Guest post by Pavel Belolipetsky
The IPCC, Bob Tisdale and others have presented hypotheses to explain 20th century warming. This article presents another. My co-workers and I call it the “Shifts” hypothesis. And we consider it to have advantages over other hypotheses in terms of simplicity, consistency over time, and homogeneity for the two considered regions. It is described in a submitted paper which can be read here
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1303/1303.1581.pdf
Its simplicity is that it uses only two factors to obtain an explanation of general features in each considered region. And it displays consistency over time because it provides the same explanation for the warming of the beginning and of the end of 20th century. This consistency enabled a fit of linear regression coefficients of data from first part of century (before 1950) to obtain similar reconstruction for the second part (after 1950). The homogeneity between regions means that shifts occur at similar times in the temperature time series of the tropics and of the north middle latitudes although the two time series differ. This homogeneity provides confidence that the Shifts Hypothesis applies globally.
It is an old idea that climate exists in “regimes” (or states) and that climate variations often occur in the form of shifts between them. Thus, regime shifts are rapid reorganizations from one relatively stable state to another. The idea gained in acceptance in the 1990s.
Many articles have been published [1-20], showing that climate shifts appear to be an essential feature of Earth’s climate system. Yasunaka and Hanawa [20] described a “regime shift” as an abrupt transition from one quasi-steady climatic state to another, and its transition period is much shorter than the lengths of the individual epochs of each climatic state. Kevin Trenberth [15] was among the first to characterize a climate shift and reported a “different regime after 1976”. Douglass and Knox [6] wrote that abrupt shifts in Earth’s climate system are common.
Lo and Hsu [10] provide a good illustration of climate shift in northern extratropical hemisphere at late 80th (Fig. 1)
Fig. 1. Time series of 9-year running-mean surface temperature anomalies (°C) in five chosen regions. Modified from Lo and Hsu (2010).
Importantly, the idea of quasi-stable regimes and sharp shifts between them is very different from the widespread view (e.g. of the IPCC) that the climate system is naturally in equilibrium and passively follows changes in radiation forcing. The existence of regimes and shifts between them suggests there may be strong negative feedbacks and buffering spaces holding the system in each regime. And there should be critical thresholds, after reaching which system moves from one regime to another.
The common feature of all studies concerning climate shifts is that causes of observed shifts are unknown. Or, in other words, there are no outstanding changes in known external forcing which induce climate shifts. For example, what extraordinary changes of forcing to northern extratropical regions are known which can produce the changes shown in Figure 1? And it is clear that IPCC climate models showing near constant feedbacks are unable to reproduce these features.
It seems that the only available mechanisms for the observed shifts are weakening of negative feedbacks or strengthening of positive feedbacks over short periods. Why and how the feedbacks would vary is not known, but there is clear need to determine this.
In our studies of regimes and shifts we considered sea surface temperature (SST) and not combined land-ocean temperatures: this was to diminish the level of variability which may mask the shifts. We compared two important regions; i.e. tropics (30S-30N), and the north middle latitudes (30N-60N). We found that probably there were three climate regimes in these regions from 1900 till now: the detected regimes were before 1926, from 1926 till 1987, and after 1988.
It seems that during each of the 1925/1926 and 1987/1988 shifts, the mean temperature rose to a new level around which natural oscillations occur. This assumption of shifts allows for an easy way to reconstruct SST anomalies at the tropics (30S-30N) and north middle latitudes (30N-60N). Of course there are some residuals between observed and reconstructed values, but they are quite homogeneously distributed during the century. This homogeneity of residuals is not the case for reconstruction by anthropogenic forcing.
Fig. 2. a) Blue line – SST in tropics, red line – linear regression on ENSO and climate regime, studied by 1900-2012 years b) ENSO influence on tropical SST; c) climate regime influence on tropical SST.
Figures 2 and 3 provide very simple linear regression models for SST dynamics in the tropics and north middle latitudes. Quite adequate reconstructions are obtained as linear combination of shifts with ENSO for tropical SST, and shifts with PDO for north middle latitudes SST. Correlation coefficients for monthly mean anomalies are 0.86 and 0.81, respectively. Is this simple? Yes, I think it is.
And the homogeneity is a remarkable feature. The temperature time series of tropics and north middle latitudes are very different, but the way of warming is common: they each exhibit shifts at near the same times.
Fig. 3. a) Blue line – SST in north middle latitudes (30oN-60oN), red line – linear regression on PDO and climate regime, studied by 1900-2012 years b) PDO influence on SST in this region; c) climate regime influence on SST in this region.
Symmetry allows fitting linear regression coefficients for data from only the first part of century (before 1950) and obtaining nearly the same reconstruction. In our paper we used the data from 1910 till 1940 (15 years to both side from shift in 1925/1926) and with almost the same quality reproduce the whole period from 1900 till now (Fig. 4).
Fig. 4. a) Blue line – SST in tropics (30oS-30oN), red line – linear regression on ENSO and climate regime with training period 1900-2012 years, purple line – the same linear regression with training period 1910-1940 years; b) the same as “a” but for north middle latitudes (30oN-60oN).
Various studies have indicated the existence of many shifts in the 20th century. And we are not the first to have observed shifts at 1925/1926 and 1987/1988. However, our working definition of shifts has some differences from that used by Yasunaka and Hanawa and many others. We define a climate regime as a quasi-steady state with known sources of variability. Additionally, we assess a climate regime shift as being significant and systematic changes that separate one climate regime from another and occur besides intra regime variability. For example, a step change of SST in the tropics in 1976 is clearly seen in time series, but the shift in 1987 is not obvious at all (Fig. 2).
The 1976 shift is, in general, associated with ENSO and could be almost reproduced by direct linear association with ENSO Nino34 index (Fig. 1b). Therefore, according to our definition, it should not be considered as a regime shift, because it is described by known intra-regime variability.
This is a fundamental difference between our work and that of, for example, R. Tisdale who considers ENSO to be a part of regime shifts.
We claim that our approach has advantages over others because – using our approach – we have shown that most of temperature anomalies produced by apparent shifts could be explained by known sources of variability (ENSO and PDO indexes) and only the shifts of 1925/1926 and 1987/1988 occur independently of known intra regime variability.
More detailed description of our hypothesis is in our preprints:
Belolipetsky PV, Bartsev SI, Degermendzhi AG, Hsu HH, Varotsos CA (2013) Empirical evidence for a double step climate change in twentieth century. Preprint. http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1303/1303.1581.pdf
(Now under review in Climate Dynamics)
Belolipetsky PV, Bartsev SI (2012) Hypothesis About Mechanics of Global Warming from 1900 Till Now. Preprint. viXra:1212.0172.
All the calculations used for producing the figures were made in Excel by standard functions. Archive containing these files could be downloaded by following link:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kmvg6ccjy6iy7q2/Calculations2.zip
I want to thank Richard S. Courtney and Robin Edwards who helped to prepare this post.
References:
- Beaugrand, G., & Reid, P. C. (2003). Long-term changes in phytoplankton, zooplankton and salmon linked to climate. Global Change Biology, 9, 801–817.
- Chavez FP, Ryan J, Lluch-Cota SE, Miguel Niquen C (2003) From Anchovies to Sardines and back: multidecadal change in the Pacific Ocean. Science, 299, 217-221.
- Deser C, Phillips AS, Hurrell JW (2004) Pacific Interdecadal Climate Variability: Linkages between the Tropics and the North Pacific during Boreal Winter since 1900. Journal of Climate, 17, 3109–3124.
- deYoung B, Harris R, Alheit J, Beaugrand G, Mantua N, Shannon L (2004) Detection regime shifts in the ocean: data considerations. Progress in Oceanography, 60, 143-164.
- Douglass DH (2010) Topology of Earth’s climate indices and phase-locked states. Physics Letters A 374 4164–4168
- Douglass DH and Knox RS (2012) Ocean heat content and Earth’s radiation imbalance. II. Relation to climate shifts. Physics Letters A. doi:10.1016/j.physleta.2012.02.027
- Fischer T, Gemmer M, Liu L, Su B (2012) Change-points in climate extremes in the Zhujiang River Basin, South China, 1961–2007. Climatic Change, 110:783–799 DOI 10.1007/s10584-011-0123-8.
- Flint PL (2013) Changes in size and trends of North American sea duck populations associated with North Pacific oceanic regime shifts. Mar Biol (2013) 160:59–65 DOI 10.1007/s00227-012-2062-y
- Hare SR, Mantua NJ (2000) Empirical evidence for North Pacific regime shifts in 1977 and 1989. Progress in Oceanography, 47, 103-145.
- Lo TT, Hsu HH (2010) Change in the dominant decadal patterns and the late 1980s abrupt warming in the extratropical northern hemisphere. Atmospheric Science Letters, 11, 210–215.
- Mollmann, C., Diekmann, R., 2012. Marine ecosystem regime shifts induced by climate and overfishing—a review for the Northern hemisphere. Adv. Ecol. Res. 47, 1–46.
- Overland, J., Rodionov, S., Minobe, S., Bond, N., 2008. North Pacific regime shifts: definitions, issues and recent transitions. Progress in Oceanography 77, 92–102.
- Rial, J., R.A. Pielke Sr., M. Beniston, M. Claussen, J. Canadell, P. Cox, H. Held, N. de Noblet-Ducoudre, R. Prinn, J. Reynolds, and J.D. Salas, 2004: Nonlinearities, feedbacks and critical thresholds within the Earth’s climate system. Climatic Change, 65, 11-38.
- Sarmiento JL, Gloor M, Gruber N, Beaulieu C, Jacobson AR, Mikaloff Fletcher SE, Pacala S, Rodgers K (2010) Trends and regional distributions of land and ocean carbon sinks. Biogeoscinces, 7, 2351-2367.
- Trenberth, K. E., 1990: Recent observed interdecadal climate changes in the Northern Hemisphere. Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., 71, 988–993.
- Trenberth KE, Hurrell JW (1994) Decadal atmosphere-ocean variations in the Pacific. Climate Dynamics, 9, 303.
- Tian Y, Kidokoro H, Watanabe T, Iguchi N (2008) The late 1980s regime shift in the ecosystem of Tsushima warm current in the Japan/East Sea: Evidence from historical data and possible mechanisms. Progress in oceanography, 77, 127-145.
- Tsonis A., Swanson K., Kravtsov S. (2007) A new dynamical mechanism for major climate shifts. Geophys Res. Lett. 34 L13705, doi:10.1029/2007GL030288.
- Veit RR, Pyle P, McGowan JA (1996) Ocean warming and long-term change in pelagic bird abundance within the California current system. Marine ecology progress series, Vol. 139, 11-18.
- Yasunaka S, Hanawa K (2002) Regime shifts found in Northern Hemisphere SST Field. Journal of meteorological society of Japan, Vol. 80, No. 1, pp. 119-135.
X Anomaly:
At April 26, 2013 at 5:57 pm you say to me
You make a good point when you say,
“there appears not to be a specific artifact from the step process”.
It raises the obvious question, why not?
Clearly, there must be such an “artifact” but Belolipetsky does not report it.
Investigation of that “artifact” would be a useful comparison with magnitudes of possible explanations for the shifts; e.g. cloud effects as suggested by Rob JM at April 26, 2013 at 4:46 pm.
Belolipetsky could develop his work by investigating “artifacts”.
Richard
Greg Goodman:
I have been following your contributions and – to be polite – they are not constructive.
I will spell out what is happening and you are too blinkered to see.
We are observing the formation of a new understanding of climate.
The new understanding builds on the accepted idea of climate regimes. (In his above article Belolipetsky reports that Kevin Trenberth published his discovery of such a shift). But Belolipetsky et al. have redefined what is a regime shift in a way which enables determination of what is – and is not – an effect of ENSO.
This thread makes clear that the new understanding of climate behaviour is being acquired by people including
Bob Tisdale who studies effects of ENSO.
Jens Raunsø Jensen who observes regime shifts over land.
Pavel Belolipetsky who observes regime shifts over oceans.
On this thread others (including milodonharlani and Rob JM) are postulating possible reasons for the regime shifts.
And some people (e.g. X Anomally) are attempting the hard but necessary job of trying to find fault with aspects of the developing new understanding.
However, you are clinging to the failed AGW-hypothesis like a drowning man clings to a straw in hope of floating. You say,
Belolipetsky et al. show it in their paper, he reports it in his above article, and I quoted his report in two above posts at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/the-shifts-hypothesis-an-alternative-view-of-global-climate-change/#comment-1288393
and
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/the-shifts-hypothesis-an-alternative-view-of-global-climate-change/#comment-1288809
Your desperation is great when you say
As Steven Mosher has done in this thread, you seem to be so keen to dismiss the work of Belolipetsky that you have not bothered to read it and – instead – assume it is the work of Tisdale.
Belolipetsky says ENSO explains climate within each regime but does not explain the shifts between regimes. If your assertion were right then it would not address the point made by Belolipetsky. Indeed, in his above article Belolipetsky points out that such shifts are not consistent with the AGW-hypothesis as promoted by the IPCC (and I add is emulated by GCMs); he writes
As I said, you are being desperate when you write
One could also say that there is nothing so far to say that ENSO cycle is not simply the result of angels breathing on the ocean. But such assertions of what “there is nothing so far to say” are all equally pointless and without merit.
Richard
Ted Wagner:
At April 26, 2013 at 8:28 pm you ask
I think you may find what you want in my reply to Greg Goodman which is at April 27, 2013 at 2:31 am. It is just above this post.
Richard
Pavel: This is an interesting analysis. My concern: you are mixing two different types of reference indices. The NINO3.4 data represents the sea surface temperature anomalies of the NINO3.4 region in the equatorial Pacific. On the other hand, the PDO does not represent the sea surface temperature anomalies of the North Pacific, north of 20N. The PDO is ENSO related but it’s also influenced by the sea level pressure of the North Pacific. Therefore, the difference between the tropical and extratropical analysis is likely a function of the sea level pressure, the North Pacific Index possibly, which may also be the cause of the regime shifts. Refer again to one of the papers you cited, Trenberth and Hurrell 1994:
http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/jhurrell/Docs/trenberth.decadal_variations.climdyn94.pdf
Also, I note you used HADISST-based NINO3.4 sea surface temperature anomalies. Did you note anywhere in your paper that from 1900 to present it has no long-term warming trend, which makes it a good reference? In effect, your tropical analysis is an attempt to explain the additional warming around the central equatorial Pacific (NINO3.4 region), which hasn’t warmed. That should answer the critics who are complaining about your use of a sea surface temperature dataset to explain a warming of sea surface temperatures.
I’m also wondering why you used the ERSST.v3b-based PDO data, when you’re using HADSST2/Reynolds OI.v2 data for your sea surface temperature data. The JISAO PDO data is based on an older version of the HADSST2 data and on two versions of the Reynolds OI data. On the other hand, the ERSST.v3b is a dataset that has been infilled using PC analyses, so the PDO index based on ERSST.v3b data is a PC analysis of a dataset created using PC analysis.
Regards
After reading the Belolipetsky’s paper and some of better inform comments, I’ll make few points:
– Neither sun nor the Earth globally are capable of sudden shifts, however particular regions of the globe are.
– Nearly 3 years ago I looked at the far North Atlantic geological records, and they display periodic shifts in the tectonic activity, which appear to be more or less coincidental with the underlining CET natural variability
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NVp.htm
– N. Hemisphere temperature and climate are affected by shifts in the polar jet-stream.
– In the far N. Atlantic semi-permanent atmospheric pressure (Icelandic Low) (from winters to summers it is moving from south to north of Iceland ) is generated by the unique warm currents down-welling
http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/large/04.18.jpg
intensity of the down-welling may be affected by the balance of warm and cold sea currents in the area; question is, if the periodic increase in the tectonic activity in the area could alter that ‘balance’. If so than at least there is a starting point for further investigation.
– Tectonic activity is usually accompanied by secular changes in the strength of magnetic field, diagnosis for this area is strongly positive
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LLa.htm
– However, currently there is an insurmountable physical obstacle, that the tectonic and solar magnetic activity appear to be correlating
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SSN-NAP.gif particularly since 1880s (more accurate records?)
– Further physical obstacle in getting a complete picture is that combination of the two magnetic fields changes since 1880’s, produces ‘near perfect’ de-trended components of both N. Atlantic SST and N. Hemisphere’s temperatures.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
– All of the above could be readily rejected as a ‘nonsense’, as it has been done regularly by one of the resident experts, but NASA scientists are less reluctant to do so:
Dr. J. Dickey of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena: “One possibility is the movements of Earth’s core (where Earth’s magnetic field originates) might disturb Earth’s magnetic shielding of charged-particle (i.e., cosmic ray) fluxes that have been hypothesized to affect the formation of clouds. This could affect how much of the sun’s energy is reflected back to space and how much is absorbed by our planet. Other possibilities are that some other core process could be having a more indirect effect on climate, or that an external (e.g. solar) process affects the core and climate simultaneously. “
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/earth20110309.html
If by now you’ve given up, I don’t blame you, since a climate hypothesis based on to the current science unknown physical processes, is not going to make much of an inroad, so let’s go back to another half baked CO2 hypothesis.
Bob Tisdale:
re your post at April 27, 2013 at 3:14 am .
Great and sincere thanks for your joining the thread (I know you have been busy coping with trolls on another thread).
Pavel resides in Siberia so time differences make rapid interaction on the thread difficult for him, and I have been trying to ensure that discussion does not stall. We needed you here.
I remind of an observation and a suggestion I have made in the thread, and I am writing to commend the same suggestion to you.
I wrote in my post at April 27, 2013 at 2:31 am
And in my post at April 26, 2013 at 8:05 am I wrote saying to Jens Raunsø Jensen
I make the same respectful suggestion to you.
We need the progress of the science which integration of the ideas of the three of you can hopefully provide.
Richard
richardscourtney says: “However, you are clinging to the failed AGW-hypothesis like a drowning man clings to a straw in hope of floating. You say,…”
LOL. Nice little rant. Seems like you are projecting your own desperation to find something else onto the those who make reasoned criticism. I will now explain what you are too blinkered to see.
Just because I happen to agree with Mosh (for once) does not I’m a fan of CAGW. It seems incontestable to anyone with a scientific mind that CO2 has some effect. The argument is about how much not “if”. It is clear that climate models are way off the mark and a new approach needs to be taken. That does not mean I will jump on the first half baked hypothesis that comes along with the huge relief of someone in denial or some anti-eco teabagger.
“…you seem to be so keen to dismiss the work of Belolipetsky that you have not bothered to read it and – instead – assume it is the work of Tisdale.”
BS, I have been in private communication with Pavel Belolipetsky the last couple of weeks before this was posted and any comment I’ve made about his article relate to it’s contents. My comments on Tisdales work deal with his work,
I criticise Mario for saying :“Well it’s clear that CO2 is NOT causing the ENSO process for a number of reasons. This has been shown. ”
That criticism stands, it is not “obvious” and it has not been “shown”.
Pavel’s article is interesting but is a long way from either proving what it suggests or from being accepted as such.
You are simply jumping to conclusions, pigeon-holing me according to your own prejudices and clearly have not read or tried to understand my comments otherwise you would be post back such rubbish.
I am sceptical in the scientific sense not in the tea-bagger fan club sense and that means it works both ways. May be you should try the same objective scepticism instead of sounding off at everyone.
richardscourtney says:
Pavel …. Now, your your ideas and analysis will get true peer review in this thread. Be prepared for strong argument because people here have sufficient respect for ideas, studies and research to try to demolish them.
So don’t flame those who do take the time and effort to criticise !
Greg Goodman:
Your post at April 27, 2013 at 3:33 am begins saying
I made no “rant”. I provided clear and logical argument supported by evidence.
Hence, I did not bother to read the remainder of your post on the assumption that it only contains illogical rationalisations similar to your previous posts in the thread.
Richard
richardscourtney says: Investigation of that “artifact” would be a useful comparison with magnitudes of possible explanations for the shifts;
READ:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/the-shifts-hypothesis-an-alternative-view-of-global-climate-change/#comment-1289329
Greg Goodman says, regarding the possible influence of greenhouse gases on ENSO: “It is not “clear” , neither has it been shown.”
The abstract of Ray and Giese (2012) ends with:
“Overall, there is no evidence that there are changes in the strength, frequency, duration, location or direction of propagation of El Niño and La Niña anomalies caused by global warming during the period from 1871 to 2008.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012JC008031/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
Greg Goodman says: “I’m NOT saying CO2 is the cause but there is nothing so far to say that ENSO cycle is not simply the climate mechanism for evacuation of the excess heat that has built up…”
The ocean heat content data for the tropical Pacific disagrees with you. The “build-up” typically occurs only during 3-year La Ninas. But then there was the freakish 1995/96 La Niña that created the ocean heat content for the 1997/98 El Niño. And as I have been presenting for a while, without the 1973-76 La Niña and 1995/96 La Niña, tropical Pacific OHC cools over the long-term:
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/03-trop-pac-ohc-w-n-w-o-la-ninas-4.png
So it’s pretty hard to claim there’s a CO2-based “build-up” fueling El Niños when the OHC data for the tropical Pacific shows long-term cooling over 55 years when you remove 4 years of data.
Greg Goodman:
Your post addressed to me at April 27, 2013 at 3:44 am says
I did. It is at April 27, 2013 at 12:09 am and says
I “rather suspect” you are making arm-waving assumptions to excuse your ignoring the evidence which you, too, have seen.
Richard
“Hence, I did not bother to read the remainder of your post on the assumption that ”
Your assuming and not bothering to read was what the rest said in a nutshell, so you’re bang on course pal.
Greg Goodman:
Your trolling is a nuisance.
Read the post to you from Bob Tisdale at April 27, 2013 at 3:48 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/the-shifts-hypothesis-an-alternative-view-of-global-climate-change/#comment-1289461
and my post to you April 27, 2013 at 3:52 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/the-shifts-hypothesis-an-alternative-view-of-global-climate-change/#comment-1289464
They hand your rear end to you on a plate.
Make substantive points and genuine criticisms or go away. At present your trolling is disrupting the thread.
Richard
http://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/03-trop-pac-ohc-w-n-w-o-la-ninas-4.png
Sorry Bob , OHC goes up and down. If you remove the bits where it goes up the rest goes down. I don’t wish to be unnecessarily critical but I don’t think you realistically remove one side of Nino/Nina like that. I don’t think you can assume that 1998 would have been the same irrespective of preceding La Ninas.
However, the OHC plot does show quite well how ENSO variations can pump energy into rest of the climate system. That is major factor that climate science does not seem recognise. It is NOT just ‘internal variability’ that can be assumed to be long term neutral. Once again I commend you on that finding.
Vuk, like much of your stuff this is interesting: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
However, I note that it does not follow well around 1925. Despite the earlier detail matching well there is a level shift in SST . It would seem to be further evidence , along with my ACE comparison of an error in SST record (either sampling bias or bad “bias correction”)
http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=215
I think that is what Pavel has picked up here.
Do you have details anywhere explaining what your “Geo-solar cycle” is, what data it is based on and how to calculate it?
Greg Goodman:
In your post at April 27, 2013 at 4:46 am you say
OK. Please state your evidence for your claim of “an error in SST record (either sampling bias or bad “bias correction”)”.
There is a long history of AGW-supporters claiming,
“The data refutes AGW so the data must be wrong”.
On face value your assertion of “evidence” is merely another example of this claim.
So, please state your evidence. And please note that the hypothesis of vukcevic is not such evidence.
The importance of this matter to the subject of this thread cannot be overstated.
If observed “shifts” are errors in SST determinations then there is nothing to debate because nothing pertinent is known.
Richard
Paul Linsay says:
April 26, 2013 at 7:15 am
////////////////////////////////////
Paul
Your interpretation of the satellite data appears correct. There appears to be no first order correlation between CO2 and temperature in the satellite data set. That data set does not support the contention that CO2 drives temperature.
That said, why has the temperature increase that occurred around the super El Nino of 1998 not disippated? Why has the temperature anomaly not fallen back to pre 1997/8 levels? Why has the heat released remained in the atmosphere for so long?
Perhaps over the coming years, we will now see a fall in temperature anomaly back to the pre 1997/8 level, and if so, it is important to seek to understand why this occurs, in particular whether that is just a lag or whether it is the result of a change in forcing such as a consequence of low solar activity.
Bob says:
The abstract of Ray and Giese (2012) ends with:
“Overall, there is no evidence that there are changes in the strength, frequency, duration, location or direction of propagation of El Niño and La Niña anomalies caused by global warming during the period from 1871 to 2008.”
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2012JC008031/abstract?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false
It’s difficult to comment on that paper since it’s behind a paywall.
However, you say that just two events were mainly responsible for the warming. They say there is “no evidence” that such events are caused by global warming. That is a negative finding, they did not find any evidence of… They do not report finding any other cause (at least not mentioned in abstract). This leaves an ambiguous situation. Either it was found to be “normal” ENSO which contradicts your idea that ENSO caused the warming, or it’s not normal but they could not find any other cause but refute it’s CO2.
If you have the full paper maybe you can fill out a bit what it does find.
I’m not against your idea that it’s ENSO but I think it needs to be challenged as firmly as many here would question the CO2 explanation.
The way I see it is that you have shown ENSO can get heat in and out of the ocean. The out part is a loss to the system since a lot will end up escaping to space. In the mean time this would cause some atmospheric warming. The heat input part is a net gain since it is additional solar energy captured. This means ENSO has the means to act as a negative feedback in both directions.
It has the means to be a primary regulator of Earth energy budget. That is significant.
Now, IF there was gradual extra heat input into the oceans (more correctly less loss) due to additional CO2, then a small change in the ratio of Nino/Nina would be able to dump that excess to atmosphere and eventually to space.
I don’t see any way so far to distinguish between a gradual heat input and a small change in Nino/Nina ratios (with as yet unknown cause or simply random) that would net the same extra heat increase.
The problem I see with what you have shown so far is that if you want to refute AGW and claim ENSO has caused late 20th c. warming you need to show it HAS done so , not just that it CAN.
Now that’s one tall order and I don’t knock what you’ve done so far if you can’t _prove_ the last step. But if you want to use it to refute AGW I think that’s what’s needed.
Please correct me if you think that’s faulty logic.
My very first post here showed independent reason to think there may be a shift in 1987.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/04/26/the-shifts-hypothesis-an-alternative-view-of-global-climate-change/#comment-1288510
The other shift is 1925 I suspect to be a data error since two totally independent physical datasets that correlate quite well over the record show a step change around that year.
That is based on observational evidence. It is different from saying I have a pet hypothesis about what causes or does not cause global warming and I want to adjust the data to fit the model.
I’m not even interested in whether this helps or hinders anyone’s pet idea. Before we can test any theory we need data to work with. If there is an apparent problem with a dataset that has had more adjustments applied than the signal we are supposed to be explaining then any physical evidence that does not tie in goes to the top of the list of things to look into and any hypotheses take second place.
If anyone would like to say those inconsistencies don’t exist or that there is some other “step” change in the climate system that would explain the evident dislocations then that would be interesting to hear.
Greg Goodman:
In your post at April 27, 2013 at 5:56 am you say
If one shift exists because of unknown and unspecified “data error” then – in absence of other information – there is no reason to suppose that both both shifts are not caused by similar “data error”.
Conversely, when there is no evidence for such a “data error” then there is no reason to doubt the data which indicates both shifts.
And when “two totally independent physical datasets that correlate quite well over the record show a step change around that year” then there is evidence which indicates the shift was real and was NOT a result of such a “data error”. But that is the shift which you are suggesting is caused by such a data error.
So, at present there is no explanation for your suggestion of an unknown and unspecified “data error” except assertion of a prejudice.
I repeat,
please state any evidence you have for the “data error” which you suggest exists.
There is a long history of AGW-supporters claiming the data must be wrong when the data refutes their assertions.
Richard
Richard, as far as I know you have not analysed any of this yourself, you have not posted anything of your own work, you’ve appointed yourself chief expert for the day.
I’m sick of your ignorance and attitude and stupid comments, take it somewhere else.
Greg Goodman says: April 27, 2013 at 4:46 am
Vuk, like much of your stuff this is interesting: http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GSC1.htm
However, I note that it does not follow well around 1925. Despite the earlier detail matching well there is a level shift in SST
richardscourtney says: April 27, 2013 at 5:00 am
And please note that the hypothesis of vukcevic is not such evidence. The importance of this matter to the subject of this thread cannot be overstated.
Good afternoon gentlemen
Let me stick to the facts as I understand them to be:
– The SST reconstruction graph is based on the combination of solar and the presumed Earth core’s magnetic field secular oscillations (Jackson -ETHZ & Bloxham –Harvard) data.
I am of the view that tectonics is affecting balance of the sea currents. Tectonic movements are strictly Earth’s lithosphere and very uppermost mantle processes, and its effects may not register further down at some 3-5000 km (the outer core) where the magnetic field is generated), considering mantle’s magma dumping. However as stated in my post, tectonic movements do cause local magnetic field to change, so what happened in 1925?
Let me elaborate further:
– Europe in 1920’s had already network of accurate geomagnetic stations, all of these in 1925 recorded sudden change in the Earth’s magnetic field with respect to time, better known as a ‘geomagnetic jerk’. The 1925 was the strongest ‘jerk’ ever instrumentally recorded (for more details see paper by Dr. Susan Macmillan of British Geological Survey http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/3979/1/3887C5F0.pdf page 2)
I do not see any particular contradiction with any part of my hypothesis or with the N.A. SST change in 1925.
Re: ‘geomagnetic oscillations’ data and related info: my article was emailed to Dr. L. Svalgaard (declared it absolute nonsense), Dr. J. Curry ( i did a quick read, looks very interesting. do you want to do a guest post at CE on this? would need to distill the argument into relatively simple points, show a few key figs, then link to the entire post. Judy, I politely declined the offer, on account of ‘there is a lot more to be worked out’), S. Mosher (didn’t object to calculations, relatively neutral) and Dr. RG Brown (rgb&duke, did not respond)
I think… my posts are getting far too long for my writing skills.
Greg Goodman:
re your post at April 27, 2013 at 6:33 am .
Your saying “as far as you know” displays your ignorance which would not have existed had you bothered to read the above article by Pavel.
STOP TROLLING.
I yet again repeat
please state any evidence you have for the “data error” which you suggest exists.
There is a long history of AGW-supporters claiming the data must be wrong when the data refutes their assertions.
Richard
vukcevic:
Thankyou for your post at April 27, 2013 at 6:44 am.
I write to draw attention of your statement which concurs with an observation I had made. You say
I agree.
Richard
Pavel,
In the submitted manuscript, which you ask us to comment on, you state: “We hypothesise that there were two major climate regime shifts in1925/1926 and 1987/1988 years. During these shifts the mean value of temperature rises, over which natural variability associated with ENSO, PDO and other factors occurs.”
But the 1925/26 shift is not readily observable in global SST records. Where is your socalled empirical evidence (title of manuscript)? I asked you earlier without reply. But from your answer to another comment I can see that – as I thought – you are effectively eyeballing (probably based on your expectation from the Yasunaka and Hanawa paper). Your shifts are assumptions, unless you establish objective criteria and tests for their identification. Autocorrelation in the SST data will complicate this.
The 1925/26 shift is what constitutes the normally accepted definition of the PDO as characterised by shifts in 1925, 1947 and 1977. The shift in 1925/26 was regional and generally accepted as representing internal variability, but in your analysis you are arguing that this shift was not part of internal variability. Is there an inconsistency in your analysis here?
regards jens