By Girma Orssengo, PhD
In his Caltech commencement address in 1974, Professor Richard Feynman advised students the following:
“Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them.” [1]
Using the global mean temperature (GMT) data from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change (IPCC), in its Fourth Assessment Report of 2007, reported to the world “accelerated warming” of the globe. [2]
Identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is extremely crucial because the IPCC claims this accelerated warming is caused by CO2 emission from human use of fossil fuels. As a result, use of fossil fuels that has protected the naked animal from the freezing winter, sweltering summer, backbreaking drudgery, or in general allowed the naked animal to live life as a human is now being blamed for warming the planet. Most governments have made the extremely bizarre declaration that the CO2 you exhale, plants inhale, and forest fires and volcanoes naturally release is a pollutant, and they are putting a price on it.
The accelerated warming claim by the IPCC is accepted by most of the world’s scientific institutions, governments and media.
In this article, following Feynman’s advice, an alternative interpretation of the same GMT data is provided that throws doubt on the accelerated warming interpretation of the IPCC.
This alternative interpretation was also used to estimate the GMT trend for the next two decades, which shows global cooling from the GMT peak value of about 0.45 deg C for the 2000s to 0.13 deg C by the 2030s.
IPCC’s Interpretation of the Global Mean Temperature Data
The accelerated warming interpretation of the GMT data by the IPCC is shown in Figure 1, and the caption for the graph states:
“Note that for shorter recent periods, the slope is greater, indicating accelerated warming.” [2]
IPCC also states:
“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level” [3]
In this article, an alternative interpretation to IPCC’s for the same GMT data is given. This alternative interpretation demonstrates that the current 30-years warming is just a warming phase of a 60-years cooling and warming cycle. As a result, we should not panic with “widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level” because that is what happens during the warming phase of the globe, and the snow and ice will form again during the cooling phase of the globe in the next two decades.
The conclusion of this article is similar to that made by NASA when science used to be only about the truth:
“…in the early 1970’s, because temperatures had been decreasing for about 25 to 30 years, people began predicting the approach of an ice age! For the last 15 to 20 years, we have been seeing a fairly steady rise in temperatures, giving some assurance that we are now in a global warming phase.” [4]
Alternative Interpretation of the Global Mean Temperature Data
For the alternative interpretation of the GMT, the same data used by the IPCC from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was used, and it was assumed to be valid.
In an interview by Roger Harrabin of the BBC [5], Professor Phil Jones stated: “Temperature data for the period 1860-1880 are more uncertain, because of sparser coverage”. As a result, the GMT data before 1880 were excluded in this article.
To produce the alternative interpretation of the GMT data, the following points were addressed:
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Does a line or a curve passes through all the GMT peaks?
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Does a line or a curve passes through all the GMT valleys?
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Do the lines or curves that pass through the GMT peaks and GMT valleys converge, parallel or diverge?
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How does the slope of the global warming trend line for the whole data compare to the slopes of the lines or curves that pass through the GMT peaks and valleys?
All the above questions are answered in a single graph shown in Figure 2.
In Figure 2, the GMT was at its peak in the 1880s, 1940s and 2000s, and a single straight line (not a curve) passes through these GMT peaks, indicating no acceleration of GMT peak values with increasing years. The line that passes through the GMT peaks is labeled as Upper GMT boundary line.
In Figure 2, a single straight line (not a curve) passes through the GMT valleys, indicating no acceleration of GMT valley values with increasing years. The line that passes through the GMT valleys is labeled as Lower GMT boundary line.
Figure 2 also shows that the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel (not diverging), indicating no change in the GMT swing between the two boundary lines with increasing years. The magnitude of this constant vertical swing is about 0.5 deg C for the last 130 years.
Finally, Figure 2 shows that the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel to the long-term global warming trend line for the whole data from 1880 to 2010, which has a global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade.
The most important observation in this article is that the upper GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT peaks, the lower GMT boundary line passes through all the GMT valleys, and these lines are parallel. It was also found that the line that bisects the vertical space between the two GMT boundary lines is nearly identical to the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade for the whole data. This result indicates that, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position. As a pendulum with a constant swing does not have a “tipping point”, the claim of a climate tipping point is a science fiction, made by those who unfortunately make their living by scare mongering.
Here is a question to climate scientists: In Figure 2, why has the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years?
In Figure 2, although the upper GMT boundary curve is a straight line for the relatively short 130 years data, in a longer time scale, it is part of a very long curve that contains the Little Ice Age, Medieval Climatic Optimum, Holocene Maximum, etc.
Relationship Between Global Mean Temperature Peak And Valley Values
In Figure 2, in order to find the relationship between the 1880s peak and the 1910s valley values, instead of considering the complex path the annual GMT took between the two points, a simplified but equivalent path of an instantaneous global cooling swing of -0.5 deg C followed by a steady warming of 0.06 deg C per decade for 30-years along the lower GMT boundary line was considered. As a result, in the 30-years cooling period from 1880 to 1910, the change in GMT = -0.5 + 0.06 x 3 = -0.32 deg C. Therefore, the GMT valley value for the 1910s may be estimated from the GMT peak value of –0.27 deg C for the 1880s as:
GMT valley value for the 1910s = GMT peak value for the 1880s – 0.32 = -0.27 – 0.32 = -0.59 deg C
This value is shown as (1910, -0.59) in Figure 2.
Similarly, in Figure 2, in order to find the relationship between the 1910s valley and the 1940s peak values, instead of considering the complex path the annual GMT took between the two points, a simplified but equivalent path of an instantaneous global warming swing of +0.5 deg C followed by a steady warming of 0.06 deg C per decade for 30-years along the upper GMT boundary line was considered. As a result, in the 30-years warming period from 1910 to 1940, the change in GMT = 0.5 + 0.06 x 3 = +0.68 deg C. Therefore, the GMT peak value for the 1940s may be estimated from the GMT valley value of –0.59 deg C for the 1910s as:
GMT peak value for the 1940s = GMT valley value for the 1910s + 0.68 = -0.59 + 0.68 = +0.09 deg C
This value is shown as (1940, 0.09) in Figure 2.
Note that the above relationships (decrease in GMT by 0.32 deg C during the global cooling phase and increase by 0.68 deg C during the global warming phase) were established based on the data before mid-20th century, before exponential increase in human emission of CO2. Next, these relationships are used to estimate the GMT peak and valley values after mid-20th century.
GMT valley value for the 1970s = GMT peak value for the 1940s – 0.32 = 0.09 – 0.32 = -0.23 deg C
This value is shown as (1970, -0.23) in Figure 2.
GMT peak value for the 2000s = GMT valley value for the 1970s + 0.68 = -0.23 + 0.68 = +0.45 deg C
This value is shown as (2000, 0.45) in Figure 2.
As shown in Figure 2, there is excellent agreement between the above estimates and the observed GMT peak and valley values. The same relationships were used to estimate GMT peak and valley values before and after mid-20th century, and this shows that there is no evidence of accelerated warming in the GMT data. The challenge to climate science is to explain why the GMT peak and valley values are related by such simple linear relationships.
Further, as the above relationships were valid for the last 130 years, it is reasonable to assume they will also be valid at least for the next 20 years. Therefore, the GMT prediction for the 2030s valley value is as follows:
GMT valley value for the 2030s = GMT peak value for the 2000s – 0.32 = 0.45 – 0.32 = +0.13 deg C
In summary, as shown by the data in Figure 2, the GMT has a cycle that consists of 30 years cooling by 0.32 deg C followed by 30 years warming by 0.68 deg C. The magnitude of the warming is greater than the cooling because the warming of +0.18 deg C (=0.06 deg C/ decade x 3 decade) every 30 years modifies the cyclic cooling and warming swing of 0.5 deg C, by decreasing the magnitude of the cyclic cooling but increasing that of the warming by 0.18 deg C.
Cherry Picking
Anthropogenic global warming advocates always accuse skeptics of cherry picking. A working definition of a cherry picker is one who makes conclusions based on comparison of oranges to apples. Let us see who is the greatest cherry picker.
Regarding the GMT, an example of comparing oranges to oranges is to compare one global warming phase of a given duration with another global warming phase of the same duration.
A valid example of identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is to compare the change in GMT during the recent warming period from 1970 to 2000 with the previous warming period from 1910 to 1940, which are of the same duration. As shown in Figure 2, for both periods the change in GMT is about 0.68 deg C. As a result, there is no acceleration in the recent warming period compared to the previous one.
Another valid example of identifying whether the GMT data shows accelerated warming is to compare the change in GMT during the recent cooling-followed-by-warming period from 1940 to 2000 with the previous cooling-followed-by-warming period from 1880 to 1940, which are of the same duration. As shown in Figure 2, for both periods the change in GMT is about 0.36 deg C. As a result, there is no acceleration in the recent cooling-followed-by-warming period compared to the previous one.
In summary, the GMT data for the last 130 years does not show any evidence of accelerated warming due to human emission of CO2. This is because the cyclic cooling & warming swing of 0.5 deg C shown in Figure 2 is obviously natural; and the persistent global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade is also natural, because it existed before mid-20th century, before widespread use of fossil fuels, as it is this warming that caused the 1940s GMT peak value to be greater than that of the 1880s by 0.36 deg C (=0.06 deg C/decade x 6 decade). Interestingly, the GMT peak value for the 2000s is also greater than that of the 1940s by the same 0.36 deg C.
In the ClimateGate emails, there are statements confirming these GMT peaks for the 1880s and 1940s:
“Indeed, in the verification period, the biggest “miss” was an apparently very warm year in the late 19th century that we did not get right at all.” [7]
“Here are some speculations on correcting SSTs to partly explain the 1940s warming blip.” [8]
The “accelerated warming” interpretation by the IPCC shown in Figure 1 was based on the comparison of the global warming rate of the recent warming period with the global warming rates of longer periods that consist of this warming period and previous cooling-followed-by-warming periods. As the global warming rate for the current warming period is necessarily always greater than those of all the other longer periods with greater denominators, the IPCC was comparing oranges to apples.
As a result, the Nobel Peace Prize winning IPCC is the greatest cherry picker.
Unfortunately, the unsubstantiated IPCC’s accelerated warming claim is supported by almost all of the world’s scientific institutions, governments and media.
Shame on the 21st century’s scientific establishment for letting the IPCC and its supporters successfully convince the world of anthropogenic global warming, the biggest scary story of our life time, without any evidence of accelerated warming due to human emission of CO2.
What Would Have Indicated Accelerated Warming In The GMT Data?
In Figure 2 a shift in climate to an accelerated global warming would have been indicated if the upper GMT boundary line had been a curve with an increasing positive slope with increasing years, or the upper and lower GMT boundary lines had been diverging with increasing years.
Fortunately, as the data in Figure 2 shows, the upper GMT boundary line is a straight line having, interestingly, the same global warming rate of 0.06 deg C per decade as the global warming trend line for the whole data. Also, the upper and lower GMT boundary lines are parallel, showing no change in the magnitude of the GMT swing with increasing years. As a result, the vertical cooling or warming swing of 0.5 deg C between the two GMT boundary lines is cyclic and is therefore natural.
However, there is evidence of a persistent but natural global warming of 0.06 deg C per decade.
What Future Observation Will Confirm Anthropogenic Global Warming?
In its Fourth Assessment Report, The Physical Science Basis, the IPCC stated:
“For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected.” [9]
A GMT increase in the next two decades of 0.2 deg C per decade as projected by the IPCC, as shown in Figure 3, to a value of about +1.0 deg C by the 2030s, means that the GMT will stop to behave like a stable pendulum, and the magnitude of its swing will start to increase from its constant value of 0.5 deg C for the last 130 years. This also means that the slope of the upper GMT boundary line will increase from its constant value of 0.06 to 0.2 deg C per decade. If this happens, the climate will have shifted and we skeptics should accept anthropogenic global warming.
However, as shown by the data in Figure 2, for the last 130 years, the GMT behaved like a stable pendulum with the two GMT boundary lines that are 0.5 deg C apart as the end points of the pendulum’s swings, and the long-term global warming trend line of 0.06 deg C per decade as the pendulum’s neutral position.
What the IPCC’s projection of 0.2 deg C per decade warming in the next two decades means is that in a pendulum demonstration by Feynman shown in Figure 4, if he pulls the pendulum away from its vertical neutral position and releases it starting just in front of his body (representing the 1880s GMT peak), the pendulum will return to its initial position in front of his body and reverses its direction and swings away from him, as the GMT did after the 1940s peak. However, when the pendulum approaches him the second time (representing the 2000s GMT peak), its swing will suddenly increase and hit our hero.
That is farfetched. After the two previous peaks of the 1880s and 1940s, the GMT returned to its neutral position and moved towards its lower boundary line before the warming phase restarted. This pattern should repeat after the 2000s GMT peak, because the upper GMT boundary line has never been crossed for long, as shown in Figure 2, for the last 130 years.
What Future Observation Will Disprove Anthropogenic Global Warming?
In the next two decades, if the GMT swings from its current peak towards its neutral position and then reaches the lower GMT boundary line to a value of about +0.13 deg C in the 2030s as shown in Figure 3, the whole world will agree with the late Professor Harold Lewis’s characterization of anthropogenic global warming:
“It is the greatest and most successful pseudoscientific fraud I have seen in my long life as a physicist.” [11]
In my case, I will replace the word “physicist” with “engineer”.
References
[1] Cargo Cult Science by Richard Feynman
[2] IPCC: “Accelerated Warming”
[3] IPCC: “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal”
[4] NASA Facts, Global Warming, NF-222
[5] BBC News, Q&A: Professor Phil Jones
[6] An alternative Interpretation of GMT Data (hadcrut3vgl.txt)
[7] Climategate email regarding the 1880s GMT peak
[8] Climategate email regarding the 1940s GMT peak
[9] Projections of Future Changes in Climate in the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report
[10] Richard P. Feynman, Six Easy Pieces
[11] Hal Lewis: My Resignation From The American Physical Society
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Girma Orssengo
Bachelor of Technology in Mechanical Engineering, University of Calicut, Calicut, India
Master of Applied Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Doctor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia
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Gima
thanks for your data exploration. There are indeed many possible patterns underlying the temperature variations.
It should be recognised that you are trying to prove a preconcieved idea of periodicity,and that the result is conditioned on your assumptions of boundary lines, how you have decided to construct these lines and the time period considered. I do not think that these lines have any physical significance. Rather, they could be seen as intuitively established confidence limits in a linear regression of temperature versus time.
First you start out to solve the question whether this boundary is a line or a curve. You come up with a line (without analysis), but an infinite number of curves could also have been chosen depending on how you define peak and vally values. You have not provided an objective definition of these values, they rest entirely on an a priori assumption of periodicity and a linear boundary curve. Furthermore, you are subjective in establishing the slopes of the boundary lines and the years of max/min values. For example, the lower line should have a slope of about 0.005 to intersect or enclose all data points, not 0.006 (based on Hadcrut3 data)..
So when you ask the climate scientists why the line only intersects the data 3 times I would answer: because you have decided so, from a combination of the time period investigated and your selected linear model..
Cherry picking? well, try to start your analysis in 1878 and see what happens. Your upper line will have a slope of 0.004 (passing through 1878 and 1998), not 0.006, and the periodicity analysis falls apart.
Keep up the explorations …. cheers
@Dave Springer at August 20, 2011 at 5:39 am
“. . . the LWIR absorptive properties of CO2 at different concentrations is a common enough mistake but there’s no excuse for it other [than] ignorance of the physics involved.”
I’ve repeatedly seen/read that the physics of CO2 absorbing infra-red electromagnetic radiation is a settled science. My question for you, then, is how does one explain the fact that CO2 does not warm many of the measured locations in the long-term temperature record (i.e. since 1900)?
Does CO2 pick and choose which cities to warm, and which to pass over? The temperature records for many cities in the USA show zero warming, even when using the adjusted and manipulated HadCRU data. At the same time, nearby cities show substantial warming.
Would you, or anyone else, please explain this curious behavior of CO2, that is, how does it know which locations to warm, and which to ignore? As cases in point, Abilene, Texas (USA) shows a cooling trend of -0.019 degrees Centigrade per decade, while the nearby city of San Antonio, Texas (USA) shows a warming trend of +0.07 degrees Centigrade per decade. Abilene is a mere 200 miles to the north of and about 50 miles west of San Antonio. Both are away from the ocean, on the central plains of Texas.
Another pair of cities that show the same long-term disparity is Fresno, California (USA), which is warming at +0.073 degrees Centigrade per decade, and Sacramento, California (USA), which is cooling at -0.029 degrees Centigrade per decade. Sacramento is approximately 150 miles north and west of Fresno, both are modest cities in California’s large inland valley.
Plots of temperature trends for each city, since before 1900, are available at
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/usa-cities-hadcrut3-temperatures.html
Physics must be impartial, if it is truly physics. As we know from proper science, only one example is required to disprove a hypothesis. There are many, many examples of adjacent cities where one warms, and one either is static or is cooling.
As to the 60 year cycle of climate, Dr. Scafetta has discussed this issue in a peer-reviewed paper last year, and Anthony also devoted a thread to it: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/10/13/scafetta-on-60-year-climate-oscillations/ , please read the original paper and the beautiful graphs thereof.
The most important thing about the 60 year cycle is that it is not merely an observation based on the recent data, for example, of the last 130 years. The ancient people of China had observed this pattern over 2,000 years ago, and even assigned this periodicity in their calender systems. Dr. Scafetta is smart enough to catch this old wisdom and tried to interpret it using a modern astronomical view (he believed the 60 year cycle is associated with the orbital periods of Jupiter and Saturn), and even developed a model of coupled oscillators to describe this behavior (same pendulum analogy as Dr. Orssengo used).
In short, I recommend those interested in this topic read or reread Scafetta (2010), and it surely will deepen the discussion of this topic.
Reference: http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“A new “little age age” is quite unlikely.”
Wonderful! Thank an industrial smokestack for it.
Richard S Courtney says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:17 am
Don’t put words in my mouth, Dick. This is what I wrote. I’ll emphasize the bits that were obscured from your vision as your knee jerked level with your eyeballs:
“While it’s not proven that anthropogenic CO2 since the beginning of the industrial revolution has caused a 0.06/decade rise in surface temperature the physics involved do indeed predict it. It follows quite nicely the predicted 1C rise per doubling of CO2.”
Correlation is not causation. Duh. But it’s still correlation and demands an explanation. A natural rise of 0.06C is not sustainable otherwise we’d be stewing in our own juices after a thousand years of it. Neither is that rise sustainable by anthropogenic CO2 emission because there simply isn’t enough economically recoverable fossil fuel to burn to keep up the exponential growth in anthropogenic emission.
RockyRoad says:
August 20, 2011 at 5:53 am
“Dave, can you show me this “linear rise in surface temperature” since the beginning of the industrial revolution? I thought not.”
Think again. It’s in the OP, figure 2. Spelled out as well as graphically illustrated. Did you even read the article? I thought not.
You cracked me up completely! Now I have a mess at my work station, to clean up… thxs. GK
jens raunsø jensen
Cherry picking? well, try to start your analysis in 1878 and see what happens. Your upper line will have a slope of 0.004 (passing through 1878 and 1998), not 0.006, and the periodicity analysis falls apart.
The upper GMT boundary line does not depend on the starting year, 1880 in Figure 2. It only passes through all the GMT peaks. The periodicity analysis is independent of the start and end years. Here is the data that shows the GMT touched its upper boundary line only 3-times, every 60-years, but has never crossed it for long in the last 130 years.
http://bit.ly/qUEanL
The most important point is that the trend line for the whole data was found to be parallel to the upper GMT boundary line. It is the upper GMT boundary line that was drawn first.
The line that passes through the GMT peaks decides the global warming rate, not the start or end years.
You make a good point. We all love to rag at the warmists, however they are only doing what advocates do. The real problem is the silence of the many knowledgeable people who are letting all these issues slide.
Advocates make very poor scientists. Therefore it is important for skepticism to remain vocal and persistent. For the protection of society, it is unfortunately necessary. GK
With due respect, Dr Orssengo, you’re only an engineer so what would you know about it?
I sincerely hope, btw, that I don’t need to include that first line in [sarc] tags. Anyone who can’t see the sarcasm in it is suffering a severe sense of humour failure and probably believes in catastrophic AGW anyway, in which case I don’t mind offending them 😛
As for the main post above, perhaps it takes an engineer’s brain to see nice, simple, practically-useful, patterns (the type that Nature tends to favour, at least on a real-world scale) where the Climate Scientists – no other type counts, doncha know – use super-computers and $$$ research grants to search for intricate, theoretically interesting, but no-damn-practical-use ones?
Roger Sowell says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:29 am
@Dave Springer at August 20, 2011 at 5:39 am
“. . . the LWIR absorptive properties of CO2 at different concentrations is a common enough mistake but there’s no excuse for it other [than] ignorance of the physics involved.”
————————————————————————————————-
I’ve repeatedly seen/read that the physics of CO2 absorbing infra-red electromagnetic radiation is a settled science. My question for you, then, is how does one explain the fact that CO2 does not warm many of the measured locations in the long-term temperature record (i.e. since 1900)?
——————————————————————————–
Weather vs. climate. Geographical features. Land use changes.
I can’t say I’m entirely satisfied with the robustness of the instrumental record but I’m not overly concerned about it because the record, such as it is, disputes all claims of catastrophic warming. A 0.06C/decade rise in temperature due to anthropogenic CO2 is no cause for alarm becaues in order for it to persist anthropogenic CO2 emission must keep increasing exponentially and that is clearly not possible given the finite nature of economically recoverable fossil fuels. The whole alarmist case is based upon water vapor amplification and there is no signature of that amplification in the instrument record. So why should I dispute a record when that very record, such as it is, ruins the case for catastrophic anthropogenic global warming?
“Jantar says:
August 20, 2011 at 12:53 am
Werner, Your link only mentions tangental acceleration, and at the bottom of the swing tangental accelleration is indeed 0. But angular acceleration is at a maximum.”
“P Gosselin says:
August 20, 2011 at 3:41 am
Maybe I’m just nitpicking, but the animation shows an acceleration vector that is never zero in magnitude. That cannot be. Acceleration is zero when velocity reaches its max when theta is 0°.”
Thank you for the correction Jantar! P Gosselin, I initially thought what you did, but Jantar is correct. There are indeed two different accelerations going on simultaneously, although I do not recall seeing them represented this way in a single diagram. First of all, there is the acceleration due to gravity represented by the equation F = mg or in the case of a pendulum, F = mgsinx. So the greater the angle, the larger the tangential acceleration. And this is indeed 0 when the angle is 0. However there is another force equation for centripetal acceleration which is F = mv2/r, so the greater the speed in a circle, the greater the centripetal acceleration is. And the animation shows a smooth transition between these two different types of accelerations.
@John Brookes, I agree that the square-wave does appear to come out of nowhere, and with only 1,5 cycles (so far), its a bit of a stretch to assume that it is anything other than coincidence.
I understand that the pre-1880 data may be somewhat unreliable, but suspect that this was used as an excuse to drop it as its inclusion would spoil the nice straight lines. Going back to one of the original Feynman quotes, this data should probably have been included in the analysis.
Simple graphical analysis has its place, and this particular analysis is much more reasonable then the IPCC increasing slope analysis, but if there really is a 60 year cycle superimposed on a linear trend, some fairly simple fourrier analysis should show this.
This looks like a very promising alternative analysis of the data, but, IMHO, needs a bit more work.
Germa defines
/—////
Anthropogenic global warming advocates always accuse skeptics of cherry picking. A working definition of a cherry picker is one who makes conclusions based on comparison of oranges to apples.
———–
No. This I’d not the definition of cherry picking.
Cherry picking is when you promote isolated fragments of data as representing the entire situation.
Like promoting outlier scientific papers as being correct while disparaging papers that tell you things you don’t want to hear,
Or like plotting a graph that starts at 1998 and finishes now so the record 99 el niño can be used to fake a cooling trend.
This point looks like it’s straight out of strawman land.
@Dave Springer says:
“Wonderful! Thank an industrial smokestack for it.”
_______
Yes, blame it on the evil smokestack. Of course, *you* don’t use anything made in or with electricity from one of those factories… oh wait, you ARE using the internet so you must be supporting those evil smokestacks… now what would that make you? Hmmmm, hypocrite maybe?
paulhan says:
August 20, 2011 at 6:07 am
“I think the 0.6degC per century rise illustrated in this analysis, is just part of a longer trend taking in the Holocene Optimum, Minoan Warm Period, Roman Warm Period, Medieval Warm Period, along with their corresponding cool period, culminating in the Little Ice Age, which we are (or were?) coming out of. No CO2 is needed to explain this phenomenon, in fact, it can’t.”
Perhaps. Given the dire effect on agriculture that a repeat of the LIA would engender I believe the salient question with regard to AGW is not “Is it too much?” but rather “Is it enough?”.
I hope it’s enough but I fear that it isn’t.
Fact: The earth has been in an ice age for the past several million years.
Fact: The Holocene interglacial (past 12,000 years) is statistically quite old and overdue for an ending.
It’s cooling I fear not warming. The earth blooms from pole to pole and stays that way for tens and hundreds of millions of years at a stretch with atmopspheric CO2 at the high end of its range of some 2000ppm or more. The indisputable testimony of the geologic column leaves no doubt about the relationship between CO2 and primary production in the food chain – more is better and current level is dangerously low which perhaps explains, at least in part, the perpetuation of the Quaternary ice age.
KD says:
August 20, 2011 at 7:43 am
@Dave Springer says:
“Wonderful! Thank an industrial smokestack for it.”
_______
Yes, blame it on the evil smokestack. Of course, *you* don’t use anything made in or with electricity from one of those factories… oh wait, you ARE using the internet so you must be supporting those evil smokestacks… now what would that make you? Hmmmm, hypocrite maybe?
—————-
You misunderstand me. I firmly believe that anthropogenic CO2 emission is a good thing. It probably lengthens growing seasons in the places most in need of longer seasons, it definitely increases plant growth rate, and it definitely decreases fresh water requirements per unit of plant growth. What’s not to like about it? Rising sea level? Piffle. It isn’t rising fast enough to make it a concern. Neutralizaton of ocean pH? More piffle. It neutralizing fast enough for highly adaptable ocean life to adjust to the changes. For every organism that suffers from a more neutral ocean pH there will be one that benefits from it. Again the geologic column is indisputable testimony that the biosphere thrives under far higher atmospheric CO2 concentration than we have today.
Philip Peake
I understand that the pre-1880 data may be somewhat unreliable, but suspect that this was used as an excuse to drop it as its inclusion would spoil the nice straight lines. Going back to one of the original Feynman quotes, this data should probably have been included in the analysis.
The line that passes through the GMT peaks decides the global warming rate, not the start or end years.
The most important point is that the trend line for the whole data was found to be parallel to the upper GMT boundary line.
It is the upper GMT boundary line that was drawn first.
Werner Brozek says:
August 19, 2011 at 9:02 pm
Thank you for an excellent article! However the diagram with the acceleration vector is not correct.
——
The animation is correct. The body is following a curved path. Therefore it’s subject to acceleration and the string tension is suppling an extra force beyond that needed to counteract gravity,
David Springer,
The 3C rise from a doubling of CO2 is hardly “urban legend”, except of course among skeptics. There are many fast and slow feedbacks in addition to water vapor that are part of this. Suggest you do a bit more reading on this subject before mouthing such nonsense, maybe beginning here:
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v3/n1/abs/ngeo724.html
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2010/2010_Lunt_etal.pdf
http://www.publish.csiro.au/?act=view_file&file_id=CSIRO_CC_Chapter%202.pdf
@ur momisugly Dave Springer:
“Weather vs. climate. Geographical features. Land use changes.” referencing why adjacent cities have different long-term temperature trends.
They are too close together to have different weather, and certainly have the same climate.
The geographical features are nearly identical – both on the Texas plains, or both in the California central valley.
Land use changes – Sacramento and Fresno are both medium-sized cities, similar growth. No dissimilarity there. San Antonio has grown much larger than Abilene did, and that is the point. Urban Heat Island effect should not be trumpeted as evidence of CO2-induced global warming. That part is, indeed, very bad science.
Any other explanations for why adjacent cities have opposing long-term temperature trends?
The entire basis for CO2-induced global warming is false. CO2 cannot play favorites. It’s not that smart.
David Springer said:
” A 0.06C/decade rise in temperature due to anthropogenic CO2 is no cause for alarm becaues in order for it to persist anthropogenic CO2 emission must keep increasing exponentially…”
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More nonsense…on several levels. But to take the most obvious of the lot, have you never heard of hysteresis? Begin here:
http://www.seas.harvard.edu/climate/seminars/pdfs/Wu_etal_GRL2010.pdf
R. Gates says:
August 19, 2011 at 8:28 pm
“Even with a Maunder type minimum, the earth of 2011 far different in atmospheric composition than the earth of the 1600′s. ”
Thank you for the new Gatesism. I will add it to my growing list.
Now, what is it exactly that you mean by “far different”?
Gates says:
“The 3C rise from a doubling of CO2 is hardly ‘urban legend’, except of course among skeptics.”
Gates is deluded. Real world observations show that the 3°+ rise is complete nonsense: click
Scientific skeptics are the only honest kind of scientist, and Gates is no skeptic. He is a true believer in the IPCC and Algore’s alarmism. The real world doesn’t affect his belief system.