The following figure shows the AMO+PDO (black line above changed to red below) superimposed on the Arctic average annual temperature shown at the beginning of this document.
Note: I tried to provide an excerpt for readers of this website Appinsys in the post there about Arctic cycles, but gave up. The website is written in MS-Word HTML export which is quite frankly the worst possible way to publish a website. The amount of garbage code it creates that makes it impractical for sharing and pretty much ruins the effectiveness of the website for others that want to reference it with excerpts. Trying to paste even short excerpts into WUWT’s WordPress publisher caused massive visual entropy. So, all I can manage is this sentence and image above.
I hope he’ll take a cue from this and use a real publishing platform (WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, anything but MS-Word) designed for the web so we can help spread the word more often. Good works shouldn’t be saddled by bad web publishing systems.
Here’s the link – http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/ArcticCycles.htm
UPDATE: Well, maybe not so good after all. Bob Tisdale writes in comments:
The AMO+PDO graph strikes again. It is a prime example of the adage “correlation does not mean causation”, because the AMO+PDO graph is meaningless. You can’t add the AMO and the PDO. I’ll cut and paste a comment I made on an earlier thread here at WUWT to save myself some time.
Unfortunately, the PDO and AMO are not similar datasets and cannot be added or averaged. The AMO is created by detrending North Atlantic SST anomalies, while the PDO is the product of a principal component analysis North Pacific SST anomalies, north of 20N. Basically, the PDO represents the pattern of the North Pacific SST anomalies that are similar to those created by El Niño and La Niña events. If one were to detrend the SST anomalies of the North Pacific, north of 20N, and compare it to the PDO, the two curves (smoothed with a 121-month filter) appear to be inversely related:
http://i52.tinypic.com/fvi92b.jpg
Thanks Bob for teaching us all something. Not being an ocean data specialist, I wasn’t aware in the difference in datasets. Hopefully this exposure of this issue here will prompt wider understanding that while they seem similar, you can’t appropriately combine the two datasets – Anthony
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Bob Tisdale says:
May 22, 2011 at 1:18 pm
The AMO+PDO graph strikes again. It is a prime example of the adage “correlation does not mean causation”, because the AMO+PDO graph is meaningless. You can’t add the AMO and the PDO.
Bob – why not? It would be a mistake if the aim were to prove some mechanistic linkage between the two oceans. But Anthony’s article was about the Arctic. The Atlantic and Pacific do have in common that they both interface with and (thus) influence the Arctic ocean. So in this sense, there is a rationale for merging the PDO and AMO indices and comparing them to Arctic ice – and the result is quite persuasive.
R. Gates says: “Never enough data for we warmaholics…”
Don’t you mean warmaphobics, M. Gates? Or wait, maybe you don’t. :o)
Anthony,
if you want to capture something like this with a history from MS Word you can ‘wash’ it by pasting into a text only application such as MS Notepad, then instantly cut and paste it into WordPress – only the text will come though – none of the code. Granted you’ll need to embed the images manually, but at least you start with a clean sheet on the formatting.
“Hopefully this exposure of this issue here will prompt wider understanding that while they seem similar, you can’t appropriately combine the two datasets.”
Okay, I don’t feel so bad about not understanding the post. I know more than when I came in. Onward to the next post!
DR, I agree.
What’s the proof of CAGW?
I get there might be some warming in the last few hundred years but, isn’t that to be expected? From MWP through the LIA to now the earth has been warm and cold at different times.
1. What makes anyone think this is different?
2. What optimum temp are we trying to achieve?
3. In order to reach this temp, do I have to sleep in the dirt and give up eating?
R. Gates says:
This is exactly why the next few years will be so interesting, as we are at a point where that cycling back down should begin in earnest. If it doesn’t, and we see 2010-2019 as warmer than 2000-2009, and then 2020-2029 as warmer on avergage than 2010-2019, and the arctic sea ice continues its long-term downward trend, what then my skeptical friends?
————————————————–
will you be having a climate rapture party?
until then, avoid committing pre-rapture crimes on the off chance that nobody will be accountable.
Bob Tisdale says:
May 22, 2011 at 1:18 pm
Bob-
Does theAMO+PDO graph negate the GHCN/Crutem3 graphs at the top of that appinsys link wrt the 69 year shift and the .3C downward adjustment? Thought that was pretty interesting…
phlogiston says: “Bob – why not?”
Because the PDO is an abstract form of North Pacific Sea Surface Temperatures north of 20N. It does not represent the SST anomalies of that area. The PDO is actually inversely related to North Pacific SST anomalies.
I discussed and illustrated it in this post:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/an-inverse-relationship-between-the-pdo-and-north-pacific-sst-anomaly-residuals/
More on the PDO here:
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2010/09/03/an-introduction-to-enso-amo-and-pdo-part-3/
Duke C. says: “Does theAMO+PDO graph negate the GHCN/Crutem3 graphs at the top of that appinsys link wrt the 69 year shift and the .3C downward adjustment?”
The AMO+PDO discussion should not pertain to that.
R. Gates says:
May 22, 2011 at 1:14 pm
I think there is plenty of data to support the probabililty that AGW is occurring now, though, as I am only 75% convinced, so a bit more data would be nice.
_____
I am curious, how narrow a definition of AGW are you using? Are you referring only to CO2 increase equals higher temperatures, or are you including amplification via feedbacks to that theory as well?
The reason I ask is, CO2 increasing temperatures is well established, but the truth is without strong positive feedback it really does not matter. So are you 75% convinced of CO2 equals higher temperatures, or 75% convinced that CO2 equals higher temperatures plus strong feedback?
Roy
Too many severe PDO misconceptions.
Tisdale’s point’s important.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/northpacificsst_pdo.png
Apples & oranges.
Actually, it looks like Alan borrowed the PDO+AMO combination curve from Joe D’Aleo’s web site. I’m also pretty sure I’ve seen this PDO+AMO chart in one of Joe’s PDFs floating around the web.
Possibly Joe can add some explanation here as to what he actually combined. Whatever Joe did, it might be a different than what either Alan or Bob thinks.
Art
The AMO+PDO thing is like a weed. Bob T. shall be forgiven if he inserts a few odd symbols in his response on one of these occassions.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Several commentators have gone off-track on the “what if it keeps getting warmer” theme. If one thinks that a warming planet proves CAGW then you do not understand the issue.
Roy Weiler says:
May 22, 2011 at 3:39 pm
R. Gates says:
May 22, 2011 at 1:14 pm
I think there is plenty of data to support the probabililty that AGW is occurring now, though, as I am only 75% convinced, so a bit more data would be nice.
_____
I am curious, how narrow a definition of AGW are you using? Are you referring only to CO2 increase equals higher temperatures, or are you including amplification via feedbacks to that theory as well?
The reason I ask is, CO2 increasing temperatures is well established, but the truth is without strong positive feedback it really does not matter. So are you 75% convinced of CO2 equals higher temperatures, or 75% convinced that CO2 equals higher temperatures plus strong feedback?
_____
I think when looking at increasing CO2, you need to look at the whole system, and certainly that’s what the climate models try to do. Increasing CO2, by itself would produce only a very modest warming, even when going up several hundred ppm. But the positive feedbacks in the climate system are the ones worth looking very closely at, and certainly the negative feedbacks as well.
My favorite positive feedbacks to increasing CO2 involve the polar regions.
Increasing CO2 means just enough less ice to begin a slow downhill decline of sea ice. That is what all the GCM’s show and is exactly what is occurring. Less sea ice means more solar SW absorbed by the polar ocean means less sea ice means more SW aborbed. This all leads to a net warming of the polar regions, especially the N. pole first as it doesn’t have the large heat sink of the southern ocean like the S. pole does. Additionally, the warmer poles mean the melting of permafrost and the release of methane, which is even more potent of a GH gas, and though it last much shorter in the atmophere, when it breaks down it eventually becomes…CO2,. Polar amplifcation is happening now, is readily observed across the Arctic, and of course, skeptics love to try and say it has all happened before…which is true, but not for a very long time, and there is no known forcing now except for the increase in CO2 and related positive feebacks.
I would ask the honest skeptic out there: What is the chance that the highest CO2 levels in 800,000 years (40% higher than we had as an average over that 800,000 year period) is not having some effect on the polar regions– specifically, for now, the N. pole?
gnomish says:
May 22, 2011 at 3:01 pm
R. Gates says:
This is exactly why the next few years will be so interesting, as we are at a point where that cycling back down should begin in earnest. If it doesn’t, and we see 2010-2019 as warmer than 2000-2009, and then 2020-2029 as warmer on avergage than 2010-2019, and the arctic sea ice continues its long-term downward trend, what then my skeptical friends?
————————————————–
will you be having a climate rapture party?
until then, avoid committing pre-rapture crimes on the off chance that nobody will be accountable.
____
I am merely an observer. Nothing to celebrate one way or another. As far as committing crimes in advance of some future event…not really in my personality to believe in such things, nor to commit crimes even if I did believe, but thanks for the admonishment. 🙂
R. Gates says:
May 22, 2011 at 1:14 pm
Doubling a trace gas does not automatically make that gas a significant component of the atmosphere. There is way too little CO2 to accomplish the AGW hypothetical.
Analysing data is no substitute for empirical testing. Where are the CO2 controlled experiments that prove the heretofore unknown properties of this trace gas?
You should be .075% convinced, for that is the proportional representation of doubling present levels of CO2.
The AMO+PDO Arctic Temperature correlation is visually pleasing.
Perhaps this page can be a link on the Climate Fail page. There is a need for a quick reference to examples of “Be cautious of corellation.”
Finding “temperature data” accurate to the TENTH of a degree C, dating back to 1880… HA HA! That’s a trip. Whoops, spelled it wrong. That’s a TRIPE.
Garabage of the first order.
What’s it based on? Bogus 018/O16 “temperature proxies”? Are the temps after 1945 from “land stations”. Do the bogus DEW LINE temps come into play?
Enquiring minds want to know. It’s time we just took these sort of BOGUS WORTHLESS NO QUALITY ASSURANCE NO SOURCE graphs and “data” and put it where it belongs. That would in a VERY DARK and VERY SMELLY place. (Whoops, again, that’s were most of it came from.)
Thanks to Vukcevic for the graphics. I believe that the correct term is “first difference” rather than “first differential”. The former implies subtraction, while the latter implies division. To detrend time series the conventional approach is to subtract.
I don’t know about anybody else, but Bob Tisdale’s PDO-ENSO graph says this to me:
If two resultants are inversely proportional, it is essentially the same thing as if they are directly proportional – except that whatever causes one to go up, causes the other to go down. In other words, the heat energy that goes into the El Niño apparently comes by taking that heat from the northern Pacific (by what mechanism I do not speculate), and vice versa for La Niña.
I assume Bob has looked at the R-value for the out-of-phase?
Maybe I am doing what Bob says we shouldn’t do – but I am pretty sure there is SOME link between PDO and ENSO, being in the same ocean and all. Perhaps not. But if not, where does the heat energy go when La Niña kicks in? And where does it come from when the El Niño does?
That has always been my big question: El Niño is not a CAUSE, it is an effect, so where does all that energy derive from? I haven’t seen anyone address this question yet. They are both oscillations (PDO and ENSO), so it intuitively seems that the same excess of energy is simply oscillating to and from the Equator. Why?
Claiming that CO2 rose from 280 PPM in 1880 to 380 PPM today and temperature rose about .6 ° C during that time proves that CO2 causes temperature rise is an obvious fallacy.
It is like claiming that the hardness of the sidewalk in NY City rose from 1880 until today and temperature rose by .6 ° C therefore concrete hardness causes temperature rise is ridiculous. Although some concretes might have better heat retention qualities etc.
No if the concrete got harder and softer 3 times or more and the temperature followed fairly closely there would be good reason to look for a link.
Let me state upfront that ocean currents do not cause long term sustained temperature rise but they can and do cause apparent temperature rise in the 20 to 30 year range. [Like the one starting in 1978 continuing to 2008 or so]
They can and do cause alarmists to become alarmed.
El Niño/La Nina
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
Overall Temperature
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif
There have been 3 positive cycles of the El Nino/La Nina 2 since good records have been available.
Phil Jones of CRU infamy they were 1860-1880, 1910-1940 and 1975-1998. The latest one was in no way special in length or slope [according to Dr Jones]
From 1940 to 1978 there is an overall downward trend in global temperature as measured by GISS.
During that time there were about 14 La Nina’s and 3 El Nino’s and the temperature went down. No surprise there ! I might add that there was world war II when industry was pumping out CO2 by the ton.
From 1978 to 1998 there was a preponderance of El Nino’s over La Nina’s 11 to 2 and the temperature went up. No surprise there and no CO2 is required to explain it.
From 1998 to present is where it really gets interesting.
In 1999 and 2000 and 2008 there were La Nina’s and between those dates there were El Nino’s and the temperature rose. The temperature resembles an inverted “U” with an up tick because of the El Nino in 2010.
The objection is made that ocean cycles cannot explain the approximately ½ ° C overall warming per century and that is true but it can make temperatures appear to be warmer or cooler by quite a bit.
In 1978 the alarmists became ….. alarmed because of the cooling since 1940. In 1998 the alarmists again became alarmed because of the natural warming since 1978.
The cause of the overall warming is a moot point of interest only to climatologists and not worthy of economy destroying taxes.
Since the warming began immediately after records were started at the end of the little ice age when CO2 production by humans was miniscule I doubt that it was the cause. In any case the warming is minimal and since we are at the top of the sine wave we will observe cooling for the next 20 to 30 years.
“You can’t add the AMO and the PDO.”
While I agree that you’re adding apples and scaled oranges, you’re fundamentally looking for an entirely empirical model in the first place.
If, iff something as direct as “Take AMO measured/calculated in this fashion, and PDO measured/calculated in that distinctly different fashion and add them” was posited and tested as an empirical model to predict future Arctic average temperatures (even just a year in advance), the only real question is: Does it work repeatedly?
The answer is basically “No. Mostly because correlation is not equal to causation, regardless of the ten thousand different correlations we can come up with.”
But it is possible to find useful empirical models before one has even a solid grasp on what, in theory, is going on. And based off of data that is itself on a poor proxy or a secondary effect. But to do so you have to fundamentally dump the idea of just “finding correlations” and start from the framework of having just 2/3 of the actual data (so you have something to test on). All the various scaling and shifting is then part of the model as opposed to an all-data best-case-correlation.
Discovering that your scaled orange is actually close to being an upside-down apple can be a good thing.
IOW: Try AMO minus scaled-North-Pacific-via-SST.
Everything north of 45 degrees South (including North Pacific SST [not to be confused with PDO], North Atlantic SST [also known as AMO], & Arctic surface T) is correlated on decadal timescales due to the north-south asymmetric distribution of continents and solar cycle deceleration:
1) http://icecap.us/images/uploads/AMOTEMPS.jpg (This graph didn’t have to use the North Atlantic as a focal point; it could have used the KOE, for example.)
2) Figure 10:
Carvalho, L.M.V.; Tsonis, A.A.; Jones, C.; Rocha, H.R.; & Polito, P.S. (2007). Anti-persistence in the global temperature anomaly field. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics 14, 723-733.
http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/gem/papers/npg-14-723-2007.pdf
3) http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/vaughn_lod_amo_sc.png
4) http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/scl_northpacificsst.png
5) http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/scl_0-90n.png
6) http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/vaughn_lod_fig1a.png
7) http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/vaughn_lod_fig1b.png
…where SCL’ = rate of change of solar cycle length = solar cycle deceleration ….not to be confused with solar cycle length, which has a correlation of almost zero with SCL’ (…which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who understands complex [as in complex numbers, not as in complicated] phase relations).
To develop conceptual understanding:
a) Exposition of p. 433 [pdf p.10]:
Sidorenkov, N.S. (2005). Physics of the Earth’s rotation instabilities. Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions 24(5), 425-439.
http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2008/09/28/0001230882/425-439.pdf
b) Figures 8, 11, 13, & 15:
Leroux, Marcel (1993). The Mobile Polar High: a new concept explaining present mechanisms of meridional air-mass and energy exchanges and global propagation of palaeoclimatic changes. Global and Planetary Change 7, 69-93.
http://ddata.over-blog.com/xxxyyy/2/32/25/79/Leroux-Global-and-Planetary-Change-1993.pdf
Summers/winters occur in opposite hemispheres every 6 months (semi-annual). The solar cycle controls how hard the semi-annual heat-pump pumps. The spacing of clusters of higher-intensity pumping-episodes affects the distribution & state of water [including ice] on the planet. Interannual spatiotemporal chaos (including ENSO) throws something into the mix that makes it difficult or impossible for the mainstream to see the preceding simplicity using LINEAR methods.
Art Ford: “Actually, it looks like Alan borrowed the PDO+AMO combination curve from Joe D’Aleo’s web site. I’m also pretty sure I’ve seen this PDO+AMO chart in one of Joe’s PDFs floating around the web.”
That is correct – for those that actually read my posting, the PDO+AMO graph is referenced as Joe D’Aleos’ http://www.intellicast.com/Community/Content.aspx?a=127
(in which Joe said: “Although one might argue they are just reflecting the overall warming and cooling, recall that the ocean transitions from one mode to the other in both cases are abrupt, occurring in just a year or two, suggesting as the AR4 does that these oscillations are ocean gyre or thermohaline circulation based and thus natural.”)
Vuk’s comment captured part one of the main points in my posting – there are repeated, nearly identical, cycles and Hansen says the previous one is natural but the current one is CO2.
More people should actually read articles at the source links – in this case: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/ArcticCycles.htm
There is one simple method, how to identify the greenhouse fingerprint in the Arctic; winters should warm much more than summers.
http://i56.tinypic.com/vfv70g.jpg
It is not the case. No hotspot, no humidity feedback, no polar fingerprint, no more El Ninos, no warmer winters, NOTHING. Just powerful models.