By Paul Homewood
Last July, the Met Office published the second in a series of papers, discussing the recent pause in global warming.
On page 6, they state:
The start of the current pause is difficult to determine precisely. Although 1998 is often quoted as the start of the current pause, this was an exceptionally warm year because of the largest El Niño in the instrumental record. This was followed by a strong La Niña event and a fall in global surface temperature of around 0.2oC (Figure 1), equivalent in magnitude to the average decadal warming trend in recent decades. It is only really since 2000 that the rise in global surface temperatures has paused.
Source: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/q/0/Paper2_recent_pause_in_global_warming.PDF
They accept that the pause is unequivocal, certainly since 2000. They also seem to accept that the pause really started in 1998, although the period 1998-2000 was complicated by El Nino/La Nina episodes. (It is worth noting here that the two La Nina years of 1999/2000 more than offset the 1998 El Nino year – the average temperature of the three years together come out lower than 1997. It is arguable, therefore, that 1998 is a fair start point).
But, regardless of the exact start point, they fully accept that the pause is real and long lasting.
So why, in January 2012, in response to an article in the Mail by David Rose, did they issue a press release saying:
Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”.
This article includes numerous errors in the reporting of published peer reviewed science undertaken by the Met Office Hadley Centre and for Mr. Rose to suggest that the latest global temperatures available show no warming in the last 15 years is entirely misleading.
Instead, they themselves fell back on the misleading “hottest decade ever” red herring.
However, what is absolutely clear is that we have continued to see a trend of warming, with the decade of 2000-2009 being clearly the warmest in the instrumental record going back to 1850.
And they were at it again a few months later in October that year. Again David Rose had published an article, pointing out the pause in global warming.
The Met Office had this to say:
An article by David Rose appears today in the Mail on Sunday under the title: ‘Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it’
It is the second article Mr Rose has written which contains some misleading information, after he wrote an article earlier this year on the same theme – you see our response to that one here……
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period, but equally we could calculate the linear trend from 1999, during the subsequent La Nina, and show a more substantial warming.
As we’ve stressed before, choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading.
So, who is actually doing the misleading? If the Met Office now openly accept that the pause is real, and started at least 13 years ago, why did they try so hard to cover this fact up two years ago?
“I clean the car on a Saturday based on a 0% chance of precipitation, just as I have dried it, the Heavens open. An hour wasted, they are totally useless.”
If your car is just as dirty after a shower of rain, it did need washing anyway.
😉
The warmists consistently refer to the current 17 year period without any increase in temperature as ‘The pause in global warming’. We believe it is not a pause, it is simply a normalisation of what we sceptics have been forecasting since the scare was falsley postulated by those who saw financial gain from their unproven forecasts.We need to point this out to these silly people at every opportunity.
The metoffice forecasts are hopeless.
I play football(not soccer i hate that term) twice a week outside in the evenings.
Thursday and Tuesday. I often watch the week ahead forecast on a sunday for the coming week.
And pick Thursday, then watch how the models and forecasts change as the week progress. Their useless.
Because the activity is outside, knowing if its going to be raining or not is quite useful. Its a skill the metoffice are not just hopeless at. They are useless.
“They accept that the pause is unequivocal, certainly since 2000. They also seem to accept that the pause really started in 1998, although the period 1998-2000 was complicated by El Nino/La Nina episodes.”
But look at the propaganda they were pushing out in the UK prior to the UN Copengagen negotiations in Dec 2009 in their brochure “Warming – Climate Change the facts” published in September 2009. And that was over a decade into the stasis in global warming. Note particularly the graph on page 4 of their brochure describing the Met Office ‘prediction’ – mega,mega ‘hockey-stick’ with no indication of a ‘pause’ !!!
http://www.worcester.gov.uk/fileadmin/assets/pdf/Environment/climate_change/DECC-MET-office-warming-brochure.pdf
From the BBC – or a free-thinking part of the BBC anyway…
Met Office global forecasts too warm in 13 of last 14 years
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/posts/Met-Office-global-forecasts-too-warm-in-13-of-last-14-years
Greg says:
January 29, 2014 at 2:08 am
“If your car is just as dirty after a shower of rain, it did need washing anyway. ”
Much better to get all that dust, particulates, pollutants out of the air anyway. Lets the sun shine through 🙂
Now if that was happening to some sort of pattern…….?
It probably has been suggested many times before – but aren’t commenters wanting to say that global temperatures have “plateaued” rather than “paused”?
It is all in the definition and who is doing the defining. A living being can be a ball of cells depending on it GPS positioning in the birth canal
The end of the warming trend was denied two years ago because it was being pointed out in a an unacceptable forum. Now a ratinoalization has been developed which is more acceptable. This is similar to the grapsing of the oxymoron regarding harsh winters being predicted by global warming. Think of how the reinsurance industry is now openly admitting that storms are not getting worse…once they got their rate increases for storms.
Bill, a “plateau” is a halt in a slope. A “halt” is an end to a trend.
Pause is actually more diplomatic, and allows the AGW faithful more time to realize the fact that they have been fooled by the promoters of climate apocalypse.
Come on guys. I doubt if anyone on here is as sceptical as I am but I have to disregard ’98 as a starting point because it was a clearly anomalous year in terms of temperature. It’s followed by an expected fall and not until about 2001-ish (by eyeballing all the temp graphs) do we unambiguously hit the start of the plateau that we’re currently on. I make that no more than a solid 12 years which is a drop in the ocean of time. This debate isn’t going to be ended by a 12 year halt (or a 30 year one either). That means zilch in the history of climate evolution on this planet.
That doesn’t mean that I think that climate change has anything to do with human caused CO2 release, and, nor am I convinced that the temperatures reported and processed are utterly accurate or carry much meaning for various reasons.
The Earth is a pretty big and vastly complex energy machine in the midst of numerous external forces (about which we know less that we like to admit) and our lives by comparison are very short, our knowledge is extremely limited, and our perceptions are skewed by the brevity of our span.. Much more than this we can hardly claim. The rest, despite the various formulae brandished by the more mathematically accomplished (in a vast ocean of ignorance – whose limits we don’t know) is speculation, some of it loaded with excessive ego,and some with lashings of ideological prejudice. Many of the featured writers on here are luke warmist sceptics (Monkton etc) but they simply don’t have the weapons to deal with the incredible number of variables full understanding will almost certainly need,.Their conclusions are hardly more viable than those in the other camps.
Total scepticism in the face of our overwhelming ignorance is the only justifiable position so far as I can see. And if it’s ultimately about showing the models are faulty . . then that doesn’t take us very far either, though, admittedly, it’s worth pointing out if Joe public thinks they have value. But in reality AGW supporting models represent only one thing accurately: hubris. And sceptics who claim a hiatus of 15-17 years are letting their prejudices interfere with their vision. I know it’s boring to say it but we need to keep reminding ourselves that we know very little. The past is full of mysteries, and the future is more of the same except that it just hasn’t happened yet. .
Today the Mail on Sunday published a story written by David Rose entitled “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about”.
Good point, not only SC25 but SC26 and SC27 . With the slowdown in the projected solar activity in the next 30 years, energetic solar events (CMEs –cause of geomagnetic storms and measured by the Ap index) are likely to slow down too.
Employing variability in the energetic solar events, natural variability in the N. Hemisphere’ temperatures is reconstructed as shown here .
As one may anticipate, despite calculations being simple, background for any past temperature (climate) reconstruction is very complex, more information for the reconstruction is given here .
Oops – the usual typos. Apologies; think there should be a “than” instead of a “that” somewhere in there . . . but I can’t be certain!
jim hogg:
You begin your post at January 29, 2014 at 3:07 am saying
Sorry, but that displays a complete misunderstanding of the issue and the remainder of your post is based on that misunderstanding.
The only valid starting point is NOW.
One can then assess back in time to address how long the ‘pause’ has existed.
And one needs to define the ‘pause’.
It is the most recent period of no statistically discernible global warming when the previous period with similar or lesser length did show global warming.
Climastrology uses linear trends and 95% confidence for its assessments. There are reasons to dispute the use of linear trends and to dispute whether 95% is the appropriate confidence assessment. But those are the standards adopted by climastrology and, therefore, they are the only appropriate standards for the assessment of the ‘pause’.
Each time series of global average surface temperature anomaly (GASTA) provides at least 17 years of no linear trend which differs from zero at 95% confidence; RSS says 22 years. But there was a linear trend of warming discernible at 95% confidence over the previous 17 years.
Hence, the ‘pause’ started at least 17 years ago.
Richard
I thought I would paste a link to this article on the Facebook page of the Met Office. It was up for no more than 5 minutes before it was taken down.
I am given to the occasional bout of self-doubt on the “global warming” debate and am quite willing to concede that there is very little doubt that the activities of man affect the climate in some ways and that it is possible ( if one could ever figure out a way to determine such a thing ) that the overall effect may be “bad” in some way. I am however utterly convinced that the “solutions” put forward are mad in EVERY way.
Things that UNEQUIVOCALLY ease my doubts in some aspects of the debate are things like this story. My immediate reaction is to move on, nodding sagely and unsurprised as I followed the whole thing at the time, as I expect a lot of the readers here did ……..but really we ought to be filled with rage.
Who will hold these people to account? Instead they are showered with honours.
richardscourtney says:
January 29, 2014 at 3:27 am
“Hence, the ‘pause’ started at least 17 years ago. ”
As this graphic rather nicely shows 🙂 (I created it to prove to Nate that the GISS data I was using to update th old Hansen graphic was correct but it turned out rather nice 🙂
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/GISS_zps5858ba9b.png
Why? Apparently they are activists with an agenda. What motivates their activism is less obvious but likely not based on anything rational.
Because they are waging a political contest. Science is something different. Agree with the post that UK should consider reducing the MET to a few weather forecasters and staff. Try it for 5 years and see if anybody notices.
It’s not a “pause”, since that implies a continuation in the future.
It’s not a “plateau”, since that implies stability.
It’s more likely a “peak”. After this the temperatures go down.
It will be interesting to see their rationale and spin in another decade when the “drop” becomes obvious no matter how they try to hide or justify it. Then the “new ice age” warnings will begin in earnest, and somehow it will still be the fault of that eeeeevil Carbon.
Martin A says:
January 29, 2014 at 1:47 am
To call the halt in global warming ‘the pause’ implies knowledge that it will resume in the future. Better to term it ‘the halt’ – for that’s what it is.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I agree with another commenter. It should be called a plateau since we could be headed down in temperature, and if this winter is any indication we are.
…..
On Stephen Wilde’s change in 2000, you can see indications of a change in these Northern Hemisphere Snow Records.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201310.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201311.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201312.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201301.gif
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/service/global/snowcover-nhland/201302.gif
If one takes out the warming attributable to the CO2 increase since 1998 one finds not a ‘pause, not a ‘plateau’, not a ‘halt’ but a downturn. We will need extra CO2 in coming years so we can stay reasonably warm.
I like using HadCRUT4, not because it’s quality (it’s not – it’s adjusted to death). Rather, because the downtrend began at Jan 2001. A nice date to sneer at the warmies with. Gorebull warming hasn’t occurred this century – this century’s school kids had to learn about 20th century warming in history class – that kind of thing. Annoys them.
Goodness me, I have no desire to defend the Wet Office in any shape size or form, but I sing with a couple of scientific types who work there, one now retired (lucky young bugger) & an ex-Navy young woman (BIG respect, with a hearing difficulty contracted 3 years ago – & she reads music & has perfect pitch, blast her!). They are very nice decent & honourable people. It’s the organisation & corporate system of state bodies that they are influenced by, when your upline says frog, you leap, careers & pensions are at stake! It’s that “all singing from the same hymn sheet”, if you forgive the pun. However they ended up like this partly as a result of that untimely hurricane of 88 or 87, the year is irrelevant here, they got it wrong big time, shit happens! They were always fairly honest beforehand in their forecasts all tinged with “we think” or “not entirely sure”, it was honest! Then came the disaster, Then an executive decision was taken because someone high-up didn’t enjoy the bollocking they got from on higher, then computers, modelling, enrichment – you want more accurate forecasts you must pay for them! So we did. Unfortunately, anyone who looks at the 5-Day forecast on a daily basis, will know that they change every day, with more information being input as it happens, nowcasting as Piers Corbyn would say! Their politically astute overlords are greenalists through & through, they care nothing about science, or truth or honesty, 13 years of a Socialist Guvment with its spinmasters saw to that. The overlords that run the WO are politicians after all, self-promoting, self-enriching, venal, mendacious (have I left anything out?). Yes the WO has always come in for some stick through honest misjudgements, & we here in the PDREU sub-state of the UK just love talking about the weather, but now no one is allowed to get it wrong, the “State” is always right!
CodeTech says:
January 29, 2014 at 4:14 am
My guess is a rush to place emphasis on ‘natural variation’ which they’d ‘always expected’, and claims along the lines of ‘a return to rising temperatures is expected in 2070’ or whatever. And they’ll probably have a model to prove it… 🙂
Ken Hall says:
January 29, 2014 at 1:11 am. Old man and height
I have been using the following analogy, Please critique.
“We are on a long distance bike trip, without a topographic map and in a fog. We know we have been on a trend of increasing altitude, going up steep grades at time, but through ravines and valleys as well. Because of the fog and lack of topo info we have had no clue which one was next. Now we notice we have been on a plateau for a while….but we have no clue what is next.”
Thoughts??