Guest Post by Bob Tisdale
Multiple Wrongs Don’t Make A Right, Especially When It Comes To Determining The Impacts Of ENSO
This post does not discuss the analysis by Carter et al nor does it examine the methods used by Foster et al to critique it. This post lists the papers cited by Foster et al that determine “the connection between ENSO and large-scale temperature variability, particularly with regard to the role of ENSO in any long-term warming trends, that has been carried out over the past two decades,” and discusses the errors that are common to those papers.
THE PAPERS CITED BY FOSTER ET AL
Jones, P.D., (1989), The influence of ENSO on global temperatures, Climate Monitor, 17, 80–89.
(I have not found a link to this paper. Since I haven’t read it, I can’t comment about it. It is, therefore, excluded from my post.)
Santer, B.D., Wigley, T.M.L., Doutriaux, C., Boyle, J.S., Hansen, J.E., Jones, P.D., Meehl, G.A., Roeckner, E., Sengupta, S., and Taylor K.E. (2001), Accounting for the effects of volcanoes and ENSO in comparisons of modeled and observed temperature trends, J. Geophys. Res., 106, 28033–28059.
Link:
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Santer_etal.pdf
Thompson, D. W. J., J. J. Kennedy, J. M. Wallace, and P. D. Jones (2008), A large discontinuity in the mid-twentieth century in observed global-mean surface temperature, Nature, 453, 646–650, doi:10.1038/nature06982.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v453/n7195/abs/nature06982.html
Trenberth, K.E., J.M.Caron, D.P.Stepaniak, and S.Worley, (2002), Evolution of El Nino-Southern Oscillation and global atmospheric surface temperatures, J. Geophys. Res., 107 (D8), 4065, doi:10.1029/2000JD000298
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/papers/2000JD000298.pdf
Wigley, T. M. L. (2000), ENSO, volcanoes, and record-breaking temperatures, Geophysical Res. Lett., 27, 4101–4104.ENSO, volcanoes and record‐breaking temperatures
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2000/2000GL012159.shtml
COMMON ERRORS IN PAPERS CITED BY FOSTER ET AL
The authors of the papers used different statistical tools and ENSO indices to remove the ENSO signal from Global Temperature and TLT records, and they all failed to account for the multiyear aftereffects of significant El Nino events. This was discussed in detail in my post “Regression Analyses Do Not Capture The Multiyear Aftereffects Of Significant El Nino Events”. That post also appeared at WattsUpWithThat as “Why regression analysis fails to capture the aftereffects of El Nino events.” The post included a detailed discussion of the processes that take place before, during, and after significant El Nino events under the heading “EL NINO OVERVIEW”.
That overview was supplemented by my post “La Nina Events Are Not The Opposite Of El Nino Events.” Briefly, a La Nina event is an exaggeration of ENSO-neutral conditions that occurs when the coupled ocean-atmosphere processes attempt to return to “normal” after a traditional El Nino.
The statistical techniques used in the papers cited by Foster et al also do not address the differences between traditional El Nino events and El Nino Modoki. El Nino Modoki events were discussed in my posts “There Is Nothing New About The El Nino Modoki” and “Comparison of El Nino Modoki Index and NINO3.4 SST Anomalies.”
And the papers that Foster et al cite do not account for “The Reemergence Mechanism,” which should integrate the effects of ENSO events.
ALSO IN PREPRINT RELEASE: THOMPSON ET AL (2009) REPEATS THE ERROR
The 2009 Thompson et al paper “Identifying signatures of natural climate variability in time series of global-mean surface temperature: Methodology and Insights” has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Climate. In it, Thompson et al repeat the errors made by Thompson et al 2008.
http://ams.allenpress.com/perlserv/?request=get-abstract&doi=10.1175%2F2009JCLI3089.1
Preprint Version:
http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/ao/ThompsonPapers/TWJK_JClimate2009_revised.pdf
Thompson et al were kind enough to post the data that resulted from their analyses for those who like to review findings:
http://www.atmos.colostate.edu/~davet/ThompsonWallaceJonesKennedy/
CLOSING
As long as climate scientists continue to neglect the multiyear aftereffects of significant El Nino events, they will continue to incorrectly conclude, as Foster et al concludes, “the general rise in temperatures over the 2nd half of the 20th century is very likely predominantly due to anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases.”
Paul K (22:10:30) :
“…how a paper …got published in a peer reviewed journal. ”
Isn’t peer review one of the bastions of AGW? I’m thinking about hockey sticks – just as an example…
“…(the referees may have been selected by the authors).”
And this is rich!
The sad fact is that academic science is not what it used to be. They don’t make peers like they used to…
“Patrick Davis (07:14:31) :
“Pierre Gosselin (03:40:54) :
By the way, lest we’ve all forgotten, it is hurricane season. It really is, though you may not have noticed.
Any chance of getting a post about this year’s hurricane season?”
According to Gore and every other alarmist I’ve spoken to says it’ll be worse than 2005 (And 2006 and 2007 and 2008) and Katrina. Of course, these people forget, or don’t know, the region Katrina struck is a flood plain, New Orleans is placed in a “flood” basin and is “proptected” from floods from the Mississippi by levees, poorly made as it turns out. But, AGW is the cause and the blame.
I wonder when Naples being swamped by Vesuvious, like Pompei, will be blamed on AWG?
Reply: there was one a few days ago, search for ACE is search box or look at hurricane tag category”
Thanks for that. It clearly wasn’t AGW “significant” enough as it was not reported in Aus news, or even SBS news here, which reports stuff more interesting than sports bloopers, unlike the rest.
Been monitoring the SST charts again EL Nino appears not to be building…
M Jeff
Of course, it’s outrageous. It’s milking the taxpayer to holiday cruise under the guise of important government business. Throw the bums out. Make ’em pay it back!
These papers are frauds whose sole purpose is to produce press releases to generate blaring headlines. Later the papers end up exposed for what they are, but the media ignore.
I understood the exaggeration comment perfectly as it directed me to the underlying mechanisms of a La Nina SST condition or event or an oscillation. The mechanisms return to neutral and sometimes over-shoot to cold. Kind of like another on/not on mechanism we love to talk about here. This reminds me of the Sun’s coiled magnetic ropes (which lead to more spots) that sometimes uncoil to neutral and even over-shoot to lax (which leads to no spots). La Nina is a re-setting of an overly energized system filled with heat that cannot take any more heat.
Question: Why isn’t the cold condition the energized chaotic one that is frantically loosing heat, and when it relaxes the mechanisms return to neutral and start absorbing heat again, sometimes being so lazy that more than enough heat is absorbed?
Paul K: You wrote, “Bob Tisdale- Could you please provide a list of published papers that support the hypothesis you raised in your previous post, and discussed again in this post?”
There are none. The findings of my multiple posts on this subject have not been addressed by any paper to date. Apparently no one bothered to analyze SST data with their eyes. They’ve used all sorts of statistical devices to determine the year-to-year global and regional effects of El Nino events, but they’ve missed a few things that are very obvious once you know they’re there. Also, the fact that my findings are not supported by GCMs is not surprising since GCMs do not model the coupled ocean-atmosphere processes that take place before, during, and after ENSO events with any degree of accuracy.
You wrote, “I am troubled by the heat balance considerations of the hypothetical ENSO causation of planetary heating.”
I’m in the process of writing a post about the effects on OHC of ENSO events, but I’m trying to finish another post or two before it. Give me a couple of weeks to finish the one on ENSO and OHC. Then I’ll be happy to address your concerns.
Regards
“M. Jeff (07:26:39) :
Off topic, but for all you AGW skeptics, here is incontrovertible proof that “climate change” is a very costly problem.
From: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124967502810515267.html
Lawmakers’ Global-Warming Trip Hit Tourist Hot Spots
When 10 members of Congress wanted to study climate change, they did more than just dip their toes into the subject: They went diving and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. They also rode a cable car through the Australian rain forest, visited a penguin rookery and flew to the South Pole. …
… The 11-day trip — with six spouses traveling along as well — took place over New Year’s 2008. …
… Flight costs would lift the total tab to more than $500,000 …”
Our “carbon taxes” will offset that “climate study exepnse”, and what I state “carbon taxes” to be, I mean my carbon taxes on my income, because I work. My carbon taxes on my consumption, because I consume. My carbon taxes because I breathe. My carbon taxes because I use public transport (PT). My carbon taxes because I don’t use PT, sometimes, as well as paying my taxes for owning and registering a car for road use (Which, of course will attract “carbon taxes” because the “authorities” use power in their computer administrative (tax) systems). And this (Tax) will be popagated to council rates and rents acorss the board.
Nice little earner, if you are in with the “in crowd”.
bigcitylib: You wrote, “Yes but Foster et al basically recanted their results here and elsewhere when they admitted that their paper did not study temperature trends, only variability.
“You’re beating a dead horse.”
My post is a critque of the papers cited by Foster et al, not a critique of Foster et al. Apparently you missed that I wrote, “This post does not discuss the analysis by Carter et al nor does it examine the methods used by Foster et al to critique it. This post lists the papers cited by Foster et al that determine ‘the connection between ENSO and large-scale temperature variability, particularly with regard to the role of ENSO in any long-term warming trends, that has been carried out over the past two decades,’ and discusses the errors that are common to those papers.”
No dead horse beating on my part.
Circling the waggons?
Circling the drain.
Pierre Gosselin (03:40:54) : a post about this year’s hurricane season?
Sure, why not? Here it is. The Atlantic Ocean has no tropical storms. The Eastern Pacific Ocean has just had a named depression, now almost gone, and one dying hurricane. But still, run for the hills, it’s worse than previously thought.
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml
Once again, if you add two sources of heat to the globe, are they directly and simply additive? If heat from El Nino’s end up raising global temperatures, and then you add anthropogenic greenhouse heating, is it additive to the El Nino heat or buried by it with no additive affect at the temperature gauge?
Bob Tisdale, thank you for your terrific analysis. Contrary ro conventional wisdom, when i look at ENSO 3.4 anomalies over the last 25 years, what jumps out at me is the very deep, prolonged La Nina of JJA 1998 thru JFM 2001. IMHO, that event is very significant. TLT temps also bottomed at that time, and have not cooled beyond those levels. Apparently i am the only person on the planet that sees that string of 35 months of continuous negative anomalies as significant.
Timetochooseagain: You wrote, “If El Ninos do have after effects…”
Significant El Nino events do have aftereffects. No if is required in your statement. Significant El Nino events cause lingering upward step changes in SST anomalies of the East Indian and West Pacific Oceans. These were discussed in detail in my posts “Can El Nino Events Explain All of the Global Warming Since 1976?” Parts 1 and 2:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/can-el-nino-events-explain-all-of.html
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/can-el-nino-events-explain-all-of_11.html
The remainder of your comment appears to deal with the comparison of global temperature anomalies to a scaled running total of NINO3.4 SST anomalies that I included in my post on “The Reemergence Mechanism”:
http://i42.tinypic.com/iom6ab.jpg
That graph is from an earlier post. In it, I illustrated that global temperature anomalies can be reproduced using natural variables:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/01/reproducing-global-temperature.html
And I explained in detail the process I used to recreate the global temperature anomaly curve: multipliers, base years for anomalies, etc.
Regards.
Paul K. I think the collusion of certain journals with the AGW scientism is real as demonstrated by the Steig et al. episode.
Therefore, the publishing of a lighting rod such as the M. de F. C paper serves their purpose in more than one way:
– they can counter that they are open to the other side
– they can claim publishing the best the other side has to offer…
As I pointed out in my single post on this paper, the reference to Walker cells raised a red flag to this reader of Marcel Leroux.
So these “whos who” of climate scientists have basically pulled together a load of research papers that use different statistical tools and methods in order to write a refutation of another paper. And this is science how, exactly?
I mean, this any 3rd year undergraduate could do already.
Good God! Please! NO! No Post on Hurricanes (or the lack, thereof.) I have Family on the Coast.
Have you forgot about the “Watts Effect?”
Richard111: You wrote, “The current La Nina seems to have peaked June/July and is now dropping.
“See page 10 of PDF below:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Richard, at present eastern equatorial Pacific SST anomalies are in El Nino ranges, not La Nina. These can be seen in a graph of NINO3.4 SST anomalies. The one that follows includes preliminary July 2009 data.
http://i31.tinypic.com/5f2e0o.png
It’s from this post:
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/07/very-very-preliminary-july-2009-sst.html
Also the graph you’ve referred to on page 10 is the average subsurface temperature for the eastern equatorial Pacific that they title “Central & Eastern Pacific Upper-Ocean (0-300 m) Weekly Heat Content Anomalies.” It’s not a measure of El Nino or La Nina status.
matt v.: Regarding your 07:10:20 comment, can you graph what you’ve done? Posting all those numbers is confusing.
Jimmy Haigh (07:27:28) :
Paul K (22:10:30) :
“…(the referees may have been selected by the authors).”
And this is rich!
The sad fact is that academic science is not what it used to be. They don’t make peers like they used to…
If you are not writing for a “leader” scientific magazine, it’s preferable to send your papers to an associated university and let the board to decide who the reviewers would be. It has a price tag, but it is highly valuable. You’ll never know who examined your paper.
I repeat this often but it seems that the statistically uninitiated continue to believe that the trendline is measuring something different than the data is. The data is basically this: historical comparisons of “by month” weather pattern variations, not climate, from a selected average span of “by month” weather pattern variations (which some say is climate). The trend is nothing more than a simple statistical mathematical manipulation of that very same data and can be nonlinear or linear, based on the algorithm. Therefore the trendline does not and cannot measure something that is a more exclusive mechanism than the whole of weather pattern variation.
In addition, the average line on a graph should include SD shading from the average so that again the uninitiated public can see whether or not any one + or – anomaly is significantly different from the selected average. The National Weather Service now does this in graph form with daily local station temperature day high to night low:
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/climate/temp_graphs.php?stn=KPDT&wfo=pdt
Note the shaded area of normal temperature. It is not a thin line, but a relatively broad band of normal. This should be done with the average line on temperature graphs. It is nothing more than a spin not to include SD bars for the average statistic on a graph, regardless of its cherry picking nature.
M. Jeff (07:26:39) :
And that $500,000 will cost us $1.5T when they get done writing the bill over correcting a natural variance. The South Pole is uninhabitable and Coral Reef just grow in new places if the Sea Level rises, which as far as I can tell has not budged in 50 years. Historical photos compared to today don’t show it.
And this latest spiel on CNN: “South Cascade glacier in Washington and the Wolverine and Gulcana glaciers in Alaska. The three glaciers are considered “benchmarks” for the conditions of thousands of other glaciers because they’re in different climate zones and at various elevations.”
and…
“So we feel it’s definitely something going on, probably on a global scale, ”
Probably. There’s a $500 billion dollar word. Probably.
PolyScience want a Probably “faster than predicted” Glacier-Melt Cracker?
They will probably tack on another $500 billion in taxes, even though we have cleaned up our act but certain nations pollute & spill like they’re on a mission. So we are to pay for thier profit.
Why in the world all these new age scientists want to have everything controlled by their “global warming” video game?
Nevertheless, the same UN of the IPCC, through FAO, in these 12 pdf files:
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
succesfully uses the LOD to forecast anchovy catches in the pacific, which re-surface whith the Humboldt´s current cold waters, so implicitly forecasting the presence of a el Nino or a La Nina.
Regarding citations in science, read this article in the Guardian about bad science with AGW and IPCC in mind:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/08/ben-goldacre-bad-science-research
“Hit and myth: curse of the ghostwriters”
This gives us an opportunity to study how ideas spread, and myths grow, because in theory you could trace who references what, and how, to see a belief system evolve from the original data.
Rhys Jaggar (05:17:49) :
“Is there any scientific confirmation/refutation of that possibility out there?”
To start with, the laws of thermodynamics and other basic physical laws mandate that you will see reactions and echo wavelets following significant thermal change events in any fluid system. This is such basic science that for the warmists to refuse to recognise it alone makes their arguments IMHO quack pseudoscience.