Guest Post by Steven Goddard
From time to time we hear that various places on earth have been “warming much faster than the rest of the planet – as predicted by “the models.” One of the places commonly mentioned in that list is the Arctic, based largely on 30 years of satellite data. Fortunately though, we are not limited by 30 years of satellite data, as the Danish Meteorological Institute has records going back to 1958 and GISSTEMP has even longer records.
Below is a visual comparison of DMI 1958 Arctic temperatures vs. 2009, showing that temperatures have hardly changed since the start of their record.
2009 Daily Mean Temperatures North of 80 degrees
Below is an overlay directly showing that 2009 temperatures (green) are similar to 1958 (red) and close to the mean. Blue is mean temperature for the 41 year record.
So if the Arctic has warmed since 1979, how can it be the about same as 1958? The answer can be seen in the GISSTEMP graph below of Godthab, Greenland.
Temperatures have warmed since the start of the satellite record, but they cooled even more between 1940 and 1980.
Everyone (including NSIDC) quietly acknowledges that most of the Arctic was warmer in the 1940s than now – so they shift the warming argument to the Alaska side. However, that argument also has problems. Alaska temperatures rose at the positive PDO shift in 1977, and have cooled again with the recent negative PDO shift – as seen below. 2008 was notable in that Alaska glaciers started to increase in size.
If you look at only one leg of a cycle, you will come to the wrong conclusion about the shape of the graph. Thus I would argue that Dr. Spencer’s fourth order curves are much more meaningful than the nearly meaningless linear fits being used by most prominent climate scientists. Climate is primarily cyclical, as every good climate scientist should know.
Vostok Ice Core Temperature Records
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storky,
I’m guessing that the freezing point of water has changed since 1790, but I haven’t submitted that controversial idea for peer-review yet. The Delaware outside Philadelphia was frozen solid in January, 2009.
storky (14:49:47) :
Your little reference has been shown to be anything but independant and is plainly fraudulent.
I invite you to read the story behind this whole Ammann vs McIntyre. It does not pass the smell test…. and no, circular peer-reviewed papers don’t count.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/11/caspar-and-the-jesus-paper.html
KBK (11:22:27):
Temperature is an intensive property of bodies, indicating their internal energy. So when you say that both system input and output is temperature, the question arises of what and where and maintained by what power source? Any rigorous approach to climate as a planetary system can only have the solar power source as input–rather than some unspecified temperature– and radiated power into space as output. Everything else, including all capacitance (storage) effects with their attendant delays is just internal internal redistribution of energy within the system. So, where’s the feedback?
Let’s not pursue this OT topic too far.
storky:
That link is [snip]. The claim that MBH is valid was written by none other than the odious Caspar Amman — hardly an unbiased source.
Amman comes across as a thoroughly disreputable person, as Ray makes clear in his link: click
Those who haven’t yet read Bishop Hill’s “Caspar and the Jesus Paper” are in for a treat. Storky should read it, too. Can’t hurt. Might help.
[And for those interested in another view: click]
[snip]
Reply: Try again. Be respectful or post elsewhere. Other posts may simply be deleted with no notice. ~ charles the moderator
Poor storky. He tires of “anti-AGW articles that fail to gather their own data, perform their own analysis…” etc.
Well, here is the Wegman Report To Congress, in which Prof. Wegman et al. provide plenty of data and perform their own analyses: click
Prof. Wegman shows conclusively that the climate peer review process is rigged. The deck is stacked. The fix is in. Don’t think so? Read the report.
Calling those who don’t share storky’s views “spoiled-sport cry-babies” shows how little confidence he has in his position.
As the line graph of NH ice extent gets further from the 1979-2000 average,
The ice representation of NH extent increasingly fills the 1979-2000 median marked with the orange line.
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/daily.html
Moderator,
You stripped my entire post? There were clearly no curses, harsh or crass language. Others receive surgical snips of offensive words. What was so offensive that it merited the removal of my entire post?
Reply: Tone, and I didn’t feel like an editorial rewrite. I’m not going to get into a back and forth on this.~ charles the moderator
Prof. Wegman shows conclusively that the climate peer review process is rigged. The deck is stacked. The fix is in.
Now you’re reduced to conspiracy. I’d forgotten how effective a method that is in proving hypotheses.
@ur momisugly John S. (17:27:03)
“Temperature is an intensive property of bodies, indicating their internal energy. So when you say that both system input and output is temperature, the question arises of what and where and maintained by what power source?”
We have already agreed that the sun is the energy source. You can choose the temperature of the troposphere or the upper ocean, your choice.
“Any rigorous approach to climate as a planetary system can only have the solar power source as input–rather than some unspecified temperature– and radiated power into space as output. Everything else, including all capacitance (storage) effects with their attendant delays is just internal internal redistribution of energy within the system.”
So, by this point of view, the temperature of the troposphere is coming to equilibrium. Except it’s not.
“So, where’s the feedback?”
I gave you two examples. The system is non-linear because of the delays. The feedback is nearly 100%, but the system in the box is continuously evolving. Some oscillations of the output are repeated in time, some are not. The insolation changes somewhat with time, also. The unanswered question is whether change in insolation is the primary driver of long-term climate, or whether other effects, e.g. albedo changes due to outside causes, dominate.
KBK (9:13:56)
Redistribution of energy within the system need not come to steady-state equilibrium and I never implied anything resembling the straw-man arguments you’re now putting up. Yes, small changes in one internal variable may lead to big changes in another (stores of energy may discharge), but energy is conserved in one form or another until it is eventually radiated into space. The fundamental issue is where the power is coming from to maintain energy levels in all operations and where it’s going. Power cannot be reused or amplified; it needs to be generated.
From statements such as “the system is non-linear, because of the delays” and the obscure “the feedback is nearly 100%” it’s evident that rigorous system analysis is not your field. After taking pains to explain some basics, I leave you to your own devices. Have a good weekend.
That does it. I’m reporting you to the Global Warming Police. The science is in. I don’t care if Florida ends up covered by an ice sheet, there is human caused global warming and you are going to jail for denying it.
@ur momisugly John S. (11:10:46)
“After taking pains to explain some basics, I leave you to your own devices. Have a good weekend.”
Thank you for your patience and courtesy.
Silly Moose, temperatures haven’t gone down it’s just that the heat has been in hiding. Temperatures will rise once more upon his return to the Temple.
This posted on CA 14th May….
May 14th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
“William Chapman replied to my email about the recent lack of updates at Cryosphere Today. Apparently a server upgrade broke their graphing software. They expect to have it fixed within the week. Then I’ll have to interpolate all the missing data. Groan.”
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.jpg
This happened before.. so it wasn’t the satellite after all……..I won’t say anything about what will happen now but you can guess. All records of changes are now been kept here for posterity..
http://mikelm.blogspot.com/2007/09/left-image-was-downloaded-from.html
Thanks to Steven for this post, and to Peter Taylor for his expert analysis.
Global warming propaganda has clearly reached to point of critical mess.
Last night (28/7/09) a BBC news programme posited that the glaciers on Greenland are melting with alarming rapidity and it was all a result of ‘Man-made Global Warming’. The interviewer on the programme asked local Inuit people what they thought about it. The response was portrayed as very positive as they can now grow salads and vegetables unheard of a few years ago. Is this a true representation of how things are? Where is the evidence that their new-found market garden skills are the result of something ‘manmade’? Of, course it might just have some teensy-weensy something to do with the Sun. As for ‘Global Warming’ in the UK….we have yet another typical ‘English’ summer. One or two warm days interspersed with many torrential downpours. The weather (apart from notable exceptions, ie 1976) continues in the same dreary way. Much the same as I remember as a kid, and I’m now 62. Where is this ‘global warming’ as far a Britain is concerned? Ah, now don’t tell me. Let me guess. They’re going to tell us that the UK is special in this regard. They’re going to tell us that the UK is Eden after all, when the rest of the planet has gone to buggery.
We were led to believe in the UK that we would have a ‘Barbecue summer’ this year. I type this as the rain pitter-patters against my window on 28/7/09. Just what computer models does the Meteorolical Office use? The same as those used to predict global temperatures 80 years hence? Enough said. It is time to inject some reality and more importantly inject some cash into double blind research about so-called ‘climate change. Call me a cynic, but as long as scientific research follows the money, we’re never going to get a true picture. I call for all governments to fund blindly, independent research which is not looking over its shoulder for finance for the next project to examine so-called ‘Man-made global warming’. It is worth doing. If such research results should show that it is our fault, then we have to do something. If such results would show that other factors come into play and that politics is a prime factor, then we have to do something.
In the UK weather forecasting is something closely associated with the ‘black arts’. It is not science, though some would wish it were. Weather computer models repeatedly fail to deliver true forecasts. It would be interesting and enlightening to know whether (excuse the pun) other countries’ forecasters are any more accurate. (A research project there for someone?).
Meanwhile, some people called climatologists claim to have a greater insight into the workings of much wider (global) weather patterns. How is this? Climatology, like weather forecasting, is at best a ‘black science’. People are making what they think are inspired guesses about the future of our planet based on flawed computer models. The truth is: nobody ‘knows’. I call again for double blind research. It’s the only likely way we are going to get any where near the truth in investigating ‘climate change’.
Tony Surfleet
The data , when carefully analysed, show instead a strong (but nonlinear) warming pattern:
1) In the first graph (1958 vs 2009) is evident that 2009 was hotter than 1958 : the 2009 graph is almost always over the median temperature line , the 1958 one instead fluctuates above and below that line.
2)In the second graph there is the result of JUST ONE STATION, NOT THE WHOLE ARCTIC. If you want compare temperatures, you MUST use the median of the whole arctic. If you had such a graphic, you will find:
a) Fast warming between 1890 and 1950
b) Fast cooling between 1950 and 1970 ( after the post-war economic boom, that liberated huge quantities of cooling sulfate aerosols)
c) Fast warming between 1970 and 1990 (after the sulfate emissions reductions in Europe to prevent smog and acid rain)
d) Explosive warming between 1990 and 2009 ( after the collapse of Soviet Agriculture System that lead to massive agricultural fires every spring to clear land , emmitting huge amounts of black carbon. Also , from 2005 began the “arctic amplification” feedback loop )
3) Finally, in the last graphic it is not shown the modern ( last 200 years , almost vertical) spike in CO2 concentrations, equal to the diference between glaciar and interglaciar periods. In the last 2 million years, C02 was never above 300 ppm. Now we are near 400 ppm.