Reposted in its entirety from Climate Science
By Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. University of Colorado
There was an interesting news article in the Guardian on December 6 2008 by James Randerson titled Explainer: Coolest year since 2000
The article reads
“This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07.
The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing, say climate scientists at the Met Office. “Absolutely not,” said Dr Peter Stott, the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre. “If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.”
Prof Myles Allen at Oxford University, who runs the climateprediction.net website, said he feared climate sceptics would overinterpret the figure: “You can bet your life there will be a lot of fuss about what a cold year it is. Actually no, it’s not been that cold a year, but the human memory is not very long. We are used to warm years.”
The Met Office had predicted 2008 would be cooler than recent years due to a La Niña event, characterised by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean – the mirror image of the El Niño climate cycle.
Allen was presenting the data on this year’s global average temperature at the Appleton Space Conference at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, near Didcot, yesterday. The 14.3C figure is based on data from January to October. When the Met Office makes its formal announcement next week they will incorporate data from November. “[The figure] will differ from it, but it won’t differ massively,” said Stott.
Assuming the final figure is close to 14.3C then 2008 will be the 10th hottest year on record. Hottest was 1998, followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002.
In March a team of climate scientists at Kiel University predicted that natural variation would mask the 0.3C warming predicted by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change over the next decade.”
Lets do a reality check.
The statement that “The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing” mixes up regional and global temperatures changes. Also, there has been no global warming in the last 4 years (at least; e.g. see). Global warming has stopped for the last few years.
The statement that “In March a team of climate scientists at Kiel University predicted that natural variation would mask the 0.3C warming predicted by the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change over the next decade” is scientifically incorrect. Heating cannot be ”masked”.
As given in the examples below, the news releases provided by the UK Met Office make for interesting reading and show the complexity and difficulty of skillful season climate prediction.
Thus why should there be any confidence in the forecasts regarding climate change in the longer term?
Examples of UK Met Office News releases
1. For example, on April 11 2007, they wrote in a news release “Met Office forecast for Summer 2007″ [to their credit, they do have a readily accessible archive]
“The Met Office forecast of global mean temperature for 2007, issued on 4 January 2007 in conjunction with the University of East Anglia, stated that 2007 is likely to be the warmest ever year on record going back to 1850, beating the current record set in 1998.”
This did not occur.
2. On April 3 2008 they wrote in a news release “A typical British summer”
“The coming summer is expected to be a ‘typical British summer’, according to long-range forecasts issued today. Summer temperatures across the UK are more likely to be warmer than average and rainfall near or above average for the three months of summer.”
On August 29 2008 they published a news release titled “Wet summer could end with a bang” where they write
“The return to unsettled weather will mark the end of the meteorological summer which has been one of the wettest on record across the UK.”
I suppose that rainfall “near or above average” fits what actually occurred but this is hardly a particularly precise or useful forecast.
3. On September 25 2008 they wrote in a news release “Trend of mild winters continues”
“The Met Office forecast for the coming winter suggests it is, once again, likely to be milder than average. It is also likely that the coming winter will be drier than last year.”
They qualified this news release with the article on November 25 2008 titled “A cold start to winter” where they wrote
“The latest update to the Met Office winter forecast suggests that although the coming winter will have temperatures near or above average, it is very likely that December will be colder than normal.”
Now, in addition to a news release on December 9 2008 they published an article ”El Niño gives colder European winters”, which states
Sarah Ineson, climate research scientist at the Met Office says: “We have shown evidence of an active stratospheric role in the transition to cold conditions in northern Europe and mild conditions in southern Europe in late winter during El Niño years”.
The message in th UK Met Office press releases is that, since their is such poor skill with seasonal weather prediction, multi-decadal climate prediction must be a much less precise and accurate science than we have heard promoted by the IPCC and in the climate change press releases given out by the UK Met Office and others.
What about Santa?
Compare and contrast – taken from the paper published in late 2007, judging by the references in it, entitled Climate research at the Met Office Hadley Centre: informing Government policy into the future http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/pubs/brochures/clim_res_had_fut_pol.pdf which stated
The Met Office Hadley Centre has pioneered a new system to predict the climate a decade ahead. The system simulates both the human driven climate change and the evolution of slow natural variations already locked into the system.
This is possible because the climate takes a long time to respond to some variations. In particular, the state of the ocean has an impact on climate for months and years into the future. In part, this is because it takes a long time for the ocean to heat up and cool down.
Unfortunately global temperatures are currently heading outside the 90% confidence band as shown in the graphic taken from the paper
http://www.holtlane.plus.com/images/hadleygraph.jpg
Sounds like someone in England needs to do some digging in their temperature records as well.
Ok, this is OT, but I’ve got to ask…were the 70’s and 80’s that much colder and snowier? Specifically in the midwest and northeast. I keep hearing this, but when I check the last 5 years of snowfall, it’s been spot on the average.
As for temperatures, how much colder could they have been? I understand they were probably more consistantly cold. Maybe this is why people perceive now a days as less snowy…because it all melts in between snowfalls, but were they really that much colder?
Anyways, just would like some people to weigh in on this.
The recent La Nina event ended earlier this year – April 2008. It actually took hold about May 2007. If anyone remembers, the Met Office predicted record temps for 2007 based primairily upon a continuation of warm Central Pacific SSTs. Hansen was even a strong El Nino. Niether NOAA or Hadley expected the moderate 2007 La Nina event.
Preceeding the 2007 La Nina was a weak short lived El Nino is 2006, which was believed to supress Atlanitc TC activity. We really haven’t had a strong El Nino since 1997-1998.
In the context of the 1998 El Nino event, global temperatures remained steady to slightly dropping a bit. However, global CO2 concentrations have increased from 370ppm to 385ppm. I would think the IPCC would be interested in this divergence. Listening to the talk from Poznan it appears they are too busy planning the next round of Kyoto mandates.
I’ll repeat my observation since it seems to have not been recognised by the UK Met Office.
“It is fairly common to have the highest values of anything tend to cluster around a maximum.”
It is also reported that some of the highest altitudes on planet earth tend to be found up in the mountains.
I now return control of your screen to you !
The new Hadcrut3 November anomaly is out at 0.387C (down from 0.440C in October.)
When I put the new AMO index number for November into my Hadcrut3 climate reconstruction, the model predicted 0.376C so being off by just 0.011C continues my faith in this method of adjusting temperatures for the ENSO, the AMO and other ocean influences. I would consider 0.38C to be the “normal” temperature.
The ytd Hadcrut3 temperature is only 0.321C which would make 2008 the coldest year since 2000 and 0.225C lower than 1998, still the record warmest year.
RW (08:49:07) :
TerryBixier: “If the MET cannot get the short term ‘weather’ correct how can the be so sure of the long term climate” – that’s a bit like saying, if we can’t predict the arrival time of individual waves on a particular beach, how can we be so sure about the tides?.
The waves and the tides are wrong analogies to weather and climate . That is because the tides are due to a different source( gravitational force) than the wind induced waves.
Climate is supposed to be the long term averaging of weather: all forces that create climate are present in weather too. There is nothing extra at least the way the AGW models are made.
Of course if we talk ice ages and Mi…. cycles and possible sun cycle effects from cosmic rays, then yes, climate is driven by different forces than weather. But this is not in the GCmodels that both weather and climate predictions rely on.
So the analogy stands on the skeptics side.
Retired Engineer (07:23:41) :
“Hottest was 1998, followed by 2005, 2003 and 2002.”
What about 1934 ?
1934 was a fleeting usurper. It appeared when the Y2K bug was corrected, then Hansen managed to find away to rub it out again, so I believe I am correct in saying that 1934 was the hottest year in 2007.
What is this year’s October temperature in December? This appears to change monthly.
TerryBixler (07:29:29) :
The UK Met office’s standard short term weather report is “Sunny Periods With Scattered Showers”
In the UK, you are always going to be correct at some point in the day with this forecast.
RW; I’m sorry but your “It’s a bit like saying” analogies are way off the mark. I’m afraid you’ll have to do better in refuting peoples comments. Maybe by showing how Co2 drives climate without using climate models, or hockey sticks. Perhaps you have a theory that more accurately describes the observed data. Maybe you can tell me what the other planets in the solar system are doing and what may be causing that. Better yet, get Mr. Hansen to reveal his methodology. Show the accuracy of data collection, or more to the point, the inaccuracy. Specious comments about oak trees and tides do little to help your position. Maybe Chris V can help you with that stuff !! He at least makes an effort and I respect that!! I have to go buy a parka now, …
RW
Do you suggest that CO2 and the Moon are related? I guess that I missed that one and I will forward said position to the MET to include in models calculation, might help.
RW (08:49:07) :
Does RW stand for Rhetorical Wrongs?
TerryBixier: “If the MET cannot get the short term ‘weather’ correct how can the be so sure of the long term climate” – that’s a bit like saying, if we can’t predict the arrival time of individual waves on a particular beach, how can we be so sure about the tides?
RW you deliberately confuse two different physical phenonema. Apples; oranges; your convenience.
In an earlier post, you employed the “cherry picking” fallacy stating that 10 years was too short a period to detect a climate trend. However, it appears that 150 years is the optimum period over which to detect a trend.
But why not 1000 years? Could it be because no trend would become apparent then? Your cherry picking reveals the idiocy of even attempting to detect climate trends when they obviously vary in all dircetions all the time.
David Ball: A Johnny Chinook legend, from southern Alberta
Johnny Chinook looks west, and sees a Chinook arch forming over the mountains. He immediately starts nailing wheels to the back of his dog sled.
His buddies all laugh at him, wondering what the heck is he doing.
He starts heading east. Soon, the Chinook wind catches up with him.
Shortly after, still heading east, his dogs are kicking up snow; the runners on the sled are kicking up water; and the wheels are kicking up dust.
First thing about Met Office in UK:
They fiddle weather forecasts to make UK citizens book weekend trips in UK. Amazing how several summers running forecasts were great on Tuesday and horrible on Thursday. Strange that!
Second: they are fully signed up members of the AGW club. David King, who was the Govt’s chief Scientific Advisor for many years, was in the Al Gore league of scaremongering.
The thing is: UK scientific officers have a long and dishonorable track record of lying.
1. Haemophiliacs who got AIDS from transfusions: denial, denial, denial. Then they died and we got the truth. Sick huh?
2. ‘No Gulf War syndrome.’ You guys in US finally proved it. We’ve known it for years, but the Govt doesn’t want to pay out. ‘Go and fight, get poisoned, then treated like shit for years’. Good recruiting byline, huh?
3. BSE was going to lead to millions of cases of Kreuzfeldt-Jacob syndrome. It didn’t. Another cock up.
4. I won’t bother mentioning MMR – that’s controversial, but bottom line was: give option for three single jabs to those dissenting and make them pay the difference in cost. They wouldn’t, so we killed some people through measles. Typical.
5. Now it’s the climate change scam from the Hadley Centre and elsewhere. You’ll see them change their tune. They’re circus acts. They sing for their supper. Change the script and they’ll sing along. Never fails…….
Are you beginning to get the impression that it’s no surprise that the numher of Nobel Prizes in UK has gone down as the amount of Govt lying has gone up? Well: you might be right.
No data of course. But strikingly anecdotal.
[snip] early snow in the Alps since 1996. Why? Sunspot minimum. But the sun DOESN’T AFFECT OUR CLIMATE!
Bollocks!!!!!!!!!
“The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing, . . . “If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.”
If this were true or relevant, why didn’t they say this back in the 90s: The relatively warm temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global cooling is slowing. If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.”
Latest from the Met Office:
“Temperatures from the Met Office have revealed that the UK has had the coldest start to winter in over 30 years. The UK average temperature for the first third of December has been only 1.7 °C compared to the long-term average of 4.7 °C.
The cold temperatures are in stark contrast to the recent run of very mild winters that have been dominant across the UK. The last time the UK average temperatures gave such a cold start to December was in 1976 when the average temperature was a chilly 0.8 °C.
The Met Office seasonal forecast predicted the cold start to the winter season with milder conditions expected during January and February – although still with the chance of cold weather at times.
The colder weather is set to continue into next week. Chief Forecaster at the Met Office Nick Grahame said: “The start of the weekend will bring a spell of wet and windy weather as milder Atlantic air attempts to push across the country. However, colder air looks set to win the battle again which means that frost and ice will become hazards with the risk of snow in places”.”
The Met Office also says “Long-term average is for 1971-2000”
I hope they’re right about January and February. Oops, I forgot – the Met Office is always right. Silly me.
See http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20081212.html
Conforming events == proof of AGW
Disproving events == outliers, weather not climate, anecdote, etc.
Sorry to be so terse but we are bracing here “locally” for an “outlying event” that may freeze all your winter strawberries (Ventura County).
I was just reading an article on how roughly a million people are without power right now in New England and I was wondering, how do “green” energy sources react to inclement weather and just how reliable are they when the weather hits the fan?
How effective is solar on a cloudy day?
How effective is wind in blizzard and freezing conditions or when there is no wind?
I don’t think that the general population of the world has that much “science” sense which is one of the reasons I think the wool has been pulled over our eyes so easily when it comes to AGW. When I hear people talk about green energy it is almost with a “star trek-esque” gleam in their eye, as if solar, wind and other green energies are part of some utopian energy supply. As our governments sign these nonsensical treaties or come up with foolish policies (CARB anyone?) what is the impact really going to be?
Half the time I drive through Indio, the wind farms aren’t turning and its the windiest place I know. Just how much of the desert are we going to have to impact to get a reasonable draw?
Steve Berry
The Uks 10th warmest Novembers are
1994 1816 1939 1938 1743 1730 1817 1881 1822 1899
At an average of 7.0 2008 ranks way way down the list
July was also not in the top 30 warmest.
As for giving house space to global temperatures… surely we have learnt by now there is no such thing as they are so inconsistent as to be completely meaningless.
TonyB
K
“Yet Obama has chosen a very qualified scientific adviser. We will see if Dr. Chu changes the politicians or they change him.”
Chu, a Chinese-American who currently is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, has in recent years campaigned to bring together a cross-section of scientific disciplines to find ways to counter climate change.
If action is not taken now to stop global warming, it may be too late, he argues.
Schneider said Chu will push hard within the Obama administration for reductions in the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
It sounds to me that Dr. Chu’s agenda fits very nicely with the Algore/UN/IPCC/Obama agenda. You can “hope” for “change” but don’t expect it.
This is a graph showing Hadley Cet back to 1660 and cumulative human co2 emissions since 1750 from Cdiac/IPCC (its the tiny blue line at the bottom)
http://cadenzapress.co.uk/download/beck_mencken_hadley.jpg
Human emissions are 5% of all natural enissions but it was impossible to produce a meaningful graph showing all co2 emissions against all green house gases as the line would be invisible.
The green dots are co2 records from 1820 onwards as recorded at the time-this was an exercise to check out Ernst Becks assertions that past co2 records show levels are as high as todays-which they do.
Tony B
anna v: and indeed, whether it is cold in the UK this year or not has a different cause (internal unforced variation) to the ongoing rise in global temperatures (external forcing). The analogy is perfectly applicable. I am sure you agree that you can very easily predict that it will be hotter in summer than winter, and hotter in the middle of the day than the middle of the night. Temperature variations are highly predictable on some time scales and highly unpredictable on others.
[snip]
TerryBixer: not sure what you’re reading but it’s not what I wrote.
English temperatures can be obtained from the HadCET dataset, here: http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat
Taking the annual average for each year, finding mean and standard deviation, the values fit a Normal distribution and the temperature for 2008 so far (about 10.54 C) is on the 2-sigma boundary. That means it is a roughly 1 in 20 ‘extreme’ value, which is not really so extreme after all.
The only unusual aspect to the current warm spell is that there has been a longer run of consecutive warm years than is usual. The oddity (if it is one) is that they occur all together, not that it is outrageously hot. And since the weather is expected to be autocorrelated (and since this data is probably UHI polluted, and perhaps manipulated in other ways), that sort of thing is not unexpected.
What does look quite significant is the disappearance of very cold years over the past century. Since 1891, they have always been warmer than the -1.2 sigma level. But of course, you can’t scare people by telling them that.
(And something like it happened to a lesser degree in the 18th century, too.)
An interesting comparison can be made with past warming trends. For example, from 1695 to 1733, the average temperature rose steadily from 7.25C to 10.47C (-3 sigma to 1.9 sigma). If you plot just this 40 years, and compare it to the last 40 years, say, the trend is much clearer in the old (and unarguably natural) warming than the modern (and supposedly unnatural) rise. You can even plot the segments on the same graph, to make the point even clearer. It is an interesting challenge to pose – what statistical test on the data can you suggest that will identify one as natural background variation and the other as an outstanding, unprecedented signal.
UAH contour map for Nov is out.
http://climate.uah.edu/