‘Warmest year’, ‘pause’, and all that

by Judith Curry

So, was 2014 the ‘warmest year’?  Drum roll . . .

NASA has just issued its press release NASA, NOAA find 2014 hottest year in record.   Nothing in the way of technical details, such as warmest by ‘how much’ and ‘is it statistically significant?’

NYTimes ‘breaking news’: 2014 was hottest year on record surpassing 2010 interviews Gavin Schmidt:

With the continued heating of the atmosphere and the surface of the ocean, 1998 is now being surpassed every four or five years, with 2014 being the first time that has happened in a year featuring no real El Niño pattern. Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, said the next time a strong El Niño occurs, it is likely to blow away all temperature records.

No word yet from HadCRUT4, I heard we can expect their report next week.  Somewhere I read that Cowtan and Way did NOT expect 2014 to be warmest in their data set?

Berkeley Earth has published a nice analysis of their 2014 data [link].  Summary of their main findings:

1. The global surface temperature average for 2014 was nominally the warmest since the global instrumental record began in 1850; however, within the margin of’error, it’s tied with 2005 and 2010 and so we can’t be certain it set a new record.

2. For the land, 2014 was nominally the 4th warmest year since 1753

3. For the sea, 2014 was the warmest year on record since 1850

4. For the contiguous United States, 2014 ranked nominally as the 38th warmest year on record since 1850.

Some other statements of interest:

Several European countries  set all time records for high annual average temperature, as did the continent of Europe as a whole

The margin of uncertainty we achieved was remarkably small (0.05C with 95% confidence).This was achieved, in part, by the inclusion of data from over 30,000 temperature stations, and by the use of optimized statistical methods. Even so, the highest year could not be distinguished. That is, of course, an indication that the Earth’s average temperature for the last decade has changed very little. 

Meanwhile, the ‘warmest year’ is noticeably missing in the satellite data sets of lower atmospheric temperatures.  Roy Spencer reports that 2014 was third warmest year since 1979, but just barely.

Roz Pidcock has penned an article Explainer: How do scientists measure global temperature, that discusses differences among the analyses.

Capitol Weather Gang has reactions from 20 scientists [link], including a few sensible ones (such as moi).

El Nino?

One of the key aspects of the hype about the ‘warmest year in 2014’ was that 2014 was not even an El Nino year.  Well, there has been a great deal of discussion about this issue on the Tropical ListServ.  Here is what I have taken away from that discussion:

A global circulation response pattern to Pacific convection with many similarities to El Niño has in fact been present since at least June.   Convection to the east of New Guinea is influencing zonal winds in the upper troposphere across the Pacific and Atlantic, looking similar to an El Nino circulation response.

So, is it El Niño? Not quite, according to some conventional indices, but a broader physical definition might be needed to capture the different flavors of El Nino.  A number of scientists are calling for modernizing the ENSO identification system. So I’m not sure how this event might eventually be identified, but for many practical purposes (i.e. weather forecasting), this event is behaving in many ways like an El Nino.

What does this mean for interpreting the ‘almost warmest year’?  Well not much; I think it is erroneous to infer that ‘it must be AGW since 2014 wasn’t even an El Nino year’ is useful reasoning here.

That said, there is definitely some unusual events on the North Pacific, including extreme warm anomalies in the mid-high latitudes, and positive value of the PDO.

Bottom line

Berkeley Earth sums it up well with this statement:

That is, of course, an indication that the Earth’s average temperature for the last decade has changed very little.

The key issue remains the growing discrepancy between the climate model projections and the observations:  2014 just made the discrepancy larger.

Speculation about ‘warmest year’ and end of ‘pause’ implies a near term prediction of surface temperatures – that they will be warmer.  I’ve made my projection – global surface temperatures will remain mostly flat for at least another decade.  However, I’m not willing to place much $$ on that bet, since I suspect that Mother Nature will manage to surprise us. (I will be particularly surprised if the rate of warming in the next decade is at the levels expected by the IPCC.)

Senator Ted Cruz

Senator Ted Cruz is  (R-Texas) was just named to be the chairman of the Subcommittee on Space, Science, and Competitiveness.  The folks at Slate are not happy: Yup, a Climate Change Denier Will Oversee NASA.  What Could Possibly Go Wrong?  They are particularly up in arms over this statement from Ted Cruz:

The last 15 years, there has been no recorded warming. Contrary to all the theories that—that they are expounding, there should have been warming over the last 15 years. It hasn’t happened.

Here is what  Slate has to say:

This is, to put it mildly, what comes out of the south end of a north-facing bull. Yes, the Earth has warmed over the past 15 years, and the science is incredibly, unequivocally clear about that. Anyone making this claim either doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or is trying to sell you something (or, to be more accurate, has been bought).

So, what is wrong with Cruz’s statement?  Well, assuming that by ‘recorded warming’, he means the satellite-derived lower atmospheric temperatures his statement is absolutely correct.  If he is referring to globally averaged surface temperatures since 2000, there is only a very small amount of warming; this small amount of warming is indeed contrary to the theory of AGW.

Without going into details here, I refer you to my previous post and my invited presentation given at the American Physical Society:  Causes and Implications of the Pause.

Bottom line:  There is nothing irrational or particularly incorrect about Senator Cruz’s statement.  Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer) who wrote the Slate piece made more incorrect statements than did Cruz.

I just spotted this article from Science2.0 re Cruz and NASA, worth reading [link]

 

 

887 responses to “‘Warmest year’, ‘pause’, and all that

  1. daveandrews723

    We have a situation now where perception is more important than reality… where a political agenda is more important than facts… where some scientists now have a Messiah complex. Just how accurately were ocean temperatures recorded in 1850??? I would love to see the data. Exactly who was keeping accurate/detailed records of the oceans temperatures in 1850???

    • By continuing to support AGW claims without experimental evidence, NASA has exposed the bias that kept the Standard Solar Model of H-filled stars alive despite decades of precise data that show the Sun and other ordinary stars generate and discard H to interstellar space!

    • Presto! Here is one dataset for SSTs, with uncertainties:
      http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/

      • RE “Climate science is an observational science, not an experimental science.”

        One where if the observational data doesn’t fit the theory, you can ignore it and make up your own observations with models.

        David, can you once again explain how data output from a model can be considered as “observational” data?

      • Model data isn’t “observational data” — it is model data.

        What observational data doesn’t fit the theory?

      • Rate of Sea Level Rise

        Extinction of Species

        Rate of “projected” temperature increase

        Increase in “extreme” weather events

        Observed number of climate refugees

        That’s for starters.

      • ting56: Easy to claim, hard to prove. Start proving.

      • David,

        Here is where honesty comes into play.

        SLR by tidal gauge has averaged 1.7 mm yr over the past century. 3.3 mm yr using satellite data. Meaning there is no definitive evidence of sea levels rising at an accelerating rate.

        I don’t do dueling graphs, but if you really believe measured temps are tracking with model projections, the burden of proof is on you.

        A bright grade school student can find the data regarding hurricanes, tornados, flooding, wildfires, etc. Your side is the one making the claims regarding extreme weather. Therefore your side bears the burden of proving it. It isn’t up to me to disprove it.

        Same holds for climate refugees. We were told there would be 50 million of them by 2010. It’s 5 years past that dead line and you couldn’t come up with 5 thousand.

        Extinct species – how do I “prove” none have gone extinct? Again I am not the one making the claim. I would say that something like a species disappearing is the sort of thing you would expect we all would hear about. That we haven’t is telling.

        So how about a little honest discourse David. You asked what observational data isn’t matching theory. I gave you several examples. Show me where I am in error.

      • > Your side is the one making the claims regarding extreme weather. Therefore your side bears the burden of proving it. It isn’t up to me to disprove it.

        There goes hypothesis testing.

    • “Just how accurately were ocean temperatures recorded in 1850??? I would love to see the data.”

      You can bet they weren’t pretending to be accurate to the hundredth of a degree, only to be adjusted 100 years later with a global replacement of raw data multiplied by some unexplained factor –e.g., corrected for the effect of taking the temperatures at different times of day such as when clocks were changed in places where daylight savings time was observed.

      • No one says 1850 SSTs were that accurate. Look at the data, for Christ’s sake, at least once in your life. Just once.

      • “In addition, we can evaluate climate over longer periods of observation. For example, in 2013, the global temperature was about 1.12°F (0.62°C) above the long-term average for the 20th century, according to NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center.”

      • You completely ignored the question. I’m not surprised.

      • Unfortunately, the convinced model-makers of climatism who have been beating the drums are so dedicated to the concept of an average global temperature that they no longer even care if their models are tested and fail in every possible way: regionally, seasonally, temporally and historically.

      • You’re still avoiding the question. Much easier to rant, than think.

      • There is no debate about whether mathematics is necessary in science. Mathematics is useful in helping us understand nature. Understanding climate change is not a matter of instinct. Science is not a matter of how we might feel about something. We can use mathematics to demonstrate why climatism’s fear of humanity and industrial man is really climatism’s detour to helplessness.

      • David Appell : “Look at the data, for Christ’s sake, at least once in your life. Just once.”

        LOL!

    • 2014 warmest year on record.

      Please don’t choke on your peas the next time you say “global warming stopped in 1998” Morans?

    • Admit it. Judy doesn’t care if 2014 was the warmest year. She’s getting PAID, and besides her dogs will be dead before things get too toasty.

    • Well, the basic problem is that the global temperature index is basis on historically sparse data that mixes sea surface and land air temperatures (two different measurement). If we had Argos data and measurements from 20 feet deep land probes located in a well distributed manner back to 1880 or earlier the global temperature index would have some sort of value because we would be measuring the temperature of the globe.

      Air is a heat exchange medium. Trying to determine if the planet is warming by measuring the air temperature is like trying to determine the temperature of a point in the engine block by measuring coolant temperature at the radiator. Further when the ocean is absorbing heat the air above it is cooler and when it is exhausting heat the air above it is warmer (a contraindication)

      Global temperature index is a synthetic construction of dubious practical value.

  2. The actual temperature records for global temperatures indicate a definite pause for at least the last 17 years. Climate change models do not predict this pause and their predictions do not match actual results.
    See:
    http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/518630-global-warming-or-not-something-has-to-change/

    • Climate models don’t do short-term (1-2 decades) predictions. They don’t do predictions at all — they do projections — but to do short-term projections you’d need to know the short-tem future — of ENSOs, PDO, AMO, volcanoes, solar irradiance…. Climate models don’t know those things, and can’t. (But they average out to zero (or are small) over many decades.)

      • “predictions/projections

        How funny, the desperate attempts on the warmist side to somehow wiggle out of the implications of the failing models. If I’d approached you 15 years ago and offered you a bet David that any warming would be insignificant to non-existent, you’d have taken me for a sucker and eagerly reached for your wallet.

      • “…aiming at..2200”

        Sad, that you genuinely believe you know what’s going to happen 200 years from now. The climate debate continues to remind us all of how spectacularly dumb smart people can be.

      • Pokerguy,

        I, of anyone here, cannot comment on levels of intelligence (as I’m candidate for low man on that totem pole). But to follow on David’s question about the trend since Tuesday, I wonder what it will be like tomorrow!

      • What’s particularly poignant, pokerguy, is you and I feeling sorry for David over this. Sharp as an appleseed in many respects, mushy as babyfood applesauce in some.

        The sadness is how easy it is to make fun of one of his core beliefs. I swore I’d get out before the schadenfreude, but where the Hell are the border markings?
        =================

      • “(But they average out to zero (or are small) over many decades.)”

        How many decades are enough for this averaging, now there’s the rub!
        I would suggest that 100 is a good place to start – if that’s not enough, increase as required.

      • The pause is 16 days old, long live the pause!

      • What “failing models?”

      • What “failing models?”

        Why the ones that are off by 0.1%

        I wish my checkbook balance was within 0.1%

        But I’ll admit I’m not good at arithmetic, but mathematics, I am less than stellar.

      • Given all the things that climate models ignore,.what processes would modellers suggest we adopt to demonstrate that they are quantitatively right?

      • > If I’d approached you 15 years ago

        Counterfactual betting is illegal in some philosophy departments.

      • Heh!

        “I say predictions, and you say projections, let’s call the whole thing off!”

        Wasn’t that a line from a Sinatra song?

    • Yeah, yeah, yeah. They’ve projected too poorly for policy purposes, as the politicians who’ve depended upon them are finding out.
      =====================

      • I disagree. Climate policy isn’t made for the sake of the next 10-20 years; it’s aiming at 2050 and 2100 and 2200….

      • Honey, projections are difficult, especially into the future, and the futurer you get, the futiler your projects.
        ===============

      • Matthew R Marler

        David Appell: I disagree. Climate policy isn’t made for the sake of the next 10-20 years; it’s aiming at 2050 and 2100 and 2200….

        Where is the evidence that the model calculations are accurate for 2050, 2100 or 2200? Before the “pause”, it was asserted that the model results would be accurate for 2010, which they were not.

      • David Appell,

        I work in an industry that most people think uses a rather long term planning window. Want to know what that term is? 10 – 20 years out. We tend to be the exception.

        Care to provide examples of political entities who craft policy at that time frame, let alone at time frames of 50, 100 & 200 years?

      • Sorry, but I wouldn’t allow myself to resist and sent only in fun: http://teachingamericanhistory.org/wp-content/themes/tah-main/images/imported/convention/stearns.jpg

      • “Where is the evidence that the model calculations are accurate for 2050, 2100 or 2200?”

        Done here. Who’s next?

      • ting: all climate policy is crafted for those time frames. All of it.

      • MRM has it exactly right. When 5-10 year projections proved ridiculously wrong, the alarmists merely stopped projecting short-term and started predicting catastrophe no nearer than 30 years (aka after retirement and grant money had been maximized for ea. individual predictor).

      • David,

        Nice tap dancing to avoid answering the question.

      • harkin: can you read?
        I explained why 10-20 year predictions can’t be made.
        Did you understand what I wrote?

      • ting: How the f can anyone know if a model is correct for years that haven’t happened yet?

      • Mr. Appel, I am intrigued at your comment about policy being made on century-long bases. Well, amazed, actually. It’s a commonplace that policy windows don’t go past the next election. Can you refer me to a policy-making or influencing body that actually does have a longer window?

      • @MM: Before the “pause”, it was asserted that the model results would be accurate for 2010, which they were not.

        By “2010” do you mean January 2010, July 2010, December 2010, or the average over the whole year?

        The World Meteorological Organization defines “climate” at any given time as the global mean surface temperature averaged over a 30-year period. The IPCC implicitly uses the slightly shorter period of 20 years based on their definition of Transient Climate Response.

        Do you claim that either the WMO or the IPCC is wrong in claiming that the climate has been climbing steadily for the past half century of climate?

      • Appell knows what to do today based on projections written by progressive activist scientists written in 1914. Everyone knows eugenics is popular today based on their work a century ago!
        Pokerguy, I am a denier in one respect: I deny that Appell has any knowledge of or interest in the climate in 2100 or 2200. I believe he is willing to claim such knowledge or interest only in so far as it leads to policies he wants today and then only certain policies. If the scientific consensus was that the only solution to AGW was nuclear, he’d find s different hobby.

      • > If the scientific consensus was that the only solution to AGW was nuclear, he’d find another hobby.

        Counterfactual sociology has yet to be established.

      • David Appell: “I explained why 10-20 year predictions can’t be made.
        Did you understand what I wrote?”

        Yes. and I agree completely, we have ample evidence of that from the abysmal performance of the computer games models, don’t we?

        But you forgot to mention that when you’re dealing with an effectively infinitely large open-ended non-linear feedback-driven (where we don’t know all the feedbacks, and even the ones we do know, we are unsure of the signs of some critical ones) chaotic system – hence subject to inter alia extreme sensitivity to initial conditions, you can’t make mid or long term predictions/projections either.

      • “Counterfactual sociology has yet to be established.”

        It’s not only established, it has a blog: https://andthentheresphysics.wordpress.com/

        We should audit people’s ability to forecast 100 years away. I’ll even let you call the really bad ones “projections” for consistency’s sake.

      • I disagree. Climate policy isn’t made for the sake of the next 10-20 years; it’s aiming at 2050 and 2100 and 2200….

        In 1900 they projected the depth of manure on the streets of NYC in the year 2000. Guess how that worked out?

      • Heh, there’s gotta be less than a one in twenty-seven million chance of being right at a hundred years.

        Let history be your guide. Oh, that crapshoot.
        =================

    • bob droege wrote:
      “The pause is 16 days old, long live the pause!”

      Soon it will be three weeks.

      • Your policies will just be five times more wrong at a century time frame. The pause is no aberration. It is a lesson you are unwilling to learn.

  3. Plait, my plaint.
    ===========

  4. If you look at the GHCN Meteorological Year (MetAnn), 2010 was the warmest globally, and 2014 was 2nd warmest. But the difference is 0.01°C.

  5. Judith –

    Since you’re commenting on what powerful Republicans have to say about climate change:

    Chairman of the House subcommittee on environment,Jim Bridenstine (R-Oklahoma):

    Q: Do you believe that human activity is contributing to climate change?

    A: No. The Earth’s climate has always varied substantially as demonstrated by pre-industrial human records and natural evidence. There is no doubt that human activity can change local conditions, but on a global scale natural processes including variations in solar output and ocean currents control climatic conditions. There is no credible scientific evidence that greenhouse gas atmospheric concentrations, including carbon dioxide, affect global climate. I oppose regulating greenhouse gases. Doing so will significantly increase energy prices and keep more people in poverty.

    Since you have testified to Congress at the request of Republicans in the past, and since Jim is in a powerful position, do you feel some sense of obligation towards correcting Jiim’s views?

    Oh, and while you’re at it, maybe you could talk to them about uncertainty? You know, the problems of being certain about economic outcomes of doing something about ACO2 emissions?

    Just introduce them to Mr. Monster (if he hasn’t just conveniently ducked out of the room as he often does when you’re writing blog posts).

    • At least when you fact check Ted Cruz tells the truth 16% of the time, nearly the same as the Follow Our Xenophobia channel. Way ahead of Jim Bridenstine.

    • I hope Judith replies to your (pertinent) questions.

      • David Appell: “Where is your proof that such a trace gas can’t be a control knob? Hard, quantatative proof.”

        Where’s your hard, quantatative proof that it is?

        Because a ~2 decade pause in warming despite a ~10% increase in atmospheric CO2 is clear evidence that it probably isn’t.

        Or are you a pause denier too?

    • What’s to correct? The evidence does not exist to claim that co2 all by it’s lonesome has any meaningfuleffect on climate. The delusinal group is those who claim that a trace gas making up just .04% of the atmosphere, and of that .04%, human contribution from burning fossil fuels makes up maybe 3%, is somehow THE control knob for our climate systemd. You somehow think that if we can control co2, we can control climate and never experience any kind of climate change or severe weather again. So, tell me joshie, who are the fools?

      • Where is your proof that such a trace gas can’t be a control knob? Hard, quantatative proof.

        BTW, the average concentration of ozone in the atmosphere is 0.6 ppm — 1/700th the level of CO2.

        Do you know what you’d be without this trace gas?

      • David Appell : “BTW, the average concentration of ozone in the atmosphere is 0.6 ppm — 1/700th the level of CO2.”

        Disingenuous – downright mendacious, in fact.

        Now you’re making stuff up, that’s naughty.

        About 90% of the ozone is concentrated in the ozone layer, about 20 kilometres above the Earth’s surface.

        And you know that, don’t you?

      • catweazle

        ‘Averaging’ is a very dangerous tool as we can see in everything from ‘average’ global temperatures to ‘average’ sea level rises. The ‘average is rarely what has occurred anywhere
        tonyb

      • It’s still a trace gas in the stratosphere at 2 to 10 ppm and blocks nearly all of the UV B radiation to the benefit of humans, plants and animals.

        CO2 isn’t a trace gas if you are considering only the IR absorbing/emitting gases in the atmosphere.

      • Heh, ‘rarely’. Perhaps greater than 27 million to one. In fact, surely so. I can demonstrate it. Where’s the abacus?
        =============

      • Barnes

        ==> “What’s to correct?”

        Judith doesn’t listen to people who doubt that ACO2 impacts the climate.

        So from her perspective, there’s a correction to be made.

    • –Since you have testified to Congress at the request of Republicans in the past, and since Jim is in a powerful position, do you feel some sense of obligation towards correcting Jiim’s views?–

      There is no evidence that humans have caused global climate change, nor is there evidence that human are likely to have caused much of increase in global temperature in last century.

      What one could call a global climate change is the Sahara Desert going from a wetter conditions to drier condition that it is today. There have been various ideas that do blame human activity for this climate change, but the evidence seems to indicate that this change in climate was natural variability in climate rather than something caused by human activity.

      One could also point to the dust bowl in the US in 1930’s as example of an minor global climate change. One can make a case that human activity worsen the effect of this natural climate change, but you can’t argue [successfully] that the drought conditions were caused by human activity.
      One also point to many decadic changes in regional climates, and these are also a result of natural variability.
      Humans using irritation have transform regions- turning deserts into farmable regions- one can assume this climate change, but this is incorrect as one has not actually changed global climate. Likewise urban area can cause rainfall shadow- likewise this only has small regional effect and is not global climate change.
      And changes in global climate which result century periods of warming and cooling are not caused by human activity.

      So idea of human causing global climates changes is only a idea of what might happen in the future and is not something which has happened in the past- though have changed local conditions. Cut down trees, irritated dry [or desert] regions, built dams, built cities, and etc is not global climate change.

  6. Science suggests that CO2 will tend to warm the climate, all else being equal. Of course, many elements of climate are ignored in that statement. The Devil is in those ignored details.

    • Which elements of climate are being ignored?

      • The element that is being ignored is surface tension. Surface tension cannot block radiation but it can block heat from a gas.

      • Surface tension of the ocean(?). What is your back-of-the-envelope calculation of its effect?

      • Before anyone can recommend anything, we have to get measurements good enough to use to determine how climate works. So, my recommendation is to set up more measuring systems with the necessary accuracy and precision. After we gathered thorough, good data for 30 or 40 more years, then we can answer your question.

    • Water feedback is not accounted for accurately. 97% of people who are somewhat associated with climate science agree.

    • In what way is water not being accounted for correctly? What is your recommendation on how it should be done?

      • Trying again …

        Before anyone can recommend anything, we have to get measurements good enough to use to determine how climate works. So, my recommendation is to set up more measuring systems with the necessary accuracy and precision. After we gathered thorough, good data for 30 or 40 more years, then we can answer your question.

  7. Has ‘the pause’ gone paws up already?

  8. So, when is the right time to start worrying about the Left’s belief in a fearsome climate tempest in a teapot? After global warming has gone sideways for nearly 2 decades. We do not have to wonder about what mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell would say about the logic of who should bear burden of proof that humanity is cooking the globe, as follows:

    Russell’s teapot, sometimes called the celestial teapot or cosmic teapot, is an analogy first coined by the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) to illustrate that the philosophic burden of proof lies upon a person making scientifically unfalsifiable claims rather than shifting the burden of proof to others, specifically in the case of religion. Russell wrote that if he claims that a teapot orbits the Sun somewhere in space between the Earth and Mars, it is nonsensical for him to expect others to believe him on the grounds that they cannot prove him wrong. Russell’s teapot is still referred to in discussions concerning the existence of God. (wiki)

    • John Smith (it's my real name)

      current USA TODAY header
      “Humans ‘cooking the planet’ scientists warn after hottest year”
      complete with woman wiping her sweating brow
      saw that and clicked to CE for sanity
      I think I’ll start worrying today, IMO the Left is going a bit mad

    • Since the climate has statistical noise whose sources are known and understood by scientists, and the taking the noise into account there still is a warming trend, it is a mistake to claim that the trend has stopped.

      https://tamino.wordpress.com/

      Your claim that Russell’s orbiting teapot is a valid analogy for climate change is what is clearly nonsense. There is a statistically significant current warming trend. The 188 year old theory that atmospheric gases that absorb and emit IR radiation in the atmosphere cause the earths surface to be warmer than it would otherwise be has been verified by a large body of evidence, included observed IR radiation both at the surface of the earth and escaping into the atmosphere. Finally it is certain that humans have caused one of these gases CO2 to increase in atmospheric concentration.
      So the evidence for AGW is strong. The question is how big an effect will it be ultimately. There is no such evidence for a teapot orbiting the sun.

      Your post is total nonsense. You are clearly a wanker , when it comes to the issue of global warming.

      • … ad hom attacks from an Al Gore DVD on global warming propaganda techniques?

      • Taminos post about change points is interesting.
        The way I understand p values he has nicely demonstrated that in most data sets there is about a 20% chance that the apparent pause has arisen as a result of random variation and there is no real change point or pause. This fails the statistical bar of less than 1 in 20 likelihood due to randomness we generally apply in medine or elsewhere in statistics to be confident about a finding. It does however imply an 80% percent likelihood that there was a change point not due to chance alone. While this is not convincing it is suggestive. Hasn’t tamino just demonstrated that while the data is noisy it is more likely than not that there was a change point?

  9. Yes, 2014 *won’t* be the warmest year in Cowtan and Way’s record (it will likely be 2nd warmest). Some who’ve touted C&W as a superior dataset aren’t being consistent.

  10. It would appear that the 2014 ‘quasi-Nino’ has been responsible for maintaining global temperatures at their current high whilst setting a few regional temperature records in the process. CET, for instance, exceeded the previous 2006 record but again, only just, and within the margin of error. What I like to call a quasi-Nino may in fact be a “basin-wide El Nino” which was apparently predicted back in July 2014.

    http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/science/could-this-years-el-nio-be-like-the-2009-one/article6170122.ece

    Whatever the case, NASA/NOAA claiming unreservedly that 2014 was the ‘hottest year on record’ in the middle of an 10 to 18 year pause in global warming is disingenuous, to put it politely.

    • Surely the near-ENSO mattered — SSTs zoomed up this year — but the Sun is also at a cycle maximum. 2014 TSI was 0.57 W/m2 higher than 2010’s (LASP data). That could account for 0.01 C warmer….

      • By all accounts, the very pronounced 2nd peak of the current cycle exceeded expectations and only now is turning downwards.

        http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_similar_cycles.png
        http://www.solen.info/solar/images/comparison_recent_cycles.png

      • The warmest oceans on record and the peak solar cycle all are contributing factors that influence global surface temperatures, but underlying all these natural variability factors it must be kept in mind that ultimately we are talking about more net energy being retained by the climate system on a long-term basis, in a variety of forms and locations. The steady rise of anthropogenic GHG’s is matched by the steady accumulation of energy in the system, and this goes back many decades.

      • R.Gates,

        “The steady rise of anthropogenic GHG’s is matched by the steady accumulation of energy in the system, and this goes back many decades.”

        For starters, the rise in anthro GHGs has accelerated sharply since the 1950’s, even more so since about 1990, so it’s not really a steady increase over many decades. There is no really accurate way of measuring the energy in the system – which basically comes down to measuring ocean heat content – because of the of the huge uncertainties involved in measuring tiny increases in temperature across the vast expanses of the oceans,from depth of 0 to several hundred meters down. 3000 Argo floats, fully operational only since about 2006, is not going to give us the required accurate OHC profile for the modern era,let alone going back many decades. Indirect measurements involving TOA energy budget calculations also cannot be relied upon with any certainty.

        So we cannot say for sure that energy is accumulating in the system and the lack of recent surface warming certainly does not support the contention that it is.

      • I want to thank Gates and JCH for providing a link to a study a few months ago that showed OHC was warmer during the MWP than during recent decades. A big shout out to Gates and JCH for being alert, although perhaps inadvertently.

      • Steven Mosher

        Logic fail

        ‘There is no really accurate way of measuring the energy in the system – which basically comes down to measuring ocean heat content – because of the of the huge uncertainties involved in measuring tiny increases in temperature across the vast expanses of the oceans,from depth of 0 to several hundred meters down.”

        1. There is a way of measuring. It’s called sampling.
        2. All measurement/sampling approaches come with uncertainty.
        3. Uncertainty is large or small in relation to
        A) the decision you are making
        B) the confidence you want to have.

        In the practical world I make decisions every week based on low confidence ( > 50% ) and wide uncertainties. So long as my decisions
        beat “chance” I am ahead of the game.

      • Oh boy.

        Measurement vs. estimation?

      • Steven Mosher

        “1. There is a way of measuring. It’s called sampling.
        2. All measurement/sampling approaches come with uncertainty.
        3. Uncertainty is large or small in relation to
        A) the decision you are making
        B) the confidence you want to have.

        In the practical world I make decisions every week based on low confidence ( > 50% ) and wide uncertainties. So long as my decisions
        beat “chance” I am ahead of the game.”

        Science fail. The Argo sampling, even assuming that the errors they quote for their data are reasonable (doubtful), is woefully inadequate to construct a global ocean temp profile from 0-2000m. Furthermore, the ‘observed’ Argo trend in OHC 0-700m, with all its considerable uncertainties, is way short of what AGW climate models predicted. Hence the notion that the ‘observed’ global rise in deep ocean temperatures is ‘taking up the slack’ in the OHC rise necessary to keep AGW theory on a par with reality. One problem: explaining how more heat makes its way to the depths without commensurately warming the shallower 0-700m layer above. Simple: enhanced surface mixing has driven the heat downwards. Problem: mean global wind speeds have declined appreciably in the last decade or so.

      • I would say Judith Curry is a TOTAL joke except that she is letting me write that on here. That only makes her a 97% joke.

      • Doug, you are very borderline in your comments. Say something constructive, or at least avoid insulting other commenters

      • “So we cannot say for sure that energy is accumulating in the system.
        —–
        We can’t say anything “for sure” and be an honest rational skeptic. But we can say many things are far more likely than not, and the steady accumulation of energy in Earth’s climate system is one that we can say is likely going back many decades. Multiple lines of data support the ever accelerating changes going on in not just the climate, but the biosphere, atmosphere, cryopshere, hydrosphere, and even lithosphere. These are all being brought about by Homo sapiens. It’s the Anthropocene, and now the test will be to see how we shift from unintentional causes and effects to intentional management for long-term sustainability.

      • Rgates.

        If you see this please acknowledge at the foot of last weeks ‘week in review’

        I have a very good example of an SSW I experienced last week. Well, two actually, but the same one in different countries

        tonyb

      • R.Gates,

        “But we can say many things are far more likely than not, and the steady accumulation of energy in Earth’s climate system is one that we can say is likely going back many decades.”

        Just how many decades are we talking about? How can you be so sure that it is not a continual (natural) climate forcing operating over this unspecified period, rather than a continual accumulation of energy, presumably due to your anthropogenic greenhouse gases? A climate forcing which has resulted in more energy entering into the atmosphere and upper levels of the oceans over a period stretching from the LIA until present which must certainly account for most or all of the warming pre-1950?

        How can you be so sure that post 1950 global warming is predominantly man made? Only by singing from the hymn book of the IPCC.

        “It’s the Anthropocene, and now the test will be to see how we shift from unintentional causes and effects to intentional management for long-term sustainability.”

        You got me there. When did the Holocene end and the Anthropocene begin? These geological eras tend to sneak up on you don’t they?

    • ENSO has been on the south side of the zero line for the vast majority of the months leading up to 2014 being the warmest year. The big increase in SST happened elsewhere. Much of it in the PDO region during the cool phase of the PDO. Lol.

    • JJ wrote:
      T”he Argo sampling, even assuming that the errors they quote for their data are reasonable (doubtful), is woefully inadequate to construct a global ocean temp profile from 0-2000m.”

      Why?

      “Furthermore, the ‘observed’ Argo trend in OHC 0-700m, with all its considerable uncertainties, is way short of what AGW climate models predicted.”

      Proof?

      • Why?

        Because 3 or 4000 Argo floats which spend most of their time at depth, then periodically rise to the surface, taking measurements, then sink back down again, seeking to take a representative temp profile over time of the entire world’s oceans from the surface down to 2km, doesn’t sound at all feasible and very probably isn’t. Do you have damning evidence to the contrary?

        Proof?

        Not sure what level of ‘proof’ you require but do you dispute this graph?

        http://i51.tinypic.com/20k62yq.jpg

      • Jaime wrote:
        “Because 3 or 4000 Argo floats which spend most of their time at depth, then periodically rise to the surface, taking measurements, then sink back down again, seeking to take a representative temp profile over time of the entire world’s oceans from the surface down to 2km, doesn’t sound at all feasible and very probably isn’t.”

        Why?

      • Jaime: Your Bob Tisdale graph stops at 2011!

        Get out of here until you’re ready to present truthful data.

      • SkepticGoneWild

        Per AR5 WG1 Technical Summary, TS.6.1:

        • Different global estimates of sub-surface ocean temperatures have
        variations at different times and for different periods, suggesting
        that sub-decadal variability in the temperature and upper heat
        content (0 to to 700 m) is still poorly characterized in the historical
        record. {3.2}

        • Below ocean depths of 700 m the sampling in space and time is
        too sparse to produce annual global ocean temperature and heat
        content estimates prior to 2005. {3.2.4}

        • Observational coverage of the ocean deeper than 2000 m is still
        limited and hampers more robust estimates of changes in global
        ocean heat content and carbon content. This also limits the quantification
        of the contribution of deep ocean warming to sea level
        rise. {3.2, 3.7, 3.8; Box 3.1}

      • “Jaime: Your Bob Tisdale graph stops at 2011!

        Get out of here until you’re ready to present truthful data.”

        Deary me, how terribly remiss of me to present data which the passing of 36 months has rendered a lie. Forgive me and accept the graph updated to 2013. If you have evidence that the 0-700m OHC has accelerated to keep up to speed with the modeled trend in the last 12 months, please do post.

        http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/ocean/global-ocean-temperature-700m-models-argo.gif

        Ocean surface approx. 360m sq km. 4000 Argo floats. Mean area of coverage = 90,000 sq km per float, from depths of 0-2km. Each float presumed to be able to measure a representative temperature over time of that entire volume of water. That’s why I find it unfeasible.

      • Saved you the effort. OHC 0-700m up to Sept 2014. Not a great amount of change since 2013 by the looks. Which means AGW theorists must rely upon demonstrating a huge increase in OHC below 700m and that data is even less reliable.

        http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/heat_content55-07.png

      • Also,to be more precise, nearer 3600 Argo floats, therefore mean coverage 100,000 sq km, but location varies greatly – they are not evenly distributed around the globe. Some areas of the oceans get greater coverage, others even less, or none at all.

      • How do they combat, er, adjust, for the inevitable clustering?
        ==============

      • Statistical infilling I think it’s called.

  11. OMG!!

    ” A number of scientists are calling for modernizing the ENSO identification system. So I’m not sure how this event might eventually be identified, but for many practical purposes (i.e. weather forecasting), this event is behaving in many ways like an El Nino”

    But El Nino 3.4 has become a fixture in the armchair climate scientist lexicon. How will all the internet experts adjust?!

    Oh, the Humanity.

  12. Richard Mallett

    The link to the Roz Pidcock article doesn’t work.

    Steve Mosher says the data behind the PDF analysis should be up shortly when the rest of the stations report in.

    I wonder why Capitol Weather Gang edited some comments for length, if they’re going to be published on a website ?

    Interesting comment from David Karoly that 1911 was a record cold year globally, since that was well inside the ‘post-industrial’ period.

  13. Reblogged this on JunkScience.com.

  14. Pingback: ‘Warmest year’, ‘pause’, and all that * The New World

  15. Of course I’ve been talking about the high probability of 2014 being the warmest year on instrument record for many months, and am not surprised to see it officially announced. Despite all the rhetoric about this from both sides, the perspective on this should be one of a long-term perspective and how 2014 fits into that.

    2003-2014 was the warmest decade on record (very significant)
    2010-2014 was the warmest five year period on record (less significant)
    2014 was the warmest year on record (least significant)

    I take the completely opposite view of Judith, and think it more likely than not that the next decade 2015-2024 will be warmer still, and that there will be several years in that period that will be new warmest years on record.

    • Of course the 10 year period would be 2005-2014, but also, it is exceptionally significant that the 20 year period 1995-2014 is the warmest 20 year period in likely at many centuries. The fact that the global climate models cannot track the exact path of the inevitable long-term rise in temperatures is such a hollow argument as natural variability is the cause of these short-term wiggles while the long-term rise is almost certainly (never 100% certain) caused by anthropogenic forcing.

      • “while the long-term rise is almost certainly (never 100% certain) caused by anthropogenic forcing.” Ever since the Little Ice Age?

      • Ward of the wood

        Hi R Gates

        So it’s ‘exceptionally significant’ this period from 1995-2014. However the very same would very likely say the pause which is arguably of similar period is not at all significant. Please provide your proof of these seemingly dubious double standards or is it just a ‘short term wiggle’ as you describe.

      • And what is the magnitude of this “long term rise” ?
        How do you know that the raise in temps isn’t the upward “leg” of such a “short term wiggle”, but a “long term rise”.
        How do you tell between the “short term wiggle” and the “long term rise” ?
        When temps rise – it’s “long term, anthropogenic forcing”, when they stall it’s “short term wiggle” – correct?

      • Shhh! Gatesy is about to show us his chart showing CO2, temperature, and water vapor increasing in lockstep to levels higher than EVAH seen before.

      • Hi Don Monfort
        Like the ones that are conveniently truncated at year 2000 no doubt?

      • We already knew that they were going to announce it.. they announced it prior to the Lima shin dig… So it would have been a big surprise if they
        had not backed that up.

        Interestingly
        http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2915061/Nasa-climate-scientists-said-2014-warmest-year-record-38-sure-right.html#ixzz3PBpOUD5X
        “Nasa climate scientists: We said 2014 was the warmest year on record… but we’re only 38% sure we were right
        Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies claimed its analysis of world temperatures showed ‘2014 was the warmest year on record’
        But it emerged that GISS’s analysis is subject to a margin of error
        Nasa admits this means it is far from certain that 2014 set a record at all ”

        I liked JoNova’s comment (on her site)
        “Does that mean 97% of climate experts are 62% sure they are wrong?”

        Cheers

        Jim

    • Thanks for those enlightening numbers.

    • R.Gates,

      Isn’t this the crux of the matter: “I take the completely opposite view of Judith, and think it more likely than not that the next decade 2015-2024 will be warmer still, and that there will be several years in that period that will be new warmest years on record.” More than likely? Can you quantify? New records? Can you quantify? Would you be more “right” if the 2014 trend indicator remains for the next decade? Would she? Who’d win that bet?

      Didn’t Dr. Curry say she expects the pause to continue but would not bet much money on it?

      If the scale from low to high is a year to a decade and it’s expanded outward for a longer term showing a “continuation” of a warming trend over a much long time frame (pre industrial from LIA) would be of even greater significance? Why would a prudent observer NOT need to rely more on the natural variability than the “theory” of CO2 (GHG’s) being something requiring substantial financial investment to address?

      Not intending to put words in Dr. Curry’s mouth, but by not betting a lot of money on the pause continuing, would one not expect her to also not bet a ton of money to try to “fix” it based on our level of knowledge today? I will put the words in my mouth, however. (My impression is she’d be willing to bet maybe just a little bit :)

      • Danny: There have been pauses before. There will be pauses again — though less likely as GHG-forcing gets higher and higher.

        Risbey and colleagues found five historical periods where the 15-year intervals saw negative trends and/or trends near the bottom of the range of climate model calculations: periods centered on 1890, 1905, 1945, 1970, and 2005.
        http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n9/full/nclimate2310.html

      • There has been cooling before and there will be cooling again.

      • Jim2,

        I don’t doubt that. It is, as it ever was?

        Indeed, if I understand R. Gates “cooling” right now is “masking” the warming that’s actually going on. I, for one, have no idea. It’s why I’m here, there, and everywhere………..

      • Danny,

        All great questions. The term I use, very specifically is “more likely than not” that 2015-2024 will be warmer than 2005-2014. How much more likely gets way too far away from what any model could tell us. For example, a few big Pinatubo sized volcanoes going off in the period of 2015-2024 would affect temperatures greatly. Volcanic activity of course falls into the category of forcings that can’t be predicted or accounted for in advance by global climate models.

        While I am not a betting man, if someone forced me to bet on warming versus cooling versus “flat” over the next decade, I’d put my bet on warming, meaning that the decadal average of 2015-2024 will be the warmest on instrument record. The forcing from anthropogenic activity is the long-term nudge to temperatures continuing to go higher until such time as humans reduce their carbon emissions or commit to serious geoengineering efforts.

      • R. Gates,

        As a (bit) of a betting man, I’d take the same bet as yours. But it would be for differing reasons (as it’s been warming for a long time). But if the bet was between .1C vs. say 1C I’d take the lower bet for more money and the higher for less.

        Further, just for fun, I’d bet we’ll start to gain more understanding in the same time frame allowing me to make a different bet at that time. I prefer blackjack vs. roulette. :)

      • RGates has been clear for awhile. Basically, croupier here, he bets that the sun isn’t doing something unusual for our experience, AND that the natural oscillating of the oceanic cooling/warming phases will return to baseline this decade. A fool and his money are soon parted, but I see RGates puts not out his money.

        Still, fooled about the catastrophic effect of AnthroCO2.
        ============

      • kim wrote:
        “Basically, croupier here, he bets that the sun isn’t doing something unusual for our experience….”

        What is the evidence the Sun is doing something “unusual?”

        Over the last years or so it’s average irradiance has been on a slight downward trend. The TSI at this solar max is the lowest for a solar max in at least 35 years….

      • “…he bets that the sun isn’t doing something unusual for our experience.”
        _______
        I find the current sleepy sun behavior extremely interesting, and highly suspect that the both the Maunder and Dalton minimum of solar activity played a role in those cool periods as many have speculated. But in taking a “sum of all forcings” approach, I don’t see even a Maunder-type minimum in solar activity and related negative forcing overcoming the net positive forcings we are getting from the rising GH gas concentrations.

      • Matthew R Marler

        R. Gates: While I am not a betting man, if someone forced me to bet on warming versus cooling versus “flat” over the next decade, I’d put my bet on warming, meaning that the decadal average of 2015-2024 will be the warmest on instrument record.

        Want to be a tiny bit more quantitative? What fraction of your annual income would you bet, and at what odds? Do you have a range for “flat”, or must the estimated change be 0.00000?

        Policy-wise, the “developed” nations (excluding Brazil and China) are being asked to bet a few trillion dollars, with no counter from the “undeveloped” nations.

      • RGates, yes, I understand your position. I give lesser magnitude to the effect of AnthroCO2 than do you. Remember that the higher the sensitivity, the colder we would now be without man’s pusillanimous input.
        =================

      • “Remember that the higher the sensitivity, the colder we would now be without man’s pusillanimous input.”
        ____
        Please explain your logic to me. My perspective is exactly the opposite based on the multiple kinds of negative forcing that have been present over the hiatus period. If you take the “sum of all forcings” approach, and stack up GH gas forcing (including the increases in methane and N2O) over the hiatus, versus the potential negative forcings (increased aerosols, sleepy sun, negative IPO), it would seem that GH gas forcing is holding it’s own extremely well, meaning that the sensitivity of the climate is high to this forcing, otherwise the negative forcings would have brought us more cooling. Sensitivity would have to be high to changes in GH gas forcing or they could not so effectively counter the negative forcings present. Following this logic out, when these negative forcings, through natural variability “turn around” or lessen, we could get a period of rapid surface warming, perhaps even more intense than the 1990’s:

        https://tamino.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/is-earths-temperature-about-to-soar/

      • RGates pretends to know the forcings involved. Please, R.

        And consider the attribution, sensitivity and temperature without man argument again. I thought you’d understand it before, and claimed it wouldn’t be much colder, which, of course is an argument for low sensitivity.

        Thinking cap, RG.
        ===========

      • jim2 wrote:
        “There has been cooling before and there will be cooling again.”

        Not in your lifetime.

      • SkepticGoneWild

        David Appell,

        15 year pauses? Guess again: Try 45+ years:

        http://woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1936/to:1983/mean:12/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1936/to:1983/trend

        It would have been even longer without all those sneaky adjustments.

      • SGW: You data stops at 1983. What happened in the next 31 years, and why did you leave them out?

      • Honestly any ten year old could look at the graphs of the temperature record and see the absurdity of claiming there is a pause. Any ten year old could identify that in about 3 seconds. But adults, ADULTS are pretending not to see that.

      • Doug,

        Not sure if this was directed to me, but if one considers IPCC to be “adults” then:”In a presentation to the American Physical Society, William (Bill) Collins of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and lead author of the modeling Chapter 9 of the IPCC AR5 said “Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small”

        Would “hiatus” be a preferred term?

      • Oort Minimum

        The sun is most likely at it’s 1000 yr cycle (970). Not nearing a Maunder minimum nor a Dalton minimum (200 yr cycle) but rather nearing an Oort minimum. If this is true another maximum would follow in 50 or 100 years.

        http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5c/Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg.png

        See Kern et al for solar cycles (find pdf on google)

        Strong evidence for the influence of solar cycles on a late Miocene lake system revealed by biotic and abiotic proxies

        http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3617729/

        Chart of cycles from Kern paper:

        http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NuOJUXIC050/U9A9WuN2thl/AAAAAAAAAUg/o2nWMaYMBlY/s1600/KernMioHolo.png

      • > If someone forced me to bet on warming versus cooling versus “flat” over the next decade

        Counterfactuals extortionists will be prosecuted.

    • Gates, for what time period counting backwards from 2014 were the data you’re quoting acquired using the exact same measurements from the exact same stations sampled the same number of times at the same time of day?

    • Oh, and Gates, for how many years prior to the periods your reference were the data collected in the same way? You know, the periods you claim were all cooler. Were they measured in the same way?

  16. But, as we know, these temperaturedata are carefully selected by NOAA/NASA to keep the global warming swindle going.

  17. The MSM will jump on this and hype it as really big news. No one is interested in small news – it doesn’t sell. Fortunately, only the true believers will care, everyone else will be more concerned with the more urgent matters of everyday life, like paying their taxes that fund all this stuff. Tax time! How do you like it?

    • nottawa rafter

      How many press releases or articles will actually cite the hundredths of a degree that the increase is over previous records. I bet not many. They would risk being laughed at.
      But given the plateau we are on, very likely even with a relatively flat trend, there will be record warm years in the years ahead. Any records, even 0.01 C every 10 years, will be milked for all its worth.

    • The unfortunate reality is that it’s not just the msm, it’s also the gollywood fools and fake media outlets like jon stewart and others, who shape much of the thinking, what little there is, of far too many.

  18. I suppose that mental mast….bation concerning warmest year is inevitable given the unceasing pursuit of the progressive green mafia’s agenda.

    Why is it so difficult for the media to understand the point that what really matters is the lack of coherence between model projections and climate reality? By itself, global temperature anomaly means nothing.

    I am glad to have a breath of fresh air and someone that seems able to think for themselves (Ted Cruz) overseeing NASA, NOAA etal. Hopefully he will read the recently published “Climate Change – The Facts” and Rud’s “Blowing Smoke”. I’d rather have Cruz focused on climate and energy policy than on social issues.

  19. A global circulation response pattern to Pacific convection with many similarities to El Niño has in fact been present since at least June. Convection to the east of New Guinea is influencing zonal winds in the upper troposphere across the Pacific and Atlantic, looking similar to an El Nino circulation response.

    So, is it El Niño? Not quite, according to some conventional indices, but a broader physical definition might be needed to capture the different flavors of El Nino. A number of scientists are calling for modernizing the ENSO identification system. So I’m not sure how this event might eventually be identified, but for many practical purposes (i.e. weather forecasting), this event is behaving in many ways like an El Nino.

    One of the risks that seldom gets mentioned (AFAIK) is that increasing the GHG content to a point not seen in millions of years might actually change how the whole “El Niño” thing works.

    For example, changing the extent of the “greenhouse effect” in the upper atmosphere over the Andean Cordillera or the Himalayan/Tibetan plateau complex might change how regional pressure zones interact with the Pacific, especially the Equatorial Westerlies which, IIRC, usually don’t reach the surface but sometimes do during El Niño events.

    Assuming, of course, that CO2 levels really are unprecedented. Which needs a thorough evaluation of Salby’s (etc.) claims to determine whether we’re all starting at shadows.

  20. Judith wrote;

    ‘3. For the sea, 2014 was the warmest year on record since 1850.’

    I have had this discussion with the met office many times. There is no such thing as a global SST record from 1850. The number of measurements gathered were tiny and the methodology in many cases was unscientific and those records that were gathered were from a tiny portion of the ocean through which the trade routes passed..

    Richard (see week in review( rightly refused to calculate historic ph measurements of the ocean due to the small number of readings and their highly concentrated coverage. The met office ought to do the same.

    Perhaps a global record of sorts can be said to have commenced in the 1950’s. Before that it was very patchy and back to 1850 spotty would be a better word to use.

    tonyb

    • I think Tony is taking the right approach. If you don’t believe the computer-code-constructed global temperature data sets, you need to highlight the weaknesses or flaws in the methodology or code. Just bad mouthing it because you don’t like the result counts for very little, if any at all.

    • Perhaps a global record of sorts can be said to have commenced in the 1950’s. Before that it was very patchy and back to 1850 spotty would be a better word to use.

      I agree, for what that’s worth.

      When you look at the derivative of the daily change in max temp
      http://www.science20.com/sites/all/modules/author_gallery/uploads/1871094542-global.png
      In general it has not changed much, and it has definitely not changed in a single direction. Min temp on the other hand has.

      Going back to your spotty measurements comment, maybe a lot of what we’re seeing in the surface record is an increase in the coverage of the planet, but not really an increase in temps.
      I’m starting to think the planet has about the same amount of energy (based on the fairly constant max temp derivative) swirling around (from the various sloshy movements of the oceans), and there are times when big masses of air get heated by some of those warm pools in the ocean, and downwind of this, are all of those pesky land based thermometers. All surface warming has to be is a change in wind direction, just some of the planets store of heat moving around on it’s way to being radiated into space (because that’s where it all ends up).
      If this is true, the derivative of max temps will dither around zero, and what we’ve caused the pause will continue, as it could be the normal state, we just noticed more of the sloshy stuff.

    • “maybe a lot of what we’re seeing in the surface record is an increase in the coverage of the planet, but not really an increase in temps.”

      Don’t you think scientists asked themselves that question about two hours after they started the first surface temperature project, and constructed a methodology to avoid it? (By calculating the average of all stations in a grid box, then averaging the values for each grid box?)

      • David Appell (@davidappell) commented

        Don’t you think scientists asked themselves that question about two hours after they started the first surface temperature project, and constructed a methodology to avoid it? (By calculating the average of all stations in a grid box, then averaging the values for each grid box?)

        I’d be more impressed if more of the 1×1 grids of the planet actually had a thermometer measure it once period, let alone twice a day.
        When say 80% of the planet has never been measured, not once, just how well sampled do you really think it has been measured?

      • “I’d be more impressed if more of the 1×1 grids of the planet actually had a thermometer measure it once period, let alone twice a day.”

        Who wouldn’t? But you don’t always get what you want…. Budgets get cut, stations fail, people aren’t disciplined to read the thermometer every day at 6 am & 6 pm.

        In climate science, you rarely get the data you want, you have to use the data you can get.

        PS: Satellites measure the lower troposphere every day+

      • David Appell (@davidappell) commented

        “I’d be more impressed if more of the 1×1 grids of the planet actually had a thermometer measure it once period, let alone twice a day.”
        Who wouldn’t? But you don’t always get what you want…. Budgets get cut, stations fail, people aren’t disciplined to read the thermometer every day at 6 am & 6 pm.
        In climate science, you rarely get the data you want, you have to use the data you can get.
        PS: Satellites measure the lower troposphere every day+

        Then you can’t claim to know what the temp was! You can recite a value, but you don’t know what the real value was, and you never will, and with most of the planet not measured your value is a guess, sure it’s the best guess money can buy, but a guess.

        And when did the first satellite accurately measure the surface temp?

      • “Then you can’t claim to know what the temp was! You can recite a value, but you don’t know what the real value was,”

        Yeah. So what? These people try to make their data model as good as they can, as close to reality as they think they can get.

      • micro wrote:
        “And when did the first satellite accurately measure the surface temp?”

        Satellites don’t measure surface temperatures, they measure atmospheric temperatures.

      • David,

        “These people try to make their data model as good as they can, as close to reality as they think they can get”

        I have never believed otherwise. Nor am I against spending money on improving data collection. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that being as “close to reality as they think they can get” is not the same as being close to reality. And that’s the rub for some of us. Exactly what is the basis for confidence in the models when they only “might” represent the best we can do, and do not appear to be even close to being a good approximation of reality?

      • timg56 wrote:
        “I have never believed otherwise. Nor am I against spending money on improving data collection. But that doesn’t change the simple fact that being as “close to reality as they think they can get” is not the same as being close to reality. And that’s the rub for some of us.”

        Then please explain what calculation you think scientists OUGHT to be doing, to calculate “reality.” Please be specific.

      • Appell, you have dick move down pat. I am not getting paid to come up with better models. And doing so is not a prerequisite for pointing out how performance to date leaves much to be desired. That your stock reply is always the same when presented with such fact tells us all we really need to know about you on this topic.

      • David, how about we use the same data set, same sampling, etc for a long period of time. And we put many sensors in the arctic and Antarctic instead of just a few. And we use the same sensors everywhere. And we use integrating detectors versus min max. Shall I go on?

        It really should not be hard for any reasonable person to realize we dont really have a good measure of the global mean temperature.

    • Hi Tony,

      In a literal sense, if no other, there is a global SST record from 1850. It’s called HadSST3. I hope we can agree on that (particularly with the rapidly approaching caveat). The uncertainties have been estimated too. Where we differ (you and I) is that you think the uncertainties are so large as to render the effort useless and I don’t. You are, of course, welcome to this opinion, but I would like to see a quantitative basis for your statements.

      For example, what is a “tiny” number of measurements? What is an “unscientific methodology” What is a “tiny portion of the ocean”? What changed in the 1950s? What is “very patchy”? These are all qualitative statements from which you are drawing (to my mind anyway) quantitative conclusions.

      Richard Telford already pointed out in the article I think you are referring to that there were numerous SST measurements even in the 1850s. I’d say there were around 10,000 per year back then. That still doesn’t sound like a lot compared to current data densities of millions of measurements per year so the obvious question is what difference does that make?

      In my paper on SST uncertainty, I looked at reducing SST grids from well-sampled periods down to the coverage we had for the nineteenth century. Even using a simple average of available grid boxes, poor coverage had a much smaller effect than I thought it would: one or two tenths of a degree. The Berkeley analysis makes more intelligent use of the coverage, so might be expected to do an even better job.

      There’s a copy of my SST uncertainty paper here:
      http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/uncertainty.html

      There’s a lot more in it besides.

      Best regards,

      John

      • John

        Sorry for the slow reply but I am on an internet line even spottier than 1850 global SSt’s… :)

        Richard Telford refused to guess at the ph of the sea too far back as he didn’t have enough measurements and they were too concentrated.

        I contacted Noaa after seeing his SST graph and 10000 readings in 1850 might theoretically be true, but their distribution generally comes from very well travelled sea lanes in very specific areas so is hardly global in any meaningful sense of the word. In addition, the highly variable collection methodology can not be ignored as we have discussed before.

        Looking at EACH of your small grid cells how many readings do EACH contain per day week, month and year, on a like for like basis using reliable methodology?

        That is to say, how similar are they to those taken daily on land at the same time, the same place, the same height using the same thermometer?

        I appreciate SST’s don’t change as quickly as do land temperatures but they do still change according to the weather and the depth and who has collected and read them.

        In his pre Christmas glow Richard Betts promised to meet up with me next time I used the Met Office library which might be late next week or the following week. I shall ask him if you are around to shake hands as I do think you do a good job, its just the raw material I remain highly sceptical about….

        all the best

        Tonyb

      • Hi Tony,

        I get the feeling we’ve been over this before and as enjoyable as that is, I’m not sure it’s getting us anywhere. I know you are sceptical about the raw material. I am too. However, the points you raise can and have been studied quantitatively. If we want to get a better handle on these things via these discussions, then I would really value some kind of quantitative analysis from you to back up your qualitative claims.

        The 10,000 observations form 1850 is not “theoretically true”, it’s approximately how many observations there are in HadSST3 for that year. The observations are not everywhere, but there are measurements from each of the ocean basins and from them it is possible to extract an estimate of the global temperature. As I mentioned above, we can test this by reducing modern high-coverage data to typical nineteenth century coverage and seeing what kind an error this introduces into the estimated global temperature. The uncertainty so introduced is around 0.1-0.2 degC. I dare say with a better statistical approach, that number could be lowered. If you think that number ought to be higher, you’ll have to explain why.

        Each of the 5-degree grid cells in HadSST3 that contains data contains anywhere from 1 to (in some modern periods) several thousand measurements. These aren’t like measurements from land stations because ships and buoys come in all shapes and sizes. However, differences between ships are allowed for in our uncertainty calculation. Typically the difference in bias between two ships has a 2-sigma (ie approximately 95%) uncertainty range of over two degrees. The difference between two single observations from two different ships measuring at the same location would be larger still. As I said, this is accounted for in our uncertainty calculation.

        We don’t need perfect uniformity of data collection to make a reasonable estimate of global temperature from the marine data. It would be nice if we had it, but for long stretches of time, we don’t. There is a certain degree of uniformity though. Observations made by ships for particular countries were generally given standard instructions and, in some cases, standard equipment.

        Best regards,

        John

      • John Kennedy (@micefearboggis) commented

        The 10,000 observations form 1850 is not “theoretically true”, it’s approximately how many observations there are in HadSST3 for that year. The observations are not everywhere, but there are measurements from each of the ocean basins and from them it is possible to extract an estimate of the global temperature.

        When I went to see what the 10,000 “observations” (how is that different from an actual measurement?) were, I found this doc http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/data/HadSST.3.1.1.0/ascii/HadSST.3.1.1.0.number_of_observations.zip, and there sure were a lot of -99.99 values indicating no measurement. In the first 6 columns of the first cell, out of 216 cells I counted ~30 had values ~13%.

        Okay, call me skeptical too.

        Let me ask a question, if the area bounded by the “polar-front” jet stream changes wouldn’t that alone change global average temp? I know there is a large difference in temperatures (and humidity) when Canadian air pushes out tropical air.

      • That’s very reassuring that in some cases there was standard equipment. Can you tell me which cases?
        =======================

      • If we want to get a better handle on these things via these discussions, then I would really value some kind of quantitative analysis from you to back up your qualitative claims…

        He’s politically opposed, so dream on.

      • JCH

        If when you say ‘politically opposed’ you are referring to me I am afraid you must be unaware that I am the President (and only member) of the ‘A plague on all your parties, party’

        Its just that having previously examined the historic SST’s in some depth (pun intended) I think this is one of those times when, bearing in mind the paucity of records, how concentrated those we have are in very specific places AND the nature of the methodology, we should be saying that we simply don’t have a good enough handle on this to be able to scientifically conclude that we have a global SST figure back to 1850 that has enough merit to be used as part of a poiicy document.

        I have every regard for John Kennedy. He is a terrific scientist. He and I have been this way many times. However, If Richard Telford concludes he can’t calculate historic ph levels of the ocean until x date, perhaps we ought to be as objective, bearing in mind the nature of the raw material we have available.

        As I am on holiday with a very spotty internet connection I cant go into depth on this subject at this stage. Perhaps if John will buy me a coffee next time I am at the Met Office I might take him up on his suggestion, although I have got a lot of other projects queued up before another examination of SSt’s.

        tonyb

      • John Kennedy, “Where we differ (you and I) is that you think the uncertainties are so large as to render the effort useless and I don’t. ”

        I wouldn’t say it is useless. There are a few issues though that are interesting.

        http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bQfM16vJULw/VL_Blulr45I/AAAAAAAAMNs/diVESqfwx5w/s1600/comparision%2Bof%2Btropical%2B30S-30N%2BSST%2Bproducts.png

        I was looking at a tropical SST reconstruction that had a good correlation with HADSST (30S-30N), the 2005 version, that doesn’t have all that great a correlation with the newer version(s).

        http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LxzkixmXoGs/VL-1JWQ-7iI/AAAAAAAAMNc/Geak7wMp62s/s1600/Wilson%2Bcorals%2B30-30%2Bwith%2Bersstv4%2Band%2Bhadsst.png

        When paleo has calibration periods that get re-calibrated it can get a bit confusing.

      • John Kennedy (@micefearboggis)

        Hi Mi Cro,

        “When I went to see what the 10,000 “observations” (how is that different from an actual measurement?) were, I found this doc http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst3/data/HadSST.3.1.1.0/ascii/HadSST.3.1.1.0.number_of_observations.zip, and there sure were a lot of -99.99 values indicating no measurement. In the first 6 columns of the first cell, out of 216 cells I counted ~30 had values ~13%.”

        Sorry, for using jargon. I’m using observation as a synonym of measurement – it’s quite common to refer to the sailors and scientists who took measurements as marine observers and the fleet of ships recruited to make measurements is the Voluntary Observing Ship (VOS) fleet.

        For January 1850, there are around 2000 measurements used in HadSST3 and a similar number for each month in 1850. The total for the year is a little over 25,000. These aren’t evenly spread over the whole global, but, as I said, there are measurements from the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Ocean basins.

        “Let me ask a question, if the area bounded by the “polar-front” jet stream changes wouldn’t that alone change global average temp? I know there is a large difference in temperatures (and humidity) when Canadian air pushes out tropical air.”

        Circulation changes can change global temperature, sure. However, if you get northerly flow in one area, you tend to get southerly flow in other areas, which can compensate to a degree. There are interesting effects like the ColdOceanWarmLand (COWL) effect. e.g.

        http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch8s8-4-4.html

        Best regards,

        John

  21. “Mostly flat”? (re: global temperature change)

    What is that in numbers?

      • Lucifer: Why do you prefer RSS’s data for the lower troposphere over UAH’s data?

      • There are vagaries of analysis, but RAOB,UAH, and RSS are all reasonably close:

        http://climatewatcher.webs.com/HotSpot.png

      • L: No, RSS and UAH are not “close.” Learn how to calculate for yourself.

      • That’s what I have done in the image.

        All three show a maximum trend over the Arctic, cooling in the stratosphere, and no indication whatsoever of the Hot Spot.

        They are not identical ( they shouldn’t be because RSS and UAH even use different satellites ) but they are all close.

      • The hot spot would be part of a negative lapse-rate feedback. Warming is worse than we thought if we don’t see it as strongly as expected. Its presence would help radiate excess heat to space. Careful what you wish for.

      • Jim D, I am not wishing for anything but simply assessing the data.

        The Hot Spot is absent.

        Since it is supposed to occur from any source of warming, another possibility is that perhaps the water vapor feedback is not occurring.

      • The hot spot is supposed to occur for tropical ocean surface warming. This is the slowest part of the global warming currently with much more obvious warming over the continents and in the Arctic.

      • JimD, “The hot spot would be part of a negative lapse-rate feedback. Warming is worse than we thought if we don’t see it as strongly as expected. Its presence would help radiate excess heat to space. Careful what you wish for.”

        You do have a knack for the dramatic. The TTHS would be a part of the negative lapse rate if the models were right. We aren’t not seeing a TTHP because the models are wrong in a number of respects.

        The first is the models tend to miss the absolute surface temperature by a mile with respect to latent energy and don’t get pole ward advection even close. They are stuck in an up/down mode.

        http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NoYDHPPFMZQ/VLptC6_FcOI/AAAAAAAAMK0/aR07X-t-8UM/s1600/tropical%2BSSE%2Bversus%2BAntiArctic%2BE.png

        That compares the estimated Tropical SST energy via S-B with the Antarctic energy. Energy increase in the tropics is advected poleward. There isn’t any hanging out in the tropical troposphere waiting on CO2s permission.

        The models just don’t get the dynamics right and y’all are running out of excuses.

      • captd, I don’t know why the models overestimated the tropical ocean heating, but they also underestimated the Arctic sea-ice loss and its positive feedback, so the response is there, but in different places. As I said, there is no comfort in the lack of a hot spot when you look at what the real world is doing instead. The model world may have been a better one regarding the prospects for sea level.

      • A ventilating comment, Cap’n, refreshing; it cools and clears the air.
        ===================

      • JimD, ” As I said, there is no comfort in the lack of a hot spot when you look at what the real world is doing instead.”

        There is no discomfort either. What you do is try to figure the problem out. Your inability to figure it out is not a reason for me to freak out.

        If you back off your AGW OMG perspective you look at the data and find out what that indicates. Since it is an energy problem not a temperature anomaly problem, you should blow off 0.04C BS changes in anomaly and look at the energy picture.

        http://redneckphysics.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-anti-arctic-ala-best.html

        Imagine that! Exactly what models should expect. A doubling of CO2 will cause about 3.7 Wm-2 of increased resistance to heat loss. Where would that increase in energy tend to go? To the heat sinks. Pole ward advection increases.

      • captd, poleward advection increasing may explain why Greenland’s glaciers are melting at accelerating rates. Take your logic further. if you are going to insist on it.

      • Jim D,

        Dr. Strangelove posted this earlier: http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/greenland_ice_sheet.html

        Unless I’m misreading, it indicates that Greenlands glaciers did melt above average 2012/13 but not so much (by wide margin) 2013/14. What I don’t see is how much rebound (if any) between those reporting periods. Thoughts?

        Also, can anyone suggest a source for a chart of the extent of ice dating back to pre-industrial (say 1850?) in comparison with temps and CO2? I’m learning about the tools to create these, but this is a tool not yet discovered.

      • Jimmy can you show us again your chart that shows temperature, CO2, and water vapor increasing in lockstep? Water vapor is CO2’s meaner partner in crime, ain’t it jimmy? CO2 causes more heat, but the real monster is the positive feedback water vapor thug, which increases right along with temperature. So this must have been a record year for water vapor. And the last decade must have been a record decade for water vapor. So show us the freaking chart that shows water vapor steadily increasing, right along with temperature and CO2. Isn’t that the theory you are trying to cram down our throats, jimmy. Show us the freaking chart.

      • > Take your logic further. if you are going to insist on it.

        All the way down the vortex of inconsistencies, JimD?

      • JimD, “captd, poleward advection increasing may explain why Greenland’s glaciers are melting at accelerating rates. Take your logic further. if you are going to insist on it.”

        We have already been over that Jimbo. Glacier accumulation tends to be directly related to SST. Moisture would also be advected pole ward increasing precipitation, snow fall. Most of the minions tend to miss that point. The biggest thing that causes top melt is reduced albedo.

      • Don M, it is worse than we thought. If the oceans insist on not warming, the land and Arctic have to make up for it with more warming in a smaller area, and that is the path we seem to be on. The land is warming twice as fast as the ocean at a rate near 4 C per doubling since 1980.

      • captd, in case you haven’t noticed, the glaciers are not accumulating and the Arctic sea ice has been a victim of your poleward heat transport.

      • JimD, Box and others have been doing a lot of work studying glaciers which have very interesting dynamics. The Greenland mass balance you guys like to post most often ends in 2012.

        http://www.arctic.noaa.gov/reportcard/images-essays/fig3.3-tedesco.jpg

        That is a whopping 12 years of data.

        http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/alley2000.gif

        On a planetary time scale, things look different.

      • You are pathetic, jimmy. Where is the freaking chart? We know the land is warming, but why? Does it have anything to do with the non-existent positive water vapor feedback? Your whole catastrophic theory rests on the positive water vapor feedback amplification BS. Your theory is bust. You can’t even discuss the water vapor. Ask you anything else, or challenge you on anything else and you clowns got papers and charts up the wazoo at your fingertips. But water vapor is like a cross in the face of a freaking vampire. You fly away. Bye, bye jimmy dee.

      • “Glacier accumulation tends to be directly related to SST. Moisture would also be advected pole ward increasing precipitation, snow fall. Most of the minions tend to miss that point. The biggest thing that causes top melt is reduced albedo.”
        —-
        There are many moving pieces with multiple feedbacks, some of which create counter-intuitive results to a system actually gaining energy. Overall though, the system is very likely gaining energy. And the steadily accumulating GH gas concentration is very likely a huge contributing factor. We will get warmer and wetter polar regions, as heat and moisture are advected poleward. Related to glaciers specifically, for them to begin growing, snow would have to survive the summer and new snow to fall on it the next fall and winter. As most of you know, or ought to, summer snow cover has been declining in the NH for many years.

      • What about the deadly positive water vapor feedback, gatesy? Melting glaciers aren’t going to kill us? Show some guts and tell us about the record high levels of water vapor.

      • R. Gates, “There are many moving pieces with multiple feedbacks, some of which create counter-intuitive results to a system actually gaining energy.’

        Lots of pieces and lots of time scales to consider. Taking short snippets and extrapolating is pretty unimpressive. Better paleo with a little less personal bias would be in order and the NH tree ring circus just don’t cut it.

        https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-OvQHzJy8gFU/VLF3XHImAqI/AAAAAAAAMGM/X1vv5Tx0kiI/w689-h411-no/oppo%2Bover%2Bmann.png

      • Danny Thomas, individual years can do different things, but for climate you have to evaluate it in decadal contexts. It is hard for some to think in those terms and not be distracted by individual years, but that is how to think about climate.

      • Jim D,

        Thank you, I get that. Trends, trends, trends. Then, time frames for perspectives. Hence the follow up question on how to create the chart of ice/CO2/temps dating from around 1850’s to present in an overlay. But Capt. D. showed a great perspective of the 12 year chart of the Greenland ice change vs. historic trends did he not? Learning lots so appreciate your continued feedback. Makes me wonder if our next “shift” might lead to an event such as the “Younger Dryas” instead of frying? Any thoughts?

      • Don M, water vapor is part of the equilibrium response because, yes, eventually the ocean has to catch up and the water vapor will rise with it when it does, but so far it is lagging behind. This is a transient climate, not an equilibrium one that we are living in. It has some unusual properties like a hotter land than water area.

      • That’s just handwaving BS, jimmy dee. Show me the charts and the papers that support your bogus assertions. Show me how there is a correlation between CO2 and water vapor, with a lag. Why would anybody take you seriously, jimmy. You have all kinds of charts and papers. Show me the one I am asking for.

      • Don M, how much of IPCC AR5 WG1 have you actually looked at? Which papers in there don’t you like? There’s whole chapters summarizing observations.

      • You are going to wave me off to the freaking IPCC, jimmy. I am asking you. It’s not like you to dodge questions or to fail to produce some chart or paper. Why are you just stuttering and stammering about the water vapor? Are you aware that a 10% decrease in water vapor in the stratosphere since 2000, is one of the dozens of excuses being put forward by the basic physics settle-science crowd, for the pause…that is killing the cause? Did CO2 or temperature decrease since 2000? Show some guts, jimmy.

      • Do you have a source for that water vapor chart or did you make it up?

      • OMG! Can that be right, jimmy dee. Superimpose it on your chart of CO2 and temperature.

      • Danny Thomas, it is very hard to get sea ice extent before the satellite era. When people publish this, the “skeptics” usually complain that they didn’t do it right but have yet to come up with an alternative. Anyway, I will show you one based on paleo proxies.
        http://www.skepticalscience.com/graphics/Kinnard_2011_sea_ice_med.jpg

      • Jim D,

        Thanks for that and your continued patience. Apologies, but I was asking more about the N.H. land areas. The arctic I was able to find, but it’s the land that I’ve been unsuccessful locating as that’s what’s more likely to impact sea levels.

        This: http://www.johnenglander.net/sites/default/files/images/T%20CO2%20SL%20current%20Makiko%20TIMMED.jpg (I’m not familiar w/John Englander)
        Makes the CO2 conversation less worrisome and natural viability a seemingly stronger case. A missing link for me, is land ice.

      • jim2, my source was a Google search, but it came from Roy Spencer. I don’t know where he got it from.

      • Here’s another happy chart showing water vapor changes:

        http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/humid.jpg

        Many speak to the greenhouse or LW effects of this increased water vapor, but atmospheric SW absorption also increases, and is significant based on the absorption spectrum of the water molecule.

        Also, Jim D, there is no “pleasing” many here on CE. To accept the data you present would imply they change their world view, and of course, such paradigm shifts are not easy.

      • Don M, I am sure you are capable of Google searches too. Don’t rely on me coming up with plots you will like. If you don’t like Spencer’s plot, say why and then find your own.

      • JimD, it is almost unbelievable how much Arctic Sea Ice has changed. I guess we are all doomed.

        https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-6vjI3HNzsOM/VLqo71WeA0I/AAAAAAAAMLg/wOXcjSYNlQ4/w715-h437-no/subpolar%2BN%2BAtlantic.png

        Of course, the creator of that chart might share your flare for the dramatic :)

      • Can’t you characters find or make a chart that superimposes water vapor over the CO2 and temperature charts? Whenever you are trying to make the point that CO2 causes warming you pull out THE chart. You are struggling here. But I didn’t expect much out you lightweights. I asked the learned genius, Dr. Vaughn Pratt, the same question recently and he said he has not thought about the all-important alleged positive water vapor feed, too much. That’s really believable, and courageous. At least you small fry anonymous blog characters with no reputation at stake, had the guts to give it a try. Pathetic as it was.

      • That’s a good chart Jim D, one which the Randian pseudoscientists hate. They hate this one even more:

        http://blog.sme.sk/blog/1159/306419/kinnard.gif

      • The world is not threatened by a lack of sea ice, gatesy. It’s the water vapor that’s supposed to kill us. What about the water vapor?

      • Apparently Donny boy you don’t understand that humidity and water vapor are closely related. Oh well, there is no pleasing you, and there are none so blind as those you will not see.

      • Rgates

        I dealt with that frankly unbelievable ice chart in the extended version of an article originally carried at CE.

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/06/20/historic-variation-in-arctic-ice/

        It seems that the Vikings must have been sailing their wooden ships through solid ice judging by how much ice the authors believe was present in their era and how relatively little there was during the LIA.

        As I mentioned in the article, according to Phil Jones the warmest two consecutive decades over Greenland remain the 1930’s and 1940’s. We will have to wait until 2021 to see if the current warm spell exceeds it

        tonyb

      • The chart does allow for lower ice areas around 1000 AD, if you look at it. This is consistent with the general Holocene temperature decline in the last millennium inferred from other paleo proxies (consistent with a Milankovitch cycle, by the way).

      • You are trying to hide the pea, gatesy. I know that humidity and water vapor are closely related. Show us how humidity and water vapor are closely related to THE famous chart showing that CO2 causes the temperature to increase by it’s own radiative effect CAUSING A POSITIVE WATER VAPOR FEEDBACK THAT’S GOING TO KILL US ALL!

        You are not up to the task, gatesy. Ask Dr Pratt if he can help you. Ask anybody here. Maybe willy. Where is Dr. Apple, when you need him?

      • Don M, as I showed, we are seeing 2 C per doubling over the last 60 years implying a doubling of the no-feedback effect. You are being too simplistic expecting it to be all water vapor. It isn’t. If you have other possible culprits for this apparent feedback, you can mention them, but the bottom line is that there is an apparent positive feedback just from the data.

      • Here are a couple more sub polar North Atlantic SST recons by Sicre. Some of the proxies tend to go with the flow so reconstructions around things like gyres get a bit complicated.

        https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-BLcJM_d8maw/VLqybSMmUGI/AAAAAAAAML0/n6Qb4t4LMlk/w630-h431-no/subpolar%2BN%2BAtlantic%2Bsicre%2B2011.png

        Tropical reconstructions from places like the IPWP tend to be more stable because currents are a bit more predictable. Perhaps if R. Gates has a link to the almost unbelievable sea ice reconstruction data we can do a little due diligence :)

      • R. Gates and Jimbo D.

        I believe y’all might be prime candidates for some property I have to sell complete with bridge here in the Keys :)

        http://climateaudit.org/2011/12/05/kinnard-arctic-o18-series/

      • Another big FAIL for Jim D.

        Increasing surface temperatures cause more evaporation which by itself increases the water vapor content of the atmosphere. Water vapor at low altitudes has indeed increased with warming, as I have shown here (over the oceans)

        Not exactly global, total column water vapor, is it?

        http://www.drroyspencer.com/2014/09/water-vapor-feedback-and-the-global-warming-pause/

      • And Dr. Spencer continues …

        But for many years I have advocated the view that water vapor feedback on the long time scales of climate change might not be positive. Clearly, something is causing the current “pause” in global warming. The three most likely causes of the pause (in my view, not prioritized) are: (1) increasing cloud reflection reducing the solar input, or (2) decreasing water vapor (and maybe cirrus clouds) in the upper troposphere increasing the infrared output, or (3) an increase in ocean mixing sequestering extra heat in the deep ocean. Or, some combination of the three. (I’m not a big fan of other theories, like more aerosol reflection of sunlight from dirty Chinese coal, or problems with the CO2 theory itself. Not that they are necessarily wrong.)

      • The important thing to understand is this: the largest control of water vapor feedback is the efficiency of precipitation systems, which controls how much water vapor is detrained into the upper troposphere.

        And that efficiency (“of precipitation systems”) is in turn sensitive to some unknown (probably large, IMO) extent to the amount and nature of aerosols involved in cloud formation.

        And aerosols are not only determined by such things as rain/drying of soil, but also a variety of biological/ecological effects that, in turn, are sensitive to both climate and pCO2. It’s all extremely complex, and there are many other factors that affect “warming”, including other ways the pCO2 can affect it besides the greenhouse effect.

      • Skeptics need to be shown that, yes, warmer oceans have more water vapor above them, and Spencer did a good job of showing them that so that they don’t get onto the wrong side of the data in their arguments. He then goes on to say some defensive things to try to make them feel better, but it is a bit handwavey. The damage was done with the graphic.

      • He then goes on to say some defensive things to try to make them feel better, but it is a bit handwavey.

        Is this what you’re referring to as “handwavey”?

        Basically, the bottom line is that it’s the processes controlling upper tropospheric water vapor which have the biggest impact on the IR cooling rate of the Earth.

      • AK, is he saying that the stratospheric effect will overcome the tropospheric effect of extra GHGs due to H2O? It is handwavey because he did not say the relative magnitudes of these effects, or even acknowledge the GHG effect in the troposphere.

      • @Jim D…

        AK, is he saying that the stratospheric effect will overcome the tropospheric effect of extra GHGs due to H2O?

        That’s not what he said. He compared the upper tropospheric effect with surface level (mixing layer, AFAIK). And he said it’s bigger, which means an “equal” effect in the upper troposphere will overcome an “equal” effect at the surface. Presumably, if the one at the surface is enough larger, it can balance the upper troposphere. How much larger? Depends. Have you read the paper he referenced?

      • OMG! What about this, jimmy dee?

        NOAA says:

        “Their findings indicate that as stratospheric water vapor decreased after 2000, it has slowed the rate of the Earth’s warming. Likewise, an increase in water vapor in the 1990s accelerated the rate of warming during that time — by about 30 percent. Scientists cannot yet fully explain the changing patterns of the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere.”

        That’s official, jimmy. Before 2000 water vapor feedback accelerated the rate of warming, but after that it slowed down the warming. WTF? CO2 and temperature set records, warmest decade EVAH etc., and what was sold as positive water vapor feedback slowed the rate of the warming? And they said “likewise”. How TF can slowing and accelerating be likewise? Do you realize how ridiculous that is, jimmy? Of course you do. That’s why you want to ignore it.

        NOAA went on to officially admit that they don’t really know what’s the deal with water vapor and they are right about that.

      • Don M, so now you think water vapor is more important than CO2. An extreme view, but go ahead and believe it. It modulates the warming trend due to CO2. As a GHG it has an effect. Increased amounts cool the stratosphere and warm the troposphere, just like CO2. No surprise. Part of AGW.

      • You don’t know what I think, jimmy. But I understand what you are saying. No matter what happens it’s part of the AGW theory. Just add a ‘likewise’ in there somewhere and there is no inconsistency with the theory, no matter how silly and disingenuous you look saying it. The AGW theory is not falsifiable. You have no credibility, jimmy. Give it up.

      • AK, his graph did not demonstrate decreasing upper tropospheric water vapor. Without actual evidence, this would be handwaving. I have heard that the relative humidity may decrease, but not the water vapor itself.

      • Jimmy is an expert in handwaving. Jimmy says that he heard something-something about water vapor, as he waves his hands about lazily. Why don’t you help the NOAA geniuses who are being well-fed on our payroll, jimmy:

        “Scientists cannot yet fully explain the changing patterns of the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere.”

        There’s a gaping hole in their positive water vapor feedback theory and they can’t explain it. Saying that unexplainable changing patterns that don’t fit the theory are freaking ‘likewise’, doesn’t do it.

      • It seems like water vapor would be the part of climate under the microscope, with space shots bearing satellites intended to measure it and the resulting cloud albedo. But, no, it’s the (it might be, but probably not) the hottest year ever!!!

      • Jim D | January 17, 2015 at 11:06 am |
        captd, poleward advection increasing may explain why Greenland’s glaciers are melting at accelerating rates. Take your logic further. if you are going to insist on it.

        http://www.dmi.dk/uploads/tx_dmidatastore/webservice/b/m/s/d/e/accumulatedsmb.png

        The melt doesn’t appear to be accelerating – the growth does.

        Unless things change, warmers are not going to be happy about the Greenland Ice sheet this year either.

  22. Clarification: I’m not asking what the 10 year temperature trend is. Rather, how large a range you would include under the description ‘mostly flat’. Secondarily, is that range symmetric?

  23. The NASA GISS global land ocean anomaly added to 14.0 gives the following which I had already reduced to 12 month avg. Figures for 2010 2014 2005 2007 are not statistically different from one another. The trend re the hiatus continues as it has since 1999-2001… since 2001 there is no statistical increase in global mean surface + ocean temperature, rsq = 0.0003.
    http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
    12 mo avg
    2010 14.6575
    2014 14.6575
    2005 14.65
    2007 14.61833333
    1998 14.60916667
    2002 14.605
    2013 14.59416667
    2003 14.59166667
    2009 14.5875
    2006 14.58666667
    2012 14.56583333
    2011 14.54166667
    2001 14.52
    2004 14.5075
    2008 14.48666667
    1997 14.45333333
    1995 14.42666667
    2000 14.39666667
    1999 14.39666667
    1990 14.39083333
    1991 14.37833333
    1988 14.35
    1996 14.32166667
    1994 14.2825
    1987 14.28
    1981 14.2775
    1983 14.26666667
    1989 14.24083333
    1980 14.225
    1993 14.205
    1992 14.18916667
    1973 14.1575
    1977 14.14416667
    1986 14.14166667
    1979 14.115
    1984 14.115
    1982 14.08416667
    1963 14.07833333
    1985 14.07666667
    1969 14.0625
    1961 14.05333333
    1978 14.045
    1962 14.04166667
    1970 14.04083333
    1959 14.02666667
    1972 14.0225
    1967 13.99166667
    1975 13.98583333
    1966 13.95916667
    1960 13.95833333
    1968 13.9475
    1971 13.94083333
    1974 13.92833333
    1965 13.89833333
    1976 13.8775
    1964 13.80416667

    • What is the trend since last Tuesday?

      • Cooler……….until today when the sun finally came back out! Yeah!

        :)

      • Peak solar and peak CO2 and temp still stalling out. What’s the pilot doing, anyway?
        ===========

      • Kim,

        That is a great question. Any ideas?

      • Ignore the millennial at your perennial.
        ========

      • Sorry Danny, I guess that was bad form. Just nostalgia for an oldie but goodie of mine.

        Modern climate science takes no notice of the millennial scale cycles. It has left completely unexplored the idea that the recovery from the Little Ice Age may be over, or that we are in the Modern Climate Optimum.

        Personally, on little evidence and much speculation, I believe the sun is a candidate for millenial scale changes that affect climate.
        ================

      • Kim,

        I have yet to see you “in bad form”. While we may not (always) agree on content, form has yet to be an issue. :)

      • I noticed something interesting over at Jo Nova’s. Last solar cycle, at the peak, there were fifty predictions by solar scientists for the next cycle. Now, at the peak of this cycle, there are none for the next cycle.

        You don’t have to be very numerate to ponder that one. Fifty Ways to Leave Your Catastrophe.
        ================

      • Kim: “Peak solar and peak CO2 and temp still stalling out. What’s the pilot doing, anyway?” A light airplane such as a Cessna 172 will eventually reach its service ceiling. Fire walling the throttle or raising the nose will not make it gain anymore altitude. The air is too thin and the engine lacks sufficient oxygen to develop the desired power. The negative feedbacks now completely offset the control inputs that usually gain altitude. Some of the larger Cessnas have a turbocharger that attacks the most solvable problem, but they too eventual reach their peak altitude, say 20,000 feet. The pilot in your question has found out it’s the airplane designers and nature that determine where the service ceiling is. While control inputs behave in a more or less linear fashion up to near the service ceiling, they eventually don’t do anything more in the upwards direction.

      • Gorgeous, the metaphor blossoms, and takes flight.
        ========

    • Well at least GISS succeeded to push 1998 down enough not to be the warmest year. Both RSS and UAH show 1998 head and shoulders above the rest.

  24. Some excerpts from the Capitol Weather Gang article:
    Jonathan Overpeck: “The global warmth of 2014 is just another reminder that the planet is warming and warming fast.”
    Jeff Masters & Bob Henson: “Based on the evidence, more than 97 percent of climate scientists have concluded that humans are primarily responsible for the warming of the planet to the record levels observed in 2014.”
    Michael Mann: “The record temperatures *should* put to rest the absurd notion of a “pause” (what I refer to as the “Faux Pause” in Scientific American) in global warming.”
    Philip Mote: “Clearly the hiatus is over!”
    Kerry Emanuel: “I think it is a mistake to focus on single years, whether they be cold or hot.”
    Roger Pielke Sr: “we need to move beyond just assessing global warming, but examine how (and if) key atmospheric and ocean circulations, such as El Nino, La Nina, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, ect are changing in their intensity, structure and frequency. These are the climate features that determine if a region has drought, floods, and so forth, not a global average surface temperature anomaly.”
    Judith Curry: “With 2014 essentially tied with 2005 and 2010 for hottest year, this implies that there has been essentially no trend in warming over the past decade. This ‘almost’ record year does not help the growing discrepancy between the climate model projections and the surface temperature observations.”
    Pat Michaels: “Whether or not a given year is a hundredth of a degree or so above a previous record is not the issue. What IS the issue is how observed temperatures compare to what has been forecast to happen.”
    ==============
    P.S. “Phil Plait (Bad Astronomer)” — very funny!

    • Judith Curry wrote:
      “With 2014 essentially tied with 2005 and 2010 for hottest year, this implies that there has been essentially no trend in warming over the past decade. This ‘almost’ record year does not help the growing discrepancy between the climate model projections and the surface temperature observations.”

      Over the entire GISTEMP record, 31% of the 120-month trends have been negative. Yet warming has been +0.9 C since 1880.

      • You might want to be clearer as to how your comment is responsive to Judith’s remark about the discrepancy between models and observations.

      • Harold: I thought my point was obvious, but it’s this: “warming over the past decade” means nothing for the long-term picture. It’s natural variability. It happens. The long-term trend is up.

      • The question is why has it warmed, and to the extent it us, can we keep it up?
        ============

      • David Appell, “Over the entire GISTEMP record, 31% of the 120-month trends have been negative. Yet warming has been +0.9 C since 1880.”

        And with NOAA’s whopping 0.04C per four year that would be another 1 C in 100 years!! All things remaining equal of course. Scary stuff doncha know.

      • “The long-term trend is up.” I agree with that, I’m sure Judith does too. Fine.

        That does not contradict the claim that models diverge from observations. Is it your contention that temperatures would be rising at >0.2 K/decade (as the multi-model mean would have it) were it not for “natural variability”?

      • Captdallas2 0 wrote:
        “And with NOAA’s whopping 0.04C per four year that would be another 1 C in 100 years!!”

        It’s ridiculous to use a 4-year difference to project a long-term trend. Try to pay attention.

      • HaroldW wrote:
        “That does not contradict the claim that models diverge from observations. Is it your contention that temperatures would be rising at >0.2 K/decade (as the multi-model mean would have it) were it not for “natural variability”?”

        I don’t know. (Where does that number come from anyway, and what are its error bars?) How much cooling is coming from aerosols, especially including the reflectance from clouds? The error bars for that are big. The negative PDO phase?

      • Matthew R Marler

        David Appell: Over the entire GISTEMP record, 31% of the 120-month trends have been negative. Yet warming has been +0.9 C since 1880.

        I like that comment. There have been zillions of computations based on extant data, and altogether they predict many different futures. It is hard to believe any of them. I think the most secure forecast for the future is that increased CO2 levels will continue to increase the rate of growth of terrestrial forests and kelp forests. It’s hard to see a policy recommendation coming from that.

      • Matthew R Marler

        David Appell: It’s ridiculous to use a 4-year difference to project a long-term trend.

        How true. Yet it has been done many times, as with the death spiral of Arctic Ice after the summer ice disappearance rate had transiently increased.

      • John Smith (it's my real name)

        David Appell’s number
        “Yet warming has been +0.9 C since 1880.”
        I keep wondering what the debate would be if it were -0.9?
        assuming the measurements have meaningful reliability to .0, which I can’t believe
        can we make the trend line flat?
        I think we may have gone mad

      • Matthew wrote:
        “How true. Yet it has been done many times, as with the death spiral of Arctic Ice after the summer ice disappearance rate had transiently increased.”

        You think because Al Gore said something, that makes it science?

      • Really David?
        Try googling “arctic ice death spiral” and note the names

      • Which scientists said “arctic death spiral?” And in what way do they singularily represent all of climate science?

      • I think Mark Serreze of NSIDC coined the term

      • Here’s a nice graphical representation of that spiral:

        http://skepticalscience.com//pics/arctic-death-spiral-1979-201302.png

      • R Gates – do you realize the year is 2015? Not 2013?

      • SkepticGoneWild

        David Appell wrote:

        Which scientists said “arctic death spiral?” And in what way do they singularily represent all of climate science?”

        The quote from Mark Serreze in 2010 was:

        “I stand by my previous statements that the Arctic summer sea ice cover is in a death spiral. It’s not going to recover.”

        It’s significant because Serreze is the Director of the NSIDC. Serreze has also made ludicrous statements in the past such as:

        “The arctic is screaming”

        Tony Heller, aka Steven Goddard, has amazingly translated the arctic’s scream:

        https://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/10/19/the-arctic-is-screaming-it-is-time-we-listened/

      • curryja wrote:
        “I think Mark Serreze of NSIDC coined the term”

        Did he? Where?
        Does Serreze speak for all of climate science? Or does he speak for himself?

        BTW Judith, please answer the question here about whether you will correct the representative from Oklahoma.

      • Once again, Appell crumbles.

      • Matthew R Marler

        David Appell: Did he? Where?
        Does Serreze speak for all of climate science? Or does he speak for himself?

        Neither I nor anyone wrote that the repeated exaggerations of importance of short-term trends was representative in any sense. What I wrote, and what can be easily verified for many other short-term trends besides the short-term speed-up of Arctic ice disappearance, is that exaggeration of short-term trends has been very common. The perpetrators of these warnings have mostly been established, respected scientists.

    • Compare and contrast:

      ==> “Kerry Emanuel: “I think it is a mistake to focus on single years, whether they be cold or hot.””

      and

      ==> ““With 2014 essentially tied with 2005 and 2010 for hottest year, this implies that there has been essentially no trend in warming over the past decade. ”

      What if instead of “single years,” Emanuel had said “single decades?”

      • I’ve long ago decided he’s completely wrong. Climate is chaotic, so you have to focus on every moment everywhere.

      • That’s a bit of a tall task.

        How about instead, focusing on decision making in the face of uncertainty?

      • Joshua,

        The implication, if I understand your point, is we must decide NOW. The uncertainty conversation comes across to me as a distraction. Doing nothing NOW is a decision. Mitigation NOW is a decision. R. Gates and I are playing (as is Dr. Curry). Where’s YOUR money, how much, and on which square? Then how long before it’s determined if you win/lose?

      • Have been unable to make that link work!

      • Danny –

        ==> “Doing nothing NOW is a decision.”

        Thank you for that. It can be difficult to get people to admit that, and that advocating for doing nothing NOW is advocacy.

        ==> “The uncertainty conversation comes across to me as a distraction.”

        Interesting. Not sure why you’d say that.

        Uuncertainty (certainly, heh) is a complicated topic, but my view is that much of what takes place (over-certainty in the service of identity-confirmation) is, essentially, a distraction. In other words, I think that dealing with uncertainty is the point, and avoiding uncertainty is the distraction.

        ==> ” Where’s YOUR money, ..”

        My money is in creating a framework for addressing the flawed reasoning present on both sides – flawed reasoning that perpetuates identity-aggressive and identity-defensive behaviors and reinforces positions. With that framework, instead, we can cast an eye towards creating a more enlightening discussion that fosters shared interests.

        I really don’t know how such discussions can take place without acknowledgement of the inherent and unyielding, underlying uncertainties.

        ==> “how much, and on which square? Then how long before it’s determined if you win/lose?”

        What I’m saying is that win/lose shouldn’t be the point.

      • Joshua,

        Uh. Having a hard time wording due to “uncertainty”. Doing what we do is most certainly a decision, as is making a change. The reason I find the “uncertainty” a distraction is it interjects broader complexities. What I’m trying to say is when I make a decision, say to buy a car, I try to narrow and then make the best choice on the narrowed data.

        In this topic, I think we can take the politically less sensitive (low hanging fruit) to mitigate CO2 (and other GHG’s) w/o the need for creating further acrimony. My money would be on: land use, “preparing for yesterdays’ weather” (thanks Mr. Mosher), continued investment in renewable energy technology thinking about the need to replace FF (which are limited) but not to mitigate CO2 (as that’s an uncertainty and I’m trying to narrow), offering incentives to ALL energy companies equally (Exxon’s still here with an impressive track record/Solyandra’s gone {I.E. bad investment}). After all, that money comes from our pockets either way so exclusionary practices is inherently unfair.

        But in doing so, I’d wish for a structure than punishes no one. If someone builds a beach house and it gets flooded (sea level rise vs. storm), I don’t care to pay for it. (My insurance goes up, or my tax money does).

        In other words, I’d address the “certainties” and (for now) leave the uncertainties out. To me, that’s removing the win/lose where proponents of the AGW side (the “A” being an uncertainty?) seem to more so wish for the win/lose scenario.

        Maybe we’re on a similar track? Based on this report and historic data there are “certainties”. Interjecting models (requiring error bars) increases uncertainties and that’s (to me) a less effective decision making process.

      • Danny –

        Thanks for the response. I’ll get back to it later.

      • > Have been unable to make that link work!

        Thanks, Danny. It works from my end. Lots of people report having problems connecting with Tumblr. No idea why.

    • Matthew wrote:
      “I think the most secure forecast for the future is that increased CO2 levels will continue to increase the rate of growth of terrestrial forests and kelp forests. It’s hard to see a policy recommendation coming from that.”

      Is the rate of growth of forests and kelp a big problem for humans? Or for them?

      No. OTOH, CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and more of it will cause more warming.

    • Nobody believes Judy is that blind.

  25. Oh I see, thank you… so this is why the Mad Hatter told Alice it’s possible to fall up the staircase?

  26. From the article:

    At the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural world.

    The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary boundaries.” They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean.

    “What the science has shown is that human activities — economic growth, technology, consumption — are destabilizing the global environment,” said Will Steffen, who holds appointments at the Australian National University and the Stockholm Resilience Center and is the lead author of the paper.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/scientists-human-activity-has-pushed-earth-beyond-four-of-nine-planetary-boundaries/2015/01/15/f52b61b6-9b5e-11e4-a7ee-526210d665b4_story.html

  27. From the article:

    A team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them.

    “We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science.

    There are clear signs already that humans are harming the oceans to a remarkable degree, the scientists found. Some ocean species are certainly overharvested, but even greater damage results from large-scale habitat loss, which is likely to accelerate as technology advances the human footprint, the scientists reported.

    Coral reefs, for example, have declined by 40 percent worldwide, partly as a result of climate-change-driven warming.

    Some fish are migrating to cooler waters already. Black sea bass, once most common off the coast of Virginia, have moved up to New Jersey. Less fortunate species may not be able to find new ranges. At the same time, carbon emissions are altering the chemistry of seawater, making it more acidic.

    “If you cranked up the aquarium heater and dumped some acid in the water, your fish would not be very happy,” Dr. Pinsky said. “In effect, that’s what we’re doing to the oceans.”

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/16/science/earth/study-raises-alarm-for-health-of-ocean-life.html

  28. From the article:

    WASHINGTON (AP) — For the third time in a decade, the globe sizzled to the hottest year on record, federal scientists announced Friday.
    Both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA calculated that in 2014 the world had its hottest year in 135 years of record-keeping. Earlier, the Japanese weather agency and an independent group out of University of California Berkeley also measured 2014 as the hottest on record.
    NOAA said 2014 averaged 58.24 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.24 degrees above the 20th-century average.
    But NASA, which calculates temperatures slightly differently, put 2014’s average temperature at 58.42 degrees Fahrenheit, which is 1.22 degrees above their average, which they calculate for 1951-1980.

    http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150116/us-sci–hottest_year-b64ea00652.html

  29. Pingback: There's a war on for your mind! - Trendingnewsz.com

  30. Gee, I thought surface temps were so 1998. What happened to arguing that the “pause” is irrelevant because surface temps are a terrible proxy for globalclimatewarmingchange?

    • If you mean, are the oceans still gaining energy below the surface-air-temperature measurement area, yes they are.

      • Another county heard from.
        ============

      • I’m curious at the Land Surface not setting a record whilst the SST did.

      • “I’m curious at the Land Surface not setting a record whilst the SST did.”

        Don’t know. The ocean stores large amounts of heat. It comes through the surface before it goes into the atmo.

      • Lucifer,

        The GISS met station only data has 2014 second warmest, even with 4 months of 2014 were warmest, specifically May, Sep, Oct and Dec.

        All dominoes don’t fall every year.

    • Oh, RGates still bleats about it now and then, following the herd of ignorulates.
      =============

      • But as Tony as so aptly pointed out, ocean data until Argo is sketchy at BEST.

      • The pre-Argo data is sufficient to hit a bullseye with a fish, and has been for decades.

      • Steven Mosher

        another misunderstanding

        “That is not to say that the tops of the oceans may not be warming, but the data is insufficient to be able to prove it.”

        there is no proof in science. There are proofs in logic, math, geometry.
        If science we have uncertainty.

        That is conclusions subject to assumptions and error.

        I can’t prove the sun will come up tommorrow. Chances are really good.
        I wouldnt bet on it. But someday someone will win that bet.
        If I bet you that 2+2=5 tommorrow, well I wouldnt win that bet. ever.

      • Well, no, wouldn’t be day if the sun didn’t come up. Gad, moshe, you’re slipping.
        ===============

      • A day without orange juice is like a day without sunshine.

        And a day without sunshine is like night.

      • > wouldn’t be day if the sun didn’t come up

        Assume a twin Sun. No need to imagine it’s perfectly identical, just that he makes your day

    • The ocean sets a record every year (well, at least the top 2000 m), so there’s nothing notable that needs a press conference. But people live on the surface, so they’re kind of attached to it.

      BTW, land is warming faster than the globe as a whole.

      • Trying that again.

        But as Tony as so aptly pointed out, ocean data until Argo is sketchy at BEST.

      • The pre-Argo data have error bars, just like all data. But even the Argo data for 0-2000 meters shows steady warming year-after-year. (In fact, a 2nd-order polynomial is a slightly better fit to those numbers than a linear fit.)

      • Pre-ARGO data is both sketchy and short.

      • Steven Mosher

        “Trying that again.

        But as Tony as so aptly pointed out, ocean data until Argo is sketchy at BEST”

        Actually not. it’s a far sight better than using CET to talk about temperature

      • mosh

        At least be consistent. You have previously said that CET was a reasonable global proxy and in this you were in agreement with Hubert Lamb, The Met Office, The Dutch Met Office, Mike Hulme and many others

        Now, justify to the denizens the concept of a global temperature as applied to SST’s back to 1850. The Challenger expedition of the 1870’s had merit but that was extremely limited in its scope.

        Prior to the 1950’s and more specifically in the 19th century, there was no global reach, few readings and those that were available were highly concentrated in a few areas and there were huge inconsistencies in the way that readings were taken, of which only a few came from reversing thermometers.

        Would you accept that sort of spotty inconsistent data as acceptable for BEST?
        tonyb

      • http://static.berkeleyearth.org/graphics/land-and-ocean/land-and-ocean-summary-small.png

        So, Steven, what part of the pre-1900 95% uncertainty is due to to ocean data? Same question for 1900 – 1950.

        IIRC, variance, the square of SD, is preferred to a simple error range because variances are additive, so it should be easy for you to produce numbers to defend your assertion.

      • Steven Mosher

        “So, Steven, what part of the pre-1900 95% uncertainty is due to to ocean data? Same question for 1900 – 1950.”

        [IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/54srr4.png[/IMG]

        [IMG]http://i61.tinypic.com/6oo6s2.png[/IMG]

      • Is ocean uncertainty tighter simply because the range of change of the anomaly is smaller than land?

      • Steven Mosher

        you’re wrong tony.

        The simple fact is this.

        with one station, CET, you can estimate the globe. You could estimate the land only, you could estimate the ocean. you could estimate them both.
        That estimate will have large error margins. That estimate will have no
        spatial variability.

        with one ship you can do the same thing. you can IN FACT estimate the global value from that one record. Your error bars will be large. you will miss spatial variability.

        There is no such thing as Too few records. unless you are talking about zero records.

        The question always is and will forever be. GIVEN what I have what is the best estimate I can make. depending on the number of records this estimate and its accuracy will change.

        We can also test this. For example, by comparing the global averages versus the recent data recovery from ships logs.

        You fundamentally dont understand estimation. Until you do, read more and comment less.

      • “with one station…you can estimate the globe”

        How’s this for an Analogy: With one Credible Doctor you can validate Climate Science.

        Andrew

      • Mosher

        I believe proxy data is often validated by comparing recent instrumental data over the same time period. When this is done with CET there is appearance that it closely follows the global index.

        Please comment.

        Regards,

        Richard

      • Mosh

        Nonsense.

        Jim Cripwell rightly used to take you to task about estimates and so did Max Anacker.

        Its not good enough to take one record in a year for a 5 degree grid and use that to calculate the temperatures in that grid over the year and interpolate that to adjacent grids. If you think that is either good enough or scientific enough I am afraid we must beg to differ. The paucity and accuracy of many of those SST records is so vague that I sincerely hope BEST would not believe they merit the word ‘global,’ let alone have any sort of accuracy to the levels depicted.

        Surely there are times when science should say we simply don’t really know and our best guess is nothing more than that. That is not to say that the tops of the oceans may not be warming, but the data is insufficient to be able to prove it.

        As for the deeper oceans I heard Thomas Stocker himself say we did not have the technology to measure it accurately.

        Sometimes a little humility and uncertainty is the right response isn’t it?

        tonyb

      • rls wrote:
        “I believe proxy data is often validated by comparing recent instrumental data over the same time period. When this is done with CET there is appearance that it closely follows the global index.”

        That’s interesting if true. What study(ies) show that?

      • Steven Mosher

        “I believe proxy data is often validated by comparing recent instrumental data over the same time period. When this is done with CET there is appearance that it closely follows the global index.

        Please comment.”

        http://web.archive.org/web/20080501073519/tamino.wordpress.com/2008/04/28/central-england-temperature/

        http://rankexploits.com/musings/2011/central-england-temperature/

        if you want an idea of how well the UK correlates with the ROW

        http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/united-kingdom-(europe)

        “closely follows” is not a technical term. you want to look at the correlation and then you have to specify a time period.

        comparative records

        http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/netherlands

        better performers:
        http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/massachusetts
        http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/ontario
        http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/qu%C3%A9bec
        http://berkeleyearth.lbl.gov/regions/missouri

        And the Quebec record is going to be improved with new data recovery that
        will push back a ways. Those new records are what we call out of sample.
        That is we built the prediction of the region without them. Now we just compare the prediction with the recovered records.

        https://agu.confex.com/agu/ja2015/preliminaryview.cgi/Paper34998.html

        The same thing can be done with old ship records that are being digitized.
        We have a prediction of what they should have been. Then folks find and digitize the records. Then you compare.

        This builds your confidence in your prediction. You tell me the temperature in one location and I can predict ( with error) the temperature in another location. Then test that.

      • Steven Mosher

        As for the deeper oceans I heard Thomas Stocker himself say we did not have the technology to measure it accurately.

        Again, this type of unqualified pablum is of no interest to me.

        The issue for SST is not the deep ocean.
        The unqualified assertion of “not accurate” isn’t at all interesting.

        not accuarately enough to do X with Y confidence is the intellectual framework you need to understand.

      • Steven Mosher

        tony

        ‘Surely there are times when science should say we simply don’t really know and our best guess is nothing more than that. ”

        We NEVER really know. We only have estimates or guesses if you like.
        The estimates all come with uncertainty.

        every measurement comes with assumptions and uncertainty.
        every estimate comes with assumptions and uncertainty.

        you take what you have. you do the sums. you report your assumptions
        and uncertainty.

        Just accept the uncertainty monster.

      • Steven Mosher

        tony

        “Its not good enough to take one record in a year for a 5 degree grid and use that to calculate the temperatures in that grid over the year and interpolate that to adjacent grids.”

        Sure it is.

        In fact you can test this yourself.

        Take the global SST. in 5 degree bins.

        For every grid cell, use that grid cell to estimate the surrounding 4.
        calculate the error this method would produce.

        Then you can do the same thing over time and actually use the structure in the better known data to improve your prediction/infilling.

        We do this all the time. I’m doing it today with business data. It’s not rocket science.

        You do it too. except you dont do it formally and explicitly

      • “Jim Cripwell rightly used to take you to task about estimates and so did Max Anacker.”

        Don’t mess with Mosher. Especially if you are right.

      • Andrew wrote:
        “How’s this for an Analogy: With one Credible Doctor you can validate Climate Science.”

        As an analogy, it’s an extremely poor one.

      • Steven Mosher

        Don

        you gotta love tony

        ““Jim Cripwell rightly used to take you to task about estimates and so did Max Anacker.”

        So far this thread he has appealled to Thomas Stocker ( who conspired with Phil Jones to keep the IPCC free from FOIA). Jim Cripwell.
        and Max Anacker.

        Nowhere has he actually made an argument. He’s just asserted things.

        no math.
        no argument.
        just appeals to what some other guy said.

        cant argue with can you?

        glad to see you endorsing the finest arguments.

      • I think some interesting things to ponder, from just eyeballing these temperature charts. Looks like a lot of warming in the last 30 years and average temperatures significantly higher than at anytime during the modern temperature record. Last ten years warmest ever…blah…blah…blah. So, why no new continental record highs in almost 4 decades?

        http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001375.html

        It looks like it was significantly colder from 1900-1920 than it was during the time of concern over a new Ice Age, from the 1950s through the 1970s. People after the turn of the century must have been in a panic over a freezing world, or maybe they were a lot tougher in those days. Any help on this, tonyb?

        And what happened to the hot 1930s that don’t look on the charts to be any warmer than the cold 1950s-1970s? The folks during the depression were not used to a little warmth, after the frigid previous decades?

        Do we need to change the scale of these charts to get a more realistic perspective? Rethink the adjustments, again? What’s the deal?

      • Heh, in which of those was Tony wrong, moshe?
        ===========================

      • Are Stocker and Jones still alive? If so they better be careful. Tony’s appeals to authority can be hazardous for the authority. (I am sure that if our friends Jim and Max are still watching us, they wouldn’t mind me.)

      • “As an analogy, it’s an extremely poor one.”

        OK. How about a group of medics instead of a doctor?

        Andrew

      • I believe that in principle you are right on this, Steven. You go with what you got and try to make the best out of it. I think tony is saying you can’t make any kind of decent purse out of a sow’s ear.

      • Andrew, if he doesn’t go for that, try a marching band, or a school of sardines.

      • Steven Mosher

        Don

        ‘ I think tony is saying you can’t make any kind of decent purse out of a sow’s ear.”

        he can say that all he likes. the problem is its un quantified nonsense.

        an estimate just is. Its value is determined by what you want to do
        and how much confidence you need to do it.

        his argument is mere gainsaying

      • Mosh

        Amongst the many surprising things you have said in this thread, there are some that warrant special attention;

        ‘you gotta love tony

        ““Jim Cripwell rightly used to take you to task about estimates and so did Max Anacker.”

        So far this thread he has appealed to Thomas Stocker ( who conspired with Phil Jones to keep the IPCC free from FOIA). Jim Cripwell.
        and Max Anacker.

        Nowhere has he actually made an argument. He’s just asserted things.’

        When you constantly made references to ‘estimates’ I jokingly included our dear departed friends jim and max, the first of whom was seriously irritated by your changing references to ‘estimates’ and the latter of whom was constantly amused by it. Thomas Stocker is hardly a backstreet practitioner and he had something of interest to say on the lack of knowledge of oceanic heat content at depth which, for a change showed humility and an awareness of the uncertainty monster. Traits that often seem to be missing from the climate debate which reflects a branch of science still in its infancy

        You then reference UK temperatures to back up your assertion that CET does not track global temperatures closely, when the UK and CET are two different things AND you have previously agreed that CET is indeed a good (but by no means perfect proxy ) for global.

        But best of all is this idea that you can take ONE reading on one SST grid on say July 15th 1860 and from that we can estimate a global record for that day, or for the year for that grid cell. Really? This is what you said;

        “with one ship you can do the same thing. you can IN FACT estimate the global value from that one record. Your error bars will be large. you will miss spatial variability.

        There is no such thing as Too few records. unless you are talking about zero records.’

        You don’t really think that a ONE off single record (which is very close to zero) that may have been taken imperfectly, has any merit in predicting a reliable and accurate global daily or annual temperature (for that grid cell) do you? If so I would really like to see an article on this. Seriously. I must have misunderstood you.

        I’d like to see you sell that single record idea to politicians about to be re-elected and to the general public.

        tonyb

      • Don

        You astutely said;

        ‘I believe that in principle you are right on this, Steven. You go with what you got and try to make the best out of it. I think tony is saying you can’t make any kind of decent purse out of a sow’s ear.’

        The key question is does the end result of this expensive and endless manufacturing have enough merit to use it to alter the global economic, political and energy status quo?

        I say not, as the end result is neither made out of silk, nor is it a purse, nor is it made from a sow. Any resemblance to the desired object is impossible to discern. Is it actually science? Discuss. Or better still lets have on article on it from the purse maker in chief.
        tonyb

      • I was disappointed to see him use the ad hom on Stocker. Surely he knows that that argument fails when the authority is correct.

        But you’ve just pointed that out more gracefully than I am able.
        ==================================

      • > If you think that is either good enough or scientific enough I am afraid we must beg to differ.

        Be very afraid, TonyB, for you’re not the one to decide that question.

        Speaking of good enough, here’s something related:

        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_enough_parent

      • Willard

        thanks for that interesting link. In it there was a reference to a ‘fantasy bond.’ that about sums it up

        tonyb

      • I agree, TonyB, but I’m afraid not for the same reason as you.

      • Tony,
        Don’t tell Steven, but I am more in agreement with your practical stance on this issue, than I am with Mosher’s view from his foliage restricted vantage point in the deep philosophical weeds. You can make a purse out of a sow’s ear, but it won’t be kosher. I gave my wife a very nice purse made out a sow’s ear and she threw it back at me telling me to make myself a pig-ear sammich. She is a Cohen and she was throwing my ghetto upbringing in my face. Culture clash.

      • Don Monfort | January 17, 2015 at 4:40 pm |
        Tony,
        Don’t tell Steven, but I am more in agreement with your practical stance on this issue, than I am with Mosher’s view from his foliage restricted vantage point in the deep philosophical weeds.

        Mr. Mosher is technical correct and absolutely wrong at the same time.

        The historic global temperature is used for policy and planning purposes.

        Why changing it is bad is pretty obvious.

        If I am building a cabinet or trying to measure lumber for another home project – and every time I move to the next board someone swaps my ruler for a new longer ruler with the same markings – he will get away with it for a while but after I’ve ruined a couple of boards by mismeasurement my patience will run out. On his next pass I am going to club him over the head and tie him up until the project is completed.

        I have long since run out of patience with the historic temperature revisionists. It is time to club them over the head and tie them up. It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong.

        What you can’t drill into their heads, what they simply don’t understand, is it is better to be consistent than to be right.

        Plus – the fact that historic temperatures inevitably get colder and modern temperature get warmer leads to the suspicion that the revisionists aren’t straightening the truth but bending it.

      • Clive Best on CET since 1650 showing no real evidence
        for anthropogenic warming.
        http://clivebest.com/blog/?p=6385

  31. The elephant in the room is actually a single-celled organism.

  32. David Appell,

    For some reason I didn’t get your note of: January 16, 2015 at 12:41 pm.

    Study is paywalled.

    • Sorry. Not my problem.

      • David,

        Wow. I thought you were trying to make a point to me (& others?) and providing a link to substantiate. Your blood pressure up a bit? Just giving you the feedback.

      • Yes, I did provide a link the substantiate. It’s up to you to find a copy of the paper somewhere. (Write the authors, if Google doesn’t work.)

      • David,

        I’m sorry sir, but that seems bad form. If one makes a statement, it is not up to the one to whom the statement is made to provide the evidence.

        It would be no different than if I said there is global cooling and it’s up to you to prove. I’ll look forward to your response and substantiation should you chose to respond on a different sub thread.

      • This is likely to be the hottest year under davey’s collar. Dude is getting overwrought and nasty.

      • Actually, Don, I think someone’s given him lessons, or a lecture, about manners. Lately he’s been nicer; this example is just the elitism glinting through.
        =============

      • This is clearly a heated discussion – the hottest ever. You can look it up!

    • Danny Thomas is employing the cheap **star* defense.

  33. @-” If he is referring to globally averaged surface temperatures since 2000, there is only a very small amount of warming; this small amount of warming is indeed contrary to the theory of AGW.”

    No it isn’t!

    The theory of AGW predicts that rising CO2 causes more energy to be retained at the surface. How that energy is distributed and how much temperature change it may cause at land surface, sea surface, or expansion, evaporation and melting of water.

    If there was no evidence of accumulating energy then THAT might indeed be contrary to the theory of AGW, but variability in the surface temperature instead of a strict lockstep with energy accumulation is certainly NOT contrary to AGW theory.

    • izen,

      What’s the ‘W’ for then?

      Andrew

      • It would seem to me that if it isn’t Warming (the ‘W’), then the theory doesn’t apply. It’s right there in the name. If the theory isn’t about Warming, then change the name of the theory.

        Andrew

      • Bad Andrew,

        Or change the theory?

      • @-Andrew
        “What’s the ‘W’ for then?”

        The Warmist year on record?

        Warm things up and they expand, sometimes that is easier to measure than the temperature change. No sign of any pause, hiatus or slowdown in THAT metric.

        http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature14093

      • “The Warmist year”

        Or The Year of The Warmist? lol

        Andrew

      • Bad Andrew wrote:
        “It would seem to me that if it isn’t Warming (the ‘W’), then the theory doesn’t apply.”

        It is, in part, about warming. Warming drives the other changes that can occur. But it’s not JUST surface warming. In fact, surface warming is almost a sidebar, if you’re trying to detect a planetary energy imbalance. If that’s you goal you stick a thermometer in the ocean. Gregory Johnson, a NOAA scientists, says “Global warming is ocean warming.”

      • “It is, in part, about warming.”

        So the new name for the theory is AnthropogenicGlobal Phenomenon with Warming When It Happens. lol

        Wonder if it will stick. What a bleeping joke.

        Andrew

      • Andrew: the term you’re looking for is “climate change.”

      • How about “Warming That Failed” – wtf?

      • I will put this in the proper perspective for you, davey. BEST says the climate ain’t changing:

        “blah…blah…blah…Even so, the highest year could not be distinguished. That is, of course, an indication that the Earth’s average temperature for the last decade has changed very little.”

        As Jesse Jackson puts it so succinctly and with his minimalist rhythmic rhyming:

        Umm. The pause…is killing…the cause. Umm.

        Captain Kirk shares Jesse’s opinion on alleged climate change:

        Spock…the …pause…is killing…the…cause. Take…us..outta..here.., Mr…Su..lu.

      • I misquoted Jesse. Left an “umm” out between “the” and “cause”.

      • Appell, you seem to think a changing climate has to be a bad thing. Considering that the most common non changing climate regime has been the various ice ages, one might assume that climate stability is something we might want to avoid.

      • “the term you’re looking for is “climate change.”

        So what happened to the AGW we were discussing? Looks like a goalpost shift. Oh… you’re a Warmer.

        Andrew

  34. Global average temperature: Isn’t a calculated (modeled) number? How scientific are the scientists that proclaim a single number as the global annual temperature and compare that number with previous years then proclaim certain outcomes as a result? Is it not a joke? Or am I laughing alone?

    Richard

    • Yes, it’s a joke: no one has ever died from being subjected to an the official global average temperature.

    • @-rls
      ” How scientific are the scientists that proclaim a single number as the global annual temperature and compare that number with previous years then proclaim certain outcomes as a result? Is it not a joke? Or am I laughing alone? ”

      Probably almost alone.

      Consider that medics measure your body temperature, weight, blood pressure etc with much less care and attention to possible error and proclaim certain outcomes as a result.
      Few people laugh at that.

      • “Consider that medics…”

        *Doctor Analogy Alert*

        Medics make Climate Science credible. Didn’t you know?

        Andrew

      • @-Bad Andrew
        “*Doctor Analogy Alert*
        Medics make Climate Science credible. Didn’t you know?”

        Yes, compared to problems in biology and medicine, and the standard of research in each, climate is clearly MUCH simpler and considerably less influenced by proprietary interests.

      • “Consider that medics measure your body temperature…”

        Considering that:

        Medical:
        – precision is 0.1, accuracy ~0.5, variance between patients < ~1.0
        – external factors (other than disease) rarely significantly affect actual temp
        – minor intervention (low cost, low risk) if 0.5 above average ( 0.5 times precision, 0.25 times accuracy)

        These are “rubbery” or perhaps “indicative” numbers, but they are in the ball park, so I am considerably more comfortable with the medical treatment prescribed than with the climate treatment prescribed. YMMV.

      • aarg! not sure what happened – should have been ” … greater than about 1.0 above average…” but somehow it says 0.5, which makes the simple math obviously wrong.

    • Steven Mosher

      the global temperature INDEX is technically a prediction.

      1. It’s an index and not a physical state. SST is combined with SAT to produce the index.
      2. As an index it provides a diagnostically interesting metric of the entire system.
      3. It’s a prediction in that it represents an estimate of the temperature at unsampled locations.

      • Mosher

        “the global temperature INDEX is technically a prediction.”

        Thank you. I didn’t know that, perhaps it is misused by many scientists.

        Regards,

        Richard

    • “the global temperature INDEX is technically a prediction.”

      If the index is going to be used to flog policy, the way the global index is prepared should be defined by law to eliminate the temptation to tweak with it on a daily or monthly basis as is currently the case

      • Steven Mosher

        wrong.

        as you get better data you use it.

        you have no idea what you are talking about. read more comment less.

      • SkepticGoneWild

        Mosher says:

        “Read more comment less”

        That is rich, coming from and English major.

      • There is no evidence that someone has gone back to 1915 to reread the thermometers or establish more weather stations. That is how you get better data.

        Your statement is not supportable.

    • Scientists are really calculating changes in their model of the planet. If their model is good, that will approximate the changes of the planet.

      • David Appell (@davidappell) commented

        Scientists are really calculating changes in their model of the planet. If their model is good, that will approximate the changes of the planet.

        Good, that’s what I’m been pulling out of the surface station record (NCDC GSoD).
        This is the rate of temperature change measured at surface stations as the daily rate of change goes from the maximum per day to the minimum per day and from the minimum per day to the maximum per day.
        http://www.science20.com/sites/all/modules/author_gallery/uploads/543663916-global.png
        The rate of temp change has changed, you can see it in this graph, but it’s both warming and cooling, and it might be changing direction. I need to add 2014 in, I’ve tended to wait for a while to let them get all of the changes settled and applied.

      • I don’t know, I’d have to understand your methodology. (Please don’t send it to me.)

  35. The El Non-yo is interesting.

    Conventional wisdom held that the tropical SST anomalies caused ‘tele-connections’ to the circulation change.

    Recent theories hold that circulation change causes the Tropical SST anomalies as well as changing earth albedo which causes the warming.

    The concerted fall in global temps since early autumn ( not winter as usual ) indicate that this was an El Nino which peaked early.

  36. All this reminds me of Mike.

    Now, let us think about that.

  37. It appears that 2014 was the warmest year on record for global temperature.

    • Thank you for being a sane individual.

    • Define “appears,” “2014,” “warmest,” “record,” and “global temperature.”

      We leave the definition of “was” to Bill.

    • You always have to clarify if you mean by real temperatures or adjusted temperatures.

      http://www.climate4you.com/images/NCDC%20Jan1915%20and%20Jan2000.gif

      Since 2008 (long after 1915 and 2000 were dead data) 1915 has magically cooled 0.11 degrees relative to 2000. That is a CGAGW (computer generated anthropomorphic global warming) trend of 0.157°C degrees per decade.

      2100 is 85 years (8.5 decades) away. 0.157*8.5 = 1.33°C This is 1.33C of CGAGW for a 85 year period of the temperature record or a CGAGW of 1.56°C.per century.

      1915 was originally 0.39°C colder than 2000, it is now 0.50°C colder, In 2100 it will be 1.72°C degrees colder than 2000…

      With 1.56°C.per century of CGAGW (3.12°C total for two centuries) it will be impossible to avoid the 2.0°C 2100 global warming threshold relative to 1900 temperatures.. It is futile to reduce carbon emissions and is a wasted effort. Our only hope is to take away the NCDC computers while there is still time to save ourselves..

  38. Max_OK, Citizen Scientist

    The link to the Roz Pidcock article didn’t work for me.

    • Max_OK, Citizen Scientist

      Maybe this is it:

      http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/01/explainer-how-do-scientists-measure-global-temperature/

      Also carbonbrief.org makes this point:

      “That means that while 2014 nominally takes the top spot, scientists can’t know for certain that it was warmer than 2005 or 2010. 
      But, importantly, the temperature record in 2014 occurred despite only a weak showing from the natural climate phenomenon known as El Niño. By contrast, 2010 and 2005 saw the 6th and 12th strongest El Niño on record, respectively.”
      http://www.carbonbrief.org/blog/2015/01/scientists-confirm-2014-as-the-hottest-year-on-record/

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to Max_OK :-

        In your second link, why does the NCDC land temperature anomaly start colder than the ocean temperature anomaly, and end up warmer ?

      • Probably because –
        Specific heat capacity Water 4200 (J/(kgK)
        Specific heat capacity Soil <1000 (J/(kgK)
        ?

      • Max_OK, Citizen Scientist

        I didn’t make the graph, but my guess is it’s because land temperature has been rising faster than ocean temperature. If you want to know why, I’m not the person to ask

      • Ocean SSTs are warming slower than land temperatures because heat can more easily travel down into the ocean, but it can’t do much of that on land.

      • 2.5 m of ocean has more heat capacity than the entire atmosphere. There are 4000 meters of ocean.

        2.5 m of ocean has about as much heat capacity as 7.5 m of dirt (1260 J/kgK dry and somewhat higher wet). Further the temperature of dirt below 30 m is pretty constant. In Minnesota things buried 5 feet down are below the frost line so -20 °F weather doesn’t even penetrate that far.

        80% of solar energy is absorbed in the top 10 meters of ocean. The long wave (thermal) energy from the atmosphere isn’t absorbed at all and only warms the surface (water is opaque to infrared).

        It takes over a century for the ocean to hit equilibrium after a change in forcing.

  39. Well at least the Faux Pause acolytes can still re-secure the goalposts at the ‘the models are still not perfect’ argument. All is well.

  40. @-“Meanwhile, the ‘warmest year’ is noticeably missing in the satellite data sets of lower atmospheric temperatures. Roy Spencer reports that 2014 was third warmest year since 1979, but just barely.”

    That would seem to argue against the calls to re-classify ENSO to include in some form the present conditions.
    Satellite data have usually amplified the ENSO signal over the surface index making warm years warmed by an ENSO event, (1998, 2010) larger records in the satellite data than the surface index.

  41. As we reflect on 2014 being the warmest year on record, with record warmth in the N. Pacific ocean as well, it is also interesting to check the state of sea ice in the Bering Sea, which is affected by ocean heat content. Record low sea ice currently in the Bering:

    http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/recent365.anom.region.2.html

    With daily insolation hitting the waters of the Bering now increasing to the summer max, it will be hard, though not impossible, for the Bering to make up for that lack of ice. Could set up an for an interesting melt season for 2015. Worth watching.

    • How about an Aug 1910 open Bering straight?
      http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/arctic/rediscover/dmi_sea_ice_maps/1910/1910_08.pdf
      or maybe 1916 http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/arctic/rediscover/dmi_sea_ice_maps/1916/1916_08.pdf

      It seems that maybe when it get warm, the ice melts to cool the planet off?

      • Interesting Mi Cro, but probably need to compare the same month of the year. This is the lowest January Bering Sea ice on record. Bering Sea ice always reaches a minimum in the summer, and it is always much less now in August (usually totally ice free) than it was in either 1910 or 1916.

      • This is the lowest January Bering Sea ice on record.

        What’s the length of the record? The link compared current ice to 1979-2008 anomaly.

      • “It seems that maybe when it get warm, the ice melts to cool the planet off?”
        _____
        This doesn’t make any physical sense. The latent heat of fusion that goes into melting the doesn’t “cool” anything off. It takes net energy gains to the climate system to reduce the total mass of ice on the planet, and the total mass of ice on the planet has been declining for many decades. This decline does not “cool” the planet.

      • R. Gates commented

        “It seems that maybe when it get warm, the ice melts to cool the planet off?”
        _____
        This doesn’t make any physical sense. The latent heat of fusion that goes into melting the doesn’t “cool” anything off. It takes net energy gains to the climate system to reduce the total mass of ice on the planet, and the total mass of ice on the planet has been declining for many decades. This decline does not “cool” the planet.

        It does if you think that open water at ~0F radiates more energy to space than it receives from the Sun most of the year, and far, far more than that same area would if the water was covered by ice.

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : R. Gates

        Where can I find a decades long record of total mass of global ice ? I have only been able to find separate records (with differing frequencies) of Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent.

      • micro

        Bering sea ice varies enormously year by year and decade by decade with some of the highest temperatures in the 1930’s.

        http://www.beringclimate.noaa.gov/reports/bs_04.pdf

        I have seen Russian records in the Scott Polar institute in Cambridge whereby it is apparent that this variability is historic, with some notably low ice levels in the early 1700’s and early 1500;s

        tonyb

      • R. Mallet,

        Sea ice represents a very seasonal and low percentage of total ice mass on the planet. When looking at net energy input to the climate system, you really need to look at glacial ice mass, mainly from the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps of course. Charts like this, while not perfect, do give good idea of what’s been happening related to the latent heat of fusion in melting massive amounts of ice over the past many decades:

        http://www.skepticalscience.com/images/Global_Glacier_Mass_Change.gif

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : R. Gates

        Thanks for the graph on global glacier mass change – that’s very interesting. Where does it come from ?

      • “It seems that maybe when it get warm, the ice melts to cool the planet off?” I am with Mi Cro on this one. Its seems the insulation value of Arctic sea ice would be a greater effect than the albedo effect. The albedo effect of snow on sea ice would protect the sea ice, the insulation, that would help to trap heat in the oceans. When we believe on average the oceans are warming, it would seem logical to vent more ocean heat in the polar regions and that might help explain warmer Arctic atmospheric temperatures. So at least short term oceans trying to cool themselves warm the atmosphere and we think this is an amplification. But the atmosphere is the conduit the oceans use to obtain their own ideal temperatures and we can assume for quite awhile they’ve successfully managed the amount of sea ice rather than been done in by too much or too little sea ice. That life has survived as we bounce from glacial to interglacial and rearrange quite a lot of water to and from ice suggests ice has a stabilizing influence. I’ve also wondered that as CO2 is insulating, how are we separating out its insulation effect from sea ice’s insulating effect? If we lose insulation at the ocean/atmosphere interface, that would look the same as gaining it TOA.

      • Micro

        Here is a photo of the Arctic in 1931 when there was less ice compared to a modern photo:

        http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Observer/Columnist/Columnists/2013/11/6/1383738584156/1931-FRANKENSTEIN-010.jpg

      • Looks like gatesy has been chart shopping at SkS, again.

      • When was the Bering straight not open in August?

      • R Mallet,

        Data originates here:

        http://www.grid.unep.ch/glaciers/

        Watch out for the pseudoscientists, who will pick one glacier or one mountain range or region where glaciers might be growing and insist it “proves” AGW isn’t happening. We care about global glacial mass…and it’s been going down down down. That’s some of the best evidence that the net energy in the climate system is increasing, along of course with ocean heat content increases, sea level rise, species migration, permafrost melt and higher troposheric temperatures.

      • Gatesy, please go to your pals at SkS and ask for the chart that shows water vapor increasing in lockstep with CO2 an temperature. Also please give us links to all the hysterical alarmist media reports about 2014 being the year with the most water vapor EVAH?

        (They don’t like to talk about the water vapor.)

    • We see that the Bering Sea has anomalously warm surface temps, but the winds are now coming from the north mainly (they’ve been from the south much of the fall and winter), so the growth of ice which is favored by northerly winds will do battle against the anomalously warm SST’s:

      http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/ocean/primary/waves/overlay=sea_surface_temp_anomaly/orthographic=-174.17,57.56,1334

      The Bering Sea ice usually peaks about the end of March, so the next two months will be interesting there.

    • ONI -1.5; PDO cold as heck:

      Nature with her cold teeth bared.

      http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomnight.10.30.2014.gif

      Oni – +0.5; COLD PHASE of the PDO; no El Nino:

      http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomnight.10.30.2014.gif

      But RSS says it’s not happening!

    • micro: ice is far more reflective (of sunlight) than ocean water.

      • David Appell (@davidappell) commented

        micro: ice is far more reflective (of sunlight) than ocean water.

        Until the incident angle of the Sun gets up over 70-75 degree, and then the differences are far less.
        http://www.iwu.edu/~gpouch/Climate/RawData/WaterAlbedo001.pdf
        And all of the time the sky is clear it’s radiating to space, and Tsky is still very cold at noon, the Sun being up doesn’t matter that much.
        So most of the time during the day for most of the year open arctic waters are cooling.

        This is a specialty of out hostess, so she might disagree with me.

      • micro: the angle of sunlight is the same for ice or ice-replaced-by-ocean. Ice wins the albedo contest:

        sea ice albedo: 0.6
        open ocean albedo: 0.06

        http://nsidc.org/cryosphere/seaice/processes/albedo.html

      • “David Appell (@davidappell) commented on ‘Warmest year’, ‘pause’, and all that.

        in response to David Appell (@davidappell):

        micro: ice is far more reflective (of sunlight) than ocean water.

        micro: the angle of sunlight is the same for ice or ice-replaced-by-ocean. Ice wins the albedo contest:

        sea ice albedo: 0.6
        open ocean albedo: 0.06”
        You need to read that paper, open water can be over 0.25-0.3 with an incident angle greater than 75-80, which is most of the day most of the year.

      • Ice at a point X is more reflective than open water at point X. QED

      • “Ice at a point X is more reflective than open water at point X.”
        First that isn’t what’s important about it, and I think you are wrong, when you’re driving into the Sun, what has more glare, a lake or the ice and snow on that lake?
        The point is the absorption of ir by the water is is greatly reduced, and cooling has increased.

    • tony
      I received an email this week from NSIDC confirming the essence of your linked study as to the periodic lack of sea ice in the Bering Sea . I had asked for their assessment of the cause of lack of Sea Ice in recent weeks. They cited the existence of an unusually high pressure system.

      • Ceresco kid

        thanks for that. When we continually boil everything down to ‘averages’ we tend to forget there must be highs and lows to create those averages in the first place and are startled by any variability outside of the ‘average.’

        tonyb

  42. “So, what is wrong with Cruz’s statement? Well, assuming that by ‘recorded warming’, he means the satellite-derived lower atmospheric surface temperatures his statement is absolutely correct. If he is referring to globally averaged surface temperatures since 2000, there is only a very small amount of warming; this small amount of warming is indeed contrary to the theory of AGW.”

    http://klimaatverandering.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/tabel-1979-20121.png

    Well…

    The interesting thing is that the satellites have more problems over the ocean particularly during El Nino and TLT shows a wider variation. But over ocean over time the difference in the data sets is trendless.

    Over land there is a persistent trend to the surface data over the satellite data. The sorts of excuses for why the satellites are wrong are less valid from what I can tell for land measurements.

    The problem with the surface and radiosonde measurements is they keep changing the instrumentation which brings a lot of estimating and error into the system. This opportunity for hanky-panky is indefensible.

    There should by law be a testing standard for new sensor designs. Since MMTS is the most widely used sensor a reasonable approach is to require an MMTS compatibility mode on all future sensors, that reports MMTS data along with any other data generated by the sensor, and only the MMTS mode data by law can be used for global temperature trends.

    Perhaps a good starting point would be to appoint an outside audit team of engineers (with some PE representation), and statisticians to review and evaluate the processing of land data, perhaps setting mandatory standards for processing of land temperature data by government employees.

    The satellite and land based trends should not be discrepant. The best starting point is to make sure the land data is processed in a way that eliminates UHI and is a faithful representation of historic temperature based on the data.

  43. So do they pick x amount of thermometers to measure and then model the rest of world? Does the final result vary depending on what thermometers are chosen to measure_ (would take me too long to Google)

  44. A fan of *MORE* discourse

    Climate-Change Status: 2014

    http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Jg8L7z7yl0c/VLk0eG-hGKI/AAAAAAAAHlE/Ir8GN8vliQg/s1600/GISTemp14.png

    energy-balance physics  strongly affirmed

    greenhouse effect  strongly affirmed

    anthropogenic CO2  strongly affirmed

    ocean heating  strongly affirmed

    land heating  strongly affirmed

    ice melting  strongly affirmed

    sea-level rising  strongly affirmed

    ocean-acidity increasing  strongly affirmed

    scientific consensus  strongly affirmed

    http://www.skepticalscience.com/pics/97hours_crowd.jpg

    confident stadium-wave predictions  not affirmed

    Judith Curry  “I’ve made my projection — global surface temperatures will remain mostly flat for at least another decade. However, I’m not willing to place much $$ on that bet.”

    Q1  Judith Curry, what is your climate-change prediction for ocean-heating, ice-melting, sea-level rising, and ocean-acidification?

    Q2  What scientific basis do you use for these predictions (or absense of predictions)?

    Q3  Will these climate-change trends continue, without pause or obvious limit, as in previous decades?

    Q4  Or is it your opinion, that prediction of these trends is beyond the capacity of climate-science?

    The world wonders!

    Q5  Is it reasonable for the world to wonder?

    \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • Richard Mallett

      Rely to : A Fan of More Discourse

      Where can I find the data that strongly affirms :-

      a) the greenhouse effect ? CO2 levels seem to be increasing linearly, while temperatures have sometimes been increasing and sometimes decreasing (and sometimes neither) since 1880.

      b) anthropogenic CO2 ? From what year does anthropogenic CO2 start to show an effect separate from natural CO2 ?

      c) ocean and land heating ? They have been increasing at a rate of about 0.65 C per century since 1880. Is this more than natural variability, and how do we know ?

      d) sea level rising ? This has been increasing at a rate of 3.2 mm. per year since 1992. Is this more than natural variability, and how do we know ?

      • Richard,
        +100
        Those are excellent questions! FOMD, think this might a toughy but certainly do look forward to your discourse.

      • He’s pretty much a loudspeaker blaring propaganda. Now and then he deigns to communicate two-way with the inmates.
        =======================

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : David Appell
        Your link points to a page with data that start in 1979. Where can I find CO2 data that starts in 1750 or 1850 (probably the earliest two candidates for the start of the industrial era) ?

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : David Appell

        Thanks, your second message with two links start in 1750 and 1850, though they end in 2008 and 2005, but they enable correlation to be tested.

      • Richard Mallett

        Plotting the two series of total carbon emissions from fossil fuels and annual net carbon flux against HadCRUT4, which starts in 1850, gives R^2 correlation of 0.71 and 0.54 respectively. Not something that I would want to hang my hat on.

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : David Appell

        I did go to sealevel.colorado.edu to get the figure of 3.2 mm. per year. Do you disagree with that, or do you believe that is a dangerous rfate of sea level rise ?

      • Richard Mallett

        Sorry – I mistyped ‘rate of sea level rise’ in my reply to David Appell

      • For “c”, see HadSST3 and CRUTEM4

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : David Appell

        I used CRUTem4+HadSST3=HadCRUT4 which gives a trend since 1850 of 0.48 C per century. NCDC gives 0.66 C per century, and GISS 0.66 C per century, since 1880. Both are post-industrial age. Is this more than natural variability ?

      • Re: “c” — land is warming faster than oceans. See NOAA data for each at:
        http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/monitoring-references/faq/anomalies.php

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : David Appell

        I have been using HadCRUT4, GISS (land+ocean) and NCDC (land+ocean, from the link you posted) and Berkeley Earth (land only: the trend is 0.36 C per century since 1750) – is this more than natural variability ?

      • Richard

        You can see the co2 levels in my graphic here which is plotted against our own real world CET data set.

        http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/05/08/the-curious-case-of-rising-co2-and-falling-temperatures/

        Please note the CET temperature dropped then rose again since the chart was graphed. For the latest see ‘Hadley CET 1772’

        tonyb

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : climatereason
        In your WUWT article, what is the source of the CO2 levels from 1530 ? Not Mauna Loa :-)

      • From the comments under climatereason’s article Tony answered your question “The co2 figures are from the mauna loa series from 1958. Prior to that it is the general estimate by Keeling and CDIAC that co2 was a constant 280ppm until the industrial revolution (generally considered to commence around 1750) which by 1900 had reached 300ppm and gradually increased to 315ppm by the time Keeling started his measurements

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg

      • Richard Mallett | January 17, 2015 at 10:55 am |
        Reply to : David Appell

        I did go to sealevel.colorado.edu to get the figure of 3.2 mm. per year. Do you disagree with that, or do you believe that is a dangerous rfate of sea level rise ?

        http://www.climatedata.info/resources/Impacts/Sea-Levels/SeaLevel-01.gif

        Well…

        Not sure if ClimateEtc has had a food fight about sea level. But it would be interesting.

        The sealevel.colorado.edu sea level rise is 2.9 mm. 0.3 mm is invented nonsense (see GIA).

        The fact that they artificially inflate the sea level (this started in 2011 when the sea level was dropping) makes their interpretation of the data less credible

        The satellite measurements start at what was the lowest sea level in a decade before a sudden increase so they are a little biased.

        The sea level rise is about 1.7 mm/year and hasn’t changed much. Since it is mostly steric (ocean temperature) caused it should reflect whether the ocean is warming or cooling. And the ocean is warming a little.

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : PA
        Thanks for that – whether it’s 3.2 mm. per year or 1.7 mm. per year of sea level rise, it’s nothing to be alarmed about, just as a temperature rise of 0.65 C per century (or, if you prefer, 2.0 C in three centuries) is nothing to be alarmed about.

      • Richard

        The 1530 co2 figures are the assumed (by scientists) pre industrial level of 280ppm. Those are generally considered the values until 1750 with a figure of 300ppn or so in 1900 i.e. a slight rise during the interim due to industrialisation.

        tonyb

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : climatereason
        Thanks for that. Why do you not use the CO2 levels as measured in ice cores ?

      • A hat, a hat, my wuurrllldd for a hat.
        ==============================

      • Richard Mallett, there is a clearer signal when you look at accumulations. The correlation rises to over 0.99. Coincidence? I think not.
        http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/engelbeen-3.jpg

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : Jim D

        So atmospheric CO2 has a high correlation to cumulative emissions, but neither has a high correlation to global temperature from 1850, as I have just demonstrated in my reply to David Appell.

      • Richard Mallett, you have to ask yourself why you would expect a high correlation. CO2 is one of the drivers, but not the only one. Climate varied within +/-0.2 C until we started adding CO2 and now it is still varying by that much but with a ramp of 0.8 C added to the background.

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : Jim D

        The HadCRUT4 temperature anomaly was around -0.2 C during the period 1956-1976 when we were being warned of a new ice age, so it’s only during the ‘hockey stick’ period of 1976-1998 that we had this steep warming period when the anomaly increased from -0.2 C to +0.6 C.

      • Richard Mallett, even in the 70’s, after a long temperature pause, some scientists knew this rise was coming and published papers on it. They knew increasing CO2 would have this much effect, and the science they used is the same as is used now to explain it, and it can be traced back 100 years. Some have denied that this same science could possibly be right despite its track record.

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : Jim D
        So let me get this straight – we have, during the industrial age (since 1850 say) been adding to the CO2 in the atmosphere, and during that time the global temperature :-
        stayed much the same from 1850 to 1880
        cooled from 1880 to 1911
        warmed from 1911 to 1944
        cooled from 1944 to 1956
        stayed much the same from 1956 to 1976
        warmed from 1976 to 1998
        stayed much the same from 1998 to 2014
        – and during that whole period, the effect of anthropogenic CO2 has only manifested itself during the 22 years from 1976 to 1998 ?

        Or were people saying between 1911 and 1944 that the warming then was explained by anthropogenic CO2 if the science can be traced back 100 years ?

        Are the cooling and stasis periods also explained by the science ?

        Is that why people are saying that the science is settled, because the science of 100 years ago is able to explain the warming, cooling and stasis periods ?

      • Richard Mallett

        You may have already read some of Roy Spencer’s work but if not here is a link to his website. He has been denigrated repeatedly due to his supposed religious views even though his credentials as a climate scientist seem to be impressive. Perhaps I am biased since he and my son are graduates of the University of Michigan but I have always thought his positions to be objective and thoughtful. I am passing along this website for another perspective.
        http://www.drroyspencer.com

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : ceresco kid

        Yes, thank you, I do check Roy Spencer’s website eery day, and I have read a couple of his books.

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : ceresco kid

        ‘eery day’ should be ‘every day’ of course, sorry

      • Richard Mallett, if you look closely at the temperature behavior in terms of a 30-year smoothed trend you can see a general rise of about 0.8 C.
        http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:240/mean:120
        The effect of CO2 is mostly rising through the period and may be four times stronger now than it was in 1950, and you can discern perhaps that there is a stronger rising effect at the end than in general. Adding 40% to the CO2 accounts for this, but some still remain mystified by why it is rising so fast lately, setting records and all that. This is quite understandable.

      • Richard Mallett

        Reply to : Jim D
        Why does adding 40% to CO2 make the effect on temperature four times stronger ?

    • “scientific consensus strongly affirmed”

      The jury of PhD’s ate my homework officer.

    • Lol!

  45. Is there not evidence that warming during the instrumental record is due to higher lows? How relevant is this to catastrophic predictions? And why would it be occurring?

    Richard

    • rls commented on

      Is there not evidence that warming during the instrumental record is due to higher lows? How relevant is this to catastrophic predictions? And why would it be occurring?

      When you look at yesterdays warming, and compare that to last nights cooling temps for the station on NCDC’s GSod data you get this for all stations: Rising 17.52F Falling 17.61F for 95 million station.
      This is not an INDEX, it’s an average of the measured values (warts and all).
      I suspect Steven could argue that too is a model, and I might even agree, but they are different models.

  46. Dr. Curry’s question about whether this claim about 2014 being the hotest year on record is statistically significant has been answered: it is not. From “Global Temperature in 2014 and 2015” by Hansen, Sato, Ruedy, Schmidt, and Lo: “The three warmest years in the GISTEMP analysis, 2014, 2010, and 2005 in that order, can be considered to be in a statistical tie because of several sources uncertainty, the largest source being incomplete spatial coverage of the data.”
    http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2015/20150116_Temperature2014.pdf

    That fact, of course, doesn’t stop them from saying before this caveat that “Update of GISS… finds 2014 to be the warmest year in the instrumental record.” This insistence on deceptive soundbyte statements is disconcerting. They know that they can’t really statistically distinguish those 3 years and yet they make their proclamation regardless. They put in the caveat to be accurate, knowing full well that the media will completely ignore it.

    • It’s not deceptive to report a fact. It is a fact that 2014 is the warmest year in the thermometer record. To not report that the the American people would be a deception.

      You saying that the the race car with it’s front fender clearly in the lead has not defeated the 2nd and 3rd place cars. The reason we have a photo finish is to separate fact from fiction. You’re advocating fiction.

      • You clearly don’t understand the issue. We are talking about comparing two averages of many individual measurements with uncertainty associated with them from all over the globe. That is why we have statistical tests. This is not a discrete event where we can clearly see the winner. Did you miss the fact that they admit it is a statistical tie? Your analogy simply has no bearing on this. To try to save your analogy, we could talk about one car being one pixel ahead of the other car in the image, but the uncertainty being more than one pixel, in which case we can’t be certain who won.
        See Dr. Curry’s comment below as well on the NOAA dataset.

      • JCH, the climatologists don’t have a magic camera capable of distinguishing the top three finishers. I think they call their camera ‘Statistics’ and it’s a subtle and magical tool, but inadequate for this task.
        ==================

      • MHappold: Those calculations have been done for both NASA and NOAA data. See
        http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2015/01/probability-2014-is-warmest-year-66.html

      • JCH, in the adjusted (homogenized) record. But by a tiny amount within large error of estimate. A misleading manufactured headline, only later appropriately qualified by lack statistical significance, something the MSM does not report, thereby misinforming the public.

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse

      M Happold, thank you for that outstanding climate-science link!

      Global Temperature in 2014 and 2015
      by James Hansen, Makiko Sato, Reto Ruedy,
         Gavin Schmidt, and Ken Lo

      Summary  Record global temperature in 2014, achieved with little assistance from the tropical ENSO cycle, confirms continuing global warming.

      http://www.columbia.edu/~mhs119/Temperature/T_moreFigs/LOTI+LandSea+Nino.gif

      More warming is expected in coming years and decades as a result of Earth’s large energy imbalance [and] more energy coming in than going out.

      With the help of even a mild El Nino, 2015 may be significantly warmer than 2014.

      Climate Etc readers will be interested to not that these results are precisely as predicted one year ago — by James Hansen and colleagues! — in their communication Global Temperature Update Through 2013: A Discussion.”

      Conclusion  Good on `yah, James Hansen and colleagues, for reasoned, responsible, respectful climate-science discourse!

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

      • Fan, I think you are doing that victory lap thing a little prematurely again.

        I expect 2015 to be average for the 21st century. Nino3.4 is down to 0.4 so the El Nino will have to start from scratch. NOAA was 100% wrong last year, and they haven’t changed their tune. Still 50-60% for the first couple of months and neutral thereafter.

        NOAA has a problem with their El Nino models. Scientists seem to have a lot of problems with their models. They seem to run hot and they seem to be wrong – they should fix that.

    • Even if what you were writing was true, look at the big picture. If the three years with the highest temperatures all occurred since 2005, maybe we have a screaming emergency on our hands?

  47. Svend Ferdinandsen

    It is somehow funny that El Nino is connected so much to the measured warming or no warming, because it has nothing to do with the CO2.
    How can the mainstream say the warming goes on (based on CO2), when it is based on the El Nino?
    Apparantly any warming is proof of the concept no matter how the warming happened.

    • El Nino has nothing to do with CO2, except that CO2 is making the global ocean warmer. I don’t know if the equatorial Pacific is warmer.

    • “How can the mainstream say the warming goes on (based on CO2), when it is based on the El Nino?”

      Because El Nino years are getting warmer. 2014 is very warm, and not even an El Nino year.

    • “I don’t know if the equatorial Pacific is warmer.”

      _____
      The equatorial Pacific has been warming continuously for many decades, thus, as explained on the CPC website, the ONI index has been constantly adjusted upward for this warming, since El Nino is a measurement of anomalous temperatures, the ONI index needs to be adjusted when there is long-term warming of the region. See:

      http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ONI_change.shtml

    • Well. most of the ocean warming is happening in the South Atlantic/South Sea.

      In theory CO2 helps trap heat in the ocean. The Eastern pacific is warmer and higher because of the Hadley circulation (eastern trade winds) trap the water in the east as basically a hot water mountain.

      The western pacific is cooler because the Eastern trade winds cause cold water from the deep ocean to upwell on the South American coast when the water is drawn away from the coast..

      In an El Nino a Kelvin wave carries warm subsurface water from the east to the surface of the west. This disrupts the trade winds, westerly winds form and the hot water piled up in the east is spread across the surface of the tropical pacific (because warm water is lighter than cold water) warming the entire ocean surface. This makes for bad South America fishing.

      All that warm water on the surface creates temperature records.

      • I think you have your directions mixed up.

        I think 2014 is the 1st temperature record where ENSO was not a big push until maybe December.

      • “Sigh” I did screw up a little bit.

        The winds are named from where they come from not where they go to.

        The trade winds are Westerly winds meaning they go West to East. The El Nino response is Easterly meaning the winds go East to West.

        The westerly winds pile up water in the east. The El Nino easterlies unpile the water and spread it over the Pacific.

        http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/10/us-elnino-japan-idUSKBN0JO0I620141210
        “Japan weather bureau declares first El Nino in five years”

        This year’s El Nino had everything but the wind change. That is why 2014 was neutral conditions in name only (NCINO) and was actually an El Nino year.

    • Eh, this year warmest on record with no El Nino.

      • There was no manifestation of the typical El Nino signature in the equatorial Pacific. But is that what makes GAT rise? More likely, the circulation change associated with ENSO leads to reduced albedo which is what actually impacts GAT.

  48. Just spotted this, v. interesting
    http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13/supplemental/page-1

    48% chance that 2014 is warmest in NOAA data set

    • That is an excellent way to present the data, IMO.

    • Dr. C,

      Wonder if this was the source of the “controversy” to which you alluded yesterday? Any insight?

    • 33.3% – 50% “more unlikely than likely”

      not oing to slow the propagandists I’m sure

    • That would be the highest probability of any year ranked in the top five.

    • Steven Mosher

      We are at 46% confident.

    • Is that statistically significant/ What’s the uncertainty?

      How far back does the NOAA data set go? Is the length of the data set sufficient to be significantly significant compared with waves of different periods, such as:

      multi decadal ocean currents
      ice sheet expansion and retreat
      900 year period between Roman, Medieval and current warm period
      41,000 year period caused by elliptical orbit around the Sun and the planet’s, tilt, wobble, etc
      100,000 year period caused by elliptical orbit around the Sun and the planet’s, tilt, wobble, etc
      plate tectonics
      solar cycles (of period from decades, centuries, millenia, million years
      whatever else

      How does the length of NOAA’s dats set compare with these periodicities?

      Is it significant?

      What’s the uncertainty.

    • I wonder how many Ph.D’s NOAA has working on this stuff.

      Personally I think that the essay in “Climate Change: The Facts” by Pat Michaels is much more interesting than the silly hottest year debate. It includes this:

      We examined data since 1950 for the 108 model runs used in the Working Group I (Science) 2013 IPCC Fifth Scientific Assessment available from KNMI Climate Explorer (climexp.KNMI.nl). We calculated the model trends for periods beginning at ten years (i.e. 2004-2013), eleven years (2003-2013), etc., all the way back to 1951-2013. For each trend length, we ranked the 108 trend values from the individual model runs. From this ranked data set, we determined percentiles. Given the sample size, directly obtaining percentile rankings better characterises and constrains the properties of the data than probabilities derived from the assumption of normality. Inspection shows that the data are not grossly non-normal as do other similar analyses examining the collective trends from climate model projections.
      Every observed trend, from 1951-2013 to 2004-2013 falls below the model average. The observed trend initially falls below the fifth percentile trend 37 years ago, or in 1977, and remains there for every trend length through the end of the record. The observed trend initially falls below the 2.5th percentile trend 34 years ago, or 1980. Since 1980, there are only four trends between the 2.5th and fifth percentiles. If policies were based upon climate science rather than climate studies, this simple, straightforward analysis would spell the end of any onerous climate policy. However, while our similar studies can be scientifically cited, to date, there has been an understandable reluctance to publish this in the tier-1 scientific literature, such as Nature or Science, as that would indicate a massive, unexplainable, and persistent failure of the studies driving global climate policy.

      • Since these are diverse models, but all using the same forcing, it is more likely that the specified forcing accounts for the error than something in the physics that all the models do wrong. This is especially likely when the aerosol uncertainty is so large. The forcing may have underestimated the negative aerosol effect. A 10% increase in aerosol effect would have brought the models in line with the warming rate, and the aerosol uncertainty error bars are several times that. Since the IPCC specified the forcing for all the models, this is the kind of error you would see. If different groups had been more free to treat aerosols their own way within the uncertainty, the model spread could have covered the observed line.

      • “Climate Change: The Facts” is interesting reading.

  49. There’s only 11 “variability” in the thread.

    We should discuss “variability” a bit more.

    Let’s add three “variability”.

  50. Sounds like you’re saying the official average temperatures of the globe are as superfluous as ICBMs.

  51. Here’s an interesting plot by Schmidt:
    https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/556140695162200064/photo/1 The point I am trying to make with it is that from 1973 to 1997 there were regular advances. Then in 1998 there’s a big jump, followed by a stalling of the advances. It depends what you say about 2014. If it’s a record by the thin margin, the red lines would be tightly grouped, stalled. Eyeballing and rounding we have:
    1973 – 1997 Anomaly advance: 0.3 C
    1997 – 1998 Anomaly advance: 0.2 C
    1998 – 2014 Anomaly advance: 0.1 C
    So in the first 25 years roughly a 0.5 C increase and in the next 16 years 0.1 C. Yes you could say the date ranges are cherry picked. Or you might say the climate has break or change points.

    • A fan of *MORE* discourse

      Ragnaar believes [unscientifically]  “You might say the climate has break or change points.”

      Hmmm … you might say, too: “Roulette wheels, dice-tables and slot-machines have break or change points.”

      For sure, many gamblers believe this!

      http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HTm8FDV6cz0/TtTUqWLll2I/AAAAAAAAACo/a0QCDL531wU/s1600/GamblerBlack.jpg

      Science says  In gambling, the house percentage is relentless (despite gamblers’ intuition). And in climate-science, energy imbalance is relentless (despite skeptics’ intuition).

      \scriptstyle\rule[2.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}\,\boldsymbol{\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}\,\heartsuit\,{\displaystyle\text{\bfseries!!!}}\,\heartsuit\,\overset{\scriptstyle\circ\wedge\circ}{\smile}}\ \rule[-0.25ex]{0.01pt}{0.01pt}

    • @-” Eyeballing and rounding we have:
      1973 – 1997 Anomaly advance: 0.3 C
      1997 – 1998 Anomaly advance: 0.2 C
      1998 – 2014 Anomaly advance: 0.1 C
      So in the first 25 years roughly a 0.5 C increase and in the next 16 years 0.1 C. Yes you could say the date ranges are cherry picked. Or you might say the climate has break or change points.”

      Or squinting at it in 20 year blocks..,

      1954 – 1974 Anomaly advance: 0.1 C
      1974 – 1994 Anomaly advance: 0.2 C
      1994 – 2014 Anomaly advance: 0.3 C

      It looks like a pretty smooth acceleration…

      • You see tomato and I see tomahto. Especially if you consider the 2014 record as barely, I see the red group stalling, perhaps against some kind of barrier or negative feedbacks. Not defeated though. Is it diminishing returns?

    • RAgnaar,

      Thanks for the clear explanation of that chart. I wouldn’t have looked at it closely if not for your clear explanation. Quite persuasive.

      I’ts obvious: The rate of warming is slowing. it’s past its peak. Soon we’ll be cooling. Catastrophe ahead. Doom and gloom. Mankind could be wiped out. All life could be wiped out. Let us pray (or join a cult group that claims to have the answers to save us all – e.g. stop fossil fuels and change to RE now).

  52. Why does anyone with a serious interest in climate pay any attention to temperatures relative to the short period in which they have been recorded? This is an arbitrary period and surely it is quite obvious that temperature fluctuations over the c 12,000 Holocene and the dominant glacial/interglacial cycles over the past 2.8m years are the context in which we should be evaluating 2014 temperatures? Since the hottest period in the Holocene was about 6,000 years ago, why does it matter what they are relative to when the thermometer happened to have been invented?

    Formulating tax and subsidy policies based on a couple of hundred years of temperature data is like formulating monetary policy based on price fluctuations between the morning and the afternoon. Madness.

    • Phantasmagoria.

    • guy: why do humans care about climate change in the next 100-200 years? As opposed to changes in 12,000 years?

      Really???

      • Yellow card, David. At least quote him correctly before misunderstanding him.
        ============

      • I’ll just repeat my point.

      • why do humans care about climate change in the next 100-200 years? As opposed to changes in 12,000 years?

        Humans ( as a species ) have certainly experienced huge variation in climate in the last few hundred thousand years.

        I’m not sure that a few degrees warming will even compare.

      • John Smith (it's my real name)

        I’m sure that a barley measurable rise in global average surface temps
        is the most serious problem humanity will face in the next 100-200 years
        run for the hills
        madness indeed

      • John,

        I believe that you and I are fairly late to this party, but help me please. I barley being used in new methodology? (Sorry, but I chose not to resist) :)

        Best,

      • “Humans ( as a species ) have certainly experienced huge variation in climate in the last few hundred thousand years.”
        ——
        The kind of climate changes which could be precipitated by the large GH gas increases could easily take us back to the kind of climate that existed long before Homo sapiens emerged as a species.

    • guyleech1:

      You’re not supposed to ask such piercing questions! All the more so when the “climate change” debate is dominated by a melange of dilettantes who have no field experience in thermometry nor any recognition that systematic biases dominate the sparse and largely urban station records available, rendering presumptive formulations of “confidence intervals” quite meaningless. And never mind that credible SST time series on a global scale are simply unavailable before the satellite era. Unless you trust the pitifully short-term linear “trends” seen in grossly manufactured indices, you are patently “anti-science ” by contemporary academic standards.

      • John Smith (it's my real name)

        John S. and guyleech1
        faint praise coming from me, but
        great comments

    • +1 Guy. I have often said this but you said it much better.

  53. I’m feeling very positive about this temperature record. According to what I know, if the surface gets warmer it radiates more energy out into space. This means the planet would have less energy accumulation. As a consequence, I would expect the continuation of the mild winters we have been experiencing. And meanwhile we are running out of oil.

  54. Pingback: Scientists balk at ‘hottest year’ claims | Coach Semanko's Blog

  55. Meanwhile, calculating the reliable official global temperature of the globe is really very easy. We just make a few allowances here and there to account for the fact that official instruments are not evenly distributed across the planet and for the changes in the hardware and where it’s located, now and then, and for the UHI (urban heat island) effect in various regions over the period and interpolate the data for those areas where instruments don’t exist and voilà, there’s your official average.

    • “We just make a few allowances here and there to account for the fact that official instruments are not evenly distributed across the planet ”

      How would you do it?

      • We are immediately lost to science if we follow the Left down their reductionists’ road to climate prediction because down that road we also must believe that the Earth actually has an average temperature. Temperature is what is known in science as an intensive variable. Simply put, the average of an intensive variable has no meaning. Just imagine taking an average of all telephone numbers in NY to understand what the concept, ‘NO MEANING’ actually means.