Note: Above graph comes from this source and not the paper below. Only the abstract is available. (Note from 2016: The link to the graph died, the image was recovered from the Wayback Machine and an edit made to restore it on Oct 31, 2016)
A new peer-reviewed climate study is presenting a head on challenge to man-made global warming claims. The study by three climate researchers appears in the July 23, 2009 edition of Journal of Geophysical Research. (Link to Abstract)
Full Press Release and Abstract to Study:
July 23, 2009
Three Australasian researchers have shown that natural forces are the dominant influence on climate, in a study just published in the highly-regarded Journal of Geophysical Research. According to this study little or none of the late 20th century global warming and cooling can be attributed to human activity.
The research, by Chris de Freitas, a climate scientist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, John McLean (Melbourne) and Bob Carter (James Cook University), finds that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a key indicator of global atmospheric temperatures seven months later. As an additional influence, intermittent volcanic activity injects cooling aerosols into the atmosphere and produces significant cooling.
“The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely” says corresponding author de Freitas.
“We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis.”
Climate researchers have long been aware that ENSO events influence global temperature, for example causing a high temperature spike in 1998 and a subsequent fall as conditions moved to La Niña. It is also well known that volcanic activity has a cooling influence, and as is well documented by the effects of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption.
The new paper draws these two strands of climate control together and shows, by demonstrating a strong relationship between the Southern Oscillation and lower-atmospheric temperature, that ENSO has been a major temperature influence since continuous measurement of lower-atmospheric temperature first began in 1958.
According to the three researchers, ENSO-related warming during El Niño conditions is caused by a stronger Hadley Cell circulation moving warm tropical air into the mid-latitudes. During La Niña conditions the Pacific Ocean is cooler and the Walker circulation, west to east in the upper atmosphere along the equator, dominates.
“When climate models failed to retrospectively produce the temperatures since 1950 the modellers added some estimated influences of carbon dioxide to make up the shortfall,” says McLean.
“The IPCC acknowledges in its 4th Assessment Report that ENSO conditions cannot be predicted more than about 12 months ahead, so the output of climate models that could not predict ENSO conditions were being compared to temperatures during a period that was dominated by those influences. It’s no wonder that model outputs have been so inaccurate, and it is clear that future modelling must incorporate the ENSO effect if it is to be meaningful.”
Bob Carter, one of four scientists who has recently questioned the justification for the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, says that this paper has significant consequences for public climate policy.
“The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions. The available data indicate that future global temperatures will continue to change primarily in response to ENSO cycling, volcanic activity and solar changes.”
“Our paper confirms what many scientists already know: which is that no scientific justification exists for emissions regulation, and that, irrespective of the severity of the cuts proposed, ETS (emission trading scheme) will exert no measurable effect on future climate.”
—
McLean, J. D., C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter (2009), Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature, Journal of Geophysical Research, 114, D14104, doi:10.1029/2008JD011637.
This figure from the McLean et al (2009) research shows that mean monthly global temperature (MSU GTTA) corresponds in general terms with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) of seven months earlier. The SOI is a rough indicator of general atmospheric circulation and thus global climate change. The possible influence of the Rabaul volcanic eruption is shown.
Excerpted Abstract of the Paper appearing in the Journal of Geophysical Research:
Time series for the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and global tropospheric temperature anomalies (GTTA) are compared for the 1958−2008 period. GTTA are represented by data from satellite microwave sensing units (MSU) for the period 1980–2008 and from radiosondes (RATPAC) for 1958–2008. After the removal from the data set of short periods of temperature perturbation that relate to near-equator volcanic eruption, we use derivatives to document the presence of a 5- to 7-month delayed close relationship between SOI and GTTA. Change in SOI accounts for 72% of the variance in GTTA for the 29-year-long MSU record and 68% of the variance in GTTA for the longer 50-year RATPAC record. Because El Niño−Southern Oscillation is known to exercise a particularly strong influence in the tropics, we also compared the SOI with tropical temperature anomalies between 20°S and 20°N. The results showed that SOI accounted for 81% of the variance in tropospheric temperature anomalies in the tropics. Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling. That mean global tropospheric temperature has for the last 50 years fallen and risen in close accord with the SOI of 5–7 months earlier shows the potential of natural forcing mechanisms to account for most of the temperature variation.
Received 16 December 2008; accepted 14 May 2009; published 23 July 2009.
UPDATE: Kenneth Trenberth of NCAR has posted a rebuttal to this paper. Which you can read here:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/Trenberth/trenberth.papers/FosteretalJGR09.pdf
Thanks to WUWT reader “Bob” for the email notice. – Anthony
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This is just great Three Australasian researchers have shown that natural forces are the dominant influence on climate
So we, anthropoids (if “anthropogenic”) are not natural?
“This will have an effect. This is scientific research, not an opinion,” de Freitas said.
“There will be people who will be forced to correct me, no doubt, but that is what science is all about it’s all about robust debate.”
from
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/2669207/Climate-change-down-to-nature
Basil says:
But that is not the claim being made. Let me repeat what Tamino has said:
Nobody is debating whether or not there is a strong correlation between the temperature variability and ENSO; that there is one is well-known (and it is a small but not insignificant contribution that the authors have made her by quantifying it and the time lag associated with it). However, their implication that their analysis in any way addresses the question of whether ENSO is responsible for any significant amount of the multidecadal trend is completely without foundation. Their method is simply not capable of addressing such a question.
Tamino’s criticism is just the usual strawman-data torture technique he always uses.
Tropics temperature fell by 1.3C between 1878 and 1890. I wonder what caused the -1.0C per decade trend – just 50 more years of that and the ice age would have been back?
It is silly to argue that the ENSO affects temperatures but then it has no affect on the temperature trend. That is obvious enough it shouldn’t even be an issue.
This is the graph FAO uses to forecasts temperatures and fish catches all over the world:
click
By the way, I’m not even saying that good refereeing should have completely blocked this paper. I think that perhaps a version of the paper that did not contain any unsupportable statements in regards to the implication on the multidecadal trends would be reasonable. (Since I am not an expert in the field, I don’t feel qualified to judge if there is enough new here to warrant publication or not, but I think there could be.)
And, of course, much worse is the fact that the authors of this paper have gone much further than the paper does in making such unsupportable statements in their press release and that the paper is being picked up here (and presumably elsewhere in the blogosphere) as providing evidence for a point-of-view that it actually provides no evidence for whatsoever. (Just look at the title of this post and the first sentence for examples of this.)
Re: Jakers (12:01:39)
Thanks for the link.
Someone professing time series expertise posted the following nonsense:
“The processings they apply […] extremely predisposed to correlate any two time series, regardless of content.“
This is in a context of liberally-scattered charges of “denyosphere”, etc.
One might ask, “Is it distortion? Or idiocy?” and receive the answer, “If it is distortion, it is only fooling idiots.”
Joel Shore (12:57:14),
Speaking of unsupportable statements…
You should quit worrying about the mote in these authors’ eyes, and pay more attention to the beam in your own eye.
By the way, when are you going to write an article? Or is taking endless pot shots at everyone else more your style?
Do ENSO events really affect global temperature? Or do they just shift heat around so that it ends up in places where it gets noticed? I don’t see ENSO events adding or removing energy from the system.
It shifts the heat from the oceans to the atmosphere where it gets noticed. You are correct it doesn’t add heat to the system. However it does remove heat as the only route out of the system for ocean heat is via the atmosphere.
So the atmospheric warming since the 1970s was in fact cooling of the Earth’s climate system, and likely explains the recent atmospheric cooling as less heat is released from the cooler oceans, because less heat is available for release (which of course may be a cyclic phenomena).
I really wish the so called climate scientists would admit that atmospheric temperatures tell us nothing about whether the climate is warming or cooling, unless we know how much heat is being transferred from the oceans (note that very little heat gets transferred to the oceans from the atmosphere).
Bill Illis says:
It is not silly at all. If the ENSO effect on temperature is simply through a transfer of heat between the oceans and atmosphere, it would be expected to affect the fluctuations over the short term but not the long term trend (at least significantly). If there is some effect on clouds then there might CONCEIVABLY be some effect on trends due to a change in the average ENSO index although their work does nothing to demonstrate that this is the case or to quantify how large the effect could be.
Tamino makes a good point.
However, looking at Anthony’s chart above, if the ENSO index from 1955 – 1975 was primarily negative, but from 1975 on it was primarily positive, wouldn’t global temps have to creep up to a new “equalibrium” of sorts? And assuming a lag wouldn’t it show up as a slow trend?
The ENSO affects the temperature trend for all timescales less than about 100 years.
The ENSO has a +/- 0.2C effect on Global temperatures and nearly a +/- 0.6C impact on the Tropics-only temperatures.
When the temperature anomaly itself is only +/- 0.5C, and the trend over 100 years is only 0.5C, how could it not affect the trend (especially in the tropics).
Just one Super El Nino near the end of a 50 year otherwise completely flat temperature trend will take that trend per decade from 0.00C per decade to 0.03C per decade.
Has the cooler waters of the Northern Indian Ocean resulting from the Asian Brown Haze, discovered by INDOEX 1999 any effect on the Pacific event ENSO?
Antonio San (23:34:58) : Do you have any free links to papers to back up your assertion that Walker cells have been proven not to exist?
I’ve just taken a look at the Tamino thread. The fuss being made about trends is aimed at people with a weak statistics background, so I am left with the impression that his main objection is with the wording of interpretations.
When I look at a paper, I look for the substance. (Any politics is there for administrative/funding reasons.) I agree with Tamino that with respect to the substance of the paper, there is not really anything new; however, judging by the reaction, this paper is important in highlighting the potential for misunderstanding of statistical argument (regardless of one’s perspective).
Papers like this drive us all towards better awareness.
One of Tamino’s notes reinforced my sense that there are very, very few people with a good conceptual understanding of time-integrated cross-correlation analysis.
Jeff Alberts (22:33:51) :
“Do ENSO events really affect global temperature? Or do they just shift heat around so that it ends up in places where it gets noticed? I don’t see ENSO events adding or removing energy from the system.”
Energy sitting in the ocean is more likely to reradiate back to space before reaching land than energy thats being moved around more by currents and winds. Also, the thickness of the atmosphere is a factor: an atmosphere swollen up from a solar maximum and high solar winds, lots of geomagnetic flux, etc is a thicker sandwich to push heat through to radiate to space than one that is compacted from solar minimum/low solar wind conditions and whose boundary to space is much lower and cooler. A thick atmosphere needs cyclonic conditions to force a lot of heat into the stratosphere, whereas a thin atmo just needs cloudless skies at night to radiate, and cloudy skies in the day to reflect more sunlight.
The heat that melted the arctic in 2006-07 was the same heat sitting in the tropics in 2005 creating hurricanes like Katrina, a pool of energy that dated back to the 1998 El Nino that enabled the atlantic warming part of the NAO. Now that heat has radiated to space in 2008-09, it was a big heat pulse that went through the earth’s climate and is now gone, and is why the ACE is now incredibly low.
The surge in global temperatures since 1977 coincides with a surge in high solar maxima since then.
He’s spent a considerable amount of time trying to prove that the Sun is the only factor in global temperature trends, so how come Anthony Watts is promoting this paper which directly contradicts his own hypotheses?
Joel Shore
“If the ENSO effect on temperature is simply through a transfer of heat between the oceans and atmosphere, it would be expected to affect the fluctuations over the short term but not the long term trend (at least significantly).”
Why?
Please explain your assumptions because it looks to me like you have to cherry pick dates to make it all come out even. And that’s a huge problem for warmists. If they have to cherry pick the time periods over which they show their magic trend, they’ve already lost the argument. Why are warmers so sure this natural oceanic fluctuation can have no trend of its own?
I left this comment on the Tamino site. It was cut.
Jim // July 24, 2009 at 10:06 pm | Reply
We don’t have any temperature data set that goes back far enough in time and is accurate enough to determine a trend. We have satellite data that holds out hope of finding a trend, but the record isn’t long enough. If you are trying to account for a trend, you first have to demonstrate it exists.
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
Basil (07:03:25)
What they have done is what you once called seasonal differencing. It turns a trend into a constant. But the point, which Tamino made, is that a constant does not affect a correlation (while a trend does). So correlating two differenced series can’t detect whether they originally had different trends.
Here’s a simplified example. Suppose ENSO effect on temp was a sinusoid, period 4 years, amplitude o.2C, and suppose the global temp was exactly the sum of ENSO and a trend of 0.02C/yr. The correlation coefficient is basically a measure of how well you can predict a change in one series given the change in the other. If you try to predict temp next year, youll get a good answer based on ENSO and ignoring the trend. You’ll get a bad answer using the trend but ignoring ENSO. So already, ENSO swamps the trend in contributing to the correlation coefficient. So finding that ENSO is a good predictor (“explains the variance”) doesn’t disprove a trend.
But, if you difference, you still get a sinusoid for ENSO, but the trend becomes a constant. ENSO change is now a perfect predictor of temperature change for the differenced data. There could have been a huge temperature trend, but this analysis won’t find it. You don’t affect the correlation between two data sets by adding a constant to one of them.
Paul Vaughan (11:17:15) This covers your point too.
Nick Stokes (17:13:19) :
”
Basil (07:03:25)
What they have done is what you once called seasonal differencing. It turns a trend into a constant. But the point, which Tamino made, is that a constant does not affect a correlation (while a trend does). So correlating two differenced series can’t detect whether they originally had different trends.”
From the WUWT article and what you guys are saying, tt appears what they have done accounts for the cause of variation in temperature. I don’t have a copy of the article, but I get the idea from the summary that they didn’t intend to find the trend in the first place. It looks like they overstepped the bounds of the paper by saying there was no room for warming from CO2 or that there was no need of regulation of CO2 – although I don’t believe there is a need for that. It just isn’t proved by their one paper.
I posted again to the Tomino site. It got approved, but with a snide remark. I think it is good to document the way these people operate.
Jim // July 24, 2009 at 11:34 pm | Reply
So you cut my last post because you know GISS and HADcrut are both garbage in/garbage out monstrosities. Oh well, other people know and are spreading the truth about those. We don’t need your site.
[Response: I deleted your last post because you’re so far over the stupid threshold.]
I arrived late for this dance and haven’t had time to actually read this paper, so I can’t really add anything pertinent to the specifics of the merits of the piece, but a quick scan of the comments stack shows me that it does provide further evidence regarding the big picture of climate science and all science really. To me it shows that the link between the intrusion of political agendas and bad science has moved from extremely strong correlation to the point where causality can hardly be denied.
I am not a scientist, but I have throughout my 60 years of life been cursed by a wide ranging curiosity and blessed with enough native intelligence (99th percentile on virtually every large population test I’ve ever taken) to fuel almost daily excursions into the broad realm of human knowledge. What I’ve discovered over the years is that much that passes as accepted “knowledge”, would, in a more honest assessment, barely merit the classification of strong suspicion. My recent ventures into climate “science” have shown this phenomenon to be nearly pervasive. I repeatedly come across papers where the authors, in the abstracts, make confident statements about what they have shown, or demonstrated, or concluded, however, when you delve into the body of the work, what is usually provided is a hint of an indication of a suggestion of a possibility.
A few weeks ago my curiosity was peeked by a commentor’s question about what was actually driving the oscillation in ENSO and PDO, which lead me to see what I could find about the geothermal contribution to the oceanic heat balance. I was vaguely aware that a generally accepted value existed for this value of 88mWm-2 or 86.4mWm-2, don’t you just love that exquisite precision, but when I sought out the papers that provided these values what I found was less than confidence inspiring. From what I could tell these numbers were derived by using the age of floor rocks as a proxy for temperature because supposedly the ages were well established except, perhaps coincidentally for a large area East of Australia and Indonesia. The contributions of the hottest areas of the ocean floor were mostly excluded from the calculation, the logical explication for this was more than a bit vague, but I suspect it may derive from the overall goal of the exercise, or at least my impression of it, which seemed to be aimed less at achieving an accurate value, than with matching it to the accepted value of lithospheric cooling. My dissatisfactions led to further enquiries, which led me to a more recent paper, which I’ve tried to raise for discussion here several times with notable lack of success. As I’ve admitted in those previous attempts, my fondness of this paper
http://www.ocean-sci.net/5/203/2009/os-5-203-2009.pdf
may relate to the fact that it supports my personal suspicions, but I also find it notable because the authors freely admit that the state of knowledge in their field of abyssal circulation is, in a word, abysmal. Sorry, no matter how you try to restrain him, the Evil Punster still lurks. The upshot of the paper is that the decision of the climate modelers to consider the contribution of geothermal heating of the oceans as negligible is erroneous and quite possibly significantly so, but more telling is the admission that the state of knowledge is highly inadequate to justify any conclusions at this point.
As I’ve indicated, I started this enquiry based on a suspicion that the geothermal input might play a role in ocean oscillation cycles and honestly I expected my suspicions to be quickly quashed. That they have not been proves nothing except that the variety of known unknowns and unknown unknowns in modern climate science makes placing even a sawbuck on what the climate will be in a hundred years a sucker bet and investing trillions of dollars and large parts of our personal freedoms on the basis of it’s predictions complete culturally suicidal insanity.
Syl says:
Conservation of energy. If the ocean has been warming the atmosphere for the last 35 years then that would require a decrease in the oceanic heat content (and, I imagine a pretty substantial one although I haven’t tried to run the numbers). The data show a general upward trend in oceanic heat content during that time (as does the heat content trend inferred from sea level rise).
Re: Nick Stokes (17:13:19)
The danger here is that folks lacking background will fall into “differencing is good” versus “differencing is bad” camps without appreciating the value of different analyses which reveal different things about the same series.
The real issue is:
What is the correct interpretation?
It has been very interesting watching both the “denialist” & “warmist” discussions today.