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.
Here is the problem: Mr. Monckton has been so inflammatory and so over the top on other issues, his message about what is giong on with the pause- which is valid- is simply ignored by many who could other wise benefit from this important news.
hunter says:
August 2, 2014 at 12:27 pm
IMO “plateau” is preferable to “pause”. Plateau suggests that in coming years warming could resume, ie the plateau could lead to more mountains, but also that it could be followed by another valley. Pause IMO implies certainty that the next move in GASTA will be higher, which may well be the case if data corruption continues unabated, regardless of what actually happens in nature.
IMO our planet is already cooling, following a plateau from c. 1996 to c. 2005 or later in the past decade, with the timing differing a little in the two satellite data sets.
“What is the chance that a natural cooling is exactly cancelling out AGW?”
Even if that were the case, it would imply that natural positive forcings must exist that are commensurate with that cooling, as otherwise the climate would end up in an icebox and stay there. Strong natural cooling implies strong natural warming.
Someone said a million monkeys randomly banging on keyboards would eventually produce the works of Shakespeare. He obviously has not spent much time on the internet.
Justaskin There is a variable delay ( 12 – 20 years) between the solar activity driver and the ocean SSTs and Total OHC response. For the total OHC see Fig 18 from wunsch et al at
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/07/21/deep-oceans-are-cooling-amidst-a-sea-of-modeling-uncertainty-new-research-on-ocean-heat-content/
This shows OHC peaked about 2009.
SSTs peaked about 2003 see FIg 17 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate-forecasting-methods-and-cooling.html
Here’s a quote from the same post – check Figs 13 and 14.
” Lockwood et al 2014 in press say in their abstract at http://www.eiscat.rl.ac.uk/Members/mike/publications/pdfs/2009/Lockwood_ApJ_openflux_F1.pdf
“Cosmogenic isotope data reveal that this constitutes a grand maximum of solar
activity which began in 1920, using the definition that such grand maxima are when
25-year averages of the heliospheric modulation potential exceeds 600 MV.
Extrapolating the linear declines seen in all three parameters since 1985, yields
predictions that the grand maximum will end in the years 2013, 2014, or 2027 using VSW, FS, or B respectively”.
My own view ,based on the Ap index Fig 13 and Oulu neutron count – Fig 14 is that the solar activity maximum peaked in about 1991.with the sharp decline beginning about 2005 – 6.”
The 1991 peak represents a peak in the 1000 year solar activity quasi periodicity see Figs 5,6,and7 at the same post.
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
It’s probably all those tropical storm clouds getting in the way of the sunshine.
Screws the El up.
I quote: “…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.”
I beg to differ, lord Chtistopher. The longest period witthout any warming in the global instrumental temperature record, once satellites first watched it, is the eighteen year stretch from 1979 to the beginning of 1997. The warmist cabal has successfully managed to suppress this fact by calling it the “late twentieth century warming” and creating a phony temperature rise of 0.1 degrees Celsius there. You will find this phonyness in all three currently used ground-based temperature curves, but not in satellite curves. Luckily these guys have not been able to take over satellite measurements or we really would not know what happens to global temperature. In the eighties and nineties there are five El Nino peaks present just before the super El Nino of 1998 arrives. The valleys between the peaks are La Nina valleys that normally follow after each continental El Nino peak. The exceptions may be El Nino Modoki where an El Nino wave spreads out in the Central Pacific before reaching the South American coast. The temperature difference from an El Nino peak to an adjacent La Nina valley is 0.4 to 0.5 degrees Celsius. The midpoint between an El Nino peak and its neighboring La Nina valley defines the local mean temperature. Connecting these points shows what global mean temperature is doing. If you do that with the five El Ninos in that time interval you discover that the global mean becomes a horizontal straight line, indicating no warming at all for the eighteen years involved., I did this in my book “What Warming?” in 2010 and you can see the result in my Figure 15. I expected the warmists to ignore the book but I find that people who wish to oppose this cabal are likewise uninformed about what is in it. Do your homework guys! There is more information in this Figure 15 you missed by not reading the book. You will find that the super El Nino of 1998 divides that period approximately in two. To the left of it is the train of El Ninos I just described. The peak of the super El Nino itself is twice as high as the other five. Since each El Nino peak gives us a measure of how much warm water its El Nino wave carried across the ocean we could conservatively estimate that rhe super El Nino carried at least twice as much warm water than any of the others. This much is not available from a regular ENSO oscillation and must have a source outside of the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool. To the right of the super El Nino the platform of the current warming pause is visible. Its mean temperature is also a horizontal straight line but it is not lined up with the mean temperature of the eighties and nineties. These two horizontal lines, if extended, would form two parallel lines separated by a third of a degree Celsius. This difference in height originated in a very short period of three years, just after the super El Nino had subsided. As a result, the entire twenty-first century stands a third of a degree higher than the eighties and nineties did. Hansen and others of course attribute this to greenhouse warming and keep babbling about the first decade of this century being the warmest one on record. It truly is the warmest on record but not because global warming has anything to do with it. The likelihood is high that the step warming that created this difference in only three years is a result of the huge amount of warm water carried across the ocean by the super El Nino. Now here is a climate phenomenon that truly should be investigated. Unfortunately it is not likely to happen because the billions spent by the government for climate research are all wasted on looking for an imaginary greenhouse effect. As you know, Hansen alleged to the United States Senate in 1988 that he personally had discovered the greenhouse effect. His proof was that there was a 100 year warming culminating in the warmest temperature ever which could not have happened by chance alone. But if you look at his data you find that 30 of these 100 years are definitely not greenhouse warming years and therefore cannot be used to prove that the greenhouse effect exists. Nevertheless, he and IPCC have been pushing greenhouse warming as the cause of anthropogenic global warming or AGW. But the existence of the warming pause torpedoes this fantasy. For 17 years there has been no warming but for 17 years there Arrhenius greenhouse theory has been predicting warming. If your theory predicts warming for 17 years and nothing happens you know that this theory belongs in the trash basket of history. The only greenhouse theory capable of explaining the warming pause is the Miskolczi greenhouse theory. It predicts what we see: there is no warming despite a constant increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide. According to Miskolczi this is explained by the cooperation of water vapor and carbon dioxide, the two major greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. They establish a joint absorption window in the IR whose optical thickness is 1.87. If you now add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere it will start to absorb as usual. But that will increase the optical thickness. And as soon as this happens water vapor will start to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored. The added carbon dioxide continues to absorb but its warming power is neutralized by the reduction of water vapor in the atmosphere. The result is complete neutralization of greenhouse warming that the entire IPCC organization is built upon. It follows that there is no such thing as anthropogenic global warming. AGW is simply a pseudo-scientific fantasy, pushed by climate “scientists” anxious to prove that greenhouse warming, is real.
And it is the adjusted corrected estimate of temperature (that Relies on radiative physics being correct) that demonstrates that CO2 ‘global warming’ theory is wrong.
Thus, if CO2 ‘global warming’ theory is correct, then either:
1) radiative physics must be wrong. Or,
2) the adjustments and corrections must be dominated by elements other than radiative physics that are wrong. Or
3) CO2 ‘global warming’ theory must be dominated by elements other than radiative physics that are wrong.
By these facts, insecure name-dropping Mosher’s straw man argument refutes itself. By rights, that would cause insecure self-aggrandizing Mosher to stop using the ‘radiative physics’ argument. That will not happen.
Instead, insecure pathetic Mosher will make good his drive-by and vanish. He will lay low until the next opportunity arises for him to dress up his smarmy straw man in an “I’m with Steven McIntyre” T-shirt and wave it out the window of the car that his dishonest fake skeptic sugar daddy Richard Muller bought for him.
Monckton,
In your response to those critiquing your analysis, you say that Central England temps. are indicative of long-term global trends. OK, I agree, they do show warming over the last century (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/).
But in your article, you report “warming trends” and “rates of rise” at this very specific locale, and compare them to global rates, which is not a fair comparison (though a clever one to argue your case) given that there will always be more variability, over any time scale, at a specific locale than over a larger one.
I suggest you consult with a professor of geospatial statistics next time.
Thanks for this post Lord Monckton. This ongoing series of posts about the “pause” is one of my absolute favorite parts of WUWT. But even more than the posts themselves, your comments in the threads answering others is what I look forward to so much. I got a huge grin out of the one I read just before posting this comment of mine — and learned a bit to boot. Win/Win
Keep up the good work! Thanks again.
Water vapour GHG warming probably does occur, but it is clear from the stability of our climate that it is limited….
Well, yeah — atmospheric water vapor concentration is limited by the temperature of the regional atmosphere. Once it passes the saturation point, it rains back out. However much it may warm the local air, it clearly cannot warm it enough to endlessly push the saturation point away.
CO2, otoh, can become the whole atmosphere, or very nearly: see Venus and Mars, at 95, 96% CO2. Doesn’t seem to matter, though.
….CO2 molecules emit heat directly when they interact with photons in CO2’s absorption bands, notably at 14.99 microns. It’s like turning millions of little radiators on. The more radiators, the more interactions, the more heat.
Thank you, Sov. Monckton, that’s very clear. Strangely, though, despite 960,000 little radiators per million, Venus manages to be no warmer than mere proximity to the Sun would have it (if it’s fair to compare Venus’ surface temp with Earth’s surface temp and say, look! it’s “too” hot! then it’s fair to compare southerly Mt. Everest with more northerly Death Valley and say, look! you don’t get cooler as you go poleward from the equator, you get warmer!)
I think the little radiators intercept not only outoing IR, and “radiate” ~half of it planetside instead of letting it all escape, they also intercept the same wavelengths of incoming IR (what, the Sun doesn’t shine in those wavelengths? not at ALL?) and “radiate” ~half — slightly more than half, actually, according to simple geometry — back out into space without letting it get to the surface, for a net gain of, at best, 0, and at worst, a slight loss, especially since CO2 can and apparently does go quite high in the atmosphere.
I see no worldly evidence — not in the last 17+ years, not in the deep paleoclimate, and not on Venus, for any “greenhouse effect” for CO2 at all, apart from simply being a gas. Any atmosphere at all is going to be more energetic, therefore warmer, than no atmosphere, yah?
@ur momisugly Arno Arrak at August 2, 2014 at 12:44 pm
For the love of God man, please use paragraphs in your comments. I know you want others to read what you write or you would not take the time to write at all. So give us a break and put some white space in your comments.
Some other folks could do that a bit more as well. Just saying.
Disclaimer I admit that age and eyesight problems might cause me to be more sensitive of the white-space issue than some of the young bucks here, but I would wager that I am not alone.
The PDO has all but destroyed El Niño.
I would expect Global Cooling to commence during the next year.
http://disc.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/AIRS/documentation/amsu_instrument_guide.shtml#2.
Describes how the temperature measuring system works on these satellites.
And yes, the do NOT ‘measure’ temperature but the amount of power ‘sensed’ at defined frequencies (typically 23 GHz and above).
The actual sensor(s) consists of a rotating reflector which ‘looks’ at planet earth as the reflector spins, causing a ‘track’ to be swept across the earths surface, The satellite is also moving, so is the earth. The net results is a sweep of the earths surface is ‘scanned’. At the end of each earth sweep (8 seconds), the sensor is calibrated. It is ‘shown’ deep space, which runs at <3K and it is then shown a hot calibrated body (black body if you wish) at approximately 288K. The 288K is measured by a handful of PT100 sensors.
Therefore each sweep of the reflector (or mirror if you wish) we have a path of earth energy captured, plus the deep cold of space, plus 288K. All these values are sent back to earth to processing.
Yes, it does not 'measure' temperature, it measures the amounts of frequency specific energy and complex processing takes place to give the world the temperature records we require.
Yes, there are errors that can creep into the whole process, but the system and its data is sufficiently public, for errors and/or deceit to be found.
mellyrn says:
August 2, 2014 at 12:50 pm
“Venus manages to be no warmer than mere proximity to the Sun would have it”
Isn’t the surface of Venus warmer than the surface of Mercury?
Mercury 426 degrees C on side facing Sun.
Venus 462 degrees C anywhere on surface.
mellyrn says:
August 2, 2014 at 12:50 pm
In terms of energy, sunlight at the earth’s surface is around 52 to 55% IR, 43 to 42 percent visible light, & 5 to 3 percent UV (also X-rays during solar flares). At the top of the atmosphere sunlight is about 30% more intense, with ~8% UV on average, but which varies considerably.
So while, yes a bare majority of incoming solar radiation is IR, the IR portion of outgoing reflected energy is higher.
Let’s make a reasonable assumption that CET temperature trends are generally 2X GMT trends but are not precisely synchronous in time with GMT trends — just like we see today in many locations in mid-latitude zones.
If we make this reasonable assumption, then CET tells us that within the last 350 years, trends in GMT of roughly 2 C per century lasting a century occurred before 1950; and also that shorter trends in GMT of roughly 0.2 C per decade lasting roughly forty years occurred before 1950.
H Grouse :
This might help bring you up to speed as to why certain planets temps vary. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/08/venus-envy/
Our impossibly tiny amount of CO2 and the even smaller amount of change that “might” be attributable to humans does not in anyway come close to the 95% of CO2 in the Venus atmosphere let alone the huge partial pressure difference.
Jeff
Monckton of Brenchley says:
August 2, 2014 at 12:11 pm
“With respect, “highflight56433” may have misunderstood the quantum resonance by which CO2 molecules emit heat directly when they interact with photons in CO2’s absorption bands, notably at 14.99 microns. It’s like turning millions of little radiators on. The more radiators, the more interactions, the more heat.”
There can NOT be any additional “little radiators” since the number of photons and area the photons cover is fixed.
(Thought I posted this earlier)
The reason that the GCM’s are so erroneous is because they rely on an invented climate sensitivity which invention is devoid of any foundation in the real world, laboratory experiments and vessels notwithstanding. There are no empiricists in the GCM business, apparently. I repeat, “climate sensitivity” factors are all inventions, plucked from a tangle of misunderstood and misapplied theory.
Jeff D. says:
August 2, 2014 at 1:45 pm
“This might help bring you up to speed”
The article does not explain why Venus is warmer than Mercury
Simple comparison.
Surface of moon (with no atmosphere) facing the sun is 123 degrees C.
Nowhere on Earth (with atmosphere) get this hot.
Surface of Mercury (with no atmosphere) facing the sun 426 degrees C
Surface of Venus (with atmosphere) 462 degrees C.
…
After you get thru that, we haven’t even mentioned the variation in distance from the sun between Mercury and Venus.
Reblogged this on Norah4you's Weblog and commented:
What’s empiri, AWG-believer. Guess you will have to look it up in an Encyclopedia 😛
H Grouse says:
August 2, 2014 at 1:11 pm
///////
It is because of pressure, which about 92 to 93bar! If you transcend deep enough into Jupiter’s atmosphere, even though Jupiter is far away from the sun, it becomes hotter than Venus. It is just the pressure.
Mercury, has all but no atmosphere.
“Paul” is incorrect to say that I compared Central England temperature records to global records. I merely stated that they showed the steepest 40-year and 100-year warming rates in the instrumental record.
“Paul” is also incorrect to assume that over periods as long as several decades there will be an appreciably greater variability in regional than in global temperature. It is fascinating to see how many and how ingenious are the attempts to suggest that there was something exceptional or unprecedented about the rate of global warming in the late 20th century when there was not.
As I have demonstrated, over the past 120 years – two full PDO cycles – the Central England and global datasets show trends within one-hundredth of a degree of one another. Before “Paul” bossily recommends that I should consult professors, he should start by consulting the data.
Mr Arrak is incorrect to state that there was no 0.1 C warming from 1979-1996 in the satellite record. Taking the mean of the RSS and UAH datasets, it is indeed present.
“Milodonharlani” wins the prize for the most interesting comment, pointing out that the growth of sea ice in the Antarctic causes a greater increase in albedo than the equivalent loss of sea ice in the Arctic causes a reduction, because the Antarctic sea ice forms at lower latitudes. Of course, the change in albedo caused by Arctic ice loss is minuscule.
“Mellyrn” seems muddled about Venus, apparently not appreciating that elementary radiative-transfer calculations establish that the mean effective temperature of a planetary body with bond albedo thrice that of Earth at the Venusian distance from the Sun in the absence of a greenhouse effect would be just 184 K, while the mean actual temperature thanks to the greenhouse effect from CO2 is 737 K.
The correct scientific position is that the greenhouse effect has been measured repeatedly in the laboratory for CO2, water vapor and many other greenhouse gases, wherefore it exists whether the “slayers” like it or not, as Venus demonstrates. However, in the Earth’s atmosphere complexities such as the non-radiative transports greatly complicate the determination of climate sensitivity, which, though not negligible, is likely to be small. Once the financial incentive to predict doom is taken away from the modelers, no doubt they will make less spectacularly exaggerated predictions than they have.
“Hunter” resorts to mere yah-boo from behind a cloak of anonymity. I hope the moderators will ensure no repetition.
No I wasn’t, Richard. You are confusing me with AGW mainstream scientists. The temperature observations for the surface and atmosphere are certainly more accurate than OHC but they are a less reliable indicator of “global warming”. ARGO measurements show the oceans have continued to warm over the past 8 years or so. A quick ‘back of the envelope’ calculation suggests that the difference between incoming and outgoing energy is ~0.6 w/m2. Unfortunately because of problems with CERES data we can’t determine whether or not this is due to a TOA imbalance. (e.g. because of an enhanced ghg effect).
Whatever the reason the ‘imbalance’ is real and while it continues there is a likelihood that warming of the surface and atmosphere will resume at some point in the future. If the oceans stop warming or start cooling then we can state with a great deal of certainty that global warming has stopped.