2014 Global Temperatures

[nflwxman]

We don't.

 

Those who say there's a 0% chance of it happening are frankly being dishonest. To give anything a 100% or 0% chance of occurring at such far lead times is suggestive of possessing a complete understanding of the intricate complexities of Earth's climate - and last time I checked - no one has that right now, and probably never will.

The IPCC states with 95% certainly that most of the warming has been anthropogenic in nature.  In order to have a multi-decadal cooling you would have to believe one of the following:

 

1) The <5% chance that the IPCC is incorrect in it's assessment that most of the warming is man-made

 

2) The chance that natural or manmade factors overwhelm the current (and rising) anthropogenic component of 0.15-0.2 degree C/decade (1945-1975 is an example of this).  This is clearly possible on a decade time scale, but multi-decadal seems like a stretch.

 

3) Some unknown negative feedback related to anthropogenic forcing will kick in and drop global temperatures

 

4) Some combination of the above

 

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from/to/mean:120

 

As you can see, prior to 1950 when the anthropogenic forcing was small, there were still decade long fluctuations of 0.2-0.3 degree C mostly related to natural activity.

[JBG]

As you can see, prior to 1950 when the anthropogenic forcing was small, there were still decade long fluncations of 0.2-0.3 degree C mostly related to natural activity.

If AGW is real (and I doubt it) there is every reason to believe that hte pre-1950 era had more, not less forcing. Coal use was far higher, as was burning of wood.

Since 1950 much of the rural U.S. and Canada have re-forested.

[StudentOfClimatology]

If AGW is real (and I doubt it) there is every reason to believe that hte pre-1950 era had more, not less forcing. Coal use was far higher, as was burning of wood.

Since 1950 much of the rural U.S. and Canada have re-forested.

Lolwut? If you want to ignore science to suit your political beliefs, that's fine. But not many will take you seriously...just saying

[nflwxman]

If AGW is real (and I doubt it) there is every reason to believe that hte pre-1950 era had more, not less forcing. Coal use was far higher, as was burning of wood.

Since 1950 much of the rural U.S. and Canada have re-forested.

Uhh?  That's not right.

[JBG]

Lolwut? If you want to ignore science to suit your political beliefs, that's fine. But not many will take you seriously...just saying

 

Uhh?  That's not right.

Last winter and this past summer were global warming in action. It was so hot it was cold.

[nflwxman]

 

Last winter and this past summer were global warming in action. It was so hot it was cold.

For your sake, I hope you are just trolling, man.

[JBG]

For your sake, I hope you are just trolling, man.

How about calling it a difference of opinion?

[StudentOfClimatology]

For your sake, I hope you are just trolling, man.

Ignore function works well in these cases

[SVT450R]

 

Last winter and this past summer were global warming in action. It was so hot it was cold.

[Isotherm]

The IPCC states with 95% certainly that most of the warming has been anthropogenic in nature.  In order to have a multi-decadal cooling you would have to believe one of the following:

 

1) The <5% chance that the IPCC is incorrect in it's assessment that most of the warming is man-made

 

2) The chance that natural or manmade factors overwhelm the current (and rising) anthropogenic component of 0.15-0.2 degree C/decade (1945-1975 is an example of this).  This is clearly possible on a decade time scale, but multi-decadal seems like a stretch.

 

3) Some unknown negative feedback related to anthropogenic forcing will kick in and drop global temperatures

 

4) Some combination of the above

 

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/from/to/mean:120

 

As you can see, prior to 1950 when the anthropogenic forcing was small, there were still decade long fluctuations of 0.2-0.3 degree C mostly related to natural activity.

 

 

This seems like a bit of circular reasoning to me -- because the IPCC states with 95% certainty...then the following points must hold true. One can't help but think of the 95% value as an arbitrary percentage. How exactly did they evaluate the objective data, scan available research studies, conduct their own studies, possibly place greater weight on certain factors compared to others, and consequently come to a conclusion about their certainty on the future climate. There are numerous "IF" variables within the overall flow-chart of decisions that led to their stated percentage. Furthermore, their conclusions regarding the relative contribution of anthropogenic activity to the climate also follow a flow-chart of certain assumptions that are currently disputable in the scientific literature, such as ECS, presence/magnitude/direction of feedbacks, etc. So I don't believe we can really quantify exactly how certain we are regarding the outcome of the climate. We cannot quantify the percentage influence of anthropogenic activity at this point, so quantifying our certainty of climate progression (based on the previous uncertainities) is akin to constructing a house on quicksand in my opinion.

 

Regarding some of your latter points. We don't know what we don't know. There are known unknowns, and also unknown unknowns. And we don't know exactly how powerful said unknowns could be. Feedbacks that do exist could conceivably completely offset a certain process, sending our globe in a direction opposite of what we expected. I also cannot completely rule out that unknown positive feedbacks exist, and a "breaking point" reached such that we spiral into > +5c of warming. My main point is that IMO, it's unwise to take anything fully off the table given what we know and don't know about Earth's climate.

[nflwxman]

This seems like a bit of circular reasoning to me -- because the IPCC states with 95% certainty...then the following points must hold true. One can't help but think of the 95% value as an arbitrary percentage. How exactly did they evaluate the objective data, scan available research studies, conduct their own studies, possibly place greater weight on certain factors compared to others, and consequently come to a conclusion about their certainty on the future climate. There are numerous "IF" variables within the overall flow-chart of decisions that led to their stated percentage. Furthermore, their conclusions regarding the relative contribution of anthropogenic activity to the climate also follow a flow-chart of certain assumptions that are currently disputable in the scientific literature, such as ECS, presence/magnitude/direction of feedbacks, etc. So I don't believe we can really quantify exactly how certain we are regarding the outcome of the climate. We cannot quantify the percentage influence of anthropogenic activity at this point, so quantifying our certainty of climate progression (based on the previous uncertainities) is akin to constructing a house on quicksand in my opinion.

 

Regarding some of your latter points. We don't know what we don't know. There are known unknowns, and also unknown unknowns. And we don't know exactly how powerful said unknowns could be. Feedbacks that do exist could conceivably completely offset a certain process, sending our globe in a direction opposite of what we expected. I also cannot completely rule out that unknown positive feedbacks exist, and a "breaking point" reached such that we spiral into > +5c of warming. My main point is that IMO, it's unwise to take anything fully off the table given what we know and don't know about Earth's climate.

 

I should mention the IPCC states that most of the warming since 1950.  The starting and end point are important here.  I mean, we all know that all the warming between 1991-1998 (.3/decade) was not anthropogenic.  They determined that uncertainly level using the individual uncertainty bars in every paper they used as a contribution.  I believe it's somewhat a weighted average.  I'll have to dig up the paper that defines IPCC uncertainty later this afternoon.

 

Your second point is certainty a topical one.  Paleoclimatic evidence suggest no such negative powerful feedbacks exist in the short term (centuries) related to CO2 warming.  However, as SoC will tell you, there is strong evidence of positive feedback tipping points.  The entire process will not be linear.

[HailMan06]

How about calling it a difference of opinion?

Sure there's a difference in opinion but yours is scientifically irrelevant and has no place on a scientific board, except for an occasionally good laugh.

[A-L-E-K]

lol, denier garbage running rampant through CC as usual

[The_Global_Warmer]

lol, denier garbage running rampant through CC as usual

 

 

Global ssta have set another record.

 

Coming in at .455C+.

 

 

 

 

 

[The_Global_Warmer]

 

Last winter and this past summer were global warming in action. It was so hot it was cold.

 

[nflwxman]

Global ssta have set another record.

Coming in at .455C+.

I would imagine they probably peaked and will begin dropping off a bit. Any nino should help prop them back up later this year into the winter. That will be the major difference between this winter and the past 3, SSTs should be elevated for a change.

[LithiaWx]

 

 

Friv, he is a troll.  If you read his posts in the PR section you will see that he is here to stir up trouble.    I see him being banned soon.  JMO, respond to what you feel the need to but I wanted you to be aware. 

[JBG]

Friv, he is a troll.  If you read his posts in the PR section you will see that he is here to stir up trouble.    I see him being banned soon.  JMO, respond to what you feel the need to but I wanted you to be aware.

Actually I am not a troll. I have learned the hard way that the two threads I started did not generate serious debate, so I deleted the OP's. I have no intention of making non-serious posts except ones on which I am obviously joking.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Friv, he is a troll.  If you read his posts in the PR section you will see that he is here to stir up trouble.    I see him being banned soon.  JMO, respond to what you feel the need to but I wanted you to be aware. 

 

Thanks I appreciate it.

[The_Global_Warmer]

I would imagine they probably peaked and will begin dropping off a bit. Any nino should help prop them back up later this year into the winter. That will be the major difference between this winter and the past 3, SSTs should be elevated for a change.

 

 

Yeah they will likely be in the 0.30-0.40C+ range.

 

 

the Northern Hemisphere has likely peaked just below 0.90C+ and will start to fall.

 

However ENSO being positive and likely going to at least a weak or moderate nino thru the next 6-8 months.  How much it falls will be much different then recent years like you said.

 

 

 

 

The Southern Hemisphere starts to warm up in a couple months. 

 

 

 

Weatherbell has dropped to .216C+ for the month so far.  Which is an .77C+ GISS equivalent. The dailies dropped down to around .10C+ but have stabilized back up around .18C+.

 

 

 

So far things haven't cooled off that much.  The NATL has warmed up substantially over the last month.  But big time the last couple weeks in the sub-tropics.

 

So has the Pacific.  These areas are much much larger then the higher lats and have been the main drivers on getting the record ssts.

 

However the Northern lats are still torching hard.

 

But no matter how you slice it.  Anywhere from 10N to 40N has also crushed any previous sst anomaly's and it's not even close.

[nflwxman]

Fantastic paper in Nature Climate change describing the natural component of the recent "hiatus."  They successfully recreated the pause with their models ASYM-H and the natural component ASYM-C.  These are subsets of the CIMP5 models. They contribute a 0.11C drop between 2000-2009 entirely to anomalous trade winds causing La Nina.  This does not include the Solar or volcanic component.  They attribute no natural trend to the 1960-2012 period (essentially mirroring the IPCC).

 

 

ABSTRACT:

 

"Reasons for the apparent pause in the rise of global-mean surface air temperature (SAT) after the turn of the century has been a mystery, undermining confidence in climate projections^1, 2, 3. Recent climate model simulations indicate this warming hiatus originated from eastern equatorial Pacific cooling⁴ associated with strengthening of trade winds⁵. Using a climate model that overrides tropical wind stress anomalies with observations for 1958–2012, we show that decadal-mean anomalies of global SAT referenced to the period 1961–1990 are changed by 0.11, 0.13 and −0.11 °C in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, respectively, without variation in human-induced radiative forcing. They account for about 47%, 38% and 27% of the respective temperature change. The dominant wind stress variability consistent with this warming/cooling represents the deceleration/acceleration of the Pacific trade winds, which can be robustly reproduced by atmospheric model simulations forced by observed sea surface temperature excluding anthropogenic warming components. Results indicate that inherent decadal climate variability contributes considerably to the observed global-mean SAT time series, but that its influence on decadal-mean SAT has gradually decreased relative to the rising anthropogenic warming signal."

 

 

[ORH_wxman]

So according to that graph, basically all of the warming from the mid-1960s to mid-1990s can be explained by ENSO related trade winds. Color me a bit skeptical.

 

Is there a link to the full paper? I'd be interested in reading how they came to the conclusions on the graph.

 

 

Though I do agree that ENSO has played a large role in decadal temperature trends as many other papers have already concluded.

[nflwxman]

So according to that graph, basically all of the warming from the mid-1960s to mid-1990s can be explained by ENSO related trade winds. Color me a bit skeptical.

 

Is there a link to the full paper? I'd be interested in reading how they came to the conclusions on the graph.

 

 

Though I do agree that ENSO has played a large role in decadal temperature trends as many other papers have already concluded.

That graph I think was showing only 1 year increments, which makes it look "off". I replaced it with the graph directly from the report which I believe is smoothed to 3 year increments. They attribute a certain percentage of the 1979-1998 warming to natural causes (which we all generally agree on).  If I'm reading the paper correct, they attribute 0.13C (approximately 27%)  of post 1979 warming to natural causes. 

 

 

Here's the link.

 

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2355.html

[ORH_wxman]

That graph I think was showing only 1 year increments, which makes it look "off". I replaced it with the graph directly from the report which I believe is smoothed to 3 year increments. They attribute a certain percentage of the 1979-1998 warming to natural causes (which we all generally agree on).  If I'm reading the paper correct, they attribute 0.13C (approximately 27%)  of post 1979 warming to natural causes. 

 

 

Here's the link.

 

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate2355.html

 

 

Thanks for the link...the graph looks more reasonable now. Their numbers aren't too different than many of the other recent papers on attribution of warming since the 1970s.

[nflwxman]

Thanks for the link...the graph looks more reasonable now. Their numbers aren't too different than many of the other recent papers on attribution of warming since the 1970s.

yeah.  There is a lot of "attribution" statements flying around on the blogosphere.  The IPCC never claimed all the warming after 1979 was due to AGW, they claimed all the warming after 1950 was due to AGW.  While it seems counter intuitive at first, it implies that natural causes cooled 1960-1975 and from 1998-Present, essentially meaning there is no trend in that defined period. 

 

This is my logic regarding my prediction of a 0.25C increase in the 2015-2024 period versus 2005-2014.  The 2005-2014 period is when the natural indicators more than likely "bottomed out."  Thus, any inevitable positive change in natural indicators in the next decade will act to increase the regular AGW trend of 0.16-0.20 C/decade.

[The_Global_Warmer]

On the main page Isotherm said the daily SOI is -24 right now.

 

 

 

dssnowx53 posted this:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Given the location of the sub-surface warmth.  I'd think by late September we will be seeing a pretty stout Nino surge.

 

 

 

[JBG]

So according to that graph, basically all of the warming from the mid-1960s to mid-1990s can be explained by ENSO related trade winds. Color me a bit skeptical.

 

Is there a link to the full paper? I'd be interested in reading how they came to the conclusions on the graph.

  

Though I do agree that ENSO has played a large role in decadal temperature trends as many other papers have already concluded.

Are you surprised? The burden of proof should be on those arguing that the "warming" is man-caused, since we all know that climate has fluctuated throughout history. Really, someone comes up with a bizarre theory of AGW and the burden is on those who don't immediately believe it, hook, line and sinker to disprove it?

[ORH_wxman]

yeah.  There is a lot of "attribution" statements flying around on the blogosphere.  The IPCC never claimed all the warming after 1979 was due to AGW, they claimed all the warming after 1950 was due to AGW.  While it seems counter intuitive at first, it implies that natural causes cooled 1960-1975 and from 1998-Present, essentially meaning there is no trend in that period. 

 

This is my logic regarding my 0.25C increase in the 2015-2024 period versus 2005-2014.  The 2005-2014 period is when the natural indicators more than likely "bottomed out."  Thus, any inevitable positive change in natural indicators in the next decade will act to increase the regular AGW trend of 0.16-0.20 C/decade.

 

 

The IPCC's view along with these papers presents an issue of no accelerating warming. The paper you presented alone shows accelerating warming on the AGW component assuming it is correct...but the IPCC has an AGW trend of roughly 0.12C per decade since 1950. The AGW trend per decade since 1979? Anywhere from 0.07C to 0.12C according to a lot of these recent papers like the one you posted...and really unchanged in the 2000s.

 

Maybe the papers aren't isolating the AGW trend well enough or the IPCC is over-estimating how much the AGW trend was in the 1950-1975 timeframe. Certainly a possibility. We'll find out soon enough.

 

 

I'd take the under on the 0.25C of warming in 10 years. I do not think the average temperature between 2015-2024 is going to be 0.85C on GISS. My guess would be roughly half the warming. 

[nflwxman]

The IPCC's view along with these papers presents an issue of no accelerating warming. The paper you presented alone shows accelerating warming on the AGW component assuming it is correct...but the IPCC has an AGW trend of roughly 0.12C per decade since 1950. The AGW trend per decade since 1979? Anywhere from 0.07C to 0.12C according to a lot of these recent papers like the one you posted...and really unchanged in the 2000s.

 

Maybe the papers aren't isolating the AGW trend well enough or the IPCC is over-estimating how much the AGW trend was in the 1950-1975 timeframe. Certainly a possibility. We'll find out soon enough.

 

 

I'd take the under on the 0.25C of warming in 10 years. I do not think the average temperature between 2015-2024 is going to be 0.85C on GISS. My guess would be roughly half the warming. 

 

I'm not sure how you come to the above conclusion.  The 2000's had a 0.20C warming.  The paper I posed above claims a 0.11C natural pull on global temperatures due to trade wind activity in the 2000s alone.  Doing the quick and dirty math you have 0.31C/decade.

 

As far as the prediction.  It's really just for fun to check my statistically based methods.  We'll see where we are in 2015 and 2016, but I can't imagine the same frequency of Ninas in the later period.

[ORH_wxman]

I'm not sure how you come to the above conclusion.  The 2000's had a 0.09C warming.  The paper I posed above claims a 0.11C natural pull on global temperatures due to trade wind activity alone.  Doing the quick math you have 0.2C/decade.

 

 

The paper you just linked had -0.11C from 2003-2012 due to trade winds and the actual was -0.06C on their chart. You can perhaps assign another -0.1C if you want to be generous due to solar...that still doesn't add up to 0.2C unless I'm missing something.