By Steve Goddard
Back in January, our friends were crowing about the warmest satellite temperatures on record. But now they seem to have lost interest in satellites. I wonder why?
Data: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
It probably has to do with the fact that temperature anomalies are plummeting at a rate of 0.47 °C/year and that satellite temperatures in 2010 are showing no signs of setting a record.
The attention span of our alarmist friends seems to be getting shorter and shorter. They lock in on a week of warm temperatures on the east coast, a week of warm temperatures in Europe, a week of rapid melt in the Arctic. But they have completely lost the plot of the big picture.
The graph below shows Hansen’s A/B/C scenarios in black, and GISTEMP overlaid in red.
Note that actual GISTEMP is below all three of Hansen’s forecasts. According to RealClimate :
Scenario B was roughly a linear increase in forcings, and Scenario C was similar to B, but had close to constant forcings from 2000 onwards. Scenario B and C had an ‘El Chichon’ sized volcanic eruption in 1995. Essentially, a high, middle and low estimate were chosen to bracket the set of possibilities. Hansen specifically stated that he thought the middle scenario (B) the “most plausible”.
In other words, actual temperature rise has been less than Hansen forecast – even if there was a huge volcanic eruption in the 1990s, and no new CO2 introduced over the past decade! We have fallen more than half a degree below Hansen’s “most plausible” scenario, even though CO2 emissions have risen faster than worst case.
Conclusions:
- We are not going to set a record this year (for the whole year)
- Hansen has vastly overestimated climate sensitivity
- Temperatures have risen slower than Hansen forecast for a carbon free 21st century
So what exactly is it that these folks are still worried about?
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So what exactly is it that these folks are still worried about?
It was habit forming.
RockyRoad says:
July 21, 2010 at 3:50 pm
stevengoddard says:
July 21, 2010 at 3:06 pm
> Hansen forecast 0.6. Actual is 0.1 .
>That is a factor of 6X or 600%.
> —————–Reply:
> Steve is right, guys. Hansen’s forecast was 6 times actual.
That isn’t what Steve said, which was “Hansen was off by 600%”. Suppose I got a 5% raise at work. My new salary would be 105% of what it was before – not 5% of what it was before. A ratio vs. a difference, and Steve said difference (“off by [0.5°]”) and reported a ratio – 6X. And technically, that implied something like Hansen predicted a 0.1° rise and we had a 0.6° rise. Of course, we only got 1/6 (17%) of what Hansen predicted, hence my assertion he was off by 83%.
BTW, if you go to a store some day and find there’s a one day sale with everything 25% off, how much will prices go up tomorrow? Hint – not 25%. Percentages are best used for ratios of less than 1.25 or so.
> Do the math: 6 x 0.1 = 0.6. It doesn’t get any clearer. Hansen overshot by 600% or 6 times. The 600% factor (when set in sufficient gramatical terms) is mathematically correct.
We can fudge the “gramatical [sic] terms”? That may be good PR or marketing, but it’s crappy and unclear science.
Phil, as usual misquoting
“We are not going to set a record this year (for the whole year)”
When your belief system depends on BS, why bother?
Is this a Bart Homer moment for Hansen ?
Big Oops.
R. Gates
If the temperature drops about half a degree this year, do you think it is going to be a record year? Does that make you giddy?
How about an honest discussion instead of spin?
evanmjones says:
July 21, 2010 at 5:52 pm
>> Salem Witch Trials (the children would not lie, hang whomever the children say is a witch)
> A great injustice. Perhaps half of them were entirely innocent . . .
Cute. BTW, the trial transcripts still exist! It’s pretty clear where the guilt lies.
BTW, we haven’t learned – http://wermenh.com/wenatchee.html . Oh good, a lot of links still work. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer did a wonderful job covering the story once the realized what was going on. Not sure if it has any analogies to AGW other than the misplaced certainty of the those in power.
Phil: “The anomaly plots are known to be the result of a completely ad hoc adjustment by S&C so assigning some meaning to the monthly variation of anomaly seems to be entirely meaningless.”
Any credibility you might have had with the rest of your post — you completely lost with that ridiculous slander. UAH and RSS (which I would charaterize as advocates of the AGW theory) have a collegial and mutually beneficial relationship of reviewing and helping each other on adjustments that are needed in raw satellite readings.
If your charge is typical of the quality of your analysis, then my time would be better spent skipping your comments.
We are not going to set a record this year (for the whole year)
If politicians can have any say in it they will create it, some how, at least from James Hansen’s data set. They’ve been working together with him from way back:
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
July 21, 2010 at 5:27 pm
“[…]CALLING ALL FUTURE EATERS!! Heh! Raise yer hands….This mess actually calls for a “climate uprising” against big business, profligate carbon consumers etc. […]”
Thanks for sharing. Interesting malthusian doomsday perspective.
[snip]
Hansen predictions are for yearly averages, so one should compare with, well, the same thing:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1970/offset:0.15/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1970/offset:0.06/mean:12/plot/uah/from:1970/mean:12/offset:0.3/plot/rss/from:1970/mean:12/offset:0.3
The curves have been translated to have a zero anomaly in the 70-75 period, just like Hansen’s graph. You may note that we are currently at +0.7 compared to this baseline, which is spot on scenario B.
DirkH says:
“Thanks for sharing. Interesting malthusian doomsday perspective.”
The article practically screams “biologist”. I think they’re easy prey, most of them, at least.
And, of course, we are still barely edging out of the longest and deepest solar minimum in a century, which he certainly couldn’t have predicted back then.
Quite predictable, actually, if the Seuss/DeVries cycle (or Gleissberg) is a valid theory. But a single bum cycle probably won’t do it. Variance from top to bottom of a normal Schwabe cycle is only c. 0.1C. But if we are in for a Grand Minimum, it is hard to predict. We don’t really know the effect (or lack of effect) of a Grand Minimum yet.
If you adjust the model output down a bit for the assumed more accurate modern sensitivity estimate, reflect the current high anomaly, and do a mental accounting for the unusual solar minimum, then we are back to pretty good agreement.
But surely sensitivity is a central part of his prediction . . .
R Gates: You continue to disregard the satellite temperature data from UAH clearly showing that 1998 was warmer than this year. Why do you do so? You must love playing devil’s advocate or else you really have moved from being a 75% believer in AGW to nearly 100%
Oh BTW,
“Nadir Of Western Civilization To Be Reached This Friday At 3:32 P.M.”
http://www.theonion.com/articles/nadir-of-western-civilization-to-be-reached-this-f,2812/
James Hansen’s defenders utilize the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy: shoot holes in a barn door, then draw a circle around them and claim a bulls-eye. In Hansen’s case, it’s a moving bulls-eye:
Hansen/GISS “adjusted” temperature record. [blink gif]
Hansen’s W-R-O-N-G predictions. Yes, they were all wrong.
More Hansen/GISS “adjustments”.
Hansen’s 1988 predictions vs the data.
Hansen made three predictions covering a wide temperature range. He was wrong on every one. Yet some folks still believe Hansen knows what he’s talking about.
Lots of well thought out comments on the thread tonight.
All I have to say is wait until the heart of this la nina + pdo cold cycle + low solar cycle & see how far below the trend we are (especially since the trend continues up – time is not the friend of the AGW crowd). I would say within a couple years, we will be sooo far below the forecast trend that even the strongest of AGW believers will saying, “You know, those, skeptics were right all along (but they will only mutter it to themselves)”
Rob
You are behind the times. One bloated six month el nino is not an annual trend, and 2010 B is 1.1
I can’t even say nice try
Point him to Chapter 5 of Roy Spencer’s Great Global Warming Blunder, which tackles “the science of CO2 forcing” head-on.
What trophy will they give the probable paranoid schizo head of GISS Hansen for losing his own satellites to prove his own point I wonder?
The he made it without satellites award?
Rob Vermeulen says:
July 21, 2010 at 6:12 pm
“You may note that we are currently at +0.7 compared to this baseline, which is spot on scenario B.”
Nice try. Scenario B calls for an anomaly of about 0.85 in 2009 and greater than 1.0 in 2010. And remember, Hansen himself says the “right” metric is somewhere between station data and land/ocean.
Sorry, can’t stop following the link between biologists and affection to civilizations collapse… This one fits so nicely:
“Conformists may kill civilizations”
http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=5382
(No, it’s not The Onion. I think it’s serious. I’m not sure, though.)
If I understand this right, this is the up-to-the-day data for the temperature of interest:
http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps
To see the temp “anomaly” you must click the box next to “Average” (on the bottom right) and then click “redraw” (bottom left). The month of July anomaly is in the +0.6 to +0.7 range which turns the yearly average back into a pretty close horse-race. August will need a pretty dramatic drop to keep the overall lead from changing. I’d be pretty surprised if 2010 didn’t turn out to be warmer than 1998 according to this graph.
If this isn’t the right data set, let me know. I’m none too happy about this.
evanmjones says:
July 21, 2010 at 2:16 pm
“So what exactly is it that these folks are still worried about?”
November 2, 2010?
—
That’s when the US government climate indu$try funding will begin to decline towards a large negative anomaly…
R. Gates says:
July 21, 2010 at 5:17 pm
What is most remarkable in my estimation is that global temps didn’t even fall more during the long and deep solar minimum that we just came through. I’ve still not heard AGW explain this in any scientific way. By the way they were carrying on at one point about the solar minimum, you’d of thought a new ice age was upon us, but temperatures held up– not rising, but not falling either.
Maybe you should get out more, you obviously have no knowledge of the interactions between the Sun, ocean heat storage and climate. The deep solar minimum will be a downstream effect that is just starting to show it teeth now. This coupled with the natural ocean cycles and associated changes in the upper atmosphere related to the reduced EUV, should see a continued reduction of world temperatures over the coming years. There will still be hotspots for you to cherrypick, but these are normal during times of low EUV.
If real world temperatures rise on a steady path over the next decade then there might be cause for concern, as nearly all the cooling players are engaged. But I would suggest it’s way too early to be writing off what is already in the pipeline.
Smokey says:
July 21, 2010 at 6:27 pm
“Hansen made three predictions covering a wide temperature range. He was wrong on every one. Yet some folks still believe Hansen knows what he’s talking about.”
From my AGW-bah-humbug perspective, you’re preaching to the choir. However I think that it would be more elegant to compare reality with the most favorable *linear combination* (to Hansen) of his three predictions. Then it should be apparent to every scientifically literate person that Hansen was assuming a very large net positive feedback that does not exist in the natural world.