From: The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 9 November 2010
It seems probable that 2010 will be in terms of global annual average temperature statistically identical to the annual temperatures of the past decade. Some eminent climatologists, such as Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, suggest the global annual average temperatures haven’t changed for the past 15 years. We are reaching the point where the temperature standstill is becoming the major feature of the recent global warm period that began in 1980. In brief, the global temperature has remained constant for longer than it has increased. Perhaps this should not be surprising as in the seven decades since 1940 the world has gotten warmer in only two of them, and if one considers each decade individually the increase in temperature in each has barely been statistically significant. Only when the warming in the 1980’s is added to that of the first half of the 1990’s does the change exceed the noise in the system.
But what does this 10-15 year temperature standstill mean?
For some it means nothing. Ten to fifteen years is too short a time period to say anything about climate they would argue pointing out that at least thirty years is needed to see significant changes. They also point out that this decade is warmer than the 1990’s and the 1990’s were warmer than the 1980’s and that is a clear demonstration of global warming.
I know few who would argue that we don’t live in the warmest decade for probably a millennium and there are now few who would argue that the period of warming ended about a decade ago leaving us with a plateau of annual temperatures. However, there is information in the decadal structure of the present warming spell that can say something about what is happening.
All would agree that the global climate is changing constantly within certain limits due to the combination of anthropogenic and natural factors. The manmade factors are postulated to be responsible for climate change whereas the natural factors are taken to be agents of climate variability. The additional greenhouse effect caused by mankind’s emissions is a unique climatic forcing factor in that it operates in one direction only, that of increasing the temperature. If that is the case then something has been cooling the planet. We can say something about what is cooling the earth. The key point about the greenhouse effect in this context is that it depends upon one factor – the concentration of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere.
In the past decade the atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from 370 ppm to 390 ppm and using those figure the IPCC once estimated that the world should have warmed by at least 0.2 deg C. The fact that the world has not warmed at all means that all the other climatic factors have had a net effect of producing 0.2 deg C of cooling.
But there is more. The counterbalancing climatic factors have not only compensated for the postulated AGW at the end of the decade they have kept the global annual average temperature constant throughout the past 10-15 years when the AGW effect wants to increase it. The key point that makes this constancy fascinating is that for every value of CO2 there is an equilibrium temperature that is higher the greater the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere. In other words, the higher CO2 concentration at the end of the decade exerts a stronger climate forcing than at the beginning of the decade.
Mirror Image
This makes what has happened in the past decade all the more remarkable. Because the greenhouse effect wants to force the temperature up which in the absence of a cooling influence is what would have happened, the fact that the temperature has remained constant indicates that whatever has been cooling the planet has had to increase in strength at precisely the same rate as the CO2 warming in order to keep the temperature a constant straight line.
This means that for 10-15 years the combined effect of all the Earth’s climate variability factors have increased in such a way as to exactly compensate for the rise in temperature that the increased CO2 would have given us. It is not a question of the earth’s decadal climate cycles adding up to produce a constant cooling effect, they must produce an increasing cooling effect that increases in strength at exactly the same rate as the enhanced greenhouse effect so as to keep the earth’s temperature constant.
Can it really be the case that over the past 15 years the sum total of all the earth’s natural climatic variables such as changes in solar irradiance, volcanoes, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation, and the Arctic Oscillation, all of which can change from cooling to warming over decadal timescales, have behaved in such as way as to produce a cooling effect that is the mirror image of the warming postulated by the anthropogenic climate forcings from CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, from the changing water vapour, from tropospheric ozone, and from a clearing aerosol burden?
Am I alone in thinking that in the dynamically changing global climate this looks like a contrived, indeed scientifically suspicious, situation?
Is it a coincidence that the human and natural factors balance out this way? I am reminded of a line written by Agatha Christie: “Any coincidence”, said Miss Marple to herself, “is always worth noticing. You can throw it away later if it is only a coincidence.”
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“”””” In the past decade the atmospheric CO2 levels have increased from 370 ppm to 390 ppm and using those figure the IPCC once estimated that the world should have warmed by at least 0.2 deg C. The fact that the world has not warmed at all means that all the other climatic factors have had a net effect of producing 0.2 deg C of cooling. “””””
Who writes this drivel ?
Their conclusion is simply false. The IPCC estimated (from climate models that don’t properly model water and clouds) that the world should have warmed by 0.2 deg.
The fact that it hasn’t means only that the IPCC was wrong; the Earth should NOT have warmed 0.2 deg and it didn’t; because Mother Gaia, knows what Temperature it should be; and that’s exactly where it is !
So humans cause climate change aka climate variability; and natural factors cause climate variability aka climate change.
Simply wonderful.
Why aren’t they honest; and simply say we don’t know what is happening or why it happens. But even though I don’t know what is happening or why; I do know what causes it;
IT’S THE WATER !!
He assumes AGW is a fact and that natural factors have prevented the warming.
He seemed to infer a possible “thermostat” effect. Without actually coming out and saying it.
“But what does this 10-15 year temperature standstill mean?”
It probably means that we haven’t adjusted for UHI. It’s painfully obvious to me that we have little more than ancedotal evidence regarding the surface temperature record of the planet.
“Am I alone in thinking that in the dynamically changing global climate this looks like a contrived, indeed scientifically suspicious, situation?”
You’re not alone, and you’re being too kind.
Theodore is right the thumb on the scale plays an unacknowledged and unknown part.
As has been reporteed here earlier; using raw data from rural stations only the warming signal vanishes in North America . Only with urban data plus the corrections that make no sense and magnify the change do we get any warming at all in North America.
I have had several reputable CAGW fans agree with the statement that there is no evidence of warming in the North American record since 1890. Then they trot out “the world is bigger than North America”. True but hardly the point. They all assume that only the US record has systematic corruption and somehow everyone else is perfectly fine. In other words the entire claim of warming rests primarily on sea temperatures taken by wildly different methods and in non random patterns and land temperatures from poorly sited stations often in third world countries.
Interestingly the best recorded and best sited stations in the world, Antarctica and rural NA both show no warming. Therefore we assume they are wrong and the fudged numbers are right.
Sorry Tim Williams but GIGO. Any and all groups using BS data and methods will produce BS results it doesn’t matter how many agree.
Tim Williams says:
November 9, 2010 at 11:07 am
“”So are we to believe that the accumulated data from 160 research bodies, in 48 countries, using state of the art field measurements are incorrect in their assessment that…”Global average surface and lower-troposphere temperatures
during the last three decades have been progressively
warmer than all earlier decades […]”
Yeah, of course, that’s hogwash. Have you never heard of the Holocene Climate Optimum. I think there were decades back then.
Good article. Include feedback by clouds and you have the answer to the title question. See the articles by Dr. Roy Spencer at www. drroyspencer.com
Sun Spot says:
November 9, 2010 at 11:49 am
@Tim Williams (November 9, 2010 at 11:07 am):
This 10-15 year standstill !!
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/science/monitoring/hadcrut3.html
Oh yeah. Like all those other little standstills in the ,long term, increasing trend.
Perhaps the “Federal Reserve Bank” of Climate is pumping out cooling agents to “devalue” the CO2 increases supposedly caused by people. If so the ultimate effect may be runaway inflation of cooling factors and an abrupt reglaciation of the northern hemisphere. Not sure about this but there has obviously been a devalutation of carbon credits, not to mention the US dollar.
Occam’s razor suggests: CO2 has no effect and we are merely cresting the temperature hump of the current mini-cycle. Down should be next. Great piece of writing, tongue fully in cheek. L
DirkH says:
November 9, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Tim Williams says:
November 9, 2010 at 11:07 am
“”So are we to believe that the accumulated data from 160 research bodies, in 48 countries, using state of the art field measurements are incorrect in their assessment that…”Global average surface and lower-troposphere temperatures
during the last three decades have been progressively
warmer than all earlier decades […]”
Yeah, of course, that’s hogwash. Have you never heard of the Holocene Climate Optimum. I think there were decades back then.
Well done Dirk for deleting the bit about “in the instrement record”.
I thought attribution in IPCC reports said there was only a slight positive natural forcing? I guess you CAN have your cake and eat it, too.
Some will raise the white flag. Some will fade away quietly. Some will go kicking and screaming. Those who don’t understand that the battle is over, such as British Prime Minister, David Cameron, may go down in history as being on all fours with the former Iraqi Minister of Information who denied that U.S. forces were in Baghdad.
A simple explanation of why the offset equals the CO2 caused rise would be that the feedback is negative not positive. If the feedback reduces the CO2 rise by a factor of 3, rather than increasing it by a factor of 3, then the net CO2 rise would be 1/9 th of what the IPCC says. That rise is so small that it’s not noticeable in the natural variability.
Have just found this really interesting article on CO2 and the Greenhouse Effect which takes the IPCC and the CAGW brigade to the woodshed by pointing out that they are ignoring “Inconvenient Truths” like the laws of Physics!
I commend it to all readers of this blog (apologies if you’ve read it before).
http://brneurosci.org/co2.html
Jim G says:
November 9, 2010 at 12:15 pm
Perhaps the “Federal Reserve Bank” of Climate is pumping out cooling agents to “devalue” the CO2 increases supposedly caused by people
As Carbon trade goes, it seems to be the case….Next Christmas song about to be changed from “Silent Night” to “Frozen Night” 🙂
I think Theodore got it.
“Do you think it is merely a coincidence that the warming stopped at the same time that sceptics started looking at the data?
It seems to me that the thumb was on the scale the entire time and that is why they will not release the original data that they use to create their temperature records.”
To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes
“…..when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? ”
The Team fail again and again because rather than eliminating the impossible they attempt to eliminate the possible and get caught doing it.
It seems highly unlikely to me that given the many faceted and often multi decadal influences on climate that any series of changes could combine to exactly negate the supposed warming effect of CO2.
To a logical person this would suggest that the supposed warming effect of CO2 is the weak link in the above supposition and at best it deserves to be regarded with great suspicion and probably eliminated as a theory.
After having read the article with an open mind, and with perhaps as many little grey cells as I yet have available to muster upon the problem, it still has the aura of gobbledygook.
Let me give a hypothesis for a new global warming “disaster”. I love catastrophe theory, it has a certain inelegance that forces me to watch every television show about asteroids, comets and alien invasions as well. But then, I enjoy Japanese giant monster movies quite a bit, as well.
In this hypothesis, Hubris reaches such extraordinary levels that Earth, trembling in fear, needs to cooperate, and turns up the thermostat to the levels not of the Roman Warm period, nor that of the Medieval Warm period, but that of the Carboniferous period when the average global temperature was around 20c and giant insects dominated life on land. Earth has been secretly storing up massive amounts of carbon for millions on years; during the Carboniferous time period atmospheric Co2 was at 1500 or 1580 ppm (depending on who’s estimate ) and cunningly has stored this all up for a rainy day. Assuredly, the much anticipated global catastrophe will be unleashed, The AGW believers will be able to say, stridently, “I told you so!” And we will all pay obeisance to our giant insect overlords while secretly plotting their eventual downfall. Not an elegant hypothesis, perhaps, but it should prove satisfactory to all.
@ur momisugly L says: November 9, 2010 at 12:23 pm;
You have it spot on. A classically understated but devastating piece of logical writing which destroys the CAGW hypothesis, but spiced with a ‘tongue-in-cheek’ humour hidden just below the surface.
“Am I alone in thinking that in the dynamically changing global climate this looks like a contrived, indeed scientifically suspicious, situation?” is the fatal and very witty blow!
When it comes to surface records are current temperatures adjusted or just historical ones? And if just historical ones when do the adjustments tend to stop?
If it happens to be around the mid 1990s it could be the reason there has been no more warming. If the past warming trend is due in part to adjustments the current non-warming trend could be because of no adjustments.
[REPLY – Yes, current temperatures are adjusted. Historical temperatures are also adjusted, often far more wildly. And, no, it never stops. (And yes, I know whereof I speak.) ~ Evan]
Three, five, no, six things:
1) The assumed 0.2 deg of warming due to CO2 for such a small CO2 increase indicates that Beer’s Law is being ignored. The IPCC wrongly assumes a linear effect when in fact CO2’s effect plateaus and is >90% exhausted.
2) The IPCC projection of the 0.2 deg temperature rise begs the question of our influence here. Assuming CO2 has a warming effect, then we are supposedly responsible for 5% or less, or 0.01 deg. At which point who cares? This is an undetectable effect, particularly as the effect is much less, a la Beer’s Law. The climate is what it is and it’s not worth mentioning our input!
3) We do not live in a greenhouse. Greenhouses do not allow convection, the atmosphere does. Estimates of convection’s heat transfer to altitude is 65%, with 25% to water vapor condensation at altitude, and the rest Trenberth tracks.
4) There is good evidence that CO2 might actually have a cooling effect when we admit that we do not live in a a greenhouse and that heat absorbed by CO2 would serve to increase cooling by convection. Furthermore, Miskolczi and Zagoni have elegantly shown that CO2 and water vapor interact such that absolute water vapor decreases as CO2 increases, creating a constant effect. And, as water vapor is the superior heat-trapping gas, less water vapor might cause a slight cooling effect. Bottom line, it is still very unclear that CO2 can warm our atmosphere AT ALL! Key Word: Convection.
5) It can be argued that the recent warming or lack of warming is due to the efforts of the data handlers with their nefarious, warming adjustments. Raw data does not show that temperatures have been as steady as indicated here and they generally show cooling except in urban areas. When raw data from places who do not adjust their temperatures upwards is mixed with warmed, adjusted data, they cancel. I am of the opinion that the real world is canceling the fantasy world of fabricated warming.
6) “Can it really be the case that over the past 15 years the sum total of all the earth’s natural climatic variable . . . .” First, let’s throw out the <1/100ths of 1 deg human factor and then recognize that there was a fairly sizable temperature plateau after the 1938 peak. This was not unlike what we have experienced now. To assume that natural forces are canceling falsely derived, deeply flawed thinking of the IPCC is to create explanations based on fairy tales—the stories perforce also become fairy tales.
We HAVE to recognize the systematic and blatant adulteration of the temperature records, a total disregard of the urban heat island effect, and augmentation of the temperature records to meet a political agenda. Until we use ONLY RAW DATA from properly vetted sites and realize that we do need a temperature average for the entire globe, then and only then can we properly examine the climate. The stupid idea that we have to have a global average means that researchers start finding ways to fabricate data for regions not covered. This is NOT science, this is fabrication which is open to all kinds of bias-introducing factors and people. As apparently no one knows, or is recognized to know, how to adjust for urban effects, we should simply ignore urban data entirely.
We need to accept a small set of rural, reliable sites from around the world and simply take their average. Once this is done, it is simply a matter of watching the average. We can surely come up with a fair number of distributed sites, but urban or badly sited sites need to be excluded and not made to fit no matter what.
By keeping all of the bad sites and claiming to have to do adjustments, dishonest data-handlers have the opportunity to adjust the data any way they want. It is truly a phenomenon beyond belief when older data, for no reason, needs to be made cooler and more recent data always needs to be made warmer. That darned political agenda certainly does cause global warming! The obvious warming of the data from three sites near Washington should be the poster-child for the dishonesty of the data-keepers.
I definetly have observed this leveling off for this past decade, and looking at Dr. Roy Spencer’s graph of temperatures, it seems to me that all the warming occured from 1995-2000, around when the AMO switched from cold to warm. The temperature was pretty flat till 1995, and has leveled off, if not dropped a little since 2000. Is this a conicnidence that the temperature has mainly been level, except for a couple years of change? or is it a sign that maybe the CO2 forcing isn’t really happening, and the warming has been because of oceans? Once the oceans warmed to where they are, the temperature has been relatively stable despite increasing CO2…interesting.
Also i don’t neccesarily buy the IPCC’s claim that we should have warmed .2C for 20 ppm increase in CO2. The IPCC has been wrong on many predictions, and that’s just another one(or by coincidence we are naturally cooling at that exact rate if not more so their claim could be correct)
“Some -eminent- climatologists, such as Professor Phil Jones …”
… and then I stopped reading.
( I might pick it tonight, but dealing with left word usage right now will put me off my lunch.)
This is the most beautiful, witty, erudite tongue-in-cheek response to the mad concepts postulated by the control-freaks of the IPCC.
Theodore not only got it, but New Zealand’s NIWA got caught with their thumb on the scales, the first such institution, I am sure, to actually be caught in that awkward position and to have been forced to admit the real situation. I am waiting patiently for GISS to respond to the FOI that they have been dragging the chain about for so long, as I suspect there is a lot of truth-telling to be done there , too.
As a long-time observer of weather, I have been surprised for years at the positive (rarely negative) inaccuracies of the State forecasters wherever I have happened to live.
“Can it really be the case that over the past 15 years the sum total of all…”
of Hansen’s, Mann’s, Jones’ and all their peers’ pastries and concoctions is a non-nutricious, lo-cal, fat-free, tasteless waste?