From Indiana University and the University of East Anglia, this looks like another paper timed for release coinciding with COP20. What is even odder though, is the graphic provided with the press release, which shows global temperature anomaly for 1998, which was a super El Niño event year, the other odd thing is that the graphic (below right) is dated Nov 1tth, 2011. So it’s possible the press officer put it in and it isn’t part of the paper. I can’t tell since it is paywalled. I’ll purchase it, read it, and do a follow up report later.
One thing I can say for certain: bias in Tmin due to encroachment by infrastructure causes a warm bias in the overnight temperatures, and thus the propensity for record lows is diminished in those stations which have been encroached upon in that way. That’s not anything to do with the posited AGW signal, but the simple physics of heat sinks.
Study finds extreme temperature anomalies are warming faster than Earth’s average
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — It’s widely known that the Earth’s average temperature has been rising. But research by an Indiana University geographer and colleagues finds that spatial patterns of extreme temperature anomalies — readings well above or below the mean — are warming even faster than the overall average.
And trends in extreme heat and cold are important, said Scott M. Robeson, professor of geography in the College of Arts and Sciences at IU Bloomington. They have an outsized impact on water supplies, agricultural productivity and other factors related to human health and well-being.
“Average temperatures don’t tell us everything we need to know about climate change,” he said. “Arguably, these cold extremes and warm extremes are the most important factors for human society.”
Robeson is the lead author of the article “Trends in hemispheric warm and cold anomalies,” which will be published in the journal Geophysical Review Letters and is available online. Co-authors are Cort J. Willmott of the University of Delaware and Phil D. Jones of the University of East Anglia.
The researchers analyzed temperature records for the years 1881 to 2013 from HadCRUT4, a widely used data set for land and sea locations compiled by the University of East Anglia and the U.K. Met Office. Using monthly average temperatures at points across the globe, they sorted them into “spatial percentiles,” which represent how unusual they are by their geographic size.
Their findings include:
- Temperatures at the cold and warm “tails” of the spatial distribution — the 5th and 95th percentiles — increased more than the overall average Earth temperature.
- Over the 130-year record, cold anomalies increased more than warm anomalies, resulting in an overall narrowing of the range of Earth’s temperatures.
- In the past 30 years, however, that pattern reversed, with warm anomalies increasing at a faster rate than cold anomalies. “Earth’s temperature was becoming more homogenous with time,” Robeson said, “but now it’s not.”
The study records separate results for the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. Temperatures are considerably more volatile in the Northern Hemisphere, an expected result because there’s considerably less land mass in the South to add complexity to weather systems.
The study also examined anomalies during the “pause” in global warming that scientists have observed since 1998. While a 16-year-period is too short a time to draw conclusions about trends, the researchers found that warming continued at most locations on the planet and during much of the year, but that warming was offset by strong cooling during winter months in the Northern Hemisphere.
“There really hasn’t been a pause in global warming,” Robeson said. “There’s been a pause in Northern Hemisphere winter warming.”
Co-author Jones of the University of East Anglia said the study provides scientists with better knowledge about what’s taking place with the Earth’s climate. “Improved understanding of the spatial patterns of change over the three periods studied are vital for understanding the causes of recent events,” he said.
It may seem counterintuitive that global warming would be accompanied by colder winter weather at some locales. But Robeson said the observation aligns with theories about climate change, which hold that amplified warming in the Arctic region produces changes in the jet stream, which can result in extended periods of cold weather at some locations in the mid-northern latitudes.
And while the rate of planetary warming has slowed in the past 16 years, it hasn’t stopped. The World Meteorological Organization announced this month that 2014 is on track to be one of the warmest, if not the warmest, years on record as measured by global average temperatures.
In the U.S., the East has been unusually cold and snowy in recent years, but much of the West has been unusually warm and has experienced drought. And what happens here doesn’t necessarily reflect conditions on the rest of the planet. Robeson points out that the United States, including Alaska, makes up only 2 percent of the Earth’s surface.
Trends in hemispheric warm and cold anomalies†
doi: 10.1002/2014GL062323
Abstract at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014GL062323/abstract
Using a spatial percentile approach, we explore the magnitude of temperature anomalies across the northern and southern hemispheres. Linear trends in spatial percentile series are estimated for 1881-2013, the most recent 30-year period (1984-2013), and 1998-2013. All spatial percentiles in both hemispheres show increases from 1881-2013, but warming occurred unevenly via modification of cold anomalies, producing a reduction in spatial dispersion. In the most recent 30-year period, trends also were consistently positive, with warm anomalies having much larger warming rates than those of cold anomalies in both hemispheres. This recent trend has largely reversed the decrease in spatial dispersion that occurred during the 20th century. While the period associated with the recent slowdown of global warming, 1998-2013, is too brief to estimate trends reliably, cooling was evident in NH warm and cold anomalies during January and February while other months in the NH continued to warm.
“Over the 130-year record, cold anomalies increased more than warm anomalies, resulting in an overall narrowing of the range of Earth’s temperatures.
In the past 30 years, however, that pattern reversed, with warm anomalies increasing at a faster rate than cold anomalies. “Earth’s temperature was becoming more homogenous with time,” Robeson said, “but now it’s not.” ”
I’m not understanding that statement. Narrowing of the range of Earth’s temperatures would happen if anomalies were LESS frequent. More anomalies in either direction, hot or cold, increase the range of Earth temperatures. Why would the direction of the anomalies affect the range of Earth’s temperatures?
I had the same thought Steve and was about to point it out until I saw your comment.
They didn’t say in the post but if the cold anomalies have not decreased while the warm have increased, that would increase the range rather than narrow it. I supposed I missed it, they failed to state it or they were too busy moving goalposts to think of it.
Because these guys have very poor English. Dr Jones is poor at both English and Excel.
Prof Lamb must be spinning fast.
According to the press release above:
“- Over the 130-year record, cold anomalies increased more than warm anomalies, resulting in an overall narrowing of the range of Earth’s temperatures.
– In the past 30 years, however, that pattern reversed, with warm anomalies increasing at a faster rate than cold anomalies. “Earth’s temperature was becoming more homogenous with time,” Robeson said, “but now it’s not.”
Duh????
The first bullet says that “cold anomalies increased”. Is that increased in number – there were more of them; or in severity – they were more extreme; or both?
If they were all within the same temperature range as the lowest 5% over the first half of the period, or over any data available for the previous century, why would an increase in absolute numbers signify a problem? But if the issue is severity, wouldn’t that mean that the range of Earth’s temperatures has been getting wider rather than narrower?
Similarly with the warm anomalies in the past 30 years – were there more but all within the established 5% range, or were there more above it than previously observed? If the latter, what steps were taken to analyse whether particular anomalies were not attributable purely to meteorological conditions?
The comment from Prof Robeson that “temperature was becoming more homogenous (sic) with time” is possibly an inadvertent insight into what needed to be done to the data to get this result (“It’s milk, Jim, but not as we know it”).
He presumably meant more homogeneous, but why would anyone be expecting to see that, or be surprised if an apparent trend towards it was discontinued?
Don’t sweat this one too much.
Dr Jones’ brain cell has overheated. Needs time in the ice box, next to the milk.
Are you not embarrassed, Dr Jones?
One way of making sense of this is that the increase in cold anomalies refers to their temperature.
So, if the temperature of cold anomalies was higher than previously, it would make them less anomalous.
You have to love any “academic” or “scientific” sentence that begins with “It may seem counterintuitive” because what almost always follows is ridiculous. And these idiots did not disappoint.
Tom In Indy
December 9, 2014 at 7:43 am
“There really hasn’t been a pause in global warming,” Robeson said. “There’s been a pause in Northern Hemisphere winter warming.”
We should put it another way
If the complete truth were told, the trend of CONTIGUOUS US WINTER TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES have actually been declining since 1995 at (-1.13F/decade) and the trend of NORTHERN HEMISPHERE LAND ONLY WINTER TEMPERATUREANOMALIES have been declining at (–0.18C/decade) or 20 years. So winters have been cooling for 2 decades already, but not word about this from IPCC or NOAA
Any academic area can be degraded by selection bias, in this case super El Nino events without fair evaluation of all cycles and cycle lengths involved.
May day …may day… Forget about AGW… it is already as good as dead…but let’s try and keep it in life support for as long as possible….focus on saving and boosting the also in danger Gw…without it AGW perishes by default.
Let’s make some more time for the also dying Gw and cross the fingers (some praying may be good too)..
Let’s start playing some new acrobatics and spin so as to keep claiming a Gw for the next half century regardless if there be a cooling leading to the death of Gw…..
The fight over AGW is already lost but let’s try and keep it alife by not letting the Gw die and keeping the argument hot enough for as long as possible regardless…”
If any one wondering the above seems to be the last message of P.Jones and his mates to the die hards and the rest….when looking at papers like the one mentioned in this blog post.
To me that does not seem like science, but more like the afairs of a stubborn and zealot clan or cabal of mediocre, spoiled and blind people…….and I really want to know what they been smoking lately….I want some of that.. 🙂
Seems like the whole AGW lot verey very desperate….including their high prists.
cheers
Phil Jones and company are using a fractional biased analysis where the goal of the analysis is to find data to support the extreme AGW as oppose to solving a puzzle. That analysis methodology is ineffective if there are one or more fundamental errors in the base science. Fractional analysis enables one to ignore paradoxes. Biased analysis means there is a mental barrier, a group think barrier (those in the group do not want to be called a ‘denier’), to even consider competing hypotheses and to discuss the anomalies and paradoxes that disprove the group favorite paradigm.
For example starting in 2013 there has been a sudden increase in sea ice both poles. What changed to cause there to be an increase in sea ice both poles? (Hint there are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record where the warming pattern matches what is observed in the last 50 years, solar magnetic cycle changes correlate with the past changes.)
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/iphone/images/iphone.anomaly.global.png
The climate change puzzle (what causes the Ice Epochs, what caused/causes the peculiar glacial/interglacial cycle in the current ice epoch 41 thousand year period (1.8 million to 800 thousand years ago) to a 100 thousand year period 800 thousand years ago to present, what causes abrupt climate change that terminates and initiates interglacial periods, why the interglacial periods are roughly 10,000 years in duration, what causes the 1500 year Dansgaard-Oeschger warming/cooling cycles, what causes the 8000 to 10,000 years abrupt Heinrich cooling events, and so on) is difficult to solve as it appears the cause of the changes is the sun. The twist to solving the problem is it appears the sun causes the past observations by changing in a manner that has not been directly observed before.
The solar cycles in conjunction with the Milankovitch cycles are the keys to the Earth’s climate in its current ocean-landmass configuration and distribution. -Antarctica at the Southern pole. -The closing of the Panama current connection between Pacific and Atlantic basins.
In reply to: joelobryan
William:
The Milankovitch insolation theory is not correct. Insolation changes at 65 N are not the cause of the glacial/interglacial cycle. The cause of the glacial/interglacial cycle is what causes Heinrich events. The confusion is the orbital configuration at the time of the very special solar change that cause the Heinrich event amplifies or inhibits the mechanism. Heinrich events occur with a periodicity of 8000 to 10,000 years. The last Heinrich event was the 8200 year ago cooling event.
http://www.geo.arizona.edu/palynology/geos462/8200yrevent.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Five_Myr_Climate_Change.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
Milankovitch cycle Problems (William: In your face theory anomalies which indicate that insolation at 65N does not and cannot physically cause the glacial/interglacial cycle.)
2.1 100,000-year problem
2.2 Stage 5 problem
2.3 Effect exceeds cause
2.4 The unsplit peak problem
2.5 The transition problem
2.6 Identifying dominant factor
http://www.agu.org/pubs/sample_articles/cr/2002PA000791/2002PA000791.pdf
The 41 kyr world: Milankovitch’s other unsolved mystery
QV: “Duh???? The first bullet says that “cold anomalies increased”. Is that increased in number – there were more of them; or in severity – they were more extreme; or both?”
The coldest 5% of the anomalies increased in temp, that is, they became positive. If all else stayed the same, the range of the temps would decrease. Short of like if your feet got a little higher and all else stayed the same you would be shorter.
Just reading through the comments, this paper has already been decimated on many points.
Climate papers like these do not require proof beyond reasonable doubt, do not require preponderance of the evidence when evidence is conflicting, it does not even require probable cause. It just requires beating the climate change drums like savages in a primitive ritual.
1- First, GW would cause an end to snow, and children won’t know what snow is. Now, GW causes more snow and cold winters. So much for “well-understood settled science”
2- Colder winters are now offsetting summer warming, thus distorting the measured(?) global average temperature. This seems to be an admission that “global average temperature” is NOT a valid metric! Does Jones really mean that?
You can tell the intent of this paper
“readings well above or below the mean — are warming even faster than the overall average”
“Above or below” and then only the word “warming”, “cooling was omitted completely”.
Obvious bias here and the papers scientific value is zero because of it.
Well right now the extremes of Temperature (“hot and cold”) on earth are at least 120 deg. C apart, and every Temperature in that range can be found somewhere on earth’s surface right now. In fact there are an infinite number of places on the earth that currently have a Temperature (every Temperature) in that entire range.
So just which extremes of Temperature are they worried about ?? That’s Phil Jones and his UEA pals.
When you take an average of anything, won’t some parts be above average and some parts below?
Well not if everything is the same all the time, like Kevin Trenberth’s earth energy budget says it is.
(channeling the Church Lady): “Now isn’t that spatial…”
This smells like a goal post move to avoid the pause, via the claim that it is the tails of the distribution that are warming even though the central tendancy is not. But the temperature distribution tails are the most impacted by homogenization which demonstrably cools the past and warms the present. In addition to the growing station siting problem impact on Tmin, this is exactly what the homogenization bias should produce. For the bias demonstration, see essay When Data Isn’t in Blowing Smoke.
“the researchers found that warming continued at most locations on the planet and during much of the year, but that warming was offset by strong cooling during winter months in the Northern Hemisphere”
Engaging newspeak/english translation: nothing much happened
What I can’t figure out is why anyone would pay any attention to what this guy says about climate? He has not a shred of credibility as a person or scientist. It went out the window with “awful emails”, suppression of data for those that wished to reproduce the UEACRU results when after fighting to prevent it’s release for years they suddenly “lost” the original data when it’s release could be delayed no more.
How Jones still has a job is beyond me?
He still has a job because at the University of Easy Access (UEA) anything goes including extreme data molestation. The place is full of molesters.
Hasn’t the data already cried ‘enough’? This continual reinvention of ways to manipulate and torture plain ole data is beyond belief. They’ve already killed it – can’t they just leave it to rest in peace?
Its been dead for some time but that doesn’t stop them molesting it.
Necrophilia?
Maybe they’ll channel their inner Clintonesqe and state “I did not molest that data.”
Besides the fact that after Climate gate Jones should have zero credibility I find these sorts of discussions actually miss the point. Whether the world is warmer, cooler , more extreme or less extreme warmists seem to fail to link more CO2 to climate changes. There is no attempt to show why more CO2 causes cold and hot extremes.By urging us to take action to reduce emissions if we are suffering both hot and cold extremes a reduction in temperature will make cold extremes even colder. As more people die from extreme cold than extreme heat is this what we really want.
The warmist think that if somehow they can manipulate the data and facts and interpret them to show these extremes it somehow helps prove their case. They end up just making it up as they go and a gullible press laps it up. It’s like the climate change placebo effect. By suggesting it might be happening is enough to make people think it happening.
Any normal persons instincts will tell you it’s not and anyone who is more than 50 years old and isn’t reliant on the internet as a substitute for memory and recollection know intuitively that the climate has not changed in that time.
To quote Jonathan David Carson: It used to strike me as impossible for global warming to cause cold weather. Then I realized that I could chill a soft drink in the oven if there were no room left in the refrigerator to bake a cake.
Up until then I did not know that the same cause can have opposite effects. In my unenlightened state, it never occurred to me that carbon dioxide could cause both excessive heat and excessive cold, both drought and flood.
I should have known. After all, we calm hyperactive children with stimulants and cure addiction to drugs with addicting drugs. When the government goes too far in debt, it borrows more money. We achieve diversity through uniformity. We overcome racism with racism. When children don’t learn, we send them to schools that don’t teach. We question authority by believing the authorities.
We tell the truth with lies and lie with the truth.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/the_gods_have_made_them_mad.html#ixzz3LQdZKEwo
That may be the best comment ever, ever made on WUWT.
Wow, Phil Jones is still at it? I thought he resigned. Reading an article by him is a little like reading an article by Rolling Stone, wouldn’t you say?
Unlike most commentators here I really don’t think you can critique until you’ve read the paper – I can’t tell want was actually done of what the stated results actually mean from the abstract of the PR. I can see one thing curious from the Supplementary Info – the locations of the 5% & 95% percentiles are extremely highly spatially correlated.
Why do you think people are critiquing the paper.
I have no interest in the paper. The whole idea of man having any idea of how to manage the climate to his liking is totally inane. Also insane.
But that’s the whole point HAS. They produce the abstract for P.R. to the masses, knowing that’s all 97% of it’s citizens will see. So It’s the P.R. of the abstract that needs to be critiqued for the 97%.
The CAGW proponents have never had any intention of debating the actual science. It’s all about the proper P.R. to reach their goal of Co2 reduction. It doesn’t matter if the reduction of Co2 will provide any benefit.
“Over the 130-year record, cold anomalies increased more than warm anomalies, resulting in an overall narrowing of the range of Earth’s temperatures.”
.
“In the past 30 years, however, that pattern reversed, with warm anomalies increasing at a faster rate than cold anomalies.”
IMO Phil Jones has summarized the hockey-stick nearly. The second quote already had a fitting cartoon for it
‘While a 16-year-period is too short a time to draw conclusions about trends, the researchers found that warming continued at most locations on the planet and during much of the year, but that warming was offset by strong cooling during winter months in the Northern Hemisphere.
Once again as if by ‘magic’ the warming should have occurred, according to the BS Phil and the Team push out, has been perfectly balanced out by cooling form a mystery source which cannot be fully explained. Life is so much easer when you can use heads I win , tails you lose .
But does this mean that Phil Jones has learnt some stats or even how to use Excel , or are we once again looking at ‘the dog eat my data ‘ approch ?
And I wonder if people ask for the data they used to support their claims , they will once again be turned down on the grounds of ‘you only want to find something wrong with it ‘ which oddly is exactly the idea behind critical review which is supposed to be one of the foundations stones of science.