The Trend

Richard Holle says:
June 25, 2010 at 2:56 pm
899 says:
June 25, 2010 at 9:25 am
If what you say is true, then a mere ‘rewinding’ of history would reveal that matter.
When were the last times such happened in, say, the Medieval —or other— times?
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Uranus and Neptune had this last synod conjunction on April 20th, 1993 -179 years would be 1814 -179 = 1635 – 179 = 1456 – 179 = 1277 -179 = 1098 – 179 = 919 etc.
I don’t know what time of year that the Earth passed them then, but I would consider that data important in the actual timing of the peak melt effect.
I just think it is a shame they spend so much time and money looking at CO2, and none in looking at solar/ lunar / planetary interactive effects, because of an unsubstantiated belief that models will forecast better.
If I recall history correctly, 919 was on the ramp-up of the Medieval climate optimum, 1098 was nearing the peak, 1277 was on to the down side, and 1456 was in the valley.
Now, some people will expect that repetitive events of the same type should tend to —or at least— produce near identical effects/results.
What I point out above is that two such events ‘appear’ to have led to a warming, whilst two others appear to have had an opposite affect.
Am I missing something there?

CodeTech writes (and David L says A—-MEN!).
“Seriously, anyone who thinks that a straight ‘trend’ line is what applies here doesn’t really understand the physical world. Where’s the curve? Where’s the wave? Who failed to comprehend the concept of ‘cyclical’?”
OK, CodeTech or David, show those physical scientists who don’t really understand the physical world, who failed to comprehend the concept of ‘cyclical’, what you know and they don’t.
Here are the minimum ice extent data (NSIDC) behind the “trend” in question, which in so many graphs has been summarized by a simple linear model. Show where the curve is, where the wave is. Include appropriate significance tests for improvement over the linear model. And of course, state your curvy, wavy model’s predictions for this year.
year,minimum
1979,8.15
1980,8.04
1981,7.86
1982,8.26
1983,8.36
1984,7.87
1985,7.46
1986,8.01
1987,7.69
1988,7.9
1989,7.92
1990,6.82
1991,7.4
1992,7.86
1993,7.29
1994,7.61
1995,6.68
1996,8.17
1997,7.3
1998,7.49
1999,7.38
2000,7.21
2001,7.47
2002,6.53
2003,6.85
2004,6.83
2005,6.3
2006,6.52
2007,5.36
2008,6.06
2009,6.26

Phil. says:
June 25, 2010 at 3:55 pm
Pamela Gray says:
June 25, 2010 at 3:10 pm
In all of this thread, I fail to see even one clearly stated mechanism for exactly how CO2 heats oceans. Warm air, such as you might find with re-radiated longwave infrared will evaporate the top skin off of oceans. Therefore it cannot, I repeat cannot heat the ocean below that evaporative surface.
Repeat it all you like you’re still wrong.
PROVE IT!
Got data?
No? Too bad, eh?

villabolo says:
June 26, 2010 at 12:47 pm
“[…]
And other regions “further south”:
Extreme heat wave sets all-time high temperature records in Africa and Middle East
”
1.) As soon as a skeptic points to a cold record the warmists will tell him that that’s weather, not climate. Which doesn’t stop the IPCC from using the French heatwave as an example for climate change in IPCC AR4. It’s only wrong when the skeptics do it.
2.) Wasn’t a key prediction by the GCM’s that global warming will affect the poles and the cold regions much more than places that are already hot, like Africa?
3.) Thanks for the brainwashing-kids methane video. I like to stay up to date with the sinister tactics of the warmists.

anna v says:
June 25, 2010 at 9:10 pm

So, there is an increase in temperature since the little ice age, an increase in sea level and a corresponding increase in diminishing ice globally.
Why is it not part of the natural cycle shown so clearly in the ice core records?
The reason I am interested in whether there is going to be a turning point is because , together with the sun minimum, it may be that this is the next part of the story, and we are entering the next little ice age. I hope not.
Well, you see? It’s as this: The conniving thieves whom are pushing ‘cap and trade,’ want to get that enacted just as fast as possible, and THAT for ONLY ONE reason: They know the Earth’s weather system is in a cooling phase, and the faster the Earth cools, the less chance they have at gaming the rest of us.
So, they cajole, condemn, deride, and remonstrate at every turn. You see? Just as soon as they get that hideous legislation enacted, why then they will commence to declare that =as a result of the legislation= the weather has responded to the limits placed upon the carbon output —even though there were NO limits imposed!
The whole scheme is: Money changing hands.
And of course the sycophants in the ‘green charade parade’ will all thusly declare success, and move on to the next step: Population reduction.

RE: Trends; Just for Reference
From my personal calculations on the data I have, it appears that the NOAA global ocean surface temperature data can be represented as five linear trend segments:

1880.042 to 1910.792: -10.639 deg C per 1000 years; Start: -0.321 deg C.
1910.792 to 1941.292:  13.403 deg C per 1000 years; Start: -0.352 deg C
1941.292 to 1974.708:  -0.100 deg C per 1000 years; Start:  0.051 deg C.
1974.708 to 2004.292:  14.075 deg C per 1000 years; Start:  0.050 deg C.
2004.292 to 2011.375:  -2.248 deg C per 1000 years; Start:  0.460 deg C.
2011.375: End: 0.446 deg C.

I have no explanation for these trends. My average rms error for this representation is 0.093 deg C and my peak error is 0.31 deg C.

Gneiss says:
June 26, 2010 at 9:39 am
Anna V wrote,
“The main relevant question is: does anthropogenic CO2 have anything to do with this trend?”
Most scientists who have studied the question think yes, anthropogenic CO2 has much to do with this trend. Not because they haven’t considered alternative hypotheses, which they have. But because their evidence failed to support those alternatives one after another, while it continues to accumulate for CO2.
The WUWT writers and most readers remain certain all those scientists are wrong, I know.
You’ve rather dishonestly left out the qualifier: Most scientists who’ve gotten fat research grants …
Funny how it is that ‘money talks,’ don’t you agree?
And no, I’m not being paid anything, by anyone, to express my lone opinion.
All I have to go by is history, what I know to be the truth of matters, and the loud, boisterous clamoring of the funded classes who have it in mind to subjugate the rest of us into serfdom —if not actually the grave— in order to please their masters: The ones pushing ‘cap and trade’ with such a fierce passion that it would easily pass as a religion.
Yes, money does seem to talk quite loudly. The false prophets who will profit handsomely should they succeed, while their ‘degreed flunkies’ will be cast aside like the useful idiots they are.

villabolo says:
June 26, 2010 at 3:06 pm
VILLABOLO RESPONDS:
My apologies for not specifying the source of my information concerning the estimates of the percentages of the Earth that was cooler/warmer than usual as well as Arctic temperatures. It was based on NASA’s Thermal Imaging satellites.
I am —and remain— unimpressed by anything NASA has produced of late regarding that matter of ‘climate,’ for the simple reason that the lot of it is predicated upon a political outcome, and NOT at all on science.
You may plead, beg, cajole and remonstrate over matters, but in the end nothing has changed over what has been —and continues to be— normal climate variability.
The whole of your tirades is predicated upon convincing others that you are correct beyond reason when in fact you are not.
If we —the rest of us— were to take you at your word, then the UK would have been toast last winter. It wasn’t. IT FROZE!!!
The same with Washington, D.C., and the north of Scotland has had record skiing season.
The weather patterns shifted, just as they’ve always.
Once again: It’s referred to as ‘natural climate variability.’ WHAT do =>YOU<= not understand about that?!?!
Good lord! Somebody call the WAAAAAAAAMBULANCE!!!!
Four million years of weather and natural climate variability have proven your contentions to be specious beyond words!
VERY BIG CLUE FOR YOU: The weather didn't start yesterday, and it ain't gonna end tomorrow!!!
Geez!

Ian W says:
June 25, 2010 at 4:00 am
Hypnos says:
June 25, 2010 at 2:36 am
That’s because it’s true. Three years does not a trend make. The system fluctuates. Just eyballing the graph you posted, the current “recovery” could be just like the one from 1990 to 1992.
More importantly – 30 years does not a baseline make.
Many reports of similar fluctuations in recent human history – but no just look at this small snippet and project and interpolate from that. This is unscientific to a degree that makes it look deliberate.
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Given vukcevic’s graph of the Hudson bay area it is deliberate.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC1.htm
Also if you look at the temperature trend throughout the holecene the general trend is DOWN Since the Bronze age not up and now “We summarize recent findings about periodicities in the solar tachocline and their physical interpretation. These lead us to conclude that solar variability is presently entering into a long Grand Minimum, this being an episode of very low solar activity, not shorter than a century…Based on the above mentioned methodology and by using new data for the geomagnetic aa index we foresee that a Grand Minimum is immanent. Thus, a prolonged period of relative global cooling is forecasted.
To really put our present temperature in perspective: See the Vostok Ice Core Temperature data That is why Geologists generally have problems believing in CAGW.
Since “Climate Scientists” have access to these graphs and data the constantly broadcasted claim that the present warm period is “unprecedented” is an outright fib.

stevengoddard,
Note that without downward longwave, the surface would cool dramatically (e.g. clear nights have reduced downward longwave). It amounts to hundreds of W/m2, and is comparable to solar especially in polar regions. It is definitely a major part of the budget. Also clouds are temporary, CO2 is permanent.

JimD, LW cannot penetrate much beyond surface tension and wave action plus evaporation removes any heat added by LW anyway. The ONLY way oceans cool or warm has to do with wind and SW infrared. I believe that the AGW camp understands this as well. LW heating of the oceans cannot be modeled because there is no mechanism or mathematical construct for it. The properties of both LW and water surface tension rules out all possibility of LW being responsible for oceanic SST changes.

Since the concept of backradiation is being discussed, it is time to show again this nice free energy oven:
http://www.vermonttiger.com/content/2008/07/nasa-free-energ.html
As a physicist I find a lot of hand waving obscurities in climate “science”.
One is all this back radiation business, which mixes the quantum mechanical, quantum statistical mechanical, and classical thermodynamic pictures in an ad hoc manner, as if baking a cake. Paradoxes occur when axiomatic system are confused, and thus we get the oven paradox.
Thermodynamics gives us tools to calculate what happens in mixtures of gases. Engineers use it and design with great precision engines and their environments.
If you change the composition of a gas you are changing its heat capacity, that should be enough to calculate what is necessary. The concept of heat capacity does not care in classical thermodynamics which molecule is playing ball with what photon. The total effect of the microscopic quantum activities are to change the heat capacity of the gas, and we live in the macroscopic world.
In the links I provided above it is evident that the contribution of hydrocarbon burning is not the prime mover of the temperature rise since the little ice age, the sea level rise, and hence the diminution of ice in the arctic. You cannot have effect precede the supposed cause by 100 years. http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm , figs 11, 12.
In addition: catastrophic temperature rises due to CO2 doubling are given only by models.
These models have failed to reproduce:
1) the cloud cover. ( see AR4, they are all over the globe wrong)
Considering that a 2 percent change in albedo over compensates for this observed change in temperature since the little ice age, this is an extremely important failure.
2) they fail to reproduce the absolute temperature, that is why they are playing card games with anomalies of temperatures. The failure is larger than the anomalies predicted.
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2009/fact-6a-model-simulations-dont-match-average-surface-temperature-of-the-earth/
The exact same runs that average so nicely on the global anomaly measurements.
3)They predict a tropical hotspot that has not materialized
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/GHGModsvsReality.jpg
4) they predict a rise of sea surface temperatures that have not materialized. Since 2005 the famous CO2 effect cannot change the SSTs, though CO2 is merrily rising still.
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/
5) the sensitivity of the atmosphere to the water content is the opposite of that given by the models
file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/user/My%20Documents/IPCC/www.drroyspencer.com/2010/05/strong-negative-feedback-from-the-latest-ceres-radiation-budget-measurements-over-the-global-oceans/
http://www.drroyspencer.com/Lindzen-and-Choi-GRL-2009.pdf
One error throws out a hypothesis and sends the true scientist back to the drawing board.
Note, I stress true scientist.
As I said before, there is less ice than there used to be during the Little Ice Age, and we are lucky. Lets hope our luck keeps up. CO2 has little to do with the case.