Global Temperature Report: December 2013

It’s always interesting to see the global perspective since it averages out local events such as the current deep freeze in the Midwest and the severe heat wave in Australia, which can be misleading is viewed in isolation.

Not entirely off topic: Chris Hayes complains of Drudge fueled snow trolling on Global Warminghttp://washingtonexaminer.com/msnbcs-chris-hayes-complains-of-drudge-fueled-snow-trolling-on-global-warming/article/2541532#

Our local weather station in Kent reports that 2013 was 0.37 degrees C below 28 year average.

NEW TECH (system of measurement) 1979 to 2013
0.27 of 1 degree to the positive (can you feel 0.27 or even 2.7)?
what is a global average?
compare this with a 50, 100, 200, 600, 1000 year global average
this is who peed in the pool
this is calculating your gas mileage for a trip across North America by using the data from the first three blocks
there’s very little variation outside of 0.8 °C for 34 years
this is from a satellite(s) how many miles above the earth?
whats the error in the equipment?
Whats the error in the atmosphere?
This is rolling a die seven times and getting 1-2-3-4-5-6-5 and saying its skewed to 5
Honey can you turn down the furnace 0.27 degrees the house is getting really really warm.
Oh no the hot tub hit 39.27°C way way to hot now (must be broken)
Sorry kids school is cancelled today because the windchill is -25.27°C you would absolutely freeze.
I better sue McDonalds my coffee was served at 82.49°C rather than the 82.22°C (180°F) specified.
Remember when the planet warmed 0.8°C and the Ice Age ended?
Why don’t people get how absolutely ludicrous this data is in the perspective of global history.

I find that very hard to believe, quite frankly – 2013 being the 4th warmest year in the last 30 years. I demand a recount, or, perhaps the coolists should be given opportunity to “adjust” the figures, this time, eh?

Gareth Phillips says:
“The point is Richard, the trend remains upwards”
The entire 34 year variation cannot constitute a “TREND” in the perspective of the planet. This is absolutely ZERO information. (perhaps its giving us variation parameters)
perspective people perspective
Go to the hardware store, pull out every single thermometer and see what the variation is.

@gareth.
@richard.
Normally scientists would wait and collect 60 years worth of data before discussing whether the current anomaly was above or below the normal trend. If the trough of a 60 year cycle occurred in the 70s or 80s then we are just past the peak and should still expect positive anomalies (above mean of trend) for a number of years. We should be able to remove the 60 year cycle after 2040 or so. Until then we’re just guessing either way.
Or a simpler way is to tell us what the amplitude of the 60 year cycle is so that we can remove it.

It looks like it’s with a December anomaly of 1.577C the tenth warmest year for RSS with 0.218 C above their average
http://www.remss.com/data/msu/graphics/TLT/time_series/RSS_TS_channel_TLT_Global_Land_And_Sea_v03_3.txt
(and a bit of excel work):
1979 -0,094425 28
1980 0,01505 27
1981 0,021725 26
1982 -0,172466667 32
1983 0,065541667 22
1984 -0,2243 34
1985 -0,260541667 35
1986 -0,139458333 31
1987 0,098891667 17
1988 0,066458333 21
1989 -0,119525 30
1990 0,074066667 20
1991 0,080741667 19
1992 -0,179258333 33
1993 -0,117733333 29
1994 0,028166 25
1995 0,158625 13
1996 0,046625 23
1997 0,101825 16
1998 0,550058333 1
1999 0,104441667 15
2000 0,092383333 18
2001 0,246441667 7
2002 0,315133333 5
2003 0,320391667 4
2004 0,201983333 11
2005 0,330158333 3
2006 0,230625 8
2007 0,255575 6
2008 0,046391667 24
2009 0,222 9
2010 0,4718 2
2011 0,143183333 14
2012 0,187091667 12
2013 0,218341667 10

Who’s the coolest “coolist?

let me try and make my previous post more readable:
10th warmest year for RSS
1979 – – -0,094 – – 28
1980 – – 0,015 – – 27
1981 – – 0,022 – – 26
1982 – – -0,172 – – 32
1983 – – 0,066 – – 22
1984 – – -0,224 – – 34
1985 – – -0,261 – – 35
1986 – – -0,139 – – 31
1987 – – 0,099 – – 17
1988 – – 0,066 – – 21
1989 – – -0,120 – – 30
1990 – – 0,074 – – 20
1991 – – 0,081 – – 19
1992 – – -0,179 – – 33
1993 – – -0,118 – – 29
1994 – – 0,028 – – 25
1995 – – 0,159 – – 13
1996 – – 0,047 – – 23
1997 – – 0,102 – – 16
1998 – – 0,550 – – 1
1999 – – 0,104 – – 15
2000 – – 0,092 – – 18
2001 – – 0,246 – – 7
2002 – – 0,315 – – 5
2003 – – 0,320 – – 4
2004 – – 0,202 – – 11
2005 – – 0,330 – – 3
2006 – – 0,231 – – 8
2007 – – 0,256 – – 6
2008 – – 0,046 – – 24
2009 – – 0,222 – – 9
2010 – – 0,472 – – 2
2011 – – 0,143 – – 14
2012 – – 0,187 – – 12
2013 – – 0,218 – – 10

If there is such a thing as a 60 year cycle then using a 30 year average for the negative half of the 60 year cycle and then claiming that 2001-2013 are the warmest years is … well … entirely expected. With the positive peak of a 60 year cycle centered around 2005 anything other than 12 of 13 years being 2001 or later would be very unusual – like 1998 which shouldn’t be there (we all know why it is an exception). It seems as though the world is unfolding as it should.

Can someone please explain, how the “global avg” is being calculated? It looks to me, as if the tropics do not take part in this calculation? Global always equals (NH + SH) / 2
2013 12 +0.265 +0.273 +0.257 +0.057
for example in december 2013: GLOBAL = (0.273 + 0.257) / 2 = 0.265

Had we have satellites in the 30’s….. http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2014/01/03/january-3-1935-roses-and-daffodils-blooming-in-britain/

So thats more sceptic predictions sunk:
2013 4th warmest in the satellite record
Surface temperatures set to come in again in top 10, possibly top 5
Solar activity not fading away – currently in line with NASA forecast
No sign of much (wished for) global cooling
Arctic sea ice remains well below mean
Sea level continuing to rise
That leaves Antarctic sea ice to cling to ?

@Rob
Totally agree. Noise. I’ve been following AGW for quite a while now and there are always errors in measurement being corrected for. Error corrections almost always go in the direction of reducing past temperatures and increasing current ones. If you read about Satellite error and correction that have occurred over the years, they all seem to have the effect of increasing the temperature trend. I’ve pointed this out to some warmists and they’ve always assured me “it’s not a conspiracy, it’s just the way the dice happened to roll”. Well I think they are only half-right. I agree it’s not a conspiracy, it’s selective focus. If a trend agrees with their desired outcome, they look no further. If a trend disagrees with their desired outcome they spend a lot of time looking for why the data must be wrong. We see this in action with urban heat island (UHI) effect and with satellite measurements. Because UHI would increase temperature trends and therefore a correction would reduce the trend, they are quick to conclude that UHI is not a factor (nothing to see here, move along). However, satellites were not cooperating initially. The results were not what they wanted, so they put in an inordinate amount of time looking for why the data must be wrong. Since satellite measurements have so many factors to them that could significantly effect the trend, it didn’t take too much effort to find a reason why they needed to be ‘corrected’ upwards. Mission accomplished.
It would be far too tedious and unrewarding, (but interesting if someone else did it), to look into all ‘corrections’. How many corrections increased the trend? How many decreased it? Is the distribution of corrections statistically likely? (I very much doubt it).
Considering that ‘trends’ are so small and insignificant it doesn’t seem much of a stretch to me to think that the tiny trends we do see are quite a pure fabrication of ‘corrections’. The ‘real’ trend could very well go the opposite direction! Unfortunately we never know in our lifetime. It will be up to scientists of the future to look back and go ‘tsk tsk’ at the naivety of past ‘corrections’ and feel superior about (as every new generation seems to do).

Pamela Gray says: cooler days during the growing season also paired up with warmer nights
On the prairies this is a normal cloud cover during the day gives cooler days but warmer nights as less heat escapes. The opposite is also true as clear days are hotter but cool off more at night as the heat is allowed to escape.

dbstealey perhaps its you that needs to wake up !
You said, referring to sea ice:
“The Antarctic has ten times more ice than the Arctic. That is why global ice cover is normal.”
Where do you get that from ?
Arctic sea ice is currently about double antarctic sea ice area. Comparing past maxima and minima in north and south they are similar in terms of ice area.

Marcos says:
January 3, 2014 at 1:59 pm
why does Antarctica show all positive anomalies for Dec when it was recently reported that the lowest temperature ever recorded happened there last month?
—-
Marcos, the low temperature was reported last month but it was from a measurement taken a couple of years ago. It was discovered by analyzing the vast amount of historical data that is (was) generated.

James Abbot says: The religious beliefs in this debate are displayed by those who seek to undermine the science because of their fundamentalist predetermined position – that they don’t “believe” climate change is happening.
James how can you call measurements within margin of error a “trend” let alone science. You are the climate denier as you cannot see outside of a very very small climate box.
34 years of satellite with many many documented errors and “corrections” does not constitute a level of confidence. Historically the planet (pre man induced CO2) has varied well outside of the temperature movement we are seeing. Where I live ( Canadian Prairies ) the temperature variations year to year have remained the same relatively speaking -40 to +30°C. This is the EXACT reason I started to doubt what was being told to me by the “scientists” and the IPCC
The story did not match the reality. If the equipment I design was criticized for temperature variations (inside a very small closed system) of 0.27 or even 2.7°C I would laugh the critic out of the room. The variables of measured satellite temperatures fall well outside of this 34 year chart. (you have to dig to find the info and the data) even if the “trend” was 1 full degree, or a degree and a half would it really be an issue compared to 50 to 600 year history? Would it?
Chart out 100 years full scale (ie about -45°C to +45°C)
This data means absolutely nothing, its not a trend considering published error margin and measurement issues of satellites. This has nothing to do with religion or bias or anything else.
The equipment and the variables cannot begin to give a baseline, an error margin nor a trend yet. If the world spent 10 times the money on each satellite and doubled or even tripled the amount orbiting and recording data and came up with the exact same data line it would still mean nothing.

What I see from looking at the graph is that the temps are essentially the same as 2002. And no warming since at least 1998. That’s where we stand. This doesn’t jive with the climate models that show things taking off into the stratosphere by now. CO2 has gone up sharply, and temps remain flat.

I was reading about climate history before the present cAGW fraud became the money-maker that it has become. Back in those days we were told that there was a “little ice age” that lasted from about 1300 to 1850 or so.
I read a lot of writings by a fellow named H.H. Lamb. He told me that we had been warming up ever since the end of the little ice age and that was a good thing. He outlined past ups and downs and so I was not surprised when the “new ice age” scare was put to bed by a period of warming just as I will not be surprised when the climate cooling blows the current fraudsters out of the water yet again.
Let me see now; the CO2 in the atmosphere has gone over 400 ppm which was supposed to trigger runaway heating that would fry us all. Well, the best we can do is say that we have “hotter years” with measurements to the hundredth of a degree? Son of a Bee, I think some folks missed “precision” and “accuracy” lessons in middle school.
Anyway, I love the reports of “hottest year ever” since it just makes the common Joe on the street crazy as he battles snow and ice and airplane cancellations.
By the way, I hear it was massive heat that trapped those poor “climatologists” down at the south pole. To that I say, Penguin Droppings.

dbstealey in the spirit of giving each other friendly suggestions, can I suggest you get some basic science learning under your belt.
Have a read on subjects such as greenhouse gases, radiative forcing, Earth’s energy balance. Also, have a browse of the history of science to see when it was that CO2 was recognised as a greenhouse gas and when the first published papers looked at what increasing global CO2 concentration could lead to.
Meantime, you clearly were referring to sea ice as you posted this link to back your point
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2013/12/Figure4b-350×280.png
which sure looks like a sea ice graph to me.

“The warmest areas during the year were over the North Pacific and the Antarctic, where temperatures for the year averaged more than 1.4 C (more than 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit) warmer than normal.”
Antarctica warmer than normal?? But how can that be when that iced in ship proved global warming is all a hoax?

Let’s adjust this UAH reading of +0.236C for the known natural variables.
The AMO index is going to average about +0.200C for the year and its influence is 50% so net impact of +0.100C to UAH.
The ENSO including the 3 month lag has an average of -0.14C for the year (very neutral in ENSO terms) and its influence is 15% so an impact of -0.02C.
Solar Irradiance is hard to determine now since the SORCE TSI instrument failed but it appears to be around +0.3 W//2 (the top of the solar cycle) and its influence is 10% so +0.03C from solar.
No volcanoes of any impact.
So adjust the +0.236C of 2013 to +0.137C to account for natural variables.
1979’s adjusted value is -0.180C.
Very hard to get excited about +0.31C or so of warming over 34 years when global warming theory predicted it would 1.28 times 0.2C/decade (lower troposphere at the level UAH measures at is predicted to warm by 1.28 times the surface predicted rate of 0.2C/decade in the theory) or +0.94C.
One-third the predicted rate.

Folks, when the drive-by visitor use this as “proof” of warming take a deep breath before replying.
Remember that the issue is not whether it is warming — for which this year’s value is indecisive. The issue is whether it is warming alarmingly.
It is quite possible to accept that the world is warming without us needing to take drastic action. This year’s value is not proof of anything alarming, even if we accept the proposition that it shows warming, being as it is on the historical trend line of the last two hundred years.
Don’t feed the trolls unnecessary arguments about how it might be cooling, as that only encourages them. Accept it is warming gently and move on. That reasonable position is much more likely to get the uncommitted alongside. In particular voters.
Because at the end of the day it really doesn’t matter if it warms a bit. What matters is if we trash our economies based on scare stories about that warming. Indeed the warming could be within the latest IPCC predictions for the next 90 years without anything terrible happening.
So when an alarmist troll says — “see it’s warming”. The correct response is — “not enough for your alarmist purposes, sunshine”.

Thanks davidmhoffer
I had a quick look at your 3 references (lots of balls and pies in there) and note that they included the following:
“it is a scientific truth that GHGs, mainly H2O but also CO2 and others, play an important role in warming the Earth via the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”.”
Exactly. So the issue is how much of a role does CO2 have in warming the Earth.
Greg Goodman – well spotted. Without CO2 life would be dead. Any more pearls?
Getting back to what we are (hopefully) talking about, what would be the temperature change from MODELLING taking CO2 out of the atmosphere ? And Greg Goodman I am glad you “don’t have the time to try to explain non linearity of absorption” – because you don’t need to.

davidmhoffer says:
January 3, 2014 at 3:28 pm
James Abbott; ….

David
Thank you for responding to James Abbott. It saved me a lot of trouble. You are quite correct, Most responsible sceptics (UK spelling) are aware that CO2 influences the climate and that, all other things remaining constant, increasing CO2 concentrations should result in a warmer world. However, as you suggest in your post, the magnitude of this warming is far from certain.
The problem though is, as a “sceptic”, I find I spend far too much time clarifying or denying some of the more wackier statements from the sceptic side than I do arguing for a lower climate sensitivity.
But thanks again anyway.

Pamela Gray says: “My point is that one metric alone, such as averaged global temperatures does not necessarily indicate global warming or cooling.”
Indeed, the whole idea of surmising a system a complex as the climate with one number is simplistic to the point of stupidity and will never lead to an understanding of climate. Except it’s not stupid, it’s intentionally misleading. This is all a legacy of Schneider’s strategy of presenting simple ideas and scary scenarios.

James Abbott says:
Getting back to what we are (hopefully) talking about, what would be the temperature change from MODELLING taking CO2 out of the atmosphere ?
—
Who cares? They are only models and they have been wrong 100% of the time. My guess is that they would continue to be wrong 100% of the time because only Chicken Littles get the funding.
And to answer your quest: if we CO2 levels dropped to zero we would all be dead.

James Abbott says:
January 3, 2014 at 4:04 pm
“it is a scientific truth that GHGs, mainly H2O but also CO2 and others, play an important role in warming the Earth via the Atmospheric “greenhouse effect”.”
Exactly. So the issue is how much of a role does CO2 have in warming the Earth.

There are 2 ways of looking at this.
1. Remove all CO2 from the atmosphere but let all other ghgs (including H2O) remain (in their current concentrations)
2. Remove all other ghgs just leaving CO2.
The influence of CO2 in the 2 scenarios is quite different – so which one do you mean?

We skeptics are the good guys, right? We’re rational and pro-science, right? Dr. Roy Spencer is one of us, right? So if he says that 2013 was the 4th warmest year in the satellite record, there’s a good chance he’s right. If the facts don’t agree with our previous opinions we should just suck it up and go think it through a bit more.
The funniest part of this comments thread is those who argue that 2013 was the peak of a cycle and that temperatures are now set to decline. But they would probably the among the first to say that climate models are rubbish and their predictions are nonsense. Now they themselves are happily making predictions based on a rather primitive climate model driven by one parameter.
Rule No. 1: Nobody knows what the climate is going to do. The science is still hopelessly immature.
Rule No. 2: Nobody can control weather or climate. The technology is still hopelessly immature. For all the billions being burnt in an attempt to change the climate, we might as well be sacrificing all our first-born children to the sun god.
Rule No. 3: Desperately wanting something to happen does not mean it will happen. The warmist nuts desperately want huge temperature increases and lots of weather disasters with millions of people killed. The skeptic nuts desperately want rapid cooling and a little ice age with millions of people dying from cold and starvation. Get a grip, people.

@ Pamela Grey, Grapes?
@Rob 3.31 pm, thanks great explanation.

@ Mike Mellor
Why on earth would I want a Little Ice Age? Crops would fail resulting in my ability to feed my livestock. Then again, enviro nutjobs want us to all become vegans.

Richard: “Greg: No linear trend (or other method) that does not account for the fact that 1840ish (i.e. part of the Little Ice Age) was the LOW point of a cycle has any real meaning,”
Well 1840 was hardly the low point of the LIA, but in a way I agree, I put enough caveats in what I posted.
You keep looking for this 60 year cycle. I showed how to identify and measure it’s approximate magnitude. Your 720 month “smoother” basically leaves you will the same quadratic as I derived in dT/dt.
Now if you want to start fitting other cycles trends or functions to such a small curved segment, the worlds your oyster, you can fit just about anything you want to that.
If you are talking about multi-century scale changes you are not going to find them in HadCRUT4. I was working the data you chose to use. If you want to discuss other long data that’s another issue.
One of the reasons I don’t give much credibility to HadCRUT4 is that the manipulations to the data are as big as what remains and all adjustment mould the data to fit a preconceived climate model.
I suspect a large amount of the 60 y cycle is an artefact of data “correction” more than climate itself.

It is the first time in (a 35 years long) history, that numerical value of annual UAH anomaly is higher than that of RSS (by 0.018 K). Considering the fact, that (arbitrary) offset of RSS is 0.087 K higher itself, it means UAH is running high by an unprecedented 0.105 K compared to RSS this year. That’s a more than 2 sigma discrepancy, with sigma=0.046 K.
Therefore either this year’s RSS or UAH value is an outlier (or both). That is, the 4th warmest year can be the 14th warmest just as easily.
The two datasets are based on the same raw measurements, so their difference gives us some information on their inherent uncertainty, which is on the order of 0.1 K, provided there is no common bias in their methods.

So, once again, global temperatures failed to reach a new high, as predicted by the models.

I personally find the global and hemispheric monthly and annual temperature information lacking in usefulness. They tend to mask what is happening seasonally, regionally and they may not have any significance in our corner of the world. For example, the winter temperatures linear trend in Contiguous US [48 States [has been declining over the last 15 years at -1.57F/decade. Yet we focus mostly on global and hemispheric temperature data being above some 30 year base which most of us cannot relate to or use in any meaningful way. The regional temperature data shows that every month[ dec/jan/feb] of the winter show a decline with February cooling the most at -2.64 F /decade and. December is cooling at -0.7F/decade . Forget about global warming. Our winters are cooling more and we better prepare for them because this may be just the start of a possible 30-35 year period of cooler winters like we had at the beginning of this century and again 1945-1980. I am not saying that we should stop reporting global and atmospheric climate data. I am saying we need to focus also on regional trends in our monthly and annual data.
For example APRIL and MAY are cooling in Contiguous United States, yet warm moist air continues come north. Is any wonder why we have more storms and tornadoes during extended cooling periods like in the past [ 1950-1970’s] when more cold fronts clash with warm moist fronts. This situation will increase in the years ahead .

James Abbott,
You keep going on and on about what CO2 supposedly does to the planet in your eyes, and make reference to this supposed horrific warming spike which we are apparently witnessing that will up and destroy all mankind or whatever. To prove your point you apparently feel as though people who don’t agree with you should tell you what exactly what the temperature would be absent CO2, for some odd reason that no one seems to understand.
Now while I don’t understand your insistent focus there, it doesn’t make any sense honestly, there is a pair of real glaring questions which should probably be asked of you…
…that is, what level of CO2 would be “normal” for the planet to see on any given year in your eyes if Mans impact was removed? Similarly, what temperature should the planet be every year if we removed Man’s influence, instead allowing the planet to settle into it’s “normal” climate for the rest of eternity?
Since you seem to know exactly what the CO2 impact is and how devastating the outcome will be, they should be very, very easy questions for you to answer – what is “normal” with regards to Earths Temperature & CO2 level?

@James Abbott
James, since you are so persistent with your question in regards to the temp change when all CO2 is removed and none here able to answer that, as can be expected, I can only assume that you have information on hand that lets you believe that you know what the difference is.
So why don’t you enlighten us with your assumed answer and what research that answer is based on?
Or would that be making an ass out of u and me?

@gareth Phillips
I thought the point was that CO2 is responsible for accelerated warming and that it must be reduced because its causing catastrophic climate change. Please point at the catastrophic climate change in the graph.

Re: my post
John Finn says:
January 3, 2014 at 6:34 pm
From previous post it can be seen that CO2 contributes between 9% and 24% of the total ‘greenhouse’ effect. But that’s not the real issue. The real question is how much does the concentration of other greenhouse gases (in particular – water vapour) change in response to an addition (or reduction) of CO2, i.e. What is the feedback factor?

I’ve seen estimates that the rise in CO2 over the past 50 years has been responsible for a 15% increase in foodstuff production worldwide. Other factors have also added to the increase.
The question is how much deleterious impact to worldwide foodstuff production has the temperature increase due to the same CO2 increase caused?
I submit they’re offsetting–that the 15% increase includes both the positive and the negative impact.
And that 15% increase is a very significant gain;it helps avert starvaton.
Now, if it were DOWN 15%, the Warmistas would have an argument, but they don’t because it isn’t.
They complain while getting fat on the benefits.
Hypocricy, anyone?

James Abbott says:
January 3, 2014 at 2:07 pm says: Greenland is losing net ice mass and sea ice extent is currently close to 2 SDs below the 1981 – 2010 mean.
Why do you think it’s named “Greenland”?

“Please, James. You confuse the IPCC’s narrative with real science. Maybe the IPCC tried to be scientific in AR-1, but like Snow White, they drifted.”
Dbstealey, who exactly are you? What have you published? Why should your opinion have more weight than that of the many actual scientists that contributed to the IPCC?

No doubt the work from UAH, Dr. John Christy and Dr. Roy Spencer is opposed by global warming proponents!
I take a look at the UAH – Global lower tropospheric temperature anomalies, 1979 thru December 2013, relative to 1981 thru 2010 [The red curve is the running, centered 13-month average] and all I see is that after 1998 the global temperature anomaly rose some to 0.2°C.
and has stayed around there since 2002. Then I think most probably the big 1998 El Niño did that.
If this temperature pause by whatever name gives way to warming or to cooling, I think is to be resolved by ENSO. This is because ENSO is a mechanism for regulating the planet’s energy input from the Sun. The clouds associated with it are the throttle, so to speak.
Mostly water vapor and much less so CO2 play their warming and cooling roles in the chaotic planetary weather system. This weather system includes some features that work as internal regulators for the heat engine that takes heat from the tropics to the poles and out to space.
One thing that is not clear is how much CO2 is caused by human activities, how much by volcanic remnants and many other natural sources.
Another unclear factor is how much warming would come from a duplication of the present CO2 mix in the atmosphere (the “climate sensitivity”), ask the the IPPC? They don’t know. Many well-known climate scientists (Dr, Spencer among them) think this is a figure near 1°C. Many other think higher figures due to a net positive feedback in the climate system.
One thing is very clear though; without CO2 we, or the plants and animals we eat would not be here to spin this tale.

@Joe 7:54, seeing as how you asked.
You are?
Your “credentials”?
Arguing the authority of your experts is greater than his experts is religion and circular noise.
How about that old tool called the scientific method?
Define your theory?
Is it CAGW (due to CO2)?
If so, how about you lay out empirical data that appears to support your theory.
Demonstrate how you used it to test your idea.Full methodology please.
Explain what measurements might falsify this theory.
And of course: how does your theory contradict the null hypothesis?
Is there any measured “global” warming that is unusual compared to past cycles? Feel free to use the IPCC version.. Oh wait, they have never been able to do that…
So if you would be so kind…. you will find the UN eternally grateful, a Nobel prize thrust upon you, and the academic gravy train for life.

RockyRoad: I’ve seen estimates that the rise in CO2 over the past 50 years has been responsible for a 15% increase in foodstuff production worldwide.
I’ve been looking for something to back up these numbers. Can you throw us a link?

richardscourtney: Please inform on how to obtain some of the “big oil” funding which you imply exists.
Glad you asked. Here’s how: Retire with almost any of the major government retirement plans. My own (CALSTRS), as of last June 30, held $1,150,537,000 worth of Exxon-Mobile securities, along with $72,213,000 worth of Valero.
The point: while many (not all) of the alarmists are painting fossil fuel industries as destructive producers of ill-gotten profits, they at the same time continuously benefit from the industry’s products, and large numbers of them share in those profits. (And for those who do not have such plans, be informed that in California, should the CALSTRS investments fail to finance the system’s obligations, it will be the responsibility of the general taxpayer to make up the difference.)

MattN says:
January 3, 2014 at 8:34 pm
Why is the trend still .14C? There’s been very little warming for well over a decade now. It was .14C years ago, we’ve had virtually no warming, and its still .14C. I don’t understand.
There are three reasons that I can think of.
1. Up to the end of 2010, which was a very hot year, the slope was 0.01475/year according to version 5.5. But the most recent value is 0.0135975/year, which is lower, but rounds up to 0.14/decade.
2. When a hot year nudges the slope up, it takes a few average years to get it back down again, and 3 years in about 34 years is less than 10%.
3. The earlier slope was based on version 5.5. The new version is 5.6 which shows a higher slope. For example, the time for no warming on version 5.6 is since August 2008, but the time for no warming on version 5.5 is from January 2005.

@rivhardcourtney; Rob aka flatlander:
re your post at January 3, 2014 at 9:43 pm., I want some too! (that is those wicket oil $$$, I have given them enough of my own as has James as he pounds away on his plastic key board)
@ Pamela grey , oh yes ours (in the veggie patch) had a bad go of it . But our grapes (on the Farm ) thankfully recovered after a really bad wet spring, Oh and BTW I am (almost) starting to feel sorry for some of the warmists . Your and others @WUWT are educating a lot of us non climatologists ( ok in other fields) and I thank you all for that, Sorry to hear BT has to curtail his work.

If man were warming up the EARTH, should not this year be the warmest?
If the Earth was warming up because of man, should not the hurricane seasons be getting stronger?
If man was warming up the Earth, should not Glaciers have melted away by now?
If man was warming up the Earth there should not be a debate.

You look at all this massive ice at the poles and all that mass of water in the oceans and then do some math. The population of man per square mile of Earth is only 35, or one person per 18 acres. How the heck did that influence climate, or the amount of ice at the poles in any given year? It can’t be possible. This is nature at work. Natural variation. We have very little to no control.

Good explanation to explain the increase in the Earth’s temperature. Sixty year cycle. Who ever dreamt that one up should get a Nobel prize for creativity. Still the evidence is getting harder to refute and greater creativity will be needed to explain it away.

J Abbott,
Classic AGW, and thus showing no competence to the matter.
99% of the skeptics know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is warming the planet. But the important question is by how much. And we skeptics know that’s very little. In fact you could know it yourself by a test, you probably know, to scare the crap out of students. You know the experiment with the 2 closed boxes and the light bulbs? Yes you know and you love it because it proves you’re right; wrong. In 1 box there is 100% CO2 and in the other 100% air with 0,4% CO2. If the result for 100% CO2 is 6 you can calculate what 0,4% CO2 does. Thats 0,004%, wrong again. CO2 radiates only 8% of the warming back and 5% of that goes back to earth. So the number is even lower.
Now I talk about CO2 as a total, humans do only 4% of all CO2 so we humans do only 0,00012 degrees C warming. This is all sciences and can be found on line so look for it your self.
Then your question. What would happen if CO2 was 0. You have the answerer from above, even with CO2 at 400 PPM the effect is almost 0.
But to go along with your twisted thinking. You would never find the answer to that because you assume CO2 is the big driver. And even if I tell you the truth, you could not find it because of your problems.
You see you and your colleges made sciences rotten to the bone. You work with models which give you GIGO results because of the garbage in garbage out problem. And the fact that you focus on just one outcome, namely CO2, is to blame.
If you want the answer you must work with real non-adjusted raw data. Work with a clear model and overall look at real life and not your fantasia bogus AGW world.
You would see that there is an relation an domino effect so to speak in which there are parts of the system we now as climate you must have but there is one we can get without.
This is the main reason why it won’t work for you.
Sun, Ocean, humidity, temperature.
This is how climate works.
The sun warms the planet, 75% off the planet is ocean so a warming ocean means more moisture. The main greenhouse gas is water vapor with 95% so more water vapor makes a warmer planet, bit tricky because water vapor has also a cooling effect. To see what impact water vapor has on the temperature you can go to the tropics. There you can learn how it works and there you see the climate optimum in full spin. And you can go to any desert to see how less water vapor works and what effect that has.
After water vapor comes temperature. The more water vapor the higher the temperature and also less water vapor means lower temperature. I left out CO2 because it doesn’t have a place in the climate. CO2 comes after the temperature and in fact is only the result of temperature but that also is not the whole truth. CO2 comes (among other ways but this is the big way) in the atmosphere by out gassing from the ocean. See the sun warms the ocean surface and thus CO2 is re least because warm water can hold less CO2 then cold water.
By the IPCC I know there is less water vapor in the atmosphere then say 15 years ago. So what could that be?
Sun, ocean, humidity, temperature.
We know that the sun is in SC 24 and that a weak one. So the sun warms the planet less then say 30 year before. Less warmth from the sun makes a colder surface makes less humidity makes lower temperatures.
In this case again CO2 has no effect what so ever. After the temperature drops we will see CO2 drop because of the colder oceans absorbing more CO2. The fun fact is that is will take some time. 10, 20, 100 years we don’t really know that.
So Abbott you could know this if you worked science in fact you would know if you worked real data instead of adjusted data. You commit a fraud and are stuck in the fraud so you never find the answer.
The only way to go is back to real life. But be prepared of the shock.

Badger says:
January 3, 2014 at 7:29 pm
The only CO2 absorption band which is germane to the greenhouse effect is the one at 15 microns. The 4.3 micron band is not important in this context as there is relatively little radiation at that wavelength, either incoming or outgoing.
The Figure 6.3 which you link to terminates at around 14 microns and so does not fully show the effect of this CO2 absorption band, nor does it show the H2O continuum over this region. So your conclusion, which seems to be that CO2 has no effect, is not supported by what you link to.
Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will produce additional warming. The question is how much, not if. It is generally agreed that, all other things being equal, doubling the CO2 concentration will produce further warming at the surface of the planet by about 1.1 Deg.C. In itself this is not problematic, may even be beneficial.
The argument comes down to ‘positive feedback’. Will increased warming due to CO2 lead to the release of more CO2 from the oceans, methane from the permafrost etc. which, in turn, leads to even more warming? This is what is meant by ‘Climate Sensitivity’; how much will the Earth warm as a result of doubling the CO2 level. This is what the debate is about. It is not about ice melting or sea-levels rising, because these processes started long before the possibility of human cause.
Several papers have been published recently which tend to show that climate sensitivity is lower than the IPCC’s earlier estimates. As a result the latest IPCC report now says,

“No best estimate for equilibrium climate sensitivity can now be given because of a lack of agreement on values across assessed lines of evidence and studies”

wbrozek says:
January 3, 2014 at 10:53 pm
Jim Roth says:
January 3, 2014 at 3:29 pm
Can someone please tell me how this squares with the idea that there’s been no global warming for the last 17 yr’s?
On RSS there is no warming for 17 years and 4 months. As to why there is such a big difference between RSS and UAH is a huge mystery. Perhaps UAH is measuring the Antarctic too high.

Or perhaps RSS are introducing a spurious cooling trend by applying an incorrect diurnal drift adjustment. Roy Spencer writes
Anyway, my UAH cohort and boss John Christy, who does the detailed matching between satellites, is pretty convinced that the RSS data is undergoing spurious cooling because RSS is still using the old NOAA-15 satellite which has a decaying orbit, to which they are then applying a diurnal cycle drift correction based upon a climate model, which does not quite match reality . We have not used NOAA-15 for trend information in years…we use the NASA Aqua AMSU, since that satellite carries extra fuel to maintain a precise orbit.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/2011/07/on-the-divergence-between-the-uah-and-rss-global-temperature-records/
I do wish ‘our’ side would stop cherry picking the datasets. UAH is the one in which we had the most trust and I see no reason why that should change.

The past 17 years show us that there is nothing to worry about, I suppose. What goes up must come down. My thermometer won’t show that ~ .3° we are talking about. And I can live with higher temperatures pretty well, as mankind ist able to adapt. The IPCC should stop scaremongering, return to its closet and shut the door tightly. I’d be glad to throw the key away.

James Abbott says:
January 3, 2014 at 3:43 pm
“Now lets go back to the question.
Rather than use descriptive words (or reference the discredited Monckton) what would be the change in mean global temperature if CO2 was removed from the atmosphere ?”
It would be colder.
Not that you would have any interest in such a result Einstein, as being a carbon based life form, you would be dead along with nearly all the life on Earth.
Now here a few, far more relevant, questions for you to answer in return.
1. What if man had not contributed to the increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, what would the current global temperatures be?
2. Would those temperatures and CO2 levels be better or worse for mankind currently, would there be less of us or more of us?
3. How would plant life be doing, seeing as most higher life forms are ultimately reliant on the abundance of plant life for their existence?
4.. How would global sea ice, glaciers and other potentially ice covered areas be doing and if different, would this be a good or bad thing for life on Earth?
4. What would your preferred level of atmospheric CO2 level be, given that most plant life evolved to take advantage of the much higher CO2 levels prevalent then and are currently relatively CO2 starved?
5. What would be your preferred global temperature and how does Mankind ensure that it is maintained, as you seem to believe strongly that we are currently controlling it?
6. How long do you think Mankind can continue to control global temperatures, if indeed we are currently, as you believe? Please be reasonably specific, which shouldn’t be a problem for you, as you seem to feel strongly that you have a good handle on the mechanisms of this so called control..
So I would like you to answer these questions. They are far more relevant and real than your impossible and apocalyptic question after all. So no doubt you will be champing at the bit to answer, right?.
However, what I expect you will do is run away and not been seen again. However, I think I will keep a track of you and ask you the same questions every time you post your nonsense.
Alan

A photon comes in from the Sun at noon on Tuesday. It is absorbed by an electron in a molecule in a rock on the beach.
Then what happens?
What does the energy do? Where does it go? What path does it take, over what time, in how many different molecules does it then enter? How long does it take before it sent back to space? How does that process change when there is doubled CO2? Given how the process changes when there is doubled CO2, how does the temperature of the surface and different layers of the atmosphere change?
A climate model and a theory are supposed to be able to answer those questions. We are talking about the speed of light here, times in nanoseconds, 44 hours, the energy spending time in 8 billion different molecules, atmospheric molecular collision rates of 7 billion per second, radiation physics, blackbody radiation, a spherical rotating planet with an atmosphere, with oceans in space next to a Star, … and then, the Earth receives 1.6×10^40 of these solar photons every day and emits 8.0×10^40 IR photons every day. What could possibly go wrong with a climate model trying to simulate that.

Alan
IMHO
Ad 1.: It seems to me that actually nobody knows what the manmade and the natural(e.g. „cow fart“) part of CO2 in the atmosphere precisely is and that it is unknown to what an extent and in which way, esp. in which conjunction(s) e.g. with pollen, aerosols, solar activity, soot etc. feedbacks can be expected. Therefore, no way of telling in a way you think of.
Ad 5.: My personal selection of a nice climate would be that of New Caledonia(avg. p.a. 23°C).
Ad 6.: Mankind cannot „control“ neither weather nor climate. But mankind has been very successful in adaptation to the circumstances.

So – what would happen if we modelled the atmosphere with CO2 taken out ?
This has been done by your global warmng colleagues. The Result : Well the models came closer to the manipulated temperatures than they did with CO² in the runs.

A photon comes in from the Sun at noon on Tuesday. It is absorbed by an electron in a molecule in a rock on the beach
That is clown stuff. Stupid to the point of imbecilic.