Reposted from Dr. Roy Spencer’s blog
December 6th, 2019 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
People’s Climate March in Denver, CO on April 29, 2017 (CNN).
It’s that time of year again, when we are subjected to exaggerated climate claims such as in this Forbes article, 2019 Wraps Up The Hottest Decade In Recorded Human History. Given that the global average surface temperature is about 60 deg. F, and most of the climate protesters we see in the news are wearing more clothing than the average Key West bar patron, I would think that journalists striving for accuracy would use a more accurate term than “hottest”.
So, I am announcing that in our 41-year record of global satellite measurements of the lower atmosphere, 2019 will come in as 3rd least-chilly.
For the decade 2010-2019, the satellite temperatures averaged only 0.15 C higher than in the previous decade (1990-1999). That’s less than a third of a degree F, which no one would even notice over 10 years.
If you are wondering how your neck of the woods has fared this year, the latest year-to-date plot of 2019 temperature departures from the 30-year average (1981-2010) shows the usual pattern of above- and below-normal, with little visual indication that the global average for 2019 is now running 0.36 deg. C above normal.
Latest 2019 year-to-date average surface temperature departures from the 1981-2010 average from the NCEP CFSv2 global data assimilation system (graphic courtesy of Weatherbell.com).
The use of the term “hottest” to describe recent warming belies the fact that the rate of warming we have experienced in recent decades is minuscule compared to the several tens of degrees of temperature change most people experience throughout the year — and sometimes from one week to the next.
So, how are we supposed to react when the arithmetically-averaged temperature, across all extremes, goes up by only a small fraction of a degree in ten years? With horror? Outrage? Is the term “hottest” in a headline supposed to move us? Seriously?
Should we all get someone to fly across the Atlantic so they can transport us to Europe on a luxury yacht to help Save the Earth™ on our next European vacation?
The click-bait journalism typified by terms like “hottest”, “climate emergency”, and now “climate catastrophe” helps explain why the public is largely indifferent to the global warming issue, at least if we are asked to spend more than a few dollars to fix it.
This is why the alarmist narrative has moved on from temperature, and now focuses on wildfires, droughts, floods, hurricanes, snowstorms, and sea level rise. Yet, none of these have worsened in the last 100 years, with the exception of global sea level rise which has been occurring at a rate of about 1 inch per decade for as long as it has been monitored (since the 1850s, well before humans could be blamed).
And, just in case some new visitors to my blog are reading this, let me clarify that I am not a denier of human-caused climate change. I believe at least some of the warming we have experienced in the last 50 years has been due to increasing carbon dioxide. I just consider the fraction of warming attributable to humans to be uncertain, and probably largely benign.
This is fully consistent with the science, since the global energy imbalance necessary to explain recent warming (about 1 part in 250 of the natural energy flows in and out of the climate system) is much smaller than our knowledge of those flows, either from either theoretical first principles or from observations.
In other words, recent warming might well be mostly natural.
We just don’t know.
<blockquote<So, how are we supposed to react when the arithmetically-averaged temperature, across all extremes, goes up by only a small fraction of a degree in ten years? With horror? Outrage?
How about extreme skepticism?
It’s worse than that. The predicate for the hypothesis is a fraction of a fraction of a fraction anthropogenic forcing. A God forcing, if you will.
Everyone that is concerned about it should move 20 miles North. Then they will be in the “perfect climate” that we would all enjoy if only we had never mastered the use of fire.
The rest of us will suffer through living where we are, in the unbearable climate of our own making.
From a purely subjective perspective, apart from a two week long warm spell early in the summer (when hot air from North Africa managed to get stuck over Europe for a while), it seemed to be one of the colder years of the past three decades in my neck of the woods. This is to say, while there was precisely one noteworthy warm spell, cold spells were actually quite frequent. This was also the impression I got from reading about the weather elsewhere in the world. For example, in October to November a great many regions reported extremely cold temperatures, in several cases multi-decade records were set for this time of the year. I realize such subjective observations don’t mean much – I only mention them because after hearing about “the hottest year ever” for decades, one would think it was time that one finally noticed something. But absolutely nothing unusual is happening. There is very little extreme weather, winters are still snowy, the incidence of summer heat waves seems not out of the ordinary either… it appears that the amount of warming that occurred in the past few decades was simply too small to make any noticeable difference. I’m not quite sure what I should panic over. A recent UN video asserted that we are in the middle of a catastrophic event, but if that is the case, then it is a very curious catastrophe. If they hadn’t told me, I sure wouldn’t know about it.
I have followed this issue for a few years now and it is very obvious the story has changed on this side of the debate. Not so long ago there was no warming, now there is warming, but there is nothing to worry about. The next stage will be, ok there is quite a bit of warming, but hey it’s too late to change things, so just cope with what we have. I had some respect for Roy Spencer (as in I thought he was genuine in the issues he raised) but this article is very sad. He, better than anyone should know that this steady rate of warming is at the very least a reason for caution. And this paragraph is an embarrassment to a man who should know better..
“For the decade 2010-2019, the satellite temperatures averaged only 0.15 C higher than in the previous decade (1990-1999). That’s less than a third of a degree F, which no one would even notice over 10 years.”
For a start the previous decade should be 2000 -2009. And…the fact that no one would notice it does not mean issues will not result from a long term warming trend of this kind.
So it seems Roy is happy to ignore what he knows of climate science and ignore the risks, because of his real concern, which is the prospect of a government spending (his) tax payer money to sort things. The ultimate sin for a libertarian. Very sad…
”The next stage will be, ok there is quite a bit of warming, but hey it’s too late to change things, so just cope with what we have.”…
Well at least you got that bit right. That’s what has been happening for thousands of years.
Its good to see that you have finally worked out that spending billions trying to change the climate is a waste of time.
Simon
You said, “the fact that no one would notice it does not mean issues will not result from a long term warming trend of this kind.”
Conversely, you have not presented evidence to prove that issues will result from the slow pace of increase. According to David Attenborough, 50% of Earth’s species of life live in the hot tropics, even though they only amount to 3% of the land area. Currently there is evidence that plants benefit from the longer growing seasons and increased CO2. And plants ultimately feed all other life.
Similarly, where is your evidence that Roy’s “real concern” is “the prospect of a government spending (his) tax payer money to sort [sic] things. I’d call that a cheap shot.
“Similarly, where is your evidence that Roy’s “real concern” is “the prospect of a government spending (his) tax payer money to sort [sic] things”
He writes books on the free market. He thinks it can sort all sins. He hates big government. He also thinks the world is a few thousand years old… but let’s not go there.
Simon
Yes, let’s not go there because it is no more germane than whether his favorite ice cream is chocolate or vanilla.
You accused him of being influenced by government money. I called you on it. Your response is that he writes books. That is essentially a non sequitur.
You are using the word “sort” in a strange context. Is English a second language for you?
Simon has to go there. He knows that he can’t support his claims, so personally attacking those who challenge his religious beliefs is the only option left.
As usual, simon can’t be bothered to actually deal with the issues at hand. Instead he attacks those who disagree with him on a personal level and convinces himself of his moral superiority.
You can always tell when someone knows they have lost the debate when they have to lie about what the other side is saying.
Our side has always acknowledged that the world has warmed up since the bottom of the Little Ice Age, it’s just that most if not all of that warming is 100% natural.
Our side has always acknowledged that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, it’s just that we accurately point out that it is a minor factor in the greenhouse affect. It is your side that has had to invent fictional amplification mechanisms that have never been demonstrated anywhere outside your models.
Our side has also accurately pointed out that current temperatures are still several degrees below the average of the last 10,000 years, so the claim from your side that only CO2 could be causing the current warming is laughable.
Markw
“Our side has also accurately pointed out that current temperatures are still several degrees below the average of the last 10,000 years,”
Make it up Mark at it again. I’ve called you on this before, but you always run away. So here’s another chance to prove your fairy world is real. Show us your evidence we are several degrees lower than the average?
The fact that you aren’t aware of basic history is not surprising. You’ve ignored it when I’ve presented the evidence before, no doubt you’ll continue to ignore anything that disagrees with your religion.
https://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/climate.htm
https://kottke.org/13/09/temperature-chart-for-the-last-11000-years
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/10/25/no-global-climate-change-in-the-past-20000-years/
https://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-background-articles/2000-years-of-global-temperatures/ (only 2k years, but still a good chart)
https://thelivingmoon.com/41pegasus/02files/Global_Warming_003.html
http://www.longrangeweather.com/global_temperatures.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=higXpFF79Hw
https://www.c3headlines.com/temperature-charts-historical-proxies.html (not 10K years, but it shows the disconnect between CO2 and temperature very well.)
http://www.co2science.org/subject/other/clim_hist_tenthousand.php
https://judithcurry.com/2013/11/01/pacific-ocean-heat-content-for-the-past-10000-years/
This is a short list and took me all of 15 minutes to compile.
As usual Simon isn’t being honest and is hiding from reality.
PS, Simon never supports his claims, but always demands that others do so.
“Our side has also accurately pointed out that current temperatures are still several degrees below the average of the last 10,000 years,”
lol, 15 minutes? Blog posts and youtube opinion. You doofus, the first three of this little cut and paste show the opposite of what you claim they do. Make-it-up-Mark hard at it…
Markw
Well there you go. Not one of your references from a recognised source. I think I see where your fairy stories come from.
Everyone one of the graphs includes the source of the graph, had you actually looked at any of them, you would have known that.
Loydo, no they don’t, but then again, it’s not like you actually read them.
Fact…. not one of those references backed your statement “Our side has also accurately pointed out that current temperatures are still several degrees below the average of the last 10,000 years”. You did a Trump. Throw a whole lot of nonsense out there and hope no one checks. And come on… seriously, some of those graphs look like kids coloured them in with crayons. And ….Spencer’s like was only for the last 1000 years and Curry’s was for the ocean. Others were for specific areas not the planet. Mark you are really are going to have to try harder or keep quieter. Otherwise you just end up looking silly.
So, according to you, today’s temperatures are above those of the Medieval, the Roman, and the Minoan Warm Periods?
The Medieval warm period according to most who study this was not a global phenomenon. Was it as warm as today? As Dr Richard Alley says, it is possible but not likely. I will leave it at that.
Revisionist history regarding the Medieval Warm Period is de rigeur today, but that makes one wonder: why are there no Scandinavian vineyards today?
You’ve put all this far more eloquently and far more damningly than me Simon.
Spencer is an embarrassment to atmospheric science. Even wheeling out the “degrees of temperature change most people experience throughout the year” comparison, when he would know full well that is spurious disinformation: since there is more absolute daily variation than between a glacial stadials and interstadials too.
Given his own data, just when he would be advisedly pulling back from his more extreme opinions he doubles down. How sad.
Fascinating, facts no longer to the climate alarmists.
Loydo
You expended electrons and produced CO2 to write: “… wheeling out the ‘degrees of temperature change most people experience throughout the year’”
It is a valid consideration when addressing the impact on humans or other biological organisms. Living things have evolved the ability to cope with the range of temperatures experienced in the ecological niche they occupy. Thus, pathological bacteria that live in humans can only tolerate an increase of about 7 deg F, which is probably why the body creates a fever when infected. Yet, the host (us) can tolerate temperature ranges of about +/- 50 deg F, without clothes or shelter. With special clothes we can almost double that range. Using technology, we can extend the range much farther. So, a change in ambient temperature that is too small to be perceived is not a direct threat to the survival of humans. There can be other side effects of temperature changes, such as glaciation removing land area from use by humans or animals. However, it is not an immediate existential threat. Warming is less problematic because Bedouins have long lived in environments with temperatures MUCH warmer than the average mid-latitudes, where most people live. There is every reason to believe that the tropics have a strong feedback loop of clouds that buffers temperature changes.
You are an embarrassment to alarmists.
“… In other words, recent warming might well be mostly natural …
… We just don’t know”.
The ‘WMO Provisional Statement of the State of the Climate 2019’ is certain that “… Human-induced warming reached approximately 1°C (likely between 0.8°C and 1.2°C) above pre-industrial levels in 2017 …”.
That report references Haustein, K., Allen, M.R., Forster, P.M. et al. (2017) and they, like the IPCC, can only think of three climate forcing factors since 1950: human, solar and volcanic.
They don’t attempt to explain the putative warming 1910 – 1945 (HADCRUT3):
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1900/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1910/to:1950/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1975/trend, warming that cannot be attributed to human emissions.
Well, the WMO Provisional Statement of the State of the Climate 2019, looks like all the human-caused climate change lies have been rolled into it. Reading it, you would think the Earth is on the verge of catastrophy.
Wasn’t it the WMO head who just recently was castigating journalists and activitst about their hyperbole about human-caused climate change? Well, it looks like he has done an about-face(180 degree turn) and his organization is pushing the most outrageous hyperbole about the Earth’s climate, like this disengenuous statement:
“Sea water is 26 percent more acidic than at the start of the industrial era. Vital marine ecosystems are being degraded.”
https://reliefweb.int/report/world/wmo-provisional-statement-state-global-climate-2019-0
From the above link:
“Global Climate Indicators
2019 ends warmest decade on record
The global mean temperature for the period January to October 2019 was 1.1 ± 0.1 °C above pre-industrial conditions (1850-1900). The five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) averages are, respectively, almost certain to be the warmest five-year period and decade on record. Since the 1980s, each successive decade has been warmer than the last.
2019 is expected to be the second or third warmest year on record. 2016, which began with an exceptionally strong El Niño, remains the warmest year.”
So if 2019 is 1.1C above the average from 1850, then that means we hit the 1.5C temperature they told us we should be worried about, in 2016. We survived that.
They say: “Since the 1980s, each successive decade has been warmer than the last.”
Well, that would make sense, since the late 1970’s, early 1980’s, were the time period when climate scientists thought the Earth was going into another Ice Age. So warming up from one of the coldest periods in the temperature record should not be seen as unusual.
It was just as cold in the decade of the 1910’s as it was in 1980, but after the 1910’s the temperatures started climbing and they climbed for decade after decade and reached a pinnacle of warmth during the decade of the 1930’s where the temperatures were just as warm then as they are today, and just as much arctic sea ice was melting them as is melting today.
The warming from 1910 to 1940 was a time when CO2 was not an issue because its concentration in the atmosphere was much lower than today.
The warming from 1980 to today started at just about the same temperature spot and ended at just about tthe same temperature spot, as the temperature rise from 1910 to 1940. The temperature rise in both cases was almost the same.
So we, even the IPCC, assume the warming from 1910 to 1940 was caused mostly by Mother Nature, not CO2, so why shouldn’t we assume the current warming is also caused by Mother Nature considering it had the same starting and ending points and the temperatures in both cases never exceeded the high temperatures of the 1930’s?
The only problem with this argument is the Climategate Data Manipulators have completely erased history and have created a surface temperature chart that purposely gives no perspective to the 1930’s warmth.
They have distorted history in order to push their human-caused climate change agenda by erasing the 1930’s warmth from as many temperature records as they can get their dishonest hands on. But they couldn’t change them all. They couldn’t erase all of history, so we know what they did, and we know what the true temperature profile of the globe is: The 1930’s were just as warm as today, and this means that CO2 is at most a minor player in the Earth’s climate.
They have to rewrite history to tell you different.
Below is the US surface temperature chart (Hansen 1999). It’s temperature profile with the 1930’s showing to be just as warm as today is duplicated in all unmodified temperature charts from around the world. All of them show the 1930’s to be just as warm as today. The promoters of human-caused climate change had to change this inconvenient fact otherwise they couldn’t make CO2 look like a scary monster.
It’s interesting that the only places that are really are places where few people live. No checking those stations, Anthony!
2019 the Third Least-Chilly in the Satellite Temperature Record
Charles Rotter / 1 week ago December 6, 2019:
Thank god there’s Hector Rail supporting Drax:
Hector Rail sells GB Railfreight to Infracapital | International Railway Journal 23 Sep 2019
· Hector Rail sells GB Railfreight to Infracapital … SWEDISH private equity firm EQT Infrastructure II … portfolio includes the operation of biomass trains to Drax power …
If it weren’t Sweden + Canada fighting climate heating with pellets supplies:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Sweden+Hector+rail+drax&oq=Sweden+Hector+rail+drax&aqs=chrome.
“And, just in case some new visitors to my blog are reading this, let me clarify that I am not a denier of human-caused climate change. I believe at least some of the warming we have experienced in the last 50 years has been due to increasing carbon dioxide.”
Careful with”believes”:
https://www.google.com/search?q=lsd+believe+flying&oq=lsd+believe+flying+&aqs=chrome.
And careful with wishful thinking.