This article and graphic from David Rose in the UK Daily Mail has caused quite a stir as we covered it here over the weekend. The Met Office has responded exactly as one would expect they would and I repeat their response below.
From the Met Office WordPress blog:
An article by David Rose appears today in the Mail on Sunday under the title: ‘Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it’
It is the second article Mr Rose has written which contains some misleading information, after he wrote an article earlier this year on the same theme – you see our response to that one here.
To address some of the points in the article published today:
Firstly, the Met Office has not issued a report on this issue. We can only assume the article is referring to the completion of work to update the HadCRUT4 global temperature dataset compiled by ourselves and the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit.
We announced that this work was going on in March and it was finished this week. You can see the HadCRUT4 website here.
Secondly, Mr Rose says the Met Office made no comment about its decadal climate predictions. This is because he did not ask us to make a comment about them.
You can see our full response to all of the questions Mr Rose did ask us below:
Hi David,
Here’s a response to your questions. I’ve kept them as concise as possible but the issues you raise require considerable explanation.
Q.1 “First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.”
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period, but equally we could calculate the linear trend from 1999, during the subsequent La Nina, and show a more substantial warming.
As we’ve stressed before, choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system. If you use a longer period from HadCRUT4 the trend looks very different. For example, 1979 to 2011 shows 0.16°C/decade (or 0.15°C/decade in the NCDC dataset, 0.16°C/decade in GISS). Looking at successive decades over this period, each decade was warmer than the previous – so the 1990s were warmer than the 1980s, and the 2000s were warmer than both. Eight of the top ten warmest years have occurred in the last decade.
Over the last 140 years global surface temperatures have risen by about 0.8ºC. However, within this record there have been several periods lasting a decade or more during which temperatures have risen very slowly or cooled. The current period of reduced warming is not unprecedented and 15 year long periods are not unusual.
Q.2 “Second, tell me what this says about the models used by the IPCC and others which have predicted a rise of 0.2 degrees celsius per decade for the 21st century. I accept that there will always be periods when a rising gradient may be interrupted. But this flat period has now gone on for about the same time as the 1980 – 1996 warming.”
The models exhibit large variations in the rate of warming from year to year and over a decade, owing to climate variations such as ENSO, the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. So in that sense, such a period is not unexpected. It is not uncommon in the simulations for these periods to last up to 15 years, but longer periods are unlikely.
Q.3 “Finally, do these data suggest that factors other than CO2 – such as multi-decadal oceanic cycles – may exert a greater influence on climate than previously realised?”
We have limited observations on multi-decadal oceanic cycles but we have known for some time that they may act to slow down or accelerate the observed warming trend. In addition, we also know that changes in the surface temperature occur not just due to internal variability, but are also influenced by “external forcings”, such as changes in solar activity, volcanic eruptions or aerosol emissions. Combined, several of these factors could account for some or all of the reduced warming trend seen over the last decade – but this is an area of ongoing research.
———–
The below graph which shows years ranked in order of global temperature was not included in the response to Mr Rose, but is useful in this context as it illustrates the point made above that eight of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past decade.
Graph showing years ranked in order of global temperature.
=======================================================
One wonders what the Met Office would say about the data if the many circular adjustments and artificial biases were removed from the data.
Who are you gonna believe? The Met Office…. or your lyin’ eyes?
But CO2 levels have continued to rise in the last 16 years – so temperatures must have risen – this means that the adjustments to the raw data simply need to be re-corrected.
(Contribution from the Lewandowsky-Jones school of cognitive logic and Excel tutoring, Western Australia & Eastern Anglia, ‘green consultancy work and payola are our specialty’).
in case barry woods is about the place!
re nick palmer and the “denialist” comments on the Met Office page, note:
Palmer: “People here who confuse the accumulating warming due to extra greenhouse gases with the temperature records are like those in a place like Jersey, (which has up to a 40 foot tidal range) confusing waves with the incoming tide…”
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/met-office-in-the-media-14-october-2012/
Aug 2011: Jersey Evening Post: Nick Palmer. Jersey Climate Action Network: Beware the arguments which contradict the work that is done on climate science
Palmer in the Comments: It was the scientific method that proved that the earth was round and that it went round the Sun. You seem to think that what the popular “commonsense” view at the time was, was the scientific view. This type of distorted presentation of the facts is very characteristic of the junk-think of denialists. They are really unbearably thick and over-confident in their belief in their own abilities. Don’t listen to them. They are mad, bad and dangerous to know
http://www.thisisjersey.com/latest/2011/08/03/beware-the-arguments-which-contradict-the-work-that-is-done-on-climate-science/
Skeptical Science: Nil Illegitimi Carborundum
Posted on 1 July 2012 by Glenn Tamblyn
Few people have received more vitriol and unjustified abuse than Dr. Phil Jones at the University of East Anglia, but until recently few of us knew just how vile the threats and malice had been…
So the Author Team at Skeptical Science would like to offer Phil Jones all the moral and emotional support we can (and all his colleagues who may have experienced similar abuse). To this end we will shortly be sending Phil a letter of support from all of us here at SkS.
An Invitation to Our Readership
If you want to add your name to this letter, please do so by indicating your willingness by a simple entry in the comments section of this post (your name and country will suffice)…
The text of the letter will be as follows…
Comments 251 to 300 out of 328…
280. Nick Palmer at 03:09 AM on 4 July, 2012
Jersey, Channel Islands …
http://www.skepticalscience.com/news.php?p=6&t=328&&n=1506
The Met Office’s reply has been met with a stinging reply.
http://www.thegwpf.org/the-mail-on-sunday-and-the-met-office/
No more adjustments available, too many people watching..
Urban areas have swallowed most of the land thermometers that can be swallowed.
They have got rid of most of the rural ones and remote one. where did they all go ??
Of course the calculated urban land temp has leveled off.
Now watch it start dropping over the next few years, and not even GISS or HADCRUD will be able to stop it.
as for Jeff Gazzard, Aviation Environment Federation, who comments on the Met Office page:
“Dear Dave Britton and all colleagues at the Met Office: I’ll keep this simple – please keep up the good work! Those of us at the environment lobbying/campaigning coalface (whoops!) really appreciate your applied meteorological science and these good-humoured responses to Mr Rose and his acolytes witterings.”
16 May 2012: Air Transport World: EU: Chinese, Indian airlines fail to comply with ETS
COMMENT by Jeff Gazzard Aviation Environment Federation
So from the grandiose “coalition of the unwilling”, the more-than-20 countries who seemingly signed up in Moscow and then New Delhi a couple of months ago to fight the EU aviation ETS, there are now 2 entirely predictable refuseniks: China and India. Today there are just 10 airlines from these 2 states representing less than 3% of total aviation emissions. So the bottom line is more than 1,200 airlines from all other countries except China and India have complied. I believe this is a significant and successful outcome by any standard.
I look forward to sanctions being applied to Chinese and Indian airlines for any continued non-compliance: the respective EU member state regulators will have our support 100% if and when penalties become necessary.
COMMENT BY ANONYMOUS:
Has anyone noticed that each and every article about the ETS by ATW, Jeffrey is always the first to comment? I think he is getting a kickback from ATW to start the debate by expressing a very arrogant and self righteous position. It would appear he is informed of the article before it is released. Anyone agree with this observation?
COMMENT BY JEFF GAZZARD: Not so, I’m afraid. No kickbacks from ATW – as a reputable journal they wouldn’t offer them and I certainly wouldn’t accept. What a really odd thing to say! Secondly, my ability to comment fast is a trade secret…
http://atwonline.com/operations-maintenance/news/eu-chinese-indian-airlines-fail-comply-ets-0515
saudi arabia can now be added to the countries mentioned below, so Gazzard has a lot of countries to sanction:
26 Sept: Business Aviaton Law Blog:
Last week, the National Business Aviation Association (“NBAA”) continued its support for increased pressure and direct measures that would curb efforts of the European Union to include the U.S. aviation sector in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (“EU-ETS”). The NBAA joined forces with 18 other aviation-related associations in an advocacy coalition…
2 Aug:
The United States Departments of State and Transportation hosted 16 countries from July 31 to August 1, 2012 to discuss alternatives to the controversial scheme. Countries participating were Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Nigeria, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates…
This meeting follows a February gathering in Moscow of 20 countries which agreed on retaliatory measures if the EU-ETS’s inclusion of non-EU aircraft continues moving ahead…
http://www.businessaviationlawblog.com/tags/euets/
This appears to be one of the ten most dishonest reports ever issued by the Met. And I would bet if we ranked their reports from most to least dishonest the top ten would fill the current decade.
I followed the link to the hadcrut4 site. Itz worth it to take a look at the global anomaly map. I was very surprised at how much area actually has negative anomalies in comparison to the 1961 to 1990 reference period. Mostly in the oceans. On the other hand most of Africa and Siberia have no data at all and appear to be adjacent to (in part anyway) in low or negative anomaly areas.
the third defender of the Met using “denial” is julesbollocks:
“David Rose as part of the denial-sphere is becoming increasingly irreverent”
two links on the following page from julesbollocks, one on christopher booker, the other on andrew montford. both links take u to the website: “the climate deniers list”:
Christopher Booker
julesbollocks wrote 3 weeks ago: Christopher Booker- journalist [although that is being kind, opinionated would be more accurate. Wri … more
Andrew William Montford
julesbollocks wrote 7 months ago: Andrew William Montford is an English writer and editor who is the owner of the Bishop Hill blog He … more
http://en.wordpress.com/tag/jounalist/
I think the first scalp has been taken.
The revelation came moments after Mr. McGuinty said he had asked the Lieutenant-Governor to prorogue Parliament amid continuing fallout from a scandal over the politically motivated cancellation of two power plants…
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/10/15/its-time-for-renewal-dalton-mcguinty-shocks-queens-park-with-surprise-resignation/
Intersting that they talk about the PDO and AMDO, whereas most other alarmists simply ignore them, such as the Australian Academy of Science in its reponse to Plimer’s latest book-How to get expelled from school. Makes interesting reading as the current state of the consensus.
http://www.climatechange.gov.au/climate-change/understanding-climate-change/response-to-prof-plimer.aspx
Steve C says
“With more, let’s say independent forecasters inclining to the view that temps are about to head downhill over the next decade or two, ”
This view is rapidly becoming the consensus view.It’s amazing that even the IPCC has finally been forced to pay attention to the real world. The most important thing they say in their 2011 SREX report is
“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.
Note uncertainty in the “sign” means they think the earth may even be cooling- but they still shy away from using the c word. In this SREX report they recognised that they could no longer scaremonger on the basis of the trend and so in that report and in the forthcoming AR5 they have chosen to concentrate on “extreme” events to promote their scaremongering anti CO2 policy propaganda.The core alarmists Hansen, Mann Trenberth McKibben and Romm and their female acolytes and the ecoleft media propagandists are simply following the IPCC script with their ever more hysterical predictions of future extreme disasters even as the real earth obstinately refuses to warm up.
Or you could apply an ounce of common sense. If you are interested in the warming/cooling trend plot the rate of change, not the damned temperature or anomaly! If you think that climate change is defined by some particular period, plot a moving average on that basis. Now you have a signal of your chosen resolution and can see what is actually happening. No linear trends, no silly arguments about start and stop points to hide behind.
Fine, so we’ll use 15 years then. Here’s your 15-year signal:
http://postimage.org/image/q67lzv253/full
And what do we see? On this basis warming started to decelerate in 1995 or so, gathering pace from about 2003. But we can’t see beyond 2005 so let’s switch to the annual signal:
http://postimage.org/image/lllfkxifr/full
But now we see all the noise from which you are disingenuously trying to show CAGW exists. So just for fun, let’s blow up that 72-month smoothed annual signal line and take a peek at that:
http://postimage.org/image/3k6w0vdsn/full
Pretty much the same thing, yes? But now we can see up to 2009 and that net cooling appears to have kicked in somewhere around 2007.
Finally, here are the raw year-on-year monthly deltas since 1970:
http://postimage.org/image/8wvqf01p3/full
Please explain why anyone should contribute one penny in taxes to fund the sheer stupidity of trying to discriminate a 15 year or longer signal from this level of noise that is an order of magnitude smaller than your ability to take a temperature reading, let alone fudge up some putative global average temperature to three decimal places. Someone somewhere really needs to get a grip on the purse strings.
Like Vladimir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot they’re now stuck waiting vainly for the warming to return. They’re sure it’s coming, if not today then tomorrow, if not this year then the next.
Jimbo says:
October 15, 2012 at 12:21 pm
“. . . the IPCC and the WMO use 30 years or more of weather data to define climate.”
The last word here should be normal.
The original purpose had nothing to do with the issue of climate change as that phrase is currently used. “Normal” was a number used to give folks a reference with which to compare the day’s weather in their local area.
“Climate” was understood to be a complex pattern of seasonal variables as described in the Köppen-Geiger system that early on included vegetation boundaries (involving costly and time intensive field work). Note in the map at the following link, the period was from 1951 – 2000.
http://www.holtz.org/Library/Images/Slideshows/Gallery/Maps/Koppen-Geiger%20climates.gif
Ric Werme says:
October 15, 2012 at 3:04 pm
“. . . El Niño. I don’t have time to dig up the definition, ”
Here is the pdf form:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
Definitions are on page 21.
Jim McCulley says:
October 15, 2012 at 3:23 pm
Jim provides a link to one of the most error-filled essays anyone can find. Please Jim, when linking to this sort of bs, give us a hint as there are better things to spend time reading.
Personally I was wondering what happened to 1940 – records from the Battle of Britain indicate that it was an unusually long and hot summer and it was this that the Germans took advantage of to extend the battle as long as they did. According to the “new think” 1940 was not unusual at all – perhaps the whole thing is a figment of my imagination, perhaps there was no Battle of Britain, perhaps there was no Dunkirk (also unusual weather) perhpas there was no D-Day (also unusual weather), perhaps the whole thing never happened. Now who’s denying!
climatereason
The MO may use 0.2’C officially as the value of UHI, but in the UK TV weather forecast the assumed value is 3-4’C. The phrase “but 3′ coder in rural areas” is used all the time together with “much colder in rural areas”. Perhaps TV weather girls- sorry persons have a better idea of UHI thate the MO?
Goldie
re-writing weather history, I beleive that the winters after 1940 were cold, 1944 (Battle of the Bulge) certainly was and I think 1941-42 and of course 1947 which wasn’t equalled in the UK until 1963.
Oops, cocked up the anomaly plot on the deltas. Big oil cheque just arrived so here’s a refresh 😉 … http://postimage.org/image/pzp6kgzkj/full
Does the word “warming” have the same meaning in GB?
Where I come from warming means the temp is slowly rising. If the temp is staying the same we say it is “still warm” “maintaining temp” “leveled out” but never warming.
To even make the statement that 8 out of 10 are the warmest is utterly misleading and bereft of basic intellectual honesty.
The theory being discessued iis global warming, not global staying warm.
SandyInLimousin says, October 15, 2012 at 11:36 pm
Sorry, didn’t you know? Rock and Roll just got backdated. Elvis really has left the building.
http://postimage.org/image/i3icj28u1/full
Noise? What noise? Sorry, can’t hear you. Can you speak up? No. Sorry call back later.
If CO2 were the main forcer, the temp would track the CO2 level. And if for some reason the temp were to lag, like 1945-1770 or the current slump, the temp would race to regain the proper relation to the CO2 curve. Instead, the slumps seem to be cumulative.
Conclusion? Something else is at work here, and whatever it is, there seems to be a 30-year cycle.