Recently, Dr. James Hansen of NASA GISS gave his 20 year anniversary speech before congress, in which he was restating the urgency of the global warming crisis we now face. Warnings of tipping points, and a call for putting “energy executives on trial for crimes against humanity and nature” were parts of that speech.
Here are the just published global temperature data sets for UAH (University of Alabama) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems) and the 20 year time-line. Dr. Hansen if you are reading can you kindly point out where in the time-line the crimes occurred and tipping points are?
Click for larger images
I would have thought the CO2 enhanced warming would have been further along by now. Maybe the graphs are inverted?
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[off topic]
So….does this mean that global warming is a non-event?
If so let’s move onto and address peak oil.
John Galt is the hero of Ayn Rand’s novels.
MarkW:
You re-iterated what I was saying about the effect of man-made reservoirs. They induce a micro-climate change that could influence a local climate, but only due to micro-scale changes and micro-scale circulations (for instance, if the reservoir is big enough, you could induce sea breezes). However, this application of terraforming would likely not have an impact on the overall global circulation nor the overall global climate, which was my point. This entire thought experiment, however, must remain separate from the notion that CO2-induced warming could cause a water vapour feedback, amplifying the warming.
As to your false assertion that I blame cold spells on natural cycles, you obviously should read more of my comments. Why do I harp on the illegitimacy of analyzing trends beginning in 1998? Because a natural cycle (ENSO) greatly impacted the temperatures in that year, causing a rather large and anomalous bit of warming. I do advocate an in-depth analysis of climate trends that takes this and other anomalous positive readings into account. Perhaps in the future you should worry less about trying to deride my view that CO2 is the major player in global warming, and more about making sound arguments (of which you didn’t actually propose any here).
Philip_B:
If you honestly believe that CO2 cannot possibly act as a greenhouse gas, then I’m not going to waste my time conversing with you. I have no desire to waste my time arguing with someone who denies a basic principle which, since its first proposal over a hundred years ago, has yet to be discarded, and has revolutionized our understanding of paleo-climate, modern climate, and exo-climate.
Keep it civil gentleman.~jeez
“If you honestly believe that CO2 cannot possibly act as a greenhouse gas, then I’m not going to waste my time conversing with you.”
Oh yeah, if my atomic raison de etre is fallacious then “I take zie ball and I march to zie haus!”.
How about an insignificant GHG? Do you stay and play? MarkW is beginning to impress me with his olfactory sensitivity.
Keep it civil gentleman.~jeez
Say, Daniel, show us who/when/where anyone here has ever said that C02 wasn’t a greenhouse gas? The whole point in fact is that C02 simply isn’t much of a player, and most of the warming effect occurs in the first 20 ppm. Any additional now will have negligible warming effect. And, on top of everything, man’s contribution to C02 is only about 3%, so our contribution to warming via C02 is miniscule – not even worth bothering about. But you seem to believe that C02 can and does drive climate change. So, you should be able to prove it. We’ll wait.
[…] Anthony Watts has charts of two different global temperature data sets that show this cooling. […]
Question from an amateur, Anthony.
Your “blue line” in the above post…is that a best-fit line of monthly data points from June 1988-June 2008? If not, could you please post such a line?
REPLY: Its a level line to compare 1988 level to 2008 level, it is not a fitted line.
I do not really understand the big issue here. When we look at the data, the average trend is still up. For long periods in the past the temperature has gone below the June 1988 level, it went below that level in 2008. But for long periods the temperature went above the June 1988 level also. So I am not sure why this is made to be so significant, when we should be looking at the average trends.
Re: your reply above. Do you mean 1988 level to 2008 level? Also, could you post a best-fit, to be fair? I don’t have the technology.
REPLY: Yes fixed, phone rang while I was writing that. Sure I’ll add it to my list of thousands. Or you could look at the may other graphs with best fits on the blog, it has been covered a few times already. Just go back a few days.
I don’t know what you are implying with the “to be fair” comment. The post was about comparing 1988 and 2008 levels, not trends. We’ve done trends ad nauseum here.
UPDATE: I’ve added the plots with curve fits on the main page.
Matt: you are quite right, our warmth comes from the Sun and sunspots make the Sun hotter. Since the Little Ice Age, the Earth’s temperature has indeed gone up by 0.01 degrees due to increased solar activity, and should solar activity fall to the same low level, the Earth will indeed cool by the same one-hundredth of a degree.
Leif,
Where do you get 0.01 degree since the LIA due to increased solar activity? Is that based on a minuscule estimate of increased solar irradiance since then?
Basil
Just eye-balling the graphs with my tired old eyes it looks as if since 88 to present the average has been flat with nearly equal ups and downs. I would think that might be slightly significant since the trend since the LIA has been up. It may be that it is time for us to have a spell of cooler times. I hope not as during the LIA the death toll from food shortages was terrible along with the death from disease. It has been warming since the early 1800’s the vast part not due to CO2. If the models are correct the past 20 years should have been much warmer but they haven’t been. I accept that we have been warming. I have my doubts that CO2 is the major cause of that warming.
What we need now is old style unbiased scientific study using empirical data. Good observational discipline and reporting with archived data open for study by all concerned scientists.
I am tired of this name calling that your expert isn’t a climate scientist, he is a known denier, he is owned by big oil, and so forth. I care less who pays for the science as long as the data is properly gathered, properly archived and willingly shared with other scientists. When hypothesis are proven incorrect they are not used later as a point of reference. The days of hiding the data and the method used to reach a conclusion must end. If the study is good enough to be used to guide public policy, it must be good enough to stand up to complete audit of method and duplication/replication of work. Any thing less is a waste of time. This should be done at the time of the publishing of the study or paper.
When you are trying to effect a change of public policy there is no proprietary ownership. the data and methodology must be available for full audit and replication / duplication.
Just my 2 cents from a non-scientist.
Bill Derryberry
Jody First (16:09:18) :
“I do not really understand the big issue here.”
There is no big issue here, this is mainly a thread poking a little fun at someone who has spent 20 years muster support for his fears that world will fry up and blow away. 20 years to the month, and the temperature has only gone down.
“So I am not sure why this is made to be so significant, when we should be looking at the average trends.”
Absolutely, but we do need a little play time, though lately it’s been a bit more than I think is warranted. Not enough to complain about, but perhaps enough to put off new readers for a while. I also get the sense there’s a little giddiness that perhaps the tide is really changing and people are beginning to understand that there’s much more to climate than CO2. Hopefully we can fend off a crash program to reduce CO2 emissions before discovering the hard way that the unintended consequences may be worse than the cure.
The problem with looking at trends always brings up the problem of how long a trend, over what time frame, etc. We can make a case for looking at just the last several months since the Pacific Decadal Oscillation went negative, in which case we see a rapid decline in global temps and signs of a return to winters like some of us remember from the 1960s and 1970s. And tornado outbreaks in the spring. Not hurricanes – those seem to march to a different drummer.
Oh – speaking of Hansen – while his June data isn’t out, there is:
May 1988: +0.37 C
May 2008: +0.36 C
Ordinarily I’d say his own measurements show no change, but for Jim I have to note its gone down. Of course, given the way he adjusts data, the May 1988 value might change this month.
Philip_B:
If you honestly believe that CO2 cannot possibly act as a greenhouse gas,
Please don’t attribute statements to me, that I didn’t make. For the record, I think the basic physical calculations for the warming effect of increased CO2 are highly likely to be correct. Those calculations show about a 0.2C rise over the 20th century.
The logic error that you and many others make is because we know CO2 causes warming (on a global scale), the observed warming is caused by CO2 (operating on a global scale).
The latter most definitely does not follow from the former. Many effects determine how much warming or cooling occurs on local, regional and a global level.
What I said was that there is no persuasive evidence of warming resulting from a global effect. That statement is entirely consistent with the statement, increased CO2 causes a global warming effect.
Which means the CO2 effect is either too small to measure or is being counter-acted by another global effect causing cooling.
I think the first is more likely, due to negative feedbacks.
Leif Svalgaard is a genuine world authority on the sun and we should all pay careful attention to what he says as it represents our best current scientific understanding.
Leif shows enormous patience and good grace in responding to sometimes ill-informed statements and questions. I have read many of the literally hundreds of comments he has made at Climate Audit and he always tries to answer questions with precision and without obfuscation or evasion.
I don’t know why Lief does this, but he should be congratulated for doing it. Many people have learned a lot from him.
I wish some leading climate scientists would follow his lead.
Leif, 0.01 degrees Centigrade or Farenheit ?
What is your source?
A very timely speech given by Michael Crichton on global warming.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html
Yes, Leif is okay.
Gary: Yes, I know. Well, in Atlas Shrugged, anyway. I thought it amusing that one of the posters here would use the Galt handle.
As for the question, I meant it sincerely (both in my immediate curiosity and also in the sense that Rand herself continually repeated it).
Hmmm…. regarding my post on Michael Crichton’s speech, I should have said “… *science* on global warming.”
Since the base line for the temperature anomaly numbers is already based on the coldest 30 years in the record; a drop to a sustained -0.4 would mean temperatures that are lower than before the rise in CO2 started. that would do a lot more than “reaffirm” the solar affect. It would mean the CO2 causing waring hypothesis was dead meat; if it isn’t already.
Pardon me I of course mean the hypothesis that CO2 drives climate and will produce catastrophic warming.
My source? Me.
Or rather Stefan’s law: W = a T^4, where W is irradiance. From this we get:
dW/W=4dT/T, with T = 300 K, W = 1361 W/sqm, we get:
dT = T/4/W dW = 0.055 dW, which gives for various values of dW:
dW = 2 W/sqm, dT = 0.11 K
dW = 1 W/sqm, dT =0.055 K
dW = 0.2 W/sqm, dT = 0.011 K
I believe dW is 0.2 W/sqm. If you think it is somehi ng else, just insert your favorite number and get your own dT.
Leif- That sounds too low. I think you are missing a factor of four in the irradiance W, since only a portion of the surface is exposed to the sun at any one time, but the entire Earth surface is emitting. The value for W should be 1361/4 = 340 W/m^2. Your sensitivity becomes 0.22 C/W/m^2.
Another approach is to look at interseasonal variations that can easily be measured, as Sensitivity = (June T – January T)/(June TSI – January TSI). This comes out to about 0.1 C/W/m^2 (a little lower on the coast, a little higher inland). The advantage of this technique is that the differences calculated are large, so temperature errors of a few degrees C (due to badly sited weatherstations!) don’t make much of a difference. The data to do this calculation is available at the NREL site.
Roy Spencer just posted a discussion of his recently submitted paper that argues a climate sensitivity of 0.12 C/W/m^2.
Lief is as always correct – radiation heat transfer is simultaneously one of the most exact and most nebulous areas of heat transfer theory. Now, what can possibly drive planetary temperatures outside the range as stated in the basic equation as stated above may be the cosmic ray/cloud formation theory and the UV light theory. With changes in sunspot cycles, the largest change is in the ultraviolet range, which affect ozone by creating (and in the process of breaking 02 bonds releasing additional energy) which then can affect the rest of the atmosphere.
But who knows? I told a buddy that ten years ago I would be a believer if I saw a significant increase in global temps. I haven’t. Now, lets see what happens over the next decade…