Image Credit: WoodForTrees.org
Guest Post By Werner Brozek, Edited By Just The Facts
I will attempt to answer the question in the title from two different perspectives. First of all, can a super El Niño cause the present 1998 record in RSS to be broken in 2014? The next question is whether or not the slope of 0 will go under Santer’s 17 years. To answer the first part, we need to note that the average anomaly in 1998 was 0.550. The average anomaly for the first three months this year so far is 0.213. So a simple equation can be set up as follows to see what average would be required for the remaining 9 months to set a record. 12(0.550) = 3(0.213) + 9x. Solving for x gives 0.66. Naturally this is above 0.55, but more importantly is how this compares to the highest 9 month average during the 1998 super El Niño. According to the above plot of RSS with a mean of 9 months, that number is 0.63.
Since 0.66 is required, it may initially appear as if we need an El Niño that is stronger than the one in 1998. However the 9 month average before the 1998 El Niño started was around 0, whereas it is around 0.2 now. So the climb to potentially set a record is not as high. So it is possible for an El Niño that is almost as strong as the 1998 El Niño to set a record, however things have to move fast. The April anomaly for RSS does not necessarily have to be 0.66, but as a guess, I would say it should jump to at least 0.4 from the 0.214 March value and then it must make good jumps in the next months. According to the graph above, when the December number for RSS is in, the new 9 month height must be just above the 1998 nine month height in order for a new record to be set.
I would be very surprised if 2014 broke the 1998 record. In 1997, the El Niño started in May 1997 and the peak did not come until about March 1998. Right now, we are not above 0.5, so in my opinion, there is just not enough time to break the 1998 mark this year. As well, quoting Bob Tisdale:
“[T]he time lag between the major changes in the sea surface temperatures of the equatorial Pacific (NINO3.4 region) and the response in global surface temperatures is a few (3 to 4) months. For lower troposphere temperature anomalies, it’s about 5 to 6 months.”
Moving on to Santer’s 17 years, if we assume it takes a while for an El Niño to form and for it to affect RSS temperatures, I predict that at least to the end of 2014, RSS will still have over 17 years of pause. To verify this for yourself, note the area BELOW the green line in the top graph of this post between August 1996 and December 1997. If temperatures do spike, the August 1996 date has a bit of room to be moved forward until December 1997 is hit. Then, the new area ABOVE the green line at the far right needs to be more or less equal to the present area below and to the left of the 1997 spike. In light of what was just said in terms of how long it takes for temperatures to change, there just does not seem to be enough time for much to happen. I will concede that November and December could have very high anomalies, however it would not be for a long enough period to cause a huge area above the green line. Keep in mind that I am just talking about the case to the end of 2014. Anything can happen in 2015.
In the parts below, as in the previous posts, we will present you with the latest facts. The information will be presented in three sections and an appendix.
The first section will show for how long there has been no warming on several data sets.
The second section will show for how long there has been no statistically significant warming on several data sets.
The third section will show how 2014 to date compares with 2013 and the warmest years and months on record so far.
The appendix will illustrate sections 1 and 2 in a different way. Graphs and a table will be used to illustrate the data.
(P.S. As of May 1, the Hadcrut3 data was not out. Since the March anomaly for Hadcrut4 was 0.034 above the January anomaly, I made the assumption that the March anomaly for Hadcrut3 would also be 0.034 above its January anomaly. Since March showed a huge spike from February in Hadcrut4, I thought it would be better to estimate the March value in Hadcrut3 rather than just leaving things as they were at the end of February.)
Section 1
This analysis uses the latest month for which data is available on WoodForTrees.com (WFT). All of the data on WFT is also available at the specific sources as outlined below. We start with the present date and go to the furthest month in the past where the slope is a least slightly negative. So if the slope from September is 4 x 10^-4 but it is – 4 x 10^-4 from October, we give the time from October so no one can accuse us of being less than honest if we say the slope is flat from a certain month.
On all data sets below, the different times for a slope that is at least very slightly negative ranges from 9 years and 7 months to 17 years and 8 months.
1. For GISS, the slope is flat since September 2001 or 12 years, 7 months. (goes to March)
2. For Hadcrut3, the slope is flat since June 1997 or 16 years, 10 months. (goes to March)
(This was estimated.)
3. For a combination of GISS, Hadcrut3, UAH and RSS, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 13 years, 4 months. (goes to March)
(This was estimated.)
4. For Hadcrut4, the slope is flat since December 2000 or 13 years, 4 months. (goes to March)
5. For Hadsst3, the slope is flat since November 2000 or 13 years, 5 months. (goes to March)
6. For UAH, the slope is flat since September 2004 or 9 years, 7 months. (goes to March using version 5.5)
7. For RSS, the slope is flat since August 1996 or 17 years, 8 months (goes to March).
The next graph shows just the lines to illustrate the above. Think of it as a sideways bar graph where the lengths of the lines indicate the relative times where the slope is 0. In addition, the upward sloping blue line indicates that CO2 has steadily increased over this period.
When two things are plotted as I have done, the left only shows a temperature anomaly.
The actual numbers are meaningless since all slopes are essentially zero. As well, I have offset them so they are evenly spaced. No numbers are given for CO2. Some have asked that the log of the concentration of CO2 be plotted. However WFT does not give this option. The upward sloping CO2 line only shows that while CO2 has been going up over the last 17 years, the temperatures have been flat for varying periods on various data sets.
The next graph shows the above, but this time, the actual plotted points are shown along with the slope lines and the CO2 is omitted.
Section 2
For this analysis, data was retrieved from Nick Stokes’ Trendviewer. This analysis indicates for how long there has not been statistically significant warming according to Nick’s criteria. Data go to their latest update for each set. In every case, note that the lower error bar is negative so a slope of 0 cannot be ruled out from the month indicated.
On several different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 16 and 21 years.
The details for several sets are below.
For UAH: Since February 1996: CI from -0.044 to 2.366
For RSS: Since November 1992: CI from -0.023 to 1.882
For Hadcrut4: Since August 1996: CI from -0.005 to 1.308
For Hadsst3: Since January 1993: CI from -0.016 to 1.812
For GISS: Since July 1997: CI from -0.004 to 1.246
Section 3
This section shows data about 2014 and other information in the form of a table. The table shows the six data sources along the top and other places so they should be visible at all times. The sources are UAH, RSS, Hadcrut4, Hadcrut3, Hadsst3 and GISS.
Down the column, are the following:
1. 13ra: This is the final ranking for 2013 on each data set.
2. 13a: Here I give the average anomaly for 2013.
3. year: This indicates the warmest year on record so far for that particular data set. Note that two of the data sets have 2010 as the warmest year and four have 1998 as the warmest year.
4. ano: This is the average of the monthly anomalies of the warmest year just above.
5.mon: This is the month where that particular data set showed the highest anomaly. The months are identified by the first three letters of the month and the last two numbers of the year.
6. ano: This is the anomaly of the month just above.
7. y/m: This is the longest period of time where the slope is not positive given in years/months. So 16/2 means that for 16 years and 2 months the slope is essentially 0.
8. sig: This the first month for which warming is not statistically significant according to Nick’s criteria. The first three letters of the month are followed by the last two numbers of the year.
9. Jan: This is the January 2014 anomaly for that particular data set.
10.Feb: This is the February 2014 anomaly for that particular data set, etc.
12.ave: This is the average anomaly of all months to date taken by adding all numbers and dividing by the number of months. However if the data set itself gives that average, I may use their number. Sometimes the number in the third decimal place differs slightly, presumably due to all months not having the same number of days.
13.rnk: This is the rank that each particular data set would have if the anomaly above were to remain that way for the rest of the year. It will not, but think of it as an update 15 minutes into a game. Due to different base periods, the rank is more meaningful than the average anomaly.
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Had3 | Sst3 | GISS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. 13ra | 7th | 10th | 8th | 6th | 6th | 6th |
| 2. 13a | 0.197 | 0.218 | 0.486 | 0.459 | 0.376 | 0.60 |
| 3. year | 1998 | 1998 | 2010 | 1998 | 1998 | 2010 |
| 4. ano | 0.419 | 0.55 | 0.547 | 0.548 | 0.416 | 0.66 |
| 5.mon | Apr98 | Apr98 | Jan07 | Feb98 | Jul98 | Jan07 |
| 6. ano | 0.662 | 0.857 | 0.829 | 0.756 | 0.526 | 0.93 |
| 7. y/m | 9/7 | 17/8 | 13/4 | 16/10 | 13/5 | 12/7 |
| 8. sig | Feb96 | Nov92 | Aug96 | Jan93 | Jul97 | |
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Had3 | Sst3 | GISS |
| 9.Jan | 0.236 | 0.262 | 0.507 | 0.472 | 0.342 | 0.69 |
| 10.Feb | 0.127 | 0.162 | 0.304 | 0.263 | 0.314 | 0.45 |
| 11.Mar | 0.139 | 0.214 | 0.541 | 0.506 | 0.343 | 0.70 |
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Had3 | Sst3 | GISS |
| 12.ave | 0.167 | 0.213 | 0.450 | 0.414 | 0.333 | 0.613 |
| 13.rnk | 10th | 11th | 10th | 10th | 11th | 6th |
If you wish to verify all of the latest anomalies, go to the following:
For UAH, version 5.5 was used since that is what WFT used, see: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.5.txt
For RSS, see: http://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
For Hadcrut4, see: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.2.0.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
For Hadcrut3, see: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadCRUT3-gl.dat
For Hadsst3, see: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadSST3-gl.dat
For GISS, see: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
To see all points since January 2013 in the form of a graph, see the WFT graph below:
As you can see, all lines have been offset so they all start at the same place in January 2013. This makes it easy to compare January 2013 with the latest anomaly.
Appendix
In this part, we are summarizing data for each set separately.
RSS
The slope is flat since August 1996 or 17 years, 8 months. (goes to March)
For RSS: There is no statistically significant warming since November 1992: CI from -0.023 to 1.882.
The RSS average anomaly so far for 2014 is 0.213. This would rank it as 11th place if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.55. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.857. The anomaly in 2013 was 0.218 and it is ranked 10th.
UAH
The slope is flat since September 2004 or 9 years, 7 months. (goes to March using version 5.5)
For UAH: There is no statistically significant warming since February 1996: CI from -0.044 to 2.366.
The UAH average anomaly so far for 2014 is 0.167. This would rank it as 10th place if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.419. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.662. The anomaly in 2013 was 0.197 and it is ranked 7th.
Hadcrut4
The slope is flat since December 2000 or 13 years, 4 months. (goes to March)
For Hadcrut4: There is no statistically significant warming since August 1996: CI from -0.005 to 1.308.
The Hadcrut4 average anomaly so far for 2014 is 0.450. This would rank it as 10th place if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.547. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.829. The anomaly in 2013 was 0.486 and it is ranked 8th.
Hadcrut3
(Since March was not out as of May 1, the numbers below assume Hadcrut3 made the same jump in March from January as Hadcrut4 did.)
The slope is flat since June 1997 or 16 years, 10 months. (goes to March)
The Hadcrut3 average anomaly so far for 2014 is 0.414. This would rank it as 10th place if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. One has to go back to the 1940s to find the previous time that a Hadcrut3 record was not beaten in 10 years or less. The anomaly in 2013 was 0.459 and it is ranked 6th.
Hadsst3
For Hadsst3, the slope is flat since November 2000 or 13 years and 5 months. (goes to March).
For Hadsst3: There is no statistically significant warming since January 1993: CI from -0.016 to 1.812.
The Hadsst3 average anomaly so far for 2014 is 0.333. This would rank it as 11th place if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.416. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in July of 1998 when it reached 0.526. The anomaly in 2013 was 0.376 and it is ranked 6th.
GISS
The slope is flat since September 2001 or 12 years, 7 months. (goes to March)
For GISS: There is no statistically significant warming since July 1997: CI from -0.004 to 1.246.
The GISS average anomaly so far for 2014 is 0.613. This would rank it as 6th place if it stayed this way. 2010 was the warmest at 0.66. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2007 when it reached 0.93. The anomaly in 2013 was 0.60 and it is ranked 6th.
Conclusion
We do not know if an El Niño will form in 2014, nor do we know how strong it will be if it does form. However, RSS is unlikely to set a new record or fall below Santer’s 17 years in 2014. As for other data sets, it is hard to say what will happen. However GISS has the unique distinction of having its January (0.69) and March (0.70) anomaly above its average record of 2010 (0.66). It could even set a record without an El Niño. Would that be what the doctor ordered? WUWT? ☺
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Werner and JTF, nice analysis and presentation of such as usual.
Thank you!
We don’t say that enough to you guest posters on this site.
As Mr. B has indicated, historic observations rule, not the modeling substitutes or wishful desperate thinking.
How many alarmist types, who’s reputations are already badly damaged, are on thier knees praying for a big boy Nino to catch up their temperature deficits? Their bread and butter is in jeopardy!
They just don’t realize yet that Mother Nature is not digital! LOL enjoy>
http://youtu.be/sxPY0BbrnjY
Dave in Canmore May 2, 2014 at 3:45 pm
Well, Dave. Just put your money where your mouth is, and I hope you will be very happy together. How’s that or civil and polite? 😉
The best short-term predictor of the ENSO is this one providing a quite accurate prediction of its timing and size (at least a few months to several months out).
http://s14.postimg.org/6681cql8h/Nino3_4_Upper_Ocean_Temps_Apr14.png
There is going to be an El Nino peaking around 1.7C. It will happen in the mid-summer which makes it an unusual one in the 80% of ENSO events peak in November to February.
This is the most current weekly upper ocean temperature anomalies which provides a better perspective on how things will play out in terms of timing. (in April, 2014, it fell to 1.42C from 1.60C in March 2014).
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_update/heat-last-year.gif
The long-term regressions of the impact on RSS temperatures of the ENSO (when other factors are also taken into account which is critical given volcanoes and the AMO/60year cycle also impact RSS) is the following:
RSS Temp Anom = 0.12 * (Nino 3.4 index of 3 months prior).
RSS Temp Anom (Oct 2014) = 0.12 * 1.7C JulyPeak) = +0.204C jump from current
and/or nothing to be concerned about. The Pacific Warm Pool excess heat will then be dissipated after building up for several years and temps will fall back to where they are now once the El Nino is over in November and, by February 2015, temps are back to where they are now.
What is all this talk about El Nino or a Super El Nino? If it’s super then is it our fault? If they come more often is it our fault? Isn’t this just a natural phenomenon? I only ask these simple questions because of the following.
El Ninos may become more invariabley variable or frequently infrequent.
Village Idiot says:
May 2, 2014 at 2:01 pm
“read my lips: “Where exactly has this been predicted by any of the reputable ENSO forecasters?” Or am I getting a whiff ofstraw men and spin here?”
___________________
Yes, you are stinking up the place with your strawman, insisting the topic is about “reputable” sources, which it isn’t, it’s about shining a light on those who use any conceivable weather event to further their agenda, in this case “Super El Nino”, but you know that, don’t you.
What you are doing is attempting to divert attention away from the fact that the concept of a forthcoming Super El Nino has been making the rounds in theclimate fearosphere and mainstream media sources.
Desperation thy name is CO2 warmist. Hyping and praying the next El Nino will come along to save their non-sizzling bacon is over the top. IT IS A NATURAL VARIATiON! The current cooling period has witnessed the chieftains of hazardous climate grasping at other natural variations that formerly were superciliously brushed aside by a more confident fire and flood next time bunch. The quiet sun: “ha ha ha…” and then, “well a quiet sun could explain the hiatus” and “volcanoes, AMO, PDO, aerosols (they are worse coolants than we thought), clouds are positive forcings….well, could be negative under rare circumstances like now…but when the pent up heat gets loose we are going to resume doom with overdrive. They don’t care how it happens. They would be happy with 500km diameter asteroid strike, preferably an anthropogenic asteroid strike, but any port in a storm. They don’t realize even this is natural variation. If natural variation is now okay to graft on to the narrative, the next ice age- global warmings biggest extreme weather event – would probably be okay.
Frank says: May 2, 2014 at 3:41 pm
JTF’s: The real question is whether skeptics should continue to loudly proclaim that there has been NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT WARMING SINCE 19XX.
It is your interpretation that skeptics “loudly proclaim” there has been “NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT WARMING SINCE”, for the rest of us it it just a simple statistical analysis.
Unless you believe that the greenhouse effect is a total hoax (which is your privilege – so I don’t want to debate the issue),luke-warmers (presumably including Curry, Lindzen and Spenser) must realize that statistically significant warming will be detected at some point in the future, possibly during the upcoming anticipated El Nino and possibly not for a decade or more.
Obviously the greenhouse effect exists, however Earth’s temperature varies for many other reasons, thus eventually there will be statistically significant warming. However, the current lack of statistically significant warming, while atmospheric CO2 concentrations have increased rapidly, indicates that Earth’s temperature is not particularly sensitive to increases in CO2.
Perhaps skeptics have been lucky with natural variability in the past fifteen years
I am not sure where luck is involved, Earth’s temperature did what it did. We have no horse in this race, do you?
perhaps the alarmists were lucky from 1975 to 1998;
It seems that way, i.e.
“The observed global warming of the past century occurred primarily in two distinct 20 year periods, from 1925 to 1944 and from 1978 to the present. While the latter warming is often attributed to a human-induced increase of greenhouse gases, causes of the earlier warming are less clear since this period precedes the time of strongest increases in human-induced greenhouse gas (radiative) forcing.” NASA Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory / Delworth et al., 2000
As Phil Jones noted during a 2010 BBC interview, “As for the two periods 1910-40 and 1975-1998 the warming rates are not statistically significantly different.”
Earth’s temperature goes up, down and stays the same, naturally. The alarmists are lucky that the warming bandwagon they jumped on lasted for as long as it did…
“Just the Facts” has told us the good news about RSS and deserves our thanks.
Werner deserves all of the credit, he wrote the article and compiled the data. I simply edited it.
Unfortunately he provides us with no information about the likelihood that the pause in SURFACE WARMING ending within the next year.
We don’t know how ENSO will unfold this year, much less next, i.e. “The period from February through May is commonly referred to as the spring barrier. During this time, models generally have the least skill to predict the coming season.”
http://iri.columbia.edu/news/la-nina-still-hanging-on/
The skeptical community needs more information about this subject.
Yes, if only we could predict Earth’s climate system a year into the future…
What won’t go away quickly is the past half-century when warming has been less than projected by computer models and only matched expectations during the period of most rapid warming.
I don’t understand. The warming over the past half-century in “not statistically significantly different” from the prior half-century, which occurred naturally. Who cares if a bunch of flimsy “computer models” “matched expectations”?
Village Idiot: This is the first time I’ve heard talk of a pending “super El Niño”. Where exactly has this been predicted by any of the reputable ENSO forecasters? Or am I getting a whiff of straw men and spin here?
Is it your contention that everyone who has predicted a super El Niño is not a reputable ENSO forecaster? Or do you have some other reason for thinking this is a straw man? There has certainly been lots of “talk” and “writing”.
Splice: As WUWT’s claim “Warming stopped in 1997/1998″ gradually changed to “Warming stopped in 2001/2002″ as result of El-Nino of 2010 I’m sure that after next El-Nino it will change to “Warming stopped in 2005/2006″.
You are certain?
I don’t see the setup conditions for a supe El Nino. Looks more to me like we’ll get a moderate, short term one, then back to neutral or La Nina. Could be wrong, of course, but most of this super El Nino bleating is wish fulfillment for those who SO want global warming to happen. Of course, they aren’t aware that they are making a case against CO2 by acknowledging the oceans effect on global temperature (to the extent that’s measuable).
Frank says:
May 2, 2014 at 3:41 pm
Unfortunately he provides us with no information about the likelihood that the pause in SURFACE WARMING ending within the next year.
For GISS, if the March anomaly of 0.70 continued all year. GISS would set a new record this year.
As for Hacrut4, it would take an average of x, where 12(0.547) = 3(0.450) + 9x. So x = 0.577. See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/mean:9/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend
So it would not take much to set a record there either and also to significantly shorten the time for a slope of 0. It is much easier than for RSS. It should be clearer in 3 months what is likely to happen.
Bill Illis says:
May 2, 2014 at 3:59 pm
RSS Temp Anom (Oct 2014) = 0.12 * 1.7C JulyPeak) = +0.204C jump from current
Applying this to RSS gives 0.418 for RSS in October which is well below the 1998 average of 0.550.
However applying this to Hadcrut4 gives 0.745 in October which is well above the 2010 average of 0.547. (Although it is below the all time individual monthly record of 0.829 in January 2007.)
The supaare nino is a figment of the alarmist imagination. If they were anywhere short of blind faith brain-dead they would be arguing that since there has been no significant DECLINE in temperature halfway through the PDO phase, that this may be the measure of human influence. That would be an interesting argument and we obviously have to make it for them.
Here is what happened the last PDO cold/nina phase from cerca 1945 to 1976:
http://wp.me/a1uHC3-ip
We are at the 1962 analogue of that phase. Here is what happened:
1958 -0.12 1958-59 N
1959 -0.18 1959-60 N
1960 0.27 1960-61 N
1961 -0.12 1961-62 N
1962 0.38 1962-63 N
1963 -0.92 1963-64 EN
1964 0.87 1964-65 LN
The years are obvious, the numbers are SOI (Southern Ocean/Oscillation Index, of atmospheric pressure), the designations are N=nada, EN=…yeah.
For perspective, a strong El Niño in the SOI world is considered less than -1 so the 1936-4 barely fell short. The 1997 Nino was -1.67.
Data is from Kelly Redmon.
You know how I know the whole 2014 super el nino meme is collapsing and not even the true believers believe it anymore? They’re here trolling so hard. The natives growing tired of big time predictions that fizzle out. They’re getting restless. After all, why would there be some super el nino now anyway? It looks to me that it’s just a regular el nino (like 2002). This is just like the other 5 times James Hansen predicted some super el nino. They never happen. They WANT there to be one. There is no evidence there actually is one. April was a big fat zero, nothing happened. This doesn’t happen when you have some super-el nino brewing up. This “monster kelvin wave” has surfaced and it wasn’t so earth shattering. I don’t see how temperature records will be broken.
This is quickly becoming Harold Camping like for the True Believers.
wbrozek says:
May 2, 2014 at 12:05 pm
As I said, I estimated Hadcrut3 for March based on Hadcrut4. Does any one know what is going on with Hadcrut3? I hope they are not discontinuing it since the flat slope is on the verge of reaching Santer’s 17 years.
Of course they are going to stop it. Why on earth would they invent a new, much higher trend system and keep a lower trend system when their beloved santer’s 17 year deadline approaches?
Of course the main point here is that the cheats are longing for a super niño to increase temps and not a massive increase in CO². They know, don’t you Nick, that it’s the oceans that control climate and CO². Come on Nick, say it. Go on you can if you try hard enough.
Matthew R Marler says:
May 2, 2014 at 7:08 pm
Village Idiot: This is the first time I’ve heard talk of a pending “super El Niño”. Where exactly has this been predicted by any of the reputable ENSO forecasters? Or am I getting a whiff of straw men and spin here?
Is it your contention that everyone who has predicted a super El Niño is not a reputable ENSO forecaster? Or do you have some other reason for thinking this is a straw man? There has certainly been lots of “talk” and “writing”.
YES, that would be my contention. The only people who have, in the past, predicted super niños have been the rent seeking members of the crimatology unit.
Frank says: May 2, 2014 at 3:41 pm
JTF’s: The real question is whether skeptics should continue to loudly proclaim that there has been NO STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT WARMING SINCE 19XX.
NOT JUST THE SKEPTICS. Prof Jones of the world renowned, IPCC leading CRU, proclaimed it. Who are you to disbelieve him?
@Matthew R Marler
In case of some kind of “super El-Nino” claim will have to be changed to “Warming stopped in 2010”, but change to “Warming stopped in 2005/2006” is most probable.
Everyday we are bombarded with disreputable, speculative claims from disreputable, self-appointed ‘forecasters’.
Just as Hadcrut3 has been superseded by Hadcrut4, so UAH V5.5 has been superseded by UAH V5.6, and so surely you should use this dataset in your analysis? It shows a negative slope only as far back as August 2008.
However, It does have one or two small inconsistencies in recent months, in that the headlines in Dr. Spencer’s blog (and this one) do not match up with the figures in the dataset. Perhaps that is an indication that not too much quality control has gone into producing it?
For example, the most recent headlines proclaimed that there was no change between February and March (both at 0.17), but if you download the figures you find that February’s anomaly was 0.18
“”…However GISS has the unique distinction of having its January (0.69) and March (0.70) anomaly above its average record of 2010 (0.66). It could even set a record without an El Niño. Would that be what the doctor ordered? WUWT? ☺…”
=====================================================
That is the scariest part of the post, They appear determined to get their record, and ther doomsday headlines, and there damm well better not be any climate change deniers working for them.
If they do this, I am curious as to how great the divergence from RSS will be.
Richard Barraclough says:
May 3, 2014 at 4:49 am
Just as Hadcrut3 has been superseded by Hadcrut4, so UAH V5.5 has been superseded by UAH V5.6, and so surely you should use this dataset in your analysis? It shows a negative slope only as far back as August 2008.
I agree with you. However I am not able to make my own graphs, but rely on WFT. So while I can get the longest period for a slope of 0 for 5.6 on UAH, I cannot show it on graphs. It still uses 5.5. In addition, it uses not only 5.5 for UAH but Hadcrut3 for it combination of 4 data sets for WTI. If we never see Hadcrut3 again, we will never see a new WTI unless they do an update.
Just The Facts (May 2, 2014 at 6:07 pm) states the following
While I’m inclined to agree with this statement I’m not sure it’s totally true.
Mainstream climate scientists estimate that the earth’s mean temperature will increase ~3 degrees per CO2 doubling (high sensitivity). It’s pretty well accepted that doubling CO2 will result in a climate forcing of ~3.7 w/m2. Therefore, the ‘mainstream’ scientists estimate ~0.8 degrees increase per w/m2 forcing.
CO2 is increasing at the rate of 2 ppm per year or about 20 ppm per decade. Current decadal forcings are ~0.27 w/m2 [Myhre et al: 5.35*ln(400/380)]. This should result in a temperature increase of ~0.22 degrees per decade [0.8*0.27].
Basically, then, if all natural factors were neutral we should be experiencing an increase of around 0.2 degrees per decade. It doesn’t seem totally implausible, therefore, that natural variability could offset or negate the CO2 effect for at least a decade and possibly longer. Remember, we’re not necessarily talking about completely removing the warming trend but reducing it so that it becomes NON-significant. The transition from the last solar maximum to minimum could account for a significant fraction of the ‘anti-warming’ effect. Factor in ocean circulation and it’s not hard to see a sufficient reduction in trend.
Of course, there is a ‘flip’ side to this, i.e. if natural factors can reduce the CO2 trend they can also amplify the trend as almost certainly happened between 1975 and 2000. I’m inclined, therefore, to think that the ‘true’ CO2 trend is only about half of the ‘mainstream’ estimate.
We need to be careful, though. Despite all – there has been NO cooling. I also think sceptics should be a bit guarded about relying too heavily on RSS. I suspect RSS has a spurious cooling trend. More (far more) importantly, so does John Christy.