Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
I got to thinking about the “hiatus” in warming in the 21st Century, and I realized that the CERES satellite dataset covers the period since the year 2000. So I’ve graphed up a few views of the temperature changes over the period of the CERES record, which at present is May 2000 to February 2017. No great insights, just a good overview and some interesting findings.
First, here are the raw CERES global average surface temperature data, the seasonal variations, and the anomaly that remains after removing the seasonal variations.
Figure 1. Seasonal decomposition of the CERES surface temperature data. Statistical results (bottom line) are adjusted for autocorrelation using the method of Koutsoyiannis.
So … what are we looking at? The top panel shows the raw data, the actual temperature variations. The middle panel shows the repeating seasonal variations. The bottom panel shows the “residual anomaly”, the variations that remain once we’ve removed the repeating seasonal component of the signal.
The bottom panel, the residual anomaly, is the panel of interest. You can see how little the temperature has varied over the seventeen years of record. The El Nino of 2016-2017 is quite visible … but other than that there isn’t much happening.
There is one thing that is interesting about the residual … other than warming as a result of the 2016-2017 El Nino, the temperature anomaly only varied by about ± 0.2°C. Among other places, I’ve discussed what I see as the reason for this amazing stability in a post called Emergent Climate Phenomena.
The next question of interest to me is, where is the temperature changing, and by how much? Here is a Pacific and an Atlantic centered view of the warming trends recorded by CERES, in degrees C per decade.
Figure 2. Temperature trends around the globe.
So … what is of note in these global maps? Well, both the poles are unusual. The area around Antarctica is cooling strongly, and the Arctic is warming. Presumably, this is why we’re getting less sea ice in the North and more sea ice in the South. It also affects the hemispheric averages, with the Northern Hemisphere warming and the Southern Hemisphere basically unchanging. Figure 3 shows the average decadal temperature trends by latitude band.
Figure 3. Average decadal temperature trends by latitude band.
As you can see, the only parts of the planet where the temperature is changing much are the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and the area above the Arctic Circle.
Next, in Figure 2 you can see that the North Atlantic is generally cooling. On the other hand, the Pacific is mixed, with areas of slight cooling and other areas of slight warming. Go figure.
On land, northern Russia, parts of the Sahel, the Gobi, and western Australia are warming. On the other hand, the upper Amazon is cooling strongly. So it looks like some (but not all) deserts are warming, and some (but not all) tropical forests are cooling … why?
I haven’t a clue. In my opinion, the most important words that anyone studying the climate can learn to say are “I don’t know.”
At the end of the story, I’m left with my usual amazement at the stability of the system. Despite being controlled by things as evanescent as winds, waves, and clouds, the temperature anomaly doesn’t vary more than about two-tenths of a degree. Nor is this due to “thermal inertia” as many people claim. Look again at Figure 1—the temperature changes by four degrees C peak to peak in the course of a single year, and changes by a degree and a quarter C in a single month, but the anomaly barely budges. To me, this is clear evidence of strong thermoregulatory systems, but of course, YMMV …
Sunshine today after rain, the Pacific ocean glitters in the far distance, the earth abides …
Regards to all,
w.
PS—As always, my polite request is that you QUOTE THE EXACT WORDS THAT YOU ARE DISCUSSING, so we can all be clear about what you are referring to. Please be aware that while my request is polite, if you ignore the request I may say unflattering things about your ancestry, commenting habits, or cranial capacity … be warned.
DATA: For the temperature data I have used a straight Stefan-Boltzmann conversion of the CERES EBAF Edition 4.0 datafile showing upwelling longwave radiation. The dataset is available here. I have checked and compared this temperature dataset to a variety of other temperature datasets (HadCRUT4, Reynolds SST, HadISST, TAO buoy data) and found very little difference.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
There’s only so many Joules to go around and for one region to cool, another must warm. As for why the N preferentially warms while the S preferentially cools, this could be an artifact of the S receiving more solar energy than the N owing to the alignment of precession with the seasons and/or the relative ratio of land to water between hemispheres.
The SH is 81% seawater; the NH 61%, for the well known global average of 71%.
CERES seems to be responding to moisture. Higher moisture, the cooler.
This could very well be the negative feedback from increasing CO2 predicted by Dr. William Gray.
Wait I’ve just got to move a set of goal posts . . . ok now 400 ppm is preventing global cooling!
I very recently came across a most interesting historical BBC documentary on YouTube. It is about one hour long and covers the 1963 snow blizzard in the UK. It was compiled during the event.
The impact on transportation, food and water distribution, sewage/wastewater and fuel supplies was crippling after but a few weeks. At one stage the commentary makes the point that a Russian weather station above the arctic circle had registered higher temperatures than some recorded in the UK at that time. Interesting.
I don’t know how to find a link for this documentary as it has been pulled from YouTube, possibly due to copyright.
Regards
M
Climate Alarmist is Playing San Francisco Judge as a Complete Fool
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/climate-alarmist-is-playing-san-francisco-judge-as-a-complete-fool/
Dr. Myles Allen must think that the San Francisco Judge is a complete fool. I just finished a post refuting many of his claims, but one example needed to be singled out. In his presentation, Dr. Myles Allen replaced the poster child Mt. Kilimanjaro, which was exposed as a fraud in the Climategate emails, with the Glacier National Park Glacier. He claimed that man-made global warming is the cause of the decline of the glacier.
So upward radiation increased near the N pole and decreased around the southern ocean, perhaps because of changes in the frequency and duration of cloud cover? Perhaps because of changes in heat carried to and above the Cloud Condensation Level? Something else? That’s something, but I don’t see it having any straightforward implication. It reads like the start of an investigation, where you confirm that you can download, manipulate, and graph data. If it’s real, and your analysis suggests that it is, then it is worth pursuing.
Willis writes, “what is of note in these global maps? Well, both the poles are unusual.”
I think an important part of the difference between the two poles is because of the north polar and south polar snow and ice albedo differences. The south polar snow and ice is pristine. The northern is covered with a very fine layer of soot, sometimes more.
The melting from the soot albedo change causes additional albedo change and warming, a positive feedback. Look at the photographs of Greenland dirty ice and snow.-
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2014/09/why-greenland-dark-snow-should-worry-you/
from the datasets data quality manual
“Because of the degradation of Terra water vapor chanles that affects cloud retrievals
starting around 2008, downward longwave flux anomalies over polar regions shows
downward trend (see Section 4.5). Therfore, trend analyses with surface fluxes over
polare regions from Ed4 EBAF-surface should be avoided.”
Thanks, Mosh. The polar regions are abysmally sampled by every temperature dataset. I use the CERES datasets because at least they are internally consistent. I will say that the polar results that I show above agree generally with other analyses, and with the changes in the sea ice … so they can’t be too far wrong.
w.
How does this jive with temp profiles for the Arctic which show virtually all warming during the winter season, when there is no insolation to be absorbed by any soot. Might melt some snow/ice during high sun, but obviously has little effect on summer temps.
Glad to see you using that data.
when you use data you implicitly accept the physics used to create the data
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/products.php?product=EBAF-Surface
so, ya that means accepting radiative transfer theory.
What’s the purpose of this adjusted dataset?
“EBAF-Surface is for climate model evaluation, estimating the Earth’s global mean energy budget and to infer meridional heat transport.”
Looking at the processing steps is always important
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/science_information.php?page=CeresTempInterp
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/science_information.php?page=CeresComputeFlux
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/science_information.php?page=EBAFbalance
and its always good toi note the uncertainties in the fundamental data that the modelled surface data derives from
https://eosweb.larc.nasa.gov/project/ceres/quality_summaries/ssf_toa_terra_ed2B.pdf
Usually I have found when using most satellite products for surface data that the devil is in the details.
and in the details its models and assumptions and adjustments all the way down.
Steven Mosher March 24, 2018 at 8:08 pm
When did I EVER say that I don’t accept radiative transfer theory? This is why I ask folks to quote what I said. AFAIK I’ve always said that radiative transfer theory is well-accepted physics, and I’ve used it in e.g. The Steel Greenhouse where I’ve defended it against a host of folks claiming that somehow the steel greenhouse violates the 2nd Law …
Regards,
w.
when did I ever say you didnt?
I make a note, More for the Other readers than for you.
when I think YOU dont accept radiative theory I will say “Willis you dont accept it”
I knew you would try to put words in my mouth. I merely note, that IF you accept the data, then you implicity accept the physics. SOME skeptics who love satillte data dont get this
Steven Mosher March 24, 2018 at 11:28 pm
I didn’t “try to put words in your mouth”, I don’t do that. I misunderstood your confusing comment, which was posted in your usual cryptic style that I have objected to over and over because it’s hard to discern your meaning.
So sue me.
w.
If we look closely at the data you will it is almost a perfect match to the UAH satellite data product. Different sources giving similar results.
Interesting Map.
Stability of this water world is indeed amazing, funny how well water in its various states does such a beautiful job of keeping this planet..green.
Are these trends,warming or cooling actually significant?
What are the error bars, of CERES?
I did follow the link to their web site,however this information eluded my weak search.
So do we know it is warming for sure,in these places no one lives or no one cares?
How do we establish a trend line where data is so slim?
I live at 62 degrees North.
The Canadian Government has relocated nearly all Arctic temperature sensors to Airports since the 1990s, the manned remote stations are all closed.
These airstrips are all now paved, most were still gravel not too long ago.
Yellowknife Airport just relocated the weather station to the wind shadow of the terminal building and surrounded it with black dirt.
I am sure this station will show unusual warming, especially last summer when the dirt had no vegetation.
But being now sheltered from the prevailing wind, I expect to see another “unprecedented” Arctic temperature increase recorded by this station.
How far south do we have to look before ;”Don’t know,couldn’t say for sure” does not apply?
CERES clear sky TOA data shows no reduction in radiation to space, either LW or net.
CO2 remains when clouds are gone. Not looking good for CO2.
As always RTFM
https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/DQ_summaries/CERES_EBAF-Surface_Ed4.0_DQS.pdf
“Because of the degradation of Terra water vapor [sic] chanles that affects cloud retrievals
starting around 2008, downward longwave flux anomalies over polar regions shows
downward trend (see Section 4.5). Therfore, trend analyses with surface fluxes over
polare regions from Ed4 EBAF-surface should be avoided.”
Leo Smith March 24, 2018 at 8:15 pm
I’d love to get a better car, Leo, but somehow my Social Security somehow doesn’t leave me all that secure … go figure. Plus it’s a great 2004 Toyota Tacoma pickup that runs and runs.
Thanks for the good thought,
w/
That would have been a very special Toyota, willis. There weren’t many cars on general sale that had cruise. You mostly had to pay for the option. My 2007 E class had it as an option.
In the experience of this truck driver, at least 30% of drivers don’t know how to even engage cruise control let alone use it properly.
“To me, this is clear evidence of strong thermoregulatory systems”. Yep its name is SUN. Its not clear to me if you are seeing anything else. The concept of blackbody equilibrium suggests a natural oscillation around that point due to both diurnal and seasonal variations. Pretty much the same likely for ocean oscillations like ENSO and multi-decadal ones if indeed they are oscillations that over time establish their own natural time delays, for instance living near the Pacific Ocean the coldest month is February about 2 months beyond the least sun. About the same thing at the other end in June max sun, August max temperature. As regular as those changes are why would we expect a bump in the anomaly that we don’t already see?
Nor is this due to “thermal inertia” as many people claim.
The one thing that has troubled me for decade. It is obvious to any observer that there is very little inertia. Yes, the ENSO leaves a ‘taste in the mouth’ for more than a year and an SSW appears to create an atmospheric image for a few months. so What causes ice ages? What is it that changes the global temperature by 3 to 5 °C and holds it while glaciers SLOWLY build.
Thanks Willis. Great post again.
Its pretty clear to me that you could probably tune an ice and ocean inertia model to explain the approximate 2 to 3 degrees warming since the end of the Maunder Minimum in approximately 1700 using global glacial ice change and an ocean uptake (inertia) model. Some of the longterm instrument records show a rapid warming occurring in a few decades after the Maunder Minimum, this could be a rapid warming of the surface ocean that reduced low latitude and low elevation ice. The warming then flattened until interrupted temporarily for a short period by the Dalton Minimum. After brief recovery post 1815 temp increases from the LIA (500 years of cooling) then another flattening to the mid 19th century during which period global glaciers continued to increase and increase surface albedo. Then in the mid-19th century glacial advance reversed into retreat allowing climate warming to dominate from the underlying ocean inertia. The 500 years of cooling from 1200 to 1700 could take as long to reverse back out with the same intensity things cooled and drove the Vikings out of Greenland from glacial advance as far back as 1300 to 1400 from the more distant settlements. That would put on a model the warmed as fast as it cooled warming from ocean inertia until 2200. Its hard to put values on it lacking early temperature records from the Medieval Warm Period but today they are assumed to be comparable by some studies to day plus or minus a degree or so. The only criticism of the idea of an extended LIA recovery was the flat period from the mid part of the first half of the 18th century until the mid 19th century. So an explanation is needed for that and glacial advance and retreat data overlies it very nicely chronologically. All thats left to do is argue the actual degree effects which can probably be tuned in quite nicely. Of course even today we are not measuring what it happening in the lower 3/4ths of the ocean so as one study put it we are probably today a 1,000 years or more away from a data record that would demonstrate that.
The ocean is the tortoise and the atmosphere the hare.
A bit off-topic, probably: In 1950, world population was about 2.5 bn. In 2018 the population has risen to 7.5 bn. The average body temperature is 36.5 to 37.2° C. Today, there are 5 bn people more on this little planet that heat it up. “AGW” is said to be on the rise. Is there a correlation or even a causation?
Population numbers are socialism scare stories. Have you noticed by how many billions it has risen in the last 5 years?
It’s a finger in the air number.
I completely agree with your scare story. But IF there were numbers that might show that a good part of the alleged AGW is due to humans heating up the atmosphere, then Co2 alone can”t be blamed any longer.
7.5 billion people would generate about 750 GW body heat. Surface area of Earth is about 5e14 m2. So that is about 1.5 milliwatts/sq m. Not much compared with radiative forcing of 2-3 watts/m2.
Thanks!
Thanks, Nick, you beat me to it, and you did it just as I would have.
I recommend Nick’s “back-of-the-envelope” method to everyone. As the name suggests, it’s like pulling out an envelope and making some quick calculations on the back of it to determine rough significance or feasibility.
In general the rules are, don’t sweat the small details, don’t deal with second-order or third-order effects, don’t worry about anything smaller than an order of magnitude, don’t worry if your numbers have enough decimals.
So Nick has used round numbers, 100 watts for the energy emitted by the human body, 5e+14 square metres for the earth area, 7.5 billion people, and given us a rough “back-of-the-envelope” estimate. It’s more than accurate enough to determine whether the heat from humans is a significant part of the energy balance … and his result clearly shows that it is not.
w.
PS—For me, a “first-order” effect is one that can make a change of 10% or more in a system. Those are the ones I consider in a back-of-the-envelope calculation.
A second-order effect is one that can make a difference of between 1% and 10% in the outcome, so you’d consider those in a more detailed analysis.
Finally, a third-order effect is one that can make a difference of less than 1% in the outcome. So it is only used in the most detailed analysis.
In this regard, it’s worth noting that a) at the surface there is about half a kilowatt of downwelling radiation (long- plus short-wave), and b) the change from a doubling of CO2 is said to be on the order of 4 W/m2 … which makes it a third-order effect on surface radiation. Just sayin’ …
Which is undetectable from 50W/m2 from the surface, which changes with moisture content. Forget CO2.
And that 1.5 mW/m2 is retarded energy from the Sun. Also not much compared with the average global heat flux from the Earth’s interior of 91 mW/m2.
Dear Willis, “Despite being controlled by things as evanescent as winds, waves, and clouds, the temperature anomaly doesn’t vary more than about two-tenths of a degree.” Given the stable climate conditions, it may be better to state: Because being controlled by things…… As nature is regulated by chaotic processes from molecular level up, averaging each other in impact, the end result. the macro world as we experience it, must nearly by definition be rather stable; variations with 0.2 – 0.3 degrees.
As I’ve been saying, Tmin is regulated on the cooling side at night to limit how cold it gets by water vapor, just as W found a relationship with max ssts, and day time T max.
https://micro6500blog.wordpress.com/2016/12/01/observational-evidence-for-a-nonlinear-night-time-cooling-mechanism/
As usual, the strongest variations happen in places where the data is lacking the most. Heavy interpolation going on. Still, the cooling shown for the southern oceans contradicts the rapid melting of ice caps shown by satellite pictures for the kerguelen islands for example. But the rapid melting can also be explained by weather factors.
You are 60 years behind the research team visiting Svalbard:
https://archive.org/details/glaciervariation00ahlm
The noted a substantial change in temperatures from 1900 to 1930. 6 degrees Celcius at Svalbard.
Very similar as today.
They even tried to make a global map where to find this change.
The current knowledge has to upgrade the knowledge of currents.
Richard M
Don’t forget to add that increasing the CO2 concentration increases the emissivity of the atmosphere.
It is interesting that back radiation gets frequent mention but not the ‘greyness’ of the body of the atmosphere. Without GHG’s, the atmosphere couldn’t cool by radiation at all. It would be heated by the surface and stay that way.
A desert that has higher temperatures could just have lower humidity and the same energy input. The enthalpy (total energy) in the atmosphere above the desert is the correct number to watch. I realise it is fashionable to talk of temperatures only, but that is a technically not how to think about energy gain and retention (etc). Equally, the Amazon could be cooler simply by having a higher average humidity, not a lower energy input or higher emittance.
As you all know a little knowledge is dangerous. From the discussion between what it seems to knowledgeable scientists the opposite may also be true leading to a battle of egos rather than an objective debate ?
“the Earth abides…”.
Love it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_see-saw
Polar see-saw
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The polar see-saw (also: Bipolar seesaw) is the phenomenon that temperature changes in the northern and southern hemispheres may be out of phase. The hypothesis states that large changes, for example when the glaciers are intensely growing or depleting, in the formation of ocean bottom water in both poles take a long time to exert their effect in the other hemisphere. Estimates of the period of delay vary, one typical estimate is 1500 years. This is usually studied in the context of ice-cores taken from Antarctica and Greenland.
Did anyone notice the Himalayas, average height 20,000+/- feet, are getting colder? Latitude 28*N.
And glaciers in that region are growing, both from more precipitation and cooler temperatures. So much for the IPCC’s ill-founded prediction of glacier disappearance.
On balance, the whole world has been cooling for about a decade, a fact obscured by the big ENSO swing of 2016, which blew off a lot of oceanic heat, thus contributing to further future cooling.
Some say two decades, since the late ’90s.