See update below: New comparison graph of US temperatures in 1999 to present added – quite an eye opener – Anthony
There’s been a lot of buzz and conflicting reports over what the BEST data actually says, especially about the last decade where we have dueling opinions on a “slowing down”, “leveling off”, “standstill”, or “slight rise” (depending on whose pronouncements you read) of global warming.
Here’s some media quotes that have been thrown about recently about the BEST preliminary data and preliminary results:
“‘We see no evidence of it [global warming] having slowed down,’ he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. There was, he added, ‘no levelling off’.” – Dr. Richard Muller
In The Sunday Mail Prof Curry said, the project’s research data show there has been no increase in world temperatures since the end of the Nineties:
‘There is no scientific basis for saying that warming hasn’t stopped,’ she said. ‘To say that there is detracts from the credibility of the data, which is very unfortunate.’ – Dr. Judith Curry in The Sunday Mail
Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels in an essay at The GWPF wrote:
“The last ten years of the BEST data indeed show no statistically significant warming trend, no matter how you slice and dice them”. He adds: “Both records are in reasonable agreement about the length of time without a significant warming trend. In the CRU record it is 15.0 years. In the University of Alabama MSU it is 13.9, and in the Remote Sensing Systems version of the MSU it is 15.6 years. “
In the middle of all those quotes being bandied about, I get an email from Burt Rutan (yes THAT Burt Rutan) with a PDF slideshow titled Winter Trends in the United States in the Last Decade citing NCDC’s “climate at a glance” data. This is using the USHCN2 data, which we are told is the “best”, no pun intended. It had this interesting map of the USA for Winter Temperatures (December-February) by climate region on the first slide:
Hmmm, that’s a bit of a surprise for the steepness of those trend numbers. So I decided to expand and enhance that slide show by combining trend graphs and the map together, while also looking at other data (summer, annual). Here’s a breakdown for CONUS by region for Winter, Summer, and Annual comparisons. Click each image to enlarge to full size to view the graphs.
Winter temperatures and trends °F, 2001-2011. Note that every region has a negative trend:
Summer temperatures and trends °F, 2001-2011. Note that 5 of 9 regions have a negative summertime trend:
And finally here is the Annual yearly mean temperature trend for the last decade. Since 2011 is not yet complete for annual data (though is for Winter and Summer data), I’ve plotted the last decade available, from 2000-2010:
Only 1 of 9 regions has a positive decadal trend for the Annual mean temperature, the Northeast.
This data is from USHCN2, from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Note that I have not adjusted it or even self plotted it in any way. The output graphs and trend numbers are from NCDC’s publicly available “Climate At A Glance” database interface, and these can be fully replicated by anyone easily simply by going here and choosing “regions”:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/cag3.html
I find the fact that summer temperatures were negative in five of 9 regions interesting. But most importantly, the trend for the CONUS for the past 10 years is not flat, but cooling.
The trend line for the contiguous lower 48 states looks like this for the same period when we plot the Annual mean temperature data for 2001-2010 (we can’t plot 2011 yet since the year isn’t complete):
And if we back it up a year, to 2000, so that we get ten full years, we get this:
So according the the National Climatic Data Center, it seems clear that for at least the last 10 years, there has been a cooling trend in the Annual mean temperature of the contiguous United States. Pat Michaels in his GWPF essay talks about 1996 :
A significant trend since these periods began is not going to emerge anytime soon. MSU temperatures are plummeting and are now below where they were at this time of the year in the 2008 La Nina. NOAA is predicting an extreme La Nina low in 2012. If the 1976-98 warming trend is re-established in 2013, post-1996 warming would not become significant until 2021.
So when you run the NCDC “climate at a glance” plotter from 1996 for the USA on Annual mean temperature data for the contiguous United States for 15 years of data, you get this, flatness:
Warming, for the USA seems pretty “stalled” to me in the last 10-15 years. Bear in mind that BEST uses the same data source for the USA, the USCHN2 data. Granted, this isn’t a standard 30 year climatology period we are examining, but the question about the last 10 years is still valid. “Aerosol masking” has been the reason given by the Team. Blame China.
For the inevitable whining and claims of cherry picking that will come in comments, here’s the complete data set from NCDC plotted from 1895. I added the 1934 reference line in blue:
Interestingly, we’ve had only two years that exceeded 1934 for Annual mean temperature in the United States and they were El Niño related. 1998 and 2006 both had El Niño events.
While the United States is not the world, it does have some of the best weather data available, no pun intended. Given the NCDC data for CONUS, it certainly seems to me that warming has stalled for the United States in the last decade.
UPDATE: 11/06/2011 8AM PST
When I wrote the post above, I had concerns that the 1998 and 2006 peaks might not have actually exceeded 1934. I didn’t have the energy to explore the issue last night. This morning looking anew, I recalled the GISS Y2K debacle and recovered the graphs from Hansen’s 1999 press release. This was originally part of “Lights Out Upstairs” a guest post by Steve McIntyre on my old original blog. Just look at how much warmer 1934 was in 1999 than it is now. Much of this can be attributed to NCDC’s USHCN2 adjustments.
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Steve wrote then:
In the NASA press release in 1999 , Hansen was very strongly for 1934. He said then:
The U.S. has warmed during the past century, but the warming hardly exceeds year-to-year variability.Indeed, in the U.S. the warmest decade was the 1930s and the warmest year was 1934.
This was illustrated with the following depiction of US temperature history, showing that 1934 was almost 0.6 deg C warmer than 1998.
From a Hansen 1999 News Release: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif
However within only two years, this relationship had changed dramatically. In Hansen et al 2001 (referred to in the Lights On letter), 1934 and 1998 were in a virtual dead heat with 1934 in a slight lead. Hansen et al 2001 said
The U.S. annual (January-December) mean temperature is slightly warmer in 1934 than in 1998 in the GISS analysis (Plate 6)… the difference between 1934 and 1998 mean temperatures is a few hundredths of a degree.
From Hansen et al 2001 Plate 2. Note the change in relationship between 1934 and 1998.
Between 2001 and 2007, for some reason, as noted above, the ranks changed slightly with 1998 creeping into a slight lead.
The main reason for the changes were the incorporation of an additional layer of USHCN adjustments by Karl et al overlaying the time-of-observation adjustments already incorporated into Hansen et al 1999. Indeed, the validity and statistical justification of these USHCN adjustments is an important outstanding issue.
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I’ve prepared a before and after graph using the CONUS values from GISS in 1999 and in 2011 (today).
GISS writes now of the bottom figure:
Annual Mean Temperature Change in the United States
Annual and five-year running mean surface air temperature in the contiguous 48 United States (1.6% of the Earth’s surface) relative to the 1951-1980 mean. [This is an update of Figure 6 in Hansen et al. (1999).]
Also available as PDF, or Postscript. Also available are tabular data.
So clearly, the two graphs are linked, and 1998 and 1934 have swapped positions for the “warmest year”. 1934 went down by about 0.3°C while 1998 went up by about 0.4°C for a total of about 0.7°C.
And they wonder why we don’t trust the surface temperature data.
In fairness, most of this is the fault of NCDC’s Karl, Menne, and Peterson, who have applied new adjustments in the form of USHCN2 (for US data) and GHCN3 (to global data). These adjustments are the primary source of this revisionism. As Steve McIntyre often says: “You have to watch the pea under the thimble with these guys”.
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UPDATE2: 10:30AM PST 11/07/2011 – Dr. Pat Michaels writes in with an update.
Anthony–
The post on Muller is a little long in the tooth but I do need to correct something.
The comment was that I said NOAA was predicting an “extreme” La Nina in 2012. That was true when I wrote it, but since then the October 31 forecast has come out and I used that in my most recent posting on this at the Cato site:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13827
Here’s the relevant portion from the text:
We are currently experiencing another — for now — moderate La Niña, or the cold phase of El Niño. Satellite temperatures, as of this writing, have dropped below where they were in the previous La Niña of 2008, so 2011 isn’t going to be particularly warm compared to the average of the last 15 years.
In addition, the latest forecast from the Department of Commerce’s Climate Prediction Center is for the current La Niña to become stronger and persist through at least the first half of 2012:
Consequently, 2012, like 2011, is not likely to be particularly warm when compared to the last 15 years.
Mosher: “You should note for completeness that the methods GISS used changed between 1999 and 2010.”
Yeah. They tell even more obvious lies.
It still isn’t warmer than 1934 and if UHI was deducted it would probably be 1F colder than 1934 now.
How can you tell a con artist is lying to you? They claim to know what the Global Average Temperature is.
Roger Knights says:
November 6, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Quoting from the Seattle Times:
“Whitebark pines may be among the earliest victims of a warming climate in the Northwest . . .”
The first map in this post shows the PNW cooling at the rate of minus 2.22 F. degrees per decade. So something isn’t syncing here. The newspaper article and the research discussed therein claims warmer mountain temperatures. I did not notice the proof. Maybe in addition to an UHI effect we also have “mountain ridge” (MR) effect caused by too many hikers and their ultralight liquid fuel stoves.
Seriously, where is the temperature data? What are the alternative possibilities for the expansion of the beetle’s range. Could the older trees be larger and intercepting more sunlight and thus warming more during the day and staying warmer at night? Could older trees be less able to withstand the beetle? Could the beetle be evolving to better attack this tree and/or be more active at cooler temperatures.
One might guess that the researchers will need far more money to get to the bottom (or top) of this.
If the US has not warmed significantly then what does it mean for US based claims of some affect due to climate change. If the local temperatures have not been climbing then can climate change be claimed as a cause?
E.g. we were in Glacier National park in the summer and of course the claim is the glaciers are melting due to climate change, but I was wondering what the local stations were saying, already knowing that the US itself has not been undergoing much change.
With regard to tomato growing in hot and cold areas, there are tomato web sites which sell specific varieties which set at high temperatures and varieties which grow in cooler areas. Shaking the tomato plants once or twice a day makes a dramatic difference to the set of fruit. If gardeners want to automate the shaking, use an aquarium air pump and a string attached to the lines the plants are growing on.
dufas says:
November 6, 2011 at 12:32 pm
Several points……
1— Al Gore and friends should be happy campers as they have single handedly stopped global warming as evidenced by the resulting long cooling phase. Gore, himself, believes the threat is over..As proof, he purchased and is living in a beachfront home in California. So much for the ocean rising.. There must be another Nobel Prize waiting for him in the wings.
Well, to be correct, I believe it isn’t “beach front” property, it is property with a beach or ocean view – Beach/Ocean View property.
Evidentially, what Gore wants is to be able to watch as his neighbors suffer as their property is washed away by the rising sea.
Worse than hypocritical, it’s sadly pathetic.
If the US is a good proxy for global temperatures then why would 1934 be warmer than 1998? Globally, 1998 is significantly warmer than 1994. In which case later adjustments (Karl et al) have improved the US record – IF the US is a good proxy for global temperatures.
If the US is NOT a good proxy for global temperatures, then the cooling of the last decade or so in US temps should not be considered a good proxy for global trends. Consequently, attaching recent quotes about global temperatures to an analysis of US temperatures, as in the article above, would be inappropriate.
My point is, the two sections of the above article imply a contradiction.
Anthony, could you clarify: are we to conclude the US record is a good proxy for global at decadal time scales or not? Or have I missed the point?
DirkH says:
November 6, 2011 at 11:09 am
Are you sure it’s not the shift of production from USA/EU to China?
Could well be. We used to export a lot of wheat to China. Now they are growing their own. We already import oranges from China. What next – tomatoes?
Bruce. Nobody knows what the global average temperature is. Further, it has noting to do with the complete facts in this case.
between 1999 and 2010 three things change for Gisstemp
1. The dataset
2. the stations used
3. The method
Those facts need a proper audit before one can conclusively determine the reason for the change. Remember, be skeptical of evrything. not just the things you dislike
Tomato commenters, I am quite surprised you do not get the ‘greenhouse effect’ after millions of comments about it.
Build greenhouses for your tomatoes.
: )
John
climatebeagle says:
November 6, 2011 at 3:17 pm
… the claim is the glaciers are melting due to climate change…
In my post yesterday at 7:25 pm I mentioned the recent book by John Kehr. Another. interesting thing he notes is that the oldest glaciers on earth – not the ice caps – in northern Greenland are only 8,000 years old – the most recent ones – e.g tropical in Peru are 1 – 1.5k years old. We are in a long term cooling trend and need to get used to it – and prepared for worse to come…
I’ve been reading about this cooling for some time now. Yet, whenever I hear ‘skeptics’ address the AGW crowd, they immediately concede that they are SURE that global warming is happening, they just don’t agree that the evidence proves it’s man-made…yet here it is again…cooling! What gives?
People believe what they are educated to believe.
Our children and grandchildren are being educated to believe that modern society is destroying…..modern society.
Practically every weekend is an uneducate weekend now, as I am repeatedly told that driving is unhealthy, and eating burgers is bad for me. Well, they may well be bad for me…but only if I ate only burgers. Nothing like having experts in diet and lifestyle in your family, even if they are 6 years old. What are they going to be like at 16 ?
That is the problem “we” are having to face, the indoctrination into the gaia philosophy of the children.
I remember the thread on Climate Audit concerning the TOB Adjustments concerning the early part of the 20th Century. I think it was 2004 or 2005. If memory serves me correctly, someone noticed that the 1930s “cooled”, while the 1990s warmed. Of course, this served the Alarmists agenda, and as one person asked, “Why do all of these adjustments always result in warming?”
It was during this period that it occurred to me that weather is what we experience and climate is nothing more than a human construct. Statistics drive so much of the climate science. And, like economics, climate science is now divided into 2 warming camps – The Alarmists and The Skeptics. The data can be manipulated to show trends to whatever the Alarmists wish it to go. And if the “weather” does not cooperate? Well, the goalposts can be moved. In 2005, it was all about Tropical Storms. When the tropical cyclones refused to co-operate, the focus turned to polar ice growth (or lack thereof). When that fails the focus turns to “extreme” weather. If the globe actually refuses to warm, the narrative changes to Climate Change; and now we hear the phrase Climate Destruction.
@Barry,
I don’t know if the US would serve as good proxy for anything. However, the US makes up a significant portion of global reporting stations. If you look at reporting station trends of the last 50 years, a large number of reporting stations globally have closed down especially in the former USSR, as well as Africa). The US accounts for only 6% of the world’s surface area, but accounts for over 20% of the reporting stations. Grid-cell extrapolation (even when there are no reporting stations to fill them), homogenity adjustments, TOB adjustments, etc… can not even come close to give us a consistently accurate account of global temp trends – especially with the kind of precision that folks at GISS, NOAA, and Hadley brag about.
The data here is for the contiguous US only, not the world.
mosher, if GISS said 1934 was .6C warmer than 1998 in 1999 and said 1934 was .4C cooler than 1998 in 2011 than the only man-made warming is the adjustments.
One of the things that struck me when looking at the maps is the clear line of demarcation between the regions with summer cooling trends and the regions with summer warming trends. The CONUS can be divided roughly in half diagonally from northeast to southwest with those regions to the north and west all experiencing cooling and those to the south and east all experiencing warming. Why?
I have only a layman’s knowledge of weather systems. However, it would appear that the cooling regions are those most affected by systems originating in the northerly Pacific that sweep down the Canadian coast from Alaska and hit the northwest region of the CONUS. As the systems move south and east the temperatures appear to moderate. The warming regions appear to be those most affected by weather systems originating in the equatorial Pacific and push across Mexico into Texas. As these systems move north and east the temperature seems to moderate.
If the above analysis is correct (a big if), what does it say about temperature trends in the Pacific? Though a 10-year trend is relatively short, is it long enough to begin formulating a theory (albeit preliminary) of possible longer term climate trends?
As for tomatoes — I live in Los Angeles (within the city limits) and I can attest that beautiful, sunny Southern California is not quite as sunny any more. My cherry tomatoes did fairly well with a continuous crop all summer until the past few days when it has turn wet and very cold. The Romas did moderately well with about a dozen per plant, but the Beefsteaks did miserably yielding less than a half dozen per plant.
rc says:
November 6, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I’ve been reading about this cooling for some time now. Yet, whenever I hear ‘skeptics’ address the AGW crowd, they immediately concede that they are SURE that global warming is happening, they just don’t agree that the evidence proves it’s man-made…yet here it is again…cooling! What gives?
_________________________________________
Most of us believe there are natural cycles and not a straight line shooting into the sky à la Al Gore.
The long term Milankovitch cycles. Ice Ages have occurred at regular intervals, of approximately 100,000 years each. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379107002715
http://www.heliogenic.net/category/milankovitch-cycles/
“…distinct periodicities of 11, 22, 90, and 200 years, believed to be associated with the Schwabe, Hale, Gleissberg, and Suess solar cycles….” a 400yr period and an 84 period. http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/fs-0095-00/fs-0095-00.pdf
NASA: “…The researchers found some clear links between the sun’s activity and climate variations. The Nile water levels and aurora records had two somewhat regularly occurring variations in common – one with a period of about 88 years and the second with a period of about 200 years….” http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/features.cfm?feature=1319
And then there are the ocean cycles of about 60 years.
Therefore a complex sine wave is expected. So yes you get 30 years warming and then 30 years cooling on top of a much longer term warming signal 200yr? 400 yrs?
The “400 yr cycles” The Little Ice Age started in about 1350 and ended around 1850. “Medieval Warm Period,” which existed from approximately A.D. 1000 to A.D. 1350. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html (Very good overall explanation)
So we are in an inter glacial (about plus 15C) and warming up from the little ice age and have the 60 yr ocean swings. So we are warm – interglacial, warm – upside of 400yr cycle, cool – down side of ocean cycle.
Expect about 30 years of cool and if we are darn lucky we will continue with the 400 yr warm cycle and the present interglacial and not slide into the next glaciation.
The Eemian Interglacial Period lasted 20,000yrs
From:
http://duluthshippingnews.com/2011/11/03/adriaticborg-brings-more-wind-turbine-parts/
“The Adriaticborg arrived on November 2, 2011 to discharge wind turbine parts loaded in Aarhus, Denmark. She brought 15 hubs, 3 power units and one 20 foot container; the cargo was loaded in Aarhus, Denmark for Siemens. Wind turbine technology keeps advancing. These hubs are bigger than earlier ones and they have to be plugged in at almost all times so bearings inside do not go flat during transit. As soon as the cranes dropped each hub at Lake Superior Warehousing this morning, they were plugged into an electrical connection prepared by the warehouse. The power slowly moves the inside around, keeping the bearings smooth. Earlier nacelles came here in August with radiators to cool off a new type of motor inside. Odd; all this stuff requires electricity; wind mills aren’t what they used to be!”
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When, will the insanity stop ?
“the question about the last 10 years is still valid. “Aerosol masking” has been the reason given by the Team. Blame China.”
No, China can’t be blamed for causing no warming over the last 10 years by aerosol masking. Since 2005 China has had a major effort to install state-of-the-art desulphurisation in its coal-fired plants installing more such units than the rest of the world combined. At the end of 2008, 66% of the China’s coal-fired power plant capacity is equiped with flue gas desulphurisation. Today 75% of all desulphurisation systems are being installed in China. China’s SO2 emissions have declined 14.5% from 2006 to 2009 according to the 2009 report on the state of the environment in China as shown here:
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/China_SO2_Soot.jpg
Ken Gregory says:
November 6, 2011 at 8:44 pm
There is some accuracy in this, but even the NYT reported that many of the plants do not operate the scrubbers, but recieve credits for installing them. They are expensive to operate. However the places of particulate pollution do not match the places of cooling, as in the US, where we have cleaned up our emissions for longer then the recent sesation of warming.
steven mosher says:
November 6, 2011 at 4:16 pm
“Bruce. Nobody knows what the global average temperature is. Further, it has noting to do with the complete facts in this case.
between 1999 and 2010 three things change for Gisstemp
1. The dataset
2. the stations used
3. The method
Those facts need a proper audit before one can conclusively determine the reason for the change. Remember, be skeptical of evrything. not just the things you dislike”
Mosher, all the changes only increase the error bars, however some things are consistent. One of these things is human nature. Before CAGW “post normal” science, which destroys real science, 1934 was easily the record US warmth. Post, “post normal science” and the political agenda, the US record changed radically. This and one hundred other examples of the corruption of climate science, of which you are very aware, convince a rational person to trust the early numbers far more the the adjustments. Do you not agree?; or must I list hundreds of examples of bad climate science.
@Alexander:
Why ignore El Nino years? Well, the reasons vary. At core, one ought not to ignore them. All the data, all the time. BUT, when saying “foo was the warmest”, you need to note if it was a one year spike, or a general trend. Spiking is not attributable to CO2… Also, some folks will say “the trend is down even if you ignore the El Nino year”. That is a way of emphasizing that you are NOT cherry picking a start date on a high peak… Sometimes ignoring the hot peak is PRO AGW… and done to ‘give them all benefit possible’ and still show things are dropping.
Andres Valencia says: November 6, 2011 at 8:20 am
One other climate “proxy” that I’m familiar with is cloudiness.
According to one that spends a lot of time outside, they have increased their coverage. Ground-based astronomy has had a decreasing yield for the last
Interesting point… We have astronomical observatories with long records of the ‘seeing’ and temperatures at the time. It ought to make a fairly accessible way to measure cloud changes over time…
rc says: November 6, 2011 at 5:33 pm
I’ve been reading about this cooling for some time now. Yet, whenever I hear ‘skeptics’ address the AGW crowd, they immediately concede that they are SURE that global warming is happening, they just don’t agree that the evidence proves it’s man-made…yet here it is again…cooling! What gives?
Different sceptics. Different audiences. Some folks ARE sure warming has happened. I’m sure it has not. I do not say ‘we know warming is happening’. Sometimes I WILL say that warming has happened on some time scales but typically only before making the point that you get different trends depending on what scope of time you use. Falling for 8000 years. Falling for 1000 years. Rising for 200 years. Rising for 20 years. Falling for 10 years. Complex wave shapes are like that. Overall, we’re headed into an ice age glacial. No Doubt About It. We’re also having a rebound upward from, the bottom of the Little Ice Age in about 1800. Many folks when they say ‘we are warming’ are talking about that rise from the depths of the L.I.A. But go back to the Medieval Optimum, and we’re on a net cooling trend…
So depending on who you pick to listen too, and WHEN they are using as their trend period, you can get lots of opinions about ‘warming’ vs ‘cooling’… AND they can ALL be right! But none of it means CO2 does a darned thing, or that we’re warming now…
WillieB says: November 6, 2011 at 7:01 pm
One of the things that struck me when looking at the maps is the clear line of demarcation between the regions with summer cooling trends and the regions with summer warming trends. The CONUS can be divided roughly in half diagonally from northeast to southwest with those regions to the north and west all experiencing cooling and those to the south and east all experiencing warming. Why?
PDO controls the North West. AMO the South East. AMO flips a few years after PDO flips. PDO flipped cold a ways back. Expect to see AMO go cold … well, about now, and the Atlantic States data to follow suit. Oh, and Europe goes all ‘meat locker’ on us in the next year or two also… And I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen to folks in South America this coming winter with a cold hearted Pacific off their cost and volcanoes acting up…
But basically it’s when the different bits of the ocean catch up with a new cyclical trend.
I’m an avid gardener in Colorado. I normally get piles of zucchini and yellow squash, but this year it was a pittance. The only thing that grew well was cool season stuff – greens, peas and root vegetables. I got lots of turnips and carrots. *sigh*
Prediction is hard, especially of the past
http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/1998changesannotated.gif?w=500&h=355&h=355