From the Global Warming Policy Forum, 22 January 2016
The data for the global temperature of 2015 is in, and its a shattering record. It is claimed that global warming has resurged, terminating the warming ‘pause’ for good. But an important factor has been downplayed and one ignored altogether.
Essay by David Whitehouse
Nasa says that 2015 was 0.13°C+/-0.10°C above 2014. The UK Met Office said that 2015 was 0.18°C +/- 0.10°C above 2014. Noaa says 2015 was 0.16°C+/-0.09°C warmer than the previous record which was 2014.
Noaa had only one month in 2015 cooler than the same month in 2014 – April. According to the Nasa data four of them were cooler than 2014 (April, May, Aug, Sept) whilst Hadcrut4 had eleven months warmer than 2014 with April tied. For September 2015 Nasa has it 0.08°C cooler than 2014 whereas Noaa has it 0.14°C warmer!
Despite what some scientists have said the large increase over 2014 is far too great and swift to be due to a resurgence of forced global warming. It must be due to short-term natural variability, and you don’t have to look far to find it. 2015 was the year of the El Nino which boosted the year’s temperature. (In the Nasa press conference about the 2015 global temperature see how long it takes the presenters to mention the El Nino).
“We are seeing an extreme climate state,” Randall Dole, a meteorologist working for Noaa, told the Journal Nature this week. He was commenting on the recent El Nino which is one of the strongest on record, with ocean temperatures reaching as much as 3°C above normal in parts of the central and eastern Pacific. It was unsurprising then that Nasa on releasing its global temperature measurements made reference to it. “Only once before, in 1998, has the new record been much greater than the old record by that much.” This clearly because 2015 was like 1998 a strong El Nino year.
One point to notice however is that even without the El Nino that made the fourth quarter much warmer than the preceding three 2015 would have been a record for the Nasa data. If the first six months of the year had been repeated then it would still have set a record. Curiously though no single month during that period (indeed up to September) set a record for that particular month demonstrating how close the global temperature has been over the past decade or so.
A Little Bit On Top
If the El Nino dominated the last part of the year another example of natural variability was dominating the earlier months. The reason for the first nine months of 2015 being collectively warm can also be found in the Pacific. As I reported in September 2015 conditions in the north Pacific were unprecedented in 2015. The Summer warmth of 2014 had not dissipated. Indeed since 2013 the so-called Pacific “Blob” has kept a million square km of ocean 3°C above normal, (indications are that as of January 2016 the blob is beginning to dissipate.) “The temperatures are above anything we have seen before,” said one scientist in my article.
So 2015 was an exceptional year for weather, which is not the way some scientists presented it. None of them mentioned the “blob” and as for the El Nino it was the “little bit on the top” merely a minor contribution. Most of the temperature rise was down to forced global warming, they said.
This is all slight of hand, and a little inaccurate. The IPCC says that just over half of the warming since the fifties is forced so most of the contribution to 2015′s temperature is natural variability. In addition the factor that makes 2015 warmer than its previous years is not a resurgence of forced global warming but the “blob” and the El Nino.
One can speculate what the temperature of 2014 and 2015 would have been without the blob and the El Nino. Some scientists have said it made only a few hundredths of a degree difference, others have said it makes a few tenths of a degree difference.
I think the few hundredths of a degree suggestion is wrong. So can the combined “blob” and El Nino account for the 2015 temperature excess of 0.13, 0.18 or 0.16°C depending on your choice of data set? It could. Indeed without the “blob” and the El Nino 2015 could have been cooler than 2014. Without the “blob” 2014 could have been cooler than 2010.
This makes suggestions that the “pause” in annual average global surface temperatures has been “terminated” premature. The “pause” will not be ended by weather but by forced global warming. Consequently it is unsafe to use 2015 in any trend analysis to eliminate the “pause.” It is essential to view the 2015 along with subsequent years to catch the cooling La Nina effect. Only this way can the El Nino contribution be properly assessed.
The main conclusion that can be drawn about 2015 is that it was a truly exceptional year for weather, and for misleading press releases.
file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/bart-simpson-generator.php.gif
[That would be a local file on the C: drive, rather than a file accessible from the web. .mod]
Thanks, Dr. David Whitehouse.
I think this helps to illustrate you point:
Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI)
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ts.gif
From http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/
Results in:
Latest Global Average Tropospheric Temperatures
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2015_v6-1.png
From http://www.drroyspencer.com/latest-global-temperatures/ (Dr. Roy Spencer).
Dr. Spencer’s website is under an attack that is causing denial of service.
Latest Global Average Tropospheric Temperatures (from ARVAL):
http://www.oarval.org/UAH_LT_1979_thru_December_2015_v6-1.gif
Andres – perfect. It is not a cycle.
According to Bob Tisdale:
“The upward steps are precisely what we would expect of ENSO if it is viewed, not as noise in the surface temperature record, but as a chaotic, sunlight-fueled, recharge-discharge oscillator.”
From https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/the-201415-el-nino-part-9-kevin-trenberth-is-looking-forward-to-another-big-jump/
The 2014_15 El Niño – Part 9 – Kevin Trenberth is Looking Forward to Another “Big Jump”
Cyclic but chaotic, not regular.
The two graphs above appear to have a loose correlation. However, when I superimpose (by shrinking the shorter time graph) it is apparent between 1991 and 1995 they differ. Does that mean that Mt. Pinatubo did not affect the ENSO one? Maybe I am missing something.
+1, Marcus
Bart Dawtgomis Simpson
(I thought Dawt was one of the good guys — ??)
Hi Janice…I was confused by his reasons for the cartoon also BUT I decided, fair is fair !!!
David Whitehouse,
Yes and yes. And I suggest from your article there is another main conclusion, that there is a pure reactionary defensiveness in the efforts by the major GASTA producers to end the so-called ‘pause’**. Their concern about the pause** stands out and increases the mistrust in them from the broader public.
** a more indifferent and unbiased term is ‘period of insignificant change in GASTA’
John
Has anyone checked these ratbags’ calculations and claims?
Not that anyone questions that the Earth has warmed from the LIA. A tad more warming is just a trick to divert attention from the fact that there is zero evidence that man’s CO2 caused any of it.
Nick Stokes,
I get to the conversation late, so you may not have seen my question (to you) on another thread; I didn’t get a response.
Just what is a “climate scientist”? You know, the ones we can trust.
Don,
I’m not one myself, so I’m in no better position than you to say.
Nick Stokes January 23, 2016 at 6:31 pm
Don,
I’m not one myself, so I’m in no better position than you to say.
Ah. So to define a climate scientist one has to be a climate scientist?
LOL
Oh wait, I just read the original question again, which was:
Just what is a “climate scientist”? You know, the ones we can trust.
To which you responded that you aren’t one, so you can’t say. So, I take it that you ARE a climate scientist, just not one of the ones we can trust?
From Nick’s response to Crispin above:
Nick Stokes January 23, 2016 at 3:39 pm
They actually worded it awkwardly but carefully
In a later comment in the same sub thread, he admonishes someone to “read it again”.
There’s the problem Nick. The tortured language of the IPCC is vague to the point of being a complete mystery as to what the intended meaning actually was. Further, this opens the door for the implied meaning to be spun first one way, and the another, as the political needs of the time change. Small wonder that anyone who reads their reports with a critical eye winds up not trusting them.
“The tortured language of the IPCC is vague”
It’s not vague here – it’s rather precise. It says that the amount of warming expected from AGW is approx the same as what is observed. The awkwardness is the concept. They are trying to avoid saying that 100% of the warming was AGW for precisely the reason that is seen here – some will assume that leaves no room for anything else. But it doesn’t, because the observed warming is the sum of a whole lot of things, positive and negative. The IPCC says that GHG’s arelikely to have created more warming than the net observed, but were partly countered by aerosols, making total AG forcing about right for the warming observed.
To give an analogy, it might happen that in one year, the Belgian trade deficit was equal to the cost of importing gas. That doesn’t mean that no other trade occurred, just that it balanced in that year. Saying that gas was 100% of the deficit gives the wrong idea. There are likely other combinations of imports that make up 100%.
As to “So to define a climate scientist one has to be a climate scientist?”. no I didn’t say that. I said I was in no better position than DonM. He can choose his own definition.
I refer you back to Crispin’s response to you that your position is untenable
Crispin in Waterloo January 23, 2016 at 10:24 pm
“It says that the amount of warming expected from AGW is approx the same as what is observed.”
Isn’t that conveeenient.
Jeff Alberts,
LOL! Yeah, how about that? They got it right, just ask ’em:
It says that the amount of warming expected from AGW is approx the same as what is observed.
But they can’t get a single scary prediction right…
Well Nick, you know for a fact that the Mango Tree guy (that was directly ripping off his grant people) is not a climate scientist. But you don’t know what a climate scientist is….
So to be honest, a climate scientist is like porn … you can’t define it, but you know it when you see it.
Is a politically derived term to describe someone who can’t use Excel, bit like a political scientist. What do you say to a climate or political scientist? Big Mac and large fries!
http://www.addletters.com/pictures/bart-simpson-generator/bart-simpson-generator.php?line=Nick+Stokes+is+not+a+Climate+Scientist+%21
Fractured logic, the earth has been warming since the LIA, we have now measured that warming now for a little over 120 years, we know that warming is not continuous up the rate if chance moves up and down sometime into negative numbers, we also know the “climate scientist” constantly adjust the past temperatures, I find great fault in their logic to justify their changes, any also find the collection methods to leave much to be desired you want to call it that, if accounts pulled 1% of this kind of data manipulation they would be fired and if engineers did it not building would stand, far to much infilling and flat out WAGs, the reality is during the last thirty years it should be the warmest temperature ever measured by us and if you don’t correct correctly for UHI and land use changes one will get a warped measurement on how much change there is, lastly we only inhabit 3% of the earth surface and that were we take most of our measurements and somehow it suppose to tell us something about the climate, I would liken it to taking random measurement of a few 3% rooms of a building and than guess how big the building is. I cannot believe the collative stupidity in what is called the global temperature and what we are suppose to get from it. The reality it is s construct build by politicians who call themselves scientist so other politicians can use the number to extract more money and control over us. The global mean temperature should have remain a base point for climate science to discuss how much and which way the climate system may be moving, the is far to little data and knowledge as to what it means to use it for public policy. As far as the changes being a problem that mankind need to confront, they was a movie about such idiocy it was called the Music Man and that great evil was the game Pool and the movie should have taught people something but it looks to me to few watched it or understand what it was saying, yes CO2 can warm the atmosphere but with the magical positive multiplier it is a non issue and its regulation is moot.
“…”taking random measurement of a few 3% rooms of a building…”
More like NON-random measurements of the rooms in the building that are easiest to get to and are the most comfortable to be in.
And as AndyG55 has recently pointed out, Africa south of Ethiopia (a prrreeeehty big room) is completely left out. And then, there’s that room called Brazil… and…. 🙂
Ya, we got Trouble!
The so-called important factor discussed in the head post is simply more incessant use of a non-existent global temperature. That’s the real travesty.
John
Hope you don’t mind, John, I peeked in the window…. APPLAUSE (and laughter — not canned, heh).
Janice (who will continue to avert her eyes, for one never knows with Mr. John Whitman… (wry smile))
Janice Moore,
As to looking in the windows that are my somewhat rare cartoons, mi casa es tu casa.
John
Gracias para la “tu,” Señor Whitman.
Or how most journalists don’t have a clue.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/12117449/Animation-100-years-of-global-warming-in-less-than-a-minute.html
Ooo, I dunno, Clipe. 😉
Here’s a shot of the earth taken in 1937. And, there, see? Look-ee –> there! Orange.
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2458/3905470986_9b62e35548_z.jpg
[A good shot from one of them there very early satellite cameras suspended with our belief below a prop-powered rocket, eh? 8<) .mod]
Well, actually, dear .mod, it was a little prop-powered aeroplane. They had two, you see, that’s why we can watch THIS VIDEO:
(youtube)
#(:))
lololololololo
El Nino? By using GISS you’ll find all temps rising regardless of weather.
Your post serves no purpose when the previous La Nina could also be called the warmest of its kind.
The Blob is just one million out of the world’s 510 million km^2, and not causing the kind of convection to the middle and upper troposphere the way the El Nino is. I don’t see it’s 3 degree anomalous warmth as a major factor for 2014 and 2015 being so warm worldwide.
Regarding: “Indeed without the “blob” and the El Nino 2015 could have been cooler than 2014.”
Why bring up the Blob for comparing 2015 to 2014? The Blob formed in 2013.
Nyuk nyuk – you called them “scientists”.
Of course global warming is real. those pictures of New York are all example of the use of photoshop by experts in the pay of the fossil fuel industry and the deniers.
0,004 deg warmer than 2014, what kind of termometer even measures to that degree of accuracy, and for the whole globe, atmosphere, land surface and oceans? Seems to me the trick is to heat the probe a little with your hands before You read.
Such small differences are nothing in my world, I don’t canre what noaa, ipcc or hysteric warmers say. The globe is cooling, and keeps on cooling, Europe has colder temperaatures in january 2016 than in 50 years, Asia and China has winter, and Snowzilla is touring the United States. So what if it was <0,1 deg warmer in 2015? Who cares.
Lots of fleas arguing over which one owns the dog on here today. If I put one less shovel full of coal on my fire this year then according to the fleas that should save the planet…….or perhaps I should use 0.16% less coal, or maybe………
Perhaps when Leonardo stops burning my share of the fossil fuels I will begin to give a crap.
Question: why is anyone accepting any data from Hadcrut AT ALL, given Climategate and the fall of Phil Jones? Shut ’em down, defund ’em, give us a break!
Seems that NASA is a master of errors. Here’s another one: http://oceansgovernclimate.com/weather-and-climate-do-they-know-what-they-are-talking-about/. Too bad, since it seems that one day the world will have to pay a heavy price for the lack of proper academic terminology….
I’ll read all the comments here later ,so apologize in advance if I have repeated what other have said.
I sure hope someone else has commented that a new high means almost nothing when 99.999% of Earth’s climate history has no real-time average temperature data for comparison.
And I wish everyone will stop using the word “pause”.
“Pause” implies whatever was happening BEFORE the pause, will happen again AFTER the pause.
The use of “pause” is misleading because no one really knows whether or not global warming will continue after the “pause”.
We are in a flat average temperature trend since the early 2000s.
Whether it will be followed by warming or cooling is anyone’s guess.
The flat trend may turn out to be a real pause, and warming will continue.
Or the flat trend may turn out to be a transition to a global cooling trend.
Or the flat trend may turn out to be just a rising or falling trend obscured by measurement errors.
No one knows for sure !
From ice core climate proxies, we believe Earth’s climate, using average temperature as a proxy for whatever “climate” means , is always in a rising or falling trend.
During a rising temperature trend, there should be new highs, like a stock bull market in progress.
During a falling temperature trend, there should be new lows, like a stock bear market in progress.
Since the ONLY real time average temperature measurements available today were made DURING one rising trend, we should expect new highs UNTIL THAT RISING TREND ENDS.
New highs are EXPECTED during a warming trend — they are not front page news.
When we stop having new highs, we will be in a cooling trend — that would be front page news.
Yes, it’s true the warmunists are desperately “adjusting” and “infilling” temperature data to keep their ‘CO2 is the climate controller’ fantasy alive … but if the warming trend since 1850 has NOT ended, there WILL be more new highs in the future.
The real news, worthy of the front page of the New York Times, would be a year that did NOT set a new high … such as 2015 using the satellite temperature data, along with the fact that the record high for the satellite data was 1998, not 2015.
The New York Times, however, is not interested in real news, or the most accurate global temperature data available from satellites — they are ONLY interested in promoting “save the Earth socialism”, using CO2 as the boogeyman.
That’s why the best use for the New York Times is to line the bottom of bird cages.
Climate blog for non-scientists
Short posts and charts.
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A public service for those who find most articles here too “scientific”.
Leftists should keep away to avoid high blood pressure.
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
For September 2015 Nasa has it 0.08°C cooler than 2014 whereas Noaa has it 0.14°C warmer!.
They really need to coordinate themselves better, perhaps they could use emails.
“the factor that makes 2015 warmer than its previous years is not a resurgence of forced global warming but the “blob” and the El Nino.”
No, not a resurgence of global warming, but the same old global warming with weather on top made 2015 the warmest in the surface records (not the lower trop records).
Do a regression for only el Nino, or only la Nina, or only neutral years and we can avoid some of that weather effect on the long-term trend. The results agree – warming has continued.
Consequently it is unsafe to use 2015 in any trend analysis to eliminate the “pause.” It is essential to view the 2015 along with subsequent years to catch the cooling La Nina effect. Only this way can the El Nino contribution be properly assessed.
Critics have had no compunction about using the largest el Nino of last century as a starting point to claim a pause. Does the OP herald a reconsideration of that old starting point? That would be consistent, wouldn’t it?
Better yet, rather than starting a trend analysis on 1997/98, a huge el Nino year, drill back a bit and start on a neutral year. Do the same for the end of the time-period. Or run a regression through a few el Nino only years, as I mentioned. Critics have been using an el Nino as a start point for years, so using one at the end should come easy – and also be a sounder estimate.
Anyone want to place a bet that the injunction the OP recommends will be forgotten as soon as a few cold years in a row come about? I’ll put $50 on “yes, they will.” It is, after all, exactly what the OP recommends – for the end of the record, but strangely not for the beginning of the so-called pause.
“Climate and weather are not the same”
“Climate and weather are not the same”
“Climate and weather are not the same”
Oh goodie. That means we’ve heard the last of “It’s cold in my city/state/backyard today – what global warming?”
Yearright. I’ve got another $50 standing by to wager on that.