Updated list of 52 excuses for the 18-26 year ‘pause’ in global warming (compiled by WUWT and The HockeySchtick)
An updated list of at least 29 32 36 38 39 41 51 52 excuses for the 18-26 year statistically significant ‘pause’ in global warming, including recent scientific papers, media quotes, blogs, and related debunkings:
2) Oceans ate the global warming [debunked] [debunked] [debunked]
3) Chinese coal use [debunked]
5) What ‘pause’? [debunked] [debunked] [debunked] [debunked]
6) Volcanic aerosols [debunked]
8) Faster Pacific trade winds [debunked]
10) ‘Coincidence!’
11) Pine aerosols
12) It’s “not so unusual” and “no more than natural variability”
13) “Scientists looking at the wrong ‘lousy’ data” http://
14) Cold nights getting colder in Northern Hemisphere
15) We forgot to cherry-pick models in tune with natural variability [debunked]
16) Negative phase of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation
18) “Global brightening” has stopped
20) “It’s the hottest decade ever” Decadal averages used to hide the ‘pause’ [debunked]
22) Temperature variations fall “roughly in the middle of the AR4 model results”
23) “Not scientifically relevant”
24) The wrong type of El Ninos
25) Slower trade winds [debunked]
26) The climate is less sensitive to CO2 than previously thought [see also]
27) PDO and AMO natural cycles and here
28) ENSO
29) Solar cycle driven ocean temperature variations30) Warming Atlantic caused cooling Pacific [paper] [debunked by Trenberth & Wunsch]
31) “Experts simply do not know, and bad luck is one reason”
32) IPCC climate models are too complex, natural variability more important
35) Scientists forgot “to look at our models and observations and ask questions”
36) The models really do explain the “pause” [debunked] [debunked] [debunked]
38) Trenberth’s “missing heat” is hiding in the Atlantic, not Pacific as Trenberth claimed
[debunked] [Dr. Curry’s take] [Author: “Every week there’s a new explanation of the hiatus”]
40) The “pause” is “probably just barely statistically significant” with 95% confidence:The “slowdown” is “probably just barely statistically significant” and not “meaningful in terms of the public discourse about climate change”
41) Internal variability, because Chinese aerosols can either warm or cool the climate:
42) Trenberth’s ‘missing heat’ really is missing and is not “supported by the data itself” in the “real ocean”:
43) Ocean Variability: [NYT article]
“After some intense work by of the community, there is general agreement that the main driver [of climate the “pause”] is ocean variability. That’s actually quite impressive progress.” [Andrew Dessler]
44) The data showing the missing heat going into the oceans is robust and not robust:
” I think the findings that the heat is going into the Atlantic and Southern Ocean’s is probably pretty robust. However, I will defer to people like Josh Willis who know the data better than I do.”-Andrew Dessler. Debunked by Josh Willis, who Dessler says “knows the data better than I do,” says in the very same NYT article that “it is not clear to me, actually, that an accelerated warming of some…layer of the ocean … is robustly supported by the data itself” – [Josh Willis]
45) We don’t have a theory that fits all of the data:
“Ultimately, the challenge is to come up with the parsimonious theory [of the ‘pause’] that fits all of the data” [Andrew Dessler]
46) We don’t have enough data of natural climate cycles lasting 60-70 years to determine if the “pause” is due to such natural cycles:
“If the cycle has a period of 60-70 years, that means we have one or two cycles of observations. And I don’t think you can much about a cycle with just 1-2 cycles: e.g., what the actual period of the variability is, how regular it is, etc. You really need dozens of cycles to determine what the actual underlying variability looks like. In fact, I don’t think we even know if it IS a cycle.” [Andrew Dessler]
47) Could be pure internal [natural] variability or increased CO2 or both
“this brings up what to me is the real question: how much of the hiatus is pure internal variability and how much is a forced response (from loading the atmosphere with carbon). This paper seems to implicitly take the position that it’s purely internal variability, which I’m not sure is true and might lead to a very different interpretation of the data and estimate of the future.” [Andrew Dessler in an NYT article ]
48) Its either in the Atlantic or Pacific, but definitely not a statistical fluke:
It’s the Atlantic, not Pacific, and “the hiatus in the warming…should not be dismissed as a statistical fluke” [John Michael Wallace]
49) The other papers with excuses for the “pause” are not “science done right”:
” If the science is done right, the calculated uncertainty takes account of this background variation. But none of these papers, Tung, or Trenberth, does that. Overlain on top of this natural behavior is the small, and often shaky, observing systems, both atmosphere and ocean where the shifting places and times and technologies must also produce a change even if none actually occurred. The “hiatus” is likely real, but so what? The fuss is mainly about normal behavior of the climate system.” [Carl Wunsch]
50) The observational data we have is inadequate, but we ignore uncertainty to publish anyway: [Carl Wunsch in an NYT Article]
“The central problem of climate science is to ask what you do and say when your data are, by almost any standard, inadequate? If I spend three years analyzing my data, and the only defensible inference is that “the data are inadequate to answer the question,” how do you publish? How do you get your grant renewed? A common answer is to distort the calculation of the uncertainty, or ignore it all together, and proclaim an exciting story that the New York Times will pick up…How many such stories have been withdrawn years later when enough adequate data became available?”
51) If our models could time-travel back in time, “we could have forecast ‘the pause’ – if we had the tools of the future back then” [NCAR press release]
[Time-traveling, back-to-the-future models debunked] [debunked] [“pause” due to natural variability]
52) ‘Unusual climate anomaly’ of unprecedented deceleration of a secular warming trend [PLOS one Paper macia et al. discussed in European Commission news release here.]
Additional related comments from climate scientists about the “pause”
1) My University screwed up the press release & didn’t let me stop them from claiming my paper shows the “hiatus will last another decade or two.” [Dessler]2) “This [the ‘pause’] is not an existential threat to the mainstream theory of climate.” [Andrew Dessler]
It could be a revealing approach to put timestamps on when each of the 52 (and growing) excuses for the ‘pause’ was injected into the climate dialog. It might reveal an intellectual trend in excuses like: rational => semi-rational => irrational => random gibberish.
On another thought. We might see the evolution of the excuses toward the penultimate excuse for the ‘pause’. It would be the last excuse:
: )
John
The eco-fascists hate it when I say “Mother nature is on our side!”
Because they know its true!
No, it’s because the deity is testing the strength of our faith.
The models are right; it is the inadequate data collection system that is wrong. Until we get a data collection system that properly reflects the Catastrophic nature of Anthropogenic Global Warming, we will just have to change the null hypothesis and operate solely on computer data generated by the models.
/sarc
Sooner than later the IPCC will write about the pause and ‘Act of God’ in the same sentence; then two sentences later, AGW becomes an Act of God Warming.
Ha ha.
I suspect it will exceed 101 by Christmas.
As will the sequel, 101 uses for an unemployable climatologist.
Shouldn’t it top out at 97?
Think of it this way John. Lots of physicists and numerical theorists are gainfully employed, and sought-after, by the High Frequency Traders (HFT or dark-pool traders). According to Andrew Cunigan, quoted in the Wall Street Journal, 5 Sep 14 (page C2):
“You can see the evidence of dark pool trading….you’ll see half the day’s trading volume occur in the last few seconds of trading.”
Imagine what a climatologist can do here with some hokey schtick AlGoreithms!
Sorry. Couldn’t resist…. 🙂
Let’s say the pause continues for another 5 years, do they give up?
I imagine someone asked the same question 5 years ago and nothing has happened.
I can’t imagine a day when they all get together and say we got this all wrong.
What is the “end game” in climate science?
Today, we see the WMO shouting that the southern Ozone hole is recovering finally as a result of the 1987 Montreal Protocol. But their own data shows that there is basically no change at all since the Pinatubo eruption in 1991 produced the latest downstep. Then they cite it was not expected to recover to 1980 levels until the mid-2100s. Programs and jobs protected, End game pushed out for decades.
The excuses are about pushing the end game out for decades. Forget about the excuses. They will never run out of them. Just call the assumptions in the science wrong. The end game has to come when temperatures are so far off the science’s assumptions that they are wrong. And that is already here now.
Bill, I have a feeling it will always be hiding somewhere…the ‘science’ is so advanced we know it’s there, we just don’t know where
They may have to face this sooner than you think.
What about AR6?
What are they going to say when all models are outside the 95% confidence bands?
What are they going to say when the majority of recent papers on climate sensitivity suggest a sensitivity below 2, possibly even below 1.7?
AR5 sought to sweep these matters under the carpet, but atleast the models were still just within the 95% bounds although it was clear that they were tracking off. But since they still were within the 95% bounds, they thought that they did not need to address that. as regards climate sensitivity, there was no consensus. Some old timers could clong to hiigh sensitivity, but if the pause continues and if there are a plethora of papers betweeen 2014 and 2018 all suggesting that natural variability was under-assessed, that oceans played a larger role in the 1970s warming etc, and placing climate sensitivity in the 1.1 to 1.7 band, what then?
AR6 is looking difficult, at least without a super El Nino or a large volcanic eruption to cloud the issue. I bet that there are a lot of virgins being sacrificed towards one or other of those natural events, so as to allow the gravy train to continue for another decade..
I’m sure someone has already said this….but what the heck
Since the pause is obviously extreme……..of course it was caused by global warming
Paul Simon had 50 ways to leave your lover. Climate scientists have 52 ways to say they have no clue.
So then, what we are seeing is a cooling trend since 2005, a statistical flat-lined global no warming 17yrs 11 month’s, and the excuses for the “pause” (soon to be “great pause” ) are becoming more obtuse and increasingly worded to be (in my opinion) deliberately difficult to comprehend. If we can’t be convinced with scare tactics , then we are bamboozled with pseudo science speak. The endless onslaught of climate porn has become ridiculous! The public knows at this point that vicious cold and snowy winters are not caused by hidden heat in the oceans, or CO2. The question becomes who is directing this whole fraud of science? Who benefits from the policies being foisted upon the average working human? Who funds or is responsible for allocating funding for all these climate science catastrophe peer review papers? I am watching for another hard winter coming and I am worried.
Time to remind ourselves of the “Laws” of bad science as developed by the great Langmuir (as paraphrased by John Briggs):
1 .The maximum effect that is observed is produced by a causative agent of barely detectable intensity, and the magnitude of the effect is substantially independent of the intensity of the cause.
2. The effect is of a magnitude that remains close to the limit of detectability, or many measurements are necessary because of the low level of significance of the results.
3. There are claims of great accuracy.
4. Fantastic theories contrary to experience are suggested.
5. Criticisms are met by ad hoc excuses thought up on the spur of the moment.
6. The ratio of supporters to critics rises to somewhere near 50% and then falls gradually to zero.
Recognise anything?
You are right, “Climate Science’ is exactly like Homeopathy.
…I don’t get #52. Secular warming? As opposed to, what, Islamic warming? Christian warming? Is this an actual term or just more nonsense?
Secular
Definition 6: going on from age to age; continuing through long ages.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/secular
As I recall, in this use it is contrasted with “cyclical”.
Ah, alright. Thank you.
36) The models really do explain the “pause”…
They do? Really? They really do??
Then they should just as easily be able to predict when the “pause” will end, and runaway global warming resumes.
Any takers? Just predict the month and year that global warming will ‘resume’.
Heck, just predict the year…
+1
Why isn’t this a reference page? Or is it and I haven’t found it??
If you are a puppy, you don’t need an excuse for the paws. 🙂
I know of one that will most likely be added eventually.
“The heat is hiding somewhere back in 1998”
Page 24, http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/climate-assessment-2008-lo-rez.pdf
” Near-zero
and even negative trends are com
–
mon for intervals of a decade or
less in the simulations, due to the
model’s internal climate variability.
The simulations rule out (at the
95% level) zero trends for intervals
of 15 yr or more, suggesting that
an observed absence of warming of
this duration is needed to create
a discrepancy with the expected
present-day warming rate. ”
Perhaps as the NOAA suggested back in 2008, the models are wrong.
Well, if sanity returns, they have a pre-recorded response:
Or obliquity is now less than 23.5 degrees and declining, albeit slowly. History shows rapid cooling from an interglacial once the conditions are right. Perhaps it would be a good idea to start moving to the tropics (but remember Florida is full so go somewhere else). Or it won’t really matter as Apophis will hit Earth in 2036 and do us all in anyway. Doomed if we do, doomed if we don’t.
I already did. My main goal now is not to be overrun by people moving south when it starts to get cold. I’d rather have an orderly process without war or chaos. Once there is war and chaos on a large scale, nobody is safe no matter how rich or clever. Something Al may have overlooked.
A push here and there could move that rock, pile or assortment of whatever to a more favorable place.
I propose another one: My Dog Ate My Global Warming. The increased need for corn, the major component in cheap dog food I feed him, helps to keep that nasty and dangerous carbon out of the atmosphere. If I fed him eggplant, I’m sure the carbon imbalance would not point at him, but he would probably chew my face off while I am sleeping. His methane output might be less though, and that would be a really good thing. Not gonna chance it. So far he only stares at me while I am sleeping…….
So I get the uneasy feeling that many clear-headed, honest climate scientists are secretly scared we are on the cusp of either a Dangaard-Oeschger Event or a Heinrich Event. Hopefully the former for mankind’s sake. But a Heinrich Event would clear out the riff-raff and only the hardy would survive.
No. 51 is my favourite.
Could we please have a poll on this.
Just to address Andrew Dessler’s comment that skeptics are “moving on”.
Skeptics don’t “move on” – because real skeptics are never wrong – how can it be wrong to say “we must stick to what the evidence tells us”.
Instead, what actually happens is that the evidence amasses – almost invariably that shows the skeptics are right, sometimes, although sometimes we make an incremental change as we include the new evidence with the old.
So, skeptics almost never change their views, and if they do, they do so by small incremental changes.
What actually happens is that sooner or later the massing evidence forces the lunatic alarmists who’ve gone off on a tangent to the evidence, to change their views wholesale to fit in with that held by the skeptics.
So, when they finally agree with us that there is a pause, that climate has always varied, that the effect of CO2 is very small. They tell us “so you finally admit that it warmed before the pause, that the climate is changing and that CO2 has an effect”.
These people have one skill: to spin black as white, get caught lying, blame others who were right all along for their own follies and still come out with their jobs.
But it looks as though 2014 will be, by the surface stations, a record hot year. So we shouldn’t crow too unconditionally now. (It’ll probably cool sharply in following years.)
The fact that people would actually speak (or write) items 26, 35, and 45 actually gives me some hope that we’re dealing with something besides religious zealots on the warmist side. Unfortunately, it’ll still be the zealots preaching Doomsday the loudest, right up until their personal doomsday finally comes.
Why isn’t “It’s Bush’s fault” on the list? He gets blamed for everything else anyway.
I’m just disappointed that that old gem of “teleconnection” hasn’t shown up. Nothing like the instantaneous miraculous teleconnection of energy to the depths of the ocean all by drinking this fabulous wonderous tonniccccc!!!!
(Abe Simpson would be proud)