We’ve already discussed Cowtan and Way’s infilling of HADCRUT4 data in the post On Cowtan and Way (2013) “Coverage bias in the HadCRUT4 temperature series and its impact on recent temperature trends”. The paper is available here. In that earlier post, I presented the following graph and noted:
If we compare the HADCRUT4 data to the CMIP5 models (historic and RCP6.0) for the period of 1997 to 2012, Figure 1, we can see that the models over-estimate the warming from 65S to 65N (the vast majority of the planet) and underestimate the warming at the poles. Therefore, if the Cowtan and Way (2013) data are increasing the warming in the Arctic, they are creating a greater divergence from the models there, but failing to reduce the differences between the models and data where the models overestimate the warming.
Figure 1
(I changed the above Figure number for this post. It was Figure 9 in the earlier post.)
The Cowtan and Way (2013) data do increase the warming at the poles and exaggerate the failings in the models there, while doing little to explain the hiatus in the non-polar regions, which make up about 90% of the planet.
Note: For those not familiar with the type of graph shown in Figure 1: It illustrates the warming and cooling rates of the HADCRUT4 data, and the average of the CMIP5 (IPCC AR5) climate runs for the period of January 1997 to December 2012…the hiatus period. The vertical axis (y-axis) is scaled in deg C/decade, so we’re showing the warming and cooling rates (that is, the trends). The horizontal axis (x-axis) is scaled in latitude, so the South Pole is to the left at -90 (90S) and North Pole is to the right at 90 (90N). From 1997 to 2012, the HADCRUT4 data show the very slow warming rates (and cooling at some latitudes) extending from the mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere to the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Both poles continue to show warming, however. On the other hand, the models do not show the lack of warming in the non-polar regions during this period. That is, they do not capture the hiatus, the pause, the halt, the cessation of global warming in the non-polar regions. And the models underestimate the warming at the poles, especially in the Arctic, and that means the models do not properly simulate polar amplification. But we already knew the models cannot simulate polar amplification—we discussed and illustrated that failing in the posts here and here.
Back to the Cowtan and Way (2013) data:
In the earlier post, I had not presented warming rates (or lack thereof) for the Cowtan and Way data on a zonal-mean (latitude-average) basis (like Figure 1)because their data is not available on a gridded basis in an easy-to-use format. However, blogger Nick Stokes made the effort to determine those trends for the Cowtan and Way “hybrid” version, for the period 1997 to 2012. (Just what we’re looking for.) See Nick’s post Cowtan and Way trends. Nick was also very kind and he listed the trends in a table. (Thanks, Nick.)
Figure 2 presents the trends of the Cowtan and Way “hybrid” data (courtesy of Nick Stokes) versus the trends of the multi-model mean of the climate models used by the IPCC for their 5th Assessment Report (AR5), for the period of 1997-2012. I’ve also included the HADCRUT4 trends as a reference (dashed lines), because they’re the basis for the Cowtan and Way data. The Cowtan and Way infilling make the models perform worse at the poles, and they had performed very badly with the HADCRUT4 data without the “help” of Cowtan and Way. And the Cowtan and Way infilling did little to eliminate the hiatus in the non-polar regions. Most notably, Cowtan and Way reduced, but did not eliminate, the cooling taking place in the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, a place where sea ice has been expanding in recent decades…and where sea surface temperatures have been cooling.
Figure 2
CLOSING
The Cowtan and Way (2013) revisions to the HADCRUT4 data do nothing to explain the absence of warming that is occurring in the non-polar regions during the hiatus period. Those non-polar regions cover about 90% of the planet and it’s there that climate models cannot explain the slowdown and absence of warming. The Cowtan and Way revisions also exaggerate the warming at the poles which further undermines the current generation of climate models, because the models are unable to explain the observed warming at the poles. That is, the models are still not capable of properly simulating polar amplification.
Those who promote the Cowtan and Way (2013) revisions to the HADCRUT4 data don’t understand where the hiatus is taking place and they don’t understand the model failings at simulating polar amplification—or—they are intentionally being misleading.
SOURCES
The HADCRUT4 data and the climate model outputs are available through the KNMI
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JM says:
February 22, 2014 at 9:03 pm
coverage in the arctic is very inaccurate
If that is the case, how do Cowtan and Way know it has been estimated way too low?
if applied to the earth’s atmosphere, would raise the temperature by 38 degrees Fahrenheit (10 x 10^22 joules). This fact is incontrovertible.
But it cannot do that due to the laws of thermodynamics!
If the oceans warmed up by 0.1 F, and this caused the air to warm to the maximum amount, the air could only get 0.1 F warmer. So the oceans are in effect an infinite heat sink for all of our extra heat. Isn’t that great? Our problems are over!
rgbatduke says: February 22, 2014 at 8:05 am
“…an automagically rescalable icosahedral tesselation and did proper adaptive quadrature and interpolation on an unbiased adaptive grid. …
F. Ross says: February 22, 2014 at 10:14 am
Sure, that’s easy for your to say! :=)
But rgb neglected to add: “…based on the analytic and algebraic topology of locally euclidean parameterization of infinitely differentiable Riemannian manifold.” That’s why it was easy to say. : ]
Jai Mitchell says:
February 22, 2014 at 6:30 pm
“1. They successfully produced an accurate hybrid that utilized both thermometer and satellite data”
They successfully got the planks to fit over the holes they had.
I have done exactly what they have done with ALL the thermometer data and satellite data that exists during the whole of their overlap period, not just some convenient. cherry patch. selection.
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hadcrut-giss-rss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters.png
That’s all 4 series, HadCrut, GISS, UAH and RSS. Since 1850 up to last month.
Fits very, very well. If you like I’ll withhold 50% of the data (every other month) and get exactly the same fit. You should have no problem with agreeing with the observations that the figure gives then.
The projection that figure provides for the near future is also supported by the curves matching together during the whole of their overlap period with an accuracy of greater than 95 %. So that is certain also.
jorgekafkazar:
Many thanks for your post at February 22, 2014 at 11:21 pm which says
Brilliant! I laughed, thankyou.
Indeed, I laughed at your post almost as much as I have been laughing at the posts from ja1 m1tchell.
Richard
Here’s a link to a cartoon that uses a phrase like that as its caption:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y254/RogerKni/Politics%20%20Finance/skepticaleagle_zps9d625f0b.jpeg
But if I go to the ACTUAL NODC website, where you supposedly got that information, it shows this The amount of warming, with error bars, from the actual graphed measurements in this image is the same amount of warming that, if applied to the earth’s atmosphere, would raise the temperature by 38 degrees Fahrenheit (10 x 10^22 joules). This fact is incontrovertible.
What does this even mean? If you applied it all at once, in an instant? Are you doing something like taking an amount of heat and dividing it by the heat capacity of the atmosphere, top to bottom?
The heat capacity of the ocean is nearly infinite compared to that of the atmosphere. Also, ARGO simply doesn’t go back very far — before ARGO measurements are based on rather sparse sampling in space and time. Even with ARGO one could argue that measurements are rather spatiotemporally sparse, especially at depth.
If the ocean is absorbing all of the supposed energy imbalance from CO_2, that is great news. It can do so for order of centuries without significantly changing its temperature or its temperature profile. We can ignore for the moment just how the energy is getting down to the depths being claimed on a global basis when buoyancy forces directly oppose it, but for the moment I’d take any claims about the ocean’s temperature for more than a remarkably short baseline with a large grain of sea-salt.
rgb
Jai is just desperately stumbling around trying hard to make his pre-conceived view of the world fit with the reality of the data currently available.
rgbatduke
it means that the amount of measured heat added to the atmosphere would raise the atmospheric temperature of the entire measurable mass of the earths atmosphere by 38 degrees Fahrenheit. It means that there is an incredible amount of verified measured warming going on even during the last 15 years.
wbrozek
you said, But it cannot do that due to the laws of thermodynamics!
If the oceans warmed up by 0.1 F, and this caused the air to warm to the maximum amount, the air could only get 0.1 F warmer.
The point is that only a very small percentage of change in the rate of the ocean warming leads to a massive shift in the amount of warming we experience above the ocean’s surface. The amount of measured warming going on since 2005 makes any argument of a hiatus moot.
dbstealey
you are the one that posted a graph that is supposedly from the NODC site, except it isn’t, it is posted by an anonymous third party person with questionable credentials. Your decision to trust a basically anonymous source because it says something you want to believe proves the entire point that I am making.
If you are going to quote a source of information, you have to go to that source. not pretend that any joe out there can make a graph and make it look like you want it to look and chose to believe that it is truth.
for example, the GISP2 graph that you like to show. I put to you the actual link from the data spreadsheet that shows that 1950 was the “before present date” I also showed you the series that showed that the last data point of the graph was .095 thousand years “before present”
which makes the date of the last data point in 1855, or at the end of the little ice age.
yet you CHOOSE to believe a third party graph that puts the date in the 1950’s or even the 1970s because of the plethora of disinformation out there regarding this graph
again, I will point you to the truth.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/greenland/summit/document/notetime.htm
.A Note on the Timescales
There are three main timescales used on the CD-ROM. For both GRIP and GISP2, these timescales are in years before present (yr BP) where year 0 refers to northern hemisphere summer of the year 1950 A.D.
You want the truth but you can’t handle the truth!
JMsays:
February 23, 2014 at 1:32 pm
The amount of measured warming going on since 2005 makes any argument of a hiatus moot.
So let us suppose you were told that in 60 years, the air temperature would not go up at all but the ocean would go up by 0.1 C if we did nothing. However if we spent a trillion dollars over 60 years, and suppose we are told the air temperature would still not go up, but the oceans would go up by 0.1 C showing no hiatus. What should we do?
Aah, yes. Thank you for the clarification. Why didn’t I realize that?
Uurk :=)
jai mitchell says:
“dbstealey… you CHOOSE to believe a third party graph that puts the date in the 1950′s or even the 1970s because of the plethora of disinformation out there regarding this graph.”
Um, jai, me boy, you are erecting a strawman to argue with. Because I never posted that graph. But carry on.
jai also says:
“…there is an incredible amount of verified measured warming going on even during the last 15 years.”
We are in agreement: there is an incredible amount of warming being claimed. Just incredible.☺
See, jai, even Planet Earth herself does not agree with your religious belief in catastrophic AGW. Global warming has stopped, even though you refuse to accept that fact. Global warming may resume, or not. At this point, we just don’t know. But the fact that it has stopped is now acknowledged by most of the alarmist clique, and that pretty much negates the “carbon” scare.
But because your own brand of climate alarmism is based on religious belief, and not on science, it is understandable that you cannot accept a threat like that to your dogma.
But carry on. It’s always amusing to see someone absolutely insisting that catastrophic AGW is upon us, when the planet itself is giving that nonsense a big yawn.
Jai,
Haven’t we been over your idiotic conjecture before on another thread?
Didn’t we establish that your conjecture is akin to being that climate sensitivity is in the hundreds of degrees, based on your (stoooopid) notion that warming of the oceans from 2005, CO2 levels 380-ish ppms (insert whatever year and whatever ppm value you want to, since you’re probably 50 orders of magnitude off) to 2013/14, CO2 400 ppms would give a warming of 38 degrees Fahrenheit ? 20 Kelvins for 20 ppms of Beer-Lambert Law-neutered CO2 in 40,000 ppm of water vapor in the tropics.
It gets worse. If you were right, as rgb says more politely, you’ve shown that the world wouldn’t even have to worry about a hundreds of degrees climate sensitivity to a doubling of your hobgoblin gas.
I’m surprised the more professional Climate Parasites haven’t reined in you and your stupid conjecture yet.
….. and also if you are correct, and you also believe in IPCC numbers – go on, I’ll give you six degrees of atmosphere warming per doubling, just for chuckles – haven’t you proved that the vast majority of the ocean warming is not due to the CO2 monster ??
this addresses both of your posts.
phillincalifornia,
wbrozek says:
So let us suppose you were told that in 60 years, the air temperature would not go up at all but the ocean would go up by 0.1 C if we did nothing. However if we spent a trillion dollars over 60 years, and suppose we are told the air temperature would still not go up, but the oceans would go up by 0.1 C showing no hiatus. What should we do?
The heat energy accumulation (warming) of the earth’s oceans indicated by the measured 10×10^22 Joule increase since 2005 IS as much energy as it would take to warm the earth’s atmosphere by 38 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a true statement and can easily be checked
This shows 2 things.
1. There has been no “hiatus” since the measured rate of heat uptake has INCREASED over this period of time.
2. As the earth increases its CO2 atmospheric concentration, if the warming continues to go into the ocean at a large amount, then the atmosphere will not warm as much, consequently, the amount of global energy imbalance, as measured at the TOA will continue to increase. Eventually, the amount of heat imbalance of the earth will be so large that it will shift the arctic and land-based warming intensely.
3. When the oceans stop mixing the heat into deeper strata, then the amount of heat shifted into the atmosphere will increase in proportion to the increased TOA imbalance. This will lead to a rapid heat energy gain in the atmosphere, on the land surface and in the arctic.
this is the conclusion of the recent England Paper
philincalifornia
The measurement of ocean heat uptake has shown that the top of atmosphere energy imbalance has grown. The measured amount of heat is within the estimations of Kevin Trenberth (missing heat) and Hansen and Soto in 2010.
If you consider that the long-term arctic warming rates are increasing, that even with the amount of extra heat going into the oceans, that the permafrost is melting much more rapidly than was modeled, then you must understand that these POSITIVE CLIMATE FEEDBACKS will lead to a climate sensitivity of greater than 6 degrees C for a doubling of CO2 (over the next 500 years or so).
The amount of warming in the ocean compared to the surface affects the rate of atmospheric warming and directly affects how high the Transient Climate Response is, or how fast the earth responds to CO2 in the atmosphere.
The ocean heating shows a very high amount of warming being produced from current CO2 levels. This will only increase as we continue to add CO2 to our atmosphere.
Quickly Jai, before the nurse tops up your medications, give us a quick calculation of climate sensitivity based on 38 degrees F, for CO2 going from 380 to 400 ppm.
Sounds like the feedback already got out from under your bed in 2005 and is now all around us. Are we in trouble !!!!
JM says:
February 23, 2014 at 6:17 pm
Eventually, the amount of heat imbalance of the earth will be so large that it will shift the arctic and land-based warming intensely.
How long would this take? At the rate of 0.1 C in 60 years, it would take 6000 years to raise the deep ocean from 4 C to 14 C where it would approach the air temperature. We will have long ago run out of hydrocarbons before then. I agree that an El Nino can happen which would cause a short blip, but nothing catastrophic will happen temperature wise.
Jai Mitchell says: The heat energy accumulation (warming) of the earth’s oceans indicated by the measured 10×10^22 Joule increase since 2005 IS as much energy as it would take to warm the earth’s atmosphere by 38 degrees Fahrenheit. This is a true statement and can easily be checked”
First, you’ve presented a worthless statistic, because the amount of heat that’s claimed to be entering the oceans cannot escape and warm the Earth’s atmosphere. The oceans release heat to the atmosphere primarily through evaporation. Second, your claim of “heat energy accumulation (warming) of the earth’s oceans indicated by the measured 10×10^22 Joule increase since 2005” appears exaggerated as well:
http://data.nodc.noaa.gov/woa/DATA_ANALYSIS/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/DATA/basin/yearly/h22-w0-2000m.dat
Jai Mitchell says: “This shows 2 things.”
But then you listed three things, Jai. Do you understand why no one here takes you seriously?
Jai Mitchell says: “1. There has been no “hiatus” since the measured rate of heat uptake has INCREASED over this period of time.”
The “global warming hiatus” refers to surface temperatures, Jai. Why is that so hard for you to understand?
Jai Mitchell says: “2. As the earth increases its CO2 atmospheric concentration, if the warming continues to go into the ocean at a large amount, then the atmosphere will not warm as much, consequently, the amount of global energy imbalance, as measured at the TOA will continue to increase. Eventually, the amount of heat imbalance of the earth will be so large that it will shift the arctic and land-based warming intensely.
Utter nonsense. Did you just think of that?
Jai Mitchell says: “3. When the oceans stop mixing the heat into deeper strata, then the amount of heat shifted into the atmosphere will increase in proportion to the increased TOA imbalance. This will lead to a rapid heat energy gain in the atmosphere, on the land surface and in the arctic.”
There is no scenario in which the “the oceans stop mixing the heat”. For that, all ocean circulation and winds would have to stop.
I strongly suggest you take your alarmist nonsense elsewhere. You’re wasting your time here. No one comes to WUWT to read alarmist claptrap, which is why you’re mostly ignored.
Jai:
Care to tell me what is scary about this treatment of the 4 main data series to date using similar methods to those employed by C&W? If they are right then so is this.
http://climatedatablog.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/hadcrut-giss-rss-and-uah-global-annual-anomalies-aligned-1979-2013-with-gaussian-low-pass-and-savitzky-golay-15-year-filters.png
Bob,
Thanks for the link, the amount of warming measured in the whole ocean is indeed recorded to be about 8.5 x 10^22 joules between 2005 and up through june of 2013. At that rate, the amount of additional warming through February of 2014 will easily surpass 10×10^22 joules. or the equivalent of 38 degrees F of additional warming over the entire troposphere.
Over this period of time the atmosphere has only experienced a .15 (or so) global warming (Fahrenheit). So, only a very small amount of decreased ocean surface mixing (wind slow down) even a .5% decrease, will necessarily push some of this heat energy into the atmosphere, leading to a return to global warming, likely at a rate much higher than the 1945-1975 period. (closer to .23C per decade)
the heat that is in the deep ocean today is certainly there to stay, however, if the rate of heat entering the oceans decreases in the future than only a very fractional amount of that heat going into the atmosphere will resume the rapid warming of the atmosphere.
Bob, all
FYI looks like we are setting up for a reasonably srong El Nino, If I am correct, we will see a rapid return to atmospheric warming and a minor decrease in the rate of heat going into the deep ocean (>1000m).
http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/article.html?entrynum=2635
jai mitchell:
An el nino is a natural event. In fact, everything being observed is natural climate variability. Here, let me quote someone who has forgotten more than you will ever learn about climatology:
Yes, that is the internationally esteemed Prof Richard Lindzen of M.I.T. Whereas you get your climate nonsense from a cartoonist, John Cook.
jai, it is obvious that you are a newbie; someone who needs a religion, and has found it in the “carbon” scare. It forms the basis of your self-worth. Your comments are amusing, in that they are copied from thinly-trafficked alarmist blogs, which would go out of existence if they did not censor comments from skeptics. As it is, they cater to a handful of head-nodders like yourself.
I can’t recall the number of times I’ve asked you to respond to the Null Hypothesis, which has never been falsified. It has to be at least a dozen times now. You will recall that the Null Hypothesis requires various Holocene global climate parameters to be exceeded, such as temperatures, precipitation, extreme weather events, etc. But in the event, none of those parameters is being exceeded. What does that mean?
It means that the current climate is normal. The climate variability expressed by the planet is fully explained by natural events. You cannot identify any human cause in global temperatures, because no human cause has ever been measured.
The Null Hypothesis is a hypothesis based on the Scientific Method. It remains standing, despite numerous attempts to falsify it. I understand that you are a religious convert, and as such you only cherry-pick ‘facts’ that you believe support your cAGW religion. But the rest of us know better.
You have never accepted either the Scientific Method or its corollary, the Null Hypothesis. If you did, your religious belief would fall like scales from your eyes, and you would see the light. But I don’t expect that to happen any time soon. Glaciers could cover Chicago again, and you would still be pasting nonsense from SkS and wunderground. Just so you know that we know… ☺
Jai Mitchell says:
February 24, 2014 at 9:16 am
if the rate of heat entering the oceans decreases in the future than only a very fractional amount of that heat going into the atmosphere will resume the rapid warming of the atmosphere
So let us suppose that by some means the atmosphere north of 60 degrees suddenly warmed by 10 C. What would happen? The temperature would be shared with the cold ocean waters so virtually nothing of heat in the air would remain after a short time. And the ocean may have warmed up by 0.04 C as a result. This is basic thermodynamics.