Guest essay by Christopher Monckton
As soon as the BBC/Maslowski forecast of no sea ice in the Arctic summer by 2013 has been disproven (see countdown on right sidebar), WUWT will need another countdown. May I propose the Santer countdown?
On November 17, 2011, Ben Santer and numerous colleagues, including researchers from Remote Sensing Systems (RSS), published a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres) that, as his press release said,
“shows that climate models can and do simulate short, 10- to 12-year “hiatus periods” with minimal warming, even when the models are run with historical increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosol particles. … tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.”
In an earlier posting I demonstrated that for more than 17 years (now 17 years 7 months) the HadCRUt4 monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset had shown no global warming distinguishable from the combined 2 σ measurement, coverage, and bias uncertainties published together with the data themselves.
However, there were those who said that, nevertheless, the HadCRUt4 data appeared to show some warming (albeit less than 1 Cº/century). Well, the first of the five principal datasets to show no warming at all for 17 years is likely to be the RSS dataset of Santer’s own colleagues. Today the data for August 2013 were made available:
The least-squares linear-regression trend on the data from the RSS satellites since November 1996 shows there has been no global warming at all for 202 months (16 years 10 months). In a few more months, unless an el Niño comes along in January, its favorite month, RSS may be the first dataset to show 17 full years with a zero global warming trend.
The NOAA’s 2008 State of the Climate report said 15 or more years without global warming would indicate what was delicately described as a “discrepancy” between prediction and observation.
Fifteen years without warming duly came and went: indeed, Professor Jones of the University of East Anglia was the first to admit this, in response to a question I had suggested to Roger Harrabin of the BBC (who had thought I was daft to suggest that there had been no statistically-significant warming for as much as a decade and a half).
So Santer moved the goalposts.
Taking the mean of all five principal global-temperature datasets (GISS, HadCRUt4, NCDC, RSS, and UAH), since the new millennium began on 1 January 2001 there has been no global warming at all for 152 months (12 years 8 months):
Therefore, those who are anxious to believe that the long pause in global warming is what the models expected, or at least allowed for, can take a crumb of comfort from that.
Two important caveats. First, linear trends are not predictions. They are only one way of representing the trend (if any) that has already occurred over a chosen period in a stochastic dataset such as the global mean surface or lower-troposphere temperature anomalies.
Secondly, a strong el Niño, or a resumption of stronger solar activity, or simply some hitherto-unexplained factor in natural climate variability, could cause a resumption of global warming at any time. The central consideration, then, is not whether there have been x years without global warming, vexing though this embarrassing statistic is to the true-believers and their models. It is the extent and the persistence of the discrepancy between predicted and observed global warming.
The monthly Global Warming Prediction Index keeps track of this discrepancy. The index number for September 2013, published today, is 0.22 Cº. That is how much the IPCC’s central projection of global warming over the 8 years 8 months from January 2005 to August 2013 has overshot the observed temperature trend.
Today’s index graph shows 34 models’ projections of global warming since January 2005 in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report as an orange region. The IPCC’s central projection, the thick red line, is that the world should have warmed by 0.20 Cº (equivalent to 2.33 Cº/century) since that starting date.
The mean of the RSS and UAH satellite measurements, in dark blue over the bright blue trend-line, shows global cooling of 0.02 Cº (–0.22 Cº/century). The models have thus over-predicted warming since January 2005 by 0.22 Cº (2.55 Cº/century).
The 18 ppmv (202 ppmv/century) rise in the trend on the gray dogtooth CO2 concentration curve, plus other ghg increases, should have caused 0.1 Cº warming, with the remaining 0.1 ºC from previous CO2 increases. No warming has occurred.
On its own, the CO2 increase since 2005 should have caused a radiative forcing of 0.24 Watts per square meter, or 0.34 W m–2 after including the influence of all other greenhouse gases. Even without temperature feedbacks, according to the IPCC’s methods this forcing should have caused 0.1 Cº warming. Adding in the IPCC’s temperature estimates of temperature feedbacks and of previously-committed global warming should have caused up to 0.3 Cº warming since January 2005. None has occurred.
Note how the temperature has failed to rise since 2005, notwithstanding that the CO2 concentration has risen quite rapidly. The usual suspects like to display what they call an “escalator graph” with many of Santer’s “hiatus periods” of 10-12 years without any global warming, but an overall rising trend nonetheless.
However, previous periods free of global warming did not occur while Man was putting more CO2 in the air anything like as rapidly as he is today. Now that CO2 concentration is rising, so should temperature be rising, if the IPCC were correct about how much warming we should expect as CO2 concentration increases.
The “escalator graph”, then, is meaningless, except to the extent that the frequency with which the “hiatus periods” occurs suggests that the probability of seeing anything like the 2.8 Cº warming this century that is the IPCC’s central projection is not very great.
Though the IPCC projects that the world should have warmed by 0.20 Cº (2.33 Cº/century) since 2005, the mean of the RSS and UAH satellite datasets shows cooling of 0.02 Cº (0.22 Cº/century). The predicted and actual trends are visibly diverging. Solar physicists expect significant cooling in the coming decades. If they are right, the divergence will become more than merely embarrassing.
Even as things stand, if the IPCC overshoot over the past 104 months were to continue for 100 years the IPCC’s prediction would exceed the measured trend by more than 2.5 Cº.
If Jeffrey Patterson’s harmonic decomposition of the past 113 years’ temperature records is correct, the world may actually be cooler in 2100 than in 2000.
A shame we shall not be there to see the baffled faces of the profiteers of doom.
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Just thought an old presentation would be fun:
Just thought an old presentation would be fun to have another go:
The bafflement will be due to their incredulity that everyone still does not buy into their doom saying.
I suppose now they can run around saying, “We’re all doomed, we’re all doomed!” (Climate activists, that is, and their funding).
Shocking News! Who would have thought that when the atmosphere changed from 99.965% not CO2 to an insanely high 99.96% not CO2 that temperatures would not have skyrocketed! I thought so for sure, they told me so.
since 17 years seems to be the magic number for climate modelers, had there been 17 years of warming before Hansen made his predictions of climatic doom in 1984?
Gleencz,
Great use of actual numbers and logic!!
“May I propose the Santer countdown?”
I proposed something akin to this in a comment here several months ago. I’d still love to see it done!
Was this covered on WUWT? If not does anyone know about the ‘paper’?
If RSS is at 16 yrs 10 months with no warming, it could hit 17 yrs before a potential January El-Nino, right?
May I propose a turbine tear down. Give gore et all a hammer and chisel to remove the tons of concrete holding up the bleebing things up.
I had to visit WUWT and cleanse myself of the insanity of reading comments from the faithful on a CNN article re: Humberto. It is amazing and disappointing how many people have absolutely no knowledge of the haitus and simply parrot the “97% of scientists” line without any understanding of how it was derived. While clearly wrong, Obama’s tweet of this figure has had the desired effect of making people think that virtually every scientist agrees that man cause the majority of global warming and you are a flat-earther if you believe otherwise.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Reblogged this on wwlee4411 and commented:
Global warming, climate change, or whatever you want to call it is BOGUS!
“Down the up escalator.”
Reblogged this on CACA and commented:
‘Where, Oh Where, Has that Global Warming Gone?’ — ‘One highly plausible answer to this mystery is that the climate models upon which IPCC’s failed projections are based exaggerate climate sensitivity to CO², underestimate known natural forcings, and simply don’t understand how to factor in and calibrate other influences such as ocean cycles and solar activity.’
http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrybell/2013/09/10/terrifying-flat-global-temperature-crisis-threatens-to-disrupt-u-n-climate-conference-agenda/
Have no fear though, the IPCC liars will have a smorgasbord of “explanations” for what they will call “the slowdown” later this month in Sweden.
While Mr. Monckton’s article uses the term “predict” on a number of occasions, predictions are not a feature of the investigation that is described by the article. In logic, a “prediction” is an extrapolation from an observed state of a system to an unobserved but observable state of the same system. For example, it is an extrapolation from the observed state “cloudy” to the unobserved but observable state “rain in the next 24 hours.” By convention, the former state is called the “condition” while the latter state is called the outcome. A pairing of a condition with an outcome is a description of an event but for the research that is described by Monckton’s article, there are no events. This is clear from the fact that there are no relative frequencies, for relative frequencies are a feature of a collection of events but there are none here.
I’m sure I had read on this site that the satellite datasets showed no warming for 23 years and the land based datasets showed no warming for 16 years. How come your data / interpretation is different ?
The profiteers of doom are no doubt already struggling to conceal their baffled faces.
Jimbo: Have you asked at NoTrickZone?
Bar an el nino event which happens we should be OK for a while, unless we have a volcanic event. But what is the scientific basis for carbon taxes and abatement schemes that are eschewed by the politicians, economists and the press?
Terry Oldberg:
I see that at September 11, 2013 at 2:51 pm you continue your practice of presenting sophist nonsense as a method to obfuscate the undeniable fact that IPCC predictions have failed.
For example, you write
There is
an “event” (i.e. the global temperature in 1997)
and
a “prediction” (i.e. how the IPCC said global temperature would rise after then).
And the “outcome” is the difference between that “event” and the “prediction”. That outcome is shown in the above graphs.
So, please do NOT try to destroy this thread with your sophistry as you have other threads. Your nonsense has been refuted repeatedly by rgb@duke, by me, by etc.. There is no need for this thread to be tied up with your nonsense, too.
Richard
Robert Orme says:
September 11, 2013 at 2:58 pm
Bar an el nino event which happens we should be OK for a while
————————————
Not sure that we aren’t witnessing a type of El Nino event right now:-
http://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/august-2013-sea-surface-temperature-sst-anomaly-update/
PS I am sure that Bob will disagree with me, no worries, I am a great admirer of Bob’s work, I just have to ask questions. At the moment I do not see why an El Nino “warm pool” has to always dissipate back along the equator. Why can it not “slosh” into extratropical areas?
What the pause does is falsify the GCM models on which ECS, hence CAGW, are based. IT does not, by itself, falsify AGW. Add in the fundamental reasons why AR4 (and soon AR5) meta analyses got it all wrong and sceptics are home free. And the answers do not require appeal to ‘natural’ unexplained variability– although that is a significant factor just now being acknowledged by AGW proponents as an excuse for their predictive failures. There was provable positive water vapor feedback (constant UTrH) and positive cloud feedback bias in the AR4 meta analysis. Classic selection biases. All continued ineaked AR5 WG1 SOD. Published multiple places previously including over on Dr. Curry’s blog after serious scientific scrutiny, and in an ebook.
All this should bring the IPCC house of cards down soon.
Let the new countdown begin.
I think that moving the goal post is a bad strategy for the Alarmists. It makes them look desperate. In the interest of being helpful, I’ve drafted a statement that will be far better at keeping the pod people on message:
Today is Paul “Bear” Bryant’s birthday. He was a brilliant pragmatist (and football coach). This has to be significant, somehow.