Finally some recognition of all the anecdotal weather we’ve been talking about here – Anthony
World Meteorological Organization
Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:15am IST
LONDON (Reuters) – The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Wednesday.
The whole year will almost certainly be cooler than recent years, although temperatures remain above the historical average.
Global temperatures vary annually according to natural cycles. For example, they are driven by shifting ocean currents, and dips do not undermine the case that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are causing long-term global warming, climate scientists say.
Chillier weather this year is partly because of a global weather pattern called La Nina that follows a periodic warming effect called El Nino.
“We can expect with high probability this year will be cooler than the previous five years,” said Omar Baddour, responsible for climate data and monitoring at the WMO.
“Definitely the La Nina should have had an effect, how much we cannot say.”
“Up to July 2008, this year has been cooler than the previous five years at least. It still looks like it’s warmer than average,” added Baddour.
The global mean temperature to end-July was 0.28 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice Hadley Centre for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000.
“Of course at the beginning of the year there was La Nina, and that would have had the effect of suppressing temperatures somewhat as well,” Met Office meteorologist John Hammond said.
Hi Max,
Thanks for your further response. I won’t go through it point by point again, since we may be in danger of typing ourselves into early graves before we get to see what some of the future holds ;-). I think we’ve laid out the gist of our views, and I’m sure all these points will be revisited again. In short, you think that temperature variation can be accounted for by solar variation, and I do not (I don’t know yet what your explanation of a cooling stratosphere during a period of warming troposphere would be).
I’ll pick up a couple of points I may not have commented on yet.
The tropospheric records show more recent cooling (although greenhouse theory tells us that the trposphere should warm more rapidly than the surface). Why is this?
The satellite computations of lower troposphere temperatures show greater and speedier response to internal climate events than the surface records. This is true both negatively and positively, for example with ENSO events and with the response to, and recovery from, the Pinatubo eruption. I’ll ‘predict’ that the next El Nino will see the troposphere responding at a greater positive rate than the surface (I wouldn’t mind a bet on that!).
Svensmark/cosmic rays – yes, the CLOUD experiment will be interesting, but recent papers have found no correlation between cosmic rays and cloud cover, e.g.:
http://folk.uio.no/jegill/papers/Kristjansson_etal_2008_ACPD.pdf
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7327393.stm
The ‘fatal flaw’ is not just a matter of the direct correlation with solar activity breaking down, but also of there being no trend in cosmic rays since the 50s. Still, it remains to be seen whether or not there is supporting evidence for the hypothesis to come.
Incidentally, I’m somewhat amused that you think “indirect solar impact (for example from cosmic rays)” should be considered when you say elsewhere that “feedbacks are an unsubstantiated fantasy programmed in by computer models”!
(A couple of footnotes:
1. I tend to mention GISS first because its long-term trend is less than HadCRUT (and RSS), and it uses satellite data for SSTs, so that seems to me to make it less open to the charge of cherry-picking. But, as I said, my point above applies regardless of which record you wish to refer to.
2. I accept neither your assertion of the level of “spurious effect from UHI” nor that the GISS records are “suspect” beyond their stated error bands. Perhaps we’d best agree to differ for now on those matters.)
Regards,
Steven
Max,
a recent (post IPCC) study by Roy Spencer has helped clear up some of this “greatest source of uncertainty”. This study, based on physical observations over a five-year period, shows that clouds have a strong negative (i.e. cooling) impact, essentially confirming an earlier hypothesis of Richard Lindzen.
You are referring to this paper? –
http://www.weatherquestions.com/Spencer_07GRL.pdf
The references to Lindzen are: “potentially supporting
Lindzen’s ‘‘infrared iris’’ hypothesis” and “nominally supportive of Lindzen’s ‘‘infrared iris’’ hypothesis”. That is not at all the same as your words “essentially confirming”. Confirmation would call for a much higher level of evidence.
Spencer’s ideas are interesting and may turn out to be important, but there’s not much meat on the bones as yet. I look forward to his next paper. As of now, I think your suggestion that anything’s been cleared up is way too confident.
I agree with John that Spencer’s blog comments are notably stronger. I feel pretty cautious about that. For example, he states:
It takes a full five years of human greenhouse gas emissions to add 1 molecule of CO2 to every 100,000 molecules of air.
I’m sure that Roy Spencer is well aware that some 99% of ‘air’ is not GHGs, so what is the purpose of the above statement?
Hmm.
Bobby Lane says: “I think the testimony of Dr. Roy Spencer points out this aspect, and I would wait first (though others may not) for any research that may show he is incorrect.”
Well, there have already been some discussions of how much of the latest work of Spencer is misguided…see: and
However, I will point out to you if you are going to wait until there are absolutely no alternative explanations being proposed by any climate scientist anywhere before you accept AGW, you might as well be completely intellectually honest and say that you will never accept AGW because I can tell you right now that there will always be scientists who can propose that the current ideas are wrong and he has a better idea. This is particularly true in areas of science like AGW that arouse strong controversy because of their policy implications and how those go against some people’s strongly held political beliefs.
As for your quotes from the “climate skeptic” website concerning feedbacks: First of all, not to quibble too much, but the estimate of climate sensitivity from doubling CO2 in the absence of feedbacks is about 1.1 +- 0.1 C as I understand it, so the IPCC estimate of 2 to 4.5 C for the equilibrium climate sensitivity is more like 2X-4X the bare value, not 3X-5X. Second of all, I know of no general rule concerning whether positive or negative feedbacks dominate in a system. In fact, positive feedbacks to the point of actual instabilities are quite ubiquitous in nature…being responsible for “pattern formation”, i.e., the process by which snowflakes form their shapes, trees form their shapes, zebras get their stripes, ripple patterns form in windblown sand, and so forth. Also note that he seems to be equating positive feedbacks with an outright instability but, as I have explained above, a positive feedback does not necessarily lead to instability…And, in fact, the positive feedbacks postulated do not predict any Venus-like climate instability. Furthermore, such positive feedbacks are necessary to understand the paleoclimate data as we currently understand it…So, a claim that the feedback is not net positive has to then also provide an alternate explanation for the paleoclimate data.
Bobby Lane says: “If the cooling affects of this La Nina are overpowering the warming affect of AGW now, then it is safe to say that in almost all cases nature overpowers whatever influence man has on the change in climate since nature is never static.”
It is not safe to say that at all. In fact, it is demonstrably wrong to say that. The warming due to anthropogenic forcings is currently estimated to be somewhere around 0.2 C per decade or 0.02 C per year. That means that if climate varies due to natural process like El Nino and La Nina by more than this amount from year-to-year, which it easily does, then natural processes can be dominant over the short term of a year to several years. And, in fact, this is exactly what is seen by climate models run with increasing greenhouse gases. They do not exhibit a steady year-to-year rise but instead show the same internal variability superimposed on an upward trend.
There is an almost perfect analogy with the seasonal cycle. Here in Rochester today, the high temperature is expected to be in the mid to upper 80s. Earlier this week, it was only around 70. If you look at the temperature trendline over the last several days, it is steeply positive. And yet, according to the seasonal cycle, it should be getting cooler. Do you think this prove that natural variability in the weather overpowers the seasonal cycle?
Whoops…sorry! I left out the links concerning some responses to Spencer’s recent research from my last post. Here they are:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/how-to-cook-a-graph-in-three-easy-lessons/langswitch_lang/sk
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/08/01/spencers-folly-3/
Hi Steven,
Believe we have a bit of word-parsing going on here about the level of validation given to Lindzen’s “infrared iris” hypothesis by Spencer’s observations.
The case for a strong positive feedback from clouds was always weak and conjectural.
As Ramanathan stated, “the magnitude as well as the sign of the cloud feedback is uncertain”.
http://www-ramanathan.ucsd.edu/FCMTheRadiativeForcingDuetoCloudsandWaterVapor.pdf
IPCC 2007 SPM conceded, “Cloud feedbacks remain the largest source of uncertainty.”
Thus, it seemed strange to me, despite all this uncertainty, that IPCC AR4 showed a very strong warming impact from cloud feedback (2xCO2 sensitivity of 1.9C without clouds and 3.2C with clouds).
Spencer’s physical observations have subsequently helped clear up this “largest source of uncertainty”, giving credence to Lindzen’s hypothesis that the net feedback from clouds is strongly negative, as opposed to strongly positive as had previously been assumed in all the models cited by IPCC.
This raises serious doubts about a 2xCO2 climate sensitivity of 3.2C, as assumed previously by IPCC.
Based on these new findings, it would appear that a more reasonable estimate would be somewhere around 0.7C to 0.8C, as estimated by Lindzen and Shaviv/Veizer.
Regards,
Max
Note to Joel Shore.
You provided links to RealClimate and Tamino blurbs regarding Spencer’s physical observations on cloud feedbacks.
RealClimate? Tamino?
Get serious.
Max
Hi Steven,
You stated: “I accept neither your assertion of the level of “spurious effect from UHI” nor that the GISS records are “suspect” beyond their stated error bands. Perhaps we’d best agree to differ for now on those matters.”
Whether or not you accept the notion that the surface record suffers from the “spurious effect from UHI”, there are plenty of reports from all over the world that confirm that this is so. If you would like references to several of these studies, please let me know.
The attempt by IPCC to counter these with the “calm night / windy night” Parker study is feeble and raises the question, “if Parker is trying to disprove an urban heat island distortion to the temperature record, why doesn’t he simply provide nearby urban and rural records as proof that there is no such distortion?” (I believe you and I both know the answer to this question.)
The IPCC statement that UHI effects have a negligible influence of less than 0.006°C per decade is a “statement of faith”, which ignores the many studies out there that say otherwise.
As to errors in the GISS record, the US record had to be corrected recently, resulting in 1998 no longer being the record warm year (instead it was 1934). Under the US Freedom of Information Act GISS will have to “open their books” a bit more than Hadley, so we’ll see what else comes up.
But my observation was also partially based on the fact that the man in charge of GISS is James E. Hansen, who hides behind his mantle of a supposedly objective climate scientist (paid by the US taxpayer to provide unbiased climate/weather info), but who has in fact become a fear monger and policical activist.
But we’ll have to “agree to disagree” on that one.
Regards,
Max
Max, “Spencer’s physical observations have subsequently helped clear up this “largest source of uncertainty”, giving credence to Lindzen’s hypothesis that the net feedback from clouds is strongly negative, as opposed to strongly positive as had previously been assumed in all the models cited by IPCC.”
I think it is far too early to make any conclusions on this. I will just ignore Spenser’s testimony and blogs and just look at his publications, and as Steven, I look forward to reading the new once when they come out. But when I look at those who cited Spencer’s publications from last year (at least one paper is relevant), I do not see any indications that your suggestions are true. These exaggerated conclusions can be found only in the blogs.
It is rather interesting to notice that when someone is going to publish a paper countering AGW, there is this long advertisement and publicity that starts six months to an year ahead of time (like in Spencer’s case). Unlike those papers supporting AGW, you hardly hear anything about them ahead of time, when they are going to come out, etc., sometimes we learn about some of them after its publication.
Max,
it seemed strange to me, despite all this uncertainty, that IPCC AR4 showed a very strong warming impact from cloud feedback (2xCO2 sensitivity of 1.9C without clouds and 3.2C with clouds).
Reference, please?
And –
RealClimate? Tamino?
Get serious.
Roy Spencer? Get serious 😉
Hi Steven,
Just one example of the UHI effect (taken from Anthony Watts’ site).
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3290/2790438226_7cedf5f551_b.jpg
The two stations are located near Sacramento, CA. The temperature record covers a 70-year period (1937-2006).
The “good” example (Orland) is a well-sited station near a grassy field and little urbanization.
The “bad” example (Marysville) is located near an asphalt parking lot and buildings with major signs of urbanization over the time period.
The “spurious” UHI warming signal is 0.2°C per decade or a linear increase over the period of 1.4°C.
Of course this is just one example. But a picture is always worth a thousand words.
Regards,
Max
Hi Steven,
You asked for references to IPCC claims on cloud feedback impact on climate sensitivity.
Please refer to AR4 WG1 Chapter 8 (p.633).
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter8.pdf
“Using feedback parameters from Figure 8.14, it can be estimated that in the presence of water vapour, lapse rate and surface albedo feedbacks, but in the absence of cloud feedbacks, current GCMs would predict a climate sensitivity (±1 standard deviation) of roughly 1.9°C ± 0.15°C (ignoring spread from radiative forcing differences). The mean and standard deviation of climate sensitivity estimates derived from current GCMs are larger (3.2°C ± 0.7°C) essentially because the GCMs all predict a positive cloud feedback (Figure 8.14) but strongly disagree on its magnitude.”
Hope this clear it up.
Regards,
Max
Hi Max,
Just one example…
And what does GISS do to cancel out UHI? You present your example as if they weren’t aware of it!
Rgds
Hi Steven,
For some strange reason you seem to have problems with the credentials of Roy Spencer or Richard Lindzen as a climate scientists, but prefer RealClimate (Gavin Schmidt) and the anonymous “Tamino”.
We know who Gavin Schmidt is (a computer modeling guru) but Ta-who?
Last I heard, Tamino was the handsome prince in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute”, that pranced off into the deep woods with a magic flute to save the beautiful princess, Pamina, from some bad guy; it has a happy ending plus lots of great music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Flute#Act_1
But this Tamino?
Is it the handsome prince or (as Steve McIntyre has written) a data analyst who still believes in the validity of the “hockey stick”?
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2920
Yeah I read Tamino’s “Spencer’s Folly” blurb. Lots of good graphs, some fancy formulae, but not very convincing. Guess I’ll follow the advice, mostly coming from AGW-supporters, to “trust the climate experts” and go with Spencer (and Lindzen) on this one.
Regards,
Max
Note to John McLondon
It has been my observation that all reports that somehow indicate that our climate is changing dangerously and that we are all at fault, due to our consumption of fossil fuels get major media publicity and frightening headlines.
Even when Hadley “experts” make their annual prediction “next year is going to be a record hot year!” this gets big play in the media, with “climatologists” clucking about human culpability. On the contrary, when the year did not turn out to be a record hot year (as it has now three times in a row), there is little ballyhoo, maybe a sentence like “it was the seventh warmest year in this century”.
So I cannot agree with your statement that there is more publicity surrounding “anti-AGW” papers than “pro-AGW” ones. Just look around you, John, and you’ll see that it is not true.
Regards,
Max
Jack McLondon:
So, you’ve not heard of Wahl and Amman, who indicated by press release in May 2005 the contents of papers not actually published until September 2007 (those contents being substantially revised over that period, to the point where they no longer proved what the authors claimed they proved).
Max,
For some strange reason you seem to have problems with the credentials of Roy Spencer or Richard Lindzen as a climate scientists, but prefer RealClimate (Gavin Schmidt) and the anonymous “Tamino”.
No , I don’t have problems with RS as a climate scientist (let’s stick to the subject for now and not get on to Lindzen). And no, I don’t ‘prefer’ RC or tamino. I prefer my own assessments, for whatever little they’re worth.
As a climate scientist, I note RS’s comments regarding the UAH record in advance of the huge 2005 correction, and his lack of retrospective commentary (apology even) since.
The problem I have with Roy Spencer is that I think his blog is reprehensively misleading. For example, on his ‘front page’ he presents, without qualification, a “corrected version” of the Mann et al. ‘hockey stick’. This is based upon M&M’s recalculations. But M&M themselves did not suggest that their recalculations represented a plausible proxy record of the temperature history. I think you will know this. However, Spencer presents it without qualification (with its laughable indication of the MWP peaking at 1420!).
Then, again without any qualification, he presents the Lohle 2007 graph with his own squiggles added. If you are truly a sceptic, then I must believe that you will have reservations about Loehle 2007. Spencer, however, suggests no reservation or qualification whatsoever.
I have already commented upon his ridiculous remarks about CO2 as a percentage of the atmosphere, when he purports to be discussing its contribution to the greenhouse effect.
Perhaps Roy SPencer will have something important to add to scientific inquiry. In my view, his blog is an obvious example of manipulation driven by the desire to persuade (unsuspecting?) readers of his point of view.
I think Roy Spencer occasionally posts here. I would welcome his views in response to my criticisms, should be happen to be reading.
Oh, and by the way, I forgot to mention the most obviously egregious error on Spencer’s blog, viz. –
Fig. 2. The Mann et al. (1998) proxy (mostly tree ring) reconstruction of global temperature over the last 1,000 years is believed to have erroneously minimized the warmth of the Medieval Warm Period (MWP).
The HS graph is actually from MBH99. It is not a reconstruction of global temperatures, but of NH temperatures!
Yes, Roy Spencer is a climate scientist, but not one who takes enough care in what he is saying for my tastes.
Hi Steven,
Read your various critiques of Spencer but failed to see what this has to do wit his physical observations showing a negative feedback from clouds, as postulated by Lindzen.
But let’s leave it at that.
Regards,
Max
Just read the Bishop Hill blog on the miraculous Wahl and Amman paper cited by Dr Slop.
OUCH!
Dr. Slop,
This is what I said, “..Unlike those papers supporting AGW, you hardly hear anything about them ahead of time…”
There are exceptions, of course, but it it not a rule. We HARDLY hear much. The list can be long on the other side: Spenser’s two papers, Ernst Beck’s paper (on chemical analysis of CO2 – the entire manuscript was available months before it was published), etc. etc.
Read your various critiques of Spencer but failed to see what this has to do wit his physical observations showing a negative feedback from clouds, as postulated by Lindzen.
Simply that you questioned my “problems with the credentials of Roy Spencer “, so I have explained my doubts.
As for your assertions of the significance of his “observations”, well, we shall see what comes from his next publication. Frankly, your assertions as to their significance don’t amount to anything until we have seen whatever substance they have. I am a little but puzzled by the way you seem to denigrate Hansen (for example) but assert the significance of Spencer in advance of publication. Are you only sceptical of matters that do not accord with your inclination?
Max,
“On the contrary, when the year did not turn out to be a record hot year (as it has now three times in a row), there is little ballyhoo, maybe a sentence like “it was the seventh warmest year in this century”.”
Prediction of record hot year will always get media publicity, I believe record cold predictions will get equally intense publicity too. Since temperature has been going up, predictions were mostly up. So, I think we do not have enough empirical evidence to conclude that there is bias (but there is a possibility that you may be right about the media).
But this is different – my comment was more about published papers. There is always a hoopla after the publication, but it appears odd to have major stories about manuscripts that are not even in the submission stage (like in Spencer’s case).
Cheers!
John McLondon (06:22:12)
Sorry, you still didn,t answer my question.
“Where are the GHG models dumping all the heat from the amplification of CO2? It’s not going into the oceans.”
Where are the GHG models dumping all the heat from the amplification of CO2?
What do the GHG model use to mask “CO2 global warming” for the last several years?
Joel Shore (08:17:55)
‘However, I will point out to you if you are going to wait until there are absolutely no alternative explanations being proposed by any climate scientist anywhere before you accept AGW,’
Alternative explanations at this point and time are still unknown and the same holds true for the CO2 drives the theory with assumptions such as CO2 leds temperature, CO2 2.5 amplification, water vapor being a positive feedback, Hot Spots not to mention the lack of V & V of data, codes and forecasting principles. And you want our policy maker to regulate CO2 in the name of sound science?
From what I understand, and I could be wrong, “Sun Spot Activity” has a higher correlation/confidence level with “temperature” than CO2.
John McLondon says: “The list can be long on the other side: Spenser’s two papers, Ernst Beck’s paper (on chemical analysis of CO2 – the entire manuscript was available months before it was published), etc. etc.”
One might add that it is a bit generous to call Ernst Beck’s paper published at all. The “journal” where it was published is received in a grand total of 25 libraries around the world and isn’t even listed amongst the top 6000 journals that have their impact factors measured (see http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-w/2005/aug/policy/pt_skeptics.html ). And, of course, the reason it could never be published in a real journal is because it is just nonsense; my own opinion is that I would be better off arguing against a young earth creationist than someone who doesn’t even acknowledge the validity of the accepted CO2 record. I think believing in a low climate sensitivity goes against a pretty large body of scientific data but it isn’t a completely illegitimate belief for a scientist to have (and, in fact, science is probably better off having a few scientists who, because of their own personal biases or whatever, are pushing unorthodox beliefs that go against a lot of the current understanding). However, not accepting the CO2 record is really not a legitimate scientific belief at this point.
Old Construction Worker:
“Sorry, you still didn,t answer my question.”
Yes, I have nothing to answer because I do not agree with your premise. I do not really see a cooling, the five year average is still going up.
Your question is a generalization of why there is temperature variation from year to year, what happens to all the heat if next year is cooler than this year (or if there is no changes for a number of years in a row)? One can come up with many reasons: Changes in different ocean currents, changes in atmospheric currents, Sun spots, changes in atmospheric water vapor distribution, etc etc. Also, as I pointed out earlier, the sea level rise is consistent with increasing water temperature, may be deep down. I am not a climate scientist, but it does not appear to me that there is some requirement that rise in trapped energy should always result as increasing temperature – first law of thermodynamics does not require that; it only requires that an equivalent amount of work must be done by the system. Now, if we take a system approach, systems are not always damped (with feedbacks) properly to show a proportional input output variation, most often systems are under-damped, and the response will show a damped oscillation – since earth is in a dynamic equilibrium, it is not all that surprising to see an oscillatory response in temperature, going more rapid than it should, then slowing down, again rapidly moving up etc. This is a classic example from the controls theory.