Guest post by Dr. Don J. Easterbrook
1934 has long been considered the warmest year of the past century. A decade ago, the closest challenger appeared to be 1998, a super-el nino year, but it trailed 1934 by 0.54°C (0.97°F). Since then, NASA GISS has “adjusted” the U.S. data for 1934 downward and 1998 upward (see December 25, 2010 post by Ira Glickstein) in an attempt to make 1998 warmer than 1934 and seemingly erased the original rather large lead of 1934 over 1998. The last phases of the strong 2009-2010 el nino in early 2010 made this year another possible contender for the warmest year of the century. However, December 2010 has been one of the coldest Decembers in a century in many parts of the world, so 2010 probably won’t be warmer than 1998. But does it really matter? Regardless of which year wins the temperature adjustment battle, how significant will that be? To answer that question, we need to look at a much longer time frame‒centuries and millennia.
One of the best ways to look at long-term temperatures is with isotope data from the GISP2 Greenland ice core, from which temperatures for thousands of years can be determined. The ice core isotope data were obtained by Minze Stuiver and Peter Grootes from nuclear accelerator measurements of thousands of oxygen isotope ratios (16O/18O), which are a measure of paleo-temperatures at the time snow fell that was later converted to glacial ice. The age of such temperatures can be accurately measured from annual layers of accumulation of rock debris marking each summer’s melting of ice and concentration of rock debris on the glacier.
The past century
Two episodes of global warming and two episodes of global cooling occurred during the past century:
1880 to 1915 cool period. Atmospheric temperature measurements, glacier fluctuations, and oxygen isotope data from Greenland ice cores all record a cool period from about 1880 to about 1915. Many cold temperature records in North America were set during this period. Glaciers advanced, some nearly to terminal positions reached during the Little Ice Age about 400 years ago. During this period, global temperatures were about 0.9 ° C (1.6 ° F) cooler than at present. From 1880 to 1890, temperatures dropped 0.35 ° C (0.6° F) in only 10 years. The 1880 –1915 cool period shows up well in the oxygen isotope curve of the Greenland Ice Sheet.
1915 to 1945 warm period. Global temperatures rose steadily in the 1920s, 1930s, and early 1940s. By the mid-1940s, global temperatures were about 0.5 °C (0.9° F) warmer than they had been at the turn of the century. More high temperature records for the century were recorded in the 1930s than in any other decade of the 20th century. Glaciers during this warm period retreated, temperatures in the 1930s in Greenland were warmer than at present, and rates of warming were higher (warming 4°C (7° F) in two decades). All of this occurred before CO2 emissions began to soar after 1945, so at least half of the warming of the past century cannot have been caused by manmade CO2.
1945 to 1977 cool period. Global temperatures began to cool in the mid–1940’s at the point when CO2 emissions began to soar. Global temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped about 0.5° C (0.9° F) from the mid-1940s until 1977 and temperatures globally cooled about 0.2° C (0.4° F). Many of the world’s glaciers advanced during this time and recovered a good deal of the ice lost during the 1915–1945 warm period. Many examples of glacial recession cited in the news media show contrasting terminal positions beginning with the maximum extent at the end of the 1880-1915 year cool period and ending with the minimum extent of the recent 20 year warm period (1977-1998). A much better gauge of the effect of climate on glaciers would be to compare glacier terminal positions between the ends of successive cool periods or the ends of successive warm periods.
1977 to 1998 global warming The global cooling that prevailed from ~1945 to 1977 ended abruptly in 1977 when the Pacific Ocean shifted from its cool mode to its warm mode in a single year and global temperatures began to rise, initiating two decades of global warming. This sudden reversal of climate in 1977 has been called the “Great Pacific Climate Shift” because it happened so abruptly. During this warm period, alpine glaciers retreated, Arctic sea ice diminished, melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet occur.
The abruptness of the shift in Pacific sea surface temperatures and corresponding change from global cooling to global warming in 1977 is highly significant and strongly suggests a cause-and-effect relationship. The rise of atmospheric CO2, which accelerated after 1945 shows no sudden change that could account for the “Great Pacific Climate Shift”.
1999 to 2010 global cooling. No global warming has occurred above the 1998 level and temperatures have declined slightly.
The past 500 years
Temperature oscillations recorded in Greenland ice cores over the past 500 years (Fig. 2) are truly remarkable. At least 40 periods of warming and cooling have occurred since 1480 AD, all well before CO2 emissions could have been a factor.
The past 5,000 years
Figure 3 shows oxygen isotope ratios from the GISP2 Greenland ice core for the past 5,000 years. Note that temperatures were significantly warmer than present from 1500 to 5000 years ago.
The past 10,000 years
Most of the past 10,000 have been warmer than the present. Figure 4 shows temperatures from the GISP2 Greenland ice core. With the exception of a brief cool period about 8,200 years ago, the entire period from 1,500 to 10,500 years ago was significantly warmer than present.
Another graph of temperatures from the Greenland ice core for the past 10,000 years is shown in Figure 5. It shows essentially the same temperatures as Cuffy and Clow (1997) but with somewhat greater detail. What both of these temperature curves show is that virtually all of the past 10,000 years has been warmer than the present.
So where do the 1934/1998/2010 warm years rank in the long-term list of warm years? Of the past 10,500 years, 9,100 were warmer than 1934/1998/2010. Thus, regardless of which year ( 1934, 1998, or 2010) turns out to be the warmest of the past century, that year will rank number 9,099 in the long-term list.
The climate has been warming slowly since the Little Ice Age (Fig. 5), but it has quite a ways to go yet before reaching the temperature levels that persisted for nearly all of the past 10,500 years.
It’s really much to do about nothing.
Thank you for this. That “Warmest Year Ever!” crap dating back 131 years (or something) makes the most hidebound creationist look like Einstein by comparison.
Rant versus realism.
MVB’s comments versus those of Dave Wendt
I would ask the moderator that if you have a ranter, you insist on knowing that person’s name before publishing his or her comments. Tedious anonymous rants by those too cowardly to reveal their identity are obviously beneath contempt.
[You may be violating blog policy. The IP address comes from Utah, to an NGO, while the email address, “smeltendeijstijd@…” which looks like gobbledygook, points to the UK – please provide a valid email address. A valid email address is required to comment on this blog. -moderator]
To be fair all the potential trolls in the vicinity you do know, or so I presume you at least ought to, that people don’t always reside or work in the country they have their email addy servers located right? And there’s always the possibility of proxies, and even NGO’s use ’em
And what you might be calling gobbledygook other people call Dutch, the only proper hippie language if there ever was one. :p
Moderator, I’m in a ski town in UT and used/am using the NGOs computer, using my long-time UK address; what policy could I be breaking? If your intention is keep me from commenting, because I express some critiques (that many other commenters share, actually), you’re well on your way to ruin the high regard I’ve had for WUWT.
And the email address is only gobbledygook if you speak only English, I suppose.
——————–
And please quit the baseless picking, Peter Miller. It’s not helpful. For one, I mostly agree with Dave Wendt’s answers to Steven Mosher’s questions. My comments are in direct response to the article this is a tread on, however, and my previous comment are merely some suggestions of how the article’s quality could be raised. I’m not “ranting”, I’m commenting to the point. You should give it a try, “Peter Miller”.
To address the complaints of many critics of this presentation, yes it would be fairer if e.g. the graph of ice core temperature proxy results was brought up to 2010 and presumably be shown to currently be at a little lower than the peak of the medieval warm period.
The point would remain thorough made however, that there’s much thoroughly misleading noise about unprecedented recent temperatures.
Yeah the rise in temps since 1977 has been rapid, but so was it in the early parts of the medieval warm period.
John F. Hultquist says:
December 28, 2010 at 10:12 pm
Thank you, John! I’ll check that out.
Excellent post.
Generally the standards on WUWT are very high but quite a few very poor comments here from “pseudo” scientists.
For those who have strong views on this, it is not acceptable just to simply use vulgar language to support whatever hypothesis you have.
This is NOT science.
I haven’t seen one qualified statement that refutes anything Don Easterbrook has written. Some of it is simply derived from the rather “unscientific” critique from the rather theological Skeptical Science Blog.
Just one major point, that always comes up about Don Easterbrook’s thesis on global cooling. The HADCRUT does show cooling from 1999 onwards, and even Professor Phil Jones admits it. 2010 hasn’t finished yet! (though I wouldn’t expect a pseudo scientist to wait for their experiment to finish before drawing a conclusion). The dispute on this is whether it is statistically significant. If the cooling continues, which it is (just check the current satellite surface temperatures), the cooling would have started around about 1998.
The GISP2 isotope data goes up to 1987 which is about as far as it can go – ice needs to form up first.
It is exactly the same number as 95 years ago when Richard Alley’s subset of the data ends. So no warming in the last 95 years – some ups and some downs but no real change.
“December 2010 has been one of the coldest Decembers in a century in many parts of the world, so 2010 probably won’t be warmer than 1998. “
In calculating the Global MetAnn Temperature (Giss/NCDC etc), December 2010 will contribute to 2011 as calculations run Dec to Nov. As far as they are concerned Dec 2009-Nov 2010 means the 2010 MetAnn year has finished.
Hi Verity
Perhaps you-or someone else here- knows whether this statement is true-I have seen it repeated several times over the last few months.
“As for this being the warmest decade ever – yes, since it is measured by means of an algorithm that is different to that used in any previous decade and therefore incomparable to anything else. That said, an anonymous troll in the UK Met Office (Think CRU with a supercomputer they have to justify!) announced that they only use the highest recorded temperatures and select the highest 15 of these in any three month period to calculate the “average” for the period. If that is true, then their figures are right – except they are ignoring the lowest temperatures recorded which would lower this figure considerably.”
Anyone able to throw any light on this?
tonyb
Hi Tony,
I’ve seen that oft repeated here since it came up a week or so a go but who knows!
@Bob from the UK
Amazing. So you don’t see anything valid in the numerous responses that point out that Easterbrook cannot support this statement:
> Of the past 10,500 years, 9,100 were warmer than 1934/1998/2010.
by using a graph that *does not show* the temperature in 2010?
Go back to his figure 5.
Mentally draw a horizontal line across the graph at -29C which is approximately the current annual average temperature for Greenland.
Do the three peaks above that line *really* constitute 9100 years out of 10,500? Or is Easterbrook pretending that the temperature where the graph stops (1905) is the current temperature today?
How can you look at a graph like that and defend it? Seriously, how? Once again, this is utterly shameless.
I have a growing respect for the people who have put a huge amount of time and effort into investigating these things for themselves, with a far deeper knowledge than I will ever possess, and while I may strongly disagree with some of their methods, conclusions or opinions (particularly on politics and jockeying away from the science itself), healthy skepticism, constructive effort and honest, diligent analysis of data is always to be applauded, loudly. OTOH, giving blatantly dishonest stuff like this a free pass is not.
TomRude says:
December 28, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Why continuing to give any credence to the recent global surface temperature calculations?
=====================================================
A very helpful comment !
I would propose to attach a disclaimer to all scientific essays, whenever the GISS temperature reconstruction is used or displayed:
WARNING:
GISS temperature is under strong suspicion of a warming bias because of:
1. Multiple undocumented temperature adjustments, warming recent and cooling former temperature history.
2. Extrapolation of faster warming land based temperatures into ocean areas with no data available.
3. A disfunctional UHI correction at least for the world excluding the USA.
4. A much higher warming trend than the tropospheric trend measured with satellites, despite all climate models expecting the troposphere to warm faster instead.
5 Conviction of GISS author J. Hansen of unlawful acts related to climate change activism.
While some claim that 1900 to 1998 warmed by .8C, another recent paper on this site showed UHI can be as much as 7C-9C in Northeast USA Urban centers.
The assumption that the .8C warming actually occurred is, I think, just an assumption and unproven.
Tony B, re the MET using only the Nov. 15 highest days, it is Bunkum.
Very funny how Dr. Don J. Easterbrook is “hiding the incline” of Greenland temperatures.
Here is stated:
“Another graph of temperatures from the Greenland ice core for the past 10,000 years is shown in Figure 5. It shows essentially the same temperatures as Cuffy and Clow (1997) but with somewhat greater detail. What both of these temperature curves show is that virtually all of the past 10,000 years has been warmer than the present.”
In this post the graph:
“Figure 5. Temperatures over the past 10,000 years recorded in the GISP2 Greenland ice core – ”
Is based on the GISP2 Ice Core Temperature data. You can download it here:
ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/gisp2/isotopes/gisp2_temp_accum_alley2000.txt
What is notorious is that the data end in … 1905!
Yet Dr. Don J. Easterbrook does not warn us that the graph, instead it is stated:
“What both of these temperature curves show is that virtually all of the past 10,000 years has been warmer than the present.”
That is true only if you call “present” the year 1905!
After this, it is claimed:
“Of the past 10,500 years, 9,100 were warmer than 1934/1998/2010. Thus, regardless of which year ( 1934, 1998, or 2010) turns out to be the warmest of the past century, that year will rank number 9,099 in the long-term list.
The climate has been warming slowly since the Little Ice Age (Fig. 5), but it has quite a ways to go yet before reaching the temperature levels that persisted for nearly all of the past 10,500 years.”
Really?
Well, we can access the GISTEMP dataset to show how much has Greenland warmed since 1905:
GISTEMP map of temperature anomaly (250 km grid) of the decade 2000-2010 relative to the period 1900-1910:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=1212&year1=2000&year2=2010&base1=1900&base2=1910&radius=250&pol=reg
Between 2ºC and 4ºC warming! (let’s take the middle value, +3ºC)
“So where do the 1934/1998/2010 warm years rank in the long-term list of warm years? ”
Well, leaving behind 1938 that was record warm ONLY in the United States, 1998 and 2010 are, in Greenland, in the range of the peaks of the warmest periods in the last 10 000 years! (if you take +3ºC value the last decade was the warmest in the Greenland Holocene, but given the range of uncertainty, is more correct that is tied with the Minoan Warming and the Holocene Maximum).
If you check the data, you find the degree at with the central conclusion of this post is wrong. This has been exposed here:
“Cooling-gate: the 100 years of warming Easterbrook wants you to ignore”
http://sciblogs.co.nz/hot-topic/2010/05/27/cooling-gate-the-100-years-of-warming-easterbrook-wants-you-to-ignore/
And here:
“Cooling-gate! Easterbrook fakes his figures, hides the incline”
http://hot-topic.co.nz/cooling-gate-easterbrook-fakes-his-figures-hides-the-incline/
What about the claim that Global Warming has stopped in 1998?
Well, a synthesis of the warming trend can be found here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/comparing-temperature-data-sets/
And here:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.15/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.24/mean:12/plot/uah/mean:12/plot/rss/mean:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/offset:-0.15/trend/plot/gistemp/from:1979/offset:-0.24/trend/plot/uah/trend/plot/rss/trend
And here:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Nov_10.gif
The year 2010 so far is the warmest on record on GISTEMP and NCDC datasets and tied for warmest with 1998 in the UAH dataset, all this despite that the 2009-2010 was not a Super El Niño like the 1997-1998 one.
The 2000-2009 decade was the warmest on record, so talking about “global cooling” now is ridiculous, in the warmest year of the warmest decade on record!
What about Greenland?
Well, 1998 (250 km grid, baseline 1900-1910):
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=1212&year1=1998&year2=1998&base1=1900&base2=1910&radius=250&pol=reg
Greenland anomaly: between +1ºC and +2ºC
Global anomaly: +0.79ºC
And 2010(250 km grid, baseline 1900-1910):
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=1212&year1=2010&year2=2010&base1=1900&base2=1910&radius=250&pol=reg
Greenland anomaly: between +2ºC and +5.5ºC
Global anomaly: +0.75ºC
Result a whole decade (the most recent) warmer (in Greenland) than the “record warm” year of 1998!
For those that note that in the maps given 1998 is warmer than 2010, this ius because of the missing data in the Arctic. If you suppose that here the temperature is like the global anomaly, then youy get that result. If you suppose that temperatures there are similar to the nearest meteorological station (a much more reasonable assumption, that is fullfilled with a 1000 km smooting radius) you get:
2010:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=1212&year1=2010&year2=2010&base1=1900&base2=1910&radius=1200&pol=reg
Global anomaly: +0.89ºC
1998:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/do_nmap.py?year_last=2010&month_last=11&sat=4&sst=1&type=anoms&mean_gen=1212&year1=1998&year2=1998&base1=1900&base2=1910&radius=1200&pol=reg
Global anomaly: +0.82 ºC.
Clear warming. If you don’t trust GISTEMP methods, you could use the RSS, UAH, and NCDC data that show clear warming after 1998 as well.
From Peru says:
December 29, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Clear warming. If you don’t trust GISTEMP methods, you could use the RSS, UAH, and NCDC data that show clear warming after 1998 as well.
======================================================
wrong:
GISS: uptrend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/to:2010/plot/gistemp/from:1998/to:2010/trend/plot/none
UAH: downtrend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2010/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2010/trend
RSS: downtrend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2010/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2010/trend
(WARNING:
GISS temperature is under strong suspicion of a warming bias because of:
1. Multiple undocumented temperature adjustments, warming recent and cooling former temperature history.
2. Extrapolation of faster warming land based temperatures into ocean areas with no data available.
3. A disfunctional UHI correction at least for the world excluding the USA.
4. A much higher warming trend than the tropospheric trend measured with satellites, despite all climate models expecting the troposphere to warm faster instead.
5. Conviction of GISS author J. Hansen for unlawful acts related to climate change activism.)
@ur momisugly From Peru says: December 29, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Thanks for the links, ‘From Peru’! And points well made, as well.
In my 5:21 am comment (MVB says: December 29, 2010 at 5:21 am) I mentioned something about the temperature anomaly for the GISP2 location having a value close to or slightly cooler than to the 1951-1980 mean. And concluded that “In other words: even if the Fig. 5 graph extended all the way to today, it’s clear that 2010 could not beat warm periods such as Roman or Minoan Warm Periods (let alone the likely peak years within those periods).” We seem to agree on some key problems with the article, but you point out that the past decade could actually be in the ballpark of the Roman or even Minoan Warm Periods. For that particular aspect, I must admit: you’re right, and I was wrong. I had mistakenly looked at Nov 2009 anomaly map (which was relatively cold in central Greenland then), and not the 2010 annual value, which does indeed raise the possibility your state. And that does make Easterbrook’s narrative around Figure 5. even worse than I thought (again).
@ur momisugly 1DandyTroll says: December 29, 2010 at 2:58 pm
😉 It was originally meant both literally (tijd van smeltend ijs / age of melting ice) and metaphorically (smeltende ijstijd / melting ‘ice age’, with the latter referring to Joy Division’s ‘Ice Age’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGPBlsnOF5k
If I keep digressing, perhaps some not-very-scientifically-inclined folks will become nicer to me. …Nothing will hold, … Nothing will fit, … Into the cold,… No smile on your lips, Living in the Ice age…
I think what needed to be said (that Easterbrook missed the mark on this port and precicely why) has been said in different words several times today.
Peace out –
Even the disreputable Phil Jones [you know he will never get his former reputation back] admits that the current rise in temperature is completely natural: click
So another climate scare is debunked: that the current temperature rise is alarming, when Jones shows that it is routine and ordinary. Scientific skeptics are still batting a thousand, while the alarmist crowd can’t point to one single verifiable bit of harm done to the planet due to the ≈40% rise in beneficial CO2.
That’s a big increase, isn’t it? If CO2 caused catastrophic harm, you would think we’d be seeing a little of it by now. But not one warmist claim about damage from CO2 stands up to scientific scrutiny. Every scare has been debunked in turn.
Leon Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance explains the close similarities between Mrs Keech’s flying saucer cult, and Jehovah’s Witnesses, and CO2=CAGW true believers: in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence, they believe even more strongly in their fantasy. Each one of them is a doomsday cult.
Orwell called it “doublethink”: holding two contradictory ideas at the same time. It’s a form of mental illness, and no doubt when the glaciers are once again descending over the Great Lakes and northern Europe, there will still be true believers in the cult of AGW among our descendants, waiting for harmless and beneficial CO2 to cause runaway global warming.
Fortunately, scientific skeptics are relatively immune from cognitive dissonance. The reason is that skeptics simply ask questions about a hypothesis. They have no hypothesis of their own, except for the null hypothesis – that the climate is currently well within its historical parameters, and that everything occurring now has happened repeatedly before. The climate null hypothesis has never been falsified.
Festinger said that if you provide evidence that someone is wrong, they will question your sources. A while back Joel Shore questioned the source of a graph I had linked to, which contradicted his position. In response I posted fifty (50) similar graphs, all showiing the same thing, from many different peer reviewed sources. Joel’s response? He went through every single graph, and claimed to find something wrong with each one. He could not show that he was right, so he questioned the sources that showed he was wrong.
Scientific skeptics are dealing with cognitive dissonance-afflicted CAGW doom cultists. Their minds are closed to reason. That is why they constantly morph their arguments whenever one of their pet examples of CAGW is debunked. They operate based on faith, not on reason. That’s why it’s turned into a Whack-A-Mole effort by skeptics. As each CAGW belief/mole is whacked, another one pops out. Against all rational evidence, they are still convinced that CO2 emissions will lead to planetary catastrophe.
From Peru,
You dispute that the climate has been warming since the LIA. What planet are you reporting from? The planet of
SkepticalCognitive Dissonance ‘Science’? The blog run by the cartoonist?In fact, the climate has been warming since the LIA, although it has quite a way to go before reaching the the numerous highs of the Holocene. For necessary enlightenment, see my post @1:04 above.
Here is an example [current temperature at left side of chart]. Here’s another. We’re pretty much in the sweet spot right now.
Until/unless you can falsify the climate null hypothesis with your alternate CO2=CAGW conjecture, then the long held theory of natural climate variability remains standing, and what we’re currently observing is no different than what has happened naturally countless times before.
Observation supports natural variability. As Dr Spencer, whom you reference, puts it:
No one has falsified the hypothesis that the observed temperature changes are a consequence of natural variability.
It’s time you learned how the scientific method works. Your conjecture has been debunked because it is primarily based on completely inaccurate computer models.
Models are not evidence, They are programs. Testable, replicable, empirical [real world, raw data] evidence are required by the scientific method.
But instead of using the rigorous scientific method, the alarmist crowd falls back on its phony claims of consensus. Which is why WUWT leaves your sparsely trafficked echo chamber blogs in the dust. The scientific method rules here.
Try using real science for a change. If you do, your conclusions regarding CAGW will inevitably change 180°.
Or, you can remain trapped in your doomsday cult.
Manfred says:
December 29, 2010 at 6:24 pm
“From Peru says:
December 29, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Clear warming. If you don’t trust GISTEMP methods, you could use the RSS, UAH, and NCDC data that show clear warming after 1998 as well.
======================================================
wrong:
GISS: uptrend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1998/to:2010/plot/gistemp/from:1998/to:2010/trend/plot/none
UAH: downtrend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2010/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2010/trend
RSS: downtrend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2010/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2010/trend”
Nice cherry-picking is what you have done.
You started from the Super El Niño year of 1998, and then you DELETED 2010.
Beginning with you cherry-picked 1998, but including your cherry-deleted 2010:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2011/plot/uah/from:1998/to:2011/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2011/plot/rss/from:1998/to:2011/trend
Warming trend!
Unless you use outdated data. At least you are outdated one YEAR, the author of this WUWT post is oudated one CENTURY.
Manfred said December 29, 2010 at 6:24 pm:
“wrong:”
————–
Do you know what “after 1998” means, Manfred? Plot 1999-2010, or for that matter you could plot 1997-2010 and get upward trends in all three sets … Jones clearly said that even a 15 year timeline was sometimes too short to establish a meaningful trend.
… yet another prime example of non-robust cherry-picking. When is that weak tactic going to stop around here?
BillD says:
December 29, 2010 at 5:28 am
Where is peer review when you need it? This post conflates the global climate record with regional records for the US and Greenland. Then it fails to point out that “present” only goes up to 1905. Over the last 21 years, I have been the editor or reviewer for over 600 manuscripts submited for publication in peer-reviewed scientific journals (I need to keep a record for my employer).
The Mann Hockey Stick graph was peer reviewed. Peer review didn’t help, did it.
“Beginning with you cherry-picked 1998…”
Actually, it was your proposal to skip 1998.
You try to compare 1998 and 2010 by skipping 1998 completely, and start in 1999 right in the middle of the deepest La Nina dominated temperatures of the decade. On the other side, however, you prefer ending in 2010, mostly dominated by another El Nino.
That’s a bit unsporty.
I left out 2010. Sorry for that. In a few months this tiny increase will be gone as well, though not in dubious GISS data, I suppose.
Smokey says:
December 29, 2010 at 7:35 pm
From Peru,
“You dispute that the climate has been warming since the LIA.In fact, the climate has been warming since the LIA, although it has quite a way to go before reaching the the numerous highs of the Holocene. ”
I do not dispute that there was warming from the LIA. What I have shown is that in just a century Greenland has warmed a whole 2-4ºC , equating the levels seen in the Holocene Maximum.
“Here is an example. Here’s another. We’re pretty much in the sweet spot right now.”
Well, in your example of Greenland you have chopped off an entire century of warming. You have committed the same mistake that the author of this WUWT post. The GISP2 Ice Core Temperature data ends in 1905, so you MUST obtain the last 100 years from the instrumental temperature record (weather stations). And they show a warming between 2ºC and 4ºC, and this is equal to the peak warming of the Holocene Maximum.
Now the question:
How do you explain that in just a century Greenland warmed to levels seen in the Holocene Maximum (when Milanktovich cycles, that is orbital, precessional and Earth inclination were giving a bigger insolation than today) despite the cooling trend in Milanktovich cycles ?
Smokey says:
December 29, 2010 at 7:35 pm
“From Peru,
Your conjecture has been debunked because it is primarily based on completely inaccurate computer models.
Models are not evidence, They are programs. Testable, replicable, empirical [real world, raw data] evidence are required by the scientific method”
I was not referring to climate models. I was citing DATA.
And the DATA show warming, a warming that is comparable to what seen in the Holocene Maximum. Evidently SOMETHING has warmed the Earth, erasing millenia of Orbital-Earth inclination induced cooling.