The journal Nature embraces 'the pause' and ocean cycles as the cause, Trenberth still betting his heat will show up

“The simplest explanation for both the hiatus and the discrepancy in the models is natural variability.”
No, that’s nonsense. The simplest explanation is that the theory is falsified, and that the models are wrong. In fact, EVERYTHING points at the models being wrong, false and useless. Not ONE thing points to the models being right, correct, or useful. There are simply no such reports. We should see thousands of triumphant papers confirming again and again that the models got this right and that right after many years of painstaking development, but we NEVER see any such report.
That’s like celebrating the 100,000th Lancaster bomber built and shipped over the Atlantic while not one of them ever made it through the Kammhuber line.

In a nutshell ; They haven’t got a bloody clue!
But hey! They’re Climate Scientists with a capital “C” and a capital “S” so the great fantastic parody called the Climate Warming Science show must go on and all the regular big time players must be seen to be still the most skillful scientific chappies around otherwise those conferences and free airfares to all those exotic paradises on earth could all dry up and devastation and depression would reign in the world of climate warming science and that would indeed be a travesty of Trenbarthian proportions [ /sarc]

The smartest of these guys will be looking for an exit strategy and will eventually look the other way if anyone suggests they were once on the bandwagon beating the drum.

Here’s the simplest possible explanation of the 20th century warming:
Whatever caused the 20th century warming is the same thing that caused the MWP warming. And the Roman period warming. And the 1500 BC warming.
This explanation is simple and completely natural – literally.
Chris

I am entering “sloshed” into my CAGW lexicon. In the Australian vernacular, it also means disgustingly inebriated – now that I can buy!

So essentially he is saying that Bob Tisdale is right and he was wrong. Why does Trenberth not just say that and get it over with?
[This moderator liked the screen name “Disko Troop”. But not many knew where the name came from. ~ mod.]

The Cl(imate/imatology)(P/C)ause.
My take on “The Clause”:
CS due to 2xCO² is ≤ 0.000°K à la Ferenc Miskolczi.
Back-pedalling grant seekers are barfing up lower and lower guesswork for CS as time passes, we get colder and the 0.000°K part becomes increasingly obvious.

Barry- that is a fascinating link and quote! I also added the next sentence of the next paragraph in the quote below and my comment follows:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23060-has-global-warming-ground-to-a-halt.html#.UtexAPRdV6Q
“Are these cycles just something scientists have invented to explain away the lack of recent warming?
No. The Met Office admits that we still know far too little about how these natural cycles work, and how big they are. And climate scientists are open to the charge that they ignored the potential impact of natural variability when it was accelerating global warming. According to Brian Hoskins of Imperial College London, it now looks like natural cycles played a big role in the unexpectedly fast warming of the 1990s.
Even so, the fundamental physics about how greenhouse gases trap heat in the atmosphere hasn’t changed.”
Follow the pea here they state that the fundamental physics of greenhouse gases isn’t changed bby the pause (which is true), but this is only speaking to the FIRST ORDER effects which most skeptics also agree with and which are not alarming to anyone. What they absolutely fail to mention is the fact that this may have DRASTIC impacts on their calculations of 2nd order effects/feedbacks/sensitivity and attribution. So they tell an incomplete truth leaving out the important part.

Trenberth has recently also admitted the role of the PDO in the warming period of 1978-1998:
http://notrickszone.com/2014/01/10/oops-trenberth-concedes-natural-ocean-cycles-contributed-to-1978-1998-warming-after-all-co2-diminishes-as-a-factor/
and now admits the possible role of the PDO in the ending of the warming period. Amazing that he is unwilling to reconsider his belief in the CO2-dogma.

Unfortunately, what is written on WUWT carries little weight with our politicians and the MSM. Hopefully, one of these days, something approaching a miracle will happen, and an eminent scientist who has, in the past, been and out and out warmist, will have the integrity to say what is being said here; that adding CO2 to the atmosphere from current levels, has an insignificant affect on anything to do with climate. Who that person will be, I don’t know, but whoever it is will have her/his name written proudly in the annals of science.

So, PDO in. That means Aerosol out for 40s, 50s.

Still, we argue over fractional degrees of temperature “anomaly,” accepting that there is something special, normative, or magical about temps of the past 30 years, or of the past century.
The entire conversation, particularly in the MSM, takes the up-and-down anomaly discussion way too seriously. Does Kevin Trenberth really believe that the ups and downs of a few tenths of a degree represent hair-raising temperature swings rather than a self-regulating system displaying the minor fluctuations around something very close to homeostasis?
The realists will have to, eventually, argue the warmists down on this one, in the popular media. As long as New York Times readers, USA Today readers, and NBC Nightly News watchers believe that they’re seeing a roller coaster rather than a wiggle, the war will never be won.

Sooner or later, the trend will inevitably reverse. “You can’t keep piling up warm water in the western Pacific,” Trenberth says. “At some point, the water will get so high that it just sloshes back.” And when that happens, if scientists are on the right track, the missing heat will reappear and temperatures will spike once again.
This is mainstream explanation and is a questionable as it’s “sloshing” language is silly.
While wind driven “piling up ” is well known in closed lakes, where the wind is in the same direction across the width of the lake, it makes a lot less sense when the trade winds act over a restricted latitude band and the water has several exits from where it is ‘piling up’.

Trenberth admits he doesn’t know (why the world hasn’t warmed according to the models) yet he’s doubling down at the same time (eg. the warmth is going to slosh back).
The issue continues to be the fact that scientists don’t know what the range of natural variability is, both in amplitude and time. They under estimate it (natural variability) and it makes their models over-sensitive to other things such as changes in CO2 concentration.
Natural variation is not limited to +/- 0.2 deg C and it doesn’t have to be entirely periodic with the AMO. In 100 years maybe we’ll know why.
In the meantime Trenberth hopes the world “spikes back up” to save his precious model.

Barry Woods: Simplifying Slingo’s incoherence: “If the current cooling is due to the negative PDO phase, then wouldn’t the warming of the 80s and 90s be a result of the positive PDO phase back then?”
What is incoherent about that? She was pointing out the duplicity of many attempted explanations that now suggest various other factors account for the pause without acknowledging they must, by inference, be accepted as a cause of warming.

Would love to hear the explanation as to why the 1920-40s increase (before CO2) is almost identical to the 1970-2000s increase (CO2 “caused”). Can Trenberth explain the missing CO2?

http://climategrog.wordpress.com/?attachment_id=750
Following El Chichon and Mt Pinatubo eruptions the temp of the stratosphere was raised by the blocking effect of the volcanic ejections absorbing incoming UV, leading to temporary surface cooling.
A few years later, when it cleared there was a permanent, net cooling below the pre-eruption temp in stratosphere. This implies MORE solar was getting through to the surface than before.
That is not what climate models do. They assume volcanoes have a net cooling effect on climate. A cooling effect that used to conclude the spurious positive feedbacks amplifying GHG warming.
It seems probable that the unusually large 1998 El Nino was because of the EXTRA incoming solar getting into lower levels of the climate system caused by the major eruptions. The sustained high level of global temps since then are matched by the sustained high levels of incoming UV energy witnessed by the cooling in the TLS record.

Hmmm, Exactly right!
These realizations mean that the feedbacks necesarry for warming to be higher than would be beneficial to society and ecology aren’t plausible.

“Now, after having wasted at least 30 years of public money and time due to our false ideology, we return you to your regularly scheduled viewing,…..”
Idiots.

I just can’t see why ever one is in such a dither and getting their panties in a tight wad.
You see the key to the puzzle of the missing heat is here. ( No it is not hiding or missing …)
” ..These winds normally push sun-baked water towards Indonesia. When they slackened, the warm water sloshed back towards South America…”
I mean you have to think in 3 dimensions. Normally the warm water head west towards the Indian Ocean where it would normally lose it heat and sink. But hey when it sloshes back and goes east all that water has to go somewhere. And that somewhere is down.
The warm water sinks since it has no where to go but down, Think of all that heat is forces into the abyss. It just disappears before your eyes.
Utterly brilliant of Trenberth this box of rocks thinks.

troe says:
January 16, 2014 at 4:59 am
“I applaud this blog and those who have worked so hard to sustain it. When I came to this issue at the time of climategate your position on the role of natural variability was dismissed as unscientific. Now the wheel has turned in your direction. I stand amazed at your insight, courage, and persistance in the face of an incredible storm of unbridled criticism. Its the high stakes drama that keeps us tuned in.”
Spot on. WUWT deserves the major credit for the fact that the importance of natural cycles is beginning to be recognized by Alarmists. Special kudos to Bob Tisdale on ENSO. At some point, all climate scientists must give credit to WUWT for this important change.

I wonder how long we have to bear Trenberth’s horse and pony show of climate nonsense and missing heat. He’d better worry about his missing reputation.

Amount of government money spent correlates negatively with scientific success.
Scientific contributions of government climate scientists are negative.
It amazes me that the state gets anything to work. (Weapons systems seem to be working)

Probably mentioned already, but here goes: Scenario – El Niño is coming, and it will bring all the heat back to the atmosphere. What happens when the El Niño doesn’t heat _everything_ back up to the level in the models, (A weak El Niño) Trenberth and friends will do a net heat calculation and declare the rest of the heat has gone into the deep ocean, and that won’t be seen for fifty years. But in 50 years, _watch out!_
It’s the kind of logic that is hard to falsify.
First, why is this “pause” seemingly longer than the last pauses? If there’s more CO2 going into the atmosphere per year, the heat buildup per year has also to be higher, and should have swamped natural variability sooner. One might think the pauses would be shorter.
The sad thing about the deep heat into the ocean thing is that the parameters of the model for that must have a monster sized fudge factor. Any global model using the boogie man of “we don’t know how much heat is in the deep ocean” simply can’t be falsified without proving the negative on where the heat is going into the deep ocean.

DirkH. Agreed. It keeps the funds flowing so very rational behaviour.
US military is second to none in rationalizing funding. Once spent billions on the Pentomic infantry division. That was what all those soldiers were doing in the desert watching nuclear tests. They were developing a force that could survive on the nuclear battlefield. Of course it was a farce but it kept the money coming. The Pentomic division was also known as the “ashtray division” when Congressmen weren’t around.

So if I read that right the warm West Pacific has become 20cm deeper, taking in water that should have gone to Indonesia and become colder. The difference between the temperature the water is at and the temperature it should be is the missing heat. When the wind drops the water will move back to where it should be and average global temperature will leap back in line with the model projections.
I am not usually in to betting but if the Warmistas are prepared to put their money where their mouthpiece is, even I might hazard a few bob.

The scientific incompetence of the climate establishment and their capacity to avoid the obvious at all costs is astounding. Having spent countless millions on their useless models they now amazingly discover the PDO. It has been obvious for many years that the IPCC models are structurally incorrect and that there is not sufficient computing power in the world to model future temperature trends in systems with multiple variables with any useful accuracy. All modelers should be forced to watch

Another forecasting method necessarily must be adopted. For forecasts of the timing and amount of the coming cooling based on quasi periodic – quasi repetitive patterns in the temperature and driver data see several posts at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
These forecasts are based on the simple working hypothesis that the recent temperature peak was the result of more or less synchronous peaks in 60 year (PDO) and 1000 year periodicities in the temperature data. This hypothesis is strengthened by the recent decline in solar activity – best seen in the cosmic ray flux ( neutron counts) which also suggests a coming cooling trend.

My old John Deere tractor does not have a water pump. Hot water rises to the top of the radiator and the fan cools it. I am not as wise as those science guys but I would say that the oceans would be the same.

DirkH says:
January 16, 2014 at 4:10 am
“The simplest explanation for both the hiatus and the discrepancy in the models is natural variability.”
No, that’s nonsense. The simplest explanation is that the theory is falsified, and that the models are wrong. In fact, EVERYTHING points at the models being wrong, false and useless. Not ONE thing points to the models being right, correct, or useful. There are simply no such reports. We should see thousands of triumphant papers confirming again and again that the models got this right and that right after many years of painstaking development, but we NEVER see any such report.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As usual, DirkH is right. But some people have had global warming on the brain for so long that it has formed lesions.
The 1998 El Nino was coincidental but not fundamental to the end of the last warming trend, imho.

I know that the Earth’s cooling is in no way a joke, but I nevertheless cannot help but laugh at this slow-moving train wreck as the delayed feed finally reaches the cerebral cortex of those who have spent so much time and money (mine) screaming from the rooftops that the planet was heating and we’re all gonna die if we don’t change our bad ways RIGHT NOW.
The lengths and depths and widths that they are going through to explain away the “pause” are hilarious and oh-so predictable.

troe says:
January 16, 2014 at 7:08 am
“US military is second to none in rationalizing funding. Once spent billions on the Pentomic infantry division. ”
Interesting story, thanks, I didn’t know that one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentomic

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ changes everything

The following comment appeared on the Nature Editorial about Trenberth’s article — Nature 505, 261–262 (16 January 2014) doi:10.1038/505261b
Physicists 100+ years ago were perturbed that the precession of the perihelion of Mercury as predicted by Newtonian mechanics was off by 38 arc seconds (roughly one part in 1/100,000). It took relativity to straighten things out.
None of the climate models mentioned in Science in 2009 [ Science vol. 326 pp. 28 – 29 ’09 (2 Oct ’09 ) ] predicted a pause this long, even when they were run for a total of 700 years. The longest pause found was 15 years. They should be run again for many more years with the faster computers of today, to see if they produce the present pause. If not, the models, and their recommendations should be abandoned.
Adding a new parameter to explain unexpected results is good science when the system being explained is complex. Consider the additions to the central dogma of molecular biology — introns, exons, microRNAs, ceRNAs, reverse transcription etc. etc. Certainly global climate is equally complex. More than a little humility is in order.

Dr Trenberth really should move on to dispensing aspirin, with the usual request to “see me in the morning”, or perhaps in the next decade. Why cannot these “climate scientists” look at what is actually happening, and form their theories from that, rather than trying to justify the outputs from their failed model simulations? They have strayed so far from science now that I wonder if any of them are retrievable as “scientists”.

I did a course on climatology at University of Aberdeen about 37 years ago and learned then that The Pacific Ocean controlled Earth’s climate. It is therefore incredible that climate science is only just awakening to this reality and to the reality of natural cycles. Accepting the Nature report as “fact” has consequence that all climate models are wrong (we knew that already) and their replication of past climate change as “fraud” – basically tuning variables to produce the desired outcome and calling it science. Without including natural cycles they can have no predictive power.
The PDO 60 year oscillation is only one of a number of natural cycles that climate models currently lack. A more important one is the 1000±500 year Bond / DO cycle. IF the Bond 2001 data are reliable (and they are contested) then what they describe is periodic ingress of the Labrador current into the N Atlantic and this truncates the Gulf Stream correlating with cold periods in NW Europe. A simplistic view of the consequence would be less evaporation from the Gulf Stream in the N Atlantic leading to reduced GH warming and regional cooling.
I discuss some of this in The Ice Man Cometh and a modified version of the key chart showing Bond cycles is here.

Dr. Trenberth, Chief Alchemist & Bogeyman Instigator, starts to come to grips with reality.
“Hello, my name is Kevin and I am a global warming fearmongerer”
“Hello Kevin”

Anthony,
I hope ALL the WUWT blog posts are quadruple backed up. WUWT is probably the most detailed documentation of the history of the CAGW boondoggle, and the Climate Science “community” climb down from the hysteria of the last 25 years that we are currently witnessing.
One of the low lights of this massive hoax is the numerous “investigations” into the Climategate emails. Apparently not all of us are as rational or civilized as we would like to think. But some have been more rational than others. Thank you for your perseverance.

Gail Combs says:
January 16, 2014 at 8:00 am
“Dr. Judith Curry already beat them out the door.”
That’s why they revile her so much. They can’t stand that she was cleverer than them in putting on her life jacket and abandoning ship.
Alan

The PDO was much more strongly negative 50s to 70s than the past decade, why does this one cause so much more cooling? The CO2 greenhouse contribution was about .018C per decate 1950-1970, temperatures were flat. CO2 contribution 2001-2011 was .067C. Yet, with the weaker PDO cool phase, we have the same/slightly more negative temperature trend.

Trenberth is still desperately trying to keep up the pretense of ‘higher knowledge’ where none exists. His latest ‘guesses’ are what others have been pointing out all along, minus the phantom heat A tacit admission of defeat cloaked in unyielding arrogance.

Thanks A. Good reporting.
At last. So even those who said it was CO2 that controlled Earth’s climate are now turning to find the PDO?
If they look harder they might even find ENSO.

Usage of the word “sloshed” merely indicates that Dr. Trenberth has been reading Tisdale’s writings on SSTs and now agrees, to the extent, he uses exactly the same language. Not only that but he now agrees that natural variation may account for all decadal warming. Even though he does every wiggle to avoid saying so. Quite a day! GK

Northern Hemisphere SST show a decline since 2003 or the last 10 years. It has been declining during every season and annually as well.
The Southern Hemisphere SST is flat.
The North Atlantic Ocean SST and AMO are declining, the Pacific Ocean SST is flat but the North Pacific Ocean SST has been declining since about 2005 . The PDO index is also declining but PDO is not a direct temperature indicator but only a pattern change indicator and this tells us that there is now colder water at the eastern side of the Pacific than in the western or central part of the Pacific than we had 10 years ago. There are also fewer strong El Ninos. I don’t see another strong El Nino for some time yet . There tend to be fewer strong El Ninos during cooling phases of the oceans and when they do happen , their short term warming is unable to overcome the long term stronger cooling due to deep ocean currents.
.
These factors all have combined to keep the global temperatures flat and now slightly declining as they did 1880 to 1910 and again 1945-1975. The decline in global temperatures is likely to continue as ocean cycles pole to pole tend to be long [65-70 years]
Looks like Professors William Gray and Don Easterbrook got right many years ago in my opinion .

Even if what is being said is true… which is quite a stretch considering the lack of scientific evidence…
That only means that the alarmists are admitting they were wrong and their models are wrong. Previously they claimed the warming from the 80s to late 90s was entirely caused by greenhouse gases. Now they are claiming that the warming phase of the PDO was partially responsible, and in fact it must be responsible for at least half of all warming, because during the cold phase it stops all warming in its tracks.
So we know they were wrong and they admit it. However, all of this remains nothing more than theory, with very little in the way of evidence or successful predictive power. Yet they still remain wedded to their alarmist ways.

There are 111 replies, but not a single one from Bob Tisdale. I wonder if he is celebrating that his thinking has hit mainstream or commiserating because the mainstream is not acknowledging his sterling work, or perhaps he is working on a reply to appear here shortly.

RichardLH says: @ January 16, 2014 at 5:10 am
…On the verge of another La Nina currently.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I noticed a few day ago Anthony’s meter dipped into La Nina territory and now its back to La Nada. (I guess La Ninja jumped out and assassinated La Nina)

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000165/full
Trenberth made a simple testable claim (and then didn’t test it). He said that the warming due to heat flux imbalance is manifesting itself differently under this new cool-PDO regime 1999 on. Less heating of the atmosphere 1999 on, more heating in the deep oceans 1999 on. This would show up in the ocean heat content record and the sea level record (especially added onto increased glacial melt rates), their RATE OF INCREASE should have increased from 1999 on. We don’t really have deep ocean data, and the heat has to first pass through the upper ocean and it didn’t show up there. So this is now more of a matter of faith in an unaccounted transport of heat through a place where we can monitor (upper ocean) to a place where we can’t currently monitor. Basically based on upholding the theory, clearly not based on observation. Which has long been the entire problem with this field.

Harold Ambler says: @ January 16, 2014 at 5:23 am
…The realists will have to, eventually, argue the warmists down on this one, in the popular media. As long as New York Times readers, USA Today readers, and NBC Nightly News watchers believe that they’re seeing a roller coaster rather than a wiggle, the war will never be won.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As long as skeptics are denied access to the MSM we are stuck with blogs. The fact we are being actively censored is not going to go over well if those suggesting we are looking at major cooling are correct.
We then become the ‘Davids’ who fought the Goliath of government. This is the greatest fear of those in government.

Thank goodness none of these natural cycling variations, which are apparently on par with global warming in order to cancel it’s effects (so far for almost two decades) never pushed us over a tipping point, which apparently only CAGW can do.

The Yale Forum on Climate last May had many bombshell proclamations from Trenberth, Santer and Pierrehumbert. My favorite was this-
“Any estimate of sensitivity requires all of the record and not just the last 20 years of it,” Pierrehumbert says. “The smaller the piece of it you take, the less certainty you have in your result.” Nonetheless, he agrees that earlier warming may have been deceiving.
“I think it’s true that some rather sloppy discussion of the rapid warming from the 20th century has given people unrealistic expectations about the future course of warming.”
Ray Pierrehumbert, May 2013
“Early warming may have been deceiving”
translation- Hansen was dead wrong when he stated with dead certainty that AGW had overwhelmed all natural forcings.
“…given people unrealistic expectations…”
translation- Me and my climate activist buddies wildly oversold the whole shambolic mess, tarnishing all of science in the process.

US Senate hearing testimony now with many of the points made here being used. Understand that Judith Curry will testify. Science behind epa rulemaking is being questioned. Wonder if a Senator will ask epa chief if recently confessed fraudster had any role in the air quality work. Would like to hear that.

Lloyd Martin Hendaye says:
January 16, 2014 at 8:47 am “”””
Don’t beat around the bush, say what you really mean?
herkimer says:
January 16, 2014 at 8:35 am “”””
Yes. Global rate of sea level rise should be accelerating as a result of all that heat entering the oceans since The Clause first occurred, surely?

ponysboy says: @ January 16, 2014 at 6:46 am
.. It can’t take long now for some of the open-minded ones among them to step back and take a fresh look at the claims of skeptical scientists during the past 15 years. Or can it?
>>>>>>>>>>>>
I do not have the pointer, but the number of scientists still part of the IPCC has dropped off quite a bit. Maybe another commenter has that information.

milodonharlani says:
January 16, 2014 at 8:57 am
“DirkH says:
January 16, 2014 at 4:10 am
I appreciate your point, but Lancs didn’t need to be shipped across the Atlantic, having been built in Britain, most at Avro’s Chadderton factory in the Manchester area.”
Noticed my mistake right after posting; so make it Liberators. 😉

>> “If you are interested in global climate change, your main focus ought to be on timescales of 50 to 100 years,” says Susan Solomon, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.
Ah, yes. Got it. Whew! Was worried about the 16-year flatline in the trend. Now three thousand more Climate Scientists can finish their careers and retire before the models they make a living from will be dusted off and given a second look. So let’s all just relax and get together again in, say, 50 years?
BTW Wouldn’t a real Climate Scientist, by definition, be a climate “skeptic”? Didn’t I learn in high school and college that true scientists are nothing if not skeptical? I recall first hearing the word “rigor” used in this context.
“Where has all the rigor gone? Long time passing.”

Typhoon says:
The “Nature” article studiously avoids the simplest explanation: that the climate models are wrong and the “missing heat” is nothing more than an systematic artifact of these incorrect models.
Because admitting that means the entire AGW scare was based on nothing more than an programming error in the models that can’t forecast yesterday. If they admit that, there is no possible way to back down with their grants and careers (in that order) intact.

Take the HadCRUT4, or any other, data set. Put it up in Excel. It’s trivially easy to see a 60yr oscillator – it dominates everything. And yet it took these geniuses till 2011, 11 years into the cooling trend to do that??
I model temp sensitivity at 1.3K per doubling – not surprisingly, that’s close to the real number known by physicists for 150 years. No one alive today will see 1K of warming in their lives.

Here is another decent test since we don’t have much data and only one world to run: if the 1940-1975 hiatus is nearly matched by this new one, in which we now have much higher anthropogenic CO2 concentration, then that more likely than not this disproves high climate sensitivity since we are (as much as possible) comparing one world to the same world with more CO2. After all AGW didn’t rear it’s head until the 70’s right? http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/01/16/quote-of-the-week-hansen-concedes-the-age-of-flatness/

These quackademics still believe that the warm will return through the god of chance and magic – read the last paragraph. They just need to ‘discover’ why the heat is ‘being hid’ in the Ocean depths, where apparently the water gets colder as you dive deeper – except for the cagw ‘models’. They are not confessing to error, just that the black box needs to be opened and its secrets revealed.

@ Don Easterbrook, agreed with your conclusion. However, I do not think that Trenberth and his minions did not read the available literature. Quite the opposite: I would contend that these people knew exactly what they were doing and that the urgency their UN handlers bombarded us with through ever alarmist articles in pal reviewed journals and media campaigns were a kind of Blitz supposed to convert the opinion fast in order to implement green money making policies and establish the preeminence of the UN bureaucracy. They knew very well they had a window to work with, hence those tipping points threats, especially toward the end of the “warming” window, as a desperation move.
On the scientific viewpoint, we all know these Hadcrut and other GISS are attempts to use one easily manipulated metric as a representation of climate. The statistical weighting of these temperature constructions in relation to the size and geometry of weather systems is a key issue, never addressed. Therefore, that their carefully designed measuring tool should show a pause is further testimony that their entire theory of climate is being falsified. Notwithstanding that as time goes by, chances to really understand short term variations and the true physical link between causes and effects are improving with better monitoring and tools.

Rob aka Flatlander says:
January 16, 2014 at 9:48 am
DirkH says:
January 16, 2014 at 4:10 am
“The simplest explanation for both the hiatus and the discrepancy in the models is natural variability.”
No, that’s nonsense.
Actually it’s not, although I know what you are saying, BUT, the natural variability of the climate over 1000′s of years, as opposed to the relatively short earth data we have IS the simplest explanation. Human beings do not have enough data nor understanding to be able to model and then predict future climate.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
“Human beings do not have enough data nor understanding to be able to model and then predict future climate”
This is what Dirk is saying, yet you object to his saying it.

Seems to be a pattern:
1) “Real Science”, in the form of the IPCC, release its first report which basically ignores that big burning thing in the sky
2) Some say, “hey, nice binder, but where is all the good stuff about that big burning thing in the sky and how it relates to our climate?”
3) Others say “you are just a paid corporate shrill and a right-wing blogger, leave the science to scientists. They didn’t include that big burning thing in the sky because, duh, everyone knows it has no relation to our climate”.
4) IPCC can no longer ignore that big burning thing in the sky, and admit that perhaps, maybe, in some instances, we should kinda add it to our kewl models.
5) Some say, “nice catch, don’t worry about crediting us, take all the credit for doing what you should have done in the first place. BTW, ever hear of PDO?”
6) Others say, “you are just a paid corporate shrill and a right-wing blogger, leave the science to scientists. They didn’t include PDO because, duh, everyone knows it has no relation to our climate”.
7) Repeat as needed…

From WIKI: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor
Solomonoff’s inductive inference is a mathematically formalized Occam’s razor: shorter computable theories have more weight when calculating the probability of the next observation, using all computable theories which perfectly describe previous observations.
Note:
Which PERFECTLY describe previous observation.
model says temp goes up
reality says temp remains flat
therefore computable theory (MODEL) is NOT simplest and does NOT carry more weight.

“…sooner or later…” Wow, sounds scientific. But please dump a few trillion tax dollars into carbon tax sin chits because, you know we understand what we’re doing…

I reckon a major component of the “mysterious” pause is simply that they can’t adjust the recent temperatures because they’re too well documented. A new paradigm for heat quantification is needed every 10 years or so, to allow adjustments of the recent past and so keep warming on its course. /sarc still on

But none of the climate simulations carried out for the IPCC produced this particular hiatus at this particular time. That has led sceptics — and some scientists — to the controversial conclusion…

Can you be a sceptical scientist? Oh yeah, all scientists meant to be sceptics but we are dealing with the CAGW religion.

“If you are interested in global climate change, your main focus ought to be on timescales of 50 to 100 years,” says Susan Solomon, a climate scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge.

Let me see strong warming from mid 1970s to 1988 and the alarm was raised by Hansen. Hysteria broke out and spread, windmill sales boomed, people cried, made threats, planted trees etc. and all for nothing. LOL.

Does Trenberth really think that “trade winds” are piling the Pacific Ocean 20 centimeters higher in the West than in the East?!? Seriously? Houston, we have a problem, and it’s between the ears.

The other thing about the hiatus is that those numbers “include” the warm water in the Indonesian area. So the surface may be warmer here but it has to be colder somewhere else for the flat temperature trend math to work.
Pro-warmers are not very good with numbers you know. That could be the reason why we got in this mess in the first place. Emotional non-math people should not be building climate models and developing feedback theories and explaining what it is happening to temperature numbers.

It is good that Nature and some IPCC scientist are realizing the existence of natural variability and are accepting the fact that this natural variability is not made of random noise but is characterized by cyclical behavior.
However, as DirkH says (January 16, 2014 at 4:10 am) also noted, they still do not get the point that if the models do not get properly the natural cyclical variability of the climate system then the only reasonable conclusion is that the IPCC GCMs are wrong and no useful prediction can be deduced from them.
The existence of a natural cyclical variability, ignored by the IPCC and by the AGW guys, has been addressed in very numerous papers not properly referenced in the Nature article. These include, of course, my own numerous papers since 2010 such as my latest review
Scafetta, N. 2013. Discussion on climate oscillations: CMIP5 general circulation models versus a semi-empirical harmonic model based on astronomical cycles. Earth-Science Reviews 126, 321-357.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825213001402
The physical issue it to understand the origin of these natural oscillations. While some people are trying to convince themselves that this is an “internal climatic variability”, the evidences that I have provided since 2010 is that this variability is astronomically induced because the observed climatic oscillations at multiple scales (not just the “iatus” of the last 15 years) can be linked to specific solar, astronomical and lunar harmonics.
For who might be interested, just yesterday I have published a new paper can clarify the scientific background of the astronomical theory of solar and climate oscillations:
Scafetta, N.: The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system, Pattern Recogn. Phys., 2, 1-19, doi:10.5194/prp-2-1-2014, 2014.
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/2/1/2014/prp-2-1-2014.html
Please, download the paper from this link:
http://www.pattern-recogn-phys.net/2/1/2014/prp-2-1-2014.pdf
Abstract. The complex planetary synchronization structure of the solar system, which since Pythagoras of Samos (ca. 570–495 BC) is known as the music of the spheres, is briefly reviewed from the Renaissance up to contemporary research. Copernicus’ heliocentric model from 1543 suggested that the planets of our solar system form a kind of mutually ordered and quasi-synchronized system. From 1596 to 1619 Kepler formulated preliminary mathematical relations of approximate commensurabilities among the planets, which were later reformulated in the Titius–Bode rule (1766–1772), which successfully predicted the orbital position of Ceres and Uranus. Following the discovery of the ~ 11 yr sunspot cycle, in 1859 Wolf suggested that the observed solar variability could be approximately synchronized with the orbital movements of Venus, Earth, Jupiter and Saturn. Modern research has further confirmed that (1) the planetary orbital periods can be approximately deduced from a simple system of resonant frequencies; (2) the solar system oscillates with a specific set of gravitational frequencies, and many of them (e.g., within the range between 3 yr and 100 yr) can be approximately constructed as harmonics of a base period of ~ 178.38 yr; and (3) solar and climate records are also characterized by planetary harmonics from the monthly to the millennial timescales. This short review concludes with an emphasis on the contribution of the author’s research on the empirical evidences and physical modeling of both solar and climate variability based on astronomical harmonics. The general conclusion is that the solar system works as a resonator characterized by a specific harmonic planetary structure that also synchronizes the Sun’s activity and the Earth’s climate. The special issue Pattern in solar variability, their planetary origin and terrestrial impacts (Mörner et al., 2013) further develops the ideas about the planetary–solar–terrestrial interaction with the personal contribution of 10 authors.

As a mathematical physics scientist, I find the idea of giving the “climate science” which had models fail with 95% confidence in less than 10 years,
I find the idea of giving “climate science” the status of science outrageous. Its record is certainly much worse than palm reading, which is not generally considered a science.
****
Modern science starts from measurements, builds models which explain these measurements, and makes falsifiable predictions, which are further checked against measurements.
Climate science has failed in each and every respect, with its models not even able to reproduce the last century, let alone the current one.
Climate science is not a science. It is a failed attempt to explain climate, ideologically and financially, through anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
At the mental level of a six year old child, it took the CO2 level curve and tried to read it as past, present and future temperatures. Which resulted in a spectacular failure.

Quote ftom the original posting:
“Records of past climate show some long-lasting global heatwaves and cold snaps, and climate models suggest that either of these can occur as the world warms under the influence of greenhouse gases.”
= = = = = = = = = = = = =
Isn’t it wonderful when you can keep on changing your “batches” of “CO2 trump card” Climate Models (CMs) around to fit in with Climate Observations (COs) instead of having to scrap these CMs which are obviously faulty, useless etc.
And then; Walt Stone (@Cuppacafe) says on January 16, 2014 at 7:00 am:
“- – – – – – – – –. Any global model using the boogie man of “we don’t know how much heat is in the deep ocean” simply can’t be falsified without proving the negative on where the heat is going into the deep ocean.”
= = = = = = = = = = = = = =
If the phrase; “heat is going into the deep ocean” means that the ocean’s warm surface water has sunk to the bottom (well, what else can it possibly mean?) then that situation must be a unique one, a bit like the rabbit pulling the magician out of the hat.

What many people commenting here forget is that we are dealing with “post-normal science”.
The data and observations do not matter – it is a matter of fundamental belief. The so-called scientists believe they are saving the planet and nothing any sceptic can say will change that belief. The policy outcomes are the goal, and while people like David Cameron, Barack Obama (and Ed Davey) clearly show their support, there will be no change of direction.
The timescale has now been extended to 50 – 100 years, rather than the 17 originally suggested as a period difficult to explain – more than enough time for the doomsayers to reach a happy and well-remunerated retirement, having been to a few more conferences in 5-star hotels on first class flights in the interim.

NO SENSE WHATSOEVER
Trenberth’s main paper on oceans
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50382/full
in its main figure, Figure 1,
shows EXACTLY the same ocean warming slope
for 1983-1991, when the atmospheric temps were going up, as
for 2000-2008, when the atmospheric temps were NOT going up.
After 2008, the ocean warming SLOWS DOWN.
So the idea that oceans compensate for lack of atmospheric warming is total nonsense.

“At some point, the water will get so high that it just sloshes back.” He really did say that … if we are talking a global record what does it matter where the warm water is … it should still effect the “global” average … “sloshes” is a good description on the warmists thought processes …

Its far to late for Trenberth , he went all in for ‘the cause’ and was more than happy to attack and smear any that that dared to question his silly claims . His merchant of BS title is fixed for life and like Mann when the cause falls he will be lucky if he could get a job at a third rate college teaching basic English .
Lets make sure we never let him forget how happy was to ride AGW gravy train whilst all was going well.

Senate hearing concluded. Dr. Curry held her own very well. Usual warmist scare tactics on full display. While the science is hashed out the fight for hearts and minds has to continue apace. Did not hear EPA Chief Gina McCarthy get asked the John Beale question. What was he was actually at work and has his work been reviewed in light of his fraud conviction? In a big TVA case which is costing us billions here his work and that of Stratus Consulting played a key role. We may be able to sue to get a reversal if we can show the evidence was corrupt or from a tainted source.

So Nature is saying that Nature might have something to do with the weather?
Amazing!

Climate scientists, meanwhile, know that heat must still be building up somewhere in the climate system, but they have struggled to explain where it is going, if not into the atmosphere.
My question is:-As the AGM theory, is just that, “a theory”, how can they possibly “know” anything at all about it?

Occam’s razor, there is no missing heat, the models are wrong. Yes folks it is that simple.

Oh good, the “scientists” can explain the past perfectly now.
So when is it that their ex ante predictions will work?

“These winds normally push sun-baked water towards Indonesia. When they slackened, the warm water sloshed back towards South America, resulting in a spectacular example of a phenomenon known as El Niño. Average global temperatures hit a record high in 1998 — and then the warming stalled.”
“Some have pointed to the Sun, volcanoes and even pollution from China as potential culprits, but recent studies suggest that the oceans are key to explaining the anomaly. The latest suspect is the El Niño of 1997–98, which pumped prodigious quantities of heat out of the oceans and into the atmosphere — perhaps enough to tip the equatorial Pacific into a prolonged cold state that has suppressed global temperatures ever since.”
Volcanoes and pollution from China definitely not culprits, but an El Nino is entirely formed by build up of solar energy heating and cant have one without the other.
“These winds normally push sun-baked water”
Already an hint there what causes the energy build up and yet oddly “Some have pointed to the Sun—–but recent studies suggest that the oceans are key” Both are the key in distributing solar energy around the ocean surface, cant have one without the other. The ocean redirects it, but ultimately the energy is solar based and the sun is responsible for warmer temperatures. Why is solar energy building up more than before? The reason being global low cloud levels have declined and any slight changed in solar activity will have an influence too.
Since when is noise solar energy distributed around ocean surface currents from the natural ENSO build up and disperse cycle? It is not noise, it is how the planet moves the build up of too much energy in the tropics to the rest of the world. It is natural thermostat that prevents the tropics warming too much. The reason why during major ice ages the tropics hardly changed and only cooled about 1c.
http://morriscourse.com/elements_of_ecology/images/ocean_currents.jpg
http://www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu/plantsciences_Faculty/Bloom/CAMEL/Art/CurrentsOcean.jpg
The ocean currents above show how energy from the E equatorial Pacific move west with trade winds and spread into 3 different directions from the W equatorial Pacific. One warm current moves N toward the Arctic, the other moves S towards Antarctica and the main one moves energy towards the Indian ocean which joins surface currents that eventually reach the tip of South Africa and move up the Eastern side of North and South America until reach Europe and finally the Arctic. This is how the planet naturally removes energy from a hot tropical regions preventing it from positive feedback.
Only surface ocean water cant last that long before cooling can it? Yes it can and does because the surface ocean current varies between around 200m and 400m deep.
The diagram below shows how the warming in E equatorial Pacific formed back in 1997.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/GODAS/mnth_gif/xz/mnth.anom.xz.temp.0n.1996.04.gif
How can it be noise when it causes a step up roughly half of the original El Nino in global temperature rise. Then stays flat with maybe a very slight cooling trend until the next strong El Nino appears. This shows that global temperatures are only rising when a strong El Nino occurs. When there isn’t one, global temperatures remain generally flat like recent years since the last strong El Nino back in 1997/1998.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1982/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997.5/trend/offset:-0.05/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1987/to:1996.5/trend/offset:-0.05
The strong El Nino back in the early 1980s would have been larger on global temperatures if it had not been for a major volcanic eruption back then.
“The simplest explanation for both the hiatus and the discrepancy in the models is natural variability”
The simple explanation for the recent warming, the hiatus and discrepancy in the models is natural variability and this was caused by the failure of further strong El NInos. The planet cooling in this situation is caused by less energy build up in the tropics from solar energy, leading to less energy spread around the world with ocean surface currents..A cooling planet with less solar energy leads to more, stronger, frequent La NInas and less, weaker,infrequent El NInos. The weakened energy distributed around the world ocean surfaces eventually reach the poles and increase the risk of sea ice advancing once reached equilibrium.

Yet folks like Real Climate pretend that “the pause” will stop soon, AND NEVER REOCCUR.
Of course, the models are only in the ballpark if that is true. A 60 year cycle, half hot and half flat-to-cool, would cut their projections in half, and make them far less urgent and alarmist.

John Daley.
If he was alive today, he would be snickering politely.
In the Climate gate 1 emails he tells the team just how idiotic they are.
They seem to have believed him as their reaction to his passing was classless to say the least.
Such resentment usually comes from truth.
I wonder if Trenberth wishes he had listened?
But the importance of John Daley’s advice to the team, is that they cannot say they were not warned.
They chose to whip the flames of hysteria, incite the mobs of political saviours and ignore the basic rules of science.
Now as the cycle progresses there is every reason to expect they will reap what they have sown.
For politicians always have an out, a scapegoat picked to take the blame.
Who better, for this role, than the high priests of certainty, consensus and calamity?
The “Team” useful to the “Cause” to their very end.

I know this comment will get lost in the pile, but do some “scientists” *really* think that the oceans “heap up” in certain places because of trade winds? Isn’t it totally obvious that when surface waters flow one way, that there will be a deeper flow going the other way to make up the volume? This is not rocket science. These same scientists are proponents of “Eckman pumping” which holds that airborne action brings up deep waters. So how can you hold to that and profess ignorance about very basic deep-ocean circulation? Where’s the brains? Another example is the Sun’s “conveyor belt” which supposedly recycles sunspots over a full solar cycle. Do they really think that there are turgid physical structures which survive the Sun’s extreme conditions? Honestly, I despair sometimes.