Foreword: Don J. Easterbrook sent me this essay on Friday for publication here, but with the dustup over Monckton’s paper and the APS, I decided to hold off publishing it for a bit. For background, see Easterbrook’s web page here. – Anthony
Shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation from its warm mode to cool mode assures global cooling for the next three decades.
Don J. Easterbrook, Dept. of Geology, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA
Addressing the Washington Policymakers in Seattle, WA, Dr. Don Easterbrook said that shifting of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) from its warm mode to its cool mode virtually assures global cooling for the next 25-30 years and means that the global warming of the past 30 years is over. The announcement by NASA that the (PDO) had shifted from its warm mode to its cool mode (Fig. 1) is right on schedule as predicted by past climate and PDO changes (Easterbrook, 2001, 2006, 2007) and is not an oddity superimposed upon and masking the predicted severe warming by the IPCC. This has significant implications for the future and indicates that the IPCC climate models were wrong in their prediction of global temperatures soaring 1°F per decade for the rest of the century.
Figure 1. Cooling of the Pacific Ocean and setting up of the cool-mode PDO. Sea surface temperature anomaly in the Pacific Ocean from April 14-21, 2008. The anomaly compares the recent temperatures measured by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) on NASA’s Aqua satellite with an average of data collected by the NOAA Pathfinder satellites from 1985-1997. Places where the Pacific was cooler than normal are blue, places where temperatures were average are white, and places where the ocean was warmer than normal are red. The cool water anomaly in the center of the image shows the lingering effect of the year-old La Niña. However, the much broader area of cooler-than-average water off the coast of North America from Alaska (top center) to the equator is a classic feature of the cool phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO). The cool waters wrap in a horseshoe shape around a core of warmer-than-average water. (In the warm phase, the pattern is reversed). Unlike El Niño and La Niña, which may occur every 3 to 7 years and last from 6 to 18 months, the PDO can remain in the same phase for 20 to 30 years. (NASA image by Jesse Allen, AMSR-E data processed and provided by Chelle Gentemann and Frank Wentz, Remote Sensing Systems. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey, adapted from a press release from NASA JPL).
Instead of a rise of 1°F during the first decade of this century as predicted by IPCC climate models (Fig 2), global temperatures cooled slightly for the past nine years and cooled more than 1°F this year (Fig 3). Global cooling over the past decade appears to be due to a global cooling trend set up by the PDO cool mode and a similar shift in the Atlantic. The IPCC’s prediction of a 1° F warming by 2011, will require warming of about 1° F in the next three years and unless that happens, the IPCC models will be proven invalid.
Figure 2. IPCC predicted warming.
Figure 3. Measured cooling.
As shown by the historic pattern of PDOs over the past century (Fig. 4) and by corresponding global warming and cooling, the pattern is part of ongoing warm/cool cycles that last 25-30 years. Each time the PDO mode has shifted from warm to cool or cool to warm, the global climate has changed accordingly. In 1977, the PDO shifted from cool mode to warm mode (Fig. 4) and set off the global warming from 1977 to 1998, often referred to as the “Great Climate Shift.” The recent shift from PDO warm mode to cool mode is similar to the shift that occurred in the mid-1940’s and resulted in 30 years of global cooling (Fig. 4). The global warming from ~1915 to ~1945 was also brought on by a mode shift in the PDO (Fig. 4). Every indication points continuation of the PDO patterns of the past century and global cooling for the next 30 years (Fig. 4). Thus, the global warming the Earth has experienced since 1977 appears to be over!
Figure 4. PDO indices, 1900-2008 with predictions to 2040.
Beaker: My guess is that Fig 3 is a clipped 30-year graph and that the blue line is a 5th or 6th polynomial trend that looks out of place with the rest of the data edited out.
Three cheers for Mr. Easterbrook. He has taken a couple of pages right out of Al Gore’s playbook: He has put his information in a format understandable to the layman and he has presented it to a body of people who just might be able to affect the idiotic policies that are currently being put in place by those in a postiion to do so. While collaboration is very important, it is also very important that all of our energies are not spent preaching to the choir.
Bob: I think that is rather unlikely as the blue line goes through the first and last datapoints, which would be a bit of a coincidence to say the least! Also fitting a 5th or 6th order polynomial to even 30 years worth of data would be a recipe for over-fitting. The climate change debate is greatly hampered by the use of “illustrative” graphics, which are all too easily taken as some sort of scientific truth/prediction in the absence of a proper description.
Hello!!!
Dr. Roy Spencer’s latest work puts a major kink in the entire CO2 AGW hypothesis. What was thought to be a high climate sensitivity was found to be seriously flawed.
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Climate-Sensitivity-Holy-Grail.htm
http://climatesci.org/2008/07/17/spencer-rw-and-wd-braswell-2008-feedback-vs-chaotic-radiative-forcing-%e2%80%9csmoking-gun%e2%80%9d-evidence-for-an-insensitive-climate-system/
http://climatesci.org/wp-content/uploads/spencer-ppt.pdf
It can’t be much easier to understand than that.
Observational evidence is the bane of AGW.
Why is it “fair” to focus carefully on the interval from 1979 to 1998, but “unfair” to consider 1998 to 2008?
“Enquiring minds want to know.”
Evan: FYI, the linear trend from 1998 to 2008 appears to be one of mild warming, e.g.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2008/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1998/to:2008/trend
which is possibly why some are now concentrating on 2002-2008 rather than 1998-2008.
Look what happens if we move the analysis window back 2 years, we get a (comparatively) strong warming trend.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/to:2006/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000/to:2006/trend
Interannual variability is large compared to the purported warming due to greenhouse gasses, and this makes any short term trend unreliable, however the longer the window, the more reliable the observed trend. 1979-1998 (whatever the significance of that window is) is a longer window over the data than 1998-2008, and much longer than 2002-2008 that is being discussed here.
Western Washington U wrote the book on PDO. They are the world’s ultimate authorities on this topic.
In Cali, better get used to showering with a friend, and revival of the a saying from the nasty two year drought during the 1970s:
If it’s yellow, let it mellow
If it’s brown, flush it down
And we better not be seeing any green lawns, the water police will be issuing citations.
Beaker:
How about we use RSS for that time period?
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2008/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2008/trend
Your trend is gone, yet the CO2 remains. How can that be? I remember the 10 year warning, version 2.0, and it has not come to pass. Maybe version 3.0 will work as advertised, but I wouldn’t bet on it.
Steve Sadlov: Western Washington U? Are you sure you don’t mean University of Washington, JISAO, Nathan Mantua, those people?
JP (06:37:07) wrote: “I think many people forget that the PDO wasn’t “discovered” by oceanographers or climate scientists, but by fishermen. Of course, they didn’t call it the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.”
GREAT info, JP, thanks!
I first began studying climate change when Lady Thatcher began using it as a wedge to get noticed on the world stage. Over the years I’ve discussed the matter with many true scientists (not just those individuals with PhD’s). But it wasn’t until the “discovery” of the Pacific Warm Pool (AKA the Equatorial Pacific Warm Pool and other similar names) that I totally immersed myself in the subject.
The PWP of course, was found to have existed from at least the 1500’s through examination of ship’s logs. It was also just about that time the “discovery” of the PDO, AMO, and others were beginning to hit the scientific community. At that time, a number of scientists floating around the PWP postulated that it was tied hand-in-glove to the PDO and that the PDO was impacting the AMO. The buzz word was “teleconnections” if I recall properly. I was so enthused by the many research papers written on the subject, I actually began putting up a website explaining the overall situation (www.epwp.com).
Having said all that, my question to you is far more simple: is there any contingent of credible scientists still discussing the “teleconnections” angle between the PWP and the PDO?
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Here’s another warming trend that must be evidence of AGW:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1908/to:1938/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1908/to:1938/trend
Thirty years and 4.5C warming. That’s 1.5 C/ decade!!
I guess the question is, which way do you want to spin this:
Natural or man-made?
Beaker: My earlier comment didn’t say I agreed with the representation, because, as I said, it’s a crop job. I simply said the blue line appears to be a 6th order polynomial trend, and it continues to. I’ll change my guess of the starting month to Jan 98, though. Thinking I’d duplicate it in EXCEL, I spent about 2 minutes looking for the data source, which I can’t identify, and that’s all the time I’m going to spend on it. Regardless, we both agree that it’s a poor representation that’s poorly documented. Enough time wasted.
Regards
Russ: you are missing the point, short term trends are unreliable, and all this is cherry picking, how about 2000-2008 using RSS, and we have warming again.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2000/to:2008/plot/rss/from:2000/to:2008/trend
you also get warming if you go back before the extremely strong El Nino around 1998 (see the common theme of starting the window at an El Nino and ending at a La Nino?).
None of the short term trends are really meaningful, whether they show warming or cooling. Look at the running mean, it gives a much more reliable indication of the long term trend. When they show a decline over an extended period, that can’t be explained by ENSO, that would be a different matter entirely.
Well let’s compare some longer periods. I like 30 years, because it has a nice PDO ring to it.
This one shows evidence of future man-made catastrophe and requires drastic cut-backs in our current energy mix :
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1978/to:2008/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1978/to:2008/trend
This one is natural variation in “weather” :
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1908/to:1938/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1908/to:1938/trend
I have to admit I am not feeling the proper amout of panic over this whole AGW thing. I hope “they” don’t find out, and send me to “climate sensitivity classes”.
[…] is this paper by Don J. Easterbrook of Western Washington University’s Department of Geology posted over at […]
Russ: If we can agree that short term trends are meaningless, encourage cherry picking and provide scant evidence (in isolation) for global cooling, then my point is made. I have no paticular position on AGW, just a position on misuse of statistical methods and data.
“Thirty years and 4.5C warming. That’s 1.5 C/ decade!!”
Amazing. Your graph shows more like a .45C in 30 years. That would be .15 C per decade.
If Hansen in 1988 before the US Senate had just used this figure and projected what a “global temperature” would be in 2008 using that average and only using his “drastic reduction in CO2 emissions” scenario he might have been closer to being right, instead of being off by a factor of 2 or 3.
Jack Koenig: Do you recall any sources for those teleconnections between PDO and PWP? I’m preparing to do another series on SSTs, but this time I wanted to compare them to land surface areas where GCMs have determined there are teleconnections, so I’m looking for teleconnection papers with well-defined areas. Teleconnections between SST indices could be included as well. The intent is to see whether or not the teleconnections appear in real world data or only in GCMs.
NOAA’s NOMADS system allows you to extract SST (ERSST.v2) and LST (GHCN) time series data based on global coordinates, so that part’s easy. I’m not sure how far I can take it with the simple tools I’ve got, but I wanted to at least give it a shot.
Any PDO/PWP teleconnection sources?
Bob Tisdale (16:54:33) wrote: “Jack Koenig: Do you recall any sources for those teleconnections between PDO and PWP? I’m preparing to do another series on SSTs, but this time I wanted to compare them…”
Bob, Most of that info resides on one of three hard drives I was using back in ’97-’97. I should be able to find time over the weekend to plug them into one of my computers anddo a search (my wife is going to kill me). I also have a ton of printed materials sent to me by various scintists – primarily from Australia – who wrote on the subject. I’ll see what I can locate.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Anyone care to explain how GHG cause oceans to warm?
Please locate in IPCC AR4 where even a 5 year period of non-warming or cooling was allowed in their conclusions.
Short trends in ocean heat content is not irrelevant since it is a slow process and can be measured at any time. Since oceans account for 80-90% of earth’s warming, land processes pale in comparison as water in liquid form absorbs ~1000x the heat than in gaseous form (water vapor). Considering CO2 is 38/100,000 of the atmosphere it really is but a minor player in the scheme of things.
Hansen et al (referenced in IPCC AR4) used ten years to confirm the “smoking gun” for AGW by claiming ocean heat content was on an upward climb only stoppable by reductions in GHG emissions. Obviously this is not the case.
It is now going on 5 years with no additional heat stored in the upper 700m of ocean; IPCC conclusions on OHC is falsified. Where is the missing heat? Hiding with the missing CO2 sink?
Is it any coincidence with oceans cooling, the entire globe as a whole is cooling as well? Make no mistake, there will be no “global” warming if the oceans are not accumulating heat. I have yet to see a clear exposition of how LW IR can have anything (if at all) but a very small effect on ocean warming in the first place.
Oceanic Influences on Recent Continental Warming
http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/pdf2html.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.noaa.gov%2Fpeople%2Fgilbert.p.compo%2FCompoSardeshmukh2007a.pdf&images=yes
Mike Bentley (16:15:09) :
“For those of you who are very literal, read the instruction manual to your lawn mower. Do not use it as a hedge trimmer. ”
Woops, too late Mr Bentley, but I’ll try to remember in future.
Incidentally, I find many of the comments here particularly interesting. It might well be that the point they make has been made regularly, but I am a newcomer and have not seen it made so clearly before.
The point they make is that we cannot take the activities of Mr Pacific Ocean alone and drawn a conclusion, nor is his brother Mr Atlantic Ocean a stand-alone force. All the Ocean siblings do their own thing as do their cousins the Seas, the Forests and the Volcanoes (a very excitable branch of the family).
To my mind (if one can call it a mind) this is the greatest hurdle Mr Gore and his merry men have to jump. There are so many mighty forces at play, including that big shiny thing in the sky, that to ascribe an overpowering influence to a bit of gas seems somewhat strange.
(Still sitting in the naughty corner wearing the dunce’s cap, but glad to read observations that match my own.)
ummm… has no one else noticed how incredibly amateurish the graph is showing the PDO Index?
firstly, the Cooling section of the graph (the prediction) is EXACTLY the same as the previous period of cooling – I cannot see how that can in any conscience be considered an accurate prediction at all.
Secondly, whoever cobbled together the graph got the font wrong on the bottom, where it’s supposed to indicate ‘2020’ – if you’re going to tack a new piece onto an existing graph, at least match the fonts up…
so… as much as I wanted this to be true, the poor job putting that graph together is telling me that this is little more than misinformation being put into a very serious debate.
If the 1940-1977 PDO warm phase relies on measured SST’s, we’d better be careful about projecting a thirty year cooloff. In the light of ‘the bucket adjuctment fiasco’ (see climate audit), the last cool phase may be a chimaera. I’m sure the fishermen are right about the alternating migratory patterns of fish, but does that speak for the who;e ocean, or a current along the coast of continental America?
The ‘thirty year cycle’ is only evident in the historical record for 1 1/2 cycles, and the readjustment of the SST’s in the light of bucket adjustments may make the last ‘cool phase’ a good deal less clear cut. At a guess, the average line would move up and the oscillation would then appear as a longer cycle of around 60 years and have less amplitude.
Dammit, first sentence should read 1940-1977 *cool* phase :o)