Roy managed to post the July UAH average of 0.372C on August 1! We get to know SteveT ( steveta_uk) was the winner of the July bet in record time. Those in the money include: steve T, Pavel Panenka,Owen, torn8o and Boris! Congratulations guys: Don’t spend those quatloos all in one place.
Some people have asked why I don’t bet: Since I have access to the database, I figure some people will suspect me of cheating. I bet on the ice extent because I also write a post explaining how I am picking my values. I don’t want to do this for every UAH bet each month. But if people want me to start betting without posting what I bet after I figure out what I want to enter, let me know and I will.
I’ll post graphs when RSS posts (have they already?)
For those wanting to see where their bets put them relative to others, here’s the full list.
| Rank | Name | Prediction (C) | Bet | Won | |
| Gross | Net | ||||
| — | Observed | 0.372 (C) | |||
| 1 | steve T | 0.37 | 4 | 66.911 | 62.911 |
| 2 | Pavel Panenka | 0.378 | 3 | 40.147 | 37.147 |
| 3 | Owen | 0.378 | 3 | 32.117 | 29.117 |
| 4 | torn8o | 0.383 | 5 | 42.823 | 37.823 |
| 5 | Boris | 0.383 | 5 | 6.002 | 1.002 |
| 6 | nzgsw | 0.39 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 7 | EdS | 0.35 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 8 | Don B | 0.35 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 9 | RobB | 0.395 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 10 | MikeP | 0.349 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 11 | AMac | 0.398 | 2 | 0 | -2 |
| 12 | enSKog | 0.399 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 13 | bob droege | 0.345 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 14 | Greg Meurer | 0.4 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 15 | Bob Koss | 0.343 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 16 | Bob Trower | 0.411 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 17 | Pieter | 0.331 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 18 | Jon P | 0.414 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 19 | Arfur Bryant | 0.328 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 20 | ob | 0.322 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 21 | Joel Heinrich | 0.423 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 22 | denny | 0.32 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 23 | TimTheToolMan | 0.32 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 24 | Buck Smith | 0.32 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 25 | rc | 0.432 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 26 | moschops | 0.444 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 27 | Bob Z | 0.456 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 28 | MarcH | 0.276 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 29 | Lance | 0.275 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 30 | Roy Weiler | 0.471 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 31 | pdjakow | 0.25 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 32 | J Mens | 0.25 | 4 | 0 | -4 |
| 33 | Hal | 0.25 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 34 | sHx | 0.24 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 35 | Ivp0 | 0.234 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
| 36 | YFNWG | 0.233 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 37 | Tamara | 0.518 | 3 | 0 | -3 |
| 38 | John Norris | 0.222 | 5 | 0 | -5 |
lucia, the list isn’t loading for me. I checked the HTML, and it looks like the problem is in the table tags. At John Norris’s section of the list, there’s an unclosed ‘td’ tag, and there is no closing ‘tr’ tag for the line.
In addition to making the table unviewable for me, it also has messed up the comment box. The page thinks the size of the comment box is larger than it is, so some of the the text I type goes off screen.
“Don’t spend those quatloos all in one place.”
It’s gonna be hard spreading 1.002 Q over more than one place.
Everything shows up properly for me now.
Boris–I’m sure you’d be surprised to learn how far 1 qualtoo goes.
EEK!! I had the second highest guess, perhaps I am not a denier after all 🙂
Roy
I can photoshop up a few million quatloos… will you accept those?
Thats funny, I thought I placed a 4 quatloo bet. I forget the value, but I am sure it was not in the running to win! 0.332 or some such.
I wonder what happened to it?
Robert–
Actually, I screwed up and put “May” in the entry form. Then I manually changed the ones with dates after July. So…. I can look for yours. Maybe I missed it when I changed them.
realitas
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
ohnooo
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
Lucia,
Thanks, I’d like to think my incipient forgetfulness had not struck again 🙂
106 in Memphis yesterday. 103 forecast for today. SCREW YOU EXXON!
“106 in Memphis yesterday. 103 forecast for today.”
Hot weather in the summer. A sure sign of climate stability. 😉
Andrew
Boris–
It cooled down here last night. Our forecast is 84.
Sorry to hear that hot air mass is still lingering over you. It’s been hell here. The weather channel is currently saying 101F for you– not that it’s much different from 103.
This is the third highest July on record, and the dip due to the moderate La Nina was both shallow and short lived. The cooling effect of La Nina events seems to be having less effect. Global warming has built up too much heat in the oceans, and soils, and decimated too much ice (losing a heat sink), to see the same kind of cooling impact from a La Nina event, as we did in the past.
The response of the planet to this latest La Nina, is another nail in the coffin of the “lukewarmersâ€, and a spike in the heart of deniers.
This is the third highest July on record, and the dip due to the moderate La Nina was both shallow and short lived. The cooling effect of La Nina events seems to be having less effect. Global warming has built up too much heat in the oceans, and soils, and decimated too much ice (losing a heat sink), to see the same kind of cooling impact from a La Nina event, as we did in the past.
The response of the planet to this latest La Nina, is another nail in the coffin of the “lukewarmersâ€, and a spike in the heart of deniers.
“Global warming has built up too much heat in the oceans”
This is why I hang around here. Between the colorful squiggles, the grand assertions and the wagering, I couldn’t be more entertained.
Andrew
Paul K2,
I think you have to say it three times to get any effect. two down.
PaulK2–
I agree it’s really warming. But how in the world is this a nail in the coffin for lukewarming? Is this month’s answer going to make any more sense than the one when you tried to make the same claim in june?
Paul K2 (Comment #80099),
Nails? Coffins? Spikes? What? Are you just trolling?
Most lukewarmers say (I think) that AGW is real, but the projected long term trends, mostly from CCGM’s, of “about 0.2C per decade”, are too high to be consistent with observations. I don’t think a one-month increase in temperature means much of anything for the long term trend, any more than a one month fall.
WRT “too much heat in the oceans”, there has been only a slight upward trend in the measured OHC for about 8 years, and what accumulation there has been is almost certainly under 0.25 watt per square meter net. (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/)
Average sea surface temperature has (if anything) declined slightly in the last decade (http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2001/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2001/trend). So I don’t see how your comment is in any way supported by data. Your statement is no doubt consistent with your (fevered!) imaginings of terrible future catastrophes due to global warming, but is not consistent with reality.
j ferguson: Well, I brought up the changing response to ENSO cycles a lot last summer and fall. We had already dropped into a La Nina, and yet kept getting very high UAH anomalies. At the time, people here cautioned me about “the lag” in the response of global anomalies to the ENSO cycle, saying it takes six months from the end of a El Nino/ La Nina event to see the change in atmospheric surface temperatures.
But now, I don’t hear so much about “the lag”. If the June and July anomalies are any evidence, the lag is gone… A La Nina event is a good way to test the planetary response, and this La Nina demonstrated that the planet has much more thermal energy in the system than before.
The problem with the purely statistical methods used by lucia, is that they can’t “see” if the underlying system generating the data has changed. Lucia looks at the trends in atmospheric temperatures, but ignores the big heat buildup elsewhere in the system (warming oceans, melting permafrost, warming soils and soil moisture, and melting ice) which is 96x the atmospheric heating. Those heat buildups will have an effect and change the system, and thus the effect of ENSO events will be different.
The ENSO events move heat into and out of the atmosphere, and the response of the planetary system to these tests are important clues that the planet has higher thermal energy levels. This La Nina event showed that.
Lucia: Yes, I brought this point up in June; AND last June, July, August, September… Each month’s data is delivering a blow to your purely statistical trend following based theory. Without understanding the energy flows on the planet, and the response of the planetary system to changes in energy flows, like the response to La Nina and El Nino events, your cocksure assurance that Earth’s surface temperatures won’t rise very quickly, isn’t worth much.
Paul K2–
Predictions of the surface temperature form models are predictions of the surface temperature from models. So, I am comparing like to like. It’s the example we can compare.
Of course. But the models also carry along predictions of the heat build up in the ocean etc. So, their projections for the earth’s surface aren’t somehow based on no heat build-up in these other things.
If you want to back up your claim about “nails in coffin” vis. lukewarming, show us comparisons of model predictions for all these other things that you somehow think aren’t involved in comparing projected trends to observed ones.
Shows what? Yes: Enso moves heat in and out of the atmosphere. It did that before AGW. It does it whether or not AGW is occuring. So… what exactly do you think this La Nina shows, and why does it have anything to do with nails in coffin lids?
What “cocksure assurance”? I haven’t assured anyone of anything. I happen to think it won’t rise as fast as the AR4 multi-model mean projected. But what I can say with some assurance is that they haven’t. With the addition of this months data they still haven’t.
Why you think the observation that temperature haven’t risen as as quickly as projected is puts some sort of nail in the coffin lid of the suggestion that they likely won’t rise as fast as the AR4 models projected in the future either, I do not know.
I suspect next month you’ll continue to suggest that the surface warming at a rate below projections somehow disproves the theory that the surface is likely to warm at a rate below projections. It won’t make any sense, but I suspect you’ll advance it anyway.
Also Lucia, it is probably a good idea NOT to link to information that proves you wrong. The June anomaly DID come in much higher than one would expect at the tail end of a La Nina. My comment at the time:
Paul K2 (Comment #78802) July 8th, 2011 at 11:54 am
ivp0: Read my comment again. I looked at the persistence of the impacts of La Nina events (four months versus ten months in the last La Nina), not just one month. I also talked about heat balances, because the temperature rises in the atmosphere are a lagging indicator of heat building up in the oceans. So the heating of the oceans is the most important indicator, something even Roger Pielke Sr. agrees with.
Further, I am looking for signals that the interchange of heat between the oceans and the atmosphere is changing. Clearly the oceans have kept the atmosphere from heating faster by absorbing over 90% of the heat building up on our planet. If the mixed layer in the oceans was shallower, and less heat was being sequestered in the deep ocean, then the temperatures in the atmosphere would be rising even faster. The interchange of heat between the oceans and the atmosphere can be studied by looking at both the heating effects of El Nino events and the cooling effects of La Ninas over time. Unfortunately we don’t have enough ENSO cycle data to be able to clearly quantify the changing trends; but the last two La Nina events are giving us some pretty clear information that this naturally occurring cycle is having less cooling impact on the atmosphere, both in size of the impact, and persistence (duration) of the La Nina caused cooling impact.
And if it was just weather, then July and the upcoming month anomalies would fall back and average around zero… the satellite data indicate that this isn’t happening.
Ah Paul K2.
I think you misunderstand the point of doing a statistical test.
When you want to test a model to see if it matches observations ( as climate science does all the time, see Santers paper or hansens work or gavins work, or gosh anybodies) you compare model to observation. The tool you use is known as statistics. To date the stats show that the warming predicted is greater than the warming observed. That’s a fact.
Now why did that happen? Logic helps us here:
1. The models are too warm
2. some models are too warm and throw the average off
3. the observations are wrong
4. both the model and observations are wrong
5. the stats tests are wrong
6. shit happens
7. life is an illusion
The test dont tell you what will happen 2morrow and lucia doesnt pretend that they do.
So you’ve got 7 possible explainations. Pick one and defend it.
hehe
http://stevemosher.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/chcn-canadian-historical-climate-network/
all their data R mine.
they said it was ok.
Paul K2:
“Unfortunately we don’t have enough ENSO cycle data to be able to clearly quantify the changing trends; but the last two La Nina events are giving us some pretty clear information that this naturally occurring cycle is having less cooling impact on the atmosphere, both in size of the impact, and persistence (duration) of the La Nina caused cooling impact.”
Hmmm, this is not particularly clear to me. For instance, using a simple regression model with UAH, the 2008 dip was actually cooler than we’d expect based on the previous effects of La Nina.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9160367/Climate/8-4-11RegressionModel.PNG
Re: my comment at #80120, I should note that in my above figure the lag is 6 months for both ENSO and the volcanic forcing.
Lucia wrote: .
Why you think the observation that temperature haven’t risen as as quickly as projected is puts some sort of nail in the coffin lid of the suggestion that they likely won’t rise as fast as the AR4 models projected in the future either, I do not know.
Could you provide a reference where I wrote that? This appears to be a strawman argument, where you mis-state a position, in order to more easily ridicule it.
Clearly I said, and have been saying, that the low impact of the La Nina on the UAH global anomaly, coupled with the higher impact of the last El Nino on the same anomalies, have with each monthly report partially killed (“nail in coffin”) the lukewarming idea that the earth won’t heat up as fast as most climate scientists have calculated.
Last year, I made a series of comments here explaining that the slowness of the UAH anomaly to fall as we transitioned from El Nino to La Nina, was showing the climate wasn’t cooling as expected during the La Nina.
And quess what: this forecast was correct! The anomalies didn’t fall quickly, only three monthly anomalies fell below 0.1, and we quickly rebounded back above 0.3. Based on the last La Nina, we should have seen ten months below 0.1, with four monthly anomalies below -0.1, but we did not. Right now we should be getting anomalies in the range of zero to 0.2 for another 8-9 months. But instead we get the third warmest July in the record! In a La Nina year!
Lucia, you seem to be ignoring the observations, and needlessly arguing with comments that review the observations. Clearly this La Nina event didn’t impact global temperatures as much as previous events. Something has changed; and the odds are quite high that global heating has now pushed the planet up to a level with more thermal energy in the system, and this in turn negates a significant portion of the cooling impact of La Nina events.
Geez, I don’t know why I am getting my comments published twice. I even hit the delete button to try and delete one.
Steve Mosher: You aren’t giving me all the options. I am suggesting that the climate models could be making a mistake by assuming a relatively constant response from the oceans, and thus underestimate the atmospheric heating that is coming. Hmm, I don’t see that in your list of options.
First, the models are energy models, that calculate temperatures as a result of their calculated energy flows. Only 1% of the global heating ends up in the atmosphere, and the difference between an atmospheric warming of 0.21 deg C per decade and 0.14 deg C per decade is about 0.3-0.4% of the planetary heating (this is the amount of heat the lukewarmers make such a big deal about). By contrast the oceans absorb 90+% of the heat build, and the soils and ice melt chips in about 6%. So the amount of heating that lucia is concerned about is relatively insignificant if the behavior of the oceans change.
The models likely have included the oceans as both heat sinks and carbon sinks for a long time into the future (100+ years). So the models expect the oceans to act as they have acted in the past.
But what if the oceans don’t? What if less heat is absorbed into the oceans? We could begin seeing the atmosphere being heated by 1.5%-2.0% of the heat buildup, raising atmospheric temperatures much faster, at least until we finally hit the equilibrium temperature expected by AGW theory, which would raise the temperature of the earth over 1.5 deg C from current levels.
How do we know if the oceans are changing? I suggest we could start by looking at the impact of La Nina events. If the La Nina events have less impact, then, we may have a problem in the making, and yes, the models could be wrong. The models could be underestimating the heating of the atmosphere significantly.
Paul_K2,
You’ve claimed the data puts a nail in the coffin of lukewarming and/or that somehow it goes contrary to something I’ve claimed. But both the claim of lukewarming is only that temperature likely won’t rise as fast as projected. So, your claim that something puts a nail in the coffin of lukewarming would seem to be a claim that something has proven warming will be as fast or faster than AR4 projections and that something has “put a nail in the coffin” for the contrary view.
If this is not what your claim about nails in coffins of luckwarming mean,I have no idea what your position is. (But I’d say it seems to me you are simply utterly mis-informed about what lukewarming and it is for that reason you are making such bizzarre claims.)
I’m not sure you think “one” is. But even if what you say about June’s anomaly coming in high how in the heck does this put any nails in any coffins about Luke Warming. And how in the world do you think what you wrote is evidence that what I think is wrong?
It seems to me that you want to say something puts a nail in the coffin of lukewarming without knowing what lukewarming claims. Heck, you don’t even seem to know what I’ve claimed.
As expected by whom? I have no idea how much you think lukewarmers expect temperature to drop during La Nina. I’m a lukewarmer and I did not expect to see an onset of the ice ages during La Nina. I didn’t expect to see temperatures in the 80s. I didn’t expect to see a recurrance of 2008. I have no idea what lukewarmer expected temperatures to drop anymore than they did. As far as I can tell, the temperature drop was in the range most lukewarmers would expect for La Nina.
PaulK
I’m just comparing what was projected to what happened. The metric is surface temperature.
La Ninas without El Ninos? Anyway, look at Troy’s graph. This La Nina dip was deeper than expected based on MEI. So, does this put a nail in the coffin lid of… what?
lucia, I don’t agree with Troy’s model, but right now his model does agree with me… His model shows we should be seeing 0.0 anomalies right now, and I agree. The fact that we are seeing 0.32 and 0.37 anomalies the last two months is a problem. It takes a lot of heat to raise the atmosphere temperature that much over the expected range.
Also, you and steve mosher say you aren’t forecasting any future trends at all, yet you do. You claim that in the future the models will overstate the actual warming. And you do this forecasting using a simple statistical model that doesn’t examine energy flows at all.
The models are tuned to an energy balance, and have to meet a lot of boundary conditions. I don’t see how your statistical model can evaluate their performance using just one indicator, surface temperature. How about sea surface temperatures, and ocean heat content, solar adjustments, ENSO impacts, ice sheet melt, changing albedos, etc.?
You know some people have a hammer, and that this the only tool they have… and so they use statistical trends for everything, and ignore the physics. Don’t forecast without a real world model, and don’t judge actual scientific models with a simple statistical trend, and especially don’t ignore data that shows the system is changing and your statistical trend may not be good any more.
lucia, I don’t agree with Troy’s model, but right now his model does agree with me… His model shows we should be seeing 0.0 anomalies right now, and I agree. The fact that we are seeing 0.32 and 0.37 anomalies the last two months is a problem. It takes a lot of heat to raise the atmosphere temperature that much over the expected range.
Also, you and steve mosher say you aren’t forecasting any future trends at all, yet you do. You claim that in the future the models will overstate the actual warming. And you do this forecasting using a simple statistical model that doesn’t examine energy flows at all.
The models are tuned to an energy balance, and have to meet a lot of boundary conditions. I don’t see how your statistical model can evaluate their performance using just one indicator, surface temperature. How about sea surface temperatures, and ocean heat content, solar adjustments, ENSO impacts, ice sheet melt, changing albedos, etc.?
You know some people have a hammer, and that this the only tool they have… and so they use statistical trends for everything, and ignore the physics. Don’t forecast without a real world model, and don’t judge actual scientific models with a simple statistical trend, and especially don’t ignore data that shows the system is changing and your statistical trend may not be good any more.
Paul K2,
Humm… Sounds a lot like “don’t you dare test the models against data” to me.
.
I can understand why you would say this, since the models really are not currently supported by the data. (And yes, this includes ocean heat content, average surface temperature trend, and ocean surface temperature trend… oh ya, and sea level rise too).
I think your take on this is most odd.
SteveF: Have you run the models with the latest solar irradiance and sulfate aerosol data? What do they show?
And did you get the point, that the oceans might be taking less heat in? What will happen to ocean heat content and sea level rise if the oceans absorb less heat?
Try again.
Paul K2,
What sulfate aerosol data? If you know of a credible global sulfate aerosol data set, then please tell us where that is. Some modeling group’s ‘assumed’ aerosols are not data.
.
You see, even we slow witted lukewarmers can recognize the repeating pattern of defenders of the models: there is a stock set of excuses (usually involving aerosols), all easily recognized. The AR4 models did not make accurate predictions. The excuses for this are rubbish. The obvious explanation is never even admitted as a possibility by true believers like you: the models are just not close to correct. Pointing to oft-used excuses is not going to convince anybody.
.
You may think you can win politically in the short term (you probably can’t), but in the longer term, the data will ultimately force model revisions. People like you only impede progress. Try again.
Paul K2,
Sulfate aerosols are at a half-century low and TSI is about the same as it’s been for a hundred million years.
The models are working about as well as your straw-clutching.
SO2 from GISS: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/modelforce/strataer/tau_line.txt
Paul K2:
My “model” (in comment #80120) is simply a regression to estimate the relationship between the ENSO index and the impact on temperature. You claim that “the last two La Nina events are giving us some pretty clear information that this naturally occurring cycle is having less cooling impact on the atmosphere”, so in order to do that you would need to calculate what is the normal/expected impact, which is what my regression is for. If you have a better method, please share.
Anyhow, according to the simplistic method I’ve employed, the 2008 La Nina seemed to have MORE of a cooling impact than we’d normally expect. The current dip also compares favorably with what’s to be expected.
Yes, the two most recent months are higher than the “model” predicts. I hope this does not mean you have gone from using the last two La Nina events as evidence to simply using the last two monthly anomalies?
PaulK2
The problem with modelling using physics is that all but the simplest systems diverge from the models very quickly. Hang a second pendulum off the bottom of a simple pendulum and physics cannot predict the behaviour well. Put three bodies in orbit around each other and again, physics cannot model the system well into the future. There’s a reason why wind tunnels still exist despite physics-based computer models of airflow.
I absolutely accept that the oceans may be taking less heat in, which would explain the current observations. The big questions are, by what mechanism is the ocean taking less heat in? Where is that energy going? Has the TOA imbalance altered? What can we expect in the future?
Ideology shouldn’t have any role in answering these questions. However, those who are convinced we’re heading for global disaster can’t tolerate any evidence of uncertainty in our understanding – it provides an excuse for inaction and they can’t stand that. Those who are convinced the whole thing is a “hoax”, on the other hand, pounce on any evidence of uncertainty as a reason to dimiss the entire field, a palpably obvious logical error. And those who are willing to accept that the science is mostly good but some data is sparse and/or too short term, and our understanding of the system is far from complete, manage to antagonise both sides. They are definitely more interesting to talk to however.
Paul K2
The LTT has spiked in recent months because the ocean has dumped heat into the atmosphere in preparation for a double dip la nina.
The small dip of the 2010/11 nina in the Satellite readings is because the ocean switched from energy absorption to energy loss in preparation for round two. Considering the 07 la nina reached the same levels as the 98 la nina, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence the the worlds climate dramatically changed in the last 4 years so your argument that the small effect this la nina had on LTT compared to the past proves CAGW is disproved by the large effect the O7 la nina had.
Really I’m getting quite the chuckles out of Paul K2 and his insistence that a very short term fluctuation of the temperature curve proves anything. Me thinks he needs some help with elementary statistics…
Andrew_FL (Comment #80144),
Methinks you are right.. he has not a clue.
You do realise this is like sticking a mercury thermometer into a ton of water and claiming that a 0.07 deg. C change is insignifcant, based on the heat capacity of the thermometer? The ocean and the atmosphere are very thin layers relative to the contact area coupling them. Just because their heat capacities differ greatly from each other doesn’t imply you can treat them as independent.
I’m not sure you can regard the extrapolation of past data into the future as a “statistical model”, although you’re certainly free to question the validity of that extrapolation. I am much more interested in the physics of what’s going on than the statistics of data comparison, but it is those very statistics that will let us know if the models are applying physics in a valid manner.
The claim that the models will overstate the actual warming in the future is based on the fact that they already are overstating the actual warming, and the degree to which they do that is increasing over time.
Paul K2
“Steve Mosher: You aren’t giving me all the options. I am suggesting that the climate models could be making a mistake by assuming a relatively constant response from the oceans, and thus underestimate the atmospheric heating that is coming. Hmm, I don’t see that in your list of options.”
Which ones in particular have this issue? The climate models ( some not all) are currently overestimating the response from GHG forcing. That’s the fact.
Your “explanation” of this fact makes no sense. You argue that they are underestimating something that hasnt happened. That doesnt explain what the facts are. So try again.
The models projected 2C warming ( some did) They are high. Those models that projected less warming are more accurate.
So, you can explain the CURRENT FACTS by saying one of the 7 things I listed. You cannot explain the current problem by referin to another problem that hasnt happened yet
Paul K2
“don’t judge actual scientific models with a simple statistical trend”?
tell that to Santer et al.
Ah yes i remember you raging over at RC when they explained how the models were consistent with observed trends. Vividly
kim has the link.. kim? kim? kim? err maybe #7
I recall lucia being criticized for graphs showing a mere decade of observations that did not conform to the model mean (that’s when we heard about the 30-year significance rule, as I recall).
Paul K2 now says that two months of observations are sufficient to dispel lukewarmism which he alleges to be reducible to a peculiar (straw man) account of the role of la Nina. How that would bring observations back up to predicted rates is unclear to me.
Paul K2 also seems a bit off the alarmist ideological reservation by alluding to ocean heat content.
I thought the current alarmist orthodoxy was to double down on the effects of aerosols as the reason for the failure to warm as predicted precisely because the oceans have not behaved according to plan.
With respect to that “missing” ocean heat content Roger Pielke Sr has observed that the models should (a) account for the missing heat somehow and/or (b) be tweaked to increase the negative forcing measure assigned to ocean heat uptake and the slower than predicted rate of release. If they don’t, they will likely continue to over-predict.
I guess the simplest modeling modification to hammer that coffin nail in lukewarmism would be posit that somewhere way, way down, far deeper than we can reliably measure, the oceans have oodles of heat energy kept on double secret probation that skeptics cannot possibly disprove, so there.
0.9 W/m2 must be going into the deep oceans and skipping by all of these.
http://www-hrx.ucsd.edu/www-argo/status.jpg
The energy that is supposed to be accumulating in the 70N to 70S upper 700M ocean and the 90N to 90S atmosphere is somehow being transferred into the Arctic ocean under the sea ice and being transported down below 700M into the deep ocean circulation.
Well, the thermohaline ocean circulation does actually work in this way, but the densest sinking water on the planet (under the sea ice) is now sinking at +2.0C rather than the +0.5C to -1.0C it was before.
Even at that, I don’t think it is enough to make up the difference. In addition, the sea ice has to be melted for most of the year to reach those conditions.
GeorgeTobin,
Talk about the strawman. Paul’s argument has not been limited to two months of data. We’ve been watching with amazement since the end of the last El Nino how global temps have not responded to ENSO as expected, and Paul touched on that a bit.
I do not agree with Paul about the Luke-Alarmists being wrong based on this issue (the warming is too fast and he would need to show what in the system has snapped due to AGW) , but then, I do not agree with the other commenter’s who have been arguing with him either. I see every debate tactic being used (well, Mosher is always in the forefront there) but so far, no one has given an alternative explanation for why global temps did not respond to ENSO for the past 16 months like they should have.
Re: MikeC (Aug 5 12:28),
And you know how they should have responded how?
From Troy_CA’s graph above, it looks like temperatures have responded pretty much like they always have. I would say the major difference is that high northern latitude temperatures have been higher for longer than they have been in the past. The AMO index, which many (Bill Illis, Joe Bastardi, e.g.) thought would have gone negative by now, is still quite positive. NH temperature is highly correlated with the AMO index (R² = 0.48).
When Pat Michaels tried to publish a lukewarm analysis of the long term temperature trend with a statistical model much like Troy_CA’s, building on work he and Paul Knappenberger did in 2000, they couldn’t get anyone to accept it:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13510
Apparently the message that yes Virginia there is still warming, but’s it’s modest in magnitude, is more inconvenient than allowing people to just say there isn’t any at the moment…
Re: Andrew_FL (Aug 5 13:45),
Heretics have always been considered to be more dangerous than heathens by those who consider themselves true believers .
DeWitt Payne (Comment #80155)-Ah, yes, quite so! And heaven help you if you happen to be an Apostate!
I supppose we could tune the volcanic figures in Troy’s model to come up with any fit we want… hmmmm… seems I’ve heard that before with models (but usually with aerosols). Although I do appreciate someone finally getting it together with the volcanos when analyzing the temperature record.
I think the answer would be closer to: The previous El Nino was strong and dumped a lot of heat into the atmosphere which took a while to make it’s way through the system. The following La Nina was weak and did not upwell much cold water. Although the kelvin wave which ended that La Nina was pretty large (and warm). Comparing the effects of different El Ninos and La Nina’s without comparing the amount of heat dumped or cold water upwelled would be pointless and the specifics on the kelvins would be pointless.
As for the AMO, looking at the 100+ year graaph, I’d say it’s not ready to flip.
DeWitt,
You know the subject is climate science when R² = 0.48 is considered ‘highly correlated’. 😉
Re: SteveF (Aug 5 16:24),
Noisy data.
The F statistic for the correlation is 355 for a significance level of 1.8E-56
The p values for the slope (0.95 ±0.1) and intercept (0.09±0.02) are 1.8E-56 and 6.2E-17
That’s highly correlated in my book. It’s not an ICP emission calibration curve with an R² of four or 5 nines, so what.
DeWitt,
I didn’t suggest the correlation was not statistically significant. Given enough data, even tiny R^2 values can be statistically significant. Perhaps my usage was not precise enough; if causal in nature, an r^2 of 0.48 suggests a lot of variation is due to other factors.
The temperature anomaly in the Tropics seems to have peaked. Double dip La Nina here we come.
Greenman (Peter Sinclair) also noticed some unusual events that happened this summer, at the tail end of the La Nina.