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.
” Gareth Phillips says:
December 16, 2013 at 4:20 pm
So have global temperatures fallen? No? Then they have still risen, what has happened is the rate of rise has flattened, but the long term trend is still up, until there is a reduction in temperature. I would not dance on the grave of majority climate science just yet.”
So great are the uncertainties in the instrumental temperature record, that if we were to use the instrumental temperature record alone with no other lines of evidence, nobody can tell by how much global surface temperatures have changed since about 1850. On the basis of the instrumental temperature record alone, it is possible that that global surface temperatures have been flat for more than 100 years. I know that this proposition is utter heresy even at WUWT. But can anyone prove me wrong?
Lord Monckton says: “CO2 concentration continues to climb. Global temperature doesn’t. Absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation. Game over, logically speaking.”
Weasel words: what does “necessarily implies” here mean exactly? It can’t mean “proves”, as some hysteresis effect could form the explanation. And what is the “game” – the physics makes clear that temperatures will rise logarithmically with increased CO2 concentration: is it that (through negative feedbacks) the rise will just be minimal, or that it will eventually self-correct – or that there is some other cyclical effect in progress?
However, this does implicitly reverse the null hypothesis: scientific method requires the warmists to state a falsifiable hypothesis which they never seem to do – showing that this is all truly about politics rather than science. And in politics reason goes out of the window … sigh.
To believe some of the comments as genuine, you would think this was bad news.
Of course there are those who stand to lose out financially as the CAGW hysteria recedes but there are also, as Richard Lindzen put it four years ago, “… numerous well meaning individuals who have allowed propagandists to convince them that in accepting the alarmist view of anthropogenic climate change, they are displaying intelligence and virtue For them, their psychic welfare is at stake”: https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/doomed-planet/2009/07/resisting-climate-hysteria/.
Strictly on logic Lord Monckton has pointed out the failure correctly.
The logic of the basic AGW scheme is “increases in C02” brings “increases in temperature”.
If P then Q, with P being CO2 increases and Q being temperature increase, provides the following:
If CO2 increases, then temperatures will increase
Of course for the last 15 years instead we have:
If P then not Q, with P being CO2 increase and Q being temperature increase; and thus that translates to:
If CO2 increases, then not (temperatures will increase)
Strictly from a logic sense, you cannot have both of the following
If P then Q
and
If P then not Q
Thus because we have experienced “If P then not Q”, then the statement “If P then Q” fails.
Thus AGW has been proven wrong; as long as you accept that 15 years of a lack of increase in temperature truly results in “If P then not Q”.
As others have pointed out above, in the interest of self preservation Climate Scientists are undoubtedly out working on why 15 years is just not enough to count for score.
Mark Bofill says:
December 16, 2013 at 8:23 pm
Lord Monckton,
Always a pleasure to read what you’ve got to say. I’d be much more enthusiastic about your argument if you could help me grasp what’s wrong with this common rebuttal. Immediately after pointing out that atmospheric temperatures have been flat and suggesting that the missing energy is not in fact hiding in the ocean, my warmist colleague invariably looks at me with pity and asks how it is the oceans are still rising if energy isn’t collecting in the system. If it’s not thermal expansion, and it’s not melting ice, because both of those require energy, what exactly do I propose is the explanation.
—
Perhaps you can point out to your colleague that sea levels are not in fact rising. Perhaps you can actually investigate your colleague’s claims before admitting defeat. Perhaps you are a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.
Wrong just because, id like to hear his wrong explained but I am forced assume that was just a childish reaction. We all understand the causation promoted co2 to temperature but since the beginning of this global warming thing, many have disagreed fully with it. After 17 years of listening/ reading reports and statements of impending doom with no data to support it its really amusing to watch the AGW scramble for explanations. But I’m still greatly saddened at the wasted time and billions of dollars spent killing economies and not doing actual science. Proving something wrong is science, hanging on tooth and nail to a false claim is not.
Whither went the warm weather Me Lud?
Why, it all came out of cracks in the ground in Perth Australia:
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/updates/articles/a007-spring-2013-warmest-on-record.shtml
Not sure how BOM temperature measurement compares with UAH satellite data – perhaps Jonova can organise another comparison. But I have no doubt that come January, no matter how cold it is in Chicago, Australians we will read about every record under the sun being broken in 2013.
And the BOM even has an explanation for the recent cooler years in that they were wet and warmer than previous wet years:
“Another feature of recent climate in Australia is that background trends have continued; in the case of temperature, the warming trend is adding a warming bias to the natural variability. This was apparent even during the two recent La Niña years. While late 2010 through early 2012 were slightly cooler than the 1961–1990 average, the period was warmer than comparable wet periods of the past, such as those which occurred during the 1970s and 1950s. In other words, while the temperatures were below average, the warming trend held the values higher than they should have been without the trend, given the amount of rain that fell.
The warming trend over Australia now means that, in the absence of year-to-year natural variability, a calendar year can be expected to be (on average) around +0.35 °C above the 1961–1990 base period, or about 0.9 °C warmer than the temperatures during the early decades of the Twentieth Century. Every year – wet, dry or with near average rainfall – is affected by this warming trend which favours the occurrence of abnormally hot years, and a reduction in the number of cool years. This is most obviously seen at the annual time scale where typically only one year in ten is now cooler than average.”
True Me Lud?
Or will forever:
Again rejoicing Nature sees
Her robe assume its vernal hues:
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
All freshly steep’d in morning dews.
(Composed in Spring by Robbie Burns)
Alex Cruickshank saidin part on December 16, 2013 at 5:53 pm”
“Actually, Gareth, the long term trend is down” …
“The Minoan warm period was warmer than the Roman Warm Period, which was warmer than the Medieval Warm period, which was warmer than now.”
I tried splicing HadCrut3 onto Loehle’s self-corrected global temperature reconstruction, and got the 1998-onward era being slightly warmer than the warmest 30 year period of the Medieval Warm Period. With Roman coins being recently exposed where glaciers retreated, it seems that that level of thawing of those glaciers is the greatest since the Roman Warm Period.
If not for CO2, the world would be cooler now than it is. CO2 is having an effect, but not as much as claimed by those claiming it has an effect. The models are tweaked to attribute all of the warming from the early 1970s to the 2004-2005 peak of smoothed HadCRUT3 to increase of greenhouse gases. However, a look at smoothed HadCRUT3 shows a periodic cycle that explains almost half the warmup from the early 1970s to 2004-2005, mostly before mid-2001. The periodic cycle explains why despite rising CO2, according to HadCRUT3 with some smoothing, global temperature has fallen slightly from 2004-2005 to where it was in mid-2001.
Michael D December 16, 2013 at 8:19 pm:
I for one expect warming to continue, as it has with some interruptions for the last 10,000 years …
——————–
Not so: http://climate4you.com/images/GISP2%20TemperatureSince10700%20BP%20with%20CO2%20from%20EPICA%20DomeC.gif
Do yourself a favour, visit Climate4You.
“So have global temperatures fallen? No? Then they have still risen, what has happened is the rate of rise has flattened, but the long term trend is still up, until there is a reduction in temperature. I would not dance on the grave of majority climate science just yet”
Nice strawman. The whole point of the article is not that temps have fallen; it is that they have not risen for over 15 years, contrary to the models and various other predictions that they would.
Alarmists are now scurrying to dream up reasons why, attempting to weasel out of their failed predictions, diverting attention away from the failed predictions by making silly strawman arguments, and changing the language to “climate change”.
They’re serving only to make themselves look increasingly stupid, when they might have actually saved face by being real scientists who admit to being wrong.
Mosher hits and runs, offering no value once again. Thank you Steven.Almost as coherent as your “The data is crap,” but after we the BEST crew, dice it up and mix it around it is not manure?
David Hoffer 7:17 thank you sir that is a keeper, should be read at any climate mitigation talk fests.
“WattsUpWithThat is just about the only place where you will be allowed to see this or any graph showing the spectacularly zero trend line…” and yet there is STILL the BELIEF here that CO2 MUST cause SOME warming. The EVIDENCE, as you have just pointed out, falsifies that belief. Time now to drop it, and at the very least, allow the ‘zero sensitivity to CO2’ hypothesis to be scientifically examined, and not reject it and deny it because of nothing more than personal pride.
Nick says:
December 16, 2013 at 8:38 pm
But can anyone prove me wrong?
Even RSS shows warming at the 95% level since 1980, but would it show warming at the 5 sigma level that was wanted for the Higgs particle? So I guess my counter question to you is what level of certainty do you want? I certainly would not be able to figure it out, but perhaps Nick Stokes could answer your question as to how sure we are that warming has taken place since 1850. However even if we can be 100% sure warming has taken place, that would not indicate what fraction of that warming was due to human produced CO2.
David Rodale says:
December 16, 2013 at 4:01 pm
No amount of time will convince you the models are crap or that the AGW hypothesis is seriously screwed up…
+++++++++
No no… according to Steven Mosher, it’s not the models that are crap, the correct statement from Steven Mosher is “There is the raw data if you like crap.”
I think I know what he was trying to say, but can only take him at his word. If the models give the wrong answer, it must be because everything else is wrong. Models are more real that —uhm reality.
Mark Bofill;
my warmist colleague invariably looks at me with pity and asks how it is the oceans are still rising if energy isn’t collecting in the system.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Ask your colleague this. If CO2 is warming up the earth, how does it manage to warm up the ocean WITHOUT warming up either the land surface or the sea surface? Does it go straight to jail? Do not pass Go?
The earth has been in a cooling trend since about 2003 which will likely continue until 2035 and perhaps for hundreds of years beyond that. The IPCC models are structured wrongly and what is more have no inherent predictive skill. A new forecasting paradigm is required . For such a method and for the timing and amount of the coming cooling and links to the basic data on which the forecasts are made see several posts at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
– – –
Roughly, Sea levels have risen 120 m since the last ice age. They are rising today at about the same rate as they have been when CO2 was lower in the past. One can not attribute todays rise to anthropological causes while dismissing the natural 120m rise in the somewhat recent past.
Also, there are recent articles here on WUWT about current sea level rise trends and measurements that you should read.
Michael D The earth has been cooling in general since about 8000 years BP see Fig 4 at the last post at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot,com
For those readers who believe that CO2 is the main climate driver the data in the same Fig4 shows that CO2 is obviously a coolant or ice house gas.
this graph shows it is cooling
Don’t you think it is technically incorrect to show a “No trend” over 17-18 years, whereas we really had a warming trend until around the turn of the millennium and a cooling trend since then?
Let P(t) be some periodic function, say P(t) = sin(t) + 2sin(3t). Let L(t) be some linear function with a small but positive slope, say L(t)= t/10. Let F(t) = P(t) + L(t). Plot F(t) from 0 to 100 on your favorite online graphing calculator. (Just Google to find one.) Over short time spans there is very little correlation between L(t) and F(t). Yet, over the long run, L(t) is the dominate feature.
Now, it is true that climate scientists do not understand P(t) as well as they thought they did. They did not predict the pause and they did not predict the rapid warming of the Arctic. There will likely be other surprises ahead. But L(t) is the dominate feature over time – with some uncertainty in the slope..This is well understood physical science.
Felix;
They did not predict the pause and they did not predict the rapid warming of the Arctic.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Seriously? All that screaming that about arctic amplification and and and an ice free arctic was about the Arctic not warming rapidly? Are you new to this debate? Like, still in the wrapper?
Felix;
But L(t) is the dominate feature over time – with some uncertainty in the slope..This is well understood physical science.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Again, seriously? When temps were rising in the 80’s and 90’s skeptics were ridiculed for pointing out that they were well within natural variability. No way was natural variability large enough to account for the changes in temperature. Now that temps are NOT rising, suddenly natural variability is big enough to affect the trend after all. Could your crowd pick a position and stick with it?
BTW, CO2 is logarithmic and T varies with the 4th root of P.
Steven Mosher says: “‘Absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation.’ wrong.”
Mosh, that’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen you say.
Thank you Christopher for another excellent post! I hope the world’s senior politicians will take note, but I doubt it, they have too many taxes at stake.
Whither Went the Warmer Weather?
Apparently it went over to Phys.Org. As at July 3 this year, John Heilprin was reporting “UN says 2001-2010 decade shows faster warming trend”
Global warming accelerated since the 1970s and broke more countries’ temperature records than ever before in the first decade of the new millennium, U.N. climate experts said Wednesday.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-07-decade-faster-trend.html#jCp
He has an alarming photo, captioned “People stand on roofs as their homes are seen inundated by floodwaters in Vijaywada, about 270 kilometers (169 miles) southeast from Hyderabad, India, Friday, Sept. 23, 2005. Health workers distributed food, medicine and drinking water Friday”
I know I’m alarmed. Oh wait.
My statement that absence of correlation for 17 years 3 months between CO2 and temperature datasets necessarily implies absence of causation between them has drawn some specious challenges, one from the relentlessly uninformative Mosher, another based on the relentlessly unreliable Wikipedia, another based on the relentlessly trivial fact that over some periods >17 years one can identify a rising trend in both CO2 and temperature.
So let me provide a formal demonstration of the proposition that, since correlation does not necessarily imply causation, absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation. That proposition is known as an implication.
If the statement that correlation exists is p and the statement that causation exists is q then the premise that correlation does not necessarily imply causation is written NOT (p IMP q), and the conclusion that absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation is written “NOT p IMP NOT q”.
Recall the truth-table for any “p IMP q”. If p is true and q false then p IMP q is false, otherwise p IMP q is true.
The truth table for [NOT (p IMP q)] IMP (NOT p IMP NOT q) is identical to the truth-table for an implication. Q.E.D.
You can test it for yourself with the following algorithm:
TRUE = -1: FALSE = 0
FOR corr=TRUE TO FALSE: FOR caus=TRUE TO FALSE
p=NOT(corr IMP caus): q=NOT caus IMP NOT corr
PRINT corr; caus; “:”; p; q; “:”; p IMP q
NEXT: NEXT
Successive values of p IMP q will be -1, 0, -1, -1, as required.
Mr. Bofill asks why sea level is rising if there is no net energy gain in the coupled ocean-atmosphere object. I refer him to Peltier (2009), who found sea level falling somewhat on the basis of gravitational-anomaly measurements, or to the entire 8-year record of the now-failed Envisat satellite, which used laser altimetry to show sea level rising at 1.3 inches/century from 2004-2012, or to Professor Niklas Mörner’s excellent paper of 2011 entitled “Sea Level Is Not Rising”. The title says it all.