior to 1978. We expect our overall results to be more robust given the strong relationship between the AO and SIM over the Arctic, as compared to the weaker relationship between the north–south flow through Fram Strait and the AO. Even if one ignored the effect of the AO on the flux of ice through Fram Strait, the divergence of ice in the eastern Arctic would be still be ;50% greater under high-index conditions than under low-index conditions, and the heat flux would be ;25% greater.”
” We have shown that sea ice provides memory for the Arctic climate system so that changes in SIM driven by the AO during winter can be felt during the ensuing seasons; that is, the AO drives dynamic thinning of the sea ice in the eastern Arctic during winter, allowing more heat to be released from the ocean through the thinner ice during spring, and resulting in lower SIC during summer and the liberation of more heat by the freezing of the ice in autumn. The correlations between the wintertime AO and SIC and SAT during the subsequent seasons offers the hope of some predictability, which may be useful for navigation along the Northern Sea route.”
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/Response-of-Sea-Ice-to-the-Arctic-Oscillation-2002-J-Climate.pdf
Some papers focus on less than five years of data.
This is true, but also misleading in that several of the papers focus on a shorter research period in order to demonstrate a longer-term effect, .e.g. in this article associated with one of the papers I cited:
” Extreme changes in the Arctic Oscillation in the early 1990s — and not warmer temperatures of recent years — are largely responsible for declines in how much sea ice covers the Arctic Ocean, with near record lows having been observed during the last three years, University of Washington researchers say.”
“It may have happened more than a decade ago, but the sea ice appears to still “remember” those Arctic Oscillation conditions, according to Ignatius Rigor, a mathematician with the UW’s Applied Physics Laboratory.”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2004/12/041220010410.htm
But the fact is that while other factors contribute, temperature changes are understood to be a major, if not the primary, factor. Eg,
However, the fact that over the past few years, sea ice coverage has continued, overall, to decline despite changes in the modes of the AO and NAO and in the predominant wind patterns suggests that at this point the warming conditions may be overriding the oscillations.
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/comiso_etal_2008.pdf
I am certainly not arguing that ocean and atmospheric temperatures are not significant influences, however I’ve seen no evidence to support them as the primary influences, furthermore there is significant evidence that some variations in Atmospheric and Sea Surface Temperatures are driven by Atmospheric and Oceanic Oscillations, e.g.
A dominant mode of Arctic variability is the Arctic Oscillation (AO), and its strong positive phase during the 1990s may account for much of the recent decrease in Arctic ice extent. The AO explains more than half of the surface air temperature trends over much of the Arctic [Rigor et al., 2000].
http://www.atmos.umd.edu/~kostya/Pdf/Seaice.30yrs.GRL.pdf
“We present area-averaged time series of temperature for the 100–150 m depth layer of the Barents Sea from 1900 through 2006. This record is dominated by multidecadal variability on the order of 4_C which is correlated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation Index.”
http://www.leif.org/EOS/2009GL039847.pdf
Thus efforts to ascribe the Arctic warming and Sea Ice decline to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions is even more tenuous.
Finally, Arctic sea ice decline has definitely accelerated, as testified in several of the papers and articles you cite. This is so for global sea ice also, despite the slight Antarctic increase.
Firstly, my conclusion is that ‘“Earth’s “Temperature” appears to have increased during the last several decades, but there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or accelerating warming.’ and thus I’ve made no assertions in terms of the rate of change in Sea Ice. Secondly, my argument here is that temperature is likely a secondary influence on Arctic Sea Ice, and thus the change in Arctic Sea Ice offers no support to the erroneous assertion that Earth is warming rapidly and that this warming is accelerating. As such, do you accept my conclusion that “there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or accelerating warming” on Earth, or can you present any evidence to refute it?
Mike says:
June 11, 2012 at 8:23 pm
“Antarctica is losing land ice. As Berry (sic) said there has been as increase in Antarctic sea ice. On net the cryosphere is losing mass.”
Wrong as always, Mike:
http://www.robertb.darkhorizons.org/seaice.anomaly.Ant_arctic.jpg
[Reply: Provide a legitimate email address, “Mike”, or have your future comments deleted. ~dbs, mod.]
Mike says:
June 11, 2012 at 2:08 pm
@smokey, http://curryja.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/14.jpg
Your chart shows an acceleration over the last 100 years. That is the period of human emissions of CO2. That may or may not be a coincidence but it is a fact. This acceleration may or may not be a natural variation. The recent pause in surface warming may or may not be part of a new longer term trend.
1. A positive trend line is not an acceleration.
2. A “pause” in acceleration means acceleration has ceased.
3. A *cooling* trend is not an acceleration in *warming*.
4. If you’re looking around for your lunch, Smokey and Gail have already eaten it — go back to the kitchen and make a new one.
Smokey said The North Pole was ice free only a few decades ago.
As REP mentioned : Citations for assertions are good.
Rob Dekker,
You can start here.
@ Gail Combs says:
June 11, 2012 at 12:55 pm
“The EU has committed itself to a 20% reduction by 2020 and to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050.…. That means reducing our civilization to below the energy use of the 1800s!!!”
_______________________________
Mike says:
June 11, 2012 at 1:33 pm
That is a reduction in emissions not energy. Some energy use reduction will be derived from higher efficiency and conservation. But I think most of the emissions reduction are to be achieved through new energy sources and nuclear power. You may disagree with this goal or think it cannot be obtained. The current flight from nuclear power may indeed undermine this goal. But that is a different question.
________________________________
Mike, the anti-nuke people are normally the same as the anti-coal, gas, oil people so nuclear has never been in the cards. You are not going to run our current level of civilization on pixie dust, unicorn farts, biofuel, wind and solar power. Ain’t gonna happen. You can perhaps keep the elite in the comfort they wish to be and maybe some hospitals but that is it.
The freezing deaths of the old folks in the UK show I am correct when you look at the real world.
If those pushing CAGW are wrong and we are actually headed into a Bond Event (Dansgaard-Oeschger events) then the madness of politically enforced “Energy Poverty” is going to kill thousands if not millions. You are going to see rebellion and blood running in the streets. That was bad enough a few centuries ago (1/2 bond event) when the temperature dipped and the world saw the French and American revolutions then all humans had guns. Now with nukes and other nasty weapons it could get really bad.
“The course of a D-O event sees a rapid warming of temperature, followed by a cool period lasting a few hundred years.” …Hmmm… A cold spike, then a warm spike, then a few hundred years of cold…. D-O events are warming on a 1500 year cycle. Bond Events are cold on a 1500 year cycle. Heinrich Events are cold just before a 1500 year warming event. (He predicts a bond event at 2025 just in time for the sun to really sink into a solar Grand Minimum) Sound familiar as the temperature plateaus and Tibet has its livestock freeze to death?
I am all for moving to nuclear for most of our power requirements. However civilizations all run on power, slave, animal, wind, solar, oil, gas, coal or nuclear, those are our choices to date. I prefer Nuclear and saving petrochemicals for use by the chemical industry. Wind and solar are good for niche markets such as pumping water or electrifying farm fence where mass generate electricity is unavailable they are terrible for mass power generation because they can not provide a constant output.