Guest essay by Johannes Herbst
There is a much discussed graph in the blogosphere from ‘Tamino’ (Grant Foster), which aims to prove that there is no delay or pause or decline in global warming.
He states: Twelve of sixteen were hotter than expected even according to the still-warming prediction, and all sixteen were above the no-warming prediction:
Let’s get a larger picture:
- We see the red HADCRUT4 graph, coming downwards a bit from 1960 to 1975, and inclining steeper beyond 2000, with a slight drop of about the last 10 years.
- We see a blue trend, rising at the alarming rate of 0.4°C within only one decade! This was the time when some scientists started to worry about global warming.
- We see the green trend, used by the blogger Tamino in the first graphic, rising less than 0.1°C per decade.
- Below we see the Sunspot Numbers, pulsing in a frequency of about 11 years. Comparing it with the red temperature graph, we see the same pattern of 11 years pulsing. It shows clear evidence that temperature is linked to the sunspot activity.
Tamino started his trend at high sun activity and it stopped at low activity. Therefore the weak increase during 18 years.
Which leads us to the question: How long should a time be for observing climate change? If we look at the sunspot activity and the clear pattern it produces in the temperature graph, the answer is: 11 years or a multiple of it.
Or we can measure from any point of:
·high sun activity to one of the following
·low sun activity to one of the following
·rising sun activity to one of the following
·declining sun activity to one of the following
to eliminate the pattern of sunspot numbers.
Let’s try it out:
The last point of observation of the trend is between 2003 and 2014, about 2008. But even here we can see the trend has changed.
We do not know about the future. An downward trend seems possible, but a sharp rise is predicted from some others, which would destroy our musings so far.
Just being curious: How would the graph look with satellite data? Let’s check RSS.
Really interesting. The top of both graph appears to be at 2003 or 2004. HADCRUT4 shows a 0.05°C decline, RSS a 0.1°C per decade.
A simple way for smoothing a curve
There is a more simple way for averaging patterns (like the influence of sunspots). I added a 132 months average (11 years). This means at every spot of the graph all neighboring data (5.5 years to the left and 5.5 years to the right) are averaged. This also means that the graph will stop 5.5 years from the beginning or the end. And voila, the curve is the same as with our method in the previous post to measure at the same slope of a pattern.
As I said before the top of the curve is about 2003, and our last point of observation of a 11 years pattern is 2008. From 2008 to 2003 is only 5 years. This downtrend, even averaged, is somehow too short for a long time forecast. But anyway, the sharp acceleration of the the 1975-2000 period has stopped and the warming even halted – for the moment.
Note: I gave the running average graph (pale lilac) an offset of 0.2°C to get it out of the mess of all the trend lines.
If Tamino would have smoothed the 11years sun influence of the temperature graph before plotting the trend like done here at WFT, his green trend would be would be the same incline like the blue 33 year trend:
Even smoother
Having learned how to double and triple smooth a curve, I tried it as well on this graph:
We learned from Judith Curry’s Blog that on the top of a single smoothed curve a trough appears. So the dent at 2004 seems to be the center of the 132 month’s smoothed wave. I double smoothed the curve and reached 2004 as well, now eliminating the dent.
Note: Each smoothing cuts away the end of the graph by half of the smoothing span. So with every smoothing the curve gets shorter. But even the not visible data are already included in the visible curve.
According to the data, after removing all the “noise” (especially the 11 year’s sun activity cycle) 2004 was the very top of the 60 years sine wave and we are progressing downwards now for 10 years.
If you are not aware about the 60 years cycle, I just have used HADCRUT4 and smoothed the 11 years sunspot activity, which influences the temperature in a significant way.
We can clearly see the tops and bottoms of the wave at about 1880, 1910, 1940, 1970, and 2000. If this pattern repeats, the we will have 20 more years going down – more or less steep. About ten years of the 30 year down slope are already gone.
One more pattern
There is also a double bump visible at the downward slopes of about 10/10 years up and down. By looking closer you will see a hunch of it even at the upward slope. If we are now at the beginning of the downward slope – which could last 30 years – we could experience these bumps as well.
Going back further
Unfortunately we have no global temperature records before 1850. But we have one from a single station in Germany. The Hohenpeissenberg in Bavaria, not influenced from ocean winds or towns.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Temperaturreihe_Hoher_Pei%C3%9Fenberg.PNG
Sure, it’s only one single station, but the measurements were continuously with no pause, and we can get somehow an idea by looking at the whole picture. Not in terms of 100% perfection, but just seeing the trends. The global climate surely had it’s influence here as well.
What we see is a short upward trend of about ten years, a downward slope of 100 years of about 1°C, an upward trend for another 100 years, and about 10 years going slightly down. Looks like an about 200 years wave. We can’t see far at both sides of the curve, but if this Pattern is repeating, this would only mean: We are now on the downward slope. Possibly for the next hundred years, if there is nothing additional at work.
The article of Greg Goodman about mean smoothers can be read here:
Data corruption by running mean ‘smoothers’
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Johannes Herbst writes at: http://klimawandler.blogspot.de/
Possibly you conflate deterministic response (in a ‘patient’) with chaotic, non-deterministic behavior in weather; a ‘doc’ of your caliber I would rate as less than capable of rational differentiation of symptoms than most, then, and should be avoided by all …
Do you think that ‘weather’ has a mind? Caveat to all others: this is a trick Q for the doc, who I think has ‘hardware’ in need of tightening (IMO, literally, he ‘has a screw loose’).
It is a good thing he is in medicine where the patient (the human body) heals himself (itself) given the proper environment and prescription or two a majority of the time … and that he is NOT in the field of engineering turning out products like ‘Galloping Gurtie’ (bridges) or the de Havilland DH 106 Comet (early jet aircraft plagued with structural issues) …
.
Why do we even bother with a person who in order to established credentials needed to get published stooped to claiming to work a fake statistical firm as his place of employment with an address that is a open field in rural Connecticut.
Grant Foster aka Tamino doesn’t deserve anyone paying any attention to his work good or bad. It only serves to establish his fake credentials. Ridicule is the only thing he has earned.
It’s 5 oclock somewhere and of course someone is either dying, being born, or in this case drinking! Stupidity is a disease that is fueled by dictators, liars and false prophets! Dream on you gods of global warming….
Correction, the address of Tempo Analytics is a field in rural Maine not Connecticut.
Doug Badgero says:
February 7, 2014 at 7:37 am
Gareth, There is always “something going on”. If you want to advocate sensible preparation, we can agree.
Since I know of no data showing anything anthropogenic or harmful is “going on”, other than normal planning for the future count me out of “sensible preparations” (whatever that is). I am more concerned about unintended consequences and the possibility (probability?) of doing harm. So far the track record (e.g. using corn for fuel, cutting down trees for use in power plants, energy poverty, etc.) of “sensible preparations” has been to do more harm than good. I would support a “do no harm” policy over “sensible preparations.”
Thank you Richard Courtney It’s interesting that you believe that dredging the rivers on the Somerset levels will ease the unprecedented flooding I agree it may make some difference, but will shift the water downstream to various villages and towns which will flood instead. Ultimately it’s a question of the amount of rain falling exceeding the potential for drainage. Even if the river were dredged, how much difference would it make? 5%? 10 at maximum? We would then get townspeople and industrial areas suffering instead of agricultural land and hamlets. Which has priority? I would hate to have to make such a choice. I know most people on this blog think this man is spawn of Satan, but he writes a good article on this question. Have a read. http://tinyurl.com/pyj48kv
The problem is much further upstream as it were, it is in reality an example of climate change. I know we disagree as to the causes, but the impact is here and very real, and there are people suffering. We have to adapt, we have to prepare because this is how it is. Celebrating the fact that the rise in surface temperatures have flattened off over the last decade is to my mind being pleased it’s a calm night on the Titanic. I don’t think either of us would celebrate rainfall and storms of the level we have experienced in the UK since last year in the future because although they were just as bad, they have not got any worse.
Sometime you have to recognize what is going on, you are faced with some reality orientation and you have to respond. You have to live in the here and now. Sometimes it’s hard, it conflicts with all your beliefs and view of the world, it can be a traumatic experience. You are right, I needed to be brave to do it, will you look out the window? Or continue to take refuge in avoidance behaviour ?
I’d rather see the mistakes posted and the commenters tear them apart with facts, logic and methodology. We don’t need a whole lot of moderation when we have effective “peer review”. That is the wonder of WUWT!
Gareth Phillips says:
February 7, 2014 at 8:29 am
Sometime you have to recognize what is going on, you are faced with some reality orientation and you have to respond. You have to live in the here and now. Sometimes it’s hard, it conflicts with all your beliefs and view of the world, it can be a traumatic experience. You are right, I needed to be brave to do it, will you look out the window? Or continue to take refuge in avoidance behaviour ?
==========================================
Gareth, did you not read this post and look at the actual data ?
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/01/07/is-englands-bad-weather-a-sign-of-climate-change/
I’m not being facetious here Gareth, but you really have something going a bit wrong in your head. You should get a check-up in case it’s serious.
DirkH Says
Good comment. If I take long temperature data series and run it through an FFT I get exactly what I would expect with Brown Noise – power spectral density that decreases with the square of the frequency.
Except I also see a few bumps if energy at certain frequencies (one at a bit over 60 years) suggesting periodic influences. And with longer series, like the entire Holocene using GISP2 ice core data, there appear to be longer periodic influences at around 1000 and 5000 years.
In addition to apparent periodic influences, there is also a strong damping factor. Pure Brown noise can go off in any direction almost indefinitely. Gambling is a Brownian activity; gamblers know these as winning streaks and losing streaks. The climate has damping forces that tend to bring things back to normal over time.
Except of course there are ice ages. The earth seems to have two metastable states, plus several periodic influences, plus a strong damping factor, all superimposed on Brownian noise.
There, problem solved.
Gareth Phillips:
My post to you at February 7, 2014 at 7:56 am said
Your reply at February 7, 2014 at 8:29 am proves my point.
It begins saying
It is not a “belief” it is a fact that maintenance of the dredging would have avoided the flooding.
Your assertion is a clear example of eco-loonacy which places an imaginary “environment” at higher priority than reality and the needs of people.
The Levels were a swamp that was completely flooded most of the year except for a few, small islands. Indeed, it was by hiding in the levels that Alfred the Great ended up burning the cakes because searching the reed-covered marsh was impossible.
The Napoleonic Wars provided a need for additional grain and one response was to drain the Levels to obtain additional farmland. This conversion of the swamp to agricultural land was conducted in the period 1770 to 1833, and this paper describes it.
The drainage and water management are relatively recent and entirely man-made. The Levels will always return to being a flooded swamp in the absence of proper maintenance and operation of the drainage and water management. So, the people who live on the levels KNOW they will be flooded if that proper maintenance and operation ceases. And they knew the necessary dredging of the watercourses has been stopped. And the legislation prevented them from doing it themselves. And some of them were flooded last year. And they were begging for it to be restarted before they were all flooded this year.
But, of course, you and other eco-loons know better. In a just world you and those who think like you would be made to pay the costs to replace the homes and farms of the people who have lost everything as a result of the madness of those who ‘think’ like you.
Richard
PMHinSC,
I do not see your point. Every society must decide how much to prepare vs how much to accept risk. No engineer designs for normal conditions. That is all I meant. As one example……hurricane Sandy was completely within the realm of a typical northeast hurricane that occurs every decade or so. It’s severity was completely a function of where it came ashore. How much should we prepare for the next time it happens?
Allan M.R. MacRae says:February 7, 2014 at 6:37 am
This today from GWPF – thank you Benny and all:
[…]
President Obama talked in his State of the Union speech about doubling renewable energy output over the coming years. Mr. President, these are exactly the goals the Europeans are abandoning. Why chase the losers?
–Investor’s Business Daily, 5 February 2014
As Romney pointed out in the debates, “You don’t just pick winners and losers, you pick losers.”
I personally stopped paying attention to statistical trends some years ago. Both sides of the debate can pretty much paint whatever narrative they wish. However, I do still follow M&M at Climate Audit for analysis. McIntyre usually presents both sides of the debate from a mathematical point of view. Bob Tisdale also does a great job. Most of his posts are usually up front and don’t depend upon some complex algorithm to make his point(s)
My rule of thumb is that if someone has to torture the data, then they are intent on painting a picture.
“I’m sorry, Johannes, but your eyes are fooling you badly. The correlation between HadCRUT and sunspots is a pathetic 0.014, with a p-value of 0.54.
In other words, the data you cite clearly shows that there is no correlation between the HadCRUT4 dataset and the sunspot dataset.
Which is no surprise, as many, many people have looked at the sunspots vs HadCRUT4 correlation and found nothing …
So while Tamino may indeed be very wrong … I fear you are as well.
###############################
Thanks willis.
It never ceases to amaze me that people even look for a relationship between “sun spots” and
a global temperature INDEX.
In the first place “sun spots” are an arbitrary human construction. There are rules for counting spots and those rules have changed over time. Further, “spots” isnt the kind of physical unit you want. Whatever you come up with will be dimensionally incorrect. unless of course you turn spots into watts. ( use spots as a proxy for watts)
On the other side of the equation one has a global temperature index.
HadCrut is non physical. All indexes that combine the air temperature with the temperature of water 1 meter below the surface are merely an INDEX that has physical meaning only in relation to itself over time. The index goes up the index goes down. 30% of that index comes from air temps. Air temps change rapidily and the time constants and spatial coherence is entirely different from SST, which represents the other 70% of the index. The global temperature index is a metric of chance. When it was first created scientists decided to average Air temperatures over land with SST.. not because it makes physical sense, but because that’s what they had. They could have created a air temperature average and used Marine Air Temp,
but they didnt. In fact, in the source database for SST there are just as many Marine Air temperature records.. records that dont suffer from bucket problems for example. Using the global temperature index as a system metric works ok for ‘politics’ but it doesnt advance understanding the system. OHC is much better. We are stuck, by historical chance, with the land/sea index but far too much research has gone into trying to “explain” it. It’s an index. A handy tool, but not one that provides much insight into the system as a whole. It’s slice through the system and a wacky slice at that. It’s good to keep track of it over time as it provides hints,
but I could not see founding an entire theory on it as the solar cyclists do. There’s a clown on a unicycle joke in here somewhere
I suppose people will continue to look for a solar signature in climate records. There are so many places to look they have to find something. take a million random metrics for the climate… cause there are an infinite number of possible metrics.. and you will find something. But finding one metric you can explain with cycles does not qualify as an explnation of the system.
dont find the correlation in a global temperature index? well just look at SAT. dont find it there? just look at TMAX.. dont find it there, look at SST. dont find it there look at tree rings, river heights, floods,
rain.. ice extent. you cant help but find something.
Interesting to note that Phil in California and Richard Courtney both accuse me of having serious mental health problems, apparently because I don’t agree with them, yet can’t be bothered to read the references I pos.. Besides the obvious fact that using such immature insults is offensive to those with genuine mental health problems, it’s usually a pretty good indication that a poster has run out of ideas and has to resort to insults instead. So, firstly, Phil over there in dry California commenting on floods in Somerset. Yes Phil, I did see the post, it is over a year old and related to a different situation. The key is in the date, check it out. Richard, I try not to insult you, note my conversation with Jimbo who is on your side, but never resorts to name calling. You have interesting and challenging points, but you always seem to undermine your points by going for the man and not the ball. Did you read the link? What were your impressions? By the way, hope you see the Wales Ireland match, note how the ref behaves towards those who decide to play by their own rules and ignore fair play. Good luck with the English game, hope the pitch is not too waterlogged.
DirkH Says Then there is the Null hypothesis: Climate is brown noise.
Most climate science is brown noise ( if you want be remain polite ) , it stinks too.
PMHinSC says:
February 7, 2014 at 8:24 am
Doug Badgero says:
February 7, 2014 at 7:37 am
Gareth, There is always “something going on”. If you want to advocate sensible preparation, we can agree.
Since I know of no data showing anything anthropogenic or harmful is “going on”, other than normal planning for the future count me out of “sensible preparations” (whatever that is). I am more concerned about unintended consequences and the possibility (probability?) of doing harm. So far the track record (e.g. using corn for fuel, cutting down trees for use in power plants, energy poverty, etc.) of “sensible preparations” has been to do more harm than good. I would support a “do no harm” policy over “sensible preparations.”
Thanks for that. I agree that we should do no harm. You cannot prepare for every risk, we have to balance out risk vs potential damage vs likelihood, so I agree with much of what you are saying. The point I am making is the unusual situations are becoming more frequent, and floods such as we see in the Somerset levels, cold in the US and weird weather elsewhere seems to be what we expect as being normal, not the 100-1 shot we may have previously thought . If someone said we need to spend billions preparing for the chance we will be hit by an asteroid I would oppose it, because it does not look very likely. However, if we kept getting hit by events such as the Russian impact last year or the recent Martian hit, I may reconsider that decision. It seems at the moment that is the situation in our climate, so whether you believe we have some thing to do with climate change or not, the current weather patterns certainly concentrate the mind and may may make people think again about adaption and intervention and ask what is going on.
Answer: If one believes that the dominant process determining temperature has a characteristic time of T, then one ought to use an average over T. Thus, if one believes that the sun spot cycle determines surface temperature then something like 11 years is correct; but if one can demonstrate that some longer time process, like a feedback internal to the atmosphere is dominate, then use this longer time period.
Personally I feel the atmosphere has 1/f processes throughout, perturbed occasionally by unique events and periodically by events such as variation of orbit; and, as a result, no time period provides a universally useful average.
richardscourtney says:
February 7, 2014 at 3:32 am
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Richard, your response to Gareth Phillips: ROFLMAO
Gareth Phillips says:
“It went up, it stayed up.It has not got statistically warmer for some time, but the patients temperature is still high and the fact that it has not risen any further is neither here nor there. Our planet is still pyrexial. With patients we prescribe anti-pyrexials such as Asprin or Paracetamol. Is there a prescription for the planet, or is everyone happy to see it stay heated? If so, the conveyor belt of storms experienced since last year in the UK will have to be accepted as quite normal as well as other climatic changes yet to be seen”.
GPs comment does appear to be a veiled ad for Vi@gra.
Still ROFLMAO
Kevin Kilty says:
February 7, 2014 at 9:44 am
“Which leads us to the question: How long should a time be for observing climate change? If we look at the sunspot activity and the clear pattern it produces in the temperature graph, the answer is: 11 years or a multiple of it.”
Answer: If one believes that the dominant process determining temperature has a characteristic time of T, then one ought to use an average over T.
—
Or one could take the view that as Climate is considered to be things that are longer than 30 years in length, something short of that value would be a good choice.
How’s about 15 years? 🙂
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/HadCrut4Monthly11575Lowpass1575SGExtensions_zps48569a45.gif
“He [Foster] states: Twelve of sixteen were hotter than expected even according to the still-warming prediction, and all sixteen were above the no-warming prediction:”
Look what the jerk has done to get that conclusion. He has not taken the data point for 1997 to draw his “no warming ” line he’s taken the intercept with his fitted slope.
Now if you take the DATA point for 1997 global temp and draw accross you get 1999,2003 below
and 2008 about equal.
And of course if you draw a straight line through the rising part of a cosine you’ll find that most of the later points are above the straight line. All this shows is what a crap idea it was to choose a linear model.
Typical Grant Foster bullshit and deception. Nothing to see here, move along please.
RichardLH says:
February 7, 2014 at 7:56 am
Therefore TSI and temperature are not well directly correlated. Temps can be higher or lower from the same TSI figure. Do you dispute that?
Certainly, TSI is a measure of the energy we get from the Sun, so in the long run the temperature will be directly related to TSI.
Gareth Phillips:
At February 7, 2014 at 9:21 am you write
BOLLOCKS! How dare you!?
Any body can read my post at February 7, 2014 at 9:06 am which is here.
It concludes saying
I stand by every word of that, and your response is to falsely claim I did not refute the rubbish you provided and to pretend I insulted you!
Normally I would demand an apology. But in this case you and those whom you cite, support and promote should crawl on your knees to the Somerset Levels and beg forgiveness from the people who have lost everything as a result of your success at promoting your madness.
Richard
So what can we deduce from Tamino’s graphs?
The information that is obvious: about a +.4C in a third of a century.
During that period CO2 increased from 330 to 390 ppm or about 22% above pre-industrial to about 44% above. (A fast changing portion of the logarithmic curve.)
And T increase is slowing down as CO2 increases further; also to be expected for a logarithmic function.
This doesn’t seem too far out of line with the agreed upon direct effect of CO2 increase: +1C in a logarithmic fashion for doubling of CO2.
Leif Svalgaard says:
February 7, 2014 at 9:54 am
Certainly, TSI is a measure of the energy we get from the Sun, so in the long run the temperature will be directly related to TSI.
This is under the assumption that the Sun is the main driver of climate, but that assumption may be false as the may be a thermostat in the climate system that keeps the temperature within rather narrow limits. We don’t know if there is such a thermostat, but I’ll not exclude it.