Guest post by John Kehr
With two completed months of the year there is starting to be discussion of how 2013 is shaping up for the annual anomaly. Several comments around the web have caught my attention as they demonstrate a basic misunderstanding of how the Earth’s climate is behaving. This is one of those articles that may seem OCD, but this one misunderstanding is what allows warmists to get away with as much as they do when it comes to climate.
I am going to pick on Anthony Watts and Roy Spencer for this one. The article in question was the one where Roy Spencer provided an update of the UAH anomaly. Here is a screen shot of the article.
From March 4th, 2013
The title states that there was a big drop in surface temperature in the month of February from ~ 0.5 to 0.2 °C. This is correct for the anomaly, but it has nothing to do with the Earth’s temperature. The reality is the Earth warmed up, but the anomaly dropped.
Let me explain. January is the coldest month of the year for the planet as a whole. Depending on the source, the average temperature is between 12.0 and 12.5 °C for the month. February is on average 0.18 °C warmer than January, also source dependent. Here is what the basic generic behavior of the Earth is on an annual basis.
Illustration 1: Annual Temperature of the Earth and the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The average temperature of the Earth is different for each month of the year.
This is based on the average from the 1900-1990 data and I have used this extensively as the baseline behavior for the Earth today. Anomaly has no place on this chart because this shows the actual temperature of the Earth and each hemisphere. How the seasons affect the global average is readily apparent. To me it also shows how many factors can influence the global anomaly. January and February are perfect examples of this.
If I switch to Weatherbell I can show some cool graphics that they produce.
Here is January and February of 2013 from their site.
Notice that the Earth is about 0.25 °C warmer in February, but since it was closer to average the anomaly was much less. Climate scientists hate it when people show real temperature because it is impossible to see much warming when you look at the seasonal changes in the actual temperature.
Now for something interesting. In January the anomaly in the Arctic was well above average. By simple physics that meant the Arctic was losing energy to space at a much higher rate than average. Normally the Arctic is losing energy at a rate of 163 W/m^2. In January of 2013 it was losing energy at a rate of 173 W/m^2. That 6% increase in rate of energy loss meant that the Arctic ended up with a negative anomaly in February. The dramatic change in Arctic anomaly played a big role in the drop of the global anomaly in February.
The rate of energy loss is a self-correcting mechanism. Physics don’t allow it to operate in any other way. As a whole the Earth lost ~ 4 W/m^2 more than average over the entire surface in the month of January. Data for February is not yet available, but it will be close to average because the anomaly was closer to average. The higher rate of energy loss in January resulted in a more average February. That is how the climate operates.
Finally I have to get a dig in at CO2. In January of 2013 it was 395 ppm and in 1985 it was 50 points lower at 345 ppm. So despite the fact that CO2 was higher, the Earth was losing energy at a higher rate to space. CO2 was not blocking the energy from escaping despite all the claims that increased CO2 prevents heat from escaping the Earth. The Earth 30 years later was losing a significantly larger amount of energy to space than it was in the past.
I’m probably missing the point so correct me if I’m wrong. In the simplest case, let’s say all temperature anomalies for all of dates on the chart are zero. Can I not conclude that the chart shows a “steady” surface temperature with no warming and cooling? Or do I have to caution that there is seasonal warming and cooling not reflected on the chart?
The expectation with absolute readings is that the past is static. Anomalys can be re-calcuated with less objection to lowering the past.
The earth would not be radiating extra energy at the top of the atmosphere if GHG were the cause of the warming. This can only be caused by an increase in shortwave reaching the surface or by the loss of heat from the oceans. Strangely the 5% decrease in cloud cover in the mid 90s was responsible for most of the observed change in temp, which is why the OLR went up. Considering there are only 4 main factors in the energy dynamics of the earth ( energy source, absorption, storage and loss) its amazing the obvious changes in cloud cover have been completely ignored by so called climate scientist.
Separate the months so you end up with 12 different plots.
Or look at the 13 month smoothed data line, which takes care of the different monthly global temperatures.
To my eye if you look at this data you can see the monthly data bounces around by up to 0.8 degrees C so it is pretty near pointless looking at monthly data expecting to see some sort of significant “trend” to develop from one month to the next. Similarly if you look at the moving 13 month average, even that is bouncing around by 0.4 to 0.6 degrees C. There is a regular 3.75 year cycle (doubled up to a 7.5 year cycle) but a 3.75 year cycle isn’t telling you anything about any long term trend, until you actual remove that short term effect. Looking at the whole data set you can see that its flat for the first half since 1979 and then jumps up at 1998 and is flat since then. (I prefer to see that as a 60 year sine wave with the bottom of the wave in about 1980 and top in about 2010, but whatever). The best thing you can say about this is that there is a long term rise of less than 0.1 degrees C per decade and this rather makes the IPCC’s predictions look silly, but maybe the 1998 step is a better way of looking at it.
The main thing is that I don’t think this is a long enough data set to make any real predictions about what happens next. I think its about time you guys grafted the best 150 year data to this instead of pretending that this is all the data that exists and that short section is somehow relevant at picking long term trends.
“This is based on the average from the 1900-1990 data and I have used this extensively as the baseline behavior for the Earth today. ”
As we are now in 2013, why use Baseline Data of 22/23 years ago?
Stephen Mosher, thank you for the useful explanation on how CO2 influences heat loss in the atmosphere, it was, clear straightforward and easily understood. And thanks for posting on WUWT.
Something like an average temperature of the Earth does not exist!
Temperature is an intensive property. It is therefore meaningless to average absolute temperatures among various locations.
Take a bucket of ice cold water and one at boiling: is the average temperature of the system 50 °C? What happens with such average if one bucket has a volume of one litre and the other 100 litre?
It’s possible to calculate averages of so-called temperature anomalies over a great number of measuring stations because each individual measurement is relative to others made in different years at the same location at the same calendar day. Such time series analysis can make sense. What interpretations are done with it is another question.
OT Historic town walls crumbling ‘because of climate change’
Colin Richards, head of conservation and archaeology for Shropshire, said: “It’s amazing that they have stood for 800 years and the climate change that has affected them over the last couple of years has wreaked so much damage.”
In places, water had leeched through the bedrock of the ground, turning to frost.
“The frost has eroded the stone and so we’ve got areas of wall which are just hanging there at the moment.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/9907054/Historic-town-walls-crumbling-because-of-climate-change.html
“Steven Mosher says:
March 6, 2013 at 10:05 pm”
Yes, however alarmists claim that it is just the ~3% of ~390ppm/v that *is* DRIVING the warming and CAUSING the climate to change in a bad way. So far there is no evidence to support this claim.
If Steve Mosher gets wrong how a thermos flask works. -note the silver has nothing to do with anything…… it works by a vacume and insulation, and can keep drinks cold and hot…….
Which is physics at its most basic, everything else he wrote in that paragraph becomes meaningless.
Stephen Mosher, thanks for your clear explanation of the effect of greenhouse gases. But as you indicate, it is not just CO2 that can have this effect, water vapour does the same. Wouldn’t you agree that changes in water vapour (and/ or cloudiness) could better explain the temperature curve of the last decades (going up steeply, then remaining flat) than CO2?
When I get to the bit that says “Anomaly has no place on this chart because this shows the actual temperature of the Earth and each hemisphere” I am forewarned that what follows is not going to be very scientific. There are good reasons for using anomalies. The author seems unaware of them.
Do they and is it? No one knows the actual temperature of the Earth , but here we have a graph (provenance unknown) purporting to show it? Where did those absolute measurements come from?
Oh dear, that is really bad. CO2 does not block energy escaping to space. In fact, at higher altitudes CO2 provides a mechanism for radiation to escape to space. There is good correlation between those who don’t believe in the greenhouse effect and those who don’t understand it.
Stephen
You appear to be quoting theory as fact. Can you provide observed data that proves this is happening? There are posters above who state that measurements show no reduction in radiation rate.
Can we measure the ERL and has it increased in altitude with an increase in CO2?
Has the rate of OLWR been calculated and does it show a decrease?
With a higher and colder ERL shouldn’t there be a coresponding decrease in OLWR?
Looking for some brass tacks…
Not sure you read any responses to your comments in case it punctures your assumption that everyone who reads WUWT is stupid, but I’ll respond anyway.
“1. C02 does not prevent heat from escape the earth.
2. C02 along with other gases ( including water vapor) SLOW the rate at which the earth loses
energy to space.” etc. etc.
Everybody knows this. I didn’t see anywhere in John Kehr’s article, especially the part you quoted, any suggestion that CO2 completely prevents escape of heat (or Long Wave Infrared Radiation) from earth. Kehr instead suggests that the rate of energy loss in the ‘modern warming period’ has increased, where the greenhouse hypothesis says it should decrease. Another commenter points out that this is confirmed by NOAA measurements. As far as I can gather, Kehr was using the anomaly maps to illustrate the degree to which useful information can be lost by presenting temperatures as deviation from an average, even if it can be useful in removing seasonal noise. At no point does he criticise the use of modelling in creating these maps – this is a separate issue. As usual with warmists (and this continually serves to fuel my scepticism) there is a gulf of disconnect between the points you make and your conclusions. You can’t assume that people said things that you wanted them to say just because it fuels your feeling of intellectual superiority, it just makes you look confused.
Oops, previous comment was addressed to Steven Mosher.
The basic problem with anomalies is that it makes one, very big, assumption. That the ‘common’ portion of the long term signal is based on a mathematically pure cyclic waveform and, therefore, can just be subracted from the instantaneous value. This will only be true for nearly sin(x) type waveforms but not for quasi periodic ones that chaotic systems tend to produce. Anomalies will also only show magnitude variations in the signal, not any phase variations (at least not clearly).
“Use of anomalies hides the actual data – thermometer readings” – Theo Goodwin (March 6 at 8:58 pm)
Am I correct in assuming that the global monthly temperature anomaly is still determined according to the method developed in the early 1990s by Phil Jones at East Anglia Climate Research Unit?
According to that method, groups of measuring stations are selected (not randomly) for each element of a 5° x 5° global geographic grid. The surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for each measuring station is the difference between the monthly mean of daily mean SATs for a calendar month from an historical mean calculated for the same calendar months over a 30-year designated period at that measuring station. The calculated monthly mean is a mean of the selected calendar month means for the designated period. Measuring stations have at least 20 years of base period values or estimates of those values (based on nearby sites).
Station temperature anomaly values are then averaged over all stations within each 5° x 5° grid element and larger scale (and global) anomaly estimates are calculated as a weighted average (the cosine of the grid element latitude) of all grid elements with available data.
If so, then the SAT anomaly is more artifact than statistic.
All assuming that there is a ”normal temperature. Since climates change all the time the measured temperature at a particular time would be ”normal” for that climate type. Temperature anomalies confuse the issue though calm the alarmists.
There is a correlation between high atmospheric CO2 content and past ice ages. but correlation is no proof of causation.
CO2, as a reactor to IR, will transport heat away from the surface, cool it, but never cause warming, this being impossible anyway. Presently the CO2 content is rising but temperature falling but solar input is also falling and solar influences are far more important than any other.
Werner Brozek, I think you are spot on. If the drop in the anomaly is 0,3C when the real temperature should rise 0,18 on average, then we have a drop in real temperature. Earth tends to warm in February from January, but it didn’t do so this time. It went slightly colder.
The use of anomalies is not hidden or a trick, but a useful means of identifying trends. Gosh, and the temperature changes with the seasons too! Thanks for the information. There’s another insidious misconception in there that I’m not sure the author is aware that he holds.
There’s a hidden implication in that quote above that there is a trajectory, even an inertia to an energy transfer. Most people believe in this cartoon conception in heat transfers, but it has no basis in reality. The instant the difference in temperatures is removed, the energy transfer ceases. The instant the difference reverses from higher to lower, the energy transfer reverses. It doesn’t keep going till it overshoots and therefore, in the case above, cools February below normal as a consequence of Flux that existed in January.
I still can’t get over the lecture from Steve Mosher on physics, only for him to get how the silver lining on a simple Thermos flask works wrong.
P.S. Thermos flasks work due to them being a bottle within a bottle. There is a vacuum between the inner and outer layer as heat can’t travel though a vacuum. This is what keeps the liquid at a constant temperature, cold….. or warm. The silver lining is just additional really to this. Its not what keeps the liquid warm at all.
God help us all if this is the level of physics that’s in climate science.
Steve Mosher Says ..
what about the flat line temperature trend for the last xteen years ?
Currently the warming has gone, how does that fit in with this statement ?
‘Currently the warming has gone is referred to as warming’ ?
Would that be it ?
In the middle of Australia in march it can be 40C in the water bag, Then the sun goes down, a flat horizon for ever with no clouds. The sun switches off like a light, then the temperature plummets close to zero within the hour. The long hot day becomes bloody cold this heat does not find refuge in the oceans, it does what all hot air does it goes up and the cold air comes down. In the desert one welcomes the sun in the morning until about midday, then you curse it. In the desert averages and anomalies are about as useful as an empty water bottle.