Guest post by Ed Hoskins
The UK Met Office long term Central England Temperature record[1] has kept a continuous and consistent data set since the 1660s. It appears to be reliable and to have maintained its quality. It has not been adjusted as have so many other official temperature records.Although the CET record covers only a small part of the northern hemisphere, it has shown a consistent rise since the end of the little ice age in 1850 at a rate of about +0.45°C / century or about +0.67°C in the last 150 years. This rise accords well with other temperature records.
However since the year 2000, diminishing solar activity in solar cycle 24, moving back towards little ice age patterns, appears to be having an real effect.
So since 2000 the CET shows an annual temperature diminution at the rate of -0.49°C / decade or -0.59°C in 12 years: this negates almost the entire CET temperature rise since 1850. Although this is a very short period, the extent of the climate change that has been observed since the turn of the millennium is remarkable.Using the March 2013 CET value it is possible to show the winter temperature values up until March 2013 with a combination of the four months December – March for the first 13 years of this century. The diminution of the four winter months temperatures is more remarkable at a rate of -1.11°C / decade or -1.41°C in the last 13 years. This compares with a winter temperature increase rate from 1850 to the year 2000 of +0.45°C / century or +0.68°C for the whole 150 year period.
There are substantial shorter term fluctuations in temperature and since about 1850 world temperatures have been recovering from a Little Ice Age up by about +0.7°C up until the year 2000. These fluctuations have correlated well with solar activity observable by the number of sunspots. There was a particularly active solar period from about 1970 onward coinciding well with sunspot cycles 21 – 22 – 23: it lead to comparatively rapid warming.However the current cycle 24 is very much weaker and sunspots are diminishing to the levels of the earlier Little Ice Age.
According to some[2], “so begins a Little Ice Age”. These colder conditions lead to a southwards diversion of the Jet Stream over Europe, as could be seen on 2/4/2013[3], when the upper atmosphere air flow was passing over Northern Africa, rather than is normal in warmer times to the North of Scotland.Such a jet stream pattern leads to very wet summer conditions and remarkably cold winters as have occurred in the last 5 years throughout Northern Europe and the rest of the Northern hemisphere. This adverse colder climate could well persist for several 10s or even hundreds of years as it certainly did for the pervious Little Ice Age.Humanity has thrived in our current Holocene interglacial world. The comparatively warm last 10,000 years have been responsible for the development of the whole of civilisation. The GRIP[4] Greenland ice core data, supported reinforced by several other similar long term ice core records show this effect very clearly.
Over the past 10,000 years the current Holocene epoch has been progressively cooling since the early “climate optimum”. Overall in the 10,000 years the world has cooled gradually by about 1.0 °C. There were other well documented temperature high points during the period, including the Minoan, Roman and Medieval warm periods.
However the most recent period of 1000 – 2000 AD was the coolest millennium of the whole epoch: see John Kehr the Inconvenient Sceptic[5].However a longer term record shows that only 13,000 years ago the world was in the depths of a real ice age with temperatures about 12°C lower than at present.So interglacial periods of about 12,000 years have been occurring regularly about every 120,000 years. They are interspersed by real 100,000 year long ice ages, when vast ice sheets cover large parts of the world beyond the tropics.The previous Eemian interglacial epoch was some 130,000 years ago. At its peak it was about 3°C warmer than our current Holocene interglacial: hippopotami thrived in the Rhine delta. The Eemian also lasted about 12,000 years.
The pattern repeats itself[6], there have been 5 interglacial events in the last 500,000 years.At ~10,500 years our current cooler but benign Holocene interglacial is coming towards its end and the reversion of our planet to a real ice age is foreseeable.
REFERENCES
[1] http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/
[2] see: http://www.weatheraction.com/displayarticle.asp?a=525&c=5
[3] see: http://www.woeurope.eu/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=eu&MENU=0000000000&CONT=euro&MODELL=gfs&MODELLTYP=1&BASE=-&VAR=jeps&HH=3&ARCHIV=0&ZOOM=0&PERIOD=&WMO=
[4] http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/greenland/greenland.html
[5] see: http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/chapters-8-10/
Click to access Petit_et_al_1999_copy.pdf
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Tom G(ologist) says:April 25, 2013 at 4:56 am
Adam…
The Holocene began ~11,500 years ago, not 10,500 years (AGI). And where do you get the statement that the Earth has been cooler than now for much of the time of its history? Unless something has changed that I missed, that statement is just not correct.
Tom, I assumed Adam meant that in the past 500K years, 90% of the time we are in glaciated periods. Maybe I mistook something.
He meant cooler during the ice ages.
It would be almost unprecedented to have even a global 0.4 degree drop or rise from year to year. (Unless by “very next cold year” you meant within some very long time frame–in which case “very next” was a poor choice of words.)
The warming in the 1900’s is similar in size and shape to the cooling in the 1800’s. the only real difference is that the sign is reversed.
It is hard to see how the warming must be caused by humans but the cooling is not. Is it not more likely that whatever mechanism caused the cooling is also able to cause warming? For example, if you turned down the mechanism that caused the cooling, that should necessarily create less cooling, which would be seen as warming.
Where is the evidence that the cooling in the 1800’s is not connected to the warming in the 1900? It is illogical to suggest they are not simply two sides to the same coin. Especially given the universal failure of the climate models to predict the leveling of temperatures in the 2000’s.
The climate models were all based on the assumption that humans are the cause of increasing temperatures. The failure of the models to accurately predict is strong evidence that their underlying assumption is wrong.
Thorium liquid salt nuclear power. We have loads of easy to refine, cheap, non-nuclear bomb material thorium ore sitting around doing nothing; enough for thousands of years and a technology with the smallest footprint on the environment. Being liquid already, meltdowns are impossible and the entire reactor can be automated. A scram would simply means the liquid becomes so hot that it melts bottom plugs that allow the liquid to flow into several separate containers, bringing the nuclear reaction to a rapid halt. Many small reactors can be dispersed all over the place, only needing maintenance every 10 years or so. The fuel costs 10% of current fuel and we have loads of it. The reaction can be so thorough that the products can be used for other things and does not have to be buried for 1000s of years.
We can burn coal and other carbon fuels, but in the long run, I say we used those for transportation (no battery will ever have the energy density of gasoline or diesel), plastics, pharmaceutical, and other useful organics.
This looks like an important paper. I will reread it at least once again.
The latent editor in me has noted the usage in many publications of the word “lead” where the correct one is “led”. I noted three instances through this article and comments, all of which should be either “led” or “misled”:
“it lead to comparatively rapid warming”
“These colder conditions lead to a southwards diversion of the Jet Stream over Europe”
And from a posting: “We continue to be mislead by the CET myth”
A further minor quibble: in several places there is no space between the period ending a sentence and the first letter of the following sentence. A minor quibble I know, but this is from someone who has been sensitized by the lack of a space in several translations from Japanese and Korean.
IanM
One more post with temperature differences of 0.x degrees…
This is an interesting post, thanks.
William Astley says:
April 25, 2013 at 6:20 am
The pattern of warming that occurred in the 20th century matches the pattern of warming in the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles.
=====
appears wiki agrees. strange that climate scientists are not aware of these events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dansgaard%E2%80%93Oeschger_event
In the Northern Hemisphere, they take the form of rapid warming episodes, typically in a matter of decades, each followed by gradual cooling over a longer period.
This CET record omits an interesting/inconvenient period since 1659.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/tcet_mean1.png
Notice the massive warming between 1690-1740, being twice the allegedly anthropogenic one. This is an easy check for any NH proxy, since instrumental NH record agrees with CET quite well.
Juraj V. says: April 25, 2013 at 8:29 am
This CET record omits an interesting/inconvenient period since 1659.
Indeed, it is a clue to a natural forcing; from 1890 to 1720 the average of the CET rose by 2C, while from 1970 to 2000, CET average rose by 1C
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET1690-1960.htm
which is almost identical to rise in geological activity in the far North Atlantic.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP.htm
“On decadal and century time scale (excluding the long term Milankovic cycles) only oceans can move global temperature above and beyond solar variability. In turn this only can be achieved by the geo-tectonics impacting on the intensity of ocean currents. Question still to be resolved: degree of the solar contribution via- and ex- TSI.”
This article says: “It has not been adjusted as have so many other official temperature records.”
The MET office says (at your first link): “Since 1974 the data have been adjusted to allow for urban warming.”
Can you reconcile these statements?
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle
Adam, the “planet” i.e. the biosphere is already alot cooler than the warmists would have you believe. The atmosphere is where most of us interact with it but most of the biosphere is salt water and much of that volume is much below 10 C. If it sucks up any more energy or releases a little less or receives a little less (who knows what the thresholds are?) then we probably will be heading for a cooler future. Keep the home fires burning.
This is the sort of post that gives skeptics a bad name. If such a grab bag of evidence were used to support alarmist conclusions then we would tear it to pieces. Central England 3-century record compared to ice core data from the poles….tells us about global temperature trends. Really??? And then the (solar) cause of the recent changes is just proclaimed without defense. This looks like a mirror image of the worse alarmist tripe.
Otherwise, RACookPE1978 brings up an interesting point that has emerged a number of times, but perhaps warrants further attention:
Well, who does agree with this? Much alarmist science does.
There is a lot of alarmist science that points to the AGW effect emerging after the 1950s, even after the 1970s. The climate models give only a miniscule influence before 1900, and, from Hansen 1988 onwards, the influence is not generally given as detectable until the 1980s. The Hockey Stick does not begin its upward trend until the 20cent. However recent paleo studies (Marcott, PAGES2K) are finding a warming trend beginning in the middle of the 19cent. It seems that while they see this aligned with the industrial revolution it is safely in support of the AGW dogma. But is it?
A trend from 1850 precedes the expected CO2 emissions influence of the models, so to a certain extent these paleo results are contradiction the models: another cause is required to at least explain the early part of this warming — and so this brings into question the given cause of the later warming. In other words, any paleo results that support a warming trend beginning in the 19th serve to bring the standard model-based AGW science into question. Can we agree on that?
I’ll bet you anything they’ll still be blaming global warming when the plunge comes.
I imported monthly CET data into a spreadsheet. The data seems to be raw numbers, not anomalies. No problem; I averaged the 30 Januarys (1961-1990), Februarys, etc. This gave me a 1961-1990 normal set to use as my “zero”. Monthly anomalies were then calculated against that. A quickie spreadsheet analysis shows that the trend has been negative from August 1987 to March 2013. That’s over 25 and a half years. And the time for “no statistically significant warming” probably goes back a few years more.
“Although the CET record covers only a small part of the northern hemisphere, it has shown a consistent rise since the end of the little ice age in 1850 at a rate of about +0.45°C / century or about +0.67°C in the last 150 years.”
Here’s 1730 to 1930: http://snag.gy/2q2kT.jpg
temperature change is perspective.
Why cannot they plot actual temperature rather than compare to 1961-1990 average and then proxy data graphs for last 2,000 , 200,000 and 2,000,000 years ?
Why not plot temperature rate of change, carbon dioxide and sunspot activity on same graph?
There appears to be a lack of papers which collate basic data on temperature, rate of change of temperature,carbon dioxide concentration , sunspot activity , etc, etc. It is almost as if scientists are playing a three card trick on everyone. During WW2 , the Battle of the Atlantic was vital to the allies but was being conducted over a vast area and over many years. Scientists reduced the complexity to tonnage of ships being sunk and tonnages being built and the results put on graph. It was obvious to to everyone that unless the situation changed by mid 1942, the Battle of the Atlantic would be lost.
A picture is worth a thousand words.Many people are fed up with being patronised and condescended to by experts, who frequently tell them they are wrong and being stupid when it goes against their own experience and common sense.
Fascinating information, but I can’t find any info on Ed Hoskins. Who is he?
Hi, Judy, I HAVE NO IDEA either, but… via Bing.com, I found this on SOMEONE named Edward Hoskins…
“Edward Hoskins: Ed has long been qualified as both a dentist and architect. In 1969 he founded one of the earliest break away companies from Cambridge UK specializing in Computer Aided Design and Geographic Information Systems. Ed’s company grew from the research group of the School of Architecture and founded on the basis of examining the quantifiable aspects of building and planning. Ed is noted for his skills in creating graphs and spreadsheets enabling wider understanding of the facts concerning the man-made global warming question.” [from Principia website’s biographic sketches page]
Whatever his creds, he is obviously well qualified to speak to the subject he wrote on above.
Despite the minor typos or spelling errors pointed out above, I like Mr. Hoskins’ lucid writing style. A relief to read! WELL DONE ARTICLE, Mr. Hoskins WHOEVER YOU ARE. [#:)]
Good for you to persist in asking your question, Judy! I ask questions all the time that no one answers. That kind of discourages me from asking any more. Now, I’ll try again!
Why is the analysis always done on a linear basis when even a casual look shows a clearly sinusoidal underlying function? If you accept that as a starting point the positive spikes and the negative ones long term are pretty well equal and the deviation no greater than any other period in the record. climate scientists are not the people to talk to about pattern analysis. The experts in that field are in data recovery and image analysis and the few I have talked to who are interested in climate are horrified that people still take climate scientists seriously at all given their record of failure in prediction. No competent engineer in any field can take the idea of an unstable system which forcing implies seriously since the system had to be fundamentally stable for life to have evolved at all.
One wonders if they are trying to keep the global warming idea alive till the next predicted rises in fifteen years or so.
pervious?
It woulda bin useful if CO2 really was a control knob. No such luck.
Their figures are usually presented as charts of “anomalies” compared to the thirty-year period 1961-1990, following a convention laid down by the WMO. It is supposed to be updated every ten years but so far there is limited presentation against 1971-2000 data. However, if a period like 1961-90 is used, with a lot of cold winters and indifferent summers, then it is logical that as the weather returned to a more acceptable pattern it would be “above average” compared to the earlier period. In a 2005 e-mail, Dr David Parker of Hadley explained the preference for the period.
“There is a preference in the atmospheric observations chapter of IPCC AR4 to stay with the 1961-1990 normals. This is partly because a change of normals confuses users, e.g. anomalies will seem less positive than before if we change to newer normals, so the impression of global warming will be muted.” Even their own headline chart is now showing temperatures falling in comparison to 61-90.
In 2005, this was on the Hadley website:
Stabilising climate to avoid dangerous climate change — a summary of relevant research at the Hadley Centre January 2005
“What constitutes ‘dangerous’ climate change, in the context of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, remains open to debate.
Once we decide what degree of (for example) temperature rise the world can tolerate, (how would they know?) we then have to estimate what greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere should be limited to, and how quickly they should be allowed to change.
These are very uncertain because we do not know exactly how the climate system responds to greenhouse gases. (remember how the science was settled years earlier?)
The next stage is to calculate what emissions of greenhouse gases would be allowable, in order to keep below the limit of greenhouse gas concentrations. This is even more uncertain, thanks to our imperfect understanding of the carbon cycle (and chemical cycles) and how this feeds back into the climate system.”
In 2004 the Tyndall Centre had this working paper: The Social Simulation of the Public Perception of Weather Events and their Effect upon the Development of Belief in Anthropogenic Climate Change, Working Paper 58 2004. You can see more about Tyndall here: http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/reprint/social_construction.html
Original Paper at http://multi-science.metapress.com/content/v84152h64m5r36t5/
“To endorse policy change people must ‘believe’ that global warming will become a reality some time in the future. (their emphasis)
“Only the experience of positive temperature anomalies will be registered as indication of change if the issue is framed as global warming.”
Both positive and negative temperature anomalies will be registered in experience as indication of change if the issue is framed as climate change.
We propose that in those countries where climate change has become the predominant popular term for the phenomenon, unseasonably cold temperatures, for example, are also interpreted to reflect climate change/global warming.”
We know what happened to that idea….
Uh, Judy?