Roy Spencer says the UAH anomaly was +0.381C in November. We are really and truly seeing the effect of La Nina: This is a drop from October’s anomaly, the lowest anomaly this year, lower than last November. The current anomaly is provided below along with all other anomalies since November:
One site visitor who changes “name” but not “email”, wanted to see the daily channel 5 anomalies. I grabbed those and plotted them up:
As you can see, channel 5 indicated a dramatic drop in the “daily” anomaly during November.
Now, moving on to the important issue:Who won the quatloos? Don B, came in first with an am
Win: Don B came in first with an amazingly close bet: 0.38C. Congratulations Don B.
Place: Freezedried’s pretty close bet of 0.375C and swift action put him in second place.
Show: Kevin Johnstone’s bet ties with Freezedried’s, but he bet latter.
Congratulations to all winners!
The list of bettors below is provided.
| Rank | Name | Prediction (C) | Bet | Won | |
| Gross | Net | ||||
| — | Observed | 0.381 (C) | |||
| 1 | Don B | 0.38 | 4 | 60.776 | 56.776 |
| 2 | Freezedried | 0.375 | 3 | 36.465 | 33.465 |
| 3 | Kevin Johnstone | 0.375 | 3 | 29.172 | 26.172 |
| 4 | Leo G | 0.37 | 3 | 23.338 | 20.338 |
| 5 | lucia | 0.4 | 5 | 13.249 | 8.249 |
| 6 | TroubleWithTribbles | 0.36 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 7 | denis | 0.356 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 8 | Lance | 0.352 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 9 | Les Johnson | 0.35 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 10 | Neven | 0.413 | 2 | 0 | -2 |
| 11 | AFPhys | 0.346 | 2 | 0 | -2 |
| 12 | Hoi Polloi | 0.419 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 13 | sHx | 0.343 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 14 | pdjakow | 0.34 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 15 | Greg Meurer | 0.435 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 16 | ErnieP | 0.315 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 17 | AMac | 0.448 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 18 | jack mosevich | 0.451 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 19 | lucia | 0.3 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 20 | Ed Forbes | 0.3 | 1 | 0 | -1 |
| 21 | Tim W. | 0.3 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 22 | Jarmo | 0.297 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 23 | Michael Hauber | 0.297 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 24 | Jan Cloin | 0.29 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 25 | David | 0.474 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 26 | MikeP | 0.287 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 27 | HaroldW | 0.282 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 28 | Robert Leyland | 0.282 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 29 | Sordnay | 0.272 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 30 | Jimmy Haigh | 0.25 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 31 | Niels A Nielsen | 0.245 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 32 | Tim Medhurst | 0.22 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 33 | Paul Ostergaard | 0.22 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 34 | Chuck L | 0.214 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 35 | enSKog | 0.555 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 36 | Vlasta | 0.577 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 37 | KÃ¥re Kristiansen | 0.18 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 38 | stephan | 0.17 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 39 | torn8o | 0.157 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 40 | Troy_CA | 0.118 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 41 | spambot | 0 | 1 | 0 | -1 |
| 42 | spambot2 | 0 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 43 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -1 | |
| 44 | Tim W. | 3 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
The net winnings for each member of the ensemble will be added to their accounts.
Note a few “spambots” posted. Those were really me– to test entry after I modified. I also bet with two different email addresses. No “real” math enabled spambots managed to bet this month. (Mysteriously, someone with no name bet. That’s not supposed to be able to happen, so I must have edited out a check!)
Uggh, I should’ve looked at this before placing my bet. The UAH reported anomaly is usually about 0.185 C higher than the average of the Ch.5 daily anomalies for that month:
http://troyca.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/12-3aquach5anduah.png
Lucia, I know I’m deep in the hole, but if you loan me just a few more quatloos I swear I can win them back.
Troy–
Of course I am willing to advance quatloos….
I do need to write the part of the script to show people how far ahead or in the hole they are! 🙂
Lucia: How does the new YTD data affect the 2 deg per century falsification?
I don’t remember seeing this for awhile.
Starting from 2001, we still reject using “red noise”. I’d have to double check with other noise. I’m not discussing it a lot primarily because I’m working on switching from excel to R, where I’ll be able to do some things better. And, I’m doing a particular analysis that is related to something some will recall as “the carrot eater question”. Since that’s in progress, it’s a bit difficult to both discuss and talk about choice of error bars.
(In fact, some of the light blogging this week has to do with dealing with the R code to answer a specific question. I hope to be discussing the question and it’s answer next week. )
The First Rule of the Art of Spin: Always discuss results in such a way to obscure the most important results, and never discuss the most telling statistics that contradict your message.
I see you comment that La Nina effects are being fully felt.
“We are really and truly seeing the effect of La Nina: This is a drop from October’s anomaly, the lowest anomaly this year, lower than last November…”
I agree we are really seeing some effects of La Nina, and its about time. We are in fairly strong La Nina (strongest negative anomalies for Oceanic Nino Index since Dec 99/Jan 00), and about 11 months from the moderate El Nino high last December. Typically the global anomalies start turning down 5-6 months after the high (Tamino did a statistical study showing this lag), so the fact that it took 10+ months to really start showing up as a dropping anomaly is significant. Secondly, the last La Nina (early 2008) had monthly UAH anomalies averaging only 0.00 over the nine months that registered ONI index levels considered a La Nina. So to claim that a 0.38 anomaly is indicative of a La Nina is a rather shocking statement! It demonstrates the surface layer of the atmosphere is much hotter than we experienced in the last several La Nina cycles.
Secondly, all year long you have been confidently predicting that 1998 will remain the hottest year in the UAH database when the anomalies drop as La Nina kicked in. Yet with this post, there is no mention that 2010 (YTD) is now within a whisker of 1998, and the December 2010 anomaly has to come in at 0.27 or below, or else… (Drum roll…) 2010 will be the hottest year (and rolling 12 month average) in the UAH data! Not only that, but if the December anomaly exceeds 0.27, other rolling averages higher that 12 months (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) will be also be setting new highs. Statistically this is more important than the simple fact that the calculated annual anomaly will show 2010 as the hottest year in the satellite record. The longer averages like 120 to 180 months (that include several ENSO cycles) are hitting new highs every month now.
There is no doubt about the fact that the UAH data, as well as GISS and HadCRUT, clearly show the lower levels of the atmosphere are hotter over the last 10-15 years, than any time in recorded history! Looks like the lukewarmers were wrong again.
“Looks like the lukewarmers were wrong again.”
Wouldn’t the warming have to be where the models say it should be to draw that conclusion?
Just for grins, I checked the ONI ONI, and see that we entered the La Nina when the rolling 3-month ONI hit -0.6 with center month July.
.
So now we are five months (Jul,Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov) into the statistical La Nina, and the anomalies for those five months average 0.48 !! Yikes, this is much hotter than the last two La Nina cycles, which average 0.00 or negative anomalies for the duration.
.
We are going to need to see a string of negative monthly UAH anomalies into the range of -0.40 to -0.50 during January to April for this relatively strong La NIna to get the atmospheric surface layer temperature down to the ranges we used t0 see before AGW.
John M., I don’t think that location specific warming data negates the physics.
But for fun, lets check out the UAH global trends, and see if they are more in less in line with expectations.
.
The global UAH trend is now approaching 0.15 deg per decade, but this trend is accelerating, since the trend used to be 0.13 per decade a couple of years ago. The NH land trend is higher at 0.24 deg per decade (US 48 at 0.22) as we would expect this to be higher than global. Check!
.
The Northern latitudes near the Polar region should have a higher trend due to the polar amplification effect. This region has a trend of 0.47 according to UAH data. Check!
.
The Southern Hemisphere latitudes near the South Pole shouldn’t be seeming much warming due to the lack of a polar amplification effect, and the UAH trend is actually slightly negative. Check!
.
The tropics should show a lower warming trend, and lo and behold, the UAH trend is only 0.08 deg per decade. Check!
.
From what I can see, the UAH data from the different locations around the Earth are more or less in line with what we expect from AGW.
Of course the rate of warming is due to kick up.
There’s a Democrat in office.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/22wqk4t
I think Paul K2 needs an anger management course.
Paul K2,
You should calm yourself down a bit. The UAH trend is indeed 0.145 C per decade, but the trend most certainly is not accelerating… if you think is is, please show how the slope of the long term trend has changed in a statistically significant way in recent years. You should also remember that the early part of the UAH record was influenced (at least a little) by the rise out of the 1970’s cool period, which was probably caused in part by natural oscillations (or pseudo-oscillations) like the AMO. So the GHG driven warming is probably exaggerated a bit by this process.
The transition to the current La Nina looks about normal. See this graph from Bob Tisdale: http://i29.tinypic.com/2gy1z15.jpg
There is in my mind no doubt of a significant contribution to warming from GHG forcing. It is just not as large as had been predicted by the IPCC (based on climate models), and there is no sign of acceleration in the trend.
Paulo K2,
Here is how the slope of the UAH trend has changed since 2004:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1976/plot/uah/from:1978/to:2004/trend/plot/uah/from:1978/to:2006/trend/plot/uah/from:1978/to:2008/trend/plot/uah/from:1978/trend
Not much to get very excited about.
Huh?
So… you think I confidently predicted the annual average of UAH would not break the 1998 record, and are now upset that I didn’t point out that UAH isn’t going to do so?!
Well… ok. Had I confidently predicted that, it looks like I probably would have been right. Here is the lagging 12 month average showing the current value. You can see the nov 2010 lagging 12 month average is below the circled annual average for 1998:
Unless temperature rise next month, the 1998 UAH annual average temp will not be broken.
Paul, by my calculations, if Dec UAH comes in at .39 or lower, then it will be under 1998. Feel free to correct me. How did you determine that .27 for Dec was the cut off? Personally, I would bet on Dec UAH values moving down steeply from Nov since we are in the middle of the lagged tropospheric response to the dropping SST’s. Also, The average seasonal tendancy for Dec UAH anomaly over the entire data set (not just la nina years) is to move lower from Nov.
Well… and the nominal projected trend for GMST is about 0.2 C/decade during that period. So it’s not clear to me how the fact that warming is lower than 0.2 c/decade makes lukewarmers wrong!
Layman asked Paul K1:
Maybe the answer involves the words “happy hour” and “beer”?
As we said before, the trend should be calculated from peak to peak, thus from 1998 to 2010. One more month and we can do just that. But we can predict with confidence that there will be no statistically significant trend.
Workin’ late tonight.
Somebody entertain me. 😉
Andrew
Paul K2:
“the December 2010 anomaly has to come in at 0.27 or below, or else… (Drum roll…) 2010 will be the hottest year (and rolling 12 month average) in the UAH data! Not only that, but if the December anomaly exceeds 0.27, other rolling averages higher that 12 months (13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18) will be also be setting new highs.”
Using the data from here (and including the 0.38 anomaly for Nov) – http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt –
I’m getting a Dec 2010 max of up to .42 in order for 2010 to be less than the 12 month average ending in Dec 1998.
For 13 month average to be less than that ending in Dec 1998 I’m getting 0.44. For 14 month 0.14, 15 month -0.08, and 16 month -0.49.
So unless I’m messing up my calc, I’d say we’re unlikely to be higher for the 12 or 13 month. We’ll likely surpass the 14, 15, and 16 month averages ending in Dec ’98, although I’m not certain if those are the highest rolling averages for those lengths on record.
12 months? Pah!
Those of us with a certain ‘maturity’ work in decades.
The 10 year averages for all the global temperature data sets I am aware of have been at record levels for a while.
enSkog–
UAH is showing a 10 year average record. Not surprising since the trend is positive.
“Those of us with a certain ‘maturity’ work in decades.”
LOL! Boy is that a joke!
If you want to go peak to peak, we could use the daily UAH numbers.
1998 temperatures peaked at +0.949C (April 4th, 130 days after the peak of the El Nino).
2010 temperatures peaked at +0.785C (March 19th, 78 days after the peak of the El Nino).
-0.164C of decline from peak to peak.
The larger El Nino of 1997-98 should have resulted in temperatures being about 0.07C higher just for comparison purposes. So, 12 years of no warming (-0.09C of cooling actually) when there should have been about 0.24C of warming according to theory. Must have been about a 50% increase in Aerosols according to the forcing theory or some mysterious negative radiative feedback according to Trenberth.
I think I see where Paul K2 went wrong, and it’s an interesting case of confirmation bias.
He convinced himself that “within a whisker” is the same as “equal to”. In reality, the YTD numbers for UAH for 1998 and 2010 respectively are 0.540 and 0.526.
Looking at it another way, the “cumulative anomalies” through November for 1998 and 2010 amount to 5.94 and 5.79, which means 2010 can “afford” a December anomaly about 0.15 deg higher than the December anomaly for 1998 and still come in below that year.
Bill Illis (Comment#63374) December 5th, 2010 at 8:47 am
What I want to do is use all the data between the peaks, too, and calculate a trend. Using the monthly data the trend is more or less zero.
Can you name the place where the daily data are aviable?
To use the yearly data we obviously have to wait another month.
John M:
My theory is similar to Lucia’s, but I believe vodka was involved.
Alexej – daily UAH data can be found here.
http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/
One has to take the ENSO into account since it has a direct continous impact. (The AMO is also very important).
http://img816.imageshack.us/img816/2553/ensotropicsnov10.png
http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/4465/ensovsrssuahtropglobaln.png
http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/2696/uahdailytropics.png
Carrick. could be crack
John M… I mis-copied the information from Dr. Spencer’s site; instead of 1998 (YTD) at 0.538, I copied 0.528 and compared to 2010 at 0.526. Then essentially any result incrementally over the Dec 98 result of 0.277 for Dec 2010 would give us a new record. Thanks for the correction.
The info from Troy CA on the 12,13,14,15, etc. moving averages is also helpful. Dec 2010 will need to exceed 0.42 to raise the 12 month to a new maximum.
Using the data from here (and including the 0.38 anomaly for Nov) …
I’m getting a Dec 2010 max of up to .42 in order for 2010 to be less than the 12 month average ending in Dec 1998.
For 13 month average to be less than that ending in Dec 1998 I’m getting 0.44. For 14 month 0.14, 15 month -0.08, and 16 month -0.49.
So unless I’m messing up my calc, I’d say we’re unlikely to be higher for the 12 or 13 month. We’ll likely surpass the 14, 15, and 16 month averages ending in Dec ’98, although I’m not certain if those are the highest rolling averages for those lengths on record.
You are looking at the wrong 13 and 14 month periods, Troy. My analysis shows the 13 months from Nov 2009 to Nov 2010 at 0.505 already has a rolling average matching the 13 months from Dec 1997 to Dec 1998 at 0.502. And the 14 month rolling average from Nov 97 to Dec 98 is 0.481 is lower than the 14 month average from Oct 2009 to Nov 2010 at 0.495.
So the rolling average records greater than 12 months have fallen in the latest period. Interestingly, Dr. Spencer has been tracking the 13 month and the 25 month averages for years, but has simply neglected to point out to his readers that these averages are hitting new record highs (but statistic significance shows the periods tied and the differences really aren’t important).
I want to address the fallacy behind the peak to peak reasoning postulated by some on this thread, but that will have to wait until later in the day.
I’m with enSKog, maxima from 12 or 13-month averages are pure trivia. It’s the e.g., 10+ year average that matters, once you’ve smoothed over short-term climate fluctuations. (My personal preference is 30-years unless you do a lot of work, like Lucia does, to remove the effects of the short-period climate fluctuations).
As most of us recognize, there is a long-term upwards trend in temperature, so really, regardless of what happens in the next month, no real news here.
“I want to address the fallacy behind the peak to peak reasoning postulated by some on this thread, but that will have to wait until later in the day.”
I’ll suggest you take a time out to learn to download data properly first.
crawl walk run.
here, I’ll get you started:
uahUrl<-"http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt"
uahFile <- basename(uahUrl)
download.file(uahUrl,uahFile,mode="wb")
# for oct 2010 N =383
temperatureData <- read.table(uahFile,header=TRUE,nrows=383)
# or you can just do this where you dont have to figure out that the last four #lines are junk
temp <- readLines(uahFile)
TempData<-read.table(textConnection(temp),header=TRUE,nrows=length(temp)-4)
Carrick – why do you have a preference for thirty years?
What is wrong with Peak to Peak reasoning? We shouldn’t lose track of the physics (particularly thermodynamics) behind the temperatures of the atmosphere. A good place to start is by answering the question “Has the Earth gotten hotter since 1998?”
The answer to that question is unequivocally “Yes”. The Earth today is much, much hotter than in 1998. Why do I say “much, much hotter”? Because the amount of thermal energy that has accumulated on Earth is several orders of magnitude higher than the amount of thermal energy heating the atmosphere that the lukewarmers are making such a big deal about.
In 1998, the sea level was about 3.6 cm lower than the average over the last 12 months. This means that even accounting for generous estimates of ice sheet melt, mountain glacier melt, and other causes of eustatic changes in sea level, the steric change in sea level due to thermal expansion can be used to estimate global heating of the oceans at between 60x to 80x (10^20 joule) annually. The heat melting ice is about 4x (10^20 joule), and a rough estimate of heating soils is about 2x (10^20 joule). By comparison, if the atmosphere was heating 0.2 C per decade, the amount of thermal energy building up in the atmosphere is about 1x (10^20 joule).
The lukewarmers are trying to tell us that the atmosphere is heating up only 0.14 deg C per decade (versus the GCM predictions of 0.20). The lukewarmers are claiming that the difference of 0.3x (10^20 joule) is really important. In reality, thermal energy heating the Earth over 220 times as much thermal energy as the small amount that the lukewarmers have focused upon. They also seem to believe that the GCMs are “temperature models”; but this isn’t true. GCMs are energy balance models that attempt to forecast energy flows in planet Earth.
My view is that the massive amount of thermal energy building up in the oceans, sometimes builds up and extends into the eastern South Pacific, and releases a small portion of this heat to the atmosphere during an El Nino. This causes a rising global temperature anomaly during the heat release. The heat release can vary from El Nino to El Nino by the size of the hot pool of water, the temperature of the water, the effectiveness of the heat transfer to the atmosphere, the effects of evaporation etc. So the peak anomalies simply tell us something about the size of the heat flux into the atmosphere, but don’t really tell us much about the total amount of thermal energy building up in the atmosphere over time.
For this reason, using peak to peak global temperature anomalies to make claims of whether the Earth is heating, is total nonsense!
The best metrics showing the heat buildup on Earth, are (in order of importance):
1. Steric sea level rise.
2. Estimates of ice sheet and glacier ice melt (GRACE and satellite telemetry)
3. Rising thermal energy stored in soils
The tiny difference in atmospheric heat content is relatively insignificant, and the shorter the time interval that the heat content is measured for just one layer of that atmosphere has even less significance.
Paul K2
You earlier said that global warming is accelerating in recent years. You now say that sea level rise is a good proxy for global warming.
Where is the “acceleration”?
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise_png
http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_ib_ns_global.jpg
John M, you have gotten caught on your own assumption. I actually said:The global UAH trend is now approaching 0.15 deg per decade, but this trend is accelerating, since the trend used to be 0.13 per decade a couple of years ago.
You are assuming that UAH measures global warming. I don’t, as I just explained in the last comment. I focus on the net heating of the planet. I agree with Roger Pielke Sr. that the heating of the oceans is the biggest metric. SLR data swings a bit with the ENSO cycle due to salinity changes, but over a 12 year period, i.e. the period from 1998 to today, the data is quite clear. The ocean is heating up, and the amount of thermal energy dwarfs the amount of thermal energy that ends up in the atmosphere. I never said that SLR was accelerating rapidly, as you imply.
I have been following the UAH monthly anomalies for the last several years, since this was key source of supporting data for lukewarmers. I haven’t been impressed by the accuracy, or the reliability of this data. Using a model to tease out the IR signal from the surface layer of the atmosphere from space isn’t simple. But eventually, even this metric should signal warming, if used consistently with the same methodology over a long period of time. And now it appears that is happening. The trend in the UAH data is approaching the other global anomaly temperature trends.
I especially don’t like comparing the 1998 data from a different satellite platform, with the data since 2003 from the more recent satellites. There is a lot of disagreement between UAH and RSS using basically the same raw data; imagine the problem comparing across platforms. But nevertheless as the number of years roll by, these problems will become less important, and we can get some reasonable signals from the UAH data.
Right now, I am very concerned the UAH anomalies aren’t falling like we would expect, and Spencer clearly expected this year. Something has changed in the atmosphere when we are still getting anomalies of 0.42 and 0.38 five months into a La Nina. I have some ideas on what that is; take a good look at a global map of where the highest anomalies are being reported. The high latitude land areas in the NH are heating fast. I am wondering if these latitudes are showing the highest anomalies from August to December. If this is the case, then we are getting a signal that Arctic amplification is causing a lot of heating and melt damage in the permafrost belt in the NH. The upper soil layers, lakes, tundra, and shallow Arctic sea areas seem to be taking longer to cool down in the fall, and affect surface layer temperatures well into the onset of winter. This trend is what seems to be accelerating, and could account for some additional heat that wasn’t in the heat balance that I just discussed in the last comment.
Paul K2:
“You are looking at the wrong 13 and 14 month periods, Troy. My analysis shows the 13 months from Nov 2009 to Nov 2010 at 0.505 already has a rolling average matching the 13 months from Dec 1997 to Dec 1998 at 0.502.”
As I said, I was only looking at the comparison for the anomaly required for Dec of this year to be higher than the rolling averages ending in Dec of 1998.
Otherwise, the highest 12-month average to compare against is not Jan-Dec 1998, but rather Nov 97 – Oct 98 at 0.522. The 13-month was set earlier this year as Sept 2009 – Sept 2010 at 0.511. 14-month was Sept 2009 – Oct 2010 at .504. After the 2010 Dec anomaly we are unlikely to surpass any of those rolling averages.
For kicks, we are currently in the midst (Dec 2008 – Nov 2010) of the 24-month high at 0.39, and THAT is likely to have a new high set as long as Dec is > 0.18.
The 36-month high was set from Oct 2004 – Sep 2007 at .302. That will almost certainly not have a new high after this month.
curious:
Because when you examine the spectral periodicity of the temperature anomalies, you see peaks with periods 1-year (and shorter) up to 22-years. (There’s also a 55-year period or so suggested in some proxy data).
By going to 30 years, you’ve extended the trend period to where “most” of the “short-period” climate fluctuations don’t matter.
Carrick,
If you extrapolate your reasoning, why not run a 400 year period starting in say 1600, for instance? What sort of trend would you get then after smooting out “short term” fluctuations like the LIA or the three 30 year [PDO] warming and cooling cycles we know occured during the 20th century? An example of the questions this leads to is how to explain that over 90% of glacier loss in Alaska was recorded between the 1790s and 1870s. Was there a century long burst of warming that has somehow been smoothed out?
It seems to me that a peak to peak look at things [no pun intented] such as at the 1915-1945 warming cycle, folowed by the 1946-1977 cooling cycle and most lately the 1978-2007 warming cycle [that plateaud a decade early] and what appears to be a slight downward trend since, makes good sense.
Key thing though, no matter how you slice or dice it, none of these measures correlate [let alone have a causal relationship] with CO2 concentrations. Anyone who still argues that should start by explaining the Alaska glacier phenomenon.
CO2 is not the only forcing.
Thanks Carrick – how would you feel about going to 40, 50 years? Or 100 years? I guess what I’m driving at is what makes a meaningful climate measure and why. I think the interest in capturing and characterising “global climate” is relatively recent and I wonder if we might be setting a trap for ourselves by declaring specifications for metrics before we know more. I also think there is a human scale element to this: 30 years is a reasonable length of time over which an adult can compare their own, possibly subjective/fallible, recollections of weather/climate whereas (say) 100 years means one has to refer to other generations/records. In following the climate blogs I’ve been struck by the long view offered by historical references – especially tonyb’s posts at tAV.
Also – I saw on another thread you and bugs are in agreement over Lindzen viewing anomalies as “mattering”. I didn’t reply at the time due to time pressure and (I think on the same thread) I’d already made a comment to Kenneth F that explained my thoughts on Prof. Lindzen’s presentation – I think we just have different readings of what he was saying.
Bugs,
No figure skating now. No pirouettes or double axels, remember. For over 20 years we have been told ad nauseam that it is man-made CO2 that is driving up temperatures. Nothing else. Only man-made CO2 [no other sources of CO2 accepted] to the exclusion of anything else. That has been the IPCC AGW/ACC dogma; nothing else. Unfortunately for them man-made CO2 is up and temperatures have flat-lined for close to 15 years, so the dogma is now stone dead and being burried.
Paul K2,
What is your point? This year won’t be warmer than 1998, so everything Lucia said is right you clown. Secondly, I’m glad to see history started when you were born and the fact that there has been more co2 and it has been much warmer is irrelevant to you clown.
“CO2 is not the only forcing.”
Climbdown.
Andrew
Paul K2
Your first 2 standards for measuring heat build up are flawed. There probably is not enough data to analyze sea levels meaningfully and there is no world index of glaciers. I know you like to think that every single glacier in the world is melting but some are growing. I would bet money more glaciers are growing than melting.
tetris, the point is to average long enough to smooth out the “peaky” part of the spectrum that is created by short-period oscillations. E.g., see this. You might go as long as 60-years if you wanted to, but anything longer than that is overkill.
tetris:
Do you have a reference for this? And what is it supposed to prove other than there are other forcings besides CO2, a point that is not in contention by anybody sane?
tetris:
Not sure what you mean by “have a casual relationship”. That gets demonstrated by studying the physics of radiative forcing associated with CO2. Ignoring that is like playing in some type of fantasy world.
In any case, when you include the sum of all forcings, you get a pretty decent correlation between temperature and the forcings between e.g. 1900-2010. Since 1970, it is thought that CO2 forcings has dominated, and for 1970-current (using e.g. a 30-year average) we believe that CO2 has been the dominate player, with other forcings remaining approximately constant since then.
10- or even 12-year periods simply aren’t long enough to smooth out the short-period climate variability that has always been seen in the Earth’s climate. Trying to argue 1998 to now without addressing that (as Lucia does in her analysis) is foolish.
Andrew_KY:
No, Andrew demonstrating ignorance again.
The models and analyses have always estimated total radiative forcing, except for random bloggers who should have known better.
tetris:
Who has told you that? The source matters.
Here’s the IPCC take, a source that I would consider authoritative (e.g., not an idiot like Al Gore).
Before 1970 natural forcings dominated (it is believed CO2 forcing were offset until then by sulfate emissions). It is only since 1970’ish that it is necessary to invoke the effects of anthropogenic CO2 forcings.
“Before 1970 natural forcings dominated (it is believed …)”
says it all really.
Seriously Carrick, as a scientist, do you really believe the retrospective cooked-up forcings argument for 1900-2010?
Dr Shoosh, If you did some research on the subject you’d learn that the glaciers are back to normal now that the LIA has gone
curious did my comments to tetris answer your question why I stick to 30 years (or longer… to 60 years in some cases)?
In terms of using temperature anomalies, all I can say is it is a well understood method. I’ve yet to see a cogent argument from Lindzen that explains what is wrong in using it in this context. I realize that anomalizing doesn’t fix all evils (appropriate area weighted is also needed for example, and you still have to at least bound the uncertainty introduced by artifactual changes in temperature observed in some urban settings), but generally the methodology used by e.g. GISTEMP is “good enough” for the purpose it is being applied to, IMO.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch2s2-9-1.html#table-2-11
2.9.1 Uncertainties in Radiative Forcing
“level of scientific understanding (LOSU)”
Medium to low
low low low and
Very low! LOL 😉 It’s all a bunch of bologna.
The planet had C02 concentrations 1,000’s of times higher and there was still ice all over the place for millions of years. (Now you’ll tell me that the sun was weaker)
Pretending the earth is or acts just like a “green house” is living in some kind of fantasy world.
Liza, They meant the son was cooler… before puberty
Carrick – yes, comment to tetris noted although I couldn’t get your link to work.
MikeC, ha ha. LOSU zero! 😉 in the summer of 1974 Time Magazine told us:
The earth’s current climate is something of an anomaly (and anomalies matter don’t you know! 😉 ) ; in the past 700,000 years, there have been at least seven major episodes of glaciers spreading over much of the planet. Temperatures have been as high as they are now only about 5% of the time.
(!!!!!)
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914-2,00.html#ixzz17LWf1jzn
Since 1970, it is thought that CO2 forcings has dominated, and for 1970-current (using e.g. a 30-year average) we believe that CO2 has been the dominate player, with other forcings remaining approximately constant since then.
10- or even 12-year periods simply aren’t long enough to smooth out the short-period climate variability that has always been seen in the Earth’s climate.
–
The problem is this is a pretty difficult narrative. You know, when you need the “help” of forcings not well understood. Or you understand them, or you don’t. But if not, they may “help” sceptics as well. Or better, none.
–
First, if you look at the known temps, you don’t see anything “strange” from 1970 on.
–
Second, if you need 30 years to smooth out the short-period climate variability, and you made the prediction in year 2.000, based on a science not precisely known by its excellent predictions, the sensible think seems to wait until 2030, and see what happens.
–
Then, 12 years is almost half your 30 year period. Others seem to think 15 years is enough to get an idea. For instance, Gavin Schmidt, in December, 2007:
–
[Response: … /… 1998 will likely be exceeded in all the indices within the next five years – the solar cycle upswing into the next solar max will help, and the next big El Nino will probably put it over the edge. -gavin]
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=497#comment-78140
–
OK, simply to clarify what I’ve heard from you.
–
(1) If 1998 is not exceeded in all global temperature indices by 2013, you’ll be worried about state of understanding
–
[Response: 1) yes, …/… -gavin]
http://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=497#comment-78146
Re: Carrick
” An example of the questions this leads to is how to explain that over 90% of glacier loss in Alaska was recorded between the 1790s and 1870s.
Do you have a reference for this?”
I suspect the post is referring to discoveries made between 1790 and 1880 by Captain Vancouver and John Muir in Alaska which demonstrate massive ice loss during that time. While the figure of “90% glacier loss” may be a moment of artistic license, careful historical accounts of massive glacier loss in the Swiss Alps during that same period indicate that NH glaciers receded rapidly with no clearly understood climate forcings and before anthropogenic CO2 was a significant factor. NH ice was receding exponentially faster in 1870 than it is today. The question is: If not CO2, then what?
http://www.glacierbay.org/geography.html
Carrick,
For bugs to say to C02 is not the only forcing that may cause the temp to rise, is a departure from the usual More C02 Makes The Temperature Rise propaganda. It casts doubt on AGW. That’s climbdown for sure.
Andrew
Oops! Here is a better link:
http://www.glacierbay.org/geography.html
Don’t you know that if it declines you are supposed to chop it off?
Carrick [63400]
Pls refer to ivp0 reference to begin with [thx ivp0].
I visited Glacier Bay last year, and spent time studying the maps at the park’s head offices. These are official US maps and their depiction of the extent of the glaciers’ retreat is quite simply stunning. We are not simply dealing with retreat in terms of distance, but most saliently in terms of sheer volume. Several fjords up to 40-50 nautical miles long were filled in their entirety with glacier ice in the late 1700s. By the 1870s the ice was in many places not far from where it is today. Not only that, a number of the glaciers have in fact been advancing, some of them since the mid-1920s!
Carrick, anyone who can explain the calorific source necessary to effect a melt of such volumes of ice in terms of [presumably man-made] CO2 forcings deserves a Nobel in physics.
On that note, please don’t try to snow anyone here with an ad hom in my direction about living in a physics fantasy world. We all understand, and the IPCC [albeit reluctantly] acknowledges that for CO2 to have the forcing effects ascribed to it, it needs an amplifier. But it is by no means clear at all that the presumed amplifier -water vapour- actually is an amplifier. On the contrary.
To tell us that everything was a matter of natural forcings until the 1970s, when imsalabim it all changed to man-made CO2 is living in a fantasy world, indeed.
Why not do the calorific physics on the disappearance of the volume of ice involved in Alaska glaciers to start with before we go any further. I am sure that a good number of folks here would be very interested, indeed.
It’s not a backdown at all, the IPCC has said it from day one. Analysis displayed in the IPCC report shows early century warming was mostly due to other forcings. The problem is not me backing down, but you not aquainting yourself with the case for AGW published in a well known report.
Bugs,
Here you go figure skating again. We have been told, over and over again, that it is man-made CO2 and nothing else that is at the root of all temperature and climate evils, and that therefore we must cut back on using abundant hydrocarbon fuels.
That basic physics shows us that CO2 by itself is incable of causing whatever temperature rise we may have observed is obliquely acknowledged by the IPCC in that CO2 is dependent on an amplifier in order to account for its role. Where things go sideways, is that the dogma tells us that water vapour is by its very essence the amplifier, whereas there a good scientific grounds to assume that it is most probably a modulator that tends to keeps things in balance.
I would suggest you read the IPCC report. It does not say anything like what you have claimed.
Monckton scat alert at WUWT.
By the way, Bugs is correct. The IPCC specifically stated that most of the warming of the later half of the twentieth century was caused by mankind, and that most of that warming that could be attributed was CO2. There was no claim of 100% CO2 as for accounting of anthropogenic forcings.
How about Backpedal instead of Climbdown? 😉
Andrew
O.M.G.! Neven’s bet is lower than me, does that make me a… “warmist”? :O
Paul K2 (Comment#63390)
December 5th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
OK, before we spend too much time dancing around the Maypole, let’s keep this simple.
Is it your position that global warming/climate change/climate disruption/heat accumulation is or is not accelerating?
I’m beginning to believe you have a unique defintion of the term “lukewarmer”.
John F. Pittman (Comment#63419)
December 6th, 2010 at 3:10 pm
I guess it’s time to put a new battery in that clock.
John M, I plead nolo contendere.
bugs:
Bugs is right on this point.
Re: Paul K2 (Dec 5 21:56),
The data on global ocean heat content are in far worse shape than the satellite data. ARGO went on line only recently and there is a large discrepancy where the ARGO record is spliced onto the XBT record, which had problems of its own. But even if you allow the jump in 2003-4, the rate of increase in ocean heat content is less than half of Hansen’s estimate of 0.85 W/m2 radiative imbalance. You can’t save it by saying that the rest is going into the ocean below 700 meters, because heat spread over that volume of water would have a time constant of hundreds to thousands of years. In other words, a very long pipeline. So long, we’ll certainly have switched to a non-fossil fuel energy source before it has an effect. Sea level data isn’t any better. There is no evidence that the rate of sea level increase is accelerating. The opposite seems to be true.
@Bugs #63416
Well, I know of only one alarming warming and that is global warming. And I know of only one anthropogenic forcing and that is the CO2 emissions. That’s the source of all the concern and consternation. That is why the IPCC exists. That is why Climatologists have become like rock stars. That is why billions have been spent and trillions more are proposed, why power bills are tripling, why this blog exists, and why I am reading it.
I’d rather satisfy my scientific curiosity reading about astronomy or vulcanology, where I could see some exciting outdoors, not something as boring as Climatology. This scientific discipline I pay attention to because it is supposed to establish a connection between my moral choices and the fate of the world. If I remain aloof I am supposed to be threatening my hip pocket in the next few decades and centuries, if not my life and those of my loved ones, or even the life as we know it.
I haven’t read any IPCC report, not even a single Executive Summary. I have never had a thing for horror novels. If there is an IPCC report that suggests a forcing other than anthropogenic ones that causes the warming, then I DON”T CARE! what happens to climate because I can’t force it to do anything with my moral choices. In which instance, Climatology and all its alarmism can get the fr@k out of my agenda!
Bugs and Carrick:
Pls get with the program and stop splitting hairs. We all know that the overarching IPCC AGW/ACC meme of the past 20 years has been about one thing only: runaway temperatures caused by man-made CO2. Nothing else. When challenged, the IPCC told us to forget about other forcings -water vapour, methane, UHI and the like. Man-made CO2 only.
A good number of us came to realize – some earlier than others – that it was never about the science per se – because scientifically the IPCC message was full of holes from the outset- but about science-used-to-drive-politics. Ergo, the Hockey Stick to the rescue. It worked for a decade or so and cost the world 100s of billions of dollars in wasted wealth. Then last year the wheels came off big time in Copenhagen, and those politics are now stone dead and being burried on the beach at Cancun. And the IPCC will eventually wilt away, produce its next report that nobody will care about anymore, and become yet another failed UN agency, with its head office in Timbuktu [one can always wish..].
Incidentally, Carrick, I had suggested that you present readers here with a quick calculation of the calories required to effect the massive Alaskan 1790-1860 glacier melt -which I would like to emphasize, is a duly recorded historical fact and not a computer model- especially in view of the sub-300 ppmv CO2 concentrations at that time.
Care to share?
@sHx
It is very hard to know how to respond to such logic. Being proud of one’s ignorance is an unusual stance to take.
tetris (Comment#63428) December 7th, 2010 at 4:39 am
You said one thing.
To which I responded.
Now you are saying something else.
The IPCC does claim that the warming from around, IIRC, 1960 on is mainly due to increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. If you want to talk about this specific period of warming you are correct, but it is not the only reason there has been warming.
Amomalies, anomalies …pah
It would be interesting for someone to do some retrospective set of anomaly graphs for the mid 20th century.
ie a 1941-1970 – base line – plotted to the 1980’s
or a 1951-1980 – baseline – plotted to the 1990’s
or a 60 year baseline – 1931 – 1990
I imagine we would see some pretty large negative anomalies, in one of them. AS IF that meant anything……
If your baseline average, is at the peak or trough of a cyclical warm/cold period.
If your base line is averageing through a cool period, and the following decade or 2 starts warming again… there will be lots of anomalies away from that baseline.
It does not actually mean anything though.
As a 30 year base line would appear to have these problems why not use a 60 year one…. (or a 100). The 30 year one is just a climate science artifact, is it not, when it was though that this would be an adequate period of ‘stable’ climate
These anomaly graphs are frequently mis-used to describe a ‘problem’ that somehow must be man made…
ie the DECC (Uk Department of Energy and Climate Change) used to show an actual temp graph on their website. Until it was pointed out that it clearly showed similar rates of warming, in earlier periods, disproving their claims of unprecedented rates of warming, all following the Phil Jones interview. This was then replaced with an anomaly graph, which on casual viewing to the public, is often misinterpreted as ‘actual’ temperature graph – ie shows a rise.
———–
From: Phil Jones
To: “Parker, David (Met Office)â€>, Neil Plummer
Subject: RE: Fwd: Monthly CLIMATbulletins
Date: Thu Jan 6 08:54:58 2005
Cc: “Thomas C Petersonâ€
Neil,
Just to reiterate David’s points, I’m hoping that IPCC will stick with 1961-90. The issue of confusing users/media with new anomalies from a different base period is the key one in my mind.
…
Personally I don’t want to change the base period till after I retire !
Cheers
Phil
—————
Are we not due a change in baseline next year…?
Anyone have any thoughts, or done the anomaly calculations yet… do they change much?
DeWitt Payne (Comment#63426)
December 6th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
“The data on global ocean heat content are in far worse shape than the satellite data. ARGO went on line only recently and there is a large discrepancy where the ARGO record is spliced onto the XBT record, which had problems of its own. But even if you allow the jump in 2003-4, the rate of increase in ocean heat content is less than half of Hansen’s estimate of 0.85 W/m2 radiative imbalance. You can’t save it by saying that the rest is going into the ocean below 700 meters, because heat spread over that volume of water would have a time constant of hundreds to thousands of years. ”
——
Can you suggest references that speak to your assertion that the “missing heat” cannot have made it into the ocean at deeper than 700 meters. What about the ocean conveyors – can they not move thermal energy via convective mixing?
Bugs,
As I pointed to Carrick, the IPCC’s very proposition that whatever was going prior to the 1960-1970s was due to natural variations and that all at once from the 1970s on it is due to man, is an insult to everyone’s intelligence.
Whatever rise in temperatures we may have seen since the late 1970s in fact correlates very nicely with the post 1977 upswing which followed the 1946-1976 30 year down cycle, which in turn was preceded by the 1920-1945 up cycle. That is a matter of record. Anything else, and in particular the notion that it is only after 1970 that man’s influence is the main driver, is IPCC “science”-used-for-politics. If you are willing to buy that, I’ve got a slightly used bridge I’d like to sell you.
Meanwhile, the various alarmists having oversold the story, it is politically dead and will remain unresurected for quite some time, even if it turns out that the growing body of like me were wrong.
Oh, and we are still awaiting Carrick’s calorific calculations related to the Alaska glacier melt…
For DeWitt Payne – I note from the abstract of a recent study published in Nature (I don’t have access to the paper itself) that the authors (Lyman, et al., 2010, Robust warming of the global upper ocean) found a statistically significant linear warming trend for 1993–2008 of 0.64 W m-2 (calculated for the Earth’s entire surface area), with a 90-per-cent confidence interval of 0.53–0.75 W m-2.
Bugs,
I forgot to mention that the post-1977 upward trend in temperatures ended around 2006, and that since then we appear to be experiencing a new downward trend. Something to do with the PDO, perhaps?
In case noone mentioned it RSS is out. +.312
http://www.remss.com/data/msu/monthly_time_series/RSS_Monthly_MSU_AMSU_Channel_TLT_Anomalies_Land_and_Ocean_v03_2.txt
Owen: Google Scholar is your friend.
Owen, what is your point. Carl Wunsch studies sea level and said that there is probably not enough data to make a meaningful statement about what it will do in the future. Furthermore, how much warming does the author predict in his paper? Owen, congratulations on finding a paper in Nature (you do realize the editors of Nature won’t even publish a scientist who disagrees with their views) that tells us absolutely nothing.
Toto,
Thank you.
tetris (Comment#63435)
December 7th, 2010 at 8:05 am
“I forgot to mention that the post-1977 upward trend in temperatures ended around 2006, and that since then we appear to be experiencing a new downward trend. Something to do with the PDO, perhaps?”
Hello Tetris,
Below is the Wood for Trees Temperature Data for three time periods in the past 30 years. 1980-1986, 1987-1996, and 2001-2009.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2009/plot/wti/from:2001/to:2009/trend
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1987/to:1996/trend/plot/wti/from:1987/to:1996
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/from:1980/to:1986/trend/plot/wti/from:1980/to:1986
Take a look at them. All three show clear cooling trends. Thus, in the past 30 years, 23 of those years have experienced cooling. Yes sir, since 1980 the old Earth has been cooling rather than warming.
Only problem is that the ave global temp has increased ca. 0.5 degrees in that 30 year time span.
See how easy it is to distort, but then I think that you already knew that.
Dr. Shooshmon, phd. (Comment#63439)
December 7th, 2010 at 9:41 am
“Owen, what is your point. Carl Wunsch studies sea level and said that there is probably not enough data to make a meaningful statement about what it will do in the future. ”
Dear Mr. Dr. phd,
I’m glad you brought up Carl Wunsch. Below is reprinted a response by Wunsch to a film entitled “The Great Golbal Warming Swindle.” The response reveals Wunch’s take on a number of issues relevant to this blog. He also seems convinced that the sea level will continue to rise.
Partial Response to the London Channel 4 Film “The Great Global Warming Swindle”
Carl Wunsch 11 March 2007
I believe that climate change is real, a major threat, and almost
surely has a major human-induced component. But
I have tried to stay out of the `climate wars’ because
all nuance tends to be lost, and the distinction between
what we know firmly, as scientists, and what we suspect is happening, is so difficult to maintain in the presence of rhetorical
excess. In the long run, our credibility as scientists rests on
being very careful of, and protective of, our authority and expertise.
The science of climate change remains incomplete. Some elements
are so firmly based on well-understood principles, or for
which the observational record is so clear, that most
scientists would agree that they are almost surely true
(adding CO2 to the atmosphere is dangerous; sea level will continue to rise,…). Other elements remain more uncertain, but
we as scientists in our roles as informed citizens believe society
should be deeply concerned about their possibility: failure of US
midwestern precipitation in 100 years in a mega-drought; melting
of a large part of the Greenland ice sheet, among many other examples………….
In the part of the “Swindle” film where I am describing the
fact that the ocean tends to expel carbon dioxide where it is warm, and to absorb it where it is cold, my intent was to explain that warming the ocean could be dangerous—because it is such a gigantic reservoir of carbon. By its placement in the film,
it appears that I am saying that since carbon dioxide exists in the
ocean in such large quantities, human influence must not be
very important — diametrically opposite to the point I was making— which is that global warming is both real and threatening in many different ways, some unexpected.
Many of us feel an obligation to talk to the media—it’s part of
our role as scientists, citizens, and educators. The subjects are
complicated, and it is easy to be misquoted or quoted out context.
My experience in the past is that these things do happen, but usually inadvertently—most reporters really do want to get it right.
Channel 4 now says they were making a film in a series of “polemics”. There is nothing in the communication we had (much of it on the telephone or with the film crew on the day they were in Boston) that suggested they were making a film that was one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them at face value—clearly a great error. I knew I had no control over the actual content, but it never occurred to me that I was dealing with people who already had a reputation for distortion and exaggeration……………..
The full letter and several other responses by Wunsch can be read at: http://ocean.mit.edu/~cwunsch/papersonline/channel4response
Owen, it is very easy to distort the truth, as you have shown in your post.
The downward trend in the 1980s was due to the volcanic eruption of El Chichon in 1982, and that in the 90s followed the Pinatubo eruption of 1991.
But there is no corresponding major eruption to explain the lack of warming this decade.
This issue has been discussed previously on this blog.
If December 2010 will be 0.44 then 2010 will tie 1998. So according to UAH 1998 will likely still be the warmest year.
Did the same with the RSS data and came to the conclusion that December must reach 0.74 to get a tie. Any lower and 2010 will be cooler. Just averaged the data with excell.
tetris:
Nonsense. You just have to look at the forcings curves to see why this matters.
You’ll wait a long time on this. My usual answer to people demanding that I do a calculation for them is “piss off”.
tetris:
See my comment on short versus long term trends and short-period climate fluctuation, and why using long time periods to compute the trends matters for studying the effects of anthropogenic activity.
Owen,
That’s great but the quote I paraphrased from him is a lot more recent, it was this year or last so that’s great he said that but he has changed his mind since then.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/12/07/moncktons-mexico-missive-2/#more-29027
On a more important note, I am calling on everyone to send money to Lord Monckton and Roy Spencer down in Cancun, there is a severe banana shortage and lives are on the line.
PaulM:
You don’t actually need to invoke volcanic activity.
Short-period climate fluctuations, including PDO and ENSO, modulate the global albedo. Without accounting for the short-period climate (Lucia does as well as anybody I’ve seen on that) there’s really no way to make comparisons over such a short time period.
Even the corrections Lucia makes assumes that the short-period climate fluctuations are additive, and they are not. (This probably could be fixed up if you had a model relating e.g. PDO or ENSO activity to corresponding change in the radiative balance.)
Carrick,
Now I’m truly perplexed: the well documented 30 year PDO cycle is now somehow too short to meet your criteria?
Could it be that we are witnessing the postulation of a Carrick’s Law: “The length of any given climate cycle shall be variable to the degree required by Carrick to make his point”?
I see that you have been a good student of the Team’s methods in dealing with skeptics: start with a solid ad hom on the guy you disagree with [see your comment about me earlier on this thread, for which someone actually suggested you apologize, but that will not be forthcoming I guess..], and them if that doesn’t do the trick, tell him to piss off.
Fact remains, given that you side stepped my initial question on a verifiable and well documented phenomenon, I simply asked you to “do the math” so that all of us here can learn from your insights in the matter. And for that I get told to go take a leak…?
Manners, Carrick, manners.
tetris (Comment#63433) December 7th, 2010 at 7:51 am
What 30 year cycle? How does it work. Where is it documented?
Bugs,
Are you now also trying to tell us that temperatures during the 20th century progressed in a linear fashion? The three cycles [two warming and one cooling] I referred to are a matter of record.
Just to refresh your memory, Hansen, et. al, et. al. in 1977 were screaming on about how we were all going to freeze to death…, just before the temp curve turned upwards again.
The thing about sea level rise, though, is that when I look at figures like this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png
or this one
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_mean_sea_level.png
I see no evidence that whatever is being measured responds in any significant way to changes in radiative forcings (or to anything else). There is just an ever-rising, nearly constant slope, with little wiggles on it. The little wiggles may or may not have something to do with the global temperature anomaly, or even the sea surface temperature (SST), but the overall trend appears to be nearly independent of everything. For example, according to the paper by Lyman et al., mentioned earlier today, the SST has been “roughly constant since 2000,” but that does not appear to have made any difference in the second figure I linked above.
It seems safe to assume that any degree of control we might possess over the quantity that is being plotted in those graphs is, at best, not going to exceed the size of the little wiggles. So I don’t think we have any hope of stopping its rise. The sensible thing to do is, if the sea level is really rising fast in your neighborhood, get your local community to take the necessary measures to adapt to it, or move.
Re: Owen (Dec 7 08:02),
You misread what I said. I didn’t say the heat couldn’t be carried deeper into the ocean. I said any that was carried deeper into the ocean was effectively lost for all practical purposes.
Carrick,
The IPCC gives lip service to other forcings. The controlling authority, however, is the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. That document mentions only anthropogenic greenhouse gases.
Tetris, again, do your own math. If you think demanding I do it for you is not being rude, …
As to intervals, I mentioned 30 year intervals as a good compromise. What makes you suddenly think I don’t support that number?
You were discussing the change from 2006 to 2010. Last I checked that was four years, not 30.
See the problem?
DeWitt:
I would call demonstrating that anthropogenic forcing can be neglected prior to 1970 as a bit more than just “lip service”.
That’s SEP (somebody else’s problem). I’m dealing with science and what scientists say, not bureaucratic nuts and fruits.
bugs:
He’s probably thinking of 1/2 of the 55-year period oscillation (time for it to go from min to max or max to min).
I’ve never seen evidence a 30-year period oscillation either. Perhaps tetris can give us a spectrum (or better yet demand that I give him one, j/k).
DeWitt
Who are the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change the controlling authority of? The IPCC? Can you point me to a document from either body to show this.
Kevin, according to Wikipedia,
It’s an earlier version of Kyoto.
Why this should be taken as a substitute the 2007 IPCC report, what one might normally consider the plenary document describing the general consensus on the science of climate change, is beyond me.
Carrick,
Don’t like 30 years? 55 years then? Is this “Carrick’s Law” in action?
I must thank you though for helping me in pointing out to Bugs that temperatures fluctuated quite considerably during the 20th century -as they have indeed for the past couple of millenia, Hockey Stick notwithstanding.
You say you care only about the science and not about the “bureaucratic fruits and nuts”. Are you still not capable of acknowledging that your precious science has been turned, twisted, cherry picked and moulded by these bureaucratic IPCC fruits and nuts so as to suit the AGW/ACC meme?
And by the way, DeWitt Payne is right about the forcings.
And you still haven’t made it clear to anyone here on what scientitic basis you can fit in the MWP, LIA, the 1790=1860 Alaska glacier melt and the cyclical fluctuations of the 20th century [30 or 55 cycle, whatever suits you Carrick] into the IPCC dogma of warming caused only by man-made CO2 forcings.
fact remains, there is no demonstrated and verifiable proof that imsalabim, all at once, out of the blue, the temperature upswing after 1977 [and the “we-are-all-going-to-freeze-to-death” scare of the mid 70s] is due to man-made CO2 forcing. If you have such proof, pls provide. I’d like to see it.
Until then, as far as I and a growing number of other skeptics are concerned, we are dealing with science made to fit a political message.
Re: Carrick (Dec 7 22:08),
No, it’s not. The Kyoto Protocol is linked to the UNFCCC treaty, it does not supplant it. Kyoto is a mechanism to implement the goals of UNFCCC, as Copenhagen also would have been. The point is that it doesn’t matter what the IPCC assessment reports findings are about forcings other than ghg’s. Unless the UNFCCC is revised to include those other forcings, all new international treaties under the auspices of the UN can only deal with ghg’s. Bureaucratic nuts and bolts are frequently far more important than the science.
Besides, aerosol forcings, while probably real, are treated by the modelers as a knob to make their models fit historical data. The evidence being that climate sensitivities vary a lot between models, but they all seem to fit the historical record. So when you say you sum the forcings, you have to specify whose forcings.
Carrick, oh Carrick,
Care to respond to my and DeWitt Payne’s rejoinders, or does it just feel best to turn down the gain at this point?
tetris, DeWitt and Carrick… You’re all wrong… it’s an international welfare program, plain and simple
30 years baseline is flawed?
Detection and attribution of climate change: a regional
perspective
Peter A. Stott,1∗ Nathan P. Gillett,2 Gabriele C. Hegerl,3
David J. Karoly,4 Da´ ith´ı A. Stone,5 Xuebin Zhang6 and Francis Zwiers6
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.34/full#jumpTo
“we can no longer assume that the climate is, as has been traditionally assumed, the statistics of the weather over a fixed 30- year period: what were previously rare events could be already much more common. Instead, models are
needed to characterize the current climate, which can
be different from that of previous or succeeding years.
An interesting read, what worries me is much discussion of computer model ‘experiments’….