Jason Samenow sends word of a new article in WaPo that does some of the same sort of surface temperature analyses we see right here on WUWT. Seeing what a good job Matt Rogers did in his defense against claims of cherry picking, statistical significance woes, and Trenberthian masking, it made me wonder; “How long before he gets called into the chief editors office at WaPo and reassigned to be the correspondent covering Botswana?”
Global warming of the Earth’s surface has decelerated – Matt Rogers, Capital Weather Gang
The recently-released National Climate Assessment (NCA) from the U.S. government offers considerable cause for concern for climate calamity, but downplays the decelerating trend in global surface temperature in the 2000s, which I document here.
Many climate scientists are currently working to figure out what is causing the slowdown, because if it continues, it would call into question the legitimacy of many climate model projections (and inversely offer some good news for our planet).
An article in Nature earlier this year discusses some of the possible causes for what some have to referred to as the global warming “pause” or “hiatus”. Explanations include the quietest solar cycle in over a hundred years, increases in Asian pollution, more effective oceanic heat absorption, and even volcanic activity. Indeed, a peer-reviewed paper published in February estimates that about 15 percent of the pause can be attributed to increased volcanism. But some have questioned whether the pause or deceleration is even occurring at all.
Verifying the pause
You can see the pause (or deceleration in warming) yourself by simply grabbing the freely available data from NASA and NOAA. For the chart below, I took the annual global temperature difference from average (or anomaly) and calculated the change from the prior year. So the very first data point is the change from 2000 to 2001 and so on. One sign of data validation is that the trends are the same on both datasets. Both of these government sources show a slight downward slope since 2000:
You can see some of the spikes associated with El Niño events (when heat was released into the atmosphere from warmer than normal ocean temperatures in the tropical Pacific) that occurred in 2004-05 and 2009-10. But the warm changes have generally been decreasing while cool changes have grown.
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Read it all here, well worth your time – Anthony
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The way I see the graph of a 12-year linear trend of warming rate, the linear trend shows the warming rate being slow and decreasing, but not changing from positive to negative until about the beginning of 2011 – about 2.5 years before the graph ends.
It seem like we are just one El Niño away from disaster though.
Eliza says:
June 20, 2014 at 3:38 pm
The increase in Antarctica ice trend is highly significant…….
=====
Yes it is…..if that was 60N….it would cover half of Canada, half of Russia, all of Alaska, Norway, Sweden, and Finland….in a permanent white albedo
Matt Rogers was said to say:
“Explanations include the quietest solar cycle in over a hundred years, increases in Asian pollution, more effective oceanic heat absorption, and even volcanic activity.”
I think there is an elephant in the room – multidecadal oceanic cycles. I suspect AMO is linked to some Pacific item that causes periodic imbalances of El Nino and La Nina. All of the major surface temperature datasets show a periodic component with a period around 60-65 years. The one that shows it the most is the one with greatest correlation with the major datasets of lower troposphere temperature obtained by using satellites. That surface dataset is HadCRUT3, which is not the latest version of HadCRUT.
It is easy to see in HadCRUT3 that about half the warming from the early 1970s to the 2004-2005 peak of smoothed HadCRUT3 is indicated to be from a natural cycle. Its downswing after 2004-2005 has been sufficient to keep increase of CO2 from causing further warming, and has a fair chance of continuing to do so until around 2030-2035. With CO2 growth unlikely to accelerate on a log scale (which IPCC and the skeptical Dr. Roy Spencer can agree is appropriate), the ~2035-2075 stretch is unlikely to have much more warming than the stretch from the early 1970s to 2004-2005.
Shortly after Climate Gate and Copenhagen in early 2010, in the comments section for one of WUWT ‘s posts, one of the commenters posted a brief comment along the lines that he had read a very recent paper on the media which indicated that it took the MSM about seven [ 7 ] years to switch from a hard held position to rejecting that position and beginning to adopt a new position on a subject.
I have no idea on who the commenter was or where to now find that comment but if he / she are still around maybe they could again point to that relevant research paper on the media.
And it makes good sense as by the time seven years have passed, editors and sub editors will mostly have changed. Reporters and opinion writers will have moved on or retired.
All in all there will be a whole new bunch of eager beaver media types all intent on making their own big impression on the world
So why try and just follow the dictates of those old fogies of the past ?
So if we take the disillusionment with climate science that started with the revealing Climate Gate fiasco of lies, corruption of scientific principles and the bullying of any who dared to even question the arrogant upper crust CRU high priests of the global warming climate science, a science that was further weakened by the Copenhagen political debacle. all of which occurred in the closing months of 2009, then that seven years for the MSM to change to a diametrically opposed course of starting to condemn the increasingly non scientific, faith driven belief in catastrophic climate change / global warming is well under way as more and more MSM articles and opinion pieces cast doubt and serious aspersions on climate science and scientists and their honesty re their climate models and climate beliefs.
The seven years will be up by the end of 2017 and it seems we are well on course for a full scale MSM condemning of the whole immensely societal disrupting, economically suicidal policies of promoting the non hydro renewable energies such as wind and solar and the blatant lies and deliberately cultivated agenda driven and grossly corrupted assumptions of the IPCC and the so called environmental and green promoters of a “back to the caves “future for mankind.
James Strom says:
June 20, 2014 at 9:52 am
” There was a uniformity in the corrections, and to that extent the theory was rather elegant, even if wrong. ”
Actually, the Ptolemaic system was NOT wrong. In effect, they were applying Fourier analysis to plot the orbits of the planets. The Ptolemaic system was not superseded because it was wrong, but because the Copernican system was much easier to work with.
The comments have the usual propagandists out, citing (Non)Skeptical (Non)Science, and claiming the missing heat is going into the oceans, never mind that hundredths of degrees of increased ocean temps can, at most, raise land temperatures by… wait for it… hundredths of a degree.
I am really tired of morons like that ruling the roost and panicking people over absolutely nothing. I would welcome a new ice age if it would only shut these idiots up.
“James Strom says:
June 20, 2014 at 9:52 am
Commenters here often, rightly, mention the old practice of adding an epicycle to explain some divergence of observation from theory. The use of ad hoc hypotheses is clearly a weakness in a scientific theory, but it’s not always the fatal error that we sometimes think. The Ptolemaic theory had a kind of elegance to it, in that if a planet were found to misbehave, a correction could be added in the form of an additional circular or spherical motion …”
Indeed, it was so elegant that Copernicus could only re-invent that wheel 13 centuries later, although he expressed it all mathematically, adding to the elegance. But in fact, calculations of future states based on his work were no more accurate than those based on the Ptolemaic system. And since placing of the sun at the center of the solar system – though not of the universe itself, as he contended – was actually just the next logical step following on from the groundwork laid down by the Medieval Scholastics, he didn’t really add much. The real revolutionary nature of Copernicanism is not found in the science.
Aphan said in part June 20, 2014 at 10:13 am:
“I have a question along those lines for anyone here with the knowledge/skills to give me the answer. Supposing that the inner workings of the core of our planet are at least basically understood, how much C02 and other gases are generated by the “burning fossil fuels” in there…and how much of that pent up gas would HAVE to “vent” to the surface in order to keep the planet from expanding…”
There is somewhat of a determination of the global carbon budget:
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/global-carbon-budget-2010
The Tyndall folks seem to me to think we have a big problem, but that appears to me based on a popular assumption of feedbacks being positive to an unrealistic degree. The carbon budget data as a whole appears to me as reasonable, the atmospheric CO2 content is very well and accurately known since 1959 even when year-to-year change has a smaller sigma than the total, and fossil fuel consumption is well known by those who study the fossil fuel industries.
Volcanism and the like has much smaller numbers compared to the sources mentioned by the Tyndall folks. As for a quick-to-find cite:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/volcanoes-and-global-warming.htm
The source may be biased, but in this cite they cite where they get their information from. Again, any bias they have appears to me as mainly in their belief of how much effect a change of CO2 has, based on debatable feedbacks to global temperature from a change of CO2. Please remember that 44 tonnes of CO2 has 12 tonnes of carbon, for comparison to items in the carbon budget cite above.
Donald,
Thank you for attempting, but I’m not asking about the “carbon budget” as far as CO2 in the atmosphere or out-gassing from known surface volcanoes (which are embarrassingly unsampled/measured in any real way-it’s all estimates).
I’m asking about the physics of the PLANET’s CORE. Molten/rock/gasses/pressure stuff. SURELY there is some kind of mathematical formula out there that allows scientists to estimate the amount of gases that would HAVE to be venting out of the planet (either on the land surface or from the sea floor) in order for the temperature and pressures at the Earth’s core to remain stable. Basic physics would demand that with that a certain amount of pressure relief MUST be happening.
Does anyone here know of that formula and what it would tell us about the amount of venting that HAS to be taken place per certain volume/space/specifications etc?
In October, 2011, Pielke, Sr. reviewed an article in Greenwire which examined the question
‘Why, despite steadily accumulating greenhouse gases, did the rise of the planet’s temperature stall for the past decade?”
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/candid-comments-from-global-warming-climate-scientists/
At that time, the pause had been known by all open-minded scientists for sometime, but in that article a dozen climate scientists conceded the obvious, and suggested possible answers. The Washington Post is slow to climb the learning curve, but it is a start.
Well, kudos to Matt; he stands in there and answers comments, and presents himself well. Unlike a few other “experts” who pop in and out, and favor us with something that appears on the screen as verbal diarrhea.
Pamela Gray: “Regarding how many data points here’s my two cents worth downed with a cold beer and warm bread: …”
Mark Stoval (@MarkStoval) says: “One hopes that is vegan bread and Irish beer. :-)”
Gluten-free, of course.
The poor guy is toast. I hope he has a current CV in hand and some savings in the bank. Such articles in the MSM usually lead to the street.
“Decelerate,’ in this case, is a euphemism for comes to a screeching halt, since the trend is down (cooling.) But other than that slight spin, for this to appear in the WaPoo is significant. I hope the trend of scientific assessment instead of journalist blather continues.
Why do they add fossil fuels and cement together in the Tyndall budget? Which one is larger?
@Eliza and Latitude:
Yes, I have also been following the positive, pronounced Antarctic sea ice anomaly with increased interest. I also followed Lake Michigan ice closely last winter and believe they manipulated/obfuscated the data there. Along with the solar forcing decreasing for the foreseeable future, these are all anomalies worth noting as they are not one cold front or warm front – but extended cold periods/anomalies.
Pamela Gray says:
June 20, 2014 at 2:34 pm
‘Cuz I’m just a whipersnaper (a cough-hack young and inexperienced person ..)’
We used to have a PM who was a 30-something young and naive lawyer; so anything is possible.
Richard Barraclough says:
June 20, 2014 at 3:24 pm
Why so scathing about Botswana? Have you been there? It’s a fantastic country
I agree. I’ve been to a few African countries and Botswana is one of the best.
Thanks, Anthony. As fine a blog as WUWT is on a daily basis, on occasion you post a story that can only be categorized as “historic.” Your first post about Climategate was certainly one of those, and this one might also be historic in the sense that the mainstream media will start to report more honestly. Well done.
The Post is labeling this an opinion (Viewpoint) piece, and providing links to “alternative views.” They’re not acknowledging facts, they’re implicitly denying them.
Anthony, you write: “it would call into question the legitimacy of many climate model projections (and inversely offer some good news for our planet).”
I don’t agree. A warmer climate is generally good for the planet.
Alan McIntire at 5:22 pm
Agree. The only reason the Prolemaic system was wrong, was the assumption of circular orbits. For the remainder the Ptolemaic and Copernican system are equivalent because all motion is relative. The only difference is algebra. If the Prolemaic system with elliptical orbits were wrong, there would be absolute rest, which violates relativity.
Donald L. Klipstein says, June 20, 2014 at 5:15 pm:
“I think there is an elephant in the room – multidecadal oceanic cycles. I suspect AMO is linked to some Pacific item that causes periodic imbalances of El Nino and La Nina. All of the major surface temperature datasets show a periodic component with a period around 60-65 years. The one that shows it the most is the one with greatest correlation with the major datasets of lower troposphere temperature obtained by using satellites. That surface dataset is HadCRUT3, which is not the latest version of HadCRUT.”
Indeed.
“It is easy to see in HadCRUT3 that about half the warming from the early 1970s to the 2004-2005 peak of smoothed HadCRUT3 is indicated to be from a natural cycle. Its downswing after 2004-2005 has been sufficient to keep increase of CO2 from causing further warming, and has a fair chance of continuing to do so until around 2030-2035.”
I don’t get you lukewarmists. How, from your first (and very sensible, reality(data)-oriented) paragraph above, did you then arrive at the conclusion that ‘about half the warming from the early 1970s to the 2004-2005 peak of smoothed HadCRUT3 is indicated to be from a natural cycle’? Assuming you mean that CO2 caused the other half.
I have to ask you, then, where in the real-world data do you see the increase in CO2 having ANY (+0.0000000K) effect on global temperatures at all? Where? How? Can you point me to that +CO2 >> +T link? Where is it empirically shown to be real and working, in the actual earth system, not in a theoretical model world?
Or are you simply going the same way around the hypothesis-testing part of the scientific method as the ‘real’ warmists do and just KNOW a priori that more CO2 in the open atmosphere, all things NOT being equal, still somehow MUST make the surface warmer, because it … just has to?
Should be “… arrive at the conclusion that ONLY ‘about half the warming …”
After a cold winter and a very cold spring we have a cold summer here in the mountains of upstate NY. It is still snowing in Wyoming, for example. This isn’t ‘global warming slowing down’ something nasty is going on and this reminds me sharply of the mid 1970’s which was bitter cold back then, too.
Claiming that ‘warming is slowing down’ is hogwash.