Apparently, one of the proudest achievements of the website SkepticalScience is their “Down the Up Escalator” gif animation. They prominently display it in their right sidebar. The intent of the animation is to show that global temperature anomalies can flatten or cool over decadal or shorter periods while warming over the long term.
The first version was created using the Berkley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) land surface air temperature dataset. That, of course, made SkepticalScience appear two-faced, because the papers associated with the BEST dataset had not yet appeared in any peer-reviewed scientific journals and SkepticalScience downplays any research efforts that haven’t been peer reviewed.
ONE OF THE TRENDS IN THE REVISED ESCALATOR IS MISREPRESENTED
Bogus Escalator
In an effort to distract from their duplicity, SkepticalScience revised and reissued the animation (modified screen cap above), using the average of the GISS LOTI, HADCRUT4, and NCDC land surface air plus sea surface temperature anomaly datasets. If you were to click on the mini “Escalator” animation along the right-hand side of their main page, you’re brought to the updated GISS-, UK Met Office- and NCDC-based Escalator. SkepticalScience describes “The Escalator” animation as (my boldface):
Average of GISS, NCDC, and HadCRUT4 monthly global surface temperature anomalies from January 1970 through August 2012 (green) with linear trends applied to the timeframes Jan ’70 – Oct ’77, May ’77 – Dec ’85, Jan ’86 – June ’94, Nov ’94 – Dec ’00, Jan ’01 – Aug ’12.
You’ll note that they’re now calling it “The Escalator”—no longer calling it the “Down the Up Escalator”. Yet each of the steps in their escalator clearly shows a short-term trend that’s flat or cools slightly.
SkepticalScience misrepresented the trend of the “fourth step”. The time period they selected is November 1994 to December 2000. As it turns out, the only dataset that shows a flat trend during that period is the GISS Land-Ocean Temperature Index (LOTI). Both HADCRUT4 and NCDC have significant warming trends from November 1994 to December 2000 at about 0.08 to 0.09 deg C per decade. The average of the three datasets is approximately 0.06 deg C/decade, and that is a significant warming trend.
Actual Linear Trends During Fourth Step of Escalator
How significant is that 0.06 deg C per decade trend? It’s comparable to the trend in global surface temperatures since 1880.
GISS LOTI Global Surface Temperature Anomalies Since 1880
The following animation will give you an idea what “The Escalator” would look like if SkepticalScience had used the real linear trend for the fourth step. Depending on your browser, you may need to click on the following gif animation.
The Escalator With Actual Linear Trends
A COUPLE OF NOTES
As noted in my WUWT-TV presentation “The Natural Warming of the Global Oceans”, “The Escalator” is an exercise in cherry-picked start and end dates. Proponents of anthropogenic global warming will incorrectly cite “The Escalator” during my blog discussions of ENSO-related upward shifts in Atlantic-Indian-West Pacific (90S-90N, 80W-180) sea surface temperature anomalies. (In recent years, I typically present that dataset as the “Rest-of-the-World”, because I usually now start with the East Pacific data, which shows no warming over the entire 30-year term of the satellite era.) When the disciples of SkepticalScience link “The Escalator”, they are simply trying to distract from the process-caused shifts. Those natural processes were described in the WUWT-TV presentation and detailed with numerous datasets in my book Who Turned on the Heat?
Rest of the World Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies With Linear Trends
The above graph was presented in the post Does The Sea Surface Temperature Record Support The Hypothesis Of Anthropogenic Global Warming?
Proponents of anthropogenic global warming have another, related, inconsequential complaint about my research. They claim the decade-long time periods between the 1986/98/88, 1997/98 and 2009/10 El Niño events are too short for the trends to be significant. Curiously, when SkepticalScience is trying to make a point, they have no trouble presenting a series of decadal trends, and when SkepticalScience is trying to mislead their followers, they have no trouble misrepresenting the trend for a shorter 6-year period. Apparently, linear trends over periods as short as 6 years do have significance. Looks like another example of the double standards of the proponents of anthropogenic global warming.
In the next few days, I’ll present PBS’s sleight of hand about “The Escalator” when they presented it in their Frontline report Climate of Doubt. They were pretty blatant about it.
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Gail Combs says:
No, the relationship between the SUN and H2O is the main driver of our climate. Without the sun we are a block of frozen gases. The Milankovitch cycles show the sun’s impact as dependent on the earth’s relative position link The other biggy is the position of the continents. Look up the colliding, of the Pacific Plate and the Caribbean Plate.
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Total solar irradiance has mildly decreased while has mildly decreased while temperature has increased. The continetal drift is too slow to be relevent in the last 40 years. The same with milankovitch cycles.
Table 1: Trends in °C/decade of the signal components due to MEI, AOD and TSI in the regression of global temperature, for each of the five temperature records from 1979 to 2010.
MikeN says:
November 26, 2012 at 9:56 am
RenewableGuy, how do you propose to hold warming down to 2C when China and India are adding so many coal plants?
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It appears we will fly right on by it.
http://trillionthtonne.org/
renewableguy says:
“Total solar irradiance has mildly decreased while has mildly decreased while temperature has increased.”
Like the rest of renewableguy’s beliefs, he is wrong. TSI was low during the LIA, and has increased [not “mildly decreased”] since then.
When you get your misinformation from SkS, count on being proven wrong.
Gail Combs says:
Then there are the estimates based on OBSERVATION not models:
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications by Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi2
“As a result, the climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 is estimated to be 0.7 K (with the confidence interval 0.5K – 1.3 K at 99% levels). This observational result shows that model sensitivities indicated by the IPCC AR4 are likely greater than than the possibilities estimated from the observations.”
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If you choose to look at the graph, when Linzens view of climate sensitivity is plugged in, his low climate sensitivity does not reproduce the past instrumental temperature record. It has the worst reproduction of them all even compared to other skeptics.
Figure 1: Various best estimate global temperature predictions evaluated in the ‘Lessons from Past Climate Predictions’ series vs. GISTEMP (red). The warmer colors are generally mainstream climate science predictions, while the cooler colors are generally “skeptic” predictions.
D Böehm says:
November 26, 2012 at 11:50 am
renewableguy says:
“Total solar irradiance has mildly decreased while has mildly decreased while temperature has increased.”
Like the rest of renewableguy’s beliefs, he is wrong. TSI was low during the LIA, and has increased [not “mildly decreased”] since then.
When you get your misinformation from SkS, count on being proven wrong.
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I was refering to the last 40 years. At the beginning of the last century the solar activity was a little stronger than it is now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-cycle-data.png
renewableguy,
The TSI chart I linked to went from the 1600’s to 2001, which is eleven years ago, not 40 years ago. Your chart doesn’t even start until 1975. I think that is called “cherry-picking”. TSI has been rising since the LIA. You know — when CO2 was much lower.
And instead of quoting models, you would learn something by looking at the empirical evidence.
Real world evidence shows that the rise in CO2 is simply coincidental with the recovery from the Little Ice Age. There are no empirical measurements showing that X rise in CO2 causes Y rise in temperature. The only empirical measurements show that ∆T is the cause of ∆CO2, not vice versa.
So who should we believe: Pseudo-skeptical Pseudo-science? Or the real world, and our lying eyes?
D Böehm says:
November 26, 2012 at 11:50 am
renewableguy says:
“Total solar irradiance has mildly decreased while has mildly decreased while temperature has increased.”…
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And the IPCC has been doing everything they can to hide that fact. SEE: Judithgate
Do you have any info/paper to go with that graph BTW?
Then there are the estimates based on OBSERVATION not models:
On the Observational Determination of Climate Sensitivity and Its Implications by Richard S. Lindzen1 and Yong-Sang Choi2
“As a result, the climate sensitivity for a doubling of CO2 is estimated to be 0.7 K (with the confidence interval 0.5K – 1.3 K at 99% levels). This observational result shows that model sensitivities indicated by the IPCC AR4 are likely greater than than the possibilities estimated from the observations.” link
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There is an inherent level of risk associated with moving forward with enormous amounts of co2 being emitted into the atmosphere. If climate sensitivity runs high, we give our future generations a rough place to live in.
climate models
Climate models have predicted the least temperature rise would be on average 1.65°C (2.97°F) , but upper estimates vary a lot, averaging 5.2°C (9.36°F). Current best estimates are for a rise of around 3°C (5.4°F), with a likely maximum of 4.5°C (8.1°F).
emperical evidence
These calculations use data from sources like ice cores, paleoclimate records, ocean heat uptake and solar cycles, to work out how much additional heat the doubling of greenhouse gases will produce. The lowest estimate of warming is close to the models – 1.8°C (3.24°F ) on average – but the upper estimate is a little more consistent, at an average of around 3.5°C (6.3°F).
These calculations use data from sources like ice cores, paleoclimate records, ocean heat uptake and solar cycles, to work out how much additional heat the doubling of greenhouse gases will produce. The lowest estimate of warming is close to the models – 1.8°C (3.24°F ) on average – but the upper estimate is a little more consistent, at an average of around 3.5°C (6.3°F).
Tom in Indy says:
November 26, 2012 at 9:34 am
renewableguy says:
November 26, 2012 at 7:50 am
Over 90% of the heat goes into the oceans.
Then what happens? If AGW assumes nina’s/ninos are white noise, then how does continuous increase in CO2 cause random bursts of global heat over the period 1970 – present?
If you attribute these bursts of heat during the period to changes in CO2, then shouldn’t each step up in the chart be getting higher and higher? Or, at least the trend in step height be getting higher? 2 of the last 3 steps are shorter than the first
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I have noticed some skeptics believe that its just the El Ninos that warm the earth, when it isn’t really the case. 2011 was the warmest La Nina in the instrumental temperature record. Which to me is an indicator of a warming ocean.
http://planetsave.com/2012/01/20/2011-hottest-la-nina-year-on-record-eleventh-hottest-overall-noaa/
They didn’t say this in the article, but I believe it is with removal of different natural variations and this is the warming that is left from all the different temperature records.
http://c1planetsavecom.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/files/2011/12/global-warming-signal-e1324566531618.jpg
@ur momisugly renewableguy
I’ve read your amusing banter here. You seem to be missing something important to back up your claims about the recent 15 year plateau in the temps. There are, of course many things to say about the global temp average and it’s usefulness or lack thereof, but putting that aside for now, let’s review the theory.
Prior to the industrial revolution, the earth was at a supposed quasi equilibrium. According to warmists, as the earth gained atmospheric CO2, the earth warmed, because of it. Temperature, (the measurement of heat transfer) increased because the earth was emitting more IR as a response. This would then be an ever increasing phenomena. What mechanism is described as causing a cessation of increasing of temps against the backdrop of ever increasing aCO2? IR travels at the speed of light, no?
Gail Combs,
The graph is from here.
And I see that renewableguy is cherry-picking again, with his chart of temperatures beginning in 1980 [with a real scary y-axis]. This is why he cherry-picked 1980. Look at what happened before then. No global warming.
Now, I won’t be able to change renewableguy’s mind, which is belief-based and closed airtight. But for other readers, here is a long term trend chart showing that the steady rise in temperatures since the LIA has been quite linear, with no recent acceleration at all. The planet has warmed at the same rate for hundreds of years. It did not matter if CO2 was low, or high: the warming trend has remained the same.
Inescapable conclusion: any warming due to CO2 is too small to measure, therefore CO2 can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes.
MikeN says:
November 26, 2012 at 9:58 am
So the overall decade of 2000s was warmer than 1990s, with no dropoff in trend.
Yes, the 2000s were warmer than the 1990s, but please look at the following and explain why there is “no dropoff in trend” in the 2000s.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1990/plot/rss/from:1990/trend/plot/rss/from:2000/trend
Greg House says:
“Gail, I opened the first 5 links you presented and, frankly, I am not surprised: all of them are completely irrelevant, they contain neither description of even a single physical experiment in question nor a link to such an experiment.
I just hope it was not an act of obfuscation and you simply did not understand the topic.”
Gail Combs says: “I started with the theoretical physics. […] I have not run the actual experiment so I can not verify the results. Perhaps someone with access to very sensitive…”
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which means that you do not know any, and indicates that probably none exists, which means that that your warming “radiative forcing caused by CO2” is a pure fiction, unproven scientifically.
Gail Combs says:
We are already seeing a stop in warming in the global sea surface temperatures according to the EPA graph, and the expected El Niño has not developed. The Update prepared by the Climate Prediction Center / NCEP on
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Its such a short time interval, that to say the ocean won’t warm anymore I think is premature.
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/science/indicators/oceans/sea-surface-temp.html
Real Climate brings out a study showing the skin effect of heating on the ocean. There is clear evidence that the skin effect helps to heat the oceans.
Why greenhouse gases heat the ocean
Filed under: Climate Science
Greenhouse gases
Oceans
— group @ur momisugly 5 September 2006
Guest commentary by Peter Minnett (RSMAS)
Observations of ocean temperatures have revealed that the ocean heat content has been increasing significantly over recent decades (Willis et al, 2004; Levitus et al, 2005; Lyman et al, 2006). This is something that has been predicted by climate models (and confirmed notably by Hansen et al, 2005), and has therefore been described as a ‘smoking gun’ for human-caused greenhouse gases.
The figure below shows just the signal we are seeking. There is a clear dependence of the skin temperature difference on the net infrared forcing. The net forcing is negative as the effective temperature of the clear and cloudy sky is less than the ocean skin temperature, and it approaches values closer to zero when the sky is cloudy. This corresponds to increased greenhouse gas emission reaching the sea surface.
Figure 2: The change in the skin temperature to bulk temperature difference as a function of the net longwave radiation.
D Böehm says:
November 26, 2012 at 12:51 pm
Gail Combs,
The graph is from here.
And I see that renewableguy is cherry-picking again, with his chart of temperatures beginning in 1980 [with a real scary y-axis]. This is why he cherry-picked 1980. Look at what happened before then. No global warming.
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CO2 has been proven to be the culprit in our warming earth climate. RG
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Now, I won’t be able to change renewableguy’s mind, which is belief-based and closed airtight.
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You can convince me with overwhelming evidence. RG
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But for other readers, here is a long term trend chart showing that the steady rise in temperatures since the LIA has been quite linear, with no recent acceleration at all. The planet has warmed at the same rate for hundreds of years. It did not matter if CO2 was low, or high: the warming trend has remained the same.
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What the sun did 100’s of years ago isn’t relevant to today. The last 40 years the sun has decreased and the temperature has increased. Along with other evidence gathered by science, co2 has been narrowed down by eliminating the other possible causes. RG
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Inescapable conclusion: any warming due to CO2 is too small to measure, therefore CO2 can be completely disregarded for all practical purposes.
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You might want to do better than a blog for “Its the sun stupid”. There are satellites that measure the sun’s activity very precisely.
RG
renewableguy says:
November 25, 2012 at 5:45 pm
“…. Natural forces alone (such as solar and volcanic activity) cannot explain the observed warming.[4]”
Yes they can indirectly, the warming is wiped out by just decreasing global cloud albedo.
http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/6873/had3vlowcloudvsolar2.png
James Sexton says:
November 26, 2012 at 12:29 pm
@ur momisugly renewableguy
I’ve read your amusing banter here. You seem to be missing something important to back up your claims about the recent 15 year plateau in the temps. There are, of course many things to say about the global temp average and it’s usefulness or lack thereof, but putting that aside for now, let’s review the theory.
Prior to the industrial revolution, the earth was at a supposed quasi equilibrium. According to warmists, as the earth gained atmospheric CO2, the earth warmed, because of it. Temperature, (the measurement of heat transfer) increased because the earth was emitting more IR as a response.
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With the same or less input from the sun, the co2 slows down the infrared escape causing warming at the earth’s surface. RG
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This would then be an ever increasing phenomena. What mechanism is described as causing a cessation of increasing of temps against the backdrop of ever increasing aCO2? IR travels at the speed of light, no?
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Its not clear to me why the speed of light is important in this. The simple answer is the heat goes into the oceans. If we were all land, the earth would heat up quite a bit faster. The oceans are the reason for the lag in response to increased co2. RG
Gail Combs says:
November 26, 2012 at 12:13 pm
D Böehm says:
November 26, 2012 at 11:50 am
renewableguy says:
“Total solar irradiance has mildly decreased while has mildly decreased while temperature has increased.”…
____________________________________
And the IPCC has been doing everything they can to hide that fact. SEE: Judithgate
There are lots of crticisms of the report. With about 3000 pages I would imagine there will be errors. Does that change anything about co2 being the main driver of the recent climate change? RG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_IPCC_Fourth_Assessment_Report
Do you have any info/paper to go with that graph BTW?
http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
It appears to be on this page for a link. RG
Matt G says:
November 26, 2012 at 1:43 pm
renewableguy says:
November 25, 2012 at 5:45 pm
“…. Natural forces alone (such as solar and volcanic activity) cannot explain the observed warming.[4]”
Yes they can indirectly, the warming is wiped out by just decreasing global cloud albedo.
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Let me help you out with your argument. Decreasing cloud albedo would allow more sunlight in
to heat up the earth more. Increasing cloud albedo would reflect more sunlight back into space thereby cooling the earth. lol Have a good day. RG
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http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/6873/had3vlowcloudvsolar2.png
renewableguy asserts:
“CO2 has been proven to be the culprit in our warming earth climate.”
However, that is a completely baseless assertion. Nothing of the sort has ever been “proven”.
The global warming trend since the LIA is exactly the same, whether CO2 was 280 ppmv, or 394 ppmv. There is no acceleration of the [completely natural] warming trend. Therefore, CO2 has no measurable effect. None at all.
RG says: “You can convince me with overwhelming evidence.”
Absolutely false. I have proven that RG is impervious to logic. That is typical of a religious True Believer. Nothing will convince RG that he worships a false god. Glaciers could once again flow over Chicago a mile thick, and RG would still believe the nonsense that CO2 causes any measurable global warming.
If RG has any testable, verifiable, empirical evidence showing in a cause and effect manner that a rise in CO2 causes a corresponding rise in temperature, I challenge him to produce it. If there was any such evidence, skeptics would be pounded over the head with it 24/7/365. In fact, there are no testable, verifiable, empirical measurements showing conclusively that X amount of CO2 causes Y rise in global temperature. None — RG’s baseless assertions notwithstanding.
Next, RG says: “…co2 has been narrowed down by eliminating the other possible causes.”
Complete nonsense. That is nothing but the old Argumentum ad Ignorantium logical fallacy; the argument from ignorance, so beloved of climate alarmists: “Since I can’t think of any other reason, then it must be because of CO2.” Those ignorant alarmists disregard the oceans, the sun, Milankovitch cycles, albedo, clouds, and many other possible causes, and instead zero in on the one thing that lacks any measurable evidence; CO2. Theirs is religious-based ignorance, and nothing any rational person says will make a dent in RG’s pseudo-scientific True Belief.
Finally, RG posted a chart that purports to show that declining cloud cover causes global warming. But look closely at the chart. It shows that ∆clouds are the result of ∆T. Strike three.
For Bob Tisdale,
Re my previous (lost above): since you state that the warming of +0.06 deg C/decade observed between Nov 1994 and Dec 2000 shows “significant warming”, would you also agree that the warming since Jan 1997 – Oct 2012 in HadCRUT4, which shows warming of +0.05 deg C/decade, is also “significant”?
As you may be aware, there was considerable press coverage lately (including on this site) suggesting that the trend in HadCRUT4 since 1997 was “flat”.
Perhaps you would comment on why a 73 month period with a +0.06 deg C/decade trend shows “significant warming”, whilst a 188 month period showing a +0.05 deg C/decade is “flat”?
Thanks.
You can plot a series of random numbers and fit random segments to lines. Guess what? Virtually none will have a slope of exactly zero. Are these guys looking for a completely flat line to prove the climate is in balance? That will never happen. Any series of numbers will have some slope if fit to a line.
renewableguy says:
November 26, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Wow, you clearly don’t understand the graph and nature of the post.
What you said is correct, decreasing albedo increases sunlight to the ocean and land surface and in this case is a strawman argument. The graph shows how the removal of global low cloud albedo change removes the warming of the post 1970’s period, understand now?
David L says:
“Any series of numbers will have some slope if fit to a line.”
That’s true David. So the questions that should concern us are:
i) The length of the series of numbers;
ii) The direction and inclination of the slope.
Only if we have sufficient numbers and a significant slope based on those can we infer a possible correlation. The WMO recommends 30 years’ continuous surface temperature data as the length of the series of numbers. The direction and inclination of the slope, based on that period, is evident in whatever data set we chose to interrogate.
Matt G says:
November 26, 2012 at 3:21 pm
renewableguy says:
November 26, 2012 at 2:06 pm
Wow, you clearly don’t understand the graph and nature of the post.
What you said is correct, decreasing albedo increases sunlight to the ocean and land surface and in this case is a strawman argument. The graph shows how the removal of global low cloud albedo change removes the warming of the post 1970′s period, understand now?
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Less albedo is predicted from clouds as the temperatures warm. You are right, I didn’t understand what you were saying.