From the “settled science” department. It seems even Dr. Kevin Trenberth is now admitting to the cyclic influences of the AMO and PDO on global climate. Neither “carbon” nor “carbon dioxide” is mentioned in this article that cites Trenberth as saying: “The 1997 to ’98 El Niño event was a trigger for the changes in the Pacific, and I think that’s very probably the beginning of the hiatus,”
This is significant, as it represents a coming to terms with “the pause” not only by Nature, but by Trenberth too.
Excerpts from the article by Jeff Tollefson:
The biggest mystery in climate science today may have begun, unbeknownst to anybody at the time, with a subtle weakening of the tropical trade winds blowing across the Pacific Ocean in late 1997. 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.
For several years, scientists wrote off the stall as noise in the climate system: the natural variations in the atmosphere, oceans and biosphere that drive warm or cool spells around the globe. But the pause has persisted, sparking a minor crisis of confidence in the field. Although there have been jumps and dips, average atmospheric temperatures have risen little since 1998, in seeming defiance of projections of climate models and the ever-increasing emissions of greenhouse gases. Climate sceptics have seized on the temperature trends as evidence that global warming has ground to a halt. 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. Some have begun to wonder whether there is something amiss in their models.
Now, as the global-warming hiatus enters its sixteenth year, scientists are at last making headway in the case of the missing heat. 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.
“The 1997 to ’98 El Niño event was a trigger for the changes in the Pacific, and I think that’s very probably the beginning of the hiatus,” says Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. According to this theory, the tropical Pacific should snap out of its prolonged cold spell in the coming years.“Eventually,” Trenberth says, “it will switch back in the other direction.”
…
…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 that the models might be overestimating the effect of greenhouse gases, and that future warming might not be as strong as is feared. Others say that this conclusion goes against the long-term temperature trends, as well as palaeoclimate data that are used to extend the temperature record far into the past. And many researchers caution against evaluating models on the basis of a relatively short-term blip in the climate. “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.
…
The simplest explanation for both the hiatus and the discrepancy in the models is natural variability. Much like the swings between warm and cold in day-to-day weather, chaotic climate fluctuations can knock global temperatures up or down from year to year and decade to decade. 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.
…
One important finding came in 2011, when a team of researchers at NCAR led by Gerald Meehl reported that inserting a PDO pattern into global climate models causes decade-scale breaks in global warming3. Ocean-temperature data from the recent hiatus reveal why: in a subsequent study, the NCAR researchers showed that more heat moved into the deep ocean after 1998, which helped to prevent the atmosphere from warming6. In a third paper, the group used computer models to document the flip side of the process: when the PDO switches to its positive phase, it heats up the surface ocean and atmosphere, helping to drive decades of rapid warming7.
…
Scientists may get to test their theories soon enough. At present, strong tropical trade winds are pushing ever more warm water westward towards Indonesia, fuelling storms such as November’s Typhoon Haiyan, and nudging up sea levels in the western Pacific; they are now roughly 20 centimetres higher than those in the eastern Pacific. 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.
Read the full article here:
http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-the-case-of-the-missing-heat-1.14525
The whole argument that CO2 was causing climate change hinged on dubious subtraction. They claimed models that reproduced natural climates could not account for recent changes. Their hubris assumed that they had correctly modeled natural climate and by subtraction every other change must be due to CO2. Now they must admit, as we all knew, that their models failed to simulate natural variability. Failed models will always produce failed predictions.
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.
From Page 64 of my first printing edition of Kuhn’s “Structure of Scientific Revolutions”
I”n science…novelty emerges only with difficulty, manifested by resistance, against a background provided by expectation. Initially, only the anticipated and usual are experienced even under circumkstances where anomaly is later to be observed.”
Kuhn’s original manuscript was actually written in the late 1940s, so he did not appreciate how the massive amounts of federal money that poured into science would incentivize the Massive Resistance of Trenberth and his ilk.
So Nature is saying that Nature might have something to do with the weather?
Amazing!
Who gives a damn about Trenberth ? After he lied to me blatantly in a series of emails, his true nature became evident. Don’t trust anything he says.
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?
Dr Burns, would you care to provide more detail behind that strong accusation?
Occam’s razor, there is no missing heat, the models are wrong. Yes folks it is that simple.
Double-take experienced in these quarters too …
.
Oh good, the “scientists” can explain the past perfectly now.
So when is it that their ex ante predictions will work?
@Nicola
I saw the journal and its dozen articles a few days ago. Very interesting things going on in that space. The article on tides and super tides synchronizing with the seasons and starting or ending D-O events was fascinating.
“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.
So many great comments already – showing the great depth of knowledge this blog & it’s participants has. Kudos to all !
This is one small step as an exit strategy for alarmists – let’s not be too critical & impede that path for them – nothing would be better for all people if they got off their alarming position & more in line with a skeptical position of , warming but not catastrophic & a position of humility & uncertainty, a position where real science can occur.
I really hope there is some MSM reading this blog post so they can see & absorb the comments made on this thread, so they can see the depth of knowledge of the skeptical community & so they can see how the alarmist are slowly being forced into the skeptics camp by the data.
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.
Science in the past:
– Look at data, come up with a theory. Iterate theory ideas.
Science today:
– Come up with theory, try to figure out why your data is wrong. Iterate data corrections.
What does Argo say? I haven’t seen Argo data summary in ages. The Argo site itself seems to be useless in the regard, or maybe I just have had bad luck finding the right page. Sure I can download 100MB of data and process it myself, but a summarizing graph would sure be nice.
Have you checked to see how much of present-day or past currently resides in the ‘wayback machine’?
Don’t know if this will ‘come through’ correctly as a link in this thread, but here goes:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.skepticalscience.com
Looks like their earliest ‘capture’ was in late 2007:
.
“The 1997 to ’98 El Niño event was a trigger for the changes in the Pacific, and I think that’s very probably the beginning of the hiatus,”
Do you now? Gosh. Who would have thought of that? What would we do without these mental giants?
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.
After several more ENSO cycles with ARGO buoys we will have enough data to thoroughly analyze this process. They must know that the writing is on the wall. It is a tough sell to strangle the worlds energy use, if it is just to prevent, some theoretical difference, that is buried somewhere in the noise, of a chaotic system. “Catastrophe prevention” was the baited hook, that we were supposed to swallow, before the climate turned.
My feeling is that it’s due to a combination of post hoc adjustments to the records, UHI effects and systemic issues with thermometer locations.
There’s that, too. It accounts for a third to half the 1979 – 2008 warming, going by the USHCN trends.
With a hat tip to Pete Seeger:
Where has all the rigor gone, long time passing?
Where has all the rigor gone, long time ago?
Where has all the rigor gone?
Shunned by Warmists, every one.
Oh, when will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
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.
The regular implication in the report is that ‘sceptics’ cannot be ‘scientists’. This is pure bigotry.
Trev,
The only honest scientist is a skeptic.
The un-skeptical ones are not being honest.
Natural variability is a 2-edged sword. If it can stop warming, it can also cause warming. Until they understand natural variability well enough to accurately predict its effect, they can’t make any claims about the cause of climate change.