Cool sea surface temperatures overrode warming
December 4, 2009
Left side: 1970-2007 trend in annual surface air temperature. Right sid: 2008 annual surface air temperature, shown as a departure from the 1971-2000 climatology.
High resolution (Credit: NOAA)
Cooler North American temperatures in 2008 resulted from a strong natural effect, and the overall warming trend that has been observed since 1970 is likely to resume, according to university and NOAA scientists.
“Our work shows that there can be cold periods, but that does not mean the end of global warming. The recent coolness was caused by transitory natural factors that temporarily masked the human-caused signal,” said Judith Perlwitz, lead author of the study and a researcher with the Cooperative Institute for Research Environmental Sciences, and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, both in Boulder, Colo. The paper will be published Dec. 8 in Geophysical Research Letters.
[NOTE: We have it here – see link below]
Using computer-generated models as well as observations, the team analyzed causes for climate variations in the recent decades. Special emphasis was given to the reasons for North American coolness in 2008. The research is an exercise in climate attribution, a scientific process for identifying the sources of observed climate and weather patterns. Climate attribution is a vital part of NOAA’s climate services.
“We found that North American coolness resulted from a strong bout of naturally caused cooling in the tropical and northeastern Pacific sea surface temperatures,” said Martin Hoerling, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author. “This illustrates how regional patterns can vary independent of the overall global average. In 2008, global land temperatures were the sixth warmest on record, whereas it was the coldest year in North America since 1996.”
The analysis included historical data and climate model simulations that were conducted in the U.S. and internationally. The science team discerned both natural and human-caused influences for 2008.
“North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.
The scientists conclude that the North American temperatures are likely to resume increasing again, and do not see the recent coolness as an emerging downward trend.
“Our work shows the importance of the role of natural climate variability in temporarily masking or enhancing human-induced climate change. Through diagnosis, we ensure that natural changes, when occurring, are not misunderstood to mean that climate change is either not happening or is happening more intensely than the expected human influence,” said Arun Kumar, a NOAA meteorologist and co-author.
Authors of A strong bout of natural cooling in 2008 are Judith Perlwitz, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, Colo., and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; Martin Hoerling, NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; Jon Eischeid and Taiyi Xu, both of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Boulder, Colo., and NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Colo.; and Arun Kumar, NOAA Climate Prediction Center, Camp Springs, Md.
The work was funded by the NOAA Climate Program Office.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources.
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Link to GRL Paper is here
(Thanks to Leif Svalgaard)
I suppose there’s some logic behind these assertions and conclusions but it makes my hair hurt trying to unravel it.
““North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present,” Perlwitz said.”
I really hope I am wrong but an assertion like this, after all the other feedback about journal controls over what may be said before publication is accepted, does look rather more like editorial as opposed to scientific comment. Sadly I feel suspicious.
Cooling Attributed to Natural Causes
Well at least they did not attribute it to super natural causes or call it man made global cooling
OK. But what about the rest of the world? isn’t this a graph of world-wide temps? Or does Northern Hemisphere data dominated the rest of the world? (yes, I’m half joking)
I wonder how many years of cooling it will take before weather becomes climate?
The official RC figure would be 30! 🙂
The AGW-hypothesis has now become flexible! So flexible that it can not be disproven by empirical evidence. It just streches to include the new data.
“Using computer-generated models…”
Nuff said…
Oh, I thought those were showing trends in North America’s passion for the Global Warming.
I read these reports in complete bewilderment. We live in a closed system. It cannot generate extra energy internally. It is constantly radiating to space. The only incoming source of energy is from the sun. The system will warm or cool dependant on that energy from the sun.
The Romans went down because of lead in their drinking water. What is it that is causing the current intellectual collapse of so called world leaders?
I see the first draft of this paper, “A strong bout of natural cooling in 2008” by
Judith Perlwitz, Martin Hoerling, Jon Eischeid, Taiyi Xu, and Arun Kumar3 was
Received on 29 September 2009, revised on 4 November 2009 and accepted on 10 November 2009. It was published on 8 December 2009.
That seems to me to be a pretty fast turnaround for a paper. Climategate and Jokenhagen influences?
Anyone catch the CNN special tonight on Campbell Brown? I don’t know how Michael Oppenheimer could keep a straight face.
“Climate attribution is a vital part of NOAA’s climate services.”
So, apparently, is climate “science” spin.
3. “North American ‘‘Cold Event’’ of 2008”
The 2008 NA temperature was noteworthy for its
appreciable departure from the trajectory of warming since
1970 (Figure 1a).
Why is there no mention of PDO or ENSO?
The “Cold Event” in 2008 that they are referring to was actually this:
Oscillation Rules as the Pacific Cools
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-231
A “Cold Event” just sounds so .. anomalous.
These people (with NOAA’s support) are still in denial.
The paper reeks of being strictly a political propaganda piece. If CO2 acts like a blanket holding in heat, then natural variability does not eliminate that heat, It simply redistributes it, If there was truly CO2 induced warming that was just overwhelmed by SST coolness, the proof is not to be found in the models, but revealing where that heat was redistributed to. If the blanket is working, the sum of land and ocean heat content (OHC) should still be rising. But not only did NA land temps decline, OHC also has gone down. They need to buy new CO2 blanket because theirs isn’t working. Or if they were scientists they might reconsider the assumptions of their theories, instead of trying to persuade us with such BS.
Oslo (23:06:30) : Yep, Popper picked it. Once something is unfalsifiable, it isn’t science. This paper shows an unfalsifiable hypothesis in spades.
Revisited The Open Society and Its Enemies by chance today and Popper’s attack on historicism and historically based pseudo-laws…with a tweak we are there with the ‘law’ of manmade CO2 causing warming.
And consider Popper’s fear of historicism being a recipe for tyranny because it enables elites to sacrifice all to the law because of their esoteric knowledge…
The more I read the more I saw the psychological links between Marxist totalitarian thinking (also unfalsifiable) and AGW totalitarian thinking (the cognoscenti must make YOU sacrifice for the sake of the cooling utopia).
Always suspicious of all that “red inside” commentary. But the psych – and the structure of their thinking – is remarkably similar.
BTW, on the psych of the enviro-totalitarian: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703558004574581673107794380.html
Thank you, everyone, for giving me some laughs at the end of this frustrating day.
I’ve been so mad I could strangle a polar bear. To stop him from emitting any more CO2, of course.
That report was really written by Al Gore. LOL
I despair. I really do. The wheels are coming off and yet they insist on feeding us this crap. Once the truth is out and people realise that climate change mitigation means much higher taxes and a reduction of living standards there will be serious unrest and what then. Iranian style dissent control?
Instead of arguing over opinions, just do the math. Over the last 50 years, the 70 ppm increase in CO2 has produced an increase in downward ‘clear sky’ IR flux 0f 1.2 W/m^2. That is what the radiative forcing constants really mean. (Table 1 of Hansen’s 2005 climate forcing’s paper). The IR radiation can barely penetrate 100 micron below the ocean surface. That’s the width of a human hair. All of that flux increase goes into surface evaporation not ocean heating. So 1.2 W/m^2 gives an increase in evaporation rate of ~1.7 cm/yr. That’s 0.34 mm of water increase in evaporation per year for 50 years. According to NOAA, global estimates of ocean evaporation rates show that between 1977 and 2003 the rate has increased from 103 to 114 cm/yr with an uncertainty of ±2.72 cm/yr. This was caused by a 0.1 m./s increase in average wind speed. [L. Yu, J. Climate 20(21) 5376-5390 (2007), ‘Global variations in oceanic evaporation (1958-2005): The role of the changing wind speed’]. The upper limit to CO2 warming induced ocean evaporation is below the measurement uncertainty of the global ocean evaporation rate, and an order of magnitude less than average wind speed induced changes.
So how does a 1 W/m^2 increase in CO2 flux produce a 2/3 C increase in ‘average surface temerature’? Its that hockey stick magic again, buried inside those computer models. Will anyone do an independent validation of these climate models? Its not just the surface temperature record that’s been fixed, its the models as well. When are these guys going to put some real surface energy transfer physics into their climate models?
The long term US temperature just follows the ocean surface temperatures. What have the PDO and AMO been doing recently?
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/US_Temperatures_and_Climate_Factors_since_1895.pdf
No CO2 required.
Wayne Delbeke (22:01:21) :
Somewhat off topic but why did the JAXA sea ice extent drop today? More algorithm adjustments or a change in wind moving the ice around. Lost about 100,000 km from yesterday.
They changed the numbers. I heard they now need there to be a higher percentage of ice to open water for it to be counted in the extent figures. It’s a neat way of canceling out the recovery of arctic sea ice if true.
Why is is that a dip in temperature is always attributed to natural causes yet any warming blip is automatically labelled man made? I have yet to see a convincing warmist argument, other than junk science blather and ad hom. attacks, why this is the case.
Are we likely to witness peak AGW BS anytime soon? Probably not. Sigh…
Leif: Thanks for the link to Perlwitz et al (2009). Their Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 illustrate how poorly the models reproduce the observed decadal trends and annual variations. They then twist the logic somehow to, “North American temperatures would have been considerably colder in 2008 had there been no human-induced warming influence present.”
Att this moment North America is boiling hot LOL Its definitely AGW I know I’m certain
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp1.html
Por favor!
Very amusing little piece. Outcome not surprising, considering the funding source & the intended outcome by virtue of the summary statement regarding attribution.
Somewhat OT, watched a very interesting prog (half of after choir practice) last night on UK Channel 4, called “Man on Earth”, hosted by Tony Robinson of Blackadder fame, (a simpleton character named “Baldrick” in a UK psuedo historic comedy series for u (sorry mi daughter hs ben gvng me txt lesns) colonials). Very interesting historical viewpoint of Man’s ascendancy over the planet, well as far as population goes anyhow. The most interesting thing was, & this coming from one who I understand to be Marxist Socialist leaning (& wealthy by most standards), was the deliberate use of the term “Climate Change” to describe the many changes causing mankind to adapt to the environmental changes taking place over the eons. I am unaware of whether this will be a longish running series or just two progs, next is Monday evening 14th Dec @ur momisugly 9pm but of course I am expecting the programme to develop (dreadful action) into an eco-rant about modern mankind’s destruction of the planet in due course, I will keep you posted. However, the constant use of the terms Climate Change & Global Warming & Global Cooling, WRT history, over millions of years, & how man adapted to the heat then the cold & back again was wonderful in that context. Graphics were fun, especially depicting an Earth covered in ice north & south but not completely where central Africa remained clear, but showing the land link for the UK & France was good but the sea levels never changed during said graphics, only the white of ice over the land & seas, allowing the viewer to sea the current land patterns in place, with no changes to the silouettes as the sea levels would clearly rise & fall, was bizarre but not uncommon. They also mentioned specific dramatic cooling events, the name of which has completely gone from the grey cells this morning, “Heinrich? event”, readers can help I am sure! These were described in detail as happening without warning & very suddenly, freezing the landscape all around with temp drops of between 7-10°C (curiously referring to Centigrade as opposed to Celcius). No attribution to the cause was offered at the time, (& no mention of these events ever heard of before by yours truly other than the Younger Dryas). A few historically contentious issues regarding the demise of Neandathal man would set the cat amongst the pigeons I am sure which was acknowledged, (I know a few lookalikes so the likelhood of interbreeding cannot be discarded).
Second thought, I have no wish to defame the talented sexagenarian Mr Robinson as to his politcal views (with a young girlfriend like his, I like many a red blooded male would be green (aaaaggghhh) with envy), as UK Channel 4 was the broadcaster of the infamous “Global Warming Swindle”, so I could be wrong & am prepared to admit so here & now.
AtB
But, but, but, but…. I thought Man’s CO2 fossil fuel emissions completely overwhelmed ALL natural variations.