UAH Global Temperature Update for November, 2018: +0.28 deg. C

December 3rd, 2018 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

The Version 6.0 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for November, 2018 was +0.28 deg. C, up a little from +0.22 deg. C in October:

Global area-averaged lower tropospheric temperature anomalies (departures from 30-year calendar monthly means, 1981-2010). The 13-month centered average is meant to give an indication of the lower frequency variations in the data; the choice of 13 months is somewhat arbitrary… an odd number of months allows centered plotting on months with no time lag between the two plotted time series. The inclusion of two of the same calendar months on the ends of the 13 month averaging period causes no issues with interpretation because the seasonal temperature cycle has been removed, and so has the distinction between calendar months.

Various regional LT departures from the 30-year (1981-2010) average for the last 23 months are:

YEAR MO GLOBE NHEM. SHEM. TROPIC USA48 ARCTIC AUST
2017 01 +0.33 +0.32 +0.34 +0.10 +0.28 +0.95 +1.22
2017 02 +0.39 +0.58 +0.20 +0.08 +2.16 +1.33 +0.21
2017 03 +0.23 +0.37 +0.09 +0.06 +1.22 +1.24 +0.98
2017 04 +0.28 +0.29 +0.27 +0.22 +0.90 +0.23 +0.40
2017 05 +0.45 +0.40 +0.50 +0.41 +0.11 +0.21 +0.06
2017 06 +0.22 +0.34 +0.10 +0.40 +0.51 +0.10 +0.34
2017 07 +0.29 +0.31 +0.28 +0.51 +0.61 -0.27 +1.03
2017 08 +0.41 +0.41 +0.42 +0.47 -0.54 +0.49 +0.78
2017 09 +0.55 +0.52 +0.58 +0.54 +0.30 +1.06 +0.60
2017 10 +0.63 +0.67 +0.60 +0.48 +1.22 +0.83 +0.86
2017 11 +0.36 +0.34 +0.38 +0.27 +1.36 +0.68 -0.12
2017 12 +0.42 +0.50 +0.33 +0.26 +0.45 +1.37 +0.36
2018 01 +0.26 +0.46 +0.06 -0.11 +0.59 +1.36 +0.43
2018 02 +0.20 +0.25 +0.16 +0.03 +0.92 +1.20 +0.18
2018 03 +0.25 +0.40 +0.10 +0.07 -0.31 -0.32 +0.60
2018 04 +0.21 +0.32 +0.11 -0.12 -0.00 +1.02 +0.69
2018 05 +0.18 +0.41 -0.05 +0.03 +1.94 +0.18 -0.39
2018 06 +0.21 +0.38 +0.04 +0.12 +1.20 +0.83 -0.55
2018 07 +0.32 +0.43 +0.21 +0.29 +0.51 +0.30 +1.37
2018 08 +0.19 +0.22 +0.17 +0.12 +0.07 +0.09 +0.26
2018 09 +0.15 +0.15 +0.14 +0.24 +0.88 +0.21 +0.19
2018 10 +0.22 +0.31 +0.12 +0.34 +0.25 +1.11 +0.39
2018 11 +0.28 +0.27 +0.29 +0.50 -1.13 +0.69 +0.53

The linear temperature trend of the global average lower tropospheric temperature anomalies from January 1979 through November 2018 remains at +0.13 C/decade.

The UAH LT global anomaly image for November, 2018 should be available in the next few days here.

The new Version 6 files should also be updated at that time, and are located here:

Lower Troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tlt/uahncdc_lt_6.0.txt
Mid-Troposphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tmt/uahncdc_mt_6.0.txt
Tropopause: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/ttp/uahncdc_tp_6.0.txt
Lower Stratosphere: http://vortex.nsstc.uah.edu/data/msu/v6.0/tls/uahncdc_ls_6.0.txt


752 Responses to “UAH Global Temperature Update for November, 2018: +0.28 deg. C”

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  1. JDHuffman says:

    Thank you UAH crew! As many others continually mention, it’s good to have temperature data we can trust.

    As usual, the long term winter forecast is a jumble. Some models are predicting slightly colder for US. But, a Midoki El Niño continues to form, which should provide a little warming, or at least moderate the cooling.

    https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/nino34.png

    https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/cdas-sflux_ssta_global_1.png

    The polar vortex appears to be re-organizing, but it’s still a little sloppy, with maximum wind speeds well below 200 mph.

    • JDHuffman says:

      Should be “Modoki!

      Not enough saki….

    • Svante says:

      JDHuffman says:

      “The polar vortex […] it’s still a little sloppy “.

      Is this why:
      https://tinyurl.com/ycxlo5k9

      • JDHuffman says:

        That’s just the same old propaganda.

        They have the basic physics wrong, making their models inaccurate. So they have to use scare tactics to get more funding.

        Nothing new.

        • Jack Dale says:

          Like the propaganda from Judith Curry?

          Arctic sea ice loss tied to unusual jet stream patterns
          By: Dr. Jeff Masters, 2:40 PM GMT on April 02, 2012

          Earth has seen some highly unusual weather patterns over the past three years, and three new studies published this year point to Arctic sea loss as a potential important driver of some of these strange weather patterns. The record loss of sea ice the Arctic in recent years may be increasing winter cold surges and snowfall in Europe and North America, says a study by a research team led by Georgia Institute of Technology scientists Jiping Liu and Judith Curry. The paper, titled “Impact of declining Arctic sea ice on winter snowfall”, was published on Feb. 27, 2012 in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Our study demonstrates that the decrease in Arctic sea ice area is linked to changes in the winter Northern Hemisphere atmospheric circulation, said Judith Curry, chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, in a press release. “The circulation changes result in more frequent episodes of atmospheric blocking patterns, which lead to increased cold surges and snow over large parts of the northern continents.”

  2. TheFinalNail says:

    Thanks Dr Spencer.

    Uptick is led by the Tropics. Looks like TLT is responding to ENSO3.4 with ~5 month lag. If so, then would anyone agree that warming should continue over the next few months?

    TFN

    • nate says:

      Yes, if past history is a guide.

    • Bobdesbond says:

      Not necessarily. We still don’t have an El Nino. The oceans are doing their bit, but the atmosphere hasn’t joined the party yet. The atmosphere and ocean need to couple to get El Nino. And the oceans are only at a weak El Nino level anyway.

      • JDHuffman says:

        Correct, des. ENSO areas will have to stay at these temps, or move higher, though the end of January, to be an official El Niño. As defined by NOAA.

      • Dave says:

        Indeed. Given the ~5 month lag in Tropospheric response to SSTs as measured in the Nino regions, the most recent UAH values would reflect influence from the neutral values that prevailed in the period April-June (which itself followed 6 months of mild La Nina conditions). Its thus too early to see the effect of recent warming in the eastern Pacific: this will more likely start becoming evident in Feb-March 2019

  3. ren says:

    NCEP Global Forecast System model (GFS) analyses and forecasts of certain variables in the upper troposphere/lower stratosphere (UTLS) can identify current and future Stratospheric Intrusion events.
    https://images.tinypic.pl/i/00975/lmieoyavppn4.png

  4. ren says:

    Winter temperatures in the US will be well below average.

  5. More of the same meaning the biased is slightly down but slightly.

    The signs I am looking for are first and foremost overall oceanic sea surface temperatures to cool. I do not know if the formation of weak El Nino conditions is bringing up overall oceanic sea surface temperatures? What I do know is it is the sun that has the final say on overall oceanic sea surface temperatures which means they will be trending down when all is said and done.

    Increased geological activity which we do have but this could increase from here especially when it comes to a major explosive volcanic eruption or two.

    A more -AO/NAO which seems to be the case in contrast to late last century, along with a gradual lowering of heights and an equatorward expansion of the jet stream and polar vortexes.

    Increase in global snow coverage and global cloud coverage, which I think is now occurring especially the snow coverage. Sea Ice coverage still low, will have to be monitored. Should start to expand moving forward.

    These are the signs to watch to determine if solar is indeed causing global cooling moderated by the geo magnetic field.

    I think it is and only time will tell.

    That said global temperatures have stopped increasing and the climate is in no way unique.

  6. TheFinalNail says:

    Salvatore Del Prete says:

    “…it is the sun that has the final say on overall oceanic sea surface temperatures which means they will be trending down when all is said and done.”
    ______________

    To be fair Salvatore, oceanic sea surface temperatures haven’t exactly cooled over the past few decades of reduced solar output, have they?

    TFN

  7. Robert W Turner says:

    Another back to back El Nino, sort of reminiscent to the build up to 2016. 2019 could start out as the ‘warmest year evah’. But if that strong La Nina forms November 2019, it could be bad times for the climate alarm industry by 2020 and beyond.

  8. ren says:

    Surface temperature anomalies of the eastern Pacific do not indicate El Nino.
    https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2018/anomnight.11.29.2018.gif

  9. Joel says:

    Looks like this year is locked in for about 0.22, making it 6th or 7th hottest in the UAH record.

    That makes the last four years 7th, 3rd, 1st and 5th, and continues the long term trend of 0.13 per decade.

    The climate is warming, the data is right in front of your eyes.

    • JDHuffman says:

      Yes Joel, the temps are slightly higher than they were in the 70s, when they were slightly lower. Good observation.

    • Chic Bowdrie says:

      Climate changes. Nothing new there. Average troposphere temperatures are warmer than last month, but the average for this year looks to be about the same or less than in 2002. So are we warming or just a bit warmer compared to some earlier reference point?

      Who cares? The questions are why it is warmer and what are we going to do about it. My answers–no one knows for sure and nothing until we do, I hope.

      • Craig T. says:

        The last 12 month TLT anomaly average of 0.24C is not much higher than 2002’s average of 0.22C. But the Nino 3.4 anomaly average for 2002 was 0.59C while the last 12 month average was -0.36C.

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          Are you saying we have to wait for another El Nino to know if we warmed or cooled with respect to 1998 and 2016?

          • David Appell says:

            No. You can calculate warming for any time interval you want. And also the statistical uncertainty. Only then can you judge the trend number. Short time intervals, like from 2016, are ruled out — they say absolutely nothing about climate, they’re about oceanic weather.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Huh?

          • David Appell says:

            You don’t know anything about trend analysis?

            You can start by reading

            Appendix A: “Statistical Issues Regarding Trends,” Tom Wigley

            in U.S. Climate Change Science Program
            Synthesis and Assessment Product 1.1
            April 2006.

            https://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/2006_temperature-trends-lower-atmosphere_en.pdf

          • Craig T. says:

            No, but changes in ENSO conditions have a large impact on lower troposphere temperatures. Here’s a graph with 1979 to Nov 2018 TLT superimposed with Nino 3.4 data, with a 3 month delay added to the 3.4 graph. There’s a good correlation to the rise and fall of temperatures.
            https://i.imgur.com/vrooFDm.jpg

            Instead of comparing years try comparing decades. The graph in the link shows that the highs and lows of the ENSO cycle cancels over time. The Nina 3.4 trend is flat while TLT has an upward trend over the 40 years of data.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Craig,

            That is a great plot. I now see why comparing the Nino 3.4 anomalies is not appropriate. But notice that in 1998, 2010, and 2016, the Nino anomalies are comparable to the UAH data. So I repeat: should we wait for El Nino peaks to see how much warming?

            Also why is the Nino 3.4 average anomaly zero? Is it constrained or coincidence?

          • Nate says:

            ‘should we wait for El Nino peaks to see how much warming?’

            Look at any or all of the temp time series, say for last 50 y.

            http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend/trend.html

            They all show a roughly linear trend with noise. TLT has more noise than surface.

            If one’s hypothesis is that history of last 50 y is good guide for next few years, and the linear trend continues, then what should we be seeing?

            As you can see the noise often goes well above and below (1 sigma) the linear trend line. Right now it is near or below the trend line in all the series. But totally within the 1 sigma.

            So what we are seeing is totally expected. Agrees with hypothesis.

            Most of the noise is correlated to ENSO. ENSO has been low recently. So what we’re seeing is consistent with that too.

            So climate cops say: nothing to see here folks, move along.

          • Craig T. says:

            Chic asked:
            “Also why is the Nino 3.4 average anomaly zero? Is it constrained or coincidence?”

            It is an anomaly so if there is no trend the average comes out as zero. I don’t have a better answer than that.

    • Richard M says:

      Not really climate. Just weather. +AMO driving Arctic sea ice loss. AMO likely to go negative within 5 years.

  10. Joel says:

    40 years of data:

    1st 10y ave (79-88): -0.14
    2nd 10y ave (89-98): -0.02
    3rd 10y ave (99-08): +0.09
    4th 10y ave (09-18): +0.22 (tbc)

  11. Joel says:

    Is it worth pointing out that within this dataset, the 10y range from 09-18 is the first to average above 0.20?

  12. David Appell says:

    This month’s number completes 40.0 years of UAH data. Congratulations Roy, John and other members of your team. That’s quite an accomplishment.

  13. Ric says:

    The downward variation for US48 is rather impressive – any specific reasons for this?

    • ren says:

      CO2 and O3 play a huge role in the lower stratosphere, where ozone and carbon dioxide are exchanged into water vapor.
      https://images.tinypic.pl/i/00975/en5av1usjzqy.png
      The highest rate of carbon-14 production takes place at altitudes of 9 to 15 km (30,000 to 49,000 ft) and at high geomagnetic latitudes.
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon-14
      The rate of 14C production can be modelled, yielding values of 16,400[12] or 18,800[13] atoms of 14C per second per square meter of the Earths surface, which agrees with the global carbon budget that can be used to backtrack,[14] but attempts to directly measure the production rate in situ were not very successful. Production rates vary because of changes to the cosmic ray flux caused by the heliospheric modulation (solar wind and solar magnetic field), and due to variations in the Earths magnetic field.
      Where the ozone level rises in the winter, the air is drier and colder.
      http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/gif_files/gfs_o3mr_250_NA_f00.png

      • Chic Bowdrie says:

        ren, what is that last link showing? Ozone levels at a certain elevation?

        • ren says:

          The height of 250 millibars is the height of the jet stream in the upper troposphere.
          Below I give a link that shows the level of ozone at different altitudes. The loss of even a small amount of water vapor in the upper troposphere (in winter) means a significant decrease in surface temperature in medium latitudes.
          http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            So the colors range from 5.4 to 423.7 in some units of ozone? The scale seems to be nonlinear.

            Are you proposing that loss of water vapor is from low ozone level? Why does loss of water vapor cause surface temperature to decrease? Is this restricted to winter and medium latitudes?

          • ren says:

            Loss of water vapor in the upper troposphere is the result of excess ozone.

          • ren says:

            This is important especially in medium latitudes during the winter. Look out for the very dry winter in North America.
            In satellite imagery, Stratospheric Intrusions are identified by very low moisture levels in the water vapor channels (6.2, 6.5, and 6.9 micron). Along with the dry air, Stratospheric Intrusions bring high amounts of ozone into the tropospheric column and possibly near the surface.
            http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_int/

          • ren says:

            Chic Bowdrie
            The retention of water vapor in the upper troposphere has a large impact on the greenhouse effect. The mechanism is for discussion.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            ren, you lost me, but thanks for the Kilifarska et alia paper. Good stuff for discussing mechanisms.

            I avoid using greenhouse in discussions about climate as it suggests mechanisms not applicable to the atmosphere.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            Paraphrasing:
            “Hey ren, I have no idea what you are talking about, but as you are on my side I BELIEVE you when you say it is correct science.”

        • ren says:

          The relationship between climatic parameters and the Earths magnetic field has been reported by many authors. However, the absence of a feasible mechanism accounting for this relationship has impeded progress in this research field. Based on the instrumental observations, we reveal the spatio-temporal relation�ship between the key structures in the geomagnetic field, surface air temperature and pressure fields, ozone, and the specific humidity near the tropopause. As one of the probable explanations of these correlations, we suggest the following chain of the causal relations: (1) modulation of the intensity and penetration depth of energetic particles (galactic cosmic rays (GCRs)) in the Earths atmosphere by the geomagnetic field; (2) the distortion of the ozone density near the tropopause under the action of GCRs; (3) the change in temperature near the tropopause due to the high absorbing capacity of ozone; (4) the adjustment of the extra�tropical upper tropospheric static stability and, consequently, specific humidity, to the modified tropopause temper�ature; and (5) the change in the surface air temperature due to the increase/decrease of the water vapor green�house effect.

          (PDF) Geomagnetic Field and Climate: Causal Relations with Some Atmospheric Variables. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281441974_Geomagnetic_Field_and_Climate_Causal_Relations_with_Some_Atmospheric_Variables [accessed Dec 03 2018].

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            I haven’t finished reading that paper yet, but I was curious how you interpret “the water vapor greenhouse effect.”

          • Craig T. says:

            I looked at the Kilifarska paper. It references Inamdar 2004, a paper measuring the greenhouse effect of water vapor.
            https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1029/2003JD003980

            The paper defines the Greenhouse Effect as the difference between the upward flux at the surface and top of the atmosphere long wave flux from satellite data.

            But I don’t think the Kilifarska paper correctly interpreted that paper. Kilifarska says:

            “In fact,the greenhouse effect is primarily determined by the humidity close to the tropopause (Spencer and Braswell, 1997; Inamdar, 2004). Therefore, the hypothesis that the entire troposphere becomes warmer as a result of the anthropogenic warming is neither substantiated theoretically nor is it validated by the empirical evidence.”

            Here’s what the Inamdar paper says on the subject:

            “As shown in Figure 4, Ga [Greenhouse Effect] (broadband) is about equally sensitive to water vapor changes at all layers between 900 mbar and 300 mbar (Figure 4), with a slight maxima at 850 mbar and 300 mbar.”

          • Craig T. says:

            The other paper claimed to show “the greenhouse effect is primarily determined by the humidity close to the tropopause” is by Dr. Spencer.
            https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4d59/83aabbb583e918aa28313df2e45514a06c7c.pdf

            Spencer’s paper is on the humidity of the free troposphere (less than 700 hPa) in the tropics. Again, nothing in the paper suggests that water vapor only causes warming near the tropopause.

            Kilifarska supplies no evidence to back a premise the rest of his paper is based on.

    • Bindidon says:

      Hard to say. We actually have the same situation as last year:
      – excessive warmth im Western Europe (we had +11 C yesterday)
      – excessive coldness in Northern America.

      But in Feb 2017, UAH has shown for USA48 +2.17 C…
      Any specific reasons for this?

  14. Down trend in global temperatures although slight thus far is now in place and has been since 2016.

    I think this will be the overall trend for decades to come.

    • David Appell says:

      You’re measuring from a peak, Cherry picking. There have been back-to-back La Ninas — weather fluctuations in the ocean. Such a short-term trend isn’t statistically significant and says nothing about climate. You’ve said all this before and have been wrong every time. Batting average 0.000. At that average a ballplayer would examine their entire approach to the game. Hope is not science.

      • AndyG55 says:

        “Youre measuring from a peak, Cherry picking”

        You mean like Arctic sea ice ??? 😉

        You have no hope, DA, because you lack science.

        • Bindidon says:

          “You have no hope, DA, because you lack science.”

          I’m not a friend of DA, but you not only lack science much more than he could do, but above all you don’t have half a percent of a clue about Arctic sea ice.

          Here is the SIDADS data for extent (absolute resp. anomalies wrt mean of 1981-2010):

          2016 | 1 | 13.47 | -0.916
          2016 | 2 | 14.21 | -1.090
          2016 | 3 | 14.40 | -1.028
          2016 | 4 | 13.69 | -0.999
          2016 | 5 | 11.90 | -1.386
          2016 | 6 | 10.35 | -1.415
          2016 | 7 | 7.89 | -1.579
          2016 | 8 | 5.39 | -1.806
          2016 | 9 | 4.51 | -1.903
          2016 | 10 | 6.04 | -2.308
          2016 | 11 | 8.63 | -2.070
          2016 | 12 | 11.47 | -1.352
          2017 | 1 | 13.17 | -1.216
          2017 | 2 | 14.11 | -1.190
          2017 | 3 | 14.27 | -1.158
          2017 | 4 | 13.76 | -0.929
          2017 | 5 | 12.62 | -0.666
          2017 | 6 | 10.72 | -1.045
          2017 | 7 | 7.90 | -1.569
          2017 | 8 | 5.47 | -1.726
          2017 | 9 | 4.80 | -1.613
          2017 | 10 | 6.71 | -1.638
          2017 | 11 | 9.46 | -1.240
          2017 | 12 | 11.75 | -1.072
          2018 | 1 | 13.06 | -1.326
          2018 | 2 | 13.95 | -1.350
          2018 | 3 | 14.30 | -1.128
          2018 | 4 | 13.71 | -0.979
          2018 | 5 | 12.21 | -1.076
          2018 | 6 | 10.71 | -1.055
          2018 | 7 | 8.22 | -1.249
          2018 | 8 | 5.61 | -1.586
          2018 | 9 | 4.71 | -1.703
          2018 | 10 | 6.06 | -2.288
          2018 | 11 | 9.80 | -0.900

          *

          1. Trends since Jan 2016, per decade
          – Arctic sea ice extent: -0.05 Mkm2
          – GISS LOTI: -1.1 C

          2. Trends since Jan 2014, per decade
          – Arctic sea ice extent: -1.37 Mkm2
          – GISS LOTI: +0.2 C

          Thus yes: DA is right. Salvatore is one more time cherry picking.

      • barry says:

        Cherry picking the sea ice record in the manner Salvatore has done with temps would be to select, say, 2012 as a starting point.

        The Arctic sea ice satellite record is as long as the tropospheric temperature record. Use the whole record and you’re not cherry-picking.

        • Bart says:

          It does not follow. Arctic sea ice was likely at a high mark when the record started. This was, after all, right at the time of the “Global Cooling” scare.

        • barry says:

          Pffft. You’ve completely missed the point, which is about cherry-picking data.

          • Bart says:

            You’ve apparently missed mine, which is, the start of the record is itself a cherry pick.

          • barry says:

            Of course it’snot a cherry-pick if there’s no more data in the record – what a bizarre comment. Are you suggesting the satellite launch dates were chosen to give the impression of greater melt?!?

            If there’s a longer record of Arctic sea ice that we can rely on, please link to this data so we can check what you’re saying. Otherwise you are blowing hot air.

        • steve case says:

          Figure 7.20 of the IPCC’s AR1 report shows Arctic sea ice record beginning in 1972 considerably earlier and lower than what subsequent IPCC assessment reports show:

          https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/ipcc_far_wg_I_chapter_07-1.pdf

          https://postimg.cc/XXprM3mT

          Figure of the IPCC’s AR4 report starts at 1979:

          https://postimg.cc/6TcTGqR2

          I’m sure people will come up with reasons for that, but it looks fishy.

          • barry says:

            Previous to 1979 the satellite instruments were different and had trouble distinguishing cloud from sea ice. Satellites were retrieving data from sea ice since the 1960s. The pre-1979 period is much less certain than post 1979.

            Even so, one couldn’t use the IPCC graph from 1990 to argue that using the complete microwave record for sea ice is a ‘cherry-pick’.

            Here’s another longer term sea ice record. This is composed of amalgamating ship’s records and other sources. But using the 1979 record is still not a cherry-pick, as it is very commonly used (by far the most common) for its level of accuracy.

            On the same argument, confining the global temp record to UAH is also a cherry-pick.

          • steve case says:

            barry says:
            December 8, 2018 at 4:28 PM
            Previous to 1979 the satellite instruments were different and had trouble distinguishing cloud from sea ice.

            Hi Barry nice of you to reply. If the earlier satellites were mistaking clouds for ice then you’d think that those data would show more not less ice as is the case.

          • barry says:

            They could as well have gone the other way, mistaking sea ice for cloud. We’d have to read the papers to see how they dealt with the problem.

            I’d guess that the older data were eventually discarded for being too uncertain once the passive microwave instruments that came online late 1978 and that easily separated cloud and sea ice, had retrieved data for a long enough period to be useful. In 1990 (IPCC FAR), they probably wanted the longest data record they could get. 11 years isn’t a long time to determine changes or not, owing to the variability in that data.

          • barry says:

            Hope you’re well, by the way. And your wife, too. It’s pretty cool that we actually met after all the conversation, Steve. A cup of wine remains a standing offer.

          • steve case says:


            barry says:
            December 10, 2018 at 7:53 AM
            They could as well have gone the other way, mistaking sea ice for cloud.

            I copied out this list of modifiers etc. the other day:

            Might, could, possibly, potential, may, forecast, predicted,
            projected, thought to be, suggested, models, and proxies.


            Wed have to read the papers to see how they dealt with the problem.

            The IPCC dealt with the issue by continually increasing the downward slope. See the top three panels in the image link below:

            https://i.postimg.cc/1zxrL28j/image.png

            It looks like each successive assessment report saw more and more clouds and less and less ice every time they published a new report. I think it looks fishy. Do I think Arctic sea ice is decreasing? I don’t care, but I do care that it looks like historical data is being rewritten pretty much in broad daylight and they’re getting away with it.


            Id guess that …they probably wanted …

            I can guess at things too. I come up with it looks fishy.


            barry says:
            December 10, 2018 at 7:57 AM

            Oh yes, it was fun to connect with someone you never expected to see in person. There were a few characters on that old forum that I probably wouldn’t want to meet. I’ll email you a Christmas card.

          • barry says:

            Thank you for the Christmas card.

            I can understand if saying it looks fishy is enough for you, and avoiding doing any further investigation to find out what actually happened.

            Who knows what insights you’d glean by reading up on it. But it might interfere with the narrative that the IPCC is ‘fishy’. So better to leave it alone so we maintain an air of suspicion without actually doing anything about it.

          • barry says:

            Here’s another way the evolution looks. The pre 1975 data was patchy and highly variable according to processing. The post 1070 data is much more stable. Better instruments.

            So rather than keep the 1995 changed image of hgh sea ice before 1979 (where it had been low in 1990 for the same short period), they excised uncertain data when the more accurate, continuous record became long enough.

            Why did they get rid of a nice opportunity to claim a bigger drop in sea ice by getting rid of the sweet pre 1975 data from AR2? Maybe they wanted to downplay the reduction in sea ice after all?

            Of course the end of the record in the later IPCCs is lower sea ice because sea ice declined.

          • steve case says:

            barry says:
            December 11, 2018 at 8:18 AM & 8:23 AM

            Why did they get rid of a nice opportunity to claim…

            Obviously I don’t know.

            …they excised uncertain data…

            I can ask questions too. Regarding this record
            https://i.postimg.cc/1zxrL28j/image.png
            that I posted earlier, why did they increase the downward slope on those top three panels from the 1990 FAR to the 2000 TAR? In the FAR the ~1973-1990 time line shows an increase and by the time the TAR comes out that ~1973-1990 time line shows a distinct decrease. Let’s see if I can paste up some eyeballed trend lines on that to illustrate the point:
            https://i.postimg.cc/5NSgFb2q/image.png
            It looks to me like existing “Uncertain” data wasn’t excised, it was changed! Why do you think they did that?

          • barry says:

            Correction – why did they get rid of the high data pre 1970 from TAR?

            BTW, TAR was published in 2001, not 2000, per your pic of graphs there.

          • steve case says:

            barry says:
            December 11, 2018 at 9:01 AM
            Correction why did they get rid of the high data pre 1970
            [did you mean 1979?] from TAR?

            Maybe they realized all the changes made them look bad and they decided to dump it in the AR4. Do you know what the phrase “plausible deniability” means? They have to have a reason to change the starting point from 1973 to 1979. And earlier you pointed it out:

            barry says:
            December 8, 2018 at 4:28 PM
            Previous to 1979 the satellite instruments were different and had trouble distinguishing cloud from sea ice. Satellites were retrieving data from sea ice since the 1960s. The pre-1979 period is much less certain than post 1979. …

            I will accept that as the reason the IPCC would give. However, they didn’t make that change until the AR4 came out. Here once again is that paste up of all the graphs from the FAR SAR TAR AR4 & AR5:
            https://i.postimg.cc/1zxrL28j/image.png
            As you can see, the early 1970’s starting date was used for the first three reports: FAR SAR & TAR and as I’ve pointed out the time line on those three charts; early ’70s to 1990 are different to the extent that visually, the downward slope for that timeline was increased for each successive report. The data was obviously changed, why?

            Did they do an honest reevaluation of the data to come up with more clouds and less ice for each successive report? The phrase “Worse than previously thought” comes to mind, I’ve seen it often enough in the press. I have a tag line I use on some forums:

            If the Climate Change headline says:
            “Worse than previously thought”
            Historical data has been re-written.

            Rewritten or reevaluated, I’m interested in your response to the fact that the “Arctic Sea Ice Extent” graph for the pre-1979 timeline was different for the first three successive IPCC assessment reports.

          • barry says:

            It looks to me like existing “Uncertain” data wasnt excised, it was changed! Why do you think they did that?

            For the same reason that the UAH data has undergone various revisions that came with significant changes. They keep trying to improve the processing of data from different instruments with different issues.

            People here love the UAH satellite data, Steve. Skeptics. The UAH satellite temp data has changed far more than the surface data. The revisions have had bigger effects. But no skeptic complains about it because the compilers, Roy Spencer and John Christie are in the skeptic camp (CO2 has little effect), and have even gone to bat for skeptics at Congress.

            So why the double standard? Why do Roy and John get a free pass for doing exactly what skeptics complain about when someone from ‘the other side’does it?

            “I don’t know” is an unsatisfactory answer. We all know. It’s simple bias.

            Data is imperfect, especially satellite data. that’s a fact. If you don’t get that, you don’t get why there are revisions.

            Now, if you want to find out WHY the pre-1979 data changed, and then WHY it was excised, you would hunt up papers about it, and you might even email the satellite data set keepers (or someone from the IPCC).

            But I don’t think you are actually curious about it. I think you just want to go on saying it’s “fishy” (but you won’t say the UAH temp record is fishy).

            I could go on a hunt for the material, but I don;t think it’s necessary.I don’t think there is a conspiracy. And, I also don’t think the Roy Spencer and John Christie are conspiring to lower the satellite temp record, even though their last revision did exactly that. And they’re skeptics.

            Answer your own question with some research. I reckon my guess is probably right, judging by how much the beginning of the record fish-tailed before they cut it loose. And they probably kept it for a while to have a longer record, but ultimately excised it when they had more data from the modern instruments, deciding to opt for accuracy over length of data.

            There are other records pre-1979 (non-satellite), and they don’t show much of a difference from 1979.

            There’s a bunch of ways you could check it out. But are you more interested in doing that, or are you more instrument in casting suspicion?

          • steve case says:

            barry says:
            December 13, 2018 at 7:13 AM

            The UAH satellite temp data has changed far more than the surface data.

            I also don’t think the Roy Spencer and John Christie are conspiring to lower the satellite temp record, even though their last revision did exactly that…

            Hi Barry, thanks for the reply. Here’s what I get when I compare GISS with UAH. The earliest UAH on the Internet Archive WayBack Machine is from 2012. I have quite a few of the GISS LOTI files including some from 2012 so this is pretty much an apples to apples comparison:

            https://i.postimg.cc/fbQz70st/image.png

            I’m sure you can see that the volume (size & frequency) of changes made by GISS was greater and more important, except for one tiny blip, ALL were increases. UAH formed a pattern as you said and the trend is down ~0.05°C. The rest of the story of course is GISS, because that time line goes back to 1880 and here’s what a ten year assessment of those changes looks like in a similar format:

            https://i.postimg.cc/MZM7WvSp/GISS-Changes-Aug-2005-to-Oct-2015.gif

            No trend line is required for that one. Your “Mark I” eyeball is probably good enough.

            I’m sure you get my point, but as always it will be interesting to see what you have to say.

  15. Eben says:

    40 years of catastrophic global warming predictions 0.28 deg. warming to show for it

    • Fritz Kraut says:

      0.51 deg warming since 1979. Global average of troposphere over land and oceans; so on ground in many regions of the world much more.
      And worst of all: It goes on and on…

    • Slipstick says:

      Eben,
      If you will look at the graph, you will see that forty years ago the temperature anomaly was about -0.25; the change over forty years is in the neighborhood of 0.5 degrees. The graph is relative to the 1981 – 2010 average.

    • Bobdesbond says:

      Why is it that so many uneducated deniers have no understanding of the difference between an anomaly and the actual temperature rise? Does their pride not direct them to educate themselves?

  16. Bindidon says:

    Thanks to Roy Spencer and team for having provided us with reliable data over this long period!

  17. Craig T says:

    From the Curry paper:

    “To confirm the robustness of the changes of atmospheric circulation and water vapor content linked to the reduction of sea ice identified using the NCEP2 (atmospheric model only reanalysis), we repeat the above analyses using a new reanalysis, the NCEP Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR, executed in a coupled atmosphere-ocean-sea ice system).”

    Must be the words “natural variability” that make it science instead of propaganda.

    • Chic Bowdrie says:

      It is not propaganda, because the paper is not claiming facts not in evidence, like melting sea ice is caused by fossil fuel emissions.

      I would criticize the paper’s scientific credibility by its reliance on models, just like most papers arguing CO2 sensitivity greater than zero.

      • David Appell says:

        How would *you* determine such things, without a model?

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          By experiment. That’s why climate science is a misnomer.

          • Craig T. says:

            So there’s no such thing as Astronomic Science either?

          • barry says:

            And what experiment/s would you conduct, Chic to ascertain climate sensitivity to CO2?

          • David Appell says:

            Which experiments would you do, Chic?

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Gentlemen,

            Data is being collected everywhere already. Experiments need to control for as many independent variables as possible to evaluate the effect on dependent variables. I will have to look for examples of climate related experiments already being carried out.

            This is not my field, but if it were, I would design controlled experiments attempting to show that an incremental increase in CO2 will warm air in an open system simulating the atmosphere. The null hypothesis is that average energy received each day is radiated back to space.

            Are we receiving more energy from the sun or is the planet retaining more energy to compensate for increasing IR absorbing gases? I would join those studying the effect of cloud cover on the energy balance.

            I would investigate diurnal temperature measurements to better understand how the atmosphere and surface respond to changes in humidity and CO2.

            My point was that you can’t simply correlate global temperatures with CO2 levels and claim causation. Might as well blame global warming on the rise in the US national debt.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Craig,

            Astronomic Science? Did you mean astronomy, a branch of physics? Climatology is the scientific study of climate, the average of weather. People use math, physics, chemistry, meteorology, etc. to study climate. Climate science is a misnomer, because climate is not a science.

          • David Appell says:

            Is astronomy a science?
            Geology?
            Medicine?

            Experiments can’t be done in any of these fields, either.

            The fact is, in climate science (=applied physics), scientists are doing the best they can with what observational data they can get. Their results indicate significant warming. You have no better avenues to offer; leave them to do their work until you do.

          • David Appell says:

            Chic Bowdrie says:
            Experiments need to control for as many independent variables as possible to evaluate the effect on dependent variables

            WHAT EXPERIMENTS?

            Tell everyone how to do them, at least in theory.

          • David Appell says:

            Chic Bowdrie says:
            I would design controlled experiments attempting to show that an incremental increase in CO2 will warm air in an open system simulating the atmosphere.

            How would you simulate an atmosphere?

            What clouds would you place, and where? What about convection in your experiment. Heat conduction? How would you correct for changes in humidity? In atmospheric aerosols?

            Explain why none of these studies are sufficient:

            “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
            http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
            Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect, R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
            http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract

            “Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015).
            http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html

          • David Appell says:

            Chic Bowdrie says:
            Are we receiving more energy from the sun…

            If you think this hasn’t been researched, and still is every single day, you are ignorant and have no right to discuss climate science. Your opinion doesn’t matter one whit….

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            If I remember correctly, I explained previously why your trifecta of papers uses models and spectroscopy to show increases in atmospheric CO2. They don’t show that increasing CO2 causes warming. If you disagree, explain how. Blogging is not science, right?

            And why would your opinion matter more than mine?

          • David Appell says:

            And I’ve asked you — but you never answer — how you would do a study without a model?

            And what’s wrong with spectroscopy? Nothing whatsoever….

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Have you done any experiments? You take subjects and subject them to some treatments and take measurements of some dependent variables. You use statistics to determine any difference in the responses. The null hypothesis is no response.

            There are many atmospheric CO2 experiments that could be conceived of, but are not practical because of inability to control variables such as weather changes or significant increments of treatments such as CO2. That doesn’t mean you can substitute correlations and use model fits to prove the hypothesis.

            Atmospheric spectroscopy is time dependent (usually snapshots in time and/or place). Useful for predicting IR radiation of an atmospheric composition under specified conditions. Definitive evidence must come from actual temperature measurements, not from model output translating a spectrum into a temperature.

            Take one of your pet trifecta papers and let’s go over it. Maybe I didn’t understand it right and I’ll have to eat crow. We won’t know until you put up or shut up.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            “…because of inability to control variables such as weather changes or MAKE sufficient increments of treatments such as CO2.”

          • barry says:

            Chic, are you aware that these sorts of studies have been undertaken for years?

            How would you simulate in the lab an atmosphere with an optical depth of tens of kilometers?

          • Carbon500 says:

            DA: You ask – is astronomy a science? geology? medicine?
            You then go on to say that experiments cant be done in any of these fields, either.
            This has to be one of the bizarre statements that I’ve read from you.
            Rest assured that during my years spend in vaccine research I performed many experiments, used many specialised analytical techniques, and by the time I presented my Ph.D. thesis I had a pile of laboratory books about eight inches high, all packed with experimental data.
            I’ll leave it to the astronomers and geologists to offer their comments.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            barry,

            Yes, but the data from those experiments have not been able to provide the model that can correctly predict a global temperature change from a set of parameter values. Roughly said, CO2 sensitivity is usually estimated by models based on some correlations. However, difficult, temperature changes have to be directly measured by better control of the variables.

            “How would you simulate in the lab an atmosphere with an optical depth of tens of kilometers?”

            That is a Nobel-prize-worthy proposition.

          • barry says:

            Chic,

            Yes, but the data from those experiments have not been able to provide the model that can correctly predict a global temperature change from a set of parameter values.

            Computers also cannot precisely model air turbulence, not predict it, yet we still get in airplanes. I’m not sure if you misunderstand what models purport to do, or if you have a higher standard for climate models than for models than weigh our safety in the air.

            Roughly said, CO2 sensitivity is usually estimated by models based on some correlations.

            Extremely roughly said. There are various methods.

            https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-how-scientists-estimate-climate-sensitivity

            However, difficult, temperature changes have to be directly measured by better control of the variables.

            I can’t work out what you’re trying to say with this statement, but it seems to me you are looking at a granular level (monthly and yearly temp change), when global climate change is a multi-decadal phenomenon (30 years standard), and for this periodicity the uncertainty of measurement has very little bearing on the results because of the huge sample sizes (law of large numbers, central limit etc etc).

          • barry says:

            Chic,

            One cannot construct a device to physically mimic the optical depth of the atmosphere WRT radiative transfer and pressure gradient. It would be a chamber several kilometers high at least.

            Instead the physics is plugged into a computer, including line by line radiative transfer equations, equations for pressure changes etc, and we get radiative-convective models of the Earth’s atmosphere with simulated oceans and evaporation and a bunch of physical characteristics. For most complex tasks, at some point you need models. And models are used routinely for many of the complex things humans utilize.

            One thing often missed by’skeptics’ is how well the models perform at various levels. Without training, just plugging in the topography and physics, there is a stunning mirror of global air currents, for example. The predicted global temp changes following massive global eruptions, as well as the duration, were well matched by observation.

            There’s much more than that besides. This stuff gets lost in the fracas over global temps not running as hot as the mean model projections. And nor does that fracas permit much sober assessment of just how far the models are off on that metric. Not far, in my opinion. And obs and models both show warming over the long term.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            barry,

            All models are wrong, but some are useful. Is that what you mean?

            My guess is a turbulence model is somewhat more useful than a climate model.

          • barry says:

            All models are wrong, but some are useful. Is that what you mean?

            To an extent, yes, that’s what I mean. Or more to the point – you are making the perfect the enemy to the good.

            My guess is a turbulence model is somewhat more useful than a climate model.

            You guess? Is this the basis of your opinion on models?

            Climate models have predicted a lot of things correctly and some things incorrectly, or under and overestimated some things.

            I think they’re useful.

  18. ren says:

    49 of 50 States Have Had Snow This Season, and It’s Not Even Winter Yet
    By Jonathan Erdman
    November 29, 2018
    Maybe this month should be called Novembuary?
    https://www.wunderground.com/news/news/weather/news/2018-11-29-49-states-snow-already-november-2018

  19. Ric says:

    The graph shows a higher level of cosmic rays, not the opposite. Or do you mean that the higher they are, the lower temperatures would be?

  20. Andrew stout says:

    Joel, ( regarding ‘its getting warmer’) or you can charicterize the momentum as that the climate has been cooling for the past few years, staying neutral for the past 18 years, or warming for the past 40 years… And warming for the past 300 years…. also, cooling for the past 10,000 years. The temperature since AGW supposedly began in the 70’s, looks more and more (to me) like a ‘step shift’, where this 20 yr period happens to be slightly greater than the preceeding 20 year period… The 40 yr trend is an artifact of imposing an average across two climactic periods, one of warming, and one decidedly lacking the warming of the former. My money is on the next period of 20 years being a cooling period. No money on if it breaks the post LIA trend, though. I’m nota Fortune teller!

    • Bobdesbond says:

      “staying neutral for the past 18 years”
      Average UAH for last 9 years: +0.239
      Average UAH for previous 9 years: +0.117
      Difference: 0.122
      Multiply by 10/9 to get a decadal increase: +0.136 per decade
      Slightly greater than the quoted UAH trend of +0.13 per decade.

      Isn’t it time you people stopped believing the BS posted on denier sites and actually checked the data yourselves?

      • Dr. Mark H. Shapiro says:

        Thanks for your comment Bob. The evidence is right before their eyes, but the deniers keep denying.

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          What evidence are you referring to Dr.? People see what they want to see, including undeniers.

          Andrew gave a reasonable summary of past climate change and his prognosis of the future. Do you have irrefutable evidence to the contrary?

          • David Appell says:

            What’s causing global warming?

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKDWW9WlPSc

            (1:22 minutes long)

          • Bobdesbond says:

            CB
            His analysis of the past 18 years is clearly incorrect based on the data. In what sense is that ‘reasonable’?

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Bobdesbond,

            He wrote “the climate has been cooling for the past few years, staying neutral for the past 18 years, or warming for the past 40 years And warming for the past 300 years. also, cooling for the past 10,000 years.”

            I think that is a reasonable brief summary of past climate change considering only global temperatures. Do you have irrefutable evidence to the contrary or would you prefer to summarize it more reasonably?

          • Bobdesbond says:

            I was challenging ONLY his comment about the past 18 years. Can you really not see that?

          • David Appell says:

            Chic: the climate certainly has not been “neutral” for the last 18 years. UAH LT warming over that time is 0.2 C….

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Bobdesbond,

            “I was challenging ONLY his comment about the past 18 years. Can you really not see that?”

            I wasn’t picking nits. Would it have been acceptable had he written 16 years?

          • Bobdesbond says:

            16 years you say?
            Average UAH for last 8 years: +0.225
            Average UAH for previous 8 years: +0.135
            Difference: +0.09
            Multiply by 5/4 to get a decadal increase: +0.112 per decade
            Smaller, but still nowhere near ‘neutral’.

          • Bart says:

            You are hanging your hat entirely on the 2016 El Nino, which is inarguably not related to CO2.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            How so?

            2015/16 was the ONLY strong El Nino since the end of the 9798 El Nino.

            In the same time period we have had FOUR strong La Ninas:
            1998/99
            1999/00
            2007/08
            2010/11

            In that time we have had 85 La Nina months and only 50 El Nino months.

            On the contrary, temperatures of the “pause” period since the 97/98 El Nino have been heavily weighted down due to a strong bias towards La Ninas. We are getting the warming DESPITE that bias.

          • Bart says:

            Hat, hung.

    • So is mine next 20 years will be cooler not warmer.

  21. The reality is there has been no further global warming since mid 2016. Instead there has been global cooling.

    As far as the global warming prior to that time that has happened many times in the past and is nothing unique.

    I am looking ahead not backwards and the new trend is going to be global cooling not global warming and we are seeing this already.

    The overall oceanic sea surface temperatures will be falling in response to low solar it is just a matter of when not if.

    • David Appell says:

      So you keep saying. And are wrong every time. A boy and the wolf.

    • barry says:

      It’s 1998 all over again.
      Sal, your view has no force of reason when you pick 2016 as your starting point – one of the largest recorded el Nino years – and it’s only a few years later. The underlying warming rate from CO2 could be 1C a decade, and still 2016 could be a warmer year than the last 2.
      It would be unlikely for the 2016 temp record to be beaten ten years after it. It is the long-term trend that tells you anything about whether the planet is warming, cooling or staying the same temperature, not a handful of years.

  22. Andrew stout says:

    Bob, I don’t (think) you got my point about ‘step shift’ : I’m not saying the past 18 years was neutral relative to the 81-10 avg, I’m saying more or less the past 18 years has been neutral relative to itself, with a cooling preceeding a warming and then a cooling again, and when 2020 rolls around, it’ll probably be a nice little climactic period of 20 years no new net warming (“neutral”). As a climactic period it’s been slightly warmer on avg than the prior period which showed a descernable warming. The past 18 years has not been a Relentless March Warmer. The proof of that can also be demonstrated by the gradual decline of the running avg since 1978, which I believe years back was a warming of +.14c/decade…. It’s +.13c now, precisely because of a persistent failure of warming to meet it’s Alarmist targets. Here’s another prediction to put my last statement in other terms: within 10 more years, I bet the avg increase in temp/decade since 1978, will be closer to +.10c, than +.16c, regardless of likely increased co2 emissions.

  23. Andrew stout says:

    @bob, Oh, call it ‘last 19 or 20 years’ neutral, if you like, to understand my point. If it’s 18 on the nose, I guess you’re putting me at the bottom of the collapse from 1998 highs. Its pretty arbitrary where you start & stop the line. IE: your ‘previous previous 9 year’ period would be a cooling, not a warming, if you start it at the top of the crest instead of the bottom, when it dipped below 1979 averages… you’re sort of arguing past my point myopically instead of recognising that the bulk of net gains in avg temp happened between 1992 and 1998, not as some relentless climb. Aaanywho, still, I’m saying in a decade I think the decadal avg rate of increase is going to continue shrinking, because although I have no idea how to quantify it, I’m presuming the solar minimum will be effecting temps within that period.

    • Bindidon says:

      Like many many people did before you, you seem to solely consider ENSO highs, while discarding ENSO lows (La Nina) and aerosols due to volcanic eruptions.

      Between 1979 and 2018, there were three major El Ninos:
      – 1982/83
      – 1997/98
      – 2015/16.

      1982/83 was nearly as strong as 1997/98, much stronger than 2016/16.

      But you can’t see it in the UAH record: it was completely neutralised by the St Helens and El Chichon eruptions.

      If you extract all ENSO and volcano influences out of a LT time series, a trend of about 70% remains.

      • David Appell says:

        The Mt St Helens eruption was too small to affect climate.

      • David Appell says:

        According to Wikipedia, Mt St Helens released 1.5 Mt SO2, but at a high latitude of 46 degrees N. Latitude limits the effect, by the cosine(latitude).

        El Chicon released 7 Mt SO2 from its 1982 eruption, and at a latitude of only 17 deg N. That had a large effect on climate.

        • Bobdesbond says:

          Also, Mt St Helens did not erupt vertically, which further reduced the amount of ejected material reaching the stratosphere.

          Generally, an eruption must be within about 20 degrees of the equator to have a global effect on temperature (although I suspect that latitude would be expanded significantly in a Toba-scale eruption). There have been only 3 eruptions in the last century which have had that effect … Pinatubo, El Chichon and Agung. Mt St Helens had no measurable effect on global temperatures.

          • David Appell says:

            Good point about Mt St Helens not erupting vertically…. though I did get a little ash on my car while visiting my grandparents in SW Pennsylvania….

        • David Appell says:

          And

          cos(17deg)/cos(46deg)=1.38

  24. Bindidon says:

    A few days ago I was about to believe that one of this site’s most writing but in fact being the least experienced commenter would now have started to learn.

    I was wrong. To my recent comment

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/11/the-sorry-state-of-climate-science-peer-review-and-kudos-to-nic-lewis/#comment-331789

    we can read his thoroughly genial answer:

    When you look at the actual graphs provided by NASA and NOAA, they look nothing like the UAH graphs. Both of the former offer graphs that are in the positive anomaly region with a positive trend from 1980 onward.

    UAH begins below the baseline from 1979 – 1997 when the large El Nino struck, then it went positive afterward, leveling off for 18 years. Your pathetic, homebrew, Excel propaganda shows none of that.”

    *
    Is it really possible to keep so ignorant? Or to stay in such denial of evidence?

    Look at this graph, made out of 4 different GHCN daily time series, each generated wrt a different reference period:
    – 1951-1980 (like GISS, Berkeley Earth)
    – 1961-1990 (CRUTEM4)
    – 1971-2000 (NOAA, JMA’s internal grid data)
    – 1981-2010 (actual WMO period, used by UAH, JMA online, WeatherBELL, and many others).

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a36CaZqdv9vQak5Rx4UplRIFum4YuKBS/view

    Even a ten year old child would understand that generating anomalies wrt the mean of 1951-1980 cannot be the same as doing it wrt the mean of 1981-2010: simply because during the first period, it was somewhat less warm than during the second one.

    When looking at a GHCN daily time series based on absolute station data, you see that the difference between the mean of 1951-1980 and that of 1981-2010 is 0.35 K when averaging all available stations, but… 1.60 K if you consider only the 50% of them located outside of the US!

    Thus, when you compare anomaly time series based on different reference periods, you first have to normalise them. A simple way for us lay(wo)men is to choose one of the periods as reference, and to shift the other time series by their mean for the chosen reference period.

    You then obtain this for the graph above:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bWUVAYII5NANG9Na4atzYEAJgTsZXa-W/view

    *

    And similarly, considering UAH6.0 land together with GHCN daily, GISS land and NOAA land, you move from

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZN7Am5cyj7r2N1kV7VvxzA8W7xzOXjC0/view

    to

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cJz5B9VOGxh_2HMjIp5pltSg-CyINaom/view

    NOAA land, which gave a good fit to GHCN daily and GISS land for 1880-2018 (0.11 C / decade vs. 0.10 C for the latter two), now clearly goes apart from the rest.

    GISS land keeps more near GHCN daily and UAH land.

    That was already evident when comparing the linear estimates for the four series for 1979-2018:

    – UAH land: 0.18 C / decade
    – GHCN daily: 0.19 C
    – GISS land: 0.22 C
    – NOAA land: 0.29 C

    But the graph with the 36 month running means shows much more than a couple of trends.

    • David Appell says:

      That’s a howler.

      To convert an anomaly a1 with baseline temperature T(b1) to baseline b2 with anomaly a2, you can use

      a2 = a1 + [T(b1)-T(b2)]

    • barry says:

      We should no longer be surprised by such gross ignorance from the usual suspect. He’s been talking about the temp records for years and still doesn’t understand what a baseline is. It’s one of the most basic, foundational bits of knowledge to have for these data.

    • Bindidon says:

      Blogger Clive Best (who made a wonderful evaluation of GHCN daily, based on a icosahedral gridding) complained about NOAA’s Pairwise Homogenisation Algorithm which in his opinion might be responsible for the recent step-up in their land-only time series.

      • David Appell says:

        Who cares? Blogging isn’t science.

        • Bindidon says:

          You are nearly as ridiculous as Robertson.

          • David Appell says:

            I’ve done both science and blogging. They aren’t alike at all.

          • JDHuffman says:

            DA states: “I’ve done both science and blogging.”

            DA, just because you have failed at both science and blogging, that does NOT mean you understand the issues. You have to LEARN from your failures. There is little evidence you can learn.

        • Carbon500 says:

          DA: you say that ‘blogging isn’t science’. You appear to have a very strange concept of science.
          Are you saying that your comments here aren’t based on your own experience of science?
          That discussion of scientific issues anywhere isn’t science?

          • Bobdesbond says:

            Blogging does not reflect expertise in science. If you want REAL science, you don’t trust people without credentials.

  25. Bobdesbond says:

    Andrew Stout

    https://tinyurl.com/UAHDecadeRunningAverage

    Check the graph. You had your 11-12 year ‘pause’. It is now over. Despite the ‘cyclic’ nature of the data, the ‘down’ phase of the cycle is horizontal. Exactly what you expect when a cyclical pattern is superimposed on a rising trend.

    Time for you to dig deeper into the denier bag of BS.

    • Bart says:

      Your upward sweep at the end is entirely an artifact of smoothing out the 2016 El Nino. Current anomaly is in line with early 2000’s anomalies. You are grasping at straws.

      • Bobdesbond says:

        We are now ahead of any period containing 1998. This is despite the fact that the 97/98 El Nino was roughly the same strength as the 15/16 El Nino. In fact, you can see the temporary dip in temperatures when the 97/98 data fell off the back of the decadal calculation. We have risen since then by roughly double the amplitude of that dip. No straws needed.

        • Bart says:

          No, we’re not. We are right now at an anomaly of 0.28. We exceeded that several times in the last two decades. In general, we are bobbling around the same level as in the mid-2000’s.

        • barry says:

          Mid-2000s. Pretty vague. So I averaged 2003 to 2007 incl:
          0.15 C

          Jan 2017 to present:
          0.30 C

          With a trend of 0.13 C/decade for the whole record, I’d say that was a significant difference.

  26. The reality is the global temperature trend 2016- today has been down not up.

    • David Appell says:

      Why did you pick a starting point of 2016?

    • Bobdesbond says:

      The reality is, you are talking of the natural variability which is superimposed on the climate trend, not climate itself.

      On 17 out of 39 occasions, the UAH annual average has fallen from one year to the next. On 5 occasions it has fallen in two consecutive years. What you are talking about is nothing new, and says nothing about the general climate trend.

  27. Eben says:

    If you keep arguing whether there is few fractions off a degree warming and no real pause you are falling for misdirection .
    If the CO2 was the temperature driver the climate shysters claim to be the temperature today would have to be 1.28 degree above normal not 0.28 , that 13 month average red line and the current temperature would have to be completely outside the range of this chart above.

    • barry says:

      “If the CO2 was the temperature driver the climate shysters claim to be the temperature today would have to be 1.28 degree above normal not 0.28”

      That is complete rubbish. Show your math and any number of people here will tell you where you went wrong.

    • Bobdesbond says:

      “0.28 above normal”
      You think the 1981-2010 average is “normal”?

    • barry says:

      Let Eben show their calculations. I reckon they pulled that figure out of their arse.

    • David Appell says:

      Eben says:
      If the CO2 was the temperature driver the climate shysters claim to be the temperature today would have to be 1.28 degree above normal not 0.28

      Surface warming since the pre-industrial era is 1.0 C. That’s with a manmade aerosol cooling of -0.5 C.

      Here’s a nice little clip that explains:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKDWW9WlPSc

      • Eben says:

        Which part of stay out of my posts you creep do not understand ???

        • David Appell says:

          No reply based in science?

        • Bobdesbond says:

          If you show consistency by telling creeps like JD, MF and DREMT to stay out of people’s threads, then maybe people might pay attention to your request.

        • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

          Former commenter Bob and former commenter Des and former commenter Bond and current commenter Bobdesbond, please stop trolling.

          • David Appell says:

            Why try to shut anyone up?

            What does that accomplish?

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            I wouldn’t know, David, since I’m not trying to shut anyone up, I’m just politely asking them to stop trolling. I leave the attempts to close down debate to the professional sophists who operate here.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            I’m struggling to understand what point he believes he is making by repeatedly mentioning past names I have used. It’s like he somehow believes I should be cringing on seeing those names.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            No, I just find it funny.

          • David Appell says:

            IN what way are they trolling? I don’t see it….

          • Bobdesbond says:

            You have to wonder about someone who finds humour in the same situation month after month after month, when no one else can find a speck of humour in it in the first place.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            “If you show consistency by telling creeps like JD, MF and DREMT to stay out of people’s threads, then maybe people might pay attention to your request.“

            What part isn’t trolling?

          • Bobdesbond says:

            _”Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team”_

            What part isn’t trolling?

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Bobdesbond, please stop trolling.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            I guess you were incapable of seeing your hypocrisy.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moseration Team says:

            Another one who doesn’t like their own hypocrisy. Interesting.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            Looks like you ran out of ideas with that one.

            And I see you managed to get your name wrong. I guess that must eventually happen when you are continually changing between names.

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            No, I was right in the money.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            The phrase is “right ON the money”. Learn some English.

            Which name were you changing from when you typed your name wrong?

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            In both cases, it’s called a “typo&rdquo

          • Dr Roys Emergency Moderation Team says:

            Or even, a “typo”

            😆

      • Chic Bowdrie says:

        That clip is total propaganda. The axis increments are adjusted to accentuate the CO2-temperature correlation that every honest scientist knows doesn’t show causation. Is there no end to the deceit of the doomsayers?

        • Bobdesbond says:

          By “axis increments” I assume you mean “scale”. But I wouldn’t expect a non-scientist to know simple terminology. The scale is not relevant – the y-values are measuring different things anyway. What is important is the correlation. I’ll wait for you to Google that.

          • Eben says:

            The global warming is caused by US postal charges, perfect correlation is undeniable and far better match than CO2
            https://goo.gl/RZmBVd

          • JDHuffman says:

            VERY good, Eben.

            Dr. Spenser did the same with UFO sightings. Many things have a better correlation to temps than CO2, since CO2 has no correlation.

          • David Appell says:

            Eben says:
            December 4, 2018 at 10:00 PM
            The global warming is caused by US postal charges

            What’s are the theoretical arguments suggesting global warming should be caused by postal rates?

          • David Appell says:

            Ger*an says:
            Many things have a better correlation to temps than CO2, since CO2 has no correlation.

            Such things as what?

        • David Appell says:

          Chic: A choice of scales does not affect the correlation between two variables.

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          You are both indicting yourselves as either deceitful or ignorant. By adjusting scales and offsetting origins, one can make correlations appear causative. That is propaganda (information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view).

          It is also terribly bad science and if any skeptic did that, you would be the first to attack it.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            When two different quantities are being measured on the vertical axis, each with their own units, what does it even mean to have a “correct” choice of scale?

          • David Appell says:

            Chic: Correlations don’t “appear,” they are calculated. Changes of scale don’t affect those calculations.

          • David Appell says:

            That is, you think the visual means (or doesn’t) correlation. But only the math matters.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            If you want to convince a secular audience that a correlation proves causation, then the best way to do that is to adjust the origins and scales so that the sets of data superimpose. The correlation is whatever it is, but the propaganda is greatly enhanced.

            If you don’t know how that is done, then you are ignorant. If you think correlation is causative, you are ignorant. If you know the former and don’t think the latter, you are deceitful.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            Really?? What sort of idiot would be taken in by a change of scales? Oops – are your ears burning?

          • David Appell says:

            Chic: Correlations are calculated mathematically. Scale choices do not say anything about correlation, since they are arbitrary. But choices of scales can illuminate correlations (but, again, are not proof of them).

        • Nate says:

          There is nothing wrong with the scale or ‘axis increments’ in the video. There are no adjustments of it.

          In all cases the scale is temperature, and for each forcing, the effect on temperature is estimated.

          If you think the effect of solar variation on temp looks too small, find us a better estimate.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Nate,

            I’m pleased to be informed that the factors are all estimates of forcings. However, that is in fact the same as axis adjustments because the forcings come from fits to data. Has any forcing ever been calculated by keeping all other variables constant?

            Solar forcing will never be accurate without more accurate measurements of how much clouds etc. affect incoming solar.

          • David Appell says:

            Forcing calculations don’t and shouldn’t assume other variables are kept constant.

            For example, atmosphere water vapor increases with CO2 warming. That feedback must be included to calculate CO2’s climate sensitivity.

            For example:

            “Radiative forcing at high concentrations of well-mixed greenhouse gases,”
            Brendan Byrne and C. Goldblatt, Geophysical Research Letters, Jan 13 2014.

  28. barry says:

    Some very rough calcs based on someone upthread announcing what the global temp should be according to AGW.

    Equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is a range from 1.5 to 4.5C per doubling CO2, estimates centring on about 3C per doubling.

    Transient climate response (TCR) also has a range of 1 – 2.5C, centring on about 1.8C per doubling CO2.

    ECS is the estimate response after the system has equilibrated to a doubling of CO2, which takes time (a 30-year lag on average).

    TCR is , approximately, the estimated response to CO2 change at the time of change. It’s the metric to use if you want to ignore lags in response.

    In 39 years the atmos content of CO2 has increased by 21%.

    21% of 3C (ECS sensitivity) is 0.63 C.

    21% of 1.8C (TCR sensitivity) is 0.38 C.

    UAH temp change over the last 39 years is 0.51 C

    Based on this back-of-the-envelope, with caveats about uncertainties and non-linear changes…. I’d say that the claim that observed temp change doesn’t gel with estimates climate sensitivity is balderdash.

  29. Myles says:

    Been reading this site extensively for the past couple days..

    1) Regardless of who thinks they are correct, a lot of confusing science has been presented in both directionss and a lot of name calling and foolishness has followed.

    2) David Apell seems like a character. I admire your knowledge sir, but your ‘fight fire with fire’ condescending approach per responses limits your credibility – and that was before I decided to check your blog: “I’ve also gone through a fiction writing phase or two” ….

    • David Appell says:

      There are too many deniers here who think they have all the answers, none of which are rooted in science. People like you and Lewis and Emergency get mad when someone comes on here to present the real science. How dare I interrupt their peaceful haven…. You just can’t stand it, and think insults will drive me away.

      • JDHuffman says:

        DA, your “real science” is a fantasy in your head. You can’t even get the basic physics correct. You rely on piles of “papers” that you don’t really understand.

        Learn some physics, and face reality.

        • David Appell says:

          Blah blah. Whine whine. You can’t disprove anything I’ve written. You can’t make a scientific argument to save your life. You are the Queen of Stark, and that’s all you will ever be.

          • JDHuffman says:

            DA, your scientific incompetence is well documented. You have tried to violate 2LoT. You have lost your 150 Watts/m^2. You believe that radiative fluxes simply add. You believe a racehorse is rotating on its own axis.

            But, your biggest fiasco was this: (T1^4+T2^4)^0.25

            Your bogus equation would indicate two walls of ice, on either side of a black body plate in a vacuum, could warm the plate to 48 °C, 118 °F!

  30. David_Appell says:

    Chic: the climate certainly has not been “neutral” for the last 18 years. UAH LT warming over that time is 0.2 C…. And the most prominent changes always occur in the ocean, which warm strongly year after year….

    • Chic Bowdrie says:

      Are you prepared to state unequivocally that temperature trends are sufficient evidence that fossil fuel emissions are the predominate cause of global warming?

      • Bobdesbond says:

        The fact that the stratosphere is cooling as the troposphere warms is evidence that the warming is being caused by an increased greenhouse effect. All other causes for warming would warm both the troposphere and the stratosphere.

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          A greenhouse warms because rising air can’t cool. The atmosphere is warming and cooling on a daily basis. How do temperature profiles translate into evidence that an increase in CO2 causes a net increase in global temperature?

          • Bobdesbond says:

            So you are one of these people who believe that the term ‘greenhouse effect’ is actually an apt name, and and it actually mimics the processes that occur in a greenhouse. Perhaps you should do some reading on how the greenhouse effect actually works instead of relying on a faulty analogy. You probably believe ‘puppy love’ is actually about puppies.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Perhaps you could define what you mean by “greenhouse effect” and we could have a coherent discussion about it.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            Perhaps you could actually RESEARCH IT YOURSELF.

          • Bobdesbond says:

            Perhaps you could actually research it yourself. Too novel a concept for you?

          • Bobdesbond says:

            F*&K I hate it when a comment doesn’t appear even after a refresh, then when you post it again suddenly the original makes an appearance.

          • Norman says:

            Chic Bowdrie

            Here is what is meant by GHE.

            https://app.box.com/s/5wxidf87li5bo588q2xhcfxhtfy52oba

            This could help you out if you are interested.
            http://pages.mtu.edu/~fmorriso/cm310/lectures/2015heatlecture10-11.pdf

            Scroll down and use the equations for heat shields. The heat shield will lower the amount of energy reaching plate 2 from plate 1. If plate 2 has another source of energy reaching it, with the heat shield it will reach a higher temperature than without one.

            Do you own a thermos bottle? Put a heater in the bottle and see how hot the liquid gets. Use the same amount of liquid in a non-thermos bottle using the same heater setting and record the temperatures. Let me know what you get.

          • JDHuffman says:

            No Norman, that is NOT the GHE. You don’t even understand your own pseudoscience. The IPCC GHE nonsense claims adding CO2 adds energy to the system, a violation of 2LoT, which you do not understand.

            CO2 is NOT insulation. It freely emits IR in all directions, acting more as a radiator than insulation.

            And your “plates” example is wrong. Here is the correct solution:

            https://postimg.cc/image/jcotys8e3/

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            NO Your solution is NOT correct! It is completely wrong and unphysical. Made up pseudoscience. False and ignorant. I have posted many links to the correct science that you reject. Your loss not mine.

            The scientists are correct about CO2 and you are the incorrect one. Adding GHG will add energy to the system because the Earth surface is the primary energy receiver of solar input (some into the atmosphere). The GHG by emitting in both directions also return energy to the surface which would not have been there without such gas present.

            LOGIC, SCIENCE….what your reject: If you have the same input energy (solar input mostly constant) but reduce the energy output, the energy increases in the system. Really simple logic. You are just wrong but too blind to see your own errors in thought process.

            GHG reduce the energy output by radiating energy back to the surface. It does NOT bounce off as you falsely believe and which you will never supply any evidence to support you ideas.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, you continue down the same path, oblivious to what others have tried to teach you. You still believe you can warm your house with ice cubes.

            You just can’t face reality.

          • Ball4 says:

            It is well known JD can warm JD’s house with ice cubes when they replace the equilibrium established with say dry ice in the ice cubes former position which is what Norman meant. JD simply misrepresents Norman’s writing as per JD’s usual.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Hey fluffball shows up to help poor Norman’s failed pseudoscience.

            Not sure how zero plus zero helps, but it is amusing.

          • David Appell says:

            JDHuffman says:
            You still believe you can warm your house with ice cubes.

            You *can*, if your house is initially below the temperature of the ice.

          • Norman says:

            Ball4

            Yes JDHuffman can’t understand simple ideas. I have tried, you have tried. He is one dense individual. The problem is he doesn’t know any physics. He is a phony so he just rejects all valid and true physics. It is easy to do when you don’t know what you are talking about.

            I have explained to him many times that ice can warm a turkey, if the Turkey started colder than ice.

            I think he is so dumb that he believes the temperature that surrounds him is a ground state. A room temperature turkey (which is absorbing lots of energy and losing the same amount) is not some established turkey temperature.

          • David Appell says:

            JDHuffman says:
            CO2 is NOT insulation. It freely emits IR in all directions, acting more as a radiator than insulation.

            And half of those directions have a positive downward component.

          • David Appell says:

            JDHuffman says:
            The IPCC GHE nonsense claims adding CO2 adds energy to the system, a violation of 2LoT, which you do not understand.

            No it doesn’t — the troposphere warms and the stratosphere cools with AGW, which is observed (after accounting for ozone loss).

          • JDHuffman says:

            DA says: “You *can*, if your house is initially below the temperature of the ice.

            Norman says: “…if the Turkey started colder than ice.

            Ifs and buts were candy and nuts….

          • JDHuffman says:

            JD says: “The IPCC GHE nonsense claims adding CO2 adds energy to the system…”

            DA says: “No it doesnt.”

            DA must believe the AGW hoax is over!

        • JDHuffman says:

          des, you can’t correlate stratosphere and troposphere temps at the same time. There is a time lag between the two.

          • Craig T. says:

            What kind of a lag would you like? The trend in the Stratosphere is falling temperature so however you line it up the relationship holds. It’s a branch pf

            “No Norman, that is NOT the GHE. You don’t even understand your own pseudoscience.”

            JD you either don’t understand the theory or prefer to fight straw men. Go read Dr. Spencer’s explanation.

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2012/02/more-musings-from-the-greenhouse/

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, there are a number of different interpretations of the GHE. When I use the term, I am referring to the pseudoscience that originated with the IPCC.

            And with a natural warming trend, you would expect the atmosphere to expand. That expansion would result in stratopheric cooling.

          • Craig T. says:

            “And with a natural warming trend, you would expect the atmosphere to expand. That expansion would result in stratopheric cooling.”

            Are you sticking with the argument that the stratosphere is cooling because it’s warming?

      • David Appell says:

        No. (But the trends are what’s expected with increasing CO2.)

        But I give lists of papers of evidence and you, and others here, just ignore them. I really don’t think you’re interested in the real science — it would interrupt your denialism, and you can’t give that up.

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          Why don’t you pick one of those papers and let’s discuss it? Start by summarizing the conclusion and why you think the data supports it.

          • David Appell says:

            Why don’t you first tell us what experiment should be done to satisfy you? Assume you have $1 M at your disposal.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            I asked you first and I’m calling your bluff.

          • David Appell says:

            Chic, clearly you can’t think of one.

            That’s because climate science is not an experimental science, it’s an observational science. So are geology, astronomy, and medicine.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Others have already confirmed that experiments are already being done along the lines of what I would do if I were involved in this field. I certainly wouldn’t spend my time schilling for AGW. Stop being a pest tearing down others’ posts and contribute something positive for a change.

            Take a look at your posts here and see if you’ve written anything positive other than to compliment Dr. S on his blog.

            How about explaining how any of the papers you cite are relevant to any discussions here?

  31. Eben says:

    I will put it in separate thread so people don’t miss it

    The global warming is caused by US postal charges, perfect correlation is undeniable and far better match than CO2
    https://goo.gl/RZmBVd

    • Chic Bowdrie says:

      Good one.

    • JDHuffman says:

      Maybe I will apply for funding to develop a model to predict how much hotter we’re going to get.

      Postal rates appear to be approaching a “hockey stick”.

      • Norman says:

        JDHuffman

        You do not have enough mathematical ability to develop any type of climate model.

        • JDHuffman says:

          False.

          Nothing new from Norman.

        • Norman says:

          JDHuffman

          No totally correct. You have demonstrated no ability to understand experimentally established physics (which you call pseudoscience) and you have not produced any evidence that you have any math ability.

          If you have such ability than prove it with some calculation. I have not seen one yet so until I do my post is accurate and correct until you demonstrate otherwise.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, the burden is on you, not me. All you do is insult, falsely accuse, and misrepresent others. You run from reality.

            Until you understand the racehorse is NOT rotating on its own axis, you mind will remain “out-of-order”.

            Now, your next meaningless 1000-word ramble….

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            No the burden is on you. I do not accept you have any math ability. You have made a claim you do. There is no way I could prove you have or do not have math ability. Only you can demonstrate you possess some. My proof is that you have never shown the ability to do even simple math.

            You can’t add for one. If you have two fluxes reaching an object you are not able to add the values together to get a net flux.

            You are given equations used by all established radiant heat transfer physics but show zero ability to calculate the values.

            You have clearly demonstrated a total lack of math ability. The burden would be on you to post some valid science calculation to demonstrate ability.

          • JDHuffman says:

            That’s not nearly 1000 words, Norman.

            Can’t you count?

    • barry says:

      Correlation is not causation.

      That lesson from skeptics lasts precisely as long as it takes for them to point out similar curves in ocean/atmosphere systems like PDO and AMO.

      Then correlation does indeed mean causation. The only constant is ABC [anything but CO2].

    • David Appell says:

      Eben says:
      The global warming is caused by US postal charges, perfect correlation is undeniable and far better match than CO2
      https://goo.gl/RZmBVd

      There’s no theory to suggest any correlation between postal rates and temperature (although energy usage might show something….)

      But there’s every theoretical reason to expect CO2 to affect temperature. This comes from calculations that go back 125 years, and that have gotten increasingly sophisticated.

      In such a case, correlation matters a good deal — especially since it’s impossible to do experiments in climate science.

  32. Thanks Mr. Spencer

    Question: USA 48 from 02-17 to 11-18 Temp drop of 3.29°C from +2.16 to -1.13 is that catastrophic? Does that have any meaning?

    thanks again for your super information!

    regards from the Swiss mountains, Fred

  33. Aaron S says:

    The UAH data seems to show that plus 0.25 C will be the new norm at a decadal scale because the U trop pattern tends to be like a stair case with warming steps after major El Nino, and the El Nino warm and La Nina cool couplet are certainly over- so it seems we are likely floating around the new plateau. It is astonishing how each of the El Nino/ La Nina couplets vary in the UAH record. Also after watching Michael Mann debate Judith Curry I can only say he appears biased to me. He uses El Nino warming to falsely exaggerate anthropogenic climate change and keeps graphs that are over a year out of date in order to add El Nino warming with global warming to make a case to support abundant warming. Same principle with the hockey stick. Where is the high frequency natural climate change of El Nino in that data? I dont see how it is valid to compare a very smoothed data set to a much less smoothed version. It takes about a 10 year running average to smooth out el nino. At a minimum he should do that to whatever version of thermometer data set he sticks on the end of his paleoclimate global data set and it is unacceptable to keep out of data that ends with an el nino peak.

  34. David Overton says:

    Very valuable data, well presented. Here is an interpretation, and I would welcome any comments or challenges to this logic.
    1. Over the period mentioned, global temps have been rising .13 C per decade.
    2. Most scientists believe CO2 emissions are a major cause
    3. Based on projections by the US Energy Information Administration, global fossil fuel use and resulting CO2 emissions will increase over the period they forecast, which is out to 2050.
    4. At that point CO2 emissions are significantly higher than they are now and energy generation based on fossil fuels is widespread, so it is unlikely that emissions would drop to anywhere near the current levels in the following decades.
    5. Therefore, the increase of .13 C per decade is likely to continue if we stay on the present energy course.
    6. This will take us to 2 degrees C of warming by 2100 (1 degree so far, plus 8 decades times .13). This could occur sooner as CO2 emissions increase from their current level.

    2 degrees C by 2100 seems very possible and a risk that should be addressed. I would appreciate any observations on this. Thanks.

  35. Guj says:

    So far, there seems to be no warming trend but no cooling trend either. This is simply the situation since 1998. We have the next 10 years to test if IPCC is right about AGW, which means considerable warming should happen as greenhouses continue to rise or the Del Prete, Valentina Zarkoba theses etc are right about solar activity and the corresponding cooling. It seems as simple as that. Thank you Dr Spencer for your wonderful work. Great discussions in this forum, as a reader though would appreciate people not getting personal sometimes and just try to express their opinions with temperance, a much needed virtue these days.

    • Bobdesbond says:

      We now have exactly 40 years of data. Here are the decadal averages:

      Dec 1998 – Nov 2008 … -0.144
      Dec 1998 – Nov 2008 … -0.022 (rise: 0.122)
      Dec 1998 – Nov 2008 … +0.095 (rise: 0.073)
      Dec 2008 – Nov 2018 … +0.224 (rise: 0.129)

      So the last 10 years has seen the biggest rise.
      Perhaps one day you people will actually analyse the data before making your BS claims.

      • Bobdesbond says:

        Oops … that should be:

        Dec 1978 Nov 1988 -0.144
        Dec 1988 Nov 1998 -0.022 (rise: 0.122)
        Dec 1998 Nov 2008 +0.095 (rise: 0.073)
        Dec 2008 Nov 2018 +0.224 (rise: 0.129)

    • David Appell says:

      Guj says:
      So far, there seems to be no warming trend but no cooling trend either. This is simply the situation since 1998.

      UAH LT linear warming trend since Jan 1999 = +0.14 C/decade.

    • David Overton says:

      Can you explain your comment “So far, there seems to be no warming trend”? As others have pointed out, this does not appear to be consistent with the data in the satellite data above, which shows clear warming. How are you interpreting that data? Thanks.

  36. Bindidon says:

    AndyG55 wrote upthread a fantastic comment about UAH in the Arctic region:

    “UAH NoPol,
    Only warming this century has been the now defunct El Nino.”
    *

    His graph is correct. But why did the commenter let it begin with the year 2000?

    Let us look at a graph comparing the ENSO signals with UAH’s NoPol for the entire satellite period (ENSO is lagged by 4 months here, to compensate for the troposphere’s response delay):

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/11jgFBqiYSVKOZkQeyHqNJvULOo-kPVDb/view

    As we can see, the probablility that NoPol’s 2016 bump be due to “the now defunct El Nino” is not very great.

    Because if that had been the case, as the peak equality of UAH and ENSO in 2016 suggests: why then was there no similar UAH NoPol response to the 1997/98 El Nino, which was way stronger than the 2015/16 edition?

    As opposed to the El Ninos in 1982/83 and 1992/94, which both were neutralised by the aerosols resulting from huge volcanic eruptions (and therefore are unknown to most followers of the UAH temperature record), nothing the like has hidden the powerful 1997/98 El Nino.

    Thus it seems that we should look for another reason for this NoPol peak in January 2016.

    Btw, it is not uninteresting to compare the pictures showing the global temperature distribution maps provided by Japans Meteorology Agency for the two ENSO periods:

    February 2016:
    https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/map//gridtemp/y2016/gridtemp201602e.png

    February 1998:
    https://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/map//gridtemp/y1998/gridtemp199802e.png

    A lot seems to have happened inbetween, didn’t it?

    But don’t ask me what it was due to: no idea. When I hear “It’s CO2!” I get a big laugh.

    • David Appell says:

      So you have no idea what’s causing the warming, but, without explaining why or providing any details, disagree with every climate scientist and expert in the world. Sure.

  37. Chic Bowdrie says:

    To Bobdesbond, Norman, and anyone else not familiar with my contempt for the “greenhouse effect” concept.

    A follow up from here: http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/12/uah-global-temperature-update-for-november-2018-0-28-deg-c/#comment-332259

    I don’t have time to go back and refer to countless times on this blog I’ve discussed the green plate demo. Not so many times explaining why it isn’t an appropriate analogy for the misnomered concept of a “greenhouse effect.” That turns my stomach, because it is the primary source of propaganda used to fool nontechnical people into thinking CO2 traps heat and more CO2 warms the planet.

    Earth does not exist in a green plate chamber and therefore no convection takes place, let alone wind, clouds, and oceans. It is entirely possible that all energy radiated in is eventually radiated out with minor oscillations in global temperature since the beginning of the current inter-glacial. There is no definitive evidence that all the recent global warming is due to CO2 rise rather than more solar energy due to less clouds or other factors.

    There is already enough CO2 to absorb all the energy it can from what’s radiated off the surface daily. The energy is distributed to bulk air by collision. When the energy in that bulk air moves up, it is released and radiated to space. There is no reason I know of that extra CO2 should trap more energy. If there was no CO2 in the upper troposphere, would it be warmer or cooler?

    • ren says:

      See how ozone from Siberia flows into North America.
      https://images.tinypic.pl/i/00975/7pkfihcibs31.png

    • Bindidon says:

      Chic Bowdrie

      I’m not a fan of ‘It’s CO2!’.

      But nevertheless this trace gas must have some long range influence on radiation balance between space and Earth.

      *

      “… because it is the primary source of propaganda used to fool nontechnical people into thinking CO2 traps heat and more CO2 warms the planet.”

      I do not think, nor would I ever pretend, that CO2 ‘traps heat’.

      What H2O, CO2 and other trace gases do is to partly absorb far IR radiated by Earth in response to solar radiation, and to reemit it in all directions.

      If the atmosphere contained none of these gases, all radiation from Earth would directly reach outer space, as neither O2 nor a fortiori N2 or Ar are able to absorb far IR radiation.

      What happens with all far IR photons redirected elsewhere than to outer space – endless collisions with neighbour molecules or reaching the surface – I don’t know.

      *

      “If there was no CO2 in the upper troposphere, would it be warmer or cooler?”

      In my humble opinion, resulting from all I read about that until now, it would be a bit cooler, as more far IR radiation then reaches outer space directly what leads to a better energy balance.

      *

      I propose to read Joseph W. Chamberlain’s work

      Elementary, Analytic Models of C l i m a t e :
      I. The Mean Global H e a t Balance

      https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790010343.pdf

      *

      Theory of Planetary Atmospheres: An Introduction to Their Physics and Chemistry

      published 1987:

      https://books.google.de/books?hl=de&lr=&id=nnlfhQZfLEsC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

      The latter we unfortunately can’t read completely online.

      • Chic Bowdrie says:

        Bindidon,

        “But this trace gas must have some long range influence on radiation balance between space and Earth.”

        Yes, that is true. It’s a question of how much influence. If there was no CO2, there would be a big hole that H2O could not fill. But there is enough CO2 now that more CO2 may not have any further effect unless it’s happening in the upper troposphere. It’s true that emission happens in all directions, but most of the ones going up don’t come back and none of those going down make it to the surface.

        When water vapor condenses, energy is released to the bulk air. I suspect the main cooling in the upper troposphere comes from that bulk air transferring energy to CO2, where it gets radiated to space.

        And thanks for the references.

        • Norman says:

          Chic Bowdrie

          This link might show that increase in CO2 will cause a bit of warming.

          http://www.patarnott.com/atms411/pdf/StaleyJuricaEffectiveEmissivity.pdf

          Please take the time to review Figure 1. It is a graph showing how emissivity of CO2 changes with concentration and pressure.

          The emissivity still goes up as you add CO2 (not linear, but logarithmic). At a given temperature the higher the emissivity, the more energy radiated so it would seem adding some more CO2 will produce some warming.

          The skeptical nature of the debate should be “how much”. Many skeptics do not seem to grasp the basic established laws of heat transfer and reject the GHE. Scientists, like Roy Spencer, accept the GHE as a scientific reality but are debating the “how much” question. It could be very minor but it would seem to have some noticeable effect.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, as usual, you can’t understand the links you find.

            NOTHING in that link proves CO2 can warm the surface.

            You don’t understand the relevant physics.

            Nothing new.

          • David Appell says:

            Empirical evidence:

            “Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997,” J.E. Harries et al, Nature 410, 355-357 (15 March 2001).
            http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v410/n6826/abs/410355a0.html
            “Radiative forcing measured at Earths surface corroborate the increasing greenhouse effect,” R. Philipona et al, Geo Res Letters, v31 L03202 (2004).
            http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2003GL018765/abstract

            “Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010,” D. R. Feldman et al, Nature 519, 339343 (19 March 2015). http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14240.html

            Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present, J.A. Griggs et al, Proc SPIE 164, 5543 (2004).

            Spectral signatures of climate change in the Earth’s infrared spectrum between 1970 and 2006, Chen et al, (2007)

            Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate, W.F.J. Evans, ams.confex.com, Jan 2006

            “Satellite-Based Reconstruction of the Tropical Oceanic Clear-Sky Outgoing Longwave Radiation and Comparison with Climate Models,” Gastineau et al, J Climate, vol 27, 941957 (2014).

            Links and more papers on this subject are listed here:
            http://agwobserver.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/papers-on-changes-in-olr-due-to-ghgs/

          • Norman says:

            JDHuffman

            Yeah Right. Like you have any credibility. You are the same poster that went by g.e.r.a.n before getting banned by Roy Spencer and now you pretend that you are not the same poster. Hilarious!

            Yes I totally understand the correct physics. I have no problems understanding it.

            Everything in the link clearly shows that increased CO2 will cause the Solar heated Earth surface to reach a higher steady state temperature (which is warming in when compared to previous states).

            The emissivity of CO2 is directly based upon its concentration in the atmosphere. The more CO2 the more Downwelling IR. The more DWIR in combination with a constant solar input, the higher the surface temperature rises until a new steady state temperature is reached.

            Be more like Roy Spencer. A rational skeptic. He understands radiant heat transfer. He understands that you have so much solar input, you add CO2 which absorbs insignificant amounts of solar flux and this increased amount of CO2 radiates to the surface which absorbs a large percentage of this DWIR so now you have a fixed solar input plus an additional DWIR and you have more Net energy to the surface with additional CO2. The effect gets less and less after a certain point. Rational scientists accept this. Deluded skeptics do not. Rational skeptics understand this and their debate is not with the valid true science, their debate is with the amount of warming that will occur. Some believe a lot, others like Roy, not so much. Posters like you do the skeptics a disfavor. You are adored on the pseduoscientific site PSI, here you have posters that know real science.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Norman, I didn’t read your long rant, because I already know what it contains–insults, false accusations, and misrepresentations.

            Nothing new.

      • David Appell says:

        Bindidon says:
        I do not think, nor would I ever pretend, that CO2 ‘traps heat’.
        What H2O, CO2 and other trace gases do is to partly absorb far IR radiated by Earth in response to solar radiation, and to reemit it in all directions.

        Your second paragraph here is exactly what’s meant by “trapping heat.”

    • David Appell says:

      Chic Bowdrie says:
      There is already enough CO2 to absorb all the energy it can from whats radiated off the surface daily.

      No, as data like these show:

      https://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/schmidt_05/curve_s.gif

      If CO2 was saturating, none of what it ab.sorb.s would reach the TOA. But clearly a lot does.

      On Earth, CO2 is far from being saturated. It isn’t even saturated on Venus. See the sidebar on page 37 of:

      Pierrehumbert RT 2011: Infrared radiation and planetary temperature. Physics Today 64, 33-38
      http://geosci.uchicago.edu/~rtp1/papers/PhysTodayRT2011.pdf

      • Norman says:

        David Appell

        In this case I am siding with Chic Bowdrie. All the surface IR emitted in the band absorbed by CO2 is absorbed. The spectrum you link to is an emission spectrum. The CO2 band emits much less energy because the emitting CO2 is from much colder regions of the atmosphere. The CO2 is emitting based upon its temperature and emissivity, the graph is not IR emitted from the surface, it is IR that is emitted by CO2 in the upper atmosphere.

        • David Appell says:

          Norman, that figure is an outgoing spectrum. And at no point is it zero. But no, it’s not what’s emitted by the surface.

          What does “saturation” mean? It means there will be no less outgoing IR for further increases of CO2. And that’s just not true.

        • Norman says:

          David Appell

          YOU: “What does saturation mean? It means there will be no less outgoing IR for further increases of CO2. And thats just not true.”

          Yes I can agree with this statement.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Easy to say. I do that too. Question is can you prove it?

          • Craig T. says:

            Chic, look at this paper:
            https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/wea.2072

            “At concentrations [0f CO2] higher than at present the black curve (650680cm1) is essentially horizontal, indicating that the band core is saturated. The near-core regions (590650cm1 and 680750cm1) show a slowing down of the increase but remain unsaturated up to at least a CO2 mixing ratio of 105 ppmv. The band wings (450590cm1 and 750850cm1) are far from saturation even when approaching a near-pure CO2 atmosphere.”

            Are you looking at the band wings or just the narrow 650 – 680 cm-1 bandwidth when you say “more CO2 may not have any further effect”?

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Craig, I answered in a new thread below.

    • David Appell says:

      Chic Bowdrie says:
      December 5, 2018 at 2:00 PM
      To Bobdesbond, Norman, and anyone else not familiar with my contempt for the greenhouse effect concept.

      Contempt?

      If you accept that CO2 ab.sorbs IR from the Earth’s surface, then you accept there is a greenhouse effect.

      As you wrote: “There is already enough CO2 to absorb all the energy it can from whats radiated off the surface daily.”

    • Nate says:

      ‘When the energy in that bulk air moves up, it is released and radiated to space. There is no reason I know of that extra CO2 should trap more energy. ‘

      The real models use layers.

      A lowest layer can be totally opaque in CO2 bands. So it warms. And radiates and convects to the layer above it, warms it, etc.

      Finally there is layer high in the atmosphere that is no longer opaque. It radiates to space, at the temperature of air at its elevation.

      More CO2 means the last layer moves to higher elevation, where it is colder. Less IR is thereby radiated to space. The atmosphere warms.

      • Chic Bowdrie says:

        Nate,

        What real models are you referring to?

        Your characterization using layers agrees with my description of atmospheric energy transfer except for the last paragraph.

        “More CO2 means the last layer moves to higher elevation,…”

        That assumes CO2 absorbs more radiation than it emits. Bulk air temperature won’t change, unless an excited CO2 molecule collides with another molecule before it can emit. But in the low density upper atmosphere, collisions are less likely than emissions.

        “…where it is colder.”

        It won’t be colder at the troposphere, and more CO2 will mean more emission. More IR is thereby radiated to space. The atmosphere cools.

      • Nate says:

        Standard thing, effective radiating level.

        http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~aos121br/radn/radn/sld012.htm

        The measured lapse rate curve shows that T decreases with height in the troposphere.

        ‘More CO2 means the last layer moves to higher elevation,…’

        “That assumes CO2 absorbs more radiation than it emits. ”

        No, why? Layers emit according the temperature.

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          Nate,

          The ERL is a total mathematical construct based on manipulations of the Stefan Boltzmann equation? Are there any measurements of it whatsoever?

          Temperature decreases with altitude, correct. But “layers” don’t move unless they are warmed. That only happens when a stable atmosphere is warmed from below by convection. The warming comes either from rising surface layers or the release of latent energy into the upper troposphere, but not necessarily from additional CO2 molecules. If an air parcel is in local temperature equilibrium, more CO2 will not increase its temperature.

          As you know, emissions/molecule are proportional to whatever the parcel temperature is. Therefore, more CO2 should cause greater cooling potential in the upper troposphere. I can’t think of any reason why more CO2 causes any greater warming potential there. CO2 doesn’t bring energy with it. It only has what it gets from radiation above and below, and collisions in the layer it’s in.

          • Nate says:

            ‘The ERL is a total mathematical construct based on manipulations of the Stefan Boltzmann equation? Are there any measurements of it whatsoever?’

            I dont know what you mean by manipulations..but the ERL is based on ordinary well known optical properties of gases. If there are more abs*orbing molecules in a gas, its optical depth increases.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_depth

            ERL is a real thing, but its an average height, not a sharp layer.

            The whole process is described as radiative-convective equilibrium. I suggest reading about it.

          • Nate says:

            ‘But layers dont move unless they are warmed. That only happens when a stable atmosphere is warmed from below by convection. The warming comes either from rising surface layers or the release of latent energy into the upper troposphere, but not necessarily from additional CO2 molecules. If an air parcel is in local temperature equilibrium, more CO2 will not increase its temperature.’

            The radiative-convective equil in a nutshell:

            As the ERL height rises to cooler heights, the co2 radiating to space is cooler, and radiates less. Since incoming solar flux is unchanged, the atmosphere must warm. When it warms, the entire lapse rate curve warms, and moves the tropopause higher, restoring the original temperature of the ERL, increasing the radiation to space, restoring equlibrium.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Sorry I’m slow in responding. I’ve been indisposed lately.

            ERL is as real as the average temperature of the oceans. You can’t measure it. It’s only a concept.

            Your radiative-convective equilibrium model has never been verified. There is no actual data that I’m aware of the proves the hypothetical ERL rises due to increasing CO2. The atmosphere may be warming because solar energy reaching the surface increased, and not because of any hypothetical increase in ERL.

            What you describe has never been tested empirically. There is no definitive evidence that an incremental increase in CO2 will have any effect on the average global temperature.

          • Nate says:

            Chic,

            ‘What you describe has never been tested empirically.’

            Tests at the surface and in space of increased radiative forcing due to CO2 have been done. They confirm the basic models are correct.

            You are looking for tests that can only be done with another Earth as a control, which is never going to happen. Hence you will, conveniently, never be satisfied.

            The rest of us will have to make do with observations of the Earth that we have, data on the Earth that we had in the past, and modeling of ‘control’ Earths, to decide on what is going on.

            Our understanding of how the atmosphere works is tested every day with numerical weather models, and then the weather that we actually get.

            They show that our understanding is damn good.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Nate,

            “Tests at the surface and in space of increased radiative forcing due to CO2 have been done.”

            When were the data from these tests published?

            Radiative forcing due to a change in CO2 is a model equation. To validate the model, one must do experiments to show that a temperature change actually results from a change in CO2. I know of no definitive data where this has been shown.

            You are correct that matched paired Earth experiments can’t be done, but that doesn’t necessarily mean there isn’t a way to show conclusively the validity of the “modeling of ‘control’ Earths.”

            Weather models are accurate to less than a week at most. Good, but not so damn good that you can prove CO2 sensitivity is better than zero.

          • nate says:

            ‘Weather models are accurate to less than a week at most. Good, but not so damn good that you can prove CO2 sensitivity is better than zero.’

            For a chaotic, huge, complex system that is damn good, way better than 50 y ago.

            These highly successful models show that we understand the general circulation and how heat is transferred in the atmosphere.

            ‘Radiative forcing due to a change in CO2’ is measured. here:

            https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14240

            If there is extra heat flux coming in, as this shows, then the atmosphere will warm, by 1LOT, unless you can show that equal extra heat flux is going out.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Nate,

            If I understand their paper correctly, Feldman et alia used radiative transfer calculations to convert the changes in atmospheric spectra obtained at two relatively dry locations into changes in energy radiated to space.

            First of all, I don’t see how the forcings are unequivocally responsible for any temperature changes at those locations on the relevant time scales, diurnal to decadal. Can you explain what I’m missing?

            Second, assuming what is happening at those two locations is correct, isn’t it possible that what is happening around the rest of the world compensates such that average global temperatures experience no net change? Because that is what actually happened between 2000 and 2011 according to UAH.

          • Nate says:

            ‘Second, assuming what is happening at those two locations is correct, isnt it possible that what is happening around the rest of the world compensates such that average global temperatures experience no net change?’

            Anything is possible. But is it likely? No. You need a mechanism that isnt just a fantasy.

            ‘Because that is what actually happened between 2000 and 2011 according to UAH.’

            You can’t measure the temperature of the troposphere, while ignoring the rest of the heat reservoirs, and conclude no warming happened.

            The ocean heat content (where most heat is) increased during this period.

          • Nate says:

            “unequivocally responsible for any temperature changes at those locations on the relevant time scales, diurnal to decadal.”

            That is a straw man. It ignores all movement of heat around the Earth to and from these locations.

            Consider the Arctic. In winter, massive heat flow to space, yet it is replenished by heat flow from lower latitudes, and doesnt just keep getting colder and colder.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            “You cant measure the temperature of the troposphere, while ignoring the rest of the heat reservoirs, and conclude no warming happened.”

            Is this a version of Trenberth’s missing heat meme?

            “The ocean heat content (where most heat is) increased during this period.”

            Two locations show more radiation in than out. Are you saying they represent what’s happening over the rest of the globe including the oceans?

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/04/more-on-trenberths-missing-heat/

            “Consider the Arctic. In winter, massive heat flow to space, yet it is replenished by heat flow from lower latitudes, and doesn’t just keep getting colder and colder.”

            Yes, and that heat flow to the poles may compensate completely for any radiation flux discrepancies elsewhere. So let me rephrase what you call a strawman argument:

            I dont see how the forcings at selected locations are unequivocally responsible for other global temperature changes on the relevant time scales, diurnal to decadal. Because, as you wrote, “it ignores all movement of heat around the Earth to and from these locations.”

          • Nate says:

            ‘Is this a version of Trenberths missing heat meme?’

            No meme, this is just measurements of OHC rising over the period.

            ‘Two locations show more radiation in than out. Are you saying they represent whats happening over the rest of the globe including the oceans?’

            Yes, they are simply showing that CO2 produces the expected Forcing. CO2 is rising everywhere on the Globe, so the Forcing ought to be present everywhere. Why not?

            ‘I dont see how the forcings at selected locations are unequivocally responsible for other global temperature changes on the relevant time scales, diurnal to decadal. Because, as you wrote, it ignores all movement of heat around the Earth to and from these locations.’

            CO2 is rising everywhere. The measurements test its effect at two random locations and it agrees ~ with theory. It is REASONABLE to extrapolate this effect to the whole Globe-pending further tests. Again, with this extra Forcing, 1LOT requires warming.

            I don’t see why you would equate heat moving around on the Earth to heat leaving the Earth. No reason to assume that.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            “CO2 is rising everywhere on the Globe, so the Forcing ought to be present everywhere. Why not?”

            Nate, that is a very concise statement of the hypothesis that recent global warming is due to CO2. But that hypothesis is as yet unproven. That is evident from disagreements on what the sensitivity is and the possibility it could even be zero.

            “CO2 is rising everywhere. The measurements test its effect at two random locations and it agrees ~ with theory.”

            What theory? The hypothesis that CO2 causes warming or just the theory that forcings calculated from increasing CO2 matches the radiation measurements at two locations? The temperature response solely due to a CO2 forcing is what has yet to be confirmed.

            When the surface is warmed, the air above is warmed and it not only rises, it gets moved in general from the tropics to the poles. Thus proportionally more heat can be radiated from places which receive less surface warming than from warmer places.

          • Nate says:

            ‘What theory? The hypothesis that CO2 causes warming or just the theory that forcings calculated from increasing CO2 matches the radiation measurements at two locations? The temperature response solely due to a CO2 forcing is what has yet to be confirmed.’

            The theory the we were discussing involving the ERL etc, that you claimed was untested and unproven.

            I showed you that it was tested and proven.

            ‘The temperature response… ”

            As I already said, if there is a forcing (there is), 1LOT requires warming. And the atmosphere and ocean IS warming, with similarity to the history of the forcing.

            Climate sensitivity is clearly not zero, but it has some uncertainty.

  38. Eben says:

    Climate shysters accuse me of lying , pulling stuff out of my ass and making stuff up when I say according to their prediction the temperature should 1 degree C higher by now
    Here is a time line how they backpedaled the original warming prediction for the last thirty years after the fact the warming they predicted wasn’t happening
    Anybody can look this up in two minutes, but when I point it out they deny it and act like complete idiots.
    https://goo.gl/1ULguh

    • David Appell says:

      Got anything peer reviewed, explanatory and that doesn’t look so amateurish?

    • barry says:

      Eben, that graph is wrong. The trend for RSS over the last 17 years is 0.15 C/decade. It’s marked there as zero.

      Furthermore, the periods for Had.CRU and RSS are nowhere near a match for Hansen ’88. The graph lacks any reasonable baselining or comparison.

      Furthermore, it uses Hansen’s scenario A, when he said B was most likely (and the actual forcings for the graph most closely lie between B and C). This bit of deceit has been around for years. There were 3 different projections, but fake skeptics only show the highest.

      That graph is missing a whole lot of information. It’s the shyster’s trick of presenting a graphic as a visual fait a complis. Where’s the beef?

      You have to do much better than that.

    • Eben says:

      If IPCC keeps lowering the warming predictions at the same rate from one report to next they have been in the past , in two more reports from now they will be predicting cooling .

      • barry says:

        So you’re not here to have a discussion about topics and graphs you bring up?

        As I said, you’re fishing around in your grab-bag of talking points for something else whenever you get rebutted.

        The graph you found in some blog is wrong. Nothing to add to that? Only distraction?

        • JDHuffman says:

          barry, so you’re not here to have a discussion about the bogus “plates”, which disproves GHE?

          Now you’re running from such a discussion. Next you will be running from the GHE. You will claim you were never involved.

          That’s the advantage of hiding your identity.

          After the hoax is fully discredited, you can come back in a whole new identity.

        • Eben says:

          You suffer from a mental condition of having to convince everyone around you you are right,
          I don’t have that problem , If you don’t believe what I say then don’t.

          • David Appell says:

            Spoken like someone who has been proven wrong.

          • barry says:

            I have this old-fashioned notion of arriving at truth by positing something and then subjecting it to a critical analysis to see how well it holds. It’s more fun if you don’t have to do that by yourself. I keep challenging you to join in substantively.

            This blog explores the science behind climate change and related phenomena. It’s a great basis for discussion. What you and I “believe” is 3rd-rate compared to the spirit of inquiry that could guide a conversation.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Wow barry, after that sanctimonious spiel you may now want to explain how the green plate can instantly transform from a black body to an insulator.

          • barry says:

            It’s been explained by many to your deaf ears.

            What you haven’t been able to explain is how a black body, which by definition absorbs all radiation incident on it regardless of source or wavelength, suddenly becomes a perfect reflector.

      • Bobdesbond says:

        And as expected for any such claim, you make it free of any sourcing. It’s amazing how many claims can be made when you are free not to make them on reality.

  39. Eben says:

    Interesting Ceres satellite data, In case you missed it
    https://goo.gl/dxh85e

    • barry says:

      Ah. So you are trawling skeptic blogs for talking points.

      I was going to ask “interesting in what way?” But obviously the answer is “This data set shows less warming than others. That makes it interesting.”

      The comments section underneath the article is interesting. One could spare oneself a myopic take on CERES data by reading it.

    • barry says:

      The CERES data are definitely not surface temperature, despite the labels in the graph.

      • Craig T. says:

        From the WUWT page:
        “[UPDATE] Ive discovered an error in the calculations that invalidates most of this post, with the exception of the snow extent data. See the explanation here.]”

    • barry says:

      The bison know their harmony
      Shadow forms in the moonlight
      Rain falls

    • Eben says:

      When you see a chart showing in odds with all others you should be very suspicions , A mistake was made , the corrected numbers now mach those of UHA trend
      https://goo.gl/szWsmh

    • barry says:

      And yet the conclusion of the blogger seems to be that CERES and UAH are correct and the surface records are not. Why that should be when there are 3 different metrics being measured here is a mystery. And why is there no comparison with RSS?

      It’s a pity that there is only data for 18 years. Aside from not being able to work with statistically significant trends, the differences in processing and different metrics being measured make comparisons very iffy.

      For example, the author says the CERES data are not good for the polar regions. The difference between the Arctic trend for CERES (reanalysed) and Berkeley is 0.18C.

      UAH Arctic trend for the same period is 0.22C. Berkeley seems to be similar. (from eyeballing – I don’t have the data in a form easy to check). So it appears the CERES (reanalysed) data has a near-zero Arctic trend for the short period the author is interested in, at odds with all other data sets.

    • barry says:

      (I hope it’s obvious that the trends I mentioned are in C/decade)

    • barry says:

      Correction, the CERES (Willis-reanalysed) Arctic trend for Mar 2000 – Feb 2018 is 0.98C/decade. Still half as much as UAH.

  40. Aaron S says:

    Barry. I still get sent to the bottom of the comment section, sorry. Yes, I think a step funtion is a best fit. I did many runs and a stair case function correlates to the uah data best. As per previous comments i need to systematically do random walks to test this properly, but I see no reason this is not a valid observation.

  41. Eben says:

    In case you missed it – Appells trend charts shystering gets instantly debunked by a real scientist
    https://goo.gl/Q6xxNG

    • Bobdesbond says:

      https://tinyurl.com/ycb4phu8

      Yeah, such a “real” and trustworthy “scientist”.

    • Bindidon says:

      Eben

      “The Deplorable Climate Science Blog” indeed is deplorable because lacking any science.

      Appell has no idea how to describe things properly, but Heller aka Goddard is by far worse.

      Simply because he manipulates his gullible followers by presenting absolute data containing annual cycles, what allows him to arbitrarily shift trends by moving from winter to summer or the inverse.

      People having some clue present data based on anomalies where the annual cycle has been removed, like Roy Spencer’s UAH time series for example.

      Here is how the stuff should look like:

      1. Arcdtic sea ice extent and area (i.e. pack ice) for 2006-2018 from SIDADS

      https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uDB7lD_QgbszIa7tyC8mpMLefXD-NLNe/view

      2. Arcdtic sea ice volume for 2006-2018 from PIOMAS

      https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Fmz9vSdDx-wYr_1N_6BKJzdPSNK-UCPg/view

      By the way, Eben: your cesspool vocabulary is disgusting. What about publishing it under your real name?

      • Eben says:

        “By the way, Eben: your cesspool vocabulary is disgusting. ”

        I told him multiple times and in no uncertain terms to stay out of my posts , he has no respect for it so why should I have any respect for him, he just keeps on trolling and leaving his brown skid-marks in every one of my posts, every except this one , he stayed strangely quiet here.

      • Eben says:

        “What about publishing it under your real name?”

        I cannot do that I’m a fugitive , Communists are after me ever since I escaped from behind the Iron Curtain in 1984.

  42. AGW has not does not exist and the ones who buy into this theory are just fooling themselves.

    The climate is not and has not been any where close to being unique.

    Once overall oceanic sea surface temperatures start to drop off then more substancial global cooling will take place.

  43. Aaron S says:

    Barry,
    El Nino does not create global warming. El Nino is a short term breakdown of a positive feedback loop in the tropical pacific that occurs from upwelling in East Pacific and growing westery winds that pile up warm water to the west. They occur as a result of the breakdown of this process and thus do not force warming. I think the pacific releases heat during an El Nino and during major el Nino there is a shift. Most likely the net gain in Pacific heat that get released after an el Nino is from accumulated heat from CO2 or possibly from another proccess that is part of a lag in deep currents.

    • barry says:

      Ok, I don’t think el Ninos are responsible for long-term warming either. But I do think that they give a false impression of warming ‘steps’, when there has been an underlying warming (whatever the cause) for 50 years or so, with Ninos making it look like jumps.

      Roy wrote a brief article on how this looks with known parameters.

      http://www.drroyspencer.com/2013/11/the-magical-mystery-climate-index-luis-salas-nails-it/

      The 6.5 year cycle in his example is the proxy for (less regular) el Ninos.

      Tamino explored the notion of step jumps using statistical analysis. There were three great posts on it, once you excise the commentary and just read about the statistical analysis.

      https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/steps/
      https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/step-2/
      https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/step-3/

      When I read the first one years ago I looked up Akaike information criterion, which was a good lead for understanding how far statistical tests can go in validating or rejecting a posit. Maybe you’ll find the posts interesting.

      • Kristian says:

        This is NOT about statistics, barry. It’s about physical processes playing out within our real Earth system. It’s all happening right there in front of you. You need to wake up!

      • barry says:

        Must you miss the point so spectacularly each time?
        If someone brings up a statistical point, I may respond to that by discussing the statistics. This conversation began with that.
        At any time I may talk about the physical basis, with or without reference to statistical analysis: but I won’t be doing that to alleviate your mistaken belief I overlook that aspect.

        • Kristian says:

          barry,

          I look at Aaron’s initial comment above (the very one I responded to just below), and I see that he specifically discusses physical processes within the Earth system while not spending so much as a single word on statistics and statistical methods. That’s YOU. To me it seems YOU’RE the one who continues to miss the point here. Hence my comment.

          The thing is, you’re not missing the point at all. You simply don’t want to address this particular point. You rather prefer turning everything into a game of pure statistics. If you notice something that could be seen as a step in the data, it can only be statistical noise to you, no matter how many times someone points out the physical processes behind it.

          And, of course, as is your custom, you hide behind the “That’s-not-what-I’m-discussing” excuse, every single time someone (yes, it’s mostly me, but somebody has to do it) comes along to tell you these are REAL-WORLD data, not just hypothetical randomized ones; this isn’t one of Tamino’s tendentious statistical exercises; that you need to address the real-world PROCESSES at work …!

          You really are a strange one, barry.

          • Kristian says:

            The steps are there, barry. They very much manifest themselves once you superimpose global temps on scaled NINO3.4 SST. This is something you can deny all you want. It won’t make them go away. Better you just accept it. There are real steps and plateaus in the multidecadal progression of global temps.

          • Kristian says:

            You want me to show you? Again? Or do you wanna keep squeezing your eyes shut while yelling “Can’t hear you! Can’t hear you! Can’t hear you!” …?

          • barry says:

            The conversation begins here:

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/12/uah-global-temperature-update-for-november-2018-0-28-deg-c/#comment-332329

            Aaron’s reply is here:

            http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/12/uah-global-temperature-update-for-november-2018-0-28-deg-c/#comment-332644

            Aaron said he had subjected the notion of step changes to statistical analysis. Why is it strange for me to discuss that with him?

            Do you want to go another round on ENSO, Pacific Climate Shifts, ASR, clouds, the optical properties of clouds at different heights in the atmosphere, data quality and uncertainties?

            Or would you prefer to forget we’ve had these discussions about physical processes and the data we rely on to observe them, and continue to snipe as you do?

          • barry says:

            You want me to show you? Again? Or do you wanna keep squeezing your eyes shut while yelling “Can’t hear you! Can’t hear you! Can’t hear you!”…?

            Hahaha. Very inviting. No, you can delight someone else with your contempt.

            The steps are there, barry.

            But are they physical or just a statistical artefact? Does every el Nino (since 1977/88?) permanently release heat from the ocean to create a new stable plateau, only to get a new, warmer, stable plateau at the next el Nino?

            That seems unphysical to me, as it ignores la Ninas, and also the notion that even without la Ninas the heat injected to the atmosphere might dissipate anyway (outward and oceanward).

            If there were an underlying warming trend, the temp record is exactly what it would look like with el Ninos superimposed. It also looks like Nino step-changes. By eyeball, the step change and the linear trend + Nino spikes would look the same.

            If we can agree on that last bit (and do click on the link), then we can move on to discuss physical processes.

            A lecture won’t work, by the way. We break it down and talk. You don’t get to lecture and then expect me to agree. Reasonable, right?

    • Kristian says:

      Aaron S says, December 7, 2018 at 7:13 AM:

      El Nino does not create global warming. El Nino is a short term breakdown of a positive feedback loop in the tropical pacific that occurs from upwelling in East Pacific and growing westery winds that pile up warm water to the west. They occur as a result of the breakdown of this process and thus do not force warming.

      This is a common misconception which simply betrays a fundamental lack of knowledge about the ENSO process. The ENSO process is all to do with the balance between the uptake and release of heat … SOLAR heat. From the Pacific, and from the Earth as a whole. What it does is NOT just sloshing energy that’s already there back and forth, as people tend to think.

      You even acknowledge this, but then bizarrely go on to suggest that somehow CO2 (and not the Sun!) is behind the observed upward shifts …!!? Er, no.

      It is in the particular INTERCHANGE over time between El Ninos and La Ninas that long-term global warming (or cooling) can (and will) be caused. Not in each separate event.

      Trenberth et al., 2002:
      https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1029/2000JD000298
      “The negative feedback between SST and surface fluxes can be interpreted as showing the importance of the discharge of heat during El Nino events and of the recharge of heat during La Nina events. Relatively clear skies in the central and eastern tropical Pacific allow solar radiation to enter the ocean, apparently off-setting the below normal SSTs, but the heat is carried away by Ekman drift, ocean currents, and adjustments through ocean Rossby and Kelvin waves, and the heat is stored in the western Pacific tropics. This is not simply a rearrangement of the ocean heat, but also a restoration of heat in the ocean. Similarly, during El Nino the loss of heat into the atmosphere, especially through evaporation, is a discharge of the heat content, and both contribute to the life cycle of ENSO.”

      Yes, a major El Nino will – on balance – cause a NET RELEASE (LOSS) of heat from the Earth system, while a major La Nina will cause the opposite to occur, an Earth system NET UPTAKE (GAIN) of heat. We recognise this phenomenon as a fairly consistent pattern in the ToA net radiation data from CERES:
      https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2017/05/nettofluks-v-toa.png

      This, BTW, is no different in its essentials from the idea of warming caused by an increase in atmospheric CO2. An increase in atmospheric CO2 can’t and doesn’t by itself cause any warming. It needs energy to do that. And that energy has a source – The Sun. It’s exactly the same with the ENSO process. The Sun is of course always what ultimately provides and supplies the energy. But the Earth system isn’t just a passive tub to be filled and drained in equal measures over each repeated cycle, be it diurnal, seasonal or annual. It matters what happens INSIDE the system. The system can very much play an active, dynamic part in controlling how much solar heat it will absorb (cloud albedo), and conversely how much heat it will release (convective power, wind systems, pressure gradients, evaporation rates). These mechanisms are all part and parcel of the ENSO process. And they operate circumglobally. Through ocean and troposphere. The ENSO process is basically THE main driver of the global climate, by virtue simply of the overwhelmingly large amounts of energy at its disposal – there’s nothing like it on this planet.

      So, yes, the ENSO process can INDEED cause both general global warming and global cooling to occur over multidecadal periods of time. And why wouldn’t it? Why assume there’s always perfect compensation, always a perfect balance struck, within five, ten, fifteen, thirty, or fifty years, between the effects of La Nina and the effects of El Nino …?

      And do remember, now: The ENSO process is NOT equal merely to the SSTa of the NINO3.4 region. If you look at the NINO3.4 index and conclude “Ah, it’s flat; which means the ENSO influence on global climate averages to zero over time,” then I’m afraid you have a long way to go …

      • barry says:

        The paper uses Hadley data for the land portion. Too hard to compile that with SSTs from NOAA as done in the study, so I’ll just use the Had4 data, which is the lowest surface data trend overall.

        Linear global warming from 1950 to 1998:
        0.35 C

        Linear warming from el Ninos (per the paper cited above):
        0.06 C

      • Aaron S says:

        Kristian, thanks for the well thought out comment. At work and just noticed this. Will reply more later after i read your paper citation. A summary of what i think i know. We dont know el nino cause fully. Process is 1. El Nino occur when the warmnwater flow East in pacific. 2. Warm water stack up from long term westerly wind pusing water as a current from east to west. 3. Westerlies are created from the gradient between eastern cool water from upwelling and west warm water from heating in pacific. The systemn is instable from a positive feedback because the westerlies and associated surface current both strengthen the upwelling to east pacific and the warm water to the west so the gradient grows until the westerly winds increase the amount of stacked warm water above some threshold and the system fails. 4. Back to 1. The warm water at west ocssilate to the east reaching equilibrium. 5. La Nina occurs after an El Nino when cool upwelling strengthens to east but warm water has not accumulated to the western pacific yet. So there is a net cooling.

        So adding to either cool water from upwelling or adding warm water during current travel across the pacific can strengthen el nino by increasing gradient that creates it. I dont see why it matters if solar radiation directly or long wave energy trapped in the atmosphere from ghg like water vapor do the heating. So isnt it solar and ghg can increase El Nino? Its not like the tropical pacific atmosphere is not warmer at the equater.

        • Kristian says:

          Aaron S says, December 10, 2018 at 6:44 PM:

          I dont see why it matters if solar radiation directly or long wave energy trapped in the atmosphere from ghg like water vapor do the heating.

          The ENSO process is specifically fuelled by the Sun. Only the Sun puts energy into the ENSO process. If it weren’t for the Sun and for Earth’s rotation, there would be no ENSO process. LW (thermal) radiation is but a product (one out of several) of the temps being generated by the solar+circulatory processes within the Earth system.

          So, yes, it matters, because the former notion (the Sun does the heating) comports with reality, while the latter (certain gases in the atmosphere do the heating) is merely an (unfortunately widespread) illusion.

          So isnt it solar and ghg can increase El Nino?

          It isn’t the singular Nino/Nina events themselves that are “increased” to create global warming (or cooling) over time. It’s their circumglobal effect on the climate.

          As Trenberth put it already in 2002 (without ever daring to follow the implications of this realisation of his all the way through to its proper conclusion, however):
          ” Although it is possible to use regression to eliminate the linear portion of the global mean temperature signal associated with ENSO, the processes that contribute regionally to the global mean differ considerably, and the linear approach likely leaves an ENSO residual.”

          Yup, and that “ENSO residual” clearly manifests itself in the data as those distinct steps responsible for the ENTIRE rise in global temps between 1979 and at least 2013-2014:

          https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/07/30/modern-global-warming-in-three-steps-the-fairly-short-version/

          https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/how-the-world-really-warmed-part-iii-steps-2-3/

          https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/06/23/how-the-world-really-warmed-part-ii-step-1/

          https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2014/06/17/how-the-world-really-warmed-between-the-70s-and-the-00s-part-i/

          Its not like the tropical pacific atmosphere is not warmer at the equater.

          The tropical Pacific troposphere is relatively hot in the west and relativeky cool in the east. Why? Because the sea surface temperatures are relatively high in the west (in the so-called West Pacific Warm Pool) and relatively low in the east (in the so-called East Pacific Cold Tongue). And that’s in spite of the fact that the latter region receives and absorbs a LOT more solar heat than the former region. How come? Trenberth’s words bear repeating: “Relatively clear skies in the central and eastern tropical Pacific allow solar radiation to enter the ocean, apparently offsetting the below normal SSTs, but the heat is carried away by Ekman drift, ocean currents, and adjustments through ocean Rossby and Kelvin waves, and the heat is stored in the western Pacific tropics. This is not simply a rearrangement of the ocean heat, but also a restoration of heat in the ocean.” On average, (solar) heat goes down INTO the ocean in the east, and comes back OUT in the west, mostly via evaporation. That’s why the troposphere in the west is so much hotter (and humid) than in the east. It’s your classic coupled loop; no real end and no real beginning.

  44. Bindidon says:

    Richard M

    “Not really climate. Just weather. +AMO driving Arctic sea ice loss. AMO likely to go negative within 5 years.”

    This is your classical AMO vs. Arctic sea ice comment.

    Here is my classical reply:

    https://drive.google.com/file/d/1siBvAFKi8Xld2i0yvnOUfcsIz_TQJrTp/view

    It is visible already in the running means, but the polynomials tell it even a bit clearer.

    Btw: in fact, it is not correct tu use the detrended AMO for purposes other than demonstrating AMO’s cyclic behavior; but for the last 40 years the difference with the undetrended variant is tiny enough.

  45. Aaron S says:

    Barry.
    Thanks. I remember that post by Roy- a good one. I spend some significant time at work evaluating composite wavelets and agree. For example, when you add a linear positive slope line, plus PDO, plus El Nino data you get a very similar trend to UAH global temp data. So i think we both agree that UAH is a composite of global warming plus various types of natural variability that are often quasi-periodic. So to my original point. Do you think it is valid to evaluate “man made” contributions to global warming at constructive peaks in data like Mann did? In essence, he is attributing a composite of man made warming and natural warming to characterize the last 100 years and stiching that to data lacking the high amplitude, high frequency natural component in paleo data. It is apples to oranges. El Nino temp increase can be equivalent to 30 years of man made global warming all in one year. It was bad science in 2016 when they did it, now it is just disingenuous to keep using it knowing temp have dropped significantly as el nino left the system.

    • barry says:

      If you could link me to what you’re talking about I’d read and comment. You mentioned a debate between Mann and Curry in your first post. Is that it?

      The grafting of instrumental temps to the end of reconstructions that I’m familiar with usually have a common period overlapping for the calibration. The proxy records tend to come short of the late 20th century instrumental record, so how would you go about stitching them together?

  46. Aaron S says:

    Barry, for what it is worth this most recent step will support there is a linear warming component and not a limb of a longer cycle related to the sun to me. So now I am growing more confident there is significant warming from GHG. Previously i was able to explain trends with both forcing mechanisms (sun and ghg). If we increase temp again it is hard to use the sun.

    • barry says:

      I just don’t see that the steps are more than a statistical artefact caused by periodic Ninos. In any rising trend with quasi-periodic spikes, it’s going to look like step jumps, and even with statistical significance, even if, God-like, we knew that they weren’t.

      Did you read Tamino’s posts for the statistical analysis? To repeat:

      https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/09/steps/
      https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/10/step-2/
      https://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/22/step-3/

      When I read the first one years ago I looked up Akaike information criterion, which was a good lead for understanding how far statistical tests can go in validating or rejecting a posit.

      I’m interested in how you read the contention in the 3rd post, beginning with the statement:

      “One of the most important lessons to learn about statistics, and not forget, is that just because your model is statistically significant, that doesnt mean its right.”

    • Kristian says:

      Aaron S says, December 7, 2018 at 5:48 PM:

      If we increase temp again it is hard to use the sun.

      How is it “hard to use the sun”? It is still the Sun creating the warming, just as much now as it ever was:

      https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/asr-vs-olr.png

      We’re not doing the warming, Aaron S. You need to drop that idea and start moving forward. The Sun is:

      https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/

      https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/06/26/verifying-my-near-global-1985-2017-olr-record/

      https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/11/11/how-the-ceres-ebaf-ed4-data-disconfirms-agw-in-3-different-ways/

      • barry says:

        How is it “hard to use the sun”? It is still the Sun creating the warming, just as much now as it ever was:

        I think you confuse the issue, and it’s only because I’m familiar with your previous contentions that I can unlace it.

        Aaron is talking about a relationship between TSI and global temps. On that metric his comment is fair. But you are trying to do 2 things at once and clouding the issue (pun intended).

        You are 1) referring to the sun as source of energy, and also 2) referring to your own take that changes in absorbed solar radiation at the surface (ie because of cloud changes).

        Make it simpler for people to understand you. ASR is not a mechanism. You need to be clear about the mechanisms you think cause warming (or cooling) when you post, and not just expect a reader to click on your links without a clear precis to them.

        Whenever you post about it here, you are rarely clear about what causes changes in ASR. I wonder why you seem to obscure this aspect of your contention.

        You also rarely discuss uncertainty in the data on which you base your contentions about changing global surface temperature. This doesn’t inspire confidence that you have an objective outlook.

        Here is a relevant paper doing an inter comparison of various cloud data sets. If you were writing a formal paper on your thesis, this is exactly the kind of thing you would be citing regarding quality of data and uncertainty.

        https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/10/10/1567/htm

        • Svante says:

          barry says:
          “you are rarely clear about what causes changes in ASR”.

          I think Kristian said he didn’t know why, only that it was natural.

          I asked how likely it was to coincide with the industrial revolution, but he had that standard corollary that proxy records must not be trusted.

          • Kristian says:

            Svante says, December 12, 2018 at 4:05 PM:

            I asked how likely it was to coincide with the industrial revolution, but he had that standard corollary that proxy records must not be trusted.

            Svante, are you out misrepresenting me again? Link, please, to the specific exchange where you asked me that question and I gave you that answer …

          • Svante says:

            Glad to be wrong on that!

            We were in a long term decline for thousands of years, then we got this peak in the opposite direction.

            https://tinyurl.com/yb8sloql

            You say it’s natural, how likely is that to coincide with the industrial revolution?

          • Kristian says:

            Svante says, December 15, 2018 at 11:12 AM:

            We were in a long term decline for thousands of years, then we got this peak in the opposite direction.

            (…)

            You say it’s natural, how likely is that to coincide with the industrial revolution?

            It didn’t coincide. It started way before. Nobody in their right mind seriously believe that there is clear CO2 warming to be discerned in the temperature record prior to ~1940-1950 …

            But I do take note that you’re now given to peddling the infamous Shakun/Marcott drivel (via Skeptical Science, no less). Svante, you just lost most all credibility.

            Proxies vs. instrumental data. Not reasonably compatible. And instrumental data from 1850 (or even 1750) to the 1960s vs. instrumental data from the 1970s onwards. Not reasonably comparable.

            Prior to the 1970s it is way too easy for people to make up stories. Simply due to a lack of globally consistent data. And the proxy record is, to put it mildly, fairly diverse (like spaghetti thrown at a wall).

            I do know (and you should too, if being honest with yourself) it’s all natural since the 1970s (the only period I really care about when it comes to this particular subject), because that’s what the data is unequivocally pointing towards. So why wouldn’t it all be natural BEFORE the 1970s …!?

          • Svante says:

            Kristian says:
            “Svante, are you out misrepresenting me again? Link, please”.

            So I did not misrepresent you Kristian, you said the same again. Link:
            https://tinyurl.com/yb7ev2o8

            Proxy records have their error bars, the Marcott uptick is not robust, resolution is low, etc. They will zoom in over time, but the general picture is already clear. A maximum in the early Holocene, then a slow decline, now a sharp spike up.

            I think barry might agree more with you than me, is that right barry?

          • Kristian says:

            Svante says, December 15, 2018 at 4:24 PM:

            So I did not misrepresent you Kristian (…)

            Yes, you did. You claimed I said that proxy records can not be trusted. Proxy records shouldn’t be spliced with instrumental records, Svante. THAT’S the objection. Individual proxy records are fine, for their specified purpose. But that purpose is NOT to make sweeping claims about global temperatures. That’s an exercise in futility.

            Your sharp spike up is an illusion, resulting specifically FROM such a splice between two highly incompatible realms of data processing and compilation.

            Proxy data is just that – proxy. They do not log temperature directly. That’s an interpretation. Proxy data most certainly does not constitute an homogenous group of inputs. Different data sources are profoundly dissimilar, often quite unrelatable, to the point of being mutually divergent. They’re always local, and always potentially susceptible also to the influence of a range of factors other than temperature.

            Furthermore, that ‘final’ proxy curve is the MEAN of a whole bunch of such individual records, collected and analysed in a variety of ways. Have you looked at any of those individual records separately? Are they all as smooth and consistent in their signal as that mean curve? How well do they agree on catching real climatic spikes and troughs on their way, whatever the amplitudes, spikes and troughs that would’ve been caught by an instrumental record, had there been one available at the time …? Or do you think there were no spikes and troughs along the way, before the industrial revolution …?

            You haven’t thought this topic through, have you, Svante.

            And you also avoid my main point:

            Why are you so adamant in your focus on global temperature from the beginning of the industrial revolution? 1) We know hardly anything about the GLOBAL temperature from that time, much less with any degree of certainty, and 2) CO2 isn’t even supposed to have done much of anything before way into the 20th century. So what do you think you’re ‘seeing’ there …?

            To me it seems you’ve been blinded by the CO2 meme, Svante.

            The only period of real interest is the modern era of global warming, the one that followed the abrupt shift of 1976-1977. If we can explain the warming during THIS period through natural processes (we can), then all discussions about global temperatures and how they evolved PRIOR to it are rendered more or less irrelevant. If the rise in atmospheric CO2 can’t be seen to have produced any discernible warming since the 1970s, why would it be the culprit in earlier times, when there was much less of it, and it increased much more slowly …!?

          • Kristian says:

            Thanks for the link, BTW, Svante. Here is some of what I said back then:

            YOU:

            How plausible is it for this temperature spike to coincide with industrialization, when the rate is unprecedented in millions of years (or thousands if you prefer).

            ME:
            That’s BS, and you know it. We have no way of knowing. We THINK we know, out of confirmation bias. But what kind of ‘data’ do we have, really, to base such claims on …?

            Look at the data from the last 30-40 years. It unequivocally shows us ALL is natural during that time. So how plausible is it for it to be UNnatural all the way UP TO that most recent period, during times when 1) our industrial output was way less, and 2) we simply haven’t got the data to inform us?

            It is a “god-of-the-gaps” argument, Svante, and nothing else. Because you WANT it to be so …

            Open your eyes.

          • Svante says:

            Kristian says:

            Why are you so adamant in your focus on global temperature from the beginning of the industrial revolution?

            We get stuck on details and miss the bigger picture.

            We know hardly anything about the GLOBAL temperature from that time, much less with any degree of certainty

            This is where we differ, I think the picture is clear enough by now.

            CO2 isn’t even supposed to have done much of anything before way into the 20th century. So what do you think you’re ‘seeing’ there …?

            I see the green line in fig. 3 here:
            http://tinyurl.com/y7c37cyh

            The TOA LWIR catch-up has been going on for a long time.

          • Kristian says:

            Svante says, December 16, 2018 at 6:09 AM:

            We get stuck on details and miss the bigger picture.

            Huh?
            Svante, I take issue with your whole approach to this subject. You seem stuck on the notion that apparent (and highly uncertain) patterns of warming since ~1750 matter, when what I’m trying to get you to focus on is the fact that the only period of warming that really matters to the whole discussion about CO2 attribution, is the modern era of global warming that started around the mid 1970s.

            Because, again:
            “If we can explain the warming during THIS period through natural processes (we can), then all discussions about global temperatures and how they evolved PRIOR to it are rendered more or less irrelevant. If the rise in atmospheric CO2 can’t be seen to have produced any discernible warming since the 1970s, why would it be the culprit in earlier times, when there was much less of it, and it increased much more slowly …!?”

            Please address this point.

            You’re promoting a “god-of-the-gaps” kind of argument, Svante.
            “Oh, so you can explain this modern warming without CO2, but what about this century-old warming here that I found, how do you explain that!? You don’t know, you say? No reliable data? Aha! Then I will strongly imply that it was most likely US!!! It’s OUR fault! Us, our industrial revolution and all the evil, evil CO2 emissions it brought along!!!”

            THIS is the way you argue.

            This is where we differ, I think the picture is clear enough by now.

            That’s just pure and blatant stupidity, I’m sorry to say. The result simply of a fundamental lack of curiosity. How do you suggest we’re able to QUANTIFY the extent of global warming with ANY confidence at all since 1750, Svante?

            Again, I have to tell you, it seems you’ve been utterly blinded by the CO2 meme. You’ve simply been duped by the warmist propaganda.

            The picture isn’t what’s clear enough by now. The STORY, the NARRATIVE, is clear. And it has been all along: It’s our fault. Our CO2. Done deal. Start making amends.

            I’m surprised to see you’re this easy to fool, Svante.

            I see the green line in fig. 3 here:
            (…)

            The TOA LWIR catch-up has been going on for a long time.

            No. That’s according to the MODELS, Svante. Not reality. Of course the models would say that. It’s the story that’s being sold, after all.

            Read Addendum II, where I discuss this very subject, the models vs. reality:
            https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-supplementary-discussions/

          • Ball4 says:

            “(Argo data) has no bearing whatsoever on the OLR (Earth’s Q_out) and ASR (Earth’s Q_in) fluxes individually.”

            ASR is the calculated net from the measured components LW and SW outgoing radiation flux constrained by Argo data.

          • Svante says:

            Kristian says:

            If the rise in atmospheric CO2 can’t be seen to have produced any discernible warming since the 1970s, why would it be the culprit in earlier times, when there was much less of it, and it increased much more slowly …!?”

            Because the effect is logarithmic and feedbacks need hundreds of years to settle.

            How do you suggest we’re able to QUANTIFY the extent of global warming with ANY confidence at all since 1750, Svante?

            I know you disagree, but the effect has been calculated and measured. Temperature happens to match ln(CO2), and we know we added the latter, that’s a clue.

            It’s not just CO2 by the way, part of it is CH4, although they are good proxies for each other.

          • Kristian says:

            Ball4 says, December 16, 2018 at 10:13 AM:

            ASR is the calculated net from the measured components LW and SW outgoing radiation flux constrained by Argo data.

            No, it isn’t. ASR is net SW. It’s got nothing to do with LW. It is simply the Sun’s TSI minus Earth’s reflected SW (‘albedo’). The TSI is measured by the SORCE instrument, the reflected SW is measured by the CERES instrument.

            But nice try, troll.

          • Ball4 says:

            What I wrote is correct Kristian, try to pay more attention to the experts in Loeb 2018: “The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) represents a balance between incoming solar radiation reaching the TOA and outgoing reflected solar and (thermodynamic internal) radiant energy emitted by the earth-atmosphere system.”

          • Kristian says:

            Svante says, December 16, 2018 at 12:03 PM:

            Because the effect is logarithmic and feedbacks need hundreds of years to settle.

            That’s not an answer, Svante. That’s a lazy cop-out. You’ve got nothing but your own pet theory and the models that base their output on it to support such a gratuitous assertion.

            You have no observations to show that any of what you’re implying as some kind of Truth is in fact happening or has happened at any time in the past. You’re just speculating. And that’s not science. What you’re advocating here is basically a religious dogma … You have FAITH that it is so. Because … models. Because … some ‘clever’ people say so.

            “How do you suggest we’re able to QUANTIFY the extent of global warming with ANY confidence at all since 1750, Svante?”

            I know you disagree, but the effect has been calculated and measured.

            Firstly, I’m not talking about the warming effect from an increase in CO2. I’m talking about the warming itself. You claim the picture is clear enough, and I ask you: How do you suggest we’re able to QUANTIFY the extent of global warming with ANY confidence at all since 1750?

            Do tell.

            Secondly, oh, I’m sure the CO2 warming effect on the global climate has been CALCULATED, but can you tell me and show me where exactly – in the real Earth system – it has ever been MEASURED …!?

            Because that would indeed be a true sensation!

            Stop this foolishness, Svante. You’re not doing well here …

            Temperature happens to match ln(CO2) (…)

            *Sigh*

            Temperature “happens to match ln(CO2)” because they’ve specifically been TUNED over time to do so. That is what those endless ADJUSTMENTS of theirs have been (and are still) for, Svante.

            You’re still not getting it …?

            One ready-to-hand example: Take a look at the “reasoning” they put into the construction of their pre-1970s global temp series. It makes no physical sense:

            https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/09/07/why-there-is-no-reason-for-you-to-trust-the-official-global-temperature-records/

            And it hardly gets any better POST 1970s, although the tricks they use during ‘the modern era of global warming’ are of a different kind.

            But I realise we’ve got a long row to hoe here. Good night …

          • Kristian says:

            Ball4 says, December 16, 2018 at 3:57 PM:

            What I wrote is correct Kristian (…)

            No, troll.

            That’s the NET FLUX. Earth’s NET FLUX represents the balance between Earth’s Q_in (that’s the ASR, the net SW) and Earth’s Q_out (that’s the OLR, essentially the net LW). The net flux is what is constrained by ARGO.

            Try to pay attention to what is actually being discussed next time around, troll.

            You think that when I talk about the ASR, I am really talking about the net flux. I’m not. I’m talking about the ASR. The net flux is something else. ASR is the solar heat (net SW) input to the Earth system.

            Now be gone. Back to your cave.

          • Ball4 says:

            It is, as usual, almost useless trying to communicate with Kristian who just calls commenters names & goes away mad. Readers are well advised pay attention to what the CERES Team experts tell us not Kristian, especially in regards significance levels of the observed data. I use the definitions in the published papers. For example,

            1) Kristian writes: “Earth’s Q_in (thats the ASR, the net SW).”

            net of what?

            Here it appears abbreviation SW per Kristian def. meaning is different than SW in Loeb 2018 Table 7 which I mean by SW. Communication with Kristian is always hindered by Kristian self-definitions, self-cites applied to others work (the EBAF data downloaded by Kristian).

            2) Kristian writes: “Earth’s Q_out (that’s the OLR, essentially the net LW).”

            net of what? And again, have to ask is Kristian’s LW meaning same as Loeb’s Table 7 LW?

            —-

            Kristian sez: “The net flux is what is constrained by ARGO.”

            No, Loeb 2018 tells us: “the EBAF data product uses an objective constrainment algorithm to adjust SW and LW TOA fluxes within their range of uncertainty to remove the inconsistency between average global net TOA flux and EEI (earth energy imbalance) as inferred from in situ data” (i.e. Argo).

            Whatever Kristian means for the abbreviation ASR is unimportant, what is important for Earth radiation budgets is ASR being the calculated net from the measured components LW and SW outgoing radiation flux constrained by Argo data in:

            “The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) represents a balance between incoming solar radiation reaching the TOA and outgoing reflected solar and (thermodynamic internal) radiant energy emitted by the earth-atmosphere system.”

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Ball4,

            ASR is Absorbed Solar Radiation and OLR is Outgoing Longwave Radiation according to Fasullo and Trenberth here: https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/STM/2007-04/ce0704251030Fasullo.pdf

            The net flux is ASR – OLR or the reverse depending on convention. It appears that Kristian has it right. When in a hole, it is prudent to stop digging.

          • Ball4 says:

            Chic, look at Table 7 in Loeb 2018 I linked for barry. The SW trend is the outgoing global SW otherwise known as Earth’s albedo. Since March 2000, the albedo trend has been meaningfully decreasing tied to changes in Arctic sea ice coverage.

            Less albedo, more thermodynamic internal (thermal) energy in the system being observed. That is, unless the outgoing LW has been increasing more than that but Table 7 also shows LW hasn’t been increasing more than that in the period.

            Loeb 2018 Table 7 (graphed in Fig. 4) with 95% significance has observed net energy increasing in the Earth/atm. system consistent with the top post graph of TLT temperature increasing in the period no matter how I, you, Kristian or Trenberth differ to define ASR.

            NB: Loeb 2018 does not use the ASR term for a reason.

          • Kristian says:

            Chic Bowdrie says, December 16, 2018 at 11:32 PM:

            The net flux is ASR – OLR or the reverse depending on convention. It appears that Kristian has it right. When in a hole, it is prudent to stop digging.

            A real troll NEVER stops digging. As well proven in the above comment.

        • barry says:

          I think Kristian said he didnt know why

          If so, my respect for him would grow.

          • Svante says:

            And yet he knows it is natural. Process of elimination?

            I do think he’s put his finger on a weak point.
            Citing OLR error margins may be correct, but sounds like denial. If he is right I’d say it’s feed backs, do you have anything to the contrary?

          • barry says:

            The biggest uncertainty in the climate community is clouds – and this has a direct impact on Kristian’s POV.

            The mainstream community says that low-level clouds reflect more sunlight (affecting ASR), but that high level clouds reflect less sunlight, and act more powerfully as a ‘greenhouse’ effect.

            Kristian’s thesis doesn’t cover that.

            Nor does he discuss the uncertainties in the data he likes. That’s a red flag.

          • Svante says:

            So Kristians finding would harmonize with positive ASR cloud feedback, in line with recent science.

          • Ball4 says:

            The latest CERES team publication (Jan. 2018) does show increasing ASR trend over the CERES/Argo era, however the meaningful “noteworthy” results for the variations in TOA SW flux are tied to changes in Arctic sea ice coverage not clouds.

          • barry says:

            Svante – I don’t know about that. There is a consistent projection of cloud cover in a warming world?

            Short wave flux at the top of the atmosphere is affected by sea ice albedo?

            Could you link to that publication, please?

          • barry says:

            Last comment directed to Ball.

          • Ball4 says:

            Outgoing SW flux is affected by sea ice albedo as CERES radiometers look down. This paper was posted by Kristian earlier this year.

            “The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) represents a balance between incoming solar radiation reaching the TOA and outgoing reflected solar and (thermodynamic internal) radiant energy emitted by the earth-atmosphere system.”

            https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0208.1

          • Kristian says:

            Svante says, December 14, 2018 at 11:15 AM:

            So Kristians finding would harmonize with positive ASR cloud feedback, in line with recent science.

            No. Because the ASR rose first. The ‘modern’ rise in ASR is the original CAUSE of the recent/current warming, starting around 1988-1989. Prior to that year, there is no evidence of a consistent, substantial positive net balance (causing warming) for the Earth system as a whole going back to 1977 (12 years). So the cause of the abrupt increase in ASR in ’88-’89 couldn’t be directly preceding “greenhouse warming” (or any other warming). Because there wasn’t any. The cause was most likely (even suggested by the IPCC) circulatory (a shift in Earth’s internal oceanic-tropospheric mean state).

            Much more detail on this particular matter is given here:

            https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/the-data-sun-not-man-is-what-caused-and-causes-global-warming/

          • Kristian says:

            https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-wg1-chapter3-1.pdf (p.278; section 3.4.4.1 Top-of-Atmosphere Radiation)

            “The only long-term time series (19792001) of energy divergence in the atmosphere (Trenberth and Stepaniak, 2003b) are based on NRA, which, although not reliable for depicting trends, are reliable on interannual times scales for which they show substantial variability associated with ENSO. Analyses by Trenberth and Stepaniak (2003b) reveal more divergence of energy out of the deep tropics in the 1990s compared with the 1980s due to differences in ENSO, which may account for at least some of the changes discussed above.

            In summary, although there is independent evidence for decadal changes in TOA radiative fluxes over the last two decades, the evidence is equivocal [it’s not]. Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data, and are expected to be dominated by changes in cloud radiative forcing. To the extent that they are real [they are], they may simply reflect natural low-frequency variability of the climate system.

          • Ball4 says:

            “The ‘modern’ rise in ASR is the original CAUSE of the recent/current warming, starting around 1988-1989.”

            There is no meaningful measured ASR data for those years, a self cite is just unproven speculation on Kristian’s part.

          • Svante says:

            barry says:

            Svante – I don’t know about that. There is a consistent projection of cloud cover in a warming world?

            You know more than me, but:
            “evidence is building that the net cloud feedback is likely positive, and unlikely to be strongly negative.”
            https://tinyurl.com/yaeuf2bf

            This one says “low amount” is the biggest factor, so that would serve to increase ASR:
            https://tinyurl.com/y7an5wf5

          • Svante says:

            Kristian says:

            starting around 1988-1989. Prior to that year, there is no evidence of a consistent, substantial positive net balance (causing warming)

            I know you discard it, but evidence says it’s been varying around ln(CO2) since 1753:
            https://tinyurl.com/y8kyzwsk

          • Kristian says:

            Ball4 says, December 15, 2018 at 8:38 AM:

            “The ‘modern’ rise in ASR is the original CAUSE of the recent/current warming, starting around 1988-1989.”

            There is no meaningful measured ASR data for those years (…)

            Er, yes, it’s called ERBS Ed3_Rev1 and CERES EBAF Ed4. These two datasets neatly cover this period (all the way back to 1985). But you of course already knew this, troll.

          • Kristian says:

            Svante says, December 15, 2018 at 10:46 AM:

            Kristian says:

            “(…) starting around 1988-1989. Prior to that year, there is no evidence of a consistent, substantial positive net balance (causing warming) (…)”

            I know you discard it, but evidence says it’s been varying around ln(CO2) since 1753: (…)

            Svante, you need to start paying attention to what people are actually writing. You cut the quote short. How come? I didn’t say there has never been a positive net balance prior to 1988-1989. I specifically stated that the preceding neutral state started in 1977, 12 years prior.

            A sudden rise in ASR in 1988-1989 isn’t a positive feedback to directly preceding “greenhouse warming”, when no such “greenhouse warming” is observed to have occurred between 1977 and 1988. Read the blog post I linked to, Svante …

          • Ball4 says:

            “Er, yes, it’s called ERBS Ed3_Rev1 and CERES EBAF Ed4.”

            Er, no Kristian, the CERES Team tells you in their own publications there is no meaningful measured ASR data for 1988-1989 years because Argo data was not yet available to calibrate their radiometer data precisely enough to pick out the true ASR signal with enough confidence.

            Self-citing with perfect confidence as you do is no help in this regard, there simply is NO Argo data available in those years to gain confidence in your speculative assertions.

            And Kristian has been informed of this many times; that Kristian continues to ignore CERES Team confidence interval publications is telling the informed, critical blog readership what they need to know.

          • Kristian says:

            Ball4 says, December 15, 2018 at 5:07 PM:

            (…) the CERES Team tells you in their own publications there is no meaningful measured ASR data for 1988-1989 years because Argo data was not yet available to calibrate their radiometer data precisely enough to pick out the true ASR signal with enough confidence.

            The CERES team didn’t exist in 1988-1989, troll.

            In what publication(s) does the CERES team say that we have no “true ASR signal” in the radiation flux data of ERBS Ed3_Rev1?

            If you don’t have a quote and a link to back this up with, troll, this is nothing but argument by assertion, which is no argument at all.

            Of course we have ASR data with enough confidence prior to the ARGO data. It’s in the ERBS Ed3_Rev1 dataset (se below). The ARGO data is used by the radiation flux teams for ONE purpose only – to anchor the average level of the net flux. It has no bearing whatsoever on the OLR (Earth’s Q_out) and ASR (Earth’s Q_in) fluxes individually.

            Also, from the AR4 (quoted right above): “Changes in the planetary and tropical TOA radiative fluxes are consistent with independent global ocean heat-storage data (…)”

            Which refers back to this particular passage (in the same chapter (3.4.4.1)): “Wong et al. (2006) [of ERBS Ed3_Rev1 ‘fame’] showed that the changes in global net radiation are consistent with a new ocean heat-storage data set from Willis et al. [of ARGO ‘fame’] (2004; see Chapter 5 and Figure 5.1). Differences between the two data sets are roughly 0.4 W m^2, in agreement with the estimated annual sampling noise in the ocean heat-storage data.”

            And, of course, all of this you already know. But you just can’t stop trolling, can you, troll?

            Here are the various radiation flux data from the ERBS Ed3_Rev1 dataset (60N-60S) – ASR (top), net (middle), OLR (bottom):

            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/erbs-toa-fluxes-11-2017.png

            What caused the increase in the net over this period, troll? A rise in ASR? Or a drop in OLR?

            The very same question can be asked regarding the CERES period:

            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/06/ceres-toa-fluxes-11-2017.png

            What caused the increase in the net over this period? Was it a rise in ASR (top)? Or a drop in OLR (bottom)?

            I’m sure you’re able to answer these simple questions, troll. If you WILL answer them, truthfully and honestly, now that’s a different question altogether …

          • Ball4 says:

            “In what publication(s) does the CERES team say that we have no “true ASR signal” in the radiation flux data of ERBS Ed3_Rev1?”

            Loeb et. al. 2018 has the full citations & quote contexts, link provided for barry. See Loeb et. al. 2016, 2013, 2012, 2008, 2007, 2003. As a result of the earlier work, Loeb 2018 data tables including confidence intervals at 95% significance level start around year 2000 as years prior to Argo & the Terra launch have CIs too large to be meaningful “TOA fluxes are constrained using the same approach as EBAF Ed2.8 but using 10 years of Argo”

          • Ball4 says:

            “If you don’t have a quote and a link to back this up with, troll (sic), this is nothing but argument by assertion, which is no argument at all.”

            Loeb 2018: “Thus, for the Terra-only period, the total error in TOA outgoing clear-sky SW radiation in a region is..approximately 6Wm^-2..Thus for the Terra-only period, the total error in TOA outgoing clear-sky LW radiation in a region is..approximately 5Wm^-2.”

            Terra was launched 1999. The above errors are constrained using Terra-Aqua and Argo for the ASR signal to become meaningful in the Terra-Aqua & Argo era starting March 2000 as shown in Loeb 2018 Table 7.

            Kristian has provided no confidence intervals for any of his charts prior to March 2000 thus there is no basis for which Kristian’s earlier data & conclusions can be meaningful & should not be relied upon. Kristian can improve by citing the experts and not self-citing.

          • Ball4 says:

            “The ARGO data is used by the radiation flux teams for ONE purpose only – to anchor the average level of the net flux.”

            No Kristian, Loeb 2018 Table 7 uses Argo data for constraining outgoing SW and LW confidence as well as the calculated net (ASR) of those two signals.

          • Ball4 says:

            “Here are the various radiation flux data..”

            The various radiation flux data with meaningful confidence intervals are as shown in the latest CERES Team publication Loeb 2018, link above. Kristian’s self cites should not be relied upon.

            Kristian asks: “What caused the increase in the (various data plots)?..I’m sure youre able to answer these simple questions, troll (sic). If you WILL answer them, truthfully and honestly”

            Loeb 2018 truthful and honest conclusion for outgoing SW & LW and their net plots in Fig. 9 with meaningful Argo constrained EBAF data starting March 2000 with 95% significance level:

            “CERES TOA fluxes exhibit pronounced interannual variability driven primarily by ENSO. SW TOA flux variations in the Arctic are noteworthy and are tied to changes in sea ice coverage.”

          • Ball4 says:

            “(Argo data) has no bearing whatsoever on the OLR (Earth’s Q_out) and ASR (Earth’s Q_in) fluxes individually.”

            ASR is the calculated net from the measured components LW and SW outgoing radiation flux constrained by Argo data.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Ball4,

            Unless you can correct your misunderstanding of ASR or substantiate your alternative definition of ASR, all your rebuttals of Kristian’s points seem to be missing the mark.

          • Kristian says:

            Chic Bowdrie says, December 16, 2018 at 11:48 PM:

            Ball4,

            Unless you can correct your misunderstanding of ASR or substantiate your alternative definition of ASR, all your rebuttals of Kristian’s points seem to be missing the mark.

            It’s a troll, Chic. It’s not here to hit the mark. To a troll, hitting the mark would be counter-productive. It’s only here to detract and obfuscate …

          • Ball4 says:

            “Unless you can correct your misunderstanding of ASR”

            There is no misunderstanding Chic, the net trend in thermodynamic internal energy in the Earth/Atm. system has meaningfully increased as measured by the latest CERES Team data in Loeb 2018 Table 7 & Fig. 4. The misunderstanding is the definition of ASR varies among commenters & elsewhere so Loeb et. al. do not use the ASR term. I use ASR term consistent with net SW, LW as shown in Table 7. You and others are free to use other definitions.

          • Kristian says:

            Ball4 says, December 17, 2018 at 7:07 AM:

            There is no misunderstanding Chic (…)

            Yes, the misunderstanding is all yours, troll.

            You can read about it here:
            https://ceres.larc.nasa.gov/documents/STM/2007-04/ce0704251030Fasullo.pdf

            And here:
            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4250165/

            And here:
            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4373161/

            The misunderstanding is the definition of ASR varies among commenters & elsewhere (…)

            No, it doesn’t. It is 100% consistent all across the board. People in the field KNOW what it is and how it is defined. Only YOU don’t.

            (…) so Loeb et. al. do not use the ASR term.

            Oh, yes they most certainly do:
            http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.601.4805&rep=rep1&type=pdf

            Page 111 and Fig.2.

            Troll, for your own sake, just stop. Give it up. Let this one go …

          • Ball4 says:

            Each & every one of those links agrees with what I’ve written on ASR Kristian. Thanks for the (unintended) support.

            1st: “ASR is transformed into various forms moved around in various ways primarily by the atmosphere and oceans, stored and sequestered in the ocean, land, and ice components of the climate system, and ultimately radiated as OLR. An equilibrium, ASR=OLR.”

            2nd: “ASR is increased, and energy accumulates until the climate warms sufficiently that OLR balances the ASR perturbation”

            3rd: “(and higher OLR), although this is partially offset by increased ASR due to sea ice melt.”

            4th: “Tropical and global anomalies in net TOA radiation, absorbed solar radiation (ASR) and outgoing longwave radiation (OLR) are closely related to ENSO (Fig. 2).”

            In Loeb 2018, ASR is not mentioned as I wrote.

            Kristian, for your own sake, just stop. Give it up. Let this one go…

            What Kistian’s missing is that TSI is essentially constant in Loeb 2018 meaningful SW & LW period observed since 2000:

            “Relative changes in solar irradiance are measured to less than 10ppm yr^-1 (0.001% yr^-1), allowing determination of possible long-term variations in the sun’s output (Kopp and Lean 2011).”

            If you go to that ref. find during 2000 to 2010 (a chunk of the 2000 2016 Loeb period), TSI avg. of 3 instruments varied (mostly reduced) only by around 0.1%. (orange curve b in Fig. 1).

            Kristian has even agreed with their & my assessment few posts ago:

            “It matters what happens INSIDE the system.”

            Because

            “as anyone with half a brain should (and does) know, TSI is not the relevant solar parameter when it comes to ‘global warming’ or ‘cooling’…Sunspot number and TSI do nothing to indicate the solar thermal influence on Earth’s climate..”

            Just let it go Kristian, refer readers to the experts reports as in Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 4 and stop self-citing.

          • Kristian says:

            But it doesn’t stop, of course. It just keeps on digging. Its own hole ever deeper.

          • Ball4 says:

            Kristian at least did link to the experts but comments with no further evidence to counter my points. Citing the experts instead of self-citing is the better way to go Kristian. Links are good but as a commenter wisely wrote argument by assertion is no argument at all, you need the quotes too.

            “The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) represents a balance between incoming solar radiation reaching the TOA and outgoing reflected solar and (thermodynamic internal) radiant energy emitted by the earth-atmosphere system.”

            Loeb 2018 Table 7 and Fig. 9 show the outgoing SW and LW trend data that calculates the meaningful trend in all-sky ASR was observed positive March 2000 to September 2016 & is consistent with the top post temperature anomaly chart.

  47. ren says:

    One thing is certain, that the average temperature in the US in December will be below average, as in November.
    https://www.longpaddock.qld.gov.au/soi/

  48. Aaron S says:

    Barry,
    yes I did read that on your previous post and it is good stuff. It seems perfectly rational to me statistically. Howevere, I did not have the WUWT original post so I can not comment on that aspect about individual stations specifically. Anyone who models in industry (where real money is involved) does not speak in absolutes about individual models but rather certainty of a cluster of models derived from monte carlo simulations. We deal in percentiles not preferred scenarios and because we test our models frequently with new data- we learn to be humble because often the 10th percentile “unlikely” model is what actually happens. This is why the IPCC climate models are wrong for me. They disregard the “low case scenarios” that include a stronger sun from UV and Cosmic rays as more dominant influence on climate and also negative feedbacks like albedo changes from clouds associated with rising temperatures and very low or even negative sensitivity to CO2. Thus they currently have a base case 50th percentile that is too warm compared to all satellite data. So even though these low case scenarios are unlikely they are necesary to construct meaningful base case climate models. Interestingly, inclusion of the bottom quartule of scenarios would help match the IPCC model predictions with empirical satellite data measurements. So I hear you loud and clear and am curious if you see why this valid point you make is a double edged sword that also cuts into the climate model predictions?

    • barry says:

      Aaron,

      Anyone who models in industry (where real money is involved) does not speak in absolutes about individual models but rather certainty of a cluster of models derived from monte carlo simulations.

      In terms of speaking in absolutes about climate models, I’m only aware of skeptics doing this (ie, that they’re ‘absolutely’ wrong.)

      I think the mainstream view is line mine. Models are imperfect tools, but can be useful, even very useful.

      Do you have an example of someone else referring in absolute (positive?) terms regarding individual climate models?

      • Aaron S says:

        Barry,
        This is from my computer not my phone. Let me see if the reply attaches to the comment string. This will tell me if the issue is my phone or my email ID used to comment.

        you say: “I think the mainstream view is line mine. Models are imperfect tools, but can be useful, even very useful.
        Do you have an example of someone else referring in absolute (positive?) terms regarding individual climate models?”

        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/27/world-triple-efforts-climate-change-un-global-warming

        It is very common to take some relationship of CO2 sensitivity to global temperature (2C in article above) as an absolute. There is not any mention of the other scenarios that show lower sensitivity and that even doubling CO2 may not increase global temperature above 2C. So yes I see abundant main stream examples from the UN and the Guardian. If we use the 5 models from the CMIP-5 climate simulations that correlate best to the Satellite data (be it RSS or UAH) then we have exactly that scenario with low climate sensitivity and the UN goal is met with no mitigation.

        Aaron

        • Aaron S says:

          WOW it worked. Need a new phone I guess.

          I would argue your logic has a straw man informal fallacy in the way you framed your question Barry. I don’t know who uses any single model for anything from rational skeptics or rational supporters. However, my comment: “Thus they (climate models) currently have a base case 50th percentile that is too warm compared to all satellite data. So even though these low case scenarios are unlikely they are necessary to construct meaningful base case climate models.”

          A valid question would be: can I share examples where the base case climate models are used in an improper way? Yes over and over by left media and UN and IPCC. Unfortunately, I see to much of these straw-man arguments on social media and blogs. An observation I have made is that irrational warmists use straw-man arguments from a flawed logical foundation, but usually cite proper ‘statements’ built from the flawed foundation. Whereas, irrational skeptic mess-up the actual facts. So an irrational warmist would say if we don’t change CO2 output we will have catastrophic global warming (or have 2C warming). That statement ignores the uncertainty and struggles associated with the models. There are reasonable alternatives where doubling CO2 has only beneficial warming. An irrational skeptic would say CO2 doesn’t cause warming, when we can measure that it does. The irrational warmists are much harder to argue with. Haha.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Aaron,

            You wrote: “An irrational skeptic would say CO2 doesnt cause warming, when we can measure that it does.”

            I would like to see those measurements.

        • barry says:

          Good the stringing worked. I’ll reply here, then.

          I would argue your logic has a straw man informal fallacy in the way you framed your question Barry. I don’t know who uses any single model for anything from rational skeptics or rational supporters.

          We can only go by the words written here – and we can clarify. I thought you were inferring that supporters, somewhere, spoke in absolute positive terms about single models when you wrote:

          Anyone who models in industry (where real money is involved) does not speak in absolutes about individual models but rather certainty of a cluster of models derived from monte carlo simulations.

          The obviosu question to me was – “are you saying that someone does this?” Otherwise, why make the remark?

          It is very common to take some relationship of CO2 sensitivity to global temperature (2C in article above) as an absolute.

          The article you cited does not mention climate sensitivity or models. At all. It’s difficult to infer any particular sensitivity from what is actually said.

          Not to mention that this is a news item. I thought we were talking about the science, not the optics, and whichever we discuss, we should be clear about which strand we are discussing. It would not be wise to conflate journalism with peer-reviewed literature.

          Having said that, the article gives the impression of a very specific response to CO2 rise, rather than the usual range (1.5-4.5 C per doubling CO2). But being news media, this could easily be more about editorial choice than what the scientists actually said.

  49. PhilJ says:

    DA,
    0
    “Sal0vatore, do you think CO2 doesnt ab.sorb infrared radiation, or do you think the Earth doesnt emit it?”

    Do you think h20 cools the planet or heats it?

    • Svante says:

      H2O cools the surface and warms the planet?

    • Co2 absorbs infrared radiation and earth emits it. CO2 /H20 all things being equal would heat the planet.

      My contention is that it is the climate/environment that drives CO2 ,or the GHG effect other then the GHG effect driving the climate.

      Ice core data supports this because temperature leads CO2 concentration with out exception.

      I say as the oceans cool which is yet to happen but I am confident due to very weak solar this in turn will diminish in turn the GHG effect.

      I expect overall ocean sea surface temperatures to fall dramatically from the 1981-2010 mean deviation of +.39c as of today.

  50. ren says:

    Great snowstorm in North Carolina and Virginia.

  51. barry says:

    OMG!!

    The September anomaly changed from 0.14 to 0.15 in the space of 2 months! Call the cops!

  52. Can you explain why there such a difference between the Northern Hemisphere and the Lower 48 (1.4 degrees) for Nov. Also, when I look at the full chart it appears that there many more dramatic temp changes in the Lower 48 than the rest of the data points. I am a lay person that is just trying to understand.

  53. barry says:

    I’ve checked the update from a couple of months ago and many of the UAH anomalies are different.

    I went back further and found that they change fairly regularly.

    This is data tampering, right?

    So we need to tell Steve Goddard to make a blink graph of all the changes since the beginning, and we need to alert WUWT that UAH are making regular ‘adjustments’ to their data.

    This changing the data all the time is a crime, right, skeptics?

    • barry says:

      Crickets from the usual suspects.

      Raise the good old double standard, raise it high, raise it high
      Raise the good old double standard, lads, and raise it to the sky

    • JDHuffman says:

      barry, one of the first things you should have learned about statistics is that the data set matters.

      That’s why it’s better to “learn some physics”.

    • barry says:

      When skeptics complain that making adjustments compromises or invalidates global temperature data, they don’t make non-sequitur excuses like you do.

      For skeptics, regular adjustments throws a cloud of suspicion over a data set – just because the adjustments are made. They don’t trouble to query the reasons or make allowances for this practice.

      That’s because they are not skeptics at all, just partisan idiots.

      • JDHuffman says:

        barry, the only “non-sequitur excuses” come from statisticians trying to imagine evidence for the bogus AGW.

        Learning some physics would keep you from wasting your time on pseudoscience like believing the green plate could warm the blue plate. That’s funny, and imaginative, but NOT science.

        • Ball4 says:

          It is well known JD can warm JD’s house with ice cubes when they replace the equilibrium established with say dry ice. In this case, the green plate could warm the blue plate because the added green plate radiation replaced deep space radiation in the former blue plate equilibrium with the solar input.

          As usual JD overly simplifies & gets it wrong, typical JD antics.

      • steve case says:

        barry says:
        December 10, 2018 at 4:07 PM…
        For skeptics, regular adjustments throws a cloud of suspicion over a data set just because the adjustments are made. They dont trouble to query the reasons or make allowances for this practice.

        Except that the “adjustments” always support Global Warming/Climate Change dogma.

        • Svante says:

          Except for temperatures:
          https://tinyurl.com/ya57324g

        • barry says:

          Except that the adjustments always support Global Warming/Climate Change dogma.

          That is not true.

          And it misses the point. Skeptics don’t think that any adjusting is phony. But not with UAH.

          Perhaps you would like to explain why the double standard. Surely this principle should apply regardless of the result or who does it??

        • barry says:

          Svante is right – the raw data for surface records produces a warmer trend for the long-term period than the adjusted series.

          No, the adjustments don’t always favour a particular view.

          But the point remains – UAH get a free pass even though they adjust like crazy, same as every other institution. But the ‘skeptic’ spotlight refuses to illuminate this ‘malfeasance’ when it comes to UAH.

          AGW ‘skeptics’ usually have only agenda, not intellectual integrity.

  54. PhilJ says:

    Svante,

    “H2O cools the surface and warms the planet?”

    Sounds silly doesnt it…

    H20 cools the surface via evaporation and convection, and cools the atmosphere via radiation to space…

    H20 cools the planet…

  55. PhilJ says:

    Barry,

    “The insulation in my ceiling helps keep the house warm in winter and cool in summer. ”

    Your insulation changes the rate that energy is transferred between the inside and outside of your house..

    H20 transfers energy from the surface to the TOA and space much more effectively than nitrogen, oxygen and co2… Thus h20 is far more effective at cooling the planet … Thise others are far better insulation …

    • barry says:

      H2O also impedes the rate at which infrared radiation leaves the surface to space. Without water vapour and other GHGs, the vast bulk of infrared radiation from the surface would go to space largely unimpeded, causing the surface to cool much more quickly than it does. Water vapour is the largest contributor to the greenhouse effect of the greenhouse gases.

      • JDHuffman says:

        barry, due to its high heat content, water vapor both reduces cooling rate AND reduces warming rate. It works both ways. It helps to moderate temperature.

        Water vapor does NOT bring any new energy into Earth’s system. Nor does CO2. It does NOT “heat the planet”.

        The “greenhouse effect” is pseudoscience.

        • Craig T. says:

          Water vapor doesn’t heat the planet and Barry’s insulation doesn’t heat his house. Instead water vapor returns some of the longwave energy back to the surface, creating more warming for the same input of energy.

          • PhilJ says:

            Barry,

            “Without water vapour and other GHGs, the vast bulk of infrared radiation from the surface would go to space largely unimpeded, causing the surface to cool much more quickly than it does”

            i disagree. Clearly water evaporating cools the surface more efficiently than radiation from an arid surface… else deserts would be colder in the sun than humid areas…

            Craig,

            “water vapor returns some of the longwave energy back to the surface, creating more warming for the same input of energy.”

            recycling of internal energy cannot raise the total energy of the system by 1 joule..

            however, in as much as that returning LW energy maintains the temp of the surface, to that extent it also maintains the flow of IR through the atmospheric window…

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, if the surface emits IR, and atmospheric water vapor returns some of it, then the surface has a net loss. That would not cause surface temperature to increase.

          • Craig T. says:

            JD if more IR is returned to the surface less cooling occurs. That is true for increases in water vapor, CO2 or methane. The result is a higher temperature.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, assuming IR can warm something is a common mistake. The IR must first be absorbed. If it is not absorbed, then the photon energy is not thermalized.

            The simplest example is trying to warm your house with ice cubes. It simply can’t be done.

          • Ball4 says:

            It is well known JD can warm JD’s house with ice cubes when they replace the equilibrium established with say dry ice in the ice cubes former position which is what CraigT meant. JD simply misrepresents CraigT’s writing as per JD’s usual antics.

          • JDHuffman says:

            I use simple examples because they are easy to understand, even if someone does not understand the relevant physics. But, the simple examples have another advantage. They also act as a trap for pseudoscience clowns. The clowns try to pervert the simple examples, as they desire to pervert the truth.

            Their failed attempts can easily be detected by responsible onlookers.

          • barry says:

            The simplest example is trying to warm your house with ice cubes. It simply cant be done.

            https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igloo

            As always, the insulating property is not the source of heat, it slows down the flow of heat from (or to) the area being insulated.

            I don’t know why this is difficult to understand. Insulation is an everyday ordinary reality we are all familiar with. A dome of ice in Antarctic winter at night is going to keep you warmer than no igloo at all in the same circumstance.

          • Craig T. says:

            “The IR must first be absorbed. If it is not absorbed, then the photon energy is not thermalized.”

            Water and land are both opaque to IR radiation. Frequencies of 300 to 1,000 cm-1 create a librational motion (hindered rotational vibration) in water molecules.

          • JDHuffman says:

            barry, I’ve seen you “preach” against using “straw men” arguments. And above you are trying to imply my example confuses insulation and a “source of heat”.

            Desperate?

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, a 300 cm-1 photon corresponds to about -185C, and 1,000 cm-1 corresponds to about the temperature of an ice cube.

            So yeah, not much warming there….

          • Craig T. says:

            JD, the important factor in downward longwave radiation is the total watts per square meter returned to the surface, not the temperature of a black body that would give off that wavelength.

            Otherwise industry couldn’t use devices like these:

            Features of CO2 Laser Heating
            wavelength of 10.6 μm [blackbody temperature 17C]
            suitable for most oxide substrates
            high temperatures regardless of the process pressure: >1500C on a 1010 mm substrate
            https://www.surface-tec.com/pldlaserheater.php

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, you’ve got is backwards. The emission energy is more important than the total Watts/m^2, if you’re trying to raise the temperature of a surface. Ice emits about 300 Watts/m^2. But it can’t warm anything above the temperature of the ice.’

            And are you trying to be funny with your laser? Trying to imply the sky works like a laser is somewhere between silly and stupid. Surely you know better.

            If you don’t know any better, at least learn what the acronym stands for, especially “A” (amplification) and “S” (stimulated). If you want to go deeper, look up “coherent light”.

          • Craig T. says:

            “And are you trying to be funny with your laser?”

            No, just making a point. Each photon coming out of that laser carries no more energy than the same photon being returned to the Earth by CO2. You say “a 300 cm-1 photon corresponds to about -185C, and 1,000 cm-1 corresponds to about the temperature of an ice cube. So yeah, not much warming there….” So a laser focusing 10.6 micron [940 cm–1] light must be like trying to warm a surface with ice cubes.

            Laser light is amplified and coherent. All of the Watts carried by the photons strike a small target. But if the critical factor was the wavelength and not Watts it wouldn’t matter. Microwaves have a black body temperature of 0.01 Kelvin. That must be like trying to cook with liquid helium.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig says: “So a laser focusing 10.6 micron [940 cm–1] light must be like trying to warm a surface with ice cubes.”

            No Craig, you need to study more. Photons from a laser are emitted so they have the same wavelengths and are in phase. IOW, they add. Essentially the same wavelength, but much greater energy, which comes from an external source.

        • barry says:

          barry, due to its high heat content, water vapor both reduces cooling rate AND reduces warming rate. It works both ways. It helps to moderate temperature.

          Exactly, JD.

          Water vapor does NOT bring any new energy into Earths system.

          Of course it doesn’t.

        • Craig T. says:

          “Photons from a laser are emitted so they have the same wavelengths and are in phase. IOW, they add.”

          All of those photons have the same wavelength that you say can’t warm anything above the freezing temperature of ice. The wavelengths don’t add just because laser light has the same phase and direction. The light is still absorbed, reflected and pass through the same material they would in any other situation.

          So let’s talk about microwaves. If it’s the blackbody temperature that matters how can they warm anything above 0.1 degree Kelvin?

          The energy carried by radiation is measured in Watts not wavelength. In climate the important feature is Watts per square meter.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig states, incorrectly: “The wavelengths don’t add just because laser light has the same phase and direction.”

            Craig, the wavelengths aren’t adding. It is the energy that is adding.

            Craig asks: “So let’s talk about microwaves. If it’s the blackbody temperature that matters how can they warm anything above 0.1 degree Kelvin?”

            A “short” microwave has the Wien’s corresponding temperature of about 3 K.

            Craig states: “In climate the important feature is Watts per square meter.”

            The more important things are the laws of physics.

          • Craig T. says:

            The laws of physics are the important thing, but you are mistaken on some of them.

            It’s a quantum thing – either a photon is absorbed and the energy transferred into that molecule or it a) passes through or b) reflects, either way the energy goes somewhere else. What makes a laser special is the coherent beam that keeps the photons from spreading over a larger area.

            Upward longwave radiation carries energy from the surface. When some of that is re-emitted downward the energy is returned to the surface. I’m not saying downward longwave radiation warms the surface, only that is slows the cooling process.

          • JDHuffman says:

            “The laws of physics are the important thing, but you are mistaken on some of them.”

            But Craig is unable to identify any such mistakes.

            “What makes a laser special is the coherent beam that keeps the photons from spreading over a larger area.”

            No, it’s more complicated than that. The photons from a laser are essentially manmade. IOW, they have the wavelength of a low energy photon, but have a much higher energy, due to the in plase addition. Such photons do not exist in nature.

            “I’m not saying downward longwave radiation warms the surface, only that is slows the cooling process.”

            Longwave radiation reflected does NOT slow the “cooling process”. The surface emits (cools) based on its temperature.

          • Craig T. says:

            “But Craig is unable to identify any such mistakes.”

            You were pretty vague about why lasers were an exception. This last comment helps.

            The 10.6 micron photon coming out of a laser is identical to any other 10.6 micron photon in the universe. It has no more energy than the others. The amplification by stimulated emission only means that more photons are created at once and travel in a coherent beam. More photons hitting a small area means more energy is delivered to its target. And that energy, like the power of the laser, is measured in Watts.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Yes, a process that doesn’t occur in nature.

  56. Barry and others keep trying to convey that the warmth late last century /early this century is somehow unique which can not be further from the truth. It is way in the bounds of natural variability, and has happened many times in the past. Even in the last 500 years.

    • barry says:

      Barry and others keep trying to convey that the warmth late last century /early this century is somehow unique

      No matter how many times you present this rubbish, it remains a classic straw-man.

      ” A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent’s argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not presented by that opponent. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man.” “

  57. Salvatore Del Prete says:

    https://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/last_500_yrs.html

    As the data shows the climate is in no way unique.

    • Carbon500 says:

      And it’s snowing heavily in winter in the Alps.
      Climate change?
      https://www.weathertoski.co.uk/weather-snow/
      Yeah, right……

      • Craig T. says:

        Carbon500 you don’t think a warmer climate means more moisture in the air?

        • Carbon500 says:

          No. Death Valley is famous as the hottest place on earth and driest place in North America. The world record highest air temperature of 134°F (57°C) was recorded at Furnace Creek on July 10, 1913. Summer temperatures often top 120°F (49°C) in the shade with overnight lows dipping into the 90s°F (mid-30s°C.) Average rainfall is less than 2 inches (5 cm), a fraction of what most deserts receive. Occasional thunderstorms, especially in late summer, can cause flash floods.
          In contrast to the extremes of summertime, winter and spring are very pleasant. Winter daytime temperatures are mild in the low elevations, with cool nights that only occasionally reach freezing. Higher elevations are cooler than the low valley. Temperatures drop 3 to 5°F (2 to 3°C) with every thousand vertical feet (approx. 300m). Sunny skies are the norm in Death Valley, but winter storms and summer monsoons can bring cloud cover and rain. Wind is common in the desert, especially in the spring. Dust storms can suddenly blow up with approaching cold fronts.
          Why is Death Valley’s climate so extreme, and why so dry?
          Winter storms moving inland from the Pacific Ocean must pass over mountain ranges to continue east. As the clouds rise up they cool and the moisture condenses to fall as rain or snow on the western side of the ranges. By the time the clouds reach the mountain’s east side they no longer have as much available moisture, creating a dry “rainshadow”. Four major mountain ranges lie between Death Valley and the ocean, each one adding to an increasingly drier rainshadow effect.
          Why so Hot?
          The depth and shape of Death Valley influence its summer temperatures. The valley is a long, narrow basin 282 feet (86 m) below sea level, yet is walled by high, steep mountain ranges. The clear, dry air and sparse plant cover allow sunlight to heat the desert surface. Heat radiates back from the rocks and soil, then becomes trapped in the valley’s depths. Summer nights provide little relief as overnight lows may only dip into the 85°F to 95°F (30°C to 35°C) range. Heated air rises, yet is trapped by the high valley walls, is cooled and recycled back down to the valley floor. These pockets of descending air are only slightly cooler than the surrounding hot air. As they descend, they are compressed and heated even more by the low elevation air pressure. These moving masses of super heated air blow through the valley creating extreme high temperatures.
          How extreme is Death Valley’s weather?
          Record Temperatures:
          The hottest air temperature ever recorded in Death Valley (Furnace Creek) was 134°F (57°C) on July 10, 1913. During the heat wave that peaked with that record, five consecutive days reached 129° F (54°C) or above. Death Valley holds the record for the hottest place on earth.
          Oddly enough, 1913 was also the year that saw Death Valley’s coldest temperature. On January 8, the temperature dropped to 15°F (-10°C) at Furnace Creek.
          Longest summers :the greatest number of consecutive days with a maximum temperature of 100° F or above was 154 days in the summer of 2001. The summer of 1996 had 40 days over 120° F, and 105 days over 110° F. The summer of 1917 had 43 consecutive days with a high temperature of 120° F or above.
          Highest ground temperatures: the highest ground temperature recorded was 201° F at Furnace Creek on July 15, 1972. The maximum air temperature for that day was 128° F.
          Dry as a bone: no rain was recorded in the years of 1929 and 1953. The driest stretch on record was only 0.64 inches (1.6cm) of rain over a 40-month period in 1931 to 1934.
          The weather data above was compiled from park and National Weather Service record summaries for the years 1911 through 2007 for Furnace Creek in Death Valley, California.
          So: has Death Valley’s Climate changed?
          No.

      • Craig T. says:

        “Temperatures in the Alps have risen by just under 2C over the past 120 years, almost twice as much as the global average.”
        https://www.cipra.org/en/cipra/international/projects/completed/cc-alps/about/climate-change-alps

        • Carbon500 says:

          Another doomsday link. More BS based on trivial temperature variations. Has the Alpine climate changed in any meaningful way? No. Ask the skiers.

          • Craig T. says:

            Ask the ski resorts:

            “‘Last year, we had about 20 days, the year before, even fewer,’ mechanic Karl Oberreiter says, working on the control panel of a chairlift. ‘I don’t think we’ve had a full season since the 1980s. There’s a point where you can’t do it anymore. After that, I don’t know.’ … Winters are 10 to 30 days shorter than during the 1960s.”

            https://www.dw.com/en/ski-resorts-cling-on-against-climate-change/a-41972961

            Or people who study the subject:

            Christoph Marty
            WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF
            “Investigations of snow cover and climate change have revealed that the reduction in snow reliability observed in low and medium altitude ski resorts is mainly caused by warmer winter temperatures. Precipitation becomes the determining factor for a snowy winter only above 2000 m asl.”

            Climate change and snow cover in the European Alps. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261037820_Climate_change_and_snow_cover_in_the_European_Alps

          • Carbon500 says:

            So how does a reduction in the number of days that it snows over many years equal climate change?
            Why is this not simply natural variability, not ‘climate change’? Still, it’s good for lots of scary stories, isn’t it?

          • Craig T. says:

            How does “And its snowing heavily in winter in the Alps” show a lack of climate change? By itself the warming trend in the Alps is just one data point of many. But it is another example of warming temperatures.

          • Carbon500 says:

            From Wikipedia: The “line of perpetual snow” is not fixed. The occurrence of favourable meteorological conditions during several successive seasons may and does increase the extent of the snowfields and lower the limit of seemingly permanent snow, while the opposite may cause the limit to rise higher on the flanks of the mountains. Hence all attempts to fix accurately the level of perpetual snow in the Alps are fallacious. At best, local accuracy might be established for a particular district. In some parts of the Alps the limit is about 2400 m (7900 ft) elevation, while in others it cannot be placed much below 2900 m (9500 ft). As very little snow remains on rocks angled more than 60, this is soon removed by the wind, some steep masses of rock remain bare even near the summits of the highest peaks, but as almost every spot offering the least hold for vegetation is covered with snow, few flowering plants are seen above 3550 m (11,000 ft).
            Have a look on the internet about the Schnidejoch pass in the Bernese Canton. Impassable for centuries, as the snow and ice have retreated, man-made medieval artefacts have been revealed – evidence for natural climate change. Dr. Spencer also comments on multiple glaciers in Alaska and Canada (e.g. the Mendenhall glacier in Alaska) which show emerging 1000 to 2000 year old tree stumps emerging as the glaciers recede.
            Climate is clearly much more complicated than the simplistic CO2 story we’re all being asked to believe.

          • Craig T. says:

            Yes, CO2 levels are only one of many factors affecting climate. It’s also a factor that’s changing.

          • JDHuffman says:

            Craig, CO2 levels don’t affect climate.

            Climate affects CO2 levels.

          • PhilJ says:

            JD,

            “Craig, CO2 levels dont affect climate.

            Climate affects CO2 levels.”

            +1

    • barry says:

      How many straw men can fit on the head of a pin?

      • BARRY- You do not live in reality when it comes to the climate because you keep trying to convey how unique the climate presently is when historical data proves that not to be the case time and time again.

        Rate of warming , level of warming all well within the bounds of natural climatic variation as recently as the last 500 or 1000 years.

        This is why there was a Medieval warm period followed by the start and end of the Little Ice Age. Natural variation which equaled or exceeded the very recent climatic variation you keep falsely pointing out as to somehow being unique.

        • Ball4 says:

          Salvatore, barry is trying to tell you barry is NOT trying to convey how unique is the climate presently. That claim of unique is only Salvatore’s straw man.

        • barry says:

          Exactly.

          • The question is this . Is the climate unique or not unique. The answer is it is NOT unique.

          • barry says:

            It’s such a vague thing to say. What do you even mean? Do you mean global temperature has been this hot before? Well, of course it has. The planet’s surface was 1000C shortly after the planet formed. It’s been much hotter than present at times in the past. And much cooler, too.

            Other than that, your comment makes absolutely no sense to me, and does not reflect anything I’ve said.

            Can you be more specific?

          • Look at the climatic historical record and look at how the climate has changed and then contrast that to today and one sees that today does not stand on out as being any different.

          • barry says:

            I still don’t understand your point.

            At the molecular level every day, season, century, epoch is unique.

            The weather patterns – the specific eddies of matter and energy that make up a global climate state – are uniquely configured every day.

            I have no ides what you mean by ‘Unique’ climate? I’ve tried to guess: are you talking about global temperature? Or the current configuration of continents, ocean currents, cryosphere, the current pattern of ENSO or.. what do you mean?

            Look at the climatic historical record

            The instrumental record covers the last 200 years. I mentioned that the Earth was 1000C 4.5 billion years ago.

            No one ever said that the current surface temperature on Earth is the warmest it’s ever been. This is your straw man argument.

            Why resort to making up an argument to counter it? Just deal with what has been said.

          • JDHuffman says:

            barry says:“No one ever said that the current surface temperature on Earth is the warmest it’s ever been.”

            Legalisitically that’s corrrect, lawyer barry.

            But the implication is there, nevertheless:

            https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/18/climate/hottest-year-2017.html

          • barry says:

            It’s not legalistic, it’s as plain as print.

            Scientists at NASA on Thursday ranked last year as the second-warmest year since reliable record-keeping began in 1880, trailing only 2016. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which uses a different analytical method, ranked it third, behind 2016 and 2015.

            You’d have to be pretty stupid to miss that context – or willfully blind – or a troll looking for a reaction.

  58. Craig T. says:

    The more IR returned to the surface the less cooling that occurs.

  59. Craig T. says:

    Barry, desserts cool more at night because of the dry air. When evaporation cools the surface that energy is released into the atmosphere when the water vapor condenses.

  60. PhilJ says:

    Craig,

    “The more IR returned to the surface the less cooling that occurs.”

    I believe I covered that when I said ‘to the extent that recycled energy maintains the surface temp, it likewise maintains the flow of IR through the atmospheric window’

    No warming, just more cooling….

    • Craig T. says:

      But “maintain[ing] the surface temp” means less cooling.

      Let’s take Carbon500’s example of notoriously dry Death Valley. The average high in July is 117F and the average low that month is 88F. That’s an average of 29F cooling each night.

      It’s an understatement to say Houston Texas has more humidity than Death Valley. The average July high is 91F and the low 76F. Average night time cooling is only 15F because of the “recycled energy.”

      • JDHuffman says:

        Craig, humid air has more heat capacity than dry air. Do you believe more “heat capacity” means higher temperatures?

        IOW, if you have a volume of very humid air at 25C, and you have the same volume of very dry air at 25C, neither could warm an object above 25C, even though the humid air contains more energy.

        Don’t confuse “more energy” with “higher temperatures”.

      • bilybob says:

        Good example of how GHG’s in Houston cause temperatures to be on average 19 degrees cooler than Death Valley.

        Death Valley – 117F Tmax 88F Tmin 102.5 Tavg

        Houston – 91F Tmax 76 Tmin 83.5 Tavg

        Though a better example would to be to compare a similar latitude and altitude areas with various ghg concentrations to get a good understanding of the impact. I would pick the hottest and coolest months to see the seasonal variation as well.

        Also, perhaps a better analysis would to integrate the temperature over the full 24 hour period to get the average temperature. It would be interesting.

      • PhilJ says:

        Craig,

        “But “maintain[ing] the surface temp” means less cooling. ”

        Does it? maintaining the temp maintains the rate that energy is lost through the atmospheric window, decreasing the total internal energy in the system…

        Entropy dictates that a planet naturally develops systems so as to maximize the rate that energy is lost to space.

        Given a constant energy input , the energy leaving the TOA will always be greater than that incoming..

        At first the energy leaving is FAR greater than the input… as it cools, physical and chemical changes slow the rate of that energy loss, but losses must continue until it approaches a state like that of Mercury, with a solid core and energy output is equal to energy input…

        … That’s an average of 29F cooling each night.

        … Average night time cooling is only 15F because of the “recycled energy.”

        Or is that an average of 29F heating by the sun as opposed to 15F heating….

        JD made a good point. It’s not about the temp, but the total internal energy in the system, and how that system transports energy to the TOA and loses it to space…

        Without water to radiatively cool it, the energy an atmosphere receives via conduction with the surface accumulates .. temp rises… velocity of winds increase…
        temp rises… atmosphere loss increases as more mass escapes the system to an extent greater than the input energy from the surface below… hello Venus….

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          Phil, may I just add that it’s the capacity of IR absorbing gases to absorb radiation from the surface during daytime that counts the most. More H2O or CO2 warms faster and cools the surface faster than less H2O or CO2. Thus deserts stay hotter than elsewhere.

          • Craig T. says:

            Judith Curry’s paper “Overview of Arctic Cloud and Radiation Characteristics” shows the arctic goes without downwelling shortwave radiation over 120 days but never recieves less than 175 W/square meter from downwelling longwave radiation. She writes “That the surface net radiation flux is only weakly negative (cooling) is a consequence of the significant LW heating of the surface by the atmosphere.”

            Don’t forget that the only source of downwelling longwave radiation is the return of upwelling longwave radiation.
            https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442(1996)009%3C1731%3AOOACAR%3E2.0.CO%3B2

          • PhilJ says:

            Craig,

            ” “That the surface net radiation flux is only weakly negative (cooling)… ”

            no warming here… just more cooling….

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Craig,

            Phil is right.

            “…significant LW heating” only occurs when above ground temperatures are warmer than the surface, like at night.

            Another thing to consider is the greater than expected cooling from the poles. They don’t need no stinking sunlight to have a strongly net negative radiation flux.

  61. JDHuffman says:

    A short term plunge takes ENSO 3.4 below +0.5.

    https://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/ocean/nino34.png

  62. PhilJ says:

    Chic,
    ” More H2O or CO2 warms faster and cools the surface faster than less H2O or CO2. ”

    Do you mean to say warms the air faster? Leading to increased rate of convection (and evaporation) cooling the surface faster?

    If yes, i agree! Thats what I have been saying: water cools the surface…

    (It also cools the atmosphere to space)

    • Chic Bowdrie says:

      Yes, I was with all along. I’m glad I’m not the only one who sees it exactly as you seem to.

    • barry says:

      Chic, I think Phil rejects the greenhouse effect. I could be wrong about that, but if so, you guys don’t see it the same. Phil may clarify…

      • Chic Bowdrie says:

        I reject using the name greenhouse to describe anything related to the atmosphere. I think temperatures would be different without IR absorbing gases, but does anyone really know how different? I think not.

        IR absorbing gases most likely keep the temperatures more moderate. Otherwise wider swings in temperature are going to occur between night and day. In my opinion, our Creator did it on purpose.

  63. PhilJ says:

    Barry,
    If by GHE you mean water warms the surface, yes i reject that.

    As just discussed, clearly water cools the surface.

    The fundamental flaw in the GHE hypothesis is that it tries to ‘heat’ a cold planet by adding atmosphere, when the reality is that a hot planet loses atmosphere as it cools…

    • barry says:

      Do you agree that the average (diurnal) temperature of the surface would be colder without the atmosphere?

    • barry says:

      (BTW,can we refer to the atmospheric gas as water vapour? H2O is fine, but when you say ‘water’ I keep thinking of the seas)

      • PhilJ says:

        barry,

        “(BTW,can we refer to the atmospheric gas as water vapour? ”

        when I say water (or H20), i am referring to it in all its states… you find all 3 in the atmosphere….

        “Do you agree that the average (diurnal) temperature of the surface would be colder without the atmosphere?”

        Of course! But the Earth probably has billions of years before it cools to that state (if it gets the chance….)

        Venus has much less time….

      • barry says:

        If the average diurnal surface temperature is warmer than it would be without an atmosphere, and H2O is a cooling factor, not a warming one, what about the atmosphere makes the (diurnal) surface warmer than it would be without an atmosphere?

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          I can answer that, but you have to know the implications of Holder’s inequality to fully appreciate the answer. More extreme temperatures will radiate more energy to space on average than more uniform temperatures. Water vapor contributes to cooling during the day and warming during the night. The result is a more temperate climate compared to no atmosphere. To compensate for radiating less, a planet with an atmosphere must be warmer than one without.

          Albedo complicates the situation, but in general diurnal average temperatures should always be cooler than a uniform temperature situation.

        • barry says:

          The average (diurnal) temperature of the moon’ surface is much colder than the surface of Earth, despite having a lower albedo. Earth’s atmosphere has a net warming effect on the surface, not a net cooling effect.

          a planet with an atmosphere must be warmer than one without.

          If an atmosphere was filled with gases that strongly reflected sunlight but very ineffectively absorbed upwelling radiation, that atmosphere would keep the average (diurnal) surface temp cooler than without an atmosphere?

          • JDHuffman says:

            barry, don’t forget the oceans. The oceans have much more heat capacity than the atmosphere.

            It’s kinda hard to ignore 70% of Earth’s surface, huh?

        • PhilJ says:

          barry,

          “If the average diurnal surface temperature is warmer than it would be without an atmosphere, and H2O is a cooling factor, not a warming one, what about the atmosphere makes the (diurnal) surface warmer than it would be without an atmosphere?”

          Is that a trick question? The atmosphere is there because the planet has not yet lost enough energy to cool to the point of itself with no atmosphere….

          So I guess my answer would be: Internal Energy! to have no atmosphere one cant have any oceans…. how much internal energy is in the atmosphere? In the oceans? If you strip away all that internal energy, of course the surface would be cooler.. as would be the interior… you couldnt have no atmosphere unless outgassing had ceased… so the interior would have to get a lot cooler as well)….

        • barry says:

          Phil, the view you seem to hold that makes no sense to me is that a planet requires an atmosphere to cool its surface. Obviously, the moon is quite capable of cooling at night with no atmosphere. But I think my misunderstanding may come from peculiar ways that you express your ideas. EG,

          “Internal Energy”

          To me this strictly means energy from the planet’s core. As in:

          https://www.briangwilliams.us/energy-from-nature/the-earths-internal-energy.html

          and

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%27s_internal_heat_budget

          This is the common meaning of Earth’s internal energy.

          But you are speaking about internal energy as a property of the atmosphere. Your use of terms is unusual, which is making it hard to understand you.

          But if you are indeed speaking about energy emanating from the Earth’s core you are missing the point. Or muddying it. Hard to tell.

          No need to strip away any energy from the earth’s core reaching the surface – a very small contribution anyway.

          The average surface of the moon is much, much colder than the average surface of the Earth (diurnal averages).

          This is despite the Earth having a higher albedo, yet being the same distance to the sun.

          Earth’s atmosphere makes it warmer on average than it would be with no atmosphere (and all else held fixed).

          The Earth doesn’t require an atmosphere to cool the surface. The surface would lose heat to space with or without an atmosphere, in equilibrium with the amount being received from the sun minus albedo.

          But it has an atmosphere, and the average impact of that atmosphere is to warm the surface. It also moderates the diurnal range.

          Thus, I don’t know why you emphasise the role of cooling that the atmosphere has, to the point of ignoring the warming effect. (Always speaking of diurnal average on this point)

          • PhilJ says:

            Barry,

            “But you are speaking about internal energy as a property of the atmosphere.”

            Of course! The atmosphere has a certain amount of internal energy (both kinetic and potential). so do the oceans and the interior.

            The Earth system includes all of these of course and has some total internal energy, which includes everything inside the TOA..

            This total was much higher 4 billion years ago, and continues to decrease as the Earth cools to space..

            “Thus, I don’t know why you emphasise the role of cooling that the atmosphere has, to the point of ignoring the warming effect.”

            The atmosphere does not warm the surface. The flow of heat (or net energy transfer if you prefer) is from the interior to the surface and atmosphere, from the surface to the atmosphere and space and from the atmosphere to space…

            The point I’m making, is that you CANNOT have no atmosphere until the Earth has cooled to the point where all that atmosphere has been lost..

            The moon of course HAS cooled to that state, and given more time, its interior will completely solidify as well…

          • barry says:

            So you think that if the atmosphere was suddenly whisked away, the world would suddenly get warmer?

            I think it would get closer to the average (diurnal) surface temperature of the moon), which is 30C colder than Earth.

            The moon is a less shiny planet(oid) with no atmosphere. the Earth should actually get a little colder than the moon average diurnal temp) because it has a higher albedo with the same distance to the sun.

            Don’t see a way around that hypothetical result. You certainly haven’t explained why that hypothesized scenario would result in a warmer surface temp.

          • PhilJ says:

            Barry,

            “So you think that if the atmosphere was suddenly whisked away, the world would suddenly get warmer?”

            No no no…

            If you ‘suddenly whisk away the atmosphere (and the oceans!) you are suddenly removing an enormous amount of energy from the Earth system… of course it will get colder…

          • Ball4 says:

            How does removing that energy & getting colder square with your “atmosphere does not warm the surface”?

          • PhilJ says:

            Ball,

            “How does removing that energy & getting colder square with your “atmosphere does not warm the surface”?

            Did you read the whole conversation? We already established that the surface warms the atmosphere…

            To lose the atmosphere and oceans is to lower the total internal energy of the Earth system by an enormous amount..

            to ask the question why is it colder with no atmosphere is akin to asking why is it colder after it has cooled…. ridiculous…

            .

          • Ball4 says:

            So I see PhilJ writes removing the atm. cools a planet’s surface but replacing the planet’s “atmosphere does not warm the surface.” I would think a little study of basic meteorology & especially passing a course of study in the subject would improve PhilJ’s comments.

          • PhilJ says:

            Ball,
            “I would think a little study of basic meteorology & especially passing a course of study in the subject would improve PhilJ’s comments.”

            If basic meteorology teaches that the atmosphere ,on average, warms the surface, then it is wrong and fundamentaly flawed…

            “So I see PhilJ writes removing the atm. cools a planet’s surface but replacing the planet’s “atmosphere does not warm the surface.”

            How exactly, could you replace the moons atmosphere?

            If you are referring to outgassing, that is a transfer of energy from the interior to the surface and atmosphere and/or a transfer of energy from the surface to the atmosphere…

            I believe I covered that when I said: to have no atmosphere, you would have to have no oceans, and the interior wold have to cool till there was no more outgassing…

            keep trying… maybe you’ll find some way to make water naturally flow uphill…

          • Ball4 says:

            “If basic meteorology teaches that the atmosphere ,on average, warms the surface, then it is wrong and fundamentaly flawed..”

            Or PhilJ having not passed a course in the subject is fundamentally flawed. I’ll go with basic meteorology.

            “How exactly, could you replace the moons atmosphere?”

            By reversing the processes of the last 4bln years. You know, running the movie in reverse.

            “to have no atmosphere, you would have to have no oceans”

            No, check out the data showing Europa, Enceladus, and maybe Ganymede and Ceres have liquid oceans and no substantial atmosphere.

            And water can flow uphill statistically. You might want to look into that. Basically by that is meant with avg.s there are always fluctuations about the mean.

          • PhilJ says:

            Ball,

            ” I’ll go with basic meteorology. ”

            I’ll go with fundamental physics…

            ” “How exactly, could you replace the moons atmosphere?”

            By reversing the processes of the last 4bln years. You know, running the movie in reverse.”

            LOL! Yes, you have it! If we can somehow make time run backwards we CAN see water flow uphill, planets warm and entropy decrease..

            I believe you proved my point.

            “No, check out the data showing Europa, Enceladus, and maybe Ganymede and Ceres have liquid oceans and no substantial atmosphere.”

            Those all HAVE atmosphere’s, but rather than quibble over what you mean by substantial, I’ll just point out that the 2nd law of thermodynamics applies on Europa, just as here…

            So then the heat flow (or net energy transfer if you prefer) is from the interior, through however many layers of solids, liquids and gasses it may have, to space…

            And, over time, its total internal energy must be decreasing…

          • Ball4 says:

            “I’ll go with fundamental physics..”

            Great, that’s what basic meteorology is built upon in addition to many observations of Earth’s atmosphere. Now try to stay with what you are going on.

            And yes universe entropy increases in all processes including those on Europa as you note, that’s fundamental physics & basic meteorology.

          • PhilJ says:

            Ball,

            ‘Great, that’s what basic meteorology is built upon in addition to many observations of Earth’s atmosphere. Now try to stay with what you are going on.

            And yes universe entropy increases in all processes including those on Europa as you note, that’s fundamental physics & basic meteorology. ‘

            Very good, then my assertion stands: water cools the planet.

          • Ball4 says:

            PhilJ’s assertion about water is the same as reporting the partial score of a baseball game: Home team 6.

            PhilJ should go with PhilJ’s own claim of going with fundamental physics:

            “The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) represents a balance between incoming solar radiation reaching the TOA and outgoing reflected solar and (thermodynamic internal) radiant energy emitted by the earth-atmosphere system.”

            That’s 1LOT; now fill all those fundamental physics items in with observed data and your water game score will be meaningful & consistent with 2LOT as these processes are natural so all increase universe entropy.

          • PhilJ says:

            Ball,

            The top-of-atmosphere (TOA) Earth radiation budget (ERB) represents a balance between incoming solar radiation reaching the TOA and outgoing reflected solar and (thermodynamic internal) radiant energy emitted by the earth-atmosphere system.

            Thats 1LOT

            hmmm… thats not how I remember it being defined…. something about energy cannot be created….

            As for the TOA. Yes we should first define what this is before we go any further.. is it the tropopause, the mesopause… the magnetopause?

            Because wherever you place it, with a constant energy input, the total amount of energy output to space will ALWAYS be greater than the input until the Earth finishes cooling to space… that’s 2LOT

            The recycled energy (such as that returned from the magnetopause during a reconnection) cannot raise the total internal energy of the system…

  64. Chic Bowdrie says:

    Craig,

    From your question above…

    http://www.drroyspencer.com/2018/12/uah-global-temperature-update-for-november-2018-0-28-deg-c/#comment-333063

    …I’ve replied here where there is still some activity.

    Saturation at wings or core? Neither, because saturation is not the attribute that needs to be considered. Except for window wavelengths, radiation from the surface is completely absorbed by CO2 and H2O within a limited distance from the surface. Once absorbed, a collision with a N2 or O2 molecule will completely thermalize that radiation. The warmed bulk air will rise. This and evaporation are how the vast majority of energy gets moved up through the atmosphere and is radiated away. All this talk about saturation is a smoke screen preventing people from dealing with the major atmospheric cooling mechanisms.

    My view is that 333 W/m2 backradiation will not change by any further increase in CO2. There is already enough there to continue to cool by day and warm by night.

    • Craig T. says:

      “Except for window wavelengths, radiation from the surface is completely absorbed by CO2 and H2O within a limited distance from the surface.”

      Isn’t that the definition of saturation?

      • Chic Bowdrie says:

        Craig,

        Yes, I suppose it is. But it’s much different to talk about CO2 saturation at the surface than at the TOA. According to the article you cited above, saturation of the wings at the TOA doesn’t occur even in a pure CO2 atmosphere. That’s because the “air” is thin up there! At the surface the CO2 bands are easily saturated at current CO2 levels and double that.

        Are you aware that the absorp.tion spectrum in that article says more about CO2 emission than absorp.tion? The more CO2 required to saturate TOA model-generated spectra, the more easily it will be for CO2 emissions to escape to space.

        • Craig T. says:

          “But it’s much different to talk about CO2 saturation at the surface than at the TOA. … At the surface the CO2 bands are easily saturated at current CO2 levels and double that.”

          When the paper looks at CO2’s impact on outgoing radiation at the TOA, it means all the CO2 from the ground up. Look at Figure 6(a) in the paper. The effect of CO2 on radiation is logarithmic. Doubling CO2 still has a large impact but after 5 times the current level the changes in downward radiation almost level off.

          The paper also shows how current levels of CO2 and H20 affect the net radiative flux at the tropopause. Currently the net flux change (change in downward longwave radiation minus the change in upward radiation) caused by the water vapor in the atmosphere adds 77 Watts per square meter and CO2 adds 38 W/m2 to the climate. (See Table 1).

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Craig,

            Figure 6a is just a calculation. It’s not real. Read the procedure that explains the assumptions made in doing the calculation.

            “When the paper looks at CO2’s impact on outgoing radiation at the TOA, it means all the CO2 from the ground up.”

            No, it means what the hypothetical calculation predicts the radiative forcing would be if CO2 magically increased from zero to 2000 ppmv. Those hypothetical changes don’t level off, but who cares? It’s only a model that probably wasn’t verified, because there’s no reference to any of the experimentation needed to do the verification.

            My problem with this type of model calculation is the total absence of any consideration of the convective element that is primarily responsible for the movement of energy from the surface to the upper atmosphere where it can be radiated away. CO2 and the other IR active gases help with that. Two or three dimensional views cannot adequately explain the four dimensional problem of energy balance.

          • Craig T. says:

            “Its only a model that probably wasnt verified, because theres no reference to any of the experimentation needed to do the verification.”

            The line-by-line radiative transfer model is a well tested model. “LBLRTM offers the opportunity to perform calculations significantly faster than RFM and GENLN2 at a same or better level of accuracy. In addition, LBLRTM can compute analytical jacobians and perform computations in presence of reflected solar radiation.”

            https://www.ecmwf.int/sites/default/files/elibrary/2007/11022-inter-comparison-line-line-radiative-transfer-models.pdf

          • Craig T. says:

            The actual Downward Longwave Radiation has been measured many times. Perhaps the most detailed was Feldman’s “Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2 from 2000 to 2010.” Here’s a link to a copy not behind a paywall.
            http://asl.umbc.edu/pub/chepplew/journals/nature14240_v519_Feldman_CO2.pdf

            Look at Figure 4. The measured radiation matches the variation of CO2 including the yearly rise and fall and the slow yearly increase.

            Convection heats the troposphere but not the stratosphere. Only radiative energy travels past the tropopause. Dr. Spencer’s data shows the lower troposphere has warmed while the lower stratosphere cooled the last 40 years.

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Craig,

            The Feldman et alia paper makes several assumptions, a couple of which cause me to question the conclusion that “these results confirm theoretical predictions of the atmospheric greenhouse effect due to anthropogenic emissions.”

            1) All increase in CO2 is assumed to be anthropogenic (although this has no bearing on the results).

            2) Using the line-by-line (LBLRTM) calculations introduces no significant errors in the findings. I have insufficient expertise to suspect otherwise.

            3) They assumme AERI measuring downward LW radiation is proportional to TOA LW flux. Is that true? I would think they would want to know what the corresponding net SW/LW net flux is and correlate that to actual temperature measurements and CO2 levels.

            4) Notice the y-axis of Feldman’s Figure 4 is labelled “CO2 surface forcing (W/m2).” There is no corresponding temperature rise supposedly associated with the increasing trend. Why is that? To my knowledge, translating those forcing calculations into corresponding temperature changes has never been verified. That’s why there is so much disagreement on what CO2 sensitivity is. I am waiting for someone to show conclusive evidence that rising CO2 will cause global temperature rise from actual temperature measurements, not from model predictions.

            “Convection heats the troposphere but not the stratosphere. Only radiative energy travels past the tropopause.”

            Convection and wind move energy from the surface up and around where it can be radiated to space. It doesn’t matter where it gets radiated from, as long as it gets radiated. The higher up in the atmosphere one goes, the thinner the air is and the less chance for any radiation to be redirected.

          • Craig T. says:

            “Notice the y-axis of Feldman’s Figure 4 is labelled “CO2 surface forcing (W/m2).” There is no corresponding temperature rise supposedly associated with the increasing trend. Why is that?”

            We talked about how year to year the temperature of the lower troposphere go up and down with the El Nino cycle. During El Ninos more heat stays in the upper ocean layer and the energy is carried deeper into the ocean for la Ninas. The rising temperature from increased downward longwave radiation only shows on the decade scale.

          • Craig T. says:

            “All increase in CO2 is assumed to be anthropogenic (although this has no bearing on the results).”

            Extended Data Figure 3 shows the measured fossil fuel component and biomass burning component of CO2 at one of the two sites where the downward longwave data was collected. It was found using the ratio of Carbon-13 to Carbon-12 in the atmosphere.
            https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/dv/site/SGP.html

            “They assume AERI measuring downward LW radiation is proportional to TOA LW flux. Is that true?”

            From the paper:
            “To specifically address the relationship between forcing at the surface and TOA at the ARM sites, we have also undertaken a set of calculations that use the BBHRP infrastructure described above to demonstrate the relationship between surface and TOA flux changes. Results are shown in Extended Data Fig. 8, and indicate
            that magnitudes of the flux changes at the surface and TOA are correlated, although the TOA flux changes are larger because the downwelling surface radiation of the former quantity is distributed into sensible and latent heat.”

            The ARM Broadband Heating Rate Profile (BBHRP) uses a range of gathered data including top of atmosphere flux measured by geostationary satellite.
            https://www.arm.gov/capabilities/vaps/bbhrp-24

          • Chic Bowdrie says:

            Craig,

            I’m not clear what ENSO has to do with Figure 4. Just because calculated forcings are oscillating and trending as indicated, doesn’t mean the temperatures are as well.

            I confess I’m not competent enough to scrutinize the pictures in Extended Data Figure 3, to understand how they differentiate fossil fuel and biomass components of CO2.

            I had even more trouble understanding how Figure 8 says anything about TOA flux.

            My problem, besides my inexperience with interpreting the manipulations of these radiation measurements, is the Feldman paper doesn’t address the role of CO2 and water vapor in moving energy up through the atmosphere by convection. But thanks for getting into the weeds with the extended data. I never looked at it this closely and gives me a good outline for future education.

          • Craig T. says:

            “I confess Im not competent enough to scrutinize the pictures in Extended Data Figure 3, to understand how they differentiate fossil fuel and biomass components of CO2.”

            That was a difficult to read graph. Carbon 13 is a radioisotope so CO2 from fossil fuels has less of it. Here’s a much clearer graph showing the drop in atmospheric C13:
            https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/outreach/isotopes/c13tellsus.html

  65. Chic Bowdrie says:

    I reject using the name greenhouse to describe anything related to the atmosphere. I think temperatures would be different without IR absorbing gases, but does anyone really know how different? I think not.

    IR absorbing gases most likely keep the temperatures more moderate. Otherwise wider swings in temperature are going to occur between night and day. In my opinion, our Creator did it on purpose.

    • Bobdesbond says:

      “Creator”????
      Your last shred of credibility gone.

      • Chic Bowdrie says:

        So do you think you evolved from the Primordial soup?

      • Craig T. says:

        Bob, let it go. I don’t think Chic is trying to base his argument on a creator.

        Some Skeptics feel a Creator would never allow humans to warm the Earth. From what I’ve seen in human history I’m afraid to set any limits to what humans are allowed to do without intervention.

        • Chic Bowdrie says:

          I don’t know about any others, but I don’t think humans can do much about Earth temperatures. But we sure can pollute. Fortunately, to some extent we can clean up our messes.

          I do believe in an intelligently designed universe and, if humans are to be created part of it, might as well make it a temperate one with a natural climate thermostat.

  66. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/30/claim-oceans-are-warming-rapidly-study-says/

    I am very suspicious of ocean heat content data. I say it is not reliable and can not be measured accurately.

    Oceanic sea surface temperature data is a much more accurate measurement and is what I am using to see what the state of the oceans are.

    Right ow still warm with a deviation of +.349c from 1981-2010 means. Expect that to drop sooner rather then later as low solar continues.

    • Bobdesbond says:

      Of course it will drop – the trend value is only +0.3.
      I see you refuse to give precise dates. You have been bitten too many times.

  67. I meant to say I am very suspicious of how they go about getting it and what really causes it to change.

    I say of course it is all tied to the sun, either directly or indirectly, and this will also be falling in the future.

  68. More data showing climate is not unique. My case on the OHC fiasco.

    Their reconstructions show that IWTs at all depths were substantially warmer 10,500 to 6,000 years ago than in the past century.

    Intermediate Water Temperature at 500 m
    Period (before present)
    Temperature(°C)
    10,500 to 9,000 BP
    ~10°C
    8,000 to 6,000 BP
    ~10.7°C
    100 BP
    ~7.8°C

    They found that that the North Pacific and Antarctic intermediate waters were warmer by 2.1 ± 0.4°C and 1.5 ± 0.4°C, respectively, during the thermal maximum (HTM) 6,000 to 7,000 years ago than in the 20th Century. Both water masses were about 0.9°C warmer during the Medieval Warm period (950 to 1250 CE) than during the Little Ice Age (1550 to 1850 CE) and ~0.65° warmer than currently.

    Northern Pacific intermediate waters
    Period
    Temperature relative to 20th C
    HTM 6-7,000 years ago
    2.1 ± 0.4°C higher
    MWP 920-1250 CE
    0.65°C higher

    Antarctic intermediate waters
    Period
    Temperature relative to 20th C
    HTM 6-7,000 years ago
    1.5 ± 0.4°C higher

    • barry says:

      More data showing climate is not unique.

      So?

      My case on the OHC fiasco

      The only fiasco here is you failing to have a neutral outlook and jumping to preferred conclusions.

      The link you supplied to Judith Curry is actually pretty good, putting the paper in context.

      https://judithcurry.com/2013/11/01/pacific-ocean-heat-content-for-the-past-10000-years/

      I suggest reading it without the biased spectacles. And beware single-study syndrome, where a reader finds a paper with info they like and treat it as the gospel. As is pointed out in the article, this paper is at odds with many others. Time will tell if the findings are sound and/or the methodology useful.

    • Craig T. says:

      Here’s an interesting note in the paper:

      “The modern rate of Pacific OHC change is, however, the highest in the past 10,000 years (Fig. 4 and table S3).”

      And the data from Table S3:

      Period Change Degree K per Century
      2-7.5 Ka B.P -0.02
      1700-1100 CE -0.15
      1950-1600 CE 0.08
      2010-1965 CE 0.24

  69. Bindidon says:

    Test

    A body that does not absorb all incident radiation (sometimes known as a grey body) emits less total energy than a black body and is characterized by an emissivity, ε < 1 {\displaystyle \varepsilon <1} :

    j ⋆ = ε σ T 4 . {\displaystyle j^{\star }=\varepsilon \sigma T^{4}.}

  70. barry says:

    Can Salvatore’s bias be any more obvious?

    I am very suspicious of ocean heat content data. I say it is not reliable and can not be measured accurately.

    8 hours later….

    More data showing climate is not unique.

    Based on ocean heat content data (from proxies!).

    This typifies the AGW ‘skeptic’ mind. They’ll rubbish any data – until it tells them a story they like. Then it’s suddenly useful.

    • Chic Bowdrie says:

      Seems like you are painting with a pretty broad brush there. Do I dare suggest you typify the warmist mind?

      • Kristian says:

        Hahaha! That IS the warmist mind. Embrace ALL data that seems to support their CO2 narrative. As soon as it doesn’t, however, spend ALL you time arguing how uncertain and unreliable it is instead of addressing what it actually shows. The CERES data is a splendid case in point.

        • Craig T. says:

          Tell me about the CERES data.

          • Kristian says:

            Much more of a learning experience, Craig: Find out about it yourself! They are truly a source of enlightenment!

            Beware, though, because enlightenment, insight and understanding are all considered dangerous things these days. You will be attacked if gaining and then revealing even the barest trace of any of them.

            In a (post)modern world where sticking to dogmatic faiths and emotionally derived opinions are king, and where true, objective (empirically/observationally based) scrutiny of – even having the audacity of showing some sort of curiosity about – the physical world, what used to be called hard science, is abhorred, dismissed simply as crude plebeian expressions of denial of the authoritative (authoritarian) Consensus – The Dogma.

            This is why warmists invariably shy away from delving deep into the CERES data. They mostly prefer scraping safely at the surface, pretending that all that these data could ever provide us with is evidence for or against various feedbacks to (already presupposed) CO2 warming. They NEVER stop to look into what might actually be the CAUSE of warming in the Earth system, only what might potentially MODIFY it, the cause already (theoretically) “known” (i.e. ‘taken for granted’) to be an “anthropogenically enhanced GHE” … Which, however, has never been observed, anywhere, at any time.

            Enjoy, at your peril.

          • Craig T. says:

            Every example of CERES data I’ve looked at shows TOA outgoing longwave radiation dropping in proportion to the increase in surface downward longwave radiation. Here’s a paper using CERES data to test the accuracy of model predictions of outoging longwave radiation using measured temperature and humidity profiles.
            https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2011JD016153

            I guess I’ll just have to deconstruct your postmodern non-answer instead of looking into some point you were making.

          • Kristian says:

            Craig T. says, December 18, 2018 at 11:48 PM:

            Every example of CERES data I’ve looked at shows TOA outgoing longwave radiation dropping in proportion to the increase in surface downward longwave radiation.

            IOW, you haven’t bothered to try and acquire the understanding needed to get the point.

            Did the CERES EBAF DWLWIR increase more than just from the regular increase in tropospheric temps from 2000 to 2018? No:
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/dwlwir-residual-uahv6.png
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/dwlwir-residual-rssv4.png

            Which means the increase in DWLWIR is (at best) purely a result of the increase in tropospheric temps, which is to say that there is no sign whatsoever of a DWLWIR increase strictly due to an increase in atmospheric IR opacity. According to the CERES data …

            Here is total All-Sky OLR at the ToA vs. DWLWIR to the surface:
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/olr-vs-dwlwir.png

            Yes, the DWLWIR appears to rise more than the OLR, but in reality it’s not. Again you need a wider contextual understanding to know what you’re looking at. The way the ENSO process affects the OLR is very different from the way it affects the DWLWIR, and so you need to account for the specific progression of ENSO states and events over the period you’re looking at. Here’s the DWLWIR-OLR difference vs. the ENSO sequence, from 2000 to 2018:
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/dwlwir-residual-vs-nino3-4-b.png

            There is nothing systematic going on here, Craig. No sign of any positive divergence. DWLWIR and OLR are tracking each other more or less EXACTLY the way you would expect – if there is no “GHE enhancement” going on in the Earth system. All you’ve got is just your regular short-term noise. The simple fact is: The noise, your fundamental lack of understanding, and your obvious confirmation bias, are all working together to fool you into thinking you see something where there’s really nothing to be seen …

            Craig,

            When it comes to this particular subject, you and your mind come across as closed and dogmatically blind. You fit right into my description of the warmist approach to climate-related data above …

          • Craig T. says:

            We could bicker all day who has more confirmation bias but it won’t get us anywhere.

            “Which means the increase in DWLWIR is (at best) purely a result of the increase in tropospheric temps, which is to say that there is no sign whatsoever of a DWLWIR increase strictly due to an increase in atmospheric IR opacity.”

            Levels of water vapor in the atmosphere depend on temperature. Are the graphs yours? How was “DWLWIR residual” calculated using TLT? I’d think a better yardstick for changes in IR opacity would be the ratio of surface upwell LW to downwell LW.

            “Yes, the DWLWIR appears to rise more than the OLR, but in reality its not. Again you need a wider contextual understanding to know what youre looking at. The way the ENSO process affects the OLR is very different from the way it affects the DWLWIR…”

            Again, warmer temperatures mean more water vapor. Is there a way ENSO impacts OLR and DWLWIR that doesn’t involve IR opacity?

          • Kristian says:

            Craig T. says, December 19, 2018 at 8:33 AM:

            We could bicker all day who has more confirmation bias but it won’t get us anywhere.

            Oh, I’m sure you would bicker about most anything as long as it kept you from actually addressing data that implicates things you don’t like.

            Look, I just showed you the data. If you somehow manage to see a systematic, gradual rise in the DWLWIR data relative to the OLR data over the CERES period (2000-2018) as a whole (link below), all relevant influencing factors considered, then clearly it’s because that’s what you WANT to see and nothing else:
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/olr-vs-dwlwir-1.png

            All you see here, apparently, is simply how the DWLWIR curve is higher towards the end. If in doubt, I see that too, but in your case, that’s it. You stop there. In your mind, that’s all you need. So you don’t bother to look any further, to think any further. Your curiosity surrounding these data ends right there. Because you’ve already seen what you EXPECTED to see, based directly on your preconceived ideas about how the world SHOULD work …

            That’s called “confirmation bias”, Craig.

            I, on the other hand, go on to examine the data a bit closer to find out what’s REALLY going on. You can read more about my take on this particular topic here:
            https://okulaer.wordpress.com/2018/11/11/how-the-ceres-ebaf-ed4-data-disconfirms-agw-in-3-different-ways/

            So what is going on? You have to understand – no, first you have to be willing to understand – that there’s a context to these data. What large-scale dynamic processes operate within the Earth system as these radiative parameters varies over time? This is where we need to recognise the profound influence of the ENSO process on global climate:
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/olr-vs-dwlwir-b.png
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/11/dwlwir-residual-vs-nino3-4-b.png

            This isn’t “confirmation bias”, Craig. It’s scientific curiosity. It’s following the data where it leads. I honestly and sincerely want to know what’s going on and how things connect.

            You’ve obviously made your mind up already before setting out … That’s “dogmatism”, Craig.

            Continues below …

          • Kristian says:

            Continued …

            Are the graphs yours?

            Of course. I plotted them. But the data used are from CERES.

            How was “DWLWIR residual” calculated using TLT?

            Better you read the entire blog post (that I linked to above) where these graphs are featured.

            I’d think a better yardstick for changes in IR opacity would be the ratio of surface upwell LW to downwell LW.

            Why? There is no better “yardstick for changes in IR opacity” than DWLWIR vs. T_tropo. But, of course, you don’t like the result of that particular test, so your natural reflex is to simply reject it, hoping rather to find some other method to better suit your preconceived ideas of what, after all, HAS TO be going on.

            Well, by all means, let’s try it. The result, however, will be no different – no sign whatsoever of any ongoing “GHE enhancement”:
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/UWLWIR-vs.-DWLWIR.png
            https://okulaer.files.wordpress.com/2018/12/Sfc-net-lw-flux.png

            Either way you turn and twist and spin it, Craig, the CERES data distinctly and conspicuously disconfirm any notion of a “strengthening GHE” as a/the cause of net warming in the Earth system …

            Is there a way ENSO impacts OLR and DWLWIR that doesn’t involve IR opacity?

            There’s a fairly consistent pattern to be observed when comparing T_e (OLR translated into temperature) and T_tropo (TLT), where the ToA LW flux (total all-sky OLR) response to tropospheric temps during particularly strong ENSO events (both La Ninas and El Ninos) is significantly suppressed, leading to an OLR curve that overall tracks the mean level of the TLT curve tightly and impressively over time, but which noticeably lacks those major ENSO-associated amplitudes of the latter …

            During a strong La Nina, there is significantly less cooling in the ToA LW flux than what we would expect from the drop in tropospheric temps alone. Yes, this is indeed because of changes – albeit, really big and abrupt ones, not like CO2 changes – in tropospheric IR opacity, because of considerable ENSO-induced column anomalies in humidity and cloud amounts – the troposphere is drying. Conversely, during a strong El Nino, we see the opposite effect – much less heating in the ToA LW flux than expected from the tropospheric temperature rise alone, because the troposphere is moistening.

            These effects are both the results of negative feedback processes in operation within the climate system, reducing the Nina cooling signal and likewise the Nino warming signal. They are, however, only relatively short-term effects and do not appear to affect the long-term relationship between T_e and T_tropo, which evidently remain in lockstep on both sides of those big disruptions.

            We don’t see the same kind of dampening effect in the DWLWIR, because its thermal focal point is centred so much closer to the actual surface, where the original ENSO action (those massive SST swings), after all, is taking place. The DWLWIR will thus to a much higher degree simply emulate the surface temperatures …

      • barry says:

        That may apply to some people, Kristian, but not to me. Whereas the criticism is just right for Salvatore (and a few others here).

        • Ball4 says:

          Salvatore Dec. 10 above: “Co2 absorbs infrared radiation and earth emits it. CO2/H20 all things being equal would heat the planet.”

          Actually added CO2/H2O et. al. IR active gas cannot heat the whole earth surface/atm. system but they can warm a planet near surface atm. and equally cool the upper atm. regions by affecting atm. IR opacity. Dec. 10 Salvatore does admit a bit more of basic meteorology than usual.

    • barry says:

      You’re welcome to critique my comments in any way you see fair.

      ‘Typical’ is a term of generalization. I think the behaviour here is common enough among the AGW ‘skeptic’ milieu to be classed as typical. I’ve seen and conversed with exceptions.

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