WUWT reader Steve Hales writes in Tips and Notes:
Thought you might get a chuckle out of my letter to our local bucolic paper.
Story from The Chronicle-Independent
“Whatever the cause of climate change – and there are healthy debates going on about that on a regular basis – one thing can’t be denied: the planet is heating up at an alarming rate. Worldwide, it was the warmest November on record, and so far this year, we are tied with 2002 as the fourth-warmest year on record. Last month was the 345th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th-century average, and that’s a statistic that’s hard to argue with.” – Noted and passed Chronicle Independent 12/23/2010.
My letter in response:
December, 30, 2013
Chronicle-Independent
Martin L. Cahn, Editor
Camden, South Carolina 29020
Dear Editor:
“So all of this adds up to no warming for almost 17 years now. And climate scientists are still debating and trying to figure out what’s going on. We have some subjective explanations and possibilities for what’s going on, but something quantitative or having the models actually be able to predict something like this–well, no, we’re not there yet.” — Dr. Judith Curry on the pause in global warming
In your paper’s “Noted and passed” feature, December 23, 2013, I discovered that “the planet is heating up at an alarming rate.” This surprised me for global temperatures have remained remarkably unchanged on a trend basis for the past 16 years. This phenomenon has received a bit of notice because it shows how complex the climate is and how difficult it is to make predictions. It also shows that there are natural factors e.g., the “Pacific Decadal Oscillation” (PDO) which negatively swamp the effects of greenhouse gasses for perhaps decades. These negative factors get precious little attention because they would lessen the urgency felt by some policy proponents to currently begin to curb emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) from fossil fuels. The political difficulty of convincing electorates of the problem seems to have enabled an attitude of being less than truthful about the problem’s urgency.
NOAA’s monthly report “State of the Climate” bases its warmest or coldest month claim upon an instrument record for land based stations, which in 1880 through the first 40 years of the instrument record was extremely sparse. Based on that sparse network, then that claim of the warmest November is accurate but incomplete. What would be more helpful would be to more fully explain the pause in global warming that has occurred since 1997 and then place that warmest month claim in that larger context.
Consider for a moment if the economy had failed to grow for the past 16 years but over the last century had increased in size by 5% you could make the claim that economic output for November was the highest it has ever been since recordkeeping began (bumps and wiggles in a time series don’t influence trends) and it was the 345th consecutive month that economic output was above its 20th-century average. At the same time, government statisticians ignored that economic output had remained unchanged for the past 16 years. I am sure you would be screaming from the highest point in Camden that this deceitful practice of reporting economic statistics must end at once. But yet when this exact same practice is preformed upon climate data you are alarmed at a trend that doesn’t exist.
Steve Hales
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
NOAA’s monthly report “State of the Climate” bases its warmest or coldest month claim upon an instrument record for land based stations, which in 1880 through the first 40 years of the instrument record was extremely sparse. Based on that sparse network, then that claim of the warmest November is accurate but incomplete.
This is not accurate. What NOAA uses is a model of the data, not the data itself. Their model makes the past colder, which is why Nov 2013 looks warmer, but the actual temperatures in the instrument record do not agree.
The simple fact is that for 17 years, no warming, and subsumed into that is 12 years of observed cooling. ‘Nuff said.
Very good, I like it.
Never in human history has so much fuss been made over such trivial changes in temperature.
A whole academic false trail laid down and embraced by media and the politicians – all over changes of fractions of a degree. Incredible.
Not only hasn’t it warmed over the past 17 years, it has cooled … and that cooling is accelerating.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/to/plot/rss/from:1997/to/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/trend/plot/rss/from:2009/trend/plot/none
@Andrew Harding
As for myself I am more than ever convinced that it is not about warming, likely never was. They can not give up on the “line” and admit to a political agenda – like wealth redistribution? People may be a little more savy to politics even if gullible on science.
dbstealey says:
December 30, 2013 at 11:00 am
Bryan A says:
Since most razors have 2 sides to the blade, in this particular case, I would guestimate that either possibility has a 50% chance of being correct.
Only time will tell if temperatures remain stable, decrease, or begin to climb again. Personally, I would place my money on a slight but continued decrease over the next several decades. After that, It depends on which cycle takes the reigns
I understand where the newspaper is coming from. When global warmists say that the planet is heating up at an alarming rate from their perspective it is. “Alarmingly slow” . When they have been so adamant that their theories are correct they would be alarmed at how far the actual temperatures have been below their expectations. Now that IS alarming!
” John Silver says: December 30, 2013 at 9:13 am
It’s not a pause, it’s a peak. ”
I like it. From now on I promise to refer to it as “the peak”. Dr Libby’s work and several others would agree. I’m afraid we’re heading for some cold times. Enjoy the top of the sine wave while we can.
John Silver says:
December 30, 2013 at 9:13 am
It’s not a pause, it’s a peak.
Agreed. Thermal momentum is waning and will soon be declining.
The MSM will just continue to boldy lie, to advance their progressive agenda.
I’d bet dollars to donuts, within a week the NY TImes will publish yet another “news” article by Justin Gillis, containing statements like “The earth’s climate is warming at an alarming & dangerous rate, due to carbon emissions … blah-blah-blah”.
Bryan A says:
“Since most razors have 2 sides to the blade, in this particular case, I would guestimate that either possibility has a 50% chance of being correct.”
Occam’s Razor doesn’t work like that. You’re not using the correct definition of ‘razor’.
The question is: which explanation is more likely? Occam’s Razor says the simplest explanation is most likely the correct explanation.
Is the simplest explanation that the rise in CO2 has exactly counteracted the putative decline in global temperature, thus resulting in a completely flat temperature record since ≈1997?
Or, is the simplest explanation that CO2 does not have the claimed effect?
C,mon, Bryan. Give us a straightforward answer. ☺
Thanks to everyone for commenting and thanks to Anthony for posting it. It was the part about trends that just gnawed at me for a week until I couldn’t stand it any longer. We are a bit slow in the South but don’t hold that against us.
Shrnfr
It is Camden, SC not Camden, NJ.
Mike M
Yes, there are unintended consequences. 🙂
Rob
Our editor is a pretty reasonable fellow but needs guidance from time to time. Our local paper does not draw enough on the resources of the community which surprisingly is highly educated with over 34% of the adult population with a college degree or higher..
John Silver says:
December 30, 2013 at 9:13 am
> It’s not a pause, it’s a peak.
There’s some evidence pointing to the peak being in 2005 or 2006 and we’re on the downhill.
[OT: what happened to WP’s posting info? I see strings like “Connecting to %s” which clearly means they’re confused. Man battlestations!]
db
There is no Black or White / Right or Wrong for this issue, only subtle shades of Gray and models that don’t work relative to measured empirical data. I for one can’t discount some small effect from CO2 nor weather it does or does not create some form of imbalance. I certainly believe it to be a very small effect compared to natural forcing. But, if we were to be swinging into the next 100,000 cooling cycle, could the hypothesized warming effect be sufficient to offset the cooling enough to ensure societal survival?
I read Steve Hales post in tips and tricks and immediately copied and saved it for a template for responses to my local news papers and news agencies when they utter similar inaccuracies. Why/how people continue to fall for these “extremes” continue to baffle me. According to these guys we should be seeing new high temperature records routinely and very few low temperature records. In my small area of the planet we continue to see few of both which means that we continue to fall within the norm of the slightly over 100 years of temperature logging. ie our little picture continues well within the big picture. Thank you for sharing the letter Steve Hales.
Good response to the paper! I suggest to people that they do as I do and simply stick their head out the window to discern for themselves whether they see any significant changes over their lifespan. I’m a 63 year old Texan. When I stick my head out the window these days, I can’t discern any climate or weather differences from when I was a kid, a teenager, young adult, adult.
occams razor is not science.
when your version of philosophical positions is worse than wikipedia you know you’re in trouble
“Occam’s razor (also written as Ockham’s razor from William of Ockham (c. 1287 – 1347), and in Latin lex parsimoniae) is a principle of parsimony, economy, or succinctness used in logic and problem-solving. It states that among competing hypotheses, the hypothesis with the fewest assumptions should be selected.
The application of the principle often shifts the burden of proof in a discussion.[a] The razor states that one should proceed to simpler theories until simplicity can be traded for greater explanatory power. The simplest available theory need not be most accurate. Philosophers also point out that the exact meaning of simplest may be nuanced.[b]
Solomonoff’s inductive inference is a mathematically formalized Occam’s razor:[2][3][4][5][6][7] shorter computable theories have more weight when calculating the probability of the next observation, using all computable theories which perfectly describe previous observations.
In science, Occam’s razor is used as a heuristic (general guiding rule or an observation) to guide scientists in the development of theoretical models rather than as an arbiter between published models.[8][9] In the scientific method, Occam’s razor is not considered an irrefutable principle of logic or a scientific result.[1][10][11]
The problem with apply occams razor in climate science is you only have ONE theory that explains ( albeit poorly) past observations.
To apply the razor you need two explanations that explain the same observations with different mechanisms.
Here is a hint: “natural variation” is not a mechanism. its not an explanation its the absence of explanation.
It seems to me that the underlying temperature trend over the last seventeen years must be downward if it is being masked by increasing CO2 emissions yet only succeeding in remaining flat. If we did not burn fossil fuels the world would be cooling at “an alarming rate”. We’ll have to keep pumping and fracking, fracking and pumping just to stay warm. If we get significant cooling the cardiac patients are going to start dropping like flies in winter…..but I guess that’ll just be part of the depopulation scenario the greenies seem to want.
Mosher,
How can one explain what one doesn’t understand? isn’t it a fools errand to purport what we dont know as fact and then make stupid political policies on it?
It’s funny to see Mosh deny Occam’s Razor. He probably has nightly nightmares about it shaving his convoluted tangled AGW “science”.
TomH says:
December 30, 2013 at 1:47 pm
The MSM will just continue to boldy lie, to advance their progressive agenda.
I’d bet dollars to donuts, within a week the NY TImes will publish yet another “news” article by Justin Gillis, containing statements like “The earth’s climate is warming at an alarming & dangerous rate, due to carbon emissions … blah-blah-blah”.
Coincidentally, Justin Gillis has an article that just came out explaining how mangrove trees are creeping up the coast of FL since there are no longer freezes to keep them in check. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/science/without-winter-freezes-mangroves-are-marching-north-scientists-say.html?nl=afternoonupdate&emc=edit_au_20131230&_r=0
I love the comments posted, so smug and arrogant in their lack of knowledge.
Steven Mosher says:
December 30, 2013 at 3:52 pm
occams razor is not science.
The problem with apply occams razor in climate science is you only have ONE theory that explains ( albeit poorly) past observations.
To apply the razor you need two explanations that explain the same observations with different mechanisms.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Two? How about dozens? How to pick? How many formulae do we use in engineering that have been simplified and work as long as you stay within the bounds of the simplification. We often reduce formulae with many variables to simpler versions that sufficiently accurate for engineering purposes though not “scientifically” correct. I think climate science could use a good dose of “applied” science.
Steven Mosher says:
“To apply the razor you need two explanations…”
Actually, you can have any number of explanations. Occam’s Razor is simply a convenient way to get rid of convoluted ‘explanations’ like CO2=CAGW, when natural climate variability produces exactly the same result now that it always has.
For example, how many ‘hockey stick’ shapes can you count here?
Billy Ockham would certainly agree that natural variability is the simplest explanation for current observations — not some convoluted “carbon” entity.
“…we don`t know if this is a pause, peak or what…” Then call it a 17-year plateau. The next 17-year step-run could be up, down, or continuing level.