Moderated Global Warming Discussion

[lomiller]

Mmm ... you think a warming for 1995-2010 of 0.19C is statistically significant? Is this rate of Global warming what the IPCC and others had been predicting? ... NO it wasn't and you should try to understand why the rate has slowed while CO2 races on upward ... how much has CO2 increased in the same period?

Yes, it’s statistically significant. It passes as 95%. What did you not understand about this?

It’s also statistically indistinguishable from the established trend of the 0.17 deg C per decade.

Is this rate of Global warming what the IPCC and others had been predicting? ...

This is right in line with IPCC projections. The IPCC projections show we have a good chance at holding warming under 2 deg C by 2100 if we stop CO2 levels from increasing. The established 0.17 deg/decade trend is right in line with this.

Obviously if CO2 levels climb a lot higher more than 2 deg warming becomes a distinct possibility, and if CO2 levels continue to climb at current rates warming could be considerably more than 2 deg C.

I think it's more important to point out the global warming science facts do not support the IPCC's catastrophic AGW hypothesis

The facts are in line with IPCC projections. What the facts are not in line with are your claims for some sot or “stall” or slowdown in the warming trend.

it wasn't and you should try to understand why the rate has slowed while CO2 races on upward ... how much has CO2 increased in the same period?

Sure there is ...Why has global warming turned to cooling or, as some prefer, "stalled"?

The evidence for a “stall” fails statistical tests for significance. IOW THERE IS NO STATISTIALY SIGNIFICANT EVEDENCE FOR A SLOWDOWN IN THE RATE OF WARMING.

 

[Reality Check]

Astronomical observatory in Japan say it's the Sun and it's expected to cool the Earth. Seems to support the OP very well RC

http://www.earthchangenews.com/2012/04/sun-may-soon-have-four-poles-say.html

Astronomical observatory in Japan say that solar activity will look like the Maunder Minimum and these astromomers mention that "London’s Thames froze over, and cherry blossoms bloomed a lot later than usual in Kyoto".
You do realize that you are citing a news article, Haig?
These are the personal opinions of some astronomers. That they think that global temperatures are currently controlled by the Sun means that they have big gaps in their climate science knowledge.

Climate scientists ask what will happen to climate if a Maunder Minimum happens again and come up with the conclusion that it will have a slow down global warming by a small amount !
Are we heading into a new Ice Age?

Let's say for the sake of argument that the sun does enter another Maunder Minimum over the 21st century. What effect would this have on Earth's climate? Simulations of the climate response if the sun did fall to Maunder Minimum levels find that the decrease in temperature from the sun is minimal compared to the warming from man-made greenhouse gases (Feulner 2010).

 

[Reality Check]

FYI , RC :
Solar forcing of the polar atmosphere

FYI, Haig (Part 2):
Did you read that abstract and see that it is about wind not temperature?

We present highly resolved, annually dated, calibrated proxies for atmospheric circulation from several Antarctic ice cores (ITASE (International Trans-Antarctic Scientific Expedition), Siple Dome, Law Dome) that reveal decadal-scale associations with a South Pole ice-core 10Be proxy for solar variability over the last 600 years and annual-scale associations with solar variability since AD 1720.

 

[r-j]

This US summer is 'what global warming looks like'

This sort of junk science doesn't help the cause.

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/1934-is-the-hottest-year-on-record

The US had much worse heat and drought back in the thirties, which makes this latest "global warming caused it" mantra look like a bad idea.

 

[aleCcowaN]

What would we do without the daily dose of this kind of thing?

[non sequitur, preparing the "conclusion" to be promoted]In summary, the data strongly and irrefutably [what would they do without adjectives and adverbs?] suggest that human CO2 emissions are not a powerful greenhouse gas (the verbal chain to be handled to the masses) and ...

the data suggest ---> show the data! how does the data suggest that?

the data strongly and irrefutably suggest ---> don't bother in asking about the data and the way to arrive to that conclusion. It's strong and irrefutable!

 

[This is The End]

North Carolina Republicans reject preparing for sea level rise:

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/environment-usa-northcarolina-idINL2E8I3DW320120703

Backed by real estate developers, the Republican-led General Assembly passed a law requiring that projected rates of sea level rise be calculated on historical trends and not include accelerated rates of increase.

North Carolina is among the state's most vulnerable to sea level rise with its long coastline and thousands of square miles of low-lying land. A 2012 study by the U.S. Geological Survey says sea levels along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Massachusetts are rising three to four times faster than the global average.

During floor debate Tuesday, Rep. Pat McElraft, a Republican who sponsored the bill, questioned the scientific accuracy of climate change and said that sea level rise along North Carolina's coast in the last century had averaged 8 inches (20 cm).

"The science panel used one model, the most extreme in the world," McElraft said. "They need to use some science that we can all trust when we start making laws in North Carolina that affect property values on the coast."

 

[Reality Check]

Sun-Climate Linkage Now Confirmed

A paper from the "scientific" journal Energy & Environment with an abstract showing just how bad the peer-review is there (note the woo indicator "holistic"!)

The actual content of the paper by Adriano Mazzarella is rather pathetic.
He throws away all climate modeling because it uses powerful computers!
He analyzes some historical series: external geomagnetic activity and sea level atmospheric pressure, Earth's rotation rate and sea surface temperature.
Haig - do you notice what is missing in these series (it is something to to with the Sun)?

There is the real clanger in his conclusion "In this regard, it is useful to consider the numerous failures of GCMs when compelled to forecast the summer from the preceding winter or vice versa!". He is ignorant enough to think that climate models are used to predict weather !

The paper is debunked by data. He predicts "suggests a decline in SST starting from 2005. Recent data tends to support this result.". The SST data from 2005 - 2007 did decline but then it went up again. 2008 was the second highest temperature since 1850. 2009 declined again.

 

[CapelDodger]

What global warming? There has been NO statistically significant global warming since 1995

I was right in my prediction : for some people it will forever be 2009. For the rest of us we're hafway through 2012.

So CO2 continues to shoot up and the warming has stopped!

No it hasn't. Perhaps we should review the story.

A potty-mouthed Czech string-theorist by the name of Lubos Motl calculated back in 2010 that the longest period he could find back from early 2009 with less than 95% significant warming was some point in 1995 - it was 93%. This was passed on through the denial-sphere and became a big issue for them. Naturally, a little more data raised the significance to 95% but that hasn't stopped the story. For you it remains 2009. In the outside world it is 2012.

The 95% mark for "statistically significant" is entirely arbitrary. 93% is just as good for most people, except serious wishful-thinkers, the sort casino-owners love.

The statistical significance calculated over that period is strongly influenced by the outlier peak in 1998 (due to a very strong El Nino) and the strong La Nina in 2008-9. The early peak and late trough tend to conceal the trend over the period. You won't get that lucky again for at least another twenty years, if at all.

RC these guys still say it's the Sun driving climate change and causing the cooling now! (my bold) and the Sun is in a strange state just now ... two North and two South poles.

Furcifer says the Sun is partiularly active just now and causing the warming. Maybe you two should work it out together.

Solheim, Stordahl and Humlum in their paper entitled “The long sunspot cycle 23 predicts a significant temperature decrease in cycle 24”
PDF http://arxiv.org/pdf/1202.1954v1.pdf

We're four years into that now, 2010 tied for warmest year ever and 2011 was the warmest full-year La Nina ever. In 2012 the world is warmer than ever. People who get out much are noticing. Are you quite sure that's what they said - a significant temperature decrease? The world is warmer than it was at this stage of cycle 23, so things look set for a pretty epic fail there.

 

[Reality Check]

Mmm ... you think a warming for 1995-2010 of 0.19C is statistically significant?

Mmmm ... no one would think that a "warming for 1995-20102009 of 0.19C" is statistically significant for the simple reason that 0.19C is just a number!
You do not say that a number is not statistcially significant just because it is small.
A number is not statistcially significant when you look at the statistics and they say that there is a probability the number could have been produced by noise in the data.

In 2009: "The trend over the period 1995-2009 was significant at the 90% level, but wasn't significant at the standard 95% level that people use," Professor Jones told BBC News."

Basically, Haig, this means that there was a 10% chance that the trend was part of the noise rather then the signal. The standard is to do the analysis over enough time that there is a 95% or more probability that the trend is significant.
​

In 2010: Global warming since 1995 'now significant'

What a difference a year and more data makes!

 

[CapelDodger]

I think it's more important to point out the global warming science facts do not support the IPCC's catastrophic AGW hypothesis

There is no "catastrophic AGW hypothesis" in the IPCC report. There is a lot of stuff about solar influence on climate.

Sure there is ...Why has global warming turned to cooling or, as some prefer, "stalled"?

That is complete crap. There is no IPCC model prediction, he uses rolling 12-month averages to cram all of the 2011 La Nina into the Feb 2012 figure instead of showing actual temperatures, and talks bollocks throughout. It may seem a familiar form of discourse to you, but from the links you provide you get a fairly narrow exposure. You've never looked at an IPCC report, obviously, but you should, if only to try a different flavour.

The denial machine is really milking this one while they can; that rolling 12-month average is a good way of holding off the inevitable. 2012 is going to be a warm one, despite the lingering La Nino effect, and there's likely to be an El Nino in the next couple of years. Soon it'll be time to abandon current temperatures and get back to the Medieval Warm Period and global warming on Mars. Things far enough away that they can be anything you want them to be.

 

[Reality Check]

[B]Latest HadCRUT Analysis Confirms Slight Global Cooling Trend Last 15 Years[/b]

Why has global warming turned to cooling or, as some prefer, "stalled"?

It looks like you have found yet another global warming denier web site that is ignoring the science .
A reminder, Haig - this is the Science, Mathematics, Medicine, and Technology section of the forum. Citing a blog article is OK so long as that article backs its claims up with citations to the scientific literature.

C3 make a mistake - they just use the HadCRUT data (and do not even mention the version!). HadCRUT3 has a cool bias and HadCRUT3: Cool or Uncool?.
Of course the cynical will think the C3 are cherry picking their data to support a denier agenda.

Some actual climate sceince cited in a sceince blog for you, Haig:
Global cooling - Is global warming still happening?

Empirical measurements of the Earth's heat content show the planet is still accumulating heat and global warming is still happening. Surface temperatures can show short-term cooling when heat is exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean, which has a much greater heat capacity than the air.
...
Moreover, even if we focus exclusively on surface and lower atmosphere temperatures, the warming continues.

Note the differences between Skeptical Science and C3:

• Climate science papers are cited.
• Real climate science is described, e.g. the heat content of oceans.

 

[CapelDodger]

And yet you and a few others have yet to mention albedo

But fortunately here you are to turn the conversation into a direction you're more comfortable with.

Newsflash people, if you cut down the forest and put up a strip mall, 2 lanes of black top and a concrete urban jungle guess what happens? Extreme weather events known as heat waves.

Why have they never manifested before, in your system? There was no greater expansion of blacktop than in the 50's to 70's globally and I don't recall talk of heatwaves then. This was mostly in places where the forests were long-gone anyway, of course.

There are photographs available of Earth taken from space, in the round and in daylight, and one thing you'll notice about them is how little black shows up even where there's no cloud. Most is blue, of course, and there's great stretches of yellow and brown, lots of green, and a fair bit of white. Not much black. You can't even see the urbanisation; for that you have to go to the night-side pictures.

One's impression of the world from inside a car is rather different, of course, but that would be an ant's-eye view, and who of us would be satisfied with that?

Since we're talking about albedo : for a proper cinematic effect check out the reduction in white on those whole-earth photos over the last few decades. An area which you could drop all the new blacktop into without being able to find it later.

The forests being cut down these days are mostly for arable land (as they have been in the past), which tends to be just as green.

Evapotranspiration, look it up.

No need, I was properly educated.

The fact the sun has been extremely active recently hasn't helped either, but I digress.

And fail to evade. Haig has taken issue with you.

How we've shaped the land has and will continue to have a significant effect on extreme weather events like the heat waves we are currently experiencing.

What a cunning catch-all. Whatever happens it's because of something we/they did inadvertently in the past (but not the 40% in atmospheric CO₂ load) so there's nothing to do now but adapt. Because it's not the CO₂. It was the deforestation and the freeways/motorways/autobahns and that damned inconstant Sun, all delayed for a few decades and coincidentally kicking-in when that erroneous AGW prediction was due to fail.

Whatever happens now you've got your safe-room.

 

[CapelDodger]

Neither are evidence of anything other than life has a strong liking for irony.

Stronger evidence that, if there's irony to be found, humans will find it. We love it.

The last sentence made me laugh because it just sounds funny. I agree that weather is not climate.

That sentence being

"after Arnesen suffered frostbite in three of her toes, and extreme cold temperatures drained the batteries in some of their electronic equipment"

I agree that naive incompetence is kinda funny (getting frostbite in the Arctic in this day and age?) but you have to give them some credit for getting out there.

Oh come on, it's funny!

Back in 2007. We've had the credit crunch, Obama, and the 2012 GOP clown-dance since then, which have proved to be way better joke-mines than AGW.

 

[Trakar]

...The rest of the Globe was a lot cooler ....

are you simply mistaken, or being disingenuous?

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/

The globally-averaged temperature for May 2012 marked the second warmest May since record keeping began in 1880. May 2012 also marks the 36th consecutive May and 327th consecutive month with a global temperature above the 20th century average...

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for the March-May months was 1.06°F (0.59°C) above the 20th century average of 56.7°F (13.7°C), making it seventh warmest March-May period on record. The margin of error associated with this temperature is ±0.14°F (0.08°C)...

On the heels of a relatively mild first quarter, warmth during April and May pushed 2012 close to a top 10 warm status for the year to date. The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for the January-May period was 0.90°F (0.50°C) above the 20th century average of 55.5°F (13.1°C), marking the 11th warmest such period on record. The margin of error is ±0.16°F (0.09°C)...

That covers this year, we can take a quick look at the summaries of the last five years since the papre was published and see how those faired as well.

2011 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2011/13

This year tied 1997 as the 11th warmest year since records began in 1880. The annual global combined land and ocean surface temperature was 0.51°C (0.92°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). This marks the 35th consecutive year, since 1976, that the yearly global temperature was above average. The warmest years on record were 2010 and 2005, which were 0.64°C (1.15°F) above average...

2010 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2010/13

For 2010, the combined global land and ocean surface temperature tied with 2005 as the warmest such period on record, at 0.62°C (1.12°F) above the 20th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F). 1998 is the third warmest year-to-date on record, at 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20th century average.

The 2010 Northern Hemisphere combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest year on record, at 0.73°C (1.31°F) above the 20th century average. The 2010 Southern Hemisphere combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the sixth warmest year on record, at 0.51°C (0.92°F) above the 20th century average.

The global land surface temperature for 2010 tied with 2005 as the second warmest on record, at 0.96°C (1.73°F) above the 20th century average. The warmest such period on record occurred in 2007, at 0.99°C (1.78°F) above the 20th century average...

2009 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2009/13

Global land and ocean annual surface temperatures through October are the fifth warmest on record, at 0.56 °C (1.01 °F) above the long-term average...

The 2000-2009 decade will be the warmest on record, with its average global surface temperature about 0.54 °C (0.96 °F) above the 20th Century average. This will easily surpass the 1990s value of 0.36 °C (0.65 °F)...

2008 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2008/13

The global January-December temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces was 0.49°C (0.88°F) above the 20th century average, tying with 2001 as the eighth warmest since records began in 1880. Globally averaged land temperatures were 0.81°C (1.46°F) above average, while the ocean temperatures were 0.37°C (0.67°F) above average, ranking as the sixth warmest and tenth warmest, respectively. Eight of the ten warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, part of a rise in temperatures of 0.5°C (0.9°F) since 1880...

2007 http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2007/13

The global annual temperature for combined land and ocean surfaces in 2007 was +0.55°C (+0.99°F) above the 20th century average, ranking 5th warmest in the period of record. The effect of continued presence of La Niña conditions on the December global surface temperature resulted in a slightly lower ranking for the year as a whole...

So we have 2007 (the year the study paper you mentioned was published) ends up being the 5th largest anomalous warm spell in the modern record.

2008 was the 8th warmest

2009 was the 5th warmest

2010 tied (with 2005) as the warmest

and 2011 was the 11th warmest

and so far,

2012 is half over and it is setting or approaching record high temps in most categories.

Where is this "cooling" trend?


[B]Latest HadCRUT Analysis Confirms Slight Global Cooling Trend Last 15 Years[/B][/QUOTE]

That blog posting is not a Hadley Climate Research Unit (HadCRU) analysis or assessment. If you wish to make and support a case that comports with whatever that blog post is asserting, please feel free to make and compellingly support that argument. I don't see such compelling support in their argument, however, so while I'm intrigued at the prospect that you might actually succeed where they failed, I'm not confident in your odds of success as you are citing their flawed work as support for your contentions.

 

[lomiller]

This sort of junk science doesn't help the cause.

http://ossfoundation.us/projects/environment/global-warming/myths/1934-is-the-hottest-year-on-record

The US had much worse heat and drought back in the thirties, which makes this latest "global warming caused it" mantra look like a bad idea.

You shouldn't accuse posters of citing g "junk" science then link to a web site that lies to you about what NASA has said.

NASA has long said that 1934 is tied with 1998 as the hottest year on record in the US. Pretty much every year since 2000 has at least threatened to top both. The US is already hitting levels that approach the height of the dust bowl year after year and the only thing keeping things green in the central plains is the rapidly depleting Ogallala Aquifer

 

[Trakar]

I think it's more important to point out the global warming science facts do not support the IPCC's catastrophic AGW hypothesis

please cite and reference the specific IPCC "catastrophic AGW hypothesis" of which you speak.

Sure there is ...Why has global warming turned to cooling or, as some prefer, "stalled"?

Please cite and support the contention of "turned to cooling or, as some prefer, "stalled"?"

All I see is a continuing warming trend with an accelerating rate of warming over time.

http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_943_en.html

Temperatures:

The decade 2001-2010 was the warmest since records began in 1850, with global land and sea surface temperatures estimated at 0.46°C above the long-term average (1961-1990) of 14.0°C. Nine of these years were among the ten warmest on record. The warmest year on record was 2010, closely followed by 2005, with a mean temperature estimated at 0.53°C above the long-term average. It was the warmest decade ever recorded for global land surface, sea surface and for every continent.

Most parts of Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Asia and northern Africa recorded temperatures for the decade between 1°C and 3°C above the 1961-1990 average.

Nearly 90% of the countries involved in the assessment experienced their warmest decade on record.

The global temperature increase rate has been “remarkable” during the previous four decades, according to the preliminary summary. The global temperature has increased since 1971 at an average estimated rate of 0.166°C per decade compared to the average rate of 0.06 °C per decade computed over the full period 1881-2010.

note the slope difference between M₁ vs M₂

 

[Trakar]

Here's a better link to the global data (my bold):

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/2011/13#gtemp

Though good data needs to be repeatedly offered, I apologize for not reading ahead before posting the same material myself.

 

[Megalodon]

Again, for the "no warming since 1995" crowd...

The green line is the 1975-1995 trend, extrapolated to 2011. The red line is the 1975-2011 trend.



There is no cooling, leveling or even slowing of warming. If anything, the planet is warming faster than would be expected in 1995.

I know you won't, but even then I have to ask: please stop the denying of reality! This insanity has cost us decades of remediation efforts, and the results are all around us.

It will not be nice, it will not be advantageous, except for the multimillionaires that can move to wherever they want without effort. Among them the ones that are profiting from the continuous disruption of our climate.

 

[Trakar]

Stronger evidence that, if there's irony to be found, humans will find it. We love it...

LOL! It's in our blood, so to speak, providing our inspiration with the means to diffuse and integrate throughout our being!

 

[CapelDodger]

LOL! It's in our blood, so to speak, providing our inspiration with the means to diffuse and integrate throughout our being!

Poetry is in our blood, and poetic justice is the essence of irony. It features large in ancient folk-tales and modern Hollywood, and clearly satisfies a common psychological need.

Sadly, it's mostly a fiction. When stuff hits the fan it's generally not the people responsible who take the hit. They just re-emerge the other side of the "incident" and carry on as usual.