Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out
By Gerald Traufetter
At least the weather in Copenhagen is likely to be cooperating. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that temperatures in December, when the city will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, will be one degree above the long-term average.
Otherwise, however, not much is happening with global warming at the moment. The Earth’s average temperatures have stopped climbing since the beginning of the millennium, and it even looks as though global warming could come to a standstill this year.
Ironically, climate change appears to have stalled in the run-up to the upcoming world summit in the Danish capital, where thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, business leaders and environmental activists plan to negotiate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations.
Reached a Plateau
The planet’s temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. “At present, however, the warming is taking a break,” confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany’s best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. “There can be no argument about that,” he says. “We have to face that fact.”
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Espen (14:25:57) :
Icarus (10:17:51) :
“I don’t think your argument quite works here. Suppose you could change from 300ppm to 400ppm CO2 in one day. You observe that the world warms up 0.00001C by midnight, and conclude that climate sensitivity is actually 0.00003C per doubling of CO2.”
This is a ridiculous example, my example included a timespan of 69 years, not one night.
That’s my point though – calculating it the way you did, the two examples give wildly different results for climate sensivity, whereas *in reality*, the final temperature you actually *observed* (at equilibrium) would be the same in both cases, regardless of whether you reached your 400ppm in one day or 70 years. That’s why your calculation was wrong. Climate sensitivity depends on actual concentrations of greenhouse gases, not their rate of change.
The point is that the temperature is logarithmically proportional to the concentration.
… not the rate of change; exactly.
“Not only do you need to consider this warming ‘in the pipeline’ just from the physics of greenhouse gases, you also need to consider long-term…”
Where is the “warming in the pipeline”? If anywhere, it would be in the oceans, but ocean heat content has been flat or slightly falling for 6 years.
When scientists talk about ‘warming in the pipeline’ they don’t mean warming that has already occurred – they mean warming which hasn’t occurred yet but which will do in the future because of the radiative imbalance. This is what a ‘forcing’ is all about. If the Earth is radiating away less energy than it is absorbing from the sun then it will *necessarily* warm up (it can’t possibly do otherwise) but it will do so gradually, not instantly, until the balance is restored. Most of that heat will go into the oceans.
“…feedbacks from ice sheets, vegetation cover, thawing permafrost and so on, all of which make climate sensitivity a lot more complicated than your simple calculation above suggests.”
These are better arguments. The problem is that nobody really knows, but what we do know, is e.g. that there was no runaway warming in the Eemian, when temperatures were significantly higher than today.
There was a very large jump in global temperature around 130,000 years ago which does suggest ‘runaway warming’ as you call it but CO2 never got above 280ppm even at the peak, so I’m not sure what that can tell us about today when we have CO2 at 380ppm or so.
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/2/3/0394/97545
http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn11659/dn11659-2_738.jpg
Falstaff (18:22:09) :
The article states and restates the topic is on RECENT temperature trends. To which you respond:
“” Icarus (00:13:10) :
Clearly none of this is true -””
and then attempt to substantiate your response by plotting long term temperature for the last SIXTY years, an incoherent non-sequitor.
How could you possibly talk about a ‘stall’, ‘standstill’ or ‘stagnation’ in a long term trend *except* in the context of that long term trend? If you don’t look at decades’ worth of data then you can’t see the long term trend at all, so you can’t possibly have anything interesting or informative to say about it.
…the absence of warming in since 2000 has begun to pull at the long term trend, the POINT of the Der Speigel story.
And I pointed out that you can’t *possibly* know this now. You can only know whether this is true or not several years (maybe as many as 10 years) down the line, because a succession of warmer years would show that there was no such ‘pulling at the long term trend’ at all. What you see *now* as a ‘stall’ will simply disappear if the next few years are warmer still. Do you agree? That’s why the story is really just nonsense.
Mods: This is all very interesting, but what people really want to know – assuming this revelation about Hadley is significant enough to dismember or seriously damage the entire AGW hypothesis – is:
How will this debunking/scandal effect my 401K, my house value, what kind of car I drive, the value of the dollar, international trade, my job, the cost of groceries, gas, and electricity, etc. ? How it will impact the political balance of power over the next 3 years and other mundane issues of concern to the average ( US ) citizen.
Ordinary folks don’t give a rat’s fanny about the “science” or the internal shenanigans of some obscure research center. They care about how and when it might impact them personally in ways they may not even realize.
How about some words of wisdom for all the “Joe Sixpacks” out here in the real world?
The Spiegel article is pretty sloppy in specifying just what temperatures it’s referring to, and illustrates how confusion around recent warming vs. cooling results from a failure to recognize that surface temperature measurements reflect but a very small part of a very big puzzle.
The best brief treatment of the subject I know of is at the Skeptical Science web-site (http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-cooling.htm) – it explains not only “noisy” temperature data resulting from the manner in which heat is shuffled around within the Earth system, and documents broad agreement between recent empirical measures of continued ocean heating; satellite measurements of incoming, outgoing and reflected radiation; and the calculations of Earth’s energy imbalance.
Global tempterature has changed trough out earths history. U can’t use 10 or 30 years periodes to decide anything.
1000 yeras ago the temperature was a lot wearmer than today.
(The Vikings wear thin clothes in wintermonths, and Greeland wars named so not because it was icy.
What we should ask ourselves is where are vi in between two iceages; half, a quarter, 3/4 ?
The heat content of the oceans hasn’t increased since 2003 and the radiation imbalance has been negative since 2001…
Douglass et al., 2009
Global warming has “stalled” because the PDO ~60-yr cycle peaked in 2003.
The problem that underpins these e-mail exchanges is that the data used to support the theory that CO2 ppm increases in the range we are experiencing is triggering a climate catastrophe do not in fact support that theory. This requires the promoters of that theory to massage the data, suppress skeptical reviews, stonewall the dissemination of the information. That means that the claim that the theory is sound, is untrue. This means that policies based on these unsound theories are in themselves not sound.
The issue is that a complex theory about how GHGs operate on climate is in fact not reliable.
The issue is that those who are promoting it, knew it, and sought to control the discussion so as to hide the unreliable nature of what they were claiming.
The magazine is exactly correct in pointing out that global warming has stalled. It has in fact not been happening as claimed at all.
Icarus
Can you write 50 words about the benefits of CO2?
Icarus (18:32:35) :
That’s my point though – calculating it the way you did, the two examples give wildly different results for climate sensivity, whereas *in reality*, the final temperature you actually *observed* (at equilibrium) would be the same in both cases, regardless of whether you reached your 400ppm in one day or 70 years. That’s why your calculation was wrong. Climate sensitivity depends on actual concentrations of greenhouse gases, not their rate of change.
Sigh, it was YOU who provided the ridiculous, contrived one-day example. I simply calculated the climate senstivity from the published CO2 and temperature values for the 69 year period, given the (often asserted) assumption that all warming in this period is due to the increased CO2 levels.
… not the rate of change; exactly.
You still don’t get the math at all, do you? Please re-read your junior high school math before making such a fool of yourself.
When scientists talk about ‘warming in the pipeline’ they don’t mean warming that has already occurred – they mean warming which hasn’t occurred yet but which will do in the future because of the radiative imbalance. This is what a ‘forcing’ is all about. If the Earth is radiating away less energy than it is absorbing from the sun then it will *necessarily* warm up (it can’t possibly do otherwise) but it will do so gradually, not instantly, until the balance is restored. Most of that heat will go into the oceans.
But NOTHING has been going into the oceans for the last 6 years, so according to your logic above, there’s currently no imbalance at all!
There was a very large jump in global temperature around 130,000 years ago which does suggest ‘runaway warming’ as you call it but CO2 never got above 280ppm even at the peak, so I’m not sure what that can tell us about today when we have CO2 at 380ppm or so.
It tells us three things: (1) Much higher temperatures than today are perfectly possible with much less CO2. (2) Much higher temperatures than today did not cause a runaway warming through e.g. the proposed albedo and methane release feedbacks and (3) Much higher temperatures than today did not melt the Greenland ice sheet.
Doug (10:23:38) :
Isn’t odd that the warm period in the 40’s has roughly the same slope as the warming period in the 90’s? No CO2 in the 40’s = the same slope as the 90’s with CO2. Obviously no correlation.
The 40’s did have a little bit of conflict that meant far heavier industrial output than the previous ten years and production dropped back afterwards. I think that might have have had some impact so would be surprised if there was no increase.
EMAIL #1120593115:
“From: Phil Jones
To: John Christy
Subject: This and that
Date: Tue Jul 5 15:51:55 2005
John,
There has been some email traffic in the last few days to a week – quite
a bit really, only a small part about MSU. The main part has been one of
your House subcommittees wanting Mike Mann and others and IPCC
to respond on how they produced their reconstructions and how IPCC
produced their report.
In case you want to look at this see later in the email !
Also this load of rubbish !
This is from an Australian at BMRC (not Neville Nicholls). It began from the attached
article. What an idiot.
**********
The SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY WOULD COME DOWN ON ME IN NO
UNCERTAIN TERMS IF I SAID THE WORLD HAD COOLED FROM 1998.
OK IT HAS BUT IT IS ONLY 7 YEARS OF DATA AND IT ISN’T STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT.
**********
The Australian also alerted me to this blogging ! I think this is the term ! Luckily I don’t live in Australia.”
Espen (06:16:22) :
I simply calculated the climate senstivity from the published CO2 and temperature values for the 69 year period…
Yes, you did. Now read this page and see if you can figure out why your calculation was wrong:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm
Don’t plants stop growing below 200ppm CO2? If there was only 280ppm before this present increase, isn’t that a bit too close for comfort? If CO2 had gone down by as much as it has gone up, wouldn’t we be in a bit of a pickle. I mean, there’s only a certain amount of corned beef you can hoard.
I am in a rage: The FT Weekend magazine has an article ‘Meet 10 of the world’s most respected climate change scientists. And the leading sceptic’ They then have: Rahmstorf, John Mitchell,Pachauri, Myles Allen (Oxford) Tim Lenton (East Anglia) Trenberth, Rapley (Science Mus) Susan Solomon (Colorado) Carl Wunsch, Held (Princeton). The sceptic is Richard Lindzen. Why only one? A great choice, but only one? “While we were willing to consider talking to climate change naysayers…. we found that even their initially compelling arguments were rarely backed up by peer-reviewed research’ Aaaaarrrrrgggghh!!!!
I sent the Editor (editor@ft.com) a sharp letter. I am still cross and might send another, and another….
Icarus (12:23:37) :
Yes, you did. Now read this page and see if you can figure out why your calculation was wrong:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm
The figure on that page is obviously wrong, since it shows 2 degrees immediate warming.
A sea breeze has been keeping it very cool on the coast today, despite the forecast record 41 degree temperatures. After the Hadley hacking I may be a bit too conspiracy focussed but it does seem strange that of the 22 Sydney weather stations, all five of the coastal temperature stations are non functional today. Perhaps the bureau is shooting for a Sydney record by knocking out all the cool coastal stations from the Sydney average ?
http://www.bom.gov.au/products/IDN60900.shtml
North Head 22/01:35pm –
Fort Denison 22/01:34pm –
Sydney Airport 22/01:35pm 40.5
Little Bay 22/01:35pm –
Kurnell 22/01:34pm –
Wattamolla 22/01:35pm –
Espen (17:48:56) :
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/345.htm
The figure on that page is obviously wrong, since it shows 2 degrees immediate warming.
Espen, the figure is teaching you the difference between the transient climate response and the equilibrium climate sensitivity. The latter includes the additional warming commitment which you failed to take account of in your calculation. The actual *values* are immaterial and are not reflecting the real-world history of atmospheric CO2 concentration. The figure is illustrating the *principle* involved. In the model they’re using, it does indeed show 2C of TCR, but the climate sensitivity is around 3.5C, for the reasons explained in the text –
“At any time, the ‘additional warming commitment’ is the further increase in temperature, over and above the increase that has already been experienced, that will occur before the system reaches a new equilibrium with radiative forcing stabilised at the current value.”
In other words, the climate sensitivity is *not* the temperature we measure or predict for the day CO2 reaches double its original value, as you are arguing, it’s that temperature *plus* the additional warming commitment which will only be realised decades or centuries later, subject to exchange of energy with the deep ocean – i.e. the equilibrium climate sensitivity.
Hope this helps.
I have noticed that a video titled “Climate Change — the objections” by potholer54 appears to contain a typical misrepresentation of carbon dioxide issue.
In this video, part two of a three part series, which purports to be a serious and balanced discussion of the climate change debate, he says that carbon dioxide acts as a blanket blocking all wavelengths from 8 to 18 micrometers — effectively in concert with dissolved H2O, stopping most of the normal thermal radiation in this band.
Yet at RealScience.org I found a chart in a post entitled “Part II: What Angstrom didn’t know” indicating that the baseline, pre-industrial CO2 level blocked wavelengths from about 13.5 to 17 micrometers. With four times as much CO2 in the atmosphere (almost three times our current level); the indicated blocking range is 13 to 17.5 micrometers. I find it hard to accept the notion that we have a serious carbon dioxide crisis with such a minimal change indicated.
Spector (05:32:07) :
…at RealScience.org I found a chart in a post entitled “Part II: What Angstrom didn’t know” indicating that the baseline, pre-industrial CO2 level blocked wavelengths from about 13.5 to 17 micrometers. With four times as much CO2 in the atmosphere (almost three times our current level); the indicated blocking range is 13 to 17.5 micrometers. I find it hard to accept the notion that we have a serious carbon dioxide crisis with such a minimal change indicated.
From what I’ve read it’s a bit more complicated than that. Might be worth having a look at this page for a detailed explanation:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archive/2007/08/the-co2-problem-in-6-easy-steps/
All of the last ten 10-year trends in GIS land-ocean series show warming:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1980/to:2009/plot/gistemp/from:2000/to:2009/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1999/to:2008/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1998/to:2007/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1997/to:2006/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1996/to:2005/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1995/to:2004/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1994/to:2003/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1993/to:2002/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1992/to:2001/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1991/to:2000/trend
Even the trend showing the *least* warming – the most recent – still shows warming of over 0.1C per decade.
In my previous post, read realclimate.org for RealScience.org for the source of the graph — my mistake.
From another source, I note that various computer models predict a range of one to three degree Celsius global temperature change per doubling of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. These models, however, do not include a number of possible negative feedback effects — physicalgeography.net / fundamentals / 7h . html (FUNDAMENTALS, CHAPTER 7: Introduction to the Atmosphere (h). The Greenhouse Effect.)
Yes, this problem is complex and highly non-linear as the energy flow of thermal radiation is proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperature of the radiating surface.
KlausB: More, this article – as much others before – you won’t see it in German language, not online, not in printing.
It’s in German language here:
http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,661308,00.html
Icarus (03:20:18) :
The actual *values* are immaterial and are not reflecting the real-world history of atmospheric CO2 concentration. The figure is illustrating the *principle* involved. In the model they’re using, it does indeed show 2C of TCR, but the climate sensitivity is around 3.5C, for the reasons explained in the text –
Well, actually stated goals talk about less than 2C warming through stabilizing at 450-500ppm, don’t they? I can’t remember right now if that’s 2C compared to today or to 300ppm levels, if it’s the latter, 2C equilibrium warming at 450ppm corresponds to 3.4 per doubling, so in the range of this figure.
which will only be realised decades or centuries later, subject to exchange of energy with the deep ocean – i.e. the equilibrium climate sensitivity.
I understand this (but thank you for explaining), but my point is that if this model is correct, we should see this energy storage in the oceans already happening.
Spector (13:49:11) :
…
From another source, I note that various computer models predict a range of one to three degree Celsius global temperature change per doubling of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. These models, however, do not include a number of possible negative feedback effects
Which negative feedback effects are those? What makes me a little wary of such claims is the evidence that the Earth has been quite a bit warmer at various times in the past. If negative feedback effects didn’t limit warming to (say) 1°C in the past, then why should we expect that they will do so in the future? It doesn’t make a great deal of difference whether warming comes from greenhouse gases or from changing solar irradiance, and we know that the latter is well correlated with large changes in global average temperature , so why not expect a similar magnitude from changes in greenhouse gases?
RE: Icarus (16:20:00):
“It doesn’t make a great deal of difference whether warming comes from greenhouse gases or from changing solar irradiance…”
Again, I believe the real issue here is do we or do we not have a “Carbon Dioxide Crisis.” This is because the proposed solution is to shut down our modern economy to stop the flow of human created carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If the real cause of “global warming” were solar variability or anthropogenic carbon tetrafluoride, then we would all be running off on the wrong track to no purpose.
My last comment was a taken directly from the reference at physicalgeography.com. “For example, many models cannot properly simulate the negative [feedback] effects that increased cloud cover…”
I believe Dr. Richard S. Lindzen’s recent paper shows measured data demonstrating that heat transfer increases with increasing temperature due to these same negative feedback effects while the IPCC models purportedly show heat transfer being pinched off to produce a thermal catastrophe.
More than 100 Antarctic icebergs – and possibly even hundreds of them – are floating towards New Zealand.
“Icebergs coming en masse”
4:00 AM Tuesday Nov 24, 2009 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10611252
This could possibly make us a bit cooler?