The usual suspects in the blogs and media have been bloviating about the record warmth of March and spinning it to redline for maximum fear factor, with the “loaded climate dice” theme. For example we have Andrew Freedman of Climate Central and his post, Global Warming May Have Fueled March Heat Wave Odds.
Scary big red maps aside, a quiet look at the data tells an entirely different story.
At least NCDC had the good sense in their report to avoid linking a weather pattern to AGW:
A persistent weather pattern during the month led to 25 states east of the Rockies having their warmest March on record. An additional 15 states had monthly temperatures ranking among their ten warmest. That same pattern brought cooler-than-average conditions to the West Coast states of Washington, Oregon, and California.
Dr. Martin Hoerling on NOAA says much the same thing, attributing much to “randomness” and citing a similar event in March 1910 as seen below in the NCDC data plot:
It is difficult to make credible claims that March 2012 was AGW driven when looking at March 1910 when global CO2 was well below Dr. James Hansen’s posited “safe” 350 PPM level.
Hoerling also says that pulling an AGW signal out of this has “…statistical challenges in estimating how such a shift in distributions would alter extreme event odds, especially of the intensity observed in March 2012 whose magnitude was likely on the order of 4 – 6 standard deviations.”
Dr. Roy Spencer writes that the southerly wind component was the cause, and even shoots down the “yes but” before it gets out of the gate.
New Evidence Our Record Warm March was Not from Global Warming
by Dr. Roy Spencer
As part of my exploration of different surface temperature datasets, I’m examining the relationship between average U.S. temperatures and other weather variables in NOAA’s Integrated Surface Hourly (ISH) dataset. (I think I might have mistakenly called it “International” before, instead of “Integrated” Surface Hourly).
Anyway , one of the things that popped out of my analysis is related to our record warm March this year (2012). Connecting such an event to “global warming” would require either lazy thinking, jumping to conclusions, or evidence that the warmth was not caused by persistent southerly flow over an unusually large area for that time of year.
The U.S. is a pretty small place (about 2% of the Earth), and so a single high or low pressure area can cover most of the country. For example, if unusually persistent southerly flow sets up all month over most of the country, there will be unusual warmth. In that case we are talking about “weather”, not “climate change”.
Why do I say that? Because one of the basic concepts you learn in meteorology is “mass continuity”. If there is persistent and widespread southerly flow over the U.S., there must be (by mass continuity) the same amount of northerly flow elsewhere at the same latitude.
That means that our unusual warmth is matched by unusual coolness someplace else.
Well, guess what? It turns out that our record warm March was ALSO a record for southerly flow, averaged over the U.S. This is shown in the next plot, which comes from about 250 weather stations distributed across the Lower 48 (click for large version; heavy line is trailing 12 month average):
Weather records are broken on occasion, even without global warming. And here we see evidence that our March warmth was simply a chance fluctuation in weather patterns.
If you claim, “Well, maybe global warming caused the extra southerly flow!”, you then are also claiming (through mass continuity) that global warming ALSO caused extra northerly flow (with below normal temperatures) somewhere else.
And no matter what anyone has told you, global warming cannot cause colder than normal weather. It’s not in the physics. The fact that warming has been greatest in the Arctic means that the equator-to-pole temperature contrast has been reduced, which would mean less storminess and less North-South exchange of air masses — not more.
If it’s warm, it must be climate change. If it’s cold, I guess it’s climate change too.
“The fact that warming has been greatest in the Arctic means that the equator-to-pole temperature contrast has been reduced, which would mean less storminess and less North-South exchange of air masses — not more.”
….a fact that the legions of cut-and-paste armchair greens just can’t seem to get their head around. Cold Poles give us weather, some of it very ugly, as Joplin illustrated in 2011.
Pretty simple question: was there anywhere in the N. Hemisphere which had a really cold March?
Not the UK for sure – we had very mild/warm weather. April’s another story…..
Hot air dosen’t only rise it also moves across the surface of the earth.
[snip – put some descriptions with links – naked link bombing not encouraged here – Anthony]
The NAO was in a strong positive phase for most of the winter which contributed to the weather patterns seen across Eastern USA and Northern Europe.
I guess as we keep pointing out things like this in the record, in 5 yrs under a new dataset, it will be GONE!
Interesting note, though, I was able to find in the annual US record a flat trend from 1932-1997 sometime last year. Now i can go back to 1920. Even back to 1918 it’s only 0.02F/decade. 1895 to 1997 is only 0.07F. The entire record is 0.12F, and I’m pretty sure it used to be 0.14F or 0.16F.
How long was the European cold spell (Deaths in Ukraine, etc)?
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has a similar analysis pointing out that the UAH global average March temperature was only +0.11 degrees C above the 30 year long average and more significantly the March 2012 global average temperature was -0.4 degrees C cooler than the UAH global average March temperature of 2010. The claim that this 2012 March temperature in the Midwest is consistent with what is expected with increased bouts of warm weather occurring because of on going global temperature increases is both illogical (March 2012 global average temperature is significantly cooler than occurred in 2010) as well as pure climate alarmist conjecture lacking any valid scientific link whatsoever.
if you extraopolate the records back to mid 1800’s it shows a cylical pattern of which we have reachd the apex of and are currently on the way down… while this is intersting stuff, it is localized weather caused by loclaized events.. the base cylical trend is unchanged.
if you look above the 1900 area is the apex of the last cycle…
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I live in a “red” state and indeed had a warm March. But it’s been very cool these April evenings. Got down to 42 last few nights. It takes more than one warm month to make me panic. ‘Sides, I love a good warm March!
“The fact that warming has been greatest in the Arctic means that the equator-to-pole temperature contrast has been reduced, which would mean less storminess and less North-South exchange of air masses — not more.”
That is exactly what I have been saying for years, and I had only one meteorology course in college.
[SNIP – this poster (fake name, fake email) is banned due to trying to incite a race issue with his gravatar, which is a policy violation. Don’t post here again until you remove that gravatar. – Anthony]
There has been a distinct shift in the modus operandi of Warmists. You see when we pointed to cold events they said it’s just the weather. Yet they are increasingly doing the same thing. Maybe it has something to do with the temperature standstill.
Rhys Jaggar says:
(April 16, 2012 at 11:46 am)
Pretty simple question: was there anywhere in the N. Hemisphere which had a really cold March?
= = = =
The folks in Alaska had a pretty miserable-cold March, on top of February, January, and December, IIRC. New record for snowfall in Anchorage and other coastal locations
“…statistical challenges in estimating how such a shift in distributions would alter extreme event odds…”
The “shifted distribution” meme is very popular over at Realclimate, and often presented as an established fact. Never mind that there is exactly nil evidence that any distributions have shifted. We have been warmer than average for a few decades perhaps, but well within the late Holocene “distribution.” Weather records occasionally fall as they always have. Analyses of extreme weather is necessarily post hoc (just try predicting it even a month out!), so the discussion of the associated statistics is more numerology than science.
The BS just doesn’t stop. As ice cap melts, militaries vie for Arctic edge http://news.yahoo.com/ice-cap-melts-militaries-vie-arctic-edge-072343565.html
Um, if they’re preparing for military action in an ice-free Arctic region, why are they doing exercises ON the ice? If the Arctic all melts, it seems a bit pointless eh?
Looks like a 100 year cycle.
[snip – Astrology, especially extra BS astrology trying to predict weather, is not a topic we discuss here – take your lame attempt at traffic generation elsewhere – Anthony]
It was so hot that both ABC News and NBC ran excellent stories that connected the heat wave to global warming.
WOW! One very warm month in one country is connected to global warming. But when it is pointed out that RSS shows no GLOBAL warming for 15 years, we are told 17 years is needed to be sure. To expand on Larry Hamlin says: April 16, 2012 at 12:13 pm, I will compare the global March anomalies for GISS, RSS and UAH and rank them to their respective global average anomalies. Respectively, the March numbers for these three are 0.46, 0.075 and 0.108. If these March numbers maintained this average for the whole year, the ranking would be 12th, 18th and 11th respectively. Improvement needed.
Lets be clear “Global warming” cannot “cause” warmer weather. It cannot because “global warming” does not exist as a physical entity. “Global warming” DESCRIBES long term STATISTICS of weather. Weather exists. Look outside. That is the weather at time x. When you collect a bunch of weather data and then compute statistics, you are computing or summarizing data. You are not observing, you are ‘mathing’. That summary does not exist as an observable. It is math about a collection of observables.
That math, the long term average, doesnt cause weather. It cant. Its an abstraction.
The problem is purely and soley linguistic. Global warming, which is just statistics, has been used so often in descriptions that people begin to think it is a thing. Its not.
That said, in a world that is warming, you can expect more marches like the one we had.
The warm march is of course tied to the levels of GHGs. If they were higher, the temp would be higher. if they were lower the temp would be lower.
Hoerling actually talks of a “weak overall contribution of GHG warming to the magnitude of the March 2012 heatwave”. That is not the same as the absolutist claim in your headline. Unfortunately your headline suggests WUWT cannot reflect the highly nuanced question of attribution.
REPLY: Race baiting gravatar removed – post allowed- Anthony
@Steven Mosher says:
April 16, 2012 at 1:27 pm
Perhaps you can get on ABC News as a dissenting voice? They really hyped this nonsense and nary a contrary opinion was offered.
For entertainment purposes I suggest going to Dr. Spencer’s blog and read the comments to this same article. At least one familiar WUWT troll is schooling everyone on the “Anthropocene climate.” If nothing else it is amusing…until it becomes tedious.
Minnesota’s Top Ten March averages(F). 1901 -2000 avg is 26.1.
1) 2012 – 41.2
2) 1910 – 40.6
3) 1946 – 36.4
4) 1973 – 36.0
2000 – 36.0
6) 2010 – 35.3
7) 1945 – 34.9
8) 1918 – 34.4
9) 1968 – 34.0
10) 1938 – 33.6
1981 – 33.6
As I look at this, what would disturb me if I believed in AGW is the lack of 80’s to present records in the top ten not being dominant. Yes, there is a sprinkling, but at least the bottom half of this record should be all from current decades, shouldn’t it? Hmmm…. lets see, maybe AGW isn’t quite strong enough yet to dominate the higher end of the records in March. Maybe it’s sneaking up in the next 10 and will be dominant in that set.
12) 1977 – 33.2
1987 – 33.2
14) 1902 – 32.7
15) 1905 – 32.5
1985 – 32.5
17) 1961 – 32.0
18) 1942 – 31.9
2007 – 31.9
20) 1911 – 31.5
Hmmm… data’s a *itch, isn’t it?!
Re: vukcevic says: April 16, 2012 at 11:51 am
Anthony apologies, I get out foxed by the new narrow text window, so here it is again:
The CET March shows also high but not as high as in the US. CET March was exceeded twice around 1990, and few more times from 1930 to 1970.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-March.htm
( I hope this one is OK)
Rhys Jaggar says:
April 16, 2012 at 11:46 am
Pretty simple question: was there anywhere in the N. Hemisphere which had a really cold March?
_______________________
Check the map:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/04/uah-global-temperature-anomaly-up-in-march-at-0-11c/
[Note: Global temps are what matter. March up, April down. ~dbs, mod.]
Eastern Australia had one of the coldest summers on record, Russia and Europe nearly froze over this winter. I am surprised any decent meteorologist would even contemplate putting up a post like this. Excuse the sarcasm
Galane says:
April 16, 2012 at 12:34 pm
The BS just doesn’t stop. As ice cap melts, militaries vie for Arctic edge
————————————————————————
That article mentions fighting over the natural resources in the Arctic like oil….
But even if ALL the ice melts in the summer, a drilling rig in the Arctic would be crushed and destroyed by the seasonal winter ice and drifting floes, not to mention trying to get the oil to pump at 80 below zero… have fun with that…
Sorry, but we’ll never ever see a balmy Arctic that’s livable… not in our lifetime anyway.
Who is writing this garbage anyway?
From Mother nature ( It seems Schmidt may be coming to grips reality, just maybe)
“Dealing with the future always involves dealing with uncertainty — and this is as true with climate as it is with the economy,” Schmidt writes in a post at RealClimate.org. “Science has led to a great deal of well-supported concern that increasing emissions of CO2 (in particular) are posing a substantial risk to human society.”
Among those who study climate, issues such as the existence of the greenhouse effect, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases over the past century, their human origin, and warming over the 20th century are no longer subject to fundamental debate, he writes.
The claims in the letter are too vague to be clear, Schmidt told LiveScience in an email, but “If any of signatories are ever in New York, I would be happy to discuss with them the science that gets done at GISS.”
Way I see it, the AGW crowd had to pounce on a warm month. Any warm month. Anywhere, any sign. They’re desperate.
So your explanation for 1910 would be…?
Hint: If you say natural variability, then how is 2012 NOT also natural variability?
Forgive me if I missed it above, but in 2010 and 2011, any time somebody mentioned how cold the US was, we were quickly reminded that the US only represented 2% of the earth’s surface. Those reminders have been conspicuously absent lately.
You know,I am really disappointed with this. We had a “relatively” nice March here in Northern Alberta,and April goes to heck! I know my tulips were sure not impressed with April so far. (and where’s all the usual bs about the Arctic Ocean ice[“sea” ice is redundant] melting,seeing as it is spring??).
The only meaningful “global temperature” is the temperature at the center of the liquid core. Everything on the surface is local and logically unmixable.
Last week I pulled out the regional records to see what’s happening. As always, it’s quite different by region. East and some of the center are record warm and appear to be part of a short warming trend. West is getting cooler, and appears to be on a cooling trend. Other areas are notably warm this March but don’t look like a trend.
http://polistrasmill.blogspot.com/2012/04/warming-nope-one-month-in-one-area.html
The GISS anomalies so far this year (Jan.-March) are 0.36, 0.40, and 0.46, yielding an average of 0.407. The average for all of last year was 0.51.
As La Niña ends, the anomaly should rise–but there’s a lag before it does, so the next two months shouldn’t rise above 0.50, or not by much.
From the NOAA assessment: “…the GHG warming signal fails to explain the extreme magnitude of the heatwave event, which achieved daily departures of +20°C, or about 20-fold greater than the estimated background warming signal. …. The weak overall contribution of GHG warming to the magnitude of the March 2012 heatwave notwithstanding, a signal of about +1°C warming appreciably increased the odds of a record March heatwave occurring. Such a signal corresponds approximately to a 0.5 standardized shift of the probability distribution toward warmer conditions. …. Our current estimate of the impact of GHG forcing is that it likely contributed on the order of 5% to 10% of the magnitude of the heat wave during 12-23 March. And the probability of heatwaves is growing as GHG-induced warming continues to progress.”
In other words, you can’t say that global warming caused a +20deg C heatwave, but you can say that it is responsible for part of the strength of that heatwave. (Tamino essentially said that in his blog as well)
So looking at the first graph of Contiguous U.S., Temperature, March, I was intrigued by the 9 point binomial filter which got rid of a lot of the “noise” (AKA DATA).
That immediately begs the question: “What nine point binomial filter ? ” Does anybody have a formula for this filter and also, what the steady state frequency response of this filter is; or more importantly what is the impulse, or step function response of this filter, since the input “signal” to the filter is a rather transient rich signal, so it would be interesting to know what kinds of overshoots and ringing are produced by this filter; and what is the theoretical basis for employing such a process to remove information from the real data ??
Other than that, the red line looks like a rather poor approximation to the data, which to me looks essentially flat up to 1970 followed by a somewhat steep rise to about 1990, corresponding to the recently departed warm period, and then into the current going basically nowhere since that 1990-2000 time frame.
But then I’m just a physicist, and not a peer reviewed multipublished real climate scientist; like presumably the authors of the red line are.
Steven Mosher says:
April 16, 2012 at 1:27 pm
The warm march is of course tied to the levels of GHGs. If they were higher, the temp would be higher. if they were lower the temp would be lower.
Of course nothing. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Nothing in the temperature record, other than a very loose correlation requiring tons of cherry-picking points to it.
Peter says:
“In other words, you can’t say that global warming caused a +20deg C heatwave, but you can say that it is responsible for part of the strength of that heatwave.”
You can say that. However, it is evidence-free conjecture. But thanx for your opinion.
. . .
Bruce Cobb, exactly right. These folks have no clue about how the scientific method works. AGW may or may not be true. But at this point it is a conjecture, not a hypothesis.
Bruce Cobb-
So do you think the NOAA assessment is wrong?
Steven Mosher says: April 16, 2012 at 1:27 pm
That said, in a world that is warming, you can expect more Marches like the one we had.
The warm March is of course tied to the levels of GHGs. If they were higher, the temp would be higher. if they were lower the temp would be lower.
———————————————————————————————————————-
I love that ‘of course’, as if his case were already proved.
Ah, the callow arrogance of Warmistas, prayerfully chanting the approved mantras and expecting us to bow down before them and surrender.
In truth, there is yet to be a shred of true proof that this is ‘a world that is warming’,
just Alarmist cherry-picking, as if a few decades of earlier springs somewhere was any big deal.
Mosher and the rest of the alarmists assume that because CO2 is everywhere, its alleged warming effects will be a delta T that is everywhere added to current temps.
Because the alleged warming by CO2 depends upon water-vapor leftovers and cloud altitudes, it is always and only local, and strongly fluctuating at that. Its global sum is nothing but a planetary statistic, not a causal agency.
There is not a micro-shred of proof that CO2 has today any kind of uniform ‘forcing’ action that everywhere adds a ‘global delta T’ to every temperature, 24/7. In fact, when thus clearly expressed, the absurdity of this idea is glaringly manifest, the IPCC’s fancy forcing formulae notwithstanding.
1951 to 1980 baseline. James Hansen is comparing the world regions anomalies to 2003 to 2011. I have read over this several times and get something new out of it each time.
1 sigma events occur 33% above and below a mean (or central point)
2 sigma events occur 2.3% above and below
3 sigma events occur .13% above and below
if you look at fig 3 up in the rt hand corner are the percentages of the points lieing in the sigma ranges.
sigma
………-3. -2…-1 ….0 …. +1…+2..+3
1955 0… 2… 45…32…. 20…1…..0
2010 0….1….15….18….34…18.. 13
The 3 sigma percentages below should be 0 or 1% at most. Instead we have data that shows extreme weather events up to 100 times more than normal.
2003…….6%
2004…….3%
2005…….5%
2006…….5%
2007…….5%
2008…….4%
2009…….6%
2010……11%
2011……..8%
The near normal distribution expected is close to what 1955 is. If you go back and look at 1965, and 1975 you will see similar numbers provided by Dr. James Hansen. +3 sigma is the very hot category. The sigmas are decreasing and the + sigmas are increasing all through the last decade which is the hottest decade in instrumental temperature history.
Those commenting on Arctic oil need to think a little. Drill during Summer months then complete the wellheads with a subsea tie back via pipeline laid in Summer. Hey presto! No need to worry about temperature under the ice.
@ Peter, Of course Noaa’s assessment is wrong. What else would you expect, though? They are part of the CAGW system, a hub on the wheel of the soon-to-be trainwreck of the most destructive ideology since the days of Hitler.
Interstellar Bill said:
“Mosher and the rest of the alarmists assume that because CO2 is everywhere, its alleged warming effects will be a delta T that is everywhere added to current temps.”
Mosher isn’t, AFAIK, an alarmist – he’s a lukewarmer, and say what you will, scathing in his disapproval of the behaviour of the Climategate gang. Read his and Tom Fuller’s book “The CRUtape letters”, linked to on WUWT’s home page. Overall, I rate him as reasonably fair-minded and definitely scientifically literate. Some of the lukewarmers are, you know.
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2071http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2071
The link above shows record sea surface tempertures (SST) down in the Gulf of Mexico are at record levels. He ties that in with spate of tornados that came across the midwest in the United States. Those same record SST were the ones that helped to fuel the March heat wave. In one sense it was a naturally occuring event and yet in another, the AGW warmed Gulf helped to make it a record breaking event. If the Gulf of Mexico maintains its record SST all through the summer, this will fuel the thunderstorms of the midwest for the rest of the summer. Which will include more tornado formation and possibly hurricane fueling.
In general as I understand AGW I think the Gulf Of Mexico will in general be warmer throughout this century and the record breaking SST will increase.
This is tied to human emissions. Even after we dramatically decrease our emissions the earth will continue warming for 40 or 50 years, possibly plateau before it actually starts to cool. The oceans lag the atmosphere and will heat up for centuries based on the CO2 we have in the atmosphere.
Renewable guy…
Business a little slow lately?
John M says:
April 16, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Renewable guy…
Business a little slow lately?
##############################
I’m a supporter, not a commercial business. Interesting article about solar prices coming down. The world installed 27 GW last year.
http://www.enn.com/green_building/article/44269?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EnvironmentalNewsNetwork+%28Environmental+News+Network%29
Did you happen to notice the 2.2F/century trend for March? And then there is this:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL051000.shtml
Not proof, but evidence.
REPLY: Did you happen to notice the endpoints? – Anthony
Larkin
Point taken, Mosher is a soft-core warmist, but so what?
That ‘of course’ which I mentioned shows his true allegiance.
His belief in 24/7 warming by a weak trace gas is at the heat of the Warmista fallacy.
If he should happen to chicken out on the Doomsday aspects of Warmism, I say good for him. Back in the 50’s he would have been a ‘fellow traveler’, who thought anti-Communism was the problem. Today he probably thinks that ‘denialism’ is the problem.
Core criterion: does Mosher advocate cap & trade? wind farms? renewable mandates? solar giga-dollar giveaways?
If so then he is still a Warmista, albeit soft-core.
This is not just an intellectual-level scientific debate here.
AGW is a life & death matter all right, but it’s the death of our prosperity, not the Earth’s, that will be delivered by the success of AGW.
Just ask the billions of windmill-sliced bird corpses, which the ‘peer-reviewed’ literature is already trying to hush up.
Just ask the billion food-challenged people how ethanol-madness has priced their food up high, or the victims of fuel-poverty, or the thousands killed by CAFE-unsafe cars.
They all show this is DEAD serious.
Mike says:
April 16, 2012 at 5:38 pm
Did you happen to notice the 2.2F/century trend for March? And then there is this:
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL051000.shtml
Evidence linking Arctic amplification to extreme weather in mid-latitudes
Key Points
•Enhanced Arctic warming reduces poleward temperature gradient
•Weaker gradient affects waves in upper-level flow in two observable ways
•Both effects slow weather patterns, favoring extreme weather
######################
2.2 F/century would be close to the IPCC projection of 3*C by 2100
Jeef says:
April 16, 2012 at 4:27 pm
… Drill during Summer months then complete the wellheads with a subsea tie back via pipeline laid in Summer….
——————————————————————————
So we’ll call that “intermittent oil”…
not a “great” way to stabilize the energy supply,
just like intermittent windmills, intermittent solar, intermittent tides, intermittent batteries, etc., etc.
Steven Mosher says:
April 16, 2012 at 1:27 pm
“…That said, in a world that is warming, you can expect more marches like the one we had.”
In a world that is warming? okay let’s call it ‘global warming’ for talk sake, You are basically pushing the point of view that because of ‘global warming’ the US can expect more warm marches in the future.
Then you say;
“The warm march is of course tied to the levels of GHGs. If they were higher, the temp would be higher. if they were lower the temp would be lower.”
Okay, let’s add your Greenhouse element to your point of view about ‘global warming’ and call it “Greenhouse Global Warming”, Now that we have the terminology for your point of view, where is your proof linking a tiny quantity of atmospheric gas to warm marches in the US?
Do you also believe that because of “Greenhouse Global Warming” that snow will be a thing of the past? Where in fact do you draw the line? Do you consider this “Greenhouse Global Warming” potentially catastrophic too?
Maybe we can redefine your terminology further and for talk sake call it “Catastrophic Greenhouse Global Warming”.
Does man play an additional role in producing some of the tiny quantity of atmospheric gas? let’s redefine our terminology of your point of view again for talk sake and call it “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Greenhouse Global Warming”, Hmm, this wont do it’s not catchy enough for the public.
As you have suggested that a greater amount of this relatively tiny quantity of atmospheric gas causes the climatic region of the US to be warmer during march, maybe we should redefine the terminology of your point of view yet again, and call it “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Change” or “Climate Change” for short.
Now, You’ll need to get a campaign going to prevent this climate change formally know as “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Greenhouse Global Warming”, So how about promoting the idea that CO2 is a dangerous anthropogenic gas and (Waite for it) get people to offset their carbon production/use, lets call this anthropogenic carbon production/use a “carbon foot print”, I think that your on a winner there Mosher, but you’ll probably need to quickly stifle those who would disagree with you, a known good way of doing this is to say the debate is over and inform the public that the science is settled, Oh and make up suggestive labels for any scientific opposition, that’s a particularly clever tactic, it takes the heat of your perticular brand of science and people will want to become disassociated from siding with your opposition for fear of being labeled, and don’t forget to throw in a fue rumers for good measure.
I hope this will be of some to you, best of luck 🙂 /JK
kbray – with subsea completion tied back to a land based refinery or pipeline to further South you can pump oil all year. The key is that everything is on the ocean floor under the Winter ice. Many oilfields are developed using this method; it’s cheaper than installing a platform.
“2.2 F/century would be close to the IPCC projection of 3*C by 2100” by renewable
Quite right,coal-powered car guy. And 0.1F/century would be about close to the IPCC guesstimate of 5C after the Mann discumbobulator got done with it. And since when did scientists start mixing units????
“New Evidence Our Record Warm March was Not from Global Warming
by Dr. Roy Spencer”
====================================================
Dr. Spencer,
you do not need any evidence do debunk the idea of “global warming” causing your record warm March. The only thing you need is the definition of “global warming”, that is surely familiar to you.
“Global warming” can not cause any warming anywhere. Why?
Because “global warming” is per definition a sort of average thing. It is exactly the other way round: a warming at a certain place does contribute to the rise in the “global average” indeed, so the rise in the average is a RESULT, but no way a cause.
Jeef,
I see.
I thought you meant “tied back” as in having your “tubes tied back”.
There is always a clever solution to a problem,
whether the problem is real or imagined.
The human brain is a wonderful thing…
…when engaged.
kbray – my fault. Too many years on the service side of the industry so I assume people know the meanings of standard terms. For the general reader, a subsea tieback means a wellhead (the bit on the sea floor where the blowout preventer is) where oil goes direct through an undersea line to somewhere else rather than a platform (or tanker or semisubmersible etc!) on the sea surface over the well.
Steven Mosher says:
April 16, 2012 at 1:27 pm
The warm march is of course tied to the levels of GHGs. If they were higher, the temp would be higher. if they were lower the temp would be lower.
=============================================================
The idea about warming “greenhouse gasses” has been debunked by professor Wood in 1909: http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html . The glass plate in his experiment had a much stronger effect, than the “greenhouse gasses”, but it was not able to produce any significant warming.
“renewable guy” is spreading a lot of misinformation here. That’s because he gets his talking points from unreliable blogs like Skeptical Pseudo-science. Let’s see if we can help educate him. It’s worth a try, anyway.
First, the sea surface temperature [SST] is normal. It varies somewhat differently each year, but it is well within normal parameters. Reliable oxygen isotope proxy records going back 3,000 years show that current SST’s are completely normal. In addition, the false alarmist claims of accelerating sea level rise have been thoroughly falsified.
Next, the IPCC’s global warming predictions have no connection with reality, as empirical records show. The rise in global temperature has been on the same trend line since the LIA, thus deconstructing the conjecture that CO2 is the cause: the warming trend has been at the same, steady rate whether CO2 was at 280 ppmv, or 392 ppmv. The effect of CO2, if any, is too small to measure.
Next, ‘renewable guy’ claims that weather events are becoming more devastating. Wrong. And record high temperatures generally happened well in the past. In fact, we should be hoping for a warmer climate, because cold kills.
‘Renewable guy’ wades into the Arctic discussion, ignoring the Antarctic because it doesn’t follow the alarmist narrative. The Antarctic has much more ice than the Arctic, and global sea ice is completely normal, indicating that CO2 has nothing to do with the cyclical polar ice cover.
‘Renewable guy’ also claims that Hansen is right. As if. Hansen has been consistently wrong for the past 30 years. To get some perspective, let’s look at where we are now. All this wild-eyed, spittle flecked arm waving over a few tenths of a degree change over the past century and a half ignores the fact that temperatures have been a lot warmer, and MUCH colder in the past. James Hansen has his lunatic [“coal trains of death”] opinions. Fortunately, he has been consistently wrong.
Justthinkin says:
April 16, 2012 at 6:21 pm
“2.2 F/century would be close to the IPCC projection of 3*C by 2100″ by renewable
Quite right,coal-powered car guy. And 0.1F/century would be about close to the IPCC guesstimate of 5C after the Mann discumbobulator got done with it. And since when did scientists start mixing units????
#################################
Whether I mix my units or not, the issue as about the earth warming and why. Why has the earth warmed .7*C since about 1850? You are here for support for your view of warming or not. I agree with Steve Mosher, the more co2 the warmer it will be.
Smokey says:
April 16, 2012 at 7:30 pm
“renewable guy” is spreading a lot of misinformation here. That’s because he gets his talking points from unreliable blogs like Skeptical Pseudo-science. Let’s see if we can help educate him. It’s worth a try, anyway.
###########################
Skeptical science has reviewed Hansen’s paper to come out soon that looks at the whole earth rather than a single event such as the March heat wave. His data is showing as I have tried to simplify out, that the warm extreme events are increasing and the cold extreme events are decreasing. If you can hold your nose long enough, I encourage to read through the two SKS aritcles. Hansen is the first to approach the earth as a whole for the change that we have gone through in this statistical fashion. It strengthens the view that the weather is on steroids.
I will be able to continue this discussion tomorrow if you like.
“If you claim, “Well, maybe global warming caused the extra southerly flow!”, you then are also claiming (through mass continuity) that global warming ALSO caused extra northerly flow (with below normal temperatures) somewhere else.”
Conversely, you are claiming that if the warm patch is NOT related to global warming, then there should be an equivalent below-normal region where the air is indeed flowing north at unusual rates. There is a small cool region near Ukraine. There is a warm patch over the Pacific and warm patch another over Europe.
Where is the cool region where the winds are returning toward the south from the north?
http://nsstc.uah.edu/climate/2012/march/032012globalmap.png
Anthony says “Scary big red maps aside, a quiet look at the data tells an entirely different story.”
Actually, a quiet statistical look at the data tells the same story. Statistical analysis suggests that this March was exceptionally hot (1 of the 4 most exceptional months in the US in the last 118 years), and March has been unusually warm for the entire last decade. In fact, annual temperatures have been on a warm streak for nearly 2 decades.
It could be argued, I suppose, that this March might have been this hot even if it had not fallen in the midst of a continued hot streak. (And that the two most exceptionally cold months just happened to fall during the first 1/3 of the 1900’s when it was cooler in general.) But to me, Occam’s Razor would suggest that when the two most exceptionally hot months fall during an exceptionally hot streak, that there is a connection.
For more details see:
https://sites.google.com/site/sciencestatsandstuff/global-warming/miscellaneous-comments/march-2012-us-temperature-records
Kasuha says:
April 16, 2012 at 2:11 pm
Check the map:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/04/uah-global-temperature-anomaly-up-in-march-at-0-11c/
[Note: Global temps are what matter. March up, April down. ~dbs, mod.]
_________________________
To mod: … so what? If you wanted to answer Jaggar’s question, you could have done so in your own post, not break into mine. He was asking about March, not April. And I can see some pretty blue spots on your own map, too, so I don’t get what you think was wrong on what I posted.
Classic piece of non-scientific deception from NOAA.
Note the “9point binominal filter” goes right up to the end of the data. This means they are using Mannian DATA INFILLING. The legit 9 point filter results will stop 5 years earlier, the date of the last complete 9 point filter window.
I can guarantee from what their green line does at the end that they are doing what Met Office *used to do*: they repeat the last data point to fill the window. This means they are counting the record march temp FIVE times in the supposedly smoothed and filtered 9 year plot.
As a result the green line shoots up to “unprecedented” levels because of ONE DATA POINT
NOAA here are being unscientific and deceptive.
I notice that the graph has a flat line labelled “long term average”. How long is that long term? Does it take account of the LIA, MWP, etc? In short, are we *sure* that the long term average is actually flat?
Wow…if it gets any warmer in the USA then the polar bears will soon be able to walk to New York!
WUWT?
This of course, explains the warm mild weather we had in the winters 2010 and 2011. Wait, those were cold, brutal winters. The greenhouse gases must have been much lower.
NOAA would have everyone believe in Anthropogenic GLOBAL warming. It therefore follows that it must stick to ONLY what is happening in continental USA. Thus nary a wrod about the brutally COLD winter in Eastern Europe and much ofthe northern parts of Russia, Mongilia China, etc
FINALLY! Today the Low reached a balmy 40F this morning for the first time this year! Oh joy! We finally get some of that not so global warmth that has eluded our valley for so long. Perhaps we can think about starting a garden soon.
Tim Folkerts says:
April 16, 2012 at 9:11 pm
It could be argued, I suppose, that this March might have been this hot even if it had not fallen in the midst of a continued hot streak. (And that the two most exceptionally cold months just happened to fall during the first 1/3 of the 1900′s when it was cooler in general.) But to me, Occam’s Razor would suggest that when the two most exceptionally hot months fall during an exceptionally hot streak, that there is a connection.
I know you people think C02 has magical properties, but do you really suppose that C02 somehow has forced up temps in the US, while barely (if at all) managing an effect globally?
Consider HadCRUT’s 100-year temp. record, even with its flawed temperature records with their warm bias:
http://www.c3headlines.com/2012/01/last-100-years-of-co2-temperatures-the-ipccs-hadcrut-data-confirms-co2s-small-impact-on-global-warmi.html
If one were to remove the warm bias, C02’s already-small effect would vanish completely in the noise.
Bruce Cobb says “I know you people think C02 has magical properties …”
I can’t speak for “you people”. but I think CO2 has IR absorptive/emissive properties. But then as Arthur C. Clarke warned, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Perhaps this science is just too advanced for you.
You “data analysis” that you link to tends to confirm this. Just about the worse way to judge the change in something with a lot of natural variability is it simply look at the two end points, which is apparently what you did in your link. WAY better would be to find the slope for the periods. When you do this, you will see that your graph gets reversed. The SLOPE for 1912-1961 is 0.00648 C/yr (or 0.32 C for the 50 year period). The SLOPE for 1962-2011 is 0.0141C/yr (or 0.70C for the 50 years), which is more than twice what is was for the earlier period.
So when the analysis is done at a college freshman level, rather than a junior high level, your conclusion is exactly backwards and your data tends to SUPPORT CO2-caused global warming, rather then contradicting it.
“but do you really suppose that C02 somehow has forced up temps in the US, while barely (if at all) managing an effect globally?”
Nope. I think there are large variations in time and location — known as “weather”. The US got a rather unusual batch of weather during March. This warm weather was boosted by a general warming of the globe that is obvious in any number of temperature records. There are many factors that influence that global temperature — including IR properties of GHG’s like H2O and CO2. So CO2 helped force up the global temperature, while weather helped make one particular area exceptional warm.
A forecast for May in the UK
“The coldest or near coldest May for 100 years in Central and East parts with a record run of bitter Northerly winds. Snow at times especially on high ground in NE / East. Spring put in reverse”
http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=450&c=5
“Piers Corbyn astrophysicist of Weatheraction.com says “We are making this headline from our 45day ahead Britain & Ireland forecast public because of its importance. It is an economically impactful forecast and more detail of the timing of cold and wintry blasts, East-West splits and drought or not implications are available to subscribers and will also be reviewed for the 30day ahead forecast due at end of April.”
“The very cold expectations apply to East parts and near – Europe rather than Ireland and West Britain”
“”””” Peter Ward says:
April 17, 2012 at 5:04 am
I notice that the graph has a flat line labelled “long term average”. How long is that long term? Does it take account of the LIA, MWP, etc? In short, are we *sure* that the long term average is actually flat? “””””
Absolutely. The long term average is ALWAYS exactly flat; otherwise it is NOT an average.; and also why it is meaningless.
That sentence could very easily have been written by Hansen or Trenberth or Ehrlich or McKibben or Algore or Suzuki (or …). I’d bet money that someone will find a perfect match in Google.
Yeah, except for in the past when GHG’s were much lower and March was hot (and Feb and Jan and Dec …) as Steve Goddard shows everyone daily. Ditto for droughts and floods and hurricanes and tornados (and …).
Yeah! He could be like the David Brooks of climate ‘science’. 🙂
Also realize that the “records” are based on a short (and perhaps conveniently chosen) period of time that begins in 1880 for GIStemp.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/year-without-a-winter/
1877-78 was quite warm with at least one place reporting more ice melt (earlier lake clearing) then, than now.
http://climate.umn.edu/doc/journal/wint77_78.html
http://lakeminnetonka.patch.com/topics/Hennepin+County+Sheriff%2527s+Office
So we’re running about 10 days longer to ‘ice out’ … which means that this year was colder…
Now one lake does not a winter make… but it is a bit “odd” that this very warm 1877-78 was left out of the ‘start of time’ for all those loverly graphs the AGW Crowd like to make that are SO sensitive to start conditions for making trend lines…
Or, looked at another way, we have a very nice period of about 134 years for a ‘peak to peak’ cycle. Next direction ought to be down, even for the USA (as we catch up to the rest of the world):
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/hide-the-deaths-from-cold-portugal/
You can hide the thermometer records, and you can hide the data diddling, but it’s harder to hide the dead bodies.
Similar deaths in other parts of the world too. Cold kills, summers have much lower deaths. In Portugal, the numbers spike dramatically:
http://chiefio.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/portugal-deaths.jpg
That is entirely an artifact of the Data Diddling done to the record. With all the places prone to wider volatility bands removed (such as the mountains) and with thermometers clustered at Airports, globally, next to all that lovely tarmac solar collector with snow removal, of COURSE his record shows increases in hot excursions and decreases of cold excursions. That’s the method by which the thermometer selectivity does the work of coloring the data.
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/03/ghcn-the-global-analysis/
Has a load of particulars, from the airport percent going into the 90%+ range to the abandonment of high cold places. California was an interesting example:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/ghcn-california-on-the-beach-who-needs-snow/
But there are plenty more:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/11/16/ghcn-south-america-andes-what-andes/
But, just to be sure, they have a “QA” process that tosses out data based on an equal sized band for both hot and cold readings. The problem is that cold readings are more volatile than hot ones (places tend to smoothly ‘top out’ near 100 F to the upside, while downside you can move 50 F in a day – I had that happen in Dallas once…) So they then toss out any ‘outlier’ and replace it with… and average from a set of local AIRPORTS ASOS stations…. where “local” is imaginatively large.
Now the simple act of averaging will dampen excursions. So any remaining cold excursion gets even more suppressed.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/04/11/qa-or-tossing-data-you-decide/
The simple fact is that the data are being manicured for effect. Any paper made from it, and especially any one from Hansen, is more an exercise in finger painting than science, IMHO.
When you look at long term individual station data, it’s nice and steady with a bit of periodic roll to it as cycles go by. Many places have a very slight overall cooling trend, in keeping with a couple of thousands year long drift into the next glacial (our warm peak is a bit below the MWP peak, for example, that is itself below the Roman Warm Period peak, that is well below the warmth that caused the Sahara to be green and lush from the hot air dragging rain clouds to the interior).
https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/cold-dry-sahara-hot-wet-savanna/
So, sorry to say, that nice little paper you point at is about as useful as the one Nevil Chamberlain held up…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_for_our_time
and with about as much veracity behind it, IMHO.
Look at a graph of the jet stream. Everywhere it dips south is one of those spots. As I’m under the one in California, I can attest that it’s been here. Very cold and wet for far too long.
We’ve had snow on Mt. Hamilton more than during the prior warm PDO phase. I’ve had folks all up the West Coast into Washington and Oregon with the same story. You’ve already seen a comment about Alaska being colder.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/ncep_cfsr_t2m_anom1.png
pretty much shows the pattern. Notice how very cold Alaska is looking.
Now you also need to realize that enthalpy comes into play here too. You can’t just compare temps to temps. Something the AGW folks frequently try to ignore. A few extra feet of snow somewhere, like Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and Mt. Hamilton will offset a much larger quantity of dry air in terms of heat capacity which is what really matters, not temperatures.
You also need to allow for the way air gets redistributed around the whole planet, so you can see in that picture a very cold Australia and Siberia too. The warmth that is backing up in North America isn’t making it to those other places fast enough and they are cooling.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/of-locality-of-pov/
Nice picture of the very late season snow on Mt. Hamilton here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/snows-of-mount-hamilton/
BTW, I got ANOTHER picture of snow from just a couple of days ago. Very unusual compared to recent decades (rather more like long ago decades).
But don’t worry, we’re measuring our temperatures near the beach over the airport tarmac so that snow won’t pollute the nice warm data…
But it does point out the other thing you need to remember: Air circulation is 3 dimensional. You can have heating of air via descending air masses with no net addition of heat to the system. Somewhere else air can be rising and cooling in offset, but that cold air happens at altitude, not at the surface.
So please do try not to think so 2 dimensionally… It’s 3-D with Enthalpy, not 2-D Temps only, that matters.
EM Smith,
Certainly enthalpy and heat capacity all are interesting and important (although these have no effect on IR radiation, so in that aspect temperture is still king) . I was specifically addressing temperature because that was the subject of the top post. I used the data set I did because that was the data used in the top post.
The analysis I did shows this March was one of the two most abnormally hot months in the US (along with Sept, 1998). Whatever impacts enthalpy and heat capacity might have, that doesn’t change the temperature records. It would be fun to do the same analysis for enthalpy of surface air in the US, but I doubt that data is available.
PS The method for determining the “ice out” condition for Lake Minnetonka has changed over the years, so comparing anything from pre-1968 is comparing apples to oranges. The stories about 1887-88 in MN were interesting, but rather unexpectedly, the “ice out” date that years was April 25, 1888, which is surprising for such a warm winter.
http://www.freshwater.org/images/stories/PDFs/2011year-by-year.pdf
Tim
E.M.Smith says:
April 17, 2012 at 4:18 pm
That is entirely an artifact of the Data Diddling done to the record. With all the places prone to wider volatility bands removed (such as the mountains) and with thermometers clustered at Airports, globally, next to all that lovely tarmac solar collector with snow removal, of COURSE his record shows increases in hot excursions and decreases of cold excursions. That’s the method by which the thermometer selectivity does the work of coloring the data.
#############################
The top average is the raw data and bottom is from the Foster and Rahmstorf method of removing natural variability.
All records that I am aware of show warming including Roy Spencer’s UAH records.
From about 1980 on as you plug in the different temperature records, they show an increased temp rate per decade. This correlates to me with our increase in co2 emissions. The basics are there.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/trend.php
GISS land ocean
Trend: 0.059 ±0.007 °C/decade (2σ)
THis starts at 1880 and ends with the last of the GISS temperature record.
noaa record
Trend: 0.061 ±0.007 °C/decade (2σ)
starts at 1880 same ending as above
hadcrut 3
Trend: 0.044 ±0.007 °C/decade (2σ)
starts at 1840 to today
hadcrut 4
Trend: 0.045 ±0.006 °C/decade (2σ)
1840 to todfay
Best land
Trend: 0.059 ±0.009 °C/decade (2σ)
1800 to today
NOAA land
Trend: 0.059 ±0.009 °C/decade (2σ)
1880 to today
Satellite RSS
Trend: 0.137 ±0.076 °C/decade (2σ)
1980 to today
Satellite UAH
Trend: 0.136 ±0.078 °C/decade (2σ)
1980 to today
‘renewable guy’ cites the Skeptical Pseudo-Science [sPs] blog and says, “the weather is on steroids.” Typical alarmist nonsense.
Worldwide observations directly contradict that nonsense. And check the right sidebar: sPs is the only blog that is rated “Unreliable”. Anthony doesn’t do that lightly. If you need evidence that sPs is a Soros funded propaganda blog, do a WUWT archive search. sPs has been completely discredited.
Smokey says:
April 17, 2012 at 8:14 pm
‘renewable guy’ cites the Skeptical Pseudo-Science [sPs] blog and says, “the weather is on steroids.” Typical alarmist nonsense.
Worldwide observations directly contradict that nonsense. And check the right sidebar: sPs is the only blog that is rated “Unreliable”. Anthony doesn’t do that lightly. If you need evidence that sPs is a Soros funded propaganda blog, do a WUWT archive search. sPs has been completely discredited.
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I’m not here because I agree with this site. I ‘m here to present my view of the science. The data.
You can to wood for trees and put in the different long term data and compare. The instrumental record shows warming. This isn’t about sks this is about the data showing what the climate is doing. All the different temperature records show warming. Skeptical Science has also pointed that out.
Smokey says: “If you need evidence that sPs is a Soros funded propaganda blog, do a WUWT archive search.”
Let’s see .. ah Here is what I found.
Or perhaps this is what you meant …
That is the best I could find at WUWT. The rest of the web seems to have pretty much the same — a few random responses in various blogs. Is this REALLY the best support you have for your otherwise unsubstantiated claim – you own admittedly ad hominem musings?
renewable guy says:
“You can to wood for trees and put in the different long term data and compare.”
OK, let’s do that: click
See, the long term temperature trend is steadily declining [green trend line]. It is obvious that there is no accelerated warming, and that global temperatures have steadily declined since the LIA.
But thanx for playing, and Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out.☺
Panic ye not…those of you worried that yesterdays arctic sea ice extent would mean polar bears walking to New York soon….NSIDC has just revised that pesky sea ice data. Phew! It was about to cross the ‘normal’ line…now it isn’t.
Thank heavens for your prompt action NSiDC guys, you are a credit to your profession, I won’t need to buy a rifle to protect myself from bears strolling down 5th Avenue now. And as the USA gets warmer and warmer, bizarrely causing the sea ice to increase, I know NSIDC will be on guard to stop those pesky bears in their tracks….
h/t Bishop Hill & Steve Goddard….
Tim Folkerts
The stated (by Anthony) reasons for SKS’s unreliability are “Due to (1) deletion, extension and amending of user comments, and (2) undated post-publication revisions of article contents after significant user commenting.”
‘Unreliable’ sounds pretty kind to me.
Smokey says: “See, the long term temperature trend is steadily declining [green trend line]. ”
No, the green line is the linear fit. You seem to be comparing it to the two other lines, which are simply lines generated to guide the eye. The other two lines are lines that were arbitrarily rotated and offset from the original trend line. They mean NOTHING.
On the other hand, the green linear fit line tends to be too low at the start, too high in the middle, and too low at the end. This is a classic sign that a quadratic fit would be better, and that the warming IS accelerating during this period.
See, the long term temperature trend is steadily
decliningincreasing. [green trend line] . It is obvious that there isnoindeed> accelerated warming, and that global temperatures have steadilydeclinedincreased at accelerating ratessince the LIA.There — I fixed it for you.
MODERATOR:
DANG — I messed up the formatting. The previous comment should have read:
See, the long term temperature trend is steadily
decliningincreasing. [green trend line] . It is obvious that there isnoindeed accelerated warming, and that global temperatures have steadilydeclinedincreased at accelerating rates since the LIA.[Hopefully this will be right.]
tjfolkerts,
Temperatures are rising at an accelerating rate??
Ri-i-i-i-ght.
On your planet, maybe.
I’m sorry but I have to question any document/graph/chart/model/whatever that describes California as “Near Normal”. I mean, maybe if you exclude LA and SF but then, what would you have left? 🙂
“”””” Dr. Martin Hoerling on NOAA says much the same thing, attributing much to “randomness” and citing a similar event in March 1910 as seen below in the NCDC data plot: “””””
So we have an “experimental observation” occupying the last 110 years, from which some “valuable” numbers like trend rates and averages and the like have been computed. (well you can compute those things for any 110 years of totally arbitrary collected numbers too).
So to find out if any of those numbers; trends and averages are meaningful, then we should repeat the observations many times. We don’t have time to wait for any future 110 year long periods, so we will have to use some past periods.
Has anybody ever done any statistics covering say the last 1,000 periods of 110 year data to see if there is much variation from this latest result. Then we would have some idea whether there is any significance to the last 110 years of observations.
Smokey says:
April 17, 2012 at 9:10 pm
renewable guy says:
“You can to wood for trees and put in the different long term data and compare.”
OK, let’s do that: click
See, the long term temperature trend is steadily declining [green trend line]. It is obvious that there is no accelerated warming, and that global temperatures have steadily declined since the LIA.
But thanx for playing, and Vanna has some lovely parting gifts for you on your way out.☺
#################
Hadcrut 3 has cooling bias and yet shows warming. Sorry Smokey I disagree with you, that green line is increasing.
hadcrit 3 which is biased cool due to poor global coverage shows warming
1840 to aprox 2010
Trend: 0.44 ±0.07 °C/century (2σ)
There is now a Hadcrut 4 which takes into better account areas of the earth not covered previously in the norther hemisphere
Trend: 0.45 ±0.06 °C/century (2σ)
hadcrut 3 1980 to 2012
Trend: 1.49 ±0.50 °C/century (2σ)
hadcrut 4 1980 to 2012
Trend: 1.72 ±0.49 °C/century (2σ)
Both temperature records show an acceleration of warming in the last 30 years.
This is a clear example of how evidence supports global warming.
Here is a video of experts about the March weather and discussion around global warming.
renewable guy,
The trend line is declining, not accelerating as you claim. Hadcrit [sic] is unreliable. Satellite temperatures are reliable. And yes, global temperatures have been rising naturally since the LIA, whether CO2 was 280 ppmv, or 390 ppmv. The rise in CO2 has not caused the trend line to accelerate. What does that tell you?
I referred to the long term trend line since the LIA. Any short term selections are cherry-picking. The planet has been warming along the same trend line since the LIA, with the same fluctuations. If you have any understanding of the null hypothesis, then you know it falsifies the alternative hypothesis of temperatures accelerating beyond their normal, long term parameters. That is not happening.
Given the choice between empirical evidence, and true belief based on “adjusted” temperatures, I will accept what the planet is saying. You can believe what you want. But keep in mind that there are $7 – $8 billion in federal grants handed out every year to ‘study climate change’. That money does not go to scientists who point out that nothing unusual is occurring.
Smokey says:
April 18, 2012 at 12:10 pm
renewable guy,
The trend line is declining, not accelerating as you claim. Hadcrit [sic] is unreliable. Satellite temperatures are reliable. And yes, global temperatures have been rising naturally since the LIA, whether CO2 was 280 ppmv, or 390 ppmv. The rise in CO2 has not caused the trend line to accelerate. What does that tell you?
#########################
That is also magic wand thinking without having to explain how LIA came about and why we came out of the LIA. I’m not going to go into that right now. The earth in the past increased or decreased in temperature due to the different forcings. If you haven’t included that in your conversation, you are leaving a huge hole.
I would like to stick to the topic at hand. Here is another video with experts telling how the weather dynamics have changed due to melting polar ice. A great deal of it involves the jet stream.
Smokey says
Given the choice between empirical evidence, and true belief based on “adjusted” temperatures, I will accept what the planet is saying. You can believe what you want. But keep in mind that there are $7 – $8 billion in federal grants handed out every year to ‘study climate change’. That money does not go to scientists who point out that nothing unusual is occurring.
########################
You forgot to mention the one hurdle your view has to cross is peer review. If peer reviewed evidence can show that co2 is not causing the warming but something else is and why. That is a huge hurdle in terms of evidence. The carbon burning industry would love to have that kind of evidence be found and proven true. Can you talk about this?
Smokey, I gotta laugh when you say “Any short term selections are cherry-picking” after presenting cherry-picked short-term data (and throwing in a bait-and-switch to boot!).
Smokey, the graph YOU originally posted and discussed covers ~150 years — a good amount of time for climate studies.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/compress:12/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1840/to:2010/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/offset:0.15/detrend:-0.16/plot/hadcrut3vgl/trend/offset:-0.4/detrend:-0.18/plot/hadcrut3vgl/scale:0.00001/offset:1.5/plot/hadcrut3vnh/scale:0.00001/offset:-1.5
Do you seriously still claim that YOUR graph shows “It is obvious that there is no accelerated warming, and that global temperatures have steadily declined since the LIA.” My goodness! If temperatures declined since the LIA, it would be COLDER now than during the LIA!
Then you pull try pulling a “bait and switch”, posting a NEW graph which shows a short-term decline for about 2 years (which by your own words is “cherry-picking”). Yes, you can find numerous short-term declines over the last 150 years. Yes, it is even possible that this is indeed the start of a long-term downward cycle. But the short-term decline in no way refutes the general accelerated increase in temperature over the last ~ 150 years. Try doing a quadratic fit to the long-term data — I guarantee both the linear and quadratic terms will be positive (ie the data is increasing and accelerating).
Tim Folkerts,
As always, thank you for your opinion. It conflicts with the real world, but at least you can post it here. Note that I have posted many, many graphs and citations, including the chart you are complaining about — which overlaps the Ryan Maue chart that goes right up to today. Both show declines in global temperature. If there was accelerated warming, the charts would be rising, not falling. But you have your opinion. [BTW, thank you for pointing out my error. It was a mistake, which happens occasionally. Global temperatures have of course naturally risen since the LIA.]
. . .
renewable guy says:
“You forgot to mention the one hurdle your view has to cross is peer review.”
Nonsense. You still have no understanding of the scientific method. I am not making the CO2=CAGW conjecture. I am a true scientific skeptic: those putting forth that conjecture have the onus of showing that the evidence supports it. But they have failed to provide verifiable evidence supporting their conjecture.
Peer reviewed ‘evidence’ is not evidence at all, and the belief that global temperatures are controlled by a “CO2 control knob” [as chartered Team member A. Lacis claims] has zero testable evidence to support it. If there was any such evidence, then the climate sensitivity number would be known. It is not. Among many reputable climatologists, the number varies from zero to over 1ºC [discounting the IPCC’s preposterous WAG of 3+ºC].
Peer review simply means that someone has supposedly looked over a paper and found no glaring errors. But in climate it is pal review, as the repeatedly deconstructed Shakun et al. paper shows. So, enough with your appeals to a corrupt authority. There is better peer review here than at most journals, and that’s a fact. Read A.W. Montford’s The Hockey Stick Illusion, available on the right sidebar. It will open your eyes to the underhanded shenanigans endemic to climate peer review and climate journals.
Finally, your statement: “If peer reviewed evidence can show that co2 is not causing the warming but something else is and why” is the Argumentum ad Ignorantium fallacy: “Since I can’t think of anything besides CO2 that could cause global warming, then it must be caused by CO2.” That evidence-free fallacy is used by the alarmist crowd all the time. It presumes that everything is known about the climate. But as I showed upthread, there is no change in the long term trend from the LIA, therefore any warming caused by CO2 is so small that it is unmeasurable, if it exists at all.
You folks always make your arguments based on emotion, not logic; you do not understand the null hypothesis, you disregard Occam’s Razor, and you have the scientific method backward. Stick around here for a while, read the articles and comments, and just maybe, the scales will fall from your eyes.
renewable guy says:
April 18, 2012 at 11:51 am
Both temperature records show an acceleration of warming in the last 30 years.
See the graphs below. They show essentially identical 30 year slopes many years apart.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1900/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1912.33/to:1942.33/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1982.08/to:2012.08/trend
renewable guy:
You support your assertion that global warming is “accelerating” by stating at April 18, 2012 at 11:51 am;
“hadcrit 3 which is biased cool due to poor global coverage shows warming
1840 to aprox 2010
Trend: 0.44 ±0.07 °C/century (2σ)
There is now a Hadcrut 4 which takes into better account areas of the earth not covered previously in the norther hemisphere
Trend: 0.45 ±0.06 °C/century (2σ)”
Sarc on/ Clearly, as you assert and according to the data you provide, global warming is accelerating; i.e.
If one ignores the error ranges then global warming increased from 0.44 °C/century to 0.45 °C/century in the months between final publication of HadCRUT3 and first publication of HadCRUT4. /Sarc off
However, both data sets show there has been no global warming for the last 15 years.
So, please explain how “acceleration” equates to a trend reducing from to 0.44 °C/century since 1840 to zero°C/century since 1997.
And an assertion that 15 years is “too short” will not wash. You are claiming “acceleration” so you need to provide evidence to justify it. The data sets you cite deny “acceleration”. Indeed, they imply (but do not show because of lack of statistical significance) that global warming is decelerating.
Richard
Friends:
I wish to point out that there is a deliberate error in my above post addressed to ‘renewable guy’.
The error is that I used an end-point-fallacy.
The data is cyclic with 30-year alternate periods of warming and cooling added to the long-term warming trend from the LIA. Hence, the stasis of the last 15 years is probably similar to the stasis of the 30-year period from ~1940 to ~1970.
As Werner Brozek points out (with a link) at April 18, 2012 at 1:59 pm, there is no evidence of any change in the trends when this periodicity is acknowledged. Hence, any claim of “acceleration” or “deceleration” since 1840 is spurious. The trend has decelerated over the last 30 years but this is fully accounted by the periodicity.
The reason for my deliberate error is that AR4 used exactly the same end-point-fallacy to ‘prove’ the asserted acceleration: I have used that same trick to show the opposite using more recent data.
Richard
“Both show declines in global temperature. If there was accelerated warming, the charts would be rising, not falling. ”
The point is that 2 years of cooling is WAY to short of a time frame for drawing the “cooling conclusion” you seem so intent on making.
The 150 yr data shows an upward slope, with an acceleration
The 20 year data would (I suspect) show a larger upward slope, but with a deceleration.
The 2 year data shows a downward slope, with probably no significant acceleration or deceleration.
So the interpretation depends on the time frame you look at. Perhaps the recent year-time-scale downward slope and the decade-time-scale downward acceleration will translate to a century-time-scale downward slope and downward acceleration, but we are certainly not there yet.
I don’t have time to look at all your other charts. My impression from a quick glance (and other glances at other times) is that many of them are interesting and valid, but that many of them cherry-pick or don’t really say what you think they do. For a quick example, you say global temperatures have remained on the same trendline, but then link to Central England temperatures (bad practice in wording). Furthermore, the graph is intentionally scaled to make the trend look small (bad practice in graphing) . Finally, the last few decade (and the first few for that matter) show a large deviation above the trendline, indicating that the trendline is NOT a good fit for the last few decades (bad practice in interpretation).
Richard S Courtney
1997 to 2012
Trend: 0.84 ±1.52 °C/century (2σ)
1995 to 2012
Trend: 1.36 ±1.30 °C/century (2σ)
Quite a difference between the two in just two short years. That’s what they mean
by the variance in the data. 1995 produces a great deal of difference. This is also why they talk about the 95% significance.
Richard
As Werner Brozek points out (with a link) at April 18, 2012 at 1:59 pm, there is no evidence of any change in the trends when this periodicity is acknowledged. Hence, any claim of “acceleration” or “deceleration” since 1840 is spurious. The trend has decelerated over the last 30 years but this is fully accounted by the periodicity.
#####################
1982 to 2012 30 years
Trend: 1.85 ±0.54 °C/century (2σ)
1952 to 1982
Trend: 0.11 ±0.58 °C/century (2σ)
1922 to 1952
Trend: 0.97 ±0.56 °C/century (2σ)
Here are the different 30 year trends back to 1922. Warming increase has varied like it has been doing in the last 30 years. There are some shorter cooling trends, but the overall average is warming.
Werner Brozak,
Interesting WFT graph, thanks. And this graph shows that the effect of CO2 is much smaller than claimed. [I have lots of similar graphs if renewable guy or anyone else is interested. They all show the same non-corellation with temperature.]
There has been steady, natural global warming since the LIA. But real evidence is lacking showing that CO2 is a major factor. The effect of CO2, if any, is too small to measure.
I forgot to label the last two posts. The data came from hadcrut 4
renewable guy says:
April 18, 2012 at 6:49 pm
I forgot to label the last two posts. The data came from hadcrut 4
Are you able to get the 2 sigma error bars as well from WFT? If so, I would be happy to know how. Thanks! By the way, Hadcrut4 only goes to December 2010 so a relatively cold 2011 is not included yet.
Richard S Courtney says:
April 18, 2012 at 2:15 pm
However, both data sets show there has been no global warming for the last 15 years.
Hadcrut3 certainly shows this with a slope of 0 for 15 years, especially if the February anomaly ever gets posted. As for Hadcrut4, I am assuming you mean with error bars and within 2 standard deviations. Is that correct? The way I see it, the slope for Hacrut4 WOULD be 0 for 11 years and 4 months IF it were up to date. (It stops in December 2010 now.) Here is how I arrived at that conclusion.
HADCRUT4 only goes to December 2010 so I had to be a bit creative. What I did was get the slope of HADCRUT3 from December 2000 to December 2010. Then I got the slope of HADCRUT3 from December 2000 to the present. The DIFFERENCE in slope was 0.00607 – 0.00165 = 0.00442 lower for the latter. The positive slope for HADCRUT4 was 0.00408. So IF HADCRUT4 were totally up to date, I conclude it would show no slope for at least 11 years and 4 months going back to December 2000. (It could be a month longer if the February anomaly for HADCRUT3 of 0.19 is ever officially published. On the basis of what GISS says about March, March would not change things either.) See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000.9/to:2011/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000.9/trend
Werner Brozek:
Thankyou for your post at April 18, 2012 at 9:56 pm. I agree all it says and I confirm you are right when you say to me;
“As for Hadcrut4, I am assuming you mean with error bars and within 2 standard deviations. Is that correct?”
Richard
renewable guy:
Your post at April 18, 2012 at 6:39 pm indicates that you failed to understand my posts at April 18, 2012 at 2:15 pm and April 18, 2012 at 2:33 pm.
Yes, there has been warming. It is the recent part of the warming from the LIA which has been happening for centuries. But there is no evidence – none zilch, nada – that there has been any change in the rate of that warming recently.
As I said;
“As Werner Brozek points out (with a link) at April 18, 2012 at 1:59 pm, there is no evidence of any change in the trends when this periodicity is acknowledged. Hence, any claim of “acceleration” or “deceleration” since 1840 is spurious. The trend has decelerated over the last 30 years but this is fully accounted by the periodicity.”
You seem to have been duped by a statistical trick used by the IPCC in AR4. As I said;
“The reason for my deliberate error is that AR4 used exactly the same end-point-fallacy to ‘prove’ the asserted acceleration: I have used that same trick to show the opposite using more recent data.”
I do not know how I could be more clear than by saying
1.
there is no evidence – none zilch, nada – that there has been any recent change in the rate of warming from the LIA
and,
2.
(as Smokey says) the absence of such change means the recent warming is fully explainable as being completely natural.
You may not like or want to accept those two facts, but they are indisputable facts. Of course, they do not rule out the possibility of an anthropogenic effect on the warming, but there is no evidence that such a putative anthropogenic effect is discernible.
Richard
Smokey, your graph looks a whole lot different with a more realistic “fit” drawn on it.
https://sites.google.com/site/sciencestatsandstuff/misleading-graphs
“I have lots of similar graphs if renewable guy or anyone else is interested. ”
Yes, I suspect you do have a lot more poorly done graphs (and I am also sure, some good ones, too). Maybe you can vet them a bit more before posting them.
Tim Folkerts,
The graphs copied in your link are not misleading. But the commentary is. Here is a graph from a completely different and very credible source, which shows the same non-relationship between CO2 and global temperatures.
Where is your god now? Why is he not saving you by causing accelerating temperatures? If your god existed, that’s what he would do.
richard,
WIth you nada zilch point of view, you are definitely in the right place for your validation for it.
Smokey says “Where is your god now? Why is he not saving you ”
Say what ???
I am quite content with my own personal views on god and religion, and whether or not I am saved has nothing to do with the infrared properties of gases. What do my religious views (or yours or anyone else’s) have to do with a graph? If this was a poor attempt at sarcasm or humor, you might want to re-consider your approach.
(Or perhaps the moderators might want to snip this comment AND yours to avoid religious topics that are banned at WUWT.)
Smokey says: “Here is a graph from a completely different and very credible source, which shows the same non-relationship between CO2 and global temperatures.”
Ah! but that is where you are wrong! This graph is much better than the last one.
1) This graph is global temperatures, not US, so it should more closely follow CO2.
2) This graph has about HALF the slopes that the other one did! I specifically commented that your earlier graph was exaggerating the slopes, and this graph provides the confirmation. Thanks.
My one complaint about your new graph would be the odd starting point. I can understand starting the graph when the CO2 data starts — that is logical. But the temperature data is curiously plotted for about a year prior to the CO2 data. And even more curiously, this is about exactly the amount of time the temperatures remain fairly high, including that extra spike to draw the eye upward. If they had added one more year, the temperatures would plunge. If they included yet another year, the temperature would spike lower than any other point on the graph. All of a sudden, that cooling trend from 1957-1976 would not look so robust.
It’s almost as if they cherry-picked the starting date for the temperature data simply to highlight their agenda ….
Tim F says:
“…to avoid religious topics that are banned at WUWT.”
You thought that was religious?? You have no sense of humor. I was just razzing you with a phrase that someone would say to a witch doctor. Mainstream climatology has a witch doctor quality, no? Yes: ‘CO2 is bad juju!’
As for your long, nitpicky criticism of Ole Humlum’s chart, he has dozens of similar charts on his excellent site at http://climate4you.com with lots of different time scales. You should check it out. Might learn something.