by David Whitehouse of the GWPF
The Global Warming Policy Foundation, 3 December 2010
If the media headlines are to be believed 2010 is heading to be either the warmest or in the top three warmest years since the instrumental global temperature records began 150 years ago, and proof that the world is getting ever warmer. But looking more closely at the data reveals a different picture.
2010 will be remembered for just two warm months, attributable to the El Nino effect, with the rest of the year being nothing but average, or less than average temperature.
With November and December¹s data still to come in (that will account for 16% of the year¹s data) the UK Met Office estimates the temperature anomaly (with respect to the end of the 19th century) for 2010 so far as 0.756 deg C. As it has been cooling for the past 4 months we can expect that figure to decline below the 2005 0.747 deg C level and the El Nino influenced 1998 of 0.820 deg C.
2010 will therefore be no higher than the third warmest year, possibly lower.
Warm Spring
What has made 2010 warm is March and June due to El Nino, a short-term natural effect and nothing to do with anthropogenic global warming.
January was cooler than January in 2007, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002 and 1998.
February was cooler than February in 2007, 2004, 2002, and 1998.
March was exceptionally warm at a temperature anomaly of 0.971. However it was, given the errors, statistically comparable with March 2008 (0.907) and March 1990 (0.910).
April was cooler than April 2007, 2005, and 1998.
May was cooler than May 2003 and 1998.
June was exceptionally warm at 0.827 deg C though statistically identical to June 2005 (0.825) and 1998.
July, when things started to cool, was cooler than July 2006, 2005 and 1998.
August was cooler than August 2009, about the same as 2005, and cooler than 2001 and 1998.
September was cooler than September 2009, 2007, 2005, 2001 and 1998.
October the last month for which there are records was cooler than October 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003 and 1998.
The pattern is therefore of an unexceptional year except for a Spring/early summer El Nino that elevated temperatures.
There is no evidence whatsoever that the lack of warming seen in the global average annual temperatures seen in the last decade has changed.
Check the figures for yourself here.
OK, after looking at the following graph, I GUARANTEE that you will mentally subtract 1.6°C from 1990ff global average temperatures from now on:
http://www.canadafreepress.com/images/uploads/ball120610-2.jpg
Chopping reporting stations INSTANTLY increased reported temps. Case closed.
From this article: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/30752
Correction: subtract 1.9°C. The 1.6 number was an eyeball estimate. I just did the actual arithmetic. You will note that this demotes 1998 to about the 123rd warmest year. Give or take.
OK warmists – I have to ask – who ordered the launch of the “cherry picking” meme?
Unless you’ve got a greenhouse in Western Washington, your tomatoes won’t do well at all.
Where I live, on Whidbey Island, and west of the Cascades this year, it’s been colder than average most of the year (notice I didn’t say “normal”, since there is no “normal”). I had to wear sweatshirts and light jackets outside during June, July, most of August, etc. And two weeks ago we had temps into the teens F, along with a couple inches of snow. Snow before Xmas is extremely rare here, much less before Thanksgiving.
My point is, there is no “global climate”. You have regional climates that are disconnected from each other. So averaging temps from Washington State along with Viet Nam, Russia, Tierra Del Fuego, etc, is just an exercise in futility (that goes for the satellite measurements too). If some places cool, some places remain relatively static, and others warm, that says nothing about anything “global”. And with the preponderance of the thermometers placed so poorly, I can honestly say I have no confidence in an average of the surface record, even if obtaining such an average had any meaning in the first place.
I agree that 2010 is not an exceptional year in comparison to the past decade. Looking at NASA’s data, we can learn, as of 2009, “that each of the last 13 years was one of the 14 warmest years in the global recored. By the end of this month just about every agrees that we can say: “each of the last 14 years was one of the 15th warmest on record. Clearly the decade from 2000-2009 was the warmest decade in the instrumental record. However, we still need to wait 9 more years to see whether the prediction that “the decade from 2010 to 2019 will be the warmest on record. The question is whether the steady warming over the last 30 years is just natural variation, or do climate scientists know what they are talking and writing about. The next nine years should be interesting.
Jeff Alberts said:
“…my point is, there is no “global climate”. You have regional climates that are disconnected from each other…”
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Uh, no. You might want to go back a do quite a bit more studying before making such a broad and very incorrect assertion. Regional climates are part of the complex global climate and though different regions display different reactions to changes in the global climate, they are all very much connected. A perfect example in the ENSO cycle, where Australia gets one kind of weather and South America gets another, and though they are different, they are quite connected.
R. Gates says:
December 7, 2010 at 10:54 am
Jeff Alberts said:
“…my point is, there is no “global climate”. You have regional climates that are disconnected from each other…”
___
Uh, no. You might want to go back a do quite a bit more studying before making such a broad and very incorrect assertion. Regional climates are part of the complex global climate and though different regions display different reactions to changes in the global climate, they are all very much connected. A perfect example in the ENSO cycle, where Australia gets one kind of weather and South America gets another, and though they are different, they are quite connected.
Uh – yes actually R. You might like to check a dictionary – a well established one such as the Oxford:
Climate
the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period:
“our cold, wet climate”.
[mass noun] :
“agricultural development is constrained by climate”, “a region with a particular climate: he had grown up in a hot climate.”
Origin:
late Middle English: from Old French climat or late Latin clima, climat-, from Greek klima ‘slope, zone’, from klinein ‘to slope’. The term originally denoted a zone of the earth between two lines of latitude, then any region of the earth, and later, a region considered with reference to its atmospheric conditions. Compare with CLIME.
This point has been made repeatedly here e.g. by Pamela Gray. The original meaning of “climate” is indeed the integrated general weather experienced in a particular geographic region. So Jeff Alberts ogirinal point is valid. Climate in its original sense is a local parameter.
Of course no-one will argue that, globally, climates are not linked, and the usage of the word in scientific research has morphed in the direction of global time-integrated weather. But here again you give a very nice example of AGW double-speak. When faced with inconvenient factual evidence for – for instance – the medieval warm period, then it suits the CAGW narrative for the MWP to be a local phenomenon, not global – thus climate is regionalised when necessary. But here in this thread you now find it more expedient to emphasise the global fashion of the word climate. Your characteristic intellectual flexibility takes on an eel-like nature.
phlogiston says:
December 7, 2010 at 11:35 am
“This point has been made repeatedly here e.g. by Pamela Gray. The original meaning of “climate” is indeed the integrated general weather experienced in a particular geographic region. So Jeff Alberts ogirinal point is valid. Climate in its original sense is a local parameter.”
That’s because the original users of the word didn’t have access to global data collected over centuries, so of course their use of climate was geographically regional! Why would they invent a word to describe temperature trends over an entire planet that they hadn’t even finished exploring yet?
Jeff stated that there is no global climate whatsoever, which is a completely invalid point regardless of the meaning of “climate” 500 years ago. The phenomenon of planet wide weather data over time (climate) exists, and the majority of the users of the English language (a living language) who study this phenomenon have decided that “global climate” is the best descriptor for it. If Jeff doesn’t like it then he can suggest a different word – maybe it will catch on.
“Global climate” is technically a regional term, by the way, in which the entire surface of the planet is the region. The surfaces of Earth and Venus are different regions with different global climates.
“…But here again you give a very nice example of AGW double-speak. When faced with inconvenient factual evidence for – for instance – the medieval warm period, then it suits the CAGW narrative for the MWP to be a local phenomenon, not global – thus climate is regionalised when necessary.”
Claiming that the MWP was a regional (e.g. European) instead of global warming of the climate, while simultaneously stating that both regional and global climate exists, is not double speak in any sense. It would be wrong, but not doublespeak (there is ample evidence that the MWP was a global climate phenomenon – http://www.co2science.org/data/mwp/mwpp.php).
phlogiston says:
December 7, 2010 at 11:35 am
R. Gates says:
December 7, 2010 at 10:54 am
Jeff Alberts said:
“…my point is, there is no “global climate”. You have regional climates that are disconnected from each other…”
___
Uh, no. You might want to go back a do quite a bit more studying before making such a broad and very incorrect assertion. Regional climates are part of the complex global climate and though different regions display different reactions to changes in the global climate, they are all very much connected. A perfect example in the ENSO cycle, where Australia gets one kind of weather and South America gets another, and though they are different, they are quite connected.
Uh – yes actually R. You might like to check a dictionary – a well established one such as the Oxford:
Climate
the weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period:
“our cold, wet climate”.
______
Thanks for the layman’s dictionary definition but from a scientific perspective it is pretty meaningless. I can talk about the “climate” control mechanism in my house as well. Fortunately smart men and women (yes, those dreaded “climate” scientists) are working hard every day to find those global connections between regional climates that all add up to the global climate. During the period when the earth was going through it’s snowball phases and there was ice all the way to the equator, it would be absurd to think that regions of ice just happened to have come together (unconnected in causation) to form the snowball earth. The whole push and effort of climate science, and indeed, science in general, is to find those connections between seemingly unconnected events. From Milankovitch cycles to CO2 levels, there are causes that do indeed affect the whole globe. Discovering those causes and the mechanisms behind their effects is way human scientific knowledge progresses…
So why is there no “global warming” everywhere then? If it’s not global, it isn’t global warming.
R. Gates says:
December 6, 2010 at 11:27 am
It will grow increasingly entertaining to watch all the AGW skeptics come up with the reasons why “it isn’t really as hot as the data says” over the next few years. Entertaining in a sad and pathetic sort of way…
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“Entertaining in a sad and pathetic sort of way…”
Dude you wrote the book on that one long long ago.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
R. Gates says:
December 7, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Discovering those causes and the mechanisms behind their effects is way human scientific knowledge progresses…
=====================================
And weeding out the weak conjectures and theories on the subject (and the equally weak automatons who tirelessly try to advance them) is ALSO the way human scientific knowledge progresses.
Unfortunately for the scam of CAGW (but fortunately for the rest of us), the Scientific Method is quite Darwinian in nature.
And even though the money-mad, powerful, lumbering 800 pound CAGW gorilla in the room might try to stamp out everything else it sees that dares to challenge it…it seems to know its days are numbered.
Natural Selection will take care of the primitive, bumbling Creature soon enough.
Blind belief and assumptions by you and your ilk, is the equivalent of feeding the Creature twinkies, so you are assisting Mother Nature in hastening the process by giving it a premature heart attack.
For that, R, I am grateful.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Dear mods: I believe a post I just made may have gone to spam. Thanks for checkin’!
Chris
R. Gates says:
December 7, 2010 at 4:32 pm
Fortunately smart men and women (yes, those dreaded “climate” scientists) are working hard every day to find those global connections between regional climates that all add up to the global climate.
To see just how hard they are working – you only need to read the contents of the “harry read me.txt” file from the CRU Climategate files.
savethesharks says: (December 7, 2010 at 8:18 pm)
Ooh, total burn! I nominate for comment of the year!
Jeff Alberts says:
December 7, 2010 at 6:07 pm
“So why is there no “global warming” everywhere then? If it’s not global, it isn’t global warming.”
Have you ever heard of a thing called an interglacial, that portion of an ice age between glacial periods? (Hint: we are in one right now!) It is considered a global climate phenomenon in which the entire planet has warmed.
The fact that global warming/cooling occurs, or that such a thing as global climate can be discussed, is not in dispute by anyone with half a scientific mind. The reasonable dispute is weather the combined force of the entire human race, over a century or more, can cause any degree of global warming, and to what degree that warming has been or will be. (pun intended)
MACK1 says:
December 6, 2010 at 7:33 pm
That is an excellent graph – now it just needs to be expanded with the max and mins for each year of the Hadcrut record to see how many record lows and mins have occured in which years.
Taking the current year 2010 – there are only a couple of peaks above the 95 percentile limits – so how can this be a ‘warmest’ year? Surely, a warmest year would be one where most of the max’s would be above the 95%ile values?
Anyone care to comment on the latest data from NASA that suggests that we’ve just had a record high November?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
There are some interesting discussions here http://rankexploits.com/musings/
For me, as a UK citizen, the importance of these figures is that the UK Met Office claims this year is a record hot one. They also forecast a warm winter as little as six weeks ago, but the Central England Temperature record, the oldest in the world, showed the fortnight covering the end of November and start of December as the coldest ever since the daily record began in 1772.
Regardless of the fact that these figures only apply to the UK, if the world famous Met Office can be so wrong (yet again) how can anyone accept their views on “global warming?”
Warm here in Nova Scotia , Canada. The tropical storm blew power lines down. severed fiber optics cables and blew our highspeed receivers out of allignment. 70 mph winds from the south, 55F temperatures a week from Christmas; hurricane weather at this time of the year?
Our lilacs have green leaves emerging, the blueberry buds are red, the maple branches blown down yesterday haveed buds bursting and I saw poussywillows out. Spring is here and the ice age is awful.