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.
Jeez
Thank you for your response
This is not hand waving ( – see my earlier about ‘influencer’ words used by the anti MMGW propoganda ) .
Anyone can do Google serach on ‘Tundra Treeline’ and look for the word Spruce.
Regarding scrubber technology – a lot of coutries don’t deploy them and vehicles still emit a lot of particles . Also , I’m pleased to hear LA may have improved … what does this have to do with a planet that extends much further than California. Most of the population and land mass of this planet isn’t in the USA.
Moptop and Roger Knights
Thank you for your comments
Moptop
‘Reasonable time’ is not a cherry picking term ( see point (a) of my comment about the techniques used in this web site to support anti -MMQW propaganda) . Basically it is a commonly accepted idea in averages and statistics that you should not really chose a very limited set of evidence to support a particular conclusion ( unless you accept the associated uncertainty of such a choice) .
How long do we need to know if human activity is influencing climate change .. I’d suggest more than 1 years weather predictions …
Roger Knights
Were you around during the Little Ice Age to know its causes ? You seem very keen to suggest this is something that happened across the whole world . I believe the term is Man Made Global Warming which is based on the Greenhouse effect which is an average across the whole planet .
On air quality … you can influence this . Perhaps we should only buy products/services from companies that implement the highest level of environmental concern in China and India .
Pete —
Insects have not moved north. Forest insects in particular are in every forest as they are totally dependent on the trees for sustenance. And no forests are insect-free. The ranges map each other exactly. There is no evidence that treelines are moving upslope. In contrast, at the extreme northern edge of the boreal forest there is ample evidence that paludification (muskeg replacing forests, aka neo-glaciation) has been going on for ~9,000 years.
Warmer temps are better for crops. Wheat fields, corn fields, etc. are more productive with higher temps, longer growing seasons, more rain etc. The hottest place in the US, the Imperial Valley, is also the most productive agriculturally. Forests and food crops grow better with higher concentrations of CO2.
Warmer is Better. Fight the Ice.
PS — the Himalayas are currently rising by about 5 mm per year due to India-Asia plate convergence thrust, and just like global climate change, it has absolutely nothing to do with humanity.
Bob B
A treeline in Greenland shows that there were trees in Greenland once thousands of year ago . All you have suggested is that there can be natural changes which a scientific method would expect to have some cause .
Err …. why does this not mean that we have nothing to worry about with regards to MMGW .
You made the comment that the change in temperature is slight (hah…) and we don’t have anything to worry about – I’m suggesting is an attitude which would not be tolerated in other circumstances. b
PeteM:
And you are not self-appointed?
I’m not trying to pile on, but it needs to be pointed out that you and any other believers in AGW, runaway global warming, etc., are free to comment here without being censored. No one ‘dominates.’ And if you think this is ‘propoganda’ [sic], then you try your hand at being the skeptic, and show us the propaganda. If you can prove it, you’ll change some minds.
Also, compare this site’s policy of encouraging different points of view, with sites like RealClimate, Rabetts Run, Tamino’s site, etc., where reasonable comments questioning AGW are routinely deleted.
I would like to hear a justification of why censoring skeptical comments is acceptable, rather than reading your complaint above, which appears to be a complaint that you are simply out of step with the general consensus.
PeteM,
Interesting post. Is it possible you wasn’t aware that sceptics are routinely argued with by believers and are well aware of the arguments?
I note the following “influencer words and phrases” in your comment:
self-appointed
dominate
propaganda (note spelling)
breath-taking
irrelevant
bolster
non sequitur
dodgy
misleading
pseudo scientific
failure to understand
outrageous claims
agenda
avoidance of facing the reality
incredibly naive
Now, for your actual points.
The temperature across the world varies from about +60C in the deserts of Africa to -90C in the frozen wastes of Antarctica. At any one place, it varies seasonally and day-to-day randomly over a 10-20C range. The whole world warms every summer and cools every winter by huge amounts. If you average this globally, then over a period of decades a slight trend of a fraction of a degree per century is detectable. However, it is not detectable over the background on smaller scales or shorter time intervals (as we are constantly told by the “consensus” whenever anecdotes of local cold weather are mentioned, but as they forget to do whenever warm weather is cited) and we have no data to say it doesn’t do that all the time naturally.
All the claims of moving habitats are cherry-picked from noise. Species move around and increase or decrease in population all the time. But whenever it vaguely fits the global warming thesis, it gets reported on in the media as “evidence”. Especially if it’s a scary-sounding species like an invasion by vampire moths.
We know what the effects of CO2 on organisms are, and they are mainly good. We routinely pump greenhouses full of CO2 to boost productivity. And there are volcanic vents in the sea bed spewing out pure CO2 that give us a very good idea of its effect on ocean life. Life flourishes, as it did in past ages when CO2 was higher than today.
Clean air is good, but CO2 is not a pollutant. It’s a generally beneficial part of the natural world, more like Oxygen, that we add to. The pollutants that are related to conditions like asthma are the unburnt particulates – soot and smoke essentially – not CO2. (Reducing those is a worthy aim, but they’re not an unavoidable consequence of burning, and wealth has enabled measures against them.) The concentrations of CO2 you breath out as the result of respiration are far higher.
As an AGW sceptic, of course I have walked into rooms where people only want to hear one point of view, and will argue against anyone like me who doesn’t agree. What sort of question is that?
I don’t really mind when believers intimate that I’m an idiot for believing as I do, but I think you should note that it doesn’t look good if you’re not yourself sufficiently expert to avoid these unscientific and non-sequitur arguments picked up from the media. It’s not polite, it doesn’t persuade, and it discredits the pro-AGW side of the debate generally. Saying you disagree (and why you do so) should be sufficient.
China welcomes EU climate deal, says US must do more
1 hour ago
POZNAN, Poland (AFP) — China’s top negotiator at the UN climate talks welcomed the climate pact adopted by EU leaders on Friday as a “positive step,” but criticised carbon reduction goals set by US president-elect Barack Obama as too weak.
PeteM wrote: “Have you ever walked into a room where people only want to hear one point of view and will argue against anything which doesn’t match their expectation . It happens in many instances with human groups and has been widely studied.”
PeteM, the same applies to the eco-activists, the skeptics, and any and all scientists everywhere. It is precisely the reason why “consensus” carries no weight as regards credibility. The question is, how do you know that you yourself are not operating with filters and biases and hidden shadow issues?
Whether global warming is driven by man made CO2 is not a question that can be solved with a simple classic empirical experiment. There is data, sure, but how to interpret it?? A typical example is the recent report that whilst the world has not warmed for 10 years, scientists warn that skeptics will tend to “over-interpret” this fact. Oh really? Over-interpret? What objective criteria can distinguish between interpreting and over-interpreting?? The fact that climate is defined as 30 years? Who decided 30 years was the right way to define it? Who came up with the interpretation that climate data takes 30 years to show a trend? Why 30? Why not 300? Why not 3? Does 30 years even relate to anything in the real world?
The space for bias and projection is staggeringly vast in a complex system with inadequate data. And you tell us that we don’t realise we are operating with biases? The only staggering thing is that climate activists seem to act as if they have no biases. As if their vision is highly refined and lucid. The chances are that they are no less biased than anyone else, especially when dealing with a a highly emotive issue involving values and human morality.
PeteM:
Oh dear oh dear .. still the same orthodox views that global warming can’t be anything to do with humans on this site (or it isn’t happening due to fossile fuels). There is so obviously a self appointed group who wants to dominate this forum with a form of anti-MMGW propoganda that is breath taking in its view. I see the same irrelevant arguments on this and other web sites .
Pete, we breathlessly await your proof of manmade global warming. I’ll save you some time, and let you know that we are all in favor of a clean environment, energy efficiency, and energy independence in the U.S..
Start with your proof that C02 is a major climate driver. Take your time. Good science must not be rushed.
PeteM
Do you still drive that old firebird with the decal on the hood? Is your favorite radio station the one playing hits from the 70’s and 80’s? Do you like to describe a sinusoid as a series of linear trends? If you have answered yes to any of the above, I suggest reading more than you type. Anecdotal information is just that. Treelines…jeez.
Steven Hill said:
Hmmm, I suspect that you are thinking what I am thinking.
1934 was a banner year for weather weenies, even for those of us who weren’t then a gleam. February of that year saw the most intense cold wave ever to hit the northeastern quadrant of the continental U.S. Most state records for minimum cold in the Great Lakes and the Northeast were set during that outbreak. Central Park, in Manhattan, recorded -15 F; the state record in New Jersey is -34 F, recorded in Riverdale (let me look up the date).
The ‘Dirty thrities’, as Tex Antoine, the drunken New York Met of the 50’s and 60’s, creator of Uncle Weathbee, used to call them.
“the same orthodox views that global warming can’t be anything to do with humans on this site”
You mean that blogging on WUWT causes global warming?
I think this article addresses the crux of the issue.
1. Nobody can show that there actually *IS* any “global warming”.
2. Nobody can show that human produced CO2 has any impact on temperature.
They can tell me what kind of car I can/can’t drive after they have put out the coal seam fires burning around the world that emit more CO2 than all the automotive traffic on the planet.
Smokey – Thank you for your comments
I fully accept the concept that there is no intention to allow a specific view to ‘dominate’ on this web site. My points have been allowed on this website and I hope I have been polite/reasonable when making in making my views known .
You are correct – I am most likely self appointed and I won’t argue against anyone who says I am supporting a particular view . But I ask others to accept that this is not a blind belief – I do have a science background (degree and higher ).
What I wish to draw attention to – the vast majority of comments here are self reinforcing of a particular anti-MMGW view . This is not how many of the people in business , goverment, or maybe as private citizens view the issue. I interact with many people making changes to their life styles or work locations because they are convinced by the information presented to them about the challanges of global warming and environmental damage. This website has been sited in a UK national newspaper as a source of clear and impartial advice which is not what I see.
I am pleased that this web site is not censoring opinions – this has my support and I do not ‘deletion’ activities elsewhere. However we all live under some constraints – some from laws , some from social norms and some from what some call common sense .
I’m not asking for censorship – I’m asking for a balance of articles and a balance of comments . At the moment this site is a repository of anti-MMGW views.
“” PeteM (13:18:13) :
Oh dear oh dear .. still the same orthodox views that global warming can’t be anything to do with humans on this site (or it isn’t happening due to fossile fuels). “”
Well Petem you have at least one convert; you’ve convinced me. I have no doubt now that the humans on this site are primarily responsible for global warming. By the way; I thought that the orthodox view; the “science is settled” view, the IPCC/AlGore/JamesHansen?MichaelMann view, was that man (ie Homo sapiens sapiens) was entirely responsible for 90% of man made global warming.
Maybe that is supposed to be 90% responsible for all of man made global warming ?
I just checked with Werner Heisenberg, and he said that it is impossible for any human being (homo sapiens sapiens) to even observe the climate without changing it in some entirely unpredictable manner; which also makes prediction of any future climate to be entirely futile.
So QED the humans on this site are the cause of man made global warming.
Could you clear up one small point for me that was a bit confusing in your erudite post. Was the cause of man made global warming not happening; “fossil” fuels, or did you mean “fissile” fuels. Those two would presumably give different results.
Just asking.
But thank you for straightening me out; I didn’t realize these churls here were leading me down a garden path.
The paper at http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
is an interesting read. It tends toward “the sun did it” (and even cites Leif!) but has a section on the ocean / air cycles. A nice bibliography as well.
Some quotes:
SVALGAARD, CLIVER, and KAMIDE (2005) theorise that the
solar polar fields will be weak during 2007-2008 and will remain
weak. They have recently reported that the polar fields are the
weakest ever observed.
and
The earth’s atmosphere contains several major oscillating wind
currents that have a key role in the regulation of the earth’s
weather and climate. These wind currents include the El
Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO); Quasi-Biennial Oscillation
(QBO); the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO); the Interdecadal
Pacific Oscillation (IPO); the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO);
the Atlantic Multdecadal Oscillation (AMO); the Indian Ocean
Dipole (IOD); and the Arctic Oscillation (AO); and the northern
and southern polar vortices, which are two permanent cyclones at
the poles. FAGAN (1999), (2000) and (2004) has shown how the
climate changes rendered by these global atmospheric systems
have resulted in major historic changes to cultures and societies
throughout the world since the dawn of history.
LABITZKE et al. (2005), COUGHLIN and KUNG (2004) and
CORDERO and NATHAN (2005) report that the sunspot cycle drives
these large-scale oscillating wind currents. For example, strength
of the QBO circulation and the length of the QBO period varies
directly with the sunspot cycle.
I have no way to evaluate the veracity of all the literature cited or the connections between them that are drawn, but the guy does a good job of packaging many bits in one place as a summary. If the prediction (projection? hand waving?) of cold for 30 or so years is right, the Met office in in for a rough ride.
Off topic but I think its important.
I thought I never would say it but I have a new found respect for our government.
The government of Alberta that is.
On there web page Alberta presents research that refutes the one sided reports we get so often from our media it’s called For the Record.
As with most media outlets environmental organizations publish a report and the media just runs with it without checking, providing balance by offering an opposing view.
http://alberta.ca/home/1021.cfm
George E Smith said:
PeteM wrote:
“I’m not asking for censorship – I’m asking for a balance of articles and a balance of comments . At the moment this site is a repository of anti-MMGW views.”
PeteM, your opening comment was “anti MMGW propaganda”.
Propaganda–misleading information–is a core concern here. I for one want to know the truth of the matter. I used to think AGW was true. Then I listened more and more to what AGW scientists were themselves saying, and I started to wonder that it didn’t add up. So I looked more and came to see that the case for AGW is vastly overblown. Is this propaganda? It is simply my experience. You will have reasons for thinking that AGW is true. Perhaps if you had thought all the things that I have thought, and read what was said by AGW proponents, you too would come to the conclusion that so far, the case is very weak. Perhaps you simply think that reducing pollution is good in principle, but then perhaps you have not had the same experiences that I have, observing poverty in third world economies and the primary need for development and material progress. Perhaps you have not thought about these things as I have and so a view like mine appears so wrong that it must be propaganda and unbalanced. Actually I strive to find a balanced viewpoint. I strive to correct myself. I strive to question my thoughts. I strive to find my shadowy biases and blinkered assumptions. I strive to change them when possible when new and better ideas and information come along. What do you do?
Just to be clear, you’re using MMGA (Man Made Global Warming) which is the same as AGW (Anthropogenic global warming).
Several
Thank you for your comments
Things change … sometime things change because of human activities.
Now why are you free to quote that natural changes have consequeneces ( like mountain ranges rising or treeline changing ) but then suspend the same logic that changing the CO2 levels in the atmosphere won’t have any impact .
I’m also fed up of hearing the point about life existing on this planet in a variety of previous conditions . Humans couldn’t have survived in most of those scenarios .
I’m not an eco-communist , left-winger , radical-agitator or any other from of extremist. I’m just a normal individual . The difference is that I ( like a lot of other people) am prepared to agree with a view that pumping large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere ( and then the oceans) is a daft idea given we know the greenhouse effect influences the climate on this planet .
RW (08:44:26) :
“Global warming has stopped for the last few years.”
This statement is completely meaningless. Over periods of a few years, weather noise completely dominates the forcing due to CO2. You cannot measure global warming over a ‘few years’, so to claim that it has stopped is ludicrous.
By the same token it is ludicrous to say that the globe is warming based on a few hundred years temperature data. To whit: Please Explain Bond Events.
Catching the end of a 1500 year natural cycle, then ignoring it and attributing to something else is just as wrong…
The Met Office’s Hadley Centre is located at the University of East Anglia in Norwich
…where you will also find the Tyndall Cente.
The University itself offers an MSc in Climate Change, (http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/env/msc/m535.shtml) with Tim Osborn and Keith Briffa. Course tutor is one Saffron O’Neill. At the link below, you can see her with David Ockwell of the Tyndall Centre at “Future Ethics”, a workshop series on ‘climate change, political action and the future of the human’. Listen to what they say and see if you can spot any science.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rJM–b2qfII
Incidentally, the workshop was also attended by Leo Murray of Plane Stupid, the idiots who invaded Stansted this past week.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3t8Zv2oXY18&feature=related
Watch these and be worried, slightly amused, but mainly very worried.
Bob B (13:17) states:
I only trust data from the past 30yrs and almost 1/3 of that data set shows a cooling trend.
Having researched loads of climatic data from the 30’s including going through microfiche records at the local library I have no doubt that the historical temperatures of the period were as accurate or more so than current records. In central Maine the period remains the warmest of the past century. All time record highs were recorded both in Maine and adjacent Canada. The newspaper accounts of weekly drownings from people trying to escape the heat (no AC homes or cars), was quite revealing. The only thing I would believe today is the current rural readings, the new CRN network data and the satellite records. Anything associated with Dr. Hansen should be suspect. GISS is a hoot and HADCRU is (insert derogatory adjective)!