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.
The worth of the posting is the question phrased: “What happened to the warmer weather?” Yes it’s seventeen years and counting and the global climate models have crashed and burned, although there are those who pretend that these are still flying(such as Dikran Marsupial and other holdovers from the Cretaceous). We of the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere need some warmth as record cold holds us in an icy grip. Bring us the warmth that you promised.
mpainter says
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/16/whither-went-the-warmer-weather/#comment-1504913
bring us the warmth…
henry says
ehhh…
it is not going to happen for a long time
global cooling will remain until at least 2040-2045
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/04/29/the-climate-is-changing/
Davidmhoffer,
Wait a second. Except that the atmosphere circulates. How much temperature increase is going to be noticeable over land before it blows out over the ocean?
In general I agreed with your response. I’m not 100% sure about the over land distinction. I’d think that wouldn’t be all that hard to check, although I’m not going to check it right now. But if the IPCC expects a trend of .2C per decade, it seems like we’d have to have awfully accurate land measurements to detect a difference in the rate of warming over land during the atmospheric circulation ‘window’ over land.
Mike Haseler:
“I think -> I am
I am not ->”
I couldn’t tell whether you were making a joke or actually thought you were providing a counterexample.
If the former, forgive my failing to recognize the witticism.
If the latter, I’m afraid your reasoning was too subtle for me to see how you achieved your purpose.
The trolls are out in farce again. Mosher and the furtively pseudonymous “Juice” merely resort to childish yah-boo, while the furtively pseudonymous “Dickrot Marsupial” whiffles and waffles about whether the fact that correlation does not necessarily imply causation implies that absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation. Of course the trolls don’t like this, because the real-world evidence is that CO2 concentration continues to rise and global temperature does not.
Mr. Born disagrees with the truth-table for implication: I refer him to any elementary textbook of logic. Even “Teach Yourself Logic” gets that one right.
Mr. Born correctly states that (p IMP q) EQV (NOT q IMP NOT p). Now, let p be causation and q correlation. Causation necessarily implies correlation. That proposition is logically equivalent to its contrapositive, that absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation. Again, Q.E.D.
Another commenter says my logical proof is correct but inapplicable to the real world. Sigh! The whole point of logic is that it is the foundation of science. It is, therefore, intended to be applicable in the real world. However, it must be applied with care, and in particular with meticulous attention to the definition of terms.
Does anyone seriously suggest that the relentless uptrend in CO2 concentration is causative of the similarly relentless absence of an uptrend in global temperature over the past 17 years? The two are plainly uncorrelated, for one is rising and the other is not. And, at least over the past 17 years, they are causatively unconnected, for it is known that adding CO2 to the atmosphere should have caused warming, yet none has occurred.
One cannot conclude from the absence of correlation, and hence of causation, between the CO2 trend and the temperature trend over the past 17 years that there is no causative connection between CO2 and temperature at all. The analysis is confined to the period under review and cannot be generalized. However, the absence of correlation and hence of causation over so long a period as 17 years does call into question the relative magnitudes of the contributions of CO2 and of natural events to warming.
Finally, a troll (I forget which) moans -twice – that I cherry-picked the RSS data. No: I explicitly stated that RSS was the first of the five datasets to show no global warming at all for 17 years. If I had wanted to cherry-pick, I wouldn’t have confined the analysis to a zero trend: I’d have studied the number of years during which there has been no warming outwith the combined,measurement, coverage and bias uncertainties in the data. For HadCRUt4 that,s 18 years; for RSS it’s getting on for a quarter of a century.
So the trolls may screech and snarl, but the real-world evidence, clarified by the cold, hard light of logic and reason, is that the game is up.
dikranmarsupial says:
sorry, I have learned over the years that as soon as somebody starts using this kind of blogsphere rhetoric, the chance of rational discussion is pretty much nill.
Kind of ironic if you ask me. Several years ago Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. attempted to have a constructive dialogue on the Skeptical Science website. His last and final comment was:
John Hartz –
“Perhaps he’s had a long day and is just tired”
“Please let me remind you that it was you who chose to misrepresent my position and my statement on citations in your post @105, and at the same time belittle it. Now you are trying to take offense to the fact that I was annoyed/offended by you misrepresenting me and are trying to accuse me of being discourteous?”
_____
This type of exchange occurs too much on your weblog. These types of non-constructive comments are a major reason I stopped accepting comments on my weblog.
Therefore, I appreciate you giving me an opportunity to express my views. Readers on your weblog who have not commented can make up their own minds on the exchange of views that have already occurred. However, I require a courteous exchange of viewpoints, even when there is disagreement, and, unfortunately, except for several excellent open-minded and cordial comments by your readers, a large fraction of the comments are not of that type. Much of my effort is going in circles and repeating myself.
Thus, this is my last comment on your weblog.
Moderator Response: [John Hartz] Que sera, sera.
Dr. Pielke noted on his own weblog:
With the negative tone of their weblog (Skeptical Science), only those who are committed to the perspective promoted on their weblog will likely regularly read it. Its an opportunty lost, unfortunately.
Monckton of Brenchley wrote “Dickrot Marsupial” LOL, I’m sorry, but that really is a rather childish! Do let me know when you are willing to discuss the science like a rational adult.
Lord M says
One cannot conclude from the absence of correlation, and hence of causation, between the CO2 trend and the temperature trend over the past 17 years that there is no causative connection between CO2 and temperature at all. The analysis is confined to the period under review and cannot be generalized. However, the absence of correlation and hence of causation over so long a period as 17 years does call into question the relative magnitudes of the contributions of CO2 and of natural events to warming.
Henry says
my dear lord
my analysis points to a rather third degree role of the CO2
namely it promotes more growth, i.e. more greenery, even in the face of of decreasing moisture from outer space (due to the global cooling as mentioned before)
more greenery entraps some heat (increasing minima)
whereas less greenery does not (decreasing minima)
This is best seen from my results on Las Vegas (where they turned a desert into paradse) compared to Tandil (Argentina) where they chopped all the trees down….
hint:/;
look at all the results from the 3 tables of these two cities
http://blogs.24.com/henryp/2013/02/21/henrys-pool-tables-on-global-warmingcooling/
Ah, but dear sire, does not their own “co-relation of evidence” conspire against their own “correlation of evidence”?
Thus, the CAGW religion has as its central and dominating belief the following: “CO2 has significantly increased (due to anthropogenic causes) AND we have experienced “unprecedented” increases in temperature recently, AND any potential future increases in global temperature are “bad”, THEREFORE limiting (anthropogenic) CO2 release is REQUIRED to limiting (future) temperature increases.
Next to this single conclusion, everything else is trivial, and without all of these steps AND this conclusion, no other action is required nor desired, right?
Thus, the CAGW religions requires they offer evidence, and that evidence is teh single 25 year period when both CO2 and “global temperature” both increased. Co-relation (over a 25 year period) PROVES causation, in other words.
But does that co-relation even exist?
Prior to 1940-1945, CO2 was steady for long periods of time, and
Over many 25 year periods, global temperature fell 1/2 of 1 degree.
Over many 12-15 year periods, global temperature remained steady.
Over many 25 year periods, global temperature rose 1/2 of 1 degree.
After 1930, CO2 has risen steadily, almost certainly part of that increase is from anthropogenic releases..
Over three 12-15 year periods, CO2 has increased, and temperatures have been steady.
Over one 20 period, CO2 increased, and global temperatures fell 1/3 of 1 degree.
Over one 25 year period, global temperatures rose 1/2 of 1 degree.
Thus, out of every year over the past 30 million (when the both Panama Isthmus was closed up and Antarctica was separated from South America) the only “evidence” that the CAGW religion can possibly claim is that one single unique 25 year period (1975-1998) when both CO2 and global temperature rose at the same time.
Every other year contradicts their “evidence” …. Rather: The evidence supports Mosher’s CAGW argument: but only 25/30,000,000 percent of the the time.
MArk Bofill;
Wait a second. Except that the atmosphere circulates. How much temperature increase is going to be noticeable over land before it blows out over the ocean?
>>>>>>>>>>>>
You are now postulating that atmospheric circulation prevents the energy from warming the land but forces it into the oceans via processes that we cannot envision nor measure. In the meantime, all the things that we can measure, and which would have to change for such a thing to occur, are staying the same. You may as well postulate that socks disappear through a black hole in the back of your dryer and appear in your closet as a clothes hanger.
David,
I was wondering why I have such a sock deficit and a clothes hanger surplus. 🙂
Let me shush and think this through a little more carefully. Thanks.
Ah, I’ve now found which troll it was that whined that I had cherry-picked my data by choosing the RSS dataset. It was PJ Clarke, who also wonders why I drew conclusions from a trend with a correlation coefficient of 0.000. Sigh! The correlation coefficient of a dataset with a zero trend is likely to be close to zero. Do the math.
Mosher executes a classic Warmist tactic; first response when confronted with a skeptical statement?….Find something, anything that can be challenged and draw attention to it…hoping that this will distract attention from the overall obviously correct nature of the statement.
Good luck with that guys!
Did I hear wrong? What do you make of these? These are just for the Arctic!
References
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/08/18/sea-ice-news-volume-4-number-4-the-maslowski-countdown-to-an-ice-free-arctic-begins/#comment-1394083
The furtively pseudonymous “DickoryDock Marsupial” complains that I referred to it as “Dickrot Marsupial”. Perhaps it would like to act like a rational adult in two respects: first, by using its real name, for its furtive pseudonym invites parody; and secondly, by making useful scientific contributions to the discussion rather than following its customary practice of being uselessly and anti-scientifically snide.
One appreciates that it must be disappointing that Dingbat Marsupial’s religion is being swept away by an unstoppable tide of real-world events, but it will have to learn to live with it. If it had done a little more science and a little less reading of Saul Alinsky’s playbook for communists, it would not have ended up in the pickle in which it, and other true-believing trolls, so enthusiastically but imprudently immersed themselves.
If Doormat Marsupial finds any of this global warming that it has been promising us, it would be most helpful if it would send us some here in Scotland. We’ve had a warm winter so far, but a Mediterranean climate would be just the ticket for Scotland. We could run all the silly windmills in reverse and use them as cooling fans.
David,
I see what you’re saying now I think. Over land, the land warms, not just the atmosphere. You’re correct of course. Thanks.
Steven Mosher says:
December 16, 2013 at 3:40 pm
wrong.
Argued with all the intellect of a character from the Monty Python ‘Argument’ sketch.
Mosher’s argument.
http://youtu.be/kQFKtI6gn9Y
Monckton of Brenchley says:
December 17, 2013 at 11:30 am
Ah, I’ve now found which troll it was that whined that I had cherry-picked my data by choosing the RSS dataset. It was PJ Clarke, who also wonders why I drew conclusions from a trend with a correlation coefficient of 0.000. Sigh! The correlation coefficient of a dataset with a zero trend is likely to be close to zero. Do the math.
You should take your own advice, the slope of the line has no effect on the correlation coefficient!
The correlation coef describes the goodness of fit, a perfect fit has a coef of 1.0, a coef of 0.000 indicates a random, nonlinear relationship between the two variables.
Monckton of Brenchley says:
December 17, 2013 at 11:44 am
The furtively pseudonymous “DickoryDock Marsupial” complains that I referred to it as “Dickrot Marsupial”. . . .
http://socialmediasobrietytest.com/
Jimbo says:
December 17, 2013 at 11:34 am
Steven Mosher says:
December 16, 2013 at 3:40 pm
‘Absence of correlation necessarily implies absence of causation. ”
wrong.
Did I hear wrong? What do you make of these? These are just for the Arctic!
They are all examples of correlation not the absence of correlation.
“Whither went” = Whence (I think).
It is a common solecism to imagine that the slope of a trend-line has no influence on the correlation coefficient. However, take two datasets possessing the same least-squares sum. If one has a greater slope than the other, it will also tend to have a greater correlation coefficient. The difference is particularly marked when comparing data with a zero trend with data with a strongly positive or negative trend.
“Whither” means “to where”, and “Whence” means “from where”.
Its fairly simple, the warming vanished with the strong El Ninos. With the sun now entrapped in a weak cycle that wont be happening any time soon. Global cloud albedo has remained steady so no increased heat content in the oceans either by other means.
The alarmists rely on strong El Ninos for their scares, oh the irony.