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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Jeff Glassman says:
April 1, 2013 at 11:38 am
This newly re-corrected citation is Svalgaard, L. et al, “Determination of Interplanetary Magnetic Field Strength, Solar Wind Speed, and EUV Irradiance, 1890-2003”, 2003. It was published two years before Wang et al. (2005).
So clearly we were not relying on Wang et al. The succession of papers from 2003 through 2010 are all consistent and shows the evolution of our understanding of IDV and what it means [a measure of the Sun’s magnetic field – driven ultimately by solar activity proxied by the sunspot number]. Any model [as Wang’s] that claims to express quantities [such as TSI] must reproduce the empirical fact that variations of the solar wind magnetic field [at Earth] depend on the square root of the sunspot number.
The LS/Schrijver argument is a hypothetical.
All science is provisional. If some premise is met then one can infer something. The science consists of giving evidence that the premise holds.
Apparently Jupiter is a driver of Earth’s climate in the same sense that CO2, El Niño, and other minor feedbacks are drivers.
No, Jupiter is MAJOR driver of climate, mainly responsible for changing the Earth’s orbit causing glaciations.
LS and Schrijver need Wang to be wrong, so they publish fantastic new studies to prove their point.
On the contrary, we show that Wang et al. are wrong. But is seems that you need Wang to be correct.
Far from being falsified, the Wang (2005) model, and not one of the solar scientists’ modifications, was current in AR4 and is still current. It is featured prominently on the SORCE TSI web page as the model for historical TSI reconstruction, updated as recently as 2/4/13. http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/data/tsi_data.htm
The Wang et al. model is based on the flawed Group Sunspot Number and is no longer valid. That it still is being used here and there is just an example of the usual inertia in science. It takes about a decade for wrong science to die away.
LS (3/30/13 3:10 pm) urges
The claim is that the IDV is a model, a model for the variability in solar data.
IDV is a measurement of the response of the Earth to the sun’s magnetic field.
LS and Schrijver et al. prefer Wang’s model S1 because it is better for AGW enthusiasts —it reduces the predictive power of the Wang (2005) model, which inconveniently contradicts AGW at its core.
Which explains your agenda-driven venomous missives. The facts are that solar activity by all the measures and indices we have of such are now back to what it was around 1900, but the model-derived [from flawed sunspot numbers] TSI reconstructions and the climate are not. As simple as that.
Jeff Glassman says:
April 1, 2013 at 11:38 am
Far from being falsified, the Wang (2005) model, and not one of the solar scientists’ modifications, was current in AR4 and is still current. It is featured prominently on the SORCE TSI web page …
In fact, the AGW proponents [which include the SORCE people] need something like the Wang model [also why it was in AR4] to explain the warming during the 1st half of the 20th century. You seem to side with the AGW proponents on this issue. I, clearly, do not: neither the Sun nor AGW have anything to do with the natural climate variations we observe. Well, actually, the Sun does have a small influence, on the order of 0.1 degrees C and I’ll not exclude a similar small effect from CO2.
Leif Svalgaard (4/1/13 1:34 pm) says,
>>>>Apparently Jupiter is a driver of Earth’s climate in the same sense that CO2, El Niño, and other minor feedbacks are drivers.
>>No, Jupiter is MAJOR driver of climate, mainly responsible for changing the Earth’s orbit causing glaciations.
The relationship between Earth’s orbit and glaciations has the name Milankovitch Cycle or M. Theory, after Milutin Milankovitch who assumed the lead on the theory in 1912. It has undergone updates over the year. A recent paper, Laskar, J., et al., “A long term numerical solution for the insolation quantities of the Earth”, Astrono & Astrophys, 5/23/04, provides an error analysis for the Theory, including the effects of Jupiter and Saturn. Laskar et al. conclude
>>The new orbital solution of the Earth that is presented here can be used for paleoclimate computations over 40 to 50 Myr.
NASA adds,
>> The authors of the present paper also show that if we do not search for a complete solution of the Earth orbit, but just for the main variation of its orbit eccentricity, a relatively stable modulation of 405 kyr, resulting from the perturbations of Jupiter and Saturn (that are more stable than the inner planets) can be used over the full Mesozoic era (up to about 250 Myr) for the astronomical calibration of sediments with an uncertainty of about 0.5 Myr after 250 Myr. This term is actually related to a geological cycle that is present in some jurassic and triassic sediments.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/display.cfm?News_ID=9976
But that’s far from the end of the story. Like LS claiming that he has a best estimate for IDV, which Wong et al.(2005) found unrealistic for estimating TSI, the most accurate orbital cycle estimates don’t begin to account for Earth’s major ice ages. Ray Pierrehumbert explains:
>> The gaping hole in Milankovic’s theory is that it predicts that ice ages should follow the precessional cycle. In particular, the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere should have ice ages in alternation every 10,000 years, with the severity of the ice ages modulated by the eccentricity cycle. This is not at all what is observed. …
>>The problem is not that the amplitude of radiative forcing associated with Milankovic cycles is small: it amounts to an enormous 100W/m2, with the amplitude determined by the eccentricity cycle. The problem is that the forcing occurs on the fast precessional time scale, whereas the climate response is predominately on a much slower 100,000 year time scale.
Pierrehumbert, R. T., “Principles of Planetary Climate”, 7/31/07, ¶8.5, p. 253. Also see same, 2010, in Google Books, p. 465 et seq.
LS exaggerates the effects of Jupiter as a replacement for his squelching of the Sun, a necessity for the AGW movement to survive. But if the Milankovitch model had worked, then Jupiter might have accounted for the ice ages, which is eons beyond the capabilities of the GCMs. Jupiter effects are not a substitute for TSI the Sun, which varies enough to account for Earth’s global average surface temperature, but just since the invention of thermometers, and it predicts the flattening of GAST for the last decade and a half. Thanks especially to Wong et al.
Even as we debate, the frustration in the movement is boiling over into its once supportive media. Climate Science, “A sensitive matter”, The Economist, 3/30/13. http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions . E.g., “Today’s recommended economics writing: James Hansen on climate tipping points.” The Economist, 6/24/08.
Leif Svalgaard (4/1/13 1:34 pm) says,
>>>> The LS/Schrijver argument is a hypothetical.
>>All science is provisional. If some premise is met then one can infer something. The science consists of giving evidence that the premise holds.
What you say is true. Scientific hypotheses make testable, non-trivial predictions, and if they pass the tests, the hypothesis is a candidate to be advanced to a theory.
A hypothetical is different. Schrijver et al., on which LS relies, hypothesized:
>>If the 2008– 2009 solar magnetic activity is indeed similar to the Maunder Minimum level as we argue here, then … .
Is there any possibility of making a sensible estimate of the solar magnetic activity during the last half of the 17th Century? The Svalgaard/Schrijver model is permanently no better than a conjecture without proposing how that estimate might be made. As it stands, the S/S model shows that TSI hasn’t changed significantly for 350 years by a assuming that a major component of it at least wasn’t much different 350 years ago. The model is a bootstrap; it hypothesizes the truth of its conclusion.
Jeff Glassman says:
April 1, 2013 at 4:01 pm
“No, Jupiter is MAJOR driver of climate, mainly responsible for changing the Earth’s orbit causing glaciations.”
The relationship between Earth’s orbit and glaciations has the name Milankovitch Cycle or M. Theory, after Milutin Milankovitch who assumed the lead on the theory in 1912.
Good to see that you read up on M theory. Here is some more to round off your education: http://www.leif.org/EOS/2006GL027817-Milankovich.pdf
Jupiter effects are not a substitute for TSI the Sun, which varies enough to account for Earth’s global average surface temperature
Of course, Jupiter is not a substitute for TSI. Jupiter is MAJOR driver, while the response to TSI’s puny variation is barely measurable.
the frustration in the movement is boiling over
As you are in your strenuous attempts to invoke TSI as the major influence that it is not. Your frustration is understandable as humans need something, anything, to cling to in order to feel secure in their [even if mistaken] beliefs.
Scientific hypotheses make testable, non-trivial predictions, and if they pass the tests, the hypothesis is a candidate to be advanced to a theory. […] Is there any possibility of making a sensible estimate of the solar magnetic activity during the last half of the 17th Century?
To continue your education there are actually several such. E.g. as described long ago here http://climateaudit.org/2007/11/30/svalgaard-solar-theory/
And possibly even more direct as it seems we are heading into another Maunder Minimum in the near future, e.g. http://www.leif.org/research/SSN/Svalgaard12.pdf
Already this solar cycle is on par with cycle 14 a century ago, but current TSI is much higher than the Wang et al. reconstruction. And you left out an ‘r’ when referring to the Wong model.
vukcevic says:
April 1, 2013 at 1:15 pm
the assertion in 2. proves the observation in 1.
One of the better April Fool’s joke this time around.
Could it really be that the atmospheric effect of CO2 has finally “saturated” itself out. Oops! Can’t say that, I am only a Climate Denialist, level 1.
The headline has no corroboration in the body of the article. There is no ‘twenty-year’ hiatus. Copy-editor messed up.
The most sensational quotes come from dedicated skeptical sources (eg Global Warming Policy Foundation). The rest are in line with the mianstream climate community, and the article distorts the progress of modeling and sensitivity studies, making out that lower projections sensitivities are newly appeared, when such results have been published over the last few decades – on this last, it makes it look as if improved calculations bring these results. But other results give higher estimates. The IPCC range for sensitivity (2 – 4.5C/doubling CO2) is the central estimate. The Australian framing of this is a litttle misleading.
….Svensmark is correct. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/28/dana-nuccitellis-holiday-trick-for-sobering-up-quick-put-a-little-less-rum-in-your-egg-nog/
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
April 1, 2013 at 9:55 pm
….Svensmark is correct. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/12/28/dana-nuccitellis-holiday-trick-for-sobering-up-quick-put-a-little-less-rum-in-your-egg-nog/
Another April Fool’s joke?
Perhaps this will dampen your enthusiasm: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1303.7314.pdf
barry:
I am copying all your disingenuous post at April 1, 2013 at 8:28 pm so it is clear that I am not responding out of context. You say
There is a “hiatus” in global warming.
To determine this then one has to start from now: any other date is cherry-picking. One then works back through a global temperature time series to determine if there is a trend which differs from zero at 95% confidence (i.e. the low confidence used in ‘climate science’). This determines how far back in time is required to obtain a warming or cooling trend.
The various different time series of global temperature provide different periods over which there has been no discernible (at 95% confidence) warming or cooling up to the present. The obtained range of values is 16 to 23 years.
In other words, there has been no discernible warming for at least 16 years (GISS) and depending on analysed time series possibly 23 years (RSS). The headline reports this as a “Twenty year hiatus” which is an accurate newspaper headline according to the data.
This hiatus is important because IPCC WG1 AR4 Chapter 10.7 (2007) predicted “committed warming” at an average rate of “0.2°C per decade” over the first two decades of this century with half of this rise being due to atmospheric GHG emissions which were already in the system.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-7.html
This “committed warming” has disappeared (possibly eloped with Trenberth’s missing heat?).
This prediction (n.b. prediction and not projection) of “committed warming” should have had large uncertainty because the Report was published in 2007 and there was then no indication of any global temperature rise over the previous 7 years. There has still not been any rise and we are now way past the half-way mark of the “first two decades of the 21st century”.
So, if this “committed warming” is to occur such as to provide a rise of 0.2°C per decade by 2020 then global temperature would need to rise over the next 7 years by about 0.4°C. And this assumes the “average” rise over the two decades is the difference between the temperatures at 2000 and 2020. If the average rise of each of the two decades is assumed to be the “average” over those two decades then global temperature needs to rise before 2020 by more than it rose over the entire twentieth century. It only rose ~0.8°C over the entire twentieth century.
As you say, the IPCC uses ridiculously high climate sensitivity values but the missing “committed warming” demonstrates they are wrong. And the observed ‘Twenty year hiatus’ emphasises this fact.
Richard
…and a Happy Belated Easter to you, Lief! I was hoping that would draw you out!
In all seriousness, I don’t believe we can discount Svensmark’s ideas out-of-hand. Results from CERN may be validating the theory, they are spending enough money on the research. http://cloud.web.cern.ch/cloud/
Climate is far more complicated than the Team would have us believe. I heard that it snowed in Poland on Easter, the northern USA is quite chilly, but the Arctic Sea ice extent remains very labile. I’ll be damned if I know what’s going on!
CRS, Dr.P.H. says:
April 2, 2013 at 8:58 am
In all seriousness, I don’t believe we can discount Svensmark’s ideas out-of-hand.
Nobody is doing that, the dismissal is based on the lack of evidence [or the crumbling of the claims] for Ney’s ideas. Did you even read http://arxiv.org/pdf/1303.7314.pdf ? or http://www.leif.org/EOS/Cloud%20Cover%20and%20Cosmic%20Rays.pdf
“It is concluded that the observational results presented, showing several years of disconnect between GCRs and lower-troposphere global cloudiness, add additional concern to the cosmic ray–cloud connection hypothesis. In fact, this has been done in the most dramatic way with the measurement of record-high levels of GCRs during the deep, extended quiet period of cycle 23–24, which is accompanied by record-low levels of lower-troposphere global cloudiness.”
The data does not support the GCR-Cloud hypothesis.
Results from CERN may be validating the theory, they are spending enough money on the research
As I understand it the experiment is not ongoing, and it was not CERN spending money. Basically, the experiment just showed that the chamber had to very clean to avoid contamination from impurities.
Leif, according to the CERN website, these are the funding sources:
Atmospheric cloud production is very complex, I don’t believe that clouds in the lower troposphere are implicated in climate change as much as higher elevations. This is an excellent colloquium delivered to Fermilab National Laboratory:
http://vmsstreamer1.fnal.gov/VMS_Site_03/Lectures/Colloquium/100512Norris/f.htm