Image Credit: WoodForTrees.org
Guest Post By Werner Brozek, Edited By Just The Facts
RSS stands for Remote Sensing Systems, which is a satellite temperature data set similar to the University of Alabama – Huntsville (UAH) dataset that John Christy and Roy Spencer manage. Information about RSS can be found at here and the data set can be found here.
The plot of the number on the left column from November 1, 1996 to October 31, 2013 can be found in the graph at the head of his article and here. When the “Raw data” is clicked, we see that for 204 months, the slope is = -0.000122111 per year. I wish to make it perfectly clear that the focus is not on the magnitude of the negative number since this number is zero for all intents and purposes. The only thing that is noteworthy is that the slope is not positive.
And of course, 204 months is equal to 17 years. In the “Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale” Benjamin Santer et al. stated that:
“Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”
I am sure that I will be corrected if I am wrong, but in plain English, my interpretation of this statement is as follows:
“There is a lot of noise in the climate system and it is quite possible that the noise can mask the effects of man-made carbon dioxide for a period of time. However if the slope is zero for 17 years, then we cannot blame noise any more but we have to face the facts that we humans do not affect the climate to any great extent.”
Is that reasonably accurate interpretation?
Richard Courtney offered a very interesting perspective in a comment previously:
“The Santer statement says that a period of at least 17 years is needed to see an anthropogenic effect. It is a political statement because “at least 17 years” could be any length of time longer than 17 years. It is not a scientific statement because it is not falsifiable.
However, if the Santer statement is claimed to be a scientific statement then any period longer than 17 years would indicate an anthropogenic effect. So, a 17-year period of no discernible global warming would indicate no anthropogenic global warming.
In my opinion, Santer made a political statement so it should be answered with a political response: i.e. it should be insisted that he said 17 years of no global warming means no anthropogenic global warming because any anthropogenic effect would have been observed.
Santer made his petard and he should be hoisted on it.”
Some may wonder why I am ignoring UAH. In response, I would just say that while UAH does not have a slope of 0 over the last 17 years, within the error bars of statistical significance, it is indeed possible for UAH to have a slope of 0 for this period of time. Nick Stokes’ Trend Viewer page shows: “CI from -0.384 to 2.353“. So while a larger trend cannot be ruled out, a slope of 0 is certainly possible according to climate science criteria for statistical significance.
You may be interested in how the other data sets compare over this same 17 year period. My recent post Statistical Significances – How Long Is “The Pause”? (Now Includes September Data) offers an in depth analysis and below is the plot for five other data sets. In addition to the RSS plot using all points for RSS and its slope line, I have just drawn the slope lines for the other five and offset them so they all start at the point where RSS starts in November 1996.
It is interesting to note that over this same 17 year period, the largest slope is that of UAH with 0.009/year or less than 1 degree C/century. That is certainly nothing to be alarmed about.
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Absolutely agreed. If this was about model projections for swallow flight patterns being wrong, no one would care except those involved in the science. The errors would be pointed out and corrected / adjusted without song and dance. Climate scientists have painted themselves into a corner and the great CAGW scheme is ‘too big to fail’ – therefore the brazen dishonesty.
Anthony, this comment from rgbatduke deserves a full post.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/11/04/rss-reaches-santers-17-years/#comment-1465759
Karl:
At November 4, 2013 at 8:24 am you pretend to quote my words but I have no recollection of saying or writing them unless they are a conflation of parts of two different statements to make it seem I said other than I did.
Please reference when and where I said or wrote what you claim I did.
Your point was answered by Frank K. at November 4, 2013 at 8:31 am but in subsequent posts at November 4, 2013 at 8:52 am and November 4, 2013 at 8:55 am you claim his statements are mine (in another thread they could have been because Frank K. is right).
Your questioning of me is completely off-topic, ascribes to me statements I did not provide, and attempts to argue purportedly with me when I had made no response.
I await your needed reference and your apology for your trolling. It seems there is a concerted effort by trolls to ‘have a go’ at me on WUWT threads over the past few days. And I wonder who is organising this.
Richard
Did he say that??? I think the person you are referring to is here.
You go on to say:
Did he say some people from the FIRST world burn dung? You talk about dirty coal and you are absolutely correct. I am also correct to assume that you don’t live in a poor third world country with intermitent blackouts. I do. And they would rather have soot in the air from coal burning fire stations than soot going directly into their lungs. They would rather have electricity to turn on the light etc. than none at all. You have no idea my friend.
You might also have missed this from last week.
@richard
Apologies for the post — the post cited to you in error regarding Mumbai was Frank K
the earlier cite to you in error was rgbatduke
Please accept my apologies for citing you incorrectly as the poster.
Sorry, here is the Reuters link.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/29/us-usa-climate-coal-idUSBRE99S17Y20131029
Karl says:
November 4, 2013 at 8:24 am …………..
Here is what the WHO has to say about indoor air pollution in the developing world.
You see, if they are not allowed to burn coal in a power station they burn it anyway. Have you considered deforestation? Have you see the aerial map of Haiti and its neighbour? One side is greener that the other over the border. Think about it. If you want to accelerate deforestation then hold back on energy. The results are occurring NOW.
Frank K. and Jimbo:
Thankyou.
For the record, I agree – indeed, I applaud – all of the post by rgb and your support of a statement in it. But I deplore the attempt by Karl to get me involved in an argument which would derail this thread. And I don’t ‘buy’ his claim that it was not such an attempt but was three errors each made in a different post.
I will ignore any and all further mentions of this matter.
Richard
And how many lives were saved by providing hospitals etc. with electricity? I bet you this is a price they are willing to pay to get electricity anyway. Cost benefit kinda thing. Think about it.
Karl. Thank you for your reply to my post. Wahtever the answer to the problem of shortages of uranium ( I will have to take your word on that one, I will check out the link when I have finished work tonight and have more time). I accept that oil is not limitless, but I also accept that unless the wind blows between two speeds there is little, or no electricity, likewise when the sun doesn’t shine or is only 12 degrees above the horizon in midwinter here in NE England.
I saw a posting on Facebook a couple of weeks ago in which someone said “If we could cover the deserts of North Africa with solar panels we would have enough electricity to supply the whole world, cleanly”
A very glib statement, because:
a) When it gets dark in N Africa the power goes off all over the world
b) I calculated that 192,000 square miles of solar panels would be needed, there and another 192,000 square miles 12000 miles east or west to maintain this power.
c) There would be insufficient cadmium to build these panels and I would guess insufficient copper to manufacture the cables to distribute the electricity anyway.
d) If, as the “scientists” keep telling us that climate change is occurring, when clearly it isn’t then:
a) We don’t need these panels.
b) If we did, then we would look pretty stupid if North Africa and the place on the same latitude 12,000 miles away became cloudy due to AGW!
rgbatduke says:
. . . there will be a public scandal. Heads will roll.
—————————————————–
Much as I enjoy rgb’s astute comments and wish that he were right, I think that it needs to be recognized that environmentalism is the religion of an increasingly secular world. Belief that we are destroying the planet has replaced original sin. The concern for CAGW will be replaced with alarm over ocean acidification and the politicians and a cadre of compliant scientists will continue to fleece the public. As Walter Lippmann wrote years ago “…the modern man who has ceased to believe, without ceasing to be credulous. .”
This may have been asked before, but what does Santer have to say about this?
richardscourtney says:
November 4, 2013 at 10:15 am
Frank K. and Jimbo:
Thankyou.
—
No problem – I was simply relating my own (brief) personal experience in Mumbai. One has to see it for themselves to believe it…
If I said that it takes at least 17 assessments to detect Hypertension, does that mean that if 17 assessments are negative, that means there is no hypertension? Or does it mean that no hypertension has been detected, so it is less likely, but by no means excluded as it can take many more measurements until we have an accurate picture?
That “Incredibly Normal” stuff again…
So what significance does 17 years have? Obviously not much more than 15 or 16 years. But it was picked out as the upper limit before the anthropogenic effect must be evident. (It isn’t but so what? Why set a hostage to fortune anyway?).
So why pick 17 years? My guess is that 17 years was the time until the EU regulations kicked in that shuts the UK’s coal-fired power plants.
The 17 years was not referring to when the catastrophic AGW hypothesis was untenable – scientifically.
The 17 years was referring to when the catastrophic AGW hypothesis was untenable – politically.
How can you shut the cheapest power plants on environmental grounds if the environmental justification doesn’t happen?
I’ve read that it’s 1976-98: 22 years.
Well, foreign funders of third-world coal plants could insist that they include extensive scrubbers. Come to think of it, maybe the World Bank and so forth should fund the addition of scrubbers to existing plants.
(If China is going to spend any money on pollution mitigation, it will be on coal plant scrubbers, whose emissions are costing China itself in the near term, and causing it to lose face internationally. Money for CO2 mitigation will have to wait in line until that’s done.)
Oil demand could be satisfied if restrictions on drilling in federal lands were lifted. Or if Obama chose to finance the construction of coal-to-oil conversion plants (or guarantee them a backup in case the price of oil fell). Or if Obama focused on converting the nations’ vehicles to natural gas power, rather than batteries.
More efficient ways of fracking are being discovered at a rapid pace, which will increase oil production from that source beyond what is currently expected.
There is no prohibition against building coal fired plants in India. They have them all over.
Realistically, most burning biomass openly, could never afford an electric range, or heater, and live nowhere near electricity infrastructure.
M Courtney:
Re your post at November 4, 2013 at 12:44 pm, I draw your attention to the above post from Brian at November 4, 2013 at 7:34 am. To save your needing to find it, I copy it to here
Obviously, and as several people have observed in this thread, no length of ‘the pause’ can prove AGW does NOT exist because nothing can prove a negative.
However, we are discussing a scientific assessment of whether AGW exists as predicted by the climate models.
As Brian says, in context Santer’s 17 year limit is important. It says – using the 95% confidence used by so-called ‘climate science’ – a period of 17 years without discernible warming is an indication that AGW does not exist as it is emulated by the climate models.
You point out that Santer’s 17 year limit was a “hostage to fortune” for the climate modeled ‘science’. Perhaps so, but so what? As rgb says, reaching that limit is a “non event”.
However, as I observed, Santer’s 17 year limit can be understood as being a political statement. And you say it was a political statement with some utility. Hence, although it was a “hostage to fortune” scientifically it was a “hostage” with little ‘cost’ to the science, and it has been very valuable politically.
In summation, publication of the 17year limit by Santer at al. was very astute.
Richard
Mr. Brozek needs to be worried that Mr. Santer will come to beat him up, just as he threatened to do to Pat Michaels.
@ur momisugly andrewmharding
**** I am NOT an AGW believer, nor am I anti-CO2. I am, however, pragmatic, and opposed to the generation of radioactive and toxic waste streams. I am also opposed to technologies that leave the US reliant on foreign commodities, namely Uranium and Oil. We came out on the short stick for Uranium, and even with all the new exploration, our US oil is running out.
Next-
1. Nobody that is normally lucid argues to only use solar, to the exclusion of other energy sources.
2. I’m all for clean (really, truly , CLEAN ) coal. However, the issue of waste ash must be dealt with; as well as the heavy metals (giant ocean mercury deposit off the Carolinas from coal fired plants) – and this http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wilderness-resources/stories/toxic-coal-sludge-pollutes-kentucky-town-10-years-later
3. Regardless of assertions to the contrary, wind can be used as baseload power. Search ” wind baseload power stanford” — read the study.
4. Distributed (read home and community based) power generation is inevitable. It is inherently more redundant and resilient to both intentional and unintentional damage/failure.
5. 192,000 square miles is .1% of the surface area of the earth. That = 5.0 E+14 Joule/sec at 1000w/square meter incident power (500,000km^2 * 1000m*1000m*1000w/m^2). At a conservative 6 hours/day and 365 days for the year that gives us 3.875E+21 Joules — 3600 QUADS. Use 15% efficiency for panels thats 540 QUADS, now lets get crazy and cut it by half for weather and half again for conversion/inversion — that gets us to 135 QUADS (540*.5*.5). More than all the energy usage on the planet. Not even taking into account the drastic decrease in energy usage when converting from IC engines to electric motors.
— where can you find such land ?? the empty quarter(250,000 square miles by itself), on rooftops, in the outback, in the desert southwest, — and offshore isn’t just for wind farms — there are places (near shore) that are sunny all the time.
For those commenting on burning dung, Australia is on the verge of powering itself using dog droppings (http://www.poopower.com.au/index.html).
Visit Oz to see us re-create the third world from the first.
While the flat trend now extends 17 years it really isn’t quite true that we have gone 17 years with no warming. As shown below the 17 years can be shown to include a modest warming followed by a modest cooling.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1996.8/to/plot/rss/from:1996.8/to:2005/trend/plot/rss/from:2005/trend
In many ways this is worse for the CAGWers. The global data over the last century correlates quite nicely with the PDO (stadium wave). The warming can easily be explained as a random walk of the strength of the PDO over time. The null hypothesis thus explains all the warming of the last 100+ years using only natural factors.
I’ve read from 3 separate sources that the coal power plants in China have scrubbers. I also wouldn’t be surprised that power plants in India have them as well. Scrubbers have been around for decades. They may not have the latest and greatest but most of the bad stuff is already removed.
The real problem appears to be the small fires/furnaces used by about 3 billion people mostly in SE Asia. That seems to be backed up by the WHO reference.
“Around 3 billion people still cook and heat their homes using solid fuels in open fires and leaky stoves. About 2.7 billion burn biomass (wood, animal dung, crop waste) and a further 0.4 billion use coal. Most are poor, and live in developing countries. “
This is the problem I find with many Warmists. They have had comfortable lives in the West and have only spent time on nice holidays overseas. Many have have not ventured and seen poverty up close. What poor people care about is not the harmless, trace gas co2 but food, energy, education and a general better standard of living, even if that means burning coal to achieve it. If you prevent them then they will burn shit if necessary.
Everybody is keen to agree that CO2 does increase temperature. To say otherwise is heresy, even in the “Skeptical” circles. But the empirical evidence is that at least over a 17 year period, CO2 did increase and temperature did not. So if it does cause increase, it is a much weaker effect than some other factors.
When we look further back we see that empirically CO2 lags temperature. I.e. CO2 does not cause temperature to increase.
Despite the fact that all of the theory does say that CO2 does increase temperature, the empirical evidence appears to say otherwise. Either we need to change the Empirical Evidence or the Theory.