Guest essay by Danley Wolfe
WUWT posted a piece I submitted last September titled ‘A look at carbon dioxide vs. global temperature’.
The main point I was trying to convey then is the “striking picture” of the actual data showing a complete lack of correlation between atmospheric CO2 and global mean temperature during the ongoing hiatus. The data set is NASA GISS global mean temperature and Mauna Loa/Keeling CO2, from 1959 through March, 2015.
The updated chart below (FIGURE 1) includes seven months of additional data from my last look. The recent months do not change the basic conclusion regarding the hiatus. But I feel there is more to learn by considering more deeply the implications of these data.
FIGURE 1
The crossplot of temperature versus CO2 [for the period 1999 to March 2015, commonly known as the “pause” or “hiatus”] reveals a shotgun scatter plot(Ref1) (FIGURE 2). Actually this figure says nothing at all about a relationship between atmospheric CO2 and global mean temperature, except that there is lack of any significant correlation (Ref2) That is a very important fact-data-based conclusion. This is the definition of the “hiatus”!
FIGURE 2
A first order fit of this data yields “an equation” relating temperature to (only) CO2, viz. T = .0024 * CO2 + 13.648; with an R-squared value = 0.033. You “could” use this equation to estimate the temperature rise from a doubling of CO2 (400 to 800 ppm), in this case 0.96oC. You also might be tempted to call this a “climate sensitivity” (in the sense commonly used), but it’s not. Actually it is just nonsense. So, what might be learned from this exercise?
The R squared(Ref3) of 0.033 prima facie tells you this correlation is, well … just meaningless. Therefore, using a 1st order regression is meaningless, as is any calculated climate sensitivity. The spread of data indicated by the standard deviation vs. min-max spread of the data shows the data are simply a scatter, no more.
To further illustrate the point, you might expand the temperature scale (vertical axis) (FIGURE 3). The 1st order regression fit equation of temperature to CO2 remains the same. I know this visual effect is “cheating”, but it helps in making the point.
FIGURE 3
The IPCC make a robust claim that climate change is “caused” by anthropomorphic / greenhouse gas causes – with a certainty at the “97% confidence level” (… never mind this is a social science Delphi polling of consensus hands, and not a fact-based probability. Having said that, they go on to say we are now “on track” (talking point phrase) for a temperature rise of 2oC, with range of 1.5-4.5oC (AR5) (Ref4), the self designated tipping point. So the obvious inference, therefore, is that AGW is what will be doing the “causing” of temperature to rise above the critical point leading to catastrophic damage to mother earth and all its inhabitants.
The actual data in the plot of temperature vs. CO2 during the hiatus is also shotgun scatter plot, except flatter. The accepted (by the consensus) hypothesis that global mean temperature (the dependent variable) can be explained by or is due to “mainly” a single variable, CO2 is patently false during the 18+ year hiatus. Did CO2 sensitivity go to sleep? Are other variables exactly canceling out the CO2 effect? It is also important to recognize that the Mauna Loa data includes manmade and non-manmade CO2. The policy prescriptions (and most of the agitation) are mainly directed towards reducing manmade CO2, although there is consideration on land use and burning of forests to plant palm plantations (as in Indonesia and elsewhere).
As I understand it, in a proper multiple regression analysis all the important “known” variables (say 6-7 in number) would be included in the regression model and their F stats would tell you the relative significance of each. Then you would adjust the model … eliminating variables to get the “best fit” with suspected variables … of course this doesn’t speak to “unknown variables” which is a different problem. Other variables would include solar incidence, water vapor, other GHGs, ocean temperature oscillation, etc. (A colleague pointed out it’s a little more complicated than this since “significance” in an econometric modeling sense also depends on degrees of freedom.)
We also know that the integrated assessment climate models (IAMs) are deterministic physical models of the climate with built in predetermined physical cause and effect structures. We can say they are wrong based on their ability to explain the data (facts) during this hiatus.
Nevertheless, the lousy R squared³ and apparent zero “fit” does allow us to conclude that during the hiatus, the assumption that CO2 is the major thing driving global mean temperature is not just a lousy hypothesis, it’s wrong and unsupported by the data (fact). We can also say that all of the variability (scatter) in the data is due to “not CO2.”
On April 15, 2015 the House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology held a hearing on the President’s UN Climate Pledge. I would like for someone to have made the points above with accompanying figures to Congressional types in explaining what the hiatus really means, and then watch to see any shock effect.
REFERENCES:
1. Engineering Statistics Handbook 1.3.3.26., Scatter Plot http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/eda/section3/scatterp.htm
2. Engineering Statistics Handbook 1.3.3.26.1., Scatter Plot: No Relationship http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/eda/section3/scatter1.htm
3. Duke University, What’s a good value for R-squared? http://people.duke.edu/~rnau/rsquared.htm
4. IPCC, Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) http://www.stopgreensuicide.com/Ch12_long-term_WG1AR5_SOD_Ch12_All_Final.pdf
DATA:
NASA GISS global mean temperature http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
Mauna Loa/Keeling CO2, from 1959 through March, 2015 ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I believe you want to state ‘anthropogenic’ and not ‘anthropomorphic’ global warming for AGW.
Even though it’s supposed to be heating the oceans, atmospheric CO2 level is rising, but not warming Earth’s surface.
How is that possible?
Because IR radiation cannot heat the oceans, it can only add to evaporation already taking place. As for surface temperatures, see my post linked above.
a lack of correlation….and then say there is correlation by calling it a hiatus
I give up………..
In the sense that CO2 induced warming is not evident.
…then there can be no hiatus
You can’t have a pause in something that is not happening,,,,, you can’t claim something is not happening, and then call it a hiatus
Why are people so afraid to just say it stopped?
I’m with you. It should be called a “plateau”, which could end with either cooling or warming.
without correlation there can be no causation … period …
Over what time period?
lets us not forget that from around 1945 to 1970 there was no warming, in fact there was cooling and CO2 spiked up during that period as well … that gives us over 40 years of negative correlation of CO2 and temps …
Figure 1 uses GISS “data”, so is comparing measured CO2 with a phony temperature record. Nevertheless, even in NASA’s cooked books, it’s clear that from 1959 to c. 1976, temperature was flat to cooling while CO2 rose steadily (the cooling started in the late ’40s). Then from c. 1977 to 1996, temperature rose while CO2 continued increasing monotonically. This accidental coincidence is all that corrupt, consensus climate anti-science has.
From c. 1997 (including the super El Niño year of 1998) until now, temperature has again gone flat, despite further steady rise in CO2. The more reliable, less “adjusted” RSS data show cooling.
Hence the hypothesis of man-made global warming is easily shown false.
and
T = .0024 * CO2 + 13.648; with an R-squared value = 0.033
There is nothing here: (0.0024 might as well be 0) so T = 13.648 with 0 explained variance suggesting that there is no relationship between T and CO2, that CO2 can contribute nothing to explaining temperature variation. There is only a small mathematical artifact from setting up an equation attempting to relate them to begin with.
Man made and global warming? There is nothing here.
I’ve never seen or read a convincing rationale for showing that these two variables could be related. Run a correlation and sure you’ll get some numbers, but was there any justification for running the correlation? That CO2 is an IR gas that exists in the atmosphere, that results, in some part, from oxidizing carbon and also has massive natural sinks and sources. Only Roy Spencer has shown me anything real in this with his IR gun.
Plus T precedes CO2 – by possibly as much as 800 years.
There is a strong positive relationship between height and weight for people. What could that mean?
Taller are heavier – nope
Shorter are lighter – nope
If I lose weight, will I get shorter?
but that is the causation implication
Oh, I almost forgot – it is sinful mankind that oxidizes carbon. Let’s control that.
My doctor says I’m not overweight, just not tall enough.
Same as last fall’s post, my comments still apply.
You cannot use monthly M-L CO2 averages as a proxy for time. Reason: in any given year, September’s average is lower than August, which is lower than July, which is lower than June, which is lower than May.
You should use annual M-L CO2 averages though, but your number of data points goes down. Or if you want to use monthly data, use the globally averaged data:
ftp://aftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/products/trends/co2/co2_mm_gl.txt
Also, the left CO2 scale of Figure 1, should be set 310 to 410. The use of such a large scale (250-500) for a small range of data (311- 400) suggests you are trying to mask the M-L CO2 summer decline.
Nice work, Danley. You, like most users of official temperature data, are unaware of the forged temperature information thrown at us by the likes of GISS, NCDC, and HadCRUT. Their latest collaboration is to hide the existence of an earlier hiatus in the eighties and nineties by substituting a fake temperature rise for it.My work, documented in my book [1], shows that there was no global warming from 1979 to 1997, an 18 year stretch. Its graph is shown as figure 15. If you include the period from the 40s to the 60s from your previous article as another hiatus we now have not one but three hiatuses since IPCC came into existence. Collectively they take up more than 80 percent of the time since IPCC was established in 1988. With the exception of the 1915 to 1940 period, global temperature rise is then restricted to short periods taking us from one hiatus to another. This is what global temperature has been doing and this is what I suggest we should consider to be a new paradigm for global warming. There is no place for carbon dioxide in it. To prove that carbon dioxide is irrelevant is easy: just he existence of the current hiatus is enough to prove it. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is constantly increasing but the expected greenhouse warming predicted by Arrhenius is absent. This is an unequivocally false prediction and it invalidates the Arrhenius theory of greenhouse warming. The correct greenhouse theory to use is the Miskolczi greenhouse theory, MGT. It came out in 2007 and was immediately blacklisted by the global warming establishment. It tells it like it is: addition of carbon dioxide to air does not warm the air. This is why the hiatus/pause exists. According to MGT, water vapor and carbon dioxide form an optimal absorption window in the infrared whose optical thickness is 1.87, determined by Miskolczi from first principles. If you now add carbon dioxide to atmosphere it will start to absorb in the IR, just as Arrhenius says. But this will increase the optical thickness. And as soon as this happens, water vapor will begin to diminish, rain out, and the original optical thickness is restored. The added carbon dioxide will of course keep absorbing but the reduction of water vapor keeps total absorption constant and no warming is possible. This is the end of IPCC-promoted :greenhouse” warming.This also means that AGW, imputed to be caused by that non-existent greenhouse warming, likewise does not exist.
Arno Arrak, “What Warming? Satellite view of global temperature change.” (CreateSpace, 2010)
Arno Arrak, your explanation sounds right … maybe I’ll buy your book after all. “To prove that carbon dioxide is irrelevant is easy: just he existence of the current hiatus is enough to prove it.” It may be a hiatus or a transition to a different balance including all the forcing variables … purpose of the post was to cause people to think about it more deeply, “people” meaning especially those who drank the lemonade. Cheers.
Arno, this isn’t a criticism, but could you use paragraph breaks when you write here? I often read blogs on my iPad and a block of text with no breaks is impossible to follow if I accidentally send the scrolling flying with an errant finger. I can’t relocate where I was easily, and abandon the effort.
Usability experts recommend two to three sentences per paragraph for readability on digital devices. Thanks for considering it.
Arno, do you explain optical thickness and the scientific basis for it in your book?
If your experiment needs statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.
Ernest Rutherford
Alx Have been looking for the experimental proof that, “independent experimentalion” proves evolution. Could you provide references?
This is the most important graph in the above commentary, to wit:
The reason being is, the per se, plotting of the monthly randomly erratic global average near-surface air temperatures …. verses …. the plotting of the monthly steady and consistent bi-yearly “cycling” yearly “increasing” of global average atmospheric CO2 ppm …. for the continuous period from 1959 through March, 2015 …… explicitly and affirmatively negates any association or correlation whatsoever between the aforesaid “temperature & CO2”.
The only entity in the “natural world” that exhibits multi-sequential years of steady and consistent bi-yearly cycling, ….. just like clockwork, ….. is the :changing” of the equinoxes (seasons) between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Given the above, the only possibility is to associate or correlate the aforesaid … steady and consistent bi-yearly “cycling” of atmospheric CO2 ppm …. with the aforesaid …. steady and consistent bi-yearly cycling of the changing of the equinoxes.
And given the above fact, the only possible CO2 source/sink (emitter/absorber) that is capable of reacting in accordance with the temperature change resulting from the aforesaid steady and consistent bi-yearly cycling of the changing of the equinoxes ….. is the surface waters of the oceans.
And given the 2nd fact that the surface area of the Southern Hemisphere oceans is greater than the surface area of the Northern Hemisphere oceans, …. then the primary “driver” of the aforesaid bi-yearly CO2 cycling is the “change in temperature” of the SH ocean waters. There is far more of it to be “ingassing n’ outgassing” CO2 as its temperature changes.
Iffen the surface area of the ocean water were the same for both hemispheres …. then there would not be any bi-yearly cycling of atmospheric CO2.
I don’t think you got that quite right Sam.
Try this. CO2 levels fall in the Northern Hemisphere(NH) summer. They do this because growing plants remove it from the atmosphere at that time.
As you said, in the Southern Hemisphere, there is not as much land, therefore less plant-life. The CO2 fluctuation is due to photosynthetic activity in the NH.
Sorry, MikeB, ….. but you are miseducatedly “DEAD” wrong.
The microbial decomposition of dead biomass in the Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer(s) begins outgassing of CO2 earlier in the Spring than does the ingassing of CO2 by the growing plant biomass. (Ya gotta remember that the initial Spring growth of green biomass is a function of the stored sugars in the roots and/or seed of plants, bushes and trees. No ingassing of CO2 required or possible.)
And that same microbial decomposition of dead biomass continues with “gusto”, …. day and night, ….. throughout the Northern Hemisphere (NH) summer(s) and into the early Fall, ….. long after most of the ingassing of CO2 to support photosynthesis activity has slowed up and/or stopped.
Said outgassing of CO2 by microbial decomposition, plus other CO2 sources, … will be nigh onto equal to the ingassing of CO2 by the growing green biomass.
Just ask any Biologist whose forte is the “natural world”.
Look it up Sam….
as the aforesaid etc.
You look it up MikeB, ….. only use Biology, Botany & Bacteriology textbooks to do your lookin.
I already did my “lookin up”, … like 50 years ago when I was earning my Degrees in the Biological and Physical Sciences.
Besides, MikeB, … you can not have your cake and eat it too.
If you believe the “greening” of the NH is responsible for the Summer time depletion in atmospheric CO2 ppm ….. then it is obvious that you also have to believe that it is the microbial decomposition of dead biomass in the NH that is responsible for the Winter time increase in atmospheric CO2 ppm.
And that “Winter time increase”, … MikeB, …. is directly contrary to my newly stated …. Refrigerator/Freezer Law of Dead Biomass Decomposition …… that has been tested, confirmed and approved to be true and factual by every US housewife, all Health Department and the USDA, to wit:
MikeB, … all biomass decomposing microbes are loyal Union members, …. they refuse to “work” iffen it gets too cool, too cold or too dry.
All you need to do is to LOOK at Figure 2 – no statistics required, though it is claimed that if people stopped accepting funding from Big Oil, the scatter would disappear and fall back on a straight line.
The situation is even more dire – how man-made CO2 affects total CO2 has not been established – the relationship is not simple.
Statistical regressions of CO2 vs. temperature over short periods (< 20 years) don't mean that much, since there are many drivers of climate on decadal scales. Some are mentioned above, but I don't see discussion of this multi-decadal cycle called the PDO.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/teleconnections/pdo/
Barry, 18 years is a long time. How long does the hiatus need to be to make you comfortable that the climate sensitivities, e.g., claimed by the IPCC, are too high, and wrong. There are two problems in the consensus argument today, attribution and climate model sensitivities (which are used to push policy). Read the conclusion again, “the apparent zero “fit” does allow us to conclude that during the hiatus, the assumption that CO2 is the major thing driving global mean temperature is not just a lousy hypothesis, it’s wrong and unsupported by the data (fact). We can also say that all of the variability (scatter) in the data is (entirely due to “not CO2.” “
Question from the sidelines. I’m looking for an explanation for the steady rhythmic rise in CO2. I would have thought that (as with most natural systems) there would be a lot more ‘noise’ in the data?
There is really not much to none ….. “noise” in the long-term gradual warming of the ocean waters.
AKA: the long term (150+- years) recovery from the “cold” of the Little Ice Age.
Take a look at this site if you are interested in CO2 atmospheric data vs. Atmospheric temperature.
https://feww.wordpress.com/tag/co2-at-mauna-loa/
Indeed quite consistent increase in atmospheric CO2 since 1958, just a little slower from 1958 to about 1970 or so.
However, scroll down at this site to observed monthly at Mauna Loa and Global CO2 atmospheric data.
Yes, it is rhythmic and consistent.
Always going up when temperature consistently starts to cool: September.
Always going down when temperature consistently starts to warm: May.
The Global data is a little more interesting.
You see the CO2 concentration starting to go up when temperature is starting to cool in the northern hemisphere, September.
Then look at the top of the wave. CO2 simply does not go up and down with atmospheric temperature and this is not a sine wave. The up period is always longer than the down period, less obvious at Mauna Loa but still there.
Right you are, rd50.
And yes, the CO2 always starts going up when temperature starts to cool at the very end of the NH’s September … and always starts going down when temperature starts to warm up in the NH’s mid-May. But it is directly opposite of that in the Southern Hemisphere ….. which is the “driver” of the CO2 ppm.
Right again, rd50.
And a simple explanation suffices for said. And that is, …. “it always takes longer to ‘cool down’ a large pot of water …. than it does to ‘warm up’ a large pot of water” ….. (the ‘large pot’ being the SH ocean waters).
Anyone living near a lake in the mid to upper NH latitudes knows that to be a FACT. Ya don’t go swimming in that lake just because the May 1st air temperature is 85 F.
Here is excerpted Mauna Loa data for the past 20 years, to wit:
CO2 “Max” ppm per Fiscal Year – mid-May to mid-May
year mth “Max” __ yearly increase ___ mth “Min” ppm
1993 5 360.19 +0.64 __________ 9 354.10
1994 5 361.68 +1.49 __________ 9 355.63
1995 5 363.77 +2.09 _________ 10 357.97
1996 5 365.16 +1.39 _________ 10 359.54
1997 5 366.69 +1.53 __________ 9 360.31
1998 5 369.49 +2.80 El Niño ____ 9 364.01
1999 4 370.96 +1.47 __________ 9 364.94
2000 4 371.82 +0.86 __________ 9 366.91
2001 5 373.82 +2.00 __________ 9 368.16
2002 5 375.65 +1.83 _________ 10 370.51
2003 5 378.50 +2.85 _________ 10 373.10
2004 5 380.63 +2.13 _________ 9 374.11
2005 5 382.47 +1.84 __________ 9 376.66
2006 5 384.98 +2.51 __________ 9 378.92
2007 5 386.58 +1.60 __________ 9 380.90
2008 5 388.50 +1.92 _________ 10 382.99
2009 5 390.19 +1.65 _________ 10 384.39
2010 5 393.04 +2.85 _________ 9 386.83
2011 5 394.21 +1.17 _________ 10 388.96
2012 5 396.78 +2.58 _________ 10 391.01
2013 5 399.76 +2.98 __________ 9 393.51
note the only 2 “outliers” for the month of April …. following the 98′ El Nino
Thank you for your time providing these numbers. More interesting than just my looking at the CO2 waves.
You’re welcome, …… and those “numbers” are the same/similar for the entire Mauna Loa Record, from 1958 to 2015.
And I firmly believe that if one had similar data back to 1880, ….. those “numbers” would still be the same/similar ….. but the Average Yearly Increase in CO2 ppm might be a smidge “slower” between 1880 and say 1920.
Today is April 24th, 2015, …. and if you look at the past 3 years of data (2012, 13 & 14) …. you can make a highly accurate prediction as to what the “Max” CO2 ppm # will be for 2015 …. as well as the exact day in late-May that said event will occur, …. that is, within a 4 or 5 day “window”.
Or you can right now predict the 2015 September “Min” and/or the 2016 May “Max” …. and be pretty damn close with your predicted “numbers”. Of course, a strong El Nino, La Nina or volcanic eruption could possibly negate your “prediction”.
And that is something all the other per se “experts” can’t do with their favorite “means” of calculating/predicting climatic conditions, etc.
But they will still tell you that your method is “wrong” ….. and that their method is “right”.
What I don’t understand is why we have four major datasets for temperature, with thousands of readings taken all over the globe, but we take one (1!) measurement of CO2 — from the top of an active volcano — and use that for the entire planet.
The Mauna Loa Observatory is just one of many places where CO2 measurements are taken regularly, spanning from the South Pole to the Arctic.
Why is Mauna Loa such a good location for measuring CO2? ….see……
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/04/under-the-volcano-over-the-volcano/
Personally, I find that article a terribly poor excuse for using a single site. His argument presumes many things not in evidence: it measures “descending” air from “thousands of feet aloft,” that “has traveled halfway across the Pacific Ocean.” His evidence for that is…? Nothing presented in the article, that’s for sure.
An active, outgassing volcano is a good location because the nasty volcanic CO2 is “trapped in a thin layer near the ground by a temperature inversion”? And none of it EVER escapes to pollute the pristine, non-trapped by a temperature inversion air?
“Background CO2 levels will be around 380 ppmv (these days), will be steady, and will be identical at the top and bottom of the towers.” And if they aren’t? How would we know, since we presume that background levels “will be steady.” So if they’re NOT steady, they presume that the measurement is incorrect? Seriously?
“The measurements from Mauna Loa are not representative of the rest of the world.” And here’s our mathematical model to prove that’s not true. Models again? No thanks. Take the measurements, you might get a surprise.
Points four and five, I just don’t know. He’s already made the presumption that the volcanic measurements are untouched by atmospheric mixing, yet worries about other sites and uses the possibility as a reason to exclude them. Well, prove the first presumption and then we can worry about other sites.
How do I paste a plot into a reply?
If you paste a link, WordPress might automagically show it. I put graphs on flikr, and then paste a link, so:-
https://www.flickr.com/photos/7360644@N07/16583472766/
Hence the need to explain that the heat is in the water, the ice, the permafrost — anywhere but in the atmosphere.
Here’s another scatter plot that DOES show something:
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/mlo_dco2_sst_scatterplot.png
Using this linear relationship we see that a lot of the variability of CO2 is due to SST:
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/mlo_dco2_sst.png
Just to be clearer, that is d/dt(CO2) being driven by SST: out-gassing.
Here’s the same thing with the residual:
http://climategrog.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/mlo_dco2_sst-resid.png
does not look like it has much to do with ever-rising human emissions either.
If one can not provide a reasonable, sensible, logical explanation for the “bi-yearly” cycling “signature” associated with the Mauna Loa Data Record (Keeling Curve graph) ….. then one is just “spinning their wheels” and “clouding up” the issue concerning the truth or falsity of CAGW.