Update and confirmation of 'Global warming stopped 16 years ago' aka 'the pause'

Therefore a correct statistical statement is that the data show a trend of 0.0 ± 0.1°C
An even better statistical statement is that the R value (or R^2 value) for any linear fit is absurdly small, in this case around 0.01 or even smaller (if I’m doing the arithmetic in my head correctly, always open to doubt:-).
However, neither of the statements above are truly statistically meaningful because we don’t know the underlying timescales or functional forms of the natural, unforced variation. What we do know is that the temperature series is not composed of the means of independent, identically distributed samples. It is possible that the “pause” is itself pure statistical noise in a long term warming trend. It could be that the “pause” is the peak before a long term downward trend. It could be that the pause isn’t a pause, it is a new more or less steady state that will last decades with minor variations up or down. What is almost certain is that on a time scale of centuries the climate will move up or down a degree C or more, at least it has fairly consistently varied by that much or more in the historical (instrumental and non-instrumental) past and much more than that in the prehistorical past known only by proxies.
One of my favorite forms of amusement in the past has been watching Monte Carlo results as they evolve out of a Markov Chain of one sort or another, often one where the actual functional form of the result is known either analytically or to a very high approximation. The results, especially in or near a critical regime, do not generally reflect that underlying analytic form particularly well until one has a lot of iid data, many runs. It makes the efforts of those who are trying to extract the analytical “signal” from the non-Markovian, chaotic, sparsely sampled, error-laden temperature data equally amusing.
One day Bob Tisdale will marry his SST data up with Koutsoyiannis’s Hurst-Kolmogorov analysis and we’ll actually start using the approximately correct Markov process to model the global data. Sometime after that — perhaps another decade or three — with a good enough instrumental record that actually spans full cycles of the major decadal oscillations, and with a lot more data on how the Sun by means known and (currently) unknown influences global climate we may be able to go beyond numerology and make statements about what is trend and what is noise in climate science.
At the moment, the “pause” could be (as the CAGW enthusiasts allege) just that, a pause in a process of runaway global warming driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gases (a possibility skeptics would do well to keep in mind as it is far from disproven — so far). Or it could be — almost anything else you can imagine. We just don’t know, because predicting the climate a decade or two from now is pissing into an F5 tornado, metaphorically speaking. We might as well contact somebody from the psychic ads section of the National Enquirer to get their take on it as listen to the IPCC or climate researchers, and this is acknowledged by the more honest of the latter.
We don’t know how to predict what the temperature would be or should be in the absence of human-produced CO_2 (or aerosols, ozone, methane, particulate dust, agricultural runoff in the Gulf of Mexico or Bay of Bengal, goats, and macro-scale wheat farms that have replaced forests across the temperate zone. We don’t know how to “predict” what it appears to have been in the past. We don’t know what it is going to do in the future. Not even in very broad terms, not really. Hell, at the moment, I’m not even certain what the weather is going to do in the short run — ENSO went south, metaphorically, the wooly caterpillars are extra wooly (but might have been as confused by ENSO as we humans are), the sun is approaching its feeble solar maximum (feeble yes, but still maximum for the cycle) and besides, the weather we experience in NC is as much a function of what happens to the jet stream as it is of winter cooling per se, and the jet stream is influenced by all of the major oscillations AFAICT. So it’s a crap shoot. Long, cold and snowy? Maybe. Warm enough to sunbathe in January? It was back in 1975 and several times since — it may be once again. Even NOAA refuses to say — ENSO has confused them too.
Predicting the weather is easy. The weather today is most likely to be like the weather yesterday, modulated by an easy seasonal adjustment. That simple prediction will be right more than half the time. Predicting the climate? Not so much.
rgb

Judith Curry wants us to acknowledge the “pause”, how does she know, it could be a peak not a pause on the way up.
See my reply. The “pause” bit is simply acknowledging that it has been statistically indistinguishable from no trend for over a decade, even as it has a very strong warming trend over (say) four decades, a somewhat weaker trend over six decades, and a stronger trend again over a century to a century and a half, a very strong trend if you go back 350 years, a very weak trend if you go back a thousand years, and a negative trend if you go back some two thousand years.
We do not know how to predict the baseline temperature the Earth “should” have absent all noise. We do not even know if such a concept is meaningful — the Earth is a non-Markovian chaotic system with numerous positive and negative feedbacks and a very long “memory effect” associated with the century-plus scale of turnover in the oceans — the butterfly effect means that our climate in a decade could be influenced by things like whether or not I sneeze today — the best we can do is produce an ensemble of possible future climates even with modeling, one so broad that even the “average” over this ensemble is most unlikely to be what actually works out.
So sure, it could be a peak, a pause, or a new more or less (at least transiently) steady state. Time will tell.
It does have one very interesting consequence. Back in 1997 (and before) various predictions were made concerning future temperature trajectories given various levels of presumed climate sensitivity/feedback. Every year that the current trendless trend continues actually provides us with valuable data as it permits us to reject the more extreme of those sensitivities as being inconsistent with observation. Indeed, sensitivity is being systematically reduced AR to AR, even by the IPCC, because the data simply doesn’t support the more catastrophic values. This, more than anything else, is why catastrophic warmism is on the decline and lukewarmism on the rise.
One can, of course play logical fallacy bingo with this:
http://lifesnow.com/bingo/
and claim that refusal to accept this (by those that are still so refusing) is moving the goalposts, just as they can (and do) claim that pointing it out is cherrypicking the data (while of course filling in all of the squares for things like Argumentum ad Populum, Appeal to Fear, Special Pleading, Opinion stated as Fact…).
I’ve suggested to Anthony that he permanently post links to Logical Fallacy Bingo off to the side on his site, so that we can all play with all the top articles — both pro and con. I think it would be most instructive for everybody, and might even impose a certain discipline on the discussion (I can think of many times where I would have gotten “bingo” from a single post on a WUWT thread, again both ways).
For example, let me terrorize you with the threat of rising seas and melting polar icecaps and dying polar bears and penguins, or with a cabal of evil Liberals who want to raise taxes and create a world socialism. They’re both an appeal to fear. Let’s invoke “96% of all scientists” by all means — it fills in a lot of squares, but when skeptics claim certain knowledge that the current temperatures are a peak and they will go down with the sunspot level, that fills in a few for the other side as well (nobody wants to acknowledge the truth, which is that we don’t really know what they will do, or why they will end up doing what they end up doing, at least not yet). We can all revel in False Dilemmas galore — choosing between world socialism and accepting AGW, choosing between catastrophic AGW and carbon futures that enrich selected humans now without actually solving the problem (but beware the Nirvana fallacy on both sides).
rgb

It’s hard to acknowledge the truth of global warming when the factual reality interferes with the political ideology you are planning to make the basis for a redesigned and planned economy worldwide. Remember perceptions of reality matter to future individual behavior more than actual reality. Falsehoods believed prevail in other words when it comes to incentives to act or not. But then actual reality does win out in the end in terms of the consequences of all this manipulation of people and economies and societies through modelling and education based on the false premise of catastrophic manmade global warming.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/squelching-climate-skepticism-while-employing-operant-conditioning-tactics-against-schoolchildren/ is the write up of the US National Academy of Sciences report I mentioned on using education, K-14, to eliminate climate skepticism as if this were the Soviet Union and we all need M-L approved political officers to monitor that all decisions are consistent with the ideology. The report also mentioned how the new science standards will be controversial so the squelching should come in covertly through systems thinking in all academic subjects. Which of course asserts that there is such a thing as a single Unified science instead of social sciences and natural and physical sciences. There goes the science of the Enlightenment by ed school fiat.
So, whatever the temps and whatever the weather, it is hard for the politicians and bureaucrats and crony businesses planning to cash in on being a preferred state approved monopolist vendor of a mandated good or service to give up their AGW trophy. Because they hate free markets and they hate individualism and AGW is the perfect excuse to bind Prometheus back up and shift to an aristocracy of pull.
At our considerable expense. And that’s before the inevitable cleanup since reality will bite in the end even if it remains unknown and unperceived.

Chuck says:
October 21, 2012 at 7:34 am
IT IS ALL ABOUT SUNSPOT ACTIVITY IN OUR PLACE IN TIME AND SPACE…
________________
Leif in 5-4-3-

Grey Monk said nuclear sub atmospheres had between700 and 2000 ppm CO2
I think that is way too low GM….
“Data collected on nine nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines indicate an average CO2 concentration of 3,500 ppm with a range of 0-10,600 ppm, and data collected on 10 nuclear-powered attack submarines indicate an average CO2 concentration of 4,100 ppm with a range of 300-11,300 ppm (Hagar 2003). – page 46”
That is for 3-6 months and they still have to press the same buttons/levers/keys/switches at the end of the voyage as at the start!

The Met made the comment that the platueau could contine for some time. I suspect they are expecting further La Nina domination along with a cooling East Pacific due to upwelling cold water which in turn will in turn intensify the marine layer (low clouds) which inhibits the radiative heating of the ocean. The colder water will inhibit evaporation and bring low humidity and drought to Western North and South America. They will discover the power of natural feedbacks.

rgbatduke on October 21, 2012 at 7:51 am
However, neither of the statements above are truly statistically meaningful because we don’t know the underlying timescales or functional forms of the natural, unforced variation. What we do know is that the temperature series is not composed of the means of independent, identically distributed samples. [ . . . ]

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rgbatduke,
A noteworthy discussion which I will reread often.
I appreciate the above quote from your long post. It will help me keep perspective when decadal timescales are considered while discussing climate science.
John