NOTE: This was posted on ICECAP today, and I’m copying it here. See my further notes below.
By Dr. John R. Christy.
I have been flooded this week with calls and e-mail messages concerning a story that has appeared on various Internet sites, in which the claim is made that cooling global temperatures over the past twelve months in some way negate or eliminate any global warming that might have happened over the past 100 years.
“Here is my perspective on this issue: Twelve months of data does not make a trend, especially in a system as complex and slow moving as global climate, and even more so when the cause for that short-term cooling is as reasonably well understood and well documented as a switch from a minor El Nino Pacific Ocean warming in January 2007 to the La Nina cooling event now taking place.
“The 0.59 C drop we have seen in the past 12 months is unusual, but not unprecedented; April 1998 to April 1999 saw a 0.71 C fall. The long-term climate trend from November 1978 through (and including) January 2008 continues to show a modest warming at the rate of about 0.14 C (0.25 degrees F) per decade.
“One cool year does not erase decades of climate data, nor does it more than minimally change the long-term climate trend. Long-term climate change is just that “long term” and 12 months of data are little more than a blip on the screen.”
Dr. John Christy is Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director, Earth System Science Center, The University of Alabama in Huntsville
Icecap Note: John is absolutely correct that we can’t make assumptions about one year’s trend either up or down. The story he references used the Hadley CRU land and ocean based data and of course John Christy, Roy Spencer and Phillip Gentry are using satellite derived lower tropospheric data. Satellite is widely recognized as the most accurate method for the assessment of change. The following plot of the last decade of the satellite derived global temperatures shows how the global climate is strongly influenced by El Nino and La Nina as John notes.
Note from Anthony: When the DailyTech first posted this story and referenced my blog as the source of th compilation, without ever interviewing me or asking me a single question, I notified them immediately of my concerns. Shortly after that I published this “Update and Caveat” (below) on the original post. Dailytech graciously made a changes to the wording at my request, but by then the genie was out of the bottle.
The website DailyTech has an article citing this blog entry as a reference, and their story got picked up by the Drudge report, resulting in a wide distribution. In the DailyTech article there is a paragraph:
“Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.”
I wish to state for the record, that this statement is not mine: “–a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years”
There has been no “erasure”. This is an anomaly with a large magnitude, and it coincides with other anecdotal weather evidence. It is curious, it is unusual, it is large, it is unexpected, but it does not “erase” anything. I suggested a correction to DailyTech and they have graciously complied.
This demonstrates how one story written in one place can often go repeated, without being challenged or double checked. This happens in many types of news reports. In my 25 years in TV, I’ve seen this happen at the local level, all the way up to the national level. We’ve seen it happen with global warming stories too. The ease of electronic immediacy in reporting often runs over the accuracy in reporting, be it blogs, websites, TV or radio, the issue is the same.
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So are they trying to say that the IPCC models don’t take into account El Nino’s and La Nina’s?
A note might be: It is very interesting how fast this atmospheric change in weather propagated through the global system.
Also, small changes might have big effects in terms of feedbacks in the climate system.
Anyone know whether or not the albedo of this new fresh ice that has formed in the Arctic is higher or lower than the old ice? I could see it going both ways, but the old ice would have had years of anthropogenic and natural dust and soot on it perhaps making its albedo lower. New ice wouldn’t have that right away. On the other hand, old ice probably has more snow on it, and new ice less and would be perhaps darker due to that respect.
Unfortunately, Solar-induced climate recovery from a Little Ice Age does not a case for anthropegenic global warming make, either. As human disposable wealth is directed to mitigating carbon dioxide emission, the impact in human suffering of the next “minimum” (I propose to call it the Gore Minimum) is magnified.
Although it is quite true to say that one year’s data does not make a climate trend, it is interesting to me that a photo of a polar bear or a single hurricane event apparently does, and proves AGW theory!
REPLY: Touche’
Nobody seems inclined to use this event as a potential learning tool and examine the network sensitivity to events that primarily impact urbanized North American locations. Likewise I suspect this will only cause suspicion in the future of down indicating events whilst anecdote as to AGW continues to receive top billing in the MSM. As evidence of this last try googling the recent 1934 versus 1998 issue. The supermajority of top results either report 1998 as still being the warmest or otherwise that the recent revision was minor.
Actually, we don’t know that global climate is slow moving. Nor do we know that the cooling over the last 12 months is an anomaly (by which I presume you mean an unexplained change that will dissapear in future measurements).
As I’ve pointed out before NH hemisphere land temperatures fell 2.4C in the 12 months to January 2008 according to the NOAA. NH land and ocean fell 1.24C.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2008/jan/global.html
There is very little interaction between the northern and southern hemisperes over these time frames. So you can treat them as separate climate systems.
The only explanations are:
1. We have a serious measurement problem and the fall in temperature didn’t happen.
2. Our climate does change rapidly, and it remains to be seen how long the rapid change continues and consequently how far it goes.
BTW, the argument for slow climate change is that forcings change slowly and what we have seen over the last 12 months is internal climate variability. Which begs the question; Where is all the heat hiding, if it is not in the atmosphere or ocean surface?
I have an off topic inquiry to make.
As a factor to question AGW, some have pointed to shrinking polar ice caps on Mars and other planets.
We have also noted reduced solar sunspot activity and believe that we will have more gamma rays producing more clouds resulting in more reflected sunlight and a future of cooler temps.
Can we look at Martian polar ice caps now for growth? Are increased gamma rays going to effect the Martian climate or is the shrinking caps a result of the solar activity and is lower activity going to bring growth?
Just trying to get my head around all the sweet smelling science.
As human disposable wealth is directed to mitigating carbon dioxide emission, the impact in human suffering of the next “minimum” (I propose to call it the Gore Minimum) is magnified.
chillguy, if, indeed, the next generation is marked by large sums of wasted and/or never realized wealth, then I can think of no person more deserving of being recognized as at fault than Mr. Gore, particularly since he has benefited from the present charade to the tune of tens of millions of dollars. OTOH, if we could just figure out how to concentrate the expenditures of “disposable wealth” on new generations of economic, renewable and clean energy and share it with developing countries, the amount of new wealth that could potentially be created would dwarf the up front investment and benefit everyone. Unfortunately, the naysayers would just migrate on to the next “global crisis”, but that’s a whole other topic.
This is yet another example of why I believe nothing in the MSM without checking the data myself. The capacity of journalists for misunderstanding and misquoting knows no bounds. They generally can’t get it right even if you write if for them. What I don’t know is how much is deliberate obfuscation and how much is plain stupidity.
Anthony I don’t know if you knew this or not but your were featured by name on Brit Hume and as well and he mentioned the sentence that Daily Tech has since retracted. I think your criticism of the media is quite fair because it is amazing that a piece of news made it that far up the chain of the MSM without I’m assuming one person asking you if you really said such a thing.
By the way keep up the great work. I really enjoy this site.
REPLY: Thanks I found out about that later and made Fox News edit their web content to be accurate.
I doubt cloud formation is anywhere near the sam e on Mars. I’ve alsoe heard mars is experiencing an orbital eccentricity, but I don’t know what effect, if anything measurable, that would have in the short run.
Remember the old saying about a lie traveling around the world while the truth is getting its shoes on? Well, that is a story about memes. Memes, even partially mistaken ones, propagate in a receptive environment. This meme, close to correct, propagated through a public consciousness just a little fatigued with non-stop global warming hype. It is like a tall glass of cool lemonade on a hot summer afternoon. And those were real lemons in it, not modeled ones.
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Anthony – thanks for the clear statement on the matter. It is refreshing to see those on the AGW-skeptic side such as Dr. Christy and youself correct the record when such extravagant claims are made. I only wish the alarmist side act in a similar manner.
FYI – Planet Gore at National Review Online also put out the “erasure” statement and later posted a correction when readers complained.
Global Warming alarmists beware… http://www.EvilCarbon.com
If the reverse were also true, I wouldn’t be using it in this way.
However, a period of high temperatures, and its GW all round.
Low temperatures, and its not.
Can’t have it both ways.
Hi Anthony,
I’m not sure what’s up with the zing to DailyTech. There was no misquote since Michael Asher did not quote you, or even implied that he quoted you, in the article. Your name was only mentioned as the supplier of the compiled graph.
Anyone that attacked you for something Mr. Asher wrote in his personal blog is a kook. The fact that someone baited you into a response was the only reason I even approved Michael’s update to the article.
I thoroughly enjoy your articles, keep up the good work,
Kristopher Kubicki
Executive Editor, DailyTech LLC
REPLY: Kristopher,thanks for the note and also for the kind words. However as I pointed out to Mr. Asher in private emails to him within the hour of that story going online, others would make the connection bewteen the way the paragraph was worded on DailyTech, and me. That is exactly what happened with a Fox news report, attributing Michaels description to me, and that is the issue I had. Having spent 25 years in television news, I know how this happens, and it did.
It was a good object lesson for everyone.
Dr Christy is surely correct. Now someone needs to explain this to the media. Here’s a report on the history of media climate hysteria. Seems the media cannot make up their minds. http://www.businessandmedia.org/specialreports/2006/fireandice/fireandice_execsum.asp
1895 – 1925: cooling!
1925 – 1955: warming!
1955 – 1980: cooling!
1980 – today: warming!
Future: climate change!!! (Duh – really?)
Concerning your flight/DELTA/JFK…:
“Yesterday, thanks to JFK and Delta airlines I spent 16 hours traveling from NYC back to California in what should have be about 8-10 hours”.
Consider yourself very lucky. On a flight last summer from Düsseldorf-JFK-Burlington, Vermont I needed over 30 hours (20hrs at JFK Terminal 3).
DELTA runs its airline very much like the USHCN its temperature stations.
Readers beware!
HI All,
Has the story now become DailyTech’s misstatement? How often when contradictory evidence to a mainstream meme crops up, does the story become the fecklessness of some reporter whose overstatement or misstatement is treated as “the only thing to see here”? Anthony, do you think DailyTech’s “irrational exuberance” is the only thing to see here?
Second, a question. I understand that from the high in 1998 to Jan, 2008, that there is a generally down trend line? Is that correct?
For world avg temp., what about from the high in 1934 to Jan, 2008?
Just asking, since I don’t have a climatologist in my pocket. thanks.
Grant Hodges
Although the temperature drop was as big in the 1998 la ninha, neither this nor any of the other la ninhas of the last 30 years saw the dramatic increase in ice cover at the poles.
I personally lean towards a solar activity inspired cooling, and that la ninha may have been initiated by that cooling (just as el ninhos may have been initiated by warming), but at the moment the jury is out.
One thing that might give guidance as to causality may be cloud cover records. Assuming the driver was the 2005 step change in solar activity noted previously in WUWT, and assume also cosmic rays / cloud formation form part of the link to global weather. Then cloud records should show a dramatic change in cover, following the solar intensity drop, but proceeding la ninha and the increase in ice cover.
I have had a browse around the internet but can’t find any data. Does anybody know a good data source for cloud cover?
Of course the current claims of the pro CO2/AGW alarmists, is to blame the current unprecedented drop in temps over the last year on the La Nina cycle.
However if we look at the ENSO index:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
And if we compare the El Nino/La Nina cycle to monthly temp averages:
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
We see that there has never been a significant drop in global temps anywhere near the magnitude we are currently seeing.
They reference the La Nina of 1988/89, it still wasn’t as much as this year.
However in fact, the most recent major La Nina cycle started in 1998, otherwise known as the “warmest year on record” (except to Dr. Hansen). Yet half that year was in a La Nina cycle, and didn’t experience the significant global cooling trend we are currently seeing.
While part of the cooling is still likely to the La Nina, I think their are a few significant points that are being overlooked.
First, if La Nina has that significant of an effect on short term temps, then perhaps much of the warming over the past several decades simply falls into the predominance of El Nino cycles. If we look at the period of 1950 – 1975, which shows a major cooling trend, we see far more La Nina events, than the period of 1977-2007.
Second, that brings up the “chicken or the egg” argument. Is it the El Nino/La Nina that is driving the temps, or the temps fluctuations that are driving the El Nino/La Nina cycle?
And third, we are in the midst of what appears could be a prolonged solar minimum/delayed start of Solar Cycle 24. Exactly how much that could be a factor in the downward trend? And if that is the case, could that be the best evidence yet that it is the Sun that is the primary driving force behind Earth’s climate fluctuations?
Phllip_B, That is interesting. I find it odd that an atmospheric induced warming model based on GHG would have such differences hemispherically, I can’t think of a mechanism to seperate the two.
It could of course, just be coincidence, but the sun will be the ultimate arbiter of whether or not the recent cooling signals the start of a new LIA-type climate shift. My own (non-scientific) hunch is that it does, based on the inactive sun since Oct. ’05, and the very late cycle 24. However we just won’t know for quite some time.
Meanwhile, the AGW/AGCC propaganda machine is becoming increasingly shrill in their calls to act now, before it’s too late, and while the cost is still relatively low.
I agree that nothing is erased, but the following link suggests that it is not just a single event:
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/03/don-j-easterbrook-on-global-cooling.html
Is it wrong? I do understand that you should not just ignore the pre 1998 data when defining your slope. It may be another example of misleading graphics, but I would like to know others thoughts on it.
John M Reynolds
Anthony, I feel I share a bit of responsibility of this as I first pointed out the big January drop in RSS data. My comments were mostly in jest, in much the same way that Mav pointed out:
“it is interesting to me that a photo of a polar bear or a single hurricane event apparently does, and proves AGW theory!”
Yeah, pretty much.
My original comments concerning January were intended to mimic (mock, even) rubbish pro-AGW statements such as Katrina, polar bears and the like.
BTW, anyone know when Feb08 data is due? 🙂
Despite the fact 12 months doesn’t change a trend, it is fairly indisputable that our planet is extremely sensitive to the oceans. Moreso than CO2? I think so.