Dr. James Hansen and Reto Ruedy of NASA GISS have written a paper (non peer reviewed) with a remarkable admission in it. It is titled Global Temperature Update Through 2012.
Here is the money quote, which pretty much ends the caterwauling from naysayers about global temperature being stalled for the last decade.
The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade, which we interpret as a combination of natural variability and a slow down in the growth rate of net climate forcing.
Gosh, I thought Hansen had claimed that “climate forcings” had overwhelmed natural variability?
In 2003 Hansen wrote a widely distributed (but not peer reviewed) paper called Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb? in which he argues that human-caused forcings on the climate are now greater than the natural ones, and that this, over a long time period, can cause large climate changes.
As we shall see, the small forces that drove millennial climate changes are now overwhelmed by human forcings.
According to Hansen’s latest essay, apparently not. So much for “da bomb”.
Here are some other interesting excerpts from his recent essay, Bob Tisdale take note:
An update through 2012 of our global analysis reveals 2012 as having practically the same temperature as 2011, significantly lower than the maximum reached in 2010. These short-term global fluctuations are associated principally with natural oscillations of tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures summarized in the Nino index in the lower part of the figure. 2012 is nominally the 9th warmest year, but it is indistinguishable in rank with several other years, as shown by the error estimate for comparing nearby years. Note that the 10 warmest years in the record all occurred since 1998.
The current stand-still of the 5-year running mean global temperature may be largely a consequence of the facr [sic] that the first half of the past 10 years had predominantly El Nino conditions, and the second half had predominantly La Nina conditions.
The approximate stand-still of global temperature during 1940-1975 is generally attributed to an approximate balance of aerosol cooling and greenhouse gas warming during a period of rapid growth of fossil fuel use with little control on particulate air pollution, but quantitative interpretation has been impossible because of the absence of adequate aerosol measurements.
That last part about 1940-1975 is telling, given that we now have a cleaner atmosphere, and less aerosols to reflect sunlight, it goes without saying that more sunlight now reaches the surface. Since GISS is all about the surface temperature, that suggests (to rational thinkers at least) that some portion of the surface temperature rise post 1975 is due to pollution controls being enacted.
But, he’s still arguing for an imbalance, even though flatness abounds. Seems like equilibrium to me…
Climate change expectations.
The continuing planetary imbalance and the rapid increase of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel assure that global warming will continue on decadal time scales. Moreover, our interpretation of the larger role of unforced variability in temperature change of the past decade suggests that global temperature will rise significantly in the next few years as the tropics moves inevitably to the next El Nino phase.
Except when natural forcings overwhelm the human component of course.
Jan P Perlwitz says:
January 18, 2013 at 1:59 pm
If this energy from the ocean heat anomaly was instantaneously released into the lower 10 km of the atmosphere (which comprise about 75% of the atmospheric mass) then this atmospheric layer would warm by whopping 36 K.
So let us pretend for discussion sake that the deep ocean warmed from 3.0 C to 3.2 C. By what physical mechanism would the oceans cool back to 3.0 while making air warm from 14 C to 50 C?
As I have shown at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1202274
the surface of the ocean has not been warming for almost 16 years.
The link works now.
Strange that OHC increases even though SST has not for over fifteen years. Wonder how that happened. What you have done is introduce a new source of suspect data. James Hansen, your hero and convicted adulterator of temperature data (see above post) has his allies at NOAA. Data that shows increasing OHC when SST stopped warming fifteen years ago is hard to accept. It is difficult to see how OHC increases when SST does not.
Concerning IR radiation caught on the surface of the ocean: IR cannot warm water. This is incontrovertible fact. SST is due to insolation, not GHE. I think that you know this.
The IR is caught on the surface and there the heat resides briefly before it converts into latent heat of evaporation. The higher air T, the more rapid the rate of evaporation. IR cannot heat water. I think you know this. So no, the heat does not vanish, but converts to latent heat which is transferred aloft by convection and radiated into space.
There is the argument that somehow CO2 lowers the ocean/atm temperature gradient and thereby warms the ocean. Does not compute. This is merely specious and unsupported argument. It is also incorrect.
Concerning the “climate factors” that caused the MWP, the LIA, and other Holocene climate variations, no one knows what they are. One thing is certain: it was not CO2. Post-LIA warming is due similarly to natural “climate factors” in which posited CO2 forcing is not apparent.
Concerning the modeling of imperfectly understood and misunderstood systems, you say that “You have raised the bar infinitely high here”. Actually, no; the entire modeling confraternity of the various engineering professions is with me on this one, and not with you. In these professions, “impossibly” high standards are enforced by the results. No such standards apply to climate modeling.
You say: “Consequently you would have to reject all of science”
Quite an extravagant statement you make there, Jan, and yes, I have high standards and I am right proud of it.
You say: “Your generalizing assertion about an alleged “universal failure of the models” with respect to everything that is being predicted with the models is based on what evidence?”
You want evidence that the models have failed? Jan, you are a true believer. Indeed, you are a faith healer who thinks to cleanse the globe of CO2. Evidence:
The models have forecast a warming trend. The globe has not warmed for sixteen years and the last ten have seen a definite cooling trend.
The models have forecast increasing atm humidity. Humidity has declined.
The so called upper atmosphere “hot spot” forecast over the tropics has not appeared.
Jan, the truth is this: global climate models are contrivances that are designed to project an indefinite warming trend. This they do very well, but they can do nothing else. These incorporate all the principles of physics that comprise AGW theory and hence no possibility is allowed for any climate variability, but warming only. You have to have the faith of a zealot to believe in them. Well, you are the zealot, not I.
You know that the GCM’s cannot furnish valid forecasts. Hence, these are no more than tinkerings that should not be given any weight in policy considerations. They certainly do not meet the standards of the engineering professions where standards prohibit frivolous results.
Concerning the cooling trend of the last ten years, it’s in the temperature record. I think you know this. Ten years is enough to discern the beginning of a trend, and it is reasonable to assume that the trend will not soon reverse. A continuation of this trend would be most unfortunate, because a warmer world is a better world. It would be a happy thing if you could show that this cooling trend will soon reverse, but of course you can’t.
Now, let’s talk about the benefits of a warmer world.
A warmer world means milder winters, not hotter summers. Surely you do not need the benefits of milder winters explained.
A warmer world means higher humidity, more rainfall, less drought, a shrinking of deserts. Go study the Climatic Optimum, it will show you that this is so. Theory (guess whose) supports this notion, too.
A warmer world means a longer growing season, an increase in rainfall, expansion of arable land and therefore increased food production, which is important for a world where population is expected to double and redouble this century.
Jan P Perlwitz:
I am responding to your bloviation at January 18, 2013 at 1:59 pm which attempts to mislead about my demolition of your outrageous obfuscation, evasion and deliberate falsehoods.
I posted that demolition in this thread at January 18, 2013 at 2:28 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1201914
The facts are clear.
1.
mpainter asked you how much [global] warming has happened over the last 16 years.
2.
You have refused to answer the question while repeatedly stating the lie that you have answered it.
3.
You have repeatedly attempted to discuss ocean heat content as an excuse to evade answering the question.
4.
I explained that your excuse is an evasion.
5.
I cited (with a link) the 2008 NOAA falsification criterion for the climate models which says of global warming trends;
“Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 years or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.”
6.
The climate models are now falsified according to that criterion by the recent 16 years of a zero trend in global warming (at 95% confidence).
7.
You – a climate modeller – are throwing out lies, insults and obfuscations as a method to ‘hide the decline’ in the credibility of climate models.
8.
I understand why you are trying to keep your – now known to be worthless – job, but I am appalled at the disgraceful method you are using to do it.
Richard
richardscourtney wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203044
a repetition of previous lies combined with attacks against my person, but no answers to any specific matter of disccussion, which I raised or asked in my previous comment,
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1202564 ,
in response to previous statements by you.
You are not able to refute anything specific I wrote in my previous comment. Totally fine with me.
Only one point, I want to address once more:
After I already had shown in my previous comment that this criterion refers to an analysis of modeled and observed temperature record after adjusting for ENSO variability, this indeed seems to be a deliberate attempt by you to deceive the audience, since you just repeat the same falsehood again. You are using a distorted quote that give the false impression, by conveniently omitting to cite the immediately preceding sentence in the quote, that it applied to data without adjusting for ENSO variability. The purpose of this deception is to assert the falsehood according to which this “falsification criterion” had been fulfilled now.
Here is the same quote from the NOAA report again, including the sentence that is crucial for understanding what the quote is about:
ENSO-adjusted warming in the three surface temperature datasets over the last 2–25 yr continually lies within the 90% range of all similar-length ENSO-adjusted temperature changes in these simulations (Fig. 2.8b). Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 years or more, suggesting that an observed absence of warming of this duration is needed to create a discrepancy with the expected present-day warming rate.
Everyone can check for him/herself in the NOAA report whether I am right about this, and form his/her own opinion who is lying here and who is not.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
The quote can be found on page 23.
mpainter wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1202973
Typical “Skeptic” response. If the data don’t confirm the preconceived views, the data can’t be right.
It is difficult to see how OHC increases when SST does not.
It’s a complex, nonlinear system. Things don’t happen linearly. Meehl et al., Nature (2011), http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1229, give an explanation, according to which at those times, when there is a hiatus of the sea surface temperature increase, despite an increase in ocean heat content in the upper ocean layers, the heat is transported into deeper ocean levels.
Argument by assertion.
I have given you a link to an essay written by a scientist who works on this stuff. There he also points to experiments, where those things are actually measured. In contrast, what do you have to support your dismissal of all of this? Nothing.
Argument by assertion.
So, you say.
I already have asked you to show me the data and statistical evidence, on which your assertion about the alleged cooling trend is based. What do you do? You just repeat the assertion. High standards?
As for the allegedly failed model prediction of the temperature. Again, argument by assertion by you. To draw a scientifically valid conclusion about a discrepancy between model predictions and observed temperature, you would have to show that this discrepancy is statistically significant. If you do this then we can talk about what could have caused such a discrepancy (e.g., lack of model capabilities to simulate the temperature record, or differences in the forcings in the experiments compared to the changes in the forcings in the real world).
Your assertion is not a fact. There is empirical evidence for a multi-decadal water vapor increase in the troposphere, particularly in the tropical mid and upper troposphere, from the mid-1970 in the data coming from four out of five reanalysis data sets. Only the older NCEP/NCAR reanalysis data show a decline. The NCEP/NCAR reanalysis do not assimilate more modern measurements from satellites, in contrast to the other four. (Dessler and Davis, JGR, 2010, http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010JD01419). The empirical evidence is consistent with the model predictions of a specific humidity increase and a positive water vapor feedback.
Argument by assertion again.
Am I? I am the one who can support my statements with references to empirical data and scientific research. What have you delivered so far? A lot of noise, an assembly of arguments by assertion, and, as one can see here, ad hominem arguments. So much for your high standards? But I am the zealot?
Jan P Perlw1tz:
You continue your egregious behaviour in your post at January 19, 2013 at 5:44 am.
Firstly, I made no “lies” and you cite none.
Secondly, I was able to – and did – refute all your supposed “specific comments” by explaining they are irrelevant obfuscation: you waffle about “ocean heat content” as a method to avoid the question concerning “global warming over the last 16 years”.
Thirdly, I made no “attacks against [your] person” unless you wish to claim that my pointing out you are a climate modeller is such an “attack”. Or that it was an “attack” to state the obvious truth that you are trying to defend your – now known to be worthless – job. But I can and do understand why being named as being a ‘climate modeller’ could be thought to be offensive.
Fourthly, you make a fallacious claim that I have misrepresented the NOAA falsification criterion because in my brief summation of our discussion I did not mention ENSO. But when I raised that issue (and provided the link to the pertinent NOAA paper) at January 18, 2013 at 2:28 am I wrote
Fifthly, and most importantly, YOU HAVE STILL AVOIDED ANSWERING THE QUESTION. And your attacks of me do not conceal that fact, so I will repeat it.
What has been the global warming over the last 16 years?
I anticipate your next post that will continue your obfuscations, evasions and falsehoods in attempt to protect your wortless job by avoiding the question.
Richard
Check out the standard from a global warming advocate when even the slightest criticism is given. You will need to scroll down to Mike Murphys comment.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151428419947323&set=o.274330505796&type=1&comment_id=10148690
This is the sort of ad hominem attack that substitutes for debate by these zealots.
Jan P Perlwitz says: January 19, 2013 at 6:42 am
“Argument by assertion.”
“Argument by assertion.”
“Argument by assertion again.”
“A lot of noise, an assembly of arguments by assertion,”
===================================
Perhaps you hoped for argument by “non-assertion”. Strange that you made no attempt to refute these “assertions” with counter “assertions.”
As for myself, I am content with the exchange and happy to have the issue judged on your reply.
My advice: stay away from James Hansen- he is a bad influence, and he makes all kinds of “assertions”, especially about the future.
richardscourtney says:
January 19, 2013 at 6:56 am
(To Jan) Fifthly, and most importantly, YOU HAVE STILL AVOIDED ANSWERING THE QUESTION. And your attacks of me do not conceal that fact, so I will repeat it.
What has been the global warming over the last 16 years?
=================================================================
Perhaps we need to rephrase the question.
Was Hansen wrong when he predicted …er… “projected” temps would rise as CO2 levels rose or was he wrong when he said, “The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade”?
Gunga Din:
re the suggestion in your post at January 19, 2013 at 10:14 am.
I understand your rephrasing of the question and the reason for it, but – with respect – I think it best to retain the original question. The miscreant has used every method he can to avoid the existing question and may use a rephrasing to further obfuscate.
Richard
Agreed. But an actual answer to either would be welcome.
So, Jan, “What has been the global warming over the last 16 years?”
To quote part of the message sent to Admiral Halsey, “The world wonders”.
Perlwitz here displays psychology at work, NOT science.
His avoidance borders the psychotic. Screeds of excuses when all that is needed is to….
Answer the question.
Feel free to surround the word ‘question’ in the previous sentence with Anglo-Saxon profanities.
Harry van Loon says:
January 16, 2013 at 8:07 pm
So Alberts says “there is no global mean temperature”. That means that WUWT and similar discussion pages might as well give up since we have no way to measure global cooling or warming.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There are other ways
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/322068/Koppen-climate-classification
example
David says:
January 17, 2013 at 5:02 am
Funny how, having reluctantly admitted that there has been no global warming over the last 16/20 years, the ‘warmists’ now confidently predict that ‘it’ll all start going up again around 2017..’
Based on – what, exactly..?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The election of a Republican US president. /snark>
Gunga Din wrote in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203296
I suspect, you want to assert here that there was a contradiction between Hansen predictions in the past, and his recent statement about the surface temperature behavior in the most recent decade. I won’t answer your question, if you don’t provide specific quotes by Hansen with actual predictions he made in the past, and a reference to the original source, where he made these statements.
Gunga Din wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203347
As long as Courtney refuses to explain to what this question refers, I can’t answer this question. He refuses to give a definition for his use of “global”. He rejected my answer about the warming of the oceans, because the oceans were only a part of the systems. I only know that he wants an answer in temperature units. But then he also refuses to explain, how one can give a number in temperature units for the whole system that includes ocean, cryosphere, land, atmosphere, which have very different physical properties.
So, in short, I can’t give you an answer, because I don’t know the number.
But, if you know how much the system warmed for the last 16 years, expressed in temperature units, tell me, what the number is, please. And please tell me also, on what data this number is based.
Perlwitz says:
“I am the one who can support my statements with references to empirical data and scientific research.”
What a bunch of self-serving horse manure. Perlwits is far from the ‘only one’. Literally dozens of charts have been posted by Werner Brozek, and me, and others, showing clear empirical evidence that contradicts Perlwitz’ false beliefs and baseless assertions.
Perlwitz is pushing his global warming/CAGW nonsense because he is feeding at the public trough. But even so, he should have more ethics than to claim runaway global warming when there is none.
Jan P Perlw1tz:
In your reply to Gunga Din at January 19, 2013 at 3:00 pm you write
Congratulations!
I did not think it was possible for you to provide a larger stinking mess of self-serving bovine excrement than your earlier posts in this thread, but the quotation I provide here has managed to do it.
Firstly, YOU DISCUSSED THE NUMBER which gives “temperature units for the whole system that includes ocean, cryosphere, land, atmosphere” when you repeatedly discussed the NOAA falsification criterion. Now you claim you don’t know what it is!
Secondly, I don’t give a “definition” for global temperature. Indeed, as you well know I dispute that such a unique definition exists because I have repeatedly referred you to
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc0102.htm
But my arguments about that are not relevant to this discussion, so you are providing a ‘red herring’ by demanding that I say what I think it is. At issue is the rise in global temperature over the last 16 years according to the time series of global temperature provided by e.g. RSS, UAH, HadCRUTn, and your organisation NASA GISS.
The question you are evading merely calls upon you to cite the global temperature trend (at 95% confidence) over the last 16 years according to whichever of the pertinent data sets you choose and for you to explain your choice.
You are making yourself look even more foolish with every excuse you make for avoiding the very simple question. Frankly, if your behaviour here is example of scientists in the employ of US government agencies then I think US taxpayers should be asking for their money back. I would have been sacked for behaving as you are doing when I was employed by a UK government agency.
Richard
Perlwitz sounds just like Hansen. They’ve both gone off the deep end.
richardscourtney wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203557
And here we have the next blatant falsehood disseminated by you. I did not discus any “NOAA falsification criterion” in the context of the “whole system” and “how much global warming” question at all.
You were the one who introduced the “NOAA falsification criterion” in your comment at January 18, 2013 at 2:28 am, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1201914 .
In reply to that, I just commented your attempt of deception, which was committed by you by omitting the information that the “NOAA falsification criterion” applies to the ENSO-adjusted global atmospheric temperature data, but not to the observed global atmospheric temperature data without adjustment. I even stated explicitly that this issue didn’t have anything to do with what I had discussed before. I wrote:
…Besides, the topic of the discussion here wasn’t whether the observed temperature record was in discrepancy to predictions from climate models. Instead, the topic was whether the observed global atmospheric temperature record provides the empirical, statistical evidence that the assertion according to which global warming “stopped” was scientifically valid. I haven’t discussed models at all in this context here.
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1202564)
So, at last! Finally, after long winding, you make clear that you are referring to the troposphere and the surface, and that I was supposed to give the number for the tropospheric and surface warming. Oh, stop! Your statements are self-contradictory! When I provided a number for the ocean warming, you rejected the answer with following reply:
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1201914)
So, on one hand, you rejected my previous answer, when I gave it for the ocean, because it was only about a part of the system, but not about the globe, and now you are claiming the question was about the tropospheric and surface warming, and my question what you mean with “globe” and “global” was a “red herring”. But the troposphere and surface are nothing else than only parts of the system. They are not “the globe”. The globe consists of more than just the atmosphere. And the troposphere and surface are not the most important parts, with respect to the total energy budget of the globe and its variability.
Yes, I am having fun. Thank you for giving me the opportunity.
But OK, the failure of logic in your “arguments” aside, I can give you an answer for the tropospheric and surface warming for the last 16 year:
A statistically significant warming trend can not be detected in the observed global tropospheric and surface temperature data for the time period of the last 16 years for any of the four data sets named by you, when applying a significance threshold of 2-sigma.
For the question what scientifically valid conclusions can be drawn from this, and what conclusions can’t be drawn, I refer to following of my previous comments in the same thread here, where I had already elaborated about those questions:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1201297
Jan P Perlwitz:
I have read your post at January 19, 2013 at 8:48 pm which – as anybody can see – is full of blatant falsehoods.
But it forgets to answer the question (and my post January 19, 2013 at 4:11 pm) gave a simple explanation of all that is required for you to answer it. I remind that the question is:
What has been the global warming over the last 16 years?
I – and others – still await your answer.
Richard
Jan P Perlwitz says:
January 19, 2013 at 3:00 pm
============================================================
Thank you for responding to my comment even though, while you said stuff, you didn’t actually answer either question.
richardscourtney wrote in
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203837
as anybody can see – Asserting the alleged truth of your assertion by applying the logical fallacy of appeal to majority.
You said with respect to that, I quote:
At issue is the rise in global temperature over the last 16 years according to the time series of global temperature provided by e.g. RSS, UAH, HadCRUTn, and your organisation NASA GISS.
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203557)
Who said this? Didn’t you say that?
The datasets that you named represent the global temperature record of the troposphere and at the surface that is the lower boundary of the atmosphere.
How have I not answered this question? My answer to this question was and is, I quote,
A statistically significant warming trend can not be detected in the observed global tropospheric and surface temperature data for the time period of the last 16 years for any of the four data sets named by you, when applying a significance threshold of 2-sigma.
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203684)
This is the scientifically correct answer. What is wrong with this answer so that you dismiss also this answer?
I can add following second part to the answer, which is scientifically correct as well:
A Zero-trend or a negative trend, which is statistically significantly different from the statistically significant warming trend between mid-1970 and today, or from the statistically significant warming trend between mid-1970 and (today minus 16 years), can’t be detected either in the global troposphere and surface temperature data over the last 16 years, when applying a significance threshold of 2-sigma.
Or if you want an answer that uses actual numbers. The statistical global warming trend values over the last 16 years (1997 to 2012 inclusive) for different tropospheric and surface datasets, representing a part of the whole Earth system, are following and can’t be statistically significantly distinguished from any of the also listed trend values within specific ranges, when applying 2-sigma as criterion for statistical significance:
All in Kelvin/decade.
GISSTEMP:+0.085; not distinguishable from trend values between -0.047 and 0.217
NOAA: +0.044; not distinguishable from trend values between -0.079 and 0.167
HADCRUT4:+0.049; not distinguishable from trend values between -0.077 and 0.175
RSS: -0.003; not distinguishable from trend values between -0.232 and 0.226
UAH: +0.090; not distinguishable from trend values between -0.142 and 0.322
The broadness of the ranges of trend values that are not statistically significantly distinguishable from the center values, applying a 2-sigma criterion, comes from the large magnitude of the year-to-year variability over such a short time-scale of 16 years.
Gunga Din wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203898
You are asking about the correctness of some alleged prediction by Hansen, but you refuse – as it is apparent now – to provide a specific statement by Hansen with the alleged predication and you refuse to provide a proof of source. Well, I guess that is the “Skeptic” standard for an argument and for asking a question in science. I am not answering a question that comes with such low standards. I have higher standards.
[ What a perfect example of condescension. – mod]
Jan P Perlw1tz:
Thankyou for your post at January 20, 2013 at 6:15 am which contains much irrelevant waffle but provides at its end the answer to the question!
Your answer says that according to GISSTEMP, NOAA, HADCRUT4, RSS and UAH
there has been no rise in global temperature (discernible at 95% confidence) for the last 16 years.
Now, that was not so hard, was it?
Clearly, you would have avoided much bother if you had answered the question when first asked.
Of course, the direct values (which you state) don’t violate the NOAA falsification criterion for climate models because the models fail to emulate ENSO and, therefore, effects of ENSO need to be deleted from the trend(s). However, the trend in global temperature remains indistinguishable from zero (at 95% confidence) if one extrapolates back across the 1998 ENSO peak or if one interpolates across the peak and this zero trend does falsify the NOAA falsification criterion for climate models.
In other words, the trend of global temperature over the last 16 years falsifies the climate models according to the NOAA falsification criterion; viz.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
As I have repeatedly said in this thread, I recognise that this falsification threatens your work and, therefore, your job. And I also recognise that this threat explains your behaviour in this thread: were it not for that recognition I would have been much less tolerant of that behaviour.
You have my sincere sympathy for your predicament. I feel sure you have put genuine effort into your modelling work and a threat to one’s employment is always distressing. In such circumstances it is best to have friends to help with the predicament. Refusing to face the predicament and lashing out at those who state the predicament only reduces the number of your possible friends.
There are many people on WUWT who would be willing to help you consider ‘where to go from here’ in attempt to get your modelling work ‘back on track’. This would help to maintain your work and your job. But many of those same people are likely to campaign to have your work – and thus your job – scrapped if you attack those who point out that – at present – the climate models are useless for predicting global temperature.
Richard
richardscourtney wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203962
Then, the data equally say, that there has been no “standstill” and no “global warming stop” in the global tropospheric and surface temperature (discernible at 95% confidence) for the last 16 years, compared to the statistically significant multi-decadal trend from mid-1970 to today or compared to the statistically significant trend from mid-1970 to (today – 16 years). Not only the Zero-trend, also those trends are within the 2-sigma range for the statistical estimate of the temperature trend over the last 16 years.
This assertion is not true for all models. There are models that simulate ENSO-variability.
Argument by assertion. You are totally making this up. Like you made up your assertion in previous threads that the trends for the individual three decades from 1971 to 2000 were all statistically significant, for the case of applying a significance threshold of 90%.
Don’t worry about me. You are not competent to make an informed statement about this, since you lack the professional qualification for this. I have come to this conclusion after reading the garbage written by you that can be found under the link you provided,
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/climatedata/uc0102.htm
which you fantasize to be a scientific paper that provided “proof” about something, but which was allegedly “blocked” from publication by a conspiracy of evil climate scientist, just because your nonsense didn’t have any chance to be published in a serious scientific journal of the field.
But there is always Energy&Environment. Why didn’t you publish your “paper” there?
I am also satisfied that your attempt to sabotage climate science and to sabotage the high standards for publishing in a peer review specialist journal of the field through political channels was an utter failure.
Your believe that my job was threatened because there wouldn’t be any theoretical climate modeling work in the future for me is nothing else than just wishful thinking at your side. Are you really as delusional to believe that Earth system modeling is going to be abandoned in climate science? The opposite is happening. The work on the models is alive and well. Every time when the models prove to be deficient in skill with respect to some feature of the climate system, it is motivation to revise and to improve the models, and it provides justification to apply for additional funding for our work. The models, including the Earth system model at GISS, are permanently further developed toward even more complexity and capabilities to simulate the behavior of the Earth system, and the available computing resources necessary to do this become also better and better. Our small research group is also working on new and exciting specific stuff in this broader context. This is not going to end tomorrow, next year, or in any foreseeable future. You would have to overthrow this type of society and transform it into one that abandons science and reason and that prosecutes scientists to end this. From my observation of the comments in many threads here, there are actually many here in the crowd, who apparently dream of such a change in society, though.