Image Credit: WoodForTrees.org
Guest Post By Werner Brozek, Edited By Just The Facts
*At least April data was my intention. However as of June 8, HadCRUT3 for April is still not up! Could it be because as of the end of March, the slope of 0 lasted 16 years and 1 month and they do not want to add another month or two? What do you think? WoodForTrees (WFT) is up to date however, thank you very much Paul!
The graph above shows a few different things for three data sets where there has been no warming for at least 16 years. WFT only allows one to draw straight lines between two points, however climate does not go in straight lines. Often, temperatures vary in a sinusoidal fashion which cannot yet be shown using WFT. However we can do the next best thing and show what is happening over the first half of the 16 years and what is happening over the last half. As shown, the first half shows a small rise and the last half shows a small decline. Note that neither the rise in the first half nor the drop in the last half is statistically significant. However the lines do suggest that we are just continuing a 60 year sine wave that was started in 1880 according to the following graphic:
Do you agree? What are your views on the question in the title? Do you think we are presently in a pause or in a decline or neither?
In the sections below, we will present you with the latest facts. The information will be presented in three sections and an appendix. The first section will show the period that there has been no warming for various data sets. The second section will show the period that there has been no “significant” warming on several data sets. The third section will show how 2013 to date compares with 2012 and the warmest years and months on record. The appendix illustrate sections 1 and 2 in a different format. Graphs and a table will be used to illustrate the data.
Section 1
This analysis uses the latest month for which data is available on WoodForTrees.com (WFT). All of the data on WFT is also available at the specific sources as outlined below. We start with the present date and go to the furthest month in the past where the slope is a least slightly negative. So if the slope from September is 4 x 10^-4 but it is – 4 x 10^-4 from October, we give the time from October so no one can accuse us of being less than honest if we say the slope is flat from a certain month.
On all data sets below, the different times for a slope that is at least very slightly negative ranges from 8 years and 5 months to 16 years and 6 months.
1. For GISS, the slope is flat since January 2001 or 12 years, 4 months. (goes to April)
2. For Hadcrut3, the slope is flat since March 1, 1997 or 16 years, 1 month. (goes to March 31, 2013)
3. For a combination of GISS, Hadcrut3, UAH and RSS, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 12 years, 6 months. (This goes to May. I realize that Hadcrut3 is not up to date, but on the basis of its present slope and the latest numbers that I do have from the other three sets. I am confident that I can make this prediction.)
4. For Hadcrut4, the slope is flat since November 2000 or 12 years, 6 months. (goes to April)
5. For Hadsst2, the slope is flat from March 1, 1997 to April 30, 2013, or 16 years, 2 months.
6. For UAH, the slope is flat since January 2005 or 8 years, 5 months. (goes to May)
7. For RSS, the slope is flat since December 1996 or 16 years and 6 months. (goes to May) RSS is 198/204 or 97% of the way to Ben Santer’s 17 years. This 97% is real!
The next graph shows just the lines to illustrate the above for what can be shown. Think of it as a sideways bar graph where the lengths of the lines indicate the relative times where the slope is 0. In addition, the sloped wiggly line shows how CO2 has increased over this period.
When two things are plotted as I have done, the left only shows a temperature anomaly. It goes from 0.1 C to 0.6 C. A change of 0.5 C over 16 years is about 3.0 C over 100 years. And 3.0 C is about the average of what the IPCC says may be the temperature increase by 2100.
So for this to be the case, the slope for all of the data sets would have to be as steep as the CO2 slope. Hopefully the graphs show that this is totally untenable.
The next graph shows the above, but this time, the actual plotted points are shown along with the slope lines and the CO2 is omitted.
Section 2
For this analysis, data was retrieved from SkepticalScience.com. This analysis indicates for how long there has not been significant warming according to their criteria. The numbers below start from January of the year indicated. Data go to their latest update for each set. In every case, note that the magnitude of the second number is larger than the first number so a slope of 0 cannot be ruled out. (To the best of my knowledge, SkS uses the same criteria that Phil Jones uses to determine significance.)
The situation with GISS, which used to have no statistically significant warming for 17 years, has now been changed with new data. GISS now has over 18 years of no statistically significant warming. As a result, we can now say the following: On six different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 18 and 23 years.
The details are below and are based on the SkS site:
For RSS the warming is not significant for over 23 years.
For RSS: +0.123 +/-0.131 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990
For UAH the warming is not significant for over 19 years.
For UAH: 0.142 +/- 0.166 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hadcrut3 the warming is not significant for over 19 years.
For Hadcrut3: 0.092 +/- 0.112 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
For Hadcrut4 the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For Hadcrut4: 0.093 +/- 0.108 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
For GISS the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For GISS: 0.103 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
For NOAA the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For NOAA: 0.085 +/- 0.104 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
If you want to know the times to the nearest month that the warming is not significant for each set to their latest update, they are as follows:
RSS since August 1989;
UAH since June 1993;
Hadcrut3 since July 1993;
Hadcrut4 since July 1994;
GISS since October 1994 and
NOAA since May 1994.
Section 3
This section shows data about 2013 and other information in the form of a table. The table shows the six data sources along the top and bottom, namely UAH, RSS, Hadcrut4, Hadcrut3, Hadsst2, and GISS. Down the column, are the following:
1. 12ra: This is the final ranking for 2012 on each data set.
2. 12an: Here I give the average anomaly for 2012.
3. year: This indicates the warmest year on record so far for that particular data set. Note that two of the data sets have 2010 as the warmest year and four have 1998 as the warmest year.
4. ano: This is the average of the monthly anomalies of the warmest year just above.
5. mon: This is the month where that particular data set showed the highest anomaly. The months are identified by the first two letters of the month and the last two numbers of the year.
6. ano: This is the anomaly of the month just above.
7. y/m: This is the longest period of time where the slope is not positive given in years/months. So 16/2 means that for 16 years and 2 months the slope is essentially 0.
8. sig: This is the whole number of years for which warming is not significant according to the SkS criteria. The additional months are not added here, however for more details, see Section 2.
9. Jan: This is the January, 2013, anomaly for that particular data set.
10. Feb: This is the February, 2013, anomaly for that particular data set.
11. Mar: This is the March, 2013, anomaly for that particular data set.
12. Apr: This is the April, 2013, anomaly for that particular data set.
13. May: This is the May, 2013, anomaly for that particular data set.
21. ave: This is the average anomaly of all months to date taken by adding all numbers and dividing by the number of months. However if the data set itself gives that average, I use their number. Sometimes the number in the third decimal place differs by one, presumably due to all months not having the same number of days.
22. rnk: This is the rank that each particular data set would have if the anomaly above were to remain that way for the rest of the year. Of course it won’t, but think of it as an update 20 or 25 minutes into a game. Expect wild swings from month to month at the start of the year. As well, expect huge variations between data sets at the start. Due to different base periods, the rank may be more meaningful than the average anomaly.
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Had3 | Sst2 | GISS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. 12ra | 9th | 11th | 9th | 10th | 8th | 9th |
| 2. 12an | 0.161 | 0.192 | 0.448 | 0.405 | 0.342 | 0.56 |
| 3. year | 1998 | 1998 | 2010 | 1998 | 1998 | 2010 |
| 4. ano | 0.419 | 0.55 | 0.547 | 0.548 | 0.451 | 0.66 |
| 5. mon | Ap98 | Ap98 | Ja07 | Fe98 | Au98 | Ja07 |
| 6. ano | 0.66 | 0.857 | 0.829 | 0.756 | 0.555 | 0.93 |
| 7. y/m | 8/5 | 16/6 | 12/6 | 16/1 | 16/2 | 12/4 |
| 8. sig | 19 | 23 | 18 | 19 | 18 | |
| 9. Jan | 0.504 | 0.441 | 0.450 | 0.390 | 0.283 | 0.61 |
| 10.Feb | 0.175 | 0.194 | 0.479 | 0.424 | 0.308 | 0.52 |
| 11.Mar | 0.183 | 0.204 | 0.411 | 0.387 | 0.278 | 0.58 |
| 12.Apr | 0.103 | 0.219 | 0.425 | 0.353 | 0.50 | |
| 13.May | 0.074 | 0.139 | ||||
| 21.ave | 0.208 | 0.239 | 0.440 | 0.401 | 0.306 | 0.553 |
| 22.rnk | 6th | 8th | 11th | 12th | 11th | 10th |
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Had3 | Sst2 | GISS |
If you wish to verify all of the latest anomalies, go to the following links, UAH,
For RSS, Hadcrut4, Hadcrut3, Hadsst2,and GISS.
To see all points since January 2012 in the form of a graph, see the WFT graph below:
I wish to make a comment about this graph from WFT. It is right up to date. The only reason that both HadCRUT3 and WTI only go to March is because WTI uses 4 data sets, one of which is HadCRUT3, so if HadCRUT3 is not there for April, WTI cannot be there for April as well.
Appendix
In this part, we are summarizing data for each set separately.
RSS
The slope is flat since December 1996 or 16 years and 6 months. (goes to May) RSS is 198/204 or 97% of the way to Ben Santer’s 17 years.
For RSS the warming is not significant for over 23 years.
For RSS: +0.123 +/-0.131 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1990.
The RSS average anomaly so far for 2013 is 0.239. This would rank 8th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.55. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.857. The anomaly in 2012 was 0.192 and it came in 11th.
Following are two graphs via WFT. Both show all plotted points for RSS since 1990. Then two lines are shown on the first graph. The first upward sloping line is the line from where warming is not significant according to the SkS site criteria. The second straight line shows the point from where the slope is flat.
The second graph shows the above, but in addition, there are two extra lines. These show the upper and lower lines using the SkS site criteria. Note that the lower line is almost horizontal but slopes slightly downward. This indicates that there is a slight chance that cooling has occurred since 1990 according to RSS
UAH
The slope is flat since January 2005 or 8 years, 5 months. (goes to May)
For UAH, the warming is not significant for over 19 years.
For UAH: 0.142 +/- 0.166 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
The UAH average anomaly so far for 2013 is 0.208. This would rank 6th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.419. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.66. The anomaly in 2012 was 0.161 and it came in 9th.
Following are two graphs via WFT. Everything is identical as with RSS except the lines apply to UAH.
Hadcrut4
The slope is flat since November 2000 or 12 years, 6 months. (goes to April.)
For Hadcrut4, the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For Hadcrut4: 0.093 +/- 0.108 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
The Hadcrut4 average anomaly so far for 2013 is 0.440. This would rank 11th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.547. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.829. The anomaly in 2012 was 0.448 and it came in 9th.
Following are two graphs via WFT. Everything is identical as with RSS except the lines apply to Hadcrut4.
Hadcrut3
The slope is flat since March 1 1997 or 16 years, 1 month (goes to March 31, 2013)
For Hadcrut3, the warming is not significant for over 19 years.
For Hadcrut3: 0.092 +/- 0.112 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1994
The Hadcrut3 average anomaly so far for 2013 is 0.401. This would rank 12th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. One has to go back to the 1940s to find the previous time that a Hadcrut3 record was not beaten in 10 years or less. The anomaly in 2012 was 0.405 and it came in 10th.
Following are two graphs via WFT. Everything is identical as with RSS except the lines apply to Hadcrut3.
Hadsst2
For Hadsst2, the slope is flat since March 1, 1997 or 16 years, 2 months. (goes to April 30, 2013).
The Hadsst2 average anomaly for the first four months for 2013 is 0.306. This would rank 11th if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.451. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in August of 1998 when it reached 0.555. The anomaly in 2012 was 0.342 and it came in 8th.
Sorry! The only graph available for Hadsst2 is the following
this.
GISS
The slope is flat since January 2001 or 12 years, 4 months. (goes to April)
For GISS, the warming is not significant for over 18 years.
For GISS: 0.103 +/- 0.111 C/decade at the two sigma level from 1995
The GISS average anomaly so far for 2013 is 0.553. This would rank 10th if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.66. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.93. The anomaly in 2012 was 0.56 and it came in 9th.
Following are two graphs via WFT. Everything is identical as with RSS except the lines apply to GISS.
Conclusion
Above, various facts have been presented along with sources from where all facts were obtained. Keep in mind that no one is entitled to their own facts. It is only in the interpretation of the facts for which legitimate discussions can take place. After looking at the above facts, do you think that we should spend billions to prevent the claimed catastrophic anthropogenic global warming? Or do you think we should take a “wait and see” attitude for a few years to be sure that future warming will be as catastrophic as some claim it will be? Keep in mind that even the MET office felt the need to revise its forecasts. Look at the following and keep in mind that the MET office believes that the 1998 mark will be beaten by 2017. Do you agree?
By the way, here is an earlier prediction by the MET office:
“(H)alf of the years after 2009 are predicted to be hotter than the current record hot year, 1998.”
When this prediction was made, they had Hadcrut3 and so far, the 1998 mark has not been broken on Hadcrut3. 2013 is not starting well if they want a new record in 2013. Here are some relevant facts today: The sun is extremely quiet; ENSO has been between 0 and -0.5 since the start of the year; it takes at least 3 months for ENSO effects to kick in and the Hadcrut3 average anomaly after March was 0.401 which would rank it in 12th place. Granted, it is only 3 months, but you are not going to set any records starting the race in 12th place after three months. So even if a 1998 type El Nino started to set in tomorrow, it would be at least 4 or 5 months for the maximum ENSO reading to be reached. Then it would take at least 3 more months for the high ENSO to be reflected in Earth’s temperature. How hot would November and December then have to be to set a new record? In my opinion, the odds of setting a new record in 2013 are extremely remote.
“As to whether the short-term flattish trends continue … ” etc. (barry).
Most of the ~0.6C rise since c.1950, a minimum 0.3C of which the IPCC claims to be due to the monotonic rise in allegedly human CO2, occurred in the twenty-year period c.1980 – c.2000 — i.e. 20 – 25 years out of 60.
Andres Valencia says: June 9, 2013 at 6:17 pm
Thanks, JustTheFacts.
Good work.
Thank you, but Werner Brozek did the vast majority of the work and he deserves the vast majority of the credit.
jai mitchell says:
June 9, 2013 at 8:57 pm
you are neglecting the fact that the globally warmest years have all been since 2000.
http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/files/2012/07/temperaturerankings.jpg
And you haven’t listened to others’ responses on that.
Nice graph, but try this exercise. Start at the line for year 2000 and step up to 2008, the last item on the plot. 2001 is 6 steps warmer, 2002 is 4, 2003 is 1, 2004 is 2 steps cooler, 2005 back up 3. Note that four year stretch occupies the warmest slots, except for the 1998 extreme El Niño. Then 2006 is 4 steps cooler, 2007 1 more, and 2008 is 3 more. Heading down.
I think 2009 and 2010 would resume the rise, but 2011 and 2012 would go back down. You might want to look for more current data but do keep in mind that the data is consistent with a plateau before a long decline, as that Chinese 2450 year trace suggests.
I also strongly recommend you use the UAH or RSS satellite data set, there are too many problems with the ground temperature record.
Kevin Trenberth has a model that “shows” that the heat is going into the ocean but he doesn’t know why (“This result suggests that changes in the atmospheric
circulation are instrumental for the penetration of the
warming into the ocean, although the mechanisms at work
are still to be established.”).
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50382/abstract
Hm, how do we call it when we have a model that does a hindcast correctly but we have no mechanism? Numerology, right?
Nuccitelli loves it:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/new-research-confirms-global-warming-has-accelerated.html
So Trenberth and Nuccitelli are both numerologists.
We are in a decline, and this decline was predicted decades ago. The negative phase of the PDO coupled with the decline of Solar Activity will likely cause the climate to cool in a non-linear way over the next two decades.
If a scientist wanted to claim that there had been a pause in the underlying rate of warming, or that the temperatures were declining, SOLELY ON THE BASIS OF THE OBSERVATIONS, then normal scientific practice would require them to show that there is statistically significant evidence to support this claim. If someone can give detais that show that there is statistically significant evidence for a change in the rate of warming, then lets see it. I very much doubt that such evidence will be forthcoming as the confidence intervals include both 0 and 0.2 degrees per decade (i.e. the IPCC projected rate of warming) and so the observations don’t rule out either hypothesis. For the evidence for a change in the rate of warming to reach statistical significance, the error bars would have to exclude the long term rate of warming.
Note the lack of statistically significant warming does not imply that there has been no warming, just that the observations do not effectively rule out the possibility that there has been no warming. Statistical hypothesis tests are not symmetric.
Note also that claims of global warming are not made solely on the basis of observed global surface temperatures, for example there is also ocean heat content etc.
Lastly, cherry picking the start dates invalidates the test anyway.
There has been lots of warming within the last 16 years. Since 2008 there has been strong warming. Looks like the rate of change is on a significant upswing.
What has happened is that when the Pacific gets to a certain threshold warmth (other conditions being equal), the rising air from the heated surface waters of the El Nino reinforces and strengthens the eastern trade winds. And these strengthened winds simply blow the warm surface water mass to the west, where it divides and goes towards both poles. This exposes the atmosphere to the cooler waters from below
This is just a description of ENSO, and is how the ocean COOLS — the warmer water that goes to the poles cools as it moves. I’m still waiting for a description of how heat gets transferred down into the deeper ocean in this process. Warm water on top of cold water is stable. Warm water on top of REALLY cold water at the poles is REALLY stable. Also, this is hardly “missing heat” — this is SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE, the part that has failed to warm while the subsurface water that you allege is warming has supposedly warmed.
ENSO has been happening forever, since long before CO_2 levels were rising. It may well have been a factor in surface warming ever since the ice age. It is not, however, a good place or mechanism to look for “missing heat” in.
you are again not understanding basic hydrology and surface mixing due to wind and wave action.
what do you suppose causes the thermoclines in the first place???
mixing and pooling in the subsurface layers
Yes, a process that has been going on for a very long time, that has a very, very long relaxation time, and that has to respond to heat that first appears on the surface. Now, please explain how the heat magically appears far below the surface without first being observable in the sea surface temperature records> for the last 16 years, which are flat since the 1997-1998 super-ENSO.
Bear in mind that the people that are trying to credibly explain this are making noises about things like ultraviolet radiative heating that bypasses the atmosphere and that pesky surface layer that isn’t heating because it has a phenomenally efficient latent-heat-driven surface cooling mechanism, in addition to being basically opaque to IR.
when you said,
that is almost certainly the proximate cause of the last and only significant warming spell the planet experienced over the entire satellite record
you are neglecting the fact that the globally warmest years have all been since 2000.
http://blogs.nicholas.duke.edu/thegreengrok/files/2012/07/temperaturerankings.jpg
Have you actually ever looked at the thermal record of the Holocene? Somebody posted a graph of it earlier, but I’m guessing you must have skipped it. Try this one:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
although there are better ones. Note well two specific features of this graph. First, the LIA that you blithely dismiss is an outstanding climatological milestone on this graph by virtue of being the coldest point in the entire Holocene. That’s right, the coldest single feature since the Younger Dryas. Note also that on this curve there is nothing unremarkable about the current temperature, nothing at all remarkable about the fact that the world warmed after the coldest fluctuation observed in a chaotically fluctuating series, nothing remarkable in the assertion that the warming that began at the end of the LIA continues today. The second point is that plotting the current temperature fluctuations on an annual or monthly scale is not an apples to apples comparison (although everybody who wishes to sell something does it). This curve is coarse grain averaged — necessarily, because the data is so averaged — over a comparatively long time period to eliminate the statistical noise of unknown dynamics with shorter time periods and reveal real climate trends. Trends that, I should point out, we cannot explain in any way that works! We have no idea why this curve looks the way that it does. We have no idea what it would look like if humans didn’t even exist. We therefore have very little idea what the human contribution to the overall curve is. If I were to point out an additional feature to make it a triplet look at the implicit uncertainty in the curve! This curve shows the kinds of variation visible in different proxy determinants of past climate, and each of the underlying (colored) curves has its own error bars (unshown, because nobody ever shows error bars on climate curves because then our ignorance would be revealed in a way that any idiot could see).
Eyeballing it, it looks like we don’t really know global temperatures over any time frame up to the very modern era indeed — really the satellite era — within perhaps 1-2 C. There are always enormous, often partially cancelling oscillations in local surface temperatures, oscillations that last centuries, oscillations where the northern hemisphere (for example) warms and the souther hemisphere cools or vice versa. We don’t understand this. We don’t really understand much of anything about the climate, and the GCMs that all of the belief in CAGW is based on fail badly to even agree with each other within 1 C, and are currently diverging rapidly from the actual observed global temperature.
Now, if you want to argue that the present is the warmest time in 300 to 400 years, no argument — warming from the LIA. It is basically impossible to determine if it is the warmest since the MWP. It is probably NOT the warmest similar period since the Roman Warm Period. Both of these previous warm periods occurred naturally, without human help. The LIA occurred naturally, without human help. Finally, given that the temperature is fluctuating around a more or less stable 16 years high (since the 1997-1998 ENSO) it is hardly surprising that a lot of years occur in the top ten. That doesn’t mean that the globe is still discernibly warming in this stretch, only that it warmed in the past. Indeed, as both the lower troposphere temperature and the sea surface temperature make rather clear, it only warmed in specific, discrete increments associated with ENSO — hardly the behavior one expects from a continuously increasing locally linear stimulus response (to CO_2) model, eh?
you have so many misunderstandings about the basics it makes me wonder if you are actually doing this to purposefully lie.
Ah, now the ad hominem starts. But no matter Obi-Wan. Feel free to instruct me and repair my ignorance. Bear in mind that I’m the author of several physics textbooks as you do so, although I freely confess that climate science is merely a hobby, not a profession. So although I’ve worked through e.g. Grant Petty’s First Course in Atmospheric Radiation and Caballero’s book on climate physics, I’m quite certain that my ignorance is profound, because I cannot yet explain the thermal record of the last 16,000 years, the last 2000 years, the last 500 years, or the last 100 years. Can you?
If so, let me know. Right after you explain what measurably changed in ENSO or the laws of physics to permit “missing heat” to somehow bypass the surface layer and end up in the thermocline.
And at your leisure, you might instruct me about the “missing error bars” in the entire general field of climate science. I’d argue that this is by far the more pressing of the missing items.
especially when you say,
take a chance on an additional 1.6 C temperature increase by the end of the century or remain in abjectly miserable energy poverty for the rest of their lives
you are assuming 1. that it will only be 1.6C when the real range is going to be from 4-6′C with a final ESS of 8-10C
Horseshit. Not even a decent minority of climate scientists think this anymore. The current AR5 report might end up as high as 2.5 C, but there is (as is completely expected!) considerable pressure due to the fact that there has been no discernible warming for 12-16 years and the predictions and data are diverging, with the data looking remarkably like the “no increase in CO_2” prediction curve. Climate sensitivity is dropping like a rock, constrained by the data. Is your last name really Hansen? I thought he was the only person left who believed his own crack…
2. That fixing it will lead to poverty.
I ask you only 1 question: regarding number 2 above,
What was the event that caused the U.S. to get out of the great depression and develop a globally defining economic engine?
World war 2, of course. I’m actually not an idiot.
And, bonus question IF you get that one right.
what was the U.S. response to the event that was the catalyst for the economic growth???
Building lots of war materials and sending vast numbers of the unemployed off to fight and die overseas. Inventing deficit spending and ways of inflating the money supply.
But of course you miss my point. In the United States, no matter what we do that spends money like water it can “stimulate the economy”, or not. Whether or not it does depends in great measure on how money balances out deep within the banking industry. This is utterly irrelevant to the problems of the third world. The third world — and I grew up in New Delhi, India, and have seen more poverty outside of my back door than you can even imagine — is suffering right now from energy poverty. You might recall that the electrification project back in the earlier part of the century — wait, you weren’t going to assert that it was that that brought an end to the Great Depression, were you? Silly beanie — instantly raised the standard of living throughout the US, and more or less defined “civilization”, at least where citizens had jobs and could afford even comparatively cheap electricity (which was generally less expensive than other forms of lighting and enabled the production and delivery of safe, clean water from something other than hand pumped wells and hence put an end to the outhouse society).
When you make carbon based energy artificially more expensive, you know what you do? You kick a state like California into a depression that continues there even though it is over nearly everywhere else. You kick the entire continent of Europe into a monetary crisis so profound that they are abandoning the carbon trading ponzi scheme like the hot potato it always was because a) there hasn’t been any discernible warming over the entire lifetime that the scheme has been in place and b) it has cost Europe several times the collective debt of the nations in financial crisis. Given that energy is the critical resource upon which all economies survive, raising energy prices is purely inflationary or, in the case of countries like Greece or Italy that are already marginal economically, enough to push them entirely underwater.
This is, however, a tiny fraction of the impact it has in the third world. There, the impact is — no impact at all. It is the mere continuation of an impoverished life straight out of the nineteenth century — energy poverty. No electrical lights. No electrical heat or air conditioning. No clean water, no sanitation systems. No power to drive new industry to permit people to raise themselves out of poverty and build a 21st century economy.
This impact is the real catastrophe, and it is happening right now. You are obviously ready to allege that we should be fearing Hansen’s hallucinatory 5 meter ocean rise by the year 2100, while the actual rate of SLR might add ten whole inches by 2100, if it is sustained. I suggest you meditate upon just how rapid an ocean rise is required to produce his “catastrophe”, and just how non-catastrophic the roughly ten inch rise over the last century has been.
rgb
@sceptical cherry picking is an error in either direction.
Loosely speaking, if the confidence interval doesn’t exclude the hypothesis you wish to be falsified, then you should not assert your hypothesis is true, based solely on the observations. That is essentially the principal on which statistical hypothesis testing is based, and while it has many flaws, it is still a useful sanity check.
Brilliant reply Dr.Brown, to the lousy third rate troll who is not even fit to lace your boots.
The case against second-hand smoke was oversold, until the latest findings came it. If Marshall pointed that out before those findings came in, it wasn’t unprincipled. The case against second-hand smoke in a casual setting (outside a family or workplace environment) has not been proven. (Hopefully e-cigs will make the whole matter moot.)
I believe they’ve been involved with the climate issue for over a decade.
The 60 year multidecadal sine wave is superimposed on the “Recovey of the Little Ice Age” linear upward trend of Akasofu. Just by calling it a “recovery” doesn’t make the warming trend sufficiently explained. What is the physical cause of the recovery?
Check out WUWT’s arguments to the contrary on this reference page:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/climatic-phenomena-pages/extreme-weather-page/
The Pompous Git says:
June 10, 2013 at 12:28 am
I know. I was querying the value of focussing on non-statistically significant trends when statistically significant trends are available with a few more years data.
Hansen’s model (1981? 1988?) was but one. We have ensembles from the latest IPCC report, which include 10, 15 and 20 year flat trends within a long-term (mid-range) warming scenario.
That does not seem to jibe with what NOAA thinks. The exact quote from pg 23…
They did not say that 15 years of flat trend was “impossible” as Mario put it, though they did say that it would “create a discrepancy with the expected warming rate.”
Santer et al posited 17-year trends as a minimum for climate studies. Others say more. I’m not sure that the one quote from the NOAA document wraps it up. In any case, there are flat trends for 15 – 20 years in the model ensembles – presumably not for runs developed by NOAA.
The NOAA limit isn’t a standard. They may be wrong about that estimate (I don’t know). But regardless, one cannot posit a trend, or even no trend, if there is no statistical significance.
dikran,
Yes, that is the point succintly put.
I note that the analysis, reflecting the headline, is an open query. There certainly seems to be a pause in warming – of the lower troposphere and surface. If one includes OHC and land and sea ice retreat, it would appear that warming of the whole system has continued. The budget is not closed, but the theory does not seem to be broken as yet.
Note Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu’s paper does not surmise when the recovery from the LIA will end, just that it has the appearance his graph depicts.
Would the climate have recovered if humans were not on the planet? Sure, just as similar climate fluctuations have happened even before we humans began walking the planet.
But, I suspect, if we weren’t here we probably wouldn’t care about the changing climate.
Probably.
Reblogged this on RubinoWorld.
rgbatduke says:
June 10, 2013 at 5:54 am
……….
Informative and useful comment raising number of interesting points. I will take a chance with the first one, if I may.
You say:
I’m still waiting for a description of how heat gets transferred down into the deeper ocean in this process. Warm water on top of cold water is stable. Warm water on top of REALLY cold water at the poles is REALLY stable.
In the North Atlantic there is an area just south of Greenland with warm salty water at the surface. It gets battered by strong cold westerly winds, releasing heat at several hundred of W/m2. Previously salty warm water is now colder and heavy due to its retained salinity, down-wells to depth of about 1000m.
Important point here is that the down-welling water’s temperature is higher than some of the surrounding deep cold water layers, but it is heavier due to its higher salinity.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CB.htm
The heat release effect interferes with polar jet-stream affecting climate of whole of the Northern Hemisphere.
Although I have limited understanding of what is going in the north Atlantic, I assume there might be some similar process going on in the Pacific involving either wind or cold Humboldt Current.
How hot would November and December then have to be to set a new record? In my opinion, the odds of setting a new record in 2013 are extremely remote.
Once the alarmists get around to reworking the data, that is manipulating it to reflect their distorted point of view, I can all but guarantee 2013 will be one of the hottest on record.
Paul Clark has just given me a tip to produce a line a zero so I’ve added it to the rate of change plot.
Now we can see directly what years are cooling or not. End of the guessing game.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/-temp/from:2010/plot/gistemp/from:2010/derivative/plot/uah/from:2010/derivative/plot/rss/from:2010/derivative/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2010/derivative/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2010/derivative/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2010/derivative/plot/rss/scale/from:2010
Werner Brozek says:
June 9, 2013 at 8:25 pm
Frank Mlinar says:
June 9, 2013 at 6:46 pm
The observational data of the first plot appears to be very inaccurate.
“I had just plotted the last 16 years and not since 1850. However if you do plot from 1850, the only time in 130 years that both CO2 and temperature went up at the same time is during the 27 years from 1975 to 2002. Is it possible that the sun or ocean cycles or CFCs were responsible for this simultaneous rise rather than CO2?”
Perhaps I should have said the first graphic; the one attributed to Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu. The straight line approximation shown does not fit the observational data. Yes, the sun, ocean cycles and CFCs contribute. The sun and ocean cycles show up as periodic changes in the data. I am not sure how CFCs contribute. The goal is to identify these contributors and show how they affect the curves. Climate scientists do this all the time. Regarding your short time period; there have been other periods in the past showing this behavior, and ones showing increases and decreases. You need to look at all the data and try to identify how the contributors contribute. I did a study once on gun control and I saw a paper that took a total of three data points on murder rates from over 20 years of data and tried to show that murder rates were rapidly increasing when they were in fact not.
That number has been cut way way down thanks to a recent study discussed here. It found that the geological layers near the Appalachians that contain markings of wave action were not 150 feet above sea level, as had been thought, but more like 30, back in the day.
(I haven’t been able to track that thread down. Anyone who can find it should post its link.)
Stripping out some of the chaf, and using a triple running mean to remove the 12m cycles we can see rate of change has been drifting downwards since 2001.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/derivative/mean:12/mean:9/mean:7/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1998/derivative/mean:12/mean:9/mean:7/plot/rss/scale/from:1998
That is what is known in the trade as “accelerating global cooling”.
I still would like to see what “deep ocean heating” look like. Is it similar to the Tropical mid-tropospheric “Hot-spot”? Does warm water sink and cold water rise? Do the oceans actually “store” heat energy in their depths?
dikranmarsupial says:
June 10, 2013 at 5:39 am
If a scientist wanted to claim that there had been a pause in the underlying rate of warming, or that the temperatures were declining, SOLELY ON THE BASIS OF THE OBSERVATIONS, then normal scientific practice would require them to show that there is statistically significant evidence to support this claim.
I agree with you that when errors bars are included, we cannot say there is a pause and we cannot say there is a decline.
However we also cannot say any warming is catastrophic. But there is one thing we can say and that is that the climate models are no good.