Bishop Hill Obamas housekarls dance to his warming tune
Jun 4, 2015 Climate: Oceans Climate: Surface Over the last few days I have been copied in on a great deal of correspondence about a new paper in Science from Tom Karl and colleagues, which has "blatant act of political propaganda" written all over it. The claim is that the pause in surface temperature rises is an artefact of the data and that a great deal of jiggery pokery is peformed on the numbers it is possible to get a graph that shows continued warming. The pause is no more.
This could only be written with Paris in mind.
Fortunately, Science distributed the paper to journalists sufficiently early for it to be widely circulated and quite a few people have now had a look. Some of them have even stopped laughing for long enough to write down their thoughts.
GWPF have a lengthy press release here, examining each of the eleven (!!) errors in the surface temperature records that Karl et al claim that nobody else has noticed before. It points out that the authors have decided that Argo sea surface temperature data can be ignored because it's not surface data (it's taken at 5m depth). Instead they prefer measurements from buoys and ships (from up to 15m down!) which they then adjust. They also apply a completely implausible uplift to sea temperatures during the last few decades because, it is alleged, methods of SST measurement have been changing. To call the paper, as GWPF do, "a highly speculative and slight paper that produces a statistically marginal result by cherry-picking time intervals" seems to be a masterful piece of British understatement.
Meanwhile, stateside, Bob Tisdale and Anthony Watts are doing a splendid job in unravelling what is going on. In particular their Figure 4 showing how adjustments to the sea surface data are producing warming in the present and cooling in the past are astonishing, as is Figure 5, which shows how each iteration of the dataset gradually increases the amount of warming and cooling added. The also describe how the pre-hiatus period has been cooled, so that it looks like what was previously a hiatus is now a period of warming. Almost unbelievably, their largest changes to the data happen in the last few decades, when the raw data is best.
Desperate, desperate stuff and a sad day for science.
Reader Comments (194)
EM ...well we only disagree slightly then.
The real issue is not about whether any warming stopped, it is about the separation of postulated manmade warming from natural warming. Whichever way we paint it; pause, slowdown or plateau, it is the skeptics who argued that the natural contribution had been minimised, that the pdo was likely a factor in the pre-1998 warming and the 1945-1975 cooling and that the Hadley comparison of natural warming versus total warming was based on a circular argument, now discredited, that nature was in decline. Many skeptics, me included, predicted this pause/plateau/slowdown. Did any climate scientist? Not a single one!
With the models not matching the obs, you cannot tease out mans contribution and you cannot predict future warming to be parabolic - as they had done. Therefore the question remains - how much of that warming was natural? It could be almost all of it! If you believe the obs then you can be optimistic, if you believe the models rather than the obs then you are not only pessimistic but unscientific. Only one thing is certain - too many climate scientists have been too pessimistic for too long. They should listen more to us skeptics and be less hubristic!
You may be amused by the comments over at Carbon Brief.
I submitted a comment at sciencemag.org as well pointing to the critiques. I doubt it will see the light of day.
@entropic man
...Dodgy Geezer
Do you have numbers and statistics to support your opinions?...
Yes. Do you?
@entropic man
...Dodgy Geezer
Do you have numbers and statistics to support your opinions?...
Yes. Do you?
""
Especially interested in the 2016 temp stats
Dodgy Geezer, Henry Galt
This is 2015, isnt it. I must be getting old. :-)
I find the GISS data easiest to access.
First the annual mean anomalies.
1st 2014 0.68
2nd= 2010 0.66
2005. 0.66
4th. 2007. 0.62
5th= 1998. 0.61
The most recent 5-year average is 0.61C, the highest on record. The 5-year average centred on 1998 was 0.44C.
Secondly the Monthly figures for 2015.
January. 0.75
February 0.80
March. 0.84
April. 0.71
The mean for the first four months of 2015 is 0.75C.
Your turn.
Is EM in full control of the keyboard? First we are told there's no pause (the not-honest position), then finally that there is, but it doesn't affect global warming (the honest opinion). Welcome to the land of the reasonable!
Ps just like ECS estimation is rooted in paleoclimate studies, GW optimism is based on history, prehistory, resilience, variety, etc etc. None of those will convince the nutty alarmist.
Ps Giss averages over hundreds of kilometres. But if that's what climate is about, then Regional Climate Models are uncomputable. That's a sad thought.
Getting too senile to count. That four month average should have been 0.775C.
While I am playing with figures; for 2015 to equal 2014, the remaining months should average no more than 0.645C.
How likely is this? There have been four months cooler than 0.645C in the last 40 months.
Check for yourself.
If worry is longtime warming, why care about months?
It's a curious thing, in a thread discussing adjudtment to sea surface temperature measurements, that Entropic Man would pick a land-only data subset to rebut the notion that there is a plateau in global mean temperature. And refer to it as "the UAH data". Curious.
If only that web site had a link for the global sattelite data. Oh my goodness, it does:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/to:2014
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1979/to:2014
And funny thing, the same general lull | pause | slow-down appears in the non-sattelite GMST indices as well:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1979/to:2014
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1979/to:2014
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from:1979/to:2014
Any arguments about the presence or lack of a pause in global warming should start with these data sets, period. Anything else, and one might have their motives questioned.
It is looking like this Karl et al. paper is a bit of an insipid brew. Some results from first tastings by connoisseurs on such matters:
Thermodynamics:
1. https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/thoughts-on-karls-pause-buster-paper/
2. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/05/has-noaa-ncdcs-tom-karl-repealed-the-laws-of-thermodynamics/
Arti-facti gaming:
1. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/a-first-look-at-possible-artifacts-of-data-biases-in-the-recent-global-surface-warming-hiatus-by-karl-et-al-science-4-june-2015/
Hot engines, cold ice, vertical incoherence, and more:
1. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/06/04/noaas-new-paper-is-there-no-global-warming-hiatus-after-all/
Reality-checks on temperatures:
1. https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/noaancdcs-new-pause-buster-paper-a-laughable-attempt-to-create-warming-by-adjusting-past-data/
Overviews, and compilations of comments – generally unimpressed with Karl et alia.
1. http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/04/has-noaa-busted-the-pause-in-global-warming/
2. http://joannenova.com.au/2015/06/seven-steps-to-adjust-the-pause-away-by-karl-in-2015/
So, to modify a recent series of adverts somewhat, if Karl et alia did beer, it would be poor stuff. Karlsberg, nein danke!
Hamster Piss rather than Strong Ale it would seem.
Jun 5, 2015 at 7:52 PM | John Shade
I think Karl considers the temperature record more like fine wine, it 'improves' with age.
The historical temperature record apparently 'improves' itself over time and hence adjustments must be continually made to it to ensure only the most 'improved' record is used.
Buckets = UHI of the sea = your flexible friend
EM: you give us a woodfortrees.org graphs and expect us to believe them, yet when someone uses the same site to show you flaws in your arguments, you suddenly have trouble accepting the data. Who is the one in denial, here?
EM, you cannot accept anything that the most “respected” authorities accept (yet more denial), until this ludicrous item appears. Sorry, but you have lost whatever credibility you had. (BTW, as you do seem to accept that the “rise” is about 0.05°C per decade, will you accept that the projected rise to the end of the century will be less than 0.5°C, considerably less than the 4°C that many claim?)
Lefty Guardianista here.
I went to the Guardian environment section to mock this paper. And I was scorned back... but I waited to see if they had any solid defence. They didn't.
Now a day later I commented again. I pointed out that there has been no follow up on this paper. The Guardian hasn't been able to find any way to further promote the non-pause. That is interesting.
Perhaps they are letting Karl sink on his own.
I've not read the paper, but how exactly is CO2 supposed to warm the ocean anyway? is it suppose to be from the extra 'back radiation'? Does the paper provide very accurate cloud cover data for the period of measurement? Obviously the sun is the main heat provider for the ocean and must be accounted for very accurately and probably the key adjustment to get correct.
@entropic
...I find the GISS data easiest to access....
Really? I'm less interested in fiction. Now give us RSS...
Rob Burton, CO2 heats the ocean because it can, and the heat then sinks to the bottom, where no one can find it.
Apart from these initial assumptions, the science just goes downhill, into the MSM, where it is revered as the best bit of climate science since spliced hockey stick.
Much to my surprise, over at Science they've published comments on the paper (including mine, which pointed to several of the earliest critiques). All of them are scathing. I guess they're starting to feel the heat (!).
GC:
I presume we can expect to hear from Rose and Booker soon enough. Meantime, at the Mail they have a sense of humour:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3112566/Bunny-boom-linked-El-Ni-os-Rabbit-numbers-soared-weather-pattern-hint-effect-climate-change.html
And the voting on the comments at the article on Karl et al show a very healthy degree of scepticism among readers
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3111179/Global-warming-NOT-slowing-New-climate-change-research-finds-no-evidence-hiatus-rising-temperatures.html
It doesn't add up ...
I don't think a certain bunny is going to be very hoppy, now he realises that the promised blockbusting paper from Karl actually condemns most previous climate science for being inaccurate, and therefore condemns itself.
The unfortunate rabbit shoot its own lucky foot off.
Government money was used to fund this science fiction. When are the appropriate authorities going to press fraud charges?
O/T
Freeman Dyson on the Global Warming Hysteria April, 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiKfWdXXfIs
Wow!
I second the comment above by "It doesn't add up...."
The comments at "Science" (and their willingness to publish them) is interesting.
Man, OT.
The hair ad bouncing around is WAY too obtrusive.
Yesterday, it was front page news on The Independent. Today, it doesn't feature on their website (not on home page, not in the Environmental section). Speaks volumes?
I was watching French reaction to the US prosecuting FIFA on France24 (in the US). One woman commented that the US is using RICO laws that brought down the mafia in the US. The scandal has spread to Latin America, and nations needing to fight corruption there, too. Thus, to bring down another mafia-like organization like FIFA using RICO - AGAIN - is only a very poetic outcome.
Seeing that and reading this thread now, one wonders if the new Republican Administration (ie, President in 2017) will use RICO to bring down the mafia of climate science?
We know that leeching on enormous sums of federal monies is involved, since "climate science" is funded the most, or rather second only to medicine in the US national budget. That isn't in question.
I can only wish that the new Department of Justice is headed by Senator Ted Cruz - who, as head of Texas's justice won all his cases before the US Supreme Court! And at Harvard Law, Cruz won the admiration of Professor Alan Dershowitz best student. "Don't mess with Texas."
So, Dershowitz' attack dog is likely gunning for the climate mafiosa! (Spread this meme to this paper's authors - it's time to see these frauds quaking in theor boots! We kniow they do - the climategate emails showed us that they will!)
Orson, the Grauniad seem to have shuffled discretely away from the truth and reality of this paper. I wonder if they have realised something is wrong.
I think Karl should be hailed as the greatest hero of climate science denial of all time.
He should have the decimal point in his salary, moved one digit to the left. It is only a very small change, so no one will notice.
To confirm low sentitivity (HT John):
Hadcrut, Giss, NCDC (the new one too), C&W, BEST, UAH and RSS observed global temperatures all show a warming of about 0.25 C from 1990 untill now. This is less then 50% of what is predicted by the IPCC-models.
The years 1991- 1994 would have had (at least) the same temperature as 1990 when you take in account the Pinatubo eruption.
See also: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v7/n3/fig_tab/ngeo2098_F1.html
As far as I can tell, this is how it goes:
Karl works at NOAA
NOAA administrator is Kathryn Sullivan
Kathryn Sullivan reports to Bruce Andrews, US Deputy Secretary of Commerce
Bruce Andrews reports to Penny Pritzker, US Secretary of Commerce
Penny Pritzker reports to Barack Obama, US President
Barack Obama requires people to "Call out deniers", though he is not clear about what he thinks is being denied, and by whom. And for good measure he also believes the 97% thing.
I think some of the paper's authors may not have been properly credited.
michael hart, so climate scientists tell us that CO2 drives the climate, but when this turns out be false, the President of the United States of America drives climate science over a cliff.
Seems like a happy ending to me. The rest of the world can live happily ever after.
In years to come, Obama's memoirs will record how he had some doubts about climate science, and so took personal responsibility for outing the stupidity of it all, instructing senior aides to provide the experts with enough ammunition to cause a peaceful revolution.
On retiring from politics and writing memoirs, it is always good to have had two separate diaries for any event, so you can demonstrate never having made a mistake.
Why right the wrongs of history, when you can rewrite it from parallel diaries?
According to Karl et al:-
"the new global trends are statistically significant and positive at the 0.10 significance level for 1998-2012…”
How can positive statistical significance at the 0.10 significance level be claimed when a large chunk of the underlying data has been arbitrarily adjusted upwards by 0.12ºC?
Moreover another large chunk of data has apparently been invented by extending land temperatures over water or ice areas in the Arctic.
Why do they bother with using any of the underlying data at all - why not just create a data set that yields a temperature trend that meets the the requirements of their required conclusions. This is almost what has actually been done anyway.
Do they think that this nonsense can/will be mistaken for science?
Dunguaire, climate forecasters are to be replaced by chimpanzees armed with paintball guns, and a dartboard. The chimp judged to have made the prettiest pattern, gets the biggest banana.
This will be more accurate than current methods of climate forecasting, even though the techniques seem very similar.
I thought part of the reason why Global Warmists had given up denying the pause, was that this then gave an excuse for why all these terrible Global Warming disasters had not happened.
If the pause never existed, Global Warming disaster experts now need to think of a new reason as to why they were still right about the disasters, that have not happened, even though there is no longer a reason for them, not to have happened.
They will probably demand another 19 years of funding to conclude it was all the fault of the millenium bug.
Golf Charlie
Classic case of cognitive dissonance. Seems to be required job qualification for would be "climate scientists"
Obama being shown on TV news, (12.13 hours ) saying, all in one breath... "we have to combat extremism and Climate Change".
Does that mean he thinks there is no difference between the one and the other?
PW
"Any arguments about the presence or lack of a pause in global warming should start with these data sets, period. Anything else, and one might have their motives questioned.
Jun 5, 2015 at 7:43 PM | Unregistered CommenterEarle"
This graph includes ten different datasets. The black line is their average.
There is no pause.
EM If there is no pause, what has been happening to Global Warming theory?
Is it just resting? Ceased to be? Bereft of life? Nailed to its perch? Pining for the fjords?
I thought the heat is hiding at the bottom of the ocean idea was a Monty Python tribute.
Karl's awe inspiring, sooper dooper, emergency Hockey Stick repair kit was produced for Obama to wave at the G7. All he can do now, is munch on German sausage.
Unencumbered by definitions, EM has just said that there is no pause, then that there is, and finally that there isn't.
I wonder how many people post here under the EM moniker.
Jokes aside, coming from someone who believes month on month temp readings have somehow relevance to multidecadal global warming, this suggests that at least some alarmists are convinced we're in a global warming pause and the only way to handle it is via total denial.
Remember, EM is protecting the world from catastrophe, so his moral threshold is pretty much non-existent. Denying fact is nothing for him, and he'd have us all tortured and quartered or 10:10 style if he'd be convinced such a move would protect humanity and the biosphere.
Unencumbered by definitions, EM has just said that there is no pause, then that there is, and finally that there isn't.
I wonder how many people post here under the EM moniker.
Jokes aside, coming from someone who believes month on month temp readings have somehow relevance to multidecadal global warming, this suggests that at least some alarmists are convinced we're in a global warming pause and the only way to handle it is via total denial.
Remember, EM is protecting the world from catastrophe, so his moral threshold is pretty much non-existent. Denying fact is nothing for him, and he'd have us all tortured and quartered or 10:10 style if he'd be convinced such a move would protect humanity and the biosphere.
Entropic man (Jun 7, 2015 at 1:21 PM) links to a plot and says "There is no pause", even though the squiggly lines for the last ~20 years would suggest otherwise?
Also, what about the cooling between 1940 and 1980, or 1880 and 1920... or is they fully explained by natural causes?
I think my definition of a pause is more rigorous than yours.
" A pause is a statistically significant decrease in the rate of global warming."
The least rigorous definition I met was "Year X was cooler than the previous year."
What is your definition?
If a pause is a temporary slowdown in surface warming rate due to internal varation, then a pause between 2002 and 2010 is a reasonable interpretation of the data, which I would accept.
Omnologos, David Salt
Omnologos
Most of my posts tend to be responses to others. If they are talking about the short term , so do I. If they are taking long term trends, so do I
Personally I tend to regard anything less than 30years as short term variation, because at current rates of change it takes that long to observe statistically significant change. On that basis your 17 year pause is opinion, not fact.
David Salt
Another graph.
This is Hadcrut4 with the 1910-present linear trend and its 95% confidence limits added.
I also added trends for the three most likely pauses. Note that 1880-1910 is significantly different from the long term trend, but 1940-1978 and 1998-2013 are not.
For those without Statistics 101:
Two different years are significantly different if their 95% confidence limits do not overlap. On this graph the long term trend is significant over periods exceeding 35 years.
A pause is statistically significant if its 95% confidence limits do not overlap those of the long term trend at either end.
By my definition " A pause is a statistically significant decrease in the rate of global warming." , only the 1880-1910 period is significantly different. The 1940-1978 and 1998-2013 periods are just internal variation around the trend.
Omnologos
"If a pause is a temporary slowdown in surface warming rate due to internal varation, then a pause between 2002 and 2010 is a reasonable interpretation of the data, which I would accept.
Jun 7, 2015 at 5:27 PM | Registered Commenteromnologos"
By that limited definition I would agree with you. ☺
For once you agree with yourself, EM.
It sounds obvious that without defining the pause, sweeping statements such as "there's no pause" can only make the waters murkier.
There's another point though wrt which your thoughts appear confused. If anything less than 30y is SHORT TERM VARIATION why do you show any interest in how warm the first months of 2015 have been? Had temps tanked, most likely the 30y trend would have remained the same anyway.
EM could you check with Skeptical Skience when we are due to stop pausing and revert to full blown, out of control Hockey Stick mode? I am in my fifties, and find the current climate so reminiscent of my childhood. It is particularly pleasant today. It was a bit wet and windy last week, and I haven't seen the forecast for next week. I might put my sunhat in the car just in case.
I need some new glasses, what with my age and declining eyesight, and I was thinking of getting the old ones tinted, in case we have a summer this year. Would I be wasting my money, or eyes if I don't?
I used to get nostalgic about the weather we used to have, but I don't any more. Is that deja vu?
Omnologos
Wearing my scientist hat I remember the limitations of confidence limits etc and am cautious of reasoning beyond the limits of the data.
Wearing my weather nerd hat I have a much more relaxed approach and let the confirmation bias flow with each new record.
Entropic man (Jun 7, 2015 at 5:51 PM), given you specific definition, I have to wonder why IPCC scientists have never used this argument to demonstrate the non-existence of 'the pause' and why people who know far more than Statistics 101 have argued that it exists... I guess it shows that this topic is more subjective than objective?
However, one thing I note from your plot is that the average rate of temperature increase since 1915 is ~0.7C, which suggests that the threat from warming is far less than the CACW would have us believe. I assume you'll say that rate is more than this as I should be considering the later periods (e.g. 1980 to 2010), but all this tells me is that this rate is also very dependent upon your chosen period and so also somewhat subjective.