By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
I have now had the opportunity to study SteveF’s remarkable essay at Lucia’s Blackboard, to which Anthony kindly draws attention in his footnote to my earlier posting on the absence of statistically-significant global warming for 17 years 4 months.
SteveF’s conclusion is that once allowance has been made for three naturally-occurring influences – volcanic aerosols, the ~11-year solar cycle and the el Niño/la Niña cycles – the HadCRUt4 warming rate from 1979-1996 was six times faster than from 1997-2012. In the abstract, to allow for uncertainties, he cautiously reduces this to three times faster.
Even if one were to take the unadjusted HadCRUt4 data, the rate of warming from 1979-1996 was more than twice as fast as the rate from 1997-2012.
I decided to look not only at HadCRUt4, as SteveF did, but also at the two satellite datasets, RSS and UAH. RSS showed warming at 0.7 Cº/century from 1979-1996 and cooling at almost 0.1 Cº/century from 1997-2012.
UAH, however, in contrast to both HadCRUt4 and RSS, showed warming in the later period, 1997-2012, that was thrice as fast as the warming of the earlier period, 1979-1996.
SteveF’s essay takes no account of the most substantial medium-term natural cycle that seems to influence global temperatures: the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. The cycles of that great Oscillation tend to exercise a warming influence for about 30 years followed by a cooling influence for about 30 years. This cyclical influence is visible throughout the HadCRUt4 global temperature record since 1850.
There was a remarkably sharp transition from the “cooling” to the “warming” phase of the PDO at the beginning of 1976 and a transition back to “cooling” late in 2001.
The HadCRUt4 warming rate from 1976-2001 was equivalent to almost 1.8 Cº/century (compared with warming at just 1.1 Cº/century from 1979-1996), but from 2002 to the present HadCRUt4 shows cooling at a rate equivalent to almost 0.5 Cº/century (compared with warming at almost 0.5 Cº/century from 1997-2012).
Much of the fall in the warming rate identified by SteveF, therefore, appears to be attributable to the PDO. It would be interesting to adjust the global instrumental temperature anomaly record not only for volcanic aerosols, solar cycles and el Niños but also for the cycles of the PDO, but that is above my present pay-grade.
What is far from clear is the influence, if any, from CO2. Its influence must be very small, for it seems easily overwhelmed by natural influences such as the PDO and the three phenomena studied by SteveF.
During the three “warming” phases of the PDO that are visible in the HadCRUt4 instrumental record since 1850, the warming rates were as follows: 1860-1880 less than 1.0 Cº/century; 1910-1940 1.4 Cº/century; and 1976-2001 1.8 Cº/century.
Superficially, there appears to be an inexorable and strikingly near-linear increase in the warming rates during successive “warming” phases of the PDO. Might this increase be attributable to the monotonic increase in CO2 over recent decades?
If the increase in warming rates were to continue, perhaps as a result of the growing warming influence from CO2, the warming from about 2040-2070 might be equivalent to 2.2 Cº/century; and from 2100-2130 2.6 Cº/century.
It would not be until around 2160-2190 that the warming rate would reach the IPCC’s currently-projected central estimate of 3.0 Cº/century. And, even then, the mean centennial rate after allowing for the “cooling” phases of the PDO would be considerably less.
However, the apparently tidy 1.0 to 1.4 to 1.8 Cº/century-equivalent increase in the rates of global warming during the “warming” phases of the PDO may not be attributable to CO2 at all. The true cause may be another and more sinister man-made phenomenon: Orwellian data revisionism.
Late in 2009, after the first Climategate emails had been sprung on a naively unsuspecting world, Roger Harrabin of the BBC, an acquiescent true-believer in the global-warming Party Line, was told by his superiors that for the sake of what little is left of the BBC’s reputation he should – just for once – ask Professor Jones of the University of East Anglia some critical questions about the temperature record.
Harrabin had never before stopped to think about whether the Party Line was true. That is the trouble with the Party Line: as Orwell points out in 1984, it is intended as a substitute for independent thought – or for any thought.
So he did not know what questions to ask. He asked me for help in framing suitable critical questions.
I told him to ask Jones whether there had been any statistically-significant global warming over the previous 15 years. He thought that was an absurd question. The Party Line said warming was occurring at a rate unprecedented in human history.
I told him to ask the question anyway. To his astonishment, Jones – albeit testily – admitted there had been no warming statistically distinguishable from zero for 15 years.
I also told Harrabin to ask Jones whether the rates of warming during the three “warming” phases of the PDO in the instrumental record since 1850 were statistically distinguishable from one another.
Harrabin got a further surprise when Jones told him that the three rates could not be distinguished from one another, statistically speaking. On the then HadCRUt3 version of the global dataset, the rates of warming were equivalent to 1.0, 1.6 and 1.7 Cº/century respectively. The uncertainties in the data during the first of the three periods, 1860-1880, were so large that the rate could not be distinguished from that of the later two periods.
Our CO2 emissions could not have influenced the second period of PDO-driven warming, but we could in theory have influenced the third. Yet in the HadCRUt3 dataset the two periods showed warming within 0.1 Cº/century of one another: far too little an increase to be statistically significant.
At a climate conference in Cambridge a few years ago, I asked Jones whether, given that the global warming rates in the three “warming” phases of the PDO could not be distinguished from one another statistically speaking, any anthropogenic influence was yet discernible in the temperature record. He said there was a discernible influence, but did not say where or how large it was.
Not long afterwards, and perhaps not coincidentally, he produced HadCRUt4. Suddenly the rates of warming during the second and third PDO “warming” phases were changed from 1.6 and 1.7 Cº/century respectively to 1.4 and 1.8 Cº/century respectively.
As with other such instances of data revisionism in the terrestrial datasets, the later period was changed very little because the satellites were watching and prevented cheating. But the record in the earlier period was pushed downwards, artificially steepening the apparent warming over the 20th century. It is as though we knew better than those who took the earlier measurements what measurements they ought to have recorded, all over the world.
Disentangling the true contribution of CO2 to warming from not only the numerous natural influences but also from the effects of data revisionism is near impossible. We shall have to wait and see. The one fact that is already clear, however, is that the warming rate predicted by the models on whose output the climate scare is founded is proving to be a hefty exaggeration.
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Your Lordship:
Thanks for the backstory on the sudden discovery of cooling in the first half of the 20th & last half of the 19th centuries, previously thought to have shown recovery (ie, warming) from the LIA cooling.
I wonder if GISS followed the Had Crew’s lead in this archaeodatalogical revisionism or made the same discovery all by themselves?
…and all eyes should be held firmly on the revisionists so that their activities can be spoken of in blogs globally. Point taken, sir.
I don’t consider myself a conspiration theorist, therefore I refuse to believe that there is conspiration to adjust past temperature records in a way favorable to global warming alarmism.
The fact that values changed in such way is no proof. In real science, we accept when results change in unfavorable way as long as we know they are closer to reality.
Of course if somebody found that they intentionally changed data processing towards less precise but politically more favorable, that would be a different story. But I’m not aware of any evidence for that.
show your work
The missing piece of the puzzle is how they worked their magic. I’d love to see a recipe for turning Hadcrut3 into Hadcrut4, that would tell us a lot about what was happening. If the details of how to do this are not public domain, they should be.
The one fact that is already clear, however, is that the warming rate predicted by the models on whose output the climate scare is founded is proving to be a hefty exaggeration.
It’s not just an obvious exaggeration, it’s just plain wrong.
Parallax from looking up at thermometers makes them read higher, and we all know folks were shorter in ancient times.
I don’t understand, though, why they get shorter with every subsequent revision.
“What is far from clear is the influence, if any, from CO2. Its influence must be very small, for it seems easily overwhelmed by natural influences such as the PDO and the three phenomena studied by SteveF.”
I don’t see the logic of that. In fact if the cooling since 2001 can be explained by the PDO, then removing its effect would enhance the role of GHG forcing.
But in any case, it seems quite possible that the effect over decades of GHG forcing is comparable to that of ENSO, PDO etc. The difference is that they are cyclic; GHG forcing just goes on and on.
The horror of this whole global warming scam is simply that if all the money and effort spent on “proving agw” (no caps intended) we could have learned much about the climate and weather.
Thank you for your efforts My Lord.
What is the explanation for the difference in trend for UAH satellite data?
“The true cause may be another and more sinister man-made phenomenon: Orwellian data revisionism.”
You can strike the “may” for most of the core AGW movements technical arm. The digression here isn’t that data is cherry-picked and corrupt but the actual reasons for AGW belief systems (leftist policy design) aren’t mentioned in guise of keeping the point “technical” or “about science” etc. Many skeptics can’t seem to publicly accept the basic truth, AGW is about a left-wing social agenda not based on a serious science discipline. The perpetrators (core warmers and media arm) have to pretend but skeptics are facilitators when they chronically exclude motives from their technical presentations and comments. Why the data was distorted is main point of the story. This is why warming agenda’s advance, the avoidance and potentially divisive conversation among skeptics regarding why AGW was massively promoted on a global basis. All the spaghetti graphs in the world aren’t going to save you from tyranny if you support this convention.
AGW is about Orwellian tyranny which is bigger than data revisionism. Start with the political ID of who you are questioning and will become very clear and very fast; Roger Harrabin of the BBC. He’s a run of the mill greenbot activist journalist. The BBC speaks for itself, Orwellian leftist often enough. The technical writers of the IPCC opinions? Overwhelmingly left-wing and the higher you move up the political authority and policy statement arm the more left-wing it becomes.
I’m for wiping out the Chinese Wall (U.S. Financial term, divide between bankers and conflicted investment divisions, wall of silence between them on self-interested activity) on politics and technical people of all types. Everyone must disclose their politics commenting on AGW, skeptics and warmers alike. That will get closer to the truth and save trillions of electrons in the process.
I find it interesting that, apart from a couple of misinterpreted emails, the evidence for conspiracy is non-existent yet it comes up time and time again. The rejection of AGW here is often ideological rather than scientific, as witnessed by cwon14’s unsubstantiated rant. I’m interested in the fact that the less secure a man is, the more likely he is to have extreme prejudice.
Bias watch: lifelong Conservative voter, Daily Telegraph reader.
Nick Stokes says:
June 15, 2013 at 10:46 pm
Since the net forcing you imagine can’t and hasn’t been quantified it has little science relevance. Warmers bet the farm on model predictions and lost. They did it at the time because it was politically expedient not that it was good science. It was a desperate movement from inception, again based on political lust not science. Sorry, no get out of jail free card for the movement activists.The movement bet on warmer temp data and fear relating to higher co2, live with it. That there has never been a co2 warming finger print based on proxy results should have ended this discussion long ago. The last 17 years really isn’t really that important from a science view but that reflects the whole sham of warmer claims more than reciprocal illogic of critics. This is where warmers dragged the public to begin with.
Harmful AGW based on co2 was always politically motivated science fiction, the lust to regulate and tax carbon (many side motivations as well). The quantification attempt on co2 failed in a spectacular way. The more important question is how we aren’t going to let other pseudoscience fraud for political aims become the norm. That’s the important question as the AGW mania is refuted. Nothing should be forgotten or forgiven, core warmers should be in the dock. They didn’t do it for “science” or Gaia. Their political culture is what is on trial.
@Kasuha. In research (regardless of the discipline), it is not rare to find studies that fiddle with values in order to support otherwise untenable hypotheses. This does not constitute conspiracy. It simply is bad science and there are truckloads of it.
The cumulative influence of high solar activity in the 20th century is also a factor in the warming trends. It stayed high until 1996 after apparently peaking in 1985, so this would also mean that the 3 rates of warming since ~1850 might be different.
@Steven Mosher
Show your contradictory evidence?
I think they need to keep global temperatures going up by fair means or foul so that the subsidy regime can continue unabated. Read this for some enlightenment over how the subsidy regime flourishes here in United Kingdom. £100,000 or so subsidy per job per annum.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/10122850/True-cost-of-Britains-wind-farm-industry-revealed.html
“True cost of Britain’s wind farm industry revealed
Every job in Britain’s wind farm industry is effectively subsidised to the extent of £100,000 per year, The Telegraph can disclose. ”
Some gravytrain that.
I bet the biggest cause for the recent temp flatlining is the worldwide saturation of urbanization in cities and towns where thermometers are placed. The temp of Tokyo has risen by 3 degC over 100 years (Miyake island, only 180 km apart, shows no temp trend), but in these years even Tokyo shows very little temp change, as in many big and medium cities all over Japan.
Another cause may be the situation where THEY can no longer adjust the surface temps freely, because of the careful eyes from many people, after Climategate scandals.
Kasuha says:
June 15, 2013 at 10:32 pm
People behaving in concert to their political cultures may appear to be a “conspiracy” but that isn’t a proper word. I would reserve that word for people who prearrange a selfish outcome for any motivated purpose, in secret. It’s not the social bias results can’t worse than a conspiracy, impacting many if not more at times. Billions have been malinvested due to the AGW movement in a world where people starve, carbon energy has a far cost than it otherwise would without the green domination and the AGW facility at hand.
While I don’t believe the word “conspiracy” is proper nor is the knee-jerk “you’re a conspiracy theorist” if you question the political ID of advocates. While we are dealing with vast populations with many political contradictions along the way I’m sure in a general way AGW advocacy was always based on a green left fringe culture that was more mainstreamed and facilitated by left-wing media and other alliances of similar doctrine along the way. That isn’t a conspiracy but the reality of our time.
The protocol that there were larger apolitical social customs in many areas of society, such as science, has pretty much gone out the window thanks to the AGW movement in particular. It didn’t grow off the grass, it’s happening or has happened in may other industries and social enclaves. It’s not that college professors weren’t decidedly more left-wing in 1950 than the society at large for example. It’s simply that there was more political diversity on campus 60 years ago the range of what was considered “normal” has changed radically. So generally there is loss of confidence as each institution and social enclave declines to its core political inclinations. Science has merely joined the process, AGW advocacy was logical as it was linked to the larger enclave “Environmental Sciences” that grew in mass from the 60’s Earth Day culture. Why the media, the MSM variety, is decidedly left-wing and institutionalized and acting in concert is another topic. More seriously while people were divided 60 or 70 years ago they might have found a common ground in opposing fascism or communism as a basic prism of a whole society. Apolitical socialization was simply stronger than it is today. Now there are fantastical impositions of indoctrination at the lowest levels that would have been greatly feared just a generation ago. No conspiracy, just reality.
tb.. I’m saying you hit the bullseye on both accounts.
But you can bet they will keep trying anyway !!
If you go back to the raw data, by removing all the GISS, HadCrud “ADJUSTMENTS”…
there hasn’t been that very much warming in the last 70 or so years !
ps I’m sure they managed to ‘justify” all those ‘adjustments’, though ! lol !
by jove, i think the good Lord is on to something.
in london last nite, at the rain-affected Wimbeldon warmup at Queens, our former aussie #1, Lleyton Hewitt, had a go at the Tournament organisers for relying on weather forecasters:
16 June: NewsLtd: Marin Cilic beats Lleyton Hewitt in Queen’s club semi-final
A controversial decision to shift his semi-final with Marin Cilic from centre court after the match had started because of forecast bad weather angered Hewitt…
Hewitt claimed tournament officials were too reliant on too many weather forecasts.
“I just don’t think you can go off a forecast because, as they told me, they had 16 different forecasts going today from 16 different places, and they all had a different forecast,” Hewitt said…
http://www.news.com.au/sport/tennis/marin-cilic-beats-lleyton-hewitt-in-queens-club-semi-final/story-fndkzym4-1226664495523
“Many skeptics can’t seem to publicly accept the basic truth, AGW is about a left-wing social agenda not based on a serious science discipline.”
As a point of fact, I suspect it’s likely that CAGW and the leftist social agenda both stem from a shared sensibility about how the world works. The one doesn’t adequately explain the other. Absent explicit declarations of political advocacy on the part of a scientist, limiting the discussion to the science is reasonable and proper.
It *is* frustrating, as a skeptic, to see how easily scientists have acquiesced to agenda-driven science, and it’s frustrating as a citizen to see policy guided by pseudoscience. Tearing down the Chinese wall, however, could foreseeably lead to greater frustrations down the road.
“GHG forcing just goes on and on.”
And on and on and on and on…look there’s goes Venus’s temperature record, and on and on, here comes the Sun’s record.
Fair dinkum Nick.
@ur momisugly Nick, ” it seems quite possible that the effect over decades of GHG forcing is…. DIDDLY SQUAT !!!”
Kasuha says:
June 15, 2013 at 10:32 pm
/////////////////
The data is the DATA. it never changes. It is only the interpretation of the data that changes.
The DATA is what the thermometers read at the time of the measurement as recorded in the contemporaneous log/record. That is the empirical observation, and is the underlying fact.
The issue here is whether any adjustment to the temperature as recorded (on any day) is required, and if so, clear reasons as to why this is the case, the extent of the adjustment necessary, and clear reasons why that extent is necessary/justified.
It is important to recognise that any adjustment is not a matter of fact but rather a matter of subjective interpretation. Hopefully, that subjective interpretation is carried out on an objective basis, but since the full explanation behind each and every adjustment is not readily available, it is difficult to judge the objectivity of the adjustments made.
The adjustments made, may of course, be reasonable and may assist in the objective interpretation of the data set. But likewise there is the risk that they do not assist the interpretation f the data set, but instead contaminate it.
One of the problems in climate science is that we run the risk that we are analysing the effects of the adjustments made to the data set, at the expense of properly analysing the data itself.