Trenberth and Fasullo published a paper “An Apparent Hiatus in Global Warming?” last week in the new online journal Earth’s Future. Judith Curry briefly introduced the paper in her December 7, 2013 post Week in review (Thanks, Judith.)
From the last sentence of the abstract, Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) argues that:
Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.
CHERRY PICKING
Midway through the paper, Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) begin a paragraph with:
Deniers of climate change often cherry-pick points on time series and seize on the El Niño warm year of 1998 as the start of the hiatus in global mean temperature rise (Figure 6).
But then Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) turn around and cherry pick the end year of the “hiatus” in their Figure 4 (shown below as my Figure 1). In it they attempt to show the similarities in global surface temperatures between two recent 12-year periods. The data that stretches from 1982 to 1993 has been shifted upwards by 0.32 deg C to align the two periods.
Figure 1
First, anyone looking at their Figure 4 can see that the period of 1982 to 1993 has a much higher warming rate than 1997 to 2008, even without considering the cooling impacts of the eruptions of El Chichon and Mount Pinatubo during that earlier time period. In fact, the warming rate of the period of 1982 to 1993 is more than twice the rate for the period of 1997-2008. See Figure 2.
Figure 2
The Trenberth and Fasullo “cherry picking” is with their end dates, of course. They ended the recent data period in 2008, while the halt in global warming has continued for 5 more years, through year-to-date 2013. Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) would not have wanted to present the two time periods extending for the additional five years, because the early time period would end in 1998, which was impacted by the 1997/98 El Niño. See Figure 3. The warming rate of the period of 1982 to 1998 is almost 5 times higher than the rate from 1997 to year-to-date 2013 (which runs through October 2013).
Figure 3
Provided solely as a reference, Trenberth used 2001 as the start of the halt in global warming in his article for the Royal Meteorological Society earlier this year titled Has Global Warming Stalled? If we delete the first 4 years of data in Trenberth and Fasullo’s Figure 4 and add on the trailing five years, we can see that there has been no warming of global surface temperatures from 2001 to year-to-date 2013, while there was considerable warming during the period of 1986 to 1998. See my Figure 4.
Figure 4
Trenberth and Fasullo look rather foolish by accusing “deniers” of cherry-picking and then turning around and cherry-picking the end date of their comparison in their Figure 4.
THE IMPACTS OF ENSO
Trenberth and Fasullo (2013), like many others, misrepresent the impacts of ENSO on the global surface temperature record. They write:
The biggest fluctuations in global mean surface temperature have been identified with ENSO [e.g., Trenberth et al., 2002]. Figure 6 presents the global mean surface temperature as a 12 month running mean of anomalies after 1970 and it reveals that a linear trend is actually a pretty good fit. The huge warming in 1998 from the 1997 to 1998 El Niño is evident, and to emphasize the relationships between the interannual variability and ENSO, the duration of each El Niño and La Niña event, as given by NOAA’s Oceanic Niño Index (ONI), is also marked on the figure along with the actual time series of the Niño3.4 SSTs on which the ONI is based. The latter indicates the magnitude of each event. The relationship between ENSO and global mean temperatures is well established [Trenberth et al., 2002] and has been used by several studies to linearly “remove” the ENSO effects using linear regression [Lean and Rind, 2008, 2009; Foster and Rahmstorf , 2011]. These studies show that ENSO accounts for short-term fluctuations in global surface temperature with a range of up to 0.39 deg C and a regression of global mean temperature on the Nino3.4 index gives values of 0.1 deg C per standard deviation with a 3 month lag [Trenberth et al., 2002]. Once ENSO is removed, the residual global mean temperature time series is remarkably linear after 1970, with no evidence of a hiatus, highlighting the role of natural variability in the global mean temperatures.
The Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) Figure 6 is presented as my Figure 5.
Figure 5
But in Trenberth et al. (2002) Evolution of El Niño–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures, referenced in the quote above, they caution (my boldface):
The main tool used in this study is correlation and regression analysis that, through least squares fitting, tends to emphasize the larger events. This seems appropriate as it is in those events that the signal is clearly larger than the noise. Moreover, the method properly weights each event (unlike many composite analyses). Although it is possible to use regression to eliminate the linear portion of the global mean temperature signal associated with ENSO, the processes that contribute regionally to the global mean differ considerably, and the linear approach likely leaves an ENSO residual.
Examples of those ENSO residuals are plainly visible in Figure 5 from Trenberth and Fasullo (2013). I’ve added a few notes to cell a (global land+sea surface temperatures) of that illustration in my Figure 6.
Figure 6
Figure 6 is a Hovmoller diagram that shows global surface temperature anomalies from 1979 through mid-2011. It is another way to present a time series of global surface temperature anomalies, and it is quite revealing. The x-axis (horizontal axis) is time, starting in 1979. The y-axis (vertical axis) is latitude, with the South Pole at the bottom, the equator at 0 deg latitude, and the North Pole at the top. The temperature anomalies at given times and latitudes are provided by the colors, with blues being negative anomalies and reds positive temperature anomalies.
The two red boxes capture the impacts, on the tropics, of the 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niño events and the La Niñas that trailed them. Tropical surface temperatures warmed during the El Niños and cooled during the La Niñas. The two blue boxes surround the impacts of those El Niño and La Niña events on the mid-latitudes (20N-65N) of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s plainly obvious that the surface temperatures there did not cool proportionally during the 1988/89 and 1998-01 La Niñas. In this example, because the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere do not cool proportionally during those two La Niñas, the surface temperatures there effectively shift upwards. It is, therefore, impossible to remove the long-term impacts of the preceding El Niño events from the surface temperature record using the methods from Lean and Rind (2008) & (2009) and Foster and Rahmstorf (2011). We have discussed this in numerous posts over recent years, including:
- Rahmstorf et al (2012) Insist on Prolonging a Myth about El Niño and La Niña (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- Revised Post – On Foster and Rahmstorf (2011) (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- Regression Analyses Do Not Capture The Multiyear Aftereffects Of Significant El Nino Events (WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.) It links Lean and Rind (2008).
Briefly, there is warm water left over from the strong El Niño events of 1986/87/88 and 1997/98. That warm water collects in the North Pacific, in an area east of Japan known as the Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension and causes a secondary El Niño warming there. That secondary warming occurs during the trailing La Niñas and prevents the surface temperatures of the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere from cooling proportionally during those La Niñas. For yet another discussion of this, refer to The ENSO-Related Variations In Kuroshio-Oyashio Extension (KOE) SST Anomalies And Their Impact On Northern Hemisphere Temperatures.
Note: The 1986/87/88 and 1997/98 El Niño events, and the failure of global surface temperatures to cool proportionally during the trailing La Niñas, are the causes of two of the “big jumps” Trenberth referred to in his Royal Meteorological Society article Has Global Warming Stalled? I discussed this in my post Open Letter to the Royal Meteorological Society Regarding Dr. Trenberth’s Article “Has Global Warming Stalled?”
And I discussed the natural warming of the global oceans in minute detail in my book Who Turned on the Heat? An overview of the natural warming of the global oceans can also be found in my illustrated essay “The Manmade Global Warming Challenge” (42MB).
If the Hovmoller diagram in Figure 6 looks familiar, RSS presents a similar illustration using their Lower Troposphere Temperature (TLT) anomalies. Similar ENSO residuals and the similar upward shifts in the lower troposphere temperature anomalies were discussed 4 ½ years ago in the post RSS MSU TLT Time-Latitude Plots… …Show Climate Responses That Cannot Be Easily Illustrated With Time-Series Graphs Alone.
As long as the climate science community continues to misrepresent the impacts of ENSO on the global surface temperature record, they will continue to fool themselves, and mislead the public, about the causes of global warming.
THE UNDERLYING ASSUMPTION BEHIND THE PAPER IS FLAWED
The abstract of Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) begins:
Global warming first became evident beyond the bounds of natural variability in the 1970s, but increases in global mean surface temperatures have stalled in the 2000s. Increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide, create an energy imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) even as the planet warms to adjust to this imbalance, which is estimated to be 0.5-1Wm-2 over the 2000s.
To show how flawed that assumption is, we can compare global surface temperature anomalies to climate model simulations during the two warming periods since the start of the 20th Century. See Figure 7. The data in Figure 7 is the NCDC global (land+ocean) surface temperature data in annual form, from 1880 to year-to-date 2013. It’s the same data presented by Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) in their Figure 1. And the models presented are the multi-model ensemble mean of the simulations of global surface temperatures for the same period, using the models stored in the CMIP5 archive. As you’ll recall, the climate models in the CMIP5 archive were used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report (AR5). The model outputs are available through the KNMI Climate Explorer, specifically the Monthly CMIP5 scenario runs webpage. (Notes: We discussed the use of the model mean here, and we discussed the start and end years of the early and late warming under the heading Introduction in the post IPCC Still Delusional about Carbon Dioxide.) Even though the warming of global surface temperatures has halted in recent years, we’re extending the recent warming period to 2013 because the models say surface temperatures should have continued to warm, if they were warmed by the ever-growing emissions of manmade greenhouse gases.
Figure 7
If (BIG IF) “Increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide…” were responsible for global warming, as Trenberth and Fasullo claimed, then the warming rate during the late warming period (1975 to YTD 2013) should have been more than 3.5 times faster than the trend of the early warming period (1914-1945). To contradict the models, the data show similar warming rates during the early and late warming periods.
Looking at the models and data during the early warming period, the data show that global surface temperatures warmed about 2.4 times faster than the rate simulated by the models. This indicates that global surface temperatures are capable of warming without being forced to do so by “Increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide…”
As I note in the summary of Chapter 4.4 of my book Climate Models Fail:
The fact that the models simulated the warming better during the more recent warming period does not mean that manmade greenhouse gases caused that warming — it simply reveals that the modelers managed to tune their models to perform better for the more recent warming period.
The climate models cannot simulate the observed rate of warming during the early warming period (1914-1945), which warmed at about the same rate as the recent warming period (1975-2012). This illustrates that global surface temperatures can warm without being forced — unlike climate models which must be driven by the natural and anthropogenic forcings used as inputs. And the similarities between the observed warming rates during the early and late warming periods indicate that the much higher anthropogenic forcings during the late warming period had little impact on the rate at which observed temperatures warmed.
In other words, the climate models and data do not support the hypothesis of anthropogenic forcing-driven global warming; they contradict it.
The world portrayed by all those number-crunching climate models is a fantasy world — with little or no relationship to the real world.
Let’s take this even further:
Trenberth and Fasullo are both from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The climate model submitted by NCAR to the CMIP5 archive for use in the IPCC’s 5th Assessment Report is their CCSM4. The six ensemble members of the CCSM4 simulations of global surface temperatures (with historic and RCP6.0 forcings) are also available through the KNMI Climate Explorer. The performance of the NCAR CCSM4 models, when simulating global surface temperatures, is even worse than the multi-model mean shown above. See Figure 8.
Figure 8
If “Increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide…” were responsible for global warming, then the warming rate during the late warming period (1975 to YTD 2013) should have been more than 4 times faster than the trend of the early warming period (1914-1945), yet the data show similar warming rates during the two warming periods.
Additionally, the CCSM4 overestimated the warming during the late warming period (1975 to YTD 2013) by 55%, while underestimating the warming during the early warming period by a wide margin.
The NCAR CCSM4 model also does not support the hypothesis that manmade greenhouse gases are responsible for the warming since the mid-1970s.
TRENBERTH AND FASULLO CONFUSE TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCE AND TREND
My Figure 9 is Figure 9 from Trenberth and Fasullo (2013). It presents a map of the difference in average temperature anomalies for the period of 1976-1998 and the average temperature anomalies for the period of 1999 to 2012, throughout the globe, using GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI) data. That is, the average surface temperature anomalies for the period of 1976-1998 have been subtracted from the average surface temperature anomalies for the period of 1999-2012.
Figure 9
Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) write (my boldface):
If we now examine the hiatus period of 1999–2012 and compare it to the time when global warming really took off from 1976 to 1998 (Figure 9), the negative PDO pattern emerges very strongly throughout the Pacific although warming prevails in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and on land. In other words, it is the central and eastern Pacific more than anywhere else that has not warmed in the past decade or so. In spite of some cold European winters, Europe does not standout in Figure 9 and instead is a warm region. The AMO is positive (Figure 7) and is revealed in Figure 9 to be part of a wider warming.
But Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) cannot state that “it is the central and eastern Pacific more than anywhere else that has not warmed in the past decade or so” by subtracting the average temperatures of 1976-1998 from the average temperatures from 1999-2012. That shows the temperature differences for the two periods, not whether it has “warmed in the past decade or so”. To determine if “the central and eastern Pacific more than anywhere else that has not warmed in the past decade or so” they need to perform a trend analysis for the “past decade or so.”
To help show the difference between temperature trends and temperature differences, see Figure 10. Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) are presenting the temperature difference between 1976-1998 and 1999-2012 and suggesting it represents the trend, and it does not.
Figure 10
Figure 11 presents trend maps for the period of 1999 to 2012, using GISS and NCDC global land+sea surface temperature products in the top two cells. And as a reference, the bottom two cells present the trends based on the HADISST and Reynolds OI.v2 sea surface temperature data, which are satellite enhanced.
Figure 11 (Click to enlarge)
As we can see, the actual trends for the period of 1999 to 2012 do not support Trenberth and Fasullo’s statement that “the central and eastern Pacific more than anywhere else that has not warmed in the past decade or so”. Much of the globe has not warmed for the period of 1999 to 2012.
Trenberth and Fasullo also present similar differences, using an ocean heat content reanalysis. See their Figure 12 (not provided in this post).
As an afterthought, I recalled that GISS allows users to create trend maps at their website. See the webpage here. The trend maps in Figure 11, above, were created at the KNMI Climate Explorer, and they illustrate the trends with a “P value < 10%”, meaning they have a significance of at least 90% (see their help page here). I have no idea what the significance of the trends are shown by GISS, but Figure 11b also shows the trends for the period of 1999-2012. They also do not support Trenberth and Fasullo’s statement that “the central and eastern Pacific more than anywhere else that has not warmed in the past decade or so”.
Figure 11b
THE PDO DID IT
Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) are using the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) index as a proxy for the strength, frequency and duration of El Niño and La Niña events during their discussions under the heading of “3.4 Decadal Variability”. I’ve added a note to their Figure 8 in my Figure 12, to show where the PDO index is derived from.
Figure 12
The PDO does not represent the sea surface temperature anomalies of the North Pacific, north of 20N. The PDO is an abstract portrayal of it. A positive PDO index value basically represents how closely the spatial pattern (warm in the east and cool in the central and western extratropical North Pacific) there resembles the spatial pattern caused by El Niño events. A similar but opposite pattern (cool in the east and warm in the central and western extratropical North Pacific) is also created by La Niña events and it provides a negative PDO value. Because the spatial pattern in the North Pacific is also strongly impacted by wind patterns (and the interrelated sea level pressures) there, the PDO has a slightly different pattern in time (decadal variability) than one sees with an ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) index.
Trenberth and Fasullo are presenting the fact that El Niño events dominated the period of 1976 through 1998, and La Niñas dominated from 1999 to 2012. We can show this very simply with the sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific (5S-5N, 170W-120W). See Figure 13. The sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region are a commonly used index of the strength, frequency and duration of El Niño and La Niña events. The large upward spikes show the response of the sea surface temperatures of that region to El Niño events, and the downward spikes (and multiyear troughs) capture the effects of La Niña events.
Figure 13
Note: The base years of 1950 to 1979 are based on those selected in Trenberth (1997) The Definition of El Niño.
As shown in Figure 13, the average NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomaly for 1976 to 1998 is almost +0.3 deg C, indicating that El Niño events dominated that period. And from 1999 to 2012, the average NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomaly is slightly negative, indicating that La Niña events were slightly stronger than El Niño events in more recent years.
During El Niño events, trade winds in the western tropical Pacific reverse, and in the eastern tropical Pacific, the trade winds are weaker than “normal” and sometimes reverse, depending on the strength and location of the El Niño. During La Niña events, the trade winds are stronger than normal.
The bottom line: Trenberth and Fasullo are arguing that, from the abstract:
For the past decade, more than 30% of the heat has apparently penetrated below 700m depth that is traceable to changes in surface winds mainly over the Pacific in association with a switch to a negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) in 1999.
In other words, Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) are claiming that global warming is continuing after 1999, but we’re not seeing it at the surface, because the stronger-than-normal trade winds are piling up the warm water in the western Pacific.
However, it appears Trenberth has forgotten his ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation) basics. In the 2002 paper Evolution of El Niño–Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures, paragraph 57, Trenberth and the others write (my boldface):
The negative feedback between SST and surface fluxes can be interpreted as showing the importance of the discharge of heat during El Niño events and of the recharge of heat during La Niña events. Relatively clear skies in the central and eastern tropical Pacific allow solar radiation to enter the ocean, apparently offsetting the below normal SSTs, but the heat is carried away by Ekman drift, ocean currents, and adjustments through ocean Rossby and Kelvin waves, and the heat is stored in the western Pacific tropics. This is not simply a rearrangement of the ocean heat, but also a restoration of heat in the ocean.
In other words, the stronger trade winds reduce cloud cover, which, in turn, allows more sunlight to warm the tropical Pacific. So, if the stronger trade winds are causing more warm water to be stacked up in the western tropical Pacific, it’s an increase in sunlight that’s fueling it. This was discussed in much more detail under the heading of DOWNWARD SHORTWAVE RADIATION VERSUS DOWNWARD LONGWAVE RADIATION DURING LA NIÑA EVENTS in the post Open Letter to the Royal Meteorological Society Regarding Dr. Trenberth’s Article “Has Global Warming Stalled?”
Also discussed in that post: the other major problem with the presentation of ocean heat content in Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) is they are using the ORAS4 reanalysis and not ocean heat content data. The ORAS4 reanalysis is the product of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) are presenting that reanalysis as gospel, but ECMWF cautions (See their webpage here):
Disclaimer. There is large uncertainty in the ocean reanalysis products (especially in the transports), difficult to quantify. These web pages are aimed at the research community. Any outstanding climate feature should be investigated futher (sic) and not taken as truth.
This was the same reanalysis used by Trenberth in the Balmaseda et al (2013) paper Distinctive climate signals in reanalysis of global ocean heat content, of which he was co-author. And Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) are presenting similar arguments. We’ve already addressed Balmaseda et al (2013) in past posts so there is no reason to rehash them again here. See:
- Trenberth Still Searching for Missing Heat (The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- More on Trenberth’s Missing Heat (The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- Ocean Heat Content (0 to 2000 Meters) – Why Aren’t Northern Hemisphere Oceans Warming During the ARGO Era? (The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- Even More about Trenberth’s Missing Heat – An Eye Opening Comment by Roger Pielke Sr. (The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- Multidecadal Variations and Sea Surface Temperature Reconstructions(The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- Open Letter to the Royal Meteorological Society Regarding Dr. Trenberth’s Article “Has Global Warming Stalled?”(The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
And for more information on the problems with ocean heat content data, see the posts:
- Is Ocean Heat Content Data All It’s Stacked Up to Be?(The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- NODC’s Pentadal Ocean Heat Content (0 to 2000m) Creates Warming That Doesn’t Exist in the Annual Data – A Lot of Warming(The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- A Different Perspective on Trenberth’s Missing Heat: The Warming of the Global Oceans (0 to 2000 Meters) in Deg C(The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- Rough Estimate of the Annual Changes in Ocean Temperatures from 700 to 2000 Meters Based on NODC Data(The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
- AMAZING: The IPCC May Have Provided Realistic Presentations of Ocean Heat Content Source Data(The WattsUpWithThat cross post is here.)
CLOSING
Trenberth and Fasullo (2013) is just another example of the climate science community continuing to attempt to convince (fool) themselves, and the public, that the hypothesis of human-induced global warming is not faulty in light of the halt in global warming. However:
- Sea surface temperature data during the satellite era (Reynolds OI.v2 data) do not support it.
- Ocean heat content data (NODC data for the depth of 0-700 meters) do not support it.
- Climate models (CMIP3 and CMIP5 generations) do not support it.
Someday the climate science community will stop trying to fool themselves (and the public) and accept that the hypothesis of human-induced global warming is fatally flawed. But I don’t expect that to occur in my lifetime.
i expect.
=====
“Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.”
In non-Global, non-Warming ways.
“Global warming has not stopped..”
I question how they know that, but I hope they are correct.
Where I live we are surrounded by drumlins and kettle lakes, my property is still glacially rebounding. I hope that my progeny enjoy a future of warmth and greenery, rather than one engulfed in cold and ice. I do hope they are correct.
It’s the Sun wot did it.
Quite a thorough analysis and rebuttal, Dr. Tisdale. Thanks.
Thank-you Bob for a thorough debunking of the paper. You really canned it.
In particular I find Trenberth and Fasullo assertion –
to be crass, and ridiculous.
This speculation that natural processes, upon which this planet has depended on for billions of years, can not cope with this trivial transient imbalance is not science, this is nonsense.
Someday the climate science community will stop trying to fool themselves (and the public) and accept that the hypothesis of human-induced global warming is fatally flawed. But I don’t expect that to occur in my lifetime.
Never underestimate the power of Nature to turn the tables. How long will it be that people will freeze without noticing that the weather is cooling? The next little ice age could start anytime :).
What gets me is the statement thrown around that “the last ten years have been the warmest ever”, as if in a sinusoidal function that could fit the data, the top of the curve would not be the hottest, until the down side starts, which is seen again and again in the Holocene data.
I think it will be over much sooner than you expect you will be alive to see it. (end of AGW)
Cannot avoid a chuckle as Fasullo in Italian means ‘fake’ (but I suspect the original meaning of the family name was ‘little bean’).
As for the warming manifesting itself differently, we are in full ‘hidden imam’ territory here and one of these days Dear Kev will surely apply for tax-exempt status as head of a religious organization.
Bob Greene says: “Quite a thorough analysis and rebuttal, Dr. Tisdale. Thanks.”
Thanks for the kind words, Bob. But there’s no Dr. before my name.
Regards
anna v, welcome back.
I have copies of the books from the 1970s when this modelling began and they are quite clear that they are models of social systems. The speculation over global warming or cooling and ozone and the effects of additional carbon dioxide are all merely excuses to seize additional power as supposedly necessary to avoid catastrophe. The goal is always the transformation of the political, economic, and social systems. It is never to be a reflector of hard science and it is far more interested in changing personal values than in providing anyone with actual facts.
To go back to the name of the UN’s 1972 conference the real target is changing the nature of the Human Environment and lots of people have made lots of money chasing down those grants. Of course they will not cough up the true goals. But lots of others working with them have.
Global warming is manifesting itself as global cooling now… Like a snake eating its own tail, the global warming scare will kill itself.
@Bob: Don’t give up now. Thanks for another great post.
Excellent, Bob.
Bob: “Someday the climate science community will stop trying to fool themselves (and the public) and accept that the hypothesis of human-induced global warming is fatally flawed. But I don’t expect that to occur in my lifetime.”
Nice article.
I am not sure that the above is true though. If you look at the UAH and RSS Global series then there are three main scenarios that could occur to my mind.
1. The average figures over the next 12-36 months will distribute around the linear trend that one can derive from the whole period they have been available and will continue upwards. Global Warming confirmed?
2. The trend will stay around 0 over the next 12-36 months. Global Warming refuted?
3. The trend will reduce below 0 over the next 12-36 months. Global Warming refuted?
I suspect that it will all come down to what magnitude, phase and period the well known (but not yet attributed) ~60 year cycle becomes visible in the satellite data.
Hopefully you expect to survive at least another 3 years 🙂
The adhockery continues. The warmists need to just walk away. But it is sooo(!) entertaining watching them squirm on the spit of their own making over their petard fueled fire.
Thanks Bob. This looks like a bad remake of “The Never-Ending Story”.
No hotspot, no slr, no storm increase, no warming, no OA, OHC not cooperating. The AGW hypesters and rent seekers have their work cut out for them.
Now that the Monty Python team are reforming, they could add a variation to the dead parrot sketch: “It’s not dead, it’s just alive in a different way.”
Thanks Bob. Keep up your excellent presentations and discussion of the evidence.
Re:
Cheer up – it will likely happen a lot sooner. And may you live to 90.
Collapse in Internet Time
Sharing information via ”samizat” helped bring down the USSR. Now we have blogs like yours. Keep up your good work.
Hey, Bob, ‘doctor’ just means ‘teacher’, and you deserve. Consider it honorably granted.
========
The simplest explanation is usually the truth.
These complicated gyrations, the deep ocean ate my global warming (without the shallow oceans getting a taste), LaNina ate my global warming (Showing that Natural Variation clearly outweighs CO2), The Arctic (above where the thermometer are of course) ate my global warming, or who knows what next, just show how uncertain this global warming stuff is anyway. If Global warming is so tiny it can be completely lost in a moderate PDO shift then what are we worrying about it so much for.
Remember folks, we are a mere 0.7-0.8 degrees away from a cold event that once before claimed 1/2 the population of Europe, in death, disease and famine. Less than a degree C, in my book the precautionary principle dictates we should put as much thermal energy between us and that state as we can possibly manage.
Argh, missed my point…. The simplest explanation must be that the hypothesis is wrong
Regarding Figure 4 on Global Temp Anomalies, the dotted line area. I distinctly recall charts like this from the recent past that showed a significant temperature decrease between about 1945 and 1978. At the time there were grave warnings about “global cooling”. But the temps in this figure appear flat. Has this cooling period been adjusted, biased, and tweaked away?
DirkH says:
December 9, 2013 at 3:37 am
“Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.”
In non-Global, non-Warming ways.
I was thinking the same thing, Dirk.
Global Warming has not stopped, it is merely manifested in localized, burning stupidity as exemplified by Trenberth and company with an assist from SkS.
“Global Warming moves” in mysterious ways.
🙂
Bob, does Trenberth ever acknowledge the existence of your work? Having read your book, the critique of climate models modelling of naturally occurring ocean and cloud cycles seems like it would need to be addressed by the Team.
Seriously, Bob, it would be most useful if your rebuttal were published in the same online journal as the subject article.
Assuming, of course, that the online journal is really concerned about the Earth’s Future – a fact not necessarily in evidence at this time.
Unless it is manifesting its concern in a, uh, different way.
Just like they tried to disappear the MWP, now they are attempting to disappear the 17+year (and counting) halt to the warming. All in a days’ work for the Climate Liars.
With these early season cold waves in the US coupled with the abnormal sun spots and mysterious disappearance of comet ISON, there can be no denying carbon dioxide is messing up the planet and solar system. If Mother Nature wanted carbon dioxide in our air, she would not have put it in the ground in the first place!
“Trenberth and Fasullo look rather foolish by accusing “deniers” of cherry-picking and then turning around and cherry-picking the end date of their comparison in their Figure 4.”
No, they don’t look foolish at all.
They look dishonest. Because they are.
‘Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.’
Ah yes those very different manifestations again, none better than our booted climate commissioner Tim of tiptoe through the tulips or poppies or some such-
“I think that, within this century, the concept of the strong Gaia will actually become physically manifest.”
“That will make it act as a living animal, a living organism, at some sort of level.”
“We can’t control its systems. But we can nudge them, and we can foresee danger.”
Yes well we know he’s been really nudging something for all those manifestations and freaking out-
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/do-not-feel-afraid-gaia-is-with-us/story-e6frezz0-1225980594646
Most of us who survived grew out of it in the 70s
Lets be fair like Mann ,Trenberth would be hard pushed to get a job teaching at a 3rd rate High School , it was not for ‘the cause ‘ so you can understand why he will try anything and everything to keep it going.
Yet another brilliant and exhaustive analysis of Trenberth’s position, Mr. Tisdale. What I enjoy most about your work is that you are focused on the data and that your criticisms of others always serve to bring them back to the data. More than anyone else who criticizes Alarmist arguments, you are the dedicated empiricist and you teach us that a scientific theory retains its integrity only so far as it points us to the data. Your work should serve as a model for science education in our colleges and universities.
Leon0112 says: “Bob, does Trenberth ever acknowledge the existence of your work?”
We’d need another ClimateGate email release to document it, if he has. I do get regular visits at my blog from NCAR, but that could be the guard at the front desk.
Your opening lines reminded me of a sermon I heard once: “The miracles which God performs have not stopped; they are merely manifested in different ways.”
Although I don’t really have a problem with that thesis as long as the one making it acknowledges that he is basing his beliefs on his religious faith alone.
“Someday the climate science community will stop trying to fool themselves (and the public) and accept that the hypothesis of human-induced global warming is fatally flawed. ”
Actually I do not think that will ever happen. But eventually the idea will become so discredited that no one will openly admit to being a “climate scientist” and the entire field will sink down to the level of phrenology and tarot card readings.
When you defeat a bad idea, you never get the satisfaction of hearing your opponents admit it. Admittedly frustrating, but we have to be content to get to the point that no one dares to ever mention it in public without evoking gales of laughter.
If you think about it Trenberth is a “denier” by the alarmists own definition. Right after AR4 we were clearly told that those results represented established science and anyone claiming otherwise was a “denier”. But, that established science predicted atmospheric warmed at around 3C/doubling, not heat hiding in the oceans. Hence, his paper is “denying” established science. LOL.
Me getting older has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.
(I was commenting on my youthful looks. Alas my lady did not buy it and called me an old sod)
Clay Marley says: “I distinctly recall charts like this from the recent past that showed a significant temperature decrease between about 1945 and 1978. At the time there were grave warnings about “global cooling”. But the temps in this figure appear flat. Has this cooling period been adjusted, biased, and tweaked away?”
The HADCRUT4 data shows slightly more cooling between 1945 and 1975/76, and that’s based primarily on the changes with the HADSST3 data.
Or, are you possibly thinking of continental U.S. temperatures? The cooling is more severe with that subset.
A significant amount of this is worthy of submitting a comment to the journal. I dare say any self respecting journal editor would uh, resign for having allowed outright falsehoods to be published like this.
From the pre First Order Draft of AR5
This seems to be the only discussion of the stoppage (hiatus is the authors’ term) From page 21:
“The rate of warming of the observed global-mean surface temperature has been smaller over the past 15 years (1998-2012) than over the past 30 to 60 years and is estimated to be around one-third to one-half of the trend over the period 1951–2012. Nevertheless, the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record.
The radiative forcing of the climate system has been increasing to a lesser rate over the period 1998-2011 compared to 1984 to 1998 or 1951-2011, due to a negative forcing trend from volcanic eruptions and the downward phase of the solar cycle over 2000-2009. However, there is low confidence in quantifying the role of forcing trend in causing the surface-warming hiatus, because of uncertainty in the magnitude of the volcanic forcing trend and low confidence in the forcing trend due to tropospheric aerosol.
For the period 1998–2012, 111 of the 114 climate-model simulations show a surface-warming trend larger than the observations . There is medium confidence that this difference between models and observations is to a substantial degree caused by unpredictable internal climate variability. Variability sometimes enhances and sometimes counteracts the long-term externally forced warming trend. Internal variability thus diminishes the relevance of short trends for long-term climate change. There are also possible contributions from inadequacies in the solar, volcanic, and aerosol forcings used by the models and, in some models, from too strong a response to increasing greenhouse gases and other anthropogenic factors.
In summary, the observed recent surface-warming hiatus is attributable in roughly equal measure to a cooling contribution from internal variability and a reduced trend in external forcing (expert judgment, medium confidence). ”
Lots of medium and low confidences, no admission that warming has ceased.
Bob, another great job in rebutting global warming propaganda pieces like this paper. I know predictions are not necessarily your thing, but I am curious as your opinions on global temperature and ocean temperature trends going forward/
Thanks again for your time and unceasing efforts.
a trend that changes when you change the end points is not a trend. it is a sample with insufficient data.
Chuck L says:
December 9, 2013 at 7:13 am
I am curious as your opinions on global temperature and ocean temperature trends going forward
=============
1/3 chance it will be warmer, 1/3 chance it will be cooler, 1/3 chance it will remain the same.
observa says:
December 9, 2013 at 6:45 am
‘Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.’
Good post. I cannot believe that a tenured professor wrote that line. Maybe we should not have rejected Freud. That line invites endless ridicule. Try this:
Gravity has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.
The thought process behind that line shows a total disconnect between theory and observable evidence. As others have pointed out, it belongs to religion rather than science.
Continental or Contiguous (excludes Alaska)?
Leon0112 says:
December 9, 2013 at 6:26 am
Bob, does Trenberth ever acknowledge the existence of your work? Having read your book, the critique of climate models modelling of naturally occurring ocean and cloud cycles seems like it would need to be addressed by the Team.
_______________________________________________________
Their silence probably means they cannot address it (and I have no doubt they are fully aware of what skeptics are up to, especially ones like Tisdale).
also, with 100% certainty, there will be a days within the next 100 years where globally average temps are cooler than today, warmer than today, and the same as today. They will simply be different days.
Another wonderful post Bob. I always appreciate the pains you take to offer physical explanations for processes that influence the Earth’s ocean and atmosphere. Your posts are always challenging to fully understand, which is a nice contrast to the claims by warmists that global temperature, storms, heat waves, droughts and precipitation can be understood by applying “high school physics”.
More than anything else, I’m tired of the assertion that the 20th century warming can’t be explained by natural variation and that it has to be attributed to CO2. Of course, when it’s pointed out that the direct radiative effects of CO2 are relatively modest, then we get lots of wibbly wobbly, climey wimey…stuff.
Thanks Bob, nicely done.
They might also have said “We haven’t stopped being scientists; our scientificity is merely manifested in different ways.”
It takes Pachygrapsus to come up with ‘wibbly wobbly climey wimey….stuff’. I’m jealous.
=================
Trenberth’s paper is dated (the pause in warming is over) and ignores the AGW theory paradoxes (observations that disprove CAGW and indicate the majority of the warming in the last 70 years was caused by solar magnetic cycle changes, rather than the anthropogenic CO2 increase). The pause in warming is over. There is now cooling at both poles. We are observing the last gasp of climate wars phase 1 (climate wars phase 1 is when there is warming or a pause in warming to discuss, obviously the tone of the discussions and the arguments changes when there is in your face cooling). The planet has started to cool; it appears we are going to experience the set of phenomenon that terminates interglacial periods (Dansgaard-Oeschger cooling, followed by a Heinrich event). What will happen next is almost unimaginable, as the majority of the public believe abrupt cooling is physically impossible. How will the media and public respond to unequivocal dangerous cooling? Which scientists will publicly leave the warmists camp first? What will be the political response be?
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/figure-72.png
1. As CO2 is more or less evenly distributed in the atmosphere the potential for CO2 warming is the same for all latitudes. The actual radiative warming due to CO2 should be proportional (and is not, which is a paradox) to the amount of long wave radiation at the latitude in question before the increase in CO2. As the most amount of long wave radiation that is emitted to space is in the tropics the most amount of warming due to the CO2 increase should have occurred in the tropics. That is not what is observed. The following is a peer reviewed paper that supports the above assertions.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0809/0809.0581.pdf
“These effects do not have the signature associated with CO2 climate forcing. (William: This observation indicates something is fundamental incorrect with the IPCC models, likely negative feedback in the tropics due to increased or decreased planetary cloud cover to resist forcing). However, the data show a small underlying positive trend that is consistent with CO2 climate forcing with no-feedback. (William: This indicates a significant portion of the 20th century warming has due to something rather than CO2 forcing.)”
2. The IPCC models predicted (basic back of the envelop radiative calculation indicates there should be, as there is not that is paradox) that there should be a hot spot (highest amount of warming) in the atmosphere in the tropics at about 8 km above the surface of the planet. There is no observed hot spot which indicates there is something fundamentally incorrect with IPCC models Vs actual atmosphere processes. The something that is incorrect (an assumption that is incorrect, that is directly related to what causes the solar magnetic cycle ) changes the radiative properties of all AGW in the upper troposphere.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/07/16/about-that-missing-hot-spot/
The following is a peer reviewed paper that supports the assertions concerning the lack of a tropical tropospheric hot spot.
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/DOUGLASPAPER.pdf
3. Ops the peculiar warming pattern experienced in the last 70 years has happened before! Warming and cooling is cyclic. Who would have thought that? What caused the past cycles? Hint it is not CO2, see logical points 1 and 2, might also add that atmospheric CO2 does not correlate with the cyclic warming and cooling. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/05/is-the-current-global-warming-a-natural-cycle/ http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
We were delighted to see the paper published in Nature magazine online (August 22, 2012 issue) reporting past climate warming events in the Antarctic similar in amplitude and warming rate to the present global warming signal. The paper, entitled “Recent Antarctic Peninsula warming relative to Holocene climate and ice-shelf history” and authored by Robert Mulvaney and colleagues of the British Antarctic Survey (Nature, 2012, doi:10.1038/nature11391), reports two recent natural warming cycles, one around 1500 AD and another around 400 AD, measured from isotope (deuterium) concentrations in ice cores bored adjacent to recent breaks in the ice shelf in northeast Antarctica. … …..We found 342 natural warming events (NWEs) corresponding to this definition, distributed over the past 250,000 years at apparently irregular intervals (though we have not analyzed for subtle regularities, which may exist). The 342 NWEs we identified by this method are reminiscent of the two more recent NWEs reported in the Mulvaney et al. paper. (William: The 342 warming events were followed by 342 cooling events. The regions of the planet that warmed and cooled – high latitude regions both hemispheres match the pattern of warming of warming experienced in the last 70 years.)
Its just resting…
http://youtu.be/npjOSLCR2hE
Bertram Felden says:
December 9, 2013 at 5:34 am
Now that the Monty Python team are reforming, they could add a variation to the dead parrot sketch: “It’s not dead, it’s just alive in a different way.”
It’s obviously Norwegian Blue Warming – and it’s only resting.
mpaul
Snap!
Bob Tisdale on December 9, 2013 at 3:57 am.
”Thanks for the kind words, Bob. But there’s no Dr. before my name. Regards”
Dang Bob, you don’t have to sound so proud of that. You’re going to make all the PhD’s depressed. 😉
I owe a great debt to Bob Tisdale for all his great teaching. Always clear, always with data and always thorough. Thank you for all the work you do to help us understand things just a bit better.
The “admission” will happen post-retirement (at least from climatology) of Trenberth. His career and ego-position is too firmly attached to CAGW to even modify his thoughts: CAGW is, unfortunately, an all or nothing proposition. You cannot sort-of go to hell in a hand-basket.
An interesting analysis for the debate might be the Mauna Loa CO2 annual variation. The peak of the annual CO2 concentration is beginning May, and the trough, mid-Ocotober. The cycle – cleaned up of various noise elements to get the revered Keeling Curve, is odd. With the world in a two-hemisphere, diametrically opposed cycle of warmth and biogenic activity. you might expect a bi-modal rise and fall. But you don’t see that. And the timing of up and down maxima/mimima doesn’t look like plants pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere.
IMHO, the cycle looks more like a temperature rise and fall of some tropical oceanic area. The question then arises, if the oceans are warming over the long-term, how much of the overall rise is a function of oceanic release of CO2? You cannot allow for short-term CO2 changes due to oceanic short-term temperature related CO2 releases and deny that a long-term change will not have the same type of change as the short-term (annual) but over an extended period of time.
Trenberth’s excuse is catching on. The furnace in my apartment has failed to warm my humble abode sufficiently during this prolonged cold snap in the Central US. I called the landlord to tell him that the furnace was on the fritz. He informed me that the furnace was actually warming the air in my apartment better than ever, but that the extra heat was being absorbed by the oceans. Then he raised my rent to offset the cost of fuel taxes designed to stop global warming.
Grasping at straws.
Doug Huffman says:
“The warmists need to just walk away. But it is sooo(!) entertaining watching them squirm on the spit of their own making over their petard fueled fire.”
I really must agree. It’s so amusing watching them now. The convolutions they have performed to produce their latest assertions are absolutely hilarious.
‘Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.’
Honest, police officer, I didn’t deliberately shoot that person; it’s just that the trajectory of the bullet merely manifested itself in different ways.
Honest, I really wasn’t trying to steal your wallet; it’s just that the positioning of my hand merely manifested itself in different ways.
Honest honey, I really didn’t forget our first year wedding anniversary; it’s just that the date merely manifested itself in different ways.
Honest voter, I really intended to have the most open and transparent administration in history; it’s just that your interpretation and my interpretation of open and transparent have merely manifested themselves in different ways.
Honest. Mr. IRS Taxman, I really did pay my taxes; it’s just that my taxes have merely manifested themselves in different ways.
Honest, Mr. Trenberth, we genuinely did pay you (through monies collected by the IRS taxman) that promised research grant for your latest spellbinding research; it’s just that our payment has merely manifested itself in different ways.
A hiatus is no longer a hiatus; it’s just that hiatus has merely been trans-hiatisized in different ways.
Explosive fire. A ‘petard’ is a sachel charge. An underground bomb.
Warmth has penetrated seawater between 0 and 2000 meters without warming it at all. How it did it? Is it new mechanism? Did they build it? Or is it natural? That paper is crap, not worth the paper where it is printetd.
“Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.”
WHY?
Why not replies Trenberth… LOL
– Trenberth’s Global Warming for Dummies –
as presented at his recent public outreach show
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GWforDummies.htm
Good old Kevin “the data must wrong” Trenberth.
mpaul says:
“Its just resting…”
“it is merely manifested in different ways” certainly does give “pining for the fjords” a whole different way of looking at things.
Any “supposed” journal that allows the authors to use the term “deniers” is not worth the electrons expended to read it.
“Cherry Picking” rather infers that there are areas of the data that can be chosen to support their hypothesis, hasn’t it reached the point where they are torturing the data to find something (anything) that will not falsify their hypothesis?
It is ironic that Trenberth is being honored this week by the AGU at their annual AGU Fall Meeting in San Francisco and will be given their ‘Climate Communication Prize’ at their Honors ceremony and formal banquet on Wednesday.
I am at the AGU meeting and I will be interested to hear the AGU’s speech honoring Trenberth and his acceptance speech.
John
The paper starts with the outrageous statement:
Where do you start on a paper that is so wrong in the first half of the very first sentence?
The UAH and RSS global satellite temperature data sets didn’t even start until nearly the end of the 1970’s. Trenberth and Fasullo could have saved NASA an awful lot of time by telling NASA not to bother because they already had the data they needed to understand everything, everywhere, ever.
John Whitman given who else AGU ‘honours’ , i.e the fraudster , this is hardly a surprise .
Frankly their avid and total support of ‘the cause’ means the AGU is virtual worthless , as science got sold out to grant seeking politically inspired dogma .
Although heat would normal rise in the upside down world of Trenberth the best place to look be on the floor. So perhaps if Trenberth look hard enough he will find the ‘missing heat ‘ under the tables at the AGU meetings
I know where all the missing heat is hiding–under Kevin Trenberth’s collar.
Once a belief system enters a person’s mind it is very difficult to eradicate once the person is past the high endocannabinoid years (age 15 to 25).
Bob Tisdale,
Very thorough rebuttal of ‘Trendbirths and Falsullos’ selective use of statistics and trends….. you had me convinced at your Figure 4!
MtK
“Deniers of climate change often cherry-pick points….”
Skeptics do not deny major (natural) climate change, nor minor anthropogenic climate change, but the whole Hockey Stick Team indeed denies the former. The last dip in their Figure 12 PDO plot from the 40s to the 70s must also have been differently manifested greenhouse warming, too, then. The elephant in the room though is falsification of climate models now that an ocean oscillation is officially attached to the global average temperature that promises to drag it down again exactly as before. Laypersons still fail to understand that mainstream skepticism only “denies” massive overall water vapor amplification of the greenhouse effect, as Gore’s climate communicators have been workshop tutored to slander skepticism as being denial of any greenhouse effect, akin to creationist denial of any and all evolution.
Friends don’t let friends go down in history as climate liars.
Does he not have any ?
What on earth is the phrase “Deniers of climate change ” doing in a paper which is represented as being scientific?
John Whitman says:
December 9, 2013 at 10:22 am
Please give us reports.
michael hart says:
December 9, 2013 at 11:22 am
The paper starts with the outrageous statement:
“Global warming first became evident beyond the bounds of natural variability in the 1970s…”
Ah, the cult meaning of global warming ; it does not mean that the globe is necessarily warming.
It means – I belong to the same group as you other warmists; we recognise each other as belonging.
According to Trenberth and Fasullo, you could almost have written the same short (!) monograph in the mid-90s. It would have been just as wrong then as it probably is now.
Yep Global Warming. I sit at my computer in December, in Australia, with flannelette shirt and vest, temp 13C, 7.30am. I should be in shorts and T shirt. Then I saw parts of the USA getting blasted with snow and ice winds! Yes, it is only weather but not of the warmist variety.
DirkH says:
December 9, 2013 at 3:37 am
“Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.”
In non-Global, non-Warming ways.
******************
LOL! Reminds me of the classic student blooper, “The works of William Shakespeare were not written by Shakespeare but by another man of that name.”
On Yahoo Sceptic Mike MacCracken shows how blinders can work:
“So, how is it that small amounts of change in solar radiation cause these effects, and larger amounts of energy change from changes in greenhouse gas concentrations do not?
Mike”
Mickey, why can’t you figure that small amounts of solar radiation can be modulated in much larger effects? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/09/a-link-between-the-solar-magnetic-field-and-weather-patterns-on-earth-may-explain-our-lower-than-normal-severe-weather-in-2013/
And what does it mean if changing the start and end date these ‘trends’ by a few years causes the slope of the trend line to change significantly? That’s the point. They aren’t claiming their chosen trend is significant, they are using it to illustrate such trends are insignificant. Your demonstration of how much difference in the trend just a few years makes actually reinforces this point.
Once upon a time all the porridge on the planet was just right! Then came Goldicarbonlocks and then the porridge became warm and other porridge became less warmer than just right, in fact, you could rightly say it was cooler. But if you just concentrate on the porridge that has become warmer you could say Goldicarbonlocks is a pyromaniac! The End.
All I see is that for the 1997-2008 12-year period, the starting and ending temperatures are the same (by eyeball). How do you force an increase on that?
But in Fig 10 they were referring to the trend from 1970s, NOT 1999, which is exactly the point they made in the paper. The difference between the two periods CAN be used to depict the trend from 70s. Let’s not confuse ourselves here.
What a clever trick by Trenberth and Fasullo! Thank you for clearly explaining the sleight of hand* that Trenberth and Fasullo are attempting in their latest paper. For sure, they are doing their best to stop any misuse of the hiatus.
Their figure 4 is revealing, but their figure 9 is really damning – claiming facts about trends over the “past decade or so”, but actually showing differences between two averaged decadal (or so) temperatures instead of decadal (or so) temperature trends.
Again, I feel cheated by real climate scientists. And again the silence from other real climate scientists about such problems is deafening. Having people like you speaking out so clearly and calmly is major rescue, when scientists mistake their biases for the reality. And again I wonder how we will look back, in two or three decades, upon the behaviour of those real scientists and planet saviours, upholding the flag of science against the hordes of deniers – how I wish we had the strength and resources they ascribe to us.
*Though I must add that I can’t claim to know whether they are knowingly using such “tricks”, or whether they have simply deceived themselves – under no circumstance do I want to leave the impression of claiming “It’s a conspiracy”. After all, don’t assume malice when stupidity will suffice, as the old man said.
In my opinion, this is good work. Thank you, Bob Tisdale. As usual, I would like to encourage you to write it up for publication.
from above:
Leon0112 says:
December 9, 2013 at 6:26 am
Bob, does Trenberth ever acknowledge the existence of your work? Having read your book, the critique of climate models modelling of naturally occurring ocean and cloud cycles seems like it would need to be addressed by the Team.
I expect the academic and government scientists to mostly ignore Bob Tisdale’s work until he publishes it. The rigamoroles of publishing are a great pain, and can feel humiliating after doing good work (reflect on the experiences of Steve McIntyre), but that’s the way the game is played, so to speak. The audience you want to reach, in my opinion, are today’s graduate students, and they are extremely busy reading large numbers of published papers and books.
Empirical data clearly shows we have been warmer and cooler….and that’s just this Holocene. The timescale of the data set that Trenberth and his mate are using is so small its not worth measuring.
I believe Mr. Tisdale warrants an honorary doctorate from WUWT.
On 2nd thought, drop the honorary part.
Talk about picking fly excrement out of pepper.
Trenberth and Fasullo conclude at the end that “…this article does not suggest that global warming has disappeared, on the contrary, it is very much alive but being manifested in somewhat different ways than a simple increase of global mean surface temperature.” That sure is changing the goal posts. In their introduction they stated that “In this article, we explore surface temperature variations and the cause of the apparent hiatus in warming, such as it is, in more detail…” That “more detail” sends them looking for various possible phenomena that could cause the hiatus but they do not find anything. In the course of their peregrinations they decide that “global warming” really means “global heating.” Ocean heat content looks like a good place to look for that heating, and lo and behold – they do find heat hiding under 700 m depth in the ocean. We are not told if it left the atmosphere and thereby caused a hiatus or whether it is getting ready to come out and end the hiatus. We are also given an extensive tour of the other possible culprits that could have caused the hiatus and in the process we get subjected to a fair amount of misinformation. This is exposed by other commentators. One source of misinformation is the poor quality of temperature graphs showing the hiatus. In addition, the temperature curves themselves are also out of date because they show a “late twentieth century warming” in the eighties and nineties that does not exist. According to satellites there was no warming in that time slot but an 18 year cessation of warming. The official temperature curves simply covered it up with a fake warming and that is why nobody knows about it. I spotted that while doing research for my book “What Warming?” and even put a warning about this into the preface of the book. Nothing happened for two years but then, suddenly last fall, the big three of temperature, GISTEMP, HadCRUT, and NCDC, decided, in unison, that they did not want to show this fake warming any more. What they did was to align their data for this period with satellites that do not show warming. It was done secretly and no explanation was given. The explanation is that I had exposed their scam. This required trans-Atlantic cooperation and they all knew about it. Since now these 18 years of no-warming have been “liberated” we must add them to the current “hiatus” of 15 years. This means that the last 33 years have been completely greenhouse free. It is not likely that any earlier warming was greenhouse warming when carbon dioxide levels were a lot lower. Hence, we can say that there has not been any greenhouse warming whatsoever at any time in history. And since greenhouse warming is the lifeblood of that alleged anthropogenic global warming it follows that there is no such thing as AGW. The huge sums used to “mitigate” global warming are totally wasted. Laws and regulations for emission control are worthless and their advocates are nothing more than pseudo-scientific charlatans. The sooner we close IPCC and get rid of their odious projects the better off the world will be.
Strikes me that a series of “Quotes by Trenberth”would be a neat summary of what is wrong with climatology’s(TM IPCC) understanding of the scientific method.
“Deniers of climate change…”?
There are no deniers of climate change. These boyz don’t even have any pretense about towing the carbonista line.
AH says: “But in Fig 10 they were referring to the trend from 1970s, NOT 1999, which is exactly the point they made in the paper. The difference between the two periods CAN be used to depict the trend from 70s. Let’s not confuse ourselves here.”
There’s no confusion on my part. I suggest you read the quote again and the portion of it I’m discussing:
“…In other words, it is the central and eastern Pacific more than anywhere else that has not warmed in the past decade or so…”
BTW, Figure 10 in the post is my illustration, not theirs. Their Figure 10 is the Ocean Heat Content reanalysis that begins around 1980.
Leo Geiger says: “And what does it mean if changing the start and end date these ‘trends’ by a few years causes the slope of the trend line to change significantly? That’s the point. They aren’t claiming their chosen trend is significant, they are using it to illustrate such trends are insignificant. Your demonstration of how much difference in the trend just a few years makes actually reinforces this point.”
Leo, I believe you’re being a bit creative with what you’re reading Trenberth and Fasullo’s discussion of their Figure 4.
First, please quote me the portion of Trenberth and Fasullo (2013), with respect to their Figure 4, where they are in any way discussing trends. And please quote where they are noting that “such trends are insignificant”.
Second, I presented trends in my replica of their Figure 4. I never said they were “claiming their chosen trend is significant”, because they never presented or discussed trends with respect to their Figure 4.
Third, you are correct that the trends change when you add a few years. But that was my point, not theirs. And if you didn’t notice, the trend for the current period declined a little when we added 5 years while the earlier period increased drastically. I guess I should have explained in more detail that the current halt period is unusual and that there are no comparable 17-year periods until you travel back to the point that you’re including data from the prior multidecadal hiatus. I present that every month in my global temperature update here at WUWT.
Regards
Bob Tisdale:
Rhetorically asking “whether such slowdowns have occurred before” is simply another way of drawing attention to the question of significance when there is variability. They illustrate this with Figure 4. You can also draw attention to it as you did, by adding a few years, or shifting the data and noting the significant changes it causes in the slope. Both you and Trenberth are showing readers in slightly different ways that trends, such as flat trends, may not be significant.
Of course the 1982-1993 period was cherry picked. They chose it specifically because it was flat. You haven’t ‘caught’ them cherry picking, it was their point. Not to argue that the 1982-1993 period is significant, but to show that a period like that probably isn’t.
Yes, 11 years isn’t 17 years. But the length in years doesn’t by itself define significance, nor can surface temperatures be used outside the context of underlying physical processes. I believe that was what the paper was about.
First shalt throw out the “evident beyond the bounds of natural variability in the 1970s”, then shalt thou say “Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways”, no more, no less. “different ways” shall be the “manifest” thou say, and the “manifest ways” of the saying shall be “different”. “Cool” shalt thou not say, neither say thou “hiatus”, excepting that thou then proceed to “warming”. “Ice age” is right out. Once the “ways manifest”, being the “manifested ways”, be reached, then publish thou thy Holy paper of Earths Future towards thy foe, who being naughty in the denier sight, shall refute it.
Cherrypicking to generate impressive linear trend plots is something both sides can do.
Meanwhile, the blue curve and blue line in Figure 4 appear to me as an honest representation of the hiatus. A flat to very slightly downsloping linear trend can be found over the period from the beginning of 2001 to the end of November 2013. I have verified 1/1/2001 to 10/31/2013 slight downslope linear trend in HadCRUT3.
This is not the cherrypicked longer hiatus figures for with a century-class El Nino early in the claimed hiatus period. (A slightly downslope linear trend can be found in RSS starting sometime in the second half of 1996, ending with any of the latest 2 or 3 monthly figures.) I figure the hiatus started when global temperature’s rising trend hit the 2001-onward non-rising linear trend, or got close to that, in mid or late 2001. I think that’s when global temperature largely turned a corner from rising independently of El Ninos to stagnating. Maybe the hiatus started a few months sooner, because the cooler months of earlier in 2001 could be from still recovering from the 1999-2000 La Nina. (Have a look at the upper graph of Figure 5.) It appears to me that 2000 was before the hiatus, because that level of coolness was not duplicated by a La Nina almost that strong in 2007-2008.
Leo Geiger says: “Rhetorically asking ‘whether such slowdowns have occurred before’ is simply another way of drawing attention to the question of significance when there is variability. They illustrate this with Figure 4. You can also draw attention to it as you did, by adding a few years, or shifting the data and noting the significant changes it causes in the slope. Both you and Trenberth are showing readers in slightly different ways that trends, such as flat trends, may not be significant.
“Of course the 1982-1993 period was cherry picked. They chose it specifically because it was flat…”
Leo, you’ve missed the obvious. The 1982-1993 period wasn’t flat. Its trend is comparable to the trend for the period of 1976-2013.
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/leo-1.png
The second obvious point you’ve missed: the Trenberth and Fasullo cherry-pick wasn’t the period of 1982-1993. Their cherry-pick was the end year of the second period. The current hiatus/halt doesn’t end in 2008. It ends now in 2013. And as I noted in my earlier reply to you, there are no 17-year periods with trends comparable to the current 17-year period until you travel back to the 1970s:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/leo-2.png
Thank you, Bob for the reply at 5.19pm. My point on your figure 10 is that Trenberth’s difference approach would only make sense if what he’s referring to in his quote is the trend since 1970s, not 1999 as depicted in your figure 10. ‘Warmed in the past decade’ depends on the reference point. In this case it must be 1970s, unless you are assuming Trenberth didn’t pass high school.
That sums up the conceptual problem right there. At the same time as you demonstrate that adding a few years can change the slope significantly, you object that slopes are different between the two periods used in Trenberth — “more than twice the rate” you even say. What is the first observation telling you about the significance of the second?
Maybe you should start giving confidence intervals with all your trend lines. It might make it clearer to you.
Leo Geiger says: “That sums up the conceptual problem right there.”
That’s right, Leo. That’s the problem right there. Trenberth and Fasullo misled their readers by representing it as a “slowdown” period, when it was not!
Have a nice day.
AH: Trenberth and Fasullo are very specific in their statement:
“In other words, it is the central and eastern Pacific more than anywhere else that has not warmed in the past decade or so…”
Leo: You’re missing another obvious point. If the current hiatus was not significant, then Trenberth and Fasullo are wasting a lot of time and taxpayer dollars trying to explain why (from the abstract): “increases in global mean surface temperatures have stalled in the 2000s.”
Bob – Don’t listen to me, listen to math. Compute the confidence intervals for both 1982-1993 and 1997-2008. Or just the uncerainty of the slopes. Then use the answer to apply some skepticism to your statement “more than twice the rate”.
One last thing to think about. The difference between a 0.06 and 0.14 deg C / decade slope is 0.08 deg C / decade. The ratio of the slopes is 0.14/0.06 = 2.3, or “more than twice the rate” as you choose to describe it.
Imagine the slopes had been 0.01 and 0.09 deg C / decade. The difference is still 0.08 deg / decade, but now the ratio is 0.09/0.01 = 9. Would you say it is nine times the rate? If they had been 0.00 and 0.08, would you say the rate is infinitely larger???
What do you suppose that is telling you about using the ratio instead of the difference to compare these things?
RichardLH says December 9, 2013 at 4:43 am
I think this is inaccurate as the most logical option seems to have been completely ignored.
Its latest chart, however, confirmed in a (BMO) press release earlier this week, tells a very different story: no more global warming is expected till at least 2017.
That seems to show our most likely outcome,
4. No matter what actually happens, man made warming will continue (even if merely eventually) in the eyes of many
or possibly a better way to sum it up would be,
http://i.imgur.com/ngTgibu.gif
Global warming has not stopped; it is merely manifested in different ways.
Yeah, and my car hasn’t stopped. It’s merely that it’s wheels dropped off.
The wheels on the gravy train do round and round,…
It just isn’t going anywhere.