Apparently, one of the proudest achievements of the website SkepticalScience is their “Down the Up Escalator” gif animation. They prominently display it in their right sidebar. The intent of the animation is to show that global temperature anomalies can flatten or cool over decadal or shorter periods while warming over the long term.
The first version was created using the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) land surface air temperature dataset. That, of course, made SkepticalScience appear two-faced, because the papers associated with the BEST dataset had not yet appeared in any peer-reviewed scientific journals and SkepticalScience downplays any research efforts that haven’t been peer reviewed.
ONE OF THE TRENDS IN THE REVISED ESCALATOR IS MISREPRESENTED
Bogus Escalator
In an effort to distract from their duplicity, SkepticalScience revised and reissued the animation (modified screen cap above), using the average of the GISS LOTI, HADCRUT4, and NCDC land surface air plus sea surface temperature anomaly datasets. If you were to click on the mini “Escalator” animation along the right-hand side of their main page, you’re brought to the updated GISS-, UK Met Office- and NCDC-based Escalator. SkepticalScience describes “The Escalator” animation as (my boldface):
Average of GISS, NCDC, and HadCRUT4 monthly global surface temperature anomalies from January 1970 through August 2012 (green) with linear trends applied to the timeframes Jan ’70 – Oct ’77, May ’77 – Dec ’85, Jan ’86 – June ’94, Nov ’94 – Dec ’00, Jan ’01 – Aug ’12.
You’ll note that they’re now calling it “The Escalator”—no longer calling it the “Down the Up Escalator”. Yet each of the steps in their escalator clearly shows a short-term trend that’s flat or cools slightly.
SkepticalScience misrepresented the trend of the “fourth step”. The time period they selected is November 1994 to December 2000. As it turns out, the only dataset that shows a flat trend during that period is the GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI). Both HADCRUT4 and NCDC have significant warming trends from November 1994 to December 2000 at about 0.08 to 0.09 deg C per decade. The average of the three datasets is approximately 0.06 deg C/decade, and that is a significant warming trend.
Actual Linear Trends During Fourth Step of Escalator
How significant is that 0.06 deg C per decade trend? It’s comparable to the trend in global surface temperatures since 1880.
GISS LOTI Global Surface Temperature Anomalies Since 1880
The following animation will give you an idea what “The Escalator” would look like if SkepticalScience had used the real linear trend for the fourth step. Depending on your browser, you may need to click on the following gif animation.
The Escalator With Actual Linear Trends
A COUPLE OF NOTES
As noted in my WUWT-TV presentation “The Natural Warming of the Global Oceans”, “The Escalator” is an exercise in cherry-picked start and end dates. Proponents of anthropogenic global warming will incorrectly cite “The Escalator” during my blog discussions of ENSO-related upward shifts in Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific (90S-90N, 80W-180) sea surface temperature anomalies. (In recent years, I typically present that dataset as the “Rest-of-the-World”, because I usually now start with the East Pacific data, which shows no warming over the entire 30-year term of the satellite era.) When the disciples of SkepticalScience link “The Escalator”, they are simply trying to distract from the process-caused shifts. Those natural processes were described in the WUWT-TV presentation and detailed with numerous datasets in my book Who Turned on the Heat?
Rest of the World Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies With Linear Trends
The above graph was presented in the post Does The Sea Surface Temperature Record Support The Hypothesis Of Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Proponents of anthropogenic global warming have another, related, inconsequential complaint about my research. They claim the decade-long time periods between the 1986/98/88, 1997/98 and 2009/10 El Niño events are too short for the trends to be significant. Curiously, when SkepticalScience is trying to make a point, they have no trouble presenting a series of decadal trends, and when SkepticalScience is trying to mislead their followers, they have no trouble misrepresenting the trend for a shorter 6-year period. Apparently, linear trends over periods as short as 6 years do have significance. Looks like another example of the double standards of the proponents of anthropogenic global warming.
In the next few days, I’ll present PBS’s sleight of hand about “The Escalator” when they presented it in their Frontline report Climate of Doubt. They were pretty blatant about it.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I’ll accuse SkepticalScience.com of turning the last 7,500 years into an “up the down escalator” exercise, along with everyone else in the AGW camp.
Ah yes, I remember the Nov 1994- Dec 2000 period well. Following the presentation of the MBH98 graph, when the ‘Team’ were clamouring that the world was indeed in the throes of a ‘linear trend’!
Oh, wait a minute…
A cartoonist like Cook should know better.
Bob Tisdale says
How significant is that 0.06 deg C per decade trend? It’s comparable to the trend in global surface temperatures since 1880. ;;;; graph LOTI
Henry says
I have no problem with that graph from around 1920 or 1925 to date, seeing that the uptrend from around that time conforms to my own (statistical) analyses of measurements:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
(uptrend from around 1927 upwards)
However, I seriously doubt that we could have any basis for “global” temp. recording from 1880 to 1920.
In fact, I doubt if you can even show me one calibration certificate of a thermometer from that time.
.
The whole temperature record is misrepresented by the start and end points selected by SknonSence.
“Flat” periods between El Nino spikes: is global warming just the result of closely spaced El Nino events without the countervailing, equivaent La Nina events?
El Nino spikes clearly demonstrate them to be thermal energy redistribution events; the energy that drives up temperatures is already in the planet. Somewhere else must have lost this energy, and if you can’t find it in other surficace substances with a higher thermal capacity, then it must come from the 3rd dimension: beneath the surface of the sea.
The thermal capacity of the oceans is well established to be much more than that of the atmosphere and surface objects such as plants, rock and dirt. How much would it take of the upper 100m (discounting the immediate surface waters)?
The El Nino spikes bring up a thought: could a closely spaced series of La Ninas without equivalent but opposite El Ninos cause a period of global cooling a la 1940 – 1965? Were the Dalton and Maunder Minimum cold spells also a period of La Nina activity or at least a time of no El Ninos?
Their focus on the satellite record cannot be allowed to stand.
Bob T why bother with the truth team from “ss” ? After reading their in-house comments I now consider any commenter who sources their supporting arguments from sceptical science, as a troll.
Its probable that you have generated more traffic for that site than they have seen all month.
I mean its fun to watch the children get slapped down when they come to WUWT to bleat, but is it not cruel to seek them out in their cuccoon of digital security and beat them up with reality?
” Poptech says:
November 25, 2012 at 10:14 am
A cartoonist like Cook should know better.”
It’s all part of his transformation from cartoonist to cartoon.
Even though it may be a disaster, the next ice age will be such a relief.
Bob Tisdale – You appear to have entirely missed the point of that particular illustration, that short time periods (such as the 11 to 12 year trends you favor in your presentations, as per the “Volcano adjusted” anomalies) are both statistically insignificant and entirely expected in short segments of a noisy series. The complaint you present here can best be classified as “nit-picking”.
The 2σ uncertainty ranges for (as an example) GISS data for the 1987-1998 and 1998-2010 periods are ±0.255 and ±0.201 °C/decade, respectively. The uncertainly of the smaller areas you are looking at will, of course, be even higher.
That level of uncertainty around your short time trends of -0.001 and 0.0001 means that short “step-changes” of the kind you favor are statistically unsupportable. The range of uncertainty for that short a time series means you can exclude trends of perhaps >0.2 and <-0.2, but nothing in between.
Now, if you look at the entire period of 1987 to 2010, you see (in GISTEMP) a linear trend of 0.165 ±0.082 °C/decade (2σ). That (unlike your “step-changes”) is statistically significant.
Calculate and show your ranges of uncertainties, and demonstrate that your trends are meaningful – until then I (for one) will not take your data seriously. Nor, I expect, will anyone else with knowledge of statistics. In the meantime, your _continued_ assertions based on 10-12 year periods demonstrate that you don’t get the point of that “Escalator” graphic.
One is reminded of the M.C. Escher drawing of the stairwell that appears to keep rising but also mysteriously meets itself at the bottom!
To say that Cook has misrepresented ‘one’ thing is going for the soft target…much harder to find some aspect of the science that he is portraying correctly!
The biggest issue with this step SkepticalScience graph are periods shorter than they told us are not long enough periods to judge. Yet they have cherry picked themselves and chosen shorter periods all less than a decade except the latter. Which can easily be extended back to at least 1998 and still show a flat trend. Hypocrites is the word I am looking for here. The recent period is different to these short cherry picked steps as it is a much longer period now. Finally each short ease in warming doesn’t mean it will warm after as in the 1940’s to 1970’s periods more recently shown. The recent period resembles closer to the 1940’s extended no warming period and we know what happened then.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1940/to:1980/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1940/to:1980/plot/esrl-co2/from:1958/to:1980/normalise/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1995/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1995/plot/esrl-co2/from:1995/normalise
How can ANYONE publish these NONSENSE GRAPHS (Including WUWT) without making some ATTEMPT to put ERROR BARS ON THEM?
A LITTLE effort, putting S.D.’s on the NOISE would also be invaluable.
Just whining….
Max
Dou Proctor says: “Flat periods between El Nino spikes: is global warming just the result of closely spaced El Nino events without the countervailing, equivaent La Nina events?”
Yup. Speaking of the combined dataset of the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific Oceans (90S-90N, 80W-180), it was the major 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Nino events (and maybe the 2009/10 El Nino) that caused the sea surface temperature anomalies to rise in upward shifts. That happened because the sea surface temperature anomalies did not cool proportionally during the trailing 1988/89 and 1998 thru 2001 La Nina events. The failure to cool during the La Nina events can be seen if we detrend the Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific data (aka Rest of the World in this graph):
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/figure-13.png
Graph is from this post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/a-blog-memo-to-kevin-trenberth-ncar/
HenryP says: “In fact, I doubt if you can even show me one calibration certificate of a thermometer from that time.”
I only present data, HenryP.
It’s much worse than that – their 2nd and 3rd flat trends were caused by El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo. There’s been no similar cataclysmic equatorial eruption since then to explain the recent lack of warming. Which is a travesty.
As I remember it, RealClimate once argued that there had been another hiatus in global warming (thus implying that post-1998 was nothing unusual). They conveniently neglected to mention that the period they referred to included the 1991 Pinatubo eruption. This seems to be a factor in the SkepticalScience graph as well.
OOOPS, for some reason, the animation disappeared from my website over the past couple of days. It, therefore, was missing when Anthony cross posted the post here. The animation is here:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/up-the-broken-escalator1.gif
My fault, apparently.
I remember, as a kid, playing at going up and escalator with my eyes closed but one foot on the step in front.
I could always tell when I got to the top because my feet would start coming to the same level.
Looks like the guerilla forces at Septic Science haven’t quite worked out that little trick yet.
Hey guys! When you get to the flat bit, it’s time to step off.
Harold Ambler at 10:01 am — yes!
Obviously I do not publish but I did take a crack at it.
http://tinyurl.com/c5ddfob
Bob – give up that phony “Volcano-Adjusted” feature. Volcanic cooling of lower troposphere is a myth – it does not exist. Read my book pp. 17 – 21.
You can take warmists’ money by betting on global cooling at Intrade!
http://intrade.com
It’s easy. Just short everything! They really believe the warming is going to increase!
What’s with the 5 month gap from June to November? All the other trends involve no gaps.
SKS has always had a problem in that area of the graph.
If you look at the original “escalator” (http://www.skepticalscience.com/going-down-the-up-escalator-part-1.html), there were six “steps” instead of five. And the last three steps overlapped significantly in a very unescalator-like manner.