The climate change / global warming Denier “Global Cooling” myth just get’s more and more obviously ridiculous every day.
Just a week ago I blogged about the recent Denier spam fest about media reports of local cold snaps. Several of the points I made then have gotten more empirical support since, so this is a quick update.
Surprise – it is still true that regional weather tells you nothing of about climate. Now that the Microwave Temperature Images for October have been released we can see just how true that is. The October 2008 continental U.S. anomaly was -0.135 K ie slightly below normal, while the Northern Hemisphere anomaly was +0.283 K, ie above normal. Globally the (land/sea) anomaly: +0.181 Kelvin ie warmer than normal.
The data also emphasizes how completely useless popular media stories about weather are for giving one any sense of even global weather, much less climate. Looking at the global temperature anomaly map below (red is warmer than normal, blue colder) we can see just how the world looked in Oct.
Reds are warm anomalies, while the darker blues are cold anomalies.
Is anyone really surprised that we got bombarded with stories about cold snaps in the US and Britain, regions saturated with media, while the heat in Africa, Australia, Northern Canada and Northern Russia was largely ignored? (where’s my Homer Simpson emoticon?).
If distant and unfamiliar countries get under-reported, how much more so the open ocean? The NOAA has a sea surface temperature animation here (for keeners), but let’s look at their September 2008 Temperature Anomaly maps from the National Climatic Data Center (Oct not available yet).
From the Land Surface map we see overall September was clearly warmer than normal, but not particularly so. Now if we look at the Blended Land and Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies.!
Look’s a bit different, doesn’t it? In fact September 2008 was the 9th warmest ever since 1880.
But let’s not fall into the same trap that the Deniers do. So far all I have demonstrated is that Denier spam is hopelessly wrong about the weather, what about the climate? The fact is that 2008 could be a record cold year globally instead of the 9th warmest (to date) in 129 years and it still would not matter.
I will repeat it as often as necessary, for climate it is the long term trend that matters. Decades, not years, and definitely not one week in the US. So what is the long term trend? Definitely NOT the photoshopped trends that frauds like Gunter and Keen use. The real one looks like these (depending on method of trend analysis).
So, it’s getting warmer. A bit warmer? Getting back to all those Denier spam stories about no warming in a decade, we learn today that “Warming Trend Is Steepest in 5,000 Years” “Research on Arctic and North Atlantic ecosystems shows the recent warming trend counts as the most dramatic climate change since the onset of human civilization 5,000 years ago … .
Let’s emphasize that: “the most dramatic climate change since the onset of human civilization 5,000 years ago”
Does reality slow down the Deniers? Not one bit.
Michael Asher tired to spin the expanding sea ice meme in September in a posting so bad that Deltoid debunked it under the title “You can’t make this stuff up.” Barely two months later we learn from Asher that “Sea Ice Growing at Fastest Pace on Record.”
Some dramatic new development that the rest of us missed? Hardly. It is the same meme as last time. In the interest of “fairness and balance” (I suppose) he is dismissive of researcher Bill Chapman who is actually studying it and says “no big deal.”
To counter Chapman he offers us Patrick Michaels, proponent of the “Climate Change stopped in 1998” fraud and who is doing no related research whatsoever. Michaels uses some carefully chosen language to use the sea ice extent to try and imply that the southern hemisphere isn’t warming (false) and that we expect the Southern Hemisphere to warm as fast as the Northern (false). Asher than states that Antarctica is in a long term cooling trend, failing to mention that it is currently warming.
Of course no one knows what 2009 will be like, but I will risk one prediction.
Despite all of the above we will continue to see the “Global Cooling” fraud over and over and over in the Denialosphere.
Antarctica could burst into flame and they would claim it was cooling. I can see the Asher article now: “Rapid expansion of ice sheet triggers spontaneous combustion.”
Reality has never had the slightest influence on what they claim in the past, why would it now?
UPDATE: Nov 10 17:00
Tim Lambert over at Deltoid has just eviscerated Denier Michael Duffy who has been pushing the “Global Cooling meme again.
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Denier “Challenge” aka Deathwatch Update: Day 34 … still no evidence.
IMAGE CREDITS:
I see – so from 1979 – 2007 we have a 100 month (8.33 years) moving average . wow. – I suppose that explains why even though 2007 temps drop considerably your average increases in temp.
good work if you are a AGW believer.
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Janama, to understand where you’re coming from, please explain what timespan you’d use to fit the trendline (i.e. what is expressed on the 100-month average compared to a least-squares linear regression, and what a 12- or 3-month moving average catches that neither of the previous sees). This will demonstrate that you do know what you’re talking about as far as statistics and climate are concerned, as opposed to the unsupported claim above, which makes you look like a contrarian complete with a set of moving goalposts. I’d like to think you’re better than that.
100 months is a tad on the long side, IMHO, but it’s easy to do a 12-month or even a 3-month moving average. The raw data’s available online, and a simple script to do the calculation is trivial to write.
just out of curiosity, have you or do you know anybody that has investigated the possibility of a step-function temperature trend, rather than a linear fit? Especially the 100-month moving average looks interesting from that point of view.
ps yes I do know somebody that has made that assumption. It’d be interesting if more have.
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Omnologos, you can show a turning point around 1975 through proper analysis; however, there is little or no physical basis to assume temperature follows a step function. Basic thermodynamics is all you’d need to see why.
This, by the way, is exactly the same beef that notorious Denier S. Fred Singer had about tobacco and second-hand smoke. His complaint was that the EPA didn’t consider cancer risk ‘thresholds’ with exposure, despite there being no evidence to support his claim, much evidence to contradict it, and little (if any) physical basis to think it followed a threshold. However, if it did follow a threshold, then the EPA’s proposed regulations could turn out to be a lot lighter than they eventually did.
Singer’s goal has ALWAYS been less regulation in the marketplace, regardless of its side effects on public health or environmental integrity. I’d be willing to bet he thinks he’s still fighting the Cold War, equating ANY government action with communism.
By an amazing coincidence, NASA GISS have just released their temperature for October (Important – apparently these are wrong} [1]. It’s provisional at this stage [2] – but the anomaly of 0.78C (at the moment) would mean the warmest month this year and the warmest October on record.
Not that it’s important – as you say, it’s the trend that counts.
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As a follow-up – I make October the 4th warmest month since 1880, behind January 1997 (0.86C), March 2002 (0.83C) and February 1998 (0.79C). [1]
And I meant “mean”, not “mena” ….
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Mike (in inline): [Deniers claim that] tens of thousands of dead in the 2003 heat wave is more evidence of the climate cooling…
I haven’t even seen a Denier address that heatwave. I’ve seen them address other impacts (i.e. the relationship between ocean temperature and the number and severity of hurricanes, plus the length of hurricane season), but never the heatwave directly. Do you have a link?
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Wow, you’re writing in the same self-citing style as Boycott Novell! How does it feel to know that you use a minimal amount of sources to swing in your favor?
If this were brought before a real science committee in the way YOU presented it, you’d be laughed out of the room.
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Fluctuations in periods of heating and cooling are as old as earth itself. There has been no conclusive evidence anywhere that points to man’s influence on the warming of the planet.
To the point of hurricanes, if man is the culprit for the increase in temperatures around the world, and these increased temps are the cause of more hurricanes and stronger hurricanes, where were they this year?
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Modern Science is rather amusing. Its just like religion of a thousand years ago. If you don’t believe what the majority of scientists believe…. Then you are obviously wrong. But hell that’s logic for yah
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This is too emotional. Science requires more discipline than you show.
Tom
http://www/dare2believe.com
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(Other) Brian: Not only did you not read the post, you don’t understand what the hurricane conclusions are. There are uncertainties as always, but in general, it can be summed up for the lay public as: Slightly fewer hurricanes, stronger hurricanes, longer hurricane season. If you wonder where they were this year, you weren’t paying attention to the world outside the United States. 2008 has, so far, become the second most damaging hurricane season on record; second only to 2005 (gee, that far back?), and the only year so far with five category 3 or higher (intense) hurricanes in five consecutive months. Note that this single observation does NOT prove AGW, although it is consistent with the predictions thereof.
Morgan: You understand science only slightly less than you understand religion a millenia ago (and by “Religion” I assume you mean Christianity; there were several.). Religion that long ago was (and arguably still is today) not based on consensus, but rather dictatorial authority from a governing body (i.e. the Pope). Science today is also not based on consensus, but if all the honest, independent science is pointing to the same conclusion, the consensus arises anyway. If you don’t believe it, fine, but the onus is on you to disprove it and back your claims up with physical evidence; the evidence on the ‘AGW Side’ (if you will) is presented in the IPCC report. If you’ve got such a disproof, please let us know.
Mike: In the interests of honesty, you might want to consider revising the bit about the heatwave to make it clear that it’s implicit in the “it’s cooling!” statements, as opposed to an explicit statement about the heatwave. It would be interesting, still, to look up pages from ~2003 from SEPP, SPPI, or similar groups and see if they mention the heatwave; if they adopt the “short-term weather events are not indicative of trends” approaches they’re applying a double-standard today, and if they apply the (more likely) “we need more research so wait and see” approach, they become a broken record.
Over the last 450,000 years, I really don’t see a problem.
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Tom:
Greenfyre’s is not science. It’s a blog. It is not held up to the same standards, nor should it be — its purpose is to spread information on the Internet, a medium notorious for a low signal:noise ratio. Flair is required to catch folks’ attention — but you obviously knew this, since your blog promulgates fear and mindless kowtowing as substitutes for rational assessment and true patriotism (assuming the latter are your true goals, that is — if you honestly believe that following your government even when they do something unconstitutional is patriotism, then you’re even more misguided than I thought.)
If you want the science, follow the links — or cut straight to the source and read the IPCC report, or (if you consider that too political) the studies it cites. However, judging from your blog, you seem to get your science information from the news (you compare a Lorne Gunter op-ed, which has been thoroughly debunked, with a Telegraph reporting of a WWF report, without bothering to look at the source of either or any primary dataset), I question if you will follow through on this.
Where is the wisdom on basing one’s scientific opinion on what the press has to say about it? In fact, given how the press is notoriously bad at maintaining impartiality or reporting objectively, isn’t it ironic how you accuse Mike of lacking discipline when you get your science from what is among the least-scientifically-disciplined field ever?
(I consider law the least, as the truth matters less than presenting a convincing case, with journalism slightly behind, since they seek out “both sides of the story” even if one is pure fantasy.)
If I had more time, I’d also attack you for misrepresenting your own side — Svensmark is NOT the first person to present a solar connection theory (his was cosmic rays, which is a dramatically different phenomenon), for instance — but I’ve ranted long enough, and I’m but a commenter here.
Edward McCain:
It may not seem like a problem until you realize just how little of that had human civilization on it.
All of civilization (notably including modern agriculture and food chains) exists in a narrow temperature band around the 0C anomaly (it’s that tiny flat bit on the left side of the graph). We may already be locked in for 2C warming or more by the end of the century — which puts us nearly at the uppermost bound of that graph, and firmly outside anything we’ve seen for over a hundred thousand years.
Kind of undermines your point, no?
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It’s warmer on Mars my friend. Are there men there?
I find it odd that the AGW fans seem very enamored of repeating “weather is not climate” when things like the latest 10-year averages are shown, but leap to holler the perils of AGW with every warm summer[1]
Out of curiosity, how many years does it take for “weather” to become “climate”, anyway? [2]
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Put isotopic radioactive barium into an aerosol, along with aluminum and other biological/chemical goodies (not to mention desiccated blood cells); and voila! You have a lovely sub-micron gift, thanks to MilitarioIndistrialComplexo. [Note: Kerosene, a major component of jet fuel, is used a sealant for the above transported items.] Anyone understanding ambient light and thermal dynamics (and weather), will instantly know the source of the “warming.” There is much more to tell, but that is your job; to stop drinking the KoolAIDS and DO your homework. Learn to see, think, and tell the truth. Minions, throughout history, are always destroyed with the rest… Wake up.
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J. Thompson: Earth doesn’t have albedo-altering storms the way Mars does. Similarly, the sharpest increase in temperatures have come in the same years that total solar irradiance hasn’t increased.
If you suspect that Mars’ climate is changing (there’s conflicting evidence) by the same mechanism that Earth’s is, what’s that mechanism?
(Mike, I suspect Christo Avec Manifesto has stumbled upon some bizarre alchemy of sorts. I was half expecting to see eye of newt in there somewhere.) [1]
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I disagree, most of science is not provable one way or another, but relies heavily on the belief in suppositions, theories, and hypothesis, [1] and even for some things that almost all agree upon to be a scientific fact, there is still a small amount of faith to believe it, Science is indeed a religion. [2]
Global warming is real, however, if you have been watching or keeping up with the sun cycles, then you will realize that we may be headed toward cooler days, which will counteract the warming taking place now, which, in my opinion, is four fifths the cycles of the sun, sunspots, (check out the little ice age) google that) and one fifth man, [3]
not to say that we humans aren’t destroying the earth, we are, but we have much less control than the leading preachers would have us to believe,
oh, that’s enough, but seriously, do check out about the sun, I read about it at nasa s site, It will surprise you
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So no denial that you conveniently “forgot” to leave out that piece of crucial information. It’s exactly like the McCain campaign, not fighting it out on issues but nonsense such as a simple typo. Pathetic really….
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Sooooooo adding you to my blogroll. I’m fed up with seeing MMGW deniers on the internet spouting crap. It’s nice to see somebody who knows their stuff.
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@ Shea:
I am now going to educate you about scientific method. This may take some time, but bear with me.
1) A hypothesis:
A hypothesis is the idea that a scientist has to explain why something happens. At this stage it is simply an idea. Importantly, a hypothesis must include a set of conditions which, if met, would prove it to be untrue so. This is so that it can be tested. For example, man-made global warming, at the hypothetical stage, could have been disproved by establishing that higher levels of CO2 do not lead to higher atmospheric temperatures. The opposite happened, and has continued to happen since.
2) A theory:
A theory is a hypothesis which has been tested experimentally and which has passed all of the tests so far performed on it. Any theory which is current in the scientific community is current because the evidence supports it. For example, current evidence strongly supports the theory of man-made global warming and it’s impact upon the environment.
3) Evidence:
Evidence is the interpretation of experimantal results, and is that which supports (or debunks) a theory. Evidence is drawn from observed facts. For example, the ice record indicates a concurrent increase in CO2 levels and average global temperatures. This is evidence for man-made global warming.
4) A fact:
A fact is an immutable, innarguable piece of data that is self evidently true. For example, it is a fact that the average global temperature of planet Earth has increased significantly over the last few decades and is higher than it has been at any point over the last 800,000 years. This is a fact which is verfifiable and is unarguably true.
5) A belief:
A belief is the state of affairs which the individual or believer wants to be true and holds to be fact. It does not have any facts or evidence to support it. There are no conditions by which the belief can be tested, and so it can never be disproven in the eyes of the believer. For example, religion.
Now. Having read through all of that, Shea, I want you to do something for me. Go out into the big wide world and start collecting facts about global temperature, population levels and man-made emmisions. Collect as many fact as you can, while being mindful of the reliability of your sources. Look for people like the Royal Academy, who you know are impartial and trustworthy. Avoid anything funded by oil companies or environmental charities. Look for academics who get their funding either way.
Now. Follow the process through. The facts which support the evidence which turn the hypothesis into the theory of man-made global warming – and in so doing destroy the beliefs of those people who have been brain-washed by the media into thinking that there is no problem.
There is a problem, we are causing it, and if we don’t stop we or our ancestors are going to die because of it. Think on that.
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And I am supposed to be impressed with the long term trend from 1979 to 2008? WOW, that’s really a long time for a planet that is about 4.6 billion years young.
Maybe we should go back a few million years and see how ridiculous the AGW hoax looks from there. 5 million years ago, the cycle of ice ages started, when the temperature dropped off dramatically – Much higher than today — anyone know why that was? At the end of the last ice age, about 11,000 years ago, sea level was down by over 300 feet. The last few feet, sane people call it margin of error.
I agree, it’s the long term trends that matter … millions and billions of years, not some 30 years that attempt to prove a hoax.
Pay more in taxes so government can pretend to control the weather, now that’s hoax you can believe it. It’s as if people don’t know what photosynthesis is anymore.
When you are out of facts, all yo have is lies, which is all that is left of the CO2 hoax these days, lies.
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Regarding the GISS anomaly for October 2008, it is in error. The data used by GISS – which they obtain from NOAA, is the source of the problem. The software NOAA uses to create the v2.mean file used by GISS from the individual .dly files collected from weather stations worldwide, somehow copied September data into October for most Russian and Irish stations. A look at the anomaly map revealed central Asian temperatures running about 12C above normal.
GISS has taken the October 2008 data offline and will republish when the NOAA issue is corrected. At that point we will better see where October 2008 really stacks up.
Aye, John Goetz is right. RealClimate has more.
Custador, that was awesome.
Custador, I agree with Brian D: that was awesome — awesome specifically in the stupendous logical fallacy with which you conclude your misbegotten dithyrambic.
If you’re really interested in the epistemological underpinnings of the so-called science behind global warming — and I frankly have my doubts — you might be interested in this brief article and its counterpart:
http://www.the-thinking-man.com/global-warming.html
Here’s a small excerpt:
Syllogistically, the entire anthropocentric global warming position can be recapitulated in this way:[1]
Global warming is man-made. Man is ruled by governments. Therefore, government bureaus, centralized planning committees, and more laws are the only solution.
In philosophy, this is called a non-sequitur.
The conclusion does not follow.
It’s far too hasty.
And here is why.
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Ah, epistemology. Second only to metaphysics in the “Mental masturbation for the arrogant” department, as far as science is concerned.
In the section you quote, there’s a fallacy of its own: You assume that man’s actions changing the climate came about by order from his/her rulers, when this is not the case. If a problem were caused by people blinking (something no government controls), the reasoning you cite would damn the government even though they had nothing to do with it.
It is man’s emission of CO2 that is changing the climate. This is NOT something the government has dictated nor is it something they have attempted to control. A similar example: “Acid Rain” was man-made. Man is ruled by government, but the government was not controlling the sulphur dioxide emissions that were the root cause of it. The government stepped in and implemented — surprise! — a cap-and-trade system, and the problem was resolved. (That doesn’t stop some climate change Deniers, though — you’ll find a few that opposed that action then with almost exactly the same arguments they use now.)
You assume that the government taking action on climate would be akin to doing something it is already doing and expecting change. In truth, it is doing something that is is not already doing, which means that change is not so unreasonable a prediction.
I do believe the proper term for this is not “non-sequitor” (does not follow) but is rather “Straw Man” (presenting a similar but false argument and then attacking it instead of the real argument). [1]
You remind me of a fellow I encountered online who actually compared himself to Socrates. He argued that you could philosophically disprove climate change without having one iota of scientific knowledge. His logic? That “denialism” is a neologism, and therefore climate change is false. No, I haven’t the foggiest how he thought that was convincing, either — but he was utterly convinced and uninterested in hearing anything scientific, all the while fashioning himself a thinking man. (I suspect Poe’s Law.) [2]
Science is not the realm of philosophy. The difference is what goes into them: In philosophy, all that is required to support any claim is that it aligns with pre-existing knowledge (i.e. that your conclusions follow from your premises, according to provable rules of logic). With science, you not only need the pre-existing knowledge, but you also require physical evidence to support your claim (or, in this case, disprove the opponent’s claim). You come at us with none of this and expect it to stand in science? [3]
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Braun Sweiger:
I’ve had a look at your blog and it’s rather interesting. Back when I was a Physics student I was in what was still called “The Department of Natural Philosophy”.
I don’t really agree with this, though:
Scientists, like philosophers, want to know how and why things work. What the world’s politicians do with the knowledge is a completely separate issue.
I’d agree, but as a basis for denying climate change it’s a nonsense.
tarpon:
I agree, it’s not a huge change in historical terms. We’re actually more worried about the future rather than the near past.
But can I take it that you also reject the claims that the planet has been cooling since 1998, or 2002, or {insert your favourite year here}?
Custador:
I’ll echo Mike’s and Brian D’s sentiments. 🙂
Brian D:
Completely off topic – are you a fellow Scot?
Thanks for the defence, Brian D. I wasn’t planning on responding to Braun Sweiger on the grounds that people who try to justify their ridiculous viewpoints through semantics (and fail to do so in his case) are tools and unworthy of my time 🙂
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Damn – “plant” should obviously be “planet”.
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Brian D:
I hadn’t read your last post when I posted mine.
You’ve expressed it much better than I have – I love your first paragraph. 🙂
here’s a better version of the chart with a 37 month average – tells a much better story – notice the plateau from 2002 onwards and the drop from 2007 to present. [1]
You asked where I get my info – well here is as good a place as any as it’s totally unbiased and uptodate.
http://www.climate4you.com/
BTW – in answer to your 2003 heatwave deaths have you ever considered the hundreds of thousands who didn’t die of extreme cold as they usually do in Europe? [2]
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“…the drop from 2007 to present.”
Are you serious? You talking about climate science and you think that a one year drop means anything?
It actually starts at 2006 and it’s a better chart than the one posted above don’t you think?
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Janama, once again I repeat my request from earlier: Explain why you’re using 37 months, and what would happen if you varied the number of months you’re averaging over.
I also find it amusing that you link to a nondescript website instead of the raw data. You also appear unaware that a moving average tends to misrepresent the ends of the dataset, as you draw definitive (and definitively misguided) conclusions from the tail end of the smoothed set. There are statistical methods designed to get around this shortcoming — a Savitsky-Golay filter comes to mind — but since Climate4You doesn’t seem aware of these, you’ll need to get the raw data yourself and try them out. UAH is available here.
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You might want to take a look at the accuracy of the data that you are using. It appears that NASA data is once again tainted. (http://www.dailytech.com/Deja+Vu+All+Over+Again+Blogger+Again+Finds+Error+in+NASA+Climate+Data/article13410.htm)
When data is questionable, how can it be used to support global warming or cooling?
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The tone of the post was smug [1] and given the recent information of corrupted temperature data [2], you should be highly embarrassed.
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[1] What is the correct tone to adopt when dealing with blatant frauds, intellectual dishonesty and self-serving charlatans?
[2] Yes, Mountains and molehills is a good piece about how the Denierlosphere is trying to spin a simple error in data, which was clearly labeled as provisional and which was quickly detected and corrected, into some sort of scandal.
I guess it’s what you have to do when you have no actual facts or evidence to talk about.
Lloyd, he mentions that in comments, and so did I.
For the record, DailyTech is hardly a credible source on this, given their propensity for misleading people in the past. Earlier this year, they were spreading the “2007 wiped out 30 years of warming!” lie based on one month of data in a La Nina and a hand-drawn trendline.
Come on Brian – the climate4you graphs are using the original data.
here’s the Norwegian Professor who runs it. Someone has written some very nice software for generating coloured chards and graphs from raw data.
they’ve just updated the sea ice extent to todays figures
here’s the October error from NASA
great colours and accuracy – better than NASA’s.
I think my post was misunderstood. I realize you didn’t use the GISS data. However, it was an example on how the validity of the data can be as questionable as the facts that are derived from them.
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GISS just updated their data with the corrected October values. In case you’re interested, since the yapping here seems to think you used GISS instead of RSS in your post.
For those curious, GISS’s surface station temperature puts this October as the sixth warmest on record (with the five hotter Octobers all falling in the previous five, by the way). If you include the sea surface temperature from the Met Office in the GISS analysis, it’s the fifth hottest October (with the four hotter ones all happening in the last five years).
And yes, GISS admitted the mistake and fixed it. That’s what happens in science if a glitch is found. (And this was just a short-term data reporting problem, not even a longer-term error like the one that spawned the “1934 was the hottest year on record!” meme. More on that one’s here.)
I know the discussion has moved forward, but just to clarify my question about step-functions in temperature trends: I don’t think it can be dismissed with “basic thermodynamics”.
There is some “physical basis to assume temperature follows a step function”: look at “tipping points” (if they work at one scale of temperature, why shouldn’t they work at a smaller scale?); and look at oscillating weather patterns like the PDO.
Note that I am not saying the above _demonstrates_ temperatures change in steps. It just shows that they as well might.
Hi,
your recent blog mentioned Australia. Your anomaly map shows Australia as heating up.
I live in a “bush” town in New South Wales (South east OZ) and I believe temperatures here are getting cooler.
Since the middle of last year this state and Sth-East Queensland have had record rainfall accompanied by cooler temperatures. We had the highest rainfall of 160mm in 24 hours accompanied with flooding.
Xmas last year was very pleasant here (top 20’s C) and not mid 30’s (C).
This year we are seeing a record of no sun spots and some scientists are now connecting no spots with cosmic rays casunig increase rainful through a seeding effect at the top of the troposphere. The “Panel” refuses to update their 50/50 prediction which said new spots would start by September 2008.
I can’t understand why the sun’s activity is excluded from climate models along with the causes of the great iceages. They did not end due to industrialisation 18,000 years ago.
All the heat in our atmosphere originates from the sun. Weather is not determined by inner earth heating.
In the 1970’s scientists were convinced we were going into climate cooling (see Newsweek 1975). Ignorance? or did they just leave out the variables that contribute to heating.
Finally, I understand that each climate model comes with a prediction of outcome as a probability. Climate warming is currently 40%, no change 30% and cooling is 30%.
My prediction is this- if the 24th Sunspot Cycle does not start with zest in the next 6 months and I was a gambling, man my money would be on a mini-ice age as written about in the 1980’s by author Colleen McCulloch in “A Creed for the Third Millenium” and she’s no dummy.
Rex
Tamworth
NSW
Australia.
Rex:
Anecdotal evidence about a single town in rural Australia getting cooler is not the same as the temperatures of the entire continent, on average, getting warmer. Take a look at the Australian data, for instance here, and see what the result works out to be.
If you claim that NASA et al are saying that Solar Cycle 24 hasn’t started, you haven’t looked.
If you think the mass media of the 1970s was more accurate scientifically than the science, then you haven’t read the science.
Finally, your understanding of models is rudimentary and as a result poor. None of the climate models predicted cooling. Furthermore, none of them can match modern warming without including human greenhouse gas forcings. Read the IPCC report.
All of this information is available on the assorted links to the right of this page, and you could have found it with five minutes of critical linking (that is, linking to things that challenge your worldview and trying to poke holes in them). Instead, you fall victim to confirmation bias and wind up considering Newsweek to be more credible than the National Academies. What does this say about your understanding of science?
Rex, as far as I can tell, these probability figures are completely made up. Where did you get them from? Jack Lacton’s uncle?
Hi, Rex,
I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, and I remember reading about possible desertification and a new ice age, but also greenhouse gases and warming (in Time magazine). Of course, as if this wasn’t frightening enough, we also had the nuclear bomb drills at school.
I don’t think the overall psychological effects were good.
Colleen Mccullough is a novelist, and I think it is fair to say that the book you speak of is science fiction. She was probably drawing from popular influences on the psyche when she wrote that book, and like a lot of science fiction writing, it used the device of an altered landscape to explore our fears about the future.
I don’t think she intended it to be a serious commentary on the science of the day – but I don’t know.
I do know that science folks don’t seem to write a lot of science fiction.
This is a pretty good site to get up to speed on the current science, my brother. The difference between weather and climate science is important to understand. 🙂
Forcasts of a sharp cooling trend are backed by th UK’s Armagh Observatory, which has been observing solar activity for over 200 years. Also the World Meteorolgical Organization said that “The first half of 2008 was the coolest for at least five years…” Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu, former rdirector of the Geophysical Institute and International Artic Research Center stated “The stopping of the rise in global average temperatures after 2000-2001 indicates that the hypothesis and prediction made by the IPCC need serious revision.” To date the raw data used by the IPCC has not been released, data used to plug in computer models which cannot accurately predict the weather more than a week out. I guess they are all on the pay of “big oil’.
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Hi Brian D.
Thanks for your blog.
I have a pure maths degree and was a professional engineer designing state-of-the-art industrial control computers and projects for many years.
I also taught IT for many years.
As a teacher I had to teach CRAP (conceptual rationalisation and projection) for many years because the curriculum developers could not keep up with the latest technology.
As a hobby, I design computer models for tipping team sport outcomes.
This year I studied Psychology Stats as part of my BA in psychology.
It’s amazing how research writers manipulate data using numbers in order to justify more grant money for further research. They simply improve the “power” of their data by leaving out “confounding” variables (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding_variable).
I say that that the ‘global warming” experts are leaving out confounding variables, the most important is the cause of the mini-ice age just 400 years ago, let alone the global warming that caused the extinction of the woolly mammoth and saber-tooth tiger as recently as 10,000 years ago.
I challenge every “global warmer” to provide a technical paper explaining the extinction of these two mammals and the cause of the mini-ice age in the 1600’s.
As to the 24th sunspot cycle, watch:
http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/ very carefully.
If scientists cannot predict a sunspot cycle every 11 years and given that virtually all our heat comes from either the sun or the death of 80% the biosphere every 50 to 250 million years (all gas, oil and coal has come from the sudden mass extinction of fauna or flora in the form of stored complex hydrocarbons in their cells), my money is one a mini-ice age real soon.
🙂 Happy New year!
Rex
B.Sc B. Eng (Elec) Dip Ed
Tamworth
PS I predicted the 2008 stock market crash November 2007. it was so obvious it would happen after the Olympics but the media and our politicians just kept hiding the truth away from us as they did about Iraq.
Rex: I’m not the blogger here, just a commenter.
I haven’t looked too much into the extinction of the mammoths and smilodons, so I can’t answer that there. (I was under the impression that mammoths had been hunted to extinction, but this is naught but amateur understanding.)
As to the “mini ice age” canard, that one’s relatively easy to explain.
First, there is little evidence to suggest it was a global phenomenon. It appears to have been concentrated in Europe.
Second, to be perfectly honest, there is no scientific consensus as to its cause. There are numerous hypotheses, but none have been ‘proven’ (even in a scientific sense).
Third, addressing the most common of these, look up the Sporer Minimum (associated with the start of the LIA) and the Maunder Minimum (the coldest bit of the LIA). And YES, solar data is present in climate models, which allows us to predict what would happen if the sun went through another Maunder.
Interestingly, the difference in solar radiative forcing between now and the Maunder Minimum is estimated between 0.17 W/m^2 and 0.23 W/m^2 (respectively Wang 2005 and Krivova 2007. The natural question, then, is what the radiative forcing change between pre-industrial and modern CO2 levels is, and how this relates to the solar forcing responsible for the Little Ice Age.
Lo and behold, we do actually know this — +1.66 W/m^2 compared to 1750 baselines, according to the AR4 (that link explains how we know this). Over seven times the highest change between now and the Maunder, resulting in a net +1.43 W/m^2 from CO2 alone. And that’s just what’s already in there, not counting what we will continue to dump in the atmosphere for the ensuing decades of business as usual.
The LIA is a red herring. It’s pertinent to today’s change IF AND ONLY IF:
1) The same forcings that triggered it then are happening today (dubious) AND
2) Any new forcings present today are trivial by comparison (discarded).
You have given us no reason to discard CO2, nor reasons why you doubt it. By bringing up the “climate’s changed before!” canard, you imply that you know something that you think the world’s climatology community missed, despite it being in their expertise and out of yours. This is supreme arrogance — and ignorance, since it also showcases that you haven’t read the AR4 (which goes into this in some detail; I linked one of the three most relevant chapters above, but I’d also suggest looking into Paleoclimate and Attribution. Chapter 8 on model evaluation may also be of some particular interest to you. I only suggest these since “read the whole report” isn’t particularly helpful, hence the narrowing-down).
If this is the best you have to cling to, I question your scientific understanding.
Nothing is cast in stone with the climate.
Time may change who is percieved as the denier.
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I disagree.
Science evolves:
Copernicus -> Kepler -> Newton -> Lagrange -> Laplace -> Einstein -> Hawking
Anaximander-> Maupertuis -> Lamark -> Wallace/Darwin/Mendel
Hutton -> Agassiz -> Adhemar -> Croll -> Milankovitch -> Imbrie
Denialism, on the other hand, is forever.
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How far back does your Temperature Anomoly data go?