Guest Post by Werner Brozek, Excerpted From Nick Stokes, Edited by Just The Facts:
Image Credit: Nick Stokes
Before beginning the discussion, I just want to comment on the authors. It is said that you are entitled to your interpretation, but not to your facts. Werner Brozek and Nick Stokes are presenting you with just the facts. You cannot argue with the facts. However you may attach completely different significances to those same facts. Please let us know what significance you attach to the facts. I will reserve the right to include selected replies as part of the introduction to my next post.
The top diagram shows the monthly changes to RSS during the last large El Nino in 1997 and 1998. As well, it shows where 2016 is starting from, which is much higher than where 1998 started from. If similar changes occur in 2016 as in 1998, the present pause of over 18 years on the satellite data sets will soon be gone.
The following table gives some information to compare 1997/1998 with 2015/2016 on the five data sets I have been tracking. In addition, there are two different average values where the average of the five differences is given. As well, four monthly ENSO values are given.
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Sst3 | GISS | ave | ENSO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1997 | -0.007 | 0.102 | 0.389 | 0.318 | 0.47 | ||
| 2.1998 | 0.484 | 0.550 | 0.536 | 0.416 | 0.63 | ||
| 3.diff | 0.491 | 0.448 | 0.147 | 0.098 | 0.16 | 0.269 | |
| 4.D97 | 0.250 | 0.302 | 0.505 | 0.477 | 0.59 | 2.3 | |
| 5.J98 | 0.479 | 0.550 | 0.483 | 0.419 | 0.61 | 2.1 | |
| 6.F98 | 0.653 | 0.736 | 0.763 | 0.478 | 0.88 | 1.8 | |
| 7.DFd | 0.403 | 0.434 | 0.258 | 0.001 | 0.29 | 0.277 | |
| 8.2015 | 0.264 | 0.358 | 0.745 | 0.592 | 0.86 | ||
| 9.D15 | 0.453 | 0.543 | 1.005 | 0.717 | 1.11 | 2.3 | |
| 10.J16 | 0.543 | 0.663 | 0.894 | 0.728 | 1.13 | ||
| 11.(F16) | (0.856 ) | (0.977) | (1.263) | (0.718) | (1.40) | ||
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Sst3 | GISS | ave | ENSO |
Row 1 gives the 1997 average anomaly for each of the five data sets. (Please see section 3 for all URLs.)
Row 2 gives the 1998 average anomaly for each of the five data sets.
Row 3 gives the difference between these anomalies for each data set along with the average of these five numbers.
Row 4 gives the December 1997 anomaly for each of the five data sets along with the ENSO value for that month.
Row 5 gives the January 1998 anomaly for each of the five data sets along with the ENSO value for that month.
Row 6 gives the February 1998 anomaly for each of the five data sets along with the ENSO value for that month.
Row 7 gives the difference between the December 1997 and February 1998 anomalies for each data set along with the average of these five numbers. Note the difference between December and January for the satellites versus the others. However by February 1998, all had made significant jumps from December 1997 except for Hadsst3.
Row 8 gives the 2015 average anomaly for each of the five data sets.
Row 9 gives the December 2015 anomaly for each of the five data sets along with the ENSO value for that month.
Row 10 gives the January 2016 anomaly for each of the five data sets.
Row 11 has all February anomalies in ( ). These numbers were obtained by adding the December 2015 anomalies (row 9) to the difference between the December 1997 and February 1998 anomaly (row 7). It will be interesting to compare these values to what will actually happen in February.
ENSO values were taken from here. It should be noted that with an error margin of 0.3 C, the ENSO values from May 1997 to December were the same as those from May 2015 to December.
Nick Stokes’ post from a month ago is well worth reading. I will excerpt the following from that post and then comment on the implications now that we have the January data. It applies to RSS:
“If the January anomaly exceeds about 1.3°C, the Pause is gone. This is unlikely.
If the Jan and Feb anomalies exceed on average about 0.77°C, the curve will be above the axis. For reference, the Dec anomaly was 0.543°C. I think this is quite likely.
If the first three months exceed 0.59°C on average, that would suffice to extinguish the pause. That is barely above the December value, and I think very likely indeed.
If Jan-April exceed 0.5°C, that will also suffice.”
The January anomaly was 0.66 C for RSS. So to reach an average of 0.77 C for January and February, the February anomaly needs to be 0.88 C. So if the February anomaly is under 0.88 C, the pause of over 18 years will still remain for at least another month. How likely is a jump of 0.22 C? The jump from January 1998 to February 1998 was 0.186. The jump from March 1998 to April 1998 was 0.272. So a jump of 0.22 cannot be ruled out. As well, the projection in the above table gives a value of 0.977, so the pause can certainly end in February.
What happens if the February anomaly is under 0.88? According to Nick’s numbers above, the average for the first three months needs to be 0.59 to extinguish the pause. In other words, J + F + M = 0.59(3). Since January was 0.66, the equation reduces to
March = 1.11 – February. This sets the maximum value that the March anomaly can be to keep the pause intact should the RSS pause not end in February. Therefore the RSS anomalies do not even have to increase over the next two months from January in order for the pause to disappear with the March anomaly.
Suppose February comes in at 0.882? If you are curious whether this is enough to kill the pause, go to Nick’s site here, click RSS, then using the blue >, move the blue ball to February 2016. If you see numbers and not “Some data not yet available”, it has been updated. Then use the red > to move the red ball to the earliest date where you know the pause started in January which would be June 1997. If the rate is negative, the pause still exists from June. If the rate is positive, advance a month at a time and see if the rate becomes negative over the next several months. Should the rate not become negative soon, you may wish to try from 2001.
If you want the latest slopes and times of no statistically significant warming for other data sets such as UAH6.0beta5, NOAA, BEST, etc, Nick Stokes’ site is excellent! This is in contrast to WFT that has not updated BEST since 2010 and which still uses UAH5.6 and which has not updated Hadcrut4 since May, 2015.
What about UAH6.0beta5? When the January number for 2016 came in and applied to UAH6.0beta4, it looked like the pause was over. However changes to other earlier values allowed the pause to hang on from October 1997. But unless there is a huge drop in the February anomaly to 0.315 or lower, the UAH pause will be over. Based on the projection in the table above, it will not even be close.
A rather interesting coincidence on all five data sets is that the January 1998 anomaly (row 5) was close to or equal to the 1998 average (row 2). Should this also be the case for 2016, then 2016 would set a new record on all five data sets.
Another interesting coincidence is that the average difference between 1997 and 1998 anomalies (row 3) for the five data sets is very close to the average difference between the December 1997 anomalies and the February 1998 anomalies (row 7).
All January anomalies on all five data sets are record highs for the month of January. In addition, for GISS and HadSST3, the January anomalies are the highest ever compared to any month in the past.
(P.S. Typing the letters “Stokes” puts your comment into moderation.)
In the sections below, as in previous posts, we will present you with the latest facts. The information will be presented in three sections and an appendix. The first section will show for how long there has been no warming on some data sets. At the moment, only the satellite data have flat periods of longer than a year. The second section will show for how long there has been no statistically significant warming on several data sets. The third section will show how January 2016 compares with 2015 and the warmest years and months on record so far. For three of the data sets, 2015 also happens to be the warmest year. The appendix will illustrate sections 1 and 2 in a different way. Graphs and a table will be used to illustrate the data.
Section 1
This analysis uses the latest month for which data is available on WoodForTrees.com (WFT). All of the data on WFT is also available at the specific sources as outlined below. We start with the present date and go to the furthest month in the past where the slope is a least slightly negative on at least one calculation. So if the slope from September is 4 x 10^-4 but it is – 4 x 10^-4 from October, we give the time from October so no one can accuse us of being less than honest if we say the slope is flat from a certain month.
1. For GISS, the slope is not flat for any period that is worth mentioning.
2. For Hadcrut4, the slope is not flat for any period that is worth mentioning.
3. For Hadsst3, the slope is not flat for any period that is worth mentioning.
4. For UAH, the slope is flat since October 1997 or 18 years and 4 months. (goes to January using version 6.0beta5)
5. For RSS, the slope is flat since June 1997 or 18 years and 8 months. (goes to January)
The next graph shows just the lines to illustrate the above. Think of it as a sideways bar graph where the lengths of the lines indicate the relative times where the slope is 0. In addition, the upward sloping blue line at the top indicates that CO2 has steadily increased over this period.
Note that the UAH5.6 from WFT needed a detrend to show the slope is zero for UAH6.0.
When two things are plotted as I have done, the left only shows a temperature anomaly.
The actual numbers are meaningless since the two slopes are essentially zero. No numbers are given for CO2. Some have asked that the log of the concentration of CO2 be plotted. However WFT does not give this option. The upward sloping CO2 line only shows that while CO2 has been going up over the last 18 years, the temperatures have been flat for varying periods on the two sets.
Section 2
For this analysis, data was retrieved from Nick Stokes’ Trendviewer available on his website. This analysis indicates for how long there has not been statistically significant warming according to Nick’s criteria. Data go to their latest update for each set. In every case, note that the lower error bar is negative so a slope of 0 cannot be ruled out from the month indicated.
On several different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 1 and 23 years according to Nick’s criteria. Cl stands for the confidence limits at the 95% level.
The details for several sets are below.
For UAH6.0: Since February 1993: Cl from -0.031 to 1.685
This is exactly 23 years.
For RSS: Since May 1993: Cl from -0.012 to 1.625
This is 22 years and 9 months.
For Hadcrut4.4: Since October 2001: Cl from -0.016 to 1.812
This is 14 years and 4 months.
For Hadsst3: Since January 1996: Cl from -0.013 to 2.142
This is 20 years and 1 month.
For GISS: There is no statistically significant warming for any period worth mentioning.
Section 3
This section shows data about 2015 and other information in the form of a table. The table shows the five data sources along the top and other places so they should be visible at all times. The sources are UAH, RSS, Hadcrut4, Hadsst3, and GISS.
Down the column, are the following:
1. 15ra: This is the final ranking for 2015 on each data set.
2. 15a: Here I give the average anomaly for 2015.
3. year: This indicates the warmest year on record so far for that particular data set. Note that the satellite data sets have 1998 as the warmest year and the others have 2015 as the warmest year.
4. ano: This is the average of the monthly anomalies of the warmest year just above.
5. mon: This is the month where that particular data set showed the highest anomaly. The months are identified by the first three letters of the month and the last two numbers of the year.
6. ano: This is the anomaly of the month just above.
7. y/m: This is the longest period of time where the slope is not positive given in years/months. So 16/2 means that for 16 years and 2 months the slope is essentially 0. Periods of under a year are not counted and are shown as “0”.
8. sig: This the first month for which warming is not statistically significant according to Nick’s criteria. The first three letters of the month are followed by the last two numbers of the year.
9. sy/m: This is the years and months for row 8.
10. Jan: This is the January 2016 anomaly for that particular data set.
11. rnk: This is the rank that each particular data set would have if the January anomaly was also the average anomaly at the end of the year.
SourceUAHRSSHad4Sst3GISS
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Sst3 | GISS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.15ra | 3rd | 3rd | 1st | 1st | 1st |
| 2.15a | 0.264 | 0.358 | 0.745 | 0.592 | 0.86 |
| 3.year | 1998 | 1998 | 2015 | 2015 | 2015 |
| 4.ano | 0.484 | 0.550 | 0.745 | 0.592 | 0.86 |
| 5.mon | Apr98 | Apr98 | Dec15 | Sep15 | Dec15 |
| 6.ano | 0.742 | 0.857 | 1.005 | 0.725 | 1.11 |
| 7.y/m | 18/4 | 18/8 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 8.sig | Feb93 | May93 | Oct01 | Jan96 | Mar14 |
| 9.sy/m | 23/0 | 22/9 | 14/4 | 20/1 | 1/11 |
| 10.Jan | 0.543 | 0.663 | 0.894 | 0.728 | 1.13 |
| 11.rnk | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |
If you wish to verify all of the latest anomalies, go to the following:
For UAH, version 6.0beta5 was used. Note that WFT uses version 5.6. So to verify the length of the pause on version 6.0, you need to use Nick’s program.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0beta/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0beta5.txt
For RSS, see: ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
For Hadcrut4, see: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut4/data/current/time_series/HadCRUT.4.4.0.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
For Hadsst3, see: http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/HadSST3-gl.dat
For GISS, see:
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
To see all points since January 2015 in the form of a graph, see the WFT graph below. Note that UAH version 5.6 is shown. WFT does not show version 6.0 yet. Also note that Hadcrut4.3 is shown and not Hadcrut4.4, which is why many months are missing for Hadcrut.
As you can see, all lines have been offset so they all start at the same place in January 2015. This makes it easy to compare January 2015 with the latest anomaly.
Appendix
In this part, we are summarizing data for each set separately.
UAH6.0beta5
The slope is flat since October 1997 or 18 years and 4 months. (goes to January using version 6.0beta5)
For UAH: There is no statistically significant warming since February 1993: Cl from -0.031 to 1.685. (This is using version 6.0 according to Nick’s program.)
The UAH anomaly for January is 0.543. This would set a record if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.484. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.742. The average anomaly in 2015 was 0.264 and it was ranked 3rd.
RSS
The slope is flat since June 1997 or 18 years and 8 months. (goes to January)
For RSS: There is no statistically significant warming since May 1993: Cl from -0.012 to 1.625.
The RSS anomaly for January is 0.663. This would set a record if it stayed this way. 1998 was the warmest at 0.550. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in April of 1998 when it reached 0.857. The average anomaly in 2015 was 0.358 and it was ranked 3rd.
Hadcrut4.4
The slope is not flat for any period that is worth mentioning.
For Hadcrut4: There is no statistically significant warming since October 2001: Cl from -0.016 to 1.812.
The Hadcrut4 anomaly for January is 0.894. This would set a record if it stayed this way. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in December of 2015 when it reached 1.005. The average anomaly in 2015 was 0.745 and this set a new record.
Hadsst3
For Hadsst3, the slope is not flat for any period that is worth mentioning. For Hadsst3: There is no statistically significant warming since January 1996: Cl from -0.013 to 2.142.
The Hadsst3 anomaly for January is 0.728. This would set a record if it stayed this way. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in September of 2015 when it reached 0.725. This is prior to 2016. The average anomaly in 2015 was 0.592 and this set a new record.
GISS
The slope is not flat for any period that is worth mentioning.
For GISS: There is no statistically significant warming for any period worth mentioning.
The GISS anomaly for January is 1.13. This would set a record if it stayed this way. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in December of 2015 when it reached 1.11. This is prior to 2016. The average anomaly in 2015 was 0.86 and it set a new record.
Conclusion
Using the definition of the longest time with a negative slope, the pauses on all data sets have either ended or will end soon. What significance should be attached to this fact? Should it be considered as just an El Nino blip that is best ignored or should a huge amount of importance be attached to this fact?
Well, I think an el Nino blip would be strong evidence against CAGW. Warming the sea first is the opposite of what CAGW theory says.
I would say that the 40 explanations of why the pause, all of them related to “natural variability,” was enough to make CAGW the joke that it is. If your driver isn’t driving for whatever reason, it isn’t the driver. Anyone that still has faith in CAGW needs to have their head examined and be placed in one of those nice little padded cells to protect themselves AND us from them. It would appear that carbon dioxide as a driver falls pretty much into the same position as the child in those shopping carts with the little cars on the front – whipping the wheel all they want, but the cart goes where Mother (Nature) steers it.
Great analogy. I have found most alarmist to be as petulant as children when the cart doesn’t respond to their imaginings.
Lets get this clear :
This is gross misrepresentation. When I read this I was but surprised that Nick had submitted something ( and that it had been accepted for WUWT ) but I thought : great we should be in for some good analysis.
Just because you copied one of his comments on another thread does not allow you to claim that this is a “guest post” co-authored by Nick .
That is a FALSE representation.
This is nothing more than a trivial straight line fit and some click-click fits from WTF.org.
Did you even ask Nick before attributing this feeble effort to him ? Did you ask his permission to headline the article with his graph?
You pulled this trick a little while back claiming co-authorship of your post with Dr Brown since you quoted one of his posts. It is one thing to credit a text to someone, it quite another to falsely claim “guest post by….” unless they DID actually write the post and intend to submit it to WUWT as an article.
This kind of misrepresentation is not what I expect here. Hopefully our host will stamp it out.
Obviously those comments do not apply if Nick and Dr Brown were participating parties to the respective articles but I doubt it.
I do have his email address and I informed him of the post before it was published. He has actively encouraged me to use his material for example in Section 2 that I have used for a long time. In addition, I used very important parts of his own post so I thought it only fair to recognize his work in this manner.
I used his graphs here with his generous help:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/07/08/is-noaas-hiatus-gone-now-includes-may-data/
Perhaps we should let him speak for himself.
It would seem sufficient to quote an attribute anything from his site. Saying the post was co-authored by him looks like you are just trying to steal some kudos by using his name.
Did you ask Dr Brown about using his name in the earlier article ?
What? I just want to give credit where credit is due.
“Perhaps we should let him speak for himself.”
It’s true that I was a little surprised that the contribution from my posts had been generously credited with co-authorship. But I think that part has indeed been presented correctly, and I do encourage using the gadget in the way that Werner described. Anyway, RSS for February should be out very soon, and we shall see.
“Typing the letters “Stokes” …”
I don’t think that is true any more.
So despite your having claimed to have notified Nick in advance, he was ‘surprised’. You obviously did not make it clear that you pretending he “co-authored” the article.
The fact that you have twice avoided a direct question about asking Dr Brown’s permission to claim his “co-authorship” seems a pretty clear admission that you did not ask him either.
If you cite someone’s work in a book you would not claim they are a co-author and put their name of the cover. You were trying to improperly add credibility to your articles by using the names of others without their permission.
You were also being disingenuous in your replies. Not impressed.
Werner- it is proper and correct to say something like “Thanks to Nick 5tokes for his contributions to this article” and attribute to him each quote and graph, data set used. But if he did not actively help you WRITE THE ARTICLE, he is not a co-author. You don’t get to make him an “author” of something without his express permission, because if there are any repercussions from said article, you just made him co-responsible for that too!
I’m not going to question your intensions, but the practice itself is WRONG on every level and you need to stop doing it.
Seems like “just the facts” claim falls down before we get beyond “guest post by…..”
BTW , who is “Just the facts” that edits all your posts? Some kind of alter-ego who whispers in your ear?
“despite your having claimed to have notified Nick in advance”
He did indeed notify me in advance. Due to time differences (sleeping) I was unable to respond, but I would have happily agreed.
“Just The Facts” is the author of this article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/research-pages/potential-climatic-variables/
Thank you very much! I appreciate it!
RSS for February has come out at 0.974. (This is very close to my projection of 0.977!) The pause is now over for RSS. The 0.974 sets a new record for RSS by beating April 1998 which was 0.857.
Werner Brozek
I do have his email address and I informed him of the post before it was published.
So you “informed him” but did not wait to see what his reply would be.
Nick says: It’s true that I was a little surprised ….. I would have happily agreed.
Thank you very much! I appreciate it!
What you appreciate him not complaining about you using his name without permission? I suppose you should. That does not get you off the hook though. You still did it.
“Would have agreed” …. but didn’t. Amounts to same thing on the part of true author of the article. If Nick decided he was not happy it would be the same. That’s the difference between pretending someone co-authored a piece because you quoted them and having someone actually aware that they co-authored something because the DID.
Perhaps Dr. Brown was “a little surprised” to learn he’d co-authored an article for WUWT as well. Still waiting to hear from you whether he retrospectively agreed he’d written that, too.
Yes, I did and he never had a problem with it. And it was not one article, but three as follows:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/06/is-climate-science-settled-now-includes-september-data/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/10/01/is-there-evidence-of-frantic-researchers-adjusting-unsuitable-data-now-includes-july-data/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/14/problematic-adjustments-and-divergences-now-includes-june-data/
As a matter of fact, on this article, he had a very long post here after 200 comments were already there:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/06/is-climate-science-settled-now-includes-september-data/
My reply was:
Werner Brozek
November 10, 2015 at 5:05 pm
I doubt that anybody is still reading this thread to see this — but they should.
Perhaps I can do something about this.☺
Thank you very much!
For a reason that I will not get into, I have not done it yet, but I plan to.
That old CO2 molecule sure has been negligent in getting it’s act together. It took over 18 years to finally build enough courage to drive average temperature out of the pause. And we’re supposed to be afraid of this wimpy thing? /sarc
Anthony, did Nick Stokes really co-author and submit this article to WUWT?
The same author here pulled similar trick a few months back using Dr Brown of Duke’s name on the basis of quoting a comment of his. I suspect that was similarly without his knowledge and permission.
Have you ever met anyone who would object to their comments getting greater positive exposure? There are people who quote you and then blast you for it.
Werner – this isn’t about comments getting exposure, it is just about the facts. The evidence is that Nick Stokes was not a co-author, it is therefore incorrect to present him as being one. Whether he likes or hates it, whether he would have agreed if asked, these are irrelevant. The fact is that he was not a co-author. A correction is needed, together with a statement explaining it..
Nick was the author of the graphic at the top as well as:
“If the January anomaly exceeds about 1.3°C, the Pause is gone. This is unlikely.
If the Jan and Feb anomalies exceed on average about 0.77°C, the curve will be above the axis. For reference, the Dec anomaly was 0.543°C. I think this is quite likely.
If the first three months exceed 0.59°C on average, that would suffice to extinguish the pause. That is barely above the December value, and I think very likely indeed.
If Jan-April exceed 0.5°C, that will also suffice.”
If I had a misconception as to exactly what a co-author is, that is between me and Nick, and Nick was not offended. If he would have been, I would have apologized to him. But in my past dealings with Nick, I “knew” he would not be offended.
No, it’s between you and those you mislead by making false claims. At least have the honesty to fess up and correct it.
Nick did not co-author this article for WUWT, it is irrelevant the facts whether he minds for not, it is stall a falsehood.
I will inform the editor of your concern and let the editor decide how to respond. I do not have editing privileges.
I’ve updated the introduction/attribution to this article to read: “Guest Post by Werner Brozek, Excerpted From Nick Stokes, Edited by Just The Facts” for clarity. We will be more judicious in the future, when providing credit to those ideas and words who we incorporate, without them being explicit authors.
And no, I am not “Some kind of alter-ego who whispers in your ear?”. I am me, and you will hear more from me when I graduate in May…
Thanks for correcting that ‘Just the facts’. Hopefully any future posts will correctly attribute authorship.
I find Werner Brozek’s posts pretty lightweight and only bothered reading it because I saw Nick’s name and thought it would have more substance.
Record UAH temps for February. Can’t wait for Tisdale to rationalize.
As far as I can see that new record breaking temperature in UAH means that you now get a best estimate warming trend no matter what month you start from. It’s still very small if you start in late 1997 and early 1998; only about +0.01C/dec; but nevertheless it’s there. The pause is already over in UAH V6.
Yep, and see my post below.
No rationalization needed. This has been predicted for months by those who understand ENSO. What’s curious is why you seem to think it is meaningful. Do you know what happens next? If the past is any guide we should see a 2-3 year La Nina. The pause may disappear for a few months just to reappear next year.
It would be nice if Werner or Nick could use an approach like Santer et al 2014 where they remove ENSO from the signal. This would eliminate these types of meaningless discussions.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n3/fig_tab/ngeo2098_F1.html
Yes. It’s also good to complement the tropospheric measurements with land and sea observations. They are part of the same picture. In fact, the higher in the atmosphere the more downward the trend. It’s all part of the same phenomenon of added greenhouse gas concentrations.
“It would be nice if Werner or Nick could use an approach like Santer et al 2014 where they remove ENSO from the signal.”
The only way to “remove ENSO from the signal” is with the use of a model to adjust the observations. There may be circumstances where adjustments of that sort are useful. However, every step away from a simple USRCN type simple average can create more doubt than it resolves, since we must now judge the adjusting model in addition to the simple observational record.
For something like ENSO, it seems best to just leave the spikes and dips alone.
“This would eliminate these types of meaningless discussions.”
Not likely, since almost every post still presents a single global temperature, which is physically meaningless (which means anything derived from it – anomaly, trend – is just as physically meaningless).
Well we were forewarned that this post would present just the facts, and although I haven’t (and won’t) try to independently check those facts, it seems like a lot of facts are presented.
One of my first impressions, put a smile on my face; and I’d like to ask for $1 for each time the word ” average ” is used in the post.
I have several times noted here at WUWT that absolutely nothing in the entire universe is aware of, or sensitive to, or responds in any way to the average value of anything, or even the average value of everything.
And that last comment is important, because I have also said that the rules of statistical mathematics do not put ANY restriction on the numbers in a data set, which is subjected to any of the standard algorithms of that numerical origami discipline, that we call Statistical Mathematics.
Well there are some restrictions; the data set must be finite (well even everything in the universe is less than infinity) and each member of that finite set must be a finite real number. That is self evident, in that if any member of the data set is infinite, then the sum will be infinite, and you could not even compute say an average. And of course each member of the set, must have an exact known value (no variables allowed).
But each of those finite real exact numbers can have a source or origin that in no way is related to the source of any other member.
So you literally can grab a copy of today’s morning paper, and start from the top left of the front page, and read in conventional European style to the bottom right of the final back page, and enter each and every number encountered into the data set in order of their location. So you are in essence mixing apples and oranges, etc. so long as they are finite exact real numbers.
So all of that just to point out that the authors or editors of this essay; freely took the average of numbers which are not related to each other in any way.
UAH and GISS anomalies don’t have any common source, so there is no reason to expect them to be related in any meaningful way. Well neither of them includes the Temperature readings from the thermometer outside my kitchen door.
Not that I would expect them to, but if we are to meaningfully compare the result of each of those data manipulation exercises, we would not expect sets of data from different sources, would not necessarily exhibit any connection.
BUT it is entirely appropriate and proper, to perform the ‘average’ algorithm of stat math on such numbers; and to include in such an exercise, any other numbers which are finite exact real numbers.
So thank you for the averages of those five ersatz Temperature anomaly data sets.
So to what purposeful use can we put those averages, since they are not in any way observable in the real universe, or on planet earth.
And of course we cannot infer any future value for the results of any future similar exercise.
G
The only thing these two averages show is that the jump from 1997 to 1998 was virtually the same as the jump from December 1997 to February 1998.
So the followup question would be: Will the jump from December 2015 to February 2016 be the same as from 2015 to 2016?
The ONLY comparison that should be made is with the peak of the 1998 El Nino.
Like the 2010 spike, this is only a short term spike, and the “plateau” will return longer and stronger, probably by the end of the year.
And if the temperature recoil from the nino pulse is steeper and deeper in 2016 (which I might bet on) than 1998, is the pause reinstated, or does this floating statistical exercise preclude that? Maybe a hiatus of the pause.
Statistically significantly or not, TLT slowly increased during the pause. SST increased faster. The stratosphere cooled. The deep ocean cooled. Tell me, what is happening to the planet as a whole?
Using the definition of the pause as the furthest we can go back in time and still get a negative slope, then the pause would get reinstated should the RSS anomaly drop below 0.25 for a long enough period of time.
And isn’t that the point.
Whether the ‘pause’ disappears for some short period, is of no significance. The real issue is what happens from now on through to say 2019/2020, ie., the run up to AR6 and its publication.
IF the present strong El Nino produces merely a short lived spike in temperatures as was the case with the 2010 El Nino, and with a following La Nina bringing temperatures back down, all models in the ensemble will stand disconfirmed, and AR6 will be a very difficult report to write because of that and because estimates of Climate Sensitivity must be ever lower as the ‘pause’ continues and extends.
IF on the other hand, there is a long lasting step change in temperature coincident with the current strong El Nino, as there was such a step change coincident with the 1997/98 El Nino, then of course, it becomes more significant that the ‘pause’ has ceased to be seen in the data.
The significance of the current El Nino cannot presently be judged and can only begin to be assessed in 2017/2018.
There is no point in holding a wake just yet for the passing of the ‘pause’
Cooling of the stratosphere is something that greenhouse gases do.
Then why is it the only cooling occurred immediately after major volcanic eruptions? Why hasn’t there been any cooling since 1995?
Yes, and how about the abyssal oceans?
The important aspect of stratospheric cooling is that the stratosphere is disconnected from surface radiation by saturation in the important CO2 bands.The stratosphere has its own radiative engine, ozone, which incidentally lights up CO2 bands which have been dark for many kilometers of lapse.
The stratosphere is not cooling because it has been deprived of its rightful CO2 band surface radiation as a result of human efforts. Those bands have been dark to the stratosphere forever.
The stratosphere might be cooling because the effective radiative altitude has risen. The lapse rate reverses and higher altitudes radiate at higher energy, but all information shows a very narrow range of altitudes radiating in CO2 bands.
Not true, look at RSS data, mid-stratosphere shows -0.50 K/decade.
Am I correct in my understanding that the claim the “Pause” is over simply means we have some statistically significant warming – not that we have warming any greater than we have seen, on average, since the end of the LIA? or are you saying, we have warming at rates that exceed that seen, say from 1880 to 1950?
All that I am saying is that we have no negative slope for any time period. As for “statistically significant warming”, that is a totally different matter.
From Section 2 of this post:
“On several different data sets, there has been no statistically significant warming for between 1 and 23 years according to Nick’s criteria. Cl stands for the confidence limits at the 95% level.
For UAH6.0: Since February 1993: Cl from -0.031 to 1.685
This is exactly 23 years.
For RSS: Since May 1993: Cl from -0.012 to 1.625
This is 22 years and 9 months.”
So if there is no statistically significant warming, how can you say the “Pause” has ended? (Assuming by “Pause” you mean there has been no warming at all as opposed to meaning there has been no warming in excess of natural variation seen pre-1950 or so (which is an even higher bar).)
Doesn’t any scientifically valid analysis require application of statistical significance?
I am using the same definition of the pause that Lord Monckton uses here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/06/the-pause-hangs-on-by-its-fingernails/
“The hiatus period of 18 years 8 months is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.”
“Doesn’t any scientifically valid analysis require application of statistical significance?”
No. Almost all the climate and weather information discussed here is done so without test of statistical significance. SS is about explanation – whether a result is so improbable under a default explanation (null hypothesis) that some other explanation gains credence. If you want to say that the Pause proves some general principle, you need it to have statistical significance. But there’s nothing wrong with simply observing.
Nick: ” But there’s nothing wrong with simply observing.”
Without statistical significance in your data, how do you know what you are observing? I was trained in chemistry (but do not work as a chemist) and work with a lot of medical companies, therapeutics as well as devices; and without statistical significance in the data, no one, not the inventors, the company, the investors or the FDA or potential acquirors would believe “our stuff” works. I honestly don’t understand how anyone, on either side, can claim to follow the scientific method, which requires valid observations, without incorporating valid statistical analysis.
“Without statistical significance in your data, how do you know what you are observing?”
No problem. The SS argument is about what you can deduce. If you observe hot weather, then hot weather happened. If you want to argue that it changes your expectations about future climate, then you will need to think about statistical significance, if that observation is the sole basis for your argument.
Nick, you say “If you observe hot weather, then hot weather happened.” No, I think you still don’t know what you “observed” without knowing the associated statistical uncertainties. How do you know you “observed” “hot weather” if you are using measurements to make the statement? If you tell me it was 80F but I wasn’t there, I may think it was “hot” but what if your measurement carries 25F degrees of uncertainty? Then it might have been 55F or “cool” or it might have been 105F and really “hot”. So saying you “observe hot weather” assumes a certain accuracy. In reality, without knowing the uncertainty associated with your measurements, you can’t make a scientifically valid statement. It’s like the fools claiming some day/month/year was hotter than another when in fact, as a result of uncertainty in measurement, you can’t make any such claim. The same could be said of people drawing lines on charts and claiming one has a different slope than another without also properly accounting for uncertainties associated with the calculations.
As I understand it, the ‘pause’ refers to the trend in the ‘best estimate’ data, i.e. the data as published by UAH and RSS monthly excluding the error margins.
This is now positive (warming) for all prior start months in the UAH V6 data set and probably will also be in RSS starting either this month or next.
This isn’t the same thing as statistically significant warming, which requires that the best estimate value be higher than its margin of error. Given the very wide error margins in the satellite data, we’re still a long way off statistically significant warming for any start date centred around 1998.
The Monckton Pause is restricted solely to the RSS data set. He makes that quite clear. He has not prohibited any person from generating their own algorithm for whatever purpose they wish.
But the pause of 18 yrs and 8 months is limited to the RSS data set.
Lord M of B will inform us in due time, if and when the pause is interrupted.
G
And it was 18 years and 4 months on the UAH data set last month. However with the high February anomaly, that pause is now 0.
I just checked and February is out at 0.974, so the pause is over for RSS as well.
Let’s see where the “plateau” is come the end of the year as this massive release of energy from the oceans dissipates. 😉
Patrick B
Am I correct in my understanding that the claim the “Pause” is over simply means we have some statistically significant warming
The uncertainty envelope for the period of the pause is such that it could be warming, flat or cooling. In order for it to be called a pause, the change in trend from the long-term (which IS statistically significant) has to be statistically significant. It is not. For most of the life of the pause argument, no one was interested in discussing the uncertainty. Glad you brought it up. Had uncertainty been part of the conversation, the ‘pause’ would have always been qualified with ‘possible,’ instead of flat out assumed based on eyecrometer.
Will all those people who thought “The Pause” would never end raise their hands?
Hmm… I don’t see any hands raised.
There were certainly some who predicted cooling from around this time.
I know. There were certainly some who predicted we would have resumed warming, too.
But no one predicted that the climate would not change.
JohnWho
March 2, 2016 at 7:35 am
But no one predicted that the climate would not change.
“But no one predicted that the WEATHER would not change.”
There is a difference, and you’re out by two orders of time duration magnitude, in this instance.
I understand Unmentionable, but…
the meme is “Climate Change”, not “Weather Change”, especially when discussing “The Pause”.
I haven’t heard anyone called a “Weather Change D – n i – r”, have you?
Since the pause is defined as a period without warming, then cooling would result in continuation of the pause.
Most everyone predicted that the El Nino would shorten or even end the pause.
What happens when the El Nino ends, especially if there is a subsequent strong La Nina has been the subject of much speculation.
You do your credibility no credit when you mischaracterize the arguments of others.
“Will all those people who thought “The Pause” would never end raise their hands?”
There are some that thought the pause would not end any time soon.
“You do your credibility no credit when you mischaracterize the arguments of others.”
I have not mischaracterised that argument. The argument was either that:
1) nobody predicted the pause would end sometime in the next few years, in which case it is wrong, or
2) that nobody predicted the pause would ever end until the end of time, in which case it is nonesensical.
I’ve been wondering when this El Nino would cause an actual spike.
Well here it is. It does give the alarmista cocks something to crow about for a short while,
Probably a month or two up at this level, then we will see what happens. 😉
JohnWho March 2, 2016 at 7:51 am
I understand your usage John, but it is all sorts of wrong, we should be more conscious of this, as we have fallen into a self-icing ice-cream trap here with the use of ‘climate change’ when its just weather variations.
It now falls to you to be a trendsetter. 😉
“self-icing ice-cream” … hmm … that should be a, “self-licking ice-cream”, John.
That is because, JohnWho, the STOP in warming, so far as we can honestly say at this time, has not ended.
is an El Nino weather or climate?
Weather
Bill Treuren March 2, 2016 at 8:51 am
is an El Nino weather or climate?
It’s one side of a weather oscillation cycle Bill.
An unambiguous climate change trend appears in data with >500 years duration. It does not appear at all in something that lasts a couple of years, at most.
It is however an AGW pet theory that El Ninos will always lead to a higher temp plateaus after El Ninos, but the actual climate record shows that’s clearly not correct.
So AGW misanthropes invoke/asset that modern humans will always cause temp to increase after El Nino, and thereby claim it’s magically transformed into, PRESTO!
“Climate Change”!
But the actual natural climate change trend we have already does that, too.
Ah, but the allegedly scientific consensus claim its still evil humans making it rise, each El Nino, and modernity should be thwarted and blaggarded, into deep guilt, and self punishments, for theoretical planetary malpractice.
It’s a weather half-cycle + hyperbole = hysterical climate change claims, by prejudiced misanthropes, pretending to represent science, and to give a stuff about actual climate changing data.
Other than that, they’re kinda fun to watch.
So the only thing to do, really, is wait for the anticipated La Nina and see what happens. Going on recent history, the temperature will probably plateau at a slightly higher temperature than the “pause”.
Not so sure. It didn’t rise after the 2010 El Nino. I think the other rises are just a coincidence and has little to do with the El Nino that preceded them.
This el Nino wasn’t as great at the peak as the 1999 one and it is collapsing rapidly now so this ‘warming’ will be short lived. The next cooling cycle may be strong.
My thoughts too. I think Cold is on the way.
the AGW issue is not about temperature but whether temperature is related to fossil fuel fuel emissions
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2725743
EXACTLY …..
http://joannenova.com.au/globalwarming/skeptics-handbook-ii/web-pics/loehle_e-e_2007-5-fig-2-web.gif
I can’t imagine anyone witting around in and around the year 900 AD wondering what they should do to lower not only the temperature …. but also to reduce all of those nasty CO2 emissions …. sarc/
We should enjoy this natural process, and also all the abundant greening and increased crop yields that the extra 120 ppm CO2 is providing us.
Should we also enjoy the increased severity and frequency in heat waves, and of droughts?
Chris, in reality, they are going to get less severe.
Chris … PLEASE look at the graph and BE A THINKER ….. oh my goodness.
I suggest to go to the corrected version, you’ll find that the most recent data plotted is 1935.
http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/AGW/Loehle/Loehle_McC_E&E_2008.pdf
Richard said: “Chris, in reality, they are going to get less severe.”
Links to support that conclusion? Here’s one of a number of papers supporting my point: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50673/abstract
Jake, there are multiple things that can cause temperature increases, not only CO2 – orbital variations, volcanoes, changes in ocean currents. Climate scientists have always stated this, so why do you post something that shows a warm period in the distant past as proof that CO2 does not cause temperature increases? It’s analogous to saying that since we had forest fires in the past (lightning caused), it’s not possible for man to cause forest fires.
Better +120 than -120.
Jamal and Jake.
One thing we can say is if the pause ends, it’s because of the 2015 El Nino, a natural cause. Yes? No?
Chris: “It’s analogous to saying that since we had forest fires in the past (lightning caused), it’s not possible for man to cause forest fires.”
Determination that a forest fire is man-caused requires physical evidence. There is no physical evidence atmospheric CO2 is the primary driver of recent temperature changes.
Even if observed correlation is causation, is it not “settled history” that man-caused fires improved quality of life for early peoples? Could this not be true for man-caused poleward expansion of “temperate” climate?
Of course, you were referring to extremes, not averages. And to “prove” your point you linked to a model-based study focusing on supposed Australian temperature extremes, the authors of which admitted they “cannot categorically ascribe the cause of a particular climate event to anthropogenic climate change.”
Long-term U.S. weather station records show summertime high temperatures are declining. Do you know the relative areal density of weather stations in the U.S. vs. Australia? Can you link to unadjusted long-term records that show Australia is experiencing unprecedented high temperatures?
See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
Without that huge spike at the end, the pause may have disappeared after many more months, but that spike certainly hastened things and the pause is now over. And El Nino is a natural phenomena.
Yes, yes, yes!
UAH6.0beta5 Update
UAH6.0beta5 has come out with the February anomaly of 0.83. This is an all time high for February as well as an overall high since it beat the previous high of 0.742 from April 1998. The pause is over for UAH.
The 0.83 is very close to my projected value of 0.856 in row 11 of the first table.
To compare January and February of 1998 with 2016, the average in 1998 was (0.479 + 0.653)/2 = 0.566.
For 2016, we get (0.543 + 0.83)/2 = 0.687.
The difference is 0.687 – 0.566 = 0.121. And 0.121 over 18 years amounts to 0.67 C/century. That is not too alarming to me.
Werner,
“The difference is 0.687 – 0.566 = 0.121. And 0.121 over 18 years amounts to 0.67 C/century. That is not too alarming to me.”
______________
Is there any particular reason why we should only calculate trends between el Nino peaks? The February figure raises the full trend in UAH V6 from 1.1 to 1.2 C/century.
Two months is of course extremely short, but in this case, being at the same point in a strong El Nino, it is comparing apples with apples. Waiting for the end of 2016 and then comparing all of 1998 with all of 2016 would be much more meaningful. However I do not believe there would be a significant difference. For one thing, “we” seem to have a pretty good handle on how El Ninos and La Ninas work.
DWR54, it is bad to compare trends between El Nino peaks. The previous super El Nino in 1997-98 was followed by a strong 3 year La Nina. The data for that La Nina pretty much balances the El Nino warming as far as the trend goes. The coming La Nina is not in any of the trend data. We won’t know the true effect until the La Nina comes to an end.
Or, we could simply remove the noise from ENSO from the signal and see what the trend looks like. I suggested above that Werner consider such an approach.
Richard M (March 2, 2016 at 9:39 am)
“…we could simply remove the noise from ENSO from the signal and see what the trend looks like. I suggested above that Werner consider such an approach.
___________
I’m for that too. Removing the noise from natural variability seems like a sensible approach. Whatever is left is by definition human caused.
“Using the definition of the longest time with a negative slope, the pauses on all data sets have either ended or will end soon. What significance should be attached to this fact?”
If you think “the pause” has little meaning, then little significance should be given to this fact.
If you think “the pause” was something of great meaning, then you should attach great meaning to the fact that it disappears.
Personally, I did not think the pause was a very meaningful parameter to measure, so its disappearance has little meaning to me.
Fair enough! However when talking to the general public about no “statistically significant warming at the 95% level”, their eyes just might glaze over. But if you can say, “no warming”, then that would get the point across much better.
Since we won’t know whether the pause has ended or simply taken a temporary leave, it is pretty much a meaningless question.
Personally, I did not think the pause was a very meaningful parameter to measure, so its disappearance has little meaning to me.
That is a textbook case of confirmation bias. seaice1 tries to ignore the most significant global temperature event of the past four decades because his mind was made up long ago.
It’s a shame Prof Feynman isn’t still with us. He would say you must take all the evidence. He would also warn against prioritizing evidence like that; giving a high priority to the natural Arctic ice fluctuation, and a very low priority to the fact that global warming stopped for so many years, while CO2 has continued its steady rise.
The “dangerous manmade global warming” narrative has run out of gas. It is imploding, that’s clear. And once the public turns on the scare, it will never go back.
I ended up back here somewhat late, but I will answer anyway. The reason why I do not think the pause is very significant is because by definition it does not use all the data. It is looking only at recent changes, and ignores everything that happened before. I think we should use all the data, which means looking at trends over the whole period, not just what happened in the last few years.
Sadly La Nina will change the cherries, I like the warmth of El Nino.
The current El Nino is weaker than the one of 1997-1998 according to this Willis Eschenbach article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/11/17/is-the-current-el-nino-stronger-than-the-one-in-199798/
Measuring El Ninos is certainly not as straight forward as measuring the heights of two people. There are many things to consider and strengths may vary depending on your parameters. But according to
http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears.shtml
The May to December average in 1997 was 1.69.
The May to December average in 2015 was 1.63.
So going just by the numbers in the 3.4 region, it is a statistical tie.
If you look at the graphs, the 2015 one had a ‘haircut’. It had two peaks, not one, both shorter than the 1999 one.
It is weaker. However, it started from a higher base. 1997 was a La Nina year while 2015 started out as weak El Nino conditions. In addition, there is much less Arctic sea ice releasing lots of ocean heat in the Arctic. This has helped to increase NH temperatures above the 1997-98 levels.
What you should be contemplating is how is all this lost ocean heat going to be replaced.
Serious question:
Wouldn’t an end to “The Pause” require a certain number of months (years) of a warming trend and not a short term change?
For that matter, it could end with a similar cooling trend, although in that case would it then still be called a “pause”?
As far as the first question is concerned, it depends on your definition. If you define it as the time where the slope is negative, then that is all you consider, so whether or not the warming trend is slow and gradual or short and steep is not relevant.
A cooling period could not only reinstate the pause, but it could also make it longer.
Has anyone seen my hockey stick. I can’t seem to find it amongst all of this focus on the head of a pin.
The authors have been left behind re RSS….
From:
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-15-0744.1?af=R
““The new data-set shows substantially increased global-scale warming relative to the previous version of the data-set, particularly after 1998. The new data-set shows more warming than most other middle tropospheric data records constructed from the same set of satellites. We also show that the new data-set is consistent with long-term changes in total column water vapor over the tropical oceans, lending support to its long-term accuracy.”
And:
But thanks anyway.
I am using the latest I have, which is
ftp://ftp.ssmi.com/msu/monthly_time_series/rss_monthly_msu_amsu_channel_tlt_anomalies_land_and_ocean_v03_3.txt
Do you have a URL for version 4?
Only what I posted (paywall) and I got a heads-up on the graph from Gavin Schmidt’s twitter feed.
https://twitter.com/VariabilityBlog
I assume Tamino did the graph (?)
Why in the world would anyone release a new data set now that ends the pause? The pause is ending anyway with the old data set. I believe they are just shooting themselves in the foot and opening themselves up to the criticisms directed at Karl.
And if the pause ends on the new data set, many people would end up believing that adjustments ended the pause and not actual high temperatures.
I can’t see any more recent versions on their site. There is an oddity there – a new RSS V3.03 file was posted on 2 March at 6.35pm, but it doesn’t have February data.
RSS v4.0 data now up
http://images.remss.com/msu/msu_data_monthly.html?type=trend
“RSS v4.0 data now up”
Why do you think that is V4.0? It’s TLT. I see they do have TMT data graphed (eg here), but it is marked as such in the heading. The paper does not mention TLT, and I’m wondering whether V4 will actually estimate it.
HAHAHA. My goodness, they redesigned the data to make ‘warming’ happen. How magical.
But they are on your side (RSS)!
Where is Monckton when you need him?
Or is it – WAS on your side?
By “your side” I assume you mean those skeptical of dangerous AGW (because if it isn’t dangerous, there are many more deserving areas of science that should be funded instead).
Truthfully, in the mid to late ’90’s we didn’t know for sure if the rise in CO2 was a problem or not. But we have gained much more knowledge since then.
As it turns out, the rise in CO2 is completely harmless, and it is greatly beneficial to the biosphere; agricultural productivity is rising measurably due to the increase in that harmless trace gas.
There is no downside. No one has ever found any global damage, or harm from CO2, which has risen by only one part in 10,000 over the past century.
The climate scare is a false alarm. Honest folks admit it. The others don’t.
“There is no downside. No one has ever found any global damage, or harm from CO2”
Incorrect: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/australias-2013-heatwave-due-to-climate-change-researchers-conclude-20140930-10o1sj.html
This statement is a fatuously arrogant assertion. No one knows. Not even N1ck St0kes.
Even “appears to be ending” would be mere alarmist-style sensationalism.
******************************
And if someday, after enough time and data make the statement which it is possible to make, “the pause has ended,” true, then, the logical response is: SO WHAT?
The CO2-driven models are still failed, unfit for purpose.
There is still no evidence that proves causation (of CO2 driving climate).
In short: no matter what: the burden of proof still l1es firmly at the feet of the AGWers who have yet to make a prima facie case for their CO2-drives-climate conjecture.
I agree: that is the ball upon which we must keep an eye.
The pause has already ended for UAH based on the February numbers. And if February does not end the RSS pause, then only a super strong volcanic eruption at the equator next week can prevent the pause from ending in March. A huge asteroid would do it as well.
That, of course, is a totally different and very relevant question. I agree with you here about the impotent CO2.
Werner:
You say
Sorry, but no. That cannot be known until the complete ENSO oscillation has completed.
At present we can say that you have shown the Pause has stopped but it is too soon to know if the Pause will resume or not.
This is similar to why the Pause is a misnomer: it still cannot be known if the Pause has ended so it still cannot be known if the Pause was a ‘pause’ in warming or the end of recovery from the LIA.
Importantly, whether or not the Pause has ended, the Pause has demonstrated that predictions (or projections) of climate models are great overestimates of global warming.
Richard
All that I am saying is this: Once UAH publishes their February anomalies in such a way that Nick can download it onto his data set, there will not be a time period for which the slope will be negative.
The same applies to RSS as well.
Whether the pause will resume at a future date is not certain.
I know people may define “pause” differently, but that is how Lord Monckton and I use the word.
Werner:
Obviously, I was not sufficiently clear. I will try to clarify.
This semantic argument is important because the existence of the Pause for 18+ years remains a fact and we need to be clear about its existence and what that existence has demonstrated whether or not the Pause has now ended .
I, too, am using the same definition of the Pause as you and Viscount Monckton.
You have shown that there is now no Pause.
But there was a Pause. Therefore, the Pause has stopped.
But the Pause having stopped does not mean the Pause must have ended.
(A train traveling from London to Edinburgh has not ended its travel if it stops at Birmingham New Street).
We know the rapid high global temperature of February 2016
(a) caused the Pause to stop
and
(b) was part of an ENSO oscillation.
This provides three possibilities; viz.
1. The Pause may have ended and will not resume because warming has resumed.
2. The Pause may resume when global temperature drops at completion of the ENSO.
3. The Pause may be replaced by global cooling after completion of the ENSO.
In summation, the Pause has stopped and we will know if it has ended after completion of the ENSO.
And I repeat that whether or not the Pause has ended, the Pause has demonstrated that predictions (or projections) of climate models are great overestimates of global warming.
Richard
I agree.
Wouldn’t the coming La Nina offset the El Nino bump?
How dare you ask the right question!
Hi Richard M
There was a negative trend in the UAH data for a while with a start date in 2001, but that disappeared in November last year, leaving only 4 possible starting months for the Pause, namely October 1997 to January 1998, with December 1997 having the greatest negative slope. (This is according to the latest version of UAH, V6 Beta5)
The way the least squares calculation is performed means that a large spike at one end of a nearly flat dataset has a disproporionately big influence, which is why those few months were the start of a negative slope for so long.
Now that there will be a big spike at the opposite end, it means that will also have a big influence in keeping the slope positive from now on, even if the anomalies dip back to last year’s values, or lower, in a few months’ time.
As recently as April last year, you could have found a negative slope starting in any of 17 months in 1997-98, as well as in 26 months in 2000-2002, and 14 months in 2009-10, but the gently increasing anomalies saw these disappear over a few months.
Yes, but it must be deep enough and long enough.
No. It (probably) won’t.
Just as the 1998 spike in temperatures influenced the slope of the least-squares regression line, keeping it slightly negative from that carefully chosen starting pont, so the current spike in temperatures will prevent it from going negative again.
Unless of course there is a sudden 1 degree drop in temperature for a year or more.
Sorry, but this is simply wrong. The trend from 1998 and 2001 is the same. How could the 1998 data be relevant when data not using that 1998 shows exactly the same trend?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/trend
I am not sure I am getting your point. Both 1998 and 2001 had negative slopes last month, but both are positive now using Nick’s program which is updated already! (WFT will not have the February RSS for another 6 hours.)
Sorry Werner, I was responding to Richard Barraclough’s claim … “the 1998 spike in temperatures influenced the slope of the least-squares regression line, keeping it slightly negative from that carefully chosen starting pont”.
I should have made that clearer.
I have no complaint or criticism of Werner’s declaration that subject to certain conditions which he mentions, that “The pause” as in the Monckton Pause, will have ended.
Christopher defined his algorithm and how he applies it to just the RSS set. And I believe that Werner, is plenty capable of applying the algorithm correctly to see what happens. And the algorithm, and the RSS numbers, when available will confirm or not, Werner’s conclusion.
And if in some future months the RSS numbers drop, the algorithm may reinstate the pause or not.
M of B himself told us that the current El Nino, might interrupt the pause. Well any interruption is a stoppage, and should be called so as Werner is suggesting.
My position is simply that this all tells us what has happened up to now with the RSS set, and it gives us no information at all, as to what is coming down the pike.
We’ll learn about it; maybe from Werner, when it happens.
G
Yes it will – prior to 400ppm it would have gone negative – now we’ll get a “hiatus” at best.
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/files/2013/01/GISTEMPjan13.gif
… prior to 400ppm it would have gone negative…
That is ridiculous. It presupposes that the rise in CO2 exactly offsets the ‘hidden’ cooling.
The rise in CO2 is ramping up with more countries raising their emissions. Isn’t it amazing that those CO2 emissions are going up at just the right amount to keep global T at the same level for almost 20 years?
Or maybe, as Billy Ockham might say, there’s a simpler solution: what we are observing is natural climate variability, and CO2 is an extraneous variable that has very little to do with it.
The planet has been through exactly the same step changes in the past, during times when CO2 was much lower:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
There is nothing either unusual, or unprecedented happening. And the climate null hypothesis has never been falsified. This is simply nature at work.
“Wouldn’t the coming La Nina offset the El Nino bump?”
No. Leave ENSO in the graphs, there is warming. Take ENSO out, there is warming. Start from the high points (El Nino), there is warming. Start from the low points (La Nina), there is warming.
Saying ENSO is the reason for the warming, is like saying you can lift yourself by pulling on your shoelaces. All those misinformers here who say wait for the La Nina and we will be back to no warming, need to compare the last La Nina with the next one. Apples with apples…..
Pure nonsense. The coming La Nina will just balance out the current El Nino. Since time moves forward any trend used from the past will include both. Hence, the total effect is taken into account. It appears you don’t understand how computing trends works. Why are you commenting?
Richard M
The coming La Nina will not offset the recent warming. The last El Nino started from a higher point on the graph than the previous one. That is because the world is warming. And the next La Nina will finish higher than the last. Why are you commenting if you don’t understand this?
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_February_2016_v6.png
“Wouldn’t the coming La Nina offset the El Nino bump?”
Unlikely. You can do some simple arithmetic on this. The average value of RSS since Dec 1997 to now, where the trend is near zero, is 0.257°C. The rule is that new data above the trend line will raise trend in proportion to the excess; if below, it lowers the trend. RSS is currently at 0.974, and values like that will raise the trend considerably, and large excess will continue for some time. To get the pause back, the cumulative (sum of) deficits below 0.257 will have to balance the sum of the coming excesses. If you look at the top plot, that is very unlikely.
The mean itself will change slowly, but gives a good basis for estimate.
Nonsense. You dont think that with all this heat being released we will have a long prolonged cool spell?
How much heat do you think there is to give up?
The last big release of heat saw a 4 year cool spell follow it.
Its not hard to figure out. By 2020 we are back to where we were 6 months ago.
Using UAH of course. Flat.
What it proves is El nino warms the globe, its undeniable.
Oh boy this is sooo exciting isn’t it!?
The three decimals really does it for me … it’s THAT significant!
Really, really kewl … changes everything.
Apologies if this appears twice.
“Using the definition of the longest time with a negative slope, the pauses on all data sets have either ended or will end soon. What significance should be attached to this fact?”
If you think the pause is not very significant, then you should not attach much significance to its dissapearance.
If you think the pause was meanignful, then you should attach great importance to its disappearance.
What you should not do is say the pause was meaningful, then dismiss its disappearance as insignificant.
Personally, I thought the pause was not meaningful parameter to measure, so I attach little importance to its disapperarance.
seaice1:
I understand the Pause has been and is an embarrassment to your warmunist narrative, but the Pause remains important.
As I said above.
Richard
Debating the significance of temperature trends less than 1.0 C is pointless. The data is not of sufficient quality to even know the true value to 1.0 resolution. All these 0.xxx C trends and 0.01 C changes are statistical illusions.
There is also the question of outliers. If we are looking for an AGW warming signal,surely the natural el Nino spike should be considered as an outlier.
Gosh, the occurrence of an El Nino in 97/98 didn;t stop AGW skeptics from using that date as the start of the pause.
If the pause disappears there is no pause. That is how it is defined. If it reappears again later, then there will again be a pause.
It must include all the short term variations. That is the nature of the definition, and why I do not think it such an important measure.
seaice1 says:
If the pause disappears there is no pause.
Wrong once again. The ‘pause’ will always be there. Just look at the record: no global warming from ≈1997-98 ’till now.
And there is nothing different about the current ‘pause’. It has happened repeatedly in the past, irregardless of CO2 levels.
This chart by arch-Warmist Dr. Phil Jones shows that clearly:
http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/hadley/Hadley-global-temps-1850-2010-web.jpg
What is happening now is natural climate variability. There is no measurement of any “fingerprint of AGW”. Since they cannot measure it, and since they cannot show that it affects anything, then the null hypothesis remains unfalsified.
I see Chris is once again demonstrating that the average warmista has actually no idea how statistics works.
@chris …. as I pointed out earlier, the 1998 start date is not a big factor in the pause. The trend is the same if you start in 2001.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1998/plot/rss/from:1998/trend/plot/rss/from:2001/trend
@ dbstealey March 2, 2016 at 10:03 am
What’s with all that corrupted data from about 1875 thru 1915? That just doesn’t sit well, looks wrong, can you change that up a bit? It’s gotten all tilted downwards for some reason.
Never mind, I figured it out, it was that 45 year long coal mine strike they had in Europe at around that time. Remarkable correspondence really.
Another content free post from MarkW, why am I not surprised.
The pause is defined as how far back you can go from today without a positive slope. If this disappears, it has disappeared. There will still be a point in the data from which you can go back from January 2016 and not find a positive slope for 18 years plus, but that will not be the pause. It will be a flat bit of graph, but unless you have good reaon for picking those dates it would be cherry picking and shows very little.
Unmentionable says:
What’s with all that corrupted data from about 1875 thru 1915?&etc.
Go ask your leader, Phil Jones. It’s his data.
Same goes for seaice1. Dr. Jones said (CRU email, 2005):
“The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998. OK it has…
And when Jones was asked:
“Do you agree that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming?”
He answered:
“Yes, but only just”.
And in Nature Climate Change Dr. Virginie Guemas stated:
“Despite a sustained production of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, the Earth’s mean near-surface temperature paused its rise during the 2000–2010 period”
And:
“Some people call it a slow-down, some call it a hiatus, some people call it a pause. The global average surface temperature has not increased substantially over the last 10 to 15 years.”
– Dr. Rowan Sutton, 2013
That’s just a sample of experts who contradict what seaice1 is trying to peddle.
The pause, as defined by Lord Monckton and myself, has definitely ended, at least for now, on all data sets as of February 2016. However “slowdown” and “statistically significant warming” are totally different concepts. See the graphic below. The slowdown is clearly evident. But you cannot even see the uptick since 1998! You have to read it from the raw data page:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1978/plot/rss/from:1978/to:2001/trend/plot/rss/from:1998/trend
#Selected data from 1998
#Least squares trend line; slope = 0.000176525 per year
dbstealey. You are off on one of your digressions again. I am talking about the pause as defined by Monckton and by the author of this post. If you want to talk about a different pause please define your terms.
The pause is not very significant because it can, and indeed has, disappear suddenly (and possibly re-appear again) depending on short term fluctuations. To my mind that is not a very significant measure. One month it can be nearly 20 years, the next month it can be zero.
Incidentally, I do not see a pause on the graph you show. There is a continuous warming indicated by the big red arrow from about 1979 onwards. Where is the pause on your graph?
Do you also notice that the last red arrow ends quite a bit higher than the previous red arrow? Anyone might think that was due to warming.
seaice,
Get a life. This thread is past its ‘sell by’ date. If you want to argue about your crackpot theory that no “pause” happened, go argue with the IPCC. They acknowledge it.
And just the fact that no global warming happened for more than 18 years demolishes the idea that CO2 is the main driver of temperatures. But you can’t accept what’s obvious to rational observers.
If you take a photograph of something with an iPhone, there is a limit to how much detail you can see when you enlarge the picture. It does not matter if 10,000 people take a picture of the Statue of Liberty and you take the average – you will still not be able to see detail that is 10 or 100 times below the pixel resolution.
If you actually wished to be honest, you would declare that you are going to measure 1 person out of every 100,000, and then declare that you know the average height of everyone on earth to a hundredth of an inch.
I love the way the maker of invalid analogies complains that someone else’s analogy doesn’t match his exactly.
Actually, you would NOT get 5′ 9.5″. Since over 95 % of adult males are between 5′ 6″ and 6’6″, the vast majority of your answers would be 6 with a small number of 5’s and a very few 7’s. The average would be something like 5′ 11.5″ which does not match with reality. Simplistic hand waving generally doesn’t work in maths …
Please tell us how that is an “illusion?”
Since no measurement by your parameters included inches, your average is a meaningless illusion and coveys no real information about the height of these men.
Mark says to 1old:
If you actually wished to be honest…
If he wanted to be honest, he would have paid off on his bogus challenge.
If he really wanted to be honest, he would have written it so folks wouldn’t be in the position of having to prove a negative.
And if he really, truly wanted to be honest, he would stop using his sockpuppet screen names.
1oldnwise4me:
“Please tell us how that is an “illusion?”
the average person on an average day
has one testicle and one ovary
do you get it now?
MikeP March 2, 2016 at 9:01 am
I love the way warmistas go out of their way to prove their ignorance.
You would have a 0.0004 accuracy on your sample. But your sample is only a tiny, tiny fraction of the entire human race. You are claiming that the average that you have calculated is an accurate sampling of the entire human race.
Please tell me you aren’t this dumb in real life.
1oldnwise4me@reagan.com
March 2, 2016 at 10:01 am
“Consider a baseball player’s batting average. Tell us how a batter can get a 0.252 hit. Last time I checked, either the batter gets a full hit, or no hit, but there is no way to get a quarter of a hit.”
Wrong. The batting average is the percentage of time a player gets a hit.
150 hits in 525 at bats is a .286 batting average.
Folks, ^this sockpuppet^ isn’t the old woman he pretends to be. He is Christopher Keating. The same one who welshed on his offer.
Disregard him.
oldnwise4me@reagan.com
March 2, 2016 at 1:04 pm
So, when someone says the average height of an adult American Maie is X ft, Y inches, you’ll know what they mean….it’s not an “illusion”
——————————————————————————————————————————-
But that is not what you said. YOU set the parameters as measurement to the nearest foot and did not include inches. Inches do not exist in your setting. Therefore you cannot have inches in the result so including them is the illusion. Your example can display the average as a percentage of a foot, so your average man of 5′ 9″ would be displayed as 5.75′. That would not be an illusion.
Folks, ^this sockpuppet^ isn’t the old woman he pretends to be. He is Christopher Keating. The same one who welshed on his offer.
The best that you can use in the calculations is 5’6″. Engineering 101: you can’t extrapolate more decimal points than the data has, and with any ruler you can eyeball to half a marking. So, you have to round that average off.
1oldnwise4me@reagan.com
March 2, 2016 at 1:56 pm
“So, now do you see how the eight foot stick with marks every foot measures inches?”
You fail to get the point. YOUR parameters did not include any subdivision into inches. You set the division into feet. Therefore you can only get an answer in feet.
Your example of the batting averages was worse. You claimed that the batting average indicated fractions of a hit.(you said “Consider a baseball player’s batting average. Tell us how a batter can get a 0.252 hit”) That is not what a batting average tells us. It tells us the the percentage of times a player has had a hit per number of at bats.
But back to the illusion. Your average does not give any information as to what the actual heights of those males are. Therefore it is an illusion as to meaningful information.
The bottom line is both of your examples are useless.
Keating, how many sockpuppet names are you using?
“So, now do you see how the eight foot stick with marks every foot measures inches?”
If you wrote a simple program to input 10,000 male’s height as measured to the nearest foot and asked that program to give you an average, the program will not give you feet and inches. It will give you feet. Since you did not have a stick with inches measured on it, you cannot use inches in the solution. Sounds like a trivial matter as you would simply have to ask/program a conversion to feet and inches but you did not. My original post a long while ago simply stated that.
Do not despair. The pause is almost over. There is now the first sign of the return of cooling. Looking at this picture (ocean surface temperature anomalies) what would you predict? Warming or cooling?
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2016/anomnight.2.29.2016.gif
What the heck do you base your prediction of future planetary temperature on? Are there any warmists in the audience? I am truly curious as to what you’ll expect in the future and why. I am trying to determine the timing of the up coming paradigm shift.
Why the heck did we recently have record sea ice in the Antarctic for multiple years and a recovery of Arctic sea ice? In 2015 there was a change (sudden appearance of solar coronals) which stopped the cooling trend (record sea in the Antarctic and recovering sea ice in the Arctic). The solar change that stopped/inhibited the cooling trend is over.
The warmists’ prediction of warming is based on their belief in the Auntie Mime principle (Auntie Mime from the Wizard of Oz). The Auntie Mime principle is that if you say something that you believe or want to be true three times and really, really, believe it, it becomes true. That is the scientific method the warmists use. The corollary to the Auntie Mime principle is that if others present observations and analysis results that contradict your beliefs you need to call them a denier three times. Blocking the publishing of papers that contradict ones’ beliefs is also very helpful and is useful to promote your cause.
The sun drives the climate change show. There are solar signs that would cause you to shiver in your boots if your wore boots and if you understood what is happening to the sun.
If the assertion that the sun is a serial climate changer is correct, prediction requires an understanding of how the sun is changing now and the mechanisms by which solar changes modulate earth’s climate. The solar coronal holes are now starting to dissipate. The recent warming was caused by persistent regular coronal hole wind bursts which create a space charge differential in the ionosphere.
The space charge imbalance causes there to be a current flow from the 40 to 60 degree latitude region of the earth to the equatorial region. The current flow changes cloud properties, cloud lifetimes, and precipitation which causes warming at both locations.
Anyone looked at the paleo climatic record? There are cycles of warming and cooling in the paleo record that correlate with solar cycle changes. A hint of what to expect is there are regions of the Atlantic in the 40 to 60 degree range that were 10C colder 400 years ago. Why the heck did the Thames river freeze 400 years ago?
The point that I am trying to make (which no one is getting) is there is more cooling and warming in the higher latitudes. As CO2 is more or less evenly distributed in the atmosphere, CO2 warming should be more or less uniform.
The warming in the last 150 years is not uniform. The warming in the last 150 years is primarily high latitude and there was significantly more warming in the Northern hemisphere. This is called the latitudinal warming paradox as it is an observation that disproves the AGW hypothesis. An observation that disproves a hypothesis is a paradox. That are at least a dozen other paradoxes and know incorrect calculations that disprove the AGW hypothesis.
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/~stefan/Publications/Journals/rahmstorf_grl_2003.pdf
Bravo. You are correct. I have been saying this, too. Remember: Alaska had very little super cold temperatures during Ice Ages, it was mostly ice-free with many grazing animals from mastadons to northern giraffes, etc. and humans, too.
Ice Ages are very, very lopsided and cause vast glaciation in Canada and northern US and Europe, not Asia or Siberia much less, South America and Africa. Tonight and tomorrow it will be below freezing where I live which is where mile-thick glaciers once ruled and it will go to near 0 degrees F at night. This is not ‘warming’ and it is still an el Nino year!
William Astley says
March 2, 2016 at 8:03 am
The Auntie Mime principle is that if you say something that you believe or want to be true three times and really, really, believe it, it becomes true.
and
Why the heck did we recently have ….. a recovery of Arctic sea ice?
Just talk us through this one more time. Arctic ice is about to set a low record for the winter maximum during the satellite era, and Global Sea Ice has been hitting new lows within the last couple of weeks. Antarctic sea ice is close to the average.
“Auntie Mime principle” from “the Wizard of Oz?” No such character, ergo no such principle. Is this a demonstration of “falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus?”
Why are most people ignoring this strong evidence that the Sun influences the Earth’s climate on time scales from 50 to 9400 years.
Evidence that the Sun has always had an important influence upon climate change
http://astroclimateconnection.blogspot.com.au/2016/03/evidence-that-sun-has-always-had.html
You might not convince too many on this blog with your argument – particularly this bit:
Below this is a second figure showing amplitude spectrum of variations in the North American temperature time series over the last ~ 7000 years. The temperature time series is obtained from tree ring data obtained from Bristle Cones on the Southern Colorado Plateau
No, it is logic. The planet has been in a cooling cycle for the last 2 million years. We all accept this fact. The other fact is, SUDDENLY like someone turning up the heat, it warms up tremendously and very, very swiftly and we get short Interglacials…and then these collapse rather fast into another Ice Age which gets colder and colder and colder until…suddenly the heat turns on again.
The local star is now possibly a variable star.
John Finn,
Something related to climate (e.g. soil moisture, air temperature, precipitation, rate of evaporation, frequency of frosts etc.) affects the tree ring widths of Bristle Cone pines. It really doesn’t matter which of these is the dominant factor or even if it is a combination of these parameters.
Your challenge is to tell me how something related to the long-term variations of the climate of the Southern Colorado Plateau knows about the long-term variations of the strength of the Sun’s magnetic field.
Some people will happily cherry pick this El Nino as a climate event for as many years to come as they have claimed that we have cherry picked the ’98 one to ‘start’ the ‘pause’. They were simultaneously licking their lips and wetting themselves in anticipation for nearly a decade and telling me/us – ‘just you wait’.
It’s all politics imho.
I guess this idea that a variable that seems to fluctuate more in line with random walk behaviour should be modelled by straight line trends is important to some. That probably explains the discussion of the Mills paper at Nick Stokes’ site:
http://moyhu.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/gwpfs-statistical-forecast.html
Perhaps the forecast of the fairly rapid demise of the El Niño is more pertinent:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/people/wwang/cfsv2fcst/images1/nino34Seaadj.gif
It’s very tempting to try and predict what the temperature is going to do, but the truth is, despite all the brilliant minds at work here, no one yet understands El Ninos, La Ninas, or what drives Earth’s climate systems well enough to predict with any degree of reliability. So everyone should try and relax and wait and see over the next 6-8 months or so.
An interpretation of the facts:
The El Nino has approximately coincided with the peak of cycle 24 and since both El Nino events and raised solar activity cause the climate zones to shift poleward we have seen a much enhanced flow of equatorial air across the middle latitudes of the northern hemisphere and into the Arctic.
That has allowed the global temperature as seen from space to just tip above the 1998 figure but it actually represents a faster loss of energy to space than that which followed the 1998 spike.
The whole system is a complex interplay between the bottom up ocean effect and the top down solar effect with the balance between El Nino and La Nina constantly changing as the climate zones shift latitudinally to and fro.
So, yes, it is a fraction warmer than the 1998 peak for a short while but only because of the different timing of the oceanic and solar effects with no statistical significance.
As others have pointed out above, that tiny rise above 1998 after an 18 year delay does not in any way validate the model projections of a far,far greater warming response from our very much increased CO2 emissions over that 18 year period.
It will not need much of a La Nina to pull the average back to flat and over the next few ENSO cycles I expect to see the average global temperature begin to show a slow decline despite this recent peak.
It’s not about the pause continuing or ending, it’s about the models not predicting it. Models on which the hysteria of what will happen 80 years from now is based.
Why would you expect an ensemble of GCM’s to forecast the long -PDO/ENso cycle that ended last year?
You do know how ensembles work?
Why would you expect modellers to correctly forecast anthropogenic forcings for the period of the GCM model runs?
https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/702559321847156736
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/
http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2015/2015_Marvel_etal_2.pdf
” the CMIP5 experimental design has known errors in the forcings used. All
CMIP5 historical experiments end in 2005, afterer which simulations
are extended through 2012 by splicing with RCP experiments (we
use RCP8.5 here). These future projection experiments contain
no volcanic aerosol loading beyond 2000 (Santer et al. 2014) and
use projected updates to solar output or tropospheric aerosols that
did not exactly match the real world after 2005 (Huber and Knutti
2014; Kaufmann et al. 2011). Estimates of the net effect suggest that
the real world had more negative forcings than projected (Schmidt
et al. 2014). Updating the forcing (Figure 1c), but holding TCR
and noise parameters constant, we !nd that reduced forcing can
also reconcile observed and modeled temperature trends over the
hiatus period (last vertical line in Figure 1a).”
http://phys.org/news/2014-07-vindicates-climate-accused.html
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n9/full/nclimate2310.html
“We present a more appropriate test of models where only those models with natural variability (represented by El Niño/Southern Oscillation) largely in phase with observations are selected from multi-model ensembles for comparison with observations. These tests show that climate models have provided good estimates of 15-year trends, including for recent periods and for Pacific spatial trend patterns.
http://phys.org/news/2014-07-vindicates-climate-accused.html
Michael Mann is trying to explain away this monumental FAIL:
http://l.yimg.com/fz/api/res/1.2/u.i.A9hIbX2Ql7L7LC5_jg–/YXBwaWQ9c3JjaGRkO2g9Njk5O3E9OTU7dz0xMDE1/http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/73-climate-models_reality.gif
Toneb:
I see you have again copied stuff you don’t understand (perhaps it is a habit you acquired from overhearing conversations during those 47 years you were cleaning the toilets at UKMO).
The point made by chrisyu was
The fact is that he is right and the excuses you have copied from Gavin Schmidt don’t provide any doubt that he is right. Indeed, if you understood any of the stuff you copy& paste then you would have understood that this statement you have copied from Gavin Schmidt supports what chrisyu said
if the models mostly were “largely in phase with observations” then it would not be necessary to consider “only those models with natural variability (represented by El Niño/Southern Oscillation) largely in phase with observations are selected from multi-model ensembles for comparison with observations .
You have the gall to post that and to complain about ‘cherry picking’!
Richard
The giddy-ness over the ending to “the pause” reminds me of when UAH corrections turned their trend from cooling to warming: warmistas spiking their footballs and proclaiming victory whole ignoring and hiding the real issue…a lack of conformity to models, the surface record, and global warming theory.
Can we see this on a graph with a scale that goes from -50C to +50-C which is the range where temperatures on Earth would fit inside for any given day? Arguing over slopes that are really 0.0000000000001% on a properly-scaled graph is just plain silly. Let’s look at temperature, not at minute tortured changes.
Mean temperatures across the globe do not vary between -50C and +50C. A fall of 5 degrees would throw us into another ice age.
-50 to +50 is not the range of the average termperature of the earth, so why plot it that way? A graph showing, say, average crop yields/acre for corn would not have a Y axis bracketed by the lowest and highest yields/acre reported. That makes no sense at all when considering averages.
If the temperature over the next year falls 2C then does the pause extend backwards in time till the line returns to level.
if not then the measure is daft.
The same can be said about the rising rate of temperature increase post LIA being the background natural temperature increase. Are we in fact above that expectation because that could be argued to be the test for AGW.
What I believe is the most important thing is that the AGW signal needs one hundreths of a degree resolution to be supposedly visible, this virtually eliminates the risk of CAGW and allows just some harmless AGW to remain and be resolved over the next century or so.
Yes. Of course for the satellites, it can only go back to 1979.
There is still no statistically significant warming and relying on a strong El Nino says more about the failed CAGW theory then the pause. A 0.3 c rise per decade or lower has never been a problem to worry about and the rate shown of 0.05 c per decade in UAH is still significantly lower than natural cycle since the industrial age. These very slight global temperature increases over many years have only continued to confirm the CAGW theory to be dead. (this has not changed at all)
The UAH for February shows the influence of a strong El Nino on the Arctic with significant warming. Notice there is no crises because the significant warmer temperatures are in regions still struggling to reach zero degrees centigrade. The current El Nino was around 2 months ahead than 1997/98 so February should be the peak of it in the affect on global temperatures. Increasingly cooling oceans between 40-60N and 40-60S this month should make March a cooler month.
“There is still no statistically significant warming and relying on a strong El Nino says more about the failed CAGW theory then the pause”
======================================================================
Yes it does. Relying on one or two months is even more pathetic. (1998 was still the warmest year on record) The troposphere is supposed to warm 20% faster then the surface!
Also, one year agoTony H predicted the disputed RSS adjustments…
” Enron accountants would blush at these tactics. Look for the satellite data to be adjusted to bring it into compliance with the fully fraudulent surface temperatures. The Guardian is now working to discredit UAH, so it seems likely that RSS will soon be making big changes – to match the needs of the climate mafia. Bookmark this post.”
===============================================
https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/collusion-is-independence/
It was very instructional last month to observe that it was the warmest Feb in the satellite era, AND YET the earth didn’t implode, there was no catastrophe, the world and its plants and animals continued on its merry way utterly oblivious to the Feb record. In fact, no one on earth would have known if they were not told. People get obsessed with a few fractions of degrees and forget to observe whether anything of importance is happening outside their door. And when the ENSO cycle sloshes back towards an El Niña and erases the warm spell, it will matter even less what happened over the last few months.
“the earth didn’t implode”
That’s because nearly all the “warm” anomaly is from the NH winter, particularly over Europe/western Russia
More a blessing than anything else, I would say.
Nice job Werner, JTF, and Nick.
I remain amazed that there is such focus on global temperature over an entire year to the thousandth of a degree.
One of my favorite pictures for some baseline temperature rationalization.
http://www.glerl.noaa.gov/pr/pr_images/glacier.jpg
The “pause” itself is not that important. What is important is the overall 21st century global decadal trend, which needs to be substantially below .20C/decade to disconfirm the CAGW hypothesis.
After the global cooling effects from the coming La Niña kicks in, 21st century’s global trend line will again approach 0.0C/decade.
Moreover, the 30-yr AMO warm cycle is winding down and will switch to its 30-yr cool cycle from around 2020. The PDO already started its 30-yr cool cycle from 2008, but so far, the 2009/10 and the 2014~16 El Ninos have obscured the PDO cooling effect.
When both the PDO and AMO are in their respective 30-year cool cycles, a discernible global cooling trend should emerge. The continued weakening solar cycles should also contribute to a global cooling trend.
CAGW has become a joke.
1. The “Pause” hasn’t disappeared. It now just has a beginning and an end. But it is right there in the data where it always was, and it doesn’t cease to exist merely because we can’t calculate one starting from the present and working backwards.
2. The “Pause” was never significant in terms of showing the CO2 doesn’t heat up the earth. It only became significant because the warmist community (Jones, Santer, etc) said that natural variability was too small to cancel the warming of CO2 for more than a period of 10 years…er 15…er 17 and made a big deal out of it.
So regardless of the “Pause” having ended or not, what we have is conclusive evidence that the models either:
a) grossly under estimated natural variability or
b) grossly over estimated CO2 sensitivity or
c) both
In all three scenarios above, natural variability dominates in terms of any risk associated with a changing global temperature. That’s what we should be studying first and foremost. Once we understand it, then we can determine how much CO2 changes natural variability. Trying to determine CO2 sensitivity without first understanding the natural variability baseline that it runs on top of is a fool’s errand. Unfortunately, fools seem determined and well funded, and so they continue to try and do just that.
The world has been warming for 400 years, almost all of it due to natural variability. It will continue to warm (I expect) and most of the warming will be due to natural variability, which we just learned from this last 20 years of data is a lot bigger deal than CO2.
+1000
After taking a brief pause to reflect on what you’ve said davidmhoffer,
I find it most agreeable.
Well said David!
Exactly this and I nearly typed something like this myself. Just like the cooling between 1940’s and 1970’s still there no matter what happens after. This period of cooling was reduced over the decades to place the warming period after it higher up on the graph. This was just one trick of increasing the difference from the 2000’s and 1930’s to 1940’s.
davidmhoffer, that was a good post.
matthewrmarler:
The post from davidmhoffer is much, much better than merely “good”.
Richard
Two things, shouldn’t we be more concerned with how close the trends are to model predictions. And, aren’t the model outputs supposed to compare best to the satellite data (hi-res troposphere).
The last El Nino in the late 1990’s resulted in a step change in average temperature, and then the resulting long plateau. What if that is the mechanism, where temperature increases happen in steps rather than the gradual increase that everyone seems to assume?
There is no evidence that ties the 1998 El Nino to any step change. In fact, the step change occurred after the 1999-01 La Nina which makes that a more likely candidate. What is even more interesting is that once you correct the temperature data for ENSO and volcanoes, the step change goes back to the recovery from the eruption of Pinatubo.
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n3/fig_tab/ngeo2098_F1.html
FWIW, this is where I believe we are, and where we are going. Mind you, I just dashed this off, and only made a cursory attempt to match the magnitudes of the trend and oscillations in a pastiche of HADCRUT4 and RSS, but I think it is more or less in the right ballpark.
Firstly, observed temperature anomaly is essentially composed of a trend plus a roughly 65 year oscillation. Here is a plot of
T = -0.35+(0.4+0.35)/(2020-1900)*(t-1900)-0.2*sin(w*(t-1960))
which roughly matches the long term HADCRUT4 data.
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/temp1_zpspdu7uaid.jpg
The “pause” is seen to be a manifestation of the peak of the ~65 year cycle.
We’ve had a couple of bit El Nino’s recently, which have created bumps in the temperature record:
T = -0.35+(0.4+0.35)/(2020-1900)*(t-1900)-0.2*sin(w*(t-1960))+0.5*exp(-((t-1998)/1.5).^2)+0.5*exp(-((t-2016)/1.5).^2);
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/temp2_zpsb97odco3.jpg
These bumps are, however, transient. I expect the long term behavior to continue in what is now a downward phase of the ~65 year cycle, bottoming out in the 2030-2050 time frame:
http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n488/Bartemis/temp3_zpso5dp1gpw.jpg
Please note: the long term trend was in place long before CO2 had built up significantly in the atmosphere, as was the ~65 year cycle. There was no apparent change in either when CO2 emissions really took off in the 50’s. The apparent aggregate climate sensitivity to atmospheric CO2 is essentially nil.
If there was a God it seems to be having a laugh at the expense of the warmistas. When they called it “Global Warming” she stopped it warming. They changed to “Climate Change” so she stopped the climate from changing. God is a funny gender neutral deity!
This is merely the Pause in hiatus. Your regular climate will resume shortly.
RSS Feb 2016: +0.9736
I am truly sick of the pedantic to and fros in the argument over the pause. It makes no frickin difference to the AGW theory proponents. The argument is really about either side trying to hide (or highlight) the PRIMARY element of NATURAL VARIABILITY, according to their stance. The pause (in any way shape or form) over a statistically significant timescale, effectively disproves the basis of AGW being CO2 driven. Even taking the up/downs as ‘step’ changes along the way, this does not really support the CO2 climate sensitivity argument imho. Ultimately the current opinion should be that whatever is causing the changes (which are debatable because of all the data tampering!) It must be small in stature/importance relative to the clearly evident natural changes/forces. I personally believe actual temps are cooler compared to the last few decades. That’s how I have felt it Despite the media hype. I put it down to natural climate variability – period. Fwiw I actually think if there is some significant cooling – the warmists will simply reverse the ‘science’ and STILL claim its CO2! That is how fecked up the ‘science’ is at the moment!
Ha! That’s not a pause! From -420816 to today, now THAT’s a Pause. And it hasn’t ended yet; it is still firmly in negative territory (-0.0000028 pa).
So the ocean can cause 0.5C, or about 50 years of AGW, in a year. And it made absolutely no difference to anything. The US still hasn’t had a Cat 3 hurricane in a decade. Australia had a minimal cyclone / bushfire season. Rain falls normally everywhere except DPR California.
I think we can all forget about AGW now.
RSS update
RSS for February has come out at 0.974. (This is very close to my projection of 0.977!) The pause is now over for RSS. The 0.974 sets a new record for RSS by beating April 1998 which was 0.857.
Karl Mears has applied a “new” adjustment, hasn’t he?
No. I believe there is a new version coming, but these numbers are the old version 3.3.
The huge effective thermal capacitance of the planet renders this article and any speculation based just on these temperature measurements, that the ‘pause has ended’ as nonsense. Thermal capacitance is what causes the ‘thermal lag’ that Eschenbach talks about at http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/24/lags-and-leads/
Schwartz at http://www.ecd.bnl.gov/steve/pubs/HeatCapacity.pdf determined the effective thermal capacitance of the planet to be about 17 W Yr m-2 K-1. This also means a time constant of about 5 years. Even if there was a step change in forcing, it would take 5 years to get 63.2% of the change to the new steady-state value.
What all this means is that this super el Nino represents just the surface water and the temporary increased humidity it causes. The monthly reported temperatures can not represent a significant change to the energy content of the planet. Only the multi-year temperature trend can do that. A La Nina which, as required by the physics, is sure to follow will cancel the effects of this El Nino.
The long term trend is down. http://globalclimatedrivers.blogspot.com
The El Niño heat comes from energy that has already been here and in the earth system energy budget. It has left the ocean and gone into the atmosphere and is well on its way back to the galaxy and beyond. This is how Earth cools. Where is the controversy?
+
I haven’t read all 175 comments to see if this has already been said. I’d be surprised if it hasn ‘t. But IMHO it’s worth saying more than once.
“The Pause” is a very high bar, and it has been a gift to sceptics. Even if it disappears now, it may well reappear quite soon and be even longer than it was before (such is the curious nature of linear trends). But the really important issue is that the models predict warming at 0.2 deg C per decade, and the actual rate of warming has been much less. The models have consistently produced erroneously high temperature forecasts, which leads to the inevitable conclusion that they pitch sensitivity to CO2 too high.
Correction. As davidmhoffer points out (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/03/02/long-satellite-pauses-ending-now-includes-january-data/#comment-2156982) “The “Pause” hasn’t disappeared. It now just has a beginning and an end. But it is right there in the data where it always was, and it doesn’t cease to exist merely because we can’t calculate one starting from the present and working backwards.“. So I was incorrect saying “if [the pause] disappears now”, because the pause will actually be in the records from now on at a fixed length, unless altered by retrospective temperature adjustments. In time, it is of course possible that a new Pause will appear, and that it will have a starting point back near the start of the Pause just ended, or even earlier. We just have to wait and see.
Funny, people can not wait for the pause to end 🙂
Actually the pause in principle, as far as I can tell, is a perception of a climatic trend.
In general that trend is considered as in a pause because according to the data we can not make up our “minds” if the trend is a warming or a cooling one up to now.
The AGWers will present the definition of the pause as a temporary stop of the warming, the AGW,,,,,,, a very biased approach. especially when the AGW “science” is only spinning and politics now for years and does not even resemble to something associated with a scientific method.
Facts:
El Ninos, La Ninjas and ENSOs do not change or effect climate,,,,,,probably, very much so, the other way around is the truth.
Relying and considering seriously the temp variation during an El Nino period as to estimate what next in climate or a climate trend is beyond ridiculous.
Fact: The only thing that EL Nino 1997-1998 effected was the Hansens, Manns, Joneses and company to become too cocky too arrogant and too certain about AGW and the run away AGW,,,,, and the results already known by now,,,,, at least too shameful to even think that the Run Away was even coined as a term in association with AGW.
True, in climate terms it takes a long time before it becomes clear what was happening.
Only a century or more from now it will be clear enough what actually the climate trend was for this period in question. Very unlikely that the data will show a significant or even a pause at all then at that time and beyond, considering the data.
But we still in need to figure it out at the best estimation before then, that is what I think science stands for.
But trying to estimate it through a temp variation during a period of El Nino that is so so silly, at least in my “book” that is.
So people please wait, because most likely there is no pause at all in reality, but only a perception of the pause due to inability to clearly distinguish through the data we have up to now that what actually the trend is.
My best “bet” is that we have being in a cooling trend for at least the last 15 years but the previous 100-150 years of the warming trend (A SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH ONE) do not allow the numbers to show it yet, but the existence of that pause can not be explained by any other means or rationale as far as I can tell, unless “the dog ate my warming” is the latest scientific novelty to be appreciated,,,,,,,, or some day soon the lucidity of Nucitelis will be proven beyond any doubt as in par with that of Einstein and Darwin or Newton………
There will be an and to this pause one day, and won’t care how we will feel about it.
So please let the El Nino “die” peacefully.,,, and with no any unnecessary complications and headaches 🙂
cheers .
Should it be considered as just an El Nino blip that is best ignored or should a huge amount of importance be attached to this fact?
My bet is that the answer will not be known soon, but will be much clearer in 20 years.
It is no different that claiming the world is cooling starting at the height of the 1998 El Nino to 2014… So now we have another strong El Nino and people claim the pause ended… the world is warming again; well until this El Nino recedes.
Once again, reducing climatology to this metric is a reduction that the Gavin of the world love and can manipulate ad nauseum.
+1…Some people are forgetting that the Pause was not recognized until after around 12 years of flat temps made it obvious that something was amiss with the AGW story.
I wonder how these people are going to respond in about 6-12 months from now when La Niña has taken firm hold and we start heading down the slope to a step decrease in temperature globally.
The alarmists will get their 3-6 months of warm to cluck about but after that its going to be gnashing of teeth and the need for long johns.
“Werner Brozek and Nick Stokes are presenting you with just the facts.”
Excuse me? The RSS, we are routinely told, is a matter of modelling and data interpretation — as is everything else in climate science. It is opinion and not fact in every case. In which case, I’m entitled to everything. And my everything says that CAGW is a crock of well warmed bull chips.
But let’s say that the RSS is fact. Then it shows that the temp has gone the wrong way around on the hypothesis that the exponentially increasing CO2 is *the* lever on temp. In which case the facts say that CAGW is a crock of well warmed bull chips.
No matter how you wish to play it, CAGW is refuted so long as you want it to be. And if you don’t want it to be? It’s either refuted or never established. I couldn’t care less which end of that one you pick, really. Because it’s either bull hockey, or hypothetical and undemonstrated bull hockey.
The “facts” that I was referring to were the February numbers needed to end the pause on RSS. Those were not in dispute, and when RSS came out a few hours after this article appeared, it could be verified that the facts we gave were correct. RSS was above 0.88 and the pause was over.
“Science is experiment, not debate.”
I agree. The hysteria surrounding CO2 is completely irrational. But hysteria about the atmosphere didn’t start with CO2. It started with H2O. And it didn’t start recently, it started way back in 1840 with the birth of meteorology, by a guy named Walter James Espy, the father of meteorology:
https://youtu.be/pl-GOPq8aA0
“Long Satellite Pauses
Endingerased (Now Includes January Data)”Werner Brozek and Nick Stokes are presenting you with just the facts. You cannot argue with the facts
Are you really suggesting that you have discovered a ‘fact’ in climate science? Your piece will be out of date in a month. Flexible data, flexible ‘facts’.
The facts that I was alluding to were that the February anomaly needed to be over 0.88 in order for the long RSS pause to cease to exist. The anomaly came in at 0.974 and I have verified it using Nick’s program that the pause is indeed gone for any time period. A month from now will still show no long pause.
“Why in the world would anyone release a new data set now that ends the pause? The pause is ending anyway with the old data set.”
Actually, that’s because some people are interested just in the science and not in the politics.
“We start with the present date and go to the furthest month in the past where the slope is a least slightly negative on at least one calculation.”
This statistical methodology is mathematical masturbation.
How about common sense?
All we know NOW is there was a flat trend between two El Nino peaks ( 1998 and 2015/2016 ).
Way in the future we may look back and see it as something else.
The only way to end that flat trend is to “adjust” the data to make it disappears.
NOAA will probably do that little at a time!
Use your eyeballs and a chart.
There was a flat trend between two El Nino peaks.
You don’t need statistics to see that, and know that.
The article title is misleading, and counterproductive for the skeptic’s cause (good science).
People need to know there was a flat temperature trend for many years.
They don’t need to be told it was there, and now it’s gone.
It is not gone.
You have applied inappropriate statistics to obscure an important average temperature trend — a flat trend that contradicts the greenhouse gas theory — and you have done so for no logical reason, or maybe to show off your skill with statistics.
I am using the same definition as Lord Monckton when he said this last month:
“The hiatus period of 18 years 8 months is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.”
I have used this definition for the last three years, and by this definition, the pause has ended for now. I am certainly not thrilled by that news. On the other hand, it is not up to me to arbitrarily change a definition because of the latest blip in temperature. I feel that if we are honest and admit the pause is over for now, then we will be more believable when a La Nina resumes the pause later.
But I could be wrong. Feel free to express your perspective when Lord Monckton writes his next report on this matter.
However just because the slope from December 1997 is now 0.000106212 per year, that does not mean the cause is lost.
YOU WROTE:
“I feel that if we are honest and admit the pause is over for now, then we will be more believable when a La Nina resumes the pause later.”
MY COMMENT:
The flat trend IS over because of the El Nino temperature spike.
So what.
The only important point is there was a flat trend for 15 years AND IT WILL NEVER DISAPPEAR.
The statistic you used to define a “pause” was just as stupid when Monckton used it.
Even more stupid if it is used while ignoring reasonable margins of error.
Include margins of error, and the visible flat trend could be a slight rise, or a slight decline.
But that’s not important now.
The statistics you and Monckton used violate common sense.
You are wrong to defend them by “blaming” Monckton for being first, as if he could never make a mistake, and then you seem to defend his mistake by saying you’ve done the same thing for three years.
WELL, THEN, YOU”VE BEEN WRONG FOR THREE YEARS !
It’s not too late to change!
I’ll tell Monckton the same thing when he resorts to this mathematical masturbation.
A child ten years old could see a “flat trend” on an average temperature chart, surrounded by two (El Nino) peaks in 1998 and 2015 / 2016.
There is no need for statistical games to define the obvious.
It’s important to show people there was a flat trend for over 15 years.
No statistics are needed.
Just a clear chart.
And a clear explanation.
The skeptic’s cause IS lost if we can not clearly communicate climate history to the general public.
I started a climate blog in late 2014 because of that communication problem.
The warmunists have bad science and good communications.
We skeptical deniers need both good science and good communications.
Based on your poor choice of statistics, and your misleading article title, you have failed at both the science (statistical analysis) and the communication.
The real message for the general public is there was a 15 year flat trend while CO2 levels went up — that flat trend was not predicted … because a flat trend was not supposed to happen, according to the “CO2 is the climate controller” theory.
Anyone who knows a subject well should be able to communicate an important message about that subject in clear, simple English.
You failed to do that, and did not help the skeptic’s cause because you created an article that’s worthless for the general public.
To say it is poorly written, and tedious to read, is me being kind.
I bet you could do a lot better with your next article.
Of course you are right about that and I pointed out exactly that in this article:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/12/02/on-the-difference-between-lord-moncktons-18-years-for-rss-and-dr-mckitricks-26-years-now-includes-october-data/
I am fully aware of the fact that every slope and every measurement has error bars. However my table would be extremely cluttered if I included every error range for every number.
Another blogger decided that a slope is “flat” if the slope is less than 0.1 C/century or something like that. That is certainly reasonable and up to him.
We all have different expectations, but any post that generates over 200 comments in 17 hours and that even gets mentioned in the “Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #217” is a very successful post in my opinion. If our host does not appreciate my posts, he can cancel them any time.
I think it is invalid to cite measurements to support a position that the collectors (NASA, NOAA) say are invalid interpretations.
I think you need to launch your own satellites – or buy time on existing ones capable of relevant measurements – then amass a commensurate set of historical data (1,600 months will do, I should think), and only then claim that the science of the authoritative sources is wrong.
Meanwhile, 2014 was the “hottest year on record”, 2015 beat that record for an unprecedented 2-in-a-row, January 2016 was the warmest global average for 1,600 months, and now February 2016 was warmer than January.
Many places on earth were 10C above “long term average” in January and February. What the hell happens if that occurs in June, July, and August? (I lived in Phoenix AZ when it got to 121F. You do NOT want to live in a world in which that happens with Cleveland OH summer humidity).
Keep in mind that for satellites, 1998 was still the warmest. However that could be beaten in 2016.
If you’re going to use the Ted Cruz name, you need to be smart at about climate change.
Earth’s climate is always changing.
There has been a warming trend for about 15,000 years since the last glaciation peak.
That warming was not started by SUVs or coal burning, and is likely to be at least +5 degrees C. so far
In more recent times, there has been a warming trend since about 1850.
There was actually a very cool period in the last 1600s to early 1700s, during a period of unusually low solar activity, called the Maunder Minimum — it is possible the average temperture has already increased +2 degree C. since that trough.
All the average temperature measurements you refer to were made DURING the post-1850 warming trend, so “record highs” are to be expected regularly, perhaps not every year, until that warming trend ends, and a cooling trend begins.
Ice core studies identified hundreds of mild warming/cooling cycles in the past one million years.
There is no indication in climate history studies that CO2 level changes CAUSE average temperature changes, and much evidence of the opposite: Average temperature changes cause CO2 level changes with a multi-hundred year lag.
In addition, greenhouse gases are invisible to sunlight and barely affect daytime high temperatures — their primary effect would be a slightly warmer nighttime low temperature, assuming any effect at all, given the the current CO2 level of 400 ppmv.
Even the IPCC agrees that most of the alleged greenhouse effect is from the first 40 ppmv of CO2 in the air, and the direct effect of CO2 will be tiny when CO2 increases above the current CO2 concentration of 400 ppmv.
I spent my time typing in the hope of sharing my climate history knowledge with you, assuming you would want to learn.
There is no doubt the climate in 2015 is better than it has been for humans and green plants, in at least 500 years, and you should be enjoying it.
The climate models have been making grossly inaccurate predictions for 40 years, and have been a waste of taxpayer money.
The coming climate change catastrophe has been a fantasy for 40 years so far.