Now that “the pause” has come of age, and has exceeded 18 years, it is time to revisit a post a made back in November 2011.
Bill Illis reminded me in comments of this spectacular failure of peer reviewed climate science:
Let’s remember several years ago when all the heavy-weights of climate science produced a paper that said the lower troposphere pause had to be at least 17 years long before a clear signal that human-made CO2 warming theories should start to be questioned.
Carl Mears was the second author on that paper along Ben Santer (lead) [and Tom Wigley, Susan Solomon, Tom Karl, Gerald Meehl, Peter Stott, Peter Thorne, Frank Wentz].
Well, that time has now been exceeded and they all have egg on their face.
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-010-476.pdf
Alhough, if you read Carl Mears article carefully, he is starting the discussion that maybe the theories need to be revised. His use of the d’word may be needed just to keep him in the club and not being shown the door by his other compatriots who accept no questioning at all.
Here’s the current lower troposphere temperature from RSS:
Here’s the reminder press release boasting of their discovery. Emphasis mine.
Separating signal and noise in climate warming
LIVERMORE, Calif. — In order to separate human-caused global warming from the “noise” of purely natural climate fluctuations, temperature records must be at least 17 years long, according to climate scientists.
To address criticism of the reliability of thermometer records of surface warming, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientists analyzed satellite measurements of the temperature of the lower troposphere (the region of the atmosphere from the surface to roughly five miles above) and saw a clear signal of human-induced warming of the planet.
Satellite measurements of atmospheric temperature are made with microwave radiometers, and are completely independent of surface thermometer measurements. The satellite data indicate that the lower troposphere has warmed by roughly 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of satellite temperature records in 1979. This increase is entirely consistent with the warming of Earth’s surface estimated from thermometer records.
Recently, a number of global warming critics have focused attention on the behavior of Earth’s temperature since 1998. They have argued that there has been little or no warming over the last 10 to 12 years, and that computer models of the climate system are not capable of simulating such short “hiatus periods” when models are run with human-caused changes in greenhouse gases.
“Looking at a single, noisy 10-year period is cherry picking, and does not provide reliable information about the presence or absence of human effects on climate,” said Benjamin Santer, a climate scientist and lead author on an article in the Nov. 17 online edition of the Journal of Geophysical Research (Atmospheres).
Many scientific studies have identified a human “fingerprint” in observations of surface and lower tropospheric temperature changes. These detection and attribution studies look at long, multi-decade observational temperature records. Shorter periods generally have small signal to noise ratios, making it difficult to identify an anthropogenic signal with high statistical confidence, Santer said.
“In fingerprinting, we analyze longer, multi-decadal temperature records, and we beat down the large year-to-year temperature variability caused by purely natural phenomena (like El Niños and La Niñas). This makes it easier to identify a slowly-emerging signal arising from gradual, human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases,” Santer said.
The LLNL-led research shows that climate models can and do simulate short, 10- to 12-year “hiatus periods” with minimal warming, even when the models are run with historical increases in greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosol particles. They find that tropospheric temperature records must be at least 17 years long to discriminate between internal climate noise and the signal of human-caused changes in the chemical composition of the atmosphere.
“One individual short-term trend doesn’t tell you much about long-term climate change,” Santer said. “A single decade of observational temperature data is inadequate for identifying a slowly evolving human-caused warming signal. In both the satellite observations and in computer models, short, 10-year tropospheric temperature trends are strongly influenced by the large noise of year-to-year climate variability.”
The research team is made up of Santer and Livermore colleagues Charles Doutriaux, Peter Caldwell, Peter Gleckler, Detelina Ivanova, and Karl Taylor, and includes collaborators from Remote Sensing Systems, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, the University of Colorado, the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.K. Meteorology Office Hadley Centre, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
###
Source: http://www.llnl.gov/news/newsreleases/2011/Nov/NR-11-11-03.html
The lower troposphere temperature has been flat now for 18 years on one dataset, RSS. No human effects can be seen. What say you Dr. Santer?
- Ignore your own folly?
- Say your paper was mistaken and publish a new goalpost mover paper saying that we really need 30 years?
- Or, will you simply admit that the posited warming isn’t happening?
I’m guessing you’ll go with #2.
They will just say they need two decades of data… or five decades or a century. If they magic number is longer than they’ll live no one can prove them wrong. Ta da!!
But, doesn’t this mean that they predicted correctly that a “hiatus” of roughly 17 years could occur? Surely there have been bigger climate science “fails” than this.
they dont care about the science. santer, wigley etc, are crooks. they have been manipulating outcomes for almost 20 years now. eg-
http://www.john-daly.com/sonde.htm
where they use the usual cherry picking to get the answer they want, and then use it to sell the idea to the world in 1995. Santer got the lead author of the IPCC 1995 report section “Detection of Climate Change and Attribution of Causes” with that crap that was later proven to be so. he did not just back away from the obvious lie either making excuses that do NOT wash. what did he change in the IPCC report? HIS changes to the agreed draft statement say it all-
Agreed comments
1. “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed [climate] changes to the specific cause of increases in greenhouse gases.”
2. “While some of the pattern-base discussed here have claimed detection of a significant climate change, no study to date has positively attributed all or part of climate change observed to man-made causes.”
3. “Any claims of positive detection and attribution of significant climate change are likely to remain controversial until uncertainties in the total natural variability of the climate system are reduced.”
4. “While none of these studies has specifically considered the attribution issue, they often draw some attribution conclusions, for which there is little justification.”
Santers replacements
1. “There is evidence of an emerging pattern of climate response to forcing by greenhouse gases and sulfate aerosols … from the geographical, seasonal and vertical patterns of temperature change … These results point toward a human influence on global climate.”
2. “The body of statistical evidence in chapter 8, when examined in the context of our physical understanding of the climate system, now points to a discernible human influence on the global climate.”
No.
Most likely a future date after they expect to have retired on pension.
“This makes it easier to identify a slowly-emerging signal arising from gradual, human-caused changes in atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases,” Santer said.”
Slowly-emerging? Gradual? Flog this apostate forthwith. Everyone knows that there is nothing gradual about this. It is virtually instantaneous. Unprecedented! Worse than we thought.
Isn’t it time we muzzle these Koch brothers paid for oil company shills like Santer?
How is that a “failure” of peer-reviewed climate science? It was a reasonable paper that provides useful information. The “failure”, if that is the right word, is that the climate science of 1998 and earlier did not predict the “hiatus”, but the “failure” was the over-reliance on untested models.
That is a fascinating argument. When a climate scientist claims that the earth is warming and it doesn’t then the problem is a failure to predict the hiatus in warming, not the failure of the prediction of warming itself. This could revolutionize science. All future failures to predict events are actually just failures of timing and, as such, no theory can ever be disproved. If only the flat earthers had figure this out. They could still be in business.
Love it! Logic crushes dogma
+10
Silly goose, the paper was a success! “When a climate scientist claims that the earth is warming…” tthen he paper is a success! The next paper and the one after that will “claim that the earth is warming” and they too will be successes. That is the product they are paid to produce, when they produce it, they get paid and that is a SUCCESS!!! (Screw the rest of humanity. I got my paycheck, my BMW and fawning fans. I’m good.)
So when NASA fails to land a rocket on the moon it wasn’t a failure of the maths but a failure of the moon being in the right place.
Ooh, I think NASA’s actually done that with Mars probes
Science here sounds like a Government program, that refuses to go away — despite failures
I agree. The paper says “at least.” So he’ll NOT acknowledge a mistake; climate scientists don’t do that. He’ll simply say, “Well, now that we have exceeded the minimum time necessary, we may eventually begin to see evidence that the theory (sic) needs to be examined. Or not. So far, such evidence is not visible and probably will not appear for many years, if ever.” Shazam! Santer will just go into denial.
Even if they insist on moving the goalposts it will not matter much. The elephant in the room is the continued divergence of the IPCC’s temperature projections V observations. That is not an easy one to get out of.
I’m inferring that you take exception to the peer-review part of that description. The fact is that peer review is being held up as the gold standard because it supposedly protects against incorrect results through consensus. The fact that the predictions of 1998 have been empirically falsified indicates that peer review is no real protection against being wrong. Failure is a synonym for wrong, so Anthony’s description is entirely correct. The prediction of climate science was wrong (failed) and it was peer reviewed, so peer-reviewed climate science failed.
Peer review is definitely no protection against being wrong.
All peer review does is ensure that the paper/research project complies with prevailing orthodoxies.
It’s conservative, providing some protection against snake oil merchants; water powered cars, anti-gravity etc but works against the acceptance of new ideas such as the germ theory of disease, plate tectonics or meteor impact as a cause of extinction.
If the new view provides a better explanation of a phenomenon it will eventually prevail.
Where education is lacking old views tend to hang on.
Witchcraft is viewed as a reality in much of the world.
It’s conservative alright … providing protection for charlatans, ‘wind energy’ powered cars, ant-science, etc.
Proper peer review will improve a paper, but in climate science the pejorative term “pal review” aptly describes the review process: if you uphold the models then you are a “pal” and you pass through the gate.
There was no period where the rate of warming was close to or less than 0 for a greater period than a few years after 1975. http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/derivative/mean:120
With an exponentially increasing human contribution of CO2 to the atmosphere, there would be less chance of natural variations in the climate. The failure of the peer reviewed process is that the reviewers didn’t insist that the modelling was crap even after 14 years of cessation of warming.
less chance of natural variations in the climate negating the warming.
Please show links to evidence of ‘exponentially increasing human contribution to CO2 to the atmosphere’.
Mac the Knife
October 3, 2014 at 8:47 pm
Please show links to evidence of ‘exponentially increasing human contribution to CO2 to the atmosphere’.
Mauna Loa ? Hawaii
Stephen Richards
Mac the Knife requested
And you have replied
Sorry, but no.
The Mauna Loa data is here.
It shows that during each year the atmospheric CO2 varies by more than an order of magnitude greater than the annual human emission of CO2. The annual increase is the residual of the seasonal variation. And the annual increase is equivalent to about half of the human emission but they don’t correlate: in some years the rise is almost nothing and in other years the rise is similar to the total human emission.
It is a stretch to say that the Mauna Loa data is – of itself – evidence that any of the increase to atmospheric CO2 is a result of the “human contribution” and it certainly is not “evidence of ‘exponentially increasing human contribution to CO2 to the atmosphere’.”
Richard
It certainly throws the correlation between CO2 and temperature into serious doubt.
Stephen, I think you should think a bit carefully about your use of the word “exponentially”. In my understanding this means that an exponential fit to the data is significantly superior to a linear or perhaps quadratic fit. Why not go ahead with the Mauna Loa data set and compute the best parameters for these three alternative models. I don’t use R, but can do these things. You will need to think about the within year (regular seasonal) changes, and how to handle the lack of fit that they will introduce to any model hoping to fully describe the (monthly) observations.
I agree. I do have one complaint. That sun baked mayonnaise chicken you served last night made me a bit ill. Pass the Pepto please.
I read an article on the AIP website today called “How To Deal With Climate Change” by Paul Higgins.
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/article/67/10/10.1063/PT.3.2548
The second paragraph says “People are causing Earth’s climate to change. Natural factors like solar variability and volcanoes may have also exerted a slight warming or cooling influence recently, but they are on top of the human contribution and small by comparison. 1 , 2 That conclusion is extremely solid scientifically because it comes from multiple independent lines of evidence. ”
I commented about the merits of that claim given how models have not shown skill in predicting temperatures thus far. Someone else later commented “The author should spend more time educating the professional members of his own society, a frightening number of whom are anti-science and do not believe in man-made climate change. Very unsettling, indeed.”
These people are so annoying!
Reply:
so, you deny the evidence of history, to insist that humans cause climate change.
you deny that climate changes for any other reason than human beings. you deny that that ice ages occur naturally, that warming occurs naturally.
you deny that any of this climate change occurred. you deny that it was very rapid, over a matter of just a few decades, temperatures changes as much as 10 degrees, while current temperatures have changed less than 2 degrees over 150 years.
you deny all of this, and thus you are a climate change deniers.
Paul Higgins’s has a PhD in what? That article is one of the sorriest examples of clear thinking that I’ve read in a long time. It’s high school level, and I’m probably insulting some highschoolers.
How thrilling! Such adherence to the blind deluded view of the world of anti-science climate fear mongers.
Untested models? How about;
sad math imitating code concocted simulations of what the alarmists ‘want’ to happen so they can continue their sad mockeries of science.
In the real world where honest scientists, engineers, physicists, chemists, finance, astronomers, geologists, etc. develop and utilize computer models to better understand their areas of science; not to make predictions!
Imagine a world where any of the honest users of models made predictions which then failed not just partially, but absolutely and completely?
That world is this world and people sue and get sued when they’re promised that rainbow or terror at the end of the model rainbow and the prediction fails. People expend energy, personally precious resources and funds because of the predictions.
In an honest business world, predictions, especially certain predictions are treated as guarantees and the predictors are considered culpable.
Which is why the honest only use models to assist themselves and their co-workers with a better understanding, not to make ‘predictions’.
A less than honest world is where people insist their models are ‘the true models’ even as they coach their language to provide CYA and disguise their dishonesty. There are reasons why snake oils salespeople are ‘run out of town on a rail’. (When most railed fences utilized split rail fences, this was a most uncomfortable way to leave town with splinters on private parts).
That the catastrophic purveyors of false models no matter their intent, insist their models predict anything and refuse to consider other possibilities, well they’re definitely not amongst the honest whether businessmen, scientists, researchers or politicians.
Yes, I go along with that.
However, once the data shows that the paper is wrong in some material respect, then it is incumbent upon the researchers to modify their views taking contemporary data into account.
It remains at least logically possible that there is some explanation for the ‘pause’ which does not require the original conjecture(s) to be scrapped.
But I’ve not seen anything yet from these researchers addressing these issues. That is with one exception:
Ben San ter postulates that the heat energy is going into the ‘deep oceans’. No plausible mechanism has been describ ed.
You are correct, it isn’t failure of peer-reviewed climate science. Santer et al said that they would need 17 years of temperatures to ascertain if there was a human signal in the temperature record. They’ve had 18 and there is no evidence of a human signal, according to their science. So, if their peer reviewed paper was correct we will now see them telling the world that there is no human signal in the temperature record. Won’t we? Or will they deny that their peer reviewed scientific forecasts is correct, or move the goal posts? Which? I’m betting on silence, followed by goal post moving if forced to speak.
Goalpost mover for sure. They said “at least”. Had they said “17 or more” it would be a different story. But they said “at least”. So now they will just say, “yeah, that’s what we told you the first time…we need 30 years…that’s at least 17 – no contradiction.”
Back when I was in grade school I was taught Climate is the average weather over 30 years. With the plateau at now over 18 years and getting so close to 30, I am wondering if the World Climate has ever been so stable. We might be living in the most stable climate in recorded history. That is extremely unlikely to occur which means it was caused by AGW. Lol
I second that.
Kinda like the top (or bottom) of a sine wave…
I think 30 is used for statistical testing reasons: any smaller sample and you have to use a “t” distribution test. Presumably that 30 refers to a random sample, and years are somewhat correlated – you get strings of warmer or wetter than average years and strings of cooler or dryer than average years rather than temps and rainfall jumping all over the place each year. I don’t think a 30 year climate test meets the 30 random samples requirement for statistical testing.
For more on this , check out Koutsoyiannis’ website here.
http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/
Both “Watts Up With That” and “Climate Audit” have a few previous columns to Koutsoyiannis , who pointed out that climate factors tend to follow a “Hurst” distribution rather than a “Normal” distribution.
Jared says:
We might be living in the most stable climate in recorded history.
There is little doubt about that:
http://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/image266.png
It’s a bit hard to see any variation in the data considering that:
1. It’s vertical axis is more than twice as big as the data it portrays;
2. It uses absolute values starting from zero rather than easier to see anomalies;
3. It uses a Fahrenheit scale rather than the Celsius scale in which the data are published.
When someone goes to the trouble of adding an unnecessarily large scale to a vertical axis and converting data that is published as anomalies and in Celsius into absolute values in Fahrenheit I get suspicious that they’re trying to hide something.
This perhaps? http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.gif
DavidR’s griping notwithstanding, this is much closer to a representative graph of temperature history than any product you’re ever going to see from any of the ‘establishment’ organizations.
DavidR gets suspicious when he sees too large a range on the y-axis. I get suspicious when it’s too small.
Option 4, he’ll wait until his comment is 17 years old to respsond…
“Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global‐mean tropospheric temperature.”
Since AGW scientists moan about the public not taking them seriously, I will sooth their fretted brow and say:
Humans have caused a welcome pause in rising temperatures, leading to a greening planet largely devoid of frequent or rising catastrophic temperatures or seriously inclement weather events. We shall call this the double decade of benevolent human provenance. The entire populace of the world owes themselves a pat on the back and should march into the future doing exactly what they did these past two decades to calm a jittery planet. Good job.
There. I’ve taken these author’s sciencey words and dedicated gami…er…lab res….uh….mod…um…emails! Yes. Emails…and, and, group discussions and consensusses seriously. Very seriously.
Too bad Santer et al didn’t apply the 17-year qualification to their own modeling. They might have looked like professionals.
Every bit of weather, however short term, proves CAGW to them.
No amount of climate, however long term, will disprove it for them.
Or to put it another way – if they weren’t reasoned into it, they aren’t going to be reasoned out of it. It is the religion of their tribe.
Very well put. As scientists or engineers we all find it hard to believe reasoning isn’t the answer….and when it doesn’t work it produces a great deal of frustration and at times anger. But your words, though simple, are very “reasonable” and seemingly self-evident.
Magic is achieved by reasonable and seemingly self-evident observations that are incorrect.
+1
We are fighting the wrong battle: climate change is not proven or disproven with temperature measurements. The proof of climate change is found in the gathering of walruses (walri?) and other such events obviously linked to CO2 concentration.
Lol! Events like Walri, ISIS and volcanoes !
Don’t forget ebola.
Good one!
Some estimate that the number of ‘walri’ has doubled since the 1950’s.
No wonder they are running out of places to put a beach blanket!
Please pardon the juvenility, but while sitting on my throne, I concluded that #2 just about sums it up.
+2
No doubt that Ben Santer will want to “beat up” anyone who disagrees with whatever response he comes up with.
OMG, what sheer pleasure that would be!
They will never, ever admit they were wrong. Goalposts will be moved. Whole playing fields will be changed. It doesn’t matter what kind of evidence is presented. They could be hip-deep in snow in the middle of June and they will not admit they were wrong. The climate could cool for the next 20 years (which it will) and they still will not admit they were wrong. They will never admit that they were wrong. They will go to their graves believing that CO2 emissions cause catastrophic climate change. It is mass hysteria. It is religion. They do not practice science.
Sadly, I think Alan is correct. It’s human nature to not to admit to a mistake, and god knows its rife amongst scientits (sic). Over the next few years, the AMO will kick in, and temps in the NH will actually fall. But the liarists and scientits will just say that the ‘pause’ is continuing, and warming will resume stronger than ‘evah’. A good religion will never admit to its mistakes (got to love the Holy Trinity!) and climate science is in every way, a religion.
All the more urgent for Obama to quickly force us into a binding “climate” treaty by some back-door, executive ordure, razzle-dazzle machination. That is his highest priority after gun confiscation and socialized medicine.
A basic premise of the Constitution of the United States is the separation of church and state. I agree that climate science seems to be a religion. I’m not sure what the legal definition of “church” is, but I would love to see government sued for breach of the Constitution due to clearly biased support of a particular church – the church of cagw. I think this could get some broad public support if a few congressmen would decide to push it. At the very least it could force a change in the way that grants are divvied out, to ensure the research is unbiased.
Alan, seconded. Goalposts have been moved many times. Colder NH winters = global warming, increased Antarctic sea ice extent = global warming.
What’s their signature for Global Cooling? A heatwave?
Any type of weather. The are dodging being tarred and feathered and I think it’s kind of sad. It’s like looking at a child with milk around their mouth who says they didn’t drink the milk.
They have always covered all their bases. Once you understand them it’s child’s play.
There are many examples of this kind of double speak. Like I said Climastrologists have all their bases covered.
“They will never, ever admit they were wrong”
Wrong. They can’t ever admit they were wrong.
If they were so convincing that governments around the world bought into AGW, what would the consequences be if it turns out to be not true? I would say catastrophic.
Consider a (flawed) analogy: Dr Andrew Wakefield. He made the claim that the MMR vaccine caused autism. Any developmental psychologist could disprove that statement in a flash, but that wasn’t the news story. The results were largely predictable: large areas of the population skipped the MMR, with the result now being measles outbreaks not seen for maybe a hundred years.
The climbdown was equally predictable: Big medical journals have major egg on their faces, and a general public that doesn’t know what to believe (look at the still-growing Anti-Vax movements and the difficulty stamping them out).
If you want another example, look at the much-touted stem cell research from Japan. The head researcher killed himself when the fraud was uncovered, with stem cell research thrown back years as a result.
As much as I hate it, the best way for AGW to die a death is to slowly attenuate it over time and let everyone involved get out with as much skin intact as possible. Some, like Mr Mann, have not only hoisted their petard to the mask of AGW, but nailed it there so firmly they will never escape the stain, but they are the minority. Governments especially need to manage the climbdown, but that is already happening as part of the natural political process. Look at Australia: in 2007 climate change was “the greatest moral challenge of our time”, now the country is unwinding green damage to the economy. And there’s a clue: the damage to the economy is being neatly pinned on the greens themselves; the major political parties are washing off the stains. I don’t know about the US; Germany seems to be heading down the part of looking after their economy; as does the UK.
But also notice: AGW was never “wrong”; it’s just not talked about as much.
As Worf said in DS9 (regarding the Klingons of the Kirk era), “We do not discuss it with outsiders”.
Germany plans to increase renewable solar & wind power to 35% of their power supply by 2016. Their energy prices have increased by over 60% over the last few years. They have & will seriously harm their economy. Several large companies are moving industrial operations outside of Germany because of this. See http://online.wsj.com/articles/germany-proposes-higher-green-energy-surcharge-on-industrial-companies-1403631684
Yep. Down the memory hole, with all the other failed prognostications of doom of years past.
“The head researcher killed himself when the fraud was uncovered”
A culture with honor.
Post-normal science uses consensus in lieu of empirical research and prediction combined. If a scientist makes a prediction, then they assume responsibility for their work. Hence the stampede by climate scientivists to “projections”. The great thing about post-normal consensus is that no one source is responsible for falsified predictions. Every one of the 97%, (or 77 out of 79, whatever) has his/her arse covered by lack of accountability.
Professor Peter Wadhams has over the years PREDICTED that the Arctic will be ice free no later than 2016. This year he tried to push it out to FIVE YEARS OR MORE, but I got his number.
Links for quotes from Professor Peter Wadhams
We will have to wait another 30 years before the data is old enough to be adjusted down historically and then it will be clear that there has been no hiatus at all and, in fact, it was always worse than we thought. Until then we must continue to act with great caution and build many more wind turbines. ;>)
The WFT index (Mean of HADCRUT3, GISTEMP, UAH and RSS) is:
Last 30 years: +0.158 K/decade
Last 18 years: +0.061 K/decade
Last 17 years: +0.025 K/decade
Last 13 years: -0.015 K/decade
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/plot/wti/last:204/trend/plot/wti/last:216/trend/plot/wti/last:156/trend
By 2020, the 30 year trend will be less than 0.05 K/decade, which basically no warming.
0.05 K/decade is probably fully explicable by climate “scientist” data molestation.
As long as the data is over 18 yrs….it’s consensual and legal ….no? /sarc
If you look at the long term HADCRUT4, it is apparent that we are already into the next declining phase.
Per so-called “climate scientists”, there is a very simply way of calculating how long a no-warming trend must last to be significant. We have already had an 18 year pause, but it needs to continue another “X” years to be significant.
X = (Estimated year date of retirement) minus (current year date)
I should think that the established lack of a troposphere hot spot developing as predicted would have been sufficient years ago to raise serious questions about the physics of the warming theory.
It seems that physics isn’t necessary when you’ve got faith.
They spent a lot of energy trying to show that all weather balloon data was systematically wrong. I think the BBC still believes that.
“lack of a troposphere hot spot”
I think that’s what kicked off the skeptic movement proper in the first place. The real problem for warmists was always that one doesn’t need to be a scientist to see they got so much of their work wrong.
Where do we send the bill for compensation from runaway policy cost effects?
Plus I’d like to sue somebody for causing all the panic during an extended period of stable climate, mankind was robbed of the ability to enjoy it by all the doom and gloom assertions
Yeah but the hypothesis = MM CO2 causes catastrophic (or any at all) warming – was total bo99ocks in the first place,
Natural warming and a natural born pause is no mystery. Though, the question is, is it a harbinger of more cooling to come or, something – even a little bit colder than that?
His theorizing was Chicken Little style and only really for the birds, now, is there any chance of Santer eating crow?
They are already changing the goal posts. “Climate disruption” is going to be the message, replacing “Global Warming”. I still cannot understand why they deny higher CO2 will benefit world population, especially those in impoverished regions.
I wonder how many of John Cook’s 97% of scientists will put their hands up and say oops I was wrong.
Since they’re fictitious, the number has no relevance. Besides, if they’re friends of Cook, they’d put up their hands with a stiff arm and say something completely different.
Both of ’em
Obviously he meant 17 METRIC years.
#2 appears likely, yet as Christopher Monckton has pointed out, it has NOT been warming longer than it warmed.
Being in love with AGW means never having to say you’re sorry.
Or wrong.
We have itchy and scratchy.
2012
NOAA’s ’15 year statement’ from 2008 puts a kibosh on the current Met Office ‘insignificance’ claims that global warming flatlined for 16 years
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/15/noaas-15-year-statement-from-2008-puts-a-kibosh-on-the-current-met-office-insignificance-claims-that-global-warming-flatlined-for-16-years/
Here is someone who is worried.
Wouldn’t you think that instead of worrying that they would be relieved that a catastrophe may not occure?
Jim, this is a measure of how sick with fear and power the alarmists are.
============
Jim Francisco said:
Wouldn’t you think that instead of worrying that they would be relieved that a catastrophe may not occure?
EXACTLY!!! It just goes to prove that these guys are actually “rooting for” higher temperatures. They’re way more interested in being right than they are with anything else. It really makes me question the lengths they might go to in order to preserve their own industry and future.
Oh Gavin!
It’s all falling apart I think. We need a rescue package brought together by sceptics for these chaps. They are called rat holes.
Instead of donkey holes?
How about manhole covers? That way they’re out of sight from now on.
Naval Research Laboratory solar scientist Judith Lean drew a similar line in the sand, stating that if the expected temp progression wasn’t met by the 25 year mark, she’d have to reevaluate her adherence to the global warming orthodoxy. There is no way the numbers are going to work out for her in the remaining few years on that 25 year period.
As more and more of these falsely prophetic statements fall, I expect so much handwaving that surrounding wind farms will actually become a viable alternative power source.
What will happen over the next 15 years if there is statistically significant cooling of a tenth of a degree or two? There are a number of folks who feel that with a cold PDO, a transition to the cool phase of the AMO and a very weak solar cycle, this is inevitable. The politics of the painful solutions for climate change will likely mean they drop off the political radar, particularly if the political proponents of the climate agenda start losing elections and the government largess toward climate science dries up. This means a lot of people working in the area will move on in a game of research funding musical chairs. My question is if the order of people getting into a trendy areas are innovators first, followed by imitators second and idiots taking up the rear, what will be the order of people getting out??
Your point about politics is dead on. Once we start electing skeptics, they can begin to unravel this mess. The scientists are beyond hope. They are brain-dead. We will start to see the change come November. Democrats will be decimated in the United States. When the Republicans control both Houses, Obama will truly be a lame duck and most likely an impeachable lame duck. Australia is already onside. Britain is about to get serious with UKIP. In Canada, Harper is still in charge. China is demanding the moon, knowing full well that the West won’t contribute $100 billion a year! India knows better and actually cares about its poor. By 2016, who will be left to continue the fantasy? If the newly elected conservatives are smart, they will start by firing these so-called scientists, slash their climate research budgets and put these lunatics out on the street where they belong. They have cost us billions and hindered our economic growth.
“China is demanding the moon, knowing full well that the West won’t contribute $100 billion a year!”
That’s one month and 3 days of QE (before the taper), so why not? USA(or, the entire West, USA+EU+Japan) NEEDS ever more debt because every Dollar of debt brings one Dollar of currency into existence.
Reminds me of what the Amazing Randi’s Million Dollar Offer to “psychics” and the like: not matter how many times they fail, it is never their fault.
Well … there’s a solution to their conundrum. It’s quite apparent that the good planet Earth has entered into a new ice age that has being firmly held back by AGW for 17 years which, as the wise AGW folks know, is keeping us all from freezing our derrières off.
@ Pedro…..
That seems like no solution either to their conundrum…. if it was they will have already adopt it.
Problem is the observed hiatus.
At their lower estimate of CS=1.5C they are facing a negative feed on the system at about -.1.1C trend from the year around 2000 to 2120-2150 [ESTIMATED TIME FOR 540-560ppm] under the current conditions.
It may look small the -1.1C, but it is a very sharp slope EVEN IN THE CASE of a starting Ice Age, it will be more than the -0.3C to -0.4C slope during the LIA by a factor bigger then X2.
The only thing that could still be claimed IN THE CONTEXT of AGW will be on the lines that while it seems to have failed to hold back the Ice Age it has actually increased its severity especially at the starting point.
With higher CS value, bigger the problem.
That is the paradox with AGW.
Even dropping the value for CS the projections will show that the minimum gained for negative feed is at about -0.9 C from 2000 to 2120-2150, and that is still a big dropp. All projections with any value of CS will project warming for a doubling of CO2.
The projections for a CS=1.5C will deviate with the projections of CS=0 [the max dropping possible] only with a 0.1C per century……run by the same GCM. So at the CS=0 the projections will show the same problem we face under a 1.5C CS, no pause projected and sitll the same warming actually projected, …..and while compared with the real actual data [THE PAUSE] will show the same negative feed in play.
Well… the only solution remaining, I think, with AGW, is to surrender and admit that while it was a good starting point it has become meaningless and totally irrational to still persist stubbornly with that line.
cheers
Yes, that paradox is very interesting. The higher the climate sensitivity, the lower the temperature would be without man’s input. We’d better hope the temperature rise has been dominated by Nature, for if it’s been Man, we haven’t enough hydrocarbons left to maintain artificially elevated temps for very long.
===============
Once again the skeptics have been proven correct.
Santer’s clearly written words in defense of climate fanaticism are in the record.
Let’s see what he and his pals do with what that.
Ben Santer will not concede a thing. In a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, he and Thomas Stocker write
“Our best understanding—from observations, basic physics and models—is that the global climate changes observed over the last century are largely human driven. They aren’t “comparable to the intrinsic, natural variability of the climate system itself.”
http://online.wsj.com/articles/we-dont-need-perfect-knowledge-to-act-on-the-climate-letters-to-the-editor-1412195749
‘They aren’t “comparable to the intrinsic, natural variability of the climate system itself.”’ –Santer
Regarding which, he is in almost complete ignorance. I suspect examination of his thought process would reveal that he’s swallowed his own circular argument.
Don B: Excellent reference, I also saw that letter where Santer and Stocker … unsuccessfully … attempted to debunk Dr. Koonin’s recent WSJ article.
Not often, but sometimes, the WSJ entertains letters that rebut the letters of earlier commenters. A suggestion to members of the WUWT community … if someone, more eloquent, knowledgeable, and persuasive that I, could provide such a counter-rebuttal using Santer’s own 17 years pronouncement, it might inform some of our fellow citizens and thereby help diffuse the CAGW scare.
Best
Dan Backman
They were guessing then and they are guessing now.
For updated forecasts of the timing and amount of the probable coming cooling see
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
Here are the conclusions.
“I have combined the PDO, ,Millennial cycle and neutron trends to estimate the timing and extent of the coming cooling in both the Northern Hemisphere and Globally.
Here are the conclusions of those posts.
1/22/13 NH Forecast
1) The millennial peak is sharp – perhaps 18 years +/-. We have now had 16 years since 1997 with no net warming – and so might expect a sharp drop in a year or two – 2014/16 – with a net cooling by 2035 of about 0.35.Within that time frame however there could well be some exceptional years with NH temperatures +/- 0.25 degrees colder than that.
2) The cooling gradient might be fairly steep down to the Oort minimum equivalent which would occur about 2100. (about 1100 on Fig 5) ( Fig 3 here) with a total cooling in 2100 from the present estimated at about 1.2 +/-.
3) From 2100 on through the Wolf and Sporer minima equivalents with intervening highs to the Maunder Minimum equivalent which could occur from about 2600 – 2700 a further net cooling of about 0.7 degrees could occur for a total drop of 1.9 +/- degrees.
4) The time frame for the significant cooling in 2014 – 2016 is strengthened by recent developments already seen in solar activity. With a time lag of about 12 years between the solar driver proxy and climate we should see the effects of the sharp drop in the Ap Index which took place in 2004/5 in 2016-17.
4/02/13Global Forecast
1 Significant temperature drop at about 2016-17
2 Possible unusual cold snap 2021-22
3 Built in cooling trend until at least 2024
4 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2035 – 0.15
5 Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2100 – 0.5
6 General Conclusion – by 2100 all the 20th century temperature rise will have been reversed,
7 By 2650 earth could possibly be back to the depths of another little ice age.
8 The effect of increasing CO2 emissions will be minor but beneficial – they may slightly ameliorate the forecast cooling and help maintain crop yields .
9 Warning !! There are some signs in the Livingston and Penn Solar data that a sudden drop to the Maunder Minimum Little Ice Age temperatures could be imminent – with a much more rapid and economically disruptive cooling than that forecast above which may turn out to be a best case scenario.”
3.2 2014 Updates and Observations..
3.2.1 Updates
a) NH Forecast- item 4. With regard to timing, closer examination of the Ap Index (Fig13) and Neutron Count (Fig.14) would suggest that the sharpest drop in activity is better placed at 2005/6 with the associated sharp temperature drop now forecast at 2017-18.
b) Global Forecast – item1. Significant temperature drop now forecast for 2017-18.
c) Global Forecast – item 9. Another year of flat Livingston and Penn umbral data suggests that a swift decline into a Maunder Minimum is now very unlikely
People have no idea how fast temperatures can drop. The drop into the LIA was precipitous. Within a matter of years, Europe went from mild to brutally cold. The downturn was exacerbated by greatly increased volcanic activity (which correlates with low solar activity as well) further reducing temperatures. Study history and you learn very quickly that cold kills.
The Anasazi indians of SW Colorado abruptly abandoned their mesa top cliff dwellings around 1250AD. The LIA onset.
Hang on now dawg. You go toooooooo far. Let’s keep it to the near term, like this century.
“7 By 2650 earth could possibly be back to the depths of another little ice age.”
Jimbo as you can see above I also provide shorter term forecasts. The 2650 forecast is perfectly reasonable if you look at the 1000 year quasi- periodicity see Figs 5 and 9 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com
I thought that, at least according to the UAH folks, RSS fails to account for a bit of drift that results in them underestimating the temperature in recent years. Is this really the best temperature set to use?
My understanding is that when the next release of UAH ensemble (Ver 6, I believe) is released. UAH and RSS will be even closer than they are today.
The problem with Santer’s paper is that he could only use models to estimate the noise.
The problem there is that the models are not generally speaking noisy enough. On short time scales they fail
to capture the variability. This leads Santer to underestimate the time window. There are some other problems with the paper ( the assumed signal is too strong), but for its time it wasnt a bad effort.
Yes. Using the models to estimate noise is fatal. They don’t reproduce the noise of genuine climate data; they only emulate it. When you don’t know all the variables rigorously, you can’t estimate the variability. You may be right about it not being a bad effort. I’d have said horrible, but you may be correct. Santer is one of the sharper knives in that drawer. And, after all, his paper is three years old, and the science wasn’t settled then, despite myriad claims to the contrary.
What are the error bars on this criticism of Santer? Just how noisy should the models be? Just how strong should the assumed signal be?
Where are the error bars in any “Climate Science?” How is any of it Science at all???
Steven Mosher
October 3, 2014 at 11:42 am
“The problem with Santer’s paper is that he could only use models to estimate the noise.
The problem there is that the models are not generally speaking noisy enough. On short time scales they fail
to capture the variability. ”
What you’re saying is the models are a failure.
Agreement at last.
Hey how about junking them now.
As Mosher says, the models are not noisy enough. Well, that is completely untrue. Spaghetti factory would be a better description of the models.
http://s18.postimg.org/ewzj7flyx/IPCC_AR4_Model_Spread_2000_2020.png
But let’s take the idea that they are not covering enough of the natural climate variables. The noise produced by the ENSO, the volcanoes, the AMO (which is increasingly being recognized as a natural cycle) and the solar cycle (which is very small, but I keep leaving it in.)
And let’s extend the lower troposphere record back to 1958 using the HadAT weather balloon radiosonde measurements for the lower troposphere.
Now, after removing the biggest natural climate cycles/noise factors and going further back than UAH and RSS do, we see the non-warming trend is, in fact, actually 40 years 9 months now.
Yes, all the way back to 1973.
http://s29.postimg.org/9a6aqbpmv/UAH_RSS_Had_AT_Warming_1958_Sept14.png
No Santer paper could fix that problem.
I also take issue with “the models are not generally speaking noisy enough”.
this is a nonsense. climate science is statistical rubbish, based on the mistaken idea that average are representative of the population.
you cannot compute the noise of the original signal from the average of the signal. it is mathematically impossible. here is a simple example:
If you make a model of human beings, based on the average human being, they have < 2 arms, < 2 legs, 1 tit, 1 nut, 1/2 a penis and 1/2 a vagina. they are self-fertilizing and are 5'5" tall, brown-yellow in color, with straight curly hair.
Tell us how much noise there is from this information. You cannot, because you only have the average. using averages was the only choice 50 years ago when computers were expensive. it is a complete nonsense today.
No.
The problem with Santer’s paper is that he chose to write a paper when he could only use models to estimate the noise. He wrote a shitty paper because they needed a paper – and a shitty one would do – to provide cover for the then failing “we only need to worry after 15 years of this pause” story that had previously been ginned up for cover.
No.
The problem there is that the models are generally speaking too noisy, and the nose is interpreted as signal if it conforms to the political imperative.
No.
Santer did not underestimate the time window. He did not estimate the time window at all. All he did was fix the lower sill of the time window to a point in the conveniently near future, and use “at least” to avoid having to define the upper bound. And what lead him to do that was the political imperative. He had to give a lower bound to shore up the politics. But had he given an estimate of the upper end of the time window, he would have had to do one of two things:
1. Commit to a date within the timeframe of his career upon which he would have to accept and admit to falsification of the substance of said career, or
2. Push the “we wont know about this CAGW thing until then” date out to a point so far into the future that no one on the planet would give a rats ass about the substance of said career.
Both screw him professionally, and both screw the political imperative. So he did what he had to do. He punted with a shitty stalling tactic of a paper, betting that Mother Nature would bail him out.
Steven, wake up please,… GCMs are not weather models, try to understand the difference between climate and weather.
In principle a GCM’s projection is expected to not match exactly the short term climate data, but the difference in a so considered correct projection must be as such as not to be more than due to the noise of short term variability…and the long term projection not considered so out of mark with reality as in the case of the hiatus. The hiatus is not due to a noise factor, neither due to a natural noise in the real data and neither because of no enough noise spoken by the GCMs, …that could have been a case at about 7 years ago… but not anymore.
The discrepancy between real climate and the projections is far too wide at this point, and no noise can cover that whatever way or acrobatics you play with the noise factor.
cheers
They need a salary for the coming 18 years at least.
Isn’t that past retirement age for most of ’em?
yeah, thats what gets me steamed!!
they wont be fired or jailed
theyll be given MORE MONEY! and allowed to continue their merry way,
and I doubt they would even consider an apology or quitting.
such a pity hari kiri didnt catch on as a means of amends. :-0
So can we rename “climate change” to “climate stability”? Hmmm…I don’t think it works to say that disasters are caused by man-made climate stability.
Climate Stability isn’t scary enough. “Climate Stagnation”! Now that’s scary. Stagnation as we all know is a breeding ground for disease and foulness of all sorts.
“Climate Stagnation”!
You have the winner. This is the sort of phrase that could show legs. WUWT needs an article on “Climate Stagnation”!
Here’s what the authors of that 17 year statement have to say about it now:
Tom Wigley, “_________________”
Susan Solomon, “____________________________”
Tom Karl, “_______”
Gerald Meehl, “____________”
Peter Stott, “____________________”
Peter Thorne, “__________”
Frank Wentz, “________________”
Ben Santer, “I agree with all the other authors”
/sarc
Reality check.
The ‘RSS data pause’ has reached 18 years. Warming of the globe (the so-called ‘Global Warming’) continues……
I have lived a long life and for the first time in my life, I had to wear my winter coat in the month of August for a couple of days because it had gotten so cold outside. That was unprecedented, but of course, that was just weather. However, when global warming does start to happen, wake me up.
One must question the data when three other data sets are not agreeing with it.
One must always question the data. That’s why AGW is in trouble…
I think I have got you figured out, Village Idiot.
You are not a global warmer. You are a skeptic who apes the global warmer point of view in order to discredit them. That is why you have adopted the blog name “village idiot” so to make plain the idiocy of the comment. WELL DONE
You mean pretending to be a warmist is the new nerd-glasses?
Reality Check:
Ice bergs and massive floes in the Great Lakes obstructed shipping and navigation into June of 2014. Frost depths reached 9 feet in areas of Wisconsin in the winter of 2013-14. A late, cold and wet spring delayed crop planting across the norther tier of the USA. Many areas of Wisconsin set all time records for average low temperature records:
http://www.wqow.com/story/24859849/2014/03/01/record-cold-winter-of-2014-tops-the-list
Please show unadjusted data demonstrating your claim of ‘global warming continues’….
Reality trumps adjusted data and computer models, every time.
Option 4: 17 years STARTING from 2001, which means another 3 1/4 years.
Like the bumper sticker says – his “Karma ran over his dogma”
The global temperature anomaly data HADCRUT4.3.0.0.monthly.ns_avg.txt have been published for August 2014 (http://www.metoffice.gov.uk). When I use the absolute temperature data “absolute.nc” published at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk to transform the anomaly data to absolute temperatures, I get 16.4 °C for Aug 2014. The same procedure for NOOA NCDC global leads to 16.4 °C, and for GISTEMP LOTI to 16.3 °C. On the global scale, July (16.4 °C) is the hottest month, while Jan (12.6 °C) is coldest. This is caused by the unequal distribution of land and oceans on the northern and the southern hemisphere, respectively. Therefore it is better to use annual means for specifying global temperatures. I found for the 201309-201408 interval, 14.5 °C for HADCRUT4, 14.6°C for GISTEMP, and 14.5 °C for NOOA, respectively. This maximum value was also measured in the periods 200909-201008(E), 200609-200708 (E), 200109-200208, and 199709-199808 (E).(El Nino years are marked by (E). Reference: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/index.html)
As the forecasts made by modeling the climate were not very successful in the recent decade, I have tried to make my own forecasts of the. global temperature. My forecast is based on the historical temperature data. The idea behind is that the forcings of the climate (sun irradiation, albedo, GHG, land-use, oceans, etc.) are varying slowly in time and the “inertia” of the global climate is large.( As El-Nino-La-Nina events have a short periodicity of some years these are smoothed by using a 5 year means of the temperature data.). Simple least squares fitting is used with several choices of fitting functions. The aim is to find a function with fitting parameters which are stable in time. That means: When you go back in the past and make a forecast to now the best fitting function will have the smallest deviation from the measured data. If I define an error level of 0.1 °C I determined the time span in the past with a deviation smaller than the error level. This time interval is assumed to be the time span valid for the forecast.
The best fitting function for the temperature was found to be T(t) = c0+c1*t+c2*t^2+c3*sin(c4*t+c5) The ci are fitting parameters. HADCRUT4 is better than NOOA NCDC and GISS, because this dataset goes back to 1850, while NOOA and GISS start from 1880. The gridded dataset of HADCRUT4 worked better than the published global dataset, because I made an estimate for missing temperatures in the gridded dataset ( i.e. Arctica and Antarctica) before averaging over the globe.
As a result of my analysis the 5yr means global temperature is expected to rise from 14.5 to 15.5 °C in the next 60 years This is a temperature increase of 1.0 °C. For comparison, the temperature increase during the last 60 years was 0.7 °C.
Details of my calculations can be found on my Website (in German). When you download KlimaGlobal.zip you will get a Windows exe file (in English) together with the datasets. After loading one of the datasets, you can click forecasts to start your own analysis.
It’s too bad you don’t have real data to work with instead of works of fiction. You can’t expect a fit to flawed data to actually have any predictive skill.
You can’t even expect a fit to perfect data to have any predictive skill if the underlying dynamics is chaotic.
the ocean tides are chaotic, yet we predict them with great accuracy, using a methodology similar to astrology.
this was how humans first learned to predict the seasons, long before we understood the cause of the seasons.
yet climate science ignores the obvious. you cannot reliably predict a chaotic system from first principles using existing technology. it doesn’t work for the tides and it certainly isn’t working for climate.
Time to get the crane out and move those goalposts.
Those were always mobile goalposts, sir–no need for a crane. Half a dozen “climate scientists” with gloves to hide the data is sufficient.
” must be at least 17 years long” – “at least” being the key words in there that allow them wiggle room. Wait and see they will now say 17 wasn’t a hard and fast number. It was more of a vague ballpark thingy …
So now that we are between 14 and 18 years, depending on which dataset you choose, they will point out errors with the longest running ones and claim they have another 3 years. When that comes and goes they will then claim that the only truly reliable measurements are from the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN) and it is only at 10 years so you’ll all have to wait another 7 for it.
By then they will all have retired and taken up learning the Spanish language in Paraguay to avoid extradition.
They should have known better. Nature
will humble you every time!
Yep, and She is not loath about sending reminders.
So what? It takes 17 years to identify human influence. They just produce a paper showing the natural cooling that would have occurred without anthropogenic forcing and voila, they we right all along. Oh, wait ….
Had they waited for “at least 17 years” of warming before before Hansen proclaimed the catastrophe of AGW back in the mid/late 80’s? I’d really like to know the answer to this…
No
17 years?
25 years?
Did I really say 30 years? (or drawing on my pension, whichever is sooner…).
The entire way the whole global warming industry tries (and generally succeeds) to deflect scrutiny is EXACTLY what we expect from serial liars. Everyone has had to deal with such liars-lies to support lies, ever more absurd excuses. Like the liars, once scientists are caught up in the lies for funding, they are essentially under obligation to continue the lie until they do not need the funding any more(retirement or death.) Like liars, they have to continue the deception to the bitter end. They know that when the deception is eventually uncovered, the repercussions are severe. For the compliant scientists, it is instant loss of a job and livelihood. The revelations that they are involved with scientific fraud will also mean they will excluded from academia and have to try to find employment elsewhere, which will also be difficult.
Note to the liars- make sure that any predictions with a defined time component are dated to be after you are dead or long retired and deemed too old to be punished. Perhaps this is the reason why all the predictions now are for 2100, when one would assume that the writers of the BS are long gone. Of course, predictions that are for times closer to the present have more sway with the media and the gullible public in general.
Now to work out the strategy to flush the liars out.
“Note to the liars- make sure that any predictions with a defined time component are dated to be after you are dead or long retired and deemed too old to be punished. Perhaps this is the reason why all the predictions now are for 2100”
Ye,s let’s flush those liars out!!
Sir Christopher cracked the climate sensitivity riddle in one weekend:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/06/09/sensitivity-schmensitivity/
“Frankly, I was suspicious about what that footnote might be hiding. So, since my feet are not yet fit to walk on, I have spent a quiet weekend doing some research.”
“That gives my best estimate of expected anthropogenic global warming from now to 2100: three-quarters of a Celsius degree.”
And he’s trying to seduce us all to do the same thing:
“Your mission, gentle reader, should you choose to accept it, is to let me know in comments your own best estimate of global warming by 2100 compared with the present. The Lord Monckton Foundation will archive your predictions. Our descendants 85 years hence will be able to amuse themselves comparing them with what happened in the real world.”
Yes, let’s flush out those liars!!
What say you Dr. Santer?
He says … I said “at least” …. which infers that it should be longer.
Problem is, the “hiatus” in the satellite data is now about as long as the “Global Warming” period in the data. Global Warming scare quickly reaches the limits of suspension of disbelief.
It was all a Matte painting.
Meaning he didn’t know then and doesn’t know now. He is a self-documenting ignorance machine.
Global warming was problematic for a few reasons; warming was flattening out and the “bad” effects if warming did occur, were decades to centuries into the future. Marketing dreams of people falling in line due to the horror of being roasted alive did not materialize due to continual cold weather. People in frigid climates were pissed that the projected warming they would welcome was not happening. Time scale was an issue as well; absolutely certain 100 year climate predictions are not believable when daily weather predictions are approximations and will always be approximations until time machines are invented. People just ain’t as stupid as climate scientist and political marketing efforts.
So it went to “Climate Change”. Even the most uneducated and ignorant know instinctively that climate does change and has always changed. This name has to be the lamest marketing name ever invented, well at least since we began collecting satellite temperature data.
I think next its, (drum roll please) “Climate Disruption”. “Humanity is disrupting the climate and we are all going to die” is at least a little better than “Humanity is changing the climate and we are all going to die”. Humanity changing climate is sense-less since the climate is always changing. Climate Disruption implies in this continually changing climate, humanity is disrupting it. Equally as stupid, since we have no baseline or scientific definition as to what “natural” climate change is.
No, this will not end the nonsense, just the marketing strategies.
Heh, time for sort of a new null, that all weather and climate have now been changed because of man, but for the better. At any given time, ask this: ‘Colder or now?’. Only fools would opt for colder, but look into which dark alley the warming alarmists have wandered.
===========
Thank our luckystars for the “pause”. Otherwise this might happen:
Reprted today “Climate change could affect the ratio of human males to human females that are born in some countries, a new study from Japan suggests. The researchers found that male fetuses may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change
The males need to stop wearing nylon undies.
The researchers found that male fetuses may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
Aye, It make their X/Y ‘hockey sticks’ even bigger!
Has anyone bothered to catalog all the AGW ‘predictions’ that have not come to pass? After 20 years it would be a long and embarrassing list that needs to be brought to light.
Option 4) The oceans ate it.
We never make mistakes, we just model them. (TM CAGW ‘Climate’ “Science”)
By a perfect coincidence, “We never make mistakes” is the title of book of two Novels,
by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, published in 1971, which deals with the Soviet mindset,
particularly as it applies to the the collision of error and dogma in even the smallest events.
CAGW ‘Climate’ “Science” is crying out for an adaption of Solzhenitsyn’s stories,
replete with Climate Czars, Commissars and other sad jokes.
The warmist brigade show the classic signs of the self deluded egotist. They are certain of their own truth, without the perspective provided by comparison.
They remind me of an old joke about a Texan cattle ranch owner and an Australian cattle station owner, talking in a bar.
The Texan stands up and proudly states, “I can saddle my horse in the morning, ride all day, and still not reach the other side of my ranch”.
The Aussie cattleman puts a sympathetic hand on the Texan’s shoulder and says, “I had a horse like that once”.
Steven said Santer needed bigger models, more noise, not that the models or Santer were wrong.
Flip to scene of Santer noisily crying in his beer with a consoling hand on his shoulder.
Of course they will go with #2 then 30 years hence, again with #2. As matter of fact why don’t we just call their whole enterprise a steaming pile of #2.
Seventeen climate researchers likely with Ph. D.’s from Livermore National Laboratory, National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, UK’s Hadley Climate Center, University of Colorado and Remote Sensing Systems with financial support from World Climate Research, US Department of Energy, and Hadley Climate Center say…”temperature records of at least 17 years length are required for identifying (of) human effects of global mean temperature” (Santer et al., J. Geophys. Res. 2011).
Today, Remote Sensing Systems and Univ. of Alabama report that the mean satellite/balloon land-ocean temperature remains unchanged for 18 years one month, since September 1996, or one year beyond Santer’s 17 year requirement. The University of Illinois reports that the extent of Antarctic sea ice reached a new record high in September 2014 of 16,806,000 square kilometers. Rural US stations reveal temperatures down-trending since the 1930s-1940s (NOAA) unlike climbing urban temperatures but those are easily explained by ever-growing expanses of asphalt and concrete in cities. From these and Santer’s statement global warming expired and truth routed climate change.
By these authorities, all publics shall be informed that global warming, climate change (and like propaganda) are revealed as grandiose lies. The world’s greatest hoax now gets a “finger in its eye”.
the biggest problem with claiming a “no warming trend” using the RSS data set is that the other satellite data set from UHA, (Spencer & Christy) shows a warming trend for the same period – 1997 on.
There needs to be an explanation as to why these two LTT data sets differ
Essentially, the UAH data showed less warming in the 20th century and this led to the RSS average being higher at the end of that time period. They then started to converge. Since RSS started at a higher point in the late 90s it now has a flat trend while UAH has an upward trend. Overall, for the complete record, they have now converged. In other words they both show about the same amount of warming for the entire 35 years.
Boy, you guys are naive. These guys are more dedicated and deceitful than you think.
I am reading a book, “The West Without Water” by two young women climatologists (I think they work on sediments and shells, mainly). The book documents the volatile climate of California and adjacent states during the Holocene. Megafloods, megadroughts, etc. Wide swings in temperature. Huge floods occurred there in the 1860’s, flooding the central valley. Yet, they are very careful to show obeisance to man made climate change. The disconnect between what they describe (highly variable climate) and the Mann hockey stick stuff, and the blaming of extreme weather on humans, for example, is huge, but they are on board with man-made global warming, or else, I suppose. It is amazing they call this stuff science. These people are inmates.
They even talk about the Medieval Warm Period, which had great impacts in California. A megadrought that knocked off the “Ancestral Pueblo Cultures.” (This book is so P.C. you gag sometimes. They dismiss the topic of widespread warfare and cannibalism during this period in one or two sentences.) But, they cannot use the term MWP throughout their book. They quickly call it the “Medieval Climate Anomaly.” This is evil, pure and simple. But, this is how totalitarian regimes control their people. They control their language and their thoughts. Truly Orwellian.
So, that is your enemy. A a truly Orwellian organization. Pure evil. They will not go away quietly. And, if they give up on global warming, they will just come back with something else, perhaps worse.
And, while you guys are railing against this or that climatologist, you are forgetting that they are just the disposable tools of very powerful interests whose identity we are only dimly aware. They will certainly not go away, and will never give up.
BTW, don’t buy this book. There is not much in it.
Well, I guess we are less naïve now.
I just got to Chapter 12. The first 11 chapters describe the incredible climate events in CA history, all without human cause. Then, they outline their solution to the problem. I don’t understand by this time what the problem is, exactly. But, the solution involves removing humans, dams, irrigation, food production, and bringing back more fish. So, if you want to understand this book, start with Chapter 12. These people hate humans. They decry dam building, since it bring in more humans than the natural carrying capacity of the environment. I guess want humans to live like animals.
This book was a waste of money.
BTW, just to illustrate the dishonesty of these people. They talk about the ice ages and how CO2 rose and [fell] with the temperature. They imply that CO2 was a feedback to cause these wide temperature swings, never once mentioning that variable CO2 lags temperature, that is, it is an effect, not a cause, of changing temperature. So, if you talked to an educated liberal who read and believed this book, they would be still ignorant.
These people are evil. They couldn’t even write a coherent book.
Pardon my numerous grammatical errors. I was up early this morning working. That serves me right for posting when I am tired, but I was too “animated” by Chapter 12 to control myself.
Who would deliberately, beezlebubbly, destroy optima?
==================
Let’s face it, Santer thought he was being too clever by half in this paper by extending the warming hiatus timeline out to 17 years before there would be a problem while it was only 12 or 13 years at the time. He and his co-authors fully expected the warming to resume and there was no risk in pushing the time-line out to 17 years.
But it has fully back-fired now.
Does this mean the theory is incorrect.
Absolutely yes.
Santer should be forced to apoligize to the 7 billion people on this planet (and Kevin Trenberth as well if you know the history). Somebody needs to send him an email right now demanding that this ocurr since an honorable person would do so.
He’s mugged himself, the mug.
==========
I wish I shared the optimism of many here. I tend instead to agree with those who feel that there is no end in sight either for the alarmism or for the policies it leads to.
My pessimism stems largely from something I invite all of you to do. Go to https://www.google.com/alerts and create a daily alert for news related to climate change. Watch what comes through every day. Rarely is there anything from WUWT, the most viewed site on the topic. Rarely is there anything about the pause or studies that counter the alarmism. It is an almost uninterrupted stream of “what we need to do to save us from the horrors of climate change” or the equivalent.
It would be interesting to see a [poll] of the general population to see how many even know that there has been a 17 year pause in the warming. i’m guessing darn few would even know this, whether they believe in CAGW or not.
Heh, on grid or off grid, so to speak. Best to live aware of both.
==============
Just fascinating. I didn’t even use to “believe in global warming.” It came along with my fundamentalist Christianity. But now that I’ve left that, I find it much much easier to look at science with an open mind. I am especially interested in global warming issues and leaving a better legacy for future generations. Thank you for sharing.
http://www.tealtomato.com
So, you’re saying you’re easily swayed by groupthink on both sides of the spectrum? That is interesting.
Well, if you do indeed have an “open mind” (read: condescending and passive agressive manner), you will be well served by contributing here. Perhaps next time add something about the unpredicted and unprecidented flattening of world temperatures in direct contradition of the dozens of models the IPCC is built on.
And thank you for sharing!
Well, where to start. Anyone that thinks climate is not important to earth is living in fairy land. Plunge into an ice age, or even a little ice age, and let’s see what effect that has on humans.
It’s becoming increasingly clear earth’s climate is more complex than simplistic “forcings.” What’s needed now is leadership, and leadership means solutions to threats.
Warming is a threat, but so is cooling:
The satellite data indicate that the lower troposphere has warmed by roughly 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit since the beginning of satellite temperature records in 1979.
Given the 110% warming attributed to humans according to Hansen, and .9 degrees “C” warming above, the earth ought to be 1 degree “C” colder than today (even after the human adjusted continued cooling of the past, and warming of the present, this amounts to temperatures that ought to be the lowest in the instrumental record. Who knows, perhaps it ought to be. And if the pause lasts another ten, or twenty years, we will be .2 – .4 degrees “C” below that.)
Over the next twenty years, the CO2 issue will play out with empirical evidence. Nothing can stop it. The question will remain, however, in different forms. Yet, there remain important advocacy items.
As an example, Hansen is now a believer in nuclear power. As is a former head of greenpeace. I say, given the uncertainties, why not entertain these concerns? Let’s push forward with nuclear, now with first generation nuclear, and invest in 2nd generation nuclear. I’m tired of the Green monopoly of my energy usage. I think Anthony mentioned his energy is nearly $1.00 per KwH at peak hours. Insane since my CA energy provider rates wholesale energy at 4c/KwH.
While we are at it, let’s push forward with Fracking. In the US on Government lands, as well as in Europe. I don’t care so much what China does. Whatever leads to cheap energy that gets past the greens.
Solar/wind/wood are failures (amazing that 40% of Germany’s renewables come from wood). How about an energy source that can be placed anywhere, and that takes the 4c wholesale price, or 6c Nuclear price, and delivers it guilt free in an all you can eat fashion? Develop a 2nd generation Nuclear that is terror free so we can lift up the 3rd World.
That is what Skeptics ought to be pushing for. To tear down the Green guilt in electric generation forever. No more tit for tat. Use their arguments against them.
Meanwhile, geo-engineering should be understood, in case the warming does come to pass (let’s face it, no one understands our complex climate system), and the world does need to reduce CO2. Volcanoes do naturally reduce temperatures, and we ought to understand a safe way to mimic it to give time in a pinch. And naturally, we ought to continue to understand the world we live in, which means continued expenditures in scientific understanding of climate, albeit with a wider light (as Judith Curry suggests).
In any event, that’s what I would do if I were King of the World. I can’t think of anything wrong with any of this. And, it’s vastly cheaper than the cronyism we are doing now.
The Chniese plan to build ~300 reactors to meet their energy demands. These reactors are a new design. The uranium is encased in graphite spheres and are cooled with helium. The reactor cannot meltdown. I wish the west, US, UK and Aus would take up this technology and runn with it.
Thanks, Ed. People are catching on to those inevitable curves of attribution. How this whole mess got so backwards continues to amaze me.
============
What a paper with only 17 authors! And all17 wrong.
I need answers for the following questions. Can some of you commenters take time to help me out, please?
Question #1: How much has temperature gone up over the last 150 years?
Question #2: What is the entire amount of CO2 already in our atmosphere (in tons)?
Question #3: How much CO2 do humans emit per year (in tons)?
Question #4: How much CO2 does earth emit naturally per year (in tons)?
Question #5: What is the total % of CO2 added to the existing CO2 in our atmosphere per year?
Question 6: What is the total % of man made CO2 added to the existing CO2 in our atmosphere?
Question 7: Over the last 150 years what % of the temperature rise is from natural co2 emissions vs human emissions?
Q8 why has there been no warming for 18 years.
John,
If you are like me – the average non scientist reader that doesn’t believe in CAGW – the brainy peeps here usually don’t answer these questions. They want us to look it up ourselves and learn, so that we aren’t sheep.
Personally, I can’t remember diddley squat on stats, and I am too busy with my own business to fight with stats, so I usually dump it back on the alarmists: “What evidence do you have to support your human induced warming theory”? There isn’t any. It’s all based on climate model forecasting. None the models have been accurate. Learned this from DB Stealey on this site. They are the ones making a scientific claim, not you. I tell them “I am all ears if you can show me the science that proves your point”. They usually say something like “I use the science of Renowned Climate Scientist; So and So”. I say: “That’s great, then show me so and so’s science”. They can’t, because so and so’s science is based on failed climate modeling also. Then hit them with the 18 years no warming/18 years increasing human C02 emissions and ask them to explain that to you. That’s usually when they start cussing at me.
Ron Richey
Hi John,
Q1:
http://suyts.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/image266.png
Q3, 4:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/eia_co2_contributions_table3.png
Q7:
Ah. That is the central question, isn’t it? Any physical process can be measured. But despite $Billions spent on ‘climate studies’ every year, they do not spend any money to find an answer to your Question #7.
It’s almost as if they don’t want to find the answer…
These climate scientists have completely misjudged the effects of anthropogenic CO2.
Anthropogenic CO2 has caused a time-warp effect between the earth’s surface and the very top of the earth’s atmosphere. This effect makes it seem that only three years have passed in this endoatmospheric CO2-warp bubble when in reality 17 years have passed. So, in some time frame there are still 14 years on a CO2-based clock.
We can now expect that in a little over 100 years warming may or may not resume. Depending on if anthropogenic CO2 decreases. Or increases.
(If you understand and accept this explanation…. you may be a pro-agwhacko climate scientist in need of many years of rest and soft foods.)
Posit the warp in the dimension of information, and there you have it.
===========
The ref was near ten as the body politic lay flat on the ice, concussed by high sticking.
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The story of global warming goes something like this.
Once upon a time there were these liberal academics who wanted to see a new world order. You see, they had made their money but needed to find a way to make your lives miserable while at the same time enjoying theirs.
So, they formed a committee to study just one side of the climate issue. By putting blinders on, they hoped to pull the wool over your eyes.
The greenies hopped on board as soon as they saw a fund-raising advantage. A few movie stars were trotted out since they don’t know anything about science anyway. Politicians were the easiest of all, cause most of them will go along with anything that raises taxes. The best of times all of a sudden became the worst of times.
Things went along swimmingly for them until about 18 years ago when, all of a sudden, the weather threw a monkey wrench into their plans. It just stopped warming. This required some quick thinking. So they banded together and seized upon the idea of a scientific consensus, and thought you might just fall for it.
Anybody that questioned them was a low-life, incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. They’d say that they probably got their Doctor’s degree from some mail-order place. They weren’t to be trusted.
Then they decided to go whole-hog and make all sorts of things caused by global warming. That way the skeptics wouldn’t have a leg to stand on. Everything, and I mean everything, was now proof of global warming. Those dry, itchy feet, no problem. Marital problems? Same again. Cold, warm, dry or wet – you bet.
If it wasn’t happening now, they declared that everything that goes around comes around. It was just hiding-out someplace. It’s just a matter of time before it bites you.
Perfect.
Nope, merely an extraordinary popular delusion and a madness of the herd. There were some(those) breathing, and blowing their horns, together(over there, see them?).
==================
Well, RMc, I read your whole comment, and think we are saying the same thing, but I like your version for the lovely illustrative detail.
===============
Do you really think the man beat nature. Do you really think the man has influence on climate. Then you are very arogant to think that people can do this. The only thing people can do is destroy. Man is the dumbest animal on earth.
I have to wonder if he will go with #2 over #1. After all the alarmism in his original study relied heavily upon by the IPCC was built on the 17 year warming period from 1979 to 1996. Over 30 years of cooling preceded 1979 and it has been now 18 years since the end of that 17 year warming that has driven essentially everything in the attribution chapter in the IPCC TAR.
One can find a longer warming period but it would appear to be very difficult to exceed a warming rate over about 1 degree per century with a longer analysis, well below the government standard for excessive warming.
“Man is the dumbest animal on earth.”
Paradoxically, he’s the smartest. Although, judging by grammar, spelling, and the level of attention to detail in the comments section of this website, I’m often led to wonder the veracity of that statement. No, let the deer organize a party to put out a forest fire; let skunks try to figure out how to cross a paved surface without becoming roadkill (never seems to happen up here in Northern Michigan;) or let termites try to figure out how to fumigate humans, and you can instantly see we’re not the dumbest animal. With two opposable thumbs, a keyboard, and bit of imagination, there is nothing that can stop us.
Oh, c’mon, you need a fine design on the petard, too.
========
My own highly advanced climate model projects additional data and trend indications will occur every coming year.
In 5 and 10 years from now we will have 23 years-1 month and 28 years-1 month trends to look at and all of us will be 5 and 10 years older.
Unfortunately, weather happens and climate science may still be presenting weather as climate.
Interpretation is like imagination. It’s limitless.
Self interested agendas provide limitless fuel for generating the endless heaps of public deceit needed to sustain any notion that needs preserving.
The era of institutionalized mendacity may last a millennium.
Thankfully we have places like this chronicling it all along the way.
Steve Oregon
Been meaning to ask you; Are you an Oregonian?
I’m from “Little Berkley”….Eugene.
Ron Richey
Of course. Portland area.
“Scientists to ‘fast-track’ evidence linking global warming to wild weather”
Looks like more desperation to keep the green mail alive. World economies are failing, but plenty of money for new models forecasting climate scare. 🙂
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/scientists-to-fasttrack-evidence-linking-global-warming-to-wild-weather-9773767.html
Dr. Phil Jones – CRU emails – 7th May, 2009
‘Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’
That quote has always worried and interested me. What it should have said, surely, was “before we start celebrating”.
Their baseline of natural climate to compare with observed climate would then be based on the assumption that they’ve quantified ALL the factors that make up global climate. If not, then you can’t know what the natural climate is and compare it to the observed climate.
Isn’t that the assumption of climate modeling itself?
Yes it is, Kevin. And, it was the basis for their claim that they “knew” that humans were causing Global Warming because they had accounted for ALL factors that affect Earth temperature. It HAD to be humans.
Their arrogance was stunning. That anybody believed them was shocking. That anybody still believes them is depressing.
The latest version of the HadCrut4 data set is available here.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.3.0.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
There have been some adjustments since I last looked at it, and the “Pause” has almost been adjusted out of existence. The furthest you can go back and still find a negative trend has advanced from March 2001 to November 2001. However, that slight slope is on shaky ground. It only needs an anomaly of 0.52 deg C for September to shorten the negative slope by 4 years, and this is somewhat less than August’s anomaly of 0.669 deg C.
A September anomaly of 0.639 or higher, and the “Pause” vanishes completely, with the most resilient month of March 2005 losing its negative trend.
Since these values are quite on the cards, you can expect lively discussion just around the corner!
A September anomaly of 0.639 or higher, and the “Pause” vanishes completely, with the most resilient month of March 2005 losing its negative trend.
Interesting! Feel free to repeat this and other things in my post that will come out in 24 hours at the latest.
OK Werner
I’ll look out for it
Regards
Richard
Richard Barraclough
“A September anomaly of 0.639 or higher, and the “Pause” vanishes completely, with the most resilient month of March 2005 losing its negative trend.”
The pause, as measured by periods of zero or negative trend, is fading in all indicators except MSU-RSS. This has been happening all year. It isn’t due to adjustment, but to warmer weather (esp SST), along with some matters of trend arithmetic. The dip in 2008, which used to weigh down the trend since 2000, is now about mid-region and has neutral effect. The 1998 peak is now so far back that it can’t pull trends negative.
I’ve documented this in a post here. You can click to show how back trends have been rising; HADCRUT is about the last to go.
…and the model predictions continue soaring off up above reality.
Nick, you disagree that the the so-called “pause” will continue indefinitely? When do you expect it to end?
“When do you expect it to end?”
Well, in terms of zero trends, quite soon, except for MSU. For a while now, UAH has had positive trend if you go back before 2008. GISS and NOAA are very close to that status. I’d give HADCRUT a bit longer than Richard B would, but some time this year.
Of course, there’s nothing really magical about zero trend. The trends will still be well down on late last century.
I see there has been a new version of HADCRUT 4 (4.3.0.0) and it has raised some recent temperatures. So that is part of the reason whyHADCRUT trends have jumped, as Richard B said. But all the indices are showing increasing values for trends to now.
I have been to the post to which Nick Stoke’s refers us. It is labelled “trends oC/century”. It appears to commence in 1995 but then it eliminates all data post some date in early 2011.
In my younger days that would have been known as cherry picking but I believe that more recently trained statisticians refer to the ploy as data dredging.
A really competent data miner can dredge two totally contrary hypotheses from the same mine.
Ever watch a race horse run both ways around a track at the same time, trying to beat himself?
==========
” but then it eliminates all data post some date in early 2011.”
It doesn’t eliminate data. It’s calculating trends. Calculating trends over a period of three years or less just gets ragged, and as a practical matter, goes off any reasonable y-scale.
And I hope we won’t be reduced to talking about a “pause” since 2011.
Reblogged this on gottadobetterthanthis and commented:
Well, the data says no global warming. So, which side the the argument is denying?
Let us not forget the immortal 2007 comment revealed in Climategate II:
Of course, the imputation of violence is simply the usual “projection” from Alarmists, since it is skeptics who are periodically threatened with violence.
Me, I’m for forgiving. But the ghosts are not amused by my irrelevant gesture, selfish as it is.
==
Martian years, not Earth years. Sheesh.
It took only ten years of warming back in the 80s to bring the alarmists out of the closet. Now even 17 years is not enough. The next dropdead date, you can be sure, will be set sufficiently far into the future that all these folks aren’t worried about being around to take responsibility.
its great when you can use your own sliding times scale , that when you can claim although its not happened when you said it would it will happen in the future . Its the shame approch seen by those claiming the end of world is nigh with the return of the Lord , so you better repent and there is no better way to do that than give me all your money . Actual the more you think about it the more these charlatans sound like climate ‘scientists’
Mr. Watts: Just to set the scientific record straight, you are misinterpreting the “17 years” statement in the 2011 Santer et al. JGR paper. That statement was based on an analysis of CMIP-3 control runs, with no changes in external forcings. This is clearly stated in paragraph [30] of the 2011 Santer et al. paper:
“On timescales longer than 17 years, the average trends in RSS and UAH near‐global TLT data consistently exceed 95% of the unforced trends in the CMIP‐3 control runs (Figure 6d), clearly indicating that the observed multidecadal warming of the lower troposphere is too large to be explained by model estimates of natural internal variability”. Thus the “17 year” statement pertained only to the problem of discriminating a human-caused tropospheric warming signal relative to internally-generated variability.
As a number of recent publications have shown, the post-1998 “warming hiatus” is not solely due to internal variability. It is also partly due to the cooling effects of a succession of early 21st century volcanic eruptions, to an unusually broad and low minimum during the last solar cycle, and to the effects of other negative external forcings (see, e.g., the 2014 paper in Nature Geoscience by Gavin Schmidt and colleagues).
The fallacy in your argument, Mr. Watts, is that you have applied the “17 year” statement made in our 2011 JGR paper (a statement based solely on estimates of internal variability) to the post-1998 “warming hiatus” – a phenomenon that is due to the combined effects of internal variability and external forcing. You are misrepresenting our findings.
In our 2011 interaction at Cal State Chico, I treated you with courtesy and respect, even though you filmed my entire Rawlins lecture without my permission, while holding your videocamera several feet from my face. Although our scientific positions on the subject of anthropogenic climate change are very different, I had hoped that you would treat me with equal respect and courtesy. Your recent post shows that my hope was misplaced.
Sincerely yours,
Ben Santer
Ben Santer:
The late warming trend circa 1977-97 has been shown to be due to increased insolation via reduced cloud albedo. This is confirmed by a simultaneous rise of SST. Cooling from volcanoes is short term were there any such effect, which seems doubtful. The ineluctable conclusion is that CO2 does not have the effect attributed to it by the GCM’s.
This is the question which is incumbent upon you to address, in the name of science.
If this post makes you steam, I advise not to read the one above, with the figure of a hockey player.
Ben Santer,
As climate is nothing more or than the average of weather over an arbitrary time period,
I have to inform you that any person expecting to be treated with courtesy and respect because they claim the status of climate scientist is likely to be sorely disappointed. Claims of Nobel Prizes, scientific breakthroughs, the ability to foresee the weather any better than Nostradamus or Mother Shipton, are likely to engender no more than scorn and derision, along with comparisons to the gullibility of believers in N Rays, the caloric theory of heat, the immobility of continents, and other such impossibilities.
Purely and simply, buffoons leading buffoons. There is no warming hiatus. There is no warming of anything at all due to surrounding it with CO2. You are deluded, and I just hope you can refrain from demanding that I pay to maintain your fantasy.
If you believe you can predict anything better than I, you are foolish. If you wish to try, nominate the amount of the wager, and the conditions. You will lose.
Live well and prosper,
Mike Flynn.
Mr Santer,
Thank you for posting a response. I for one am grateful for your input.
What is missing in all of this is actual debate. There never was any debate. Ever.
It would be a great public service for there to be vigorous debates in open view of this extremely important issue. Debate will build broad consensus for action, or inaction if that is what it sums up to be. Democracy works if we allow it. It doesn’t work however when one side demonizes the other side, calling them anti-science, deniers etc, and refuses to engage with them.
I hope that you and other scientists return to the table. And ask the propagandists to refrain from poisoning the debate. The people on WUWT are as concerned with the environment as anyone. And have a broad range of ideas and views. We aren’t a monolithic block of anti-science zealots.
We might have the science wrong. Or not. But debate (and interaction in general) will get us closer to the truth. If it turns out that action was in fact needed as you claim, then you are doing the world a terrible dis-service by not engaging in debate. Every scientist should be out there as an army debating all comers. The fact that you aren’t, and the endless propaganda campaign, is why I don’t trust climate science. The actual science is beyond my understanding. I wish it weren’t. But it is. People with truth to tell do not need propaganda techniques, and they do not need to avoid debate.
I hope your comment is the first of many.
Cheers!
Ben Santer:
Thankyou for your informative post addressed to our host. I read it with interest.
It says
Sorry, but it is not at all clear in what way your “findings” are being “misrepresented”.
You assert the “statement” is
but
Frankly, that is an assertion that the models are worthless.
Climate includes effects of “volcanic eruptions”, “the last solar cycle”, and “other negative external forcings”. You are asserting that the models don’t model effects which are sufficient to completely negate the effects of your modelled effects for a period of at least 18 years.
The models ‘project’ climate with a defined precision and accuracy or they don’t. Your post says they don’t.
So, your post asserts it is not true that your “findings” are being “misrepresented” when it is pointed out that the models have failed to perform as ‘projectors’ of global climate.
After that, your post consists of irrelevant tripe about our host recording a public presentation you made in 2011. I am at a loss to understand why you made a public presentation if you did not want it to be seen and remembered: any recording would seem to be helpful to you.
Richard
PS I apologise if this post is less clear than I like to provide. I am still a bit ‘woozy’ from the anaesthetic of my recent heart treatment.
Ben Santer:
In any given year around 50-70 volcanoes erupt and at any given time there are about 20 erupting.
There are volcanoes with a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) rating of 4 erupting on an annual basis (which is expected) but there is a distinct lack of any with a higher rating.
In the 1980s there was Mount St Helens (1980 VEI5) and El Chichon (1982 VEI5) and still temperatures rose.
In the 1990s the was Mount Pinatuba (1991 VEI6) Mount Hudson (1991 VEI5+) and still temperatures rose.
In the 2000s there was not one single volcano with a VEI over 4.
So what was this unusual volcanic activity? Where are the papers, by Volcanologists, discussing this increased activity?
TerryS
You make a good point when you ask Ben Santer
But there is an even worse problem with Santer’s assertion based on he models not including “external forcings”.
He says there are undefined “other negative external forcings”.
What are they?
What are their magnitudes?
How can we determine if we know them all?
The bottom line is that according to the assertions of Ben Santer in this thread the ‘projections’ of climate models are not useful indicators of climate behaviour.
Richard
The volcano excuse is an interesting one. The Mauna Loa Observatory Apparent Transmission data shows almost no trend since around 2000. Other than a small dip in 2010, there is no ‘there’ there.
On the other hand, the data shows a modest increase in transmission from 1965 to 1980. Surprisingly (ho ho!), this is the exact time period that Hansen used to proclaim his dead-certain discovery of global warming in 1981.
So, we have Hansen ignoring significant 1960’s volcanic activity to promote global warming, and Santer ignoring insignificant 2000’s volcanic activity to promote global warming.
It is also interesting that Santer now seems to think solar cycles have a consequential effect on temperatures, parroting proclamations by Hansen from several years ago. Yet 15 years ago, the solar cycle impact on temperatures was dead-certain-sciencey-settled to be inconsequential, with appropriate pilloristic admonishments befalling the heretics.
Alarmist climate scientists are the grifters that keep on giving.
Does Ben Santer regret wandering down a dark alley in Madrid, so last century?
==============
Gavin Schmidts paper is nothing but a re-tweak of weightings for models. Despite much unsubstantiated tweaks to parameters, it still didn’t get down all the way to observations. Therefore, you cannot use that paper as an excuse for the failure, although I’m sure your colleagues will come up with another excuse soon enough.
Models are oversensitive to CO2 sir. Even during the time your paper was published, the same was easily concluded. You talk of respect, instead, how about discussing the science!
Yes, Dr. Santer, the question is whether you are up to the mark. Unless you and the others can assimilate the data to your thinking your science will never improve but only become more and more dubious.
LOOOOOOOOOOOOL volcanos! Yeah, we’ve never seen so many volcanoes before! This is an unprecedented era of volcanoes – it’s worse than we thought…
Don’t suppose all these volcanoes could be doing anything else? Warming the Antarctic peninsula? Melting the ice shelf from below? Warming the Arctic? Oh no, those are the canaries in the coal mine of gerbil worming, which isn’t appearing anywhere else for a generation. Just ask Dr Turkey.
One other question – if it’s cooling because of all the volcanoes, does that mean the extreme weather caused by the warming is also imaginary?
“…several feet from my face.” Since you are a “climate scientist” that range would be from “camera jammed in you chest” to “two feet past exit door.”
“It is also partly due to the cooling effects of a succession of early 21st century volcanic eruptions”
If this is true, why doesn’t show up at all in the Mauna Loa transmittance which has been completly flat at 0.93 ever since Pinatubo?
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/grad/mloapt.html
It is hard to see how volcanoes could have any strong effect on climate without affecting atmosheric transmittance.
I wonder how many of you replying to Dr. Santer have read the entire paper and really understand it.
Ben Santer says that the External Forcings (volcanoes, low solar activity and “others”) and Natural Internal Variability (which is not explained in his posting and was previously dismissed by himself and climate science) …
… completely offset the 0.4C of warming that should have been expected in UAH and RSS over the last 18 years.
Otherwise, it was a polite response with lots of other misdirection statements which can be ignored.
Volcanoes are no different in the last 18 years than any other period in Earth history which did not have a stratospheric eruption (they are normally about 30 years apart). So the climate models should consider this period as completely “normal” and it should have been accounted for and actually “built-in”. The climate models should have actually built in the “normal” of this period. So, inaccurate excuse.
Low solar activity? Low solar activity does not explain that last 4 years of no warming. We are at the top of the solar cycle right now and TSI is 0.4 W/m2 “higher” than is “normal” right now. It is supposed to be very slightly warmer right now due to solar activity, not cooler. So, inaccurate excuse.
So, NOW, we have 18 years of Natural Internal Variability offsetting all of the warming that was supposed to occur.
Which is exactly the “test” his paper set-up and the test period has now been exceeded. The theory must be questioned by Mr. Santer since it has failed his own test.
“a phenomenon that is due to the combined effects of internal variability and external forcing”
You state that with certainty when in reality we know you don’t know that. That’s a complete pie-in-the-sky guess. Yet you state it with such certainty.
You also say a few things about volcanoes. Why not leprechauns and unicorns? Clearly you are refusing to account for your paper.
C’mon. This is ridiculous. Anyone can read the highlighted sentence from the abstract (I would have also highlighted the preceding sentence). It’s very clear what is being said. And here you are, attempting to obfuscate.