Over at The Conversation Andrew Glikson asks Fact check: has global warming paused? citing an old Skeptical Science favorite graph, and that’s the problem; it’s old data. He writes:
As some 90% of the global heat rise is trapped in the oceans (since 1950, more than 20×1022 joules), the ocean heat level reflects global warming more accurately than land and atmosphere warming. The heat content of the ocean has risen since about 2000 by about 4×1022 joules.
…
To summarise, claims that warming has paused over the last 16 years (1997-2012) take no account of ocean heating.
Hmmm, if “…ocean heat level reflects global warming more accurately than land and atmosphere warming…” I wonder what he and the SkS team will have to say about this graph from NOAA Pacific Marine Environment Laboratory (PMEL) using more up to date data from the ARGO buoy system?
Sure looks like a pause to me, especially after steep rises in OHC from 1997-2003. Note the highlighted period in yellow:
From PMEL at http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/
The plot shows the 18-year trend in 0-700 m Ocean Heat Content Anomaly (OHCA) estimated from in situ data according to Lyman et al. 2010. The error bars include uncertainties from baseline climatology, mapping method, sampling, and XBT bias correction.
Historical data are from XBTs, CTDs, moorings, and other sources. Additional displays of the upper OHCA are available in the Plots section.
As Dr. Sheldon Cooper would say: “Bazinga!“
h/t to Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. for the PMEL graph.
UPDATE: See the above graph converted to temperature anomaly in this post.
MiCro says: “It’s exactly what they’re saying, all of the following is just window dressing.”
Window dressing??? That IS the core of everything — the basis of the greenhouse effect. Is there some specific part of that science you disagree with? Because all you seem to be doing is throwing it all out because it’s inconvenient.
You can see the relevant figure from Harries et al here:
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/321/Harries_Spectrum_2001.pdf
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 6:27 am
I gave you my guess previously. But, this is a false dilemma. If I go to the hardware store to buy a hammer, and the proprieter tells me “we have no hammers, but we have light bulbs and a tuna fish,” I am not compelled to choose between the light bulb and the tuna fish. Neither one will serve my purpose to drive nails through hard wood. Similarly, I do not have to accept a clearly flawed hypothesis as fact, just because it is the only one you find acceptable.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:04 am
…and subsequent posts. You keep proffering the same shallow platitudes which have already been found wanting. Simply repeating the same discredited arguments over and over is not going to gain you any ground. It is getting monotonous.
Phobos says:
“You can see the relevant figure from Harries et al…”
That’s the problem, the link says the greenhouse effect is “inferred”. But there are no measurements of AGW or the ‘greenhouse effect’, so it is still nothing but a conjecture.
That the best you got? If so, it’s a big FAIL.
@D.B. Stealey:
OK, so you’re not going to address my two specific questions. Your avoidance of them is very telling.
PS: No one is predicting “runaway” global warming. Have you ever heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:05 am
“That IS the core of everything — the basis of the greenhouse effect. Is there some specific part of that science you disagree with?”
Already addressed here. Your viewpoint is superficial and shallow. I wonder if you have ever even studied calculus.
@D.B. Stealey says: “but the rest of us can see that your runaway global warming narrative has been totally falsified.”
Remember this post?
“Sea level may drop in 2010,” posted on January 17, 2011, Guest post by John Kehr
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/17/sea-level-may-drop-in-2010/
Kehr concluded:
“This is yet another serious blow the accuracy of the official IPCC predictions for the coming century. The fact that CO2 levels have been higher in the last 5 years that have the lowest rate of rise than the years with lower CO2 levels is a strong indicator that the claims of CO2 are grossly exaggerated.”
And what happened to sea level? It rebounded from the strong La Nina, just as scientists said it would, and is now back on its trendline:
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/
This was another instance where someone jumped the gun based on a short-term trend, and used it to conclude the consensus was wrong. Did Kehr ever issue a correction or mea culpa? I haven’t been able to find one….
Phobos,
I have answered your questions in great detail. You just don’t like the answer, or the inescapable conclusion: CO2 doesn’t matter.
I provided a thorough analysis explaining exactly why CO2 has no measurable effect on temperature. As usual, you have no answer to that. Your lame response is based on your religious belief, not on scientific evidence or empirical measurements, because you have none. You have no credible response to the fact that CO2 does not matter.
Face the fact that Planet Earth is falsifying your narrative. Nothing currently observed is unprecedented; it has all happened before, and to a greater degree — and when CO2 was much lower. You are just making up a fake narrative to support your silly belief system. Your anti-science is at best amusing to the rest of us, and your endless thread-bombing is not convincing anyone that you have a leg to stand on.
I’m disappointed, though not surprised, that Phobos has chosen to ignore my (and others’) point about his “the last decade is the Warmest EVA!!!!” claim. It would be interesting to know whether he genuinely belives that has any significance at all in the matter of whether or not it’s still warmingI
If he does then he needs to really go back to basics, if he doesn’t then I’m intrigued as to why he uses an argument he knows to be unsound.
So, Phobos, a really easy (multi choice) question for you:
Do you believe that the fact, taken on its own, that the last decade has been warmer on average than the one before is evidence in any way that warming is still continuing?
(a) Yes
(b) No
(c) I don’t know, but it’s on the list I downloaded of “things to confront sceptics with”
(d) No comment / Plead the fifth
Obviously, the whole point of “pleading the fifth” is to avoid incriminating yourself so, assuming you don’t comment, we’ll let the jury draw their own conclusions :).
Bart says: “Already addressed here.”
Oh, that paragraph. Yes, I can certainly see how that might invalidate over 100 years of scientific reasoning and calculations. /sarc
Perhaps you can construct *some* planet where the partial derivative of global radiative forcing with respect to average CO2 concentration is negative. It certainly isn’t *this* planet at this point in time, as about 8 decades of calculation have shown (and as verified by Harries et al and followup measurements.
You have constructed a completely alternative universe where *every* major finding of climate science is wrong, based on hand-waving arguments you won’t take the risk of publishing. No small feat. You must be a sci-fi writer by profession.
@D.B. Stealey: No, you didn’t my two questions, which were very specific.
The first has a simple “yes” or “no” answer.
I’m guessing your answer to the 2nd question would be, ‘let’s wait and see what happens over a longer interval.’ Am I right?
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:05 am
Did you go look at what I’ve done?
I don’t disagree that Co2 will reflect IR, I disagree that the change in Co2 has made more than an insignificant impact to surface temperatures. And night time cooling data, and the skies IR temp agrees with that conclusion.
@Joe Kirklin. (A). Of course.
As long as the decades keep getting warmer, it’s absurd to say that global warming has stopped.
Temperatures that in the 1980s or 1990s were considered remarkably warm and now viewed as routine and ordinary. The short 15-year trends only appear small because (a) their beginning years includes a large positive fluctuation due to an El Nino, and (b) their ending years includes a large negative fluctuation due to a La Nina.
You are making the classic mistake of confusing weather and climate, except the weather is in the oceans, not the atmosphere.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:08 am
…
PS: No one is predicting “runaway” global warming. Have you ever heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
——–
I don’t know, has Dr. Hansen heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/12/nasa-scientist-warns-of-runawa.html
see paragraph 10, or to go straight to the source,
http://www.columbia/edu/~jeh1/2008/AGUBjerknes_20081217.pdf
see slide / page 23.
Phobos,
You don’t get to determine how I answer a question. As stated above, I answered your questions in great detail. Your problem is that you don’t like the answer, which proved conclusively that CO2 has no measurable effect.
Now you can return to your endless thread-bombing.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:08 am
…
PS: No one is predicting “runaway” global warming. Have you ever heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
——–
I don’t know, has Dr. Hansen heard of the Kombayashi-Ingersoll limit?
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2008/12/nasa-scientist-warns-of-runawa.html
see paragraph 10, or to go straight to the source,
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/AGUBjerknes_20081217.pdf
see slide / page 23.
MiCro says: “I don’t disagree that Co2 will reflect IR.”
Ugh… CO2 doesn’t “reflect” infrared radiation. It absorbs and re-emits it. There are crucial differences, especially with respect to directionality,
No, I don’t know what you’ve done, and clicking on your name goes to a site of what looks to be science news. If you did something specific, please describe it here.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:34 am
@Joe Kirklin. (A). Of course.
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Then you are clearly not as scientifically literate as you think you are. And it has nothing whatsoever to do with confusing climate and weather. In fact, it has nothing directly to do with climate – it’s about basic high school maths!
Let me explain:
Say it warmed steadily through the 1990s. The average temperature for that decade will be roughly (start of 1990 temperature + end of 1999 temperature) / 2 .
The one thing that we can say for sure is that average for the 1990s decade will be LESS than the 1999 temperature because that’s how averages work – we’ve added a smaller number to a bigger number then divided by 2 so the resulting average MUST be less than the bigger number.
Now lets say, just for argument, that the temperature stops rising on 31st December 1999 and stays constant for the next 10 years. The average for the 2000s will then be (start of 2000 temperature + end of 2009 temperature)/2.
But, because the warming stopped at midnight on the 31st Dec 1999, “start of 2000 temperature” and “end of 2009 temperature” are both equal to “end of 1999 temperature”. So the average for the 2000s decade will be (end of 1999 temperature + end of 1999 temperature) / 2. That is EQUAL to “end of 1999 temperature”,
So the 2000s decade average (EQUALS 1999 end temp) is higher than the 1990s decade (LESS THAN 1999 end temp) even though the warming had stopped.
In fact, this holds true even if it cools steadilt during the 2000s decade, as long as it doesn’t cool more than it warmed in the previous decade.
So, “the last decade was warmer than the one before” does NOT mean it’s still warming. The ONLY conclusion you can draw from that fact is:
“the last decade didn’t cool as much as the one before warmed”
I’ve laid that out in nice bite-size chunks for you, so hopefully you can see where you (or the people feeding you these lines) have gione wrong?
Ps: Phobos, please accept my genuine apology if the tone in my last post seemed a little irritable. It’s just that I see that “warmest ever” line trotted out so often and the flaw in it is so basic that it gets a little tiresome to say the least!
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:24 am
“Yes, I can certainly see how that might invalidate over 100 years of scientific reasoning and calculations. /sarc”
You don’t get it. The calculations are valid. GHGs generally make the surface warmer than it otherwise would be without them. There is nothing in that statement which requires that the effect be monotonic with volume.
It is easy to show that it isn’t by taking the argument to the extreme limit. If you have CO2 so dense that it is effectively a solid shell in direct contact with the planet, then there is no GHE. Since the function attains its minimum at the boundaries, and it is non-zero in between, it follows that there must be at least one maximum somewhere, and there must be points at which the partial derivative is negative.
I have NOT said that we are in such a condition where the addition of CO2 takes us past the peak of the warming effect to produce incremental cooling. What I have said is the converse, that it is an open question, and it means you are NOT “100% certain” that adding CO2 results in warming.
All of the evidence indicates that there is no appreciable warming due to CO2. Temperature is driving CO2, and not the reverse. Temperatures show no deviation from long term behavior. So, some assumption underlying the current paradigm IS WRONG.
Think! Open your mind. The evidence against your position is compelling, and mounting daily. A year ago, the natural cyclical downturn was not yet readily apparent. Today it is. There can be little doubt that it will continue. This is a very regular natural cycle, and it’s going to be getting noticeably colder in the years ahead. If you are involved in the AGW endeavor in a professional capacity, I highly recommend you pack your parachute, and have an exit strategy prepared. Because those still standing when the music stops are going to be disgraced and discredited, and have a hard go of it.
“You have constructed a completely alternative universe where *every* major finding of climate science is wrong, based on hand-waving arguments you won’t take the risk of publishing. “
Not wrong, per se, but not properly applied. You can’t just take equations and apply them willy-nilly without consideration of the conditions under which they are valid. As I said, your viewpoint is shallow and superficial. You are taking for granted things which are not compulsory according any actual scientific principle.
Phobos says:
February 28, 2013 at 10:57 am
You’re right, I was being sloppy.
I did, I compared today’s temp increase with tonight’s drop. And I’m not going to re-write everything just for you.
I will point you to two pages, The first one explains what I did. I figured out that I lost one decimal place, and remade the graphs, which is the second page.
MiCro says:
February 28, 2013 at 8:05 am
“I think it remains to be determined, personally I think it’s somehow related to what the Sun is doing and or “Space Weather” and how it effects the Earth.”
Then show me a graph with the sun (or space weather or sun spots or whatever) and temps that has any degree of correlation. Show me any sort of mechanism that supposedly correlates. Then compare it to greenhouse gases.
I think Occam’s Razor enters into the discussion at some time. Then, after that, there’s a discussion on risk and insurance. Then, you have to look at your children and grandchildren and decide whether you give a damn.
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 11:27 am
Then, you have to look at your children and grandchildren and decide whether you give a damn.
——————————————————————————————————–
Personally I’d prefer to loook at the old dear down the road who can’t afford to heat her home in the (yet again) below average winter temperatures we’re having because the “green” charges and taxes that we’re paying are inflating our basic fuel and food bills by so much.
Or should the old and poor be taking pride in literally freezing to death today in order to (maybe) stop our grandchildren from (maybe) feeling a bit warm?
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 11:27 am
” Then, you have to look at your children and grandchildren and decide whether you give a damn.”
Yes, I care about them. I do not want to impoverish them by pursuing some fanatical scheme to address a problem which does not exist, and over which we have no control even if it did.
Too bad you care too little about your heirs to recognize your neurosis, and take measures to improve your emotional state of health.
Joe says: “Say it warmed steadily through the 1990s. The average temperature for that decade will be roughly (start of 1990 temperature + end of 1999 temperature) / 2 .”
*IF* it warmed steadily. It rarely does.
For someone admonishing me about high school math, you’re is sorely lacking.
Evan Bedford says:
February 28, 2013 at 11:27 am
I don’t have one.
Nice comeback, think of the children! How about the ones that go to bed in the cold because their parents can’t afford to heat their home, of they have to breathe smoke from wood or dung because they can’t get cheap fossil fuels or electricity?
See, I am a simulation professional, spent over 15 years supporting, creating models for, demoing, giving lessons on about a dozen different simulators. I’ve read the ToO for GCM’s, I know how they had to jack in a high CS value to get temps to respond, that Co2 alone didn’t do it.
And as of yet, there’s no physical measurements that any of it is real, and as more and more research gets done by real scientists, that value (CS) keeps getting smaller and smaller.
Then I went and got a copy of NOAA’s, CRU’s, and BEST’s data. Night time temps drop as much as it goes up during the day, at least to the accuracy of the data.
Lastly, I just got an IR thermometer, as I pointed out above, without water vapor the sky is quite cold, and while it might be warming with increased GHG’s, it’s still plenty cold to cool the surface at night.
Oh, you might want to look into changes in land use too. I don’t know where you live, but if you get frost at night, ever wonder why only grass and cars get frost, but not asphalt or concrete? Mix in some lousy station sitings (which Anthony has done a great job of documenting), and I’m not too worried about my grandchildren, well unless the Sun is shutting down, then it’s going to start getting really cold.