Guest analysis by Sheldon Walker
Warmists and Alarmists are still fighting the idea, that there was a recent slowdown. In order to show just how “special” the recent slowdown was, I have created a new type of graph, which shows the warming rate plotted against the date range which was used to calculate the warming rate.
That may sound confusing, but when you look at the graph, it will become clear. The graph is based on very simple principles. A quick numerical example will show how the graph was made.
The warming rate (calculated using a linear regression), for the date range from 2002 to 2012, was 0.12 degrees Celsius per century. The graph is an X-Y graph. This calculated warming rate is plotted as a line, which runs from (2002, 0.12) to (2012, 0.12).
This is a horizontal line, which runs from 2002 to 2012 on the X-axis, at a height of 0.12 (the warming rate), on the Y-axis. Now just add more horizontal lines, for all of the other calculated warming rates, and you will have the finished graph.
Note that only date ranges which are greater than or equal to 10 years, have been used. Short date ranges tend to have very variable warming rates, so these have been ignored.
Have a look at the graph, and see what you think. I will give you my interpretation of the graph, after you have had a chance to look at it. Note that I have coloured the warming rate that I used as a numerical example above, in red. This is the lowest warming rate from 1980 to 2017, and it is therefore the strongest slowdown. All of the other warming rates are coloured blue.
A number of the lines have been labelled with the warming rate, in degrees Celsius per century, at the right-hand end of the line. This means that you can see what the warming rate is, without having to guess it from the Y-axis. There were too many lines to label them all, so I have tried to label the ones that are the most useful.
Note the red line near the bottom of the graph, which runs from 2002 to 2012 on the X-axis, at a height of 0.12 (the warming rate), on the Y-axis. This is the lowest warming rate, which is also the strongest slowdown.
The strongest slowdown is not all alone. It has some neighbours nearby. The closest is 2002 to 2013, with a warming rate of 0.22 (all warming rates are in degrees Celsius per century, I will not specify this each time that I give a warming rate).
Also nearby, is 2003 to 2013, with a warming rate of 0.35. As you might expect, warming rates which share a common date range, tend to have similar warming rates. The strongest slowdown comes from a “family” of date ranges, which go from about 2001 to 2013 or 2014.
What about the rest of the graph. The majority of warming rates fall in the dense central region, with warming rates from about 1.4 to 2.2. The overall average is about 1.75.
Then there are the departures from the central area. A speedup in the middle of the graph, from about 1992 to 2004 (about 12 years). This speedup reached a warming rate of 3.39.
There was a weaker slowdown, from about 1987 to 1997, with a warming rate of about 0.43.
Finally, there is a small number of speedups which end in 2016 and 2017. The 4 years from 2014 to 2017, are the warmest in the date range, from 1980 to 2017. So it is no surprise that the warming rates calculated using these years, will tend to have higher warming rates. This is another speedup, which started after the recent slowdown.
In summary, notice how clearly the slowdowns and speedups stand out from the dense central region. These are NOT vague climate events, which are hard to pick out from the other climate events. These are “in your face” climate events, which no intelligent person would deny.
But make no mistake, there are plenty of unintelligent, or deceitful, people out there, who will still deny the recent slowdown. These people have their own agenda, and scientific truth is not important to them.
Bear in mind that a slowdown of 0.12, compared to the average warming rate of about 1.75, is less than 7% of the average warming rate.
Imagine driving your car at 100 km/h on the motorway, and having to slow down to less than 7 km/h for 10 years!
Many Warmists and Alarmists would claim that you hadn’t even slowed down, and that 7 km/h and 100 km/h were statistically the same value.
However, reasonable people accept that there was a recent slowdown, and that it was “special”.
Accepting that there was a temporary slowdown, does not invalidate global warming. So Warmists and Alarmists can have their cake, and eat it too. They can still believe in global warming, but accept that there was a temporary slowdown in warming rates from about 2002 to 2012.
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Two more things can be inferred from this chart.
1. There was no “pause”. The climate was warming even between 2003 to 2013.
2. The mean rate of warming is around 1.7 degrees Celsius per century!
Well, Simon, do you consider an average warming rate of 0.5 C per century during the period of 2003-2013 as statistically different from zero, considering: (a) that is probably around the average uncertainty of the measurements comprising the data set, and (b) the fact that the GISTEMP dataset has been messaged time and again, as others have already noted above?
As to the mean rate of warming being 1.7 degrees per century for the period 1980 through 2016, as established from GISTEMP by Sheldon’s analytical/graphical technique above, I have no issue with that. After all, Earth just recently (geological time scale) naturally exited the last glacial period, and the last five interglacial periods say the warming period will typically last 10,000 to 20,000 years after exit from a glacial period.
A 10 year period is insufficient to determine a trend because of the inherent variability. You need about 30 years for climate data.
A mean rate of warming being 1.7 degrees per century is almost unprecedented in the paleo-climatic record. The last known comparable incidence was the peak of the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum.
Simon, I can only laugh at your first paragraph, because CAGW wasn’t even a meme 30 years ago.
As for your second paragraph: “almost unprecedented in the paleo-climatic record” leaves much room for discussion, especially given that we have obtained reliable, scientific measurements of Earth’s global warming only since about 1910, or less than .000004% of the paleoclimate record (noting that I have somewhat arbitrarily disregarded the first billion years of Earth’s history as being too unsettled to leave any reliable proxies for climate investigations during this period, even though some fossils do date back to this time).
Standard definition of paleoclimatology: the study of changes in climate taken on the scale of the entire history of Earth.
The NASA website has a graph that puts 5 different temperature datasets on a single graph from 1880 to 2017 or so (hard to tell what latest year is) . Of course all these datasets are fake because they have suppressed the warming of the 1930s. 3 other things stand out. 1) The data sets are almost exact matches of each other 2) One of the datasets is GISTEMP which includes water temperature data along with land air temperatures. 3) Another one of the datasets is called Cowtan and Way.
So I go to their website to find out what the heck is that dataset? Lo and behold I find this caveat on their website. I quote: “Maintaining a scientific data set to professional levels of quality assurance is beyond our resources. These results are therefore presented as a best effort. ”
So it seems that NASA will accept data submissions from private individuals even if you admit that you can’t keep the data up to professional standards. I guess this isnt too surprising in the climate science field when you realize that there isn’t any data standards in climate science. It is a wild west free for all of “HIDING THE DECLINE, JUXTAPOSING TEMPERATURE DATA FROM LAND STATIONS TO WILDERNESS AREAS 1000’S OF KM AWAY, USING PROXY DATA AND REAL DATA ON SAME TIMELINE IN A GRAPH, ADJUSTING TEMPERATURES DOWNWARDS 80 YEARS AGO SO THAT YOU CAN CLAIM AN INCREASE, USING 2 DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES TO MEASURE SEA RISE AND PUTTING THEM ON SAME TIME LINE, USING A BOGUS CONCEPT OF glacial isostatic adjustment TO ADJUST LAND LEVELS FOR SEA LEVEL MEASUREMENTS, MIXING SE WATER TEMPERATURE DATASETS WITH LAND AIR TEMPERATURE DATASETS, FAILING TO COMPLETELY ACCOUNT FOR UHI EFFECTS, AND WHOLESALE READJUSTMENT OF TEMPERATURES 20 YEARS LATER FROM GRAPHS THAT WERE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED TO PRESENT NEW FRAUDULENT GRAPHS. Did I leave any other climate science data fraud procedures out?
To think that billions of dollars are being spent on this fraud and because of this fraud boggles the mind.
Very handy bit of research.
But agony to read. May I suggest that you get an editor to check your commas?
I’ve read it requires 30 years of temperatures to define a climate. What would your graph look like if you presented only time periods of 30 years or more? Seeing this graph for all of the 20th century would be very interesting.
“I’ve read it requires 30 years of temperatures to define a climate.”
One core issue here is that climate alarmists, most politicians and most MSM do not look at “climate” this way.
More importantly, if the PDO has a 60 year cycle, shouldn’t it take 60 years of data to establish a climate? Most important to this discussion, what the climate is doing right now should be compared to the same timeframe 60 years ago to see if 1) anything has changed and 2) if the current rate of change is extraordinary.
Very intuitive! Congratulations! I hope we will see this type of graph more often.
If I understand this correctly you are plotting warming rates for different periods of time AND different length of periods in the same graph. The point you want to make is that the 2002-2012 period is the lowest of all. And by making it red it stands out. That is all well.
But the graph itself is a mess. It really does not make sense to compare a 10-year rate to a 15-year rate. It would be much more informative to show only 10-year rates, then only 15-year rates, then only 20-year rates (and every one in between if you like). And of course 30-year trends, since that is the current manmade climate period.
Sheldon Walker, you might be interested in my recent, peer-reviewed research on the supposed CO2/warming mechanism. It was published in the September issue of the Asian Academic Research Journal, and it shows that CO2 not only doesn’t produce global warming, but that it can’t, and that chlorine depleting the ozone layer after being photodissociated on polar stratospheric clouds from anthropogenic CFCs is the most probable cause of warming. If you’d like a copy of the paper, please contact me at davidlaing[at]aol[dot]com.
I’m still amazed that NOAA just adjusted the pause away with absolutely no comeback from the scientific or journalism community. I had hoped at least a few of the pond scum would raise an objection to this obvious chicanery but I was wrong. Alarmists who had finally accepted after 15-20 years that there was indeed a case to answer just did a 180 and called skeptics liars or worse, despite the even-now active scientific endeavour to add to the 50+ excuses for the unadjusted pause, all of which can be filed under ‘the natural variation they denied was possible’. How is such large-scale dishonesty/groupthink even possible in science?
Because it’s not science. It’s politics and advocacy.
Interesting work Sheldon, good stuff. I’d recommend a couple of changes to make it even more useful, if you have the time:
If using GISTEMP, use data by year from the first revision in which it was published, as this is the most reliable figure compared to later revisions. The most recent revision was specifically to turn the “pause” into a “slowdown”, and retain a +ve figure for the period.
See if you can go back to at least 1950, preferably as far back as possible, as the period since 1980 is too short to show many cycles of warming/cooling. This should give more periods for comparison.