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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I think the paper needs to consider also the impact of AMO or the Atlantic ocean SST to get a complete picture of what affects our climate . I went back and checked the 20 highest AMO ANNUAL INDEX years and only half took place when an El Nino was also happening . The same result was for the lowest or coldest AMO years . La Nina was present only about half the time . AMO seems to have an affect on our climate which is independent of ENSO. A very warm period has a warm AMO level already present which then appears to be amplified to new highs with the added heat from the ENSO. However high AMO levels can happen without the ENSO [ like 1944,1952, 1953, 1937,1938, 1960, etc. I counted 10 of the highest 20 AMO warm years that had no ENSO events.
One cannot just look at the last 50 years to get the total picture .
“The surge in global temperatures…”
I think they mean “The surge in atmospheric temperatures…”.
ENSO moves heat from the ocean to the atmosphere, or not, causing weather thermometers to record higher temps. This is different from a change in the net gain in solar heating, (that is, a change in the energy balance).
I guess it’s possible that ENSO could change cloud cover to increase or decrease the greenhouse effect, but that has not, to my knowledge, been claimed or demonstrated by either side in the debate.
Craig Allen (06:23:52) “Has there been any analysis that has found a correlation between “oscillations in the Earth’s rotation” and El Nino.”
I can help with this one.
It is easy to demonstrate a phase relationship (with intermittent brief interruptions) between SOI & LOD” (where prime ‘ indicates rate of change – so ” indicates 2nd derivative).
Related: It is well-established that LOD is strongly related to atmospheric angular momentum (AAM).
Re: michel (12:38:03)
I’ve been digging in the Tamino PCA series for acknowledgment of the fundamental importance of the normality assumption (since so much of the focus seems absorbed by the issue of centering …which is, of course, only part of the issue).
Someone raised a very well-stated concern:
“On a technical note, perhaps you can explain to me what differences in the interpretation of the results one might expect when applying principal component theory to a set of non-stationary time series as opposed to a collection of independent normal multivariate observations.”
This was a substantive request, based on fundamentals.
Rather than address the warranted request, here is how Tamino responded:
“[…] along you come, the pompous ass who […] just plain doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground […]”
–
The assumption of normality is nothing to scoff at. It is fundamental. I will continue looking to see what (if any) discussion there was of related diagnostic tools. [It is easy to make multivariate data reduction errors if algorithms are run mechanically without a battery of accompanying diagnostics …and different analysts use different diagnostics – for example, many stick to numerical-summaries & skip multi-dimensional visualization, which is where problems are easiest to spot.]
@michel
is clearly right, ENSO and AMO et cetera can, secondarily, impact clouds, convection and therefore also IR from the earth, and can change the earth’s temperature. Possibly by enough to matter. I haven’t seen where this has been measured and verified, however.
Primarily, though, ENSO and AMO et cetera move heat around within the earth. That is what they are.
Air temp charts over the past century show a lot of jumping up and down (noise). Good ocean analyses like McLean et al can permit removing this noise and allow more accurate measurement of remaining trends.
Would McLean like to tell us what the residual trend is?
In my opinion, the extra impact of AMO on global climate in addition to whatever the extra ENSO events contribute can be seen in the comparison of two different recent periods [using the ONI index]. The higher warm AMO levels for the entire 12 months in the first period versus the 8 cooler and only 4 warm AMO level years in the second period below clearly made the difference. The El Nino events seemed to raise the already existing warm background AMO level to new record highs which in turn raised the global air temperatures to new highs. In the second period the AMO background level was cool and despite about the same level of ESNO events, the global climate was warming but much cooler. PDO was warm during both periods.
1997-2008[12 years]
This was the real global warming period. 10 of the warmest global temperatures happened then
Number of EL NINO months 39[27% of time]
Number of LA NINA months 38[26% of time]
Number of Neutral months 67 [47 % of time]
PDO
Mostly in warm mode but not at any record level [0.19 to 1.46 range]
Years in warm mode —8
Years in cool mode —-4-
AMO
Years in warm mode 12
Totally in warm mode and at record level with 5 of the 20 highest annual averages ever [0.402 peak] and 3 of the 5 highest monthly AMO peaks ever.
TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES
Temperature anomalies were rising and peaked at 0.546C [hadcrut3]
Average annual temperature anomaly 0.407C
1985-1996[12 years]
Number of EL NINO MONTHS 45[31 %]
Number of LA NINA months 29[20%]
Number of Neutral months 70 [49%]
PDO
Years in warm mode 8
Years in cool mode 4
3 warm years at top 10 record level [1.82, 1.42, and 1.24]
The remaining years low PDO levels
AMO
Years in cool mode 9
Years in warm mode 3
AMO levels generally low whether cool or warm
TEMPERATURES ANOMALIES
Temperatures were fluctuating but rising and peaked at 0.275C [hadcrut3]
Average annual temperature anomaly 0.139 C
The total intensity of EL NINOS was about the same [by totaling the ONI values for all EL NINO months for both periods [45 vs. 47]. This is a crude way of measuring this, but it is a rough indicator only.
In the PCA series Tamino is not careful to point out that standardizing does not cause a distribution to become normal. (The term “nomalize” is conventional, but highly-misleading for mainstream audiences.)
Tamino did not respond when someone impressively brought up the work of William Hsieh of the University of British Columbia.
http://www.ocgy.ubc.ca/~william/index.html
I’ve looked at many of Hsieh’s papers on nonlinear data reduction in the past. He is undertaking very challenging work.
Many of the nonlinearity issues he raises can be visualized using scatterplot matrices (with marginal dotplots or histograms to assess normality). I have used such visualization techniques in concert with factor analysis (a step above PCA) to seperate empirical wavelet modes and perform related diagnostics.
Maybe Tamino miscalculated the level of scrutiny & suspicion that is aroused by arguments against centering variables (and the additional failure to stress the importance of the assumption of normality for the chosen data reduction method).
Again: Thanks for the link michel. The exercise of reviewing the threads has provided useful insight into the limits of quantitative distortion, even when it is in the hands of an intelligent, articulate, & well-educated (& possibly also well-meaning) individual.
Personally, I’m not inclined to trust any factor analysis (or more primitive PCA) that I have not performed myself on data that I know inside-out.
One last note on the PCA distortion:
Be cautious about the claim that anomalies (as opposed to raw temperature data) are robustly correlated spatially across mountainous terrain. This suggests a lack of on-the-ground, first-hand experience with the nonlinearity of response to inter-annual (& other timescale) variation. The network of monitoring stations is grossly insufficient for conveying what is known to those of us who have spent years of our lives moving up & down mountain slopes on a regular basis. There are violent oscillations in snow-depth at mid-elevations on a variety of timescales. One must take into account the effect this has on averages & outliers, particularly when taken into consideration along with other strong factors such as coastal-continental gradients. Use of anomalies from the annual cycle is blinding us to other temporal information. We need to stop working with anomalies. They cause irreconcilable problems with the partitioning of variance – and they are not necessary anyway, since we have arsenals of multi-timescale methods at our disposal now (something which was not the case when the anomaly convention was established).
Nick Stokes (20:12:20) : “And Jim, yes, this one paper doesn’t prove anything about the trend. The problem is that people are saying that it does.”
Looks like I was wrong about that. Lucia proved that the difference method does include the trend. I looked back at regular derivatives. If you take the derivative of a linear term, e.g. 3x, you get 3, so the information is still in the first derivative. The derivative of a constant WRT x is zero. But a linear trend is just that, a linear function of x.
Thanks to Lucia!
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/that-soi-paper-climate-change-worse-than-we-thought/
Not being a mathematician or statistician, but Tamino’s logic seemed flawed to me. Can anyone tell me if I read Tamino correctly:
Firstly he states how the temperature difference between years is arrived at – average of one year less average of the previous. Then he starts with “Supose” and sets up a scenario, quite plausible, that the temperature at any point is the underlying temperature, plus warming to date, plus any variability that cancels itself out over time. Then he generates a formula and uses it in such a way that one year’s warming constant can be any figure he likes with the same result.
He then ascribes this to the report’s authors as the basis with which to debunk them for removing trends in the data. As I read the report, that’s not not the way the data was handled, and any trends embedded in the data should still be there.
Is this the debate that’s supposed to be over? Because it sure looks like the one that Al Gore said was over. Glad to see it’s finally getting started!
This has been a great thread to read.
Re: Peter (09:52:14)
I’m not a mathematician or statistician either, but I’ve got a solid background in some branches of math & particularly applied-stats. I had not planned on reading the paper in detail because upon inspection of the figures it was telling me something I’ve already [draft] calculated myself. (Also, the paper did not appear to be concise – i.e. it is longer than 4 pages.) However, I’ve seen a lot of ‘twisted’ comments here & in other forums. This has inspired me to take a more careful look…
I am using the following datasets:
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/ratpac/ratpac-a/RATPAC-A-seasonal-layers.txt
ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/sco/soi/soiplaintext.html
Joel quotes Tamino: “That ENSO is a major contributor to variability in global temperature, is ancient news. In fact I’ve shown it myself.”
OK. That’s agreed then, humans are a minor player at most in climate change.
The academic waffle on this site from both sides of the AGW argument amazes me.
AGW theory contends that adding more CO2 (plant food) to the atmosphere will result in global warming.
Sceptics of this theory do not have to do or prove anything.
However proponents of the theory need to produce empirical evidence that they are right. To date NO SUCH EVIDENCE HAS BEEN PROVIDED! (computers do not cut the mustard in providing empirical evidence).
Come on AGW supporters SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE (REAL empirical stuff not computer waffle).
Maurice J Smalley: From your tone I can see that for you, as with many others posting here, there is no evidence, no matter how watertight it may be to a rational open minded person, that could convince you. Climate science is a coherent body of understanding. It includes many aspects that will be improved. And there are some areas that the scientists acknowledge they are only beginning to understand. However in contrast the ant-AGW point of view is composed of a hodge-podge of mutually incompatible assertions, united only by the fact that people like yourself are sure they refute the science. A find the science fascinating (albeit scary in it’s conclusions). Don’t you want to understand how the climate works and what is in stall for us all. The anti-AGW bewilderment must get uncomfortable after a while.
Climate analysis of air temps smooths out the roughness, the noise, by using various statistical tricks, such as 15-year triangular filters, and so on.
Can the McLean analysis be used to subtract the ENSO “noise” from the temperature data set to reduce or eliminate the need for smoothing? If so, then a more accurate measurement of observed trends can be obtained.
This could obsolete all existing GCMs.
Craig Allen : I think you miss the point ! Government lawmakers the world over are passing cap & trade tax schemes to tax the life out of you me and everybody.
If they were honest they would want empirical evidence before proceding, I have no problem with the science doing their thing, but whenever the question SHOW ME THE EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE is asked we get more WAFFLE like your post!
Fred2 (20:35:21):
The McLean analysis does the opposite. As I understand it, it the removes the primary trend and leaves the lesser order fluctuations and noise, which are then analysed to see if they correlate with any candidate external forcings or internal feedbacks. This sort of thing has been done extensively by others using many different methods – I don’t really see what the McLean analysis adds to the understanding.
Either way I don’t see why you think this would make GCMs obsolete. I suggest you do some reading to find out what the scientists are actually trying to achieve with GCMs and other models – be they statistical or physics based like the GCMs.
Maurice J Smalley (21:34:24): I’m not a climate scientist, but I follow the developments in climate science closely. The climate sciences make a lot of sense to me. It’s the anti-AGW stuff that comes across as waffle because it is all so self contradictory.
For example. Is the atmosphere and ocean warming or not. I see anti-AGW folks arguing that both are true. And I see a myriad of different claims by anti-AGW people for what is causing it, united only by the fact that they are sure that the cause not C02 and the other greenhouse gasses. Is it cosmic rays, internal variability, some vague ‘recovery’ from the last ice age with no mechanism specified, the moon and it’s influence on tides, the effects of the sun on the earth via magnetism linked in some why to sunspots?
From what I read around the anti-AGW blogs etc. it is all these things and none all at the same time. But no matter what, it can’t possibly be CO2 and the other greenhouse gasses. Because, as you infer, that has implications for what we can and should do about it, which many people find to be unpalatable!
Graig Allen,
I am a climate scientist and what you are submitting to this blog is a lode of rot. You have no idea of the climate senstivity to a doubling of CO2, and if you even had the most basic understanding of this issue you would know this. Why not read some of the postings by the climatologist to this blog (like Lindzen) and find what is really going on with the Earth’s climate.
The reason why climate sceptics have so many possible explanations to the source of the recent warming is precisely because nature is far complex than the simpletons who believe in Antropogenic CO2 want us to believe.
Well done Craig Allen more waffle you should be in the political game, start a party and I will give you your slogan for nothing…….VOTE FOR ME, WE CONFUSE CAUSE AND EFFECT, MIX UP ISSUES, AND SOLVE PROBLEMS BY TACKLING SOMETHING ELSE INSTEAD. Many sheeple will probably vote for you !!
However you could be more honest and ask the simple question, SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE that putting more CO2 (plant food) into the atmosphere raises global temperature. You do not seem to understand that it does not matter what sceptics say do or think, the ONLY thing that matters is the question, SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE, so far they have failed to do so !
Earth’s atmosphere is a complex non linear chaotic system powered by a nuclear reactor a million times bigger than earth, our sun, science has a long way to go to even understand a small part of it. However before we tax the life out of everybody we need PROOF that CO2 (plant food) causes global warming everything else is of no importance to the AGW argument.
Ninderthana (01:06:55) :
Being a climate scientist, can you explain what, as you see it, are the most appropriate ways for climate scientists to set about working out the climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2. Or do you a priori think that this is not possible to do.
Do you think temperatures are rising globally? And if so, what proportion of the rise is due to the various possible causes. In particular, what proportion can be attributed to your moon-tidal theory?
As supporter of Lindzen I guess you would be rather embarrassed by his recent article on this blog wherein his conclusions were completely undermined by the fact that he had used an outdated dataset that did not include the corrections necessary to account for the decay in the orbit of the satellite that was collecting the data.
OK Maurice (and others), lets work through it. Help me get my head around it.
First of all, do you agree that ‘greenhous’ gasses such as CO2, methane, water etc. absorb and re-emit infrared radiation.
Secondly, do you agree that a large portion of the sun’s energy arrives as radiation other than infrared, warms the Earths surface and is radiated back to the atmosphere as radiation?
Thirdly, are there enough greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere to pretty much completely block the radiation of energy via infrared radiation directly to space?
Help me get these points right first and then lets move on to discuss the follow-up steps in the global warming by ‘greenhouse’ effect theory.
This conference presentation can change your understanding of the 1976-1978 climate shift:
Ninderthana (05:25:06)
http://www.naturalclimatechange.info/?q=node/10
Related:
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/Phase(r..,LNC).png
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/1930sHarmonicPhaseDifference.PNG
http://www.sfu.ca/~plv/f(Pr.,-2r..,-3LNC)LOD.png
There is one thing that has not been taken into account in regards to AGW, what are the goals and objectives of the government(s) that are wanting to establish cap & trade? Is the objective to reduce global warming? Or is it just to tax and control society? It doesn’t appear to matter what scientist say to them, they have already came to the conclusions that fit the “model” they want to use.