You Ought to Have a Look: Time for a New “Hiatus” in Warming, or Time for an Accelerated Warming Trend?
Guest essay by Dr. Ryan Maue
As you can tell from our blog volume, there’s been a blizzard of new and significant climate findings being published in the refereed literature, and here’s some things You Ought to Have a Look at concerning the recent “hiatus” in warming and what might happen to our (now) post-El Niño climate.
With President Trump still deciding on U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Agreement, new research suggests the Earth’s global mean surface temperature (GMST) will blow past the so-called 1.5°C Paris target in the next decade. But before making that ominous prediction, Henley and King (2017) provide us with a good history lesson on a taboo topic in climate science circles: the recent global warming “hiatus” or “pause” from 1998-2014. One could be forgiven for thinking the hiatus was “settled science” since it featured prominently in the 2013 IPCC AR5 assessment report. But a concerted effort has been made in recent years to discount the hiatus as an insignificant statistical artifact perhaps based upon bad observational data, or a conspiracy theory to distract the public and climate policymakers. Even acknowledging the existence of the “hiatus” is sufficient to be labeled as a climate change denier.
Social scientists, psychologists, and theologians of all stripes feared that widespread community acknowledgement of the hiatus would wither support for climate policy at such a pivotal juncture.
In a 2014 Nature Commentary (Boykoff Media discourse on the climate slowdown) saw the rise of the terms “hiatus and pause” in the media in 2013 as a “wasted opportunity” to highlight the conclusions of the IPCC AR5 report, which in itself ironically struggled with explaining the hiatus/pause (IPCC: Despite hiatus, climate change here to stay. Nature September 27, 2013). Amazingly, in a Nature interview a week prior to AR5’s release, assessment co-chair Thomas Stocker said this:
Comparing short-term observations with long-term model projections is inappropriate. We know that there is a lot of natural fluctuation in the climate system. A 15-year hiatus is not so unusual even though the jury is out as to what exactly may have caused the pause.
Claims that there might be something fundamentally wrong with climate models are “unjustified unless temperature were to remain constant for the next 20 years,” he said.
Except there was something fundamentally wrong with the climate models: they missed the pause! The IPCC was caught flat footed and their dodgy explanations were woefully inadequate and fueled continued questions about the credibility of future warming forecasts based exactly on those deficient climate models. What’s going on with this hiatus? A cacophony of explanations has filled the literature and media with several dominant themes: do not believe your lyin’ eyes – the data is wrong – and even if it is not, you are using it wrong. Karl et al. 2015 fixed the SST and buoy data, and (erroneously) claimed to have gotten rid of it. Cherry picking! The heat is sequestered in the depths of the ocean or the aerosols covered up the greenhouse gas signal. It’s enough to make you think climate “science” might not know what it is talking about!
Only a few years since the last (2013) UN climate report, there is now a strong scientific consensus on the cause of the recent global warming hiatus as well as the previous “big hiatus” from 1950s-1970s: a mode of natural variability called the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO) which could be colloquially called El Niño’s uncle. The mode operates on longer time scales than El Niño but it is intimately related as a driver of Pacific Ocean heat exchange with the atmosphere and therefore a dominant modulator of global temperature. In a March 2016 Nature Climate Change commentary (Fyfe et al.), eleven authors including climate scientists Benjamin Santer and Michael Mann persuasively “make sense of the early-2000s warming slowdown.” Their article provides evidence that directly contradicts claims that the hiatus was a conspiracy, or scientifically unfounded fiction. Several important points are made that deserve mentioning:
The recent hiatus occurred during a period of much higher greenhouse gas [GHG] forcing e.g. CO2 almost 100 ppm higher than the previous “big hiatus” slowdown in the 1950s-1970s. The authors rightly raise the question if the climate system is less sensitive to GHG forcing that previously thought or global temperatures will undergo a major warming “surge” once internal natural variability (e.g. IPO) flips sign.
The observed trends in global surface temperature warming were not consistent with climate modeling simulations. Indeed, using a baseline of 1972-2001, climate models failed to reproduce the slowdown during the early twenty-first century even as GHG forcing increased. The hiatus was neither an artifact of faulty data nor statistical cherry-picking – it was a physical change in the climate system that was measured across multiple independent observation types.
Climate scientists still need to know how variability (natural and anthropogenic) in the climate system works to attempt to model its changes through time regardless of political inconvenience.
Now back to the Henley and King (2017) piece that predicts a flip in the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation to a positive phase will lead to almost 0.5°C increase in global temperature by 2030. Based upon the RCP8.5 high emission scenarios (which are likely to be too high themselves), those same climate models that did not adequately predict the early 21st century hiatus are used to generate so-called warming trajectories.
Image adapted from Henley and King (2017)
How plausible is this extreme warming scenario? Regardless of the phase of the IPO, the model projections suggest an acceleration in the warming rates considerably above the hiatus period of the last 15-years. The authors allow for 0.1°C of warming from the recent strong El Niño as the offset for the “new” starting period, but that estimate is probably too low. We calculated the daily temperature anomaly from the JRA-55 reanalysis product—a new and probably more reliable temperature record–and apply a 30-day centered mean to highlight the enormous warming step with the 2015-2016 El Niño. Only an eyeball is necessary to see at least a 0.30°C upward step now into May 2017. Note that this is not carbon dioxide warming, and if we had a strong La Niña (the cold opposite of El Niño), we would expect a step down.
Is this warming now baked in (double entendre intended) to the climate system or will we descend to a lower level during the next year or two thanks to a La Niña? In other words, will the hiatus return, another one begin, or will the upward trajectory accelerate? Oh, and did we mention that we know of no climate model that warms the earth in jump-steps followed by long “hiatuses” after big El Niños?
via Cato@Liberty h/t to ossqss
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The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) appears to be a precursor to the hiatus.
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“The observed trends in global surface temperature warming were not consistent with climate modeling simulations”
Well there’s your problem right there! Stop observing real stuff, and everything falls into place.
I’d place even money on a long-term global cooling.
Five years of cooling will end the debate, should kick off any time now.
Temps have been running warmer in the last 12 months than our short term models (<5 years) estimated. We expected a bigger cool-down from the el nino by now. Last year was on track, but this year has remained stubbornly warm.
My post under the greening planet dilemma for doomsters would have fitted nicely here. The big blue patches where there used to be hot blobs I think answers the question of wither climate? Also no western Pacific warm pool in evidence.
We’ve had the most precipitous drop from an El Nino in the record. The “dead cat” bounce (courtesy of the under appreciated Le Chatelier Principle) has peaked and is set to finish the plunge. Indeed, instead of upwelling of cold water at the east end of the system, cold water is wedging into the equatorial zone from cold Blobs in both hemispheres. This not normal ENSO mechanics. The ENSO regions are seemingly decoupled from the global picture. What there is along the equator is pretty unimpressive. We ate going to get cooling in overdrive simply because there isn’t much warm water to be found in any of the oceans.
Noted for future reference. THX
what is the “observed data” the paper refers too, I hope not NCEI’s data set or the extra mutilation of it by GISS?
They are not observations, at ALL
Hadcrut, but you get the same answer with all datasets and even with raw data
“A 15-year hiatus is not so unusual even though the jury is out as to what exactly may have caused the pause.” That is correct. It is very natural for the climate to vacillate. So if that is in fact true, wouldn’t you think that the models analyzing the data would have period of no increase because the data would DEMAND IT. The fact their data did not include these anomalies clearly demonstrates their models can not properly predict the future climate. They are not reliable nor realistic enough to base all our future economy on flawed results.
It is not so much their data (fudged data at that). It is more a matter of the missing and fudged parts of the formulas in their code. Much of it needs to have fudge factors instead of actual physics-based math. In the early days, no matter what they did with the physics-based math, the models would pretty quickly shoot off to infinity. I.e., CRASH. They brought in a Japanese whiz, and he just inserted some fudge factors to tame the unruly beast. When others inquired what those factors were for, he explained that they were to tame the unruly beast, so they didn’t go to infinity. IOW, he cheated.
And is this still in the models to calm the beast? I don’t know, but I think so. I expect they didn’t want to risk infinity with new formulas that didn’t include it. I can’t know that for sure – except that it is very much in human nature to take what seems to work and don’t ask questions.
Why do the warmists only concentrate on CO2? Because it’s easy.
http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/8/369/2017/esd-8-369-2017.pdf
NONONONONONONO – It is because their goal is to kill fossil fuel based industry. It is a matter of hating their own humanity. Don’t think this is wacko, either. Greenpeace founder and now ex-member, ecologist Patrick Moore discusses this in his book, ‘Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist.’ He had to dropout because of politicos hijacking Greenpeace. He will tell you: THOSE people are not environmentalists but people with a whole different agenda.
Does anyone pay attention to the correct use of English grammar these days?
At the beginning of this article we see :
“and here’s some things You Ought to Have a Look at concerning”, which should read “and here are some things you ought to have a look at concerning”.
A little more effort from the writer makes life easier for the reader!
The temperature measurement record shows two previous pauses each about thirty years long with the current pause starting about 2002-2004 (not 1998) being the third. These pauses were separated by warming periods also about thirty years long. What information exists to lead one to believe that this apparent pattern of temperature change will not continue?
The interval from the 1940s to the ’70s wasn’t a “pause”. It saw a pronounced cooling. IMO the interval from the 1880s to 1910s was also a cooling rather than a pause in warming.
I agree with Chimp.
I suspect the magnitude of the ENSO of 1998 actually delayed the onset of the hiatus.
I love to look for patterns, and this one is a doozy. The PDO was discovered in 1997 (by biologist Hare) and was for at least decade attributed to warming and cooling “regimes” in the northern Pacific. It was at least honest in describing what had been observed, while it didn’t try to guess why the northern Pacific would be changing every 30 years +/- 10 or so. The PDO DID agree with those hiatuses of the past and the rises in ~1850-1880, ~1910-1940, and ~1970-1997-ish.
The last years of the periods of 1880’s to the 1910’s and 1940’s to the 1970’s featured downturns in temperature and this may again occur in the latter 2020’s and early 2030’s.
Okay, now they call the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO). That is supposed to be science? Renaming things? Piffle. That, under either name, was discovered in 1997 BY A BIOLOGIST studying the trends in salmon catches.
Then, long about 2010 or so – I think I actually saw it on a YouTube climate class video – the instructor/professor realized that the temperature curve for the last 130 years or so was an INCLINED since curve. Since it was inclined, the rises were steep and the falls were either flat (HIATUS) or neatly flat – before the next rise.
If one posits that our old argument that WE ARE STILL COMING OUT OF THE LIA, that accounts for the inclined to the sine curve. The tough part is accepting and explaining WHY the climate would be following a fairly consistent 60-year sine curve period with 30 year inclines and 30 year flats. (More or less. The 60 year part is as observed, as far as what observations were available back then. With the rounding at both ends, the peaks are kind of flattened out, so that the rising and flat portions are something less than a full 30 years.
But WHY? Sheit, the global warmers aren’t asked to spell out the exact and specific mechanisms of how anthropogenic CO2 actually warms the climate. They b.s. their way and avoid spelling out why. So why do their critics have to do that?
I do believe that they looked for some natural resonance or periodicity in some planetary or solar system thing – and didn’t find any. The closest, (as I recall) was the sunspot cycle, but that is like 3/4 in length of the PDO/IPO. So, there is no smoking gun pointing at anything that we currently suspect could be contributing.
So I think I know the following about the global temperature record:
1. Station measurements are read to tenths of a degree C once daily to get the maximum and minimum recordings for the day.
2. The average daily temperature or a station is just the average of the maximum and minimum station recordings for the day.
3. The station baseline is calculated by averaging these daily averages over the period 1981-2010
3. The station annual anomaly is calculated by subtracting this station baseline from the average of these daily averages over the course of a year.
4. These annual station anomalies are then used to interpolate within the 5 degree X 5 degree cells where there is no real data, but where there MUST be data, in order to balance the weighting factors and “calculate” the average global anomaly within the cell.
4. These cellular annual anomalies are then averaged with all of the other cellular anomalies to determine the global annual anomaly. Because we MUST have the average global anomaly.
Is that correct? Did I miss anything? I’m really trying to understand the process.
Obviously, my numbering got screwed up as I edited the post, and I neglected to notice until it was too late. [sigh] I’m sure everyone gets the idea, though.
It’s critically important that we stop lending tacit credence to the idea that carbon dioxide causes global warming. My new book, “In Praise of Carbon: How We’ve Been Misled Into Believing that Carbon Dioxide causes Climate Change” (amazon.com/dp/B01N7ZXTID) lays out the clear reasons why this arcane notion should be abandoned. Briefly, these are:
1) There is not even one hard-data-based study in the peer-reviewed literature that supports the theory and there are at least two that refute it (one of them mine). Note that spectral absorption/re-emission characteristics of CO2 (e.g., the HITRAN database) DO NOT prove an actual link between CO2 and warming. That link has only been theoretically inferred, but has never been shown by hard-data.
2) Ground measurements of back-radiation from the atmosphere by infrared astronomer Michael Sanicola and others have shown no wavelengths that are characteristic of Earth’s surface temperatures, thus effectively removing the rationale for the supposed CO2/warming link.
3) A better warming mechanism, and one that more closely reflects the actual behavior of temperature anomalies over the past half century, exists in the form of chlorine photodissociated from anthropogenic CFCs released to the atmosphere in the last three decades of the 20th century and catalytically depleting the ozone layer, admitting increased irradiation by high-intensity UV-B radiation. Basaltic volcanoes, like Iceland’s Bardarbunga, which recently (2014-2015) underwent the largest eruption since 1783, also release chlorine as HCl, which similarly affects the ozone layer, and this effect is not countered by albedo-increasing aerosols because basaltic volcanoes produce no eruption clouds and therefore cause warming rather than cooling. Warming following Bardarbunga’s eruption is a likely cause of the large El Nino and temperature spike of 2015-16, from which we currently seem to be returning to the “hiatus.” The catalytic nature of ozone destruction by chlorine and the long residence time of chlorine in the atmosphere guarantee that temperatures will remain elevated through at least mid-century.
If we fail to counter the myth of a CO2/warming link aggressively, especially by pointing out that such a link is baseless by 1) and 2) above, it will continue to dominate all debate regarding “climate change.”
DONALD TRUMPS rejection of the Paris climate change agreement is not without foundation,i quote.on NOV 13 2010 DR OTTMAR ENDENHOFER IPCC CO CHAIR WORKING GROUP 3, said in an interview,WE THE(UN-IPCC) REDISTRIBUTE DE FACTO, THE WORLDS WEALTH BY CLIMATE POLICY,ONE HAS TO FREE ONESELF FROMTHE ILLUSION THAT INTERNATION CLIMATE POLICY IS INVIROMENTAL POLICY, THIS HAS ALMOST NOTHING TO DO WITH INVIROMENTAL POLICY ANY MORE. in the mean time the climate do what ever it wants ,with or without mans input