Guest Post by Werner Brozek, Extended Comments from Barry and Edited by Just The Facts
UAH (University of Alabama in Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems) are two major satellite groups that provide monthly climate anomalies. From January 1998 to January 2016, the slope was slightly negative, a period which many have referred to as a “pause”, although some prefer other names. Since a huge anomaly spike in February 2016 due to a very strong El Nino, the so called pause is gone.
Last month, Barry wrote about several things that must happen for the pause to return for UAH, which I excerpted in an article titled How Imminent is the UAH Pause? (Now Includes Some January Data) This month, Barry has written about what must happen for the pause to return for RSS, as well as provided additional information with respect to the UAH pause.
Barry’s comments follow:
This RSS analysis leverages the RSSv3 TLT global data set. The following plot contains the full record with 12 month averages for visual accompaniment:
Ordinary least squares linear regression, trends in degrees Celsius, the mean trend from January 1998 to:
Feb 2016: 0.019 /decade
Mar 2016: 0.028 /decade
Apr 2016: 0.035 /decade
May 2016: 0.038 /decade
Jun 2016: 0.041 /decade
Jul 2016: 0.043 /decade
Aug 2016: 0.045 /decade
Sep 2016: 0.049 /decade
Oct 2016: 0.049 /decade (higher to 4 decimal places than Sep)
Nov 2016: 0.050 /decade
Dec 2016: 0.048 /decade
Jan 2017: 0.052 /decade
Feb 2017: 0.053 /decade
Unlike UAHv6, there is one month (Dec 2016) that lowered the then warming trend slightly. I’ve plotted monthly data and the trend to Nov 2016, and you can see the Dec 2016 anomaly is below the trend line. That’s why December lowered the then trend slightly:
Otherwise, every other month after the peak warm month of Feb 2016 increased the trend, even though they were all cooler than February. The trend rose because subsequent months were warmer than the trend itself, except December 2016. For the ‘pause’ from 1998 to resume next month, the March anomaly would have to be -3.6C. For the pause to resume by December 2017, the annual average anomaly for 2017 would have to be -0.02C. The last time an annual temperature anomaly was this cool or cooler in the RSSv3 TLT dataset was 1993 (-0.118C). However, January and February 2017 have been 0.41 and 0.44 respectively, so for the pause to resume by December, the average of the next 10 months would have to be -0.12C. The last time this happened was in 1992 (-0.19C).
For a pause to resume by 2020 (Dec 2019), the three year averaged anomaly 2017 to 2019 for RSS would have to be -0.04C. The last time a 3 year average was that cool or cooler was 1992 through 1994 (-0.09). For the pause to resume by 2020, we’d need to see temps of the next three years similar to those of the early 1990s. Check the graph above to see what that looks like.
The section below provides some additional updates for UAH.
Next month’s anomaly would have to be lower than 0.2C to reduce the trend slightly. To get a flat or negative trend since 1998, the March anomaly would have to be -3.8C. The decimal point is in the correct place!
For the 1998 trend to return to flat or negative values by the end of this year, the annual average anomaly for 2017 would have to be -0.16C. We have 2 months data already, at around 0.5C warmer than that, so what would the average temperature anomaly for the rest of 2017 have to be to get a flat/negative trend since 1998? -0.26C (Mar-Dec)
The most recent year the annual average anomaly was that cool was in 1985. The annual average then was -0.35C. With 2017 predicted to be an el Nino or ENSO neutral year the chances of a flat trend by December are very slim. As I expect some warming with atmospheric CO2 increase, however one may argue the magnitude, I think it is unlikely we will see a year as cold as 1985, barring a volcanic eruption of greater magnitude than the 1991 Pinatubo eruption. Consequently, I think it is unlikely the ‘pause’ will return at all if 1998 is used as the start date.
In comments last month Werner asked how cool the annual anomalies would have to be to get a flat trend if there were a succession of cool years. For the trend since 1998 to go flat by 2020 (December 2019) the annual average temperature anomaly for the three years Jan 2017 to Dec 2019 would have to be: 0.05C
When did we last have 3 consecutive years as cool or cooler than that?
2007 to 2009: 0.05C However, January and February 2017, being 0.30 and 0.35C respectively, would raise the three year average to 0.6 0.065 if the rest of the months through 2019 were 0.05C. So we have to go further back in time to get a cooler 3-year average. Most recent is: 1994 to 1996: 0.0C
Those predicting imminent cooling from lower solar ebb or ocean-atmosphere oscillations may expect to see annual temperatures like the early 1990s sometime soon. I am less confident of that. Time will tell.
————-
Written by Barry
In the sections below, we will present you with the latest facts. The information will be presented in two sections and an appendix. The first section will show for how long there has been no statistically significant warming on several data sets. The second section will show how 2017 compares with 2016, the warmest year so far, and the warmest months on record so far. 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
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 0 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 December 1993: Cl from -0.009 to 1.776
This is 23 years and 3 months.
For RSS: Since October 1994: Cl from -0.006 to 1.768 This is 22 years and 5 months.
For Hadcrut4.5: The warming is statistically significant for all periods above four years.
For Hadsst3: Since May 1997: Cl from -0.031 to 2.083 This is 19 years and 9 months.
For GISS: The warming is statistically significant for all periods above four years.
Section 2
This section shows data about 2017 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. 16ra: This is the final ranking for 2016 on each data set. On all data sets, 2016 set a new record. How statistically significant the records were was covered in an earlier post here: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/26/warmest-ten-years-on-record-now-includes-all-december-data/
2. 16a: Here I give the average anomaly for 2016.
3. 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.
4. ano: This is the anomaly of the month just above.
5. 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.
6. sy/m: This is the years and months for row 5.
7. Jan: This is the January 2017 anomaly for that particular data set.
8. Feb: This is the February 2017 anomaly for that particular data set if available.
9. ave: This is the average anomaly of all available months with at least two months of data.
10. rnk: This is the 2017 rank for each particular data set assuming the average of the anomalies stay that way all year. Of course they won’t, but think of it as an update 5 minutes into a game.
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Sst3 | GISS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.16ra | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st | 1st |
| 2.16a | 0.503 | 0.574 | 0.773 | 0.613 | 0.98 |
| 3.mon | Feb16 | Feb16 | Feb16 | Jan16 | Feb16 |
| 4.ano | 0.829 | 0.996 | 1.070 | 0.732 | 1.30 |
| 5.sig | Dec93 | Oct94 | May97 | ||
| 6.sy/m | 23/3 | 22/5 | 19/9 | ||
| 7.Jan | 0.299 | 0.409 | 0.741 | 0.488 | 0.92 |
| 8.Feb | 0.348 | 0.440 | |||
| 9.ave | 0.324 | 0.425 | |||
| 10.rnk | 4th | 4th | 3rd | 3rd | 2nd |
| Source | UAH | RSS | Had4 | Sst3 | GISS |
If you wish to verify all of the latest anomalies, go to the following:
For UAH, version 6.0beta5 was used.
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/tltglhmam_6.0.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.4.5.0.0.monthly_ns_avg.txt
For Hadsst3, see: https://crudata.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 2016 in the form of a graph, see the WFT graph below.
As you can see, all lines have been offset so they all start at the same place in January 2016. This makes it easy to compare January 2016 with the latest anomaly.
The thick double line is the WTI which shows the average of RSS, UAH, HadCRUT4.5 and GISS.
Appendix
In this part, we are summarizing data for each set separately.
UAH6.0beta5
For UAH: There is no statistically significant warming since December 1993: Cl from -0.009 to 1.776. (This is using version 6.0 according to Nick’s program.)
The UAH average anomaly so far is 0.324. This would rank in fourth place if it stayed this way. 2016 was the warmest year at 0.503. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 2016 when it reached 0.829.
RSS
For RSS: There is no statistically significant warming since October 1994: Cl from -0.006 to 1.768.
The RSS average anomaly so far is 0.425. This would rank in fourth place if it stayed this way. 2016 was the warmest year at 0.574. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 2016 when it reached 0.996.
Hadcrut4.5
For Hadcrut4.5: The warming is significant for all periods above four years.
The Hadcrut4.5 average anomaly for 2016 was 0.773. This set a new record. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 2016 when it reached 1.070. The January anomaly was 0.741 which would rank 2017 in third place if it stayed this way.
Hadsst3
For Hadsst3: There is no statistically significant warming since May 1997: Cl from -0.031 to 2.083.
The Hadsst3 January anomaly is 0.488. This would rank third if it stayed this way. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in January of 2016 when it reached 0.732.
GISS
For GISS: The warming is significant for all periods above four years.
The GISS average anomaly for 2016 was 0.98. This set a new record. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 2016 when it reached 1.30. The January anomaly was 0.92 which would rank 2017 in second place if it stayed this way.
Conclusion
Do you think RSS will ever have a pause of over 18 years again? Why or why not?
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Some think AMO and the sunspots or sun activity has an influence on the earth’s temperature. Just check, if there is any:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/sidc-ssn/last:1200/normalise/mean:25/offset:-0.4/plot/esrl-amo/last:1200/normalise/mean:25/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:1200/mean:25/offset:0.3/scale:0.67
AMO has an influence, and starts now to decline.
Sunspots went already down, but no influence up to now on the temperature.
Possilbly there is a delay of about one solar cycle. So the SC 23 had a steep decline about 2005. Add fourteen years, then we should see the influence of this around 2019. and then the AMO is also declining. Together this could give some influence and going downwards some tenths of degrees. Add about 5 years and we will have a pause of 25-30 years – or the start of a real decline.
How would you test to ensure that AMO is not just aliasing global temps? A first check I’d do is to see if AMO leads or lags global temps. I’d do it with global data and then Southern Hemispheric data. For the latter I’d assume that there would have to be a lag in the Southern Hemisphere to cycles generating from the Northern Hemisphere.
Any chance you’d have a look at that, Nick?
barry on March 15, 2017 at 5:08 pm
How would you test to ensure that AMO is not just aliasing global temps?
That, barry, is a central question. Especially if you consider that
– AMO is by intention a detrended time series (because it is the best way to show it has a cyclic behavior)
but that
– though detrended, AMO still has the same trend as UAH6.0.
Exactly as Richard M, Johannes Herbst does not seem to understand that like ENSO, AMO isn’t an active climate driver: both rather are passive climate companions, mirrors of what happens.
AMO is detrended to remove the global warming trend. Not specifically to expose cyclicity (if any), but rather to isolate AMO behaviour from other trends. The result looks like a cycle, but it also looks like detrended global temperature evolution. Discerning lead/lag would help discover whether there is a true cycle or an alias of global temps.
I would say the AMO is by far the dominant contributor on our timescale. Along with the recovery from the LIA (which is why the AMO index should not be detrended. It has a linear trend behind the 60yr cycle)
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-amo/offset:-0.1/detrend:-0.4/mean:1/plot/hadcrut4gl
Unless you want to pretend that the AMO is now controlled by man (sulfates from 1950-1977, CO2 from 1977-2008)
Unless you are one of those that thinks that the world is just going to continue warming indefinitely, it is obvious that there will be a new pause of over 18 years. Will there be a RSS when it happens? I wouldn’t bet on that. Carl Mearns might retire, or new satellite measuring techniques developed, or any other one of infinite possibilities. But a pause there will be for sure. Planetary temperatures have been pretty constrained for the past 500 million years and that is not going to change any time soon. At the present rate of warming (about 1°C per century) we would get to the upper limit in about a thousand years. I bet we get a pause before that.
“Will there be a RSS when it happens?”
There won’t be an RSS 3.3. It’s already deprecated, and shouldn’t be used.
Why should RSS not be used. Be specific.
Owen
“Why should RSS not be used.”
RSS says so
“The V3.3 TLT data suffer from the same problems with the adjustment for drifting measurement times that led us to update the TMT dataset. V3.3 TLT data should be used with caution.”
Nick, I dont disagree. Yes RSS should be used with caution. Sat data suffers from poor resolution; and Land and SST data suffer from poor historical resolution and sparse citing. We can pick between poor resolution and poor spacial representation. Im curious as to why you caution against the use of RSS and are suspicious of UAH v6 but do not seem to be bothered in equal measures by ERSST? Could it be you are entertaining a small preference? Something to think about.
The Pause could be back in 3-4 years; after all: LA Niña is back again!
Not according to:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
The NCEP CFSv2 rapid temperature measure provides a fairly accurate view of where things are going.
While this has a different base period that all the others and is using different data sources, it tends to be accurate enough of how much temperatures will change from month to month.
March 2017 is coming in cooler than February so far. February was up from January but this is still how the Earth comes down from a super El Nino. There is fits and starts on the way down and I still expect the trend is downward until the end of May – another 0.1C lower yet. This is just what seems to happen.
From Climate Concerns.
https://oz4caster.wordpress.com/cfsr/
From Ryan Maue at WeatherBell.
http://models.weatherbell.com/climate/cdas_v2_hemisphere_2016.png
http://models.weatherbell.com/temperature.php
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, no bear gives damn.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/graphics/anwr15.jpg
clipe on March 14, 2017 at 4:57 pm
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, no bear gives damn.
______________________________________
That pipe is warmer then the wet soil.
Neither do the caribou moms give a damn. They prefer if possible to have their calves as close as possible to the pipeline.
Just one reason why their numbers have exploded since the TAP was built by my buddies.
That’s “bearly” on topic.
Air temperatures are of minimal significance. So much heat has been pulled out of the oceans that it boggles the mind. A column of atmosphere is equivalent to the weight of about 33 feet of water while thousands of feet of ocean underneath are something like 10 degrees C colder than surface air temperatures. What really needs looking at are changes in sea levels. Sea level is the global sized thermometer for Earth.
“Example: [Collected via e-mail, June 2008]”
http://www.snopes.com/politics/gasoline/anwr.asp
I’ve mentioned this in earlier threads on what is going to happen with La Nina/El Nino going forward. I think it is getting obvious that ENSO is going to be less indicative of surface temperatures with the large cold blobs that have replaced the hot blobs, particularly the one in the NE Pacific. Note that a new La Nina string is being developed in the central Equatorial Pacific, eventhough an earlier one came and disappeared several months ago. I see a similar “La Nina” type cooling in the Atlantic equatorial, too. What we will see is SSTs cooling off more rapidly than what we might calculate from the conventional equatorial temps. Watch for a considerable cooling going forward that is decoupled from the goings on in tropical zone.
Here is the map of showing these features I mentioned. You may have to click on it to get it updated to mid March.
http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
The cold blob in the west Pacific “warm pool” is a La Nina substitute all by itself. Probably taking the areas of these cold blobs, probably a SST cooling trend can be predicted with some skill.
Gary,
Thanks for that.
It shows that SST accounts for the lower than normal Arctic sea ice this winter, as all honest analysts here already knew. The unusual heat distribution owes to the super El Nino of 2015-16, ie colder in the tropical oceans and warmer in the Arctic and at the sea ice edge in the Antarctic.
But try telling Griffikins that.
Werner Brozek on March 14, 2017 at 5:29 pm
LA Niña is back again!
Not according to:
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf
____________________________________
Shame on
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/lanina/enso_evolution-status-fcsts-web.pdf !
Okay, this has been irritating me for awhile now, so let me rant a little…
The graphs (and text) presented in this article are meaningless. Whereas I can infer the horizontal axis as years, I can’t infer anything in regards to the vertical axis. LABEL YOUR GRAPHS PROPERLY!
Thank you for your time and attention in this matter.
The sources of all numbers are given in the blog post. For example, for RSS, here are all numbers from 1979 to February 2017:
http://data.remss.com/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_3.txt
The numbers on the left of this table have been plotted in the second graph. However the author has decided to just show from 1998 on and has decided to get the slope line from 1998 as well to illustrate his point. All kinds of things can be plotted. For example on the first graph, the average of 12 numbers was plotted to give a much smoother graph.
Bob Tisdale has an excellent post here that covers the basics. Read this, and if you have further questions, please ask:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/01/23/december-2016-global-surface-landocean-and-lower-troposphere-temperature-anomaly-update-with-a-look-at-the-year-end-annual-results/
So it is shown that the likelihood of returning to ‘pause’ conditions is low, requiring temperature trends that haven’t happened often in the record. It would be valuable to compare this to the flip side of the trend argument.
Given that atmospheric CO2 is still increasing faster than the rate that was fingered as the cause of warming at the end of last century, how much warming is needed for the trend this century to match the IPCC “Best estimate” projection of 0.4 degrees C per decade, or even the bottom end of the likely range at 0.24 deg/dec?
Has such warming ever occurred in the years after an El Nino?
I do not remember the exact details, but Lord Monckton often had posts on this topic. As I recall, the warming over the next 85 years needed to be several times larger than has ever occurred in the past to meet their targets.
Thanks. I knew the likelihood would be less than the chance of another pause, but the claims in some of the other comments that warming was actually comparable to predictions made it sound as if it might be plausible to claim the IPCC predictions were accurate.
I don’t see the point of these articles for now. Once we see RSS <= +0.25 and UAH <= +0.15 for a few consecutive months, then we can think about starting to work on a pause.
Many people may be hoping the pause will return this year. This post makes it clear that we should be realistic in this matter and not get our hopes up.
The articles are testing predictions made within a given context. I don’t necessarily agree with the context, but that doesn’t stop me (or anyone else) running some numbers according to metrics which are fairly popular in the debates.
Calculation error !
The three year average would be 0.07 C (two decimals), 0.065 C (three decimals ) or 0.0653 C ( four decimals) and not 0.6 as stated above. You may take your pick of decimals.
Since January and February 2017, being 0.30 and 0.35 C respectively, to get a three year average to 0.05, the rest of the 34 months through 2019 should be 0.03 C.
Oooops! Thank you! I will take the blame for not proofreading it carefully.
I get some proofreading blame as well, corrected within the article, i.e.:
“However, January and February 2017, being 0.30 and 0.35C respectively, would raise the three year average to
0.60.065 if the rest of the months through 2019 were 0.05C”That’s my mistake. Thanks for fixing it.
In any realistic form of trend calculation the TRANSIENT of the 2015/16 El Nino would be taken out of the calculation.
But the alarmists HAVE to rely on that transient to get any warming trend AT ALL.
Does anyone really PRETEND that the El Nino transient was caused by CO₂ ??
If you want to find a CO₂ signal you need to look between major El Ninos.
The period 1980 – 1997.5 had ZERO warming
And the period from 2001- 2015.5 had zero warming
That means that there is NO CO₂ WARMING SIGNAL in the whole of either satellite data set.
Thank you for illustrating the point so convincingly!
“The period 1980 – 1997.5 had ZERO warming”
No, it had a trend of 0.75 C/Century, and an average of -0.11 for that period. For 2001-2015.5, the trend was slightly negative, (-0.155 C/Cen), but the average was 0.13C
“In any realistic form of trend calculation the TRANSIENT of the 2015/16 El Nino would be taken out of the calculation.”
I didn’t see many “pause” calculations that left out the 1998 El Nino.
It certainly did not look that steep when eyeballing it. Perhaps one should say 0.75 C/Century is not catastrophic even though it is not zero.
Nick: “I didn’t see many “pause” calculations that left out the 1998 El Nino.”
Nor do they leave out the 1998-2000 La Nina which has an even bigger impact on the trend. That impact is to make the trend appear to warm more. That you would even mention something like this shows you aren’t really interested in the truth.
It wasn’t Nick who suggested leaving ENSO events out, and it’s true that most analyses prior to this year in the semi-popular debate included the 1998 Nino. If you disagree that removing el Nino from the equation is necessary, that proposition was put forward by Andy. Take it up with him.
AndyG55 on March 14, 2017 at 8:51 pm
The period 1980 – 1997.5 had ZERO warming
And the period from 2001- 2015.5 had zero warming
As usual, people like AndyG55 confound a guess based on eye-balling with the reality.
Here are some scientifically computed trends, expressed in °C / decade with 2σ interval.
1. For 1980-1997.5:
RSS3.3 TTT: 0.031 ± 0.169
RSS4.0 TTT: 0.067 ± 0.171
RSS3.3 TLT: 0.068 ± 0.178
UAH6.0 TLT: 0.073 ± 0.186
NOAA: 0.095 ± 0.107
GISTEMP: 0.097 ± 0.125
BEST: 0.104 ± 0.114
HadCRUT4: 0.116 ± 0.111
2. For 2001-2015.5:
RSS3.3 TLT: -0.025 ± 0.213
UAH6.0 TLT: -0.015 ± 0.212
RSS3.3 TTT: -0.013 ± 0.210
RSS4.0 TTT: 0.032 ± 0.214
HadCRUT4: 0.057 ± 0.130
BEST: 0.066 ± 0.127
GISTEMP: 0.097 ± 0.136
NOAA: 0.105 ± 0.125
Source: http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend/trend.html
Conclusion: during 2001-2015, the troposphere shows cooling.
That is what is named “the pause”.
A Tambora like volcanic eruption? Or a series their of?
” We must never ignore the unknown or the unpredictable” R.E. Lee( Gods and Generals)
Aw man this is soooooo lovely. All these twiddly graphs and pretty coloured squiggly lines. Deadly earnest people discussing them.
Fantastic
I know these are trivial questions for such great minds but I’ll ask anyway:
Has the climate changed?
What number/value do we have this morning for the ’30 year average’?
Am I safe to to plant my lettuce seeds out in the garden yet?
As you know Peta, the climate is always changing but there are discernible cycles, which suggests nothing is new under the sun.
In southeast Australia it has been a very hot summer, not equaled since 1939, and now March is warming up to be the hottest since 1939. Coincidence?
Anyway BoM have adjusted temps (lowered the past to raise the future) to the point that nothing can be believed.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/?ref=ftr#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries&tQ=graph%3Dtmean%26area%3Dseaus%26season%3D0112%26ave_yr%3D0
Summer actually arrived late in Melbourne, with December and January being mostly cool and wet, sometimes requiring the use of heating and winter clothing. We didn’t reach 40C even once. The warm weather in March is therefore welcome.
BoM spins every summer as the hottest ever, no matter what happens.
Welcome in the XXI century where a “butterfly wing beat” cause a “storm” somewhere and a +0.5°C cause the end of the world.
I’m thinking how many “butterfly wing beats” are here around the world?
So plant your lettuce and be confident to fit in the 5% possibility that you will have the harvest as the past man (luckily) ALWAYS had.
The very first plot gives a very reliable key to the global warming: 1° C per century.
Which “pause”??? Where you see “pause”???
Very solid trend since 1980.
The pause that existed earlier but does not exist now is discussed here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/06/the-pause-hangs-on-by-its-fingernails/
The pause is still very clear over the past two decades in ENSO neutral months. Using 1980 is a severe cherry pick as that was near the end of several decades of cooling.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1945/to:1977/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1945/to:1977/trend
The problem with a simple linear regression line is that it is heavily influenced by the spikes at the end of the series. This is because these measures have high polar moments relative to the rest of the data. There are statistical measures that take into account the polar moment which may be more robust (I forget the method name now – I’ll try and look it up).
To my eye, if the anomaly continued at about +0.3 average going forward then the pause would be continuing. The fact that the linear regression would not have a zero (or statistically insignificant slope) would then be more of a consequence of the choice of the model/method of fitting. Any rational person would see a continuing constant level plus an El Nino spike in 2015/2016. Of course, not all people looking at these graphs are rational and would continue to fit inappropriate linear regression lines and claim increasing temperatures, even though the forward projection of that line would be diverging from reality if the average was continuing at about +0.3.
This is why I looked only at ENSO neutral months. That eliminates any possibility of cherry picking. I get a trend of less than .01 C/decade since 1997 so as far as I am concerned the pause is still in effect.
Your confidence intervals are now way wider with less than 10 years worth of data. The noise (variation) in the data has, accordingly, more influence than any underlying trend. even without ENSO events.
RSS and UAH don’t measure the temp directly, have been multiple times adjusted and don’t include surface temps.
Really, what are they telling us about global temperatures?
Surface thermometers don’t measure temperature directly, have been multiple times adjusted in different directions. They also have extremely poor global coverage that requires significant interpolation – a huge source of error and uncertainty. In addition, the corrections to thermometers actually introduce just under half of the perceived warming trend in the 20th Century. The thermometer adjustments are a black box, and when individual sites are investigated it becomes apparent that the corrections can completely, and for no apparent reason, reverse a local trend. Also, adding new data to the surface thermometer processing in, say, 2017, can cause changes in the apparent temperature decades or more in the past. That makes no physical sense.
On the other hand, satellite measurements are the closest we have to global coverage without interpolation, they are corrected based on a known set of published physical factors and they are in agreement both with each other (RSS and UAH) and with independent radiosonde measurements. It is also worth noting that the UK Hadley Centre HADCRUT4 product is also pretty close to the satellite data and clearly shows a pause. And that the Met Office in the UK accepts that there is a “pause” or “slowdown” or whatever is the current fad in naming that doesn’t upset the global warming reactives and snow-flakes.
Which do think is the better technology Griff – Satellite comms and obs or standing on a hill reading individual thermometers and sending Morse Code?
ThinkingScientist on March 15, 2017 at 6:26 am
1. … and with independent radiosonde measurements.
Well, ThinkingScientist: I nearly never agree with Griff: (s)he is what skeptics call a warmista, and here they are really right.
But are you when you write the statement above I retyped in italic? Absolutely not.
Probably you were influenced by charts like
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/170315/ua2xq5ob.png
This chart is completely flawed, because
– it is made of old data (ending in around 2004)
– the VIZ radiosondes are out of (official) service since years
– these radiosondes were selected according to solely US needs.
A thinking scientist shouldn’t have any problem with interpreting the following chart showing a comparison, for the 1979-2016 satellite era above CONUS land, of two radiosonde records with UAH6.0:
http://fs5.directupload.net/images/170315/aydw7h3s.jpg
In red: all 127 US located radiosondes
In yellow: 31 radiosondes selected by John Christy and William Norris in 2006 (the 2015 testimony’s VIZ/AUS choice is not available)
– In green: UAH6.0.
Maybe you mean these three trends look quite similar? Hmmh, here are the OLS trends in °C/decade for the period 1979-2016:
– IGRA Christy set: 0.051 ± 0.024
– UAH6.0: 0.157 ± 0.031
– IGRA CONUS 127 set: 0.291 ± 0.028
Griff appears to think technology is bad. He probably wants to go back to the horse and buggy days. Get with the times, Griffie. Living in the past is silly.
What do you mean, “don’t measure the temp directly?” The satellites measure a calibrated and demonstrated response to temperature. The same is true of a mercury thermometer.
Or are you complaining because they aren’t located in the same spot as what they are measuring? Do you have problems with measurements of sea ice extent from satellites?
And no, they “don’t include surface temps”…they are free from biases introduced by land-use changes. They are free from site moves. They are free from homogenization.
What are they telling us about global temperatures? Well they give us an upper limit to surface temperature warming, because the lower troposphere is supposed to warm about 20% faster overall than the surface.
Yes, Griff on March 15, 2017 at 4:39 am
RSS and UAH don’t measure the temp directly, have been multiple times adjusted and don’t include surface temps.
Really, what are they telling us about global temperatures?
________________________________________
The first + crucial question is always:
sum of heat energy content of
– atmosphere
– land / soil
– oceans
HERE IS MY CLIMATE FORECAST BASED ON TWO FACTORS
FACTOR NUMBER ONE ALL of the solar conditions must meet my criteria. Thus far all have with the exception of the solar wind /ap index but that should come in line soon ,as sunspots vanish. The coronal holes will dry up which is temporary keeping up the solar wind speed and ap index .
FACTOR TWO The upcoming probable El Nino, but this is very temporary and will last worst case scenario 9 months.
So lets say a moderate El NINO develops and last around 9 months that would take us to the end of 2017 /early 2018.
At that time that is when the global temperatures will fall below the 30 year running normal.
It will be fast not slow when it happens.
Look at the period 1275-1325 the climate changed quickly.
Now if El Nino should fizzle and major volcanic activity picks up this dramatic cooling below the 30 year avg. will come before the end of year 2017.
So my climate outlook is, this is the end of the warm period. It has one year or less to go and when it ends the global temperatures will fall fast and be below the 30 year running normal and stay there.
If my two factors take place and the global temperatures do not fall I will be wrong.
I know two things for sure which are this period of time in the climate is in no way unique and AGW does not exist.
Remember the sun has been way above the solar parameters I have called for in order to have a climate impact until just recently.
If we did a linear trend over the past 800,000 years worth of proxie data would it reveal important information or mask the true nature of natural climate regime shifts? Likewise, this habit of relying on linear trends to prove this, that, or the other thing about weather pattern variations is batty.
I will not say that you are wrong, but for Karl and GISS, this seemed to be a huge area of concern. And billions of dollars are to be spent to reduce this linear trend. THAT is what is batty.
To some extent I agree. Regardless, the metrics are based upon a view that has been fairly popular in skeptic discussions. The primary source for looking at the data this way is Lord Monckton with his many updates based on RSS data and the length of the ‘pause’.
GISS Update:
The February GISS number just came in at 1.10. When averaged with the January anomaly of 0.92, it gives 1.01. If the average stays this way, GISS would set a new record in 2017, beating the 0.98 average for 2016.
In contrast, both satellite data sets would rank in fourth place after two months.
Justified or not, many peer reviewed studies in top journals continue to use this language and claim there has been a “pause” or “hiatus”. They don’t always give a clear definition. Maybe because the concept is thought as self-evident? Many papers mentioning the pause refer to Knight et al. 2009 which notes that “The least squares trend for January 1999 to December 2008 calculated from the HadCRUT3 dataset (Brohan et al. 2006) is +0.07±0.07°C decade^–1”.
Talking about a “highly” or “strongly” positive trend is subjective. A temperature change of 2K/century is practically non-existent to any individual living organism. Without the thousands of thermometers and a lot of calculations and adjustments, we wouldn’t know(?) it’s there. In this century the disagreement (spread) among different global temperature datasets is about the same magnitude as the trends. So we’re talking about changes that are too small to conclusively measure.
In the very first paragraph I gave the definition I am using:
From January 1998 to January 2016, the slope was slightly negative, a period which many have referred to as a “pause”
This is the same definition Lord Monckton has used for years. See:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/02/06/the-pause-hangs-on-by-its-fingernails/
Ilma,
“Talking about a “highly” or “strongly” positive trend is subjective. A temperature change of 2K/century is practically non-existent to any individual living organism.”
You may think it is subjective. But the point is that it is what was predicted, as Knight et al say. If you want to insist that that is a pause, then it is a pause predicted by the IPCC. And it is the climate change that people worry about. After a couple of centuries, it would be a very different world. Your analysis just says that it is happening. It was observed. The uncertainty says that such a warming climate, with different weather, has among all the trends that might happen over that time, a faint chance that some might be negative. But that doesn’t change the fact that the weather that actually happened showed a trend comparable with what was expected.
You may not like the word but it’s being used in many scientific papers. It’s the scientists and publications in journals like Nature and Science who insist there has been a pause. Some of them say it was not predicted, some have tried to predict or explain it afterwards. In fact IPCC AR5 used the word “hiatus” too, noting that observations and models had a “disagreement over the most recent 15-year period”.
I think they look at statistical significance because objectivity is preferred over subjective characterizations like those in your comment. If absence of significant warming confirms a warming prediction, then the prediction obviously didn’t have much value.
ilmastotiede on March 15, 2017 at 1:47 pm
For a scientist to claim that a Pause in warming is underway, you need to define what a Pause is.
ilmastotiede: ain’t that your problem; are you alarmed, depressed, whatsoever?