Home/BlogThe global average lower tropospheric temperature anomaly increased again in April, 2012, to +0.30°C., with warming in both Northern and Southern Hemispheres, but slightly cool conditions persisting in the tropics (click on the image for the full-size version):
The corresponding April anomaly from RSS, using a common baseline period of 1981-2010, is considerably cooler at +0.21°C. The 3rd order polynomial fit to the data (courtesy of Excel) is for entertainment purposes only, and should not be construed as having any predictive value whatsoever.
Here are the monthly stats:
YR MON GLOBAL NH SH TROPICS
2011 01 -0.010 -0.055 +0.036 -0.372
2011 02 -0.020 -0.042 +0.002 -0.348
2011 03 -0.101 -0.073 -0.128 -0.342
2011 04 +0.117 +0.195 +0.039 -0.229
2011 05 +0.133 +0.145 +0.121 -0.043
2011 06 +0.315 +0.379 +0.250 +0.233
2011 07 +0.374 +0.344 +0.404 +0.204
2011 08 +0.327 +0.321 +0.332 +0.155
2011 09 +0.289 +0.304 +0.274 +0.178
2011 10 +0.116 +0.169 +0.062 -0.054
2011 11 +0.123 +0.075 +0.170 +0.024
2011 12 +0.126 +0.197 +0.055 +0.041
2012 01 -0.090 -0.057 -0.123 -0.138
2012 02 -0.112 -0.013 -0.212 -0.277
2012 03 +0.110 +0.129 +0.092 -0.108
2012 04 +0.295 +0.411 +0.179 -0.120
As a reminder, the most common reason for large month-to-month swings in global average temperature is small fluctuations in the rate of convective overturning of the troposphere, discussed here.
“While any single month’s drop in global temperatures cannot be blamed on climate change, it is still the kind of behavior we expect to see more often in a cooling world.”
That is what Spencer said in November. Well, of course, any single mouth’s increase in temperature cannot be blamed on climate change either, but this is still the kind of behavior we would expect to see more often in a heating world.
Dear Dr. Spencer:
Will you and/or Dr. Christy be responding to the new paper by Trenberth, Po-Chedley, and Fu in Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology which adds an “adjustment” to UAH global temperatures and according to the press release, “effectively eliminated differences with the other studies?”
Thank you.
With the UAH anomaly for April at 0.30, the average for the first third of the year is (-0.09 -0.112 + 0.108 + 0.30)/4 = 0.0515. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 12th. This compares with the anomaly of 2011 at 0.153 to rank it 9th for that year.
In comparison, with the RSS anomaly for April at 0.333, the average for the first third of the year is (-0.058 -0.12 + 0.074 + 0.333)/4 = 0.05725. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 21st. This compares with the anomaly of 2011 at 0.147 to rank it 12th for that year.
On all data sets, the different times for a slope as close to 0 as possible range from 10 years and 7 months to 15 years and 6 months. Following is the longest period of time (above10 years) where each of the data sets is flat for all practical purposes. (For any positive slope, the exponent is no larger than 10^-5, although I expect UAH to go up to 10^-4 once April is added to WFT.)
1. RSS: since November 1996 or 15 years, 6 months (includes April)
2. HadCrut3: since January 1997 or 15 years, 3months
3. GISS: since April 2001 or 11 years even
4. UAH: since October 2001 or 10 years, 7 months
5. Combination of the above 4: since October 2000 or 11 years, 6 months
6. Sea surface temperatures: since January 1997 or 15 years, 3 months
7. Hadcrut4: since December 2000 or 11 years, 4 months
See the graph below to show it all for #1 to #6.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1997/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2001.25/trend/plot/rss/from:1996.83/trend/plot/wti/from:2000.75/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:1997/trend/plot/uah/from:2001.75/trend
For #7: Hadcrut4 only goes to December 2010 so what I did was get the slope of Hadcrut3 from December 2000 to the end of December 2010. Then I got the slope of Hadcrut3 from December 2000 to the present. The DIFFERENCE in slope was that the slope was 0.0055 lower for the total period. The positive slope for Hadcrut4 was 0.0041 from December 2000. So IF Hadcrut4 were totally up to date, I conclude it would show no slope for at least 11 years and 4 months going back to December 2000. (By the way, doing the same thing with GISS gives the same conclusion.) See:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000/to/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:2000.9/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000.9/to:2011/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2000.9/trend
On the other hand, the 15-yr slope for UAH LT was negative from Nov93 to Feb95. But it’s warmed since.
Most scientists don’t seem to think that a 10-15 yr “flat” period is unexpected or unusual.
The UAH linear trend is
0.2 for the past 6 years
0.15 for the past 13 years
0.13 for the past 18 years
Clearly global warming is accelerating again.
Guess my 0.31-0.35 guess was slightly high, but close.
“Clearly global warming is accelerating again.”
UAH does not go back far enough, but Hadcrut3 has essentially identical 30 year slopes many years apart. One was before CO2 became significant and the other afterwards.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1900/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1912.33/to:1942.33/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1982.25/to:2013/trend
During the earlier increase it was about a degree colder than now, which means it can’t be a mean zero oscillation.
Good thing we used all those aerosols mid century.
And Werner, on what basis do you say CO2 wasn’t significant?
The concentration started rising exponentially in the 1800s. By 1930 we were up 30 ppm compared to pre-industrial times.
Don’t forget that global warming from CO2 was predicted over 100 years ago. It was not actually Al Gore who came up with the idea (after inventing the internet).
I completely agree with Dr. Doom here.
Why am I not surprised to see this?
Simple, because we are looking at the human signal in climate already.
Just look at the pathetically weak La Niñas of 2010/2011 and 2011/2012.
They are in total agree with a warming world.
The remarks here–especially the ones deducing continued global warming from obviously stalled data–indict the commenters as incompetent. Dr. Spencer, you do a disservice to any lay readers who stop by here and take these comments as serious scientific appraisal, by allowing these comments to go unanswered by you.
I wrote over a year ago that the global mean surface temp (GMST) would, according to the multidecadal ocean-oscillations theory, vary by a few tenths of a degree around an average +0.10°C for the next 5 years or more–and the average of your table here, from the beginning of 2011 to now, is +0.125. The only recent difference in the data is the magnitude of the swing, between successive maxima and minima–in years past, it was only .2 to .3°C, while in your table here, encompassing the last 3 such swings, it is more like .4 to .5°C, with an average of .426°C. So it’s somewhat looser data recently, but it is not warming at all (and, as I have also written for over a year, the temperature is about where it was in 1991, over 20 years ago now).
There is no competent climate debate, because there are no competent climate scientists. It is all political maneuvering, lay readers, and you shouldn’t take anyone’s–any “expert”‘s–word on anything in the “debate”.
By the way, Huffman also thinks there is no greenhouse effect at all, that the Earth first began to orbit the sun about 15,000 B.C., that he has a simple disproof of plate tectonics, and he says he knows the location of both the original Holy Grail and Atlantis. So he ought to know about competence.
(http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/hdhsciences)
“And Werner, on what basis do you say CO2 wasn’t significant?”
While the industrial revolution started around 1750, it seems to be generally accepted that the CO2 concentration did not really start to accelerate upward from 280 ppm until around 1945. So I believe that a certain amount of global warming is happening simply because we are coming out of the LIA. I do not see any acceleration in this warming due to CO2. While I agree that there may be some warming due to CO2, it certainly does not seem to be enough to warrant spending billions of dollars to mitigate. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2
By the way, in the two periods that are about 70 years apart, the increase in temperature is only 0.507 C when going from the middle of one period to the middle of the next.
“While the industrial revolution started around 1750, it seems to be generally accepted that the CO2 concentration did not really start to accelerate upward from 280 ppm until around 1945.”
CO2 concentration were above 280 in 1850 and
broke 300 ppm around 1910-20. It was around 315 by 1958 when the data from Mona Loa starts. If you are going to spew on the net, at least get the numbers right.
“By the way, in the two periods that are about 70 years apart, the increase in temperature is only 0.507 C when going from the middle of one period to the middle of the next.”
Since the growth in C02 is exponential and not linear, we should expect much more than 0.507 C in the next 70 years (even if we bring back CFC’s)
“While I agree that there may be some warming due to CO2, it certainly does not seem to be enough to warrant spending billions of dollars to mitigate.”
Ah, now we get to your real point. Warming might be happening, but you don’t want to spend any money on mitigation. The U.S. spent $680 billion last year alone on defense. The global total is over $1.5 trillion. What would be a reasonable amount to spend on defense against climate change given your perception of risk? Would 1 percent be too much? Are you so sure of your linear regression fits?
Slapman (sounds painful),
You stated:
“Ah, now we get to your real point. Warming might be happening, but you don’t want to spend any money on mitigation.”
Please allow me a few questions. Should one spend money on what “might” be happening? Assuming significant warming takes place, will spending money alleviate the problem, transfer funds to some as yet unidentified beneficiary or only possibly salve someone’s conscience? Do you believe you or anyone else can reduce global temperatures? What precisely do you plan to mitigate?
In the finite universe we live in we cannot properly understand a problem unless we can measure it. What global average temperature do you believe we should all have to live with? Precisely how many CO2 parts per million should humanity be required to live with? How about 280 ppm? How do you plan to make your vision a reality?
Since all our money would be at stake I’m sure we’d all like to know.
P.S. – Please be precise as to exactly how much money will be needed to achieve precisely what specific goal. You wouldn’t want us to conclude that while you have no idea what you are talking about you expect others to hand you a blank check would you?
Slapman says:
May 9, 2012 at 3:13 PM
This line was so error-laced that I just had to respond. First, you quote someone correcting your earlier statement. Instead of defending it or admitting it was wrong, you just say something like – we’ll expect to see larger changes later! Second, and far more importantly…CO2 is purported to have an effect based on the logarithm of its concentration. So if it’s increasing exponentially, what’s the logarithm of that exponential increase? Yep, it’s linear, so would you expect to see a larger change in the future then? Third and finally, CFCs are greenhouse gases, so “if we bring back CFC’s” that will increase the expected warming, not reduce it as your word “even” indicates. I think you’re confusing CFCs with aerosols.
These kinds of things are the very, very basics of the debate. If you can’t get them right, I don’t really think it’s worth reading the rest of what you’re saying.
-Scott
What I am wondering is . . .
What does Doug Cotton think about all this?
If only he would tell us.
There is absolutely no evidence of anything but natural climate cycles.
See this comment on Roy’s new thread where he and John continue to refer to 30 year trends which are the worst possible trends to consider.
For more detail read the Appendix of my paper and my comments on this thread.
Thanks, Dr. Spencer. I have updated your graph in my pages.
I was relieved to find we are not on a deadly cooling trend; we continue on no trend at all.
“CO2 concentration were above 280 in 1850 and broke 300 ppm around 1910-20. It was around 315 by 1958 when the data from Mona Loa starts. If you are going to spew on the net, at least get the numbers right.”
I may not have phrased myself well, but your numbers prove exactly what I said about the rapid increase since 1945. By your numbers, CO2 went up by 35 ppm in 108 years from 1850 to 1958. And since it is at 390 now, it went up by 75 ppm in 54 years. Does that not prove my point?
“Since the growth in C02 is exponential and not linear, we should expect much more than 0.507 C in the next 70 years”
No, since the effect of added CO2, even according to the IPCC, is logarithmic, which means the law of diminishing returns. So the net effect could be very linear. At the rate of 0.507 C per 70 years, it would take another 165 years to reach the increase of 2.0 C from the present increase of 0.8 C since the industrial revolution. Then there is the question as to whether the increase of 2.0 C would be catastrophic, but that is another question.
“What would be a reasonable amount to spend on defense against climate change given your perception of risk?”
We cannot change the climate even if we wanted to. What should we do? Should we spend billions on carbon capture? Fighting pollution is one thing and that should be done by all means, but controlling CO2 is a waste of money.
Should we spend a billion dollars for 1/10,000 of a degree?
I did some number crunching on this issue since in Alberta, Canada, they still want to spend about a billion dollars on one carbon capture project. At the present time, humans emit about 90 million tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every DAY. I DO NOT believe this to be the case, however let us assume there will be the IPCC average number of 3.000 degrees C increase in temperature due to our emissions if we do nothing. So if a billion dollars is spent to capture 1 million tons a YEAR, this amounts to a fraction of 1 in 32,850. So if nothing is done, let us assume the temperature will presumably go up 3.0000 degrees C, but if a billion dollars is spent, the temperature would go up by 2.9999 degrees. Or to put in another way, if we take the temperature of 10,000 cities now and then again in 100 years from now, 9,999 cities will have the same temperature and one city will be 1 degree C colder if a billion dollars is spent.
Walter: I think Project Pioneer, the carbon capture project in Alberta, was scrapped about two weeks ago. The essential reason is that there is no price on carbon, so of course it’s cheaper to just emit it than control it.
In any case, your numbers are far higher from studies like the Stern Review, which places the cost of avoiding the worst climate change at about 2% of GDP, or currently about $1.2 T/yr worldwide. Is anyone really expecting CCS to solve the whole problem?
Werner said,
“I may not have phrased myself well”
You mean you were completely wrong. An honest man would admit it.
“No, since the effect of added CO2, even according to the IPCC, is logarithmic, which means the law of diminishing returns. So the net effect could be very linear. ”
Wrong again. Look for example at the IPCC Report Climate Change 2007: Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis, Figure SPM.5. All projections (except the case where concentration stays constant) show exponential temperature growth.
“We cannot change the climate even if we wanted to.”
We already have, more than once in fact. Consider that the 1815 eruption of Mt. Tambora caused a significant change in climate in 1816 (known as the year without summer). Does it make sense that humans can eject 90 million tons of known greenhouse gases every day for 100
years and not change anything? The estimates on climate sensitivity for doubling C02 have been remarkable consistent since Arrehnius 100 years ago. Why should we believe a guy who doesn’t known how much CO2 was in the air 70 years ago and can’t recognize an exponential graph? What do you know that 100 years of scientists don’t understand?
Your math skills are astounding. Can you calculate the cost to the planet of 1 meter of sea level rise? Just give a rough estimate since you have such big number skills.
How about drought? The estimate for crop loss for just the one year drought in Texas is $8 billion. If we get just a couple more of those world wide per year, it gets mighty expensive. One extra hurricane (Katrina cost about $168 billion). An odd flood or two (the flood in Austrialia $6 billion).
Slapman says:
May 9, 2012 at 8:03 PM
So for proof that humans changed the climate (for the record, I believe we can and have), you use a volcanic eruption? By the way, how recordable was the year without a summer? See:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/15/missing-the-missing-summer/
Funny you say that when even Arrehnius himself wasn’t consistent with his predictions on climate sensitivity. If he’s not self-consistent, how can people be consistent with him later? He originally believed it to be ~5 C/doubling, and later went down to ~2 C/doubling. If I get pulled over for going 50 mph in a 20 mph school zone, can I tell the officer that those two numbers are consistent?
First of all, where are the direct CO2 measurements from 70 yrs ago? Keeling didn’t get the Mauna Loa site going until 1958, so the earlier values are from proxies (though I think they’re reasonable numbers). And there’s no evidence of Werner being unable to recognize an exponential graph, that’s just made up. You said CO2 was increasing exponentially, and he (correctly) pointed out that the purported effect of CO2 is logarithmic.
Where’s the proof that any of these were caused by man? If you’re going to assume the above, then I’ll go ahead and assume the improving crop production throughout the last century was caused by changing climate too!
-Scott
One attempt to regress out the effect of rising temperatures on crop production is this:
“Global scale climate–crop yield relationships and the impacts of recent warming,” David B Lobell and Christopher B Field, Environ. Res. Lett. 2 (2007) 014002 (7pp)
http://www.mendeley.com/research/global-scale-climate-crop-yield-relationships-and-the-impacts-of-recent-warming/
They find the combined annual losses of wheat, maize and barley are about $5B/yr. But that was before the 2010 Moscow heat wave, which had a big influence on wheat prices. I estimated the cost of that to be as high as $2B/yr for the US, and $70 B/yr worldwide:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2010/08/cost-of-russias-heat-wave.html
By the way, the drought may have cost Texas $8 B in crop losses, but keep in mind that the Texas GDP is over $1,200 B, so they were only about 0.7% of that.
“Slapman says:
May 9, 2012 at 8:03 PM
Werner said,
“I may not have phrased myself well”
You mean you were completely wrong. An honest man would admit it.”
I knew the CO2 was assumed to be at 280 ppm around 1750 and slowly went up from there and I agree with you that it was 315 by 1958. But I later realized that my wording as follows could have been misinterpreted:
“While the industrial revolution started around 1750, it seems to be generally accepted that the CO2 concentration did not really start to accelerate upward from 280 ppm until around 1945.”
I apologize if you interpreted this to mean that I thought is was 280 in 1945. It was clearly higher in 1945 than 280 ppm. However the huge increase only began around 1945. Since it was 315 in 1958, perhaps it was only 300 in 1945, but I am not sure of this value.
“All projections (except the case where concentration stays constant) show exponential temperature growth.”
That is all that shows exponential temperature growth, namely their projections. Concentrations steadily went up over the last 260 years and even Phil Jones admits that the slopes at different times have been more or less the same. See
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511670.stm
Here are the trends and significances for each period:
Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade) Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes
“Does it make sense that humans can eject 90 million tons of known greenhouse gases every day for 100 years and not change anything?”
The CO2 went up from about 360 ppm to 390 ppm over the last 15 years, yet according to RSS, temperatures did not increase during this time. Other data sets give different periods where there was essentially no temperature increase. So yes, it does make sense that not much will happen since the absorption capability of CO2 for heat may be saturated. See
http://www.john-daly.com/bull-121.htm
“It is well recognized that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is such that its infra red absorption is close to saturation, particularly with the most prominent absorption band (15microm). (The Greek Letter mu came through as an m.) Further absorption with increase of concentration is considered to take place around the fringes of this band and in minor bands.”
“How about drought? ….An odd flood or two”
Yes, droughts and floods can be very expensive and must be dealt with. But exactly what is the mechanism whereby droughts and floods are caused by CO2 since it does not seem to have much affect on temperature? I am well aware of the reasoning behind ocean level rise due to warming. But it is a total mystery to me why CO2 alone should have any huge effect on changing the climate. In the absence of warming, how does CO2 alone cause frosts in Florida; how does CO2 alone cause ocean levels to rise; how does CO2 alone cause hurricanes to be more severe; etc?
If climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling has been very consistent, you should have no trouble giving us the amount of temperature increase due to that doubling. You can take the amount CO2 concentration has increased since measurements were first taken at Mauna Loa and multiply it by that sensitivity and compare that result with reality. If it doesn’t match, you have the wrong sensitivity.
Tim: I did that calculation here:
http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2012/03/better-way-to-calculate-climate.html
The result is a CO2 transient climate sensitivity of 2.2 C.
Why is UAH 0.1 C higher from 2010 compared to SST?
Did you change anything early 2010?
http://virakkraft.com/UAH-SST.png
Dr. Spencer, will never address abrupt climate change and why it happens from time to time.
In my opinion until that issue is addressed(which i have done with my phase in theory) anyone trying to come up with what he or she thinks might be causing the climate to act and react like it does, really should not be taken very seriuosly.
For my money Piers Corbyn and Geoffry Sharp, are the ones that are on the right track when it comes to climate change, and what makes the earth’s climate do what it does.
As solar cycle 24 continues to run close to solar cycle 5,things are in place for this decade to show a significant cooling. This will come about from a continuation of the PDO remaining in it’ s cold phase, an increase in volcanic activity/a more -AO, these two items being tied into the low solar activity.
The more -AO pattern is going to cause more snow cover to be present in the N.H. which is going to increase earth’s overall albedo.
The cold phase of the PDO,with the Atlantic to follow ,will be associated with more La Nina conditions going forword.
Earth’s weakened magnectic field will allow spurts of activity on the sun ,within the prolong solar minimum to have a greater effect on earth ,then if the magnetic
field were stronger.
CO2 IS A NON PLAYER AND THAT WILL BE PROVEN BEFORE THIS DECADE ENDS.
I ,and others that agree with me are on the correct path, as to what makes the climate change.
Dr. Spencer is on the wrong path for the most part. Dr. Spencer can’t grasp the fact that earth’s climate is not controlled by events here on the earth, but rather by events that originate out side of the earth, our solar system.
Again as this decade proceeds this will be shown to be the case.
THE ONE CONIDITION THAT MUST BE MET FOR MY PREDICTION TO COME TO BE ,IS THE SOLAR FLUX FOR THE BALANCE OF THIS DECADE MUST AVERAGE 100 OR LESS ,WITH BRIEF SPURTS OF ACTIVITY FROM TIME TO TIME.
I strongly suggest looking at the LAYMAN SUNSPOT SITE ,AND ICEAGENOW.COM websites to obtain a good understanding of what governs earth’s climate and the causes for it,along with supporting data for those causes.
These sites like myself address abrupt climate change,and why. That is the KEY, which must be understood if one is going to have any handle on what earth’s climate may be doing ,going forward.
One item I want to mention is ,when solar activity is weak, UV light lessens, and this has a profound effect on the distributions and concentrations of ozone, which in turn effects the whole temperature structure of the atmosphere, and causes major changes in the circulation pattern, bringing about a much more meridional pattern(-AO) which in turn will cause the N.H. to cool.
The solar irriadiance reduction itself will be minor and is not the main contributor to the lower temperatures, although it has a small additional impact.
Thank you for your earlier replies Scott!
“David Appell says:
May 10, 2012 at 1:21 PM
I think Project Pioneer, the carbon capture project in Alberta, was scrapped about two weeks ago….In any case, your numbers are far higher from studies like the Stern Review”
At one time, we had four different projects on the go. During the last election, the Wildrose party was willing to scrap all four and pay the penalty required. But they lost and are now the opposition party. The ruling party won and they do not seem to be for carbon capture either but seem obligated to honor previous commitments. So as you said, Project Pioneer did pull out but the other three are still on the go. One of them asked for public input and I submitted the article that I wrote about: “Should we spend a billion dollars for 1/10,000 of a degree?” along with the stagnation in temperature for RSS.
As for the price of carbon capture, it is far higher than can ever be justified by anyone’s calculations.
Again, at this point nobody is expecting CCS to solve the carbon problem, though naturally learning trials are going to be expensive. I suspect the real reason for the Alberta CCS projects is for marketing purposes — to give the appearance the energy companies there are doing something to counter the carbon emissions that others are creating by digging up the Alberta tar sands.
“Following the conclusion of the [feasibility] study, the industry partners determined that, although the technology works and capital costs were in line with expectations, the market for carbon sales and the price of emissions reductions were insufficient to allow the project to proceed,” Pioneer said in a statement.
http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Energy-Resources/2012/04/27/Alberta-carbon-capture-project-dropped/UPI-40261335547056/#ixzz1uVzGhny0
It seems that those waiting for the negative phase of oceanic cycles to kick in soon will have to wait a few years longer.
Looking at the global data for April over the entire UAH series, some interesting results:
Rank (by anomaly)
1998
2010
2005
2012
Looking at land only:
Ranks
1998
2012
2010 (eq)
2005 (eq)
Give that the last two years have shown a strong La Nina cycle, this is a incredible result!
“Give that the last two years have shown a strong La Nina cycle, this is a incredible result!”
To a certain extent, I have to agree. But look at the 2012 average so far. With the UAH anomaly for April at 0.295, the average for the first third of the year is (-0.09 -0.112 + 0.108 + 0.295)/4 = 0.05025. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 12th. This compares with the anomaly of 2011 at 0.153 to rank it 9th for that year. So at this point, I would not put too much importance into the single extremely high single month. But time will tell how significant this month turns out to be.
Further to my comments above, the jump between February and April between RSS, UAH and GISS is as follows: 0.453, 0.407 and 0.17 respectively.
Seems like the position of both side remains the same.
Both sides argue their points, find evidence to support/defend it against the other side, which only reinforces polarity as both sides store only information they bring to the table as knowledge in their brains.
There does appear to be a difference though. One side says CO2 is absolutely pollution, the science is settled, the debate is over.
The other side says CO2 has some benefits, the science is not settled and let’s debate.
However, there are some honest scientists willing to change their position based on empirical data and seeing both sides.
“Gaia’ scientist James Lovelock: I was ‘alarmist’ about climate change”
http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098-gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change?lite
“It will also reflect his new opinion that global warming has not occurred as he had expected.
“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.
“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.
“The world has not warmed up very much since the millennium. Twelve years is a reasonable time… it (the temperature) has stayed almost constant, whereas it should have been rising — carbon dioxide is rising, no question about that,” he added.”
Temperatures have not gone up ,and they are about to go down. I predict by late summer this will become more evident,and by the time this decade is through my thinking, and others that agree with me, about what causes the climate to change will become the reality.
I believe by late this summer ,the colder trend will become more apparent.
Dr. Spencer,although seemingly fighting against the global warmers,is way off in his understanding of what governs earth’s climatic system.
Yes, we are well into the downside of the natural 60 year cycle which shows up very clearly in the graphic at the foot of my Home page. The 1000 year cyclic trend is still rising by about half a C degree per century, but for no more than another 200 years, after which we see 500 years of cooling.
Carbon dioxide can only slow the radiative component of surface cooling. That radiation transfers some energy to the whole atmosphere, but only a very small proportion to the air within 2m of the surface, which is where temperatures are measured. Carbon dioxide’s effect on this rate of radiative cooling is less than 1% of the effect of all the water vapour, so that puts it in its place.
Finally, as at the end of Section 5 of my paper, other rates of non-radiative cooling of the surface will simply speed up and compensate, so there is no overall effect anyway.
Anyone is welcome to discuss this with me on my thread here.
Werner re this:
Here are the trends and significances for each period:
Period Length Trend
(Degrees C per decade) Significance
1860-1880 21 0.163 Yes
1910-1940 31 0.15 Yes
1975-1998 24 0.166 Yes
1975-2009 35 0.161 Yes
“Does it make sense that humans can eject 90 million tons of known greenhouse gases every day for 100 years and not change anything?”
I’ve adapted one of your WFT graphs to highlight these periods and also those intervening periods.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/mean:13/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1910.08/to:1940/trend/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1975.08/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1860.08/to:1880/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1880.08/to:1910/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1940.08/to:1975/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1999.08/to:2013/trend
Noticing that the intervening trends/decade are as follows:
1880-1910 -0.07
1940-1975 -0.01
1995-current +0.02
Very interesting that these intervening periods are not providing cooling equivalence to the warming trends you stated. So it would seem we have a non-natural variation.
I also note a few comments from Doug Cotton. So I took the time to look at his paper. I am bemused that he appears to be taking some sort of data derivative to plot his Armagh time line along the lines of Carter Defritas and Maclean on ENSO, effectively removing any long-term trend from the data, thus making his arguments rather disingenuous.
I also plotted HADSST2 sea surface anomalies, again putting paid to the nonsense that sea levels are not rising.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/mean:13/plot/hadsst2gl/trend
We can also have a look at longterm PDO v temp
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/mean:13/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1900/mean:13/scale:8/offset:2.4
And clearly the trends are totally different, not unexpected given PDO and ENSO are oscillations that show no long term trends.
I also picked up a Arctic temp anomaly graph
GMF data:Institute fur Geophysik, Zurich & NOAA
Arctic temperature data : CRUTEM3 HadSST2 0-360 E 66-90N
Data for the Arctic temperature and the GMF Z (inverted) are normalised to same scale; correlation of R2 = 0.8933
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ATc.gif
It appears the natural argument is getting surpassed by non-natural impacts. GHGs perhaps?
Not quite. More like, 0.13 C/dec from cyclic change (~60 yrs) and 0.07 C/dec from GHGs & Sun & LIA recovery ++
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/mean:13/scale:0.15/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1900/mean:13/offset:0.45/detrend:0.8
“sillyfilly says:
May 11, 2012 at 11:46 PM
Very interesting that these intervening periods are not providing cooling equivalence to the warming trends you stated. So it would seem we have a non-natural variation.”
We are coming out of the LIA so there is indeed a general upward trend over the last 150 years. However the first two slopes were before 1945 when CO2 presumably had no effect. But the last one really should have been affected by CO2 according to many people, but its slope is not significantly different from the others. That is the main point here.
You’ve detrended the temperature series by 0.8DC, that’s merely neat statistical trickery. So how do you explain the that increse which is conveniently omitted from your graphical display?
That’s seems to be an ongoing and insurmountable problem for some?
No trickery, just a way to find the cyclic component, and then like I said there is 0.07 C/dec left to GHGs & Sun & LIA recovery ++
Werner:
From the graphs supplied by many we know that the natural cycles TSI, PDO, ENSO etc will have impacts whether it’s pre 1945 or post 1945. That the trends are similar begets the fact that was illustrated above that the temperatures are rising above and beyond these natural constraints. The scale of illustrated trend are the same but the intial temperatures were much greater in each case, so that’s the main point.
And please, if you are going to carry on about the LIA take the time to view this excellent video:
A42D Charney Lecture (to AGU)
Past and Contemporary Climate Change: Evidence From Earth’s Ice Cover
Presented by E. S. Mosley-Thompson, Byrd Polar Research Center, Ohio State University and Department of Geography, Ohio State University
http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm10/lectures/lecture_videos/A42D.shtml
On this evidence it was NOT a worldwide phenomena
The long-term trend is a ~1,000 year cycle currently rising about 0.5 C degree / decade, though that rate is decreasing as shown here. We can expect a maximum (1 degree higher at most)about 1,000 years after the Medieval Warming Period, then there will be about 500 years of cooling.
Carbon dioxide can have no effect because of its very limited emission spectrum, especially at temperatures found in the troposphere.
LGL:
You still claim that the rise is cyclical so let’s look at those cycle ~60 years:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/jisao-pdo/mean:37/scale:0.15/offset:-0.5/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1950/mean:37/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1950/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1900/to:1950/trend/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1900/to:1950/mean:37
Clearly it’s still a bit of statistical trickery!
You haven’t accounted for any temperature increase, merely the variations in PDO, which clearly have no long term impact on the long-term trend.
Hey Doug @
Doug Cotton says:
May 12, 2012 at 11:44 PM
Why is it that your graphs differ so much from reality?
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadsst2gl/mean:36
Perhaps some background on the statistical methodology you apply to the data may help?
I don’t see your plot being the same thing, Silly, namely a plot of 360-month trend gradients. My source is linked on my website. Go argue with Bob.
“The scale of illustrated trend are the same but the initial temperatures were much greater in each case, so that’s the main point.
And please, if you are going to carry on about the LIA take the time to view this excellent video:”
The temperatures go in a cyclic fashion and very slowly increase. Now as for whether the LIA or MWP were global or not, I will wait for Steve McIntyre to agree with that once he obtains all information he is seeking. Someone seems to be hiding something since he is desperate that certain information not be released.
As for the 60 year cycle, see
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/akasofu_ipcc.jpg
No, you take the time to study a proper analysis of the underlying trend in the data which we can observe, such as at the foot of my Home page. The rate of increase in SST has been decreasing these last 110 years or so (as shown in the plot at the foot of my Home page) and we are approaching another “Roman Warming Period” or “Medieval Warming Period” call it what you like – within 50 to 200 years, before 500 years of cooling sets in.
Carbon dioxide cannot affect surface temperatures because its emissivity is far too low at atmospheric temperatures and it has less than 1% of the effect of all the water vapour. Neither of them can affect rates of evaporative cooling or sensible heat transfer between the surface and the atmosphere, let alone transfer any thermal energy from the cooler atmosphere to the warmer surface.
There is a clear ~1,000 year natural cycle probably related to the eccentricity of Jupiter. But you have to eliminate the effect of the superimposed 60 year cycle (which shows very clearly in that plot) before you can analyse the underlying trend. Climatologists are ignorant of this, it seems.
Werner:
Something other that WUWT: a mass of temperature reconstruction that differ.
http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/File:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison_png
“sillyfilly says:
May 14, 2012 at 9:51 PM”
On the other hand, please see: McIntyre gets some new Yamal data – still no hockey stick.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/15/mcintyre-gets-some-new-yamal-data-still-no-hockey-stick/
And with reference to the LIA that you mentioned the other day, see
http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2012/2012GL051260.shtml
Werner,
Hadn’t seen that one from Orsi et al, so thank you. Though the Byrd study I supplied had indicated new studies from Antartica were underway. However, while noting that they have found some indications of cooling in that historic period, their abstract clearly indicates was only half the amplitude. So while my initial statement may not be absolutely correct regarding the global nature of the LIA (though it still doesn’t appear in all the ice core records), the argument still stands.
“This amplitude is about half of that seen at Greenland Summit (GRIP). This result is consistent with the idea that the LIA was a global event, probably caused by a change in solar and volcanic forcing, and was not simply a seesaw-type redistribution of heat between the hemispheres as would be predicted by some ocean-circulation hypotheses. The difference in the magnitude of the LIA between Greenland and West Antarctica suggests that the feedbacks amplifying the radiative forcing may not operate in the same way in both regions”
As to YAMAL, we can argue tree rings all day as does SM, but that’s been superceded by the multiple reconstructions now confirming the temperature over time.
“As to YAMAL, we can argue tree rings all day as does SM, but that’s been superceded by the multiple reconstructions now confirming the temperature over time.”
Have you seen:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/29/the-medieval-warm-period-a-global-phenonmena-unprecedented-warming-or-unprecedented-data-manipulation/
Thanks for the reference to that LIA article which I’ve now linked from my site.
The Little Ice Age is quoted in the article mentioned as being from about 1400 to 1850. Becuase of the ~1000 year cycle that would place the maximum for the current warming period at about the year 1625 + 500 = 2125. This is why I have been saying it can be expected between 50 and 200 years from now. In fact, 2118 (being 1998 + 120) should be a maximum in the superimposed 60 year cycle and I would predict that that maximum would be about 1.4 to 1.8 degrees warmer than the 1998 maximum. But at least 500 years of cooling should follow.
stop talking shit, these warm temps are the heat island and are nothing to write home about.if there is a problem call 267.600.2759 and ask for jimmy
no warm spring here
also call 610-668-5696 if yall have anything to comment about the weather fag
the world has cooled since 2007 and has not showed any signs of warming except for a brief spike in el nino spring 2010 for a few months and has been cooler since 2011 thru now (apr 2012)
“the world has cooled since 2007”
You can even go back to 2002. See
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:2002/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/plot/rss/from:2002/trend/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/plot/hadsst2gl/from:2002/trend/plot/uah/from:2002/plot/uah/from:2002/trend/plot/gistemp/from:2002/plot/gistemp/from:2002/trend/plot/wti/from:2002/plot/wti/from:2002/trend
Looking at the comments above, you get a very illuminating view of how simplistic some people are about scientific methodology. Professor Paul Feyerabend’s book “Against Method” (1975) debunks scientific “methodology”. In short, whatever method proves successful in the present is called science; it’s not about the dogma of past methods (despite the focus on this stuff in undergraduate physics modules). Most real progress in science comes from new methodology, because if the old “established” methods were perfect we could almost instantly have the final theory for everything.
1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas because it absorbs wideband infrared in a greenhouse. But the Earth has another strong greenhouse gas, water vapour, which contributes far more to the greenhouse effect than CO2. Water vapour dominates over CO2, but it has another effect. When it absorbs infrared, it warms and rises, expanding, and (if the concentration is great enough) forming cloud cover when reaching cool altitudes where the moisture saturates the air. This cloud cover then shadows the surface, cooling it. This is why the greenhouse gas H2O doesn’t produce a runaway greenhouse effect on earth (unlike oceanless planets such as Venus, Mars).
2. So the question is whether H2O really produces “positive feedback”, amplifying the effect of the small anthropic CO2 emission. H2O can have negative feedback when the global warming is strong (cloud cover increases in response to greater ocean evaporation), not just positive feedback. The IPCC assumes only positive feedback from H2O in all its many “different” models; this is required to double or triple the raw CO2 AGW forecast and bring the past predictions “into agreement” with temperature rise data.
3. However, this methodology of justifying the model’s qualitative assumptions about H2O feedback is very naive because you are **assuming** that 100% of the temperature rise is due to the effects from CO2. In other words, you are assuming no natural temperature fluctuations. Fair enough, if you make this methodology assumption clear. But the IPCC doesn’t. It instead tries to to use the implicit assumption of complete AGW temperature dependence on greenhouse gases as evidence to support its AGW theory, a circular argument.
This self-perpetuating argument is like assuming that 100% of birth defects in the Ukraine after the Chernobyl accident were caused by radiation, then plotting a graph with a curve of accumulated birth defects correlated to accumulated dose from Cs-137 (30 years half life). Perfect correlation. Proves nothing. You’re merely assuming one thing is the causing the other. Unless you show the **natural** variation in birth defects before Chernobyl, you are duping everyone. When you look at that, the fiddle is apparent. But if you are in the anti-nuclear propaganda industry, you don’t want to know good news about radiation.
This is precisely what happens with AGW: the question is what **percentage** of today’s temperature variation is due to CO2? It should be possible to answer it by seeing the historical variations, but this is where the “hockey stick” problems appear. Prior to 1960, “heat island” contamination of temperature stations (from expanding cities) forces reliance on proxies, mainly tree rings, which grow in response to more variables than simply temperature (cloud cover and rainfall, for instance), so using tree rings as a proxy assumes no net systematic effect of other variables.
Cloud cover increases as a function of temperature, because of the evaporation of ocean water into cloud. This increased cloud cover – accompanying increased temperature – to a large extent cancels out the temperature fluctuation effect seen in tree ring growth rates. So the hockey stick is relatively flat when relying on tree ring growth rates, but this is misleading. The trees growth rate historically did not respond to temperature like trees in a temperature controlled greenhouse today, because as the global temperature increased, mean cloud cover also increased, reducing photosynthesis and offsetting the effect of increased air temperature on growth rates. (Cloud cover effects from temperature variations cannot be stimulated in greenhouses containing trees and air temperature control, but no cloud cover.) Thus, the hockey stick tree ring proxy data prior to 1960 is false.
Key tree ring proxy data fails to correlate with direct temperature measurement data since 1960 – the period where checks are possible – this problem is normally “solved” by not using tree ring proxies for the portion of the hockey stick after 1960! From 1960-80, direct temperature data is used, and after 1980 satellite data are used.
The problem here is just like the deformed Ukraine babies after Chernobyl being paraded on TV as proof of evil nuclear waste problems. We know as fact that the climate varies. We know as fact that CO2 is being pumped out by industry. What we don’t know (despite tree ring proxies and the hockey stick curve propaganda) is what the natural fluctuation rates of temperature really are. The hockey stick (tree ring proxy) fiddle leads to claims that the industrial era recent temperature increase is unprecedented and correlates well with the CO2 increase. Case closed, for politicians and ethical “save the world” simpletons.
There was and still is a tremendous Marxist-socialist crusading world unity “movement” pressure to find a bogeyman to replace nuclear war doomsday hype (after the USSR collapsed), to allow politicians to unite in big mutual back-slapping conferences to “save the world”. There is a pressure on scientists to grab funds by catering to this well-funded ethical “save the world” bandwaggon.
However, if CO2 really could cause a disproportionate perturbation of global temperature by boosting via positive feedback from H2O, then H2O would have long since caused Earth to go into a runaway greenhouse effect. That’s no possible because clearly there is a switch from positive to negative feedback from H2O as Earth heats up and cloud cover increases. So the long-term effect of injecting large amounts of CO2 **must** include a net increase in global cloud cover, with negative feedback from H2O. The qualitative existence of this negative feedback from H2O is a hard fact, because purely positive feedback from H2O would have caused an exponential rise in temperature (runaway heating) and would have boiled the Earth long ago. The quantitative scientific question is precisely how much heating is needed for H2O feedback to switch over from positive feedback (amplifying CO2 AGW) to negative feedback (offsetting or cancelling CO2 AGW)?
The data from Dr Spencer indicates that only a small amount of heating causes H2O feedback to become negative, so we are already in this situation, and further CO2 injections will not increase global climate temperatures as IPCC models predict. Instead, further CO2 injections will merely tend to cause increased H2O evaporation-derived cloud cover, which has a cooling effect at altitudes below the cloud tops. H2O has an increasingly negative feedback, largely cancelling out the CO2 effect.
Many good points raised. The only thing I would like to add is said in my peer-reviewed paper …
Carbon dioxide and, indeed, all molecules sending radiation from a cooler atmosphere towards a warmer surface can only affect the radiative component of surface cooling.
Thus they cannot (and do not) affect the remainng 60% to 70% or more of surface cooling which is due to non-radiative processes, mostly molecular collisions at the interface of the solid or liquid surface and air. These other rates will accelerate and tend to compensate for any slowing of radiative cooling. The slowing of such radiative cooling by CO2 is very minuscule because of the low emissivity of CO2 even compared to water vapour. You are indeed quite correct in saying that the role of WV is far greater.
The backradiation is “pseudo scatteded” and never transfers heat to a warmer surface. The scattered radiation gives the impression of more radiation coming from the surface, but none of it is transporting thermal energy from the surface – that was done the first time the energy departed from the surface after it was warmed by the Sun.
Dr Roy,
Will you continue to use the 3rd order polynomial fit if the end of the graph starts to point upwards?
Thank you, Ive recently been searching for information about this subject for ages and yours is the greatest I have discovered so far. But, what about the conclusion? Are you sure about the source?