UPDATE#2 I finally found a graph from Professor Akasofu that goes with the text of his essay below. I’ve added it above. You can read more about Akasofu’s views on climate in this PDF document here. (Warning: LARGE 50 megabyte file, long download) The two previous graphs used are in links below.
UPDATE: Originally I posted a graph from Roger Pielke Jr. see here via Lucia at the Blackboard because it was somewhat related and I wanted to give her some traffic. As luck would have it, few people followed the link to see what it was all about, preferring to question the graph in the context of the article below. So, I’ve replaced it with one from another article of hers that should not generate as many questions. Or will it? 😉 – Anthony
THE IPCC’S FAILURE OF PREDICTING THE TEMPERATURE CHANGE DURING THE FIRST DECADE
Syun Akasofu
International Arctic Research Center
University of Alaska Fairbanks
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7340
The global average temperature stopped increasing after 2000 against the IPCC’s prediction of continued rapid increase. It is a plain fact and does not require any pretext. Their failure stems from the fact that the IPCC emphasized the greenhouse effect of CO2 by slighting the natural causes of temperature changes.
The changes of the global average temperature during the last century and the first decade of the present century can mostly be explained by two natural causes, a linear increase which began in about 1800 and the multi-decadal oscillation superposed on the linear increase. There is not much need for introducing the CO2 effect in the temperature changes. The linear increase is the recovery (warming) from the Little Ice Age (LIA), which the earth experienced from about 1400 to 1800.
The halting of the temperature rise during the first decade of the present century can naturally be explained by the fact that the linear increase has been overwhelmed by the superposed multi-decadal oscillation which peaked in about 2000.*
This situation is very similar to the multi-decadal temperature decrease from 1940 to 1975 after the rise from 1910 to 1940 (in spite of the fact that CO2 increased rapidly after 1946); it was predicted at that time that a new Big Ice Age was on its way.
The IPCC seems to imply that the halting is a temporary one. However, they cannot give the reason. Several recent trends, including the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), the halting of sea level increase, and the cooling of the Arctic Ocean, indicate that the halting is likely to be due to the multi-decadal change.
The high temperatures predicted by the IPCC in 2100 (+2~6°C) are simply an extension of the observed increase from 1975 to 2000, which was caused mainly by the multi-decadal oscillation. The Global Climate Models (GCMs) are programmed to reproduce the observed increase from 1975 to 2000 in terms of the CO2 effect and to extend the reproduced curve to 2100.
It is advised that the IPCC recognize at least the failure of their prediction even during the first decade of the present century; a prediction is supposed to become less accurate for the longer future.
For details, see http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu
* The linear increase has a rate of ~ +0.5°C/100 years, while the multi-decadal oscillation has an amplitude of ~0.2°C and period of ~ 50-60 years, thus the change in 10 years is about ~ -0.07°C from the peak, while the linear change is about ~ +0.05°C.
To the point–and barbed.
There seems to be a typo in the professor’s zip code, which is given as “Fairbanks, AK 9977507340”. Should it actually be 99775-7340? (I.e., should the 6th digit, a zero, actually be a hyphen?)
Errr… Excuse me if I’m wrong but from these pictures, isn’t the trend of measured temperatures exactly in line with the predictions of the IPCC ?
I think Mr Akasofu gave the quite unsettling impression that the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, has serious quality problems concerning their staff members. According to his very strange view of IPCC model runs he seems to believe that actually each realisation, each IPCC ensemble member is wrong since it doesnt correspond to the computed temporal and ensemble mean curve.
Individual IPCC model runs compute even slightly negative decadal trends at the beginning of he 21 century http://www.scienceblogs.de/primaklima/2008/07/die-mar-von-der-beendeten-erwarmung-und-den-modellen-die-etwas-vorhersagen.php.
According to Dr. Akasofu they were “wrong” since they do not correspond the flat mean slope of all model runs. A bizarre misunderstanding for a scientist at least.
That is very much what I said some nearly a year ago in this article:
http://climaterealists.com/news.php?id=1302
I agree with Flanagan that the pictures are not particularly helpful. I have seen better diagrams illustrating the point elsewhere.
Like Flanagan, I’m puzzled by the tone. Referencing chart ‘b’, I see that IPCC 1990 wildly exaggerated the temperature change, but IPCC 1995 and 2001 seem to have underestimated it. If the trend of the last ten years continues another twenty or thirty, then perhaps 1995 and 2001 will also be shown to be exaggerations, but that is speculation at the moment.
I’m surprised to see that IPCC predictions are this accurate.
So, Whatts up with not caring about the economy? Low and corrupt ecomomies is what leads to war which then messed the environment in the first place. All wars since the inception of our country but mostly with the very agency that was self created not by the voters, to prevent economic problems the Federal reserve bank has led to war pollution. How many tons of bomb material and debris did explode in Iraq? Lets get real, if we had the creation of money following REAL PRODUCTION in work then the environment would not have to be exploited a million times over to catch up with electronic numbers or fiat currency non work bubble output. All scientists, please do the math, and then lets focus on being honest and good citizens and quit the diversions. What we need is a restructure of the entire financial system not give them more power to do the same, and a great book to go over is one titled “From Phantom Wealth to Real wealth Agenda for a New Economy.” It says to bring banking to the local level instead of outward to the same players on WallStreet et al.
Flanagan (08:21:43) :
Err, No
The jagged lines ( that are trending flat 2000 on) are “measured”, the straight lines are IPCC predictions.
Being from Alaska, I’m sure Dr. Syun Akasofu is in the employ of big “Ice”…
Hmmm I wonder why the graphs stop in 2007…
1. Why does anyone expect a dynamic, multivariate system to display linear increases?
2. What use are linear plots even as an ‘average’?
3. Is it more important to farmers to have accurate 10 year predictions than accurate 100 year ones?
4. Do I note from the sea level plots that the IPCC is predicting about a 25cm increase in 100 years? How many places will be wiped out if THAT is true?
At least this article notes two superimposed drivers of temperature change:
i. Exit from little ice age.
ii. Oceanic variations.
The most interesting question arising out of that is: for how much longer will the rise in temperature due to ‘exit from little ice age’ continue? If there is a strong concensus on that, will it not provide an alternative theory as to the likelihood of future temperature projections?
Flanagan (08:21:43) :
Errr… Excuse me if I’m wrong but from these pictures, isn’t the trend of measured temperatures exactly in line with the predictions of the IPCC ?
The observed sea level rise even exceeding the IPCC’s predictions…
Moderators: I’ve clicked the link at the end of the article. The author’s homepage shows the correct zipcode, which was the one I had guessed (above). The sixth digit, the zero, should be changed to a hyphen.
Off topic, Eco-terrorists planning protests with anarchists in London
I’m not quite seeing his point – it looks like temperatures are increasing exactly in line with the 95/97/01 IPCC estimated trend lines.
That AND that sea levels are rising faster than 95/01 would predict.
So what is the basis for his statement? I am missing something?
All I ever see is global temperature projections (and sea level). Since we moved from “global warming” to “climate change” we should get some more detailed projections from these models. Someone claims to have them. For example, the recent claim that the Amazon is going to dry up and disappear is a regional projection that includes more climate factors than global temperature. There are a lot more of these dire claims that need to be closely examined.
Flanagan
Surely these are all predictions and the good Doctor has forgot to put in the actual real world temperatures? Or perhaps he thought he was Dr Mann for a moment and has put in two different data sets?
TonyB
I’m not sure I understand you, Mr. Hoffmann. Hasn’t the IPCC made predictions based on the ensemble means?
“”” Flanagan (08:21:43) :
Errr… Excuse me if I’m wrong but from these pictures, isn’t the trend of measured temperatures exactly in line with the predictions of the IPCC ? “””
What data are you looking at Flanagan ?
The temperature graphs that I see above look rather weird.
Why in 1990 would the IPCC choose a starting point for their “trend line” that doesn’t match any of the 1990 observations, let alone some mean of them. And if it did, then the exaggeration of the 1990 predictions would be even more dramatic, and would come close to hitting the 1998 el nino peak at least according to GISS data..
Why don’t they plot these graphs on a scale that depicts the entire range of earth surface temperature extremes; that is numbers that have actually been measured somewhere, sometime on earth.
The significance would look quite different on a vertical scale of about 150 deg C, which is that extreme range; and even a 130 deg C range of extremities is reached essentially every single year; and likely all of it can be present on even a single day.
Doesn’t make a few hundredths of a degree seem of any importance at all.
George
“The high temperatures predicted by the IPCC in 2100 (+2~6°C) are simply an extension of the observed increase from 1975 to 2000”
And that is the main problem I have with all this “global warming” hype.
Imagine you are a “critter” that has a life span of about 12 hours. Imagine you are born at dawn. As temperature begins to climb, someone takes that rate of climb and projects it going forward for 24 hours and announces with great alarm that within 24 hours the habitat will be drastically different. And it is the fault of some primary “thing” in the critters’ culture such as energy consumption. So everyone gets scared and decreases their consumption of energy, productivity falls, everyone is poorer. But the rise in temperatures suddenly seems to level off and your children experience a completely different world. They were born at noon. All they can remember in their experience is steady to falling temperatures. Someone projects that rate of change forever into the future … and decides they will all be frozen soon.
And then we come to winter ….
Since the “blame” for this warming is CO2, I suggest a graph of the CO2 ppm be overlayed to see how that compares with the IPCC predictions and the temperature data. I think that would show how while the IPCC predictions follow CO2 the actual temperatures do not.
Am I missing something? From the graph it looks like 2000 observed temp is at 0.1, and 2006/7 is at 0.3. Is this not an increase (even though it’s just 2 cherry-picked dates, but the author does state “global average temperature stopped increasing after 2000”). It sure looks like an increase of temp, with overlaid natural variability.
Likewise, from the graph, sea level seems to be increasing, with some natural variability. Of course, a decade is not “climate”, but what’s going on here?
I have to say, I’m really not sure what the graphs are getting at. I have to say that, unless I’m missing something fundamental, (which wouldn’t be the first time!) I agree with Flanagan’s summation. Someone help me out..?
To ” Tom in Florida” –
> I suggest a graph of the CO2 ppm be overlayed to see how that
> compares with the IPCC predictions and the temperature data.
Well, if CO2 were a tremendously good temperature forcer, and the only driver of temperature on the planet, then I suppose you could expect a exact matching trendline. But, hasn’t anyone told you that the climate is a complex system? After many decades of observations, then removal of noise, a comparison may show a good correlation, or it will show the correlation is not there. But not on a short time frame. Sorry.
Georg Hoffmann (08:24:48)
So, what gives you comfort in averaging an ensemble of numerical solutions to an ill-posed, unstable set of coupled partial differential equations?
The observed sea level rise even exceeding the IPCC’s predictions…
I think one of Moerner’s big points was that the IPCC cherrypicked naturally subsiding areas while studiously avoiding nearby uplifting areas.
This dynamic makes sea level difficult to judge, even by satellite.
(No, I do not know who is right or who is wrong in this aspect of the debate.)
Mike Bryant:-)
Did not the Met Office play this game a little while ago when claiming the temperature trend was still up in a couple of news papers, picked up on Bishop Hill Blog also, noting that the last year on the published graph was barely half-way thro’ 2007, with 2008 nowhere to be seen? Could this be another example of “chartmanship”, getting the trend you want by picking start & finish dates?
I’ll leave it to you cleverer chaps to mull over.
HAGWE!
These graphs do not show what is being claimed. Why they end in 2006 is also a mystery. Perhaps try again?
Here is an amazing article from the financial world about how screwy correlations caused our problems today.
http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/2009/03/03/Formula-That-Killed-Wall-Street?page=3#page=3
errr , supporting flanagan.
the 2001 and 2007, obviously do not count. Predict something after it occurs (relatively time scaled) is duh stuff.
Climate predications have to run for at least 10 years. And can anyone explain me why 1995 is wrong?!?
Georg Hoffmann,
The charts on your link point to a monthly resolution forecast from the MPI AOGCM model. Can you provide a link to where the base data is.
And Dr. Akasofu and the chart above are just using linear trends for illustrative purposes. I’ve haven’t seen the IPCC provide a monthly or annual resolution forecast going out only five or ten years that could be tested against actual temperature measurements. So one is just left with the X.XC per decade predictions.
Folks here is an amazing article about spurious correlations and how that helped to take down the entire financial world. Reading about this reminds me strongly of the computer modeling in climate.
http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/2009/03/03/Formula-That-Killed-Wall-Street?page=3#page=3
M.A.DeLuca says:
Ahhh, yes, the soft bigotry of low expectations. I guess organizations sucking on public money get a pass no matter what they produce.
We are expecting a graph of the last ten years: From 1998 to 2008. Please make one and post it above those IPCC’ s.
Yet Another Pundit (09:26:02) :
“For example, the recent claim that the Amazon is going to dry up and disappear is a regional projection that includes more climate factors than global temperature. There are a lot more of these dire claims that need to be closely examined.”
If it keeps raining as last years the amazon river will become a big interior lake. :). Last but not least (for the IPCC scientists): Hotter means wetter not the other way round.
“The observed sea level rise even exceeding the IPCC’s predictions”
IPCC AR4 predicts 18 to 46cm rise per century. Actual sea level rise during last 50 years oscillates between 2-3mm/year, thus linear extrapolation yields 20-30cm/century.
What is driving the LIA “linear” recovery trend, if not the sun activity?
Flanagan:”Errr… Excuse me if I’m wrong but from these pictures, isn’t the trend of measured temperatures exactly in line with the predictions of the IPCC ?”
You’re excused Flanagan, rebaseline the observational sets to pass through 0 at 1990 and see what you get……..
Leif “The observed sea level rise even exceeding the IPCC’s predictions…”
Leif, when I did my limited university science, professors cared about things like error, significant digits and so on. The sea level chart shows a rise of 4 milimeters???????? Did you glance at the Maldives post and look at some of the pictures of the instruments (tide guages, mounted to beat up docks) etc.
Looks like a plus or minus 10 cm to me.
The temperature graph is unfortunate. There are too many lines. But at least we know the IPCC projections are straight.
Which brings me to my question. Why did the IPCC report of 2007 “forecast” back to 2000? Yet their report of 1005 and of 2001 “forecast” back to 1990.
And the 2007 forecast seems parallel to, and above, the other forecasts. So it will never intersect and have a common year of origin. What can that mean?
The 1995 report seems, at first, the best forecast. (By 2001 and 2007 more observations were available and it is not surprising they forecast close to a best fit from 1990. Because they aren’t forecasts at all.)
So if the 1995 line is best what does it tell us? It tells us the IPCC was not faked out by the dip of 1991 to 1994. They stuck to a projection of rising temperatures and for one reason or another came out about right for 1991 to 2007.
Forecast about the future. Present findings about the past.
Funny how the models and global warming always stops at 2007.
1995 is quite acurate. or is it not? something published in 1995 (so probably prepared in 1993/4, is actually right on the marked. Or is it not?
This stuff is emboldening gavin…
Dennis Wingo (10:10:59) :
Folks here is an amazing article about spurious correlations and how that helped to take down the entire financial world. Reading about this reminds me strongly of the computer modeling in climate.
http://www.portfolio.com/business-news/2009/03/03/Formula-That-Killed-Wall-Street?page=3#page=3
—————————–
As Li himself said of his own model: “The most dangerous part is when people believe everything coming out of it.”
Wow, that is pretty amazing. Someone pass this along to Mr. Obama please.
Jakers (10:01:21) :
To ” Tom in Florida” –
> I suggest a graph of the CO2 ppm be overlayed to see how that
> compares with the IPCC predictions and the temperature data.
Well, if CO2 were a tremendously good temperature forcer, and the only driver of temperature on the planet, then I suppose you could expect a exact matching trendline. But, hasn’t anyone told you that the climate is a complex system? After many decades of observations, then removal of noise, a comparison may show a good correlation, or it will show the correlation is not there. But not on a short time frame. Sorry.
Jakers you apparently only read the first half of my post (what you quoted).
The second half said : “I think that would show how while the IPCC predictions follow CO2 the actual temperatures do not.”
You said :”Well, if CO2 were a tremendously good temperature forcer, and the only driver of temperature on the planet, then I suppose you could expect a exact matching trendline”
The only matching trend line I would expect is CO2 increases and IPCC predictions for obvious reasons. I did not expect, and said so, any matching trend lines for CO2 increases and real temperature. Just wanted to show that IPCC predictions follow CO2 increases but real temperature does not, ergo, IPCC does not predict the real world.
Juraj V. (10:23:03) :
There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise:
e.g. the UK Hadcrut temperature record:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/temp/jonescru/graphics/nhshgl.png
likewise the solar contribution to the LIA had more or less “recovered” early in the 19th century.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sunspot_Numbers.png
And in any case the “recovery” from a period of cold (like the LIA) should not have a “linear” trend. It should be broadly hyperbolic. It would only appear linear over a period of a hundred years or more if the climate system had an extremely slow response time to changes in forcings (since a hyperbolic “recovery” will appear linear in its early stages at times significantly shorter than the time constant defining the shape of the hyperbolic). That would be rather scary since it would indicate that we had a very large warming from the enhanced CO2 forcing still to come (i.e. extremely delayed by the slow response time of the climate system).
The contents of the post and the temperature graph do not match. The IPCC data shown is in decent agreement with the data. Further there is a deeper flaw in the premise that the IPCC “model” was designed to predict the data exactly.
The IPCC curves, of that is what they really are, would be based on ensemble means, of a number of different models. If they are going to be depicted accurately should contain some bounds to reflect the uncertainty that the IPCC recognizes is implicit in their models due to the chaotic nature of climate, and the different model approximations, and uncertainty in the forcing parameters.
The premise of the post would seem to be a straw man argument, because the IPCC models do not claim to provide short term predictions, but rather a nominal trend and uncertainties.
I am surprised that a professor of science at a university would make such a flawed argument. I suspect that some internal emotion has clouded his ability to recognize
how incorrect his point is.
foinavon:
Since you’re promoting ‘scary,’ why don’t you pinpoint for us exactly where in the pipeline that hidden heat ‘still to come’ is hiding?
It’s not under my bed, I’ve already looked there. And it’s not in my sofa either, but I did find some loose change under the cushions.
foinavon (10:50:33) :
There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise:
Of course, the PDO was in it’s negative phase during the timeframe 1850 – 1900, which, like today would have the potential to stop temps from rising. Ergo, we could still be recovering from the LIA. On average from the 1900’s, the PDO has been dominantly positive and could account for rising temps since then.
Graph
Flanagan:
No.
Paul S (09:13:13) :
Off topic, Eco-terrorists planning protests with anarchists in London
“groups not seen since the 1990s, such as direct action exponents Reclaim the Streets and the Wombles, were re-forming and planning activity.”
OH NO! Not the WOMBLES! RUN! HIDE!
http://1.2.3.12/bmi/carbonchallenge.typepad.com/Wombles.jpg
Anyone know how Jim Hansens protest went in Coventry yesterday? I noticed it was the only cold cloudy day all week…
tallbloke (11:12:55) :
OH NO! Not the WOMBLES! RUN! HIDE!
I have to say, how any anarchist group called the Wombles can be taken seriously is beyond me. I mean, what are they going to do? Pick up litter and take it home?
I’m somewhat befuddled by the concept of “recovering” from the Little Ice Age, what on earth does that mean? Are we not dealing with purely physical processes which require a cause as well as an effect? What caused the LIA to end and the earth to warm thereafter? It didn’t just happen by magic.
The article says one of the causes of of increased average temperatures has been “a linear increase which began in about 1800”. That is not a cause, it is an effect. What he is actually saying is that temperatures have increased because they have increased. It is complete nonsense.
re: sea level changes.
The 1990 IPCC forecast was much too high. Why is the base 1992? Has this graph been adjusted for 1990 to 1992 rises?
In 1995 they seem to have merely forecast a continuation of rate for the prior two years. This forecast proved too low.
But in 2001 they get the slope about right. It only looks low because 1992 is the year of origin. And in 2007 their slope again agrees well with the past, with the 1992 origin still making it look too low.
Overall the IPCC “forecasts” the past well when given enough data. And if the future is much like the past – as it has been after 1995 – they correctly foresee that too.
Joking aside. IMO those -evanm being one – who cite the difficulty of precisely measuring sea level change are correct. And Dennis pointed out that being right about the past isn’t forecasting.
Dennis also cited the article about how the financial industry misused and misunderstood a formula and used it to justify wild speculation.
The formula relied upon the past to forecast the future. For those who choose dead trees as media the article is also in the current Wired magazine.
Foinavon 10 50 33
Please tell me why you believe the concept of a single global temperature has any meaning, let alone one going back to 1850 based on tiny numbers of constantly changing, unreliable stations. I would really enjoy hearing a good explanation. Thank you
Tonyb
Smokey 11 03 22
That loose change is mine
Tonyb
Another global temperature trend line began well before the advent of the first SUV: click
The climate’s natural fluctuations always cycle around, and revert to its natural long-term trend line. There is no place in the historical record for CO2 to have a noticeable or measurable effect.
The AGW/CO2 hypothesis fails once again.
FatBigot (11:19:59) :
I’m somewhat befuddled by the concept of “recovering” from the Little Ice Age, what on earth does that mean? Are we not dealing with purely physical processes which require a cause as well as an effect? What caused the LIA to end and the earth to warm thereafter? It didn’t just happen by magic.
There is the consideration of perspective to take into account here. We have been in recovery since the ice age some 11,000 years ago, cause still to be really determined. Since then the earth has been warming.
The question might not be what caused the recovery of the LIA (as this was already happening as above) but what changed to cause the LIA itself. If that makes sense.
Why would you post a graph that ends in Dec. 2006?
That’s over 26 months, ago.
REPLY: I used one from Lucia’s website to give her a traffic boost. Yes it’s a bit dated but my time this mornign before work was limited. Feel free to offer up another one that shows the same things that is up to date or quit your whining. – Anthony
Paul S (11:17:28) :
I have to say, how any anarchist group called the Wombles can be taken seriously is beyond me. I mean, what are they going to do? Pick up litter and take it home?
Jim Hansen’s protest in Coventry yesterday was organised by that well known and feared desperado anarchist group Christian Aid. No word on how many attended.
Here he is posing next to a mock grave in the bombed out cathedral
http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/Z_ltgztP91v/Protests+Held+Climate+Change+Day+Action/rt7__jtmH8m/James+Hansen
What is it with this guy and his morbid fascination with death and WWII?
Smokey [11:03:22] sez: “…exactly where in the pipeline [is] that hidden heat ’still to come’ hiding? It’s not under my bed, I’ve already looked there. And it’s not in my sofa either. But I did find some loose change under the cushions.”
Smokey, we’ll be checking everybody’s lunchbox on the way out. I already checked the trash. All I found was a rusty old stapler used to attach graphs where they don’t belong, a tattered book of pathetic ad hominem arguments, and a kayak in good condition except for some external scratches and a few spatters of what looks like red paint on the inside. Anyone want to claim these?
Here a graph with the Y axis graduated at 1°C steps:
0° C ——————————————————
This one is by far, more realistc.
Paul S (11:39:03) :
No, the Earth warmed up to around 7000 years ago as we “came out of” the last glacial period. Since then the Earth has cooled a tad if anything until the start of the 20th century.
We know very well why the Earth cam out of the ice age between 15,000-10,000 years ago. Google “Milankovitch cycles”.
FatBigot (11:19:59) :
I’m somewhat befuddled by the concept of “recovering” from the Little Ice Age, what on earth does that mean?
Study this image:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
After we came up from the last ice age,we are on a nice flat top that is varying +/- 1C about a stable temperature. We are coming out of one of those “small” variations that have occurred the last 10000 years .
It is not magic, and it does look like clockwork, but I do not think anybody can answer your why.
TonyB (11:26:24) :
Yes, the notion of a “single global temperature” is indeed silly. However that’s not how the Earth’s global temperature trends are assessed. The temporal temperature trend is determined as a temperature anomaly which can be assessed with a reasonable reliability even back to the mid-19th century given sufficient reliable continuous and overlapping temperature records.
Have a look at the UK Hadcrut website, or the NASA Giss website to learn how the temperature anomaly is determined.
Tallbloke.
If Hansen had only been born 45 years later, he would have made an awesome Emo.
Ok, so here is how I understand this.
Rain is caused by water evaporation, yes?
Increased temperature increases evaporation, yes?
At what point does water vapor saturate, and drop again as rain or snow?
If the atmosphere begins to saturate with water vapor, snowfall increases, right? Could this be the mechanism that causes the ice ages? I don’t have time to look and see if ever ice age has a temp. spike before it, but I am interested to know if it is possible that rising temps cause more snow to fall, which would reflect more sunlight.
Of course, I am majoring in business, not science, so a good answer from one of the scientist types around would be helpful.
Thanks.
Re: Tom in Florida
Yes, the IPCC temperature trend follows CO2 – that is, up. But it’s supposed to model climate (that is, over several decades), not short term weather variability (climate noise) such as the high and low outlier years. So you still have to observe over many decades, and do a long-term running average to clear out the noise. That’s why the IPCC publishes it as a linear trend (like degree/decade), as opposed to some of the individual models.
foinavon (12:09:15) :
No, the Earth warmed up to around 7000 years ago as we “came out of” the last glacial period. Since then the Earth has cooled a tad if anything until the start of the 20th century.
Oh, it cooled off a tad. Does this mean the 20th century isn’t the warmest in 7000 years? So why are we [you] so worried about current warming if we have been naturally warmer in the past? Care to wave your arms a little more?
We know very well why the Earth cam out of the ice age between 15,000-10,000 years ago. 11000 years is within that range…
Google “Milankovitch cycles”.
I’ve read all about them thanks.
Possibly the most amusing thing you can observe is how the Guardian hypes up every protest and then when nobody shows up the Guardian doesn’t report on how things went.
If enough petit fascists turn up at the G20 protests the Guardian will hail them as ‘the voice of the people’.
foinavon (12:09:15) :
the Earth warmed up to around 7000 years ago as we “came out of” the last glacial period. Since then the Earth has cooled a tad if anything until the start of the 20th century.
Missing a bit of climate history out there foinavon. From the very warm holocene optimum temps fell and then recovered to the warmer than now Roman Optimum. Then fell before recovering to the Medieval warm period, then fell to the little ice age. Then recovered and wimbled along until 1910. We’re not sure how much warmer the medieval warm period was than now, but the general trend has been downwards for 9000 years until this day.
Smokey 11 03 22
A friend of mine found God down the back of his sofa. Came as quite a shock. I wondered where he was hiding. I’ll ask my mate if he’s found any missing heat. I mean, it’s got to be somewhere.
Paul S (11:10:52) :
Not really Paul. The PDO seems to have become an unverified catch-all explanation! There are several ocean oscillations and one can’t just choose the PDO to “explain” temperature variations for convenience. What about the AMO, for example? If you chose the AMO to “explain” the temperature trend of the past 150 years you’d come to a different conclusion altogether.
If the ocean oscillations are assessed in relation to their overall effects (not just the PDO) there isn’t really a large net effect [***]. LIkewise analysis of the PDO itself indicates that its contribution to temperature variations is small [*****]
[***] Hoerling M et al. (2008) What is causing the variability in global mean land temperature? Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L23712
Abstract: Diagnosis of climate models reveals that most of the observed variability of global mean land temperature during 1880-2007 is caused by variations in global sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Further, most of the variability in global SSTs have themselves resulted from external radiative forcing due to greenhouse gas, aerosol, solar and volcanic variations, especially on multidecadal time scales. Our results indicate that natural variations internal to the Earth’s climate system have had a relatively small impact on the low frequency variations in global mean land temperature. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the recent trajectory of terrestrial warming can be overwhelmed (and become colder than normal) as a consequence of natural variability.
[*****] Chen, Y. et al (2008) The spatiotemporal structure of twentieth-century climate variations in observations and reanalysis. Part II: Pacific Pan-Decadal VariabilityJ. Climate 21, 2634-2650
(p. 2648) “Our PDV mode in both ST datasets has an extremely small global mean amplitude (~0.02K) because of cancellation between regional positive and negative anomalies, and in fact is of opposite sign in GISTEMP and ERSST.V, indicating that its global mean impact is negligible. For comparison, a typical ENSO event has a global mean temperature impact around +/- 0.1K.”
and:
(p. 2636) “As shown in Fig 1, because the PDV signals in high and low latitudes are out of phase and thus offset each other, the global mean temperature change (Fig 1, top) associated with the PDV phenomenon is in the range of +/- 0.02 K, which is negligible compared with the approximately 0.8-K value of GW trend mode and the approximately +/- 0.2-K value of the ENSO phenomenon”
(n.b. “PDV” is a designation of the PDO that comprises the full Pacific basin)
Foinavon
You’ve just confirmed my point when you said;
“reasonable reliability even back to the mid-19th century given sufficient reliable continuous and overlapping temperature records.”
‘Reasonable’ and ‘sufficient reliable’ are worlds away from the precise fractional temperatures that we are asked to believe we have access to, which to achieve came from someone looking at a temperature recorder-ie a thermometer.
not an anomaly .
Tonyb
foinavon (12:59:10) :
Not really Paul. The PDO seems to have become an unverified catch-all explanation!
Bit like CO2 and warming…
foinavon (10:50:33) : said
There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise:
According to the RURAL Armagh observatory it appears linear.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/armagh_air_temp2.jpg
Paul S:
“Bit like CO2 and warming…”
Game, set, match.
Foinavon, quoting a GWr: “Abstract: Diagnosis of climate models ”
I would suggest Models be included in cell phones software (of course after the “games” icon)
Smokey (11:03:22) :
I’m not “promoting” “scary” Smokey. Please read posts more carefully. Dr. Akasofu is “promoting scary” if anyone is. He seems to be suggesting that we are still “recovering” from the LIA. Moreover he asserts that we’re still in the “linear” phase of the “recovery”. That does seem pretty scary since it indicates (according to Akasofu) that the Earth’s temperature takes centuries tro come to equilibrium with a change in forcings. That would indicate that we still have a large amount of warming still to come from the enhanced greenhouse forcing from raised greenhouse gas levels.
“In the pipeline” refers to the heat (or surface temperature which is of more specific interest) that accrues at equilibrium once the elements of the Earth’s climate system have fully responded (come to equilibrium) with the enhanced forcing. It contrasts with the “transient response” which is the warming so far, on the way towards the equilibrium response. Analysis of the Earth’s temperature response to enhanced greenhouse forcing in the past indicates a temperature response of the order of 3 oC of warming per doubling of enhanced CO2. However this indicates that the Earth’s surface temperature should come close to equilibrium with the enhanced forcing on the timescale of several decades (with a very slow ocean response to achieve full equilibrium). Akasofu is suggesting that the Earth’s response to enhanced forcing occurs much more slowly. That’s pretty scary since it suggests a temperature response to enhanced forcing significantly larger that 3 oC per doubling of [CO2]. Let’s hope that Akasofu has got this wrong too!
Smokey (13:11:14) :
Paul S:
“Bit like CO2 and warming…”
Game, set, match.
Lol, thank you gentlemen. Here in the UK it is that time on a friday night when the pub is calling. I shall rejoin you later for the next stage of the tournament.
Here’s a nice page on pleistocence sea temperatures and ice ages to be going on with.
http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/ees123/iceages.htm
Paul S (13:06:29) :
Not really Paul. The effects of ocean currents on surface temperature have been studied in detail and their effects analysed (see abstracts in [foinavon (12:59:10) ], for example). One can’t understand the surface temperature anomalies for the past 150 years in relation to invented effects of a single ocean oscillation, when the evidence indicates that the ocean oscillations en masse have litte net effect.
On the other hand the greenhouse effect is pretty well understood and the contribution from raised [CO2] is quite well characterized (not prefectly ‘though!). So our basic physical understanding of surface responses to enhnaced atmospheric forcings, together with empirical data from past relationships between [CO2] and temperature indicates that the Earth responds to enhanced [CO2] with a wartming near 3 oC. One can take everything we know about the contributions to the Earth’s surface temperature (solar, greenhouse, volcanic, oceans, aerosolic…) and interpret the historical record with a reasonable reliability. It just doesn’t work if one attempts to interpret everytihn in terms of a since ocean oscillation that we know categorically can’t have made mucxh of a contribution!
It’s all about the evidence, Paul…
foinavon (10:50:33) : said,
There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise:
According to the Amagh RURAL observatory the trend looks linear.
http://i446.photobucket.com/albums/qq187/bobclive/armagh_air_temp2.jpg
Feel free to offer up another one that shows the same things that is up to date or quit your whining. – Anthony
Ouch. 🙁
Nope I too don’t get it. The graphs show quite a good correlation between IPCC 1995+ predictions and measured temperature.
On the other hand, the measurements don’t seem to match (by eye) with the monthly plot since 2002 (blog pimp!)
@ 42125
Of course. And each ensemble member does not correspond to the mean.
In Akosofus logic that means each member of the ensemble is falsified. This is completely screwed logic.
@Illis
http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ipcc/about_ipcc.php
publicly available.
Each member of the ensemble fails Akasofus test against the mean. That should tell you something how sensible such an approach is.
Simple scientific test to flaw climate model predictions could be as: if linear fit gives x years’ decreasing temperature trend, model predictions can be regarded as flawed. So, what value would you give to x? I would say that 15 maybe is enough (now there can be found 11-year decreasing trend 1998-2008 from all other datasets except GISS).
Protestors using children as shields
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23665011-details/3%2C000+police+on+alert+for+sand-pit+protests+to+block+summit/article.do
“Senior police sources say the protesters plan to bring children to play in the giant sand pits, making it impossible for officers to use force to remove them.”
Ah right I think I see; the graphs include GISS which is rising much faster than Hadley, and the black line is presumably the average of the various measurements.
It still looks like the 2002-2007 ‘stop’ in warming could be simply ‘regression to the mean’. 2008’s anomaly is just an anomaly.
As an interested layman I also had concluded that there was a linear trend with a multi-decadal oscillation overlain. But my examination of the data suggested the trend started in 1900, not 1800, and was closer to 1 degree per century than half a degree per century. I blogged all this six weeks ago. So I have two problems with Dr Akasofu’s arugments.
1 – I can’t see the justification for going back to 1800, and doing so seems to halve the trend estimate.
2 – He doesn’t offer a casual explanation for the trend. If you take it from around 1900 there is a clear casual explanation – carbon emissions from coal, followed by carbon emissions from oil.
I think that is the key challenge for climate skeptics – what is the cause of this ‘natural warming trend’. There is a competing causal explanation being offered – to knock it down, you need to offer something with genuinely explanatory and predictive power.
Wombles?!! Are you referring to Jim Hansen… or Jim Henson?
Paul S (12:43:03) :
Not really Paul. The evidence indicates that the Earth’s surface may have reached a maximum temperature (for the pre-20th century Holocene) somewhare around 7000 years ago. The temperature maximum was a result of Milankovitch cycles that were a bit more optimal for N. hemsphere warming that now:
e.g. http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/holocene.html
Otherwise the evidence indicates that the temperature has been dropping very slightly overall since then until the mid-19th century/beginning of the 20th century. However, despite the fact that we’re in the relatively early days of enhanced greenhouse-induced forcing, the evidence indicates that we’re already warmer now than during the warmest period of the Holocene. I can direct you to some of the scientific literature on this. A decent-ish summary can be found on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
I didn’t say that the 20th century is “the warmest in 7000 years”. Read more carefully if you can. The evidence indicates that we’re likely warmer now (late 20th/early 21st century) than in the last 7000 years. Of course the evidence is somewhat limited concerning temperatures further back in time than a couple of thousand years. But if we’re going to make interpretations based on science we may as well look at the evidence! In terms of the subject of this thread, it’s not really possible to make a case that the warming of the last 150 years is the result of Akafosu’s “linear” “recovery” from the LIA (with PDO contributions)….it just doesn’t accord with the evidence..
foinavon (12:59:10) :
Not really Paul. The PDO seems to have become an unverified catch-all explanation! There are several ocean oscillations and one can’t just choose the PDO to “explain” temperature variations for convenience. What about the AMO, for example? If you chose the AMO to “explain” the temperature trend of the past 150 years you’d come to a different conclusion altogether.
AMO is warm for the time period
ENSO is overall neutral for the time period
Fast forwards to today, PDO cold, AMO warm, ENSO neutral, 10 years static to declining temps. Correlation (not implied causation!)
[***] Hoerling M et al. (2008) What is causing the variability in global mean land temperature? Geophys. Res. Lett. 35, L23712
Abstract: Diagnosis of climate models reveals that most of the observed variability of global mean land temperature during 1880-2007 is caused by variations in global sea surface temperatures (SSTs). Further, most of the variability in global SSTs have themselves resulted from external radiative forcing due to greenhouse gas, aerosol, solar and volcanic variations, especially on multidecadal time scales. Our results indicate that natural variations internal to the Earth’s climate system have had a relatively small impact on the low frequency variations in global mean land temperature. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the recent trajectory of terrestrial warming can be overwhelmed (and become colder than normal) as a consequence of natural variability.
1) Paper is dismissed due to the use of climate models. Unreliable data
2) Abstract states “Our results indicate that natural variations internal to the Earth’s climate system have had a relatively small impact on the low frequency variations in global mean land temperature.” This is nonsense. Think LIA, Roman Optimum, ice ages etc etc where clearly natural variation had a significant impact.
3) Abstract states “most of the variability in global SSTs have themselves resulted from external radiative forcing due to greenhouse gas, aerosol, solar and volcanic variations” Also nonsense. Oceanographers are still getting to grips with the way SST’s vary. If oceanographers (experts in their field) are having trouble with this, how can a climate scientist understand it?
[*****] Chen, Y. et al (2008) The spatiotemporal structure of twentieth-century climate variations in observations and reanalysis. Part II: Pacific Pan-Decadal VariabilityJ. Climate 21, 2634-2650
(p. 2648) “Our PDV mode in both ST datasets has an extremely small global mean amplitude (~0.02K) because of cancellation between regional positive and negative anomalies, and in fact is of opposite sign in GISTEMP and ERSST.V, indicating that its global mean impact is negligible. For comparison, a typical ENSO event has a global mean temperature impact around +/- 0.1K.”
and:
(p. 2636) “As shown in Fig 1, because the PDV signals in high and low latitudes are out of phase and thus offset each other, the global mean temperature change (Fig 1, top) associated with the PDV phenomenon is in the range of +/- 0.02 K, which is negligible compared with the approximately 0.8-K value of GW trend mode and the approximately +/- 0.2-K value of the ENSO phenomenon”
Study is based on the 1990’s shift of the PDV and surmises the effect of SST’s vs the troposphere temperatures is minimal. However, given the timing of the release of this study (late 2007), the work being carried out and, yet again, based on unreliable climate models, I doubt they have given sufficient time to see the true effects upon publication. That’s just a personal opinion of course. All in all, I think these papers have been chosen to defend a tenable position. Also a personal opinion.
TonyB (13:04:07) :
An anomaly is the result of a whole series of thermometer readings. Have a look at the UK Hadcrut or US NASA Giss to learn how the temperature anomalies are determined. There are extremely detailed papers available that outline the methodologies. They aren’t attempting to determine the Earth’s “global temperature”. It’s a fallacy to consider that temperature anomalies are measures of the earth’s ” global temperature”.
My personal faith (as a Sun guy) that we’re ten years into the ~30 year cooling phase before the next ~30 year warming phase isn’t bolstered by the graph.
I have to come down on Flanagan(08:21:43) ‘s side. The curves look like unexceptional bobbing around the projections. Ignoring the willful
HansenizedHomogenized GISS curve, which underplays 1998 and overplays 2005, the current downward drift could easily be just a another oscillation around the predictions.The sea level chart proves only that if the IPCC has a forte, it isn’t sea level . SL rise continues along at the usual pokey 3.2mm/yr, though it looks to be levelling in the past 3 years. Average since the ice age ran around 10mm/yr, so we’d have to exceed that rate if we’re to realize the promised huge rises by the end of the century. Even at that rate, a snail could outrun the encroaching shoreline.
tallbloke (12:54:04) :
That’s an odd scenario. There isn’t a single paleotemperature reconstruction that suggests that the MWP was within 0.5 oC of current temperatures even in the Northern hemisphere where the MWP was predominant. And we’re likley in the very early days of enhanced greenhouse-induced warming:
Wikipedia has a decent depiction of the science:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png
or for a fuller analysis:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/recons.html
“Roman Optimum”? I don’t know that one. Can you give me a scientific source please….
Anthony
I am puzzled by this post. The graphs immediately under the heading of the post were prepared by Roger Pielke Jr and first published on Lucia’s web site on 2 April 2008 – nearly 12 months ago. The graphs are not included in Syun Akasofu’s very detailed and comprehensive paper, which runs to over 50 pages, but he does seem to be getting a lot of flak about them in some of the comments above. Is the post misleading or am I missing something?
Mike Bradbury
Paul S (13:53:09) :
You don’t present any evidence for your PDO “notion”. Nor does Akasofu for that matter. When shown some of the science on the subject you assert that it’s “nonsense” (no evidence for that assertion) and make a couple of other unsupported asertions that you at least admit are “personal opinions”.
That’s fine. However in my personal opinion these issues should be addressed in relation to scientific evidence and not unsupported assertions even if these are from apparently distinguished scientists.
Incidentally Chen et al 2007 is based on measurements of sea surface temperatures and isn’t from “models”. One should at least look at a paper before attempting to trash it!
Am I missing something? I’m really puzzled. I’ve read Akasofu’s excellent original material, and the graphs he uses are far clearer detail than the two here, and from many different areas and disciplines; all together are suggestive of a continuing recovery from the LIA. He really convinced me. This article, without Akasofu’s full backup of evidence, seems to say very little.
However, I take issue with Akasofu on one issue. Though we do not know the mechanisms (the TSI link is too weak), both commonsense and correlation suggest an oscillating solar power has to be ultimately behind all global temp. changes (after subtracting UHI and buffering of fluctuation due to oceanic thermal inertia translated into ocean currents). We know that CO2 can lag temperature by 800 years, which time lag appears to correspond to the long thermohaline cycle; however Akasofu does not allow for a longer term solar oscillation that, while still allowing LIA recovery, may have started to go downhill towards another LIA. Think annual: August (February in Australia) is hot but the sun has already started to dip.
Akasofu’s updated paper is a large pdf file, slow but worth waiting for IMO.
That is a contradiction in terms.
As is the NOAA link.
Sorry, foinavon, but you need to understand that YOUR links are just plain not credible.
Rob (13:34:31) :
Very nice Rob. However that’s one location on earth. One can’t interpret global temperature from one spot!
In any case the Armagh data doesn’t really accord with Akasofu’s interpretation. After all Akasofu has the supposed “PDO effect” mixed in. The very nice Armagh data you link to has the warming oscillations apparently out of phase with the PDO (e.g. warmest excursions in Armagh centered around 1950’s when the PDO was in its negative phase and coolest PDO excursion centred around 1920 and 1980 when the PDO was supposed to be positive.)
Something’s wrong Rob! Either Akasofu has messed up, or your Armagh data is not giving a proper representation of global temperature.
(a bit of both most likely)
The argument that we are merely seeing a recovery from the Little Ice Age is not sufficient. The Earth is gaining heat; therefore, there must be an energy imbalance. Increasing solar radiation? Decreasing cloud cover? Increasing greenhouse effect? Those are valid explanations; “recovery” is not.
“I think that is the key challenge for climate skeptics – what is the cause of this ‘natural warming trend’. There is a competing causal explanation being offered – to knock it down, you need to offer something with genuinely explanatory and predictive power.”
Why does CO2 lag temp?
And, foinavon, if you are not after a global temperature, what sense does it make to net the ocean effects?
“Then recovered and wimbled along until 1910. We’re not sure how much warmer the medieval warm period was than now, but the general trend has been downwards for 9000 years until this day.”
I do not understand the above to be true. My understanding is that each warming has been *cooler* than the one preceeding it. We have been in a general cooling trend for at least the last 2 to 3 thousand years.
foinavon (13:31:18) :
foinavon (13:52:49) :
Not really, foinavon. On both accounts.
“Smokey, we’ll be checking everybody’s lunchbox on the way out. I already checked the trash. All I found was a rusty old stapler used to attach graphs where they don’t belong,”
Hey, is that my red Swingline?
Foinavon
You must be well aware of this paper
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
and well aware of the work of the medieval society who have accumulated dozens of studies of the period.
You must also be perfectly aware of the Roman optimum. If not you can go on an interesting walk with Prof Hunt following in the footsteps of Hanibal over one of the high level Alpine passes used by the Romans (and Hanibal) which would now be impassable.
Do you still believe in the authenticity of Dr Manns hockey stick and the spaghetti derivatives?
Tonyb
From one of the abstract foinavon gives (12:59:10) :
“It is therefore extremely unlikely that the recent trajectory of terrestrial warming can be overwhelmed (and become colder than normal) as a consequence of natural variability.”
English is not my mother’s tongue, but the above is poor English right?
Are Hoerling et al saying that it is “extremely unlikely” that the warming trend could become lower than “normal” (however they define that) as a consequence of internal climate variation/natural variability?
The article is an attribution study using GCM’s like the one referred to in this report, right?
http://www.climate.noaa.gov/cpo_pa/cdep/pdf/AttributionReport2005.pdf
These guys seem “extremely” eager to convey a certain message:
“However, the reproducibility of 2005 warmth, for both sea surfaces and terrestrial surfaces, occurring in this vast suite of climate simulations indicates that elevated global averaged temperatures were very likely a consequence of changing atmospheric chemical composition.”
I wonder what the cold year 2008 and the cooling trend 2001-2008 was “very likely” a consequence of? I’m sure they have an idea.
Rob (13:34:31) :
You must have a different Armagh to the data I picked up:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6884/oxfordmonthlymean196119.jpg
This is a plot of many UK temps and Hadcrut3v
Armagh is the curve standing above all the rest until a sudden change downwards in 1876. Other than this it follows all the other humps and bumps pretty well!
Ie. There is a definite increase from 1980 onwards.
Note that the plot stops short of full data only because the 10 year average becomes invalid 5 years from the ends. NO OTHER Reason
bill
foinavon:
“‘Roman Optimum’? I don’t know that one.”
Really! I’m astonished! You’re the google-cut-paste internet expert on all things climate. At least you pretend to be. So I’m surprised you aren’t playing the expert here, and finding something like this chart — which I’ve had on my HD for a long time: click
There are countless references to the Roman warm period. You’ve really never heard of it?
OK, then there’s this chart: click. You’ll notice that the Roman Optimum, which tracks the rise and fall of the western Roman Empire, starts around 200 B.C. and ends around 400 A.D.
Then there’s this chart: click, which clearly shows that the climate fluctuates around a long term trend line, regardless of anthropogenic CO2 — which has no discernible effect [if it does, please point it out].
Since you said “it’s all about the evidence,” maybe you could pinpoint exactly where the evidence is for all that hidden heat. I want to see your [real world; not modeled] evidence with my own eyes. Show us where that hidden heat is in the pipeline. And no cut ‘n’ paste abstracts, please, you’re the one making the claim. I want to hear from you where that hidden heat is lurking.
Show it to us.
foinavon: “That’s an odd scenario. There isn’t a single paleotemperature reconstruction that suggests that the MWP was within 0.5 oC of current temperatures even in the Northern hemisphere where the MWP was predominant.”
The non-tree ring, non-hockey team reconstruction by Loehle perhaps.
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
foinavon:
In case you don’t know the ‘Medieval Warm Period Project’ of CO2 Science:
“Our Medieval Warm Period Project is an ongoing effort to document the magnitude and spatial and temporal extent of a significant period of warmth that occurred approximately one thousand years ago. Its goal is to ultimately provide sufficient real-world evidence to convince most rational people that the Medieval Warm Period was: (1) global in extent, (2) at least as warm as, but likely even warmer than, the Current Warm Period, and (3) of a duration significantly longer than that of the Current Warm Period to date.”
http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php
foinavon
Have you heard about Anthony’s surface stations project
http://www.surfacestations.org/
or click projects at the top of this website. After reading a little maybe you would not be so sure about the GISS numbers.
If you are into reconstructions checkout http://www.climateaudit.org/.
Maybe you will not be so sure about wiki recons after a little research.
Alternatively I should be totally disregarded just as you disregard tallbloke.
foinavon (14:26:17) :
Paul S (13:53:09) :
You don’t present any evidence for your PDO “notion”. Nor does Akasofu for that matter. When shown some of the science on the subject you assert that it’s “nonsense” (no evidence for that assertion) and make a couple of other unsupported asertions that you at least admit are “personal opinions”.
That’s fine. However in my personal opinion these issues should be addressed in relation to scientific evidence and not unsupported assertions even if these are from apparently distinguished scientists.
I’ll agree to disagree.
Incidentally Chen et al 2007 is based on measurements of sea surface temperatures and isn’t from “models”. One should at least look at a paper before attempting to trash it!
I’m sorry, I thought that the co-author Michael Bosilovich worked for the Global Modelling and Assimilation Office at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre at the time of publication. Maybe he didn’t bring his expertise into the paper after all.
Niels A Nielsen (15:06:17) :
That’s not a very scientific example Niels. Lohle put his analysis in a non-science magazine. Unfortunately he didn’t understand the manner in which paleotemperature analyses are set with respect to a common standard date. So 1000 BP (“Before Present”) means before 1950 (and not before 2009). That convention has to be used since “Present” is continually changing.
That’s the sort of basic error that is picked up in peer review in a proper scientific journal. However since Loehle though that the temperature proxy data he was manipulating went up to the present (ie. now), and in fact it went up to 1950, he essentially missed out the last nearly 60 years of warming. So his analysis doesn’t actually show a warmer MWP than now.
Loehle did republish with a correction. However his data doesn’t now indicate a warmer MWP than now.
There are a number of other basic problems with Loehle’s study that we could discuss….
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
Good reconstruction. Shows the 200 year dip in temperatures from the 6th century Krakatoa explosion induced global dimming.
Smokey (15:04:11) :
Smokey, those are just unattributed pictures. Where do they come from? Could you link each picture to a scientific paper so that we could see how they are derived? What data is used and how it is assessed and so on. Does it correspond to global or hemispheric temperatures….?
some of us here are skeptical Smokey! We want to see the evidence…
Rob (13:34:31) :
You must have a different Armagh to the data I picked up:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6884/oxfordmonthlymean196119.jpg
This is a plot of many UK temperatures and Hadcrut3v
Armagh is the curve standing above all the rest until a sudden change downwards in 1876. Other than this it follows all the other humps and bumps pretty well!
Ie. There is a definite increase from 1980 onwards.
Note that the plot stops short of full data only because the 10 year average becomes invalid 5 years from the ends. NO OTHER Reason
Niels A Nielsen (14:54:20) :
It depends on what you mean by “attribution study”. It uses empirical data of the sort described in the other abstract I showed in my post to assess the potential contributions of internal variations in the climate system (especially ocean oscillations) to surface temperature variations.
I hope you would agree that if one is goint to assert a contribution of a particular ocean oscillation (e.g. the PDO) to long term surface temperature trends, one should make some effort to establish the quantitative contribution of the oscillation to the trend. Is it large enough to have a significant effect? Or not?
The data I’ve cited address this essential point. In general the scientific data I’ve come across indicates that (i) the individual ocean oscillations (PDO, AMO, ENSO, etc.) do not in themselves provide sufficient coherent persistent asymmetry to result in significant long term contributions, and (ii) that if one assesses all the oscillations, these tend to cancel in their overall effects in anything other thsn the shortest term (see papers cited in my post above)..
I have not seen Akasofu present any quantitative assessment of the contribution of the PDO, even though he asserts a significant contribution. The same goes for the few other individuals that assert such a contribution.
It’s all very well to assert that something has a contribution. But we really want to see the evidence…
Foinavon said
“An anomaly is the result of a whole series of thermometer readings. Have a look at the UK Hadcrut or US NASA Giss to learn how the temperature anomalies are determined. There are extremely detailed papers available that outline the methodologies. They aren’t attempting to determine the Earth’s “global temperature”. It’s a fallacy to consider that temperature anomalies are measures of the earth’s ” global temperature”.
Thank you Foinavon, I am aware of the meaning of the anomaly and how it is worked out. At some point way back in the process someone has collected temperatures. At some point they will work out averages and trends and at some point an anomaly will be produced, but that doesnt get away from the fact that it was derived from a temperature and will end up as a global mean temperature such as here
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070810.html
The global mean temperature stated is 14.54C. My only point is that we can not possibly state what is already a meaningless concept to that degree of accuracy back to 1850.
Tonyb
TonyB (14:46:09) :
Foinavon
Loehle put his analysis in a non-science journal and so his fundamental error [see foinavon (15:25:34) ] wasn’t noticed until it appeared. He messed up. He thought BP meant “before present”, when in fact the convention is that BP means “before 1950”. So he missed out all the warming of the last nearly 60 years.
The “medieval society”? Can you refer us to their scientific publications?
Smokey (15:04:11) :
Not really Smokey. Google is pretty good I agree! However science in general is published in scientific journals. That’s the source for scientific data (that’s where scientists, policymakers and their scientific advisors source their information). That’s generally where I look too.
Dr. Akasofu is asserting stuff that doesn’t accord with the scientific data. That’s fine…it’s a free country! But if we want to understand these issues we should be skeptical of unsupported assertions, especially if we want to understand well-informed policymaking….
I admit it. I have all that missing energy stored in my house, in the closet under the basement stairs. I wrapped it up in duct tape. I was hoping no one would notice it was missing…I take little sips from it in the morning; it’s better than coffee! Does this mean you want it back now?
The facts of the matter are that all IPCC predictions post the 1998 El Nino peak are wildly wrong.
And I really wish people wouldn’t mix up hindcasts (of known data) with forecasts, as both graphs above do.
And of course the Warming Believers are suitably impressed by how accurate the hindcasts are. Sigh!
Also bear in mind that pre-1998 there were 2 large volcanic eruptions which had a measurable cooling effect on the averages. Absent these eruptions, the post 1998 cooling would be more pronounced.
Rob (13:34:31):
You must have a different Armagh to the data I picked up:
This is a plot of many UK temps and Hadcrut3v
Armagh is the curve standing above all the rest until a sudden change downwards in 1876. Other than this it follows all the other humps and bumps pretty well!
Ie. There is a definite increase from 1980 onwards.
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/6884/oxfordmonthlymean196119.jpg
Note that the plot stops short of full data only because the 10 year average becomes invalid 5 years from the ends. NO OTHER Reason
Foinavon:
The evidence indicates that we’re likely warmer now (late 20th/early 21st century) than in the last 7000 years. Of course the evidence is somewhat limited concerning temperatures further back in time than a couple of thousand years. But if we’re going to make interpretations based on science we may as well look at the evidence!
Not really foinavon. As several others have pointed out, there is plenty of evidence that the Roman period was warmer than now. Even the 1930’s were about as warm. The medieval period saw warmer times too, evidenced by the varieties of barley grown in Scotland as well as records from China and elsewhere.
You seem to be willfully ignoring a lot of stuff recently. This is a bad sign. You need to be serious about correctly assessing scientific evidence.
Paul S (10:00:25)
I agree with you and Flanagan. The temperatures are misleading because of the baselines for the observed measurements are set above the 1990 IPCC base line, a common tactic of the deceivers.
As for sea level rise, IPCC projections in 1995 & 2001 and did not use the satellite data in their models, from which the observed data is taken for the charts, while the 2007 report did (notice the omission). The satellite data which started from 1993 and had some early calibration issues that took time to be corrected, likely delaying it’s acceptance by modellers, and now show a much higher increase than the 2 mm per decade increase (3 mm/decade) that was used in the earlier models. So it’s an apples and oranges comparison.
But you have to consider who produced the charts (open the link). The use of these charts for this article is not helpful.
Foinavon: Asking about Roman Optimum. See, among others:
http://personal.inet.fi/tiede/tilmari/sunspot5.html#historic
TonyB (14:46:09) : said
Foinavon
You must be well aware of this paper
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/11/a-2000-year-global-temperature-record/
and well aware of the work of the medieval society who have accumulated dozens of studies of the period.
You must also be perfectly aware of the Roman optimum. If not you can go on an interesting walk with Prof Hunt following in the footsteps of Hanibal over one of the high level Alpine passes used by the Romans (and Hanibal) which would now be impassable.
Do you still believe in the authenticity of Dr Manns hockey stick and the spaghetti derivatives?
—————————————-
You can perhaps add the excavation of the Viking burial site in the permafrost in Greenland.
Older sites along the coast are also in danger. As the Arctic warms up, archaeologists fear the frozen turf that covers Qeqertasussuk, a 4,500-year-old settlement where evidence for the earliest settlement of Greenland was found, may be melting. Gronnow–who excavated the remote site for the first time in the 1980s–is headed back this summer, and he is not optimistic. “I’ve been working in Greenland for 30 years now,” he says. “I can see with my own eyes how it has changed.”
If you Wicki Permafrost you will see two men using a jackhammer, I think we have a little further to go before we reach the temps of the Viking era.
http://www.archaeology.org/0903/etc/climate_change.html
Paul S (15:18:41) :
Fair enough. You are happy to accept unsupported assertions that don’t accord with the scientific evidence. That’s fine…
Read the paper Paul. The analysis is based on the empirical sea surface temperature covering the Pacific basin (termed the PDV or “Pan-decadal Variability”). In part of the analysis the contribution of ENSO was removed to isolate the contribution from the entire Pacific decadal variability. I expect that’s where Dr. Bosilovich’s expertise was employed.
Incidentally, in general one needs to be specific about criticisms of models. After all Dr. Akasofu’s assertion of a post LIA temperature trend resulting from a “linear recovery” overlaid by a “PDO oscillation” is a model. It’s just a model without empirical or theoretical evidence or parameterization.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with models. Ultimately it’s all about the evidence. Chen et al, and Hoerling et al, and all the other science published in the scientific literature is supported by evidence. Akasofu’s assertions are not….
foinavon:
“Smokey, those are just unattributed pictures.”
Not really foinavon. Apparently your cognitive dissonance has impaired your reading comprehension.
At the bottom of the central chart it states: Chart prepared by Climatologist Cliff Harris & Meteorologist Randy Mann”.
And the chart above was from greenworldtrust, as anyone can see by clicking the link. And Mr. Helmand would certainly be miffed if you claim his link is unattributed.
And your verifiably wrong statement…
…was refuted as reported in the World Climate Report, CO2 Science, and other sources linked by several other posters. Putting your hands over your ears and shouting, “LA-LA-LA-LA!!” is a clear example of cognitive dissonance in action.
Presuming that just because you believe there are no studies contradicting what you said, doesn’t mean there are no studies, as we’ve seen right here.
+ + + + + + + + + +
What’s left of foinavon’s credibility took another hit here when he said he’d never heard of the Roman Optimim.
Those IPCC graphs are of the kind of the Hockey Stick, because of the scale used. These do not worth discussing about them.
The minimum scale to be used it should be the minimum difference of temperatures we can truly feel. Does anybody can feel a difference of 0.1°C?
foinavon (10:50:33) :
Huh? I could see exponential “decay” climbing to the average level.
What are the asymptotes of the hyperbola? If we’re heading on an increasing rate for a vertical one, then we’ll reach a time when the temperature zooms to infinity. If we’re heading for one at an angle, then we’ll reach a period of steady climb. Oh, perhaps you’re talking about one much like my exponential example above when the average level is the asymptote we’re approaching.
A hyperbola isn’t defined by a time constant, that term is generally used only with exponential growth and decay and is related to the amount of time required for something to reach 63% of its final value.
Nope, that sounds like the slope of the recovery will get steeper and steeper.
CodeTech (14:36:09) :
Why’s that CodeTech? The Wikipedia article is just a compliation of studies published in the scientific literature. We could each easily find each of the original studies and inspect these.
If you’ve got a criticism you need to be a bit more specific!
smokey,
The real worry is the long term cooling trend shown on one of your links. It seems that for most of the last 4000 years temperatures have been higher than for the last 1000.
As for Foinavon, I’m still trying to figure out how you compute an anomaly from a mean without at some stage computing the mean. Gibberish!
Smokey (16:20:36) :
.
Yes but where’s the data from Smokey? Which scientific study/studies determined and compiled it and where is it published? I could show you a chart “prepared by somebody and someone else”, but we wouldn’t be able to assess its realiability/accuracy without recourse to the original published data.
and the same goes for the chart from “greenworldtrust” and your “Mr Helmand”.
Blogs and web sites Smokey. If we’re skeptical we really want to see data that is of sufficient quality to be publishable in the scientific literature….We’ve already looked at one of the sources linked by other posters (Loehle’s). But that’s demonstrably incorreect and was based on a misunderstanding by Loehle of the conventions concerning putting all paleotemperature data on a common temporal scale. That’s what happens if one attempts to create/cherrypick analyses that conform to a preconceived view. It’s likely to be flawed..
..far better to access the science in the cientific literature…
Mike McMillan (14:07:43) :
Even at that rate, a snail could outrun the encroaching shoreline.
That was the best smile Ive had all day. 🙂
If you adjust out the effect of the natural ocean cycles and then take into account the Urban Heat Island (which Phil Jones just resurrected for us) (and the poor siting which Anthony has demonstrated) and if you assume at least half of the other “adjustments” made to the temperature record were made in “error”, …
… the temperature rise over the last 140 years falls to a low 0.05C per decade.
The models, in not accounting for the effect of at least ocean cycles and UHI secondarily have over-estimated the warming which has occurred by more than 66%.
Now let’s see if any of the modelers on this thread can prove this statement wrong (because they should know it is right).
TerryBixler (15:10:47) :
Terry, I responded to tallbloke here: [foinavon (14:17:41)]. Everyone seems to be responding to my posts, so it’s difficult to keep up, but I’m certainly not disregarding tallbloke (heaven forbid!).
The scientific data tends to cast doubt on the basic assertions of the climateaudit blog. That particular storm in a teacup has been dragged through the blogosphere for 10 years, but the issue seems to be pretty settled in the science. The “wiki recons” is not a “wiki reconstruction” at all of course! It’s a compilation of paleoreconstructions available up to around 2005/6 I believe). One could add a couple more to that compilation now. The point is that each of those reconstructions is a study published in the scientific literature (as the citations to the discrete studies by the graphed compilation indicates)…
There is indeed an odd disconnect between the text and the graphics used as illustration. Dr Akasofu’s thesis is that the IPCC predictions have failed, yet the supporting charts are from this paper published by Roger Pielke in Nature Geoscience which actually found that …
Figure 1a compares the IPCC 1990, 1995,
2001 and 2007 temperature predictions (its
‘best estimate’ for the realized emissions
scenario) with observational surface (NASA,
UKMET) and satellite (UAH, RSS) data. The
observations fall between the best estimates
presented by the IPCC in 1990 and 2001,
which is consistent with the conclusions of
Rahmsdorf et al.
Rahmsdorf et al is this paper which concluded …
Overall, these observational data underscore
the concerns about global climate change. Previous
projections, as summarized by IPCC, have
not exaggerated but may in some respects even
have underestimated the change, in particular
for sea level.
Rahmstorf is Professor of Oceanic Physics at Potsdam University. Here are his publications.
Roger Pielke (Jr) is a Professor of Environmental Studies at the
University of Colorado and Director of the CIRES Center for Science and Technology
Policy Research. His views on climate change are nicely summarised in this testimony
Nothing in this testimony should be interpreted as contradicting the assessment of climate change science provided by Working Group I of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).4 The IPCC has concluded that greenhouse gas emissions resulting from human activity are an important driver of changes in climate. And on this basis alone I am personally convinced that it makes sense to take action to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Doesn’t quite add up does it? I mention only in passing that Dr Akasofu has no academic credentials or publications whatsoever in the field of climate science.
foinavon
“That’s what happens if one attempts to create/cherrypick analyses that conform to a preconceived view. It’s likely to be flawed..”
Like certain temperature estimates?
Maybe you know, you seem to be a smart fella/gal.
1) Why does temperature rise precede CO2?
2) Why net the ocean effects to the mean instead of their individual climate areas?
3) When does the extra water vapor in the atmosphere saturate the atmosphere to the point it can’t hold anymore? And then what happens?
Nope. The notes say that one piece of data came from an individual (so apparently you can’t easily “find” it) and that one of the studies in the source article did not have data in a format which could be easily processed.
foinavon:
foinavon me boy, your original statement was that I had posted ‘unattributed pictures.’ I showed with the attributions that you were wrong. I pointed out that the sources were right in the links, and I quoted them to you. I answered your question.
But now you’re asking for something entirely different: the original data that was used to produce the charts. That’s not the question you originally asked, is it? You’re a game player.
foinavon, I’m not playing a fool’s game with the King Of The Moving Goal Posts. You do this all the time; asking a question, and then when it’s clearly answered, asking another, different question, ad nauseum. You never man-up.
And you never answer any uncomfortable questions put to you, do you? No. On that score you keep your tail tucked firmly between your legs, and change the subject.
I’ve repeatedly asked you to personally point out [without using your usual google-fu cut ‘n’ paste of hastily searched abstracts] exactly where in the climate “pipeline” is the hidden heat you claim is hiding there. Where is it, exactly? And why haven’t satellites, Argos buoys, or radiosonde instruments indicated where your fantasy heat is “waiting in the pipeline” to emerge and cause runaway global warming? Where, exactly, is this heat hiding? Show it to us.
But you never answered that question. Instead, you play your games, avoiding giving answers when cornered — and always moving the goal posts when someone else solidly refutes one of your claims. It’s your M.O.
I’ve answered your question. Now it’s your turn to answer mine: Where, exactly, is that spooky heat hiding in the climate pipeline? Provide strong empirical [real world] evidence, please, not your usual opinion, or the results of always-wrong models.
The ball, as they say, is in your court.
Foinavon,
Wikipedia is not reliable enough to cite as a source in a college paper. Remember the journalist who was shocked to discover he was involved in the JFK assassination? Ask a college professor why it is not considered reliable.
Excellent summation by Syun Akasofu.
The IPCC is wrong both in it’s claim of the cause of warming and in it’s predicted temperature trend.
Smokey (17:25:43) :
foinavon is exactly right about the link you posted that purports to show global temps going back to 2500 BC- the website gives only the vaguest allusion as to where the data comes from: “Many factors were studied to arrive at their conclusions, such as sea-surface temperatures in the oceans, particularly in the Pacific (El Nino and La Nina), dendrochronology (tree rings), volcanic cycles, tidal cycles, solar ‘sunspot’ cycles, lake bed data, core samples, human migrations, ancient writings and so forth.”
You wouldn’t accept that level of explanation in a paper published by Mann or Hanson; why do you accept it for this source????
And the “heat in the pipeline” isn’t “hiding” somewhere. The oceans warm up a lot slower than the atmosphere, so an equilibrium temperature won’t be reached until the oceans warm up.
Anthony: thanks for the update, because the original post was VERY confusing.
GISS takes an odd track at the end of 2003. It takes a strange turn at the beginning of 2006.
“And the “heat in the pipeline” isn’t “hiding” somewhere. The oceans warm up a lot slower than the atmosphere, so an equilibrium temperature won’t be reached until the oceans warm up.”
So, the heat will transfer from the atmosphere to the ocean, cooling the atmosphere and heating the ocean?
foinavon, Loehle wasn’t shown to me “wrong” he issued a correction to his original paper with only slight (and immaterial) changes to his conclusions. Just going to the paper and scroll down to “Correction to…”
John Philip, Roger’s paper was flawed (at least for temperature) because he was eyeballing an anomaly, not looking a the actual trend. Rhamstorf, who you hold up as some pinnacle of greatest, did the same thing. Perhaps you should trying following the work of David Stockwell in trying to understand what it is Rhamstorf did?
http://landshape.org/enm/category/reviews/rahmstorf/
At any rate, Lucia over at the Blackboard, a believer in AGW, has been looking at recent data and concluded that the IPCC’s projections are to high. Check it out:
http://rankexploits.com/musings
Also, Roger’s personal views of his and others own work is irrelevant. And so are doctor Akasofu’s-after all, James Hansen is an Astronomer.
Should say “Akasofu’s credentials” You really are engaging in pathetic ad hominem, though, which is why I jokingly respond in kind.
foinavon (13:18:30) :
Analysis of the Earth’s temperature response to enhanced greenhouse forcing in the past indicates a temperature response of the order of 3 oC of warming per doubling of enhanced CO2.
Foinavon, there is no doubt that you are a worthy, able and knowledgeable proponent of AGW but you appear to be unable to resist inserting the above cited gratuitous assertion in a number of your posts. Since the amount of feedback from increased atmospheric CO2 concentration is not well understood, the assertion, especially where it is not germane to the subject, weakens the thrust of your posts. Nevertheless, even when I do not agree with you, I value your willingness to come here and do battle in a dignified manner.
Ohioholic (17:11:03) :
foinavon
“That’s what happens if one attempts to create/cherrypick analyses that conform to a preconceived view. It’s likely to be flawed..”
Like certain temperature estimates?
Maybe you know, you seem to be a smart fella/gal.
1) Why does temperature rise precede CO2?[/quote]
The question has an unspoken assumption that this is always the case, but it has not always been the case, only sometimes.
The reason this has been observed in the Malinkovich cycles, was because periodic changes in orbital tilt kicked off a warming cycle in the northern hemisphere due reduction in albedo.
The CO2 emissions were of increased temperature, and but also produced a further increase in temperature, based on the evidence of the 400,000 year Vostock Ice core data, and modeling of these effects.
In fact CO2 emissions by huge numbers of volcanoes in Siberia produced a global warming event which robbed the oceans of oxygen and caused mass extinction at the end of the Permian Era 250M years ago.
Today’s increase in CO2 stems from human industrial activities, rather than emissions of natural sources under the influence of warming as in the past 400,000 years.
“2) Why net the ocean effects to the mean instead of their individual climate areas?”
]
This seems like foolish question. If your objective is to estimate the global average temperature change, you need to average the temperature changes over the entire globe.
“3) When does the extra water vapor in the atmosphere saturate the atmosphere to the point it can’t hold anymore? And then what happens?”
I don’t understand the point of this question?
There is a relation between maximum vapor pressure and temperature, which increases about 7% per degree celsius. When that point is reached you form clouds.
When the water drops in the clouds get big enough it rains.
Regarding heat “in the pipeline” see this:
http://climatesci.org/2009/03/05/is-there-climate-heating-in-the-pipeline/
The answer would appear to be “No”. Cheers.
“So, I’ve replaced it with one from another article of hers that should not generate as many questions. Or will it? 😉 – Anthony”
I liked the other one. It raises eyebrows about GISS–which is something I like. I don’t know why folks are confused. WattsUpWithThat??
Could you leave the the new on up and put the others ones back up?
“Just Want Truth… (18:08:20) : GISS takes an odd track at the end of 2003. It takes a strange turn at the beginning of 2006.”
Confusing? I hope this wasn’t taken that I was confused. I was noticing a strange track in GISS. It takes a noticeable departure from where it had been tracking. Anyone with some experience in math and graphs should have been able to see it too.
BTW, regarding the wiki paleo spaghetti graph-the claim that such studies are independent confirmation of one another is false. They share large amounts of the same proxy data, and small cadre of coauthors, tending to favor the same methods. Anyway, if you actually followed CA, you would know that, rather than just saying “the scientific evidence is against CA” that 1. CA has dealt extensively with the issue of the “alternative” reconstructions and 2. CA takes no position on the issue of MWP versus recent, just points out flaws in the methodologies and justifiable changes that could alter the conclusions. I don’t understand the resist to this, given that greater variability in past climate offers an excuse to make models more sensitive, making AGW worse. Plus, the insistence by many that it “doesn’t matter”.
When I look at the graph I see some tendency toward a 4 year periodicity. 1981, 1985, 1989, 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005, and coming up 2009.
No analysis, just eyeball observation.
Apologies to anyone who was confused by the first graph and a double apology for not being able to replace it until about 9 hours later. I tend not to monitor WUWT from the office anymore since it takes valuable time away from running my business.
A new one has been posted that is more relevant. Dr. Akasofu did not include any with his essay, and in my attempt to help out Lucia with some traffic boost (hoping the curiosty would lead people there) I created just a bit too much confusion.
– Anthony
Chris V (17:59:31), get up to speed. Read the thread. What foinavon wrote was: “Smokey, those are just unattributed pictures. Where do they come from?”
So I pointed out the attribution that was in the links. That is where they came from, understand? I answered the question foinavon asked.
Then, rather than answering my question [which you certainly didn’t answer either — read the question again], foinavon as usual moved the goal posts, completely disregarded my question after I’d answered his question… and started asking other questions. Then you decided to play monkey-pile. So you can understand it if I’m not playing tag-team with the two of you.
I will be more than happy to answer any questions — after foinavon [that’s not you, is it?] gives a full, complete and straightforward answer to my previous question.
[guidance for foinavon: Chris V’s opinion was a non-answer, because it provided no real world evidence of some mysterious new hidden heat source lurking in a newly invented ‘pipeline’, which has been missed by satellites, radiosonde balloons, and the Argos deep sea buoys.
A non-answer like that is, of course, unacceptable. If you can, provide solid, empirical and falsifiable evidence of a newly discovered heat pulse hiding somewhere, and show us exactly where it is. Provide verifiable measurements showing its existence. As we know, that “hidden heat” conjecture is a brand new hypothesis, and as such it must prove itself. Currently, it exists only as unfounded speculation. To skeptics, it is just another “black cat in a dark room” fallacy: when the light is turned on, there’s no cat in the room and there never was.]
Anthony,
That is a great graph! It shows at a glance the inaccuracy of the IPCC’s
predictionsprojections.I just came back to find your new chart. Much better. I hope others who got side-tracked by the previous charts come back and have another look.
Thanks, John
“Tom in Florida (09:38:40) : Since the “blame” for this warming is CO2, I suggest a graph of the CO2 ppm be overlayed to see how that compares with the IPCC predictions and the temperature data. I think that would show how while the IPCC predictions follow CO2 the actual temperatures do not.”
Excellent Tom. This would help those who are confused about what Mr. Syun Akasofu is saying.
While the replacement graphis works better than the earlier one, I would recommend the one Dr. Akasofu has in his 3/19/09 paper here:
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/two_natural_components_recent_climate_change.pdf
It tells the story a lot better.
….was refuted as reported in the World Climate Report, CO2 Science, and other sources linked by several other posters.
—
I call your BS: This from the “blog” you insult:
.Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week
Was there a Medieval Warm Period? YES, according to data published by 684 individual scientists from 400 separate research institutions in 40 different countries … and counting! This issue’s Medieval Warm Period Record of the Week comes from Lake Chen Co, Southern Tibet, China. To access the entire Medieval Warm Period Project’s database, click here.”
So I guess you feel you can ignore 400 research papers since those were merely “summarized” in a blog by two PhD’s you disagree with.
—
Your description of “thousands of years of gradual cooling followed by (today”s) sudden warming IS the hockey stick graph that has been proved to be utterly false. Deliberately falsified, more accurately. The combined “spaghetti graphs” you call out have been falsified and are themselves highly biased: don’t use them as a reference before people who know the truth.
—
You claim that a 1000 year study is “invalidated” by a change in reference point of BP is foolish: If nothing else that changes the dates by (at most) 50 years. But the TEMPERATURES that were greater in Europe and worldwide during the ENTIRE 950-1150 period were greater than today’s temperatures. Glaciers (today) STILL have not melted back to the points where they had receded (without CO2’s effect) in the 1000-1200 year time frame. Glaciers even earlier had receded even more: The prehistoric caveman walking across the Alps who died and was trapped under an advancing glacier had been walking on bare rock exposed about 6000 BC. Only now was the rock re-exposed. Where was man’s influence then?
What we see today is a 3/4 (approximate) degree drop from about 150 AD until the year 750, then a rise of 3/4 degree up until 1100 AD, then a drop of 3/4 of one degree from 1100 AD until about 1650, then a rise of about 3/4 degree from 1650 through 1850 through today. Superimposed on that cycle is a 70 cycle of about 4/10 of one degree. So today’s temperatures cycle on a rising plane towards a (potential) high about 1/4 of degree more than today, then a loooooong drop from that peak until about the year 2400.
And your much-feared but very precious CO2 does nothing but increase the amount that every plant, every tree, and every coral worldwide needs to live. Today, plants (food, fuel, fodder, and fertilizer) grow up to 27% MORE due to higher CO2 levels.
My question to you is: What are YOU going to do to increase plant growth for the good of your children as we go through the next cold spell? (That cold spell has started – the Arctic ice is now third highest (below only 2008 and 2001 in extent from being highest ever recorded.)
Where was man’s influence on climate between 50 and 300 AD coming from? Campfires?
You have “claimed” that total ocean variations cancel each other out – so there is no ocean influence. But that is NOT true: Today’s temperatures in a 70-year cycle EXACTLY mirror the ups and downs of the PDO and AMO. Mythically creating a PDV does not erase that pattern.
It is you – an AGW believer – who must somehow show why temperatures decreased between 1930-1940’s peak DOWN to the low in 1972 while CO2 was rising, then climbed between 1972 and 1998 while CO2 was rising, then fell from 1998 to 2009 while CO2 was rising.
It is you – an AGW believer – who must show why temperatures have risen and fallen at a 950 year cycle since 1000 BC through today’s warm period. In ONLY 27 years of that 3000 year period have both temperatures and CO2 risen at the same time. 27 years out of 3000 years is not much to base a 3 trillion dollar tax (waste of money) on that will kill people by denying them affordable energy.
Your “Wikipedia” authority is a manufactored source (falsely) by an AGW extremist who deliberately edits out opposing thoughts and facts he does not want the world to see.
Your GISS authority is on record at trials and protests enciting people to civil disobedience and sabotog and criminal acts to deny people energy at affordable prices. Is “he” to be trusted? His “numbers” have been manufactored from real temperatures recoding devices that only meet code 25% of the time. Worse, he manipulates those numbers to falsely RAISE all recorded temperatures by averaging even rural values (non-urban heat zone areas) by extreme heat-affected city temperatures. But he refuses to release his original temperatures, their actual corrections, and the final values to audit. (Some “scientific” method – or deliberate coverup. His (Hansen”s) Global models are programs cobbled together from old routines that come from original DOS machines, but have never been checked. When checked closely (Mann, etc.) each AGW publication has been shown to contain false and misleading data. (Gore and the IPCC worst of all.)
GISS and HADCRUT are biased, inaccurate government sources supported and manned by AGW extremists who have an agenda, and whose liveihood DEFPENDS utterly on maaintaining their AGW lies. Their governments now WANT that bioas and those lies continued to create three trillion in new taxes. But you claim they are valid sources for a 1/2 of one degree increase in temperatures that is ONLY based on their own temperatures?
You claim “scientific” review and “scientific papers” only count – but refuse to acknowledge the bias (and flat out lies and coverups) in the AGW review process that prevent funds and publication time to people who oppose your (incorrect) views.
Their is NO point in your screed, and no single paragraph in your numerous letters above that carries any piece of information that has been shown true and unbiased. it all repeats points from an AGW creed – each point of which has been falsified by contradictory research. Or more often, real research and real values.
That was Figure 2b in the paper, by the way.
Smokey-the “hidden heat” thing isn’t really new. Ever hear of “commitment” warming? You know, warming that’s supposed to occur in the future even if forcings are frozen at present levels? Its supposed to hide in the oceans, then come out when its safe(no, I mean when enoguh time has passed). Well, it isn’t doing so (see the link I posted above).
I have posted this graph before, but I was not confident about why it showed such low global warming numbers. In the last month or so, the different questions involved became more clear.
First, the water vapour numbers show there is very little positive water vapour feedback to the warming caused by increased GHGs. Humidity levels are not rising at all with the recorded increase in temperatures. There has been a few recent studies which struggled to confirm this feedback but it is just spin, the base data collected does not support it.
Second, the negative impact on surface temperatures from Aerosols does not seem to be ocurring. The theory seems reasonable but the locations that should be affected by Aerosols the most, are not showing its effects at all. They are rising at a faster rate than the non-Aerosol-affected regions.
Third, the large UHI impact in the surface temperature measurements has finally been confirmed by the original author of “there is only a neglible UHI”.
Fourth, the global warming researchers are now finally examing the natural variation in the climate mostly caused by natural ocean cycles as well the Sun. Why have temperatures declined recently? Well, there is actually natural variation in the climate from a variety of different sources, mainly the oceans. The temperature measurements from 1976 to 1998 or 2006 were driven up by natural variation which has since moved those same numbers down.
So, here is what the satellite temperature measurements tell us about global warming (with no UHI, or poor siting or non-existent Aerosols impact or ocean cycles affecting the numbers).
0.725C per doubling of CO2 or a few tenths more to go.
http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/8838/rsslogwarming.png
Anyone who wants to post this chart somewhere else is free to do so. I will back it up.
Thanks deadwood for that link. The conclusion says it all:
This conclusion states in a very polite way that the IPCC used bad science, and that the current climate is within normal parameters. Therefore, no extraordinary action is necessary.
Careful smokey, its not “official” science! 😉
timetochooseagain (18:29:36)
Here is a completely independent temperature reconstruction for the last 2,000 years:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2008/2008GL034187.http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~shaopeng/publicat.html
It’s the first paper on that list.
It uses borehole temperatures and geothermal gradients to calculate the temperature history. the results show a midieval warm period cooler than today, and pretty much agrees with the “spaghetti graphs”.
“tallbloke (11:49:13) : James Hansen… What is it with this guy and his morbid fascination with death and WWII?”
Don’t look for something deep in what he does. I have a feeling he isn’t a ‘deep’ person. Think sophomoric — you’ll come closer to an answer.
Just Want Truth-actually, and rather interestingly, CO2 emissions (and concentrations?) have supposedly gone up even faster than IPCC projections assumed and we ~still~ got less warming. What a jip!
Thanks Smokey, I was going to post the conclusions but you beat me to it.
And yes, he was being VERY polite.
Ohioholic (17:11:03) You asked “ When does the extra water vapor in the atmosphere saturate the atmosphere to the point it can’t hold anymore? And then what happens?”
Your questions is phrased as though the atmosphere is a sponge. This is not a good idea and just leads to confusion. Have a look at the “Bad Clouds” page here:
http://fraser.cc/ Then follow the menus (left side) from Teaching > Bad Science > Bad Meteorology > Bad Clouds
Smokey wrote:
[To Foinavon [snip], to Chris V….and now Eric….]
“A non-answer like that is, of course, unacceptable. If you can, provide solid, empirical and falsifiable evidence of a newly discovered heat pulse hiding somewhere, and show us exactly where it is. Provide verifiable measurements showing its existence.”
Any of you chaps….Foinavaon, Chris V, or Eric can man-up enough to provide a verifiable answer to the above question??
CHRIS
Norfolk, VA
Smokey (18:37:16) :
I guess me and foinavon will just have to disagree with you about what constitutes an “unattributed picture”.
By the way, I said there wasn’t any heat “hiding” somwhere. Anytime I’ve heard the phrase “there’s more heating in the pipeline” said by some climate scientist, the explanation they give is that the oceans warm much more slowly than the atmosphere, so for a given CO2 concentration, the atmosphere will continue to warm until the oceans “catch up”. Only then will a new equilibrium temperature be reached.
You can find some of the “real world” evidence here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specific_heat_capacity
Note the difference in the specific heat of water and air. Of course, there is also the fact that circulation between the shallow and deep oceans is very slow.
PS- I didn’t (and don’t) expect you to answer why you unquestionably accept that temp reconstruction back to 2500 BC, even though you have absolutely no idea how the graph was made! (I already know why).
Apologies to anyone who was confused by the first graph
At least I can quit whining, now.
Chris V. definitely interesting, but the issue is pretty darned complex and I don’t know enough about this particular paper to assess its claims. I am dubious of multiproxy studies, to be honest, even Leohle’s, because the data are sparse, uncertain, have dating errors (with the exception of stalagmites and tree rings), and may not really be corresponding to the variable in question (indeed, tree ring are plague by that problem, and by a problem of potential non linear growth responses). Not all of those critiques, perhaps even none, apply to that paper, but some of them definitely apply to some in the spaghetti graph. Of course, I could inundate you with single proxy studies reaching the opposite conclusion, but I won’t. You’ll probably dismiss them as not agreeing with one another on timing (the MWP being “incoherent” or something-as if that mattered). Plus, I don’t wish to burden you with a load of heavy reading. One more thing-if the spaghetti graph studies are bad (I’m sure you think this a big if-I don’t) then you can’t really use them to back up that one study as valid-and you would making a circular argument anyway because you called in that study to back ~them~ up. Just a warning.
Chris V. (19:18:15) :
Your link doesn’t work. Please try again. I’d like to see independent verification that the MWP was cooler than now.
Yes….tried the link as well.
Please show verification that the Mideval Warm Period maxima were lower than today.
Wanna see it…..
Chris
Norfolk, VA
There are several ocean oscillations and one can’t just choose the PDO to “explain” temperature variations for convenience. What about the AMO, for example? If you chose the AMO to “explain” the temperature trend of the past 150 years you’d come to a different conclusion altogether.
For the mid 70’s – 2001 period it may have been a bit of a group grope: The PDO, IPO, AO, AAO, NAO, and AMO all flipped from cool to warm from 1976 – 2001.
“timetochooseagain (19:20:30) : What a jip!”
Ya, i feel so short-changed. If these carbon taxes go through i will literally be feeling change in my pockets. The cash will be gone.
evanmjones (20:19:54) :
What’s the group doing now?
On the other hand the greenhouse effect is pretty well understood and the contribution from raised [CO2] is quite well characterized (not prefectly ‘though!).
But what is not well understood at all is the CO2 positive feedback loop mechanism postulated by the IPCC. And that’s where the great majority of that 3.5°C 21st Centry warming we are to expect comes from.
The AquaSat seems to be telling us that not only does it not exist, but what feedback there is is actually negative (more study required).
CO2 persistence is also a key issue and in great dispute.
rephelan (19:56:16) :
“Chris V. (19:18:15) :
Your link doesn’t work. Please try again. I’d like to see independent verification that the MWP was cooler than now.”
oops- try this one:
http://www.geo.lsa.umich.edu/~shaopeng/publicat.html
first paper on the list.
What’s the group doing now?
Well, as we know, the PDO has gone rogue. And it looks as if the AO and NAO may be wavering. (And the IPO usually follows the PDO.) The rest are still in warm phase, so far as I know.
The PDO is the biggest deal because that is believed to influence whether El Nino or La Nina has the upper hand.
foinavon (10:50:33) :
That would be rather scary since it would indicate that we had a very large warming from the enhanced CO2 forcing still to come (i.e. extremely delayed by the slow response time of the climate system).
————————-
As I understand it, the question still tabled is ….
…. where is this heat hiding currently ??
tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock
timetochooseagain (19:47:51) :
There are lots of uncertainties in the proxy temperature reconstructions. But when you get essentially the same result using two completely independent methods (that look at entirely different phenomena) it does lend credence to the conclusion.
It doesn’t “prove” it, of course; both could be wrong, and have gotten the same result by coincidence (unlikely, but not impossible).
But it does shift the burden of proof a bit.
Well, I see others have answered during my unexpected absence, but let me reiterate.
Wikipedia is NOT a credible source for anything, but especially not AGW information. This is because AGW entries are heavily censored by an individual who admits (and is proud) to having an agenda.
Interesting that people who mistrust “government” for almost everything else willingly consume doctored (oh, sorry, “adjusted”) temperature numbers without complaint. Well, as long as said numbers seem to confirm what they believe, anyway.
The new chart is much clearer, although I get what the problem was with the other one, this one is easier to show others.
Also what is not understood is why CO2 was stable at three or more times present levels for say the 200 million years of the Triassic, Jurassic & Cretaceous periods. The fossil record seems to show that life on Earth was extremely healthy at the time.
Seven times in the last million years the Earth has warmed from Ice Ages to warmer than now.
The idea that the Earth’s climate will ‘run away’ to Venus horror meltdown drama seems unlikely. Indeed I find it a good indicator of whether the person proposing it is adult enough to be responsible for rational considered opinions.
His “numbers” have been manufactored from real temperatures recoding devices that only meet code 25% of the time.
11%, actually.
Less than that if you go dragging the HO-83 flap into it.
And, yes, I am still waiting for someone to explain to me why SHAP would be a positive adjustment.
It uses borehole temperatures and geothermal gradients to calculate the temperature history. the results show a midieval warm period cooler than today, and pretty much agrees with the “spaghetti graphs”.
But what about the literature and the archaeological evidence?
Re “Heat in the Pipeline”
I’ll repeat- there is no heat “hiding” in the ocean, waiting to unleash itself on the atmosphere. Nobody is saying there is.
The ocean is a big heat sink, that absorbs heat very slowly. So some of the energy that would otherwise be warming the atmosphere is going into the ocean.
You don’t have to agree with this idea (if you don’t believe that the specific heat and mixing time for the ocean are much greater than for the atmosphere, then go for it!) but that’s what Hansen et al are referring to when they say there is more “heating in the pipeline”.
Chris V. (20:28:14) :
Thank you. I actually had that one from another source already, so now I’ve read it twice. The discussion of heat flux is really quite beyond me but there were a few points in the paper that stuck out:
1. It is not presenting any new data or clarification of methods;
2. It was written specifically to reconcile their earlier publications with the IPCC 2007 report;
3. They appear to be claiming that their results are consistent with the instrumental record, which Anthony Watts’ Surface Station Project seems to be showing is badly flawed, and various proxy records which have been criticized in great detail on their own merits (e.g. bristlecone pines).
I’d have to learn far more about Prof. Huang’s science that I really want to address the adequacy of his temperature reconstructions, but it sure looks like another set of proxies that correlate well with another set of semi-discredited proxies. Not a smoking gun.
“For the mid 70’s – 2001 period it may have been a bit of a group grope: The PDO, IPO, AO, AAO, NAO, and AMO all flipped from cool to warm from 1976 – 2001.”
I wish more people would realize that. These cycles have their own periods but as is prone to happen from time to time throughout history, all of this went into their warm phases at roughly the same time. When you have several signals “beating” against each other, you sometimes have cycles where they add together, and sometimes where they cancel.
“Interesting that people who mistrust “government” for almost everything else willingly consume doctored (oh, sorry, “adjusted”) temperature numbers without complaint. Well, as long as said numbers seem to confirm what they believe, anyway.”
People tend to find easy to believe things that validate their own positions. But there are sometimes other reasons. It could be social. Maybe all of your friends or all of the people you “admire” are obviously on one side of the issue. One might take the same side as to “fit in” better and not be ostracized (or even lose their job or funding these days). There is a lot of intimidation at both the professional and social levels these days to “believe”.
Hansen seems to believe that science is a democratic process and whoever convinces the majority of the population becomes the source of “truth”.
So how’s that li’l La Nina, gal, doing down in the Pacifico? She going to make it till Summer?
Anthony, I love the new graph. And now, lulled to sleep by the chanting of a certain poster, I’m off to bed.
Bob Shapiro (13:52:14) :
Wombles?!! Are you referring to Jim Hansen… or Jim Henson?
Drat! No Post-Of-The-Day award!
Smokey (17:25:43): “But now you’re asking for something entirely different: the original data that was used to produce the charts. That’s not the question you originally asked, is it? You’re a game player.”
Ideological enthusiasm is impairing your cognitive abilities, Smokey. Here is foinavon’s original question (15:29:31):
“Where do they come from? Could you link each picture to a scientific paper so that we could see how they are derived? What data is used and how it is assessed and so on.”
So foinavon asked not only for attribution but also for any supporting studies and the data. Therefore, your claim: “That’s not the question you originally asked, is it?” is false.
Man up, admit you are wrong, and apologise for misleading the reader.
rephelan (21:28:03) :
“It is not presenting any new data or clarification of methods.”
It’s a new, detailed analysis of existing data- not sure why that’s an issue?
“It was written specifically to reconcile their earlier publications with the IPCC 2007 report”
Not quite- their earlier work was low resolution look at a very long time period. It wasn’t designed to show recent, short term temperature changes (although some people interpreted it that way). The new study was designed to look at the more recent (and more contentious) small scale changes- like the MWP.
Is there anything wrong with scientists focusing on contentious issues in science? Do you apply the same sort of criticism to other temperature reconstructions (like Loehe’s) that reach opposite conclusions?
“They appear to be claiming that their results are consistent with the instrumental record, which Anthony Watts’ Surface Station Project seems to be showing is badly flawed, and various proxy records which have been criticized in great detail on their own merits (e.g. bristlecone pines).”
I haven’t seen any quantitative analysis showing the temperature reconstructions (eg GISSTEMP) to be “badly flawed”. Perhaps we will have that once Anthony W. does his analysis using only the best stations. But right now the only attempt (that I am aware of) was by John V. over at CA a couple of years ago, and he got the same results as GISSTEMP.
As for the proxy data- yes, there is some controversy. I think the only way to really solve issues like that is to compare different, independent proxies.
I find it strange that you interpret an agreement between two entirely different methods, relying on entirely different physical principles, to be evidence that they both are wrong, rather than they both are right!
“Not a smoking gun.”
Didn’t say it was. It does add weight to one side of the argument though.
Brendan H …Foinavon…the burden of proof is on YOU to show the warming. SHOW IT. SHOW US.
Man up. Show us the money and the evidence. You have yet to do so.
Chris
Norfolk, VA
Show the dang evidence.
Where is it?? Show it.
“foinavon (15:54:23) : Dr. Akasofu is asserting stuff that doesn’t accord with the scientific data.”
I don’t see assertions from Syun Akasofu. He is presenting data. He is not ‘asserting stuff’. He also presents known variability. You claim he does not. You claim he ‘asserting stuff’.
What is the ‘stuff’ you think he is ‘asserting’?
BTW, I have debated people just like you for almost two years. What usually happens when ask this kind of a question is I get answers like “the literature is unanimous in AGW”, “there is a consensus”, “the science of anthropogenic warming is well know”, etc.
Please do not give answers like this as they would not be answering the question I asked.
I want to know the specifics on the ‘stuff’ you see Syun Akasofu presenting and how it is not science.
Chris V. (21:19:47) :
Re “Heat in the Pipeline”
I’ll repeat- there is no heat “hiding” in the ocean, waiting to unleash itself on the atmosphere. Nobody is saying there is.
The ocean is a big heat sink, that absorbs heat very slowly. So some of the energy that would otherwise be warming the atmosphere is going into the ocean.
You don’t have to agree with this idea (if you don’t believe that the specific heat and mixing time for the ocean are much greater than for the atmosphere, then go for it!) but that’s what Hansen et al are referring to when they say there is more “heating in the pipeline”.
—–
OK. ??? So there is a constant level of “heat in the pipeline” – according to Hansen (who would never lie for the sake of his cause or his funding or his power or his influence – nor call for others to lie or destroy things for the sake of his cause.
So, from 1900 until 1940, while CO2 didn’t increase and temperatures increased 3/10 of one degree, all this heat “in the pipeline” went towards heating the atmosphere (and ocean temperatures/levels/currents/etc anything else did not measureably change.)
And, from 1940 until 1972, while CO2 increased steadily and temperatures declined 4/10 of one degree, all this heat “in the pipeline” went towards heating the oceans (and ocean temperatures did not measureably change.)
And, from 1972 until 1998, while CO2 increased steadily and temperatures increased 1/2 of one degree, all this heat “in the pipeline” went towards heating the atmosphere (and ocean temperatures did not measureably change.)
And, from 1998 until 2009, while CO2 increased steadily and temperatures declined 2/10 of one degree, all this heat “in the pipeline” went towards heating the oceans (and ocean temperatures did not measureably change..)
And …..
So – now everybody who has a stake in wanting a part of that three trillion in energy taxes is claiming that – for some reason – all this “heat in the pipeline” is going to “go into the oceans” for the next 20 – 30 years – then (for some unexplained reason) “global warming is coming back with a vengeance” ….. At (just by coincidence of course – because Hansen would never lie or call for anyone to lie or commit crimes in support of his beliefs or change old temperature data that didn’t support his beliefs) just about the same time and the same cyclical pattern that the PDO and AMO and the sun follows, the ole global warming “heat in the pipeline” is going to flip-flop (for some some mysterious reason) and the temperatures and the CO2 are both going to increase.
What pipeline? Where is the pipeline? What is the pipeline? How is it measured? How the energy exchange flip-flopping from one direction to the other – without being able to be measured by anything? Why is the “pipeline” energy exchange flip-flopping? This “pipeline” Hansen believes in is large enough that it is changing the temperatures and water and soil over the entire globe (and Venus, and Mars, and Jupiter, and Saturn, and even Pluto and Charon) – and it is changing direction every 33 years – but it cannot be measured nor defined.
Other than as a “pipeline” that changes direction every 33 years ….. While CO2 either increases, or decreases, or stays the same, Hansen’s ole “pipeline” somehow just keeps on flip-flopping every 33 years.
If the flip-flopping energy exchange IS the PDO and the AMO and the other ocean currents, then why is Hansen worried about CO2 levels – by HIS “measurements” THEY have no measureable effect – except on Hansen’s funding, his travels, his interviews with the media, his influence over government, his power over international policy, his ability to kill innocents from poverty – poor food, endless work, and unaffordable housing, food, water, and medical care.
The only thing I see flip-flopping is the sun – and Hansen doesn’t want to believe the inconvenient truth that the sun is flip-flopping! It would be an inconvenient truth if the sun were flip-flopping every 33 years wouldn’t it? Because, if the sun were flip-flopping every 33 years – or every 950 years – or in any other cyclical pattern it would be an inconvenient interruption in his power, influence, and belief system wouldn’t it?
Devastating. Will it even phase those who wish to control us through manufactured crises? Doubtful.
Personally, I am getting a bit tired of statements like “energy imbalance” or “equilibrium”. Folks, we are talking about weather and climate here, there is NO such thing as an “energy balance” or an “equilibrium”, never has been, never will be! Man, I’m tired of reading such stupidity.
FatBigot (11:19:59) wrote:
“I’m somewhat befuddled by the concept of “recovering” from the Little Ice Age, what on earth does that mean? Are we not dealing with purely physical processes which require a cause as well as an effect? What caused the LIA to end and the earth to warm thereafter? It didn’t just happen by magic.”
Here’s an uneducated guess: If the (unknown) cause of the LIA were removed, then the earth would recover to its normal temperature not instantaneously, but over many centuries, as the oceans gradually warmed and glaciers retreated. The cool oceans would act as a drag on the recovery, IOW.
Anthony
Just a suggestion, but when you update a blog like you have done here, with a new graph, could you include the date & time you did the update in the update message below the new graph. If you did that, it would be possible for readers to go straight to comments that relate to the updated graph, rather than having to sift through all the messages, looking for where the current start. Thanks
foinavon (10:50:33) wrote:
“There isn’t a LIA “linear” recovery trend. It’s difficult to understand why Dr. Akasofu would suggest such an odd notion. Although the temperature record is sparse through the 19th century, the data indicates that the earth had “recovered” from the LIA by the mid 19th century so that the period from 1850 – 1900 was pretty flat temperature-wise.”
See Akasofu’s article on the recovery from the Little Ice Age, here:
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/little_ice_age.php
All I see in the CC debate is obsessive scientists acting like young students to fit curves and lines to dodgy data to match it to the conclusion that they’ve already reached. All I see in the data is variation of temperature over time with or without CO2 and not a shred of evidence anywhere showing that we are at risk of catastrophe due to increasing CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The hockey stick effect that would insupport this would appear to be absolutely discredited now. All I see is ant [snip] of trivia and the gross misinterpretation of the big picture. I am far more impressed by the views of the more independent who show that the AGW theory is nothing more than that, that CO2 may not even be a greenhouse gas or that our understanding of how greenhouse gases work in such a complex environment is very sketchy.
Unfortunately though I realise that the issue is politicised and there will be no changing of minds. I have written to my MP and the response bore that out.
foinavon
You asked me for some cites re the MWP. When you have read those below I have several hundred more over at the thread I ran on Climate audit I can point you to.
I can also walk you through the climate references of the Byzantine empire AD 380 to 1453 and we can go into much more details on the Roman warm period (the western empire of course not the eastern one centred on Constantinople) (with thanks also to Max).
Loehle + McCulloch (2008): “The mean series shows the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) and Little Ice Age (LIA) quite clearly, with the MWP being approximately 0.3°C warmer than 20th century values at these eighteen sites.”
Both Loehle and Moberg show a distinct MWP, followed by a LIA; Moberg shows medieval temperatures “similar” to those of today while Loehle shows these to be slightly higher than today.
On his ClimateAudit site Steve McIntyre has made an interesting comparison of Loehle’s methods and findings with those of Moberg.
http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2403
Soon + Baliunas (2003): “A review of more than 200 climate studies led by researchers at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has determined that the 20th century is neither the warmest century nor the century with the most extreme weather of the past 1000 years. The review also confirmed that the Medieval Warm Period of 800 to 1300 A.D. and the Little Ice Age of 1300 to 1900 A.D. were worldwide phenomena not limited to the European and North American continents. While 20th century temperatures are much higher than in the Little Ice Age period, many parts of the world show the medieval warmth to be greater than that of the 20th century.”
A few other studies showing a MWP warmer than today in various parts of the world:
Bartholy et al. (2004) – Hungary
Blundell + Barber (2005) – Scotland
Chuine et al. (2004) – France
Dahl-Jensen et al. (1998) – Greenland
Esper et al. (2002) – Pakistan, Kirghistan
Fleitman et al. (2004) – Oman
Gray et al. (2004) – North America, Europe Middle East
Holmgren et al. (2001) – South Africa
Hu et al. (2001) – Alaska
Kitagawa and Matsumoto (1998) – Japan
Luckman + Wilson (2005) – Canada
Munroe (2003) – North America
Yadav + Singh (2002) – India
Yang et al. (2002) – China
Zhang et al. (1998) – China
How the climate cooled and hastened the collapse of the Western Roman empire is also interesting. Fancy walking Hanibals route over the Alps with me?
Tonyb
Now I’m schocked!
The initial figures were showing projections of the IPCC from 1990, 1995, 2000 till today. The graphs were showing a quite good agreement between the projections and temperatures (as has been noted). Now what do I see?
The figure has now been changed… The new one is using a projected rate for the 2000-2100 period and magically displaces it to the 1980-2008 period to show that it is not “correct”? What is the point in using a projection for the future to model the past?
REPLY: The original graph is linked right below it. Here is the reason I changed graphs. In the original graph, some people were confusing part B (sea level) with temperature and drawing erroneous conclusions from that instead of following the link and reading about it. You yourself apparently missed it too, referring only to temperature in your posts. – Anthony
Vibenna wrote:
“I think that is the key challenge for climate skeptics – what is the cause of this ‘natural warming trend’. There is a competing causal explanation being offered – to knock it down, you need to offer something with genuinely explanatory and predictive power.”
The earth could just wobble naturally, without being pushed, due to its internal delayed reactions and feedback loops and heat sinks, etc. Along this line, Richard S. Courtney wrote (within the past week in a thread not yet cataloged by Google):
“The climate system is seeking an equilibrium that it never achieves. The Earth obtains radiant energy from the Sun and radiates that energy back to space. The energy input to the system (from the Sun) may be constant (although some doubt that), but the rotation of the Earth and its orbit around the Sun ensure that the energy input/output is never in perfect equilibrium.
“The climate system is an intermediary in the process of returning (most of) the energy to space (some energy is radiated from the Earth’s surface back to space). And the Northern and Southern hemispheres have different coverage by oceans. Therefore, as the year progresses the modulation of the energy input/output of the system varies. Hence, the system is always seeking equilibrium but never achieves it.
“Such a varying system could be expected to exhibit oscillatory behaviour. And, importantly, the length of the oscillations could be harmonic effects which, therefore, have periodicity of several years. Of course, such harmonic oscillation would be a process that – at least in principle – is capable of evaluation.
“However, there may be no process because the climate is a chaotic system. Therefore, the observed oscillations (ENSO, NAO, etc.) could be observation of the system seeking its chaotic attractor(s) in response to its seeking equilibrium in a changing situation.”
Ummm the Huang et al paper ends with the following:-
“The reconstructions show the temperatures of the mid-
Holocene warm period some 1–2 K above the reference
level, the maximum of the MWP at or slightly below the
reference level, the minimum of the LIA about 1 K below
the reference level, and end-of-20th century temperatures
about 0.5 K above the reference level. All of these amplitude
estimates are, as with the timing of these episodes,
generally consistent with amplitudes estimated from other
climate proxies as summarized by Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change [2007].”
So if my tags worked then the bold type indicates the authors believe the MWP was indeed warmer than present.
Paul S. wrote:
“All in all, I think these papers have been chosen to defend a tenable position.”
Didn’t you mean “untenable”?
I’ve replaced it with one from another article of hers that should not generate as many questions. Or will it? 😉 – Anthony
Who’s monkcton? 🙂
in any of these pictures, the match between data and trend depends a lot on the starting point in x (=time) AND y (=temperatures) coordinates.
i would rather just try to find data intervalls where the slope given by the ipcc matches the trend in measured data. the only period that supports this trend was approx. between 1993-2002.
any other and particularly any longer period does not support this high trend.
data after 2002 also strongly refutes the ipcc trend.
(all comments under the (false) assumption, that there is a linear trend, as projected by the ipcc)
John Philip wrote:
“Dr Akasofu has no academic credentials or publications whatsoever in the field of climate science.”
Well, he’s a professor of geophysics, which impinges on climatology (a fledgling science that is too big for its britches and could do with some cross-disciplinary input). His books (and presumably also his papers) deal with the northern lights, the solar wind, the magnetosphere, and the troposphere. (Here’s the Amazon link to his titles: http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1237628312/ref=sr_pg_1?ie=UTF8&rs=1000&sort=relevancerank&unfiltered=1&rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Cp_27%3AAkasofu&page=1 .) So he’s not “off the reservation” the way he would be if he were a microbiologist or something. He’s been dealing with the sky and its layers.
Here’s more about him, from an extract from his home page at http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/
Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, IARC Founding Director and Professor of Physics, Emeritus, was the the director of the International Arctic Research Center of the University of Alaska Fairbanks from its establishment in 1998 until January of 2007. … He has been professor of geophysics since 1964. Dr. Akasofu has published more than 550 professional journal articles, authored and co-authored 10 books and has been the invited author of many encyclopedia articles. …
Dr. Akasofu’s auroral work has earned national and international recognition. … [A long list of awards and honors follows.]
As Director of the Geophysical Institute (1986-1999), Dr. Akasofu concentrated his effort on establishing the institute as a key research center in the Arctic. … Upon his retirement in 2007, the University of Alaska Board of Regents officially named the building that houses the International Arctic Research Center the “Syun-Ichi Akasofu Building” in recognition of “his tireless vision and dedicated service to the university, the state, and country in advancing arctic science.”
Probably been posted. Probably most significant data to kill AGW just hot off the press!Graig Loehle shows the acean buoys were right after all and boosted from more rcent dat OCEANS ARE COOLING since 2003
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/03/the-ocean-really-is-cooling/
Going right back to Akasofu’s subject, he talks about (1) a linear increase in temperature since 1800 and (2) decadal variations overlapping an overall linear increase. I don’t need to project from this picture into the future, to see that it has a good fit from 1800 up to the present. But you need to see his clearest pictures to get interested. So for those who baulk at the pdf, I’ve uploaded two pics:
The trend that first caught Akasofu’s interest
Decadal variations on this trend
Personally I think Akasofu caught an uptick on a long sinusoidal solar curve – but we need the evidence of ALL the known overlapping solar cycles to be more sure of that. What Akasofu does show is that the IPCC science is inadequate. And he does it well, with some of the best science writing I’ve seen. He deserves to be read in the original.
Regarding the hockey stick, here’s Monckton’s long paper describing the shenanigans behind protecting it from criticism and “verifying” it, followed (pages 16-29) by summaries of 21 published papers that provide evidence of warming during the MWP. (Ten papers deal with Europe and the North Atlantic, eleven scientific papers address the period elsewhere on the planet.) Each summary occupies about half a page and contains a graph that illustrates key data points.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monckton/what_hockey_stick.html
Why do the predictions start about 0.15deg.C below the actual measured temperature for 1980. If they commenced from +0.41deg.C (the 1980 anomoly) rather than the apparently arbitrary +0.26deg.C, then the disparity between the predicted and the measured anomolies would be much larger.
AGW is officialy over since 2003
Craig Loehle has analysed the data from only the profiling floats for ocean heat content from 2003 to 2008. In a paper recently published in the journal Energy and Environment he has concluded that there has been ocean cooling over this period.
timetochooseagain (18:21:56),
Thanks for that link, which seems to put to rest the question of hidden “heat in the pipeline”.
Brendan H (22:08:52)
This is probably what you would call an “unattributed picture”: click, because there is no explanation. But the source in the address bar shows where it came from.
However, when a chart has written in the corner: “Chart prepared by Climatologist Cliff Harris & Meteorologist Randy Mann”, then I assume someone [foinavon in this case] is deliberately running interference by saying “those are just unattributed pictures.”
It’s easy to find out where the charts came from. Demanding that someone else must jump through an endless series of hoops, when they could do the search themselves, is an obstructing tactic. They are not interested in knowledge, but rather in sidetracking the debate.
Same situation with “Could you link each picture to a scientific paper so that we could see how they are derived? What data is used and how it is assessed and so on.” That is unreasonable, since the questioner has the resources and can find out for himself. And no doubt if those questions were answered, there would be still more questions.
That’s the problem with some folks: they never answer the questions put to them by others, they just answer a question with another question. Their tactic is to ask endless follow-up questions in an attempt to avoid the obvious conclusion. For instance, I’m still waiting for an answer to the hidden heat [although an actual climate scientist has answered that question in the link @18:21:56.]
There is a lot of genuine skepticism over the constant assertions made regarding tipping points, heat in the pipeline, runaway global warming, etc., etc.
If the believers in these alarming situations would simply answer straightforward questions, it would be a big help in getting to the truth of the matter. But some folks would rather obstruct the debate than find answers, I suspect because the answers would be uncomfortable. Thus their deliberately obstructionist tactics.
Hmm. Well that’s replaced the graphs with one that looks more comfortable if you’re that way inclined, but that’s a bit naughty. The new graph is mostly a comparison of an old – nearly twenty years old – IPCC prediction with Hadley’s temperature record isn’t it? ie he’s specifically chosen the two most ‘extreme’ to make a point?
The AR4 simulations match temperature quite well, which they should since they were run in 2007, but what are they doing on the graph?
Somewhat OT, and probably a dumb question…but I’ll ask it anyway.
When I make ice cubes…the measured volume of the frozen water is larger than the unfrozen water. Same thing happens when I freeze gallon jugs of water to place in a cooler for a long trip. Always have to dump a little out to make room for the expansion when it changes state.
It is consistantly pointed out here that when oceans cool, they contract, and sea levels drop. So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands? 🙂
JimB
softestpawn,
The new graph replaced the old graph because of some complaints about the old graph. Now there are complaints about the new graph. Is there a graph that would keep everyone happy?
I wonder what happened to Mary Hinge? I thought that she would be jumping in here for sure…
JimB (03:36:38) : So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands? 🙂
Yes. At about 4C water is at it’s most dense. Either direction from there it expands. It expands a lot as ice.
Yes, too, this is a fairly odd behaviour. Were it not for this behaviour, rather than the deep oceans and lakes being a livable 4c (for fish at least…) they would be frozen blocks of ice at 0 C or less.
“This situation is very similar to the multi-decadal temperature decrease from 1940 to 1975 … it was predicted at that time that a new Big Ice Age was on its way.”
Too bad, that they started their predictions too late in the cycle. They learned their lesson, however, and when the next thirty-year cycle was underway they hit the prediction business HARD. Global Warming has been all the rage since about 1988. Now that the more recent thirty year warming is over what will they do? The change of terminology to Climate Change or Climate Chaos was too late since they are still trying to save a “warming” that is demonstrably NOT happening. Maybe they will change the computer forecasts but then say that even modest warming will be catastrophic, or perhaps, that the warming caused the cooling and that some very good computer models predicted an impending ice age all along… why didn’t we heed their warning?
What a tangled web…
David–
On that particular graph, I just added the slope of the IPCC curves and the to compare to what Monckton did.
But, generally speaking, when you fit a regression, you often solve for both a slope and intercept. The intercept doesn’t force the line through the single data point at the very beginning– it minimizes the rms of errors. The line just doesn’t go through the measured value in 1980.
JimB (03:36:38) :
It is consistantly pointed out here that when oceans cool, they contract, and sea levels drop. So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands? 🙂
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water
“The maximum density of water is at 3.98 °C (39.16 °F).[9] Water becomes even less dense upon freezing, expanding 9%. This causes an unusual phenomenon: ice floats upon water, and so water organisms can live inside a partly frozen pond because the water on the bottom has a temperature of around 4 °C (39 °F).”
At 4C (3.98) water can coexist with ice, the magic point. At 0C it freezes solidly.
JimB
The magic point is +4 deg C for fresh water and close to +3 C for sea water I think. When it gets colder it expands again.
I thought there was no such thing as global average temperature?
Chris V-regardless of the soundness of the concept of heating in the pipeline, the newest OHC data shows no increase of late. If heat is building up, then somehow its been totally missed. The alternative is that something ate it (aerosols? Solar? Dunno). But as of right now, I stick with RP Sr. At present, there is no heating in the pipeline. Also, don’t think I’ve conceeded the point on that proxy paper just yet. I’m soliciting comments as we ramble on. 🙂
CodeTech (20:44:39) :
“Wikipedia is NOT a credible source for anything, but especially not AGW information. This is because AGW entries are heavily censored by an individual who admits (and is proud) to having an agenda.”
OT example of above: Movie Soylent Green described as a dystopian science fiction movie depicting a future in which global warming and overpopulation lead to depleted resources on Earth.
Book published in 1966 and movie made in 1973 pre-dated AGW scare and contemporary reviews didn’t mention global warming.
JimB
Yes as the water changes states from liquid to a crystalline solid it expands. Additionally it adsorbs more heat to make the state change.
Sorry. Proper link to Soylent Green
Could anyone explain to me, how is the positive feedback of water vapor and clouds increasing heat content of oceans when temperatures are actually falling?
The AGW theory explains that the increase of CO2 increases the global temperature that then results in more water vapor, a greenhouse gas that accelerates the warming. But measurements show that the temperatures go down. How do the climate models take falling temperatures into account?
oops, +3C is wrong, check here:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2odenscalc.html
Odd decision by the science blog of the year – to pull a graph published in a respected academic journal, in favour of one self-published by the reliably entertaining Christopher Monckton on the grounds that it ’caused confusion’. To quote lucia …
Do I think Monckton’s graph is a fair representation of the IPCC trends and their uncertainties? Nope.
Very odd.
REPLY: John, you yourself complained about the first one, citing “There is indeed an odd disconnect between the text and the graphics used as illustration. “. In the original graph, some people were confusing part B (sea level) with temperature and drawing erroneous conclusions from that instead of following the link and reading. I noticed even you did not pick up on that.
The real issue is that you simply don’t like anything on this blog, and you exist here only to criticize. Well no more, you can’t have it both ways. – Anthony
Robert A Cook PE: “The only thing I see flip-flopping is the sun – and Hansen doesn’t want to believe the inconvenient truth that the sun is flip-flopping! It would be an inconvenient truth if the sun were flip-flopping every 33 years wouldn’t it? Because, if the sun were flip-flopping every 33 years – or every 950 years – or in any other cyclical pattern it would be an inconvenient interruption in his power, influence, and belief system wouldn’t it?”
Believe or not HE DOES: See
SOLAR-PLANETARY-CLIMATE STRESS, EARTHQUAKES AND
VOLCANISM
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19900066907_1990066907
Robert Cook, Here is the link:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19900066907_1990066907.pdf
JimB (03:36:38)
Cooled fresh water contracts until it reaches 4C and then it starts to expand until it reaches 0C at which point it freezes. This change of phase is accompanied by about 10% increase in volume. Consequently ice floats on water.
Salt water have a different freezing temperature (~ -2C for oceans) and behaves differently (subject to salinity)
I took a closer look at the Central England Temperature (CET) records. Clearly the English climate does not reflect the world but it does have some interesting features. For instance the heating rate for the last thirty years is 4.7°C/century which is of course much higher than any of the global anomaly reconstructions. I calculated the temperature anomaly in the data for all 350 years and subtracted off the long term warming trend of 0.26°C/century. Looking at the rates of change in temperature as well as the deviation from the long term trend line it showed that todays (last 30 years) rapid rise in temperature is no big deal compared to history of the record and the deviation from the baseline was higher in the early 1700s than today. Something that also showed up in my analysis than I cannot explain is that the monthly deviations for minimum temperature as been greatly reduced in recent years. The maximum deviations have remained fairly constant but the minimums have gone from around -5°C to around -3°C. The minimum temperatures in the deviation analysis data also occurred in the mid to late 1800s. If that held for the global records the data of 1850 for the GISS records may have just started during a cold time and not reflect a true long term trend.
See http://web.me.com/wally/Site/Wallys_Climate_Blog/Entries/2009/3/19_Central_English_Temperatures.html or click my name for details.
JimB
It is consistantly pointed out here that when oceans cool, they contract, and sea levels drop. So does this mean that as the temp drops, the water contracts, until at some magic point, just before it solidifies, it expands? 🙂
—
Yes, that is what happens. Without that small expansion immediately at freezing, water would still turn to ice – but settle at the bottom of ponds and freshwater lakes. Since the top surface is then constantly exposed to the sub-freezing temperatures of the air, it (the top surface) would subsequent;y freeze and settle out. Eventually, the whole pond/lake/river would freeze solid, killing all fish and any animals in the water.
Since mammals and amphibians are said to be descended from fish, the prospects of much life higher than microbes would be diminished considerably – at least on most areas of this planet.
Smokey:
“If the believers in these alarming situations would simply answer straightforward questions, it would be a big help in getting to the truth of the matter. But some folks would rather obstruct the debate than find answers, I suspect because the answers would be uncomfortable. Thus their deliberately obstructionist tactics.”
I believe this is due to several reasons. Many of my friends who are very liberal, when really pinned to the wall with facts, will ultimately state that the actually don’t care if a) the earth is warming, and b) if that warming is caused by humankind. They fully support the “fight”, because it advances and supports many other things that they believe are “good”. Many of them know that there is no real science to back up the claims. They understand now that the predictions are nothing but a constantly moving target, and they themselves have adopted this same tactic. When pressed on ice sheets, they quickly move to sea level, when pushed on sea level they quickly move to rain forests, and on and on.
That’s why fighting this with rational discussion based on factual science is completely ineffective. There’s simply so much other crap piled onto this discussion, and there are so many things in here for ALL of them, it’s really created a new phenomenon….”Green Pork”. Forget about a bridge to nowhere…come up with a project, and if you can wrap it in green, it’s a sure bet.
JimB
Can someone explain why it is meaningful to compare the IPCC’s estimates of future trends from AR4 to past trends tarting from 1980 to the present?
What is this comparison supposed to show? It is not obvious to me.
VG (01:54:15) :
Probably been posted. Probably most significant data to kill AGW just hot off the press!Graig Loehle shows the acean buoys were right after all and boosted from more rcent dat OCEANS ARE COOLING since 2003
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2009/03/the-ocean-really-is-cooling/
————
Does this unify both sides of the “pipeline” debate on this thread ??
The heat has been coming out of the “pipeline” since 2003 and, not surprisingly given its source, has been a damp squib !!
…… or is there another secret “pipeline”?
Is there a graph that would keep everyone happy? Fortunately no.
How else will we continue to debate and to gain insight.
Off Topic and anecdotal I know but……. Closest major town, Hull England.
We have had ponds in our garden for 24 years and this year is the lastest we can remember that our frogs have spawned; that is today 21st. March. Previous years it has been late February early March but we haven’t kept detailed records; we never thought we might need them, wish we had now though.
Because we regularly have to rescue frogs from the jaws or paws of local cats we were beginning to think that we had a CATastrophe on our hands (pun intended).
“The AGW theory explains that the increase of CO2 increases the global temperature that then results in more water vapor, a greenhouse gas that accelerates the warming. But measurements show that the temperatures go down. How do the climate models take falling temperatures into account?”
This is the point of one of my questions earlier. If warming increases water vapor, when the winter season comes, snow increases. When snow increases, solar energy is reflected. Tada! Cooling. Seems like a natural mechanism to me. Again, I will stress that I have no scientific training, being a business major, but that is what I like to call layman’s logic. Question is, does it work?
Rats, posted too early. We had 21 days of below average temperature in Ohio. Some of this was well below average, especially with wind chill taken into account. Coldest winter we’ve had in a while.