17 years, 3 months with no global warming
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
The Long Pause just got three months longer. Last month, the RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies showed no global warming for exactly 204 months – the first dataset to show the full 17 years without warming specified by Santer as demonstrating that the models are in fundamental error.
The sharp drop in global temperature in the past month has made itself felt, and not just in the deep snow across much of North America and the Middle East. The RSS data to November 2013, just available after a delay caused by trouble with the on-board ephemeris on one of the satellites, show no global warming at all for 17 years 3 months.
It is intriguing, and disturbing, that WattsUpWithThat is just about the only place where you will be allowed to see this or any graph showing the spectacularly zero trend line through 207 continuous months of data.
CO2 concentration continues to climb. Global temperature doesn’t. Absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation. Game over, logically speaking.
On any objective test of newsworthiness, the fact of 17 years 3 months with no global warming is surely of more than passing interest to audiences who have been terrified, over and over again, by the over-confident proclamations of the true-believers that catastrophic global warming was the surest of sure things.
Yet the mainstream news media, having backed the wrong horse, cannot bear to tear up their betting slips and move along. They thought they had a hot tip on global warming. They were naïve enough to believe Scientists Say was a dead cert. Yet the spavined nag on which they had bet the ranch fell at the first fence.
The inventiveness with which They wriggle is impressive. Maybe all that air pollution from China is like a parasol. Maybe the warming somehow snuck sneakily past the upper 2000 feet of the ocean so that it didn’t notice, and perhaps it’s lurking in the benthic strata where we can’t measure it. Maybe it’s just waiting to come out when we least expect it and say, “Boo!”.
Anyway, so the wrigglers say, The World Is Still Warming. It must be, because The Models Say So. They say our adding CO2 to the atmosphere is the same as Blowing up Four Whole Atom Bombs Somewhere On Earth Every Second!!!! Just imagine all that HEAT!
Well, it isn’t real. “Imagine” is the right word. If the world were warming, the most sensitive indicator of that warming would be the atmosphere itself. Since the atmosphere has not been warming for 17 years 3 months, an awful possibility is beginning to dawn on even the dimmest of the climate extremists – or, at least, those of them who have somehow found out about the Long Pause.
Maybe natural influences are still strong enough to pull in the other direction and cancel the predicted warming. Maybe the models got the forcing wrong, or the feedbacks wrong, or the climate-sensitivity parameter wrong, or the amplification equation wrong, or the non-radiative transports wrong.
Maybe – heresy of heresies – CO2 is just not that big of a deal any more.
Yet it ought to be having some effect. All other things being equal, even without temperature feedbacks we should be seeing 1 Celsius degree of global warming for every doubling of CO2 concentration.
It is more likely than not that global warming will return eventually. Not at the predicted rate, but it will return. It would be wisest, then, to look not only at the now embarrassingly lengthening Long Pause but also at the now embarrassingly widening Gaping Gap between the +0.23 Celsius/decade predicted by the models for the first half of this century and the –0.02 Celsius/decade that is actually happening.
Meanwhile, Scotland has been enjoying one of the mildest Decembers of recent times. But February is when it usually turns really cold up here. John Betjeman recalled our winters in one of his verses, and raised what has become for climate extremists everywhere the Great Unanswerable Question. Whither went the warmer weather?
Highland Winter
As we huddle close together,
Wrapt about in fur and feather,
Shod in sopping, sodden leather,
Sloshing through the hidden heather
Smothered under feet of snow;
As we curse and blast and blether,
Whither in the regions nether –
Whither went the warmer weather?
Whimpering we wonder whether
Anyone will ever know.
Phil. says
As I recall it’s been unusually warm at the SPole lately.
Henry says
get your self an automatic subscription to all posts on WUWT
This was posted not so long ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/09/coldest-ever-temperature-recorded-on-earth-found-in-antarctica/
Henry;
Yabbut, that was data-mined from the google-bytes of sat records, and occurred in 2010. May be mostly a local cold-air trap, not a continental indicator.
But ice is growing on land and sea at the South Pole, notwithstanding efforts to Steig it out of the record.
@Brian H
I cannot understand why it is so difficult to get a reliable data set on temps. going back to 1974 from Antarctica, showing maxima, means and minima?
Insufficient sampling, at the far edge of human and instrument capabilities. Including sat.
@Brian
Thanks
I got go to sleep.
If we don’t apeak again: Merry Christmas you all
HenryP says:
December 20, 2013 at 10:31 pm
Scott says
No, there is another” (Cause?) 😉
Henry says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/whither-went-the-warmer-weather/#comment-1505547
I should have said I agree that temperature plays a roll in the carbon cycle.
What a meant to say, also, but articulated very poorly, was that I personally wonder about the Slow Carbon Cycle! Temperature rise leads to more rain, which dissolves more rock, creating more ions that will eventually deposit more carbon on the ocean floor.
‘The movement of carbon from the atmosphere to the lithosphere (rocks) begins with rain. Atmospheric carbon combines with water to form the weak acid, carbonic acid, that falls to the surface in rain. The acid dissolves rocks, via chemical weathering, and releases calcium, magnesium, potassium, or sodium ions. Rivers carry the ions to the ocean. In the ocean, the calcium ions combine with bicarbonate ions to form calcium carbonate.’
In my opinion, the Slow Carbon Cycle could account for a lag in response to temperature (Even over the short term) because the formation (Or otherwise) of clouds determines how much C02 is actually taken up by them. The fact that clouds are poorly modelled is very important (To me!).
The non-equilibrium behavior of water vapour is a problem for models! Two masses of air, at the same temperature and pressure, with the same water content may or may not have clouds!
Phil. says:
December 21, 2013 at 6:40 am
“Clouds do take up some CO2 but they don’t rain bicarbonate ions in any significant amount, at the pH of rain dissolved CO2 concentration is 3 orders of magnitude greater than bicarbonate.”
Please excuse my poor communication skills! I was thinking of several related ideas but meant to say:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/whither-went-the-warmer-weather/#comment-1509091
Scott W Bennet says
Temperature rise leads to more rain
Henry says
I am not sure if that is necessarily true, really.
we are looking at fairly small temp. changes over time, going up and down by about 0.5 degrees K each 50 years or so, and what it causes is that during a cooling period there is a contraction of more rainfall at lower latitudes whilst during a warming period the clouds (and rainfall) move more to higher latitudes. Hence more flooding of the Nile during a cooling period.
I have explained that all in my final report here:
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
Scott Wilmot Bennett says:
December 21, 2013 at 5:31 pm
In the ocean, the calcium ions combine with bicarbonate ions to form calcium carbonate.’
Afraid not!
HenryP says:
December 21, 2013 at 11:47 am
Phil. says
As I recall it’s been unusually warm at the SPole lately.
Henry says
get your self an automatic subscription to all posts on WUWT
This was posted not so long ago:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/09/coldest-ever-temperature-recorded-on-earth-found-in-antarctica/
I’m well aware of that, but it has absolutely no relevance to what I said, in looking through past satellite records they found a cold spot on top of a mountain in a remote part of antarctica.
HenryP says:
December 21, 2013 at 11:33 am
Phil. says
Try here: http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/images/graphics_gallery/original/mlo_spo_record.pdf
Henry says
you only confirm to me what I already suspected: they need to bring the results from all 4 stations to show an ever increasing CO2 concentration.
I just wanted to see the trend in the actual south pole data….
That is the actual South Pole data!
But I will send an email to this Pieter asking him about it.
Phil. says
That’s extent which is significantly effected by the winds rather than the temperature.
Henry says
right.
As the people in Alaska have noted,
http://www.adn.com/2012/07/13/2541345/its-the-coldest-july-on-record.html
http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130520/97-year-old-nenana-ice-classic-sets-record-latest-breakup-river-1
Also due to the wind?
I wasn’t aware that Alaska had relocated to antarctica!
the cold weather in 2012 was so bad there that they did not get much of any harvests. And it seems NOBODY is telling the poor farmers there that it is not going to get any better.
Well they had a heat wave there a year later!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/19/baked-alaska-unusual-hea_n_3463563.html
Also I wasn’t aware that there was much farming going on in Nenana?
However recently Alaska has again seen record high temperatures:
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/while-most-of-u.s.-froze-parts-of-alaska-set-record-highs-16817
Phil. says:
December 22, 2013 at 11:51 am
“Scott Wilmot Bennett says:
December 21, 2013 at 5:31 pm
In the ocean, the calcium ions combine with bicarbonate ions to form calcium carbonate.’
Afraid not!”
——————————-
Are you being pernickety?
Should it have read:
Calcium ions combine with “carbonate ions dissociated from” bicarbonate ions to form calcium carbonate!
I’m no rocket scientist but I was quoting NASA! :
“In the ocean, the calcium ions combine with bicarbonate ions to form calcium carbonate, … In the modern ocean, most of the calcium carbonate is made by shell-building (calcifying) organisms (such as corals) and plankton (like coccolithophores and foraminifera). After the organisms die, they sink to the seafloor. Over time, layers of shells and sediment are cemented together and turn to rock, storing the carbon in stone-limestone and its derivatives.”
NASA Earth Observatory
Given NASA’s track record, your probably right though!
I wasn’t trying to be controversial or disagree with you!!
I just wanted to make clear that the Slow Carbon Cycle is important (To me,only)!
Hell, a number of Scientist claim, and I’ll quote to be safe:
“The uplift of the Himalaya, beginning 50 million years ago, reset Earth’s thermostat by providing a large source of fresh rock to pull more carbon into the slow carbon cycle through chemical weathering.”*
*Zachos, J., M. Pagani, L. Sloan, E. Thomas, and K. Billups. (2001, April 27).Trends, Rhythms, and Aberrations in Global Climate 65 Ma to Present.Science, 292, (5517), 686-693.
Before some pernickety pedant picks on my typos, I mean’t you’re in the following:
Given NASA’s track record,
youryou are probably right though!Prob’ly persnickety, too. A harsh combo.
Scott Wilmot Bennett says:
December 22, 2013 at 6:41 pm
Phil. says:
December 22, 2013 at 11:51 am
“Scott Wilmot Bennett says:
December 21, 2013 at 5:31 pm
In the ocean, the calcium ions combine with bicarbonate ions to form calcium carbonate.’
Afraid not!”
——————————-
Are you being pernickety?
Should it have read:
Calcium ions combine with “carbonate ions dissociated from” bicarbonate ions to form calcium carbonate!
That’s better, I’m not ‘being pernickety’, just a chemist who dislikes seeing wrong chemistry online! Including stuff like this:
HCO3- + heat => CO2 (g) + OH-
What really happens is as follows:
CO2(g) ⇋ CO2(aq) Henry’s Law
CO2(aq) + H2O ⇋ H2CO3 (Carbonic acid)
H3CO3 ⇋ HCO3^- + H^+ (Bicarbonate ion)
HCO3^- ⇋ CO3^2- + H^+ (Carbonate ion)
CO3^2- + Ca^2+ ⇋ CaCO3(s) Precipitation only occurs when [Ca^2+]*[CO3^2-] is greater than the solubility product, Ksp= 3.7×10−9 to 8.7×10−9 at 25 °C, Calcium carbonate becomes more soluble with increasing pressure (or depth in the ocean). So those sinking organisms when over sufficiently deep water will dissolve when they pass the carbonate compensation depth (about 4500m).
At the ocean surface the result of those equilibria is that bicarbonate is the predominant form.
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~sanpisa/OceanSed%20project/bjerrum.htm
increasing CO2 shifts the set point away from carbonate.
Phil. says
Well they had a heat wave there a year later!
Henry says
Note that global cooling will first become visible at the higher latitudes! Hence the increase in ice on the antarctic.
Remember: one heat wave doth not make the climate yet.
If you are interested in the climate in Alaska, I made a study of the temperatures in Anchorage, especially at the Elmendorff Airforce Base.
My original results come from here,
http://www.tutiempo.net/clima/Anchorage_Elmendorf_Air_Force_Base/702720.htm
I have compiled a graph for the drop in maxima here,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
it is the second graph, not the first one. I am sure you must agree that the blue line is best fitted in a sine wave with wavelength around 88 years?
As far as average temps. in Anchorage are concerned, it shows now [-0.2] degrees C or K per annum from 2000-2012. This means that since 2000 average temperatures in Anchorage dropped by more than 2.4 degrees C.
So, tell me, honestly, how on earth is that possible without anyone taking notice?
Henry says
As far as average temps. in Anchorage are concerned, it shows now -.0.2 degees C
Henry says
Sorry, I don’t know where that extra dot came from.
it should read:
-0.2 C or K per annum
so the average decrease is 0.2K per annum since 2000.
Phil. says
who dislikes seeing wrong chemistry online!
H3CO3 ⇋ HCO3^- + H^+ (Bicarbonate ion)
henry says
well that looks like bad chemistry to me……
(no balance in the Hydronium ions, neither are they correctly indicated
H3O+ instead of H+)
HenryP says:
December 23, 2013 at 6:45 am
Phil. says
“Well they had a heat wave there a year later!”
Henry says
Note that global cooling will first become visible at the higher latitudes! Hence the increase in ice on the antarctic.
Remember: one heat wave doth not make the climate yet.
Precisely, neither does one cold spell such as the one you originally referred to!
If you are interested in the climate in Alaska, I made a study of the temperatures in Anchorage, especially at the Elmendorff Airforce Base.
My original results come from here,
http://www.tutiempo.net/clima/Anchorage_Elmendorf_Air_Force_Base/702720.htm
I have compiled a graph for the drop in maxima here,
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2012/10/02/best-sine-wave-fit-for-the-drop-in-global-maximum-temperatures/
it is the second graph, not the first one. I am sure you must agree that the blue line is best fitted in a sine wave with wavelength around 88 years?
Totally disagree, there’s absolutely no justification for your assumption of a sine wave!
As far as average temps. in Anchorage are concerned, it shows now [-0.2] degrees C or K per annum from 2000-2012. This means that since 2000 average temperatures in Anchorage dropped by more than 2.4 degrees C.
So, tell me, honestly, how on earth is that possible without anyone taking notice?
I think you need to revisit your math.
@Phil.
Note that the reactions shown here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/whither-went-the-warmer-weather/#comment-1505547
and here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/whither-went-the-warmer-weather/#comment-1508667
are in fact a fine representation of the reactions that happen on earth due to temp. changes
(assuming average atmospheric pressure remain the same)
HenryP says:
December 23, 2013 at 8:19 am
Phil. says
who dislikes seeing wrong chemistry online!
H3CO3 ⇋ HCO3^- + H^+ (Bicarbonate ion)
henry says
well that looks like bad chemistry to me……
(no balance in the Hydronium ions, neither are they correctly indicated
H3O+ instead of H+)
Clearly that’s a typo, should be H2CO3^- ⇋ HCO3^- + H^+, (as on the previous line), but there’s no provision for correction unless the mods care to do so?
Either H^+ or H3O^+ are acceptable, if you want to be pedantic H9O4^+ would be more accurate but showing it as a proton, H^+, is simpler with no loss of understanding..
HenryP says:
December 23, 2013 at 8:32 am
@Phil.
Note that the reactions shown here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/whither-went-the-warmer-weather/#comment-1505547
and here
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/whither-went-the-warmer-weather/#comment-1508667
are in fact a fine representation of the reactions that happen on earth due to temp. changes
(assuming average atmospheric pressure remain the same)
Not in the ocean, the ones I showed are correct (with the exception of the typo).
Phil. says
Not in the ocean, the ones I showed are correct (with the exception of the typo).
Henry says
1) seeing that you are a chemist, you probably know how to make carbonate free water for your standard solutions.
Please tell us how you do it, why, and what chemical reactions you would write down to explain your actions?
2) it is generally known that when CO2 dissolves in water, a small percentage (I think about 0.1% of the dissolved CO2) will go into H2CO3.
Obviously the other reactions that you mention (minus the typo) play a role
but the net effect of more heat (COMING INTO THE ATMOSPHERE) is more CO2 in the atmosphere
and the net effect of more cold (COMING INTO THE ATMOSPHERE) is more bicarbonates in the oceans,
if, as I stated before, air pressures remain the same.
I hope you understand why!
Phil. says
I think you need to revisit your math.
henry says
[-0.2] x 12 is not -2.4?
Yes, it is almost 2.5 degrees K cooler in Anchorage than it was twelve years ago.
I hope you understand why!
Phil. says
Totally disagree, there’s absolutely no justification for your assumption of a sine wave!
Henry says
well, I am sorry if you donot see that.\
I am afraid that’s exactly why climate science is where it is now, people like you who don’t understand statistics.