2014 Global Temperatures

[Msalgado]

This statement in and of itself is disputable. The words "incorrect" and "wrong" imply that a known standard of fact / truth has been established, when in reality nothing has been scientifically proven as far as the percent contribution of anthropogenic activities to climate change. There are many hypotheses and educated guesses circulating, but to utilize the words "incorrect and wrong" surely implicates that we're discussing something along the lines of Newton's law of gravity, which can be tested and proven many times over.

 

It is absolutely incorrect and wrong to say we don't know with any certainty how much humans have influenced the climate.  I'm not making a grand leap here by saying that as there is plenty of scientific literature that backs this up.  

 

Saying we don't know with any certainty how much humans have influenced the climate is akin to saying we no pretty much nothing about the climate system.  it is a completely inaccurate statement and incorrect every time someone states it.  

 

Just to be clear, there is inherent uncertainty within estimates of attribution.  Saying that there is a reasonable amount of uncertainty with those estimates is not anywhere near the same.

[tacoman25]

It is absolutely incorrect and wrong to say we don't know with any certainty how much humans have influenced the climate.  I'm not making a grand leap here by saying that as there is plenty of scientific literature that backs this up.  

 

Saying we don't know with any certainty how much humans have influenced the climate is akin to saying we no pretty much nothing about the climate system.  it is a completely inaccurate statement and incorrect every time someone states it.  

 

Just to be clear, there is inherent uncertainty within estimates of attribution.  Saying that there is a reasonable amount of uncertainty with those estimates is not anywhere near the same.

 

One big problem is that some of the biggest names in climate science have repeatedly demonstrated more certainty than is warranted.

 

People fall in love with their own ideas. This is nothing new.

[ORH_wxman]

We've been talking about the attribution a lot RE: warming/haitus.

 

This was a paper I didn't post in here previously, but for those interested in the AMO and how it is defined in the context of the warming, it is a good read. It shows how even the way it is defined will change the attribution of the anthropogenic trend over time. This was published a few months ago.

 

 

http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/5/529/2014/esdd-5-529-2014-print.pdf

 

 

We have posted several papers in here that are very recent...within the last 2 years...and the different conclusions that they draw are a good example of where the literature stands on this topic. The answer is "not very certain".

 

Its been said many times, but one of the larger areas of intense debate in the literature right now involves the TCR and the attribution of warming/lack of warming. The multiple papers posted in here illustrate that well. We really won't be able to get more certain until more data is available...whether it's better ocean data, better data on aerosols, or most likely, just another decade of temperature measurements.

[Msalgado]

One big problem is that some of the biggest names in climate science have repeatedly demonstrated more certainty than is warranted.

 

People fall in love with their own ideas. This is nothing new.

Its an aspect of science that is necessary, though.  The burden of proof is on you to make the case within a scientific study.  So people do so forcefully because that is essentially what science demands.  If you present your ideas meekly, they will never be taken seriously.  

 

However, that just means its ok to be critical of all aspects of a study.  In my opinion, anyway.

[nflwxman]

We've been talking about the attribution a lot RE: warming/haitus.

 

This was a paper I didn't post in here previously, but for those interested in the AMO and how it is defined in the context of the warming, it is a good read. It shows how even the way it is defined will change the attribution of the anthropogenic trend over time. This was published a few months ago.

 

 

http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/5/529/2014/esdd-5-529-2014-print.pdf

 

 

We have posted several papers in here that are very recent...within the last 2 years...and the different conclusions that they draw are a good example of where the literature stands on this topic. The answer is "not very certain".

 

Its been said many times, but one of the larger areas of intense debate in the literature right now involves the TCR and the attribution of warming/lack of warming. The multiple papers posted in here illustrate that well. We really won't be able to get more certain until more data is available...whether it's better ocean data, better data on aerosols, or most likely, just another decade of temperature measurements.

In a way I think we can all agree on this.  While I believe it's inevitable that we are due for at least 2C of additional warming and that the ultimate solution will not change, there is quite a bit of certainty that will gathered from an additional 10 years of data in this negative PDO phase we are in.  The difference between a 1.3 and 2.0 TCR could be pretty dramatic in terms of consequences.

[nflwxman]

After the last 15 years, I'm thinking less than 2.0C.

 

It might take another 20 years to break 1.0C at this rate.

Don't make the mistake of saying 2.0C additional warming is what we are talking about.  ECS or TCR (which is what we were debating) is defined in reference to equilibrium conditions in preindustrial times.  Depending on how much warming you attribute to GhGs we've warmed already between 0.6-1.0 due to human activities.  That also fails account for the few tenths of warming "in the pipeline."  

[Isotherm]

Just so those reading / viewing are aware of what exactly transient climate response (TCR) and equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) are, here's a snippet from a website explaining the two terms in a nutshell.

 

"Equilibrium Climate Sensitivity (ECS) and the Transient Climate Response (TCR). Both summarize the global climate system’s temperature response to an externally imposed radiative forcing (RF), expressed in W/m². ECS is defined as the equilibrium change in annual mean global surface temperature following a doubling of the atmospheric CO₂ concentration, while TCR is defined as the annual mean global surface temperature change at the time of CO₂ doubling following a linear increase in CO2 forcing over a period of 70 years. Both metrics have a broader application than these definitions imply: ECS determines the eventual warming in response to stabilization of atmospheric composition on multi-century time scales, while TCR determines the warming expected at a given time following any steady (and linear) increase in forcing over a 50- to 100-year time scale. TCR is a useful metric next to ECS because it can be estimated more easily than ECS, and is more relevant to projections of warming over the rest of this century."

 

 

 

TCR essentially refers to the time scale in which most of our lives span -- on the order of 50-100 years, as the Co2 doubling occurs. ECS on the other hand will not be verified by us, as it's a process that could take numerous centuries to complete. This is why when climate change policy is discussed, it's more relevant to talk about TCR, as we would presumably experience those changes within our lifetimes.

 

 

This is why the TCR projected values will always be lower than ECS that you find in the literature, since ECS implies the new equilibrium reached over a very long time scale.

[csnavywx]

Attribution by the IPCC's AR5 is ~110% as a best estimate (5-95% range is about 75-140%) for the total anthropogenic component of warming from 1950-present.

 

 

 

 

 

[chrisf97212]

Its an aspect of science that is necessary, though.  The burden of proof is on you to make the case within a scientific study.  So people do so forcefully because that is essentially what science demands.  If you present your ideas meekly, they will never be taken seriously.  

 

However, that just means its ok to be critical of all aspects of a study.  In my opinion, anyway.

 

And when their forceable predictions don't materialize, they create skeptics.

[ORH_wxman]

And when their forceable predictions don't materialize, they create skeptics.

 

 

Yeah I did not agree with that aspect. Most other sciences are not about how forceful, verbally, or articulately convincing you are. It's about how well your evidence holds up under scrutiny. Unfortunately, Climate Science has gotten poisoned with enough politics that we have to wade through the crapola to get to the parts we are looking for. We get mainstream media reporting on the science when they are unqualified to do so...in a lot of cases, are just too lazy to do thorough research to make themselves qualified to give a good representation of the science. It's even worse when politicians start making comments on climate science. They generally make fools of themselves.

 

But that said, the underlying science is there and it's going through layers of scrutiny...we have pointed out some legit topics in the past few pages where a lot of the scrutiny lies. There is good science in there. It is just too bad that this often gets drowned out by so many strawmen arguments both in the MSM and blogosphere.

[chrisf97212]

Yeah I did not agree with that aspect. Most other sciences are not about how forceful, verbally, or articulately convincing you are. It's about how well your evidence holds up under scrutiny. Unfortunately, Climate Science has gotten poisoned with enough politics that we have to wade through the crapola to get to the parts we are looking for. We get mainstream media reporting on the science when they are unqualified to do so...in a lot of cases, are just too lazy to do thorough research to make themselves qualified to give a good representation of the science. It's even worse when politicians start making comments on climate science. They generally make fools of themselves.

 

But that said, the underlying science is there and it's going through layers of scrutiny...we have pointed out some legit topics in the past few pages where a lot of the scrutiny lies. There is good science in there. It is just too bad that this often gets drowned out by so many strawmen arguments both in the MSM and blogosphere.

I couldn't agree more.  The only thing I'd add is that the media runs with the more sensational of the "forceful" claims.

[ORH_wxman]

I couldn't agree more.  The only thing I'd add is that the media runs with the more sensational of the "forceful" claims.

 

Of course they do...well unless it's Foxnews, lol. The media doesn't want to report on something boring. But that's a whole seperate topic in itself.

[tacoman25]

Its an aspect of science that is necessary, though.  The burden of proof is on you to make the case within a scientific study.  So people do so forcefully because that is essentially what science demands.  If you present your ideas meekly, they will never be taken seriously.  

 

However, that just means its ok to be critical of all aspects of a study.  In my opinion, anyway.

 

That doesn't sound very scientific to me. Act more "forceful" to be taken seriously? Shouldn't the merit of the studies themselves be enough to be taken seriously?

 

Anyway, I guess I'm more referring to the alarmist rhetoric made by some outside of their published studies. The papers themselves may be measured, but then you hear the authors speak with near absolute certainty in the media, articles, books, etc.

[tacoman25]

In a way I think we can all agree on this.  While I believe it's inevitable that we are due for at least 2C of additional warming and that the ultimate solution will not change, there is quite a bit of certainty that will gathered from an additional 10 years of data in this negative PDO phase we are in.  The difference between a 1.3 and 2.0 TCR could be pretty dramatic in terms of consequences.

 

Possible, but also the difference could be relatively small.

 

You are talking about a .7C difference...we've already seen that much warming, yet the consequences so far have been pretty minimal (despite a few sensationalized claims). Let's be real: if the consequences were truly dramatic, we would be taking much more dramatic action to fight warming.

[skierinvermont]

You make some good points, but I think you are overstating my certainty...I'm essentially playing the odds.

 

Everything that points to the big aerosol cooling of the 1960s/1970s and the big natural variability cooling event post-2000 is plausible in itself, there's no "smoking gun" to flat out dispute any of them, but when I start adding them up together, I view them as less likely. This isn't saying they didn't happen...obviously they did to some extent, but not on the level being claimed in the higher TCR scenarios. Pinatubo wasn't my main point either...I said it in passing after reading how the CMIP models had over-estimated the cooling effects at some point in the past couple months. There's other factors that support my sketpicism on the larger TCR claims...the most robust being the observation-based estimates of TCR which come in lower, another one being the pretty strong Northern Hemisphere cooling of SSTs during the1960s and 1970s which isn't supported by the aerosol theory. (at least by itself)

 

 

It took me a while to find these since I had forgotten the titles/authors, but these papers I read in the past few years are what convinced me the aerosol theory doesn't explain enough of the cooling....even though it certianly contributed:

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7314/full/nature09394.html

 

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JAS-D-12-0331.1

 

 

 

BTW, there was a paper on the Pinatubo eruption and TCR earlier this year:

 

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00214.1

 

It points out the issues involved in estimating TCR with volcanic eruptions, and there are many, but it does conclude that it can be useful.

 

They say:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, none of these are smoking guns by themselves, but IMHO it makes the alternative scenarios less likely in my book when you start adding up the evidence. Obviously the best test for any of these theories will be with more data over the next decade.

 

 

Fair points. I would just say you seem a little more confident than me in leaning to the lower side of ECS and TCR. There are other papers out there containing evidence pointing to the high range. The first thing that comes to mind is paleoclimate studies. 

 

I shouldn't have merely said that a moderate/strong aerosol cooling effect (IE enough that ECS can be >3C) "cannot be ruled out." Not only can it not be ruled out.. but that is what a lot of aerosol models point towards.

 

That's the problem. There is contradictory evidence out there.  

 

If I had to narrow the stated ECS uncertainty range of 1.5-4.5C I would narrow it to 2-3.5C. 

[skierinvermont]

Possible, but also the difference could be relatively small.

 

You are talking about a .7C difference...we've already seen that much warming, yet the consequences so far have been pretty minimal (despite a few sensationalized claims). Let's be real: if the consequences were truly dramatic, we would be taking much more dramatic action to fight warming.

 

Yes but we have seen 1.0C of warming over 100 years because CO2 had been rising slowly until recently. The .7C difference in TCR would be over a shorter period because CO2 is now rising fast. 

[StudentOfClimatology]

Fair points. I would just say you seem a little more confident than me in leaning to the lower side of ECS and TCR. There are other papers out there containing evidence pointing to the high range. The first thing that comes to mind is paleoclimate studies.

Bingo, and this is why I generally lead to the high side of ESC (between 4-5K per a doubling of concentration).

What the paleo data reveals is that TCR is not constant. The problem with TCR is the system is highly non-linear and loaded with spatiotemporal feedback loops. TCR will vary wildly over time depending on a slew of factors that are still under debate.

[stadiumwave]

I do not have a political bone to pick in this nor do I have to win an peeing match in this either.  With that said...I'm not sure how anyone can justifiably, obejectively lean on the high side of ESC...& this comes from one who is not a denier at all.  Data just seems to indicate that nature has caused the majority of the warming over the last century while increases of human contributed atmospheric C02 only aggrivating the warming period of 1978-1998...but not by much.  1978-1998 warming wasn't much greater than 1910-1940.  PDO, AMO cycles & ENSO just seem to be the "primary drivers"...right now. I don't think it will always be that way but my honest, objective taking in all the data & trends just forces me to lean that way.

 

Now, certainly I'm not saying those are the only natural drivers nor am I ignoring human aerosol contribution as a potential component aiding the "hiatus".

[Jonger]

It must be one of those glass half full, versus glass half empty situations. I look at those charts and I just don't see much more than a long hiatus/plateau. 

[Msalgado]

Yeah I did not agree with that aspect. Most other sciences are not about how forceful, verbally, or articulately convincing you are. It's about how well your evidence holds up under scrutiny. Unfortunately, Climate Science has gotten poisoned with enough politics that we have to wade through the crapola to get to the parts we are looking for. We get mainstream media reporting on the science when they are unqualified to do so...in a lot of cases, are just too lazy to do thorough research to make themselves qualified to give a good representation of the science. It's even worse when politicians start making comments on climate science. They generally make fools of themselves.

 

But that said, the underlying science is there and it's going through layers of scrutiny...we have pointed out some legit topics in the past few pages where a lot of the scrutiny lies. There is good science in there. It is just too bad that this often gets drowned out by so many strawmen arguments both in the MSM and blogosphere.

Its definitely not just climate science.  While my experience is mainly with geosciences, scientists of every field I've encountered will either be good communicators and forcefully back their findings or they will be meek and people will tend to ignore them.  Its a human nature thing.

[Msalgado]

That doesn't sound very scientific to me. Act more "forceful" to be taken seriously? Shouldn't the merit of the studies themselves be enough to be taken seriously?

 

Anyway, I guess I'm more referring to the alarmist rhetoric made by some outside of their published studies. The papers themselves may be measured, but then you hear the authors speak with near absolute certainty in the media, articles, books, etc.

Its not scientific but its reality of communicating any idea you believe in.  

[The_Global_Warmer]

First off....many papers attribute something like 30-40% (I've seen as high as 50%) of the warming from 1975-2000 to natural factors. Read the papers. We've provided them many times...so there's no reason not to read them to understand how they come to these conclusions.

 

There is differing opinion in the literature on the exact magnitude of the hiatus components. Some claim that roughly 0.3C per decade AGW was offset in that time while others are closer to half that when you infer all the math. We discussed one of the papers recently that claimed the higher amount.

 

 

OHC measurements are not exact...we discussed this earlier too. We posted a paper published recently that shows more slowing of OHC than the more popular NODC dataset, even when you account for the NODC error bars. Different methods come to slightly different conclusions...they are all using mostly the same data, but it still doesn't mean the results come out exactly the same. There's a lot of infilling and assumptions made with SLR and such that are required for OHC data. You have to attribute SLR in proper proportions when using it as a proxy. So if one data set shows more flattening of OHC than another, then the components of what drives the hiatus can change. Similarly, you have uncertainties in aerosol forcing. Read the Nic Lewis article I posted above where he breaks down the different aerosol estimates. All this matters.

 

But this is how science works. You have papers written...some are rebutted, some are built upon and improved, and a select few tend to be real ground-breakers...in the end, you get closer to reality. Look how much the science has changed in just a decade or 15 years. The biggest fault in climate science is probably that we tend to over-estimate our certainty. Or rather, perhaps we don't illustrate our uncertainty well enough.

 

 

So you believe 30-40% of the warming wasn't AGW.

 

But you don't also blame the "hiatus" on natural factors?

 

When the hiatus is over and the natural factors flip.

 

The sum of all the warming will almost 100% be from AGW.

 

Whatever 30-50% warming took place "naturally" will be completely off-set by the same "natural" forces during the cool phase of these natural processes.

 

In the end the only mechanism for the warming is AGW.

 

Seems pretty clear to me.

[The_Global_Warmer]

There is a lot of confusion in the biosphere on attribution.  It really matters where you start and begin.

 

I'm willing to concede up to 40% of the warming from 1979-1998 was naturally caused (which is generous).  However, for the reasons you just mentioned, the warming from 1979-2013 might be less than 20% naturally induced.  The paper we discussed before gives a pretty good detail on the natural component.  What we do know for sure, is that the natural component to global temperature change is become smaller and smaller as the anthropogenic aspect rises.

 

 

Natural factors(not including the sun) can't have a bias towards warming or cooler or the Earth wouldn't have an equilibrium.

 

 

And if they are out of equilibrium we are talking about incredibly tiny changes typically over thousands of years.

 

Whatever "naturally" aided the big warming flipped it's natural cycle.

 

When this cycle of cooling is over.  You can combine the two periods and cancel the natural variation out and then decide how much warming was AGW or the Sun.

 

Considering the state of the sun.  We know that AGW will be the cause of nearly 100% of the warming.

 

 

How influential the Greenhouse effect is.  How big the feedback's are do not matter.

 

Natural variation is nearly 99% certain to be in a state of equilibrium.

 

You can't argue 30-40% of the warming period was natural and then not accept the lack of warming afterwards to not be natural from the same forces changing.

[tacoman25]

Yes but we have seen 1.0C of warming over 100 years because CO2 had been rising slowly until recently. The .7C difference in TCR would be over a shorter period because CO2 is now rising fast. 

 

CO2 has been rising fast for awhile.

 

And the 1 C of warming over the last 100 years is debatable, especially attributing it all to C02.

[StudentOfClimatology]

CO2 has been rising fast for awhile.

And the 1 C of warming over the last 100 years is debatable, especially attributing it all to C02.

I'd suspect the 1910-1945 warming may have been largely natural, simply a recovery from the little ice age. There's just not enough manmade forcing to produce a warming like that in the midst of the increasing anthropogenic aerosol production that was observed during that time period.

Certainly, the paleoclimate record suggests that natural fluctuations of 0.3 - 0.6C are relatively common on short timescales.

[The_Global_Warmer]

Here is season global OHC 0-700M in numerical format.

 

The seasonal records are bolded and in maroon. 

 

 

 

1995 3.120667 2.491000 1.027333 2.276667
1996 4.050333 6.322333 3.763667 3.621667
1997 4.489667 3.966333 2.623000 2.481667
1998 2.923000 4.564000 4.233666 4.667000
1999 5.311333 5.555000 5.979333 6.446667
2000 5.347667 5.886667 6.933333 5.767333
2001 3.740666 2.846333 3.051666 6.036000
2002 6.152667 6.888333 7.660666 6.813000
2003 7.953667 9.574667 9.607666 10.90900
2004 11.23300 10.26267 9.807667 10.11467
2005 8.797667 8.326334 8.054333 8.804000
2006 9.989667 10.05267 10.50100 10.71400
2007 10.15533 9.173667 9.345333 9.599333
2008 10.38900 10.48700 10.37367 9.259333
2009 9.682334 9.459667 10.10233 10.61633
2010 11.00633 10.14200 9.812000 10.46767
2011 10.73467 10.27100 11.43200 11.09433
2012 11.35733 10.64833 10.46100 11.06400
2013 12.78100 12.54400 11.45967 12.82500
2014 14.06633 13.36000 -999.9000 -999.9000

 

 

 

 

The rise has been driven by the Southern Hemisphere.  This is the same result Chen and Tung came too in regards to recent OHC changes.  The question is, where does that heat end up going?

 

 

The Northern Hemisphere flat-lined then dropped in very close proximity to the -PDO and solar tanking. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[The_Global_Warmer]

I'd suspect the 1910-1945 warming may have been largely natural, simply a recovery from the little ice age. There's just not enough manmade forcing to produce a warming like that in the midst of the increasing anthropogenic aerosol production that was observed during that time period.

Certainly, the paleoclimate record suggests that natural fluctuations of 0.3 - 0.6C are relatively common on short timescales.

 

 

There is no doubt about that.  But fluctuations is the key word there.

[StudentOfClimatology]

There is no doubt about that. But fluctuations is the key word there.

Of course. Had it not been for AGW, we'd have cooled significantly between 1950 and 1975.

Problem with humans is our perception of time. Thirty years may feel like a long time to is, but geologically speaking it's a blink of an eye.

[nflwxman]

Of course. Had it not been for AGW, we'd have cooled significantly between 1950 and 1975.

Problem with humans is our perception of time. Thirty years may feel like a long time to is, but geologically speaking it's a blink of an eye.

And we would be cooling significantly post 2007 to present without AGW.

 

The last time the PDO flipped from positive to negative in 1945, the 5 year rolling average temperature dropped 0.25 deg C.  This time?  No drop at all.  If anything, it's just getting back on track to rise.  Coincidence?  I think not.

 

I mean look at this decade long naturally induced trend between 1940-1950.  It's almost -0.28C/decade!  So yes, natural variability can "hide" AGW up to a time.  In 10-15 years, when the PDO goes pop for a sustained period, we are going to get our 0.2C/decade ON top of the AGW trend of 0.2/decade+. 

 

http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/from:1940/to:1950/trend

[nflwxman]

This seems about right for this fall.  What's odd, and probably wrong, is that the index in the dynamical models does not drop off after winter.  Who knows, maybe we are due for a 2003-2005 double weak nino type situation.  It's a long shot in terms for forecasting, but would certainly aid another global temperature record in 2015.