UPDATE: The subject of this article, Mojib Latif, has challenged the Daily Mail article and it’s interpretation. In another story at the Guardian, Latif says the interpretation by the Daily Mail and a similar story in the Telegraph is wrongly interpreting his work.
Read the Guardian story here and decide for yourself. If anyone knows of a contact for Dr. Latif, please leave it in comments as I’ll make this forum available to him should he wish to elaborate further.
h/t to WUWT reader Werner Weber for notifying me.
UPDATE2: Werner Weber writes to me in email:
> I have send him an e-mail, pointing out what happened during the night
> and invite him to take the oportunity to present his views in one of the
> leading sceptics blogs.
=====================================
We’ve been covering a lot of the recent cold outbreaks under the “weather is not climate department” heading. This story however is about both weather and climate and what one IPCC scientist thinks is headed our way.
The cold this December and January has been noteworthy and newsworthy. We just posted that December 2009 was the Second Snowiest on Record in the Northern Hemisphere. Beijing was hit by its heaviest snowfall in 60 years, and Korea had the largest snowfall ever recorded since record keeping began in 1937. Plus all of Britain was recently covered by snow.
The cold is setting records too.
Oranges are freezing and millions of tropical fish are dying in Florida, there are Record low temperatures in Cuba and thousands of new low temperature records being set in the USA as well as Europe.
There are signs everywhere, according to an article in the Daily Mail, which produced this graphic below:
According to IPCC scientist Mojib Latif in an article for the Daily Mail, it could be just the beginning of a decades-long deep freeze. Latif is known as one of the world’s leading climate modelers.
Latif, is a professor at the Leibniz Institute at Germany’s Kiel University and an author of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. Latif is a prominent scientist in the UN’s IPCC climate research group.
Latif thinks the cold snap Americans, Brits, and Europeans have been suffering through is the beginning of another cycle, this one a down cycle. He says we’re in for 30 years of cooler temperatures. While maybe it is a harsh prediction, he calls it a “mini ice age”. That phrase is sure to stick in the craw of more than a few people. His theory is based on an analysis of natural oscillations in water temperatures in the oceans.
According to his He believes our current cold weather pattern is a pause, a “30-years-long blip”, in the larger cycle of global warming, which postulates that temperatures will rise rapidly over the coming years.
At a U.N. conference in September, Latif said that changes in the North Atlantic Oscillation could mask over any “manmade global warming” for the next few decades. He said the fluctuations in the NAO could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years.
In a stunning revelation, he told the Daily Mail that:
“a significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 percent.”
Quite a revelation, and a smack down of much of the climate science in the last 30 years that attributes the cause mostly to CO2 increases.
In other news, Arctic sea ice is on the rise too.
According to the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center Arctic summer sea ice has increased by 409,000 square miles, or 26 per cent, since 2007.I’m betting that summer 2010 will have even more ice retained.
Right now, there doesn’t appear to be much of that “rotten ice” that one Canadian alarmist researcher squawked about to the media just a few weeks ago. In fact, we aren’t looking bad at all compared to 30 years ago.
Note that 30 years ago, the technology didn’t exist to display snow cover on the left image, but today we can see just how much our northern hemisphere resembles a snowball.
Now, watch the warmists throw Latif under the bus.
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In a Welsh newspaper, the Western Mail, there was an article yesterday about a claim by Dr Alun Hubbard, a scientist at Aberystwyth University’s Centre for Glaciology, that there could be glaciers on Snowdon within 40 years.
‘Glaciers on Snowdon’ warning by climate expert
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2010/01/12/glaciers-on-snowdon-warning-by-climate-expert-91466-25576951/
The reason given for expecting the return of glaciers was that global warming would cause the Greenland ice sheet to melt with the result that the Gulf Stream would be forced further south and north west Europe would freeze.
Just three years ago another Welsh scientist predicted that Snowdon would be free of snow in winter in another 13 years.
Snowdon will be snow-free in 13 years, scientists warn
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/snowdon-will-be-snowfree-in-13-years-scientists-warn-432596.html
The reason given was global warming. Therefore whether Snowdon never has snow again or gets covered by a glacier the cause will be the same! Whatever happens the cause will be global warming.
Presumably that is what people mean when they say “the science is settled!”
“REPLY: There’s no delusional dreams of grandeur, but the Guardian doesn’t have much of a US audience. If The Daily Mail made a mistake in interpretation, Dr. Latif can certainly benefit from a guest post due to the wide audience that WUWT has. The offer is genuine. – Anthony”
Anthony, you could just simply post Latif’s rebuttal from The Guardian, just as you did with the Mail on Sunday article. There’s no need for a guest post as his thoughts on the Mail’s article are quite clear already. Or do you consider Rose’s reporting to be more scientifically substantial than Latif’s?
Henry Pool (21:37:30)
Can you provide any evidence that the Svensmark theory is implicated in the PDO phase changes every 25 to 30 years ?
And, ideally can you link ocean surface temperature changes to the peaks and troughs of the individual solar cycles ?
Thanks.
Henry Pool (21:37:30) :
What I am worried about now: suppose it will get so cold that we fall into a little ice age. How will this affect the various continents?
If it is a strong “little” ice age, well… The Canadians will move down to and be welcomed in the continental United States, with grudging acceptance of the French-speaking former Quebec residents. Americans will move to Mexico, which will eventually be taken over by the US (the Texas maneuver). And then, we’ll likely stop caring about the rest of the world as we’ll be using our fuel for power and to stay warm, rather than to jet across the world to see how everyone else is doing while not promising aid we don’t have anyway.
For a “mild” stretch of cold, there will be some southward migration. And we’ll likely stop caring about the rest of the world as we’ll be spending too much money on food and fuel to send much in taxes to Washington DC, and don’t want to appear rude by asking if other people in the world need help when we know we can’t afford to send any. If Canadians want help, they can move here. Oh, and taking over Mexico will be an attractive proposition, will likely improve both areas and give the US a much smaller southern land border to control.
Of course the “developing” nations, as seen in Copenhagen, would insist there is really global warming going on and that we should send money as reparations and to pay for future damages, the cries for which would continue until they are crushed beneath any advancing glaciers. Thus we Americans, accepting the reality around us, will conclude those nations are obviously completely insane, that we do not want to deal with their madness, and stop caring about them.
There are a lot of nations right now that are really hoping the planet is not cooling and is actually still warming, whether they admit it or not.
From The Guardian, January 11, 2010… “Latif said his research suggested that up to half the warming seen over the 20th century was down to this natural ocean effect…”
From Nature, May 1, 2008… Thus these results point towards the possibility of routine decadal climate predictions. Using this method, and by considering both internal natural climate variations and projected future anthropogenic forcing, we make the following forecast: over the next decade, the current Atlantic meridional overturning circulation will weaken to its long-term mean; moreover, North Atlantic SST and European and North American surface temperatures will cool slightly, whereas tropical Pacific SST will remain almost unchanged. Our results suggest that global surface temperature may not increase over the next decade, as natural climate variations in the North Atlantic and tropical Pacific temporarily offset the projected anthropogenic warming.”
From The Telegraph, January 11, 2010… “The world could be in for a spell of cooler temperatures, rather than hotter conditions, as a result of cyclical changes in ocean currents for the next 20 or 30 years, it is predicted…
Controversially, he also said that the fluctuations could also be responsible for much of the rise in global temperatures seen over the past 30 years.”
From New Scientist, September 9, 2009… “We could be about to enter one or even two decades of cooler temperatures, according to one of the world’s top climate modellers… Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, Latif said the NAO was probably responsible for some of the strong warming seen around the globe in the past three decades. ‘But how much? The jury is still out,’ he told the conference. The NAO is now moving into a phase that will cool the planet.”
The Telegraph, New Scientist and Nature all feature Latif saying that we’re in for 1-3 decades of cooling due to the cool phase of the NAO. The Guardian, the Telegraph, New Scientist and Nature all feature Latif saying that as much as half of the late 20th century warming was due to the warm phase of the NAO.
To Dave Middleton: From Latif, as directly quoted by The Guardian:
*The Mail on Sunday article said that Latif’s research showed that the current cold weather heralds such “a global trend towards cooler weather”.
It said: “The BBC assured viewers that the big chill was was merely short-term ‘weather’ that had nothing to do with ‘climate’, which was still warming. The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view.”
Not according to Latif. “They are not related at all,” he said. “What we are experiencing now is a weather phenomenon, while we talked about the mean temperature over the next 10 years. You can’t compare the two.”*
The Mail’s article is not the first time Latif has been mispreported and misrepresented, and the New Scientist article also made mistakes:
http://deepclimate.org/2009/10/02/anatomy-of-a-lie-how-morano-and-gunter-spun-latif-out-of-contro/
*The first step in this sorry story, of course, was the misunderstanding of Latif’s remarks by Fred Pearce, in the New Scientist article entitled “World’s climate could cool first, warm later”. As explained in the careful dissection of Latif’s original remarks at the ThingsBreak blog, Latif’s hypothetical cautionary situation was misinterpreted as an actual prediction, concerning the coming decade.*
In all fairness to Professor Latif and since there is some confusion about what Professor Latif has actually said to various news people, I thought that it would be useful to actually hear his own words when he last spoke at the 2009 World Climate Conference in September 2009. I enclose my notes from listening to audio of the presentation and watching the slides. I would be interested in the opinion of others who may listen to this presentation and whether they though that his message was clear.
My brief notes from September 2009 WORLD CLIMATE CONFERENCE and presentation by Professor Latif
http://www.wcc3.org/sessions.php?session_list=PS-3
[ NEWSCIENTIST wrote an article from this presentation I assume
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17742-worlds-climate-could-cool-first-warm-later.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
I listened to the audio and watched the slides of M. Latif’s presentation. Here are my observations.
Slide# 1
In reference to the 20th century average global temperature curve
Shows long term warming trend but with decadal variability
Curve is anthropogenic in nature or manmade in his opinion
Slide#3
20 th Century temperature curve simplified with a projection to 2100
It is not clear whether this projection is a real model forecast or just made for illustration purposes only to show that 1-2 decade cooling periods can happen. I can see how this graph can confuse the media. It is not clear.
Shows a cooling period about 2010-2030
He Indicated that you can enter a cooling period of a decade or two in these long term periods
Slide #17
Forecast for next decade [shows a large spread in forecast]
UK curve shows steep rise with perhaps 1C degree rise max or flat at low end
German curve shows very little temperature rise and possibly a negative rise [cooling?] at the low end
Various other slides
Indicated that MOC and NAO do play significant role in decadal variability of global temperatures especially in the north Atlantic
He is not a skeptic but totally global warming
SUMMARY OBSERVATIONS[mine only]
He does project at least the next decade as being flat or even cooling at the low end of his projection
He does not specifically project the next two decades as cool [even though his slide #3 shows some of this] but he does indicate that there can be 2 decades of cooling.
He believes that the 20 the century warming curve is anthropogenic with strong variability due to natural causes like MOC and NAO
I think the New Scientist article perhaps could be clearer in some areas but it is not seriously misleading. I can see how the vague words can be taken differently by different people . They could be clearer in my opinion.
Bob Tisdale (02:17:06)
Then there are data sets and papers you could refer me to ?
Henry @ur momisugly stephen Wilde
Questions:
Can you provide any evidence that the Svensmark theory is implicated in the PDO phase changes every 25 to 30 years ?
And, ideally can you link ocean surface temperature changes to the peaks and troughs of the individual solar cycles ?
Answer:
First of all, let me say I am just a normal chemist, not a climate scientist.
I studied the global warming as a hobby. I am not sure what PDO stands for, but I assume it has something to do with the streams in the oceans.
I came to the conclusion that Carbon dioxide is harmless. It comes out in the atmosphere after global warming, and is therefore not a reason for global warming. This is because of what we all learned at school: CO2 dissolves in (cold) water and if you make the water warm or boil it, it comes out again.
I concluded that the sun must be major driver of the weather. Svensmark theory makes perfect sense to me. If you stand in the sun and a cloud goes past by, a) you feel less heat from the sun and b) it gets darker. Where did the (missing) radiation go? It was deflected out to space. Easy. So more clouds bring less heat from the sun. Less clouds bring more heat which gets absorbed by the oceans who act as buffers.
I also looked at the studies from Fred in: http://www.kidswincom.net/climate.pdf
He determined a number of returning cycles of sea surface temperatures (SST) of which a few are also common with the CO2 cycles. (which makes sense: as the SST rises so does the CO2 in the atmosphere.) >
I hope his graphs can also help you with the answer that you are looking for .
I think he mentioned other cycles as well. One was a 300 or 350 year cycle.
So it is possible that we are returning to the little ice age similar to what the weather was in 350 years ago. However, I am not sure at what point we are in in the particular cycles that he mentioned. (I could not figure that out yet)
Stephen Wilde (06:01:52) : Download all these PDF, it´s a must read
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/
in special the 8th. one where in page 50 you can see the 55 years oscillation of the atmospheric circulation index.
ftp://ftp.fao.org/docrep/fao/005/y2787e/y2787e08.pdf
Tarby,
These “misinterpretations” are all about what Latif has said or hasn’t said vis a vis the future of climate change and the CO2 influence thereon. The one fact that is beyond interpretation of any kind, is Latif’s conclusion that half the current warming was due to natural cycles.
What’s to misinterpret in that?
JonesII (06:49:08)
Thanks, I’ll have a browse. In the meantime is there anything in there that suggests that my hypotheses are ‘rubbish’ ?
Bob Tisdale appears to accept that there are latitudinal shifts in the air circulation systems beyond seasonal variability but makes no effort to show that my hypothesis as to an oceanic cause of such shifts is false. He just tries to downgrade what I say to ‘speculation’ even though it based on clear observations such as those set out in your material.
Henry Pool (06:14:03)
Didn’t intend to put you on the spot Henry.
I was just trying to find out whether you had anything to refute my proposition that ocean surface changes drive events in the air and not vice versa. The significance is that if oceans are in control then Svensmarks ideas become relegated to a second order influence on climate.
“”Latif said his research suggested that up to half the warming seen over the 20th century was down to this natural ocean effect, but said that was consistent with the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.””
Does this means that IPCC AR4 GCM predictions are 50% off ??
And there is no need to correct their models or something?
Can someone be so kind to explaim this to me?
Is there any “howto” get the IPCC models proyections for temperature anomalies, as in this figure, http://www.realclimate.org/images/model09.jpg
Thanks
After listening to Professor Latif’s 2009 WCC presentation again I concluded the following:
He is only making a prediction for one decade only namely the next decade [2009-2019] and he basically shows the global average surface temperatures to decline to a range of about 14.18 C to 14.28 C from 14.39 C in 2008 [ I don’t have final figures for 2009 but it could be 14.3 -14.4 C]. I eyeballed his the numbers from his graphs. The UK forecast shows waming to a range of 14.5-14.7C
He also said that you may well enter a decade or two of cooling relative to the present temperature level, however he did not indicate when any two decades of cooling would happen or whether the second decade after the next decade was even cooling.
In another words he is predicting cooling for the next decade[ONE] only.
He never talked about 3 decades of cooling.
Stephen Wilde: You wrote, “Bob Tisdale appears to accept that there are latitudinal shifts in the air circulation systems beyond seasonal variability but makes no effort to show that my hypothesis as to an oceanic cause of such shifts is false.”
I have no need to show that it’s false. YOU have a need to show that it’s correct. You have not done this. You have presented nothing to substantiate your claims.
Harping on about Latif’s comments on past climate is a straw man.
Matt v. sticks to the subject and explains how the article here, the Mail on Sunday, and on FOX are misrepresentations. The original article, according to Latif, misquotes him. He should know, he said the words, unless the commenters here were listening in at the time.
Suggesting that he should go to the trouble of making a guest post here is a hollow gesture and an insult. He has nothing to defend. Rose has plenty to defend and it is he, if anyone, who should be making a guest post to explain the discrepancies.
Stephen Wilde: To add to my previous comment, you have provided nothing to counter the results of Lu et al (2009) “Cause of the widening of the tropical belt since 1958”. Their Summary and Discussion includes, “…SST forcing alone causes no significant change in the width of the tropics, and even a contraction in some seasons.”
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/cdeser/Docs/LuDeserReichler.pdf
Also, you asked above, “Then there are data sets and papers you could refer me to ?”
I’m not studying this. You are. It’s your responsibility to provide something, anything, to back your claims, not mine. Don’t put the responsibility on me, Stephen.
Svensmark’s theory isn’t impacted one way or the other by your proposition (with which I generally agree).
If variations in solar magnetic activity modulate the GCR flux and low cloud cover… Particularly low cloud cover over the oceans, then the ENSO/SOI, PDO, AMO, AO, etc. could be driven by subtle changes in solar heating of the oceans.
Stephen Wilde: You wrote, “Bob Tisdale appears to accept that there are latitudinal shifts in the air circulation systems beyond seasonal variability…”
In any of my comments on this thread and on previous threads had I written that there were no latitudinal shifts? I only asked you for data to verify the latitudinal shifts on which you based your claims.
Can somebody help me & tell me what these acronyms stand for/ precisely
ENSO/SOI, PDO, AMO, AO,
I’d be interested to know
juts asking so I know next time
Tarby
I am not saying that anyone misrepresented Latif,because I don’t know how and where they got the information for their story. I just expressed my own interpretation of Professor Latif’s comments at the WCC meeting in September 2009.
David Middleton (09:16:58)
Yes, that would be a way of squaring the circle and that leads to the questions about correlations that I put to Henry Pool as follows:
“Can you provide any evidence that the Svensmark theory is implicated in the PDO phase changes every 25 to 30 years ?
And, ideally can you link ocean surface temperature changes to the peaks and troughs of the individual solar cycles ?”
Bob Tisdale (09:30:35)
Bob, I respect your work and have no wish to question it. I’ve left the mechanisms for ocean variability open and your work is most helpful.
As regards data to support my proposition I referred to enough to raise a prima facie presumption.
You say that is not enough and point out that others have studied the issue using various data sets that I am unaware of. If you don’t want to link to them that’s fine, I’ll do a bit more digging but you could have said whether there is anything in those data sets to suggest that I am wasting my time.
Your failure to comment on that point makes me wonder why you respond to me at all but no matter.
Henry Pool (09:31:02) :
Can somebody help me & tell me what these acronyms stand for/ precisely
ENSO/SOI, PDO, AMO, AO,
I’d be interested to know
juts asking so I know next time
At the top of the pages on WUWT, like this one, there is a button in the toolbar that says “Glossary.” This contains a “master list” of acronyms in two parts. The first, “Climate Science Acronyms,” relates to organizations. The second, “Climate Science Abbreviations,” is actually acronyms of commonly-used terms.
While helpful, the “Glossary” is neither all-inclusive, absolutely definitive, nor perfectly accurate. For example, it states “RC Real Climate website, operated by NASA GISS” which is factually wrong, and could be grounds for a defamation lawsuit by NASA, however this can be regarded as a joke based on there being a certain employee of NASA who also works as a RC moderator while apparently “at work” for NASA.
Henry Pool (09:31:02) : CLICK ON THE ABOVE MENU, AT GLOSSARY.
Bob Tisdale (09:14:16)
I’ve just noticed the link quoted and will consider it. Thank you.