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In 2003 Hansen wrote a widely distributed (but not peer reviewed) paper called Can We Defuse the Global Warming Time Bomb?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 20, 2013 at 6:32 am
Gunga Din wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203898
Thank you for responding to my comment even though, while you said stuff, you didn’t actually answer either question.
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.
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I’m not a climate scientist and I’m thankful that it’s not the norm for put the abbreviation for the only degree I have behind my name. (With my tendency toward typoes I’d likely give the opposite impression I intended if I tried to abbreviate “Associate”.8-) But, while I know I am ignorant of a great many things, I know I’m not stupid. (My high school entrance exam reported my IQ. I know I’m not a genius but I know I scored above average.)
So, a question that comes from my “low standards”.
You mean Hansen never said that as CO2 rises temperatures will rise? He never said, implied, testified about that before Congress? You are unaware of the charts and graphs he presented at the time? Because I don’t link to a quote or a chart you get to pretend it never happened? He did recently say what I quoted, “The five-year mean global temperature has been flat for the last decade”. Of course he added a bit of spin to justify, excuse, explain (take your pick) what he had previously claimed, predicted, projected (take your pick) would happen hasn’t happened. (If he never said that as CO2 rises temperatures would rise, then why all the fuss about CAGW to begin with?)
Is that it hasn’t happened the reason you won’t answer that simple question, “What has been the global warming over the last 16 years?”
Jan P Perlw1tz:
Clearly, you have lost control of your senses.
My post at January 20, 2013 at 7:08 am had two final paragraphs which offered advice and help to you Your post at January 20, 2013 at 10:26 am replies with bombast and stupidity.
It is a fact – which you have at last admitted – that global warming is not discernibly different from zero (at 95% confidence) over the last 16 years. Of course that does not mean global temperature has not risen or has not fallen by some indiscernible and insignificant amount over the period.
It means that according to the NOAA falsification criterion the climate models are useless for projecting global temperature.
Your ranting, lies and insults do not change that.
I offered to help return your toys to your pram, and you have replied by throwing more toys. Provide a sensible post when your temper tantrum is over.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
January 20, 2013 at 7:08 am
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!
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I didn’t see that when I put my last comment so please disregard my repeating the question.
Jan P Perlwitz says:
January 20, 2013 at 10:26 am
….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.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
But isn’t that exactly what has ALREADY happened?
The Age of Enlightenment, when the Scientific Method was developed and the root of the US Constitution has now been replaced by “postmodernism”, “secular humanism” “moral relativism” and all the rest of the “Counter-Enlightenment” movements that deny objective reality and science.
Along with this is the prosecution of scientists [Example] who do not support “The Cause” and the use of flaky science to justify dodgy politics .In other words Academics who prides themselves as being ‘lofty socialists’ untainted by plebeian capitalism are KNOWINGLY selling the rest of the human race into the sefdom designed by the bankers and corporate elite called Agenda 21. Even some socialist have finally figured that part out. link
There are plenty of statements floating around the web to support this:
“We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination…
So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” ~ Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.” ~ Prof. Chris Folland, Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.” ~ Dr David Frame, climate modeler, Oxford University
“The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.” ~ Daniel Botkin emeritus professor Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California, Santa Barbara.
The Bankers, CEOs, Academics, and Politicians know exactly what they are doing, and that is the complete gutting of western civilization for profit. The lament “it is for our future children” has to be the vilest lie they have ever told since their actions really sell those children into slavery. This is a propaganda war and always has been. It was never about science which is why although the skeptics are right they keep losing.
The IPCC mandate states:
Humans were tried and found guilty BEFORE the IPCC ever looked at the first scientific fact. The IPCC mandate is not to figure out what factors effect the climate but to dig up the facts needed to hang the human race.
WHY? So the rich can use another method to shear the sheeple, literally bankrupt the general population into serfdom.
Jan P Perlwitz says:
January 20, 2013 at 10:26 am
………….You are not competent to make an informed statement about this, since you lack the professional qualification for this.
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Richard, doesn’t this statement remind you of Acts 4:13?
I’ve always been reluctant to quote scripture in relation to something that doesn’t relate directly to the Gospel but, here is the same pride of Man displayed.
Gunga Din says:
January 20, 2013 at 12:11 pm
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I should add that, in the context, despite what was staring them in the face, they still tried to suppress it.
Gunga Din:
re your question to me at January 20, 2013 at 12:11 pm.
Sadly, yes, the analogy is precise.
But in return I give you a quotation: Judge not lest ye be judged.
The man is clearly distressed. His life’s work is shown to be rubbish and he is struggling to come to terms with recognising that. Clearly, his behaviour thoughout this thread has been disgraceful in several ways, but we are not in his distress.
He is flailing about throwing insults and lies while doing all he can to pretend that those who see the problem with his work are somehow not capable of seeing it (which is as silly as claiming a non-golfer is incapable of seeing when a putt misses a hole). In compassion the best one can do is to not respond to that behaviour.
We are not in his distress. I commend that if one wants to quote scripture then one needs to have some compassion.
Richard
Gail Combs says:
January 20, 2013 at 12:01 pm
… WHY? So the rich can use another method to shear the sheeple, literally bankrupt the general population into serfdom.
World Bank Carbon Finance Report for 2007
The carbon economy is the fastest growing industry globally with US$84 billion of carbon trading conducted in 2007, doubling to $116 billion in 2008, and expected to reach over $200 billion by 2012 and over $2,000 billion by 2020
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Yes, and I know that you know that the price of hot air is measured in more than dollars.
Gunga Din wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1204105
I did not attack you as a person, nor said I anything toward your intellect. I commented your low standards you apply in a discussion, since you think obviously it was sufficient in a discussion to make assertions about what someone allegedly said without backing your assertions up with specific quotes and proof of source for the quotes. I may be the fact that you are among many like minded ones here that makes you lazy. You can be sure to get applause, anyhow, like anything presented here is loudly applauded by the crowd, as long as it is in agreement with the prevalent preconceived views (“AGW is a lie!”) and directed against the “right ones” (the evil representatives of the AGW-“hoax” conspiracy), whatever little substance it has, whatever lack of logic it shows, and whatever evidence for the asserted is missing.
Here is the problem with not providing any specific quotes and proof of source. What exactly do you mean with that? Are you asking whether Hansen ever stated a relationship between rising CO2 and rising temperatures on average for the medium and long-term? Or are you asking whether he stated CO2 made the temperature rising all the time?
Hansen never claimed that CO2 was the only factor in the climate system, which had an effect on the temperature. He never claimed that the temperature must rise all the time, when CO2 rises. He never said there was a linear relationship between CO2-change in the real world and observed temperature change. He never said that others factors that cause temperature variability did not exist. But I suspect you want to assert that Hansen had said all these things. Actually, I don’t know any climate scientist who would believe such things, and I don’t know any scientific publications were something like this had been stated.
richardscourtney wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1204114
You are making the thread recursive by simply repeating the same statement, after I already had replied to it. I wrote in reply to this statement:
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.
(http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1204080)
Not that you knew how to refute this.
Whatever the number of times is you are repeating your lie, it doesn’t make it true.
The “NOAA falsification criterion” still refers to the ENSO adjusted temperatures, not to the observed ones as is. Therefore, nothing follows from the fact that a trend, which is statistically significantly different from a Zero-trend, can’t be detected in the observed temperatures as is for the recent 16-year period.
BTW: The “NOAA falsification criterion” doesn’t say anything about a falsification of the models. Also this is purely made up by you. This is an interpretation that is only in your head. It’s something you are only projecting into the quote. Instead, the NOAA report formulates a criterion for when it is correct to speak about a discrepancy between observed and simulated temperatures. This isn’t the same statement as the one you are projecting into the quote.
And as for your “offer”. Thanks, but I am totally fine. You are utterly delusional with your fantasies about my job being threatened and about my alleged emotional state about this, because of the alleged reasons you are claiming. I am going to do my scientific work in general, and my modeling work in particular, like we have done it so far, also in the future. Your wish to put scientists like me out of their jobs for doing our work and publishing results you don’t like, because they are in contradiction to your political and ideological agenda, Mr. Coal-Magazine editor, is not going to become reality. As I said, you would have to overthrow the current type of society first, and replace it with an order of society, in which there is no freedom of science. Dream on.
richardscourtney says:
January 20, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Gunga Din:
re your question to me at January 20, 2013 at 12:11 pm.
Sadly, yes, the analogy is precise.
But in return I give you a quotation: Judge not lest ye be judged……. I commend that if one wants to quote scripture then one needs to have some compassion.
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Thanks for the reminder. Proverbs 27:17
Jan P Perlw1tz:
I see you are still throwing toys out of your pram in your reply to me at January 20, 2013 at 5:40 pm.
You are fooling nobody – except perhaps yourself – by misrepresenting what I said.
It seems you think I am your nemesis so you have a notion that your problem will end if you can make a successful attack of me. Please remember that Nemesis followed Hubris. Your problem is not me, the truths I have stated, and/or my temerity in stating them. Your problem is your overbearing arrogance which is preventing you from accepting the reality of your situation. Indeed, the final paragraph of your post is a clear and unequivocal statement that you are ‘burying your head in the sand’ instead of facing the reality of your situation.
In your post I am answering, you make a blatant attempt to pretend that I misrepresented the NOAA falsification criterion, that I did not mention ENSO and – most ridiculous of all – your assertion that
All those assertions are plain wrong as anybody can see by reading my post at January 20, 2013 at 7:08 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1203962
You are being plain silly when you are assert that a “discrepancy” between the model “simulations” and the “present day warming rate” shows the “present day warming rate” is wrong. Well, NO! Go back to your first-year lessons on science in Secondary School and start to learn the basics of the scientific method.
Jan, seriously, you need to learn the First Rule Of Holes.
Richard
Jan, the only actual transcript I could find was her.
http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Environment/documents/2008/06/23/ClimateChangeHearing1988.pdf
I can see why you’d say that he didn’t say only CO2 was the culprit. He does mention “trace gases” though he never says what they are. He does name CO2 prominantly. (Of course today he talks about “Coal Trains of Death” and not “Cattle Cars of Methane”.)
He also references a “Fig. 4” which is not in this scan.
Can you direct me to the original “Fig. 4” or a more complete actual transcript?
If not, that’s OK. I won’t hold it against you in any way.
Gunga Din wrote in http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/#comment-1205328
Firstly, thanks for providing an original source with statements by James Hansen. I appreciate that. No, I don’t have Figure 4.
The presentation was about anthropogenic influence on climate from greenhouse gas emission. So, it’s clear he emphasizes the effect of greenhouse gases. But it is also clear that he doesn’t believe these were the only influence on climate, when he says in his statement:
… In all of these cases, the signal is as best just beginning to emerge, and we need more data. Some of these details, such as the northern hemisphere high latitude temperature trends, do not look exactly like the greenhouse effect, but that is expected. There are certainly other climate change factors involved in addition to the greenhouse effect.
He also didn’t think back then there had been a full understanding of climate, and he didn’t think climate models were perfect tools:
Finally, I would like to stress that there is a need for improving these global climate models, and there is a need for global observations if we’re going to obtain a full understanding of these phenomena.
May I point you to an original scientific publication by James Hansen as lead author. It’s
Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, L. Nazarenko, R. Ruedy, A. Lacis, D. Koch, I. Tegen, T. Hall, D. Shindell, B. Santer, P. Stone, T. Novakov, L. Thomason, R. Wang, Y. Wang, D. Jacob, S. Hollandsworth, L. Bishop, J. Logan, A. Thompson, R. Stolarski, J. Lean, R. Willson, S. Levitus, J. Antonov, N. Rayner, D. Parker, and J. Christy, 2002: Climate forcings in Goddard Institute for Space Studies SI2000 simulations. J. Geophys. Res., 107, 4347, doi:10.1029/2001JD001143.
(http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2001JD001143)
Here the forcings on climate by different factors, which also vary in time, ar studied, compared to the changing greenhouse gas forcing. Those other forcings considered in the study are stratospheric aerosols, solar irradiance, ozone, stratospheric water vapor, and tropospheric aerosols.
This should be evidence enough that James Hansen doesn’t believe CO2 (and other greenhouse gases) was the only factor that had an effect on climate.
Jan P Perlwitz says: January 22, 2013 at 7:57 am
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You seem to portray Hansen as a reasonable scientist who gives proper weight to all considerations, yet how that portrait contrasts with his panic mongering style and doomsday climate proclamations. He is an obvious exhibitionist that relishes his role as a global-warmer guru. Also, has Hansen ever responded to the criticisms of his Venus greenhouse atmosphere assertions? One gets the impression that he is happy to let that particular myth propagate.
You might understand that we have our own ideas as to whether a scientist should be a political propagandist.