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?
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.