Comments On AP Story “Statistics Experts Reject Global Cooling Claims”
There is a news report titled “Statistics experts reject global cooling claims” by Seth Borenstein which appeared today.
The article reads
“WASHINGTON — The Earth is still warming, not cooling as some global warming skeptics are claiming, according to an analysis of global temperatures by independent statistics experts.
The review of years of temperature data was conducted at the request of The Associated Press. Talk of a cooling trend has been spreading on the Internet, fueled by some news reports, a new book and temperatures that have been cooler in a few recent years.
The statisticians, reviewing two sets of temperature data, found no trend of falling temperatures over time. And U.S. government figures show that the decade that ends in December will be the warmest in 130 years of record-keeping.
Global warming skeptics are basing their claims on an unusually hot year in 1998. They say that since then, temperatures have fallen — thus, a cooling trend. But it’s not that simple.
Since 1998, temperatures have dipped, soared, dropped again and are now rising once more. Records kept by the British meteorological office and satellite data used by climate skeptics still show 1998 as the hottest year. However, data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA show 2005 has topped 1998.
“The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record,” said NOAA climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt. “Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming.”
Statisticians said the ups and downs during the last decade repeat random variability in data as far back as 1880.”
This article, however, (which is not a true independent assessment if the study was completed by NOAA scientists) is not based on the much more robust metric assessment of global warming as diagnosed by upper ocean heat content. Nor does it consider the warm bias issues with respect to surface land temperatures that we have raised in our peer reviewed papers; e.g. see and see.
With respect to ocean heat content changes, as summarized in the articles
Ellis et al. 1978: The annual variation in the global heat balance of the Earth. J. Climate. 83, 1958-1962.
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2003: Heat storage within the Earth system. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 84, 331-335
Pielke Sr., R.A., 2008: A broader view of the role of humans in the climate system. Physics Today, 61, Vol. 11, 54-55
and
Douglass, D.H. and R. Knox, 2009: Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance. Physics letters A
trends and anomolies in the upper ocean heat content permit a quantitative assessment of the radiative imbalance of the climate system.
Jim Hansen agrees on the use of the upper ocean heat content as an important diagnostic of global warming. Jim Hansen in 2005 discussed this subject (see). In Jim’s write-up, he stated
“The Willis et al. measured heat storage of 0.62 W/m2 refers to the decadal mean for the upper 750 m of the ocean. Our simulated 1993-2003 heat storage rate was 0.6 W/m2 in the upper 750 m of the ocean. The decadal mean planetary energy imbalance, 0.75 W/m2, includes heat storage in the deeper ocean and energy used to melt ice and warm the air and land. 0.85 W/m2 is the imbalance at the end of the decade.
Certainly the energy imbalance is less in earlier years, even negative, especially in years following large volcanic eruptions. Our analysis focused on the past decade because: (1) this is the period when it was predicted that, in the absence of a large volcanic eruption, the increasing greenhouse effect would cause the planetary energy imbalance and ocean heat storage to rise above the level of natural variability (Hansen et al., 1997), and (2) improved ocean temperature measurements and precise satellite altimetry yield an uncertainty in the ocean heat storage, ~15% of the observed value, smaller than that of earlier times when unsampled regions of the ocean created larger uncertainty.”
As discussed on my weblog and elsewhere (e.g. see and see), the upper ocean heat content trend, as evaluated by its heat anomalies, has been essentially flat since mid 2003 through at least June of this year. Since mid 2003, the heat storage rate, rather then being 0.6 W/m2 in the upper 750m that was found prior to that time (1993-2003), has been essentially zero.
Nonetheless, the article is correct that the climate system has not cooled even in the last 6 years. Moreover, on the long time period back to 1880, the consensus is that the climate system has warmed on the longest time period. Perhaps the current absence of warming is a shorter term natural feature of the climate system. However, to state that the “[t]he Earth is still warming” is in error. The warming has, at least temporarily halted.
The article (and apparently the NOAA study itself), therefore, suffers from a significant oversight since it does not comment on an update of the same upper ocean heat content data that Jim Hansen has used to assess global warming.
conducted at the request of The Associated Press
Polls clearly show that most people do not trust the news media. And they have good reason to not trust. The AP is part of the news media that is not trusted.
The AP was not unbiased in this story. It’s just more business as usual!
Schmidt was foolish to use the phrase “never again” as it indicates a state of mind that is closed to debate and hence closed to future input that may run counter to his beliefs.
These spoken words also provide the public with good reason to be skeptical of his work product.
Clearly this “study” was flawed: we all know how little credit HADCRUT or similar curves should be given thanks to the work of Pielke Sr and others. Borenstein is an advocate and obviously a bad one.
Since RA Pielke Sr does not allow comments on his site, here it is:
Pielke insists that local land use changes the climate. His demonstration are solid. Yet it is to be demonstrated that the land use will change the strength and direction of the main climatic engines, the Mobile Polar Highs. In that sense Pielke is jumping the queue: indeed local land use will affect local responses to the climatic signal in my opinion just as UIH effect would. Yet these consequences are minor when faced with a 3,000km wide disc of polar air migrating form the poles to the equator.
In fact quantification of that influence on MPH would truly bring together two complementary aspect of meteorological and cliamtological research.
This brings to mind the Newsweek cover story that implied that skeptics were funded by big oil.
The Newsweek cover story didn’t change anyone’s mind. This story won’t either.
The gravy train runs on hot air, and Seth is trying to breath some life into the stalled engine.
Gavin going “all in” on this baby El Nino, with a negative PDO.
Interesting times.
This could be the “winter of discontent” for the AGW cheerleaders.
Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance
David H. Douglass and Robert S. Knox
Physics Letters A, Volume 373, Issue 36, 31 August 2009, Pages 3296-3300
Is cited in:
Comment on “Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature” by J. D. McLean, C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter
David R.B. Stockwell and Anthony Cox
arXiv:0908.1828v1 [physics.ao-ph] 13 Aug 2009
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. ???, XXXX, DOI:10.1029/
Abstract.
PeterT (01:58:05) :
>>And U.S. government figures show that the decade that ends in December will be the warmest in 130 years of record-keeping<<
Surly we can all agree on that
I would certainly agree that the poorly collected data that has been manipulated with little explanation shows that the decade that ends in December will be the warmest in 130 years of record-keeping.
“All other measurements are pretty much dipping a bucket into the water and sticking a thermometer into the result!”
Quite true.
Ships officer: Where’s able seaman Joe?
Sailor: He’s drawing up buckets of seawater from over the side.
Officer: Oh I see. Collecting the SST data?
Sailor: Actually, he’s using it to make a bath.
Officer: What!?
Sailor: That’s right sir, he reckons it keeps his skin young.
Officer. Very good. Make sure he records the temperature when he’s done.
Sailor: Yes, sir.
World climate report has another vivisection of the AP’s article (with a pretty graph, too).
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2009/10/26/ap-impact-statisticians-reject-global-cooling/
Though I’m not a fan, I just have to borrow a term often used by Rush and describe this article as a perfect example of the “Drive By” media. Now, the nice thing is, I can clearly ignore this entire piece of rubbish, as the good folks at Team headquarters have already stated the statisticians are not qualified to comment about global warming.
When this first popped up last night, I actually got a little angry. What sloppy journalism this is. But then it dawned on me that this is a clear knee-jerk reaction to the success of another statistician who has been poking holes in the sloppy scientific work of several climate scientists.
The earth is cooling so much it blew all the hurricanes away. Last night a tongue tied weather caster tried to explain where the hurricanes went and what was going on — Failed miserably as he tap danced around the science stage. A simple ‘we don’t know’ would have worked better, given Al Gore’s prediction of doom for earth by hurricane. The handy news person interjected that ‘Al Gore had said’ bit, to the chagrin of the weather caster.
Why do the TV Weathermen have to try and pretend they know … And wouldn’t everyone be better off if we went back to truth as our first scientific principle?
Asothers have suggested already: which datasets were provided to the statisticians? GIGO would still be operative.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.html
Unisys SSt’s this is not the hoped for “Super El Nino”…
Too late and too cold for they to suceed. It´s over!….Time to go back to work!
I think many of you need to review the refutations at RealClimate.org.
Most of the data you present has been refuted by real climate scientists. Check RealClimate.org for the facts and real science behind climate change.
WHen independent researchers refute claims by vested interests, when they have no idea exactly what data they have analyzed, thus making it a truly independent verification of facts, global warming deniers MUST agree with these facts.
Too do other wise are an ostrich’s head-in-the-sand antics.
The ONLY people with the dangerous agendas are the large oil and coal interests–like Exxon-Mobil who is funding global warming deniers for obvious reasons.
Scientists are after the truth. When researching and analyzing, look at as many pertinent facts as possible.
The trends are unmistakable: HUMANS CAUSED MOST GLOBAL WARMING INCREASES over 130 years.
Period.
We need to reverse the damage.
Period.
You state: “(which is not a true independent assessment if the study was completed by NOAA scientists)”
It was an independent assessment. Furthermore, it compared data compiled by the data compiled by University of Alabama at Huntsville often cited by anti-AGW global warming deniers.
NO TREND IN COOLING. TRENDS IN WARMING over 130 years found WITH CERTAINTY.
Peter T is hard for me to say that this has been the warmest decade in 130 years.Neither you nor any of these bloggers nor myself were here 130 years ago.If you read this site on a regurally basis you must have saw all of the reports on warm biased temps Tempurature sensor on roof tops,on asphalt parking lots,next to air condition units,just to name a few, and my favorite rural stations closed , cancelled or dropped.
I must say, I get a bit perturbed when linear trends are applied to inherently non-linear analog(ue) systems, particularly when the linear trend is applied to a discrete sample set, and those samples are debatably representative measurements of that system.
Barry Foster (02:36:47) :
They keep changing the anomaly for October. By that I mean, when it was 11.3 they said the anomaly was -0.3. Now it’s 11.4 they’re saying it’s +0.4! They started this at the beginning of the month with a figure of about 12,
Are you sure they aren’t working on the daily anomaly and not the entire monthly anomaly?
Let’s take it as written that October will start warmer than it finishes. That means the daily(October) anomaly temperature will grow cooler as the month draws on. So if the 1st of Oct was say 11 deg C and so was the Anom for that day and the actual temp stayed that way for 30 days then Anomaly would fall away so to speak (diverge) as the the month draws on.
This means if the 31st Oct Anom was 10.5 your 11.0 would now be +0.5 above.
ThinkLife (08:56:14):
“We need to reverse the damage.”
The damage is in your silly belief system. Humanity is much, much better off with the use of fossil fuels than without them. Try doing your laundry on a river rock, or a washboard. Try cutting wheat with a scythe. After one day you would be willing to trade your first born for the benefits a fossil fuels.
And please, take your trumpeting of the realclimate echo chamber elsewhere, until their petty censors allow skeptical points of view. Realclimate is incredible. Literally. They routinely delete skeptics’ comments for one reason: to hide the truth from the people reading their blog in their mom’s basement.
PuLEASE!, Realclimate?!?!? Hardly an objective website.
Talk to me when they stop censoring posts and start allowing actual debate (notice yours was not deleted on this site!)
ThinkLife:
“I think many of you need to review the refutations at RealClimate.org.
Most of the data you present has been refuted by real climate scientists. Check RealClimate.org for the facts and real science behind climate change.”
Hah! That’s so funny. I thought for a moment you were parodying the alarmists, so absurd were your statements. The liberal use of the word “denier” was a dead giveraway of parody, since most believers of AGW don’t stoop that low. But when I couldn’t find the punch line I re-read your words, and suddenly realised you were being serious.
LOL!
Robinson (05:54:27) :
“I’m not sure how you can possible draw any conclusions from ocean heat content at present in any case. A reliable buoy network has only recently (2003) been put into place.”
That means we’ve had a reliable ocean heat record for at least six years. If its trend has been flat, we can conclude that there’s been no warming over that period.
Thinklife,
Please learn to think for your self. What points were already refuted, be specific and be prepared to engage in a rational conversation.
So far you have said nothing of substance.
Seth Borenstein told me that the data he used was given to him by Dr. Christy. I wonder how much of that is true, considering he has mis-represented Dr. Christy before.