Comments on: UAH vs RSS Trends since 2001 or 2000

By: Tom Fuller

Tom Fuller — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 19:56:26 +0000

Hi Jan,

My understanding of Arrhenius’ calculations is that in 1896 he predicted an increase of5 degrees Celsius, and that upon recalculating in 1905 he reduced his predictions to 1.6 degrees Celsius supplemented by half a degree from various postulated feedbacks.
Does this not agree with your information? My source is Wikipedia.

By: JAN

JAN — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:23:47 +0000

Tom Fuller,
“Svante Arrhenius predicted a 2.1 degree Celsius rise in the earth’s temperature if we doubled CO2. ”
Are you entirely satisfied that this is what Arrhenius predicted? If you checked again, maybe you would find that there is even a better fit between Arrhenius’ prediction and UAH/RSS observations.

By: Fielding gets no answer « An Honest Climate Debate

Fielding gets no answer « An Honest Climate Debate — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 09:39:09 +0000

[...] Lucia’s The Blackboard tracks global temperatures since 2001, as measured against predictions of a warming of 2 degrees this century (brown line): [...]

By: Ahab

Ahab — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:24:18 +0000

I’m happy to see as many measurements as possible. I didn’t mean to discard UAH altogether but just that the cycle will definitely show up on a monthly basis. And indeed I think we can safely say that the two satellite datasets are largely in agreement, no need to support one against the other.
Accepting or not the last eight years of trend as a demonstration that models are off is a completely different matter.

By: Andrew_FL

Andrew_FL — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:00:38 +0000

Ordinarily I’d suggest emailing Christy with any questions regarding satellite temps, but in this case Mears or Wentz seem more likely to know why they don’t report an anomaly for a month that UAH does.

Try support@remss.com maybe?

By: lucia

lucia — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:47:00 +0000

Chad,
Interesting. I assumed that for some reason, they just don’t do anything in Dec. 1978. I wonder why they don’t report it? Strange. . .

By: Chad

Chad — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:43:27 +0000

Nitpick: RSS and UAH start in Dec 1978. For some reason, RSS doesn’t report the first data point.

By: lucia

lucia — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:40:36 +0000

That’s ok. I was just answering “but what is the per century rate since 1979, for example?” The values since Jan 1 1979 or Dec 1978 are available from RSS and UAH, but I can also always compute them based on the data.

Whether or not everyone likes least squares trends, it is a metric.

By: Tom Fuller

Tom Fuller — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:05:56 +0000

Hi Lucia,

I didn’t get that deep into it, so that point is moot–until the next article…

By: lucia

lucia — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:01:10 +0000

Tom–
If it’s your opinion, you can say “isn’t” at the end of “the declines indicated in the paper may or may not be occurring, and the regional locations may not dovetail with locations where wind energy is favorable. So, the declines that might be occuring may not have that strong effect.”

But “may not be” is more accurate.

By: MJW

MJW — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:57:42 +0000

Lucia: "RSS starts in January 1979, and doesn’t post the trend themselves. I get a trend of 1.54 C/century." They post the trend on this page. It agrees with your trend. (In my opinion, the linear trends are virtually meaningless.)

By: Tom Fuller

Tom Fuller — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:51:02 +0000

Well, any other fact checking will be on the live story–check it out (and feel free to comment–I can still edit for accuracy…) at http://www.examiner.com/examin.....acial-pace

Thanks for your help!

By: Tom Fuller

Tom Fuller — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:36:06 +0000

umm, first sentence corrected to read ‘both analyse measurements.’

By: Tom Fuller

Tom Fuller — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:34:47 +0000

Global Warming–at a glacial pace
The University of Alabama at Huntsville and the Remote Sensing Systems both analyse measure satellite measurements of the Earth’s temperature, albeit indirectly, as the satellites measure radiance at particular wavelengths.
Both analyses of satellite measurements do show global warming–but not as much and not as quickly as the most hysterical of warming alarmists would have you believe.
According to Lucia Liljegren, principal contributor at The Blackboard (a weblog that is truly invaluable to anyone following this debate), trend analyses of global temperatures since 1979 (when satellite measurements started) are between 1.26 and 1.54 degrees Celsius per century.
As I wrote in a previous article, Svante Arrhenius predicted a 2.1 degree Celsius rise in the earth’s temperature if we doubled CO2. Of course, this was in 1905, and maybe science has improved since then… but the work of one or two other scientists of that era has proved fairly robust, so maybe we should start paying attention.
The sad thing is, as I also wrote recently, if we double CO2 and the temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius, it doesn’t stop there. We don’t turn off our engines and say we’ve finished the race. We, umm, keep on emitting CO2.
The problem is real. It just probably isn’t as bad as some people want you to think.

(I will be using quite a few links in the story.) Good to go?

By: Tom Fuller

Tom Fuller — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:27:00 +0000

That’s what happens when you scrape info off these intertube thingies… noted! Any other impurities unclarities imprecisions and dark matter in general?

By: Jonathan

Jonathan — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:26:51 +0000

Frank K, apologies, must recalibrate my sarcasm detector; it’s been a long day.

The idea of measuring CO2 output in femtoKelvin has been around for a while. I think I first saw it in the original version of the essay republished at http://kino-ap.eng.hokudai.ac.jp/fK.html

By: lucia

lucia — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:24:25 +0000

Tom–
The resume is off! My husband was an atmospheric researcher at Ames Lab when I was an assistant professor in the AEEM department. I work part time at Argonne National Lab, but mostly I blog. I avoid using my professional affiliations at the blog because we are supposed to avoid that when speaking purely for ourselves.

By: Tom Fuller

Tom Fuller — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:18:56 +0000

Okay–you guys get a preview:

Global Warming–at a glacial pace

The University of Alabama at Huntsville and the Remote Sensing Systems measure the Earth’s temperature indirectly, being satellite measurements of radiance at particular wavelengths.

Both sets of satellite measurements do show global warming–but not as much and not as quickly as the most hysterical of warming alarmists would have you believe.

According to Lucia Liljegren, an atmospheric researcher with the Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University, trend analyses of global temperatures since 1979 (when satellite measurements started) are between 1.26 and 1.54 degrees Celsius per century.

As I wrote in a previous article, Svante Arrhenius predicted a 2.1 degree Celsius rise in the earth’s temperature if we doubled CO2. Of course, this was in 1905, and maybe science has improved since then… but the work of one or two other scientists of that era has proved fairly robust, so maybe we should start paying attention.

The sad thing is, as I also wrote recently, if we double CO2 and the temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius, it doesn’t stop there. We don’t turn off our engines and say we’ve finished the race. We, umm, keep on emitting CO2.

The problem is real. It just isn’t as bad as some people want you to think.

By: Frank K.

Frank K. — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:05:04 +0000

Jonathan (Comment#14427) June 11th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

“Frank K, no doubt you have read their paper in Nature? And you therefore know that the key results come from climate models, not from observations? Or do you just read press releases?”

Hey Jonathan – yes I know the results come from (mostly) climate models and this is just more AGW BS. I thought Lucia would get a kick out of the “simple linear relationship” between CO2 and global temperature…

By the way, the CO2 you just exhaled just raised the earth’s temperature .0000000001 K ! LOL

By: lucia

lucia — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:39:41 +0000

Tom:
Warming does seem to be occurring, but for the past decade the general rate of warming *appears to be less than* 2 degrees Celsius per century.

For UAH the trend since inception in December of 1978 is 1.26 C/century. and provided in the footer of their data page (http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/pu.....glhmam_5.2)

RSS starts in January 1979, and doesn’t post the trend themselves. I get a trend of 1.54 C/century. Their raw data is here: http://www.remss.com/data/msu/....._v03_2.txt