From ETH Zurich –Why global warming is taking a break
The average temperature on Earth has barely risen over the past 16 years. ETH researchers have now found out why. And they believe that global warming is likely to continue again soon.
Global warming is currently taking a break: whereas global temperatures rose drastically into the late 1990s, the global average temperature has risen only slightly since 1998 – surprising, considering scientific climate models predicted considerable warming due to rising greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate sceptics used this apparent contradiction to question climate change per se – or at least the harm potential caused by greenhouse gases – as well as the validity of the climate models. Meanwhile, the majority of climate researchers continued to emphasise that the short-term ‘warming hiatus’ could largely be explained on the basis of current scientific understanding and did not contradict longer term warming.
Researchers have been looking into the possible causes of the warming hiatus over the past few years. For the first time, Reto Knutti, Professor of Climate Physics at ETH Zurich, has systematically examined all current hypotheses together with a colleague. In a study published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, the researchers conclude that two important factors are equally responsible for the hiatus.
El Niño warmed the Earth
One of the important reasons is natural climate fluctuations, of which the weather phenomena El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific are the most important and well known. “1998 was a strong El Niño year, which is why it was so warm that year,” says Knutti. In contrast, the counter-phenomenon La Niña has made the past few years cooler than they would otherwise have been.
Although climate models generally take such fluctuations into account, it is impossible to predict the year in which these phenomena will emerge, says the climate physicist. To clarify, he uses the stock market as an analogy: “When pension funds invest the pension capital in shares, they expect to generate a profit in the long term.” At the same time, they are aware that their investments are exposed to price fluctuations and that performance can also be negative in the short term. However, what finance specialists and climate scientists and their models are not able to predict is when exactly a short-term economic downturn or a La Niña year will occur.
Longer solar cycles
According to the study, the second important reason for the warming hiatus is that solar irradiance has been weaker than predicted in the past few years. This is because the identified fluctuations in the intensity of solar irradiance are unusual at present: whereas the so-called sunspot cycles each lasted eleven years in the past, for unknown reasons the last period of weak solar irradiance lasted 13 years. Furthermore, several volcanic eruptions, such as Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland in 2010, have increased the concentration of floating particles (aerosol) in the atmosphere, which has further weakened the solar irradiance arriving at the Earth’s surface.
The scientists drew their conclusions from corrective calculations of climate models. In all climate simulations, they looked for periods in which the El Niño/La Niña patterns corresponded to the measured data from the years 1997 to 2012. With a combination of over 20 periods found, they were able to arrive at a realistic estimate of the influence of El Niño and La Niña. They also retroactively applied in the model calculations the actual measured values for solar activity and aerosol concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere. Model calculations corrected in this way match the measured temperature data much more closely.
Incomplete measured data
The discrepancy between the climate models and measured data over the past 16 years cannot solely be attributed to the fact that these models predict too much warming, says Knutti. The interpretation of the official measured data should also be critically scrutinised. According to Knutti, measured data is likely to be too low, since the global average temperature is only estimated using values obtained from weather stations on the ground, and these do not exist everywhere on Earth. From satellite data, for example, scientists know that the Arctic region in particular has become warmer over the past years, but because there are no weather stations in that area, there are measurements that show strong upward fluctuations. As a result, the specified average temperature is too low.
Last year, British and Canadian researchers proposed an alternative temperature curve with higher values, in which they incorporated estimated temperatures from satellite data for regions with no weather stations. If the model data is corrected downwards, as suggested by the ETH researchers, and the measurement data is corrected upwards, as suggested by the British and Canadian researchers, then the model and actual observations are very similar.
Warming to recommence
Despite the warming hiatus, Knutti is convinced there is no reason to doubt either the existing calculations for the climate activity of greenhouse gases or the latest climate models. “Short-term climate fluctuations can easily be explained. They do not alter the fact that the climate will become considerably warmer in the long term as a result of greenhouse gas emissions,” says Knutti. He believes that global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades.
Literature reference
Huber M, Knutti R: Natural variability, radiative forcing and climate response in the recent hiatus reconciled. Nature Geoscience, online publication 17 August 2014, doi: 10.1038/ngeo2228
So the final solution is to ‘correct’ projected temperatures downwards and ‘correct’ measured temperatures upwards and declare the science settled.
Why am I not [surprised],
“……..If the model data is corrected downwards, as suggested by the ETH researchers, and the measurement data is corrected upwards, as suggested by the British and Canadian researchers, then the model and actual observations are very similar……
did I really read that!! Gawd Alive.
So when it’s not warming, the reasons are natural (and incomplete data), but when it’s warming, the reasons are man made (and the data is good)?
The warming will not be commencing going forward. To the contrary the cooling will be accelerating going forward.
How can El Niño warm the earth? Any energy released from an El Niño event is energy that is already here, not new energy trapped by hellish republican sweat shops churning out SUV’s by the billions. Like moving cash from one pocket to the other has no affect on your wealth, moving energy from one place to another in the Earth system does not change the energy balance between the planet and the universe.
SOLAR CLIMATE MECHANISMS AND CLIMATE PREDICTION
MECHANISM ONE
One solar climate mechanism/connection theory which has much merit in my opinion, is as follows:
A BRIEF OVERVIEW. At times of low solar irradiance the amounts of sea ice in the Nordic Sea increase, this ice is then driven south due to the atmospheric circulation (also due to weak solar conditions) creating a more northerly air flow in this area.(-NAO) This sea ice then melts in the Sub Polar Atlantic, releasing fresh water into the sub- polar Atlantic waters, which in turn impedes the formation of NADW, which slows down the thermohaline circulation causing warm air not to be brought up from the lower latitudes as far north as previous while in lessening amounts.
This perhaps can be one of the contributing solar/climate connection factors which brought about previous abrupt N.H. cool downs during the past.
This makes much sense to me.
NAO= NORTH ATLANTIC OSCILLATION
NADW= NORTH ATLANTIC DEEP WATER
To elaborate on the above, when the sun enters a prolonged solar minimum condition an overall reduction takes place in solar spectral irradiance, namely in UV light (wavelengths less then 400 nm). The shorter the wavelength, the MUCH greater the reduction.
UV light reduction likely will cause ocean heat content and ocean surface temperatures to drop, due to the fact that UV light in the range of 280 nm-400nm penetrates the ocean surface to depths of 50-100 meters. A reduction in UV (ultra violet) light then should have a profound effect on the amount of energy entering the ocean surface waters from the sun extending down to 50-100 meters in depth, resulting in cooler ocean temperatures.
This ties into what was said in the above in that if ocean waters in high latitudes such as the Nordic Sea, were to be subject to cooling the result would be much more sea ice which could impede the strength of the thermohaline circulation promoting substantial N.H. cooling.
Adding to this theory is fairly strong evidence that a decrease in UV light will result in a more meridional atmospheric circulation (which should cause more clouds, precipitation and snow cover for the N.H.), due to changes in ozone distribution in a vertical/horizontal sense which would cause the temperature contrast between the polar areas of the stratosphere and lower latitude areas of the stratosphere to lesson, during prolonged solar minimum periods. Ultra Violet light being likely the most significant solar factor affecting ozone concentrations ,although not the only solar factor.
This could then set up a more -NAO, (high pressure over Greenland) which would promote a more Northerly flow of air over the Nordic Sea, bringing the sea ice there further South.
MECHANISM TWO
A reduction of the solar wind during a prolonged solar minimum event would cause more galactic cosmic rays to enter the earth’s atmosphere which would promote more aerosol formation thus more cloud nucleation. The result more clouds higher albedo, cooler temperatures.
Compounding this would be a weaker geo magnetic field which would allow more galactic cosmic ray penetration into the atmosphere , while perhaps causing excursions of the geo magnetic poles to occur in that they would be in more southern latitudes concentrating incoming galactic cosmic rays in these southern latitudes where more moisture would be available for the cosmic rays to work with, making for greater efficiency in the creation of clouds.
MECHANISM THREE
MILANKOVITCH CYCLES overall favor N.H. cooling and an increase in snow cover over N.H high latitudes during the N.H summers due to the fact that perihelion occurs during the N.H. winter (highly favorable for increase summer snow cover), obliquity is 23.44 degrees which is at least neutral for an increase summer N.H. snow cover, while eccentricity of the earth’s orbit is currently at 0.0167 which is still circular enough to favor reduced summertime solar insolation in the N.H. and thus promote more snow cover.
In addition the present geographical arrangements of the oceans versus continents is very favorable for glaciation.
MECHANISM FOUR
High latitude major volcanic eruptions correlate to prolonged solar minimum periods which translates to stratospheric warming due to an increase in SO2 particles while promoting more lower troposphere cooling.
One theory of many behind the solar/volcanic connection is that MUONS, a by product of galactic cosmic rays can affect the calderas of certain volcanoes by changing the chemical composition of the matter within the silica rich magma creating aerosols which increase pressure in the magma chamber and hence lead to an explosive eruption.
Muon densities increase more in higher latitudes at times of weak solar magnetic activity, which is why volcanic activity in the higher latitudes will be affected more by this process.
These four mechanisms make a strong case for a solar /climate connection in my opinion, and if the prolonged solar minimum meets the criteria I have mentioned going forward and the duration is long enough I expect global cooling to be quite substantial going forward.
THE CRITERIA
Solar Flux avg. sub 90
Solar Wind avg. sub 350 km/sec
AP index avg. sub 5.0
Cosmic ray counts north of 6500 counts per minute
Total Solar Irradiance off .15% or more
EUV light average 0-105 nm sub 100 units (or off 100% or more) and longer UV light emissions around 300 nm off by several percent.
IMF around 4.0 nt or lower.
The above solar parameter averages following several years of sub solar activity in general which commenced in year 2005..
IF , these average solar parameters are the rule going forward for the remainder of this decade expect global average temperatures to fall by -.5C, with the largest global temperature declines occurring over the high latitudes of N.H. land areas.
The decline in temperatures should begin to take place within six months after the ending of the maximum of solar cycle 24.
NOTE 1- What mainstream science is missing in my opinion is two fold, in that solar variability is greater than thought, and that the climate system of the earth is more sensitive to that solar variability.
NOTE 2- LATEST RESEARCH SUGGEST THE FOLLOWING:
A. Ozone concentrations in the lower and middle stratosphere are in phase with the solar cycle, while in anti phase with the solar cycle in the upper stratosphere.
B. Certain bands of UV light are more important to ozone production then others.
C. UV light bands are in phase with the solar cycle with much more variability, in contrast to visible light and near infrared (NIR) bands which are in anti phase with the solar cycle with much LESS variability.
So it has not warmed because solar irradiance has been weak for the past 16 years. Does that not prove that it is the sun and not C02 that warms the planet? They expect global warming to resume? How? Solar irradiance is now in decline for at least another 20 years.
‘He believes that global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades.’
Why should they?
The ground station data sets are actually too warm, not too cool, for a number of reasons. The algorithms to adjust for the urban heat island effect make these stations warmer, not cooler as they should be. Then the ocean data are heated up to agree with the artificially warmer land stations. On top of which, older data are systematically made cooler, since there is a limit to how much Hadley and GISS can adjust current readings upwards, with the satellites watching.
I wonder if they’d put their own money into a Pension Fund that changed their forecast models downwards, and tinkered with share prices to raise them upwards?
If the real numbers don’t fit the ones generated by the model, then clearly the real numbers need to be “corrected” to make them fit . After all, the model cannot be wrong can it? (And these people call themselves “scientists”?) Heck, I suppose the concept of fraud has been removed from their brains?
This is the vegetable soup explanation for the pause – put everything in there, and hope it tastes real good.
If the model data is corrected downwards, as suggested by the ETH researchers, and the measurement data is corrected upwards…
you can produce the result of your choice.
Very neat but science it is not!
Still: eleven signs we are going to a new little ice age.
http://lenbilen.com/2014/07/01/eleven-signs-of-cooling-a-new-little-ice-age-coming/
As you say the records now show temperatures rose rapidly in the 80s and 90s, but in 1999 the temperature data for the US did not show a rapid rise in the 80s and 90s, it was slight rise during the 80s and a drop in the 90s, with the 1930s being the hottest decade for the US in the 20th century. The rapid rise in the 80s and 90s in the US now shows after the temperature data was adjusted. So it surprises me that people just look at that adjusted data and repeat it, quote it, and believe it as if it is obvious. Many of us lived through the 80s and 90s here in the US, there was no talk in the news or by weathermen that the temperature was rising rapidly in those decades, I never felt like it was getting hotter, I never heard anyone make any comment even suggesting they noticed the slightest rise in temperature was happening, we talked about the weather all the time, watched weather reports and listened to weathermen all the time and no one I heard ever, in all those 20 years, ever noticed or suggested anything about it getting hotter. We lived through the hockey stick, supposedly the greatest rise temperature in 1000 years or more, and no one noticed a thing. I feel like we’ve all been brainwashed after the fact into believe something happened that never did happen.
Keith Willshaw said:
August 19, 2014 at 8:31 am
So the final solution is to ‘correct’ projected temperatures downwards and ‘correct’ measured temperatures upwards and declare the science settled.
Why am I not [surprised]
————
Yeah it’s kinda like Holder ordering a third autopsy for that guy in Ferguson. They know the outcome they want, they just have to pummel those pesky facts into submission.
Beat to fit, paint to match.
So they’re using natural variation to prop-up man-made warming theory!
Cooling is always natural variation. Warming is always man-made.
Got it.
Lets just say for a moment he is right. What happens should the sun go into a maunder minimum and we get a volcano or two? Tens of millions died in the depths of the Little ice age due to crop failures. If greenhouse gasses keep the climate warmer for a hundred years than the LIA, then what the heck is wrong with that?
So they invested in Enron and the warmists in Mann’s tree!
“When pension funds invest the pension capital in shares, they expect to generate a profit in the long term.” At the same time, they are aware that their investments are exposed to price fluctuations and that performance can also be negative in the short term. However, what finance specialists and climate scientists and their models are not able to predict is when exactly a short-term economic downturn or a La Niña year will occur.”
This has to be the best essay of Post Normal Science yet.
A textbook explanation of how to not study nature.
Let me see, the claimed events did not occur.
Actual measurements show a failure of these speculations.
But if we just blame everything we previously discounted, then tweak our projections down.Adjust the measured value up..
Climatology will likely never have credibility with taxpayers.
That there is no Catastrophe imminent, makes the conversation pointless.
Even the Alarmed Ones and their lab coated shills now acknowledge this.
The only question left.
Who pays for this shameful episode of mass hysteria?
The cost has been huge.
We taxpayers have been stuck with this bill so far, but now the cause is exposed, these costs must be passed back to the fools and bandits.
I willingly pay for work done to my benefit, however this expenditure and social destruction does not meet any practical test.
dp:
At August 19, 2014 at 8:36 am you say
Sorry, but it does, and global average surface temperature (GASTA) adjusts to re-establish the energy balance between the planet and the universe. Indeed, such redistribution of heat by ocean currents is a more likely explanation of 20th century global warming than changes to atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
The reason is that heat is lost from the planet by radiation, and the radiated flux is proportional to the fourth power of the temperature (T) of the radiating surface. Move heat from a hot region to a cold region such that a change to T/m^2 has the same magnitude (but opposite sign) in each region and then T^4/m^2 is not the same in each region.
Richard
“Climate sceptics used this apparent contradiction to question climate change per se – or at least the harm potential caused by greenhouse gases – as well as the validity of the climate models.”
Why wouldn’t all scientists question this “apparent contradiction”? Oh wait, just read further. Apparently it’s the data (again) that is at fault: “The interpretation of the official measured data should also be critically scrutinised. According to Knutti, measured data is likely to be too low…”
This article is classic. I think cognitive dissonance is firmly settling in.
Lets just say for a moment he is right (alternative version).
I guess he would acknowledge that the catatrophic warming projected in the 80’s and 90’s was clearly overestimated by a factor or 2 or so, and thus the warming limit for the 21st century, of approx. 2C, that we’ve been told we must not breach, looks in fact unlikely to be breached.
So that’s all good then.
Oops!
I intended
and then the change to T^4/m^2 is not the same in each region.
Sorry.
Richard
I swear, you can’t make this stuff up!
Oh.
Sorry, my bad.
Even the use of the term “warming hiatus” shows their un-scientific bias. All we can say is that warming has now stopped. Weither it starts up again, or ever starts up again, is the whole point. Saying it is only on “hiatus” is assuming the conclusion you are trying to prove. Go back to High School science and start over, please.
The discrepancy between the climate models and measured data over the past 16 years cannot solely be attributed to the fact that these models predict too much warming, …i>
It is not because the models are wrong, it is because the data is wrong.
You are correct, John W. Garret: you can’t make this stuff up.
/grin
Of course, the same error that they are asserting is occurring in the Arctic could have also occurred in the Antarctic in the past record, so that the net effect of the correction could be null. Or, we could just look at lower troposphere temperatures, which are not subject to the measurement and sparsity errors of the surface record, and note that they’ve been all but flat over almost all of the 30+ years they have been measured, and use them the way Lief et. al. are using secondary e.g. magnetic data to correct the equally corrupted and unreliable sunspot record.
I don’t think even people like this undoubtedly honest scholar realize that the LTT record is a hard constraint on how much you can “adjust” the contemporary record, and that adjusting the past record, in addition to being enormously dangerous and susceptible to confirmation bias, can be done only at the expense of increasing the error bars to the point where the change really doesn’t matter. Almost by definition, in fact. There ain’t no such thing as a free statistical lunch, and you can’t squeeze a given collection of data with various uncertainties in it for more certainty than it contains, from an information theoretic point of view. You can only insert your own biases or beliefs into it on the basis of a belief that your model for doing so is right. That’s all well and good, but if you do that you cannot then turn around and use the data to prove that your model is right. Somewhere in there you need an independent way to affirm the model.
The one useful take home message from the top article is that yes, models can be built that are in much better agreement with observation, and yes, they can only get there by re-attributing the importance of discrete events such as ENSO oscillations and long term variabilities such as the sun so that the natural variation is a strictly larger fraction of the observed variation. As you make the 1997-1998 super-ENSO event responsible for more of the single burst of global warming visible over the last 75 years, which all occurred between roughly 1980 and 2000 (or arguably over the even shorter interval 1983-1998) then you leave less room for CO_2 to be a cause for the rest.
Nobody (rational) doubts that increasing CO_2 will have a net positive effect on the average temperature. The real question is: how large an effect can we expect? This, in turn, empirically depends in critical ways on the way natural variability and CO_2 driven variability are apportioned, which is in turn basically impossible to precisely determine as the two are not separable in the dynamics of any climate model; one is stuck making guesses that are nearly impossible to defend. An argument can be made for total feedback from the water cycle alone being strongly negative and cancelling nearly all of the CO_2-linked warming. An argument can be made (and often is:-) for it being the exact opposite, for water vapor to be a strong positive feedback, in spite of the general empirical divergence of models that are built on top of this assumption.
That’s one thing the top article apparently ignores right from the beginning. By attributing more of the lack of warming to increased volcanic aerosols, it maintains the fiction that the temperature rise we observe is certain to be a balancing of CO_2 warming, strong positive feedback from water vapor that much more than triples or quadruples that warming, and a variety of aerosols that cancel much of that warming to leave us with an overall doubling (plus some assumptions as to the strength of the original CO_2-only warming.
But what if they have the sign of the net water vapor feedback wrong from the beginning? What if ENSO and non-grand solar maximum were responsible for most of the warming observed in the entire 20th century, with direct CO_2 forcing being mostly cancelled by water vapor and atmospheric pressure and circulation feedbacks? This is not all that implausible, given that if one assumes that the Earth is generally in a state of approximate GHG balance when one isn’t adding CO_2, water vapor must be at the crossover point where increasing it leads to negative feedback or else the temperature would not be locally stable. This is a simple property of stable equilibrium — perturbing he system away from it must produce a net forcing back to equilibrium, not away from it.
That is what is so puzzling to me. They are asserting the following chain of reasoning:
a) The Earth is in a (dynamic) equilibrium within small responses to things like solar variability.
b) Water vapor is a powerful greenhouse gas — indeed the most important greenhouse gas responsible for over 90% of the total GHE warming relative to the Earth’s greybody temperature.
c) Increasing water vapor must increase global average temperature. Note that this assertion is contradicted by a) — if true, the global average temperature would increase as every increase in temperature increases water evaporation from the ocean, which then warms it still more. In simple fact, any increase in water vapor in the asserted equilibrium of a) from increased warming must lead to net cooling and an eventual restoration of the equilibrium water vapor concentration.
d) Increasing CO_2 must increase global average temperature.
e) This in turn must increase water vapor.
f) From c), we expect to get even more warming from increased CO_2 because of increased water vapor.
How, I ask, can they possibly defend assertion c) without destabilizing the entire climate to increases in water vapor, enabling runaway solutions even if there are no changes in anything else? The net feedback from increased water vapor in the neighborhood of any asserted equilibrium must change sign at the equilibrium point, just as is the case of the force exerted by a mass on a spring or the combined action of string and gravity on a pendulum!
They are performing the mathematical equivalent of asserting that if you pull a mass on a spring a small distance away from a stable equilibrium point with your finger, the spring will stretch even more because of some separable part of the net total force that pulls it back towards equilibrium. This seems rather implausible to me.
rgb
Quote:
“Climate sceptics used this apparent contradiction to question climate change per se – or at least the harm potential caused by greenhouse gases – as well as the validity of the climate models. Meanwhile, the majority of climate researchers continued to emphasise that the short-term ‘warming hiatus’ could largely be explained on the basis of current scientific understanding and did not contradict longer term warming.”
Quote:
“Although climate models generally take such fluctuations into account, it is impossible to predict the year in which these phenomena will emerge, says the climate physicist.”
**********
So, in their own words, these alarmist scientists are admitting that their models don’t do El Ninos and La Ninas, but they are still right.
And their models don’t do clouds, but they are still right.
And they can’t say for sure what the climate’s sensitivity level to the greenhouse gas effect of CO2 is, and they can only insert their best guesses into their models. But they are still right.
Yea, right. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah……
It’s like what my Dad always used to jokingly say: “I’m not always right, but I’m never wrong.”
New! “Press Release Drinking Game” by D Aschim
-drink when you read “Climate Change” used as though climate doesn’t change.
-drink when any warming is prima facie bad (ex from extract: like the “drastic 90s warming” I didn’t notice as I lived through it!)
-drink when it is claimed natural events cool the earth but only man warms it!
-drink when you can falsify a bald assertion with observation (claim: the atmosphere is filled with particles from volcanoes etc even though the atmospheric apparent transmission hasn’t changed see http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/grad/mloapt/mlo_transmission.gif
-drink when logic and science principles are tossed out the door (claim:” If the model data is corrected downwards… and the measurement data is corrected upwards… then the model and actual observations are very similar.”)
Now we are on an even footing since it has become apparent to me that climate scientists are playing some sort of sciencey drinking game before they write this stuff! “My hypothesis is untestable- Drink!” “Observation contradicts my prediction- Drink!” “Jim is writing a paper saying the evidense falsifying my theory can be ignored- Two Drinks!”
note: please drink responsibly…
Is it not true that a predicted consequences of the greenhouse effect, specifically that of CO2 is as follows
1) feedback of water vapor at low altitudes, therefore higher humidity,
2) cooling at higher altitudes, especially over the oceans in the tropics, therefore a predicted cool zone.
3) The larger temperature gradient from the earth’s surface to higher altitudes would therefore cause more atmospheric movement and more extreme weather.
The items stated above should happen and be observed irrespective of climatic events mentioned in this article. Looking at short term and long term historical values, I do not see any of the above being observed.
Any comments?
dp has the comment of the day. The 98 El Nino released warmth that was already there prior to the onset of the El Nino. So the questions are, 1) where did that warmth come from? Yes it was in the oceans, but 2) how did it get in the oceans and from what source? And 3) did the tiny increase in anthropogenic CO2, even with water vapor amplification of downwelling longwave infrared, add to the larger source in a measurable way? And 4) how does it come out to warm the air?
Answers
1) Solar TSI absorbed by the top oceanic 700 meters.
2) When the skies are clearer, more of the solar spectrum gets into the oceans but clear skies also mean that sea surfaces may be roughed up by winds which mixes layers together making it look like nothing is heating up at all in the oceans.
3) Not even barely.
4) When the winds calm down (IE El Nino), the ocean layers become more defined with the warmest temperatures rising to the top where, because of the differences in temperatures between that top layer and the air above it, the surface begins to evaporate, sending that heated moist air into the atmosphere. Through the hydrologic cycle, heat is released and we warm up.
The pause has not been particularly active in terms of La Nina conditions. We have been on either side of neutral a LOT, randomly walking between El Nado and La Nada since 98, with occasional trips into El Nino and La Nina but nothing to write home about.
It seems to me we’ve been driving a long ways on a tank of gas without stopping much to refill it. Maybe getting a dollar’s worth here and there but not much more than that. Eventually, unless the skies clear up, with wind blows, and we get a full tank, we are going to run out of gas.
Is it me or are my comments getting stuck in an automatic moderation portal due to a glitch?
[Reply: It’s not you, it is WordPress. ~mod.]
“From satellite data, for example, scientists know that the Arctic region in particular has become warmer over the past years, but because there are no weather stations in that area, there are measurements that show strong upward fluctuations. ”
Belief without evidence is faith.
As the sun’s magnetic activity affects the climate? Sufficient to see how ozone affects the polar vortex. Visible shift at an altitude of about 30 km.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t10_sh_f00.gif
http://www.bartol.udel.edu/~pyle/thespnplot.gif
Nobody (rational) doubts that increasing CO_2 will have a net positive effect on the average temperature.
====
You and I disagree on this one point……we really do not know that…one way or the other
Pamela Gray says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:40 am
Is it me or are my comments getting stuck in an automatic moderation portal due to a glitch
====
I think so..I quoted you earlier…and it went into moderation
testing it again here
nope…didn’t do it that time Pamela
““When pension funds invest the pension capital in shares, they expect to generate a profit in the long term.” At the same time, they are aware that their investments are exposed to price fluctuations and that performance can also be negative in the short term.”
Brilliant! A climate scientist uses the expectations of pension funds as an analog for global warming models. Perhaps he is unaware that massive numbers of pension funds are going belly up? Additionally, while he correctly notes that pension fund performance can also be negative in the short term he fails to note that performance can be negative in the long term, too. Some stocks (Solyndra anyone?) go bankrupt.
I can offer a simpler explanation for ‘the pause’: The sensitivity to GHG forcing calculated by the models is much too high. Were he around today, I suspect William of Ockham would agree.
The press release is disingenuous at best: the “adjustments” of Arctic temperatures (Cowtan and Way), even if correct, and that is by no means certain, make only a very small difference in the measured rate of global warming. The influence of ENSO, solar intensity, and volcanic aerosols are similarly overstated in the release. Yes, there is some effect from all those factors, just as there was the opposite effect from those same factors during the 1970’s to ~2000, which exaggerated the measured warming. There is no reasonable explanation for the divergence between models and reality save for that most of the models are far too sensitive to GHG forcing. The models project too much warming due to a combination of erroneous strong positive cloud feed-backs, overestimated ocean heat accumulation, and grossly overstated historical aerosol offsets.
Whether dragged kicking and screaming, or pulling on their big-boy pants and admitting they have long overestimated climate sensitivity, climate scientists are going to ultimately have to accept reality. It will be best for them, and more importantly, for people everywhere, if that happens sooner rather than later. The contortions and histrionics by many ‘policy advocates’ to maintain the plausibility of warming driven catastrophe are mildly entertaining (Huber and Knutti is one of many risible ‘explanations’ already published), but the economic damage done by refusing to accept the ever growing probability of low sensitivity to GHG forcing is no laughing matter. Foolish public policy, justified by climate science scare-stories of doom, causes real and immediate harm, especially among poor people. The longer climate scientists refuse to deal with plain reality and continue to insist on ridiculous projections of extreme warming, the less kind history will be to the entire field. It is time for whatever cool heads there may be in the field to start climbing down. That will leave only the worst of the ‘policy advocates’ high in the trees; that’s no real loss, since there is no hope of rational behavior from them under any circumstances.
Is there a list of these 31 excuses, with pointers to their WUWT articles? Maybe a “Lists” page should be added under “Resources”.
Once again — Warming is man-made, but no warming is just natural variation.
Just move on. Nothing to see here.
Everything the skeptics say is proof we are right.
This the cliff notes version of this article.
More and more this is becoming just funny.
You are describing an after-affect of moving ocean energy out of the ocean. We agree on what happens next. But that does not equate to the OP’s claim that El Niño events warm the earth. It warms the atmosphere but at the expense of cooling the ocean and of itself is a net zero change. To warm the earth there has to be a change in energy exchanged between the sun, the earth, and the universe.
Any energy put into the atmosphere is energy in a good position to leave the earth system resulting in a net cooling as a knock-on effect. I have long maintained that El Niño events are net cooling events even if it means there is a temporary warming pulse that passes through the atmosphere on the way to space. Surface energy can never be lost to space without going through the atmosphere, of course. That is not global warming – global warming happens when more energy arrives than is lost by all processes. El Niño events have to do with sequestered energy, not new energy, hence they cannot heat the earth but only move existing energy from one place to another. It can’t even be shown that sequestering energy in the oceans is evidence of global warming. As much energy may be leaving the system elsewhere. We have to look at the global energy exchange rate and we don’t have anything yet that can do that precisely.
If someone can show that an El Niño event causes incoming energy to be sequestered at a greater rate than without then I’d like to see it. This requires modulation of albedo or of GHG density, and it has to be permanent to affect the long term trend of global energy balance else it will be a simple pulse of atmospheric heat, much of which will be lost to the black soul of an uncaring universe.
Well said rgb, it is with a great deal of sadness that I note that the ETH Climazentrum is just another rent seeking agency. What was once a great institution has now decayed to a shell of it’s former brilliance. I can barely stand to read the ETH Aluminus publication these days. So much “Sozial Politik,” supported by “Wissenshaft” that doesn’t deserve that title, let alone any recognition.
Any private pension fund not seeing a rise in value for 17 years 10 months would see the person over seeing the fund investigated for fraud and the CEO overseeing that person in jail for defrauding the share holders. Public pension, the person overseeing it would get promoted and be in line for political run.
Fat change. Going forward, global cooling will accelerate,
look at the first two tables.
And there is no man made global warming
look at the last table,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
Professor Knutti? You couldn’t make it up.
Anthony added new rules to the post previewer to prevent a load of BS dumped into the site as happened a couple days ago. I expect we’ll see more of the AutoMod going forward.
If it could be explained on the basis of then-current scientific understanding, then there would not be any need for these newfound, ad-hoc, straw-grasping explanations, would there asshat?
And there would not have been any discrepancy between the model predictions and the observations if the models had adequately incorporated that “current scientific understanding”, would there, asshat?
BTW, did you know that Verne Troyer (mini-me) and Sultan Kösen (Guinness record holder as tallest man on earth) are the same height? Doesn’t seem that way at first, but if you apply “climate science” methods and cut off Kösen’s legs while measuring Troyer on stilts, you will see that it is true.
If temperatures are manipulated to imply a.g.w. theory proof and generate trillions of poor people’s dollars for healing the planet by funding and windfalls on wall street that would be a good place to invest your your retirement money.
The trick is to get out at exactly the right time before it crumbles into it’s despicable fraudulent Madoff mess.
Wait a minute.
So now they are down to ONE point showing a trend? What next? No data points make a trend? it is only logical.
Pamela says
Best summation I have read in a while
Thanks
I thought that the Warmist Modelers were convinced of the impotence of the solar factor [you could call it Solar ED] — we’ve regularly been told that the only radiative forcing terms are: positive from increasing greenhouse gases and negatively from volcanic aerosols
Now Prof Knuti offers scientific viagra to the power of sunlight to influence the climate
Well if they want the sauce for the goose then they’ve got to have the sauce for the proverbial male geese as well — Modern Solar Maximum — perhaps that increase in solar activity since the Dalton Minimum might explain the warming trend in the past 100+ years?
More science!
“From satellite data, for example, scientists know that the Arctic region in particular has become warmer over the past years, but because there are no weather stations in that area, there are measurements that show strong upward fluctuations. As a result, the specified average temperature is too low.”
Barrow Alaska weather station…
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/met/brw_met_english.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrow,_Alaska
Barrow … is the largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska and is located above the Arctic Circle.
Pamela Gray says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:39 am
El Nado means Swimming.
IMO, it’s not just TSI but also its spectral composition (since most of the variation is in the UV range of the spectrum) & the various modulating forces which rule insolation, such as orbital & rotational mechanics, plus solar magnetic activity, which affects cloud formation.
But glad to see you recognize some role for solar cycles.
My nomination for quote of the week comes from Mark and and two Cats. ‘Beat to fit. Paint to match’. Brilliant!.
Sorry – my comment was meant for another thread (moved…).
Taphonomic says:
August 19, 2014 at 10:09 am
““When pension funds invest the pension capital in shares, they expect to generate a profit in the long term.” At the same time, they are aware that their investments are exposed to price fluctuations and that performance can also be negative in the short term.”
Brilliant! A climate scientist uses the expectations of pension funds as an analog for global warming models. Perhaps he is unaware that massive numbers of pension funds are going belly up? Additionally, while he correctly notes that pension fund performance can also be negative in the short term he fails to note that performance can be negative in the long term, too. Some stocks (Solyndra anyone?) go bankrupt.
*******************
Pension funds are not an analog for climate models. In addition to going belly up, pension funds can change the factors that impact performance: they can sell underperforming stocks and buy others. Climate models [should be] constrained by real world variables: tsi, co2, etc. you can’t sell your position in co2 and double down on methane!
Frank K. says:
August 19, 2014 at 10:49 am
Map of Arctic stations doesn’t include wandering “North Pole” recorder, nor frequent observations from subs surfacing at the Pole:
http://www.athropolis.com/map2.htm
Now these two quotes are illuminating:
immediately followed by:
How can one claim that the “current scientific understanding” can explain the hiatus if they are still “looking into the possible causes”? Doesn’t scientific understanding include a tested hypothesis and not just an assertion?
In affect, this release is saying “We’re scientists. By our mere utterance, this makes it scientific understanding”.
Could this cause delay effects of low solar activity cycle 24?
vukcevic says:
Its implications can be viewed in the light of the NASA’s Themis satellite discovery, as contained in the key statement:
”For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway..”
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/16dec_giantbreach/
Is cycles even enhance the Earth’s magnetic field, the stronger the current in the ionosphere?
“This study has focused on ionospheric electric currents flowing on the nigh side at low and
mid latitudes. Their magnetic field signatures cannot be neglected by main and crustal
magnetic field modellers. These are in particular small- and larger-scale pressure gradient and
gravity-driven currents.”
http://esamultimedia.esa.int/docs/EarthObservation/FR_20943_Swarm_Iono.pdf
Sorry. Commented in wrong post thread.
It should be noted that the delay cooling effect occurs at midnight. To the south was visible right away. In Cycle 25 solar polarity turn away.
So what !
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0162fdd74ba3970d-pi
Professor Nutty says “……..If the model data is corrected downwards, as suggested by the ETH researchers, and the measurement data is corrected upwards, as suggested by the British and Canadian researchers, then the model and actual observations are very similar……”
And someone is paying for this ‘research’?
Sadly, that someone is us, but at least we can console ourselves that this is typical ‘climate science’ at its very best.
I would love to see them apply their adjustment of solar activity to the previous 150 years as well as to just the previous 16. My guess is that the adjustment they needed to recreate global warming that is in line with models over the last 16 because of low solar activity would eliminate global warming over the previous 150 years. Or at least it would be a warming rate that is not “acceptable” because it poses no serious threat to the planet, humanity, or Gaia.
Hang them by their own petard.
The writer says: He believes that global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades.
I suppose I could say my dog might bite my neighbor, only that I don’t have a dog or a neighbor.
First it was settled, then it settled some more, then over the last 18 years it continuing settling so now it is finally settled. So from this new settled base it will surely rise as expected, that is settled.
With the AMO and PDO both in the cooling phases of their cycles and Solar Cycle 24 as low as it is, the cooling has been predicted by some to become `statistically significant’ sometime over the next 2 years or so.
We can expect the present 31 excuses to be revisited, revised, and refreshed with `adjustments’ and maybe many more added. I can predict `Warming will resume shortly’ will become a the chorus.
Excuse #32: A string of longer solar cycles.
Excuse #33: Aw, smack! CO2 has nothing to do with it.
“He believes that global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades.”
What he is saying is that models do not reflect shorter term variances outside their averaged longer term values. This does not address the corollary of how much warming was due to the same shorter term variances on the positive side of their longer term averages.
If you apply both sides to the record, then current values go up, but past values go down. You are left with the same as before, inasmuch the rising trend THAT IS ATTRIBUTABLE TO CO2 is less than that modeled previously
Models would match the record in this case because the models have significantly reduced the pure CO2 component. The Hansen slightly-above Scenario C would be the one to reflect reality.
You can’t explain away the hiatus as a natural feature without downward limiting the forcing of CO2 + water vapour. CAGW does not survive by invoking nature into the reason for the hiatus, other than un-natural levels of clouds: cloud variability is the only natural explanation of the pause that doesn’t flatline CAGW. (Human produced aerosols are the only non-natural explanation.)
Adding in the polar areas doesn’t mean the world is warmer, and so still modeled correctly, as the warming is supposed to be globally seen: what this trick would do is to reinforce the regionality of “global” warming, and thus put the onus on models to reflect the rest of the world better.
For the first time, Reto Knutti, Professor of Climate Physics at ETH Zurich, has systematically examined all current hypotheses together with a colleague.
Did he find his colleague to be sane ?
As I have said for years. “Political Correctness is simply an euphemism for ‘not completely correct’; in other words ‘Wrong’.”
There is a large political investment in having the models and data agree.
There is a large scientific investment in having the data tell us when our models are wrong.
Here’s a comment on Knutti from 17 months ago:
His name says it all, Knutti is pronounced “nutty”. “He believes that global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades.”
He agrees with the skeptics that CC is caused by solar activity. If you had paid over $100000 for a PHD and your advisor states that your thesis needs to emphasize AGW before it is accepted, what would you do?
What did you do?
This article is saying natural causes are currently trumping man made causes.
This article is not worth the paper it is wrote on.
After thinking a little more, I have to ask myself, are the current crop of “scientists” any better that the current crop of politicians? The currency of these two groups is just a different type of paper.
Here:
——————–
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/30/list-of-excuses-for-the-pause-now-up-to-29/
“If you can’t explain the Pause, you can’t explain the Cause.”
An updated list of at least 29 excuses for the 18 year ‘pause’ in global warming, including recent scientific papers, media quotes, blogs, and related debunkings:
1) Low solar activity
2) Oceans ate the global warming [debunked] [debunked] [debunked]
3) Chinese coal use [debunked]
4) Montreal Protocol
5) What ‘pause’? [debunked] [debunked] [debunked] [debunked]
6) Volcanic aerosols [debunked]
7) Stratospheric Water Vapor
8) Faster Pacific trade winds [debunked]
9) Stadium Waves
10) ‘Coincidence!’
11) Pine aerosols
12) It’s “not so unusual” and “no more than natural variability”
13) “Scientists looking at the wrong ‘lousy’ data”
14) Cold nights getting colder in Northern Hemisphere
15) We forgot to cherry-pick models in tune with natural variability [debunked]
16) Negative phase of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
17) AMOC ocean oscillation
18) “Global brightening” has stopped
19) “Ahistorical media”
20) “It’s the hottest decade ever” Decadal averages used to hide the ‘pause’ [debunked]
21) Few El Ninos since 1999
22) Temperature variations fall “roughly in the middle of the AR4 model results”
23) “Not scientifically relevant”
24) The wrong type of El Ninos
25) Slower trade winds [debunked]
26) The climate is less sensitive to CO2 than previously thought [see also]
27) PDO and AMO natural cycles and here
28) ENSO
29) Solar cycle driven ocean temperature variations
Well, there is one useful side of climate science in education. It provides a unique learning lab for model construction pitfalls and the impact of included and excluded variables in modeling.
Sorry for the mistake. Now it will be cooler in the north.
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/arctic.sea.ice.interactive.html
Bob Carter has it right. Skeptics should talk about the halt, not the pause. The latter implies we know it will resume, which is far from certain. It could easily, and more probably, start cooling again.
“””””…..Climate sceptics used this apparent contradiction to question climate change per se – or at least the harm potential caused by greenhouse gases – as well as the validity of the climate models. Meanwhile, the majority of climate researchers continued to emphasize that the short-term ‘warming hiatus’ could largely be explained on the basis of current scientific understanding and did not contradict longer term warming……”””””
Hey dummies; your wonderful models predict none of this. So what snake oil, are you hanging your sorry reputations on now.
Aren’t your climate models, the very essence of the totality of YOUR climate knowledge ??
You ought to be ashamed to show your faces, in any science situation.
“””””……could largely be explained on the basis of current scientific understanding …..”””””
So put THAT explanation, into YOUR climate models, and then come and tell us how it explains, what the real world facts, actually are.
John Francis says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/19/excuse-31-for-the-pause-el-nino-and-longer-solar-cycles/#comment-1712582
Henry says
There is no pause. There is no halt.
In nature it is either warming or cooling.
As my results show
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
it is cooling.
So wait, AGW is dependent on natural causes of warming? Okay then.
No, I get it. It’s the old shell game with variables. You put in a few variables and shake the model, being careful not to put in too many variables like AMO to knock out AGW in the process.
If the model data is corrected downwards … and the measurement data is corrected upwards … then the model and actual observations are very similar.
I really don’t know what there is to say about that.
Climate science at its best, I suppose.
The climate part of ETHZ was never a great institution (that was the physics part were Einstein worked, and the several engineering parts), and the K in Herr Professors name is pronounced (something like Gnutti).
dp:
I am answering your post at August 19, 2014 at 10:22 am which is here.
You assert to me
NO! That is warmunist ‘goalpost moving’.
Global warming is an increase to global average surface temperature anomaly (GASTA).
Global warming is NOT “a change in energy exchanged between” anything.
Richard
“When pension funds invest the pension capital in shares, they expect to generate a profit in the long term.”
So if I understand the point he is trying to illustrate, the totality of climate models are ultimately expected to produce a warming (i.e. “profit”) result, irrespective of any other inputs “in the long term”. In other words the entire edifice of CAGW climate models is built around the presumption of warming.
So that’s all right then.
To paraphrase Laurence J. Peter, “A climate scientist is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday didn’t happen today.”
Since Mr. Climate Science Prediction is now divorcing from Mrs. Mother Nature Reality, the two must divide up their CO2 warming assets and their natural warming assets; with their respective portions being subject to negotiation before a final divorce agreement can be settled.
So it would be warmer if not for all the natural cooling. OK got it.
Try Mt. Redoubt Alaska in 2009, there was no significant change in optical transparency in 2010 associated with any Icelandic volcanoes that could have had a global effect on temperatures.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/webdata/grad/mloapt/mlo_transmission.gif
dp says:
August 19, 2014 at 8:36 am
How can El Niño warm the earth? Any energy released from an El Niño event is energy that is already here, not new energy trapped by hellish republican sweat shops churning out SUV’s by the billions. Like moving cash from one pocket to the other has no affect on your wealth, moving energy from one place to another in the Earth system does not change the energy balance between the planet and the universe.
Spot on. Consider how many orders of magnitude more heat is in the oceans compared to the atmosphere. Eventually folks will realise the profound error of into thinking that climate warming must mean gain of energy by the earth as a whole. Why? With near freezing water at the bottom of all the world’s oceans, all it takes for climate cooling is an increase in deep vertical mixing in the oceans, integrated globally. All it takes for climate warming is a decrease in the same deep mixing. Yes – its just moving money from one pocket to another. But it changes climate as experienced by people living on land surfaces.
Climate can move upward and downward in temperature just from changes in ocean deep vertical mixing, with zero change in global energy budget. (There is evidence that Arctic bottom water is warmer during ice ages for instance.) Again, considering the ocean’s heat budget, climate on at least decadal timescales should be considered adiabatic.
I find myself wishing for global cooling to begin even though I know this is bad for us humans, but we really need this episode of warmmongering to come to an end.
17years+, so over 1/6 of a century of no warming with the latter showing cooling is no problem for the models! They just need to be adjusted a bit downward and the temperature record adjusted upwards. They’ve already well and truly taken care of the temperature adjustments upward over the past 18 years since Hansen deep sixed the the 1930s records downward and raised the more recent ones.
the researchers conclude that two important factors are equally responsible for the hiatus…..
..and the skeptics conclude those same two factors can explain all of the measured global warming without CO2
“According to Knutti, measured data is likely to be too low, since the global average temperature is only estimated using values obtained from weather stations on the ground”
Ummmm…whyzat? How do we know it’s “likely to be too low”? How do we know that it’s not too high?
The other thing that cracks me up about this…if you step back and look at the history of dialogue:
Warmers: The planet is warming up due to GHGs, particularly C02, produced by mankind.
Skeptics: How do you know it’s not natural variations in climate?
Warmers: Because the temperature tracks with the climbing C02 levels, so that’s the reason, period.
Skeptics: But wait…we had a really warm El-Nino in 98, and that’s skewing your data…
Warmers: No…it isn’t, it’s the C02!
years later…
Warmers: Ok…we figured out why it isn’t warming right now.
Skeptics: Oh?
Warmers: Yes…you see…we had a really big El-Nino year, followed by some La-Nina years, so it makes it’s cooled down.
Skeptics: Wait…wha?….so those two phenomemon can’t contribute to warming, which is all caused by C02, but they CAN contribute to COOLING?
Warmers: EXACTLY!!!
Do these people ever even read what they’re writing?
Jim
So all the warmists that have been systematically and repeatedly adjusting the temperature records ever upwards have been too conservative and should have been adjusting them upwards even more. Of course the warming in the 80’s and 90’s could not be due to a more active sun? Of course not, solar output has not changed, warmists have ben claiming that for decades! Meanwhile ice in the rapidly warming arctic is increasing again – gee did they forgot to inform mother nature of their findings?/sarc
More to the point the AGW theory can be most succinctly stated as “rising atmospheric CO2 reduces Earths energy loss to space (measured as outging long wave radiation OLR) and the resulting energy imbalance causes warming”. Trouble is that NOAA’s data shows that on average for the last 40 years OLR has been rising not falling. Rising OLR means more energy loss to space not less so any observed warming cannot be due to rising CO2. This all by itself is utterly fatal to the AGW theory R.I.P. AGW. Suggests warmists have something else they need to start adjust to keep the myth alive. Stay tuned for the next instalment of ADJUSTMENTS.
I am sure there are plenty of airport and inner city car parking lots that have been overlooked in the quest for higher temperatures!
I don’t think this is a new ‘explanation’ but just another variation on the “it’s just a remarkable coincidence it hasn’t warmed” explanation.
Climate change factors
MY FOUR FACTORS
1. The initial state of the global climate.
a. how close or far away is the global climate to glacial conditions if in inter- glacial, or how close is the earth to inter- glacial conditions if in a glacial condition.
b. climate was closer to the threshold level between glacial and inter- glacial 20,000 -10,000 years ago. This is why I think the climate was more unstable then. Example solar variability and all items would be able to pull the climate EASIER from one regime to another when the state of the climate was closer to the inter glacial/glacial dividing line, or threshold.
.
2. Solar variability and the associated primary and secondary effects. Lag times, degree of magnitude change and duration of those changes must be taken into account. I have come up with criteria . I will pass it along, why not in my next email.
a. solar irradiance changes- linked to ocean heat content.
b. cosmic ray changes- linked to clouds.
c. volcanic activity- correlated to stratospheric warming changing which will impact the atmospheric circulation.
d. UV light changes -correlated to ozone which then can be linked to atmospheric circulation changes.
e. atmospheric changes – linked to ocean current changes including ENSO, and thermohaline circulation.
f. atmospheric changes -linked also to albedo changes due to snow cover, cloud cover , and precipitation changes.
g. thickness of thermosphere – which is linked to other levels of the atmosphere.
.
3. Strength of the magnetic field of the earth. This can enhance or moderate changes associated with solar variability.
a. weaker magnetic field can enhance cosmic rays and also cause them to be concentrated in lower latitudes where there is more moisture to work with to be more effective in cloud formation if magnetic poles wander south due to magnetic excursions in a weakening magnetic field overall.
4. Milankovitch Cycles. Where the earth is at in relation to these cycles as far as how elliptic or not the orbit is, the tilt of the axis and precession.
a. less elliptic, less tilt, earth furthest from sun during N.H. summer — favor cooling.
I feel what I have outlined for the most part is not being taken as a serious possible solution as to why the climate changes. Rather climate change is often trying to be tied with terrestrial changes and worse yet only ONE ITEM , such as CO2 or ENSO which is absurdity.
Over time not one of these one item explanations stand up, they can not explain all of the various climatic changes to all the different degrees of magnitude and duration of time each one different from the previous one. Each one UNIQUE.
Examples would be the sudden start/end of the Oldest, Older and Younger Dryas dramatic climate shifts, the 8200 year ago cold period, and even the sudden start of the Little Ice Age following the Medieval Warm Period.
He could be right that it will soon start warming again. I don’t really care.
I was never angry because the world isn’t going to end on schedule. I’m angry because they keep on LYING. They lie about what they know. They lie about what they don’t know. They lie about how certain they are. They lie about the scientific value of computer models. They pick on certain natural phenomena and lie about their signifigance.
The whole business was originally a theory designed to explain events that hadn’t actually happened yet. Now a totally different set of events have happened, and they are claiming that proves the theory.
An honest man might say, “Something is happening, but it is not what we predicted.” They are not honest men.
The world could burn up, and then they would have won. They would have won, but they can never be RIGHT. Because they have lied.
The real travesty lies in the lack of accountability by those in the field. There are no standards for reconciling observations with theory as should be required by the “authentic” scientific method.
They have redefined the scientific method so that it allows them to justify their theory, instead of adjusting the theory as would be required following an “authentic” version of the scientific method.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
In essence, they use new theories to justify not changing the old theory. The more time that goes by with the old theory not verifying, the more new theories are conjured up.
The new theories all sound plausible……….to those sold on the old theory, with minds unable to escape their view that “the science is settled”.
Even worse, the world was informed that the science was settled some years ago and since then, the people in the world have been spoon fed propaganda that proves it.
Think of the embarrassment to those providing the proof all this time. The ruined reputations/damaged careers, if the science had not really been settled all this time.
The scientific method has morphed into something that allows for interpretation of facts to prevent that from ever happening.
Are we seeing a trend here where a plethora of “scientific” explanations emerge when one strongly held philosophy is severely questioned? As well as the pause – (halt, arrest, stoppage, termination, standstill, freeze or whatever you like to call it) of global warming the same phenomenon appears as to Why is Antarctic Sea Ice increasing?
Skeptical Science for example say it is certainly NOT because it is cooling around Antarctica. Oh no – that could never be, could it? That little possibility has been “re-analysed” and dispensed with. In fact SS allege there has been an increase of surface air temperatures around Antarctica and that even the Southern Ocean has shown strong warming over the same period that sea ice has been increasing. Mmmmnn?
But if everything is warming, you may ask, why is there more sea ice? Well, SS claims this is a result of a combination of complex phenomena including cyclonic winds around the continent and changes in ocean circulation. Satisfied?
But just in case you are not convinced there are also other contributing factors. One is the drop in ozone levels over Antarctica. The hole in the ozone layer above the South Pole has caused cooling in the stratosphere. A side-effect of this is a strengthening of the cyclonic winds that circle the Antarctic continent. The wind pushes sea ice around, creating areas of open water known as polynyas. More polynyas leads to increased sea ice production.
But wait there is more. The Southern Ocean consists of a layer of cold water near the surface and a layer of warmer water below. Water from the warmer layer rises up to the surface, melting sea ice. However, as air temperatures warm, the amount of rain and snowfall also increases. This freshens the surface waters, leading to a surface layer less dense than the saltier warmer water below. The layers become more stratified and mix less. Less heat is transported upwards from the deeper, warmer layer. Hence less sea ice is melted. Well did you ever – full marks for that one.
The Guardian aka warming aficionado Graham Readfearn also says the answer is blowing in the wind. You see what has happened, Graham informs us, is that is that greenhouse gases have caused stronger westerly winds which in turn have stirred up the waters creating ridges and rifts that help sea ice thicken.
A little paradoxical Graham admits but don’t worry all scientists understand exactly what’s going on he assures us – and the paradoxes don’t stop here. A big contributor to the increasing sea ice could be the melting of the massive Antarctic ice sheet in the west of the continent. All this added fresh water running into the ocean creates ideal conditions for Antarctic sea ice to form. (But note that this is only a could)
But don’t worry this won’t last for long. Graham re-assures us that the melting and break-up of glaciers, the changes in snowfall and changes in the air temperatures will all play a role in ensuring that the increase in Antarctic sea ice will be short lived.
Well Graham all I can say is that I hope Tim Flannery does not agree with you.
The New York University in the Science Daily reveals – pause – drumroll – that the answer lies in the Atlantic Ocean. And it is not an increase of sea ice, it is simply a re-distribution.
David tells us that “in contrast to the sea-ice decline over the Arctic, Antarctic sea ice has not diminished. Rather, it has redistributed itself in ways that have perplexed scientists, with declines in some areas and increases in others. From this study, we are learning just how Antarctic sea-ice redistributes itself, and also finding that the underlying mechanisms controlling Antarctic sea ice are completely distinct from those in the Arctic.”
Oh, that is so much of a relief David. Professor Chris Turney will be pleased if your state-of-the-art super dooper computer models can advise him of the best route through the redistributed ice next time he trips off down to the white continent. It could avoid heaps of embarrassment.
Walt Meier in the Conversation explains that fast increasing Antarctic sea ice has in part a more straightforward explanation – the data is wrong. You see it is all tied up with the Bootstrap algorithm.
I guess we can’t just estimate sea ice with an abacus and an aerial photograph. We have to rely on satellites and a mathematical step by step process or algorithm that converts raw satellite data into sea ice. Walt states that the Bootstrap algorithm (not believed to be associated with starting and self sustaining computer “bootstrapping”) was changed over time as well as different algorithms being used.
In forming the report for IPCC AR5 in 2013 two different version of Bootstrap were used. It became evident that the sea ice trend showed what looked like a step jump which was subsequently put down to data interpretation. However our diligent scientists are confident that the discrepancy is associated with a sensor calibration change in 1991 and only applied to Bootstrap Version 1.
So the good news for sceptics is that Bootstrap Version 2 is hunky dory and Antarctic sea ice extent is still increasing at a statistically significant rate. But Walt Meier now believes that “contrary to what was previously thought, the increase in Antarctic sea ice hasn’t accelerated in the past 15 years, but has been remained consistently positive at moderate levels.”
Phew! What a relief Walt, for a moment I thought that you were going to move all of the goal posts for us there. I guess “consistently positive” is still a teeny weeny bit of a worry for the warmist fraternity though?
There are lots of other comments and sub theories on why Antarctic sea ice is increasing including the Coriolis Affect and many many reassurances for the demonisers of CO2 that there is no reason to change their mind and anyway the increase in Antarctic sea ice is only slight.
But does any-one question these theories? Well at least one distinguished scientist does.
Professor Judith Curry, head of climate science at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, says the arguments are not convincing. Judith says: “We do not have a quantitative, predictive understanding of the rise in Antarctic sea ice extent. It is becoming increasingly apparent that long-term cycles in ocean temperatures were responsible for a significant proportion of the ice decline in the Arctic – a process that may be starting to reverse.”
She also revealed that because of the ‘pause’, in which world average temperatures have not risen for more than 16 years, the Arctic ice decline has been ‘touted’ by many as the most important evidence for continued global warming.
But in her view, climate scientists have to consider evidence from both Poles. She added: “Convincing arguments regarding the causes of sea-ice variations require understanding and ability to model both the Arctic and Antarctic.”
Or to put it more succinctly Judith? – there is absolutely no question about the cause of observed Arctic sea ice decline but for Antarctic sea ice increase – How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
This has to be some revenge of the nitwits.
He said the discrepancy cannot be solely attributed to the models predicting too much warming.
Why not?
He doesn’t bother mentioning a single word as to how he reached that conclusion.
What is his reason for starting his study from that presumption?
It is certainly a possibility that the models are entirely at fault.
Especially since the warming which the AGW models are really addressing is the 20 year period from free 70s to the 90s with 30 years of cooling previously and now nearly 20 years of cooling after.
In short the models suck.
Hold the presses — did I just see a warmist study say in effect “It’s the sun, stupid” ?
Let’s look at the data: TSI Reconstructions, courtesy of Leif Svalgaard.
Since the “pause” is within the “Actual Observations” window, we will ignore the historical reconstructions. I do not see any sign of significantly weaker TSI in the past few years. The peak-to-trough difference in most cycles appears to be 1 Watt per square meter at most, with some cycles less than that. The maximum peak appears to be in 1980 at about 1361.7 w/m^2; the most recent peak in 2014 appears to be about 1361.3 for a difference of 0.4 w/m^2. The corresponding minima are 1360.6 and 1360.3. To all figures add error bars of about +/- 0.1 because I am just eyeballing the chart and I need new glasses. So TSI maximum has declined about 0.4 w/m^2 relative the the largest peak actually observed and TSI minimum has declined about 0.3 w/m^w relative to the same cycle.
In roughly the same period (1980 – 2013) the IPCC claims the forcing due solely to CO2 increased from 1.058 to 1.884 w/m^2, for an increase of 0.826, or over double the decrease in peak TSI over the same period. See here for the table. Note this forcing increase is just for CO2; increases in methane, nitrous oxide, and several CFCs add another .329 w/m^2 of forcing.
So the IPCC (AR4) says total greenhouse gasses in CO2 equivalence went from 386 PPM in 1980 to 478 PPM in 2013 for a total forcing increase of 1.155 w/m^2. And yet a decrease in TSI of at most 0.4 w/m^2 (plus or minus eyeball error factor) is supposed to explain the pause?
Either I or the peer reviewers are missing something.
“Our models are not wrong…….”
“ITS THE OBSERVED DATA that is wrong…..”
Stupidity should be painful… Sometimes you cant bet on the next line of stupidity these people will use as an excuse.
Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7 says:
August 19, 2014 at 5:51 pm
….
Either I or the peer reviewers are missing something.
===============================================
Alan,
As you have so eloquently shown, it is the original paper which is mathematically challenged and as for the peer reviewers. Lets just say, they are all pals! They would have to be to allow something this grossly in error to get beyond them. Proof positive that this paper is propaganda for the faithful.
Nicely done sir!
Knutti believes: “global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades”.
Since he claims to understand it all, then here is the simple question he should be able to answer: WHEN?
Do you know a way to increase the temperature of the Earth without also increasing the rate energy radiated from Earth to space?
There are enough errors in the article to invalidate the entire paper. First, professor Knutti knows nothing about the El Nino and the La Nina. That 1998 super El Nino does not belong to the group of El Ninos that are part of the ENSO oscillation. It is an exception that happens once in a century and involves much more warm water than that circulating in the ENSO system. There are only two possible outside sources for this extra warm water: the Indian Ocean or the Southern warm pool. Despite its importance to our climate none of the billions assigned for climate research was ever used to study its origin and most people don’t even know it exists. Money went to prove greenhouse warming for which they still don’t have the proof. The ENSO system itself involves first building up the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool by trade winds, followed by back flow of an El Nino wave via the Equatorial counter-current. It is an east-west oscillation with a natural period of about five years. When it gets to South America it runs ashore, spreads out north and south along the coast, and warms the air above it. Warm air rises, interferes with trade winds, joins the westerlies, and we notice that an El Nino has arrived. But any wave that runs ashore must also retreat. As the El Nino wave retreats water level behind it drops half a meter, cold water from below wells up to fill the vacuum, and a La Nina has started. As much as the El Nino warmed the air, La Nina will now cool it and the global mean temperature stays unchanged. This is why the ENSO oscillation has nothing to do with global warming. There are five El Nino peaks in the eighties and nineties that demonstrate the constancy of this global temperature. You can see this clearly in the satellite display shown in Figure 15 of my book “What Warming?” Unfortunately all ground-based temperature curves show a fake warming in this time slot. It is one glaring example of falsified global temperature, manufactured to prove a warming that does not exist. I personally regard it criminal. The only real warming in the nineties started in 1999, raised global temperature by a third of a degree in only three years, and then stopped. I attribute it to the warm water brought over by the super El Nino, not to any imaginary greenhouse warming. There has been no warming since then as the well-known pause/hiatus tells us. Hansen took advantage of this step warming and pointed out that nine out of ten warmest years happened to be in the decade between 2000 to 2010. Of course he neglected to mention that there was no warming during that entire decade and chalked it all up to his personal greenhouse effect.
We can ignore all the talk about solar cycles because no connection has been demonstrated. We can also ignore his talk of cooling by volcanoes because I have demonstrated that volcanic cooling does not exist (pp. 17-21 in my book). As for climate models, they are no good whatsoever and the whole operation should be closed down. And that “incomplete” data? I suggest they keep their hands off any data, forget about inventing data where none exists, and start looking for the source of this fake warming.
I already mentioned how “He said the discrepancy cannot be solely attributed to the models predicting too much warming.”
Not only can it, it’s the only rational thing to presume is the problem
He should have started with that. Not excluding the possibility.
His other bias reveal is this,
….”whereas global temperatures rose drastically into the late 1990s, ”
“drastically”?
Adv. 1. drastically – in a drastic manner
dras·tic (drstk)
adj.
1. Severe or radical in nature; extreme: the drastic measure of amputating the entire leg; drastic social change brought about by the French Revolution.
2. Taking effect violently or rapidly: a drastic emetic.
His absurd use of “drastically” assures us his research is crap.
“If the model data is corrected downwards, as suggested by the ETH researchers, and the measurement data is corrected upwards, as suggested by the British and Canadian researchers, then the model and actual observations are very similar.”
A tissue a tissue we all fall down.
So if we correct the model to observations if matches observations, provided we also adjust the observations.
It takes a PHD to figure that out? I wish I could do that to my stock portfolio.
“…the weather phenomena El Niño and La Niña in the Pacific…”
Since when did El Nino and La Nina become weather phenomena? I think the writer doesn’t understand something here… I’m sure it’s the first time. El Nino is a component of ENSO, which is very much a Climate phenomena, not Weather phenomena. This is why Tisdale is always beating on the Climate Models. If you can’t model ENSO accurately you can’t model long-term climate. Period.
Ah, yes the true believers. How do you say “Grasping for straws in German”
They’ve spent the last 20 years telling me the sun doesn’t matter. Now without a shred evidence it apparently does. Well if it works for CO2 it’ll work for the sun.
Apparently the temp data from the early 20th century was in dire need if cooling so why not warm up that data for the last 17 years.
I’ll bring the gin and marshmallows.
Sorry for the typos, lol.
I was all riled up!
I wish global warming would start now to cold in sydney
“A more positive surface temperature trend than reported here, of course, would make the disagreement with the models even more significant,” concludes John R. Christy et al in the 2010 paper What Do Observational Datasets Say about Modeled Tropospheric Temperature Trends since 1979?
In the sun has already occurred to change the polarity. Whether now the time for cooling of the northern hemisphere?
http://www.solen.info/solar/polarfields/polar.html
vukcevic says:
Its implications can be viewed in the light of the NASA’s Themis satellite discovery, as contained in the key statement:
”For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway..”
http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2014/08/19/2014-will-be-a-scorcher/
So much BS. If El Nino returns and sunspots become numerous again there will be warming. But what about the CO2?
I think these guys are doing irrepairable damage to science in general. No wonder the UN uses the Gaia doctrine and the Lucis trust to give them (spiritual?) direction – they don’t trust science any more either.
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
phlogiston:
I am replying to your post at August 19, 2014 at 2:11 pm which is here.
NO! You have been duped by dp’s propaganda.
“The pause” is the cessation to global warming.
Global warming is an increase to global average surface temperature anomaly (GASTA).
Global warming has stopped.
Global warming is NOT “a change in energy exchanged between” anything.
Indeed, as I explained here with addendum, merely altering the distribution of heat around the Earth’s surface can cause global warming and is a more probable explanation for 20th century global warming that altered atmospheric greenhouse gases.
You and Pamela Gray have ‘lost sight of the pea’. Warmunists are trying to pretend that global warming has not stopped because the oceans are retaining heat. But global warming is about changes to TEMPERATURE and NOT HEAT.
Richard
dp:
At August 19, 2014 at 6:47 pm you ask me
YES! And I explained it to you in my first post in this thread which was addressed to you, which you answered, which is at August 19, 2014 at 9:02 am, and which is here with subsequent addendum.
I there wrote
For many years and in several place (including WUWT) I have been pointing out that redistribution of surface temperature (e.g. by altered ocean currents) could have caused all the 0.8°C global warming over the twentieth century. And Richard Lindzen has pointed it out, too.
Richard
dp, phlogiston and Pamela Gray:
I have replied to the post of dp at August 19, 2014 at 6:47 pm but it has gone into moderation. I post this so you can know of it if you want to look for it as the thread grows.
Richard
Think the clue was in the authors name…..
I would love someone to explain to me, with explicit reference to the laws of thermodynamics, how the heat firstly is transported to the deep ocean without perturbing the climate, and secondly is trapped there in a fluid, again without making any measurable perturbations to the climate.
rogerthesurf says:
August 19, 2014 at 11:32 pm
So much BS. If El Nino returns and sunspots become numerous again there will be warming.
Are you talking about this?
Region Number of
sunspots Class
Magn. Class
Spot
2139 5 β CAO
2141 9 β ESI
2143 5 β DRI
2144 2 β DAO
2146 1 α HSX
2147 2 α HAX
http://www.spaceweatherlive.com/en
OK. Let me get this straight.
CO2 drives the climate unless there are natural influences at work like El Niño and La Niña, sunspot cycles, concentration of floating particles, PDO cycles and AMO cycles. Lets not forget other natural influences such as cloud cover and electro magnetic activity. While we are at it, we can throw in the tilt and wobble, plus unknown natural influences on our planet. Heck, as far as I know fish communicating could have a greater influence than CO2.
“He believes that global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades.”
How do you know the previous decades are the “normal?” Maybe they are abnormal and the present is normal. Or maybe there is no ‘normal’ because they are always changing.
“According to Knutti, measured data is likely to be too low, since the global average temperature is only estimated using values obtained from weather stations on the ground, and these do not exist everywhere on Earth”
Weather stations and satellites agree. No statistically significant warming in over a decade. C’mon you can invent a smarter excuse than that.
“According to the study, the second important reason for the warming hiatus is that solar irradiance has been weaker than predicted in the past few years.”
So now you are admitting solar irradiance has greater influence than greenhouse gases.
“what finance specialists and climate scientists and their models are not able to predict is when exactly a short-term economic downturn or a La Niña year will occur.”
Natural variability is short term and long term. PDO has 30-year cycle. THC has 1,000-year cycle. AGW is believed to have occurred in the last 60 years. The timescale overlaps with natural cycles. Hence it’s not easy to distinguish one from the other.
The painful lack of universal training for scientists in the elements of logic shows all too clearly in this spectacularly Knutti paper. The climate scare – with the billion a day that the profiteers of doom are making out of it – is based upon predictions by models. No predictions, no scare. The predictions have proven spectacularly wrong since 1988, when Knutti’s long-time co-author and climate campaigner James Hansen predicted 0.5 K/decade warming (and was trumped in the same year by Margaret Thatcher, who predicted 1 k/decade warming).
IPCC in 1990 predicted 1 K warming by 2025. Result after 25 of the 35 years: just one-third of a Kelvin. To reach even the 0.7 K lower bound of IPCC’s 1990 prediction, there would need to be at least another one-third of a Kelvin in just ten years. And that would be the fastest decadal rate of warming since the global temperature record began in 1850. It would be nearly twice as fast as the fastest rate observed since 1850. Since the Sun is becoming less active, that rate of warming is improbable.
My best guess, based on an irreducibly simple climate model, is that by 2025 less than 0.5 K warming will have occurred since 1990. No amount of jiggery-pokery or hokey-stickery will be able to conceal, fudge or airbrush out that massive discrepancy between overheated prediction and lukewarming reality.
Expect to see more Knonsensical papers over the coming year, as the F. of D. make their last big effort to bully intellectually feeble-minded and scientifically-illiterate governments into adopting a binding world-government treaty even nastier than the one that deservedly failed at Copenhagen five years ago. If they fail in Lima this December and fail again in Paris next December, that will be the end of the scare. For by then – allowing for an el Nino and then a la Nina – there will have been no global warming for close to 20 years, even though CO2 emissions in those 20 years were higher than at any previous period in the past 810,000 years.
In the meantime, hold fast to the data. Even the data are to some extent suspect and prone to endless revision, but the predictions – however the usual suspects slice them and dice them – are entirely worthless. There is not yet any scientific basis for rushing to act on the climate. However, since the models relied upon by IPCC have failed, they and the IPCC itself should be de-funded.
Knutti would have a leg to stand on if in the late 90s or early 00s he was proclaiming that the warming was predominantly due to El Nino. Then invoking La Nina would make sense since he would be an ENSO-ist. Other wise he is, at best, like any market fluctuation prognosticator or dare I say Bernie Madoff.
Well, this paper is no different from the ol’ joke ” If my aunt had b******s she’d be my uncle “
Clouds over Europe.
http://www.sat24.com/pl/eu
http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/webform/query.cgi?startday=20&startmonth=07&startyear=2014&starttime=00%3A00&endday=20&endmonth=08&endyear=2014&endtime=23%3A30&resolution=Automatic+choice&picture=on
Richard says I’ve lost the pea, and somebody else thinks I have given a nod to solar cycles. Say what? Disregarding direct daytime heating for a moment, heat is stored in the oceans and is not substantially released until evaporation sends it into the air. When evaporation turns water vapor into rain, that stored heat is released which in turn causes air temperatures to rise. If oceans were significantly replenished with heat under clearer skies somewhere in our recent past, but the oceans are now in evaporation mode, we will warm up in jagged fits and starts. That stored and now released heating is mixed with direct solar heating. Solar cycles and all the parts therein create such a small blip it can be ignored. Why? Our sensors are not that sensitive and our variable planet buries the solar signal in Earth’s own noise.
I don’t have a dog in the fight over terminology but here is my elevator speech. Global warming is strictly a temperature sensor phenomenon. Nothing else. The term is agnostic to cause. Anthropogenic global warming commonly refers to increased temperatures being caused by human influence. I would admit to urban heat island and rural backyard BBQ heating as being human related thus is anthropogenic warming and is measurable. The additional fossil fuel CO2 molecules do not increase temperatures to the degree that our sensors would notice. On a global scale, natural intrinsic processes, primarily by variously absorbing and expelling heat from the oceans into our greenhouse-like atmosphere, create warming and cooling temperature trends calculated from our temperature sensors. The trends can be short or long term and when measured by our current sensors are jagged-like steps up and down with pauses here and there.
Responses related to terminological gnat hairs (heating versus temperature versus energy, etc) are funny to read but I don’t care seriously about that kind of argument. Not on my payscale.
Meanwhile, the majority of climate researchers continued to emphasise that the short-term ‘warming hiatus’ could largely be explained on the basis of current scientific understanding and did not contradict longer term warming.
If they can post-facto “explain” it via current scientific understanding, why, pray tell, was that scientific understanding not included into at least one of the many GCMs? Hmmm?
Pamela Gray:
At August 20, 2014 at 7:14 am you assert
You could not be more wrong!
The issue is anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) and its probable effects. Vast expenditures of time, money and effort have been spent and are being spent to determine AGW, to avoid it, and to mitigate its effects.
Those expenditures are already killing people.
AGW is – and always has been – about increase to global average surface temperature anomaly (GASTA). But GASTA has not risen as proponents of AGW predicted. This should be a matter of rejoicing because it provides doubt to the need for the actions which are killing people.
The response of AGW-advocates such as Knutti is to make excuses for the cessation of AGW, and warmunists such as dp to pretend that global warming has not stopped so AGW has not stopped. Thus they attempt to sustain the AGW-scare and its induced expenditure which a\re killing people.
And you claim that objections to their excuses and pretenses “are funny to read but {you} don’t care seriously about that kind of argument”.
OK. You say you “don’t care seriously”. Be assured that some of us do care seriously about campaigns which are successfully killing people, and we don’t think those campaigns “are funny to read”. We care to the degree of real anger.
Richard
Pamela Gray where is warm?
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=misery_index/equirectangular
RGB says: “Nobody (rational) doubts that increasing CO_2 will have a net positive effect on the average temperature.”
=====
Since, no evidence has been presented that shows the “net positive effect on the average temperature” and the models used to predict this have proven wrong, then I don’t think it is irrational to doubt the ability of CO2 to have a “net positive effect”.
Those ‘scientists’ are going to correct themselves to death – and their incompetent models, too.
My favorite part is this quote “Short-term climate fluctuations can easily be explained. They do not alter the fact that the climate will become considerably warmer in the long term as a result of greenhouse gas emissions,” says Knutti.
Oh short term climate fluctuations can EASILY be explained?!! We are up to at least 31 excuses for the so-called pause and counting. By their own admission they are not certain why warming stopped,but its easily explained? HUH?
The temperature at the altitude of about 3500 m. Click on the map and check.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/700hPa/overlay=temp/equirectangular
You have misread my question. Your answer applies to places on Earth, but not the totality of Earth. My question was regards global warming, not regional warming. Your response describes a process that does nothing to change the average (global) temperature of the Earth (all of it). You have moved money between pockets and not changed your wealth in the process.
rgbatduke says:
August 19, 2014 at 9:18 am
Well said and argued. Maybe I’m not rational, but IMO the GHE of CO2 observed in the lab might not obtain in the actual atmosphere.
Sorry for the digression. High pressure building over the lower Mississippi Valley will bring strong rains on the west side.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#2014/08/24/1200Z/wind/isobaric/850hPa/overlay=total_cloud_water/orthographic=-96.20,38.70,1198
Richard Courtney
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/19/excuse-31-for-the-pause-el-nino-and-longer-solar-cycles/#comment-1713156
henry said
good argument!
note my comment:
there is no [measureable] AGW and there is no [measureable] UHI either, when looking at a reasonably sized global sample of weather stations.
Namely, both would [mainly] affect minimum temperatures or at least seriously enhance them. Yet minima are falling and I find a natural curve…
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/files/2013/02/henryspooltableNEWc.pdf
last table, on the bottom
All results are showing that in nature there is no pause or halt
It either warming or it is cooling.
It is now globally cooling.
dp:
At August 20, 2014 at 11:11 am you say to me
No. You have misrepresented my answer.
My answer applies to GLOBAL temperature, and I wonder what part of the phrase “global warming” you are pretending to not understand. I said at August 20, 2014 at 12:00 am
I will ‘spell it out’ by using simple arithmetic and two hypothetical planets.
The planets heated from space (e.g. by a Sun) with the same radiative heat flux of Es. They each have the same global average surface temperature (GASTA) and they are identical except for one difference. They must each radiate energy equal to Es to maintain radiative balance: failure to radiate at a rate equal to Es results in GASTA adjusting until radiative balance is re-established.
Planet 1.
It has a uniform temperature of 290K over its entire surface.
Its GASTA is T1 and is equal to 290K.
Planet 2.
It has a night side (i.e. hemisphere) with uniform temperature of 240K, and a day side with uniform temperature of 340K.
Its GASTA is T2 and is equal to 290K.
Please note that they have the same average temperature of 290K
But they do NOT radiate heat back to space at the same rate because heat is radiated in proportion to the fourth power of the temperature of the radiating surface.
Planet 1 radiates heat at a rate (E1) proportional to
(290^4)K = 7,070,281,000 radiative units.
Planet 2 radiates heat at a rate (E2) proportional to
{(240^4/2) + (340^4/2)} = 1,692,057,600 radiative units
Clearly, Planet 1 radiates much more heat than Planet 2.
Let Planet 1 be in radiative balance and its temperature stays at 290K.
Redistribute its surface temperature (by moving heat from one side to the other) so it becomes like Planet 2, and it radiates less heat than it receives. Therefore, its GASTA rises until radiative balance is re-established.
Richard
jimmaine says:
August 19, 2014 at 3:08 pm
Warmers: Because the temperature tracks with the climbing C02 levels, so that’s the reason, period.
========================================================================
In a recent argument with a warmist that person had to resort to saying that temperature does not track co2. The reason for that was I posed this question, ” Between 1750 to 1997/98 co2 rose by 87ppm. So in 247 year co2 rises by 88 ppm and there is warming. Why then is there no further warming from a co2 rise of 33 ppm in 17 years?”. His answer was that co2 does not always track with higher temperature. This person claims to be a scientist. Homer Simpson shows more logical ability than many of these warmists.
Here’s the real “Money Shot”, as Hollywood likes to say:
“He believes that global warming will recommence as soon as solar activity, aerosol concentrations in the atmosphere and weather phenomena such as El Niño naturally start returning to the values of previous decades.”
In other words, everything has a greater modifying influence on GW than burning fossil fuels and and the attendant rise in CO2 levels. QED.
AGW, RIP!
Bob Ferdinand:
Thanks for your very fine post at August 20, 2014 at 4:36 pm. You say
Yes! The paper proclaims that many things have “a greater modifying influence on GW than burning fossil fuels and and the attendant rise in CO2 levels”.
And that is why it is important to ensure the paper is publicised and its assertions are not allowed to be distorted.
Richard
To return to the model I mentioned above, given the Beers-Lambert Law (which is not terribly difficult to derive and which has been more than amply experimentally verified), doubting the ability of increasing CO_2 to have a net positive effect on average temperatures is like having a mass on a spring, pulling it away from equilibrium, and having it either not move at all or worse, move the other way.
, it is pretty certain that the sign of this term is everywhere positive. That doesn’t mean that the temperature necessarily has to actually go up with CO_2 at all, certainly not in any short-run observation of a particularly initialized dynamical evolution and forcing scheme. It does make it difficult to see how on average (averaging, in particular, over all initial conditions and some given range of forcings) the response is going to be zero or negative.
I agree that the net systematic effect of CO_2 can easily be lost against the much larger variations driven by natural phenomena, non-Markovian dynamics and prior state, chaotic nonlinear dynamics and feedbacks. However, in terms of the partial derivative of global average surface temperature one expects for CO_2 increases,
So sure, I’ll grant that one can probably invent trigger-pulling highly nonlinear models where one does indeed pull a trigger a bit one way only to release a powerful spring that drives it the other as a transient, one shot affair corresponding to a very special initial state (one with a powerful cocked spring waiting to be triggered with a weak pull). However, these special systems and initial conditions are comparatively unlikely and even more unlikely to be generalizable or to represent suitably averaged behavior in the long term.
Does that mean CO_2 can rescue us from an impending glacial episode? Possibly — it might be just enough to prevent the right conditions from forming that lead to strong negative feedback from e.g. growing ice sheets. Possibly not — we have evidence that glacial episodes can occur when CO_2 levels are over an order of magnitude higher than they are today, although we cannot explain them. Or, as I said, the straight-up Beers-Lambert warming one “expects”, on the order of 1 C per doubling (not very precisely known because of many approximations and assumptions in the models), when mixed with nonlinear feedbacks from e.g. water vapor, could either increase or decrease the expected warming, with — IMO — decrease being physically a lot more plausible given the observed general stability of the climate system. So perhaps it might lead to only 0.1, or 0.3 C warming per doubling, suitably averaged over initial conditions, state, forcings, etc. And for any given initial condition, prior state, and forcing dynamic, the natural nonlinear variation of the system could easily swamp this relative effect to replace it with absolute cooling, much stronger warming (but not forced by CO_2) or anything in between.
After all, that’s basically what is being asserted for the 1997-1998 ENSO. It was basically a great big spring, being gradually cocked by Mr. Sun dumping comparatively strong sunlight through comparatively clear skies into comparatively mixed ocean waters, and eventually something — almost certainly not CO_2-related in any way, as Pamela Grey has noted — pulled the trigger. Did increased CO_2 contribute to the observed huge burst of warming? Maybe, sure, why not, possibly. It is nearly impossible to say. Once can perhaps say probably in the strict sense that it probably had a small net warming effect as it increased over that time frame as opposed to, say, a net cooling or net neutral effect. We just have no possible way too separate that warming from warming due to ENSO, the phase of the NAO, the accidental state of the global thermohaline circulation, the effect of anti-smog regulations that comparatively rapidly were cleaning up anthropogenic aerosols over continental sized tracts over the preceding decade or two, what the sun was doing (either way), what the infamous Brazillian butterfly’s wings were doing the year before.
rgb
;Richard Courtney- Your example that a planet with variable temperature will radiate a different amount than one with constant temperature was correct, but you made an arithmetical error.in your calculations. – it’s planet 2 that radiates more heat.
Planet 1 has temp x, radition proportional to X^4.
Planet 2 has temp 1/2(X+K) and 1/2 (X-K). total radiation will be
1/2( X^4 + 4X^3 K + 6 X^2 K^2 + 4X K^3 + K^4) +
1/2 (X^4 – 4X^3 K + 6X^2K^2 – 4XK^3) + K^4)
Planet 1 radiation is proprotional to X^4, planet 2 radiation is proportional to X^4 + 12X^K^2 + 2K^4)
Sorry, I made an error also= that should be Planet 2 radiation proportional to X^4 + 12X^2K^2 etc.
Again, I forgot that 1/2 facotr Planet 1 radiates at X^4, planet two at X^4 + 6 X^2K^2 + K^4
List of 39 reasons for the Pause:
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.de/2014/07/updated-list-of-29-excuses-for-18-year.html
Professor “nutty” Knutti is a disgrace for the famous ETHZ! This was once an elite university!