By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Pseudo-science by press release has become the norm among the Forces of Darkness. With as much fanfare as McGill University could muster, the recent paper by Professor Lovejoy was promoted via a typically head-banging instance of the genre.
The gushingly flatulent halation of the university PR-wallahs is typical of the verbal diarrhea habitual among practitioners of the Dark Arts. The ipsissima verba of Lovejoy himself in the press release are of particular interest.
Here is what he is quoted as saying:
“We’ve had a fluctuation in average temperature that’s just huge since 1880 – on the order of about 0.9 degrees Celsius. This study shows that the odds of that being caused by natural fluctuations are less than one in a hundred and are likely to be less than one in a thousand.
“While the statistical rejection of a hypothesis can’t generally be used to conclude the truth of any specific alternative, in many cases – including this one – the rejection of one greatly enhances the credibility of the other.”
Is the post-1880 variability in global temperatures “huge”? The most direct method to test this proposition is to examine the available temperature record since 1500, the starting date of Lovejoy’s analysis.
However, there is no direct global thermometer record going back that far. Accordingly, Lovejoy uses a ragbag of politically-correct reconstructions over various periods since then, inevitably including the long-discredited “hockey-stick” graph. Not only that, but an unpublished version of Richard Muller’s Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature record is dragged in as well.
There is one curious and significant omission on Lovejoy’s list of references. There is no mention of the Central England Temperature Record. Now, CET is the longest continuous regional temperature record we have. Despite its name, it covers most of England roughly from Lancashire in the north to Devon in the south. And it has been maintained since 1659.
No one doing a genuinely study of temperature change since 1500 would make ignore CET altogether. It has been maintained in a nation on which Fortune has smiled, so that there have been no interruptions owing to riot or revolution. It is on the right latitude to be – at least potentially – a respectable proxy for global temperature change over the period of study.
The most straightforward way to determine whether any proxy measurement – here, the part for the whole – provides a reasonable indication of how the Earth may have warmed and cooled over the period of record is to make a comparison between the proxy and the global record during the period of overlap.
First, let us apply this test to the “hockey stick” graph that Professor Lovejoy used. To establish that such a test is valuable, we go to no less authoritative a source than the World Meteorological Organization, one of the profiteering cheer-leaders of the panic pandemic.
Here, taken directly from the front cover of the WMO’s “Status of the Global Climate” for 1999, is a graph showing that three distinct series of tree-ring data faithfully replicate the sharp increase in global temperature over the 20th century.
Here is the “smoking gun” that proves how exceptional the growth in 20th-century was. There had been nothing like it in a millennium.
Just one problem with that. The original tree-ring data for the period 1960-1999 did not show temperature soaring. But the global temperature record for 1960-1999 did. So the tree-ring graphs, all three of them, were tampered with to truncate all three records in 1960 and to bolt on the real-world temperatures.
For the inconvenient truth was that the Jones and Mann data showed no increase in temperature after 1960 and the Briffa data showed a precipitate decline.
To “hide the decline”, the graph published on the WMO’s front cover in 1999 had had the real tree-ring data airbrushed out. All three tree-ring series were then falsely made to track the sharp increase in global temperature from 1960-1999.
Look closely at the WMO graph and it is clear that all three colors, one for each record, are shown as reaching all the way to the top right-hand corner of the graph.
Here, screen-capped from YouTube, is a slide from a presentation by Richard Muller showing what the data looked like before they were tampered with. The true graph show the tree-ring data as diverging markedly from global temperatures since 1960, indicating that dendrochronology is unable reliably to detect sharp increases in global temperature and should not have been used in Professor Lovejoy’s analysis.
There is no statement in the WMO report that the graph prominently displayed on its front cover had thus been altered. The WMO’s publication of the graph was, therefore, a criminal offense. It was fraud by misrepresentation and by breach of a position of trust, calculated profitably to deceive readers into thinking that the tree-ring data were reliable proxies for global temperature change and, therefore, that the inconvenient Medieval Warm Period had not been warmer than the present.
However, the WMO is one of the plethora of supranational organizations that are not subject to any jurisdiction. No one will go to jail for fraud by misrepresentation and breach of a position of trust, even though climatology now looks less like science than organized crime.
A similar overlap comparison test will now be applied to the Central England Temperature Record. We shall take two full 60-year cycles of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, so as to cancel any distorting influence of the 30-year positive or warming phases and the 30-year negative or cooling phases (we are in the middle of a negative phase at the moment).
The analysis will cover the 120 calendar years January 1894 to December 2013. Calendar years are used so as to avoid any distortion of the trend on the Central England record caused by the fact that it is regional rather than global and is accordingly subject to seasonal variation.
The mean of the monthly anomalies for the combined GISS, HadCRUT4, and NCDC global-temperature datasets over the period shows warming 0f 0.89 Cº. The CET monthly anomalies over the same period show warming of 0.90 Cº. Therefore we shall not need to tamper with the data to fit a preconceived result: the Central England series, over a sufficiently long period, is a not unreasonable proxy for global temperature change.
Having calibrated the CET dataset against the global instrumental datasets, we look back through the record to find the greatest centennial rate of warming before the Industrial Revolution. Here is the graph from January 1663-December 1762:
The rate of warming was 0.9 Cº, and that rate occurred over 100 years rather than the 124 years 1880-2013 covered by Lovejoy’s statement that 0.9 Cº was a “huge” temperature increase. And it was entirely natural warming. As Professor Lovejoy might put it, it is 99.9% certain that we were not to blame.
In passing, it is worth noting how small a “huge” 0.9 Cº temperature trend is when compared with the seasonal variability of regional surface temperatures. This variability is concealed by the usual suspects’ habit of showing global temperature changes only, so that any trend – however small – looks more drastic than it is.
There is a further simple test that can be done, this time using the mean of the three global terrestrial datasets. In this test, we shall compare the 60-year period before we could have had any measurable influence on global temperature with the most recent 60-year period after it.
From January 1894-December 1953, the warming trend was 0.44 Cº, very nearly all of which must have been natural. From January 1954-December 2013, it was 0.77 Cº, some of which may have been anthropogenic. But the fact that there was almost half a Celsius degree of global warming in the early 20th century, before we could have had anything much to do with it, does cast further doubt on Professor Lovejoy’s conclusion.
A final test is to take the mean of all five global-temperature datasets and see how far back one can go before encountering even the most insignificant warming trend. The dataset of datasets shows a zero global warming trend for 13 years 2 months, or well over a sixth of a century.
Now, long periods without global warming do happen. On the HadCRUT4 data, there was a zero trend from 1850-1900, a remarkable period of 51 years.
However, the failure of global temperature to change at all in this millennium since January 2001 is also remarkable, for two reasons. First, this is the longest sustained period without global warming since we might first have influenced temperatures in 1950.
Secondly, CO2 concentration is rising at record rates, yet temperature is not responding at all, suggesting, at the very least, that CO2’s influence on temperature is so small that it is easily canceled by natural factors that might otherwise have produced cooling.
Thirdly, the wretched computer models did not predict the Pause. Oh boy, did they not predict the Pause. Here are their very latest predictions, each model run shown separately in a spaghetti graph from the IPCC’s 2013 Assessment Report. I have updated the real-world trend to bring the record up to the present.
Now, the computers are programmed to assume, just as Professor Lovejoy assumed, that it is our influence on global temperatures that has caused the global warming of recent decades. That, and that alone, is why the spaghetti graph of model-predicted near-term global warming soars at a rate equivalent to 2.33 [1.33, 3.33] Cº/century.
And the real-world trend since 1950? Well, it’s equivalent to less than 1.2 Cº/century, below the lower bound of the IPCC’s current predictions. Another five years without global warming and the Sixth Assessment Report (if there is one) will look even more like a costly and sick practical joke than its predecessors.
Based on these simple tests using real-world data rather than mere models, the notion that the odds of 0.9 Cº global warming having been caused by natural variability are “less than 1 in 100 and are likely to be less than 1 in 1000” is, to say the least, questionable.
It was not we who caused the 0.9 Cº warming in Central England and, inferentially, worldwide from 1663-1762. It may not have been we who caused the 0.9 Cº global warming since 1880 either.
For this reason among many others, Professor Lovejoy errs in contending that he has “rejected” the hypothesis that much of the 0.9 Cº global warming since 1880 is natural. At the very least, we know that the half of it that occurred before 1950 had very little to do with us.
In the McGill press release, Professor Lovejoy concludes:
“This study will be a blow to any remaining climate-change deniers. Their two most convincing arguments – that the warming is natural in origin, and that the computer models are wrong – are either directly contradicted by this analysis, or simply do not apply to it.”
Nice try, but No. As will be evident from the temperature graphs above, the climate does change. We do not deny it. Some element in the global warming since 1950 may well have been caused by us. We do not deny that either. Long-established theory and experiment have confirmed that there is such a thing as a greenhouse effect and that by enriching the atmosphere with CO2 we may – to some extent yet to be determined – be enhancing it.
What we do deny is that aprioristic modeling elaborately contrived at taxpayers’ great expense to achieve a preconceived result manifestly at odds with observation and measurement but congenial and profitable to the classe politique has anything whatsoever to do with true science.
But then, Lovejoy was not intending to do science. Note the last two bullet points from a November 2013 presentation by him (hat-tip to Willie Soon):
Apparently the debate is not over and the science is not settled. Further, it appears the “scientific certainty” crowd got it profoundly wrong.
I would note that Lovejoy’s analysis surely proves beyond doubt that CO2 levels haven’t increased in 17 or more years, because if CO2 was causing all the temperature increases with 99% certainty, the pause can only be explained if CO2 levels had stabilized.
And then I’d note that his same method, when applied to the cycles of past glaciation and retreat of our still-occurring ice-age, would indicate that those cycles couldn’t be natural at all, being so much larger than the recent temperature swing (which has only a 1% chance of being natural), and so we can be 99.999% certain that the glaciations were caused by nefarious reptiloid aliens. Indeed, Lovejoy has showed us the way. There can be no doubt that the Earth has been under repeated assault from unknown alien interlopers and saboteurs.
Lord Monckton has thoroughly demolished Lovejoy. Unfortunately the lie has gone around the world twice already. How do we stop this?
If you ask 40 people if man is causing climate change, 40 will say yes. Most commenters here know this assertion has not been shown to be accurate. Yet here we are.
The graph has not been altered: it has been destroyed and is entirely different, and patently false. The usage of arbitrary ‘normals’ as a baseline further confounds the issue, reducing the entire measure to arbitrary nonsense. Has anyone ever seen the Warmists present a simple temperature averaging, say noon temperatures in Europe and America ,as taken 4 times a year on or about the same date using rural only stations from 1859 onwards? Of course not. Because that would show how trite the matter is.
David Ball says:
April 13, 2014 at 9:34 am
“Lord Monckton has thoroughly demolished Lovejoy. Unfortunately the lie has gone around the world twice already. How do we stop this? ”
Stop voting for the Bloc parties, and never spend a dime on “journalist”s output; unless the state forces you to.
@george Turner,
The same thought had occurred to me, a self rebutting analysis you might say.
0.9 C° in a century is not ‘huge’ – ???
As we say in engineering…Its in the noise and well down in it.
If its not, bring on every calibration certificate for each instrument involved. And that similarly applies to every piece of computing in the concluding processes. We might examine the mental state of the many involved as well. Not me of course.
Not a scientist, just a taxpayer who doesn’t understand why “settled science” requires continued funding.
BTW there’s currently an enourmous propaganda wave covering all of German media demanding de-industrialization NOW!, because IPCC. Looks like their 2,000 page tome hits the shelves.
I’ll check with my warmist colleagues tomorrow whether any one of them noticed it; mostly they’re too busy chasing cat videos in the Interwebs. (They’re Germany’s finest; engineers. Woe betide)
Looking at Hadcrut 4 between 1880 and 2010 the rise in temperature over approximately 2 x 60 year cycles (so any natural cycles should be cancelled), the global average smoothed temperature rise is only 0.7 deg C, Lovejoy talks about 0.9 fluctuation In that time, in an attempt to bring in as big a number as possible. Remember a sine curve fluctuates by 2 but has an average of zero over integer cycles. CO2 rose from 280 to 400 ppm. Now as CO2 increases it looks to me that by the time we get to 560ppm the temperature will have risen at most by 0.7*(560-280)/(400-280)=0.7*280/120=1.6 deg C. This is high given that I’ve assumed linearity and yet CO2 temperature rise is the more slow logarithmic and as temperature rises good old Boltzman radiation is proportional to T^4, there is no rise but a fall in atmospheric water column and also some absorption bands saturate. No amount of fancy statistical manoevering is going to convince me that anthropogenic CO2 will be anything but beneficial and temperature will rise nowhere near to Lovejoy’s 2.5-4.5 deg C scare mongering.
One of the reasons reading is taught by whole word sight in most countries now, whatever the talking points about guidance, is so that only certain desired words get through–like reject, climate deniers, and huge from the press release. Plus the constancy of the phrase “the debate is over.” The classe politique is far more familiar with the result of the Frankfurt School’s Radio Project than the rest of us. Repeat something about 5-10 times and it will be believed.
I went back to the Club of Rome’s Learning Project work from the late 70s this weekend to follow up on the implications of what is being called Adaptation for Climate Resilient Pathways by the IPCC. For precisely the reasons of reality not reflected in the models, Lord Monckton so ably laid out , the glee of using computer based virtual reality to provide the ‘experiences’ the students would be basing their beliefs on reality on was difficult to read from so long ago. It is precisely why though so much of K-12 education generally now, but especially science, wants to be using the computer. Years of deliberately created, visually mesmerizing images of catastrophe and linkages and playing with the effects of variables in simulated scenarios will be virtually impossible for anyone to override.
No matter how eloquent they are or able to document the pertinent facts.
All of this analysis is great, and it needs to be reiterated. However, there is a much simpler way to show Lovejoy’s analysis to be wrong. Here is how.
First, the following functional form is assumed:
T_globe (t) = T_anth(t) + T_nat(t) + error in measurement that isn’t actually measurement error but standard deviation of the means of three data set.
What Lovejoy appears to do is to fit a linear model of T_anth through T_globe, as a function of CO2 concentration. Then, he assumes that T_nath(t) is the fallout residual. See equations 5 and 6 for how this occurs.
THIS IS QUESTION BEGGING PLAIN AND SIMPLE. He assumes a functional form for the impact of the log_2 of CO2, and then fits that as linear to the mean of temperature change, Then he goes “oh look! the linear model fit well, therefore CO2 has this big impact!”. I could make the exact same linear model that uses the number of internet or cellular phone user instead of CO2 concentration and show that as we time progresses, temperature increases, This would do NOTHING to show causality, only correlation.
Again, this is question begging. Temperature has certainly gone up for a good chunk of the last century, so you could fit ANY model that also increases relative to time and get the same kind of results as Lovejoy.
Similarly, by stating that the natural variation is the residual after the CO2 forcing is subtracted is to make implicit assumptions about the time scale of natural variations. When he assumes that CO2 forcing is log-linear over a 100 year period, this will mask any natural variation that has frequencies that would sit on that slope. These assumptions, as Lord Monckton shows above, are clearly not valid!
Overall, the model is pure question begging and an assumption that correlation is causation.
Edit to the above: I should have said:
Clear and simply presented –
“trend for 13 years 2 months, or well over a sixth of a century.” (over a 7th but under a 6th)
” David Ball says:
April 13, 2014 at 9:34 am
…If you ask 40 people if man is causing climate change, 40 will say yes. Most commenters here know this assertion has not been shown to be accurate…”
David, there indeed can be human caused climate change But given that there is no “Global Climate”, we humans can only affect regional climates. Think massive irrigation or de-forestation, urban sprawl. Few are skeptical of this, I would think.
This post of yours David, demonstrates one of the problems with the CAGW debate, mis-nomers. Carbon Dioxide is not Carbon. ‘Humans change climates’,
Instead of ‘CO2 changes climates’.
We skeptics must stay on-point and focused in this debate.
Don’t let the charlatan alarmists frame the questions in a mis-leading way.
I like that plume of strings rising from the black in Monckton of Brenchley’s fifth diagram.
Doesn’t it remind one of those faked up photos of “smoke” coming out of chimmineys, by adding contrasty shadows to steam escaping.
Does Lovejoy have a way of separating out the portion of this “huge” 0.9 deg. C that is attributable to nothing more than the fact that in that hundred years, we went from basically no people on earth to now some seven billions of us.
Since he knows to 0.1% that we are doing it all, he must be easily able to resolve the various components of OUR influence; so just the populace component ought to be a breeze to find.
I assume Dr. Lovejoy has read this post by now, with follow-on comments. Writers love to read about themselves, good, bad, or ugly.
So, Dr Lovejoy, please join in and provide a formal rebuttal of these findings. Do so in an ethical manner, with no name calling…
We are all waiting….
There is no mention of the Central England Temperature Record. Now, CET is the longest continuous regional temperature record we have.
The CET trends during two solstice periods reveal some unexpected properties:
All warming is in the winter, no warming in the summer.
As far as Britishs are concerned, they know that rise in the N. Atlantic SST (AMO), the main regulator of the local temperatures, has been favourable in the past few decades, but that may not be same in future.
In addition the decadal CET periodograms show remarkable correlation with events below rather than above the ocean; if correct, today’s media GW hysteric appear to be grossly misguided.
When I early on promoted a plot of the Central England Temperature, online, I was roundly ridiculed by whole armies of online activists whose psychological defense mechanisms were that CET was but a single site and so was totally irrelevant, and also that Grant Foster (Tamino) has blogged that CET really formed a hockey stick. So, I dug up all the other very old records I could find to plot them in support of boring old CET and also demolished Tamino’s claim, revealing it as totally dishonest (and also how Phil Jones himself had a policy of doing the same lying with statistics in IPCC reports):
(A) http://s6.postimg.org/uv8srv94h/id_AOo_E.gif
(B) http://i49.tinypic.com/r245ex.jpg
Sorry, that is not in the topic, but it’s important for America. Forecast polar vortex on April 15.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/04/16/1500Z/wind/isobaric/70hPa/orthographic=-79.35,65.05,481
Convincing the public that the government can fix the weather stands as one of the greatest achievements in the history of agitprop.
@ren
I find your links to those simulations really helpful. Please continue to post them at relevant occasions. It appears winter ain’t over ’till its over.
NikFromNYC hi
Detailed comparison of the CET 1690+ and CET 1960+
If Lovejoy’s concern about a change in temp of 0.9 C is valid, he should be extremely worried about the trend over the past 5 years in Waterloo. The depth of ground frost this year is about 9 feet instead of the usual 4-5. Winnipeg reports ’50 ft’ in places though I wondered if it was 15 feet reported as 15 metres and then misunderstood. 15 feet is believable but portentous.
If it really was 50 ft a few years in a row it would become permafrost with cataclysmic results for the local farming environment.
Lovejoy is not unlike Nuccitelli or Cook. The quality of their “work” is so tragically poor that one tempted to conclude they are paid by “Big Oil” to undermine the credibility of CAGW.