El Niño has not yet shortened the Great Pause
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
Remarkably, the El Niño warming of this year has not yet shortened the Great Pause, which, like last month, stands at 17 years 10 months with no global warming at all.
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 214 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 about half the satellite temperature record. Yet the Great 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), October 1996 to July 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 Great 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 three terrestrial surface-temperature anomalies (GISS, HadCRUT4, and NCDC).
The Great 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 more than two dozen 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 –0.1 Cº/century real-world trend (bright blue), taken as the average of the three terrestrial surface temperature anomaly datasets (GISS, HadCRUT4, and NCDC) and the two satellite lower-troposphere temperature anomaly datasets (RSS and UAH).
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 Great Pause may well come to an end by this winter. An el Niño event is underway and would normally peak during the northern-hemisphere winter. There is too little information to say how much temporary warming it will cause, but a new wave of warm water has emerged in recent days, so one should not yet write off this el Niño as a non-event. The temperature spikes caused by the el Niños of 1998, 2007, and 2010 are clearly visible in Figs. 1-3.
Why RSS? Well, it’s the first of the five datasets to report each month, so it’s topical. Also, it correctly shows how much bigger the el Niño of 1998 was than any of its successors. It was the only event of its kind in 150 years that caused widespread coral bleaching. Other temperature records do not distinguish so clearly between the 1998 el Niño and the rest. It is carefully calibrated to correct for orbital degradation in the old NOAA satellite on which it relies. The other satellite record, UAH, which has been running rather hotter than the rest, is about to be revised in the direction of showing less warming. As for the terrestrial records, read the Climategate emails and weep.
Updated key facts about global temperature
Ø The RSS satellite dataset shows no global warming at all for 214 months from October 1996 to July 2014. That is more than half the 427-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 below 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 near-term warming was equivalent to 2.8 Cº per century, higher by two-thirds than its current prediction of 1.7 Cº/century.
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 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 well over 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 March 2001, the warming trend on the mean of the 5 global-temperature datasets is nil. No warming for 13 years 4 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 October 1996 to July 2014 – more than half the 427-month 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.
Fellow Readers,
A number of my previous comments were redacted due to my having inadvertently breached the site rules, and I apologise to all concerned for the contretemps which then ensued. An old alias which had expired was used, and I had thought erroneously that the messages had been redacted due to some other, more insidious reason. What nonsense we are all capable of when we think we have been snubbed.
I have asked the moderators to delete all the nonsense comments which were redacted, because of my error in breaching the rules, so that I might reiterate the valid remarks which I had previous made, that were then expunged from view. I shall not repost entirely verbatim, but instead rationalise the points I had made.
Summary :
Starting at a comment made at August 2, 2014 at 6:00 pm
I make the point in reply to
Phil. says:
August 2, 2014 at 5:13 pm
That spectrum is the IR as observed from space, the reason there is little energy emitted in the 15micron band is because it has been absorbed by CO2!
I said that this leaves no energy to be absorbed by any further increase in CO2, if the band is already blocked, whatever caused that blockage in the 15 micron wavelength.
…………….
Then at August 3, 2014 at 8:27 am
I made the point in replying to
MikeB says:
August 3, 2014 at 4:22 am
“Some even think that the because the name’ greenhouse
effect’ is somewhat inappropriate then this in itself proves that
the greenhouse effect is not real.. ”
I said that this was a straw man argument, and this is not what I
was saying.What I and others have repeatedly stated is that the
greenhouse effect is indeed real…. in a greenhouse !
I noted that MikeB stated that, “the name’ greenhouse effect’ is
somewhat inappropriate“, but however I said that it is not only
“inappropriate“, but this is a deliberate and prolonged deception,
nowadays. When at first people had this hypothesis, that may have
seemed an appropriate term, so as to relate what was, and still is,
a complex issue of atmospheric physics, to lay persons and
non-specialised scientists, and so on.
Nowadays, when so many have pointed out the error in those
comparisons, it cannot remain unchallenged. The misnomer is
a distraction, and used very deliberately by those who would wish
to propagate the myth, that we Humans, can somehow easily
regulate the weather, climate, and temperature of the Earth,
by controlling only one parameter in the thin layer, we Humans
call “The Atmosphere”. I am not saying that Monckton is one
of those who uses the term as a deliberate deception in that
fashion, but rather he has been deceived into using it thus.
I said that this is a type of deception, a failure by omission,
to explain the real scenario. We travel the Universe daily,
on what is in fact, a 5.972e24 kg, wet rock, wobbling on its
axis, and spinning at speed, at its equator at around 1,650 kph,
whilst orbiting a massive Star, at an additional 108,000 kph,
with a closely coupled 7.35e22 kg satellite, which together
with our companion planets all travel uncontrollable through
space at an additional 792,000 kph.
To say that we can somehow control the climate down here
on the surface of our planet, by manipulating relatively minute
amounts of what is already a rare trace gas, without reference
to all that, and to attempt such oversimplification, by the
deliberate misnomer of “greenhouse effect”, is wholly bogus,
hokum, and fraudulent science. It is not a trivial matter, as was
suggested, or at least implied.
Again, There is NO Greenhouse Effect in the Earth’s Atmosphere.
There is nothing even comparable to a greenhouse effect, because
the Earth’s Atmosphere is NOT a Greenhouse.
There are more appropriate scientific terms for describing
hypotheses, and conjectures, about the operation of this
coupled Solar System and its atmospheric phenomena, so
we should then use them.
I made some statements about using the logic Aristotle, and
recommended some video and website for further study, but
for sake of brevity in this post, I shall not repeat all that again.
…………..
Then at August 3, 2014 at 12:03 pm
I made the point in replying to
Monckton of Brenchley says:
August 3, 2014 at 10:15 am
“Those who deny the scientific evidence that there is a greenhouse
effect are not welcome here …….. I hope the moderators will intervene
to follow site policy in keeping them out, so that a rational discussion
can be maintained.”
This is what I had assumed was the the cause of my several postings
being redacted. That was an erroneous assumption on my part,
because I had broken the rules inadvertently by using an old and
defunct email address.
I then went on to criticise Lord Monckton for this call to censorship.
Frankly it is beneath his dignity to ask for that, in the fashion which
he did, and for me was a sort of pale echo, of the shenanigans we
have come to expect in other quarters, I am sure you all know.
Lord Monckton himself has been censored in just the same way that
he now called for others to have their opinions censored in this blog.
What I have consistently argued in these pages in this article, is that
there may be some effect of warming in the Earth’s atmosphere, caused
by the effect you and others have described, but I said that
1. it is trivial, and
2. it is NOT a “greenhouse effect”, because the Earth’s
atmosphere is not comparable to a greenhouse.
I further assert that the moniker “Greenhouse Effect”, continues to
be used erroneously in that regard, and deliberately to confuse the
real issue here. which might be described as for instance molecular
Quantum transfer warming, or a host of other less befuddling terms.
The thing is you see, that there is a real thing called the “Greenhouse
Effect”, and it relates to actual greenhouses, and similar constructions,
like an automobile, or a tramcar, or even a glass fronted office block.
The use of the term in a slang fashion, to describe the actions of the
Earth’s atmosphere is entirely inappropriate, and the cause of very
many specious arguments and false dichotomies among debaters
who essentially hold the same point of view.
I said that we can debate the detail of Monckton’s hypotheses about
interactions of the molecules of particular gasses in the Earth’s
atmosphere, and Photons, using Quantum Physics, or whatever
other science or evidence he might wish to bring to the table, but I
took umbrage at this attempt to try to censor the debate so as to
avert criticism of his apparent assertion that the Earth’s atmosphere
behaves as, and can be likened to a “Greenhouse”.
What would Aristotle have said to that stance Monckton took …..
“Those who deny …. are not welcome here
….. intervene to …. keeping them out
Nullius in verba (Take Nobody’s Word for it), Lord Monckton
That is a motto that he himself has often quoted and in
the English words, as well as in the original Latin.
It is the motto of The Royal Society of London,
I said to Lord Monckton :
“Indeed your story about the models disagreeing from reality,
is by all reasonable accounts correct, I am not arguing that what
you say is incorrect so far as that story goes, but when you then
digress into some realm of quantum physics to explain about why
CO2 then heats the atmosphere “like tiny radiators”, because of
the “greenhouse effect”, which actually goes against the observed
reality, that CO2 is rising and the atmosphere is not heating up.
You yourself have said so.That is most incongruous, isn’t it.
Others in here have written in similar terms.
…………
The other remarks which I posted subsequent to the
August 3, 2014 at 12:03 pm, were all about attempting to get
to the bottom of why my posts after August 2, 2014 at 6:00 pm,
had been mysteriously redacted, seemingly by harsh diktat,
and I have asked the moderators to delete all that irrelevant
contretemps, which added nothing to the debate and only
served to cause angst all round. I can only apologise
wholeheartedly for that distraction.
I shall read through the comments here again tomorrow,
and try to answer some other points which were subsequently
put to me, but that I have not been able to reply to, during this
rather tiresome hiatus. I thank you all for your tolerance of
my foolishness in this matter.
Since it was first aired on British television, as the weeks have rolled into months, and then years, Martin Durkin’s documentary titled “The Great Global Warming Swindle” has been looking more and more like a “gold standard” documentary on climate change.
Give it another two years, and Durkin will have to be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize… “for his effort to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about climate change that lays the foundation for no measures needed to counteract such change.”
Bob Boder says, August 3, 2014 at 5:54 pm:
“Technically there can be a transfer (…)”
Of what? From where to where? Heat? From cool atmosphere to warm sea surface? Er, no.
Kristian (August 3, 2014 at 7:16 pm) “Of what? From where to where? Heat? From cool atmosphere to warm sea surface? Er, no.”
The sea surface is warmer in some locations than the atmosphere, but cooler in other locations or even in the same location depending on time of day. So we know heat transfer goes in both directions depending on location and time of day. After that we have to consider the amount of transfer which will depend on wind, precipitation and other local weather factors. It’s hard to figure out and even harder to add up to say there is net heat transfer from the ocean to the atmosphere, but you are correct that on average there is
That is because the sun is the largest source of ocean warmth, not warm rain or warm air in various locations. Then the question is becomes whether the amount of heat that the ocean is giving up is changing over time.
dbstealey says:
August 3, 2014 at 1:26 pm
Phil. posted a youtube video showing ice on the Delaware rtiver.
Pretty thin ice there, Phil. No comparison to what George Washington encountered during the LIA.
What exactly did Washington encounter then, you appear to be basing your idea on a painting made in Germany 75 years after the fact? Leutze apparently based his picture of the ice on the ice he saw on the river Rhine which is quite different from the flat ice floes seen on the Delaware. Here’s another shot from the actual location of the crossing:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpfoster/8535599022/
As I pointed out anecdotal evidence such as that painting is not to be relied on, you should have read the article I linked to.
But Phil. is a climate alarmist who believes that global warming is gonna getcha. Disregarding his belief system is the best course of action for rational folks.
You have no clue what my ‘belief system’ is.
Warmist Claptrap says:
August 3, 2014 at 6:01 pm
I make the point in reply to
Phil. says:
August 2, 2014 at 5:13 pm
That spectrum is the IR as observed from space, the reason there is little energy emitted in the 15micron band is because it has been absorbed by CO2!
I said that this leaves no energy to be absorbed by any further increase in CO2, if the band is already blocked, whatever caused that blockage in the 15 micron wavelength.
Further increase in CO2 causes broadening of the absorption band which leads to the logarithmic dependence on pCO2.
Kristian says: August 3, 2014 at 4:33 am
I do wish people would read the comments they reply to carefully before resorting to insults. I wrote:
I was trying to condense a huge amount of material into a few words that might be understood by someone completely out of his depth on the subject. But I stand by my words, even if they are not a complete exposition of my meaning. My meaning is this: Given the radiation profile of the planet into space, there is an effective temperature at each frequency, which is the temperature of the radiating layer at which photons at that layer first get a ‘free line of sight’ to outer space. (You admit this when you talk of “radiating layers”.) Photons from layers inside this layer are effectively absorbed by molecules in the layers above. The Stefan Boltzmann law tells us what the temperature of that radiating layer has to be, for a black body, and can be adjusted to account for non-black bodies. Thus the temperature at that layer is “determined” (get it?) by the physical fact that it wouldn’t be radiating at that level unless it had that temperature.
Next, given what we calculate the temperature must be at a certain height, we can calculate the maximum value it can be at the surface, because any gas at a temperature higher than that determined by the adiabatic compression of a parcel of gas descending from the upper layer to the lower one will be less dense than the gas at the temperature calculated from adiabatic compression. Being less dense, it will rise and the atmosphere will convect.
In none of this do I consider or assert which “end” of the system is driving the other. If I wanted to talk about that, I would use words like “cause” (meaning a physical process), not words like “determine”, which refer to fact-finding and drawing of conclusions.
And your discussion of the mechanical aspects of it is pretty much correct and contradicts nothing I said, so your snide put-downs are neither required nor justified. Keep them to yourself and try to be civil in future.
Ah, but what about 1800-1815? Surely we’d not yet gotten “out” of the Little Ice Age by that time? Temperatures in 1800 were little different from the war years of 1776 – 1783, right? No Anthropathethic Global Warming yet either in those few years in between, right?
Yet Cornelius Vanderbilt earned his first reputation in transportation ferrying “commuters” across the ice-filled lower Hudson River between Staten island and business district across in Manhattan each winter: Getting his customers across/through the ice when no one else could. Or would dare.
Overall, YES, the Little Ice Age was substantially colder than present. We (collectively) recoevered from the lIA with no help from man’s release of CO2. We got into the LIA from the Medieval Warming Period with no practice of “burying” CO2 into the ground either.
RACookPE1978 says:
Overall, YES, the Little Ice Age was substantially colder than present. We (collectively) recovered from the lIA with no help from man’s release of CO2. We got into the LIA from the Medieval Warming Period with no practice of “burying” CO2 into the ground either.
Exactly right. CO2 is simply not a playa in the natural scheme of things. The ‘carbon’ scare was fabricated in order to pave the way to much higher taxes. And it came damn close to working.
But fortunately, due to the internet and with the help of scientifically literate folks, it looks like the catastrophic AGW nonsense is going down in flames. Even non-scientists can be very logical. They understand that a tiny trace gas that we exhale, and which is necessary for all life on earth, is not the control knob of the planet’s thermostat.
The people on the other side of the debate are not scientists, either. They are politicians, or political activists, or rent-seekers, or a combination.They only have a sciency veneer. If they were honest scientists, they would be skeptics. But one thing unites all the climate alarmists: their complete lack of scientific skepticism. Rather, they are True Believers who are pushing their false alarm. This debate over the MWP and LIA is a case in point.
There is so much evidence supporting the existence of the LIA and the MWP that there is no credible argument to the contrary. Indeed, there weren’t any such arguments prior to the cAGW scare. It was just about universally accepted that those recent warming and cooling cycles naturally occurred during the Holocene.
Now the alarmist clique is just backing and filling; running interference because they see their narrative being debunked by the ultimate Authority: Planet Earth. Their arguments are amusing, because they are so weak. Historians will laugh at their wild-eyed nonsense, and for good reason: their arguments are about as scientific as those of astrologers or phrenologists.
Alarmists will never man up and admit they were wrong. No, they will have to be beat down into submission. But because skeptics have the facts on their side, that won’t be hard to do.
John Finn:
In your post at August 3, 2014 at 5:17 pm you assert and ask
Oh dear! You really, really do refuse to learn!
You are wrong because ocean heat content is completely irrelevant to the fact that global warming has stopped.
You introduced the completely irrelevant issue of ocean heat content as a red-herring intended to obfuscate the fact that global warming has stopped. But the reality has been explained to you repeatedly in this thread and before that another thread. In this thread I first explained it for you at August 2, 2014 at 11:08 am here. I repeat – for the second time in this thread – what I then wrote and you persist in pretending you have not been told.
Your nonsense is not converted to sense by your repeating it despite being repeatedly told that it is daft.
Richard
Now I might really learn something new. Do tell us about Hubert Lamb’s CET reconstructions. Then show us proof of the “intentionally corrupted” adjustments.
So this blog has an “expert on the CET”, does it ? Does Anthony know this? What exactly makes Tony Brown any more of an expert than, say, me? What papers has Tony published?
Richard
This is a link to the Charney Report published in 1979
http://web.atmos.ucla.edu/~brianpm/download/charney_report.pdf
Read it and note the comments relating to ocean heat transfer. Thirty five years ago (and before there was any measurable warming) scientists were aware of the thermal capacity of the oceans and their ability to delay atmospheric warming. Check page 2 (Summary and Conclusions). If OHC is increasing then the climate system is warming – and global warming is happening. Whether or not this is a problem is not the issue.
John Finn (August 4, 2014 at 2:53 am) “Thirty five years ago (and before there was any measurable warming) scientists were aware of the thermal capacity of the oceans and their ability to delay atmospheric warming.”
The oceans are integrated into the climate models so the only explanation for the 16 year pause, if one believes the models, is that there has been 16 years of unpredictable ocean weather that has caused the ocean to give up less of its mostly solar generated heat to the atmosphere.
If it were true that a warmer atmosphere has caused less heat transfer from the ocean, then that result would have been predicted by the models.
John Finn:
re your silly post at August 4, 2014 at 2:53 am.
We are discussing the fact that global warming has stopped.
Ocean heat content is not relevant to the fact that global warming has stopped.
We are not discussing the real climatology that was conducted before the global warming scare.
The reality that global warming has stopped is not affected by refusal to face that reality or by your attempts to talk about other things.
In summation, your attempts are to avoid discussion of the fact that global warming has stopped are silly.
Richard
John Finn:
At August 4, 2014 at 2:02 am you ask concerning CET
Tony Brown has studied climate data with especial relevance to the CET for decades, has written several articles (some published on WUWT and on Judith Curry’s blog), and is highly respected by e.g. UK Met. Office for his knowledge of the subject. In short, he is probably the individual with most knowledge of the CET.
On the other hand, you have yet to demonstrate that you know anything about anything.
Richard
You are introducing a completely different argument, i.e. the validity of climate models. I am making the argument that global warming has not stopped because the oceans are still warming.
How on earth can OHC not be relevant to “global” warming. Global warming happens when more energy enters the earth’s climate system than leaves it .The oceans are part of the earth’s climate system. The oceans which absorb more than 90% of incoming energy are warming. Therefore earth’s climate system is warming. Therefore global warming is still taking place.
John Finn:
At August 4, 2014 at 5:02 am you write
No, John Finn, you are not making an “argument”. You are making a daft assertion.
Your daft assertion has no relation to reality because it requires replacement of the accepted definition of global warming with a redefinition which you wish to exist but does not.
Global warming has stopped. Live with it.
Richard
Yes – so you keep saying and you’ve managed to provide us with some of this “much evidence” .in the form of a …. er …. painting.
John Finn:
I am replying to your astonishingly stupid post at August 4, 2014 at 5:13 am.
I again – and for the third time in this thread – refer you to my post in this thread at August 2, 2014 at 11:08 am which is here.
I yet again ask you to understand what global warming is. As that post explained
John Finn, you do not get to unilaterally redefine global warming when you don’t like the fact that global warming has stopped.
Richard
Perhaps El Nino hasn’t caused a temperature increase because there is no El Nino. The ENSO meter at the bottom of the pages is precisely neutral as of today, and is falling back towards La Nina conditions without ever doing more than barely going into Nino territory for a few months, which doesn’t qualify, IIRC, as an El Nino event.
It’s difficult for a non-existent even to cause anything at all.
Of course the real moral of this story is that even with all of the satellite imagery and data from ARGO at their fingertips, the world’s greatest experts on weather, climate and El Nino itself (warmist and skeptic alike) put together were incapable of predicting the trajectory of the climate even after it looked like an El Nino was “inevitable” on the basis of conditions seen before in the paltry amount of past sea surface and other data prior to El Ninos. Predicting the future time evolution of a non-computable, nonlinear, chaotic, non-Markovian system of high dimensionality is (surprise) a hard problem, and the solutions proposed and conjectured might as well be coming off of a ouija board as from sober and properly cautious scientists.
Indeed, comparison with a ouija board is quite apropos. The mechanics of answer selection is almost identical.
rgb
John Finn,
“You are introducing a completely different argument, i.e. the validity of climate models. I am making the argument that global warming has not stopped because the oceans are still warming.”
This is a new kind of warming then – warming without warming. Or to be more accurate, a greatly arrested form of warming, since a potential warming of 3 or 4C in the atmosphere is being constricted to a mere 0.1C in the oceans. That don’t sound so bad.
Hurrah for Professor Brown! The climate is inherently unpredictable, but, like the profiteering prophets of previous dark ages, the profiteers of doom in the present age are doing their best to turn it into a dark age, not merely intellectually but also literally. Time to cut off their funding, and their electricity.
“Global warming has stopped.”
Well, it appears to also have stopped for other long periods in the 1900s, only to resume again. How do we know it won’t start again? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record
“Climate sensitivity is less than 1 degree (C or F).”
Someone asked for a simple argument refuting this. We’ve seen about 0.8 C warming over the past century, due to CO2 levels rising from about 300 to 400 ppm. For a doubling of CO2 (from 300 to 600 ppm), we would then expect a 2.4 C increase, assuming a linear relationship and no feedbacks. Since the feedbacks are so uncertain (as many point out here), why assume negative feedbacks which will keep temperatures steady? And why not be worried about positive feedbacks that will speed up warming?
Mr Finn asks for evidence of the medieval warm period and of the little ice age. He may like to start with the 1200-year temperature reconstruction in Ljungqvist et al., then visit the medieval warm period database at co2science.org, where he will fund some 500 papers providing various forms of evidence for it in almost all parts of the world. For the little ice age, he can go to the central England temperature record and the historical records of the period on both sides of the Atlantic (which include paintings, for photography had not then been invented).
There is also a very large amount of evidence that the attempt to abolish the medieval warm period and the little ice age was less than honest. Indeed, one of the scientists who evaluated that evidence and first published on the subject considers that criminal offenses had been committed. Since the fact of the medieval warm period and of the little ice age is so well established, it is for Mr Finn to produce some credible evidence that they did not occur, other than the spate of me-too modeling-based papers that suddenly appeared once the ridiculous “hokey-stick” graph had been demolished. It is the most-discredited artefact in the history of science, right up there with Piltdown Man.
Like it or not, there is nothing unusual about today’s global temperatures, or about the rate of warming in the 20th century (there has been no warming since). Or, rather, there is one unusual thing. All other things being equal, one would have expected significant global warming to have occurred during the past decade and a half. But it has not occurred, notwithstanding the increases in CO2 concentration over the period. There appears, therefore, to be something wrong with the high-climate-sensitivity hypothesis, therefore.
Mr Finn’s usual answer, that the oceans are still warming, is insufficient, because the oceans are warming at a minuscule rate (much as one would expect, given that they are 1000 times denser than the atmosphere, and their heat capacity is many thousands of times greater than that of the atmosphere. His argument that if the oceans are warming then the atmosphere must warm is actually correct. But, since the atmosphere is not warming, we must infer either that the oceans are not warming or that the heat has gone into hiding below the 2000 m depth to which the ARGO bathythermographs descend. But if it is hiding there, how do we know? For there are insufficient measurements even of the mixed stratum of the oceans: as for the benthic strata, they are barely measured at all. The notion that “the oceans are continuing to warm”, therefore, is shaky, to say the least: for, as Mr Finn has said, the atmosphere would warm too if the oceans were warming, but the atmosphere is not warming.