The Kaufmann et al 2011 paper (Note: Michael L. Mann is a co-author, not the same as Michael E. Mann of hockey team fame) was embargoed until 8PM GMT (12PM PDT) today, and we have an advance copy thanks to Dr. Benny Peiser .
Here is the PDF file: pnas.201102467
The headline from the abstract:
Given the widely noted increase in the warming effects of rising greenhouse gas concentrations, it has been unclear why global surface temperatures did not rise between 1998 and 2008.
But in the conclusion:
The finding that the recent hiatus in warming is driven largely by natural factors does not contradict the hypothesis: “most of the observed increase in global average temperature since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations (14).”
From the GWPF:
Comments by Dr David Whitehouse on the PNAS paper Kaufmann et al.
Reconciling anthropogenic climate change with observed temperature 1998 – 2008.
It is good news that the authors recognise that there has been no global temperature increase since 1998. Even after the standstill appears time and again in peer-reviewed scientific studies, many commentators still deny its reality. We live in the warmest decade since thermometer records began about 150 years ago, but it hasn’t gotten any warmer for at least a decade.
The researchers tweak an out-of-date climate computer model and cherry-pick the outcome to get their desired result. They do not use the latest data on the sun’s influence on the Earth, rendering their results of academic interest only.
They blame China’s increasing coal consumption that they say is adding particles into the atmosphere that reflect sunlight and therefore cool the planet. The effect of aerosols and their interplay with other agents of combustion is a major uncertainty in climate models. Moreover, despite China’s coal burning, data indicate that in the past decade the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere has not increased.
The researchers seek to explain the temperature standstill between 1998 and 2008. They say that the global temperature has increased since then.
This is misleading. There was an El Nino in 2010 (natural cyclic warming) but even that did not raise temperatures above 1998. In fact the standstill has continued to 2010 and 2011 appears to be on course to be a cooler year than any of the preceding ten years.
Tweaking computer models like this proves nothing. The real test is in the real world data. The temperature hasn’t increased for over a decade. For there to be any faith in the underlying scientific assumptions the world has to start warming soon, at an enhanced rate to compensate for it being held back for a decade.
Despite what the authors of this paper state after their tinkering with an out of date climate computer model, there is as yet no convincing explanation for the global temperature standstill of the past decade.
Either man-made and natural climatic effects have conspired to completely offset the warming that should have occurred due to greenhouse gasses in the past decade, or our estimation of the ‘climate sensitivity’ to greenhouse gasses is too large.
This is not an extreme or ‘sceptic’ position but represents part of the diversity of scientific opinion presented to the IPCC that is seldom reported.
Dr David Whitehouse
The Global Warming Policy Foundation
e-mail: david.whitehouse@thegwpf.org
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My take on it from the paper – “We don’t know what’s going on, but we aren’t going to admit that” – Anthony
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From Ryan Maue: Mainstream media coverage example headline:
Asia pollution blamed for halt in warming: study — from Reuters
blah blah blah — and the conclusion quotation: “Long term warming will continue unless emissions are reduced,” said Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring at Britain’s Met Office.
Well, hells bells.
Worshipers of the god Zagg prayed for warming. But worshipers of the god Zogg prayed for cooling. Now the climate stayed flat. So the clear explanation is that the prayers to the two respective gods cancelled each-other out.
Unfortunately for this tidy explanation however, there exists this inconvenient principle “Occam’s razor”, that an explanation and mechanism should involve the minimum number of factors, i.e. be economical or parsimonious. It is in fact a powerful and important scientific principle. Climate science in general and this paper in particular drive a coach and horses through Occam’s razor.
The overwhelming probability is that the flat global temperature over the last decade is neither the mutual cancellation of the prayers to Zagg and Zogg, nor of the effects of CO2 and smokestack particulates, but instead, the operation of other natural factors.
How on earth have we come to the situation in climate science when the word “natural” provokes a hostile reaction? Where the operation of “natural” factors is the nemesis of our pet theories?
What’s wrong with natural? Why dont we like natural? Did we forget that CO2 itself is natural? It did not come into the world like sin, with the fall of man (i.e. industrialisation).
“Up until now, they’ve always said that the argument was best discussed in the “peer-reviewed” papers. So, with this, we now add the Courier Mail and the NY Times as peer-reviewed papers.”
Keep in mind that “peer” is a relative term. I can think of several proponents of AGW who would most properly need to send their submissions to Mad Magazine for true “peer review.”
This admission of Global Stasis is no mis-step in the AGW campaign. Indeed, it is just Step One of the newly-developed theme that Mr. Gore is about to present to us. From recently-leaked videotape out of a major studio, we see this:
(Scene opens outdoors, bright and sunny day in the country, camera pans with distant horses running along a fence past gamboling lambs, children playing with a dog, camera stops and focuses close foreground on man in flannel shirt facing camera.)
GORE: Friends, five years ago, I came to you with a plea in the form of my movie, An Inconvenient Truth. Y’all watched my movie several times (for which I thank you), and the world took its warning to heart. Now, after five years of global effort and cooperation, many global conferences, and an ever-growing awareness around the world of the deadly effects of carbon, I come before you today to announce that it appears that our efforts are working! This chart proves that our efforts have been well-founded. But there’s still more to be done . . .
This morning (Monday 11 July 2011) a bunch of flea-brains were standing in front of a Nundah(Brisbane) Hall chanting “Climate change is proven fact”. Of course it is. If the climate gets hotter, then the big polluters are proven responsible. If the climate gets colder, then the same big polluters are to blame. Only by eliminating all the big polluters (organisations which keep people fed, warm and housed) can all the adverse effects on our hitherto idyllic climate be removed. Then, when it is discovered that the climate still gets hotter (or colder), it will be because all the big polluters were not destroyed earlier. Inside the hall, Hon Joe Hockey and Senator George Brandis were attempting to counter the arguments of the GreensALP Government while refusing to use their most obvioius weapon; the weapon of truth. To earn the respect and support of the wise majority, all they need to state is the obvious: “Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant”
“Mendel held that children of a pure light-eyed parent and a pure dark eyed parent would have children whose eyes turned out dark by a ratio of 3 to 1.”
Wrong.
Parents: Genotype BB – homozygous pure breeding brown eyed and Genotype bb – homozygous pure breeding blue eyed.
Gametes: From the first parent – all B; from the second parent – all b.
F1 first filial generation – all offspring Bb – heterozygous brown eyed because brown eyes are dominent.
Only when a heterozygous brown eyed child from the F1 generation marries a similar heterozygous brown eyed individual will you have a 3:1 ratio of brown eyed children in the F2 – 25% homozygous brown eyed, 50% heterozygous brown-eyed and 25 homozygous blue eyed.
“Long term warming will continue unless emissions are reduced,” said Peter Stott,
Wait a minute, don’t we want long term warming reduced? Could we do without carbon taxes and global warming by the simple expedient of increasing particulate and sulfate pollution? More coal fired power plants, more cars, less scrubbers?
I think our warmist friends have found the light at the end of the tunnel.
did anyone notice on Q & A last night that NOT ONE questioner asked Ms Gillard BY HOW MUCH WILL THE TEMPERATURE BE REDUCED after your initiative comes into law?
If you look at this graph of global temperatures, http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/f/f4/Instrumental_Temperature_Record.png
there is a clear wave form to the 5 year average (red line). It is also clear that this line is due for a down turn in the present decade.
My uneducated guess is that the fluctuations in the 5 year average is due to the sunspot cycle. That, taken together with La Nina and increased aerosols from China, should be quite enough to account for the reduced warming rate.
Especially funny is when they end the paper with: ‘Both of these effects, along with changes in natural variables must be examined explicitly by efforts to understand climate change and devise policy that complies with the objective of Article 2 of the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change to stabilize “greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmospehre at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference in the climate system.”’, they send it to the PNAS, and expressly declare there no conflict of interest. (see here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/06/27/1102467108)
Very nice. Isn’t this in legal terms called perjury?
Maybe people should actually go and take a look at the reports and data that’s out there in relation to this issue for themselves instead of quoting from internet and magazine articles and stating them as facts? The warming effect can’t be looked at in terms of a few years or a decade because the data shows that yes there have been periods of non warming that have lasted about this amount of time but overall (and the data does show this) over the long term the temperature has been increasing and at a faster rate than it should for anyone to state that global warming has ceased just because of a period of non warming is just stupid and naive at best.
Brian says:
July 6, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Jim… If you notice the must uneducated people are on your side. Think about all of those ignorant southerners that are also conservative Republicans.
Really, that should be enough to get you to think your position over.
But you keep on believing the type of people that told us tobacco doesn’t cause cancer. Your kind will be made a fool of once again in the future.
Brian, you must be a prejudiced bigot. BTW, the Heartlands argument was against second hand smoke, not smoking, and for the record I never agreed with their position. Brian, were you a fool who supported the ban on DDT? (The lesson is, each subject stands or fails on its own merrit. The case ofr CAGW is looking to be a fail)