RSS: no global warming for 16 years 11 months
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The RSS monthly satellite global mean surface temperature anomaly data, delayed by the US Government shutdown, are now available. The data show no global warming at all for 16 years 11 months. This dataset could be the first of the five to pass the strict Santer test: no global warming at all for 17 years.
Since no el Niño is now expected until next spring at the earliest, the long run without any global warming at all is likely to continue for another few months.
CO2 concentration, meanwhile, continues its upward trend. And it is this disconnect between rising CO2 concentration and stable near-surface temperatures that makes the present long hiatus in global warming more significant than the previous periods of a decade or more without warming over the 163 years of global mean surface temperatures. In none of the previous periods was CO2 concentration either as high or rising as fast as it is today.
Climate extremists are prone to show the data since 1970 as an “escalator” with a series of “steps” consisting of decade-long pauses, but an overall rising trend:
However, a trend is not a prediction. There is no guarantee that merely because the trend has been upward it will continue upward. The effect of the frequent supra-decadal periods without warming is to constrain the overall warming rate since 1970 to a not particularly thrilling 1.6 Cº/century equivalent.
Taking the trend since 1950, a fairer benchmark since the period covers a full warming and cooling cycle of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, shows warming at a rate equivalent to less than 1.1 Cº/century.
So, can one clearly distinguish an anthropogenic warming signal in these post-1950 data from the data before 1950, when we could have had no measurable influence on the climate?
The answer is No. Professor Richard Lindzen likes to play a game with his audiences. He shows the following slide, and explains that one of the panels represents the global warming over the 52-year period 1895-1946, and the other represents the warming over the 52-year period 1957-2008. He explains that both graphs are to the same scale and invites his audience to guess which is the earlier period and which is the later.
In fact, the later period is on the left. Let us determine the linear warming trends on each of the two periods:
The later period has a very slightly steeper slope than the earlier, but only by the equivalent of a third of a Celsius degree per century. On these figures, it seems difficult to justify the IPCC’s assertion of 95% confidence that most of the warming since 1950 was anthropogenic.
Meanwhile, the discrepancy between IPCC prediction and observed reality in the monthly Global Warming Prediction Index remains glaring. A shame that the IPCC did not deal honestly or clearly with this discrepancy in its latest Summary for Policymakers.
For Santer’s test see: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/17/ben-santers-17-year-itch/
Related articles
- Dana Nuccitelli Can’t Come to Terms with the Death of the AGW Hypothesis (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Radiative Forcing, Radiative Feedbacks and Radiative Imbalance – The 2013 WG1 IPCC Report Failed to Properly Report on this Issue (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Another Peer-Reviewed Paper Predicting the Cessation of Global Warming Will Last At Least Another Decade (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Mystery of the ‘Missing’ Global Warming – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
“Patrick” seems to think it was acceptable for Mr. Smith to accuse me inaccurately of “hooey”, while it was somehow unacceptable for me to question whether he was ignorant or troll-like in misunderstanding the distinction between the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, which has been rising in a near-straight line year on year for the past few decades, and the radiative forcing from that concentration, which is logarithmic.
If Mr. Smith was deliberately confusing the two, then his comment was troll-like. If he was inadvertently confusing the two, then his comment was either careless or plain ignorant. Either way, his use of the word “hooey” to describe my carefully-compiled graph was inappropriate and not justified by any evidence.
If “Patrick” would like a violin for Christmas to accompany his blubbing, in addition to the handkerchief I have already offered, perhaps he would let me know. Once he has dabbed at his tears enough to see things with a clear eye once more, he will realize that Mr. Smith’s use of the word “hooey”, on no evidence, was indefensible, however brilliant his earlier contributions to this blog may appear to have been.
If “Patrick” were as willing to criticize Mr. Smith for his unjustifiable insult as he is to criticize me for having dared to query the appropriateness of that insult, then he would begin to attain to that just balance which philosophers from Confucius (Analects, passim) to the author of the Book of Proverbs (see e.g. XI:1) have recommended.
Reblogged this on CACA and commented:
JohnWho says:
October 23, 2013 at 6:52 pm
Well, while we have gone almost 17 years without any statistically significant warming, we have had climate change and it is climate change that threatens all of us.
/sarc
🙂
Hehe gold.
Well the similarity is not surprising because one is a tweaked and detrended version of the other!
This is as close as I can get fiddling with WFT:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/mean:60/plot/hadsst2nh/detrend:0.6/mean:60/offset:0.4
There will be a paper on it somewhere…
[snip -off topic related to snipped comments above – Anthony]
Monckton of Brenchley says:
October 24, 2013 at 9:37 pm
George E. Smith asks why the trend-line on CO2 concentration is a straight line when he expects a logarithmic curve. Here, as so often, Mr. Smith is guilty of a confusion that one hopes is accidental rather than deliberate and troll-like. The dog-tooth curve shown in gray on the temperature graph is the graph of actual, measured CO2 concentration measured in micro-atmospheres (a.k.a. parts per million by volume). The straight line through that graph is the least-squares linear-regression trend on the data – a standard statistical technique for representing the trend as a straight line calculated to minimize the sum of the squares of the absolute differences between the data-points on the graph and the line itself.
The effect of CO2 in altering the radiative balance in the atmosphere is indeed logarithmic – or, in simple terms, each additional molecule of CO2 has less warming effect than any of its predecessors. However, the graph plots the CO2 concentration itself, not its radiative effect (which would be expressed in Watts per square meter).
But in your original post which George responded to you said:
“CO2 concentration, meanwhile, continues its upward trend. And it is this disconnect between rising CO2 concentration and stable near-surface temperatures that makes the present long hiatus in global warming more significant”
Deliberately contrasting the linear increase in [CO2] with temperature when you know full well that the effect is logarithmic, intellectual honesty on your part would be to draw attention to that point or to plot ln([CO2]). It is that failure on your part that George is drawing attention to, quite rightly in my opinion. The ‘confusion’ you refer to is engendered by your statement and follows a pattern among others who post similar graphs. George is not confused by your post and is asking why you appear to want to deliberately mislead, and I agree with him, and echo his thought that the next time you produce such a post it won’t be so misleading.
“””””””……..Monckton of Brenchley says:
October 24, 2013 at 9:37 pm
George E. Smith asks why the trend-line on CO2 concentration is a straight line when he expects a logarithmic curve. Here, as so often, Mr. Smith is guilty of a confusion that one hopes is accidental rather than deliberate and troll-like. ……..””””””””
Well Lord Monckton, it appears that you, and also others, did NOT catch, that my comment, regarding your Essay; was ENTIRELY tongue in cheek. A complete spoof, in fact , trying to make the point; that the “noisiness” of any and all of these “climate data” sets, is such that it is quite impossible to support a claim ( not one you’re making), that earth’s Temperature varies linearly, with the logarithm of the atmospheric CO2 abundance. That being the essence of the supposed existence of a “climate sensitivity”, that is purported to follow such a rule.; when in fact a purely linear Temp vs CO2 , or even log(Temp ) vs CO2 is just as good a fit to the experimental data.
Perhaps I overdid the spoof by beginning with the “hooey” comment. Well your sequence of graphs clearly demonstrate this phenomenon, that the “noisiness” of real observational data, allows for all sorts of manipulations of the underlying trends; and you mention in the manner, you often do, how people do that.
However; bottom line is, that NO criticism or disrespect of YOUR essay was intended; BUT, it did in fact elicit that interpretation by you and by others. The moderators know full well, that I am one of your ardent fans.
So an apology is appropriate, and hereby tendered, since you did not catch my gag, and it offended you, so, I’ll take my lumps, and don the dunce hat and go sit in a corner.
For the record; as you usually do; you DID make your case, that the “pause” is inescapable; and in 30 or 31 days, I will celebrate with you and everyone else, the passage of a suitable 17 year hiatus, in that purportedly inexorable man made global warming.
George E. Smith
Earl Smith says:
October 24, 2013 at 5:13 pm
A bubblehead.
Great summary of where we stand, Christopher.
Note to commenters who went off the rails related to Obama on this thread – all your comments have been snipped. Stop it.
Mr. Stealey, you should know better. Take a 24 hour time out for starting it.
And for the record; while I pay serious attention and give credence to anything Phil (the real Phil) posts here; I am NOT in agreement with Phil’s conclusions, as to MY intent; nor did I intend ANY criticism of Lord Monckton’s use of a linear CO2 scale.
In fact the very essence of MY criticism of the whole concept of CLIMATE SENSITIVITY, is that the experimental SIGNAL DATA, is so “noisy”, that it is not possible to support ANY formal mathematical expression relating earth’s surface or near surface Temperature, to how much CO2 is in the atmosphere. I don’t even believe the published data; because it fails by large factors, to comply with the Nyquist sampling theorem, that governs the validity of sampled data.
I am ……..NOT………. a believer in either the experimental claim of a logarithmic climate sensitivity; nor do I believe in any THEORETICAL claim for such a relationship.
I have pointed out, many times, that Beer’s law relating absorption of radiant energy, to the amount of absorbing species, in the path, is based entirely on the presumption that THE ENERGY stays absorbed; the INPUT photons die, and STAY dead.
Well while the input radiant species may be absorbed per Beer’s law, the ENERGY does NOT stay dead; it is simply re-emitted at other wavelengths, and angular distributions, and proceeds on inexorably. This is especially true in the atmosphere, where the heating caused by the solar and earth surface radiant energies, simply results in generally isotropic emission of other LWIR emissions.
So Phil, I was not criticizing Viscount Monckton’s presentation. MY comment was a spoof, and MY suggestion of a logarithmic link, was complete fiction; I hold no such belief.
And seriously Phil, I DO pay attention to your posts, and I value your opinion.
George
@george e. smith – I am a real Phil! Just not Phil. 😉
@ur momisugly george e. smith says:
October 25, 2013 at 11:50 am
Glad you cleared that up.
Perhaps unexpectedly though you did have a few folks agreeing with you.
So, in that respect, you’ve exposed some possible ignorance on the subject.
Anthony,
I apologize (please just snip this post, too) for refuting Ed Mertin. I will only do so again when I see that comments like his are still there after a few hours. And, I will also expect to be snipped when such comments as his are also snipped upon being discovered. I just couldn’t (while his comments were still out there) let them stand unopposed. Dopebama’s crew is ruining my country.
Q: Is it possible to “snip” only partial comments? I was really disappointed to see that my letter to George Smith (it wasn’t inflammatory, I don’t think) that took me quite awhile to compose was also snipped along with the Dopebama stuff. I’ll try to remember to put separate subjects in separate posts from now on anyway. I’m just so bummed out about that G. Smith note that I had to write this.
Anyway, this is YOUR blog. I will do my best to respect that fact.
Thank you, so much, for letting me continue to participate in the discussions.
Janice
“””””…..
Patrick says:
October 25, 2013 at 5:57 am
“Monckton of Brenchley says:
October 24, 2013 at 9:37 pm
George E. Smith asks why the trend-line on CO2 concentration is a straight line when he expects a logarithmic curve……..””””””
Patrick, while I appreciate your comment; you did miss the point that my post was a spoof, that evidently went off the rails.
And to the extent that Lord Monckton perceived an insult, though none was intended; and indeed no criticism of his essay was intended; his response was entirely appropriate, since HE perceived it as an insult. So it is for ME to rectify the matter and apologize to “Monckton of Brenchley” which I have done. Hopefully Anthony can make it clear to his Lordship. that I am a loyal supporter of his, including his very colorful antics, tweaking the noses of the IPCC, from open microphones or parachute stage entrances.
Dunce George
@ur momisugly D. B. Stealey (and Phil Jourdan, O Valiant Ally for Truth),
I understand why A-th-y removed our comments, but, I want you to know that I am proud to have been snipped in the company of you two who so firmly stood up for the truth.
Hang in there, D.B. — as you stand out there in the hall, picture a little girl about your age sitting on the floor beside you. She even gave you the cupcake her mom put in her lunch that day. She thinks you are pretty cool.
Oh, come, now, D.B., don’t tell her to “Beat it, punk, I don’t need any stupid girl sitting by me!” I’ll scoot a little farther away…….. Just know that I (and, no doubt, MANY of us out here) support you 100%.
@Janice Moore – It is his free ice cream. I respect his decisions and take no offense either.
Just for the record, so that nobody misunderstands my position, I have a degree in mathematics (among other things) so I DO know what the mathematical logarithmic function is. I also have some familiarity with solid state physics, and have observed the forward Voltage of semiconductor diodes versus forward current over from four to seven orders of magnitude, so I know of physical phenomena that are logarithmically related over a wide range.
So to me a Temperature versus logarithmic CO2 abundance means that going from 280 to 560 ppm of CO2 should (if true) cause the same Temperature increment as going from2.8 ppm to 5.6ppm of CO2, or from 1 ppm to 2 ppm.
I have measured the extinction of a He-Cd blue laser over 8 orders of magnitude per Beer’s law using sharp cut Schott glass color filters, and the suppression of the 4416 radiation IS logarithmic (or exponential, depending on how you view it). But the suppression of the radiant energy, was a completely different story; those glasses strongly fluoresce at wavelengths longer than their cutoff, so much of the energy simply floods on through, but now as isotropic, and incoherent radiation at much longer wavelengths.
So fitting CO2 range from 315 ppm up to 398 ppm from the Mauna Loa data to some log relationship to the Temperature since 1957/8, leaves me cold. As I have said many times, with a couple of parameter fittings, I could fit the data as well to the form:-
y = exp (-1/x^2) a fun function, that has all of its derivatives equal to zero, at x = 0 yet still manages to get somewhere.
Dear George E. Smith,
Glad to see you apologize (kinda sorta, lol) to Christopher Monckton. But, man alive, your tongue looked MILES away from being in your cheek. No one but you realized that was what you meant. LOL, you even had Phil dot cheering for you, heh. Sorry to take a bit of a “tone” with you, but, (along with your apology being so lukewarm) you proved me wrong (re: what I said of your character in a little note I wrote that got snipped along with my refutation of Mertin) and that bums me out.
Still hopeful, but not so much,
Janice
#(:/)
P.S. You may think this is a waste of a person’s time, but I’ve been praying that all would go well with school (and in later finding a job he enjoys) for your son. Is all going well?
@Phil Jourdan — yes.
“””””……Janice Moore says:
October 25, 2013 at 1:13 pm
Dear George E. Smith,
Glad to see you apologize (kinda sorta, lol) to Christopher Monckton……””””””
Well Janice, you have no need for any regrets. It was my fault entirely . Actually I really thought that my use of the term “load of hooey”, was so off the wall, that Lord Monckton would see it was a spoof; those words I will have to remember, don’t translate elegantly into the King’s English.
As for apologies, I don’t do “kinda sorta” ; when I apologize, it is for real; and deeply meant. I’m a Kiwi, we don’t do kinda sorta. If you had any idea of the high regard, in which I hold the Third Viscount Monckton of Brenchley; his title, and the heritage of that title; then you would understand, how silly I feel at this point. You have no idea, just how different a world we might now have, were it not for the history behind Christopher’s hereditary title. You should probably look that up.
And for Philjourdan; yes you are a real Phil; but there’s a long time Phil, totally unknown to me, who has rescued me from the jaws of stupidity, on more than one occasion, and we have also a “the other Phil”, sometimes not always declared; so I don’t dismiss anybody.
And Lord Monckton, made the point in his presentation, that when it comes to trends in data, that is this “noisy”, different persons, can construct different interpretations of what THEY perceive is going on. And in this sense, I write “noisy”, not because I feel the numbers are corrupted by random fluctuations (they may be), but because the actual real numbers are so chaotic; and that is why they can’t be used to support any pre-conceived mathematical formula, over some other formula. We have Ln(1+x) = x -(x^2)/2 +… and also exp(x) -1 = x +.(x^2)/2! +….. So neither is easily distinguishable from linear; for small x, and we have, for data since ML CO2 data started in 1957/58 , x = 0.25 so they all agree within errors less than 0.03 for that whole 58 year period of accumulation, which is maybe 10 ppm in 58 years..
Christopher’s graphs show fluctuations much larger than that; which is partly why I don’t buy the CS concept. Yes I do believe CO2 absorbs 15 micron LWIR radiation, and other GHGs capture other wavelengths; but I don’t believe that alone significantly warms the planet.
“””””””…….JohnWho says:
October 25, 2013 at 6:10 am
I am somewhat surprised that Monckton of Brenchley took the time to respond to:
george e. smith says:
October 24, 2013 at 6:03 pm…….”””””””
Not quite sure of your point John. CO2 in the atmosphere is commonly presented as xyz ppm of the atmosphere BY VOLUME. I think that is plain silly. You grab ANY sample of the atmosphere, and you simply count the molecules of each species present. The atomic theory of matter has been fairly well accepted since maybe 1930 or so. So by “abundance” I simply mean the mole fraction of any species present; in the case of CO2, this being about 400 molecules of CO2 in each sample of one million atmospheric molecules. I don’t care if you put those all in a thimble, or your bathtub.
And this “””””…..since the obvious “misteak” is smith’s confusing “atmospheric CO2 abundance” with the logarithmic effect of atmospheric CO2. …..”””””
What is the difference between the “logarithmic effect of the atmospheric CO2 (abundance)” and the effect of the “logarithm of the atmospheric CO2 abundance”. I am in no way confused, as to their identity; and it is somewhat irrelevant what ancient atmospheric abundances were. The credible historical numbers go from 315 ppm mole fraction abundance in 1957/8 (IGY), and the roughly 400 ppm of today. I am NOT using “abundance” to mean a glut of CO2; it means the relative contribution of any molecular species, as a mole fraction, of the entire atmosphere. And I’m not even a Chemist.
Dear George Smith,
I am so glad. I misread the words of your apology and, thus, missed your intended, and clearly deeply sincere, meaning. And remember, that while, yes, titles and nobility and all that are fine things, there are many more people without them who equally (sometimes, even more) merit respect and esteem and whose contributions to civilized society deserve high regard. You are one of them.
Yours with admiration and respect,
Janice
P.S. A quote I just happened (providential, I think) to read today from my favourite author (British, of course), C. S. Lewis (in letter to M. W. Shelburne, Feb. 22, 1954, vol. 3 C.S.L. Collected Letters):
P.P.S. Was your silence about your son’s college situation intentional? Hoping (and praying) all is well.
I am most grateful to Goerge E. Smith for his kind apology. We can now draw a line under the affair, and he is free to choose whether it is logarithmic, linear or exponential.
“george e. smith says:
October 25, 2013 at 12:40 pm”
It’s clear, to me at least, you know what you are talking about (Been reading your posts for years and matching my own studies). Maybe a case of open mouth, change foot in all cases?
“george e. smith says:
October 25, 2013 at 9:09 pm
I’m a Kiwi, we don’t do kinda sorta.”
So am I, albeit imported. British and thinking about becoming Australian too (Just not sure I can cope with the lobotomy *ahem* /joke! just so I don’t step on sensitive toes).
With all due respect Monckton of Brenchley, none of my posts were out of line, insulting or disrespectful to anyone least of all you. If that were the case, there are moderators (Mods) to take care of that. I have posted here for several years, respectfully thanks to Anthony and mods, and have had a comment “snipped” only once if I recall correctly in all that time. Patrick is my real first name (We’re not obliged to publish our full names online here at WUWT and rightly so. It also forms part of my e-mail address, which is accepted here at WUWT, and have been using since 1996). I am not a fake, a troll nor completely clueless. To me, your posts read “Al Gore” (Insert any alarmist name here) like and dismissive of comments not to your liking.
What I find incredulous, and believed hook, line, and sinker by warmers, is the idea that only “natural” CO2 is beneficial as a greenhouse gas and as a plant fertilizer. Warmers love natural CO2. In fact, when a warm Earth was covered with gobs and gobs of it, our warmers say loverly things about that time in our geologic history. But today, the tiny portion that is human-sourced CO2 is a monster and has caused ALL the current warming. Now that’s a big load of hoohey!!!!! Given that the effect of CO2 is indeed logarithmic, this silly belief is made even more incredulous. Warmers must admit, they have no choice given the laws of physics, that they see human-sourced CO2 as a powerful demon able to spread death and destruction and that must be killed, while nature-sourced CO2 is their benevolent friend.