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’
==================================
Johannes Herbst writes at: http://klimawandler.blogspot.de/
Greg Goodman says:
February 7, 2014 at 7:51 am
I’m surprised to see such a comment from a solar physicist.
Perhaps there is a lesson for you in that comment. Reflect on that.
lsvalgaard says:
February 7, 2014 at 9:59 am
“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.”
The Sun is certainly a fairly constant input function into the complex load that represents the Earth.
The question is if small modulations of that input function are more important than the variations in the initial response and internal storage factors in that load.
It would appear that the overall characteristic is one that is fairly stable, long term, as you note. The variability that we see appears to be more driven by the variations in the initial response TOA down to surface and storage in water, vapour, ice, etc. than by the external, small, variations in the input function. YMMV.
Brandon Shollenberger says:
Am I missing something, or did Tamino use 1997 instead of 1998 as his breakpoint? That seems a more pertinent form of cherry-picking than anything else.
As is forcing his hypothetical break in trend to be continuous with the trend of the previous interval. That is the trick he uses to artificially lower his “no trend” line from its actual location, thus putting it below the observations “proving” that there has been a positive trend after all.
It isn’t really cherry picking. It’s just lying.
RichardLH says:
February 7, 2014 at 10:17 am
The variability that we see appears to be more driven by the variations in the initial response TOA down to surface and storage in water, vapour, ice, etc. than by the external, small, variations in the input function. YMMV.
Which is precisely my point. Other factors than ‘sunspots’ are responsible for the changes we see. Solar activity does not vary enough to account for what we observe.
“madness of those who ‘think’ like you” -> “those who think like you are mad” -> “you are mad”
Sounds to me like accusing someone of having mental issues.
A) The increase in temperature we have experienced during the 20th century is nothing unusual and is quite normal, and,
B) the rain and storms suffered by the people of the UK are also nothing unusual.
A) Which half? The increase in the first half of the 20th century is almost identical to the increase in the second half. The two halves are so nearly identical in form that unless you have studied them enough to be able to pick out specific features, you won’t be able to tell which one occurred with the hypothetical help of CO_2 and which one occurred without the hypothetical help of CO_2 when they are plotted on the same vertical relative scale and the same horizontal relative scale but with the actual dates obscured.
In the first half of the 20th century, not even the most ardent warmists claim that there was enough anthropogenic CO_2 in the atmosphere to have any measurable effect. The global industrial revolution that started the CO_2 crank was 1950’s on, and there was supposedly a lag of 30 years before that had any effect (to explain the fact that through the 50’s, 60’s, and early 70’s the temperature was pretty close to flat, which didn’t fit in well with the instantly well-mixed, instantly more strongly forcing picture of CO_2 emissions.
So as a matter of pure fact, the increase in temperature experienced during the 20th century was not unusual or abnormal in any way that can be definitively linked to anthropogenic activity as far as we can tell from the data! We had little to no impact on the first half, the warming in the second half matched that of the first half (with our hypothetical help), both halves were part of a perfectly reasonable continuing century-scale rebound from the lowest temperatures experienced on Earth since the Holocene Optimum during the Little Ice Age.
It’s amazing how ignorant people who participate in this debate with total certainty that our climate is unusual are of the “patient’s” history. I like to keep the patient’s chart for the last 12,000 years handy to help them learn:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holocene_Temperature_Variations.png
Note well, this is smoothed. Note also that the error bars (never, ever shown in climate science) are probably as wide as the total variability envelope of all contributing reconstructions — an easy 1 to 2 C. As Lief pointed out above, reconstructing things like solar activity or temperature in the pre-instrumental era is neither easy nor precise, and the tiniest hint of bias or prior belief in the part of the researcher can effortlessly further cloud the proxy-based extrapolations by causing them to make countless small, almost harmless decisions that ultimately are cherrypicking of the data, comparing low temporal resolution data to high temporal resolution data to make erroneous statements about extremes, or ignoring the possibility of confounding causes or degradation of the data sources in those sources that match their “preferred” narrative at the expense of those that do not. If you count the assumptions — most of which cannot possibly be verified in the present — that go into reconstructions, there are many and each one contributes to increased uncertainty in the final claim.
Still, taking it for what it is worth — a possibly accurate reconstruction of the planet’s temperatures in the Holocene (post the Wisconsin glaciation, but including the Younger Dryas) that is at any rate the best we can do with the data and methods available (biased or not) at this time, what does it tell us?
First, the climate now is not warmer than it was in the Holocene Optimum (do not make the mistake of conflating the high frequency, high resolution “2004” data point with the smoothed low frequency, low resolution data in the curve — even the figure’s caption warns against doing that — for the very good reason that in every 300 year smoothed upswing it is statistically certain that the upswing involved multidecadal intervals of temperatures much higher than the running mean. It is left as an exercise to the studio audience to figure out how to use contemporary high frequency climate data to make a numerically reasonable estimate of how much warmer than the smoothed average peak multidecadal intervals almost certainly were during the warming intervals seen throughout this graph. Goodness, I think it is easily 1+C, isn’t it!
Second, the LIA really was the coldest smoothed temperature interval in the entire Holocene. It was 11,000 years, during the warming phase that pulled us out of the glacial era, since the planet was as cold as it was in the general stretch from 1400 to 1900, embracing both the LIA and the following Dalton minimum. During this interval Earth’s glaciers grew, strongly, but do not mistake the level of glaciation observed in (say) 1870 as being normal. For most of the gradually cooling Holocene, it would have been extremely abnormal. As I said, the patient fell through the ice into the river, and probably came within a hair of falling under the ice, to be trapped in another 90,000 year cycle of glaciation before the next interglacial.
Third, note well our profound degree of ignorance as to the cause of any of the features on this curve, granting that they are “features” at all — remember, the noise is on the same scale as the signal so every single bounce on this curve could be noise as far as the data is concerned. It is only what amounts to anecdotal reporting in human histories that gives us the opportunity to at least partially affirm events like the Roman Warm Period, the Medieval Warm Period, the Minoan Warm Period — bobbles visible on this curve that do in fact correspond with historical times where there is direct evidence of warm temperatures, favorable climates for agriculture even at high latitudes and indeed generally benign climate conditions. Throughout human history, warm intervals have been the best of times, even when they were warmer than it is today, and the many eco-disasters being projected on the basis of failing climate models did not, in fact, occur even when the climate was much warmer than it is today.
Human models cannot predict any portion of this curve. We have the crudest of hypotheses that collectively might explain the glacial/interglacial pattern of the Pliestocene (including the Wisconsin and Holocene) in terms of long term coincidences in orbital eccentricity, axial tilt as the planet’s axis precesses, oscillations up and down in the plane of the ecliptic, the movements of the continental plates, the consequent (sometimes “dramatic”) variation in oceanic circulation, against a background of volcanic activity that can “punch” the system with a mix of rapidly varying aerosols, soot and greenhouse gases with unknown but possible heavily delayed feedback from the plastic motion of the Earth’s crust itself in response to growing or melting glaciers and the associated changes in high latitude albedo. Sure. Probably, even. But try computing on the basis of these collective hypotheses and then predicting the future unforced climate, in a chaotic system with strong, nonlinear, internal feedbacks on all of the shorter timescales driving temperatures up or down by degrees C completely independent of the 1000 year plus timescale drivers.
We are fortunate that the climate was, and probably still is, rebounding from the LIA completely independent of CO_2. Even if CO_2 is the fed-back devil the most catastrophic of warmists asserts it to be, the general trend of the Holocene towards overall cooler temperatures might make it the more desired of two evils; warming up to Holocene Optimum temperatures is surely far less likely to be destructive than any sort of plunge in temperatures, whether to LIA cold-but-manageable temperatures or to the next glacial era. Evidence from past glaciations suggests that the Earth can kick over into rapid glacier growth in as little as a century and literally plunge back into the deep freeze and kilometer-thick ice down to the latitude of New York or Pennsylvania.
There is one other graph that is entertaining to look at. The chart up above, revealing as it is, is only the chart for the last few days of the patient’s life. Here’s the chart for the patient over the post-adolescent years (the last 550 million years):
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phanerozoic_Climate_Change.png
Goodness, what does this chart tell us? That there is one single interval in the last 600 million years when the Earth has been as cold as it is today, climate wise. This is on a scale that makes the Pliestocene ice age that we are currently in seem small. The Earth’s temperature has been systematically dropping for since the end of the Cretaceous, and is currently colder (climate wise) than any interval since the Ordovician-Silurian transition, which (incidentally) began with atmospheric CO_2 levels of 7000 ppm — almost a full percent CO_2, and reached its minimum temperatures with sustained atmospheric CO_2 levels of 4000 ppm — 10 times the levels we have today. For this, we don’t even have a hypothesis — we have mere science fiction (the solar system drifting through an enormous cloud of space dust, asteroid impacts, fill in the blank). We have no possible way to go back in time to observe, and no credible way to obtain data on any of the myriad of possible causes.
You can click through the last 65 million years — bad news all the way — to 5 million years, where we note that our warmest temperatures in the interglacials are still not as warm as the mean, stable temperatures of 3.5 million years ago by 1 to 2 C, and that the interglacials themselves are a decreasing fraction of the time up to the present, where currently we spend 80 to 90 thousand years locked up in earth-crushing glaciers compared to 10 thousand years of interglacial, where the ice retreats to the point where humans can thrive.
All of human civilization arose in the Holocene interglacial. Think on that.
So yes, Gareth, the current temperature variations are completely normal as far as we can tell, although the patient is still suffering from serious hypothermia and was rather chilled even before falling through the ice. Right now the patient’s core temperature is probably still depressed compared to whatever might laughably be called “normal” in a nonlinear chaotic climate system being constantly driven around Poincare cycles between climate extremes, jumping around between attractors, as the dynamical evolution of coupled Navier-Stokes equations on a spinning, tipped, precessing oblate spheroidal 70% ocean-covered ball with land mountains that reach up to the top of the troposphere and in an highly eccentric orbit around a moderately variable star continues.
It’s like after discovering chaos in weather systems, the entire climate science community forgot all about it. Jeeze.
B) The rains and storms suffered by the UK people are nothing unusual? Seriously? That’s the reason you believe in CAGW, because England got a lot of rain, compared to what, exactly? Can you not tell the difference between weather and climate? Hey, the people in North Carolina have just suffered through record setting cold! That must be evidence of global cooling! Wait, we have also been blessed with a record setting dearth of high energy Atlantic hurricanes (no category 3 or higher storms have made landful in the US for an interval that actually has a chance of doubling the previous record, if it lasts another year or two). That proves what, exactly? That the weather is highly variable? That the (wait for it) climate is changing?
What part of non-stationary process is so very difficult to understand? The climate is always changing. Look at the graphs I linked up above. Intervals of climate stability on a geological time scale are rare; the climate is usually changing. That’s normal. The Pliestocene has been an entire, continuing ice age in which the climate has been rapidly changing, cycling between extremes where the warmest of temperatures are only a degree or two warmer than the present and sometimes last at those “fevered” conditions only for a century or two where the “fever” in question is hypothermia compared to the bulk of the geological record.
None of this is really a matter for much discussion. It is built right into the openly published, reasonably accepted graphs. There is, quite literally, nothing unusual about the present climate that we can detect from the data. In order to even hypothesize that the present climate is abnormal, we would have to be able to predict the normal (unforced) climate for the present. This, we cannot do, either for the present or via hindcast the past. We are cosmically clueless about how to predict the climate. The computational problem is mind-bogglingly difficult, and it isn’t even vaguely surprising that the best GCMs we can build so far are all failing, for the dual reason that they don’t have the spatial and temporal resolution that is almost certainly required to do a halfway decent job and the fact that the models were built and initialized by individuals who sincerely believe that CO_2 is driving the climate with strong feedbacks and that this climate forcing is the dominant factor in predicting the future climate. They fit the models to the last third of the 20th century and the assumption that the warming observed in this interval was dominantly anthropogenic and wonder why they fail.
Look without bias at the entire climate record, my friends. Does anyone seriously think that the GCMs can track/predict/hindcast the variations of any significant length in overall climate record using only the values set from fitting e.g. 1970 through 2000 with an assumption of strong feedback CO_2 forcing and negligible natural variation outside of this?
Really?
rgb
Tell um RGB!
lsvalgaard says:
February 7, 2014 at 10:23 am
“Which is precisely my point. Other factors than ‘sunspots’ are responsible for the changes we see. Solar activity does not vary enough to account for what we observe.”
I have begun to believe that there are factors that are co-incident with the variation in the Solar activity which can have a direct bearing on the Climate we see.
The fact that they are related in timing has people looking for a direct correlation which does not exist.
Scafetta’s papers try to show that there may well be a connection. I just do not see the mechanism by which such features can work as yet, as explained by him.
I do wonder if Gravity might be a better choice for the ‘lever’.
steveta_uk:
re your post at February 7, 2014 at 10:32 am. Quote in context.
Please explain what you think is sanity if you do not think it is madness to decide that a bird sanctuary being nearby is reason to prevent the needed water management of man-made land despite the appeals of the people whose properties are being flooded.
It is precisely this kind of lunacy which we need to stop, and AGW is being used to justify it and was being used to justify it in this case.
Richard
rgbatduke says:
February 7, 2014 at 10:34 am
“The global industrial revolution that started the CO_2 crank was 1950′s on, and there was supposedly a lag of 30 years before that had any effect (to explain the fact that through the 50′s, 60′s, and early 70′s the temperature was pretty close to flat, which didn’t fit in well with the instantly well-mixed, instantly more strongly forcing picture of CO_2 emissions.”
And none of that hand waving gives a reason for the observed variation in the measured data to date. Way too cyclic for those of a CO2 disposition. 🙂
http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c274/richardlinsleyhood/HadCrut4Monthly11575Lowpass1575SGExtensions_zps48569a45.gif
lsvalgaard says:
>>
Greg Goodman says:
February 7, 2014 at 7:51 am
I’m surprised to see such a comment from a solar physicist.
Perhaps there is a lesson for you in that comment. Reflect on that.
>>
I’d be much more impressed if you could reply to the objection I raised to your equating energy and power, than philosophical comments to “reflect” on.
>>
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.
>>
TSI is usually given in W/m^2 , you again equate this to “energy”.
While I “reflect” on whether I should still be surprised about your making such statements perhaps you could explain why.
I don’t follow your thinking; however, I have heard the 30 year figure quoted before as the dividing line between climate and weather. Is it appropriate? I don’t know. What is the origin of 30 years–what sort of analysis went into its choice?
A figure, Richard, that nicely illustrates the indistinguishability of first half and second half 20th century warming in e.g. HADCRUT4. I can pick out which is which by looking for the Pinatubo and 1997-1998 ENSO features at the end — but I study these curves. But qualitatively or quantitatively? They are identical well within the uncertainty. One with CO_2, one without. This alone confounds any assertion that we can be certain that the late 20th century warming was either abnormal or necessarily forced by CO_2. What “forced” the warming observed in the first half of the 20th century, I wonder?
Maybe nothing. Maybe this is all just natural variation of a chaotic weather system where for a century or so positive feedbacks win, then for a century or so negative ones win, against the slowly varying but really rather unpredictable projection of Milankovitch axial tilt and orbital eccentricity against the irregular shapes of the continents at perihelion and aphelion and maximum NH insolation vs maximum insolation, although all of this is causing changes in just what warms and cools where and when as the continents themselves precess underneath the secular orbital motion. And then there are the multidecadal atmospheric circulation oscillations (ENSO, the PDO, the NAO, etc) with their different and ill-defined (chaotic!) “periods”. And then there are the largely uncharted decadal scale variations in ocean currents and thermohaline circulation, with its myriad of linked processes that we don’t really understand. Want to trigger the next ice age? Divert the gulf stream so it hits Europe five hundred miles south of where it currently goes. Just 500 miles.
See what that does to England’s weather, to the arctic ice pack, to the Siberian winter., to the temperature of the Mediterranean, and as positive feedback occurs, to North America and global temperatures in general. The equator would get hotter, lose heat more efficiently, and the poles would get very cold, very quickly!
Probably. Really, of course, I don’t know for sure. One cannot properly eyeball and guess the solution to the Navier-Stokes equation “as if” some change occurs. But there is some evidence that Atlantic oceanic circulation patterns can dramatically and rapidly change global climate, and this is offered as one possible “sufficient” explanation for the Younger Dryas — the breaking of an ice dam in the melting glaciers and the draining of a huge freshwater lake that interrupted the Atlantic thermohaline circulation for almost a thousand years.
If/when the Atlantic oscillation finally inverts, we may get to find out. The change of the PDO phase is correlated with (but possibly not causal of) “the pause” and substantially increasing ice and cold in Alaska (for example). Perhaps NAO etc. phase oscillations will have a similar effect on the north atlantic, perhaps they will even divert or cool the Gulf Stream. Tiny changes there could spell serious trouble for Europe.
rgb
February 7, 2014 at 9:55 am
Gareth Phillips:
At February 7, 2014 at 9:21 am you write
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..
BOLLOCKS! How dare you!?
Any body can read my post at February 7, 2014 at 9:06 am which is here.
It concludes saying
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.
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!</b
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
Richard, there you go again. Screaming blue murder, accusing everyone around you of every misdeed, foul mouthed and swearing. If it was just me, I'd be concerned, but I note you do it with anyone who remotely disagrees with your viewpoint. Are you completely incapable of debating without resorting to hissy fits every five minutes?
Are you saying you did not use the following term? “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”
Now let me look at this. Where did I say that flooding the levels for environmental reasons at the cost of what has happened to the citizens was a good idea?
Where did I say dredging rivers was wrong? Indeed, I did not, you just jumped to conclusions and started the usual shooting from the hip. What I said was dredging would not make a lot of difference to the flood, and that the main problem was the record rainfall, which I believe is a symptom of climate change.
In addition, examine my posts carefully and in detail and check, Did I swear at you, did I imply you were mad? Did I say you had dodgy friends ?
In reality I suspect you are not really serious, you are a wind up merchant, so I will leave it at that. By the way, it is me who is trying to point out that there is a problem with flooding and rainfall, and you who say it is mainly the fault of environmentalists and not the weather. Perhaps you could explain to the good people of the levels and the towns downriver that as long as the rivers are dredged there will be no problem.
Lastly read this carefully, even in this post in response to your aggressive posting I have not sworn, made any personal insult or screamed a hissy fit. Try it, it’s easy. Chill out.
Best wishes, Gareth ( Stay dry)
Kevin Kilty:
At February 7, 2014 at 10:55 am you ask
The period of 30 years as a Climate Normal period was decided in 1958 as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY). Its length was purely arbitrary and was chosen on the basis that it was then thought there was sufficient global data for the previous 30 years but not before that.
Importantly, the Climate Normal (i.e. 30 years) is a period for which average data can be obtained for comparison to similar data. So, for example, GISS and HadCRUTn data sets each uses an average of a 30 year period to obtain temperature anomalies by subtracting the Climate Normal average temperature from each obtained temperature, but they each use a different 30 year period for the Climate Normal.
The use of 30 years as Climate Normal is unfortunate. It is not a multiple of the solar cycle, the Hale Cycle, ENSO, etc.. But its choice was arbitrary and was made for an apparently good reason in 1958.
Importantly, the length of Climate Normal does NOT define climate data. However, because a Climate Normal period is 30 years, it is often asserted that a period over which climate data must be obtained is 30 years. This assertion is completely wrong. Any period can be used to provide climate data provided it is specified. So, for example, global temperature is estimated for months, for years and for decades. The 1994 IPCC Report used 4 year periods to assess changes in hurricane frequencies.
I hope that helps.
Richard
Once more an article based on crap manipulated Temperature data to extract a contrary conclusion to a another one also based in crap manipulated Temperature data…
Importantly, the length of Climate Normal does NOT define climate data. However, because a Climate Normal period is 30 years, it is often asserted that a period over which climate data must be obtained is 30 years. This assertion is completely wrong. Any period can be used to provide climate data provided it is specified. So, for example, global temperature is estimated for months, for years and for decades. The 1994 IPCC Report used 4 year periods to assess changes in hurricane frequencies.
Indeed Richard, I would just add that while the time period in itself as you say has problems just as a chronological measurement, the time span in itself also has to be representative of a period which is typical of the longer term climate. A challenging task to say the least.
Gareth Phillips:
Your post at February 7, 2014 at 11:09 am is delusional.
At February 7, 2014 at 8:29 am you wrote to me saying
I replied to that – and I quoted it – in my post which refuted it at February 7, 2014 at 9:06 am. It is that post to which you objected.
Your delusional post I am answering asks me
I answer, in your post at February 7, 2014 at 8:29 am, I quoted it and I refuted it at February 7, 2014 at 9:06 am, and I have quoted it again here.
I could refute the rest of your longwinded blather here. But there is no point because anybody can read the thread for themselves. But I will address the major issue of eco-lunacy.
In your delusional post I am answering you say
My post explained that the flooding is NOT “a symptom of climate change”, and if it were then the important issue would still be the cessation of dredging which was because a bird sanctuary was nearby.
I explained that the Somerset Levels are man-made land, and I provided a link to a paper which describes how they were drained for agriculture in the period 1770 to 1833. Then I wrote
YOU IGNORED THAT. Indeed, in your delusional post I am answering you still say “dredging would not make a lot of difference to the flood”.
And you have the gall to say to me
In reality I know you are the worst kind of eco-loon who cares nothing for people and pretends to be offended when the consequences of eco-loon campaigns invoke outrage at the effects of the lunacy.
Richard
greg says:
February 7, 2014 at 10:47 am
I’d be much more impressed if you could reply to the objection I raised to your equating energy and power, than philosophical comments to “reflect” on.
You are just nit-picking. Since the surface area of the Earth is fixed, the power [TSI] applied every second is the amount of energy received in that second (energy=power * time * area). ‘TSI’ is a convenient short-hand for that.
Thanks for the information. I didn’t realize it stretches back to the IGY. It seems pertinent to the specific discussion of this thread that the modelling folks, or at least some of them, have argued that climate models do not predict flat temperature in the presence of continually increasing CO2 over some time period. Thus, from this perspective one ought to make the stated period (for some reason 15 or 17 years comes to my mind) or longer that which defines climate. It is a definition based on the physics the models actually get correct, plus measurement uncertainty. Anyway, it seems they have been hoisted now on this petard.
rgbatduke says:
February 7, 2014 at 10:34 am
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Excellent comment as usual.
Gareth Phillips has much to think about now. I don’t believe he is ignorant as he post a great metaphor for Father Earth to be affected by CO2 in the same way a man would be affected by Vi@gra provided that metaphor was intentional. On the other hand he may have drank too much Koolaide during his indoctrination to the school of CAGW. Either way the Vi@gra ad/metaphor was most eloquent.
Kevin Kilty says:
February 7, 2014 at 10:55 am
“I don’t follow your thinking; however, I have heard the 30 year figure quoted before as the dividing line between climate and weather. Is it appropriate? I don’t know. What is the origin of 30 years–what sort of analysis went into its choice?”
If you prefer I will just observe that 15 years also nicely separates out decadal from multi-decadal as well. That is also often used to distinguish between ‘noise’ and Climate.
In fact you can sweep the 15 year corner up and down quite a bit and still arrive at the same conclusions. The particular choice is rather arbitrary but convenient.
richardscourtney says:
February 7, 2014 at 11:47 am
Gareth Phillips:
Your post at February 7, 2014 at 11:09 am is delusional.
At February 7, 2014 at 8:29 am you wrote to me saying
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.
I replied to that – and I quoted it – in my post which refuted it at February 7, 2014 at 9:06 am. It is that post to which you objected.
Your delusional post I am answering asks me
Where did I say dredging rivers was wrong?
I answer, in your post at February 7, 2014 at 8:29 am, I quoted it and I refuted it at February 7, 2014 at 9:06 am, and I have quoted it again here.
I could refute the rest of your longwinded blather here. But there is no point because anybody can read the thread for themselves. But I will address the major issue of eco-lunacy.
In your delusional post I am answering you say
What I said was dredging would not make a lot of difference to the flood, and that the main problem was the record rainfall, which I believe is a symptom of climate change.
My post explained that the flooding is NOT “a symptom of climate change”, and if it were then the important issue would still be the cessation of dredging which was because a bird sanctuary was nearby.
I explained that the Somerset Levels are man-made land, and I provided a link to a paper which describes how they were drained for agriculture in the period 1770 to 1833. Then I wrote
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.
YOU IGNORED THAT. Indeed, in your delusional post I am answering you still say “dredging would not make a lot of difference to the flood”.
And you have the gall to say to me
In reality I suspect you are not really serious, you are a wind up merchant, so I will leave it at that
In reality I know you are the worst kind of eco-loon who cares nothing for people and pretends to be offended when the consequences of eco-loon campaigns invoke outrage at the effects of the lunacy.
Richard
Richard, you never learn do you? Look up o line what type of person it is that never learns from their mistakes and just repeats them time after time.
Gareth Phillips says:
February 7, 2014 at 11:42 am
“Importantly, the length of Climate Normal does NOT define climate data.”
You think I’m unaware of that? Some decision has to be made and one that fits the decadal/multi-decadal as well as being as short as one can reasonably expect seems to make the choice of 15 years appropriate.
In actual fact there is very little ‘energy’ in the system above about 7 years and below 20 years or so, so the actual figure chosen could lie anywhere within that range and hardly change the output very much at all. Try if for yourself and see. (I’ll publish the R code if you insist but Greg Goodman has scripts, spreadsheets, etc. that will, do the same).
eyesonu says:
February 7, 2014 at 12:02 pm
rgbatduke says:
February 7, 2014 at 10:34 am
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Excellent comment as usual.
Gareth Phillips has much to think about now. I don’t believe he is ignorant as he post a great metaphor for Father Earth to be affected by CO2 in the same way a man would be affected by Vi@gra provided that metaphor was intentional. On the other hand he may have drank too much Koolaide during his indoctrination to the school of CAGW. Either way the Vi@gra ad/metaphor was most eloquent.
Hey Joscyn, who mentioned Viagra? Not me, and if you could stop fantasising about erect members for just one moment and focus on the debate you may even be able to follow it. By the way, look up the meaning of metaphors, I suspect you have misinterpreted what I say, then again …………………… Call You Next Tuesday !
rgbatduke says:
February 7, 2014 at 11:03 am
“A figure, Richard, that nicely illustrates the indistinguishability of first half and second half 20th century warming in e.g. HADCRUT4.”
It sticks a very sharp point into a lot of the puffery that surrounds the Climate debate.