After a one-month pause in the lengthening of the pause, the lengthening pause is lengthening again
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Taking the least-squares linear-regression trend on Remote Sensing Systems’ satellite-based monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature dataset, there has been no global warming – none at all – for 17 years 10 months. This is the longest continuous period without any warming in the global instrumental temperature record since the satellites first watched in 1979. It has endured for more than half the entire satellite temperature record. Yet the lengthening Pause coincides with a continuing, rapid increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
Figure 1. RSS monthly global mean lower-troposphere temperature anomalies (dark blue) and trend (thick bright blue line), September 1996 to June 2014, showing no trend for 17 years 10 months.
The hiatus period of 17 years 10 months, or 214 months, is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a zero trend.
Yet the length of the pause in global warming, significant though it now is, is of less importance than the ever-growing discrepancy between the temperature trends predicted by models and the far less exciting real-world temperature change that has been observed.
The First Assessment Report predicted that global temperature would rise by 1.0 [0.7, 1.5] Cº to 2025, equivalent to 2.8 [1.9, 4.2] Cº per century. The executive summary asked, “How much confidence do we have in our predictions?” IPCC pointed out some uncertainties (clouds, oceans, etc.), but concluded:
“Nevertheless, … we have substantial confidence that models can predict at least the broad-scale features of climate change. … There are similarities between results from the coupled models using simple representations of the ocean and those using more sophisticated descriptions, and our understanding of such differences as do occur gives us some confidence in the results.”
That “substantial confidence” was substantial over-confidence. A quarter-century after 1990, the outturn to date – expressed as the least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the RSS and UAH monthly global mean surface temperature anomalies – is 0.34 Cº, equivalent to just 1.4 Cº/century, or exactly half of the central estimate in IPCC (1990) and well below even the least estimate (Fig. 2).
Figure 2. Near-term projections of warming at a rate equivalent to 2.8 [1.9, 4.2] K/century , made with “substantial confidence” in IPCC (1990), January 1990 to June 2014 (orange region and red trend line), vs. observed anomalies (dark blue) and trend (bright blue) at 1.4 K/century equivalent. Mean of the RSS and UAH monthly satellite lower-troposphere temperature anomalies.
The Pause is a growing embarrassment to those who had told us with “substantial confidence” that the science was settled and the debate over. Nature had other ideas. Though numerous more or less implausible excuses for the Pause are appearing in nervous reviewed journals, the possibility that the Pause is occurring because the computer models are simply wrong about the sensitivity of temperature to manmade greenhouse gases can no longer be dismissed.
Remarkably, even the IPCC’s latest and much reduced near-term global-warming projections are also excessive (Fig. 3).
Figure 3. Predicted temperature change, January 2005 to June 2014, at a rate equivalent to 1.7 [1.0, 2.3] Cº/century (orange zone with thick red best-estimate trend line), compared with the observed anomalies (dark blue) and zero trend (bright blue).
In 1990, the IPCC’s central estimate of near-term warming was higher by two-thirds than it is today. Then it was 2.8 C/century equivalent. Now it is just 1.7 Cº equivalent – and, as Fig. 3 shows, even that is proving to be a substantial exaggeration.
On the RSS satellite data, there has been no global warming statistically distinguishable from zero for more than 26 years. None of the models predicted that, in effect, there would be no global warming for a quarter of a century.
The long Pause may well come to an end by this winter. An el Niño event has begun. The usual suspects have said it will be a record-breaker, but, as yet, there is too little information to say how much temporary warming it will cause. The temperature spikes caused by the el Niños of 1998, 2007, and 2010 are clearly visible in Figs. 1-3.
El Niños occur about every three or four years, though no one is entirely sure what triggers them. They cause a temporary spike in temperature, often followed by a sharp drop during the la Niña phase, as can be seen in 1999, 2008, and 2011-2012, where there was a “double-dip” la Niña.
The ratio of el Niños to la Niñas tends to fall during the 30-year negative or cooling phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the latest of which began in late 2001. So, though the Pause may pause or even shorten for a few months at the turn of the year, it may well resume late in 2015. Either way, it is ever clearer that global warming has not been happening at anything like the rate predicted by the climate models, and is not at all likely to occur even at the much-reduced rate now predicted. There could be as little as 1 Cº global warming this century, not the 3-4 Cº predicted by the IPCC.
Key facts about global temperature
Ø The RSS satellite dataset shows no global warming at all for 214 months from September 1996 to June 2014. That is 50.2% of the entire 426-month satellite record.
Ø The fastest measured centennial warming rate was in Central England from 1663-1762, at 0.9 Cº/century – before the industrial revolution. It was not our fault.
Ø The global warming trend since 1900 is equivalent to 0.8 Cº per century. This is well within natural variability and may not have much to do with us.
Ø The fastest warming trend lasting ten years or more occurred over the 40 years from 1694-1733 in Central England. It was equivalent to 4.3 Cº per century.
Ø Since 1950, when a human influence on global temperature first became theoretically possible, the global warming trend has been equivalent to 1.2 Cº per century.
Ø The fastest warming rate lasting ten years or more since 1950 occurred over the 33 years from 1974 to 2006. It was equivalent to 2.0 Cº per century.
Ø In 1990, the IPCC’s mid-range prediction of the near-term warming trend was equivalent to 2.8 Cº per century, higher by two-thirds than its current prediction.
Ø The global warming trend since 1990, when the IPCC wrote its first report, is equivalent to 1.4 Cº per century – half of what the IPCC had then predicted.
Ø In 2013 the IPCC’s new mid-range prediction of the near-term warming trend was for warming at a rate equivalent to only 1.7 Cº per century. Even that is exaggerated.
Ø Though the IPCC has cut its near-term warming prediction, it has not cut its high-end business as usual centennial warming prediction of 4.8 Cº warming to 2100.
Ø The IPCC’s predicted 4.8 Cº warming by 2100 is more than twice the greatest rate of warming lasting more than ten years that has been measured since 1950.
Ø The IPCC’s 4.8 Cº-by-2100 prediction is almost four times the observed real-world warming trend since we might in theory have begun influencing it in 1950.
Ø Since 1 January 2001, the dawn of the new millennium, the warming trend on the mean of 5 datasets is nil. No warming for 13 years 5 months.
Ø Recent extreme weather cannot be blamed on global warming, because there has not been any global warming. It is as simple as that.
Technical note
Our latest topical graph shows the RSS dataset for the 214 months September 1996 to May 2014 – more than half the 426-months satellite record.
Terrestrial temperatures are measured by thermometers. Thermometers correctly sited in rural areas away from manmade heat sources show warming rates appreciably below those that are published. The satellite datasets are based on measurements made by the most accurate thermometers available – platinum resistance thermometers, which not only measure temperature at various altitudes above the Earth’s surface via microwave sounding units but also constantly calibrate themselves by measuring via spaceward mirrors the known temperature of the cosmic background radiation, which is 1% of the freezing point of water, or just 2.73 degrees above absolute zero. It was by measuring minuscule variations in the cosmic background radiation that the NASA anisotropy probe determined the age of the Universe: 13.82 billion years.
The graph is accurate. The data are lifted monthly straight from the RSS website. A computer algorithm reads them down from the text file, takes their mean and plots them automatically using an advanced routine that automatically adjusts the aspect ratio of the data window at both axes so as to show the data at maximum scale, for clarity.
The latest monthly data point is visually inspected to ensure that it has been correctly positioned. The light blue trend line plotted across the dark blue spline-curve that shows the actual data is determined by the method of least-squares linear regression, which calculates the y-intercept and slope of the line via two well-established and functionally identical equations that are compared with one another to ensure no discrepancy between them. The IPCC and most other agencies use linear regression to determine global temperature trends. Professor Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia recommends it in one of the Climategate emails. The method is appropriate because global temperature records exhibit little auto-regression.
Dr Stephen Farish, Professor of Epidemiological Statistics at the University of Melbourne, kindly verified the reliability of the algorithm that determines the trend on the graph and the correlation coefficient, which is very low because, though the data are highly variable, the trend is flat.
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Steven Mosher says:
July 3, 2014 at 11:56 am
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And a thermometer does not measure temperature. It measures expansion, or a change in resistence. A themometer, on your argument is a model.
As regards “adjusted and fiddled” we all have our views on this with regard to the land based thermometer record. Throwing stones and greenhouses comes to mind.
There may be issues with the RSS data, such as orbital decay and sensor degradation, but the issues that you seek to raise are weak.
“After a one-month pause in the lengthening of the pause, the lengthening pause is lengthening again”
—
Can someone explain why the pause lengthened again when the graph shows June temperature anomalies higher than May’s? I see no downturn at the end of the graph in figure 1. Instead it goes higher. Is the June downturn too small to show up on the graph?
Steven Mosher:
Your post at July 3, 2014 at 11:56 am is pure sophistry.
Every temperature measurement device uses a model.
For example, a mercury in glass thermometer uses a model of the differential thermal expansion of mercury and glass to indicate temperature.
The RSS temperature measurements use a model of microwave data to indicate temperature.
A mercury in glass thermometer and the RSS method both indicate temperatures.
And while discussing sophistry from you, I remind you of your claim on the other thread that your system makes “predictions” and not “measurements”. It seems you have missed my request for clarification of that.
Richard
MikeUK says:
July 3, 2014 at 9:31 am
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Subject to what Bob mifght say, El Nions do not return ‘heat’ from the depths of the ocean. My understanding is that it is La Nina which returns ‘heat’ from the depths of the ocean. But the big problem for the warmest is that the deep ocean is cold so when it surfaces, it cools the SST, not warms it (we see SST cooling in La nina conditions).
It does not matter whether the deep ocean is about 2 deg C or about 2.5degC, if the deep ocean returns to the surface, it is always substantially cooler than the surface and hence always cools the surface.
If ‘global warming’ has now found its way to the depths of the deep ocean, the scare is over. The heat has been diluted and disappated and should deep ocean circulation speed up (thereby bring to the surface waters from the deep quicker than usual) thsi will cool the planet since deep ocean waters are always much cooler than surface water.
PS. if the deep ocean is warming it is not warming by 0.5 degC, merely by thousands of a degree. My figures are loose for the purpose of illustration.
Steven Mosher says:
July 3, 2014 at 11:56 am
Thanks, Steven, always good to hear from you. Unfortunately, by that same metric, the Berkeley Earth data is not temperatures either. Instead, many of the stations measure the voltage across a thermistor. Then a resistance-temperature transfer model is applied to the data to create an estimate of the temperature.
And by that definition, a mercury thermometer reading is not data either, because what we are measuring is the expansion of mercury. Then a expansion-temperature transfer model is applied to the data to create an estimate of the temperature.
So by your metric, the Berkeley Earth station data is not data, it’s the output of a model.
And by that definition, you’re right … but so what? Hasn’t stopped you from using it.
And here in the real world, commonly, observational results such as thermometer readings are usually called “data”, despite the fact that (as you correctly point out) they are just model results from an expansion-temperature transfer model.
Yes, and by that metric, the Berkeley Earth data is a complilation of various platforms (buoys, thermistors, thermometers) stitched together by making various adjustments. Its not raw data, its adjusted and fiddled with. No errors of prediction due to adjustment are propogated in this process of adjustment, fiddling, tweaking.
Again … so what? That sure hasn’t stopped you Berkeley Earth guys from calculating linear trends from your results.
So I suppose if I model the change in height of a child, the trend of the height (upwards) is not in the data, it’s in the model?
If by that you mean that the uncertainty is larger at the ends of the dataset, I agree. If not, I don’t understand what you mean.
While those are all valid points, and I find no fault with them, they apply to the Berkeley Earth dataset, from which you and your compatriots have happily provided us with linear trends without bothering with any of these nit-picking objections …
Which makes me think that your objections are not to the method, but to the implications of the results.
All the best,
w.
[ Snip – if you are going to criticize the man, and least have to modicum of integrity to use his name correctly, especially when you hide behind a fake name, otherwise kindly STFU.
You can resubmit your comments once you remove all the juvenile taunts and purposeful misspellings. – Feel free to be as upset as you wish. – Anthony ]
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Steven Mosher: “…… except they haven’t gone flat.”
==========================================
Steven, if temperatures haven’t gone flat, how un-flat are they?
Lots of folk comment here who claim to know more than I do about the science and statistics. But as an amateur naturalist, I can certainly tell you that throughout my lifetime, the birds, moths, and other animals in UK are responding as we would expect to climate change. Temperature sensitive species are moving higher and further north at a steady rate. New species are coming from the continent to colonise our shores, birds that used to fly south for the winter stay here in increasing numbers. The geese and swans that used to migrate here from Northern Europe to escape the harsh winter are increasingly staying on the continent.
These are observable and measurable FACTS and repeat across the globe, which is why almost no one involved in conservation doubts climate change is occurring.
The article also says “The fastest measured centennial warming rate was in Central England from 1663-1762, at 0.9 Cº/century – before the industrial revolution. It was not our fault.”
Assuming the first statements are true, the conclusion certainly isn’t. From the thirteenth century England was being deforested at a tremendous rate. It reached its lowest level of forested cover around the period you quote. While larger European countries retained more forest or longer, deforestation was probably responsible for a faster climate change than the industrial revolution, but for many of the same reason. – carbon being released into the atmosphere on a large scale. You can’t say ‘it was not our fault’.
What I do believe is that the oscillations between ice ages (large and small or ‘long’ and ‘short’ cycles) and warmer periods have taken place for as long as we can establish. If global warming acts against the cooling period that should be happening around now, it might have some beneficial results as far as some of mankind is concerned. But I wouldn’t count on it.
I know which one i would believe Mosher.
And it wouldn’t be land based thermometers, or the pile of tripe you call GISS.
@Paul Seligman says: July 3, 2014 at 1:56 pm
Do you expect the natural world to make all the adaptations to a warmer world immediately, or do you expect some lag-time between the climate changes and the adaptations? Your thread leads me to conclude that as soon as the warming stopped (let’s suppose it has stopped), the natural world would be in stasis until the warming restarted?
Paul Seligman:
In your post at July 3, 2014 at 1:56 pm you say
No sensible person doubts that climate change is occurring.
It always has and it always will, everywhere.
However, some who scaremonger about anthropogenic (i.e. man-made) global warming (AGW) pretend that human activities (e.g. anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions) have discernible effect on global climate. There is no evidence for that; none, zilch, nada.
Richard
More of Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley’s monthly meretricious mallard.
A few observations:
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley says the planet will continue to warm, yet thinks governments should be spending money to protect populations against a cooling planet.
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, of course, prefers RSS because it gives him the optimum “Cerasis Periodum” to perform his Mallard trick, but claims himself that: “..it is possible that over the past couple of decades RSS may be the most accurate of the datasets because it alone correctly represents the relative magnitudes of the Great el Niño, which was severe enough to cause widespread coral bleaching, and of the subsequent el Niños, which were not. I suspect, but have not yet verified, that the other datasets apply self-correcting dampers to their data to reduce the magnitude of sudden anomalies such as that of 1998.”
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley here demonstrates the truth of what he says of himself: I have “absolutely no scientific qualifications.” Roy Spencer: “the main reason why ENSO is stronger in satellite data than in surface data is the due to the heat lost by the surface through evaporation (which cools the surface) is dumped in the middle and upper troposphere by the resulting condensation of that water vapor into precipitation.”
Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley is comparing apples with oranges when he compares short-term tropospheric temperatures with IPCC graphs. Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley : “We are not talking of either surface temperatures or any particular tropospheric temperatures. We are talking of changes in surface temperatures. Read the definition of climate sensitivity in any IPCC report.”
On a more positive note, Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley’s favorite RSS apparently isn’t going to look like an outlier for much longer. Spencer is going to “adjust” UAH figures: “As we finish up our new Version 6 of the UAH dataset, it looks like our anomalies in the 2nd half of the satellite record will be slightly cooler, somewhat more like the RSS dataset.”
More good news! While the entire Climate Science Community doesn’t “give a central estimate of climate sensitivity – the key quantity in the entire debate about the climate” Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley (never backward about coming forward) has done just that, and provided a new Mallard to replace his old dead duck: “Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley’s” Climate Sensitivity Sophistry. With just one weekends ‘research’ Christopher Monckton, 3rd Viscount Monckton of Brenchley’s “spectacular” results predict: “That gives my best estimate of expected anthropogenic global warming from now to 2100: three-quarters of a Celsius degree”…. “which may indeed be on the high side” and “is flanked by large error bars.”
The year 2100 seems a reassuringly distant date to pick, but the robustness (or otherwise) of this prediction should be apparent long before then. Now, I’m no mathematician, but to me that prediction looks like an average of about 0.1 °C increase in global surface temperature per decade, or 0.01 °C increase in global surface temperature per year. That’s something we can keep tabs on – and Sir Christopher has promised to do this small thing for us, Villagers, if his palm is crossed with silver (see the tail end comments here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/09/sensitivity-schmensitivity/ )
Funny how Americans go weak at the knees around British aristocracy
A simple El Nino explanation:
1) Two or Three years after a Solar Cycle Peak, the Pacific has accumulated enough energy to suddenly raise the Equator water temperatures by a small amount. This is the step function that you see in Bob Tisdale’s graphs.
2) The accumulated energy from the Pacific then slowly moves to the Poles where it is radiated into space.
3) A small Solar Cycle, like [24], does not have enough energy to raise the Pacific water temperature -> the energy [warmth] is transferred to the Poles as fast or faster than it can be accumulated.
4) Expect La Nina conditions for the next 10 years. That is when the next Solar Cycle will start [hopefully].
more soylent green! says:
July 3, 2014 at 2:15 pm
…
I think I get your point and it is clearly correct that there will be a lag while organisms adapt (or head towards extinction). But if a major mechanism is evolution, it occurs much faster in invertebrates than birds or mammals. Fastest in organisms that have many large broods in a year (or reproduce continuously like microbes).
Yet these small animals are, for example, reproducing earlier each year e.g. birds are struggling to adjust their nesting time so that the chicks don’t miss out the ever earlier caterpillar peak hatchings. Seems unlikely that that trend would continue for 17 years after an alleged pause, but I have no scientific basis to tell you what the lag times would/should be.
Paul Seligman says:
July 3, 2014 at 2:37 pm
Paul, thanks for your comment. As much as I enjoy personal accounts, they have a big limitation.
For example, you make the claim (without providing evidence) that e.g. over the last ~ 17 years, birds are “reproducing earlier each year”.
You know how a picture is worth a thousand words? One of the things that I’ve learned in this game is the following:
A fact is worth a thousand anecdotes.
If you have evidence of such changes as you claim, not since 1950 but in the last 17 years, now would be the time to produce them … or else I fear that your contribution, though interesting, is going to be discounted.
For example, you say:
So from that, we see that your implied claim is that the recent winters in Northern Europe haven’t been very harsh … perhaps you should take a look at the actual records.
And a quick search finds e.g. this, from the RSPB:
So instead of these geese being less common as you state, in fact the winter of 2009-2010 showed RECORD NUMBERS of geese.
However, we don’t even know if this is the kind of geese you are talking about … as is usual with anecdotes, it is woefully lacking in details.
You see why one fact is worth a thousand anecdotes?
Best regards,
w.
davidmhoffer says:
If you want nice pretty graphs, GMT, Generic Mapping Tool is the toolset you want to use.
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Paul Seligman says: ” ….. From the thirteenth century England was being deforested at a tremendous rate. It reached its lowest level of forested cover around the period you quote. While larger European countries retained more forest or longer, deforestation was probably responsible for a faster climate change than the industrial revolution, but for many of the same reason. – carbon being released into the atmosphere on a large scale. You can’t say ‘it was not our fault’.
===================================
CO2 is a well mixed gas in the atmosphere. It is not going to hang around Central England forever once it is released. Same holds for everywhere else on earth.
Can you cite estimates for how much carbon humans were emitting into the atmosphere worldwide in the thirteenth century?
And what is your stated time frame for “the industrial revolution”?
For the time frame you state, how do the estimated emission figures from the thirteenth century compare with the estimated figures for “the industrial revolution” as you define it?
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley says
“The long Pause may well come to an end by this winter. An el Niño event has begun. The usual suspects have said it will be a record-breaker, but, as yet, there is too little information to say how much temporary warming it will cause. The temperature spikes caused by the el Niños of 1998, 2007, and 2010 are clearly visible in Figs. 1-3.”
And in saying that torpedoes his own position. If he is happy to use the starting point for his pause in 1997, just prior to a massive El Nino, he cannot complain if a large El Nino develops in the coming months, raising temperatures that then ruins his pause. And if it does, it will not just be “temporary warming”. Clearly without the 1998 El Nino, his graph would not be flat, it would show positive warming. Similarly if a new El Nino produces a positive warming trend over his 1997 to present time frame, using the same analysis, then he has to accept it. Unless of course he then chooses a different time frame to show a flat trend.
Christopher Monckton of Brenchley also repeats some lines he has used before:
“The fastest warming trend lasting ten years or more occurred over the 40 years from 1694-1733 in Central England. It was equivalent to 4.3 Cº per century.”
He chooses one of the coldest decades in England for centuries as a start point. He also then extrapolates from a 40 year period to a century trend to make the warming look very large. Very dodgy.
“Recent extreme weather cannot be blamed on global warming, because there has not been any global warming. It is as simple as that.”
Yes there has – warming has been 0.6 C in the last 40 years, 1.0 C over the last century (NASA GISS LOTI). And as he well knows it is difficult to pin down any one event to global warming. But in any case, temperature and extreme weather are 2 measures of many. If there has been no global warming, why is sea level rising and why are most of the world’s glaciers retreating ?
We agree there is lag time and organisms either adapt or die. But I’m not sure what evolution, that is, a change in a species’ DNA that is passed on to the next generation, has to do with it. I don’t believe you’re saying the geese have have evolved, but perhaps you mean their behavior has evolved? Let’s assume your previous statements are factually correct.
george e. smith says:
July 3, 2014 at 11:40 am
If we assume that prior to the starting date of the pause, the global temperature anomaly (a la RSS), was rising out of the coldrums, then it would seem to me that the recent RSS, only has to fall from last month, and at least one month extension is guaranteed; maybe more.
But the graphs, don’t seem to do either of those things.
So evidently your trend algorithm, is not as simple as that.
Louis says:
July 3, 2014 at 12:23 pm
“After a one-month pause in the lengthening of the pause, the lengthening pause is lengthening again”
—
Can someone explain why the pause lengthened again when the graph shows June temperature anomalies higher than May’s?
You are both making an excellent observation and the same answer could more or less be given for both. For George, it is not whether the anomaly goes up or down that is important, but how the new anomaly compares to the zero line. The zero line is at 0.235. So any value above 0.235 could decrease the time and any value below 0.235 could increase the time of the pause. So it would theoretically have been possible for the new anomaly to have gone down from 0.286 in May to 0.250 in June and the time could have been decreased. But that did not happen due to the value of the slope at the end of May. It was 2.5 x 10^-4 at the end of May. But due to the rise to 0.345 in June, it turns out the slope is still negative, but just a bit less negative at -7.4 x 10^-5.
Now we come to the excellent question by Louis. We are just counting a whole number of months here. The addition was NOT 30 days. I could figure it out exactly, but there is little point to it. But let us for argument sake say the slope last month was negative from August 8. But assume that this month it is negative from August 28. In both of these cases, the slope is negative from September 1 and positive from August 1 according to WFT. But last month went to the end of May and this month goes to the end of June, so a month is added.
Make sense?
“RSS shows no global warming for 17 years 10 months”
Can I propose a new unit of measurement – the Santer
RSS shows no global warming for 1.04 Santers,
So many questions…. but i do know about ornithology. I accept in the space and time available, my statements were anecdotal, but I meet at conferences etc many others who see similar things in their countries etc. These only support the observable fact that currently the earth is warming. I agree it doesn’t tell us the cause or what might happen next. I don;’t have a command of that level of scientific modelling.
@Willis Eschenbach says:July 3, 2014 at 3:12 pm
Geese and swans: between svalbard and Scotland there is open water so really no opportunity for the ones you mention to change their habits and make a shorter journey.. I was thinking of the Bewicks swans and the White-fronted geese that used to come in thousands to Slimbridge in England from Eastern Europe across the European landmass,, but now make shorter journeys ans top e.g. in Holland and other countries that now have less ice and snow in winter.. Continental numbers up, UK numbers down to the hundreds. Known individual birds (ringed/banded etc) proven to be stopping off the other side of the North Sea. Fact not anecdote.
A different story applies to the Greenland white-fronted goose population where the entire population is in severe decline though cause is not established. it could be heavier snow fall affecting breeding and that is entirely consistent with warming where we may expect much more snow in certain areas where it was previously too cold for snow for much of the winter
@more soylent green! says: July 3, 2014 at 3:33 pm
Youa sk “What has evolution to do with it?” Adaptive behaviour may be at the level of the individual especially if living for more than one annual cycle. Or just opportunistic. The Bewick’s swan that stops in Holland or Denmark instead of continuing to England just feels no need to move on because severe winter doesn’t catch up with him or her.
But the time of egg laying in some bird species probably adapts through evolution. The caterpillars on which the chicks depnd may hatch when temperatures reach a certain level for a certain period. The birds’ nesting timing may be triggered more by daylight length, which does not change. But imagine a population where the peak laying period is on day 90 of the year which used to be when the most caterpillars were around. Around this average will be smaller numbers of the same species in similar locations who nest and lay earlier and later. .This statistical ‘distribution’ of laying dates is used by evolution. The birds that are laying earlier start doing much better because year after year they are getting better food supply, more of their young are surviving. The birds that lay at the average time and later, find their chicks starving and fewer surviving. The chicks that survive inherit the tendency to lay earlier, say at day 80. Their numbers increase relative to the later nesters. As such small birds typically only live for 2 years, the population can adapt through inherited characteristics to the change if it doesn’t happen too fast or with too many other adverse factors at the same time. Natural selection aka evolutionary mechanism in action, which could conceivably in time led to speciation..I can’t give yiu mathematical formulae on this, but as a theory that matches what we (ornithologists across Europe) are seeing, does it make sense?
Re: Werner Brozek. I don’t really understand what you mean!? The skepticalscience.com reference you make is from mid-1989 (~25years) till now. However, I only looked at the past 5, 10, 20, since the 1998 peak and all data. Hence, can’t compare those different time frames. I based my conclusion on my analysis only.
The source of my data is obviously the RSS data (ftp://ftp.remss.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt)
and the results of my data analysis can be found here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9fq0vknrqzb1wdc/RSS%20data%20statistics.pdf?m=
On the last page of that document, i included a quick analyzes of the mid-1989 to mid-2014 data you referred too, as well as the statistics. This shows that the skepticalscience.com analyzes is indeed correct. It is interesting to note though that adding going back only an additional 5 years in time, can change the slope so much (past 25 vs pas 20 years). Maybe that’s what you meant!?
There may be some minor limitation with RSS data, but they are more representative of global temperature than land-based data since it includes both the oceans (70%) and land areas (30%) of the planet. As CO2 levels are increasing, more or less in a linear manner, there is nil correlation mathematically speaking, so why do we blame CO2 as a culprit when the proposed carbon taxes will achieve nothing anyhow?
david dohbro says:
July 3, 2014 at 4:14 pm
Re: Werner Brozek. I don’t really understand what you mean!?
This shows that the skepticalscience.com analyzes is indeed correct.
So you agree with skepticalscience.
It says warming is NOT statistically significant for 25 years since 0.117 ±0.120 °C/decade (2σ) since June 1989.
It also says warming is NOT statistically significant for 20 years since 0.039 ±0.160 °C/decade (2σ) since June 1994.
But you said: “ We can therefore state that RSS’ measured global temperatures (anomalies) have :
3) have statistically significantly increased over the past 20yrs”
So you and skepticalscience cannot both be right since you are contradicting it. For RSS, the warming is NOT statistically significant over the last 20 years.