By Larry Kummer, from the Fabius Maximus website
Summary: Obama journeys to Alaska and says things. Our journalist-stenographers reprint this as news. They do not consult local experts, and so miss an important part of the story. This post gives you the rest of the news.
From the Alaska Climate Research Center.
The great oddity of the climate change campaign is the disinterest of journalists in reporting it well. Stories about our certain doom often omit vital context (e.g., burning off the world’s fossil fuels means the 21st century relies on coal for energy, like the 19thC), forget to mention the IPCC when it disagrees with alarmists (e.g., about the danger of a methane apocalypse), and ignore the host of research facilities studying relevant aspects of our changing world.
We see that last factor at work in journalists’ reporting about Obama’s climate campaign tour of Alaska. Google News shows no stories in the mainstream news mentioning the findings of the Alaska Climate Research Center. I have posted their work in response to previous panicky stories about Alaska melting in 2009, in 2013, and again here.
Here is their Temperature Changes in Alaska page (updated annually; red emphasis added). It’s quite clear.
“This page features the trends in mean annual and seasonal temperatures for Alaska’s first-order observing stations since 1949, the time period for which the most reliable meteorological data are available. The temperature change varies from one climatic zone to another as well as for different seasons. If a linear trend is taken through mean annual temperatures, the average change over the last 6 decades is 3.0°F.
“… Considering just a linear trend can mask some important variability characteristics in the time series. The figure at right shows clearly that this trend is non-linear: a linear trend might have been expected from the fairly steady observed increase of CO2 during this time period. The figure shows the temperature departure from the long-term mean (1949-2009) for all stations. It can be seen that there are large variations from year to year and the 5-year moving average demonstrates large increase in 1976.
“The period 1949 to 1975 was substantially colder than the period from 1977 to 2009, however since 1977 little additional warming has occurred in Alaska with the exception of Barrow and a few other locations. The stepwise shift appearing in the temperature data in 1976 corresponds to a phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase. Synoptic conditions with the positive phase tend to consist of increased southerly flow and warm air advection into Alaska during the winter, resulting in positive temperature anomalies.”
Being scientists, they published their research in a peer-reviewed journal: “The First Decade of the New Century: A Cooling Trend for Most of Alaska“, G. Wendler, L. Chen and B. Moore, Open Atmospheric Science Journal, 2012 — Abstract (red emphasis added):
“During the first decade of the 21st century most of Alaska experienced a cooling shift, modifying the long-term warming trend, which has been about twice the global change up to this time. All of Alaska cooled with the exception of Northern Regions. This trend was caused by a change in sign of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), which became dominantly negative, weakening the Aleutian Low. This weakening results in less relatively warm air being advected from the Northern Pacific.
“This transport is especially important in winter when the solar radiation is weak. It is during this period that the strongest cooling was observed. In addition, the cooling was especially pronounced in Western Alaska, closest to the area of the center of the Aleutian Low. The changes seen in the reanalyzed data were confirmed from surface observations, both in the decrease of the North-South atmospheric pressure gradient, as well as the decrease in the mean wind speeds for stations located in the Bering Sea area.”
The price paid for this sloppy or biased reporting
Journalists pay for this in lost credulity. Publishers of the news pay in lost credibility. We all pay, as these repeated cries of “wolf“ diminish our ability to respond to serious warnings.
Alaska had a convenient warm spike last year, amid a general cooling trend, so that is why the photo op was chosen. Had this cherry not existed, the White House would have picked another – perhaps one of the California fires or an empty reservoir.
The Climate Tree has many cherries. Of course, they are all weather, and the press, as the article made obvious, can’t tell the difference!
Looking at the data, the choice for the first decade of the “new century” looks like a bit of a cherry as well
What might the effect of UHI be? Barrow seemed to have gone all hockey sticks.
I forgot the links. Here they are
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.971/abstract
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2006JD007837/full
Jimbo,
Great point about the UHI effect in Barrow. Barrow and Bethel.are noteworthy for the above-ground water and sewer pipes running through the streets: in effect, a giant radiator system. This might be the extreme test for the UHI affect on the surface temperature records.
This has been discussed several times at WUWT. For example:Arctic isolated versus “urban” stations show differing trends, Sept 2010.
Editor of the Fabius Maximus website,
The first abstract I posted says in the unbolded section.
“Barrow and Bethel.are noteworthy for the above-ground water and sewer pipes”,/i>
The NWS site is at the airport, 7.5km out of town. This paper that is being bandied about is not about that site, but about a separate set of measurements. As I noted here, they tabulated that NWS site along with the urban and rural that they used to measure the UHI. The NWS site was the same as the rural, not urban.
Nick,
The Barrow airport is a major hub the the entire Alaska North Slope Oil Industry. Its a specially designed airport with a heat absorbing runway. It is anything but rural.
Arctic weather stations along with data, papers and photos are below. UHI is the topic.
http://notrickszone.com/2010/09/21/a-light-in-siberia/#sthash.8Ou42pWa.dpbs
Barrow Airport
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/BRW-g.jpg
Hussain probably said to his advisors: “Where is the hottest place in the US at present, I want to go there….” Its all one great propaganda cherry-pick.
This Alaska gabfest by Barry, is just a part of the propaganda machine being launched.
The September 2015 issue of ” Physics Today ” which comes to all members of the AIP (American Institute of Physics) carries a cover story ” Climate Change Impacts ”
The story inside has a subtitle : ” The growth of Understanding. ”
The essay is written by Spencer Weart, who is said to be ” historian emeritus at the AIP Center for History of Physics “, which is in College Park, Maryland.
It’s a paper that people should try to get and read.
Well you should look for : which is a longer version with references, and was the author’s lecture on accepting the AIP’s Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics, in March 2015.
So the magazine version is full of wild guesses and the like, and doesn’t cite any proven Physics.
Some years ago, I had a run in with historian emeritus Spencer Weart, when I wrote a letter to Physics Today, in response to some story they had published by Weart, I think pushing his book about the discovery of global warming.
In that letter I had stated that when the floating sea ice melts, the sea level does not rise (Archimedes) but also it does not stay the same.
The sea level must fall, because virtually all of the heat to melt the ice (latent heat of fusion) comes out of the surrounding ocean water; not from the air above.
Remember 9/10 or 10/11 of the floating sea ice is below sea level, so the surface area of the ice that is in contact with the ocean water is many times higher than that in contact with the air, and the thermal conductivity of water is huge compared to that of air.
Each gram of ice melted requires 80 calories of heat, enough to cool 80 grams of ocean water by one deg. C And since salt water gets denser all the way down to its freezing point, the sea level must drop due to contraction.
If you postulate a constant Temperature coefficient of expansion versus Temperature, over some range near zero, then it doesn’t matter how the heat loss gets distributed throughout the water. You either cool a short column of water by a greater Temperature drop, or a longer column by a smaller drop, or any combination, so the sea level fall doesn’t depend on the distribution. (If the TC is constant over the Temperature range.)
Well history emeritus Wearth responded that I didn’t know what I was talking about and changed the subject to some 12C /13C story, that I hadn’t even mentioned.
And PT did not offer me a chance to respond to Weart, and he declined to comment in response to a direct e-mail to him. Wasn’t worth his time I guess. Well if you don’t have a plausible counter argument; it is a waste of your time and ours too.
But in this essay, Weart talks about all the wild guesses that people made back in the 60s era, that he says were roughly true.
Well the opening words of this essay give you the whole picture:
” We are now quite certain that over the next century the world will warm up by a few degrees. ”
So the AIP is pulling out all the stops to support the Paris version of reality, they want to create.
How any historian of physics, commenting on climate change, can describe the computer models of global warming as anything remotely similar to reality, is beyond me.
And these days, one cannot simply hide behind the wild guesses of the 60s. Today we can scan most of the earth by satellite, and measure credible Temperature information.
The magazine story has a silly picture of a flooded area of New York City that happened during ” superstorm Sandy ”
Hello ! Earth to AIP, Don’t hurricanes go up to 15-20 km or so.
Blame the lousy storm drains in NYC for flooding; not global warming.
g
Dunno why the url didn’t print.
” ”
Hopefully
whotsupwiththis ??
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/impacts.htm or maybe this :
h t t p : w w w . a I p . o r g / h I s t o r y / c l i m a t e / I m p a c t s . h t m
nutty
It’s not clear if the if the sea level would rise or fall. The maximum density of wAter is at around 4 degrees C. So if the water cooled from 4 to say 1. The volume would increAse.
Jamie
And how is that going to happen? It is the very deep sea water that is that cold, and it cannot get colder realistically.
Racookpe
George made this claim
In that letter I had stated that when the floating sea ice melts, the sea level does not rise (Archimedes) but also it does not stay the same.
The sea level must fall, because virtually all of the heat to melt the ice (latent heat of fusion) comes out of the surrounding ocean water; not from the air above.
But the sea level may actually rise…. And probably will….the surrounding water is already cold….. Say 4 degrees c…. When the ice melts more sea water gets colder than than the melt water. Therefore the sea water will expand due to thermal expansion.
You are correct in stating that floating sea ice does not raise the sea’s water level. However, melting land ice and glacial ice absolutely raises the sea level, and most of the earth’s ice is on land. As to NYC flooding, the storm surge, caused by high winds brought the storm drain system to its knees. You probably know these things but don’t want to bring them up. What’s your agenda?
Hi george,
Correctomundo. The AIP has been co-opted, as described by Prof Richard Lindzen. Global warming had nothing to do with the hurricane (or tropical storm, whichever it was).
‘bobthebear’ says:
…melting land ice and glacial ice absolutely raises the sea level, and most of the earth’s ice is on land.
If melting ice raises the sea level, note that the sea level has been rising at ≈6 in/century since the LIA. By that ‘logic’, if global warming was accelerating as endlessly predicted, then the sea level would be rising at an accelerating rate. It’s not. In fact, there are some indications that it’s decelerating, and furthermore, hurricane activity is also moderating (becoming less).
Alarmists keep trying to alarm people. The ‘Arctic ice’ scare is a case in point: they always want to talk about the Arctic. That’s because currently Arctic ice is slightly below its long-term average.
But they ignore the Antarctic — which contains 10X the volume of Arctic ice. And Antarctic ice has been rising. Also, global ice is right at its long-term, 36-year average:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NSIDC%20GlobalArcticAntarctic%20SeaIceArea.gif
Mr. Kummer, you should be ashamed of yourself, trying to foist your misinformation on this blog (WUWT). You picked a quote out of context from the Alaska Climate Research Center report. Below I quote the opening paragraph from that report.
“Temperature Changes in Alaska”
“The topic of climate change has attracted widespread attention in recent years and is an issue that numerous scientists study on various time and space scales. One thing for sure is that the earth’s climate has and will continue to change as a result of various natural and anthropogenic forcing mechanisms.”
Quote taken from the opening on subject of Alaska climate change by the Alaska Climate Research Center.
What is your agenda and who do you work for? Did you think you could get away with such false propaganda?
I quote from them again, “one thing for sure is that is that the earth’s climate will continue to change”
You owe this blog an apology.
The link to the article doesn’t seem to work for me
Found the article at http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOASCJ/TOASCJ-6-111.pdf
Thank you very much!
I wonder if the NOAA version is after the usual adjustments to make it ‘worse than we thought’?
?w=614
Yes, the NOAA data is subject to their standard “homogenization”. Given that the stations in Alaska are so few and far-between, it’s really stupid to do that. And it’s true, Barrow is the only place with much warming since 1977, and it’s concentrated in the Fall (a remarkable 8.3 deg F) which is consistent with less late-summer ice near the coast. The next largest Fall warming, at Kotzebue, is only 1.7 deg F, but is the largest (not counting Talkeetna, which has a clear site error that I have discussed elsewhere). Every other Alaskan station shows pretty much nothing.
What is it with Barrow?
http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/sites/default/files/ClimateTrends/Seasonal_Yearly_Temp_Change_77_F.png
Hi Jimbo,
I was wondering it it was tectonic, but only one quake since the 1930s ( this year a 3.0) But then again,,
http://news.uaf.edu/earthquake-monitoring-arrives-barrow/
someone else is interested it seems.
michael
Jimbo its pretty simple, Barrow is an industrial hub for the Alaska North Slope oil industry. You can actually see a strong correlation between the price of oil and Alaska temperatures. Alaska temperatures correlate with the volume of air traffic at the Barrow airport which is dictated by the price of oil.
+1. How would you even do a trend through that? Two different trends? Would they have any meaning? Powerful forces at work we have absolutely no grasp of.
Now that’s a statement that all should be able to agree with. “Powerful forces at work we have absolutely no grasp of.”
I see your data expired in 2012, while Obama’s went to 2014. Let’s not subject ourselves to charges of cherry-picking.
I see a great deal of discrepancy between the two charts, which troubles me. How are we to account for the discrepancy in the recorded measurements?
One is annual mean, the other is January. Want a forecast? 2015 will be similar to 2014, then we will see dropping temperatures as the warm blob is gradually replaced with cooler water. La plus la change, la plus la meme chose.
Based on the abstract I would say the authors are reporting a long term warming modulated by PDO oscillations. This is in agreement with the first graph where the temperatures were mostly above average in the first decade, despite the reported negative phase of the PDO.
Aran, the scientists are trying to tell you something, and it is worth remembering that multi-decadal averages, used as anomalies, change as a regime shift continues. The negative PDO has barely begun, and it is a 32yr phase, on average.
The scientists are saying that Alaska has warmed. Pretty strongly even and that the cooling over the last decade was due to the PDO.
Here’s something else these scientists are trying to tell us. Taken from the article referenced in the text:
“In summary, the long term observed warming of Alaska of about twice the global value, as expected by the increasing CO2 and other trace gases, is sometimes temporarily modified or even reversed by natural decadal variations. This is not the first observed occurrence that can be found in the historical record of Alaska [14], as the 1920’s were warm, and starting in the mid-1940’s a cold period occurred lasting
some 3 decades, after which it become warm again.”
I don’t see where the discrepancy is with Obama’s message. If anything Alaska shows even more warming than the global average.
Brett,
Do climate scientists agree that a negative cycle of the PDO has begun? My impression was there was little agreement on this — but I don’t follow the topic. As you note, it is an important question!
Also, I’ve heard that the length of the PDO varied so much that the average is best described loosely — as a few decades, or perhaps ~3 decades.
Anyone who knows about the PDO care to jump in here?
Yes that first graph is very much in alignment with the 1945-1977 and 1977~2003 phases of the PDO. I’d be interested if they have any earlier data from 1880-1945 to see if the match continues.
Which is exactly why short term linear trends, such as used by Monckton mean very little
“The media sells it, you live the role”! (Ozzy Osbourne, song; Crazy Train, album; Blizzard of Ozz)
“This post gives you the rest of the news.”
Well, it’s not really news. The text on the page referenced does not seem to have changed since June 9 2010. And the paper referenced (available here) was published in 2012, reviewed by WUWT here in early 2013, and uses data to 2010.
But neither of those agrees with NOAA Tony 6:04 PM above. Time frame unclear but appears to be at least 2013.
Nick,
Even for you, that’s sloppy. The graph has 2014 data. If the scientists at the ACRC believed the text needed changing, they would have changed it. It discusses long-term trends, which change slowly.
“If the scientists at the ACRC believed the text needed changing, they would have changed it.”
And if they didn’t, it isn’t news.
Nick,
This is evidence from relevant scientists pertinent to the President’s statements during his recent publicity tour.
That is what makes it news.
I am amazed I had to point this out to you.
“pertinent to the President’s statements “
You haven’t quoted anywhere a statement that you think this ancient page is pertinent to. Poor journalism.
Nick,
“You haven’t quoted anywhere a statement that you think this ancient page is pertinent to.”
I wrote this for people who read the news, esp about high profile statements by the President of the United States. Those who need Captain Obvious to explain such things are probably not readers of WUWT.
Your comments are getting weaker and weaker. Sad, really.
Perhaps he should have said, “the rest of the story” or “the whole story”. Your quibble about a word, though it’s quite clear what this post is doing, is a poor attempt at deflection, and it insults us.
Come back in 30 years when we have a uscrn record in Alaska worth talking about. I don’t trust the historic temperature record after the climate chiropractors get through with their ‘adjustments’.
Curious about why you didn’t cite Strong Temperature Increase and Shrinking Sea Ice in Arctic Alaska by G. Wendler, B. Moore, and K. Galloway (at the Alaska Climate Research Center), published in The Open Atmospheric Science Journal in 2014.
Same authors, more recent pub. date. Seems relevant. It even cites the paper you refer to.
Matthew,
I didn’t cite that paper because it discusses “Barrow, the most northerly community in Alaska” which “observed a warming of 1.51°C for the time period of 1921 – 2012.”
This post was a comparison of Alaska’s temperature, relevant to the remarks of President Obama.
In the past, reporters would take the train to the town where an event occurred. Then immediately phone in the story from the nearest telephone just so it could say reporting from whatever location.
How reliable is the Barrow site? It is the location with a greatest 1977-2014 warming, by far. http://climate.gi.alaska.edu/ClimTrends/Change/TempChange.html
Nice catch!
Not only is Barrow an obvious outlier, many of the other 18 sites are negative over the same period, and the average of the whole lot is…. negative.
Which answers the question upthread:
Matthew Morse September 13, 2015 at 7:26 pm
Curious about why you didn’t cite Strong Temperature Increase and Shrinking Sea Ice in Arctic Alaska by G. Wendler, B. Moore, and K. Galloway (at the Alaska Climate Research Center), published in The Open Atmospheric Science Journal in 2014.
The later paper is a blatant cherry pick that simply excludes contrary data.
So if you prefer the 2012 paper, they actually report a long term warming of twice the global average. Also a cherry pick?
Also if anything is a blatant cherry pick it is the 1977-2014 period, where the starting point is the positive phase of the PDO and the end point is the negative phase.
Aran September 13, 2015 at 9:09 pm
So if you prefer the 2012 paper, they actually report a long term warming of twice the global average. Also a cherry pick?
o rate of global warming being almost nothing, 2X almost nothing…..
o variability in arctic much higher than global
o physics requiring faster warming in coldest areas = slower warming in warmest areas
No cherry pick.
“The later paper is a blatant cherry pick that simply excludes contrary data.”
So Alaska’s climate scientists, who “tell us the rest of the news” turn into blatant cherry pickers two years later!
In fact, that 2014 paper is based on five stations on the NW Slope, all (including Barrow) telling much the same story.
There is a real effect here, which those papers are documenting. Alaska is a transition zone between the NE Pacific, which trended down over the last 35 years, and the Arctic, which warmed rapidly. What you get as a whole state average depends very much on what stations you include. The plot below (from here) shows trends from 1979-2014. It is a shaded plot based on unadjusted GHCN station and ERSST values, with linear shading between locally calculated trends.
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/09/alaska.png
Oh Nick, as you know Barrow has a famous UHI problem, 3C mostly in Tmin so you can’t really trust its data to be representative of the climate in the region.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.971/abstract
But I’m sure you’ll argue for it anyway, since bad data never seems to phase you.
Aran September 13, 2015 at 9:14 pm
Also if anything is a blatant cherry pick it is the 1977-2014 period
Which changes the fact that Barrow is a complete outlier that biases the entire data set not one bit.
You can’t just call data points that don’t fit your conclusions outliers. There might well be a good reason for the Barrow values.
Furthermore, are you denying Alaska has warmed? The data show it has quite clearly, not only at Barrow. So do both the articles.
As a matter of fact there is a reason for the Barrow values. It is the receding of Arctic sea ice. Nowadays the sea ice appears later and recedes earlier, which is why the strongest increases at Barrow have been during spring and autumn.
Aran September 13, 2015 at 9:38 pm
You can’t just call data points that don’t fit your conclusions outliers.
I can call data points that are completely out of whack with the rest of the data outliers, because that is exactly what an outlier is
There might well be a good reason for the Barrow values.
Well gosh, I hope so. The alternative to a good reason would be that the data is wrong. Which changes the fact that it is an outlier and a complete departure from the vast majority of the data not at all.
Furthermore, are you denying Alaska has warmed?
Are you denying that you have stopped beating your wife? Let’s not play silly word games. I made no such claim,
The data show it has quite clearly, not only at Barrow. So do both the articles.
The issue raised by Obama was in regard to the warming being some indication of impending doom. The larger context of both articles makes it quite clear that the matter is being exaggerated. I know you may find it hard to believe that politicians exaggerate.
“since bad data never seems to phase you”
How quickly things change! This is the data of “Alaska’s climate scientists” who brought the good news of this article. Their 2014 paper (the “blatant cherry pack”) used 5 N Coast stations – and said:
“The 5 stations, which have a long enough observational period for establishing a 30 year climatology, are all within a 1°C deviation from Barrows (-11.2°C) mean annual temperature with the exception of Wainwright. This latter station is situated at the Chukchi Sea coast, which is having a slightly lower ice concentration than the Beaufort Sea, and is somewhat warmer with a deviation of +1.2°C from Barrow. “
All I’m saying is that good or bad news (depending on your viewpoint), I would not use Barrow in any scientific study, because I think (as does the paper I cite) it is contaminated with UHI. The other stations may have similar problems, but there’s no UHI study I’m aware of on them. They may be fine, they may have their own problems. One thing is for certain. All these places are a warm pocket of humanity compared to surrounding terrain.
dmh
as said earlier, I don’t live in the US and don’t know exactly what Obama said.
“completely out of whack” nice definition of an outlier… As I pointed out before, the warming in Barrow is amplified by the receding sea ice. So the measurement seems valid. Even if you take Barrow out, for arguments’ sake, you would still find that Alaska is warming.
I also don’t wanna play word games and if by outlier you just mean it is a very extreme value than I definitely agree. However the question was originally how reliable the data at Barrow were. The fact that it is extreme does not mean it is unreliable. Given the plausible explanation I have not seen any reason to call Barrow unreliable.
Your claim “rate of global warming being almost nothing, 2X almost nothing…..” seemed to me to indicate that you denied any significant warming in Alaska. It is clearly there and I personally would not call it almost nothing. But that would resort to word games again, so let me try a different approach. Could you specify what you mean by “almost nothing” and at what values “almost nothing” starts to become something?
” I know you may find it hard to believe that politicians exaggerate.” You don’t know anything about my opinions on politicians. Furthermore I don’t see any indication in either of the articles that show global warming is being exaggerated. The articles are in agreement with the mainstream scientific views on global warming as expressed by the IPCC and others. Please show me where the articles show this exaggeration that you claim.
As for UHI, over the most recent decade and a bit, the population of Barrow has declined, yet temperatures have still increased. Also the articles reports on the strongest UHI effects in winter, whereas the data show the strongest warming in spring and autumn. Clearly it takes more than just UHI to explain the extreme values at Barrow.
Aran
September 13, 2015 at 10:12 pm
As a matter of fact there is a reason for the Barrow values. It is the receding of Arctic sea ice. Nowadays the sea ice appears later and recedes earlier, which is why the strongest increases at Barrow have been during spring and autumn.
Dunno Aran. I think there are too many variables. Is the Arctic warming or getting less cold? I suspect the latter. Is it a problem? I doubt it.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/97o461le8n5v78e/AlertJanTrend.tiff?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1z29ej6ds554ye2/AlertJulyTrend.tiff?dl=0
PS – thanks for the nice graphic Nick Stokes.
Nick Stokes. “What you get as a whole state average depends very much on what stations you include. “.
A very profound statement. What you get as a global average depends very much on what data you include.
In climate science? ROTFL.
Seriously, sir, you should look into just how the global anomalies are computed in the first place…
The sad thing is that excluding outliers is one of those things that is often done in statistics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outlier
But (if you read the article and learn something of actual statistics before spouting off) there isn’t a hard and fast rule for it, because there cannot be — sometimes outliers are a signal of e.g. bad equipment, something obviously non-physical, sometimes there really is non-symmetric skew in the underlying data distribution (or bimodality, or multimodality, or kurtosis, or just plain bad luck) at work. Since there is no objective rule, it is one of the places that is an open invitation to fool-yourself confirmation bias in your choice of exclusionary rule (or not) and can be built right into the statistical model so that one has to look at the details of the code to even know it is being done for the rest of eternity.
You might want to read Nicholas Nassim Taleb’s book The Black Swan to learn a little bit more about the effect of excluding outliers in distributions that do indeed have long tails and that are not “normal” (Gaussian). Rare, high impact events occur in many fields.
It is actually an open question as to how they should be counted in climate science, since “climate” is just “weather” coarse grain averaged over some unspecified interval. What should that interval be, and should outliers of either sign be included or excluded? Five years? Ten years? Thirty years? A century? The multidecadal oscillations, do they cause the climate to vary (in a period, predictable, possibly zero-sum way) or are they affecting the weather without necessarily signaling a change in climate? Was the Medieval Warm Period a shift in the climate, or just evidence of yet another cycle in the weather, this one on a millennial scale.
I think we can agree that this figure:
shows a variation in climate. But what variation, exactly? Is it the Pliestocene:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleistocene
which clearly did not “end” 12,000 years ago with the advent of the Holocene as the article indicates — the ice age almost certainly continues although the Holocene is indeed one of the predictable, nearly periodic interglacials of the Pliestocene, the current Ice Age? Or is the glacial/interglacial variation a climate change (I’m pretty comfortable with that)?
Climate is at best a non-stationary, non-normal process. It would be non-stationary and non-normal if humans did not exist. It was non-stationary when humans did not exist — as the graph above clearly indicates.
One fundamental problem with current analysis of anthropogenic “climate change” is that we do not know how to predict the non-stationary chaotic process with sufficient skill that we can resolve anthropogenic effects. Indeed, in a strongly coupled, well-mixed, highly multivariate, nonlinear chaotic system it isn’t even clear what the term “resolve anthropogenic effects” might mean in statistical terms. Whatever it means, however it isn’t easy, and isn’t statistically certain, and there are multiple opportunities for confirmation bias to be inserted with the best will in the world in how you try to go about it and the unprovable assumptions you make.
rgb
I am appalled that seasoned and degreed climate researchers and authors would not include the UHI study Anthony refers to in their literature review. The literature reviews, in my opinion, have become one-sided, which is a perversion of standard research methods. The literature review must include both a pro and con research review germane to the null hypothesis. The current study under discussion here glaringly does not include this very important UHI study of one of the stations used in its literature review. This omission would make it appear that the authors either have not adequately controlled for their own bias, or were not capable of performing an adequate literature review.
Climate studies focused on recent trends that are based on ground stations have an obligation, in my view, to include a section on station conditions and whether or not stations used are valid and reliable indicators of both weather and climate change. This one glaring example of UHI affect that was included in the current study as a data source, instead of being excluded, indicates to me the researchers don’t give a rat’s ass about the validity and reliability of their data sources so long as it sings the song they want it to sing.
That Nick does not point out this glaring example of poor research methods, instead being schooled by Anthony on what should have been done, calls into question Nick’s bias as well. I would enjoy Nick’s response as to why he thinks including the Barrow station was a wise decision in examining weather and climate change of the region examined. The Barrow station seems much more a reliable indicator of UHI, yet the study does not examine UHI. Nick?
“The Barrow station seems much more a reliable indicator of UHI, yet the study does not examine UHI. Nick?”
The study cited is not a study about the NWS site from which Barrow data is reported, which is the not very busy Barrow airport 7.5 km out of town. Instead, the researchers placed a lot of measuring devices in and around the actual urban area. The 2.2°C discrepancy is taken from Table 1 of Dec-Mar averages shown below. And the NWS site average (-25.3) was exactly the same as the rural.
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2015/09/barrow.png
rgb,
Thank you for that post. I tend to agree with what you say. The wikipedia article you link to and your written words confirm that we cannot just discard the measurements at Barrow solely on the basis of being an extreme value, as what tentatively suggested by others.
Nick, you may find interesting action research here.
http://ak-wx.blogspot.com/2014/08/barrow-area-temperatures.html
Nick can you tell me the major local event that happened in the mid 70s? Oh thats right the Alyeska pipeline and the Alaska North Slope Oil Industry.
Aran,
Barrows population really is unimportant. Barrow is not a typical UHI effect. Barrow is a hub for the oil industry. Its UHI effect will correlate to the volume of oil production and exploration going on in the North Slope. It really has nothing to do with the population of the town.
The population argument is used in the paper that Anthony posted to claim there is a UHI effect in Barrow
Have you ever heard correct answer wrong reasoning.
I have heard of that. Yes.
You might have mentioned that the PDO switched back around 2000, but Alaska did not return to pre 1976 temps. http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/report/regions/alaska
This is a very strange article. The author claims to give the “news” that has not been reported by journalists during Obama’s visit to Alaska, yet the data and the article he cites fit perfectly with the predictions of global warming and polar amplification which cannot be explained by UHI or solar activity. So if anything this post provides support for Obama’s stance.
Aran,
The President made specific claims about Alaska. That the President was talking about the larger subject of global warming doesn’t excuse his — or journalists — ignoring the fact that he was talking about Alaska, which has not had statistically significant warming since 1977.
It’s a relevant and significant bit of data.
“the article he cites fit perfectly with the predictions of global warming”
Wow. That’s really bizarre, even for a true believer.
Editor,
I do not live in the US, so I don’t know what exactly Obama has said. I do know that the articles support his general claims, since they report on warming in Alaska twice as strong as the global average. You seem to think they claim cooling in Alaska. They only claim cooling for the recent decade that coincides with the PDO shift from positive to negative. They claim warming – and even strong warming – for the long term. Which is indeed in agreement with polar amplification expected for carbon-induced global warming.
Aran,
Aran,
“You seem to think they claim cooling in Alaska.”
That’s quite a reading FAIL. Make up stuff much?
The lack of warming is 1977 covers almost 60% of the period since 1950 — during which over half of the warming results from anthropogenic factors (per AR5). That you consider Alaska as evidence supporting this is too bizarre for comment.
Alaska’s history certainly does not disprove it. But that’s not my point either.
My point, which you seem unable to see, is that using a State that has not experienced warming for a 37 year period as evidence of anthropogenic warming is the type of misrepresentation that has so greatly reduced American’s confidence in the news media — and led to activists’ failure to gain support for substantial public policy measures to fight global warming, despite 3 decades of effort.
Let’s not split hairs. You don’t claim cooling, you do claim no warming. Either way, the articles show very clearly that the state has shown significant warming if you account for the PDO. This is indeed supporting global warming and so far you have used no arguments to refute this other than saying it is “bizarre”.
I don’t wanna discuss politics here, though, only the science. I am actually not a big fan of Obama’s climate policy if you want to know. Whether or not his choice for Alaska was appropriate I could not care less about. If that is your only point, fine. I do restate my claim that Alaska’s changes in climate are in agreement with CO2 induced global warming if you account for PDO. Can we agree on that?
Aran,
“I do restate my claim that Alaska’s changes in climate are in agreement with CO2 induced global warming if you account for PDO.”
As others have pointed out, your statement is an amazing reading FAIL. The ACRC article states that the PDO has a warming effect on Alaska. It does not mention how CO2 influences the PDO, or give any basis for seeing a signal from CO2 in Alaska after you somehow “adjust” for the PDO (perhaps other studies do so, but that’s frontier science given scientists’ limited understanding of the PDO).
The only mention this article gives of human influences is “The figure at right shows clearly that this trend is non-linear: a linear trend might have been expected from the fairly steady observed increase of CO2 during this time period.”
You’ve posted ~2 dozen comments based on persistent misreading of the ACRC article. People here have patiently and courteously replied, and in considerable detail. I’m impressed with this thread, and the people who have posted on it. I see few like it on the internet these days.
Once again from the papers concluding paragraph:
Long-term warming, polar amplification, as expected by increasing CO2 and trace gases. It is right there.
Anon,
OK, you have shifted the discussion from the subject of this post — the ACRC website article — to the 2012 Wendler, Chen and Moore paper.
http://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOASCJ/TOASCJ-6-111.pdf
About that warming at twice the global rate. From a quick look, it rests on…
(a) “in the maritime Arctic, analyzing 75 stations. They found a mean temperature increase of 1.2
̊C over 125 years (1875–2000)…”
(b) “Looking at Fairbanks in Interior Alaska, for which a century of data are available, a total warming of 1.4°C was observed, which is about twice the global value.”
One city and a study of the “maritime arctic”. Not exactly the same as Alaska’s average temperature, which is the subject here.
Also — per the IPCC’s AR5: more than half of the warming since 1950 is anthropogenic. For the first dataset, 75 of those 125 years were before strong anthropogenic forcings. Of the second, ~40 of the 100 years were before.
But all this is beside the point here. As I said earlier, the world has been warming for 2 centuries. The subject here is the past 25 years in Alaska. You appear to be giving rebuttals to something I didn’t say (e.g., your false assertion that I believe Alaska is cooling).
Try giving a quote and explaining why it is wrong. Names are also nice, so we know to what you’re responding (you do this sometimes, but not always).
Editor,
Say what????? I shifted the subject? The paper is right there in your article that started this thread. You mention the scientists in the title. You spend three paragraphs on them and then you accuse me of changing the subject? I had never heard of this paper until you brought it up.
As for the rest of your post, if you don’t believe the science in the paper is valid or you don’t believe the paper is relevant to the subject, than you should not have based the article on the paper in the first place.
Aran says:
Let’s not split hairs.
Picking Alaska out of the planet isn’t rank cherry-picking?
The basic debate is over the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ scare, not over some regional temperature fluctuations.
If it weren’t for confirmation bias cherry-picking like this, the alarmist contingent would have to revert to their usual tactics: baseless assertions, their constant appeal to authority logical fallacy, and their ad hominem personal attacks.
Aran, global warming stopped almost twenty years ago.
Face it, your side was wrong.
“Picking Alaska out of the planet isn’t rank cherry-picking?”
I suppose it is. Maybe you can inform the people of Fabius Maximus about this on our behalf.
“The basic debate is over the ‘dangerous man-made global warming’ scare, not over some regional temperature fluctuations.”
The article that started this particular thread is about regional temperature fluctuations actually. I have earlier been accused of changing the subject, now am I being accused of staying on the subject?
“If it weren’t for confirmation bias cherry-picking like this, the alarmist contingent would have to revert to their usual tactics: baseless assertions, their constant appeal to authority logical fallacy, and their ad hominem personal attacks.”
Curiouser and curiouser said Alice. So let me recap, this post, which promises in the title to tell us “what Obama forgot to mention” about Alaska is conveying alarmist confirmation bias cherry-picking? I suppose we owe Mr. Obama a big thanks for not mentioning it then.
“Aran, global warming stopped almost twenty years ago.”
You are entitled to your own opinion, but not to your own facts. The data disagree with you.
Aran, Ah no. The scientists are pointing out that the PDO is the driver. Mr. Obama insists that it is human driven.
“The stepwise shift appearing in the temperature data in 1976 corresponds to a phase shift of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from a negative phase to a positive phase.”
Michael
Michael, if you had read the entire article you would have read that the scientists are reporting on PDO on top of global warming. Global warming that is in fact stronger than the global average. The shift in 1976 is indeed attributed to PDO – you are correct in that – but the long term warming trend is reported to be in line with expectations from increased CO2 and other trace gases.
Picking just one sentence out of context and one particular year does not do the article nor its authors justice.
Hi Aran, I can only go by what they say, (the scientists)
“The period 1949 to 1975 was substantially colder than the period from 1977 to 2009, however since 1977 little additional warming has occurred in Alaska with the exception of Barrow and a few other locations.”
The English is very clear to me. I cannot see how it is out of context.
As for doing the authors justice, they wrote it. If you and I draw different conclusions then that is a reflection on each of our intellects,
michael
Clear and out of context are two completely different things. Your claim that the scientist say that PDO drives climate change in Alaska and Obama says it is human driven is false. Both agree that there is human driven climate change in Alaska. The scientists just add that there is some fluctuations due to PDO on top of that. You tried to show the scientist disagreed with Obama, which they don’t, which is why I said you did not do them justice.
Aran:
You have posted much irrelevant and untrue twaddle in this thread, but you take the biscuit for misleading twaddle with this
As the above graph shows, if you “take out” the PDO shift in 1976 then there is almost no global warming in Alaska since 1949 and none if you also exclude the single year of 1914. A single year does not a true trend make.
The warming of Alaska without the 1976 PDO shift is much less than reported global average warming since 1949 – so is very much less than the predicted warming for the region shown in e.g. IPCC AR1 – and is only discernible by assessing linear trends. However, in an earlier post you wrote
In summation, your posts in this thread are inconsistent, untrue, misleading and contrary to fact. But, being so many, they have wasted much space in the thread.
Richard
Are you running out of space?
Don’t shoot the messenger Richard. I only reported on what was written in the article. You can read it for yourself. Or if you prefer, here is the concluding paragraph:
In summary, the long term observed warming of Alaska of about twice the global value, as expected by the increasing CO2 and other trace gases, is sometimes temporarily modified or even reversed by natural decadal variations. This is not the first observed occurrence that can be found in the historical record of Alaska [14], as the 1920’s were warm, and starting in the mid-1940’s a cold period occurred lasting some 3 decades, after which it become warm again.
If you disagree with them, I suggest you take it up with them, not me. You can find the email for correspondence on the bottom of the first page.
bobthebear
Your post ignores my refutation of the falsehoods and misrepresentations by Aran. In total it asks me
I answer, no, I have just found some more between your ears.
Richard
Aran, how did you get on this blog? This is for deniers, not thoughtful people. They can’t understand that there can be another point of view. Also they are mostly negative and since no one can prove a negative, it is useless to talk to them. But some times it’s fun just to pass the time. They are easily upset by someone that does not belong to their choir. BTW, I enjoyed reading your comments. Good Luck.
bobthebear
September 13, 2015 at 11:57 pm
I thought the D-word was verboten.
Bob blows dead bears.
No he doesn’t. I saw one get up and walk away.
I don’t know exactly how I got here. I checked my logbook and it appears I just woke up here having a huge hangover and no recollection of what had happened. The shock was pretty mutual and there has been some hostility. I have been accused of trolling, lying, being stupid (in many synonyms) and other general ad hominems. Still, I am pretty thick-skinned, so these things don’t bother me. They’re a lively bunch, these people, and I think I’ll stick around for a while. I kinda like it here and I could have woken up in worse places and, shudder to think, maybe I will some day.
bobthebear
You write this ridiculous nonsense
Of course, there “can be another point of view”. There can be as many points of view as there are people. But reality is what it is, and reality is not altered by whatever views people may have.
As you say, “no one can prove a negative”. And that is why it is not possible to prove anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) is not happening. Indeed, it is why those who proclaim the existence of AGW have a responsibility of to show some evidence for AGW. To date they have failed.
Those who champion science only have a responsibility to demand that those asserting AGW provide evidence for their claims.
Three decades of research conducted world-wide at a cost of over $5billion per year has failed to find any empirical evidence for AGW; n.b.. there is no empirical evidence for AGW, none, zilch, nada.
In the 1990s, Ben Santer claimed to have found such evidence
(ref. the top players in the Greenhouse Industry (Santer B, Wigley T, Jones P, Mitchell J & etc,”A Search For Human Influences On The Thermal Structure Of The Atmosphere”, “Nature” v382, p.39-46, 4 July 1996)
but, within weeks it was shown that Santer’s ‘evidence’ was an artifact of his data selection and was not a result of AGW. The affair was neatly summarised by the late John Daly here.
I recognise that you are having “fun” to “pass the time” by supporting superstitious belief in AGW. But your “fun” is misplaced and wastes time on this blog which exists to promote science. Opposition to science DOES “upset” people who support science and the immense benefits it has and does provide.
And I am sure you “enjoyed” reading Aran’s untrue comments because they are deflect from the fact that there is no evidence which supports the superstition of AGW.
Richard
richardscourtney,
As usual you deftly skewer the alarmist cultists. It’s always a pleasure reading your comments.
‘clipe’ is more down to earth, but that’s OK, too. ☺
Aran I did not try to show anything I stated what I read You see what you see. I see a different conclusion. Has it crossed your mind that it could be you that is out of step?
Anyway I leave you with this
Its set in Barrow. good night
michael
Thank you, Michael. I enjoyed that. Much appreciated!
Aran, look at the first figure in this article. I take it that you see a “linear” change from the almost purely cold phase to the almost purely warm phase. That is one way of interpreting the figure, but there are others that are probably more appropriate. Nature rarely beahves in a linear fashion.
The authors interprete the data as a stepwise change, i.e. the data takes a step from a cold phase prior to 1976 into a warm phase post 1976. None of the phases, as shown in the figure, have any meaningful trend in themselves (read up on William Briggs to get an idea of trends….). Thus they can say that although the temperature steps into a warm phase around 1976, there has been little or no additional warming since. I.e. they say that the warming happened around 1976, and not after that. That in itself is totally inconsistent with a CO2-induced warming.
One other way of interpreting the data is that it show sinusoidal behaviour, i.e. we are seeing part of an oscillation around a mean. It is not possible to say if this is really so, since we are only seeing parts of the sinus-curve. But it may well be. We can certainly not rule it out at this stage.
The first lesson to learn in statistics is that you can see what is going on in the data with the naked eye. You don’t need to calculate averages and spreads. In this case it is not very hard to see what is going on, and the authors do a pretty good job at describing what they see.
As Richard says above, if you could take out the PDO from this data, what is left would in no way show a “trend” that is consistent with what is predicted for the region with regard to warming.
“As Richard says above, if you could take out the PDO from this data, what is left would in no way show a “trend” that is consistent with what is predicted for the region with regard to warming.”
That is exactly what the people in the article that is referenced have done and they concluded that if you take the PDO out, the warming is twice the global rate, which is in agreement with the idea of polar amplification.
It’s easy enough to see whether that is likely to be true. The global temperature increase (last 100 years) is 1.53°F or .765°F for 50 years. If the temperature in Alaska is increasing twice as fast, then more than 1.53°F warming is expected (given no change in the average rate of warming for the last 100 years). According to the US Global Change research project on Alaska ( http://downloads.globalchange.gov/usimpacts/pdfs/alaska.pdf ) The average increase in Alaska for the last 50 years is 3.4°F. That PDO generated temperature jump for Alaska in (around 1977) was (eyeballing the graph presented in this article) about 2°F. But 3.4 the actual increase -1.53 the expected double rate increase = 1.87°F or almost but not quite the 2°F of that jump in 1977. Allowing for eyeballing error the claim is possible. But even so the entire anomalous temperature increase from the normal expected over the last 50 years is contained in the 2°F jump in 1977 caused by the PDO and so Alaska does not reinforce alarmist claims of galloping heat death. It pretty much leaves things unchanged.
Aran,
You seem obsessed with the idea of polar amplification. Please explain where to find polar amplification in the Southern Hemisphere.
Billy, I am not obsessed by polar amplification. And from the top of my hat I really don’t know anything about it in the Southern hemisphere. I can imagine it will be a lot harder to determine there, because of the lack of land and long-term land stations at higher latitudes. I have once been accused on this blog of going off on tangents and diverting from the original discussion, so I don’t want to do that here. I’ll keep the focus on Alaska if you don’t mind.
“Thus they can say that although the temperature steps into a warm phase around 1976, there has been little or no additional warming since.”
Not at all. They say that the PDO that switched to negative has modified the long-term warming trend due to CO2. See their concluding paragraph in my response to Richard.
They say both, Aran. We are looking at a paper and a web-page. However, they do not quantify the influence of the PDO. All they do is establish a correlation between the phase of the PDO and the temperature curve. If you want to say that the underlying CO2 warming rate is constant (or increasing) base on the measured data you actually need to know how much the temperature is decreased by the PDO. The paper does not state any such thing, neither does the web-page.
I refer again to the concluding paragraph in the paper.
“The first lesson to learn in statistics is that you can see what is going on in the data with the naked eye. You don’t need to calculate averages and spreads. In this case it is not very hard to see what is going on, and the authors do a pretty good job at describing what they see.”
That’s interesting. One of the first things I learned is exactly the opposite, namely don’t use subjective interpretations, let the numbers do the talking
Current distribution of pressure in the lower stratosphere.
Let blocking at an altitude of 5 km.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/precip/CWlink/blocking/real_time_nh/500gz_anomalies_nh.gif
OK Aran, show me the numbers that CO2 is causing global warming.
From what I read, the UN IPCC says that a doubling of CO2 will increase global temperature 2C. That means that 400ppm of additional CO2. This is 1part in 2500. Please tell me how 1 molecule of CO2 can “trap” enough heat to raise the other 2498 molecules of N2 and O2 by 2C.
Hi Al, I have been previously accused (rather viciously imho) of going off on tangents and diverting from the original topic. Furthermore, as a skeptic of climate change predictions, I do not want to be drawn into a discussion where I am asked to defend people or statements I don’t necessarily agree with (IPCC in this case).
Talking of weather in Alaska, I once read somewhere that the Inuit can predict weather quite accurately simply by looking at the Aurora Borealis. Does anyone know if this is true? If so, can anyone provi8de a good explanation?
Well, this has certainly turned into the ‘Aran’ comment website. After one single person has commented three or four times in succession, I just turn off and go elsewhere. Sorry, Anthony.
I can predict the change in the weather of an area by simply noting if Gore or a ship of climate change activists head to an area. There is a simple explanation which usually boils down to someone bothered to report it. Climate especially long term climate is a very different thing to weather and it doesn’t matter which side of the climate change fence you sit on.
“disinterest” does not mean lack of interest. It means “Impartial”. The article should have called these so called journalists “uninterested”.
Or misinterestedx
Oh goody. A ‘forecast’ I might actually be alive to see tested:
Next two years hottest, says Met Office
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34226178
This wouldn’t have anything to do with a forthcoming knees-up in Paris would it?
Prof Scaife said: “We can’t be sure this is the end of the slowdown, but decadal warming rates are likely to reach late 20th-Century levels within two years.”
You don’t mean ‘disinterest’. Disinterest is what you want in a journalist. You mean ‘lack of interest’
As has already been pointed out, I now see…
Readers interested in Alaska climate might also want to read mine earlier essay “Baked Alaska? Propaganda film suggests children in Alaska have no snow“.
eGads!
“…my earlier essay….” – kh
What is about articles concerning climate in the Arctic in WUWT that they evince such a vitriolic, angry and concentrated response from Aran, Nick etc al.-
It’s hard not to conclude that some raw nerve has been touched!
Chris,
That’s a great observation! Vanishing of the arctic sea ice, Alaska warming, extinction of the polar bears — rebuttals to these exaggerations get emotionally intense replies from activists.
My favorite example is the hysteria about the photo showing that the North Pole was a “lake” in July 2013. Here’s the story: http://fabiusmaximus.com/2013/08/03/climate-polar-melting-53314/
This story was unusual only in that climate scientists quickly issued a rebuttal. Of course, it was unseen by the public — unlike the false story. But more often scientists are complicit by their silence in the exaggerations of activists.
I think the Arctic ice is the only thing the warmists have got left. They are clinging to it like grim death.
‘But more often scientists are complicit by their silence in the exaggerations of activists’
This is an excellent point. I’ve found that, in many cases, scientists who identify as ‘warmists’ don’t differ all that much from skeptics on their positions concerning the science – they just don’t go out of their way to contradict all the alarmism. Reasons for this can, of course, vary widely, from simple peer-pressure and cronyism, to protecting their meal ticket, or – and I tend to think this is a leading reason – they don’t want to be crucified in the warmist press. And while this may be understandable enough, it does not change their complicity.
At no time in the last Ice Age did the northern half of Alaska especially where the land bridge was between Siberia and Alaska, frozen under glaciers. It was always warmer there than at say, Hudson Bay.
The only place on earth we need to track to determine if the planet is getting colder or warmer is Hudson Bay. This is the epicenter of cold during all Ice Ages with Antarctica being the other polar Ice Age point of reference.
If Hudson Bay is very warm, the earth is warming. If it is colder and this last two years it is colder and colder…then we must worry about another Ice Age.
Aran….”namely don’t use subjective interpretations, let the numbers do the talking”. Well that is something so called “climate scientists” haven’t done for 30 years.
I am not going to defend other people. But I hope the people that identify as “so called “climate scientists”” will value your criticism appropriately if they happen to be reading this.
Thanks for sharing, an interesting read 🙂
Cheers
Don Charisma
High-pressure area to the northwest remained.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_z100_nh_f00.png
Weather satellites have clearly shown, since 1979, warming in the northern half of the Northern Hemisphere has been significantly higher than in the southern half of the Southern Hemisphere.
Since the greenhouse gas theory claims warming at BOTH poles will be significantly greater than near the equator, these measurements are evidence that greenhouse gasses are NOT an important factor in climate change.
In addition, greenhouse gas theory claims the troposphere will warm faster than Earth’s surface, with maximum warming at about six miles up.
The troposphere “Hot Spot” has NEVER been found by weather satellites and weather balloons, so that is more evidence greenhouse gasses are a minor factor in climate change.
NOAA, by the way, even after “adjustments”, shows the 48 contiguous US states got cooler from 2005 to 2015.
But never mind those 48 states — wrong message for the climate doomsayers — better for President OBummer to go to Alaska for his doomsaying — his speech was the worst climate doomsaying I’ve ever heard since the heyday of Al Bore.
Have there been any surveys among Alaskan citizens on whether or not they LIKE their warmer weather?
Here’s my guess: THEY LOVE THEIR LOCAL WARMING.
The slight warming of Earth since 1850, and the increase of CO2 in the air since then, are BOTH good news for humans and green plants.
Anyone with common sense would want more warming, and more CO2 in the air, in the next century.
If you had a choice, slight warming, slight cooling, or massive glaciation, which would YOU prefer?
Climate history scientists have found no other “choices” than those three.
I’m a sensible person, so I favor more warming.
Climate blog for non scientists:
Free
No ads
No money for me
A public service
http://www.elOnionBloggle.blogspot.com
If reporters lost their credulity, that would be a good thing.
As I said earlier in the comment people are missing another reason for the step change in the mid 70s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Alaska_Pipeline_System
Larry Kummer,
Mr. Kummer, you should be ashamed of yourself, foisting your misinformation on everyone in this blog. You picked a quote out of context from the Alaska Climate Research Center. Below I quote the opening paragraph of the Research center report.
Temperature Changes in Alaska
“The topic of climate change has attracted widespread attention in recent years and is an issue that numerous scientists study on various time and space scales. One thing for sure is that the earth’s climate has and will continue to change as a result of various natural and anthropogenic forcing mechanisms.”
Quote taken from the opening on subject of Alaska climate change by the Alaska Climate Research Center.
What is your agenda and who do you work for? Did you thing you could get away with such false propaganda?
I quote from them again, “one thing for sure is that is that the earth’s climate will continue to change”
You owe this blog an apology.
Bob,
That’s quite a reading FAIL. Climate change is a complex public issue, not a schoolyard game of Shirts vs Skins. Not everything is just “is there global warming” or “not”. Only the heavily indoctrinated see things in such binary terms.
This post does not address whether there has been global warming, let alone the blindingly obvious “there has been change as a result of various natural and anthropogenic forcing mechanisms.” That’s a debate for children and VERY low information readers.
This post discusses an example of the information the public is given vs that needed to make useful decisions. Obama’s speeches in Alaska and the resulting news media coverage did not accurately describe what’s happened in Alaska during the last 35 years. If we allow our leaders to misinform us, Americans will be unable to make correct decisions about public policy — and perhaps even become incapable of self-government.
This was all quite clear to anyone reading this post without thick ideological blinders.
As for your accusations — they are typical of people whose minds are closed by propaganda. We can only feel sorry for you.