From the story: The Australian’s overheated time warp misses half of 2010 which had a NOAA press release in it below the fold, Dr. Richard Keen weighs in and does a spot check of the data from his own NOAA station (he’s an official observer).
And if you find this map hard to look at, you aren’t alone in seeing spots.
Keen writes:
Lawrimore’s comment…
“Heavy snow, like the record snows that crippled Baltimore and Washington last winter, is likely to increase because storms are moving north. Also, the Great Lakes aren’t freezing as early or as much. “As cold outbreaks occur, cold air goes over the Great Lakes, picks up moisture and dumps on the Northeast,” he says.”
…shows a complete lack of understanding of weather (which makes up climate).
East coast snows are caused by lows off the coast, and if the storms move north, Baltimore, Philadelphia, NYC et al. find themselves in the warm sectors of the lows, and enjoy warm southerly winds and rain.
Furthermore, during the snow storms, the winds are from the northeast bringing moisture from the Atlantic (hence the name “nor’easter” for these storms); very little of the moisture comes from the Great Lakes. One of Philadelphia’s snowiest winters was 1978-79, when the Lakes were all but frozen over. Along the east coast, a region that averages very near freezing during the winter, the limiting factor for snow storms is not moisture, but temperature. Most storms are rain.
Now, the spot check.
NOAA’s calculation of the global temperature is based on their analysis of departures at 2000 or so grid points. One of those points included my weather station at Coal Creek Canyon, Colorado, a location with no UHI or other troublesome influences. The NOAA map of June anomalies for the US, based on an unknown selection of stations, has Coal Creek sitting on the +4F contour.
The Coal Creek record is long enough to calculate 30-year normals, and June 2010 comes in at +1.0F above normal.
That’s 3 degrees less than the NOAA estimate for the same location, which is the difference between June being in the top 3 or being in the middle third. Now, this is simply a spot check of one of NOAA’s 2000 grid points, but it leads to the question of how far off are the other grid points?
Dr. Richard Keen
Gail Combs says:
July 16, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Despite what R. Gates says, he is solidly in the CAGW camp as seen from his comments at other sites.
____
You keep bringing this up, and it is so incredibly wrong so as to be both insulting (after months of saying this about me) and makes you look ignorant. I’ve have never posted any C atastrophic statements here on WUWT nor any other site. (despite some link you post here that shows someone using a name like mine to post nonsense on another site) The point of fact is, that while I’m pretty (75%) convinced that AGW is real, I’ve got no idea if it will be catastrophic, or turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to the human race. Until I become 100% convinced that AGW is real, I’ve not focused on the ramifications. Furthermore, as the Arctic seems to be the first place that warming is projected to be (and seems to be) seen, it has been my main focus of interest.
[REPLY – Well, that is a pretty clear statement. We shall take it at face value and bear it in mind. ~ Evan]
Gail Combs,
Combining is not manipulating.
Gail Combs,
Also pointing to another WUWT article does not give something credibility. Goddard two weeks ago said that ice losses couldn’t occur in cold places in Antarctica. That is the quality of article (or lack there of) which makes me not so big on trusting many of the analysis’ on this site. Thankfully http://www.skepticalscience.com put some pieces on which refuted him.
R. Gates:
Guess I will pile on with everyone else.
Mainstream climate science has concluded that natural fluctuations (as we currently understand them) cannot explain the warming in the last 150 years and only CO2 forcing can. “What else can it be?”, they ask. With no answers forthcoming they declared the science settled.
However, given that we must surely be in the early stages of understanding long-term climate fluctuations and the possible role of GHG’s, CO2 can only be a maybe – not a certainty. Current state-of-the-art climate science can only suggest through modeling (using models that already assume CO2 to be the dominant driver) that human produced CO2 may possibly lead to climate catastrophe in the next century or two.
“Where is the warmth coming from?”, you ask.
Based on our current understanding, the only honest answer would be, “It could be a number of things, both natural and anthropogenic, including GHG’s. Some suspect the increase in atmosphereic CO2 has become the dominant driver, but until we understand the fundamentals of long-term climate change a lot better, we really can’t say for sure.”
When people ask me if the earth is warming I reply that I fear it isn’t – or, at least, not as much as would be better for humankind were it to do so.
R. Gates:
let’s suppose that the measurements (even with some errors) as correct, and that 2010 is indeed the warmest year on record, if even by a few tenths of a degree. To what would the skeptics attribute this warmth?
Depends on the skeptic. Doubt is subjective, depending on the experiences and reasoning of the individual mind.
When 2010 is over, if the data indicates a record level of warmth, it will be because of:
The contributions of every actual cause
– regardless of whether each cause is known or unknown
– regardless of whether each cause is believed or doubted
– regardless of whether each cause is relevant to the whole world or just the samples used in the record
The record warmth would also depend on the limit of the span of the record (it’s easier to beat a shorter span than a longer one).
And it will not be due to any cause that didn’t actually contribute to the samples
– even if such causes actually made a difference in the rest of the world
– even if me or you or any collection of people believe or doubt in that particular cause
@pgosselin says:
July 16, 2010 at 12:57 pm
Thze June anomaly map surprises me when I compare it to the July 4-11 chart from NASA. Where did all the heat go in July? On vacation?
http://pgosselin.wordpress.com/2010/07/16/the-incredibly-rapidly-disappearing-heat/
It never ceases to amaze me what goes on at the NASA culinary institute for climatological arts and data cooking.
————————
The maps are using different reference points. The NASA July map: “This global map shows temperature anomalies for July 4–11, 2010, compared to temperatures for the same dates from 2000 to 2008.” But the NOAA June map uses 1971-2000 as a reference.
For the benefit of the discussion, here are two of the storms that hit the central eastern seaboard last winter. The first is one of the Washington storms (I’ll have to dig for dates – the images were created to illustrate something else)
The motion of this storm was from sw–>ne. There is a line through the centre that demarcates the cold sector and its a diagonal just above Washington through Baltimore – north of that diagonal the precip is snow, wet, snow and sleet The purple areas are convective warm – mostly rain. The demarcation line isn’t a cold front strictly, its the lower reach of a mass of cold air sitting over the NE at the time. Notyhing to do with lake effect or “storms moving north”
The second image is another storm moving northeasterly through Kentucky and Tennessee. The yellow line marks the cold air boundary between the warmer south, and the southern reach of arctic air. You can see in the radar signature the smooth signature of snow above the yellow line, above the convective signature of rain (red areas below the yellow line. No lake effect here either, and once again, while the storm has a northerly drift, the snow is due to cold air masses not great lakes moisture.
@R. Gates says: July 16, 2010 at 11:37 am
Where is the warmth coming from my skeptical friends?
http://www.meteo.uni-koeln.de/meteo.php?show=En_We_Ue
This is a good question, my 25% sceptical friend. And, looking at Cologne here’s my humble opinion:
Couldn’t the same mechanism, that lifted the anomaly between 1885 and 1915 (30 yrs.) by 2.5°C, now move it upward by 1.5°C between 1955 and 2005 (50 yrs.).
Less increase in a longer period. They should have panicked in the early days.
I know, my answer is as less cientific as your question was, but you may think about it anyway.
Cherry-picked out of your source: http://www.uni-koeln.de/math-nat-fak/geomet/meteo/Klimastatistik/baurtempwintergross.gif
Arrgh – the image links didn’t come out – Mods if you can fix the links or change them to:
Washington, Winter
and Memphis, winter
REPLY: don’t try to make links, just put in URL’s amd WP will automatically make links from them http://www.google.com for example -Anthony
D Caldwell says:
July 16, 2010 at 3:22 pm
R. Gates:
Guess I will pile on with everyone else.
Mainstream climate science has concluded that natural fluctuations (as we currently understand them) cannot explain the warming in the last 150 years and only CO2 forcing can. “What else can it be?”, they ask. With no answers forthcoming they declared the science settled.
However, given that we must surely be in the early stages of understanding long-term climate fluctuations and the possible role of GHG’s, CO2 can only be a maybe – not a certainty. Current state-of-the-art climate science can only suggest through modeling (using models that already assume CO2 to be the dominant driver) that human produced CO2 may possibly lead to climate catastrophe in the next century or two.
“Where is the warmth coming from?”, you ask.
Based on our current understanding, the only honest answer would be, “It could be a number of things, both natural and anthropogenic, including GHG’s. Some suspect the increase in atmosphereic CO2 has become the dominant driver, but until we understand the fundamentals of long-term climate change a lot better, we really can’t say for sure.”
________________
I agree with most of this statement…hence why I am only 75% convinced that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s is the most likely explanation for most of the warming of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
In general I do not deny the cyclical influences of the sun, the oceans, galactic cosmic rays, etc. I find especially interesting the studies being done on the length of solar cycles and how they influence temperatures during the following solar cycles. I am open to all these possibilities (my skeptical and true scientific nature insists!) but I find the evidence for the forcing caused by the 40% buildup in CO2 since the 1700’s to be very convincing. It doesn’t mean ALL the warmth has been caused by CO2, but a good part of it. Some of it could well be other cycles, but I see these as being lesser influencers than CO2.
What caused the heating of the MWP? Was it as warm globally as we are seeing now? There is conflicting evidence for both sides, and I think the data is inconclusive. We sure know that CO2 didn’t cause that warming, but is sure would be nice to have some solar data that from the period that can be trusted, especially the numbers of and strength of the magnetic fields of sunspots. But we don’t. I do find it suspicious that some skeptics look to the MWP as being the proof that CO2 is not causing today’s warming, when we know far less about the MWP then we do about the physics behind CO2 as a greenhouse gas and the increases we’ve seen in that gas since the 1700’s. Why put more stock in something less well known?
Enneagram said: “The above graph is absolutely false!. Everyone check own closest red spot and say if it is correct right here. This will be a kind of “fake red spots” investigation.”
Good idea. I live on the South Coast of NSW Australia. The map has us as hot in June, when in reality, it has been notably cold. Sydney, 200 km to the north, had its coldest June morning since 1949. Unusually cold weather engulfed the south-east of Australia and beyond, all presented as hot on the NOAA’s map:
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/?p=4186
jaypan says:
July 16, 2010 at 3:43 pm
@R. Gates says: July 16, 2010 at 11:37 am
Where is the warmth coming from my skeptical friends?
http://www.meteo.uni-koeln.de/meteo.php?show=En_We_Ue
This is a good question, my 25% sceptical friend. And, looking at Cologne here’s my humble opinion:
Couldn’t the same mechanism, that lifted the anomaly between 1885 and 1915 (30 yrs.) by 2.5°C, now move it upward by 1.5°C between 1955 and 2005 (50 yrs.).
Less increase in a longer period. They should have panicked in the early days.
__________
Yes, it could be many “mechanisms”, like some cycle that we haven’t discovered yet, some influence from the sun that we don’t know about yet, etc. It is this possibility that keeps me 25% skeptical! Right now though, IMO, the 40% rise in CO2 since the 1700’s seems like the best one out there, though others fall into the category of being worth looking at, and some are simply not.
R. Gates says:
“I’ve still not heard a satisfactory answer to the basic question: Why is 2010 so warm if not for AGW? What natural cyclical event is driving this? It can’t be El Nino only, as this past one was not as strong as 1998, and we are not where close to a solar max event. It seems the skeptics answer to the warmth of 2010 is “oh, the temperature data is wrong, the process is wrong, etc. etc.” and so the skeptics won’t even offer an alternative explanation to the warm year we’re having globally, but rather would like to deny the warmth, or give their local weather anecdotes.”
First of all, let me say, I far prefer the satellite temperature data to any of the ground based data. What Zeke & Mosher showed is that slightly different methods of manipulating bad ground based data gives you a similar result…not necessarily a correct result. I happen to think for many reasons that the satellite data is more accurate. You can find the latest chart thru June here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
This data shows the current temperature anomaly of +0.436 deg C. NOT the 0.68 deg C as reported by NOAA. The year 2010, according to this data is NOT warmer than 1998.
I agree with you that the warmth this year is NOT due entirely due to El Nino but is a residual warmth from the warm phase of the PDO, which NOAA has now declared has recently flipped to cold, and a very warm AMO. Since the PDO has become colder, you will notice that this latest strong El Nino was NOT as strong as the one in 1998.
The general increase shown in the satellite temperature graph is likely due to the fact that just as the satellite record began the PDO became warm and the AMO has become increasingly warm since 1980 and has just reached record high values. In another decade or so, the AMO will revert back to a cold phase. This coupled with a still cold PDO at that time will result in much cooler global temperatures than now.
Joe Bastardi, the best seasonal and long range forecaster I have ever come across in my 40 year professional career as a meteorologist, has stated and I agree, that by the end of this year, the satellite record will show global temperatures back near the average and possibly a few tenths of a degree lower than that by early next year. There will be a similar drop to the one that occurred after the 1998 El NIno. Once the AMO goes negative, he believes, and again I agree, we will see temperatures similar to the 1970s. He has even stated he is more sure of this forecast than of any other long range forecast he has ever made.
So there you have it in a nutshell what the natural causes are for the warming we see, plus I wouldn’t rule out a contribution from a recovery from the Little Ice Age and as Dr. Spencer has claimed, all of the warming can be explained by just a 2% decrease in global cloud cover, which unfortunately we cannot adequately measure YET.
You also now have a forecast of what will happen over the next decade based upon the factors mentioned above. Let’s see how this forecast turns out against the GCMs.
R. Gates says:
July 16, 2010 at 3:57 pm
Why put more stock in something less well known?
==============================================
Because to put stock in the things you claim are better knowns, requires that you put stock in many times more things that are even less known.
Believing in AGW requires that you put stock in so many un-knowns it’s off the chart.
R Gates writes:
“Tell me why this data is not to be believed? And what explanation would AGW skeptics give for the warmth of 2010 if not AGW?”
The data that you cite is incorrect for my location. That is one count against the data. The UHI effect should increase annually for the simple reason that measurement stations are located in cities and American cities constantly increase the density of their power generating units and cause higher local temperatures and longer lingering high temperatures. This is certainly true at my location. That is a count against AGW as an explanation. What more do you need?
Isn’t the summation of the IPCC report a statement that pretty much says “We can find no other means to account for the recent warming, therefor it must be due to CO2.”?
Have we had a scientifically repeatable experiment which puts forth this hypothesis and then proves it?
And my favorite question, which I first read on WUWT is Let’s suppose mankind CAN impact temerature on a global level…what does it get set to, and who gets to decide that?
JimB
R Gates
Unless you are suddenly going all religious on us and suggesting that man can only exist in a soup of absolutely precise amounts of gases, we need to look at when Co2 can reasonably have started to make an impact. This is surely after 1950 (and doesn’t take into account the life of a CO2 molecule.)
What I find interesting is that-with fits and starts-temperatures have been increasing since our earliest instrumental records.
http://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi
So what I want to know is why have temperatures been increasing for at least 350 years, and why do we place such great store on James Hansen’s figures, who merely showed the continuation of that increase from 1880 with Giss.
Tonyb
R. Gates,
“I do find it suspicious that some skeptics look to the MWP as being the proof that CO2 is not causing today’s warming, when we know far less about the MWP then we do about the physics behind CO2 as a greenhouse gas and the increases we’ve seen in that gas since the 1700′s. Why put more stock in something less well known?”
The uncertainty about the temperature of the MWP is not ” proof that CO2 is not causing today’s warming”, but rather a basis for skepticism of claims that the current warming is alarmingly unnatural. The “physics behind CO2” only explains less than a third of the recent warming and an expectation of about 1 degree C over the next century. Anything more requires significant net positive feedbacks. So I don’t think we are putting “more stock in something less well known”.
On an evidence basis, I don’t know how you justify being “75% convinced that the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700′s is the most likely explanation for most of the warming.” The 1700s included the little ice age, the last 60 years of the 20th century were a solar grand maximum, the multidecadal oscillations were simultaneously in their negative phases during the midcentury cooling and in their positive phases during the warming of the 80s and 90s. With uncertainties in our understanding of aerosols, the solar coupling to the climate, the state of the oceans, could feedbacks, etc. A little more skepticism would seem to be in order. What evidence gives you any confidence that CO2’s role is “most” instead of say 30% of the recent warming? Keep in mind that even “most” is not that alarming, if say 51% counts. If you don’t really mean a higher percentage, then you should be with the skeptics in recommending waiting for further science before taking any arguably uneconomic action. Economically justified energy conservation and efficiency measures should be taken of course. regards.
Steven Mosher says:
July 16, 2010 at 2:06 pm
“…you can only make your case by appealing to the record.”
I agree with that completely. Let’s look briefly at that record. In the 1850’s there were precious few stations–all in cities, mostly in the Western world–making temperature measurements. Nothing to base any reasonable estimate of “global temperature upon. Those cities had no asphalt streets, no motor vehicles, no electrical generating stations, etc.
At present we are entering the fourth decade of truly global satellite measurements. Knowing from the longest available station records that there are strong, persistent multidecadal and centennial-scale oscillations of unknown cause, the satellite record is far too short to base any reasonable estimate of secular trend upon. And that’s precisely why NO ONE can say whether on a GLOBAL basis the present decade is warmer or cooler than any in the nineteenth century. Unless, of course you want to close your eyes to the fact that virtually all the cities have grown and now have asphalt, motor cars, electric power etc. and wish to attribute the evident rise in URBAN temperatures to the potent magic of CO2.
“What caused the heating of the MWP? Was it as warm globally as we are seeing now? There is conflicting evidence for both sides, and I think the data is inconclusive.”
Can you please provide the peer reviewed published papers that show “conflicting evidence for both sides” (just the AGW evidence will suffice but you can show the other side if you like).
I dont get it, some graphs show the high arctic at cooler than normal and others show it as warmer. Well which is it? Can we at least agree on what its doing up there or find out who is blowing smoke?
Robert writes:
“So we’re back to trying to say that global temperature methods induces warming despite mosher having proven that they don’t. I know he left out the UHI effect and so on but as mentioned above this station is non-urban anyways.”
If you want us to take you seriously, you must learn not to contradict yourself, undermine the credibility of the theorist you cite, and undermine your own credibility in your first two sentences. You must not say that Mosher proved it and that Mosher left out the UHI effect. The statements contradict one another. You must not cite an author as an authority, Mosher, and in the same breath reveal that his argument left out essential concerns, UHI. That undermines the author. The rest is obvious.
Cutting to the chase, if AGW scientists must deny what everyone who has some mature experience of cities knows, that there is a major UHI effect, then they must undertake some serious studies to prove their point. As I read the literature, at this time the AGW position on UHI depends entirely on Phil Jones’ two papers about a Chinese city, one from 1990 and one from the last few years. The 1990 paper held that the UHI effect was insignificant and the recent paper held that the UHI effect could explain up to 40% of warming in that city. This is the state of your science and you expect us to take you seriously on UHI?
Finally, please understand that some parts of the world grow constantly and that most of the growth is in the cities, where the measurement stations are. The United States grows constantly. The density of heat generating devices in cities in the USA grows constantly. That must explain some of the increase in annual temperature measurements in the USA. If AGW scientists are serious then they will undertake a major study of UHI in American cities and they will permit sceptics to contribute to the design of that study.
@R. Gates says: July 16, 2010 at 11:37 am
Where is the warmth coming from my skeptical friends?
My question is what warmth are we talking about? In New Zealand the raw data has been modified to produce a ‘warming trend’. This was modified by Dr. Jim Salinger (who was trained for a period at the University of East Anglia) and is an acolyte of Phil Jones. He also features in the Climate Gate emails. As I understand it, the raw data in N.Z. shows no warming, only Jim Salinger’s manipulated data shows this. Jim Salinger is also a Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change third and fourth assessment reports, which have made major assessments of climate change.
It all looks so cosy to me.
If you look at all the other apparent ‘manipulations (as shown in Willis Eisenbach’s article re Darwin for example) one has to question the veracity of the data underpinning the warming trend. Can anyone really put any faith at all in this, especially when the urban heat island effect has not been properly dealt with. Even if there has been a rise in temperature of a degree or so over a century there is no evidence that it has been caused by man induced co2 or even naturally produced co2.
Then to get CAGW one has to jump to positive feedback for which there is no evidence at all from what I can discover.
Amazingly, it is upon this argument that governments of the world are being exhorted to destroy their economies. Therein lies madness. If there was ANY real evidence of this, governments would not be shilly shallying around. They would put every effort into reversing it immediately.
One thing is certain. Economic catastrophe will occur without doubt if we pursue this madness.
Doug
R Gates said:
“And what explanation would AGW skeptics give for the warmth of 2010 if not AGW?”
“Alright, as a 25% skeptic…”
Climate changes are likely caused by a combination of myriad factors in this multi-cyclical, chaotic system. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to present a nice tidy story, but unfortunately the unknowns are many – and that’s just the known unknowns, as they say! It is simply not good enough to imply that since we can’t fully explain changes in climate by any other means, it therefore follows that it must be CO2/AGW. That’s a weak, weak non-argument.
And there is no such thing as being “25% sceptic.” That’s like saying you’re 25% alive, or 25% genius. In science, scepticism is not relative – the word is not applied like in colloquial situations (e.g. “I’m a bit sceptical about that!”). You can’t be “a bit” or “25%” sceptical in science. You either apply sound sceptical principles, period (in which case you are a sceptic) or you don’t – in which case you are a faithful believer.
To be a sceptic does not mean “to deny a thing’s existence” or “to disbelieve” – indeed, science is not even a matter of “belief.” Rather, to be a sceptic means to apply rigorous testing of a theory by replicating an experiment in an attempt to make it fail. (To be more accurate, one does not really “make it fail” – one merely reveals where the theory always failed to begin with). This even applies to theories based on data in which, say, the owner has 25 years or more work invested. Anyhoo; once fault has been found (and it usually is), the theory is then essentially dead. Then it’s back to the drawing board again. In this way, only the strongest theories survive to become accepted as “laws.”
The faithful, on the other hand, have their models, programmed and adjusted and tweaked to add pseudo-credibility to flawed theories. The faithful have absolutely no interest or motive in testing a theory to make it fail; after all, a Christian does not test God.
Still “25% sceptic,” Mr Gates?