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.
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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.