Not sure that “sceptical fringe” would apply here, but I’ll take the press where we can get it. See my comments below. – Anthony
Twenty-year hiatus in rising temperatures has climate scientists puzzled | The Australian
DEBATE about the reality of a two-decade pause in global warming and what it means has made its way from the sceptical fringe to the mainstream.
In a lengthy article this week, The Economist magazine said if climate scientists were credit-rating agencies, then climate sensitivity – the way climate reacts to changes in carbon-dioxide levels – would be on negative watch but not yet downgraded.
Another paper published by leading climate scientist James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says the lower than expected temperature rise between 2000 and the present could be explained by increased emissions from burning coal.
For Hansen the pause is a fact, but it’s good news that probably won’t last.
International Panel on Climate Change chairman Rajendra Pachauri recently told The Weekend Australian the hiatus would have to last 30 to 40 years “at least” to break the long-term warming trend.
But the fact that global surface temperatures have not followed the expected global warming pattern is now widely accepted.
Research by Ed Hawkins of University of Reading shows surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range projections derived from 20 climate models and if they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years.
“The global temperature standstill shows that climate models are diverging from observations,” says David Whitehouse of the Global Warming Policy Foundation.
“If we have not passed it already, we are on the threshold of global observations becoming incompatible with the consensus theory of climate change,” he says.
Whitehouse argues that whatever has happened to make temperatures remain constant requires an explanation because the pause in temperature rise has occurred despite a sharp increase in global carbon emissions.
The Economist says the world has added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010, about one-quarter of all the carbon dioxide put there by humans since 1750. This mismatch between rising greenhouse gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now, The Economist article says.
“But it does not mean global warming is a delusion.” The fact is temperatures between 2000 and 2010 are still almost 1C above their level in the first decade of the 20th century. “The mismatch might mean that for some unexplained reason there has been a temporary lag between more carbon dioxide and higher temperatures in 2000-2010.
“Or it might mean that the 1990s, when temperatures were rising fast, was the anomalous period.”
The magazine explores a range of possible explanations including higher emissions of sulphur dioxide, the little understood impact of clouds and the circulation of heat into the deep ocean.
Read it all here: http://m.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/twenty-year-hiatus-in-rising-temperatures-has-climate-scientists-puzzled/story-e6frg6z6-1226609140980
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The fact is temperatures between 2000 and 2010 are still almost 1C above their level in the first decade of the 20th century.
I think siting and adjustments, along with natural variation, account for a good part of that, as I demonstrate here:
New study shows half of the global warming in the USA is artificial
While the effect is only quantified in the USA for now, there is anecdotal evidence that it is a worldwide problem.
Related articles
- Climate science: A sensitive matter (economist.com)
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‘I think siting and adjustments, along with natural variation, account for a good part of that, as I demonstrate here.
I agree, but I also think there is a real phenomena of surface warming without troposphere warming occurring. This is the opposite of what the GHG theory predicts. Therefore, the surface warming results from some other cause or causes. The likely cause of surface warming is reduced aerosols and (aerosol seeded) clouds. Perhaps with secondary aerosol effects on tropical thunderstorm efficiency and precipitation efficiency generally. See Willis’s recent post.
The bottom line is, any amount of surface warming isn’t evidence for GHG warming, without a larger amount of troposphere warming also occurring.
Arno Arrak says:
March 29, 2013 at 1:35 pm
“The satellite record goes back to 1979”
The satellite record goes back to 1972, Ive seen it used in some scientific papers.
Here’s an example from 2003 Fig. 1 begins at 1972.
http://www.meto.umd.edu/~kostya/Pdf/Seaice.30yrs.GRL.pdf
Thousands of words that say one simple thing: ‘If you can’t measure it, I don’t believe it.’
“I think siting and adjustments, along with natural variation, account for a good part of that, as I demonstrate here:”
Above and beyond the call of duty. When a scientist offers an explanation for a phenomenon and his critics show that the explanation is falsified experimentally, his critics do not have a further duty of explaining the phenomenon. “Yeah, but how do you explain the warming, then, if it isn’t CO2 and AGW? You see? There is no other explanation!” is not an epistemically licit retort. The facts are:
1. His theory has been falsified.
2. His critics do not owe him an explanation for the phenomenon.
The fact that “there is no other explanation” for a phenomenon does nothing whatsoever to support the explanation on the table.
The Inquirer says:
March 29, 2013 at 11:40 am
“Puzzle? The puzzle is how 16 years has become 20 within 2 months.
But there’s no puzzle over why the fringe dwellers are able to deceive. They have cherry picked a period of a very strong El Niño warming event followed by a very strong La Nina cooling event.
Meanwhile the heat content of the oceans continues to grow, the seas are rising, the Arctic is melting, weather has gone haywire and WUWT shows why it remains at the fringe and happy to use a deception to “get their press”.”
I too have noted the ever-expanding ‘no warming’ period with some amusement.
But having made a valid point, you go on to spoil it with a load of overblown rhetoric.
I do get annoyed at those who, in the face of many many papers to the contrary, want to claim that the weather has gone ‘haywire’ (translates as more weather extremes), or that the heat has ‘gone into the oceans’, the seas are rising etc etc. And in all of this, they are so certain.
When I was a kid Mum used to take us to church on Sundays. It was an isolated country church on a cold and windswept plain sheltered from the worst of the weather by encircling pine trees.
After the service, the old folks (particularly the men in their big felt Sunday hats) would stand in sociable circles, resting their frames upon one leg, as country folk are wont to do, and they would talk. Some smoked, others chewed on a stem of grass. But, being country folk, it would be rare indeed if they did not at some point discuss the weather.
And country folk do not simply mention the weather in passing – ‘hullo, nice day…’ and all that. No, they really talked about it. Inevitably, they would draw comparisons…”I’ve never seen it as dry as this.” or “Old Joe McIntyre has lived in this area all his life and he told me the other day that it’s never been so wet.”.
In short, at an early age I received a thorough grounding in comparative meteorological analysis for periods up to and including, a ‘lifetime’. That was 60 years ago (and yes, I know, nearly a lifetime…you don’t have to rub it in).
When I see people worrying over events happening on timescales of 30, 40, 50 or so years, my memory takes me back to the little church on the Breadalbane plains on a cold and wet (or dry and hot) Sunday morning and I recall that “it has never been as …..”
To get any sort of argument about global warming going, one needs to show that things are not ‘normal’. But simple common sense will tell you that, over periods of 100 years or so, the what is ‘normal’ is hard to say. And it is entirely natural to make comparisons over periods with which we are familiar – any period that fits within a lifetime will fit the bill.
So unless someone comes up with something which shows that what is happening really is unusual over a scale greater than a lifetime, it’s hard to get very excited about it. Personal observations of how cold it is this year compared with ‘when my father was a lad’ and all of that, just do not cut it with me. And that is why Dr Mann’s hockey stick is so important to the argument. Without anything unusual to explain there is ….well….nothing to explain!
dccowboy on March 29, 2013 at 2:36 pm
So wait, first Mann/Hansen blames burning coal for warming, now he blames burning coal for no warming?”
My first thought too when I read the article. Priceless isn’t it?
Friends:
I was relishing the fact that everyone had ignored the nonsense from the ‘izen wannabe’ posting as ‘The Inquirer’. But people have started to address his/her/their/its nonsense.
Please ignore the silly troll. The intent of such trolls is to divert threads by posting untrue nonsense which leads to discussion of the falsehoods and – they hope – this obscures truth from disinterested onlookers.
The real issue is simple.
1.
Hansen said 10 years of stasis in global temperature would cause problems for the AGW hypothesis as emulated by climate models which project global temperature.
2.
In 2008, when temperature trend was indistinguishable from zero for over 10 years, NOAA said 10 years of stasis was commonly indicated by the models but the model ”rule out” 15 years of such stasis.
3.
When 16 years of such stasis had been observed then climastrolagists started talking about 17 to 20 years for falsification of the models.
4.
Now it seems that 17 years is nearly certain and 20 years is likely, Pachauri says 30 to 40 years is needed.
The only issue is the ‘moving goal posts’ for assessing the AGW hypothesis as represented by the climate models, and this’ movement of goal posts’ is a rejection of science.
In my opinion, trolls who attempt to deflect this thread onto other issues are best ignored.
Richard
By the time the actual temperatures fully depart from the model forecast error bands on the low side in a few years the dependency on carbon tax revenue steams will be embedded in budgets and programs to the extent that an army of advocates will be called on to keep them intact.
The Inquirer says: March 29, 2013 at 11:40 am
“Puzzle? The puzzle is how 16 years has become 20 within 2 months.”
Indeed, that’s the hockey stick of the year. We might reach the century by June.
The Inquirer says:
“But there’s no puzzle over why the fringe dwellers are able to deceive. They have cherry picked a period of a very strong El Niño warming event followed by a very strong La Nina cooling event.”
This argument seems to me in favor of natural variation having a bigger impact on the climate than CO2. I agree that natural variation has a large impact on global temperatures. Only graphing global temperatures against CO2 levels is deceiving. Please tell Michael Mann and the Team they should stop doing that.
richardscourtney says:
March 29, 2013 at 4:00 pm
————
I generally agree with you, but not necessarily on this. Sure, mostly the arguments are stupid, and often the trolls are too lame to give sport, but every once in a while I think they come up with interesting arguments.
Still, I take your point and out of consideration for you and other readers will endeavor to keep my impulses under reasonable restraint.
Mr. Africa says:
March 29, 2013 at 11:25 am
I know that natural variation will likely bring us into higher temperatures in the next few years, but MAN i hope they don’t just to see all the articles desperately trying to explain it away!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Chances are better than even that we are looking at a cooling spell. Nir Shaviv’s paper and Jan. 8, 2013 NASA article on the Sun (you can also look at what is happening with the oceans PDO, NAO, ENSO) graph
The long view:
link And graph 1 and graph 2 and graph 3
Article 1 and Article 2
Just a few months ago, I was hearing in WUWT that we had 16 years
of no warming. A couple months ago, I was hearing 17. And now it’s 20?
I look at smoothed HadCRUT3, and I look at UAH according to Dr. Roy
Spencer, and it looks to me more like 12 years since the warming trend
stopped. Late 1997 through mid 1998 was an isolated narrow and
exceptionally tall spike.
There are couple of other interesting points from the Hansen paper ( other than those mentioned in posts above). In the conclusion they talk about the Fraustian bargain –it is like they saying, to some extent, that here is our paper with our data and discussion but really we don’t believe what we have written.
Also in the conclusion they site a paper that shows the rapid growth of the number of coal fired power stations being built in China and India and say all the particulates from them is the big reason for their findings. But they ignore the fact that in China, in particular, they are building very high tech. coal fired power stations which have very low particulate emmisions ( if any) –they are doing this to reduce their air pollution and related health issues.
So I think these guys are just scrambling in any way they can to try to “save face”
Louis Nettles (@tmitsss) says:
March 29, 2013 at 12:08 pm
When she [Leona Marshall Libby] and Pandolfi project their curves into the future, they show lower average temperatures from now though the mid-1980s….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Here is a link to that WUWT: Old prediction may fit the present pattern
James Griffin says in part, on March 29, 2013 at 11:17 am:
“Furthermore AGW “scientists” stand accused or ramping up positive
feedback predictions and ignoring the negatives. On top of that the
biggest blunder was to factor in CO2′s ability to create heat as linear
when it is logarithmic.”
I don’t hear Dr. Roy Spencer accusing IPCC or the climate scientists
considered by them of claiming a linear effect of increasing CO2. The
scientists on both sides of this debate agree that the effect of change of
CO2 is logarhythmic. What they disagree about is effects of feedbacks.
vukcevic says:
March 29, 2013 at 12:18 pm
In North West Europe the cold winter is always blamed on cold blast from Siberia. I believe the USA and Canada have something cold ‘Siberian Express’ too….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think the term is Polar Express.
Eric says:
March 29, 2013 at 12:35 pm
James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies,…. We all know what he said in 1988 in front of Congress, does anyone know if he said anything about the Coming Ice Age in the 70′s?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Here is a link
Matt says:
March 29, 2013 at 1:19 pm
WTF,
“But like with any belief syatem they still have faith.”
In my opinion the only thing they have faith in is that their checks from the government will clear.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If they are in the EU they had better rethink that theory too. Germany Just Taught Europe Some Tough Lessons
David L. says:
March 29, 2013 at 1:20 pm
More evidence of lack of warming: we were going to see the cherry blossoms in DC….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Cherry blossoms? I am 300 miles south and waiting to see my daffodils finally bloom.
@njsnowfan says:
March 29, 2013 at 1:34 pm
I feel we are already in a Mini Ice that started in 2008….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
See these two WUWT articles link and link
Mark Besse says:
March 29, 2013 at 12:32 pm
From the article “Rajendra Pachauri recently told The Weekend Australian the hiatus would have to last 30 to 40 years “at least” to break the long-term warming trend.”
Just trying to buy another 20 years before he thinks he can be demonstrated a charlatan.
He’ll be six feet under by then and won’t have to endure the ignominy of it all…….
While here on the BC coast, where the dogwoods are a couple of weeks later than in NC (usually), the daffodils are a couple of weeks old. Flowering plums are great, and the John Deere has made short work (bad wording) of the grass without leaving ruts. The daffies, as opposed to the daffodils, are Weavering the storm.
Matthew R. Epp, P.E. says: @ur momisugly March 29, 2013 at 2:13 pm
…. Arctic is melting? – admittedly on a downward trend since satellite records have been kept, possible inadvertant cherry picking since the satellite era coincided with the end of the 30 yr cold cycle, good news though, Antarctica is growing in area and thickness despite melting on the peninsula.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Are you SURE that is good news? It is called the bipolar seesaw……
OOPS…. As William McClenney says “Was the LIA a LEAP (Late Eemian Aridity Pulse)? Did the Holocene end 3kyrs ago based on this year’s polar ice?
The slide into glaciation is chaotic.
Hansen has just emailed me (and a million others, no doubt) as follows:
A short scientific story, Doubling Down on Our Faustian Bargain, is available here and on my web site. It contains the main points in a paper just published in Environmental Research Letters. It is a sorrowful tale of missing climate data, which makes quantification of human-made climate change far more difficult than it needed to be — maybe enough to make one look for new work.
~Jim
29 March 2013
The “story” is at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2013/20130329_FaustianBargain.pdf
Is this a threat that Jim will retire from NASA unless they get funding for a new aerosol satellite (that won’t fail to launch)?
It’s certainly a major play for publicity. Maybe Jim wants to head off the dithering IPCC to take over thought leadership regarding the pesky standstill. The coal threat is worse than we thought!
Willis’ article yesterday seemed to kill this Hansen angle stone dead. Can it be adapted to an op-ed and widely publicised?