by Judith Curry
“For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2C per decade is expected for a range of emission scenarios.” – IPCC AR4
In response to my post on Steven Hayward, Hayward is being criticized on twitter for this statement made in context of discussing the temperature plateau:
The basic theory says we’re supposed to continue warming at about 0.2 degrees Celsius per decade.
Seems pretty consistent with what the AR4 SPM said.
IPCC AR4
Lets dig deeper to see what the IPCC AR4 actually said. From the SPM:
For the next two decades, a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios. Even if the concentrations of all greenhouse gases and aerosols had been kept constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming of about 0.1°C per decade would be expected.
Since IPCC’s first report in 1990, assessed projections have suggested global average temperature increases between about 0.15°C and 0.3°C per decade for 1990 to 2005. This can now be compared with observed values of about 0.2°C per decade, strengthening confidence in near-term projections.
Model experiments show that even if all radiative forcing agents were held constant at year 2000 levels, a further warming trend would occur in the next two decades at a rate of about 0.1°C per decade, due mainly to the slow response of the oceans. About twice as much warming (0.2°C per decade) would be expected if emissions are within the range of the SRES scenarios. Best-estimate projections from models indicate that decadal average warming over each inhabited continent by 2030 is insensitive to the choice among SRES scenarios and is very likely to be at least twice as large as the corresponding model-estimated natural variability during the 20th century.
Chapter 10 Global Climate Projetions provides details on the projections. From the Executive Summary:
There is close agreement of globally averaged SAT (surface air temperature) multi-model mean warming for the early 21st century for concentrations derived from the three non-mitigated IPCC Special Report on Emission Scenarios (SRES: B1, A1B and A2) scenarios (including only anthropogenic forcing) run by the AOGCMs (warming averaged for 2011 to 2030 compared to 1980 to 1999 is between +0.64°C and +0.69°C, with a range of only 0.05°C). Thus, this warming rate is affected little by different scenario assumptions or different model sensitivities, and is consistent with that observed for the past few decades . Possible future variations in natural forcings (e.g., a large volcanic eruption) could change those values somewhat, but about half of the early 21st-century warming is committed in the sense that it would occur even if atmospheric concentrations were held fixed at year 2000 values.
So, if we translate the bolded numbers into decadal averages (divide by 3.1 decades), we get a range of 0.206 to 0.226C.
From section 10.3.1:
Internal variability in the model response is reduced by averaging over 20-year time periods. This span is shorter than the traditional 30-year climatological period, in recognition of the transient nature of the simulations, and of the larger size of the ensemble. The close agreement of warming for the early century, with a range of only 0.05°C among the SRES cases, shows that no matter which of these non-mitigation scenarios is followed, the warming is similar on the time scale of the next decade or two. Note that the precision given here is only relevant for comparison between these means. As evident in Figure 10.4 and discussed in Section 10.5, uncertainties in the projections are larger. It is also worth noting that half of the early-century climate change arises from warming that is already committed to under constant composition (0.37°C for the early century).
From this, I infer that the AR4 states that it expects warming in the early decades of the 21st century to be at least 0.2C per decade, when averaged over two decades.
While section 10.5 discusses climate model uncertainties in a general sense (e.g. sensitivity), there is no uncertainty estimate for the near term projections. You can see some spread among the models in Figure 10.4, but this does not enter explicitly into the discussion of the projections. There is nowhere in the AR4 that I can find a confidence level or an uncertainty estimate for the 0.2C/decade.
IPCC AR5
From the AR5 SPM:
The global mean surface temperature change for the period 2016–2035 relative to 1986–2005 will likely be in the range of 0.3°C to 0.7°C (medium confidence). This assessment is based on multiple lines of evidence and assumes there will be no major volcanic eruptions or secular changes in total solar irradiance.
To make this comparable to the AR4 numbers, 0.3 to 0.7C over a period of 30 years translates to 0.1 to 0.23C/decade. The AR5 places medium confidence on this number. The AR5 clearly did a better job than AR4, by providing a confidence level and a much larger range of uncertainty. MOST SIGNIFICANTLY, Ch 11 states:
However, the implied rates of warming over the period from 1986–2005 to 2016–2035 are lower [than the model simulations] as a result of the hiatus: 0.10°C–0.23°C per decade, suggesting the AR4 assessment was near the upper end of current expectations for this specific time interval.
Note: this is discussed more fully in the previous CE post IPCC AR5 weakens the case for AGW. In terms of actual model projections for the period 2012-2035, the CMIP5 5-95% trend range is 0.11°C–0.41°C per decade.
Earlier IPCC Reports
Some insights can be gained from earlier IPCC reports into how the AR4 became so confident of the 0.2C/decade warming in the early 21st century.
The First Assessment Report (FAR, 1990) stated:
… our best estimate of global mean warming of 1.8 C by 2030 (relative to pre-industrial).
From a subsection Other factors which could influence future climate:
Because of long-period couplings between different components of the climate system, for example between ocean and atmosphere, the Earth’s climate would still vary without being perturbed by any external influences. This natural variability could act to add to, or subtract from, any human-made warming, on a century time-scale this would be less than changes expected from greenhouse gas increases
From a subsection How much confidence do we have in our predictions?
Thirdly, climate models are only as good as our understanding of the processes which they describe, and this is far from perfect The ranges in the climate predictions given above reflect the uncertainties due to model imperfections, the largest of these is cloud feedback (those factors affecting the cloud amount and distribution and the interaction of clouds with solar and terrestrial radiation), which leads to a factor of two uncertainty in the size of the warming Others arise from the transfer of energy between the atmosphere and ocean, the atmosphere and land surfaces, and between the upper and deep layers of the ocean. The treatment of sea-ice and convection in the models is also crude Nevertheless, for reasons given in the box overleaf, we have substantial confidence that models can predict at least the broad scale features of climate change.
Further excerpts from the SPM:
Since the end of the last ice age, about 10,000 years ago, global surface temperatures have probably fluctuated by little more than 1°C . Some fluctuations have lasted several centuries, including the Little Ice Age which ended in the nineteenth century and which appears to have been global in extent.
The size of the warming over the last centuiy is bioadly consistent with the predictions ol climate models but is also ol the same magnitude as natural climate variability. If the sole cause ol the observed wanning were the human made greenhouse effect, then the implied climate sensitivity would be near the lower end of the range from the models. The observed increase could be largely due to natural variability, alternatively this variability and other man-made factors could have offset a still larger man-made greenhouse warming The unequivocal detection of the enhanced greenhouse effect from observations is not likely lor a decade or more, when the committment to future climate change will then be considerably larger than it is today.
The Second Assessment Report (SAR, 1995):
The SAR did not focus on the period out to circa 2030 (focusing on the period out to 2100), but the Technical Summary includes the following text:
F.5 The possibility of surprises Unexpected external influences, such as volcanic eruptions, can lead to unexpected and relatively sudden shifts in the climatic state. Also, as the response of the climate system to various forcings can be non-linear, its response to gradual forcing changes may be quite irregular. Abrupt and significant changes in the atmospheric circulation involving the North Pacific which began about 1976 were described in IPCC (1990). A related example is the apparent fluctuation in the recent behaviour of ENSO, with warm conditions prevailing since 1989, a pattern which has been unusual compared to previous ENSO behaviour. Another example is the possibility that the West Antarctic ice sheet might “surge”, causing a rapid rise in sea level. The current lack of knowledge regarding the specific circumstances under which this might occur, either in total or in part, limits the ability to quantify this risk. Nonetheless, the likelihood of a major sea level rise by the year 2100 due to the collapse of the West Antarcfic ice sheet is considered low.
In the oceans the meridional overturning might weaken in a future climate. This overturning (the thermohaline circulation) is driven in part by deep convection in the northern North Atlantic Ocean and keeps the northern North Atlantic Ocean several degrees warmer than it would otherwise be. Both the study of palaeoclimate from sediment records and ice cores and modelling studies with coupled climate models and ocean GCMs can be interpreted to suggest that the ocean circulation has been very different in the past. Both in these observations and in the ocean models, transitions between different types of circulation seem to occur on a time-scale of a few decades, so relatively sudden changes in the regional (North Atlantic, Western Europe) climate could occur, presumably mainly in response to precipitation and runoff changes which alter the salinity, and thus the density, of the upper layers of the North Atlantic. Whether or not such a sudden change can actually be realised in response to global warming and how strong a perturbation is required to cause a transition between types of circulation are still the subject of much debate.
The Third Assessment Report (TAR, 2001), from the SPM:
On timescales of a few decades, the current observed rate of warming can be used to constrain the projected response to a given emissions scenario despite uncertainty in climate sensitivity. This approach suggests that anthropogenic warming is likely to lie in the range of 0.1 to 0.2°C per decade over the next few decades under the IS92a scenario.
JC Reflections
The IPCC AR4 stands out, among the other four Reports, as providing a projection of 0.2C/per decade for the early 21st century, with a tiny uncertainty range. The projection is qualified only by the remark that 2 decades of averaging are needed to reduce internal variability in model response.
The IPCC AR4 was arguably the most important report politically, motivating many of the national responses to climate change that are now in place.
It was interesting going back through the previous IPCC reports – the FAR is far and away the best one. SAR isn’t too bad, although the ‘discernible’ piece that emerged from the meeting with the policy makers has raised substantial concerns. The TAR reads more like propaganda (with the hockey stick as its centerpiece). The main thing that comes across in the AR4 is hubris associated with the climate models. The AR5 is peculiar mainly in context of the disconnect between the confidence levels of the SPM and what is written in the main text of the Report.
So, what happened between the SAR and AR4? The curse of the hockey stick, whereby natural climate variability for the past 1000 years was alleged to be only a few tenths of a degree (goodbye MWP, LIA). This led to the belief that significant climate variability on timescales of more than a decade only arose from external forcing; a few blips from volcanoes and then anthropogenic impacts – and by inference, the climate models were able to simulate climate change. And what happened between AR4 and the AR5? Well, the hiatus.
And finally, take a look at this piece by Euan Mearns comparing the various projections of the different IPCC reports with observations. While the analysis is simple, it is straightforward and clearly written.
Need a decimal point in the title
Thx, fixed
Now THAT scared the hell out of me. :)
That 0.3-0.7 degrees C in the AR5 is for two decades, not three.
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OK, I get it; score long chunks 30 years apart.
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Judith, I support you!
Be strong!
Regards from
Jonny
“I agree that the case for 2ºC warming is pretty strong.” – Gerald R. North to Rob Bradley, email communication, August 13, 2007
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/04/climate-model-magic-washington-post-today-gerald-north-yesterday/
Who’s going to believe the head public relations flack from Enron?
BTW, how about that Weather Derivatives market you were involved in along with Koch Industries? A perfect mechanism for the climate science denial machine. You can manipulate people’s emotions about climate change and then profit off of market movements.
I have noticed WHUT that IMO when you do not seem to have an appropriate relative comment for the topic at hand, and you disagree with the general nature of it, you simply throw in a red herring.
As a reinsurance actuary, I dipped my toes into weather derivatives. It seemed like a field ideally suited to statistical analysis, because a long data history was available. My company dropped out of that market for two reasons: 1. Urban Heat Island Effect made it impossible for us to rely on past data as being consistent with present data. 2. We didn’t like the brokers we were dealing with.
BTW at that time, Enron was the leader in the field of weather derivatives.
“Who’s going to believe the head public relations flack from Enron?”
Who mentioned Paul Krugman?
+100
(Sometimes I think Krugman writes his articles just to have a laugh at his readers.)
“Who’s going to believe the head public relations flack from Enron?”
Who mentioned Joe Romm?
Who mentioned Belfer and the John Holdren connection?
Who mentioned Steven Hayward and his buddies at the Powerline blog chief legal counsel to Koch Industries, and the heir apparent to Enron in terms of manipulating markets ?
Whew! Following the money is draining work.
Who mentioned the Obama White House?
Now that you mention him, yesterday’s speech by Obama has given us the go-ahead to call y’all deniers.
yes.
It also gives you the go-ahead to call high yellows with affirmative action law degrees scientists.
Honestly, David Springer? Did you really just not so slyly criticize Obama because his skin is “high yellow”? Is knowing how light a person’s skin color is sufficient knowledge for you to call their law degree an “affirmative action law degree”?
He called me a denier. Name calling begets name calling. Write that down.
Can you or anyone else rScientific justification and value there is in calling people ‘deniers’ when they do not actually do any such thing. Should be easy to do have you claim your claims are backed by science.
I approve of the use of the term “high yellow” even less than I approve of the term “denier,” but evidence that he is an affirmative action president is everywhere, from his complete lack of accomplishments before running for president, to his lack of writing as a “legal scholar.”
Had he been a white state senator from Illinois, there is no way he would rise to president within a couple of years of leaving that job.
WEB,
As a kid my mom would ask us if we would jump off a bridge if our friends did so, whenever we used your tactic of pointing to someone else’s action as justification for our own.
Apparently you are way too smart to listen to your mother.
David, thanks so much for educating me; I couldn’t possibly have followed your thought process without your assistance. I’ll write that down; in fact, maybe I’ll nominate you for the “Climate Skepticism Communicator of the Year” award. Informally, we could call it the “No Bridge Too Far” prize.
I do know this:
http://www.climetrix.com/weathermarket/marketoverview/default.asp
Hayward’s buddies at the Powerline blog provided legal counsel to Koch in lawsuits regarding Weather Derivatives activities.
http://www.faegrebd.com/7091
Follow the money and you understand the agendas of people like Rob Bradley (CYA) and Stephen Hayward (cover for his buddies).
Conspiracy Scenarios Aft Sound Tagly—-CSALT.
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Can’t Scientifically Address, Lob Turds
Can’t Scientifically Address, Lob Turds
So the Rothschilds are not to be subjected to conspiracy theories but the Koch brothers are? You laughingly pointed out the Rothschild conspiracy nonsense and then wip up one of your own. Shouldn’t you follow ALL the money. What about Bill Gates giving more to Best than Koch? What about Gates and Buffett being heavily invested in Monsanto? I suppose Monsanto provided pcbs in the ocean and GMO crop readying for roundup doesn’t bother you as it’s not in the climate apocalypse meme. Shouldn’t you take a good hard look at how Al Gore has profited from all his global warming promotion?
The Koch brothers are Catholics, but are of Jewish descent and so attract the David Duke crowd with the typical conspiratorial antisemitic memes.
Forgot the threading was broken.
http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/15/on-the-ar4s-projected-2cdecade-temperature-increase/#comment-598102
Yes.
Gates is invested in Monsanto because he cares about the very poor of this world.
Obama: “The climate change deniers suggest there’s still a debate over the science. There is not.”
By an Executive Order, I guess. There is a nice German saying Maul halten und weiter dienen (shut up and march on). Fortunately, we are not German yet.
When exactly did your so-simple-model predict the “pause”? How long before it started?
CG, another old favorite is ‘Take two salt tablets, and drive on’.
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It is impressive to me when an expert says “there are many theories, but we don’t know”. Many years ago this happened at Georgia Tech; I was taking a one week engineering course and asked the professor about waveguide physics. Answers like that can be trusted, but when people have all the answers the BS antenna goes up.
Yes, any advanced course on EM theory will discuss the quasi-static approximation in calculating fields.
http://web.mit.edu/6.013_book/www/chapter3/3.3.html
But what is exactly your point?
That certain aspects of physics are difficult?
.
The design of waveguides had been established; using established equations that worked. However, the relationship between the wavelength and apertures did not make sense to me; I thought I was missing something. The professor might have told me his theory and nothing more, but he did what all scientists should do, admit the truth when the science is not settled.
The equations relating wavelength to aperture can be compared, geometrically, to a train entering a tunnel. However, using that comparison, they require us to believe that the size of the tunnel opening is related to the length of the cars. I learned that, at the time, regarding that relationship, the science was not settled.
0.1°C, 0.2°, 0.3°… per decade, the next 2 decades, per 30 years… it all amounts to nothing more than government playing roulette with the value of your savings and the future productivity of the economy.
Curious George asks:
“When exactly did your so-simple-model predict the “pause”? How long before it started?”
It didn’t and couldn’t. He refused to make a prediction of that length. No ballz.
If you think invoking the dread pirates Koch does anything to enhance your credibility, you are deaf to those you claim to be trying to convince.
Webby, rather than spout your Warmunist conspiracy theories, why not answer the simple challenge that so offended you a few threads ago (if I recall correctly, a snide of yours on my SLR Tipping Points post). You said your CSALT model could predict ENSO. I replied that’s great, what is your prediction for 12/2014, as we seem to be developing an ENSO? That way, in January 2015 we can compare your model to reality and see how it does.
You were offended and left in a huff. My request is still there.
In my ‘Koch world’ vicious business vernacular where if you aren’t ‘right’ you are bankrupt or unemployed, please now put up or shut up. Pretty please.
Rud
I have been hoping for some months that webby would give csalt an outing on climate etc by way of an article so we can see for ourselves its likely effectiveness.
Tonyb
Rud
Posted a reply to your comment in the wrong place
http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/15/on-the-ar4s-projected-2cdecade-temperature-increase/#comment-598492
Tonyb
Drought severity has increased over the last century.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/DroughtDai2004_zps2f59188e.png.html
This is associated with the trend to El Nino over the century and has implications for surface (@2m)temperature records by raising land surface temperature. There is less energy loss from the surface by evaporation more by radiation.
So if we choose an uncluttered record.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1970/plot/rss/from:1979/to:1997/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/trend
The warming between the 1976/1977 and 1998/2001 climates shifts was minimal. And if we believe this below – most of that was cloud changes.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/WongFig2-1_zps2df93e8b.jpg.html?sort=3&o=186
There was a step change in tropospheric temperature following the 1998/2001 climate shift. The change in instruments is a problem – but it seems associated with a decline in IR loss as you would expect from higher cloud coverage.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=158
But it is also associated with lower SW inputs leading to declining temps as the planet cools.
Multi-decadal variability in the Pacific is defined as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (e.g. Folland et al, 2002, Meinke et al, 2005, Parker et al, 2007, Power et al, 1999) – a proliferation of oscillations it seems. The latest Pacific Ocean climate shift in 1998/2001 is linked to increased flow in the north (Di Lorenzo et al, 2008) and the south (Roemmich et al, 2007, Qiu, Bo et al 2006) Pacific Ocean gyres. Roemmichet al, 2007, suggest that mid-latitude gyres in all of the oceans are influenced by decadal variability in the Southern and Northern Annular Modes (SAM and NAM respectively) as wind driven currents in baroclinic oceans (Sverdrup, 1947).
There is a growing literature on the potential for stratospheric influences on climate (e.g. Matthes et al 2006, Gray et al 2010, Lockwood et al 2010, Schaife et al 2012) due to warming of stratospheric ozone by solar UV emissions. Models incorporating stratospheric layers – despite differing greatly in their formulation of fundamental processes such as atmosphere-ocean coupling, clouds or gravity wave drag – show consistent responses in the troposphere. Top down modulation of SAM and NAM by solar UV has the potential to explain otherwise little understood variability at decadal to much longer scales in ENSO.
We shouldn’t expect a another shift before 2020 – even then there seems little to suggest that it will be to warmer again. While the Sun is cooling – both in the Schwabe cycle and longer term – amplification through top down modulation of the polar annular modes seems more fundamental to climate than changes in irradiance in longer wavelengths.
It seems overwhelmingly likely that the tropospheric temperature trend post 2001 will continue for potentially decades yet.
> In my ‘Koch world’ vicious business vernacular where if you aren’t ‘right’ you are bankrupt or unemployed […]
It may be the converse, Sir.
There may be more persons that aren’t “right” than people who are bankrupt or unemployed. Just take your favorite Kenyan, who’s supposed to be wrong on so many things.
Rud
I think I Heard them from Web. Yes I did for sure. Unmistakably Crickets.
Agree with DVA, Title does not match quote.
There were many periods in the 1980s and 1990s where the 10-yr change was well above 0.2 C.
To what should we attribute those?
Were people like Hayward complaining that the models were wrong because they _underpredicted_ warming? I bet not….
So you are comparing annual rates to decadal rates?
I am assuming this because you didn’t actually give the length of any of these periods which exceeded .2c per decade. And you yourself have said that people don’t leave out those kind of details without intent to deceive.
TJA: The length of these periods is…10 years.
Sorry about the misunderstandin. What I remember was not, “well look, this is a hot decade, it will probably be balanced out by a cooler one.” No, I heard “It is worse than we thought!” every time.
Stuff like this: http://www.newscientist.com/special/worse-climate
Just google Climate Change is worse than we thought and you will find no end of such claims.
Well the whole point I am making with this is that natural variability is a lot more important than the AR4 thought, and the natural variability works both ways (warming and cooling).
People really noticed the models were ‘wrong’ when they kept predicting a warming of ~ 0.2C through the period when we have had a hiatus in warming.
Natural variability does indeed “work both ways”, if the metric to be used is the rather poor proxy of tropospheric surface temperature since those surface temperatures are strongly dictated by ENSO dynamics over short and even medium term time frames. Natural variability works less well as an explanation if one chooses to use a more broad based energy system model, incorporating all the components of the climate system. From an energy system perspective, the hiatus did not exist, or was extremely muted. The system continued to accumulate energy. Natural variability will not force the system into a different energy state– only an external forcing can do this. Unfortunately, we no longer have the data to know what “natural” (non-anthropogenic) internal variability is currently doing since the human influence on all climate systems is so intertwined. Ironically, even the “hiatus” itself, just like the growth of sea ice in Antarctica, might have GH gas increase related factors. Such plausible, but non-intuitive dynamics, further complicate the understanding of true climate sensitivity, and can only be truly understood by stepping away from a myopic tropospheric sensible heat perspective and looking at all forms of energy in the system and overall long-term trends in that energy.
Apart from the gradual and limited extent of the multi-decadal Stadium Wave, the biggest natural variability factor comes about from ENSO.
ENSO is a behavior that has reversion-to-the-mean characteristics. It can thus be characterized as anything between a red-noise process and a more fully deterministic quasi-periodic behavior. For the latter, it is a simple matter to set up a model that features a periodic forcing acting on a nonlinear sloshing dynamic:
http://contextearth.com/2014/05/27/the-soim-differential-equation/
The agreement between this model and ENSO data is hard to refute, and it provides a strong bounding condition to the impact that Pacific Ocean natural variability has on the secular trend.
Sometimes one has to reduce the inherent complexity to simple physics and things become a lot clearer and cleaner.
“Sometimes one has to reduce the inherent complexity to simple physics and things become a lot clearer and cleaner.”
There you go again, assigning grandiose scientific credability to your in progress, not validated, blog model, CSALT. Maybe we should just declare your model correct by vote, or better yet,, acclamation!
WebHubTelescope: Apart from the gradual and limited extent of the multi-decadal Stadium Wave, the biggest natural variability factor comes about from ENSO.
If true, that supports Prof Curry’s claim that AR4 under appreciated natural variability. The “hiatus” in surface level warming came as a total surprise, and a discredit to the models that missed it.
“The “hiatus” in surface level warming came as a total surprise, and a discredit to the models that missed it.”
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How can something that is unpredictable by its very nature as a chaotic princess be a discredit to models? Yes, the models are always going to wrong, but you extrapolate the meaning of “wrong” into being a discredit. The model makers themselves will admit to their models being “wrong” in the sense that they will not be able to predict natural variability in a chaotic system, but this is not a “discredit” to them. You, and many others, seem to fail to grasp the usefulness of models is not in their ability to predict the exact path of climate evolution, but in capturing dynamics and connections impossible to see without them.
Chaotic “princess” …. Pretty funny autofill!
A surprise to whom?
A model as simple as my CSALT analysis is able to explain the pause with ease:
http://contextearth.com/2014/01/11/the-cause-of-the-pause-is-due-to-thermodynamic-laws/
I am really having trouble understanding why natural variability is surprising. Everything concerning the variations in global temperature is starting to get pinned down with incredible determinism.
About the only factor left to unpredictable randomness are the transient effects of volcanic eruptions. Even ENSO is beginning to become well understood and straightforwardly characterized.
http://contextearth.com/2014/05/27/the-soim-differential-equation/
You must be way behind in your understanding. Do yourself a favor and catch up instead of trying to pass off your misunderstanding as FUD to the poor gullible “skeptics” out there.
Claiming it’s because they did not think natural variability was/is important is just plain nuts.
“JCH | June 15, 2014 at 2:01 pm |
Claiming it’s because they did not think natural variability was/is important is just plain nuts.”
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Maybe not “nuts” but conveniently simplifying and misrepresenting what models are built to do and able to do. A model can be 100% wrong about specifics and 100% right about dynamics. Why some fail to grasp this essential point about modeling deterministic chaotic systems is quite interesting.
“…Apart from the gradual and limited extent of the multi-decadal Stadium Wave…,
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The existence of this is yet to be proven, and it may simply be an epiphenomenon. Even if it does exist, it’s modulation by the HCV would be a good subject for intense research.
“A model can be 100% wrong about specifics and 100% right about dynamics.”
In fact, the models could get everything from clouds, water vapor, solar, ocean currents, convection, albedo and every other individual physical aspect of climate correct, and still be incapable of predicting future temperatures with sufficient accuracy to justify major policy decisions. Because even leaving out unknown unknowns, their interaction is so chaotic and complex that they perhaps just can’t be modeled as a whole.
Just don’t let the stupid voters know that.
“In fact, the models could get everything from clouds, water vapor, solar, ocean currents, convection, albedo and every other individual physical aspect of climate correct, and still be incapable of predicting future temperatures with sufficient accuracy to justify major policy decisions.”
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A false extrapolation. If the models are correct over multidecadal timeframes and longer in terms of impacts on various parts of the climate system, or if there is even a reasonable probability that they are correct over these longer time frames than some response via major policy decisions is warranted.
“If the models are correct over multidecadal timeframes and longer in terms of impacts on various parts of the climate system, or if there is even a reasonable probability that they are correct over these longer time frames….”
Yeah,except that has never happened. What has happened is that they have been demonstrably,and increasingly wrong on their primary selling point for policy, predicting temperature.
If and when the models are ever “correct” on temps over “multi-decadal time frames, get back to us.” But forget your “realistic probability.” Get it right (which I don’t think they can) or stay in your labs and leave the policy to the grown ups.
WUTTY sez:
“A surprise to whom?
A model as simple as my CSALT analysis is able to explain the pause with ease”
No cheezeburger, thanks.
Professor Curry previously asked you for a prediction and you couldn’t give one that length of time ahead. You lose.
R. Gates: How can something that is unpredictable by its very nature as a chaotic princess be a discredit to models?
I like the chaotic princess!
The answer to your question is that the model predictions were purported to be accurate. Had the modelers announced in advance there was a good chance the mean would diverge as much as it has since the model results were promoted, no one would have used them as a basis of policy.
WebHubTelescope: A surprise to whom?
A model as simple as my CSALT analysis is able to explain the pause with ease:
Well sure, but your model arrived after the hiatus was well underway. The hiatus came as a surprise to the writers of the IPCC AR4, and to academics, editorial writers, and politicians, who assured us that the model “expectations”, “forecasts”, “projections” etc were accurate.
Speaking of afters, I expect that along about next Feb you’ll show us how your model predicted everything important through January.
Matt, one thing WHT is on the record saying is if there not a large El Niño this year it will be the single largest failure of science known to mankind… Or something to that effect. I only wish I had the link. So that may be the closest to a prediction from WHT to expect.
I only started working on climate science a few years ago so you can’t blame me with that fallacious argument.
But J Carpenter is right in that I have said that if the basic AGW theory predicting a TCR of 2C and ECS of 3C is wrong, it will go down in history as the most widespread scientific blunder of all time. Yet because the evidence is so comprehensive and because so much manpower and money has been invested in the effort, I really doubt that the basic theory will fall apart.
It only works because CO2 forcing over a short period is small and most of the variability is caused by ENSO. Something that was recognized well before the ascension of webby.
It will diverge because he has got the parameters wrong. That’s why he won’t show this.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/LeanandRind20102_zpsa090fb72.png.html?sort=3&o=83
webby’s cartoon science is not competent and not interesting in the least.
The US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) defined abrupt climate change as a new climate paradigm as long ago as 2002. A paradigm in the scientific sense is a theory that explains observations. A new science paradigm is one that better explains data – in this case climate data – than the old theory. The new theory says that climate change occurs as discrete jumps in the system. Climate is more like a kaleidoscope – shake it up and a new pattern emerges – than a control knob with a linear gain.
This idea is the most modern – and powerful – in climate science and has profound implications for the evolution of climate this century and beyond. A mechanical analogy might set the scene.
Science has got it right – at least in essence. It’s just not the cartoon science webby understands.
Skippy Mouse said:
“Climate is more like a kaleidoscope – shake it up and a new pattern emerges – than a control knob with a linear gain.”
—-
No one stated the control knob was linear, and in fact some n-degree polynomial model is closest, with unpredictable jumps quite likely.
Rgates blathers:
Tropospheric surface temperature is the metric upon which you Climate Cultists chose to base your religion, and it is the tenet upon which you have been proselytizing the weaker members of our society and upon which you have been theocratizing our state for three decades.
Now you find yourself in the midst of a decidedly Milleresque Great Disappointment, and you do what all the whacky little sects do when they get caught with their prophesies down – change the story.
If history is any guide, you’ll be better off keeping the Second Coming of the warming as a perennial promise, rather than pulling White’s tactic of claiming that it really happened already – just as predicted, only invisibly. Its really the only way to maintain a flock large enough to fleece profitably.
dT = lamba dF
You’re really quite an underperforming camera jockey aren’t you gatesy?
WebHubTelescope: I only started working on climate science a few years ago so you can’t blame me with that fallacious argument.
It’s not a “blame”, it’s a simple reminder that your model came after the onset of the “hiatus”. Whether you personally were “surprised” by the “hiatus” can not be established on the record provided to date.
I note the way RGates claims: “if the metric to be used is the rather poor proxy of tropospheric surface temperature” to go off on one of his flappy trolling runs.
If the metric is so bad, why was it used by all 5 IPCC reports without qualification? Once he can answer that, then maybe some credence will be given to anything else he says. Until then, he is just red noise.
The chaotic princess is a good time, but don’t tell her your real name.
“A model as simple as my CSALT analysis is able to explain the pause with ease:” – WebHubbleTelescope
Ha ha ha. Anybody taking this claim seriously should ask Webby a few questions about his CSALT model. You will then see it is nothing but a curve fit at this point, completely lacking in any kind of validation. Yet he seems to believe that it has some kind of scientific credibility despite its complete lack of a demonstration of any kind of predictive skill.
Web’s athletic pirouetting around prediction televises his faith in his model. Prediction is hard; the third rail of climate science.
=============
Gates “Natural variability works less well as an explanation if one chooses to use a more broad based energy system model, incorporating all the components of the climate system”.
So, Gates, by “incorporating all the components of the climate system” are you suggesting that you can effectively control for all the variables – known and unknown – plus all the complexities surrounding the interactions of “all the components”? If so, sounds like massive hubris to me.
I have always said that CSALT is more an explanatory model right now, and that is where its simplified nature shines. And of course I can back that up because I document all of the modeling steps and decisions on the blog.
Where I have stated it needs work is in the prediction of ENSO and its little cousin stadium wave. Making progress on ENSO which is independent to the CSALT model, so will be able to plug that in when it matures. Then the only real uncertainty in the natural realm is future volcanic activity.
Thanks for your continued interest, and as JHS was fond of saying, I love it when a plan comes together.
RG,
RE: “A model can be 100% wrong about specifics and 100% right about dynamics.”
The possibility that a model can be is not evidence that it is.
“I have always said that CSALT is more an explanatory model right now, and that is where its simplified nature shines.”
Well, until it is actually validated against out of sample data, i.e. predictions, its explanatory nature is suspect, at best.
If it does hold up over time, you will have accomplished something, that is for sure, but right now, it doesn’t explain anything.
Well it explains very well how TJA has got nada.
…. and don’t forget that there is no such thing as a controlled experiment because we only have one earth.
Well the whole point I am making with this is that natural variability is a lot more important than the AR4 thought, and the natural variability works both ways (warming and cooling).
OK, but that is a very different conclusion than Hayward’s contention that the models are wrong because they didn’t predict the pause. They also didn’t predict the anti-pause of the 1980s and 1990s. The models aren’t that good with short-term projections, but do show skill over longer periods where energy balance is key.
Hayward picked an interval that isn’t representative of climate, and then complained that climate models didn’t predict it.
“Hayward picked an interval that isn’t representative of climate”
It was to the IPCC. Too bad, eh, David?
David, I notice that you completely overlook the point that it is nearly two decades now since the pause began, and the claim was made that natural variability will be balanced out over two decades.
David Appell: Hayward picked an interval that isn’t representative of climate, and then complained that climate models didn’t predict it.
Not so. It was an interval of time specifically addressed by the IPCC writers.
WTF is wrong with you? The IPCC from what I understand is a review of the current research findings, written by a group of scientists trying to convey the results of the research.
Using the IPCC instead of the research itself is like using an encyclopedia instead of going to the original sources. I got over using the encyclopedia when I was in junior high.
The “pause” is a cause for for those ignorant of physical laws.
David, will you please point me to the predictions and results that show that models “show skill over longer periods where energy balance is key.”
For example, can you show me models from the 1980s that show skill over the period from then until now?
“Using the IPCC instead of the research itself is like using an encyclopedia instead of going to the original sources.”
Finally, something coherent from WHUT.
The “consensus”is not found in individual research papers. It is only found” in the IPCC processand those who parrot it.
Therefore, we can now count on WHUT never citing the ARs again,or any “consensus”on anything. Each individual subject must now actually be argued on its own merits.
Now THAT is progress.
We now know the models aren’t valid for time periods of less than 2 decades; the AR4, with its statement in the SPM clearly assumed that they were.
Can I get a three? Yes, I hear three. How about four? Anybody say four? I hear a four! Yes, anyone gonna bring me a five?
Whaddya mean ten? Is there no limit?
===========
WebHubTelescope: Using the IPCC instead of the research itself is like using an encyclopedia instead of going to the original sources.
OK, we agree that the IPCC AR4 prediction turned out wrong.
You need to alert policy makers, perhaps your congressional representatives, that the IPCC is wrong, or at least ignorable.
“curryja | June 15, 2014 at 3:00 pm |
We now know the models aren’t valid for time periods of less than 2 decades; the AR4, with its statement in the SPM clearly assumed that they were.”
—–
Please define “valid”. If we are to listen to those who design and work with these models, they are “wrong” right out of the gate if by “right” you mean they will parallel reality exactly. But if by valid, you mean they tell us something about the complex dynamics of the climate based on fundamental laws of physics, then they should not stop being valid after any length of time, unless the laws of physics change. To me, it will be a good test of the the modeling skills of scientists to see if they can include the longer term effects of increasing greenhouse gases on ENSO. If there is a possibility that the “hiatus” was created to some degree by increasing GH gases as some research has shown the last time CO2 was at this level (during the Pliocene) that La Niña (hiatus-like) conditions may have dominated. This is closely associated with increased Ekman transport and warming of the deeper ocean. This is counter-intuitive, especially for those who would like to suggest the hiatus was completely natural variability. See:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/307/5717/1948.short
This all goes back to the better approach of not basing climate sensitivity purely on the proxy tropospheric sensible heat but looking at the full climate system. Can the science and models evolve to a full energy system perspective?
This seems typical of Randy’s cartoon science. Pick an abstract and construct a narrative around it. The lack of any relevant training or experience shows.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v471/n7337/full/nature09777.html
Skippy Ellison Mouse,
Did you mean to score an “own goal”? Perhaps in honor of the World Cup? I link to an article indicating a potential La Niña state the last time CO2 was at 400ppm (the Pliocene) and you follow up with an article indicating it sure was not an El Niño state, reinforcing my initial article.
Thank you Mr. Ellison mouse. GOAL!
The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system during the Pliocene warm period (PWP; 3–5 million years ago) may have existed in a permanent El Niño state with a sharply reduced zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradient in the equatorial Pacific Ocean1. This suggests that during the PWP, when global mean temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were similar to those projected for near-term climate change2, ENSO variability—and related global climate teleconnections—could have been radically different from that today. Yet, owing to a lack of observational evidence on seasonal and interannual SST variability from crucial low-latitude sites, this fundamental climate characteristic of the PWP remains controversial1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Here we show that permanent El Niño conditions did not exist during the PWP. Our spectral analysis of the δ18O SST and salinity proxy, extracted from two 35-year, monthly resolved PWP Porites corals in the Philippines, reveals variability that is similar to present ENSO variation.
So not permanent El Nino but late Holocene typical? This is not the permanent La Nina that Randy’s strings a narrative around. If anything it suggests that carbon dioxide has no effect on ENSO.
Randy’s cartoon science and twee triumphalism – after the style (?) of webby – seems more a symptom of something that you would step over in the street with distaste – were it not paraded proudly about in polite company.
R. Gates: Please define “valid”. If we are to listen to those who design and work with these models, they are “wrong” right out of the gate if by “right” you mean they will parallel reality exactly. But if by valid, you mean they tell us something about the complex dynamics of the climate based on fundamental laws of physics, then they should not stop being valid after any length of time, unless the laws of physics change.
Good point. No one to date, other than my writings here, has attempted to formulate in advance any criteria for judging when a climate “expectation” can be considered “validated” or “calibrated”. That I know of. If such criteria have in fact been published prior to a model being declared good, I am open to reading them. I have not found them, but the literature is vast.
Hayward picked an interval that isn’t representative of climate…
I’d say it was representative of climate as was the roughly 1942 to 1977 cooling period. If the PDO remains true to past form and the climate/PDO relationship remains true to past form, we’ll keep having hiatuses.
‘Atmospheric and oceanic computational simulation models often successfully depict chaotic space–time patterns, flow phenomena, dynamical balances, and equilibrium distributions that mimic nature. This success is accomplished through necessary but nonunique choices for discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupled contributing processes that introduce structural instability into the model. Therefore, we should expect a degree of irreducible imprecision in quantitative correspondences with nature, even with plausibly formulated models and careful calibration (tuning) to several empirical measures. Where precision is an issue (e.g., in a climate forecast), only simulation ensembles made across systematically designed model families allow an estimate of the level of relevant irreducible imprecision…
More famously, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report (21) shows the spread among climate models for global warming predictions. One of its results is an ensemble-mean prediction of ≈3°C increase in global mean surface temperature for doubled atmospheric CO2 concentration with an ensemble spread of ≈50% on either side. The predicted value for the climate sensitivity and its intermodel spread have remained remarkably stable throughout the modern assessment era from the National Research Counsel (NRC) in 1979 (22) to the anticipated results in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (foreshadowed, e.g., in ref. 3) despite diligent tuning and after great research effort and progress in many aspects of simulation plausibility. An even broader distribution function for the increase in mean surface air temperature is the solution ensemble for a standard atmospheric climate model produced by Internet-shared computations (23), but there is a question about how carefully the former ensemble members were selected for their plausibility.
In each of these model–ensemble comparison studies, there are important but difficult questions: How well selected are the models for their plausibility? How much of the ensemble spread is reducible by further model improvements? How well can the spread can be explained by analysis of model differences? How much is irreducible imprecision in an AOS?
Simplistically, despite the opportunistic assemblage of the various AOS model ensembles, we can view the spreads in their results as upper bounds on their irreducible imprecision. Optimistically, we might think this upper bound is a substantial overestimate because AOS models are evolving and improving. Pessimistically, we can worry that the ensembles contain insufficient samples of possible plausible models, so the spreads may underestimate the true level of irreducible imprecision (cf., ref. 23). Realistically, we do not yet know how to make this assessment with confidence….
AOS models are therefore to be judged by their degree of plausibility, not whether they are correct or best. This perspective extends to the component discrete algorithms, parameterizations, and coupling breadth: There are better or worse choices (some seemingly satisfactory for their purpose or others needing repair) but not correct or best ones. The bases for judging are a priori formulation, representing the relevant natural processes and choosing the discrete algorithms, and a posteriori solution behavior. Plausibility criteria are qualitative and loosely quantitative, because there are many relevant measures of plausibility that cannot all be specified or fit precisely. Results that are clearly discrepant with measurements or between different models provide a valid basis for model rejection or modification, but moderate levels of mismatch or misfit usually cannot disqualify a model. Often, a particular misfit can be tuned away by adjusting some model parameter, but this should not be viewed as certification of model correctness…
Sensitive dependence and structural instability are humbling twin properties for chaotic dynamical systems, indicating limits about which kinds of questions are theoretically answerable. They echo other famous limitations on scientist’s expectations, namely the undecidability of some propositions within axiomatic mathematical systems (Gödel’s theorem) and the uncomputability of some algorithms due to excessive size of the calculation.’
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/21/8709.long
It is typically a cartoon debate springing from a misunderstanding of how models work and what they can say.
I’d have to say that if they can’t reproduce climate shifts it’s pretty useless – and choosing a solution from many feasible solutions because it looks plausible is quite unsatisfactory in any rational perspective.
Good grief Appell, at least don’t embarrass yourself. Almost no replicate runs of any of the models matched the actual evolution of surface temperatures. Even considering the run-to-run variation among and between models, the models fail to match reality. Sure, making predictions is hard, but the models have failed miserably; only an idiot would look at their predictions over the past 20 years and believe that they are capable of making accurate predictions over the long term. Which is not a surprise, once you recognize that they are held together by a poorly defined mixture of arm waves, wishful green thinking, cloud parameterizations (paging Dr. Dessler), and aerosol kludges (and perhaps a bit of duct tape). The stupid models are almost certainly wrong about climate sensitivity, and that is what matters most if you are modeling Earth’s climate.
There is a good, sensible argument to be made about the need for public policy for long term energy supplies, and CO2 driven warming is part of that argument. The climate models are a distraction, and not part of any reasonable argument; they should be ignored.
Mouse Skippy,
It’s tough when you score an own goal. You have to quickly try to rationalize and finger point and try and create some illusion to hide the fact that you simply shot and scored in your on goal. The potential that higher GH gas levels might actually create the conditions favorable to a more permanent La Niña state is an intriguing possibility, supported by some research. But I understand that an embarrassed own-goal scoring mouse must wave his little mouse arms and thus has no energy left for science.
Randy has added admirably to the topic. I’ll just repeat myself. Do let me know if he adds anything sensible to the discourse – ever. That would be a red letter day.
The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) system during the Pliocene warm period (PWP; 3–5 million years ago) may have existed in a permanent El Niño state with a sharply reduced zonal sea surface temperature (SST) gradient in the equatorial Pacific Ocean1. This suggests that during the PWP, when global mean temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were similar to those projected for near-term climate change2, ENSO variability—and related global climate teleconnections—could have been radically different from that today. Yet, owing to a lack of observational evidence on seasonal and interannual SST variability from crucial low-latitude sites, this fundamental climate characteristic of the PWP remains controversial1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Here we show that permanent El Niño conditions did not exist during the PWP. Our spectral analysis of the δ18O SST and salinity proxy, extracted from two 35-year, monthly resolved PWP Porites corals in the Philippines, reveals variability that is similar to present ENSO variation.
So not permanent El Nino but late Holocene typical? This is not the permanent La Nina that Randy’s strings a narrative around. If anything it suggests that carbon dioxide has no effect on ENSO.
Randy’s cartoon science and twee triumphalism – after the style (?) of webby – seems more a symptom of something that you would step over in the street with distaste – were it not paraded proudly about in polite company.
Kim, can I get a 10,000
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/self-similarity-of-temperature-graphs.html
R. Gates, it’s tough to continue reading when you use phrases like “own goal”.
Thanks to the link to Lubos, aaron. All of moshe’s punters should read it before weighting their coins.
================
David;
“The models aren’t that good with short-term projections, but do show skill over longer periods where energy balance is key.”
This is the circular argument that drives me crazy. It comes out is so many ways. The basis of the circularity is the assumption the models get the energy budget right.
The models get the energy balance right therefore the energy must be in the deep oceans.
The models get the energy balance right therefore we have committed warming.
The models get the energy balance right therefore we are just having a blip of natural variation pausing the increase in temperatures.
The models get the energy balance right therefore we have an independent validation of the current analysis of the CERES results.
The basis of my skepticism is my belief the models do not get the energy balance right. This belief is based on all of the uncertainties documented by the IPCC and my conviction there is a lot of confirmation bias in the literature. I strongly suspect future re-analysis of CERES data will support a wide range of energy balances once we post hoc decide what they should have been.
David Appell: The models aren’t that good with short-term projections, but do show skill over longer periods where energy balance is key.
Where has this skill in long-term forecasting ever been displayed?
Jan 1864 Feb 1878
1.296C over 14 years.
HADCRUT4
Other large increases:
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/hadcrut4-the-greatest-30-year-temperature-rises/
The largest rise ending anywhere remotely to 2014 was 1974 to 1998 and it was 11th on the list.
David Appell sez:
“Were people like Hayward complaining that the models were wrong because they _underpredicted_ warming? I bet not….”
I’m sure that David Appell can point to where Hayward said that.
Oh, it’s people LIKE Hayward.
Right, David Appell?
From thelast 5years of data we know that the models are underestimating by about .06C per decade.
“So, what happened between the SAR and AR4?”
What happened between the SAR and AR4 was a successful Kyoto conference on climate change which set the goals for decarbonization of the global economic system (though it was not advertised as such), and an impending conference in Copenhagen which would see implementation of those goals.
Progressive politicians throughout the west saw (incorrectly) the opportunity for control of the global energy economy was in their grasps. The AR4 was a sales pitch. Certainty and impending doom were the central themes.
The IPCC was created for a political purpose. The ARs are political documents. If you want to understand what is in them, particularly the SPMs, you have to take into account the politics. The hokey stick was the tail of the dog, being wagged by the politicians who ran/run the process.
“To what should we attribute those?”
To Nature?
Judith, thanks for the link to the Euarn Mearns piece published on Watts up with That. It was very interesting.
Looks like Steve Mosher got his butt kicked over there.
No, Steven Haywire is being roundly criticized for being ignorant about the science. It was his responsibility not to say something stupid such as the following:
Clouds are not water vapor, they are actually composed of liquid water droplets (cumulus and lower clouds) or frozen crystals (cirrus and high altitude clouds). I suppose this is described on page 1 of the book on clouds, eh?
Hayward is actually part of the group known as the Cloud Cult (not to be confused with the popular Minnesota band).
That is the best you’ve got then? So the models have the clouds figured out from first principles then, and are able to accurately project cloud cover? Even the IPCC, in there discussion of model uncertainties, concedes that this is a large uncertainty, or do you deny that too?
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-6-3-2.html
“Despite some advances in the understanding of the physical processes that control the cloud response to climate change and in the evaluation of some components of cloud feedbacks in current models, it is not yet possible to assess which of the model estimates of cloud feedback is the most reliable. However, progress has been made in the identification of the cloud types, the dynamical regimes and the regions of the globe responsible for the large spread of cloud feedback estimates among current models. This is likely to foster more specific observational analyses and model evaluations that will improve future assessments of climate change cloud feedbacks.”
I guess the IPCC are “Cloud Cultists.”
You know, the funny thing is that I am genuinely concerned about AGW. I just keep running into preposterous arguments from one side of the argument, the one that claims authority and to be the “realists.”
The other side is full of nuts too, but they don’t have the force of law behind them, nor do they insist on taking my freedoms.
Where does the liquid water that forms clouds come from, webby? Does water vapor have anything to do with cloud formation? Does water vapor feedback have anything to do with cloud formation? Isn’t that particular criticism of Hayward just diversionary nitpicking BS?
The Donald doesn’t seem to comprehend that science is about precision. You see, someone like David Young comes along and begins to harp about inaccuracies in numerical computations and gets everyone in a snit about scientific doomage. That nitpicking is apparently OK to the “skeptic”.
But when some doofus like Hayward comes along and says that clouds are water vapor (“in ordinary language”), then we are supposed to ignore him and give him a pass.
The hypocrisy continues to amaze.
Whatever you do, don’t acknowledge the obvious point Hayward was making. Keep working on the diversion.
WebHubTelescope: The Donald doesn’t seem to comprehend that science is about precision. You see, someone like David Young comes along and begins to harp about inaccuracies in numerical computations and gets everyone in a snit about scientific doomage. That nitpicking is apparently OK to the “skeptic”.
The issue is accuracy for the task in hand. The inaccuracies in the climate science model calulations show that they are a poor basis for policy decisions; the inaccuracies are larger than the estimated changes.
What Hayward wrote was that clouds are a part of the water vapor feedback, which is correct. He did not write that “clouds are water vapor”.
“He did not write that “clouds are water vapor”.”
What difference would that make to Web?
Hayward probably never understood that we are certain that water vapor provides a moderate positive GHG feedback with respect to CO2 increases.
The role of clouds, when the water vapor condenses into droplets or ice crystals, is to either increase this positive feedback or to slightly compensate for this feedback. The current thinking is that clouds are still a positive feedback, due to their strong IR insulating properties at night and that clouds dissipate with sunshine. For the beginners, read this:
http://www.theweatherprediction.com/habyhints/184/
Yet even if they did compensate, the net will still be positive because of the fact that water vapor IS ALWAYS a precursor to clouds, so that the positive feedback is the overriding factor.
WebHubTelescope: Yet even if they did compensate, the net will still be positive because of the fact that water vapor IS ALWAYS a precursor to clouds, so that the positive feedback is the overriding factor.
The “ALWAYS” is unjustified.
One known unknown is the increase in the rate of non-radiative transport of latent heat to the upper troposphere, which may result in a net increase in the rate of radiative cooling from the upper atmosphere.
A second known unknown is the timing: morning increases in water vapor may produce increased cloudiness during the sunniest part of the subsequent day, which may result in a net reduction of insolation, hence a net cooling effect.
Equilibrium calculations always overlook the rates and the timing of processes, both of which are necessary for understanding and accurate forecasting of dynamic processes.
I’m wondering why WHUT, lo0lwot and other warmists here waste so much time lecturing skeptics and lukewarmers on this blog about the virtually certain net positive impact of clouds, thye fact that there is no “pause,” the CSALT model, the irrelevance of ENSO, etc.
No one here makes policy.
Wouldn’t it be a better use of their time to convince the IPCC, MET Office etc. that they don’t know what they are talking about?
I think I’ve never heard so loud
The quiet message in a cloud.
==============
“The Donald doesn’t seem to comprehend that science is about precision.”
Darwin had not got a clue about the units of information transmission between generations when he developed the Theory of Evolution; he didn’t know about proteins, DNA, RNA, genes, epigenetics or how cells worked. You don’t have to know the details to generate science.
The simple question, what happens to downward fluxes of IR has not been explored, let alone answered.
That’s EZ to answer GaryM.
I comment here because deniers have a propensity to score own goals when they are checking my work, making my job that much easier in the end.
You guys are much more likely to get energized to debunk what I have to say but it invariably backfires … and I benefit from that.
thanks for all the fish.
“I comment here because deniers have a propensity to score own goals when they are checking my work, making my job that much easier in the end.”
Or, Like Mann, you are oblivious to the inherent pitfalls of your approach.
And oblivious to your cognitive dissonance.
WEB,
Science is not just about precision. It is also about accuracy. The most precision measurement in the world doesn’t do you much good if it isn’t accurate.
WebHubTelescope: No, Steven Haywire is being roundly criticized for being ignorant about the science
You are wrong. Just as Prof Curry noted, Hayward was criticised for the claim that someone “expected” a 0.2C increase per decade. The extensive quotes here from IPCC AR4 show that Hayward was correct.
“The computer models are still too crude and limited, especially about the crucial question of water vapor “feedbacks” (clouds in ordinary language) “
Clouds are indeed a part of the “crucial question of water vapor “feedbacks” “. Nowhere did Hayward identify clouds as water vapor.
Marler, perhaps they should be looking at LAND warming and not SST warming.
Anybody that understands thermo can see that the ocean is a significant heat sink.
Way back when, and for whatever reason, “they” decided to average in the temperature of the sea surface along with the land surface, and thus modulate the effects of climate change downward. This transformed into having to issue definitions for TCR and for ECS to keep from people being hopefully confused about the topic. And then others tried to use the phrase “heat in the pipeline” to further unconfuse people as to what is happening.
Well, you can see where this is going and the ultimate outcome is to establish a permanent generation of low-information “skeptics” who mistake the explanations for a lack of understanding of PhD scientists, who only suffer from not being able to control the public’s misconceptions on what is actually happening.
Hansen understood this and wrote about this in his early 1980’s papers. Why aren’t U reading these papers?
WebHubTelescope: Marler, perhaps they should be looking at LAND warming and not SST warming.
Perhaps.
That ought to have been made clear when the IPCC AR4 expressed its expectations, projections, and model forecasts of 0.2C warming per decade. Starting now, following your advice, expectations, projections and forecasts can be “expected” to clarify explicitly which subsets of the weather summaries are being projected, expected, and forecast. That way we can avoid this post hoc cherry picking.
And clouds are a part of the crucial question of water vapor “feedbacks”, as Hayward wrote.
Science does not wait for documents that were made obsolete the minute that they were published. Science continues to move forward, and the current science says that any pause is a result of compensating effects provided by the natural environment, such as ENSO.
Get back to me when you have something to compare besides rhetorical opinions.
http://contextearth.com/2014/05/27/the-soim-differential-equation/
Yes, there’s surely been impressive global warming over land in recent years:
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1998/plot/crutem3vgl/from:1998/offset:0.12
Especially since 2001 …
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1970/mean:12/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1998/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1970/to:1998/trend
Extrapolate that blue line. That’s the 1970-1998 warming. Notice that recent temperatures if anything are above that line. That’s 1C warming since 1970 with no sign the warming has slowed down, let alone stopped.
WebHubTelescope: Science does not wait for documents that were made obsolete the minute that they were published.
Nevertheless, Hayward quoted the IPCC correclty; and the IPCC AR4 prediction turned out wrong. Maybe their most recent prediction will turn out right over the specified interval, but they don’t have successful prediction record so far.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1970/mean:12/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1998/plot/crutem4vgl/from:1970/to:1998/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1970/plot/none
Cartoon science from lolly? Spot the deliberate error.
you’ve plotted the wrong data set, deliberately?
lolwot, I doubt that Mickey saw you were replying to a previous post. The skeptics don’t read what each other say as a rule. Don’t assume they do.
Laughable cartoon nonsense from lolly. I plotted the latest land/ocean data from the Hadley centre.
Lolly plotted the land only – which is plagued by surface water availability artifacts. The land records are anachronistic for that reason. Better with monthly satellite data.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss
I got to land warming in webby’s comment and stopped there. It is typical cartoon clutching at straws. The 0.2 degrees C that didn’t show up was land and ocean. The land surface cools off by evaporation. When there is limited water availability the surface warms – but not the troposphere. The heat is simply carried higher in the atmosphere. You have fallen off the cliff and don’t recognize it. It is why you have lost the game and the plot.
Here – btw – is the evaporation artifact free tropospheric records.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss-land/plot/uah-land
Cartoon science flourishes where there the clueless abound.
“The land surface cools off by evaporation. When there is limited water availability the surface warms – but not the troposphere.”
—-
Muddled and mushy-headed thinking Mr. Mouse. You really need to define terms more clearly before making these kind of generalizations. Radiational cooling is a major way the land surface cools. When there is limited water available, as in the desert, it is almost all radiational cooling and convection, and every night when the sun goes down, the dry land surface cools down. There is no long term warming in the desert. It gets hot in the day and cold at night with all the radiational cooling.
‘A characteristic feature of global warming is the land–sea contrast, with stronger warming over land than over oceans. Recent studies find that this land–sea contrast also exists in equilibrium global change scenarios, and it is caused by differences in the availability of surface moisture over land and oceans.’ http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/2009JCLI2778.1
Evaporation conveys heat away from the surface. Where water is limited more of the heat is radiated and the surface is warmer.
Yet more incredible – not in the good sense – cartoonish science from Randy. It all occurs in the vacuum of his imagination – clinically bizarre behavior. Almost anything can appear to be a rational narrative and nothing is checked against science or data.
Cheef Skip MM scores another “own goal” with his quote:
‘A characteristic feature of global warming is the land–sea contrast, with stronger warming over land than over oceans. Recent studies find that this land–sea contrast also exists in equilibrium global change scenarios, and it is caused by differences in the availability of surface moisture over land and oceans.’
webby’s crazed gerbil cartoon science strikes again – just leave off the second sentence to the quote and it all makes sense to him.
BTW – It’s so long and thanks for all the fish. Humanity is no longer the third smartest species on the planet – webby is bringing the average down.
Chief Skip is Wold Cup class when it comes to scoring own goals.
Ellison, I think “cartoonish science” is about as bad as “own goal”. But I really like the links!
Why is water vapor feedback uncertain? Because of cloud responses. If it wasn’t for clouds, we’d be pretty certain of the water vapor response/feedback (outside of possible differences in evaporative response to differnent wavelengths).
When water vapor condenses a cloud is formed. The cloud reflects sunlight back into space where it warms nothing. That’s a feedback. From water vapor. Write that down.
The nonlinear relationship between TCR and equilibrium climate sensitivity shown in Figure 10.25a also indicates that on time scales well short of equilibrium, the model’s TCR is not particularly sensitive to the model’s climate sensitivity. The implication is that transient climate change is better constrained than the equilibrium climate sensitivity, that is, models with different sensitivity might still show good agreement for projections on decadal time scales. Therefore, in the absence of unusual solar or volcanic activity, climate change is well constrained for the coming few decades, because differences in some feedbacks will only become important on long time scales (see also Section 10.5.4.5) and because over the next few decades, about half of the projected warming would occur as a result of radiative forcing being held constant at year 2000 levels (constant composition commitment, see Section 10.7).
JC\, don’t forget the basis of the 2 to 3 decade projection expectation.
johnfpittman: The implication is that transient climate change is better constrained than the equilibrium climate sensitivity, that is, models with different sensitivity might still show good agreement for projections on decadal time scales.
the models do not differ as much, but are the models reasonably accurate even for TCS? So far, it doesn’t look like it. So the constraints are similar, as you note, but how much “better” are they?
It’s where the non-linearities and other magic happen in the feedback, and where turbulence and that chaos stuff enter.
==================
Yes. This comment and the one below are in support of Dr, Curry’s comment. They were so confident they stated that even if carbon emissions stopped, that temperature would increase almost 0.1c per decade anyway.
Don’t forget that AR5 adjusted their decadal forecast down from model projections. There was a reason they did that I think. It is probably because they realized the models were running too hot.
Exactly. They lowered the bottom bound of climate sensitivity. This is implicit acknowledgement of “The Pause.” Who are we supposed to believe, politically motivated blog commenters or the IPCC?
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/06/bauman_climate_1.html
Bryan Caplan, of econlog, has made a $1000 bet warming will be less than .05C over the next 15 years, based on no climate/weather knowledge.
The US EPA is trying to make a $100,000,000 bet that shutting down US coal-fired power plants will have a significant positive effect on public health, also based on no climate/weather knowledge.
Sorry. EPA making a $100,000,000,000 bet.
They already ‘know’ the answer.
Otherwise they wouldn’t do it, would they?
Acoording to NOAA, the temperature anomaly for 2008 (the first year after AR4 released) was .49C. The temperature anomaly for 2013 was .62C. That is an increase of .13C in 5 years or .26 per decade and this is during the “hiatus”.
There are some OCR errors in the SPM paragraphs. f,l,i,r&m’s are confused.
The 30-year trend uncertainty range of 0.05 C only applies to the model projections and scenarios where they would hold volcanoes and the sun fixed. They have stated this. Natural variability from volcanoes, or now more obviously, the sun, could easily increase the uncertainty, as it did for the other reports. I think a more realistic range is 0.15-0.25 C per decade, so the change for the decades centered on 1990 to 2020 would be 0.45-0.75 C. Our average rate since 1990 (or even since 1970) has been 0.16 C per decade, possibly staying at the lower limit recently because the sun has weakened.
“because the sun has weakened”
Heretic! For the last 15 years the suns output has been declared invariant and the warmista have poured scorn on the ‘It was the Sun wot dun it” .crowd. Now you peddle solar variation.
You have no shame
I don’t think I am the first to say that the sun has weakened. I am pretty sure AR5 would have mentioned it as a possibility at least given the long solar minimum that figured into the 2000’s decade. It is skeptics that have been slow to pick up on the sun because it spoils their agenda about the pause.
Jim D gets it wrong…again.
As Jonathan Overpeck insisted, they got their arm around that over a decade ago. Any warming since the last 100-150 years just couldn’t have been the sun.
Do you believe Jonathan Overpeck verbatim? Do you know he’s a warmist and presumably you are not? What else did he say that you believe?
Anyway, I was referring to the last decade. He wasn’t. We argued about this before. Do you not think that the extra-long solar minimum and weak maximum since then could have anything to do with the pause? Why not? AR5 indicates the forcing change may have been 0.05 W/m2 or as high as 0.1 W/m2. This type of change and its timing would at least contribute to the pause.
Doc
Good ol’ boy Jimmy D rotates goalposts faster than the tempo of the Bumblebee Suite
Jim D tries hard:
“Anyway, I was referring to the last decade. He wasn’t. We argued about this before. Do you not think that the extra-long solar minimum and weak maximum since then could have anything to do with the pause? Why not? AR5 indicates the forcing change may have been 0.05 W/m2 or as high as 0.1 W/m2. This type of change and its timing would at least contribute to the pause. ”
Last decade? Sorry, no dice, Jim D. You mentioned the 2000’s DECADE. Counting is not your subject. OK, but Jonathan was saying that in 2009. So, no dice, Jim D.
Jim D goes on:
“I don’t think I am the first to say that the sun has weakened. I am pretty sure AR5 would have mentioned it as a possibility at least given the long solar minimum that figured into the 2000′s decade. It is skeptics that have been slow to pick up on the sun because it spoils their agenda about the pause.”
Well did they or didn’t they? Who cares what you think they would have?
It seems Jim D is slow to catch up on facts.
I have been trying to get an answer from skeptics about whether they agree that the sun could have contributed significantly to the pause. So far, they are just running away from the question.
That’s because some of us have the integrity to admit we don’t know. But one day, we will.
I’ll help you out, jimmy dee. The pause that is killing the cause is because the sun is snoozing. We know this cause the sunspots that are right where the sun’s eyes would be are definitely closed a little bit to the drowsy side. Is that what you wanted, jimmy? Will you stop badgering us now?
The answer is no.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
Cartoon antics by jimbo rely on not looking at data.
It was Jonathan Overpeck who changed his tune…late… because the pause became too much of a hot potato.
The attention to the pause spoiled his agenda.
Do you get absolutely everything wrong, Jim D?
thisnotgood, yes, AR5 says a weakening corresponding to 0.05 W/m2, possibly up to 0.1 W/m2 (as you quoted from me before, but I apparently have to repeat it). Overpeck was referring to the last half century where the warming was not due to the sun, and I tend to agree. Why do you think the 2000’s was not the last decade. This decade is the 2010’s, so what do you think was the last decade?
So far the skeptics are just giving “don’t knows and denials” to the question about whether the sun could have contributed to the pause. Understandable given their circumstances. Any who admitted it would be jumped on by the others, and probably lose their D-club membership card too.
Jim D, I’ve already addressed your question previously…it could not have any effect if it did not previously have effect.
But since I didn’t buy that then, of course I don’t say it couldn’t.
It all depends on what you define s significant, doesn’t it?
Define away, Jim D.
“I have been trying to get an answer from skeptics about whether they agree that the sun could have contributed significantly to the pause. So far, they are just running away from the question.”
I think sun had something to do with LIA, and return 20th century difference in solar activity, ended LIA. One could say LIA ended in 1850 [most agree] but had the sun activity of LIA continued, LIA would not have clearly ended at 1850. So we had increasing solar activity in 20th century. At moment it appears the sun’s activity might be changing in coming decades, and it could affect global temperatures, but I would not say it caused the pause. I say instead it takes a long time to warm and cool the ocean. Or I would say if sun’s activity had not recently changed, we would still had the pause. Or I would say the 1988 El Nino has more to do with pause than anything else.
So for a century it’s the sun, for decades it’s the PDO, etc. And some warming from human related, including CO2 emission.
Jim D squirrels:
“thisnotgood, yes, AR5 says a weakening corresponding to 0.05 W/m2, possibly up to 0.1 W/m2 (as you quoted from me before, but I apparently have to repeat it). Overpeck was referring to the last half century where the warming was not due to the sun, and I tend to agree. Why do you think the 2000′s was not the last decade. This decade is the 2010′s, so what do you think was the last decade?”
No, Jim D, Overpeck was referring to the last 100-150 years. Listen harder.
And you said in your post “the last decade”, which I’d dare say means the last ten years.
“Anyway, I was referring to the last decade. He wasn’t.”
I have been trying to get an answer from skeptics about whether they agree that the sun could have contributed significantly to the pause.
There is little consensus between the astrophysics community in the amplitude of the suns behavior over medium time scales such as the evolution form the MM to now.
The recent solar minimum is not unusual being around the same as 1924/25,and around 0.340wm^-2 less then 1986(Frohlich).
‘Since irradiance variations are apparently minimal, changes in the Earth’s climate that seem to be associated with changes in the level of solar activity—the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice age for example—
would then seem to be due to terrestrial responses to more subtle changes in the Sun’s spectrum of radiative output. This leads naturally to a linkage with terrestrial reflectance, the second component of the net sunlight, as the carrier of the terrestrial amplification of the Sun’s varying output.’ http://bbso.njit.edu/Research/EarthShine/literature/Goode_Palle_2007_JASTP.pdf
0.1 W/m2 is quite irrelevant in the scheme of things – even if it were relevant in the current power output of the Sun.
It is the amplification of the solar effects through changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation that seem most significant.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zFD/an9090_TOTnet_toa.gifhttp://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zFD/an9090_TOTnet_toa.gif
Cartoon scientists like jimbo notwithstanding.
Judging from previous solar cycle effects, 0.05-0.1 W/m2 would be 0.05-0.1 C of cooling. This is significant compared to decadal trends of 0.1-0.2 C. It would significantly reduce a background warming if it occurred in a decade, possibly cutting the trend in half.
Jim D sez:
“thisnotgood, yes, AR5 says a weakening corresponding to 0.05 W/m2, possibly up to 0.1 W/m2 (as you quoted from me before, but I apparently have to repeat it).”
And I have to repeat, that you are slow to catch up on facts. First you didn’t know.
But since you now know, do you know when the reduction was in effect from according to Trenberth and seconded by Overpeck?
2004.
There goes your fictional decade, Jim D
You need to predict the suns future behavior,ie what is the amplitude of solar cycles 25, 26.? what is the difference in UV ? the latters knowledge being at present significantly limited by the temporal decay of instruments.
thisnot, if Overpeck said that he was opposing the TAR, AR4 and AR5. They all have positive solar effects, even if they are revised down for AR4 and AR5. I would go with AR5, but I suspect you misinterpreted Overpeck, because his context was about the last half century when the sun didn’t do anything, but a lot of warming occurred anyway. Prior to 1940, the sun appears to have strengthened from its 1910 minimum.
Trenberth
” notably carbon dioxide, create an energy imbalance at the top-of-atmosphere (TOA) even as the planet warms to adjust to this imbalance, which is estimated to be 0.5–1 W m−2 over the 2000s.”
“Carbon dioxide concentrations continue to increase (Figure 1) and along with them there is a steady increase in radiative forcing on the order of 0.3 W m−2 per decade [IPCC, 2007]. In the past decade, this rise is offset somewhat between 2005 and 2010 by reduced solar irradiance during a period of low sunspot activity on the order of 0.1 W m−2”
thisnotgood, I am not familiar with the Trenberth reference, but yes there was a solar reduction extending over the period since the last solar max around 2002, and I think we now agree. Finally. So what effect do you think this had on the pause?
–And some warming from human related, including CO2 emission.–
Wanted to add something.
What controls global climate is the ocean. The most significant factor related to ocean is sun activity.
I also suspect volcanic activity is making a more than minor affect upon the ocean and global climate.
So ocean controls the sky, rather than sky controls the ocean.
Where human live, the sky has more affect and we have been measuring the atmosphere.
One could say humans are more concerned [rightly] about the weather.
And in terms of weather, CO2 emission have more effect, more than CO2 effects the climate.
So though I think the effect of increasing levels of CO2, has not yet been actually measured [fingerprint found], it seems reasonable it has some effect upon the weather.
The lure of solar forcing
Gavin Schmit
“In summary, although solar forcing is real, the implications of that are often rather overstated. Since there has been a clear history of people fooling themselves about the importance of solar-climate links, any new studies in the field need to be considered very carefully before conclusions are drawn, especially with respect the warming over recent decades, which despite all of this discussion about solar activity, is almost all related to anthropogenic greenhouse gases”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-lure-of-solar-forcing/#sthash.6AUTBmVj.dpuf
The trouble with sunspots
by Gavin Schmidt and Michael Mann
“A new review paper by Foukal et al does a reasonable job summarising the mainstream opinion on the issue. In particular, they outline quite clearly why some ideas related to long term solar variability (such as solar disk radius changes, or the difference between cycling and non-cycling stars) have recently fallen out of favor”
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/09/the-trouble-with-sunspots/#sthash.s4OhiLMV.dpuf
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/07/the-lure-of-solar-forcing/#sthash.6AUTBmVj.dpuf
“Never do the authors describe how many records and how many different smoothing methods they went through before they found this one case where the significance is greater than 95%. Of course, if they went through more than 20, the chances of randomly stumbling onto this level of significance is quite high. ”
But this is not science, it’s voodoo and examining entrails.
While my 9:09pm post awaits moderation, I’ll post this. The sunspot cycle can be pulled out of the temperature record by filtering it with a 10-year triangular filter (80/40 month) and taking the derivative. The maxima line up with the rises to sunspot maxima.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/mean:80/mean:40/derivative/from:1900/plot/sidc-ssn/mean:80/mean:40/scale:0.00005/offset:-0.002/from:1900
Don Monfort | June 15, 2014 at 8:17 pm |
“I’ll help you out, jimmy dee. The pause that is killing the cause is because the sun is snoozing. We know this cause the sunspots that are right where the sun’s eyes would be are definitely closed a little bit to the drowsy side. Is that what you wanted, jimmy? Will you stop badgering us now?”
Very good. Got a good giggle out of that one.
Jim D sez
“thisnotgood, I am not familiar with the Trenberth reference”.
I know, Jim D. You are slow to the facts.
It’s from ‘An apparent hiatus in global warming?’
Kevin E. Trenberth* and John T. Fasullo 5 DEC 2013
“, but yes there was a solar reduction extending over the period since the last solar max around 2002, and I think we now agree.”
Not so fast with the not-facts, Jim D.
1/You said “the last decade”. It’s 2014 now. Then you said the first decade in the 2000’s.
2/You said stuff about a long cycle, but the low solar irradiance did not occur over the whole decade that you decided it would count for. Trenberth said “between 2005 and 2010”.
3/You appear to have made up a figure of which is 1:1 of forcing reduction to cooling
Trenberth says “Carbon dioxide concentrations continue to increase (Figure 1) and along with them there is a steady increase in radiative forcing on the order of 0.3 W m−2 per decade [IPCC, 2007]. In the past decade, this rise is offset somewhat between 2005 and 2010 by reduced solar irradiance during a period of low sunspot activity on the order of 0.1 W m−2
“Finally. So what effect do you think this had on the pause?”
Trenberth says it’s much smaller than you imagine, and it depends on what dates you ask about.
I think we’re over focused on UV and earth magnetic field. We should also be looking at SWIR. @jacurry
My computer is acting up, when I try to copy-paste my browser refreshes. I’ve tried to post this several times. I don’t thing it is a Climate Etc. issue.
thisnotgood, so you agree with Trenberth. That is a start. I would not disagree either. Yes, indeed, the sun is pausing, and so is the temperature. I never said it is all the sun, but it is a significant contribution, and not just a coincidence that these occurred in the same decades. The sensitivity to solar variation appears quite high because fluctuations in the 11 year cycle of 0.2 W/m2 lead to detectable 0.2 C temperature variations (Tung and Camp 2007) in the cycle. The other part might be the PDO, another natural variation skeptics are slow to invoke for the pause, because they don’t seem to like or even remember natural variation when it leads to cooling as appears to be happening with at least these two factors during the pause. See, to me that looks like some kind of one-sided bias. They prefer to say either that the models failed to predict the pause (in effect, these two factors), or that the whole CO2 thing must be wrong because that is the only way left to explain the pause to them.
The warming trend as increases between 1980 to 2000 and 1980 to 2010.33.
The pause cannot be 17 years old as the cause of it happened after 2010.33, and ended by the beginning of 2012. Prior to 2011, there was lots of surface warming.
And the La Nina events 2010.33 to 2012 are quickly being erased by ENSO neutral conditions that have been predominately La Nina leaning – negative ONI. ENSO conditions favorable to cooling instead saw aggressive warming.
Kiss it goodbye. The pause, not even 5-years old, is going PAWS up – an early death even in dog years.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/TSIcomposite_zps39ae24e4.png.html?sort=3&o=2
I thought there was a ‘consensus’ that solar effects were minimal? Does this mean I have to rethink the extended 20th century Gran Maxima? And the 21st century decline?
Cartoon science do I see –
nothin’ but cartoon science from now on.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/TSIreconstruction_zps3db52059.png.html?sort=3&o=1
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/TSIrecord_zps95f5e9cb.png.html?sort=3&o=0
http://judithcurry.com/2014/06/15/on-the-ar4s-projected-2cdecade-temperature-increase/#comment-598179
Asking whether the sun contributes to the pause is the flip side of asking whether the sun contributing to the warming. IIRC, the IPCC has a table where they discuss the forcing. Solar is very small.
If one assumes there are solar dynamics that are not captured in the IPCC view, then the answer is the same. If natural variability of the sun is contributing to the pause, then natural variability contributed to the warming.
Two key points emerge from Figure 10.28. For the projected short-term warming (i) there is more agreement among models and methods (narrow width of the PDFs) compared to later in the century (wider PDFs), and (ii) the warming is similar across different scenarios, compared to later in the century where the choice of scenario significantly affects the projections. These conclusions are consistent with the results obtained with SCMs (Section 10.5.3).
Additionally, projection uncertainties increase close to linearly with temperature in most studies. The different methods show relatively good agreement in the shape and width of the PDFs, but with some offsets due to different methodological choices. Only Stott et al. (2006b) account for variations in future natural forcing, and hence project a small probability of cooling over the next few decades not seen in the other PDFs. The results of Knutti et al. (2003) show wider PDFs for the end of the century because they sample uniformly in climate sensitivity (see Section 9.6.2 and Box 10.2). Resampling uniformly in observables (Frame et al., 2005) would bring their PDFs closer to the others. In sum, probabilistic estimates of uncertainties for the next few decades seem robust across a variety of models and methods, while results for the end of the century depend on the assumptions made.
The multi-model average warming for all radiative forcing agents held constant at year 2000 (reported earlier for several of the models by Meehl et al., 2005c), is about 0.6°C for the period 2090 to 2099 relative to the 1980 to 1999 reference period. This is roughly the magnitude of warming simulated in the 20th century. Applying the same uncertainty assessment as for the SRES scenarios in Fig. 10.29 (–40 to +60%), the likely uncertainty range is 0.3°C to 0.9°C. Hansen et al. (2005a) calculate the current energy imbalance of the Earth to be 0.85 W m–2, implying that the unrealised global warming is about 0.6°C without any further increase in radiative forcing. The committed warming trend values show a rate of warming averaged over the first two decades of the 21st century of about 0.1°C per decade, due mainly to the slow response of the oceans. About twice as much warming (0.2°C per decade) would be expected if emissions are within the range of the SRES scenarios.
10.7 discussion
Suppose, hypothetically speaking, that the Sun was causing the global average surface temperature (GAST) observations. And suppose further, just for the sake of argument, that CO2 flux, far in excess of man’s CO2 emissions into the atmosphere (about 90 GtC/yr vs. 6 GtC/yr: IPCC) increased by some mechanism with increased GAST. If we estimated both GAST for some interval and the log base 2 of atmospheric CO2 concentration, the ratio would look just like one of IPCC’s two or three well-defined Climate Sensitivities, e.g.:
>>Climate sensitivity: In IPCC reports, equilibrium climate sensitivity refers to the equilibrium change in the annual mean global surface temperature FOLLOWING a doubling of the atmospheric equivalent carbon dioxide concentration. … The climate sensitivity parameter (units: ºC (W m^-2)^-1) refers to the equilibrium change in the annual mean global surface temperature FOLLOWING a unit change in radiative forcing. Caps added, AR4, Glossary, p. 943.
In Modern Science (Bacon, 1620), science models the real world by causation and causality, that is by positing Cause & Effect relationships where a cause must precede its effects. IPCC’s definition honors those twin principles by having CO2 cause the temperature rise. But that is not happening in the hypothetical, not in peer-reviewed climate papers.
IPCC doesn’t follow the principles of Modern Science. It is obedient to the principles of Post Modern Science (Popper, ~1945 ± a decade) in which he managed to erase Cause & Effect, and with it, prediction and validation, replaced, in part, by the principles of Publish or Perish.
Hypothetically: The rise in CO2 concentration follows the rise in GAST, not the reverse. The ratio LOOKS just like climate sensitivity, but it is not. As defined, climate sensitivity is zero.
Mearns says,
“Comparing models with REALITY is severely hampered by the poor practice adopted by the IPCC … . … The variations in model output are consequently controlled by physical parameters like climate sensitivity … .“There is no good scientific reason for the IPCC not adopting today the correct approach … that the SENSITIVITY OF THE CLIMATE TO CO2 is likely much less than 1.5˚C … . … [T]“he IPCC view on climate sensitivity was a range from 1.5 to 4.5˚C. … The wool has been pulled over the eyes of policy makers, governments and the public to the extent of total brain washing.” Caps added.
IPCC has not shown, and cannot show, that its estimated GAST rise follows the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. It might claim that the current rise in GAST was caused by past rises in CO2, but that smacks of begging the question, assuming AGW as evidence of AGW.
IPCC has failed in two ways to show that the hypothetical null hypothesis is false. It estimates that solar variations are too small to account for the observed rise in GAST, but it neglects elementary reasoning from observations (the burn-off effect), backed by research before and after AR4, for the fact that clouds provide a strong, rapid, positive feedback to TSI. IPCC continues, modeling clouds parametrically, entirely omitting their dynamic response to GAST.
IPCC makes two more errors to miss the natural variations in atmospheric CO2 that swamp man’s emissions. First, it completely ignores Henry’s Law of Solubility, which shows that as GAST rises, the flux of CO2 from surface waters increases. Secondly, it models climate by a small signal model in which the natural fluxes are in a presumed balance circa 1850, hence all its observations must be due to man. It ignores the physics, and then zeroes the natural mechanisms. And its errors just compound from that point: e.g., equilibrium, chaos, acidification, long lived soluble gases, cloud slow, powerful negative feedback to GAST.
Mearns appeal is to a fiction, not reality. Fortunately, the toast fell jelly side down. The estimated faux ratio is too small even for IPCC’s Climate Sensitivity, and that is giving the Post Modern Scientists fits. Now we need to get this message into the heads of our politicians.
I keep thinking that this debate is premature. While it is adequately demonstrated to me that Hansen, Mann and the IPCC all over estimated surface temperature, it has only been 15+ years. It doesn’t seem to stop consensus speak as they just changed their talking points, as did Obama, to read; ‘temps of the last decade are all higher than previous decades.’ Well we have low end warming now.
I see two things now that could effect temperature going forward. El Nino could wip up some ocean heat and a solar minimum or weak solar cycles could depress temperature. Maybe there is more factors who knows?
Is climate science at the point that we can determine everything going forward by just a decade or two of results? Consensus determined that late 20th century heat was a result of CO2. This century, well not so much. In either case is this not very short periods of time? Couldn’t these occurances be anomolous? Our lives are short so 30, 60, 100 or 200 years is a long time to wait. Let the debate begin in 2030, I’ll be way to old or dead to care.
I know policy dictates that we have answers now, but really, how good is the science? I’m not being sarcastic it’s an honest question.
“I know policy dictates that we have answers now, but really, how good is the science? I’m not being sarcastic it’s an honest question.” As a former economic policy adviser, I sought a good basis for determining the merits of alternative policy options, including “do nothing.” I don’t think that the CAGW crowd have ever provided such a basis. As a policy-maker, I sought the best information. If there were doubts and uncertainties, I sought to clarify them, if not I advised on the basis that sufficient information was not available.
For example, in advising the Queensland, Australia, government on what stance to take on the Kyoto Protocol in (approx) 1997, I read a lot of scientific papers and summaries/digests covering about 200 papers. It was clear to me that the range of potential impacts was vast, and that knowledge about them was very limited. I directed economic modelling as to the potential impacts on the Queensland economy, which suggested that State GDP after ten years under the proposed GHG emissions policies would be around 3 -3.5 % less than on “business as usual.” I advised that, if the prospective negative impacts of CAGW were as claimed [and assuming, which I wouldn’t do now, that the proposed emissions reductions would avert them], then this impact could be considered a reasonable level of insurance. GDP would still be growing reasonable quickly on the data available.
However, I also made the point that the Kyoto reference period was 2008-2012, and argued that developments should be closely monitored, with the prospect of not taking pre-emptive action if, as more as done, the dire warnings proved overblown. From memory I advocated taking only no-regrets policies in the first instance (in general, I think that no-regrets policies are hard to find, though there were a few possible at that time).
So, no, policy does NOT dictate that we have answers now. If it were impossible to provide now answers which could clearly guide policy, then that is what policy-makers should be advised. In which case you would adopt those policies which allow you to deal best with the uncertain future, whatever befalls.
Of course, there will be politicians who want something more definitive than the evidence to hand supports. I would not give that to them, some would.
So the science is ambiguous at best?
Faustino,
That was the standard position form both sides of politics in the 1990s. However, Labor, which was in government in the early 1990s in Australia wasted stacks of money on ridiculous policies that were not no regrets. And they were strongly opposed to even considering nuclear power as an option. The LNP Coalition (conservatives) policies were much more rational,more pragmatic and more responsible, IMO.
I meant to add, we are much wiser now. We now have a handle on the costs of the proposed mitigation policies and also realise they have virtually no chance of making any difference to the climate.
A new report just out in Australia estimates the Renewable Energy Targets are abating negligible emissions and the average abatement cost is $125 per tonne CO2.
Prof Curry, this was a good post. In the text you quoted, there is no difference between “projected” and “expected”; the authors clearly intend to convey that the world will evolve nearly as described by the model summary.
This is a high leverage point for expert confabulation.
==============
Here’s how global temps evolved since 1998 against how they should’ve evolved with the natural (mostly) ENSO ‘noise’ just superimposed on the IPCC’s decadal ‘background CO2+feedbacks’ trend of the AR4:
http://i1172.photobucket.com/albums/r565/Keyell/IPCC-HadCRU_zps1bb15707.png
I’ve thrown in the NINO3.4 SSTa curve for good measure. Seems like all there is that (mainly) ENSO ‘noise’ and no ‘background trend’ on top of it at all …
Curious, don’t you think? But of course, this changes nothing. More CO2 in the atmosphere just HAVE TO warm the earth system, no matter what …! If we see its effects or not.
Where can I find forecasts of temperature changes in degrees per decade from the FAR, SAR, Tar, AR4 and AR5 ? It would be interesting to see how they have changed over the years.
Of course, the actual change in temperature from 1880-date (according to NCDC / GISS / HadCRUT4) is 0.65 / 0.65 / 0.63 degrees per century, including warming, cooling and pausing periods.
“The IPCC AR4 stands out, among the other four Reports, as providing a projection of 0.2C/per decade for the early 21st century, with a tiny uncertainty range. The projection is qualified only by the remark that 2 decades of averaging are needed to reduce internal variability in model response.”
The foregoing simple statement of fact seems to be difficult for some to accept. Presumably it is inconceivable to them that the IPCC SPM could be so clearly wrong on such a fundamental topic.
Technically, if we have 0.67C warming this year and stay at that level until 2020, the AR4 projection will be proven correct. Bet you there’s a real hot model out there somewhere to predict just that!
“Curse of the Hockey Stick”
What a great title for a paper!
Yip, the hockey stick is climate science’s year zero moment…
I do not understand how educated people, can trust in those IPCC projections. Any student from any university will notice their errors:
– models are based in invented values of climate sensitivity, climate feedbacks and of aerosol RF.
– models scenarios are only a linear relation between CO2 emissions and global surface temperature, with all that having no predictive capacity.
– timescales are used in the wrong way: best is to measure for 900 years and to predict the following 50 years (not the other way around).
more info in my “Refuting …”:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4r_7eooq1u2TWRnRVhwSnNLc0k/
I believe that people that support IPCC’s view do not have fully understanding about all what IPCC says.
Meanwhile, in Washington DC: US President Barack Obama has renewed his campaign to curb carbon emissions, saying the debate over climate change is over. … Mr Obama told a crowd of more than 30,000 at the University of California “Congress is full of folks who stubbornly and automatically reject the scientific evidence. They’ll tell you climate change is a hoax or a fraud. One says the world might actually be cooling.
“The climate change deniers suggest there’s still a debate over the science. There’s not. I’ve got to admit, thought, it’s pretty rare that you’ll encounter someone who says the problem you’re trying to solve doesn’t even exist.”
No debate, eh? This blog must be a figment of my imagination.
Obama went on to draw (far-fetched) parallels with Kennedy’s moon programme, saying “I don’t remember anyone saying the moon wasn’t real, or that it was made of cheese.” I’m sure that sceptics here will find that remark truly profound and paradigm-shifting.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/climate-debate-settled-obama/story-e6frg6so-1226955211003
Which another reason this years election is going to be interesting. He already jeopardized Democratic senate seats in Louisiana, North Dakota, and maybe Nebraska with the KXL punt. The new EPA proposed regs put more seats in play. Insulting half the electorate is going to sway independents on style points, just like the Obamacare fumbles already have. The increasing detachment from serious foreign policy issues while pandering to the extreme left is signaling that the Senate needs to go Republican. Then the CAA can be amended, KXL taken care of, and so on.
Faustino, president Barack Obama is not as stupid as I thought. His campaign for reducing carbon emissions is related to a shift in mining technologies: as the fracking technology allows energetic companies to get more gas than expected, there is no need for so much coal and there is room for that populist CO2 curb.
Initially, I thought that Obama was somehow ideology driven, but that might be not the case.
OK, let’s use HADCRUT4 to do the math of what it would take for the 1980-2000 average to be exceeded by 0.6 C in the 2010-2030 average. 1980-2010 averaged about 0.18 C, so it would take 0.78 to meet the IPCC target. Since 2010 the average has been just under 0.5 C, so let’s take that as the average of the first quarter 2010-2015, and if the last 15 years averaged 0.9 C, we would average 0.8 C, or if they averaged 0.8 C, we would average 0.725 C.
It seems to me, given that today we are at 0.6 and headed to an El Nino, 0.8 C could be easily met, but 0.9 would require an accelerated warming, so I can see between 0.72 and 0.8 C, a warming between 0.54 and 0.62 happening over 3 decades just from realistic trends that have been seen already.
(this is the kind of post where I would have expected an immediate response from manacker, who was a numbers guy too).
typo …1980-2000 averaged about 0.18 C…
By ~2020, we will know. Warmists need a lot of surface warming to look good. IMHO, they’ll get a lot of cooling.
on 0.2C/decade temperature increase
Could forthcoming el’Nino do it ?
How the SOI and multivariate ENSO translate into el’Nino, I wouldn’t like to say, due to lack of any in depth knowledge, but it seems to me that a high threshold of tectonic activity in the Central Pacific (bringing cool waters to the surface) corresponds to cooling and a low threshold to the warming period.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSOetc.htm
‘apparent’ correlation (except for 1952 – 1954) could be coincidental, but (inmo) unlikely. There is a ‘nominal’ delay of about 4 years, but could be less ( e.g. in 2003 it may have been just one year), depending on the where the strongest disturbances are along the almost 160 degrees of the longitudinal path.
The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t. The CERES data published in the August BAMS 09 supplement on 2008 shows there should be even more warming: but the data are surely wrong. Our observing system is inadequate.
That said there is a LOT of nonsense about the PDO. People like CPC are tracking PDO on a monthly basis but it is highly correlated with ENSO. Most of what they are seeing is the change in ENSO not real PDO. It surely isn’t decadal. The PDO is already reversing with the switch to El Nino. The PDO index became positive in September for first time since Sept 2007. Kevin Trenberth
The BAMS CERES data is actually interesting. The net – all in W/m2 – is trending up. Therefore warming.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/CERES-BAMS-2008-with-trend-lines1.gif.html?sort=3&o=215
As can quite clearly be seen – it is all in SW. That trend has since turned around. It surely is decadal as some of us picked a decade or more ago.
Real science from Anastasios Tsonis, of the Atmospheric Sciences Group at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, and colleagues suggests that it is indeed decadal. They used a mathematical network approach to analyse abrupt climate change on decadal timescales. Ocean and atmospheric indices – in this case the El Niño Southern Oscillation, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the North Atlantic Oscillation and the North Pacific Oscillation – can be thought of as chaotic oscillators that capture the major modes of climate variability. Tsonis and colleagues calculated the ‘distance’ between the indices. It was found that they would synchronise at certain times and then shift into a new state.
The network approach – the most modern of mathematical approach to climate – is based on the idea of the indices being chaotic oscillators on the underlying dynamic network. Analysing the connections between nodes is the underlying principle of the stadium wave. The system is without doubt globally interconnected.
Multi-decadal variability in the Pacific is defined as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (e.g. Folland et al, 2002, Meinke et al, 2005, Parker et al, 2007, Power et al, 1999) – a proliferation of oscillations it seems. The latest Pacific Ocean climate shift in 1998/2001 is linked to increased flow in the north (Di Lorenzo et al, 2008) and the south (Roemmich et al, 2007, Qiu, Bo et al 2006) Pacific Ocean gyres. Roemmichet al, 2007, suggest that mid-latitude gyres in all of the oceans are influenced by decadal variability in the Southern and Northern Annular Modes (SAM and NAM respectively) as wind driven currents in baroclinic oceans (Sverdrup, 1947).
There is a growing literature on the potential for stratospheric influences on climate (e.g. Matthes et al 2006, Gray et al 2010, Lockwood et al 2010, Schaife et al 2012) due to warming of stratospheric ozone by solar UV emissions. Models incorporating stratospheric layers – despite differing greatly in their formulation of fundamental processes such as atmosphere-ocean coupling, clouds or gravity wave drag – show consistent responses in the troposphere. Top down modulation of SAM and NAM by solar UV has the potential to explain otherwise little understood variability at decadal to much longer scales in ENSO.
It is all such cartoon science from the usual suspects. The hacking of climate emails – btw – is surely in the public interest.
Will this change anything for AGW? If science has the facts to prove this to be true.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10900228/Scientists-find-evidence-of-oceans-at-Earths-centre.html
Apparently ensemble average in climate science means taking all the models.
It’s different in physics.
“Possible future variations in natural forcings (e.g., a large volcanic eruption) could change those values somewhat.”
Volcanoes are becoming very handy. When they don’t want to talk about anything too far from the earth or too deep in the earth or ocean they always have those eruptions which might have occurred or possibly will occur. It’s not like climate science has to be all empirical and lineal and old-white-male like…I dunno…dentistry or whatever. It leaves plenty of room for flair and imagination. That’s why it’s so popular. (Mind you, there is a subsection somewhere about “other factors” – but they don’t specify or dwell on the dreary things, whatever they are.)
The IPCC have their Nobel, now recognise their creative flair with an Emmy. A Peace Emmy, maybe. Doesn’t have to be a real one.
mosomoso, those volcanoes are so handy that I keep one in my glove box.
Yes, I’m told you can fit anything into the glove box of a Morris Minor.
“The TAR reads more like propaganda” – JC
And that sounds ike nothing more than rhetoric.
“Some insights can be gained from earlier IPCC reports into how the AR4 became so confident of the 0.2C/decade warming in the early 21st century.” – JC
This is just wrong.
There are similiar cavets in AR4 to the quotes provided in the earlier reports – haven’t got time now, but I’ll post some excerpts later.
Go for it. I combed the AR4, there are no qualifiers anywhere that I could find regarding those projections.
There was a qualifier with “(e.g. a large volcanic eruption) could change those values somewhat”, in the quoted paragraphs. The e.g. they didn’t list is a solar lull, with the sunspots at the lowest level in a century in this cycle.
“The e.g. they didn’t list is a solar lull, with the sunspots at the lowest level in a century in this cycle.”
Jim D, There is a reason for that…. the energy from the sun is constant. The sun has been fully accounted for. Sunspots don’t mean anything. Doesn’t that sound familiar? Did you forget so soon? It’s funny how the sun has no impact on warming the climate, except when it impacts the warming that doesn’t happen.
Posted above, AR4 was so confident, they stated that if carbon emissions stopped, it would be expected that the temperature for the next 2 decades would be almost 0.1c/decade. Section 10.7
“Uncertainty in predictions of anthropogenic climate change arises at all stages of the modelling process described in Section 10.1. The specification of future emissions of greenhouse gases, aerosols and their precursors is uncertain (e.g., Nakićenović and Swart, 2000)…. At each step, uncertainty in the true signal of climate change is introduced both by errors in the representation of Earth system processes in models (e.g., Palmer et al., 2005) and by internal climate variability (e.g., Selten et al., 2004). ….. The effects of uncertainty in the knowledge of Earth system processes can be partially quantified by constructing ensembles of models that sample different parametrizations of these processes. However, some processes may be missing from the set of available models, and alternative parametrizations of other processes may share common systematic biases. Such limitations imply that distributions of future climate responses from ensemble simulations are themselves subject to uncertainty (Smith, 2002), and would be wider were uncertainty due to structural model errors accounted for. …… In this case, the choice of observations and their associated errors introduce further sources of uncertainty.” – AR4.
The 0.2C/decade projection specifically references the SRES Scenarios, which says;
“Future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the product of very complex dynamic systems, determined by driving forces such as demographic development, socio-economic development, and technological change. Their future evolution is highly uncertain…”
“the possibility that any single emissions path will occur as described in scenarios is highly uncertain”
The only uncertainty AR4 gives in terms of its projections is emissions uncertainty. Vaguely mentioning model inadequacies doesn’t really help here.
Judith,
You can’t have it both ways; claiming there are no qualifiers regarding projections, and then handwave away as ‘vague’ the rather easily found and significant qualifiers
These particular ‘qualifiers’ were not in any kind of proximity to the text in the SPM or the main chapter where the projections were discussed.
Dr. Curry is correct as far as I can tell, if she means a number, or a methodology fo computing that number. Somewhere in AR4 is a poorly defined max natural variation for then to 2030.
Dr. C, 10.7 indicates that .1c per decade is a minimum6 Within the SRES, as the world has been, it was expected tobe .2c per decade for the two decades. The simple conclusion one can make fom 10.7 is that natural variation is as strong as CO2 forcing to date.
I agree with your conclusion here, which is why i have said AGW accounts for 50% of recent warming, +/- 20%
Michael
“10.1. The specification of future emissions of greenhouse gases, aerosols and their precursors is uncertain ”
Over the period in question emission scenarios are not important.
“shows that no matter which of these non-mitigation scenarios is followed, the warming is similar on the time scale of the next decade or two.
Relying on sunspot numbers seems a bit cartoonish in 2014. Power hasn’t changes all that much yet. For a self described ‘numbers man’ – which I have to admit always seem pulled out of his arse to me – that is lacking any credible analysis or scientific reference – it seems incredibly foolish not to look at them.
http://lasp.colorado.edu/data/sorce/total_solar_irradiance_plots/images/tim_level3_tsi_24hour_640x480.png
And it is so irrelevant when compared to the changes in CERES – but which themselves may be amplifications of the solar signal.
Swanson and Tsonis, 2009, suggest that decadal surface cooling and warming results from a change in energy uptake in the deep oceans or a change in cloud and water vapour dynamics. Both seem likely. In the simplest case the cooler or warmer water surface loses less or more of the heat gained from sunlight and so the oceans warm and cool.
In the latter case – cloud cover seems increasingly likely to be a significant factor in the Earth’s energy dynamic. Loeb, 2012, shows that large changes in the Earth’s energy balance at top of atmosphere occur with changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation. However, CERES commenced operation just after the 1998/2001 climate shift.
Earlier satellite data (International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project (ISCCP-FD) | NASA) shows a substantial step increase in cloud at the turn of the century. Pallé, 2009, made photometric observations of light reflected from the Earth onto the moon from 1998. Short term changes in global reflectance is for the most part cloud changes. A climatologically significant step increase in albedo was observed at the turn of the century.
OK, so we had a 13-year cycle with a long minimum finally ending in 2009-10 and you are denying that there was any net solar effect from that extra-long weakening of the TSI? AR5 doesn’t agree with you. Long cycles correspond to lower net TSI, short cycles around 10 years correspond to higher net TSI. This isn’t coincidence. The relative length of the max and min matter.
More cartoon science I see.
The big changes are in outgoing energy.
Assume this is correct for a moment.
http://isccp.giss.nasa.gov/zFD/an9090_TOTnet_toa.gif
Too hard? C’est la vie.
Jim D,
I agree about the effect of the long SC 23 (~12-13 years) and the long 23/24 minimum. This slowdown in solar cycle frequency (the real global climate knob, IMO) will cause cooling for decades to come. SC 24 will very likely be longer than SC23 – we haven’t seen that since the Dalton minimum (two consequent cycles longer than ~13 years in average).
Similarily, the two very short cycles (21 and 22, ~10 years, about 1976 to 1996) with the short and high minimums, coincide with the late 20th century warming. There’s really no room for CO2 – it’s (mostly) the Sun.
Michael, you write “This is just wrong.
There are similiar cavets in AR4 to the quotes provided in the earlier reports – haven’t got time now, but I’ll post some excerpts later.”
If this is true, how can the IPCC be 95% certain that things about CAGW are true?
Michael, I studied AR4 WG1extensively back in 2012 and do not think you will be able to find those qualifiers. So please do go, look, and bring back what you find. It will be an education for you.
Michael I think this post is about the warming over the next two decades. Differences in emissions have little affect on the rate of warming over that period. I think what you have found is concerned with projections out to 2100.
There is good reason to believe that atmospheric climate change was at its most sensitive between 1910 and 1940 when it averaged 0.15C per decade. Between 1970 and 1997 a change at about the same rate occurred, but this was more likely due to the response of the oceans, finally forcing atmospheric change, and magnifying the effect of the 1910 to 1940 atmospheric change. That the oceans did not follow classical differential equation lags is expected because the propagation of heat through the oceans is likely to be very non-linear, affected by the sea bed. as it would be by the hills and valleys of the sea bed acting as a natural traps to warm currents.
Unfortunately the IPCC concentrated their research on the period after the 1960’s, so failed to take into account the above.
Interesting to see the IPCC downplay internal variabilty in their enthusiasm to build a strong case. The physical basis for their argument of a monotonic increase of GAST with increasing CO2 just doesnt sit well with me. Sure I agree to the monotonic increase quality …
… But considering a global increase of surface temperature without strong ramifications to the hydrosphere, lithosphere and more is stand pat, self serving, foolish pride. Most of the climate is in the ocean and rocks underneath. Raising the temperature at the surface and calling it a done deal without considerable pushback from below? No way !
The physics might say that the surface ‘boundary condition GAST gets hotter but that boundary is merely the air surface interface. Convenient opportunism to clamp things at that juncture.
I am suggesting that there is ample opportunity for huge variation which change the GHG forcing (atmosphere structure) and change the CO2 concentration in the air.
Have seen some of the discussion about carbon cycling. It immediately suggests that there may be processes to keep the carbon supply at the surface and in play with the atmosphere. We exist at the low levels of atmospheric CO2 relative to the past. We barely understand carbon cycling in today’s ecosystems. Do you honestly think it will be the same at higher CO2 concentrations. Maybe all that lush vegetation helped to keep carbon in active circulation.
In short, there are some big external forcing factors, and also big internal forcing factors … And most of all, a planet which demonstrates a diversity of hetrogeneous physical phase states (clouds ice water vegetation deserts) precariously suspended within all that those strong forcing influences. Instinct says that all those coexisting phase states of organization arent fragile fortuitous or briefly existing
So here is the question.
The “models” actually the mean of the models or the model of models,
placed a bet of .2C per decade. That probably wasnt a wise thing to write down.
it would have been more accurate to report the high and low range of the model runs. Of course one can average the models but I dont know what such a beast represents in a physical sense. For hindcast its clear what it represents: its the Thing you cite when you want to show that the “models” hindcast well. That’s some nice modelling trickery, but it’s really not what we want to know.
What we want to know is the best bet for the future
Given the various models and the various runs, what is the clearest way of presenting the boundaries of what we know according to the models?
Given history and the uncertainies of data whats the best bet given history?
Given people “understanding” of natural cycles.. what would that approach say?
Its 2014. Solar cycle is hovering around its max which means over the 5-6 years solar has no where to go but down.
Look at what you personally believe. What you think is rationally justifiable.
Not provable. Not what you hope for, but what you think you have a basis for thinking.
Make the following bet. Take the temp today. I offer you an over/under bet
Slope of a linear fit to the temperature data from jan 2014 to dec 2019.
will the slope be Over zero or under zero?
I will take the Over bet. Reason anthro forcing will beat natural cooling factors.
very simple. if offerred an over/under bet on the slope of a linear fit to temps between now and 2020, which side would you take and why?
Josh, you and willard can play too.
For those who dont want to play. Doesnt matter, that just means no one will listen to you.
,
I think natural variation is already getting its butt kicked, and it is only going to get worse. Over.
Another man who can read.
well done!
+1000.
Mosher, your bet focuses on the wrong subject. I will bet you that at any point 25 years from now or more (50 or 100 years — you pick the point more than 25 years in the future) that irrespective of how much temperature rises, the percentage of people living in poverty will be less in the future than now.
JD
shut up and take the over or under
SM Stop being so insular. Temps only matter if they affect society. I am dealing with the most important matter and you are dealing with a secondary matter. Let me know if you want to take the bet concerning whether any temperature rise will matter to the quality of life of humans. I have no idea whether there will be a rise in temperature over the next five years and don’t care.
JD
JD –
The problem with your bet is that it overlooks a few crucial components. In addition to standards of living 100 years from now in an absolute sense, difference in a relative sense between a world warmed by ACO2 compared to a world not warmed by ACO2 is also “important.” Even if overall standards are higher, that wouldn’t ensure that millions? more wouldn’t suffer in the AC02 warmed world, relatively speaking.
Of course, you also should consider the differences in a world with morbidities caused by particulates from carbon compared to a world without such morbidities.
Or a world where we continued to prop up totalitarian regimes that impoverish their citizens and deprive women of basic human rights at the cost of trillions to maintain our dependence on foreign oil, compared to a world where we built energy-saving infrastructure and renewable resources and educated women with those same trillions.
And of course, the whole concept of your bet is flawed in that few or none of us would likely be around to know who won anyway (except maybe the 25-year bet)…
Joshua “In addition to standards of living 100 years from now in an absolute sense, difference in a relative sense between a world warmed by ACO2 compared to a world not warmed by ACO2 is also “important.” Even if overall standards are higher, that wouldn’t ensure that millions? more wouldn’t suffer in the AC02 warmed world, relatively speaking.”
A logical point you may want to take up with Hansen and his death trains. Also, I don’t think any alarmist scientists of the Mann/Hansen/Trenberth ilk have made the argument. The focus of their position is generally that the world will fall to pieces unless CO2 is drastically reduced not that the world will be better, but just not as good as it would otherwise be.
JD
Well, the CO2 effect appears weaker than expected, the ocean oscillations’ effect stronger than expected, and we’ve little idea how the sun may act at all. There are more ways to lose heat than to gain it.
My bet? Warming is better for the biome than cooling.
========================
JD writes: Also, “I don’t think any alarmist scientists of the Mann/Hansen/Trenberth ilk have made the argument. The focus of their position is generally that the world will fall to pieces unless CO2 is drastically reduced not that the world will be better, but just not as good as it would otherwise be.”
If you want a truly terrifying glimpse of how successful these alarmist scientists…and Obama and his people…. have been among the credulous class, spend a couple weeks at Real Clear Politics glancing over the global warming/climate change headlines collected from the usual Progressive outlets. “Global Warming is Cooking the Planet Now – Not in Some Far-Off Future” is a nice example.
JD –
Nice duck!
Under.
The last PDO Cool phase lasted 28 years and this one started in about 1998.
The beginning of the hiatus may have coincided with a climate shift that could last 30 years.
The magnitude of the oceans not allowing the GAT to stray too far.
Here is a man who can read. Congrats.
he takes the under and gives a reason.
Note he doesnt reframe
Note he doesnt quibble over which data we will use
he takes the under and gives his reason
bravo +1000
Ragnaar – the negative phase of the PDO that bottom out around 1920 lasted at most 10 years. I think the cooling phase we recently were in lasted about the same length of time. What is important is the change of direction in the index as that signals whether or not the impetus is progressively adding to warming or adding to cooling.
JCH | June 16, 2014 at 1:04 am |
Using this chart here:
http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/
When the shifts occur, it seems is a bit of guess work. The 20s data is less clear. I’m looking for strong, steady and predictable from the PDO, and some of that is lacking.
AMO, PDO and Solar are all down. We are throwing a lot of tails in a row when it comes to volcanoes, with more than a decade of very low aerosols, so there is a reasonable chance of a large one.
Down, down deeper and down.
Mosh,
What data will be used? Best, hadcrut, UAH? What date is the starting point.
You skipped ElNino as a variable so how would you prove an above zero was the result of anthro and not natural?
Hmm. It doesnt really matter.
Take the bet: over or under. and explain why
or specify your data of choice.. in reality Im more interested in your reasons than the mechanics of an actual bet.
so over or under? why?
Over, because Anthro.
And if under, because second half of the period has big Volcano.
But then again, Under, because 2014/15 El nino.
I would take the over, but it is not a sure-fire thing with monthly data. The global warming would be about 0.1 C in 5 years, but the standard deviation of monthly data is at least 0.2 C. It helps that you have chosen a relatively cold starting month.
2014-2019?
Sorry, but I don’t bet on what are pretty much random outcomes (given the short-term time horizon for the bet). I like the odds to be in my favor before I put my money down.
Now if you give odds… that might be another story (although in that case I’d have to consult someone smart for advice).
its random?
NOBODY ASKED YOU TO PUT MONEY DOWN.
your answer is the dumbest of all
Bet, over or under.
if you think it is random doofus, then say Over, its a guess
or say Under, its a guess
if you really think its heads or tails, then PICK ONE and and say.
its coin toss
Recall. that over the next 5 years solar forcing will translate into a 1/10th of a c decrease
“although in that case I’d have to consult someone smart for advice” – Joshua
So for all the certainty Josh displays here, what he is really certain of is his trust for the constellation of sources of his information, only some of whom are actual client scientists, and many of those actual climate scientists have impeached their own credibility via climategate, for example, others are unashamed political activists, like Joshua, who don’t really understand the science either.
I guess that makes people who ask questions “deniers” and people who don’t ask questions “realists.”
Many of these rhetorical and political posters have more faith in the consensus of alarmists than their understanding of science should allow them. Ah, faith. It is awesome comforting.
=============
The funny thing is, Kim, that their reaction to reading your comment will be “huh?”
TJA –
==> “So for all the certainty Josh displays here, ”
Please show what I have said that “displays” certainty…
‘Cause you know, being a “skeptic” and all, you wouldn’t have said that unless you have evidence.
==> “what he is really certain of is his trust for the constellation of sources of his information, ”
??? I said that I would seek advice of someone smart. I wasn’t suggesting that I would have absolute trust in their advice. My point was that in order to play probabilities, I would seek out expert advice.
It’s curious that “skeptics” so often confuse a statement about probabilities with a statement of absolute trust. It’s almost like they aren’t evaluating the evidence before drawing a conclusion,. But that wouldn’t be skeptical, would it? That would be “skeptical.”
==> “I guess that makes people who ask questions “deniers” and people who don’t ask questions “realists.””
??? I ask questions all the time, and get insulted here for doing so. By people who call themselves “skeptics.”
(And, btw, I use “skeptics” and “realists” in quotes because it is a term that both sides like. I add the quotation marks to give a putative connotation, because I have run into:
“skeptics” who aren’t skeptical
“skeptics” who are skeptical
“skeptics who aren’t realistic
“skeptics” who are realistic
“realists” who aren’t skeptical
“realists” who are skeptical
“realists” who aren’t realistic
“realists who are realistic.
I don’t use “deniers” in quotes or otherwise. I hope that helps).
Whatever Josh. You spend plenty of time here telling people they are wrong and you are right. I would think that such behavior relied on some basic belief that you are right and they are wrong.
My bad. Clearly you don’t possess any degree of certainty whatsoever on this issue and are just randomly spouting because you like the sound or your own voice.
The majority of people, on both sides of the great climate divide, are firmly convinced of their views despite despite not only being ill-equipped to understand the science and not even being very familiar with what climate scientists even say.
TJA –
==> “You spend plenty of time here telling people they are wrong and you are right. I would think that such behavior relied on some basic belief that you are right and they are wrong.”
Really? So I guess that means that you can’t find evidence of what you claimed earlier.
Ok. So let’s move on to your next mistake.
What is it that I say that others are wrong about and that I’m right about?
Do you have any idea what my views are about climate change? If so, please just provide a short summary.
steven –
==> “if you really think its heads or tails, then PICK ONE and and say.
its coin toss”
Ok, fine. Hang on a sec….
Heads = cooler
Tails = warmer
Ok, here we go.
Oh, drats. It landed on it’s edge!
Joshua,
Toss it again.
Now, remember the best science say that over the next 5-6 years the temperature will decrease by .1C due to reduced solar forcing.
If you think that it is truely a toss up.. what does that say.
So using all the knowledge you have, and your belief in the best science we have.. do you really think it is a toss up?
dont worry about winning or losing the bet. there is no money at stake.
based on what you currently believe is it really a perfect toss up?
if so, then why are you discounting the effect due to decreasing solar
I dunno, steven –
My understanding of fhe scientists that i think have the highest probability of being correct, like Latiff, is that the science doean’t support predictions on a scale of less than multiple decades…you know, natural variability and all.
Over.
Because that’s what it’s been doing long term since LIA.
UNDER
Due to the reversal of natural trends, in other words a wild ass guess.
Clearly under zero (solar or AMO/PDO, which is also mostly solar). This is easy – there’s no anthro to be beaten.
“No anthro to be beaten” wins the “Yes Virginia, there really is such a thing as Denialism” award. I know Judith thinks it is rude to use the word, but this is clearly something other than skepticism. So which politically correct word would be appropriate for “no anthro to be beaten” type thinking? Simply saying it is skepticism is a slap in the face of honest skeptics.
The difference between ‘no anthro’ and ‘none to be seen’ is so far academic.
=============
It’s the null hypothesis R. Gates. Where’s the evidence for ACO2GW? After all the billions spent still no evidence. Furthermore, on the face of the physical model for the Earth’s energy budget, it seems that the problem of the surface/atmosphere, surface/space and atmosphere/space heat exchange is not solved correctly. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere does not necessarily cause (significant or any) surface warming, even if it’s possible to increase atmospheric CO2 by slowly adding CO2 to the atmosphere – the atmosphere is in direct contact with the oceans and they can absorb the excess CO2. I agree with Salby here.
Stop projecting, It’s you who deny (natural) climate change.
Edim.
If there is no anthro, and if the impact on temperature from solar max to min is around .1C (minus)
I give YOU this bet.
Trend from now to 2020. Give me your over under bet on a trend of
– .2C decade. Over or under?
Mosher, neither under nor over for that one, minus 0.2 K/decade. It depends on the temperature index too.
I have been predicting no warming for 30 years by ~2020 for some time now (zero 30-year trend). This is all pretty inaccurate and depends on the temperature index and further changing of the (past) data.
Edim you fail.
the index doesnt matter.
and you have to take the over or under.
choose.
Mosher, no you fail. Of course the index does matter. Example:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3gl/from:1944/to:1949/trend/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1944/to:1949/trend
If I have to, I’ll take under minus 0.2 K/decade from now to to 2020.
Under. The AMO has a long way to go before it bottoms out. I’ll take under for 2025 also.
well read, well answered.
If I felt lucky, I would take the over bet just because of net anthro forcing, but the period is so short that natural variability and/or a big volcano could do anything to the 5-year surface temp trend. It really is a dice roll with slightly weighted dice over so short a period. As we go out to decadal average temps, the dice become even more weighted such that it would take a really large volcano or series of them to overcome the net anthropogenic forcing- solar alone just won’t do it. A period of cooling such as we saw during the LIA was a combination of a very active volcanic period a few sleepy solar periods, but this was all with GH gases staying around their Holocene averages.
Gates
Using your logic about the LIA makes a case that absent those factors of volcanoes and sleepy solar periods it would have been warmer and we are simply returning to those same warm periods. Someone has to show we are not following the pattern of Roman Warm Period then trough then MWP then trough then new warm period.
In climate betting, it is assumed that a large volcanic eruption, a cooler, means all bets are off.
Nottawa rafter
I have made that point about volcanos disguising the inherent warmth of the LIA many times. Unfortunately in the real -as opposed to R Gates modelled world- actual contemporary observations demonstrate that emissions from Volcanos have a nil to limited cooling effect.
tonyb
Gather ’round , see a human CO2 volcano guy cough and splutter out.
tonyb
Yes, they try to have it both ways.
In the meantime, there is an interesting study which raises questions about the effect of geothermal mechanisms in the melting of the West Antarctica Ice sheet. Published in the PNAS this UTIG paper is certainly something to keep an eye on as to what is influencing the glacial melting.
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/06/10/antarctic-glacier-melting/
Tony, said :”… actual contemporary observations demonstrate that emissions from Volcanos have a nil to limited cooling effect.”
—–
Shame on you Tony. I have given numerous links to papers showing that the cooling effects from the really big volcanoes may actually be bigger and last longer than many would suppose, such as this one:
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-010-465.pdf
RGates
Yes, but I have posted numerous links and contemporary observations that demonstrate that the emissions meme is overblown. Why are yours better?
As I have mentioned numerous times, when volcanic eruptions are blamed for a bad year we can often find that the poor weather precedes the volcanic eruption by some years. In other words, often the emissions merely extended an already poor spell of weather. As Nasa observes, emissions can appear to make subsequent winters warmer.
Sorry, I take observations over models when the former can be cross referenced or are known to be reliable.
tonyb
there are what 2 or 3 climate impacting volcanos in the past 100 years.
ask yourself, why would such an infrequent occurance keep you from
making a no risk ( no money) bet?
weird.
Mosher,
Who is not taking the no-risk bet? The odds are slightly in favor of the 2014-2019 trend to be up, with volcanic activity a reason the trend could be down if it were to occur. If a Pinatubo sized eruption hit in 2018 for example, it would be hard for 2014-2019 to be up. A safer bet is that each decadal average temperature will be higher for the next century–especially if GH gases continue to rise.
nottawa rafter | June 16, 2014 at 9:03 am |
Gates
Using your logic about the LIA makes a case that absent those factors of volcanoes and sleepy solar periods it would have been warmer and we are simply returning to those same warm periods.
——
The MWP was a period of low volcanic activity and a more active sun, with the LIA just the opposite. The biggest volcanoes of the last 1000 years, far larger than anything we’ve seen in the past 600 years, occurred during the LIA (1257 and 1453). These had short and long term effects on climate, with the longer term effects being the result of the higher thermal inertia of oceans and cryosphere. The long term effect of mega-volcanoes on ocean heat content seems to be something many are unaware of– and of course the oceans drive weather and the climate.
R. Gates-
“Small influence of solar variability on climate over the past millennium”
Abstract: …We find that neither a high magnitude of solar forcing nor a strong climate effect of that forcing agree with the temperature reconstructions. We instead conclude that solar forcing probably had a minor effect on Northern Hemisphere climate over the past 1,000 years, while, volcanic eruptions and changes in greenhouse gas concentrations seem to be the most important influence over this period…. http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n2/full/ngeo2040.html
So how do the know that volcanoes done it?
(Have no access to the Nature journal)
Raving,
See:
http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-010-465.pdf.
Or
http://www.image.ucar.edu/idag/Papers/Gleckler_Krakatoa.pdf
1257 and 1453 were the two largest volcanoes in the past 1000 years. They had lingering effects on the climate (multi-decadal) and represented 5 to 10 times the negative forcing that solar TSI reduction caused.
Raving
I have pointed out to Rgates several times that there is no observational evidence that the 1257 volcano had a long lasting impact. The weather had already turned down around five years before the volcano erupted and improved within a year of1257 . My reading would be that it was therefore erroneously seen as causing the bad weather . Similarly it is claimed that several large volcanos in the late 1200’s caused the lia. Again there is no observational evidence to demonstrate this.
I have no comment on 1453 as that is just outside of my current research window.
Tonyb
Gates-
Very good. So by implication you apparently attribute some of the MWP warming to solar activity. With a little nudging we may get you into that “nutty solar cultist” group. You still show promise. :)
Started looking at first paper (abrupt onset of LIA) … Am surprised to see that the biggest eruption of the 20th century (Novarupta 1912) is barely indicated with the sulfate ice core (Fig 2b). Could it be that the 1912 eruption had no influence on climate?
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/volcano_climate.html
This is getting very weird. Isn’t that (Fig 2b) sulfate record from Greenland ice cores? There is also supposed to be an ice core record from Antarctica. A recent paper comparing the 2 polar sulfate records suggested the Toba eruption (70k years ago) didn’t create a cooling period as anticipated.
Looking further …
Tonyb | June 16, 2014 at 3:55 pm |
Raving
I have pointed out to Rgates several times that there is no observational evidence that the 1257 volcano had a long lasting impact.
———
Yes, Tony “pointed it out” , but charts like this one show the clear effect the 1257 volcano had on the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, which would affect global weather for decades or longer:
http://tinypic.com/r/21b50yt/8
Rgates
What is the origin of the data for your tiny pic link?
Tonyb
R. Gates .. …the clear effect the 1257 volcano had on the Indo-Pacific Warm Pool, which would affect global weather for decades or longerL
Wasn’t the whole thing about volcanoes and cooling … That reduced IR reached the surface because of sulfates/dust/cloud-abedo (net global reduction in downward heat flux).. Not a fluctuation of natural variability where the heat gets shuffled around to emerge later and is overall neutral in the longer interval?
Volcanic eruption cooling by filtering/reflection versus cooling by influencing weather patterns which are ‘karma like qualities’
This doesn’t make sense!
From the introduction to the Krakatoa paper
http://www.image.ucar.edu/idag/Papers/Gleckler_Krakatoa.pdf
The volcanically-induced cooling of the ocean surface is subducted into deeper ocean layers, where it persists for decades … Okay, interesting idea! (Volcanic cooling has a greater effect than anticipated because it also cools the ocean. This extends the cooling interval beyond the latency of the volcanic products in the atmosphere)
But then they turn around and claim … Temporary reductions in ocean heat content associated with the comparable eruptions of El Chichon (1982) and Pinatubo (1991) were much shorter lived because they occurred relative to a non-stationary background of large, anthropogenically-forced ocean warming
There is no need to make this 2nd assertion. It’s akin to saying the climate cooling effects of Pinatubo and El Chichon were not as impressive as expected. Thus it needs bolstering by claiming that volcanic cooling was attenuated by AGW. …. Or that AGW is so evil that it even attenuates volcanic cooling
Apparently they are trying to explain their results by forcing their story into the CAGW narrative. Looking at the model in more detail … Really don’t know what i am seeing here. Very strange
On Mosher’s bet:
Under
2014 is being forecast to be an El Nino year (during the negative ENSO regime) as well as somewhere around the solar maximum, so will likely come out as a positive spike from the baseline. The year has started slightly warm in all data sets.
2019: solar can reasonably be predicted to be lower while the likelihood favours La Nina (if the ENSO regime stays) and there are hints for the AMO also tending negative. So 2019 is likely to be around or slightly below the longer term slightly increasing trend line.
Wouldn’t bet my mortgage on it though – probably a couple of quatloos only.
Over, another 5 years can be squeezed out of the measurement adjustments and a new satellite “measuring system” before they become absolutely divorced from real temperatures. Obama needs it over and the acolytes will do their duty
A bigger challenge is to offer a well-defined bet meaningful in the context of the of the current ‘global warming’ debate. That said…
Over, because it ain’t over.
If I said heads or tails, would you pontificate?
Kettle says, “Not doubt.”
• 21 January 2014 James Hansen bets “OVER” and gives reasons:
The opposing denialist position is less rational: “James Hansen’s climate-change worldview can’t be right, `cuz if it were, then the liberals/commies/Illuminati/Agenda21 conspiracy would exploit that fact!”
Conclusion The accelerating irrationality of climate-change denialism is plenty obvious to *EVERYONE* (young researchers and young voters especially), eh Climate Etc readers?
It is in fact the right-wing nuts who are exploiting climate change — see the Weather Derivatives financial weapon of mass destruction pioneered and pushed by companies such as Koch Industries.
Toto, I don’t think Web’s in Minnesota anymore.
=====
Fan takes the OVER bet and cites as his reason: Hansen did it.
you could have been more straightforward.
Notice I dont criticize your rationale for taking the position you did
FOMbs,
whatever the best “bet” may be here, your statement “plenty obvious to *EVERYONE* “ is obviously tendentious and incompetent on a blog where your claims are NOT “plenty obvious to everyone.”
Why do you continue your near-perfect record of maliciously mis-characterizing dissenting views? It is difficult to believe you have any if the scientific never mind Quakerly open-minded outlooks to which you so hypocritically pretend.
Why do I bother to repond almost exclusively to your misrepresentations on a blog with which I engage only infrequently?? Because you are an extraordinary melange of bombastic distortions with authors and views that do matter a great deal to me. Clean up your foolish act!
Dr Ellison’s world view makes greater sense than Hansen’s. The world is a complex system of many subsystems; all interacting with each other. It also makes sense that the climate system, one of world subsystems, has its own complex set of subsystems. From one who has experience in sorting out good information from bad information, judging the merits of technical projects, climate science does not appear ready for long term forecasts; there needs to be more basic research.
Please consider, Skiphil, the century-by-century testimonies of the Friends:
• 18th Century for INTEGRITY against TYRANNY, and
• 19th Century for EQUALITY against SLAVERY, and
• 20th Century for PEACE against ARMAGEDDON, and
• 21st Century for STEWARDSHIP against DESPOILMENT.
Observation Through four centuries, not even one Friend objective has ever been won permanently; all Friend objectives are sustained solely by daily commitment in perpetuity.
Conclusion The Friends see plainly the necessity to plan ahead on scales of centuries (and longer), and therefore the necesity to reject the short-sighted decadalism that (nowadays) is increasingly characteristic of climate-change denialism.
In a Nutshell “Nothing can dim the light that shines from within“ … not even the passage of centuries.
Young researchers and family-starting voters alike appreciate this Friendly testimony, eh Skiphil?
FOMD,
not that this belongs on a science-oriented blog, but since you frequently reference Friends’ traditions as some kind of authority for your comments here…. if you understood anything amidst the diversity of Friends’ views you would know that a humble respect for the conscience of each person, respecting each person’s “Inner Light” and “that of God in everyone” (George Fox) are central for virtually all Friends….and let us not neglect the tradition of “queries” to oneself and others, which should be humble, kind, and respectful to all.
Can you really claim that your interventions here respect these traditions?
http://www.exeter-mm.pym.org/what-do-quakers-believe
Perhaps we can both learn more and then testify more plainly, skiphil!
“19th Century for EQUALITY against SLAVERY”
In 1772, Lord Mansfield’s judgement in the Somersett’s Case emancipated a slave in England, ended all slavery in Britain and made all RN ships a sanctuary, which helped launch the movement to abolish slavery.
Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which outlawed the slave trade.
Between 1808 and 1860 the West Africa Squadron captured 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans destined, mostly, for the USA.
Convict leasing began after the emancipation of slaves in the Southern United States, and mostly black men were criminalized and their labour sold to the highest bidder. Convict leasing of penal labor peaking around 1880 and officially ending in the last state in 1928, Alabama.
Wilberforce University in Ohio, United States,was a Black University founded in 1856, is named after William Wilberforce, the English leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade.
DocMartyn, your remarks open the door to a substantial body of primary historical resources and scholarly commentary.
Conclusion History teaches that century-by-century, foresighted politicians — of all stripes — have been well-advised to heed the testimony of Friends.
Thanks again, DocMartyn!
It’s a sucker bet. Temperatures haven’t dropped in the past 17 years–with all the stars lined up to push temps down, they haven’t dropped.
Heh, all the stars lined up to push past temps down. Oh, you mean those fiery heavenly bodies.
==============
Hows the bet with Romm? I cant recall how that played out
Yes. I expect zero trend. However, if we get a mild el nino 14/15, the trend should be down.
By 2019 or 2020: Over. This is a coin toss, because it’s too short a time period to forecast.
By 2050: Over, a continuation of the pre-industrial trend.
But note that JD Ohio’s bet regarding poverty is the only one that matters.
“Feynman would joke around on many subjects but not on the science”
When asked what an anti-gravity device would look like and he pointed to a chair?
Like when he place the SRB ‘O’-ring in ice-cold water and showed it become stiff?
Where was his control?
Why doesn’t Web just tell us the answer based on CSALT and allowing for error in the case of volcanoes?
PRECISELY.
what is even MORE FUNNY is the contortions people go through to avoid making a bet that
A) will cost them no money whatsoever.
B) no one will remember.
There is a deeper cryptic Mosher Point here.
Joshua will not get it
Hmmm, WHUT would never make a good Bayesian–he’s just priors.
The reason I will not make a bet is that I remain agnostic based on the current state of knowledge. My skepticism is based more on the rhetoric of the alarmists and their behavior (including climate scientists) than on the scientific arguments of the skeptics. I know this is not dispositive, but there a lot of simple questions people go a long way to not answer.
I don’t bet on outcomes because it very unFeynman-like. Feynman would joke around on many subjects but not on the science.
One of the criteria for rating high on the Krackpot Index is to bet with others or offer rewards as a challenge statement.
Its not that science be dignified, its just that these cute parlor games are pretty silly in comparison to the challenge of solving the scientific puzzle on its own merits.
Or maybe you dont get that?
All I know Webby is that you’re the only person posting here who claims to hold the keys to the Locker of Absolute Truth, but you refuse, under any circumstances, to tell the rest of us what’s inside.
It’s just not fair. Come on, share the love.
haha,
people not willing to make a bet because of Feynman.
Here is what I propose. there isnt a single one of you who doesnt have an opinion or could not form an opinion about the trend for the next 5 years.
What you dont want to face is the actual rational you have.
Now if I asked you to bet whether the number of stars was even or odd
then you’d have a hard time forming an opinion
The sun is at the max.. 5-6 years from now forceing will go down.
and folks still say they have no basis to make any bet.
weird
maybe they dont want to face the prospect of changing their minds.
maybe a move of .1c either way in the next 5 years will not change minds.
interesting any way
Abbott, yes I post on my own blog. What I do here is comment. If you want to see what’s on the inside, go to my blog. There I can add charts and debugged equations andall sorts of stuff for the inquisitive mind. Here, not so much.
Yes Webby, but you refuse to post up even the most basic of predictions here, despite continually telling us all how simple it is to understand the climate once you know how. Never mind what Feynman would say, just take the bet. Tell you what, I’ll cover your stake.
*tosses an imaginary quarter to Mosher*
Abbott, Krackpots are the ones that offer “rewards” to people if they can find anything wrong or disprove their work. You all are falling perilously close to treating this topic as some sort of game and the goal is to punk some gullible dolt.
“Never mind what Feynman would say, just take the bet. Tell you what, I’ll cover your stake.”
Yes, hubble doesnt get the bet.
He thinks the bet is about winning and losing,
about having to change his mind if he loses.
Its not.
Its rather forcing someone to make a decision and then asking
why?
much more basic.
Knowledge is rarely binary. You can play the game of 20 questions until you are blue in the face and will barely get anywhere.
Linear trend 2014-2019.
Possibly starts with a hot El Nino year in 2014. The rest of the years more likely to be La Nina. Anthro signal won’t be strong enough to counter that over this short period.
AMOC may further weaken cooling (or interrupting warming) of Atlantic, Arctic. Higher Albedo.
(Just) Under
I would bet that the linear trend of temperature between now and 2020 will be downward, because (a) solar activity is low and will decline, and (b) the PDO is low. Is anybody counting votes ?
good explanation
i may tally it
I will go with lower also but a push is more likely.
I will bet that global average temperature will be pencil whipped to whatever extent is necessary so that it doesn’t decline.
Since the great climate shift of 2011 – 2012, the PDO has shot off like a rocket.
The new paradigm: climate dynamics. Live by climate dynamics, die by climate dynamics.
since the climate shift of 2011-2012
JCH | June 16, 2014 at 11:39 pm |
…since the climate shift of 2011-2012
Here you can see:
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/pdo-5-pg.gif
Past short term reversals. Looking at the ’01-’02 run up, we get a nice collapse. Will the current ’13-’14 run up collapse? I don’t know.
This graph might concern PDO fans:
http://www.nwfsc.noaa.gov/research/divisions/fe/estuarine/oeip/ca-pdo.cfm
A confused PDO?
Or maybe the cool phase started in 2008 after being a bit confused for a few years. Pushing back the start date which might turn out well for skeptics. A confused PDO might explain why this is a pause and the 40s to 70s was a cooling.
Yes, the recent cycle is unusual in its prolonged resistance to bottoming in a normal fashion. The fish people can help you out with that. That’s called ACO2 warming. Obviously I think the trough is going to be very short lived, and the run up to peak very rapid. We may be in it right now.
The AMO doesn’t do anything other than follow the surface temperature. It does not drive anything; it’s driven. Yanked around like a sidewalk monkey. The PDO has a V-8 engine under the hood: ENSO. It’s a motor. It runs. It has power.
JCH, you are right something does yank the AMO. It yanked it so hard from the 1970s to the 2000s that the Atlantic gained as much energy as the Pacific and Indian Oceans combined despite being only 20% of the ocean surface area according to Lee et al 2011. Lee et al also hypothesize that the energy came from the Indian Ocean. That’s a big engine if they are right and also makes for a classic equator to pole ocean heat transport scenario. Get that V-8 off the tracks, the locomotive has the right of way.
Where does the locomotive make an appearance in the 20 century? It wanders off aimlessly during mid-century cooling. And then it slavishly follows the surface air temperature.
Maybe you confuse slave with master since they walk so close together.
I don’t think so.
But I read your links. You’re the only skeptic on here who is interesting.
I know you don’t think so. We will get to find out together. I’m certainly not sure but it is a possibility.
Springer fails.
The issue is NOT actually settling the bet, so the index doesnt matter.
neither does pencil whipping.
The bet is about something else
I don’t think the PDO and ENSO drive as much as they are the result of what the system is doing. The PDO cool phase seems move more cool away from the North and send more warmth to the North.
Put me down for over. Cause: Anthro, Metric: Emissions of GHG (currently 39-40 gigatons and growing at 2.5%/yr rate) plus global industrial growth over 3% per year will increase other positive forcings from land use, etc.).
Jack Smith
Steven Mosher: will the slope be Over zero or under zero?
That is an interesting question. The policy question is whether there will be much more than a 1.3 temp increase for a CO2 doubling over the next 130 years or so (one of the estimated doubling times for one of the estimates of A-induced CO2 increase and natural increase combined.) Starting 2014, that’s a trend of 0.1 per decade, or 0.05 per half decade, about half the “projected warming” of the title of the thread. If the increase from 2014 to 2019 is +0.01, that is equivalent to a continuing “hiatus”.
Why would anyone interested in the long term consequences of AGW be interested in a bet of simple warming or cooling over 5 years? One of the mantras is that short-term trends are meaningless.
More later.
“That is an interesting question. ”
then answer.
Steven Mosher: then answer.
I gave it some consideration, and I decided that there was no basis for an answer that would be better supported than a coin flip. After thinking for a while about the standard Bayesian approach to the use of betting scenarios to elicit opinions and judgments, I wrote out a different bet. You’ll see, if you read it, that I bet on a different inequality.
On your bet I would choose a different option,which you wouldn’t allow: the change will be indistinguishable from 0: no more than 0.5 s.e. of the estimate either way.
Just under cuz cool PDO and quiet solar cycle. If there was a choice for even, I would take it as I believe anthro forcing and natural variability are just canceling each other for the next 5 years. But it’s an over/under bet, so I go with just under.
Steven Mosher: will the slope be Over zero or under zero?
Maybe sooner of later I’ll flip a coin and write a bet.
In the meantime, I’d summarize my current opinion by betting that from Jan 2014 to Dec 2023, the slope of a linear least squares fit will be less than 0.05C per decade.
Why?
The recent trend is nearly flat, with no reason to expect an upturn.
The Tsonis et al model does not have much upturn very soon.
The ENSO predictions do not look like they forecast a high peak or strong El Nino.
I think that “climate sensitivity to a doubling of CO2” has been over-estimated.
On the whole, I think increases in summertime daytime cloud cover are more likely than decreases.
Whatever the effect of short-term solar variation, we look to be in for reduced warming for a decade, rather than increased.
I don’t expect much decrease in aerosols of Asian industrial origin, or generally.
OK, I flipped a coin and it came up heads, actually, it came up “head”. I lost the slip of paper on which I wrote whether that is “under” or “over”. I have been losing lots of things lately.
An excellent question. Down.
AGW effect (John Nielsen-Gammon, Foster & Rahmstorf, Kosaka & Xie, CSALT…):
~0.17C/decade * 0.6 decades = +0.10C (possibly generous)
Natural variability effect (back of the envelope):
80% El Nino lifts @ +0.3C (an upfront outlier) less
33% El Nino in 2019 @ +0.3C (balancing outlier) = 0.16C
Combined effect:
-0.06C
EXCELLENT ANSWER.
well argued. rational argument.
2014-2019 Under
2014-2028 Over
As I described on Bryan Caplan’s bet post. I think we can expect 5-12 years of hiatus followed by resumption of the trend we save from the 70s-2000. Most of the century, it looks like PDO negative is a little shorter than positive. Bryan’s be was that warming 2015-2029 will be less than .05C.
Bauman/Caplan Climate Bet
I would expect zero trend, however there is still good potential for a moderate el nino at the beginning of the time frame, so under seems like a good bet.
Mosher, considering the potential el nino, are you sure you want to keep your position?
Aaron I bet you 10k that the trend will not be 0.
that is compute the trend and it will not be
0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Over or under.
I’m sympathetic to aaron on this one. If you make a demarcation for over/under, it doesn’t work if many people think the most likely value is your demarcation value.
Steven Mosher: 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
That number will be close to the center of a 95% confidence interval of the slope. Naturally, the s.e. of the estimate will have to take account of the autocorrelation of the residuals.
How about 1K for 0.00?
Heh, I’ll bet that if it’s under, then climate science may mature and if it’s over, then climate science will continue to be captured by a political narrative.
=============
Oop. Wasn’t thinking clearly on my way out the door. 0.00 is too precise. How about 0.00 +/-.02?
And 1K on the under.
Using RSS.
2k is a very big deal to me. I’m a lowly civil servant, my savings have been very inadequate for years, I don’t yet have my threshold for emergency cash, and I’m only contributing my the minimum to get full matching for my retirement, my mortgage is just now getting above water (and who knows how long that will last), given expert opinion–the IPCC estimate for 5 years is .1 and that doesn’t consider reversion to the mean (10-15yrs of pause should lead to much higher than .1 over the next 5 yrs)… You should be giving me odds. Very good odds. This is a very good bet for you.
Steven Mosher: What we want to know is the best bet for the future
I agree.
Slope of a linear fit to the temperature data from jan 2014 to dec 2019.
will the slope be Over zero or under zero?
I will take the Over bet. Reason anthro forcing will beat natural cooling factors.
That is a bet, but it is not the best bet. At minimum, you should make a case that it is a good question to be betting on. With or without listeners, I framed a better bet, based in part on the topic of the thread, and the fact that it is over a longer interval of time. My bet represented only my opinion at this time; if events prove that I am wrong, then this opinion is wrong, but it is still only one opinion.
Instead of your assertion that it is the best bet, perhaps readers could formulate a few more bets, and we could discuss which is the best bet by some criteria or other.
As with buying options (think Black-Scholes), the market in bets on climate opinions is free.
I’ll play
Over
Anthro forcings will be additive with natural forcing over the next 5 years
I noted in a reply to Antonio a press report of the US’s most prominent politician claiming that the science is settled, and mocking those that deny that. That post is, alas, in moderation.
He’s gonna draw a red line in the green cheese.
==============
“Model experiments show…” Did IPCC really write those words? I suppose they must have. So now, when one does an actual experiment one needs to qualify the term by prefixing ‘physical’ or ‘real’ to the word experiment. Thanks, IPCC, but for this scientist at least there is a difference between an experiment and the output of a computer model.
Model of virtual reality. :)
I wouldn’t stress out over that particular use of the term ‘model experiment’. It is used twice in the SPM. Judith’s quote happens to be the second use. The first, two paragraphs up in the SPM, is clear about the usage. IMO there is no attempt to construe the modeling as a substitute for reality. Indeed one could just as easily assume the authors are being careful to qualify how their use of the word ‘experiment’.
“A major advance of this assessment of climate change
projections compared with the TAR is the large number of
simulations available from a broader range of models. Taken
together with additional information from observations,
these provide a quantitative basis for estimating likelihoods
for many aspects of future climate change. Model
simulations cover a range of possible futures including
idealised emission or concentration assumptions. These
include SRES[14] illustrative marker scenarios for the 2000
to 2100 period and model experiments with greenhouse
gases and aerosol concentrations held constant after year
2000 or 2100. “(mwg brackets on reference and bold)
Indeed one could just as easily assume the authors are being careful to qualify their use of the word ‘experiment’.
Do a google scholar on “model experiments” and GCM
TJA wrote
Do a google scholar on “model experiments” and GCM
And what? Go ahead and make your point. None of this lazy crap of saying, “google it”, as if it shows that makes a point. It doesn’t.
Again to me it is a non-issue. I’ve seen and used the term other disciplines over the years–never any confusion with reality. Also I’ve pointed out the two places in the quoted document (SPM) where the term is used–there is only one short intervening paragraph on the same page so it is easy keep for losing track of the context.
Of course if it makes you happy to be unhappy with the SPM use here, well, be happy.
And you get 7600 or so papers that use the term. Not just the two uses in the IPCC report.
Sorry, but the term conveys a belief that the models are reality. Experiment implies an empirical undertaking. “Model runs” would be a much better term.
These are exactly the kind of rhetorical choices made by so many alarmists that trigger BS meters everywhere..
TJA,
Straining at gnats IMO, but… how about in silico or in silicio]? People play with that term every once in a while. Maybe you and other of like mind regarding the term can use it that in lieu of model experiments. It makes the point and you can move on to things that matter–like how good are the in silico experiments and how are special issues concerning them addressed?
You can’t carry out experiments with the real climate, so the next best thing is to carry out experiments with a model of the real climate. First you check it approximates the climate, then you perturb it, from which much can be learned that can’t be from just observing the one example of a climate that we have. The forcing perturbations are only about 1%, so the model validity is not challenged.
What model validity, jimmy dee? And for the sake of accuracy, let’s call it pretending to do experiments with alleged models of the real climate.
Mosher, I would choose not significantly different from 0 for the time frame. For the bet, over, the recent enthalpy studies indicate too much residual heat.
The atmosphere already having no heat rise for 17 years shows the sea’s capacity to absorb any more heat without negative feedbacks has been reached and there will be no further long term rise apart from minimal El Niño blips for the next 30 years. There is no likelihood of a 0.2 rise in temps per decade occurring unless we have a massive volcano lowering of temperature to recover from.
the Met Office were also making decadal predictions (not projections) and very few caveats. Video below Met Office – Dr Vicky Pope strongly predicting 0.3C by 2014…. (no caveats, her words,this was on the back of their first decadal forecasts…)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyDmdcPw7Uw
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/people/vicky-pope
The video above, has less caveats than the press release (both say predictions) This info went into UK government policy advice documents like the one below (pg6)
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/b/1/informing.pdf
Climate research at the Met Office Hadley Centre:
Informing Government policy into the future
“We are now using the system to predict changes out
to 2014. By the end of this period, the global average
temperature is expected to have risen by around
0.3 °C compared to 2004, and half of the years after
2009 are predicted to be hotter than the current
record hot year, 1998. “
Press release:
http://web.archive.org/web/20080708230357/http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2007/pr20070810.html
Met Office News release
10 August 2007
The forecast for 2014…
Climate scientists at the Met Office Hadley Centre will unveil the first decadal climate prediction model in a paper published on 10 August 2007 in the journal Science. The paper includes the Met Office’s prediction for annual global temperature to 2014.
Over the 10-year period as a whole, climate continues to warm and 2014 is likely to be 0.3 °C warmer than 2004. At least half of the years after 2009 are predicted to exceed the warmest year currently on record
These predictions are very relevant to businesses and policy-makers who will be able to respond to short-term climate change when making decisions today. The next decade is within many people’s understanding and brings home the reality of a changing climate.
The new model incorporates the effects of sea surface temperatures as well as other factors such as man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, projected changes in the sun’s output and the effects of previous volcanic eruptions — the first time internal and external variability have both been predicted.
Team leader, Dr Doug Smith said: “Occurrences of El Nino, for example, have a significant effect on shorter-term predictions. By including such internal variability, we have shown a substantial improvement in predictions of surface temperature.” Dr Smith continues: “Observed relative cooling in the Southern Ocean and tropical Pacific over the last couple of years was correctly predicted by the new system, giving us greater confidence in the model’s performance”.
Notes
Total global warming, on a decadal average, is 0.8 °C since 1900 (IPCC 2007) 1998 is the current warmest year on record with a global mean temperature of 14.54 °C
For further information:
Met Office Press Office
Barry, The basis for those predictions was Smith et al Science, August 2007. The Met Office changed it’s web site on Christmas Eve 2012, and provided a new forecast. So far as I am aware, they have never said why Smith el al was wrong, not have they said on what their new forecast is based. Enquiring minds want to know.
The finest and most experienced climatological minds using the best available models definitively forecast 0.2C per decade.
It did not happen.
Go figure.
Have the IPCC issued their forecast for the World Cup yet? I hope it’s not for an England win……
Judith there is one issue that you don’t address here.
The model projections are global. I think all the datasets are not, think of the issue raised by Cowtan and Way. If not comparing apples with oranges then maybe apples with pears.
Cowtan and Way is suspect for three reasons published elsewhere. And they even had the audacity to cherry pick UAH satellite troposphere data for the Artic, krig it to the surface, then claim an adjusted HADCRUT4 result different than either UAH or RSS shows. And lose any surface/ troposphere excuse. We all can compute the temperature lapse rates with altitude to go from one to the other. The fact that they both frequent SkS says enough about the motivations for the statistical manipulations. Oh dear, we cannot have a pause. That would mean the IPCC 0.2C per decade was wrong.
And the IPCC cannot be wrong, right? Sarc off.
Wasn’t suggest C&W is right just it highlights a legitimate issue, that GMT datasets aren’t actually global.
Drought severity has increased over the last century.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/DroughtDai2004_zps2f59188e.png.html
This is associated with the trend to El Nino over the century and has implications for surface (@2m)temperature records by raising land surface temperature. There is less energy loss from the surface by evaporation more by radiation.
So if we choose an uncluttered record.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1970/plot/rss/from:1979/to:1997/trend/plot/rss/from:2002/trend
The warming between the 1976/1977 and 1998/2001 climates shifts was minimal. And if we believe this below – most of that was cloud changes.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/WongFig2-1_zps2df93e8b.jpg.html?sort=3&o=186
There was a step change in tropospheric temperature following the 1998/2001 climate shift. The change in instruments is a problem – but it seems associated with a decline in IR loss as you would expect from higher cloud coverage.
http://s1114.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/Loeb2011-Fig1.png.html?sort=3&o=158
But it is also associated with lower SW inputs leading to declining temps as the planet cools.
Multi-decadal variability in the Pacific is defined as the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (e.g. Folland et al, 2002, Meinke et al, 2005, Parker et al, 2007, Power et al, 1999) – a proliferation of oscillations it seems. The latest Pacific Ocean climate shift in 1998/2001 is linked to increased flow in the north (Di Lorenzo et al, 2008) and the south (Roemmich et al, 2007, Qiu, Bo et al 2006) Pacific Ocean gyres. Roemmichet al, 2007, suggest that mid-latitude gyres in all of the oceans are influenced by decadal variability in the Southern and Northern Annular Modes (SAM and NAM respectively) as wind driven currents in baroclinic oceans (Sverdrup, 1947).
There is a growing literature on the potential for stratospheric influences on climate (e.g. Matthes et al 2006, Gray et al 2010, Lockwood et al 2010, Schaife et al 2012) due to warming of stratospheric ozone by solar UV emissions. Models incorporating stratospheric layers – despite differing greatly in their formulation of fundamental processes such as atmosphere-ocean coupling, clouds or gravity wave drag – show consistent responses in the troposphere. Top down modulation of SAM and NAM by solar UV has the potential to explain otherwise little understood variability at decadal to much longer scales in ENSO.
We shouldn’t expect a another shift before 2020 – even then there seems little to suggest that it will be to warmer again. While the Sun is cooling – both in the Schwabe cycle and longer term – amplification through top down modulation of the polar annular modes seems more fundamental to climate than changes in irradiance in longer wavelengths.
It seems overwhelmingly likely that the tropospheric temperature trend post 2001 will continue for potentially decades yet.
Thorne–Hawking–Preskill bet
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorne%E2%80%93Hawking%E2%80%93Preskill_bet
Thorne and Hawking argued that since general relativity made it impossible for black holes to radiate, and lose information, the mass-energy and information carried by Hawking radiation must be “new”, and must not originate from inside the black hole event horizon. Since this contradicted the idea under quantum mechanics of microcausality, “quantum mechanics” would need to be rewritten. Preskill argued the opposite, that since quantum mechanics suggests that the information emitted by a black hole relates to information that fell in at an earlier time, the view of black holes given by “general relativity” must be modified in some way. The winner of the bet would receive an encyclopedia of the winners’s choice.[1]
The print edition of Wikipedia would be a substantial prize.
Rud, Yeah, you can’t boss me around. Perhaps you can to those you give vulture capital money to, but not me.
The GISS numbers are in for May, warmest May and 6th warmest month.
Still a bit behind 2010 for warmest year.
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(Apologies for joining this thread so late, I was out of internet contact at the time.)
There seems to be some sort of assumption in all of the above that the trend line of each decade should in general be not too different from that of its predecessor, and that some sort of significance can be attached to any counterexamples, for example the difference between the decades 199* (i.e. the 120 months 1990-2000) which rose sharply and 200* (2000-2010) which was essentially flat. The existence of a “pause” as such depends in an essential way on this assumption.
Some idea of just how wildly wrong this assumption is can be had by examining the ten decades 1870-1970, which are not strongly implicated in global warming. The first two decades, 187* and 188*, have trend lines with respective slopes of 0.174 and −0.058 C/decade. Their difference, 188* − 187*, is therefore −0.231. (These numbers can be read off from this WoodForTrees plot, click on Raw Data and search for “trend”.)
Continuing in this way with the next eight pairs of consecutive decades, we find the following fluctuations in trend from one decade to the next.
188* − 187* : −0.231
189* − 188* : 0.226
190* − 189* : −0.429
191* − 190* : 0.471
192* − 191* : −0.145
193* − 192* : 0.153
194* − 193* : −0.533
195* − 194* : 0.449
196* − 195* : −0.188
These huge variations in trend from one decade to the next totally dwarf the piddling differences between 0.16 and 0.17 C/decade being argued about here.
Did this insanely highly variation in trends from each decade to the next somehow miraculously calm down for the period 1970-2010?
Not particularly. The above continues as follows, based on this plot.
197* − 196* : 0.141
198* − 197* : −0.020
199* − 198* : 0.186
200* − 199* : −0.226
Since 1870 the only consecutive pair of decades with remotely similar trends are 1970-1980 and 1980-1990 (198* − 197*).
Conclusion: there is no significance to the reduction of −0.226 C/decade in slope of trend lines from the decade 1990-2000 to that of 2000-2010. This substantial reduction is the main evidence for the existence of a “pause”. Such variations in trend from decade to decade, both up and down, are common, with some variations being twice as large, e.g. 1890-1900 vs. 1900-1910 (−0.429 C/decade), 1900-1910 vs. 1910-1920 (0.471 C/decade), and 1940-1950 vs. 1950-1960 (0.449 C/decade).
Forgot to mention the biggest difference: 1930-1940 vs. 1940-1950, −0.533 C/decade. The “pause” for 1940-1950 was therefore 2.35 times as large as the −0.226 C/decade change for 2000-2010 sixty years later.
The trend of almost linearly increasing surface temperature is eagerly anticipated. If not a monotonically rise then at least a trending to converge on the anticipated track of temperature increase. This is assured by the proven and fundamental physical process at the crux of the AGW law
All this reminds me of another iconic trend, the hockey stick. An unexpectedly sharp and most welcome uptick
Thanks Vaughn. Your data shows unequivocally that the most recent decades are no different from the previous 100 years. Random, with one decade positive, the next negative. Natural variability is a bitch, isn’t it?
More like a lamb now.
@BW: Your data shows unequivocally that the most recent decades are no different from the previous 100 years.
Yup, you got it, Bill: decades are random.
But is climate random? If it were, then wouldn’t you also expect 20-year periods to be just as random as 10-year periods, i.e. to exhibit the same sort of widely fluctuating natural variability?
Well, wouldn’t you?
Here is the resulting of simply changing 10 to 20 in the previous wildly varying graph. That is, instead of trends for 1870-1880, 1880-1890 etc., plot trends for 1870-1890, 1890-1910, etc.
Note how smooth the temperature plot suddenly becomes! No sign at all of random fluctuations. Instead the temperature declines steadily between 1870 and 1910, then rises steadily from 1910 to 2010 without any sign whatsoever of a pause!
The “pause” that everyone on both sides of the climate debate has bought into is nothing but an artifact of how climate has been behaving ever since 1870. There has been a “pause” every second decade since 1870! The period 2000-2010 is no exception.
But when 20-year periods are looked at, every one of these so-called “pauses” vanishes completely. All we see is a decline (into the next ice age?) up to 1910, and then a steady rise from then on (with an interesting bump centered on the hyperactive WW2 years).
Here’s the real killer. If the steep rise from 1970 to 2000 had really been followed by a pause from 2000-2010 then wouldn’t you expect the rise from 1970 to 1990 to be stronger than for 1990-2010?
Well, wouldn’t you?
To see the exact trend values for those two 20-year periods, click on Raw Data at the bottom of the above graph and look at the bottom two paragraphs. These show the following 20-year trends.
1970-1990: 0.146 °C/decade
1990-2010: 0.165 °C/decade
That is, after factoring out the decadal oscillation (one decade per half-cycle) so clearly visible throughout 1870-2010, not only is there no sign of any pause but the last 20-year period 1990-2010 rose even more strongly than the one before.
This is the exact opposite of what you’d expect if there really had been a pause during 2000-2010 after a steady rise during 1970-2000.
The so-called “pause” is nothing but an artifact of the natural fluctuations observable in one-decade-sized windows. Those fluctuations vanish completely with windows twice as large. The reality after removing the decadal-natural-fluctuations mask becomes clearly visible; the temperature is rising at an ever-increasing rate.
While climate scientists have proposed various explanations of the “pause” (I saw several presented at the AGU Fall Meeting in December), I’m not aware of a simpler explanation than the above.
Simple is one thing, convincing however is an entirely different matter. In the climate debate there is no such thing as a convincing proof except of those propositions which the audience already accepts. Speaking as a logician (I’ve been publishing in logic since 1975) I’ve come to the conclusion that participants on either side of the debate who are certain of a given proposition P regard any proof of not-P as fatally flawed. The mere fact that it proves not-P is for them sufficient evidence by itself that the proof must contain a flaw somewhere, which the experts will identify in due course.
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As a side note, the UN itself seemed to expect warming each decade. This climate change ”fact sheet” from 2007 sums up AR4 findings as thus