Spiegel has finally gotten around to conceding that global warming has ended, at least for the time being.
Yesterday Spiegel science journalist Axel Bojanowski published a piece called: Klimawandel: Forscher ratseln über Stillstand bei Erderwärmung (Climate change: scientists baffled by the stop in global warming).
We’ve been waiting for this admission a long time, and watching the media reaction is interesting to say the least. Bojanowski writes that “The word has been out for quite some time now that the climate is developing differently than predicted earlier”. He poses the question: “How many more years of stagnation are needed before scientists rethink their predictions of future warming?”
Bojanowski adds (emphasis added):
15 years without warming are now behind us. The stagnation of global near-surface average temperatures shows that the uncertainties in the climate prognoses are surprisingly large. The public is now waiting with suspense to see if the next UN IPCC report, due in September, is going to discuss the warming stop.
The big question now circulating through the stunned European media, governments and activist organisations is how could the warming stop have happened? Moreover, how do we now explain it to the public? To find an answer, Bojanowski contacted a number of sources. The result, in summary: scientists are now left only to speculate over an entire range of possible causes. Uncertainty in climate science indeed has never been greater. It’s back to square one.
One explanation Spiegel presents is that the oceans have somehow absorbed the heat and are now hiding it somewhere. Yet, Bojanowski writes that there is very little available data to base this on: “There is a lot of uncertainty concerning the development of the water temperature. It has long appeared that also the oceans have not warmed further since 2003.” Spiegel then quotes Kevin Trenberth concerning NASA’s claim that they’ve detected a warming of the oceans: “The uncertainties with the data are too great. We need to improve our measurements”.
Spiegel also writes that the missing heat may be lurking somewhere deep in the oceans. But here Bojanowski [Spiegel] quotes Doug Smith of the Met Office: “This is very difficult to confirm”. Jochem Marotzke of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (MPI) suspects that energy has been conveyed to the ocean’s interior, but there’s a dire lack of data to confirm this. Bojanowski writes over the current state of ocean data measurement: “Without intensifying the data measurement network, we are going to have to wait a long time for any proof”.
Scientists also suspect that the stratosphere may have something to do with the recent global temperature stall. Susan Solomon says the stratosphere has gotten considerably drier, and so warming at the surface may have been reduced by a quarter. But Bojanowski reminds us that under the bottom line, the scientists are pretty much without a clue; he writes:
“However, climate models do not illustrate stratospheric water vapour very well,’ says Marotzke. The prognoses thus remain vague.”
Well then, maybe it’s due to aerosols from China and India blocking out the sun, some scientists are speculating, and “thus weakening warming by one third”. Spiegel writes that “If the air were cleaner, then climate warming would accelerate.” But aerosols have always been used a convenient joker in climate models to explain unexpected cooling, such as from 1945 to 1980.
In fact, all the explanations presented by Bojanowski above have already been thoroughly looked at in a book- one year ago – by a pair of scientists: Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt and Dr. Sebastian Lüning. Last year much of the media massively ostracised them for floating “crude theories”. A year later it’s indeed strange to see that their “crude theories” are now completely in vogue.
How does Bojanowski sum it up? “The numerous possible explanations do show just how imprecisely climate is understood.”
Trenberth is left with only anecdotes, isolated singular events
Yet, as Bojanowski points out, some scientists refuse to give up on the AGW theory. He writes:
Under the bottom line, there are a number of various ominous signs of warming: rising sea levels, Arctic sea ice reduced by a half in the summertime, melting glaciers. At some locations there are signs that extreme weather events are increasing. ‘There are many signs of global warming,’ emphasizes Kevon Trenberth, “near surface air temperatures is only one of them.’”
Sorry, but isolated singular events do not constitute trends, let alone science. Prof. Trenberth really ought to know that. This is pathetic. The observed data and measured trends have stopped showing global warming. So are scientists now claiming that singular events are robust signs? This would be only one step away from astrology!
Bojanowski reminds us again that the science is poorly understood and that a number of factors are at play. He writes:
Indeed new surprising data keep popping up. Recently a new study appeared showing that soot particles from unfiltered diesel engine exhaust and open fires have had an impact on warming that is twice as high as what was first thought.”
Bojanowski also tells his readers that “Computer simulations have shown that warming has made tropical storms more seldom.”
He also mentions other factors that are poorly understood, such as: solar radiation’s impact on clouds, water vapour cycles, and natural and man-made aerosols.
Short term prognoses remain “especially uncertain”. But longterm ones are sure?
Spiegel at the end of the article seems to be duped into thinking that short-term prognoses are uncertain, but longterm ones are rather sure. Spiegel quotes warmist Jochem Marotzke of the MPI:
Climate prognoses over time periods of a few years still remain especially uncertain. ‘Our forecasting system in this regard still lets us down,’ says MPI director Marotzke. “But we’re still working on it.”
This to me appears to be an attempt to have readers believe that although they’ve botched the short-term projections completely, they are likely still right about the longterm projections of warming. Now take five minutes to get your laughing under control. ... If the models failed for the first 15 years, then they are no good! Period! They’re crap, and you cannot rely on them for projecting the long-term. They belong in one place only: the dustbin! How long must we wait before climate scientists return to science?
Don’t get me wrong, at least this article, admitting something is terribly amiss, is a very encouraging step in the right direction. But it’s difficult to remain hopeful when climate scientists continue demonstrating that they do not even know what proper scientific methodology is.
Lastly, I like they way Bojanowski ends his piece:
Current prognoses warn of a 5C warming if CO2 emissions continue as before. But it is not now well-known just how much natural climate impacts are able to change the temperature development – the new NASA data have revealed this as well.”
Spiegel science writers would be well-advised to read Fritz Vahrenholt’s and Sebastian Luning’s “Die kalte Sonne”. Practically every question brought up by Bojanowski has been answered there – one year ago. Moreover, Luning’s and Vahrenholt’s temperature model for the next 100 years so far has been dead on.
by Christopher Monckton of Brenchley, January 14, 2013
The Science and Public Policy Institute has been asked to comment on the apparent inconsistency between the news that July 2012 was the warmest July since 1895 in the contiguous United States and the news that the Meteorological Office in the UK has cut its global warming forecast for the coming years. The present paper is a response to that interesting question.
Early in August 2012, the NOAA issued a statement to the effect that July 2012 had been the hottest month in the contiguous U.S. since records began in 1895. NOAA said the July 2012 temperature had been 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit, 0.2 F warmer than the previous July record, set in 1936.
Early in August 2012, the NOAA issued a statement to the effect that July 2012 had been the hottest month in the contiguous U.S. since records began in 1895.
However, NOAA’s statement was based on incomplete information that has since been revised. Updated data available at the NCDC website (NCDC is the division of NOAA that maintains national climatic data for the United States) show that July 2012’s temperature was not 77.6 F, as NOAA had previously claimed, but 76.9 F, half a degree Fahrenheit below the record 77.4 F set in July 1936.
Even this revised value may be a considerable exaggeration. In response to criticisms of the siting of U.S. temperature monitoring stations, in 2008 NOAA introduced a new network of carefully sited stations with up-to-date, standardized, properly monitored equipment. The Climate Reference Network, as it is called, shows that the July temperature for the continental U.S. was 75.6 F , lower by 1.3 F than stated by the NOAA in August 2012 based on incomplete data from its older, poorly-sited stations influenced by urban heat-island effects, and lower by 2 full Fahrenheit degrees than the 77.6 F that NOAA had published in August 2012.
For some unaccountable reason, NOAA has not issued any statement correcting its original false claim that July 2012 was the warmest July since 1895. Indeed, the accurately-sited and properly-maintained Climate Reference Network is consistently delivering significantly lower contiguous-US temperatures than the older network: yet, again unaccountably, NOAA finds it expedient not to draw attention to the inconvenient results from its new network.
To summarize: NOAA, on incomplete data from an outdated, ill-sited, poorly-maintained network, stated in August 2012 that the July 2012 temperature in the contiguous U.S. had been 77.6 F. The temperature in July 1936, the previous record, had been 77.4 F. By the end of 2012, corrections to the NOAA dataset, but still based on the outdated network, showed that the July 2012 temperature in the contiguous U.S. had been 76.9 F, half a degree below the July 1936 record.
Also, the new Climate Reference Network shows that the July 2012 temperature in the contiguous U.S. had been 75.6 F, two full degrees Fahrenheit below the erroneous value the NOAA had erroneously trumpeted as a new July record.
So to the UK Met Office. It has issued a revised projection of temperature change to 2017. Its previous projection, made last year, had predicted that global temperature would rise by around 1 Fahrenheit degree more than its revised projection, based on a new computer model, “HadGEM3”. If the new projection proves correct, by 2017 the global warming in the 20 years since 1997 will have been statistically indistinguishable from zero for two full decades.
The least-squares linear- regression trend on the HadCRUt4 monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly data for the past 18 years is statistically indistinguishable from zero.
For comparison, the least-squares linear-regression trend on the HadCRUt4 monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly data for the past 18 years is statistically indistinguishable from zero; similarly for the HadCRUt3 for the past 19 years; and similarly for the RSS satellite lower-troposphere dataset for the past 23 years.
The IPCC, in its draft 2013 Fifth Assessment Report, for which I am an expert reviewer, shows a graph revealing how exaggerated its projections are compared with the actually-observed temperature trend:
Projections of global warming to 2050 (gray or colored) compared with observed temperatures (black). Source: IPCC (2013) draft.
The four emissions scenarios modeled here all show that warming should be occurring at a substantially greater rate than that which is observed.
There was no climate crisis. There is no climate crisis. There will be no climate crisis.
See much more here.
by John McLean, Quadrant
January 17, 2013
The media at large and the public that the media influences seem to believe that the IPCC is an international authority on all aspects of climate. This is a popular but false notion. The IPCC is, in fact, no more than a craftily assembled government-supported lobby group, doing what lobby groups usually do.
Its charter gives the game away:
“The role of the IPCC is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant to understanding the scientific basis of risk of human-induced climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation.”
Or, put more simply, the IPCC is to report on the magnitude of man-made climate change and what can be done to reduce its impact, the existence of man-made climate change being assumed from the outset.
The IPCC was established through the urgings of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU) and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The former is a shadowy organisation that conducted scientific projects for UNEP and wrote in-house reports. Given the amount of work it undertook, those reports probably aligned closely with UNEP thinking.
The latter is well known for blaming human activity for every change to the environment—a stance seemingly based on the assumption that the environment never changes naturally and/or that we fully understand every natural force which might make it change. By this logic any and every deviation must be man-made. The UNEP relies heavily on the finger-wagging Calvinism of the “precautionary principle”, which in essence says “we might not have any evidence that you did it but we think you did it so we’ll take action”.
When the average global temperature appeared to be rising in the late 1980’s the ICSU, the UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) pushed for the creation of the IPCC. It is not clear whether the WMO was a reluctant partner, dragged in to provide some credibility, or if it was enthusiastic as the other two, spurred along by people like John Houghton, then head of the UK Met Office and leader-to-be of IPCC Working Group I, which focussed on the science.
The IPCC was not established to investigate why temperatures were rising because the ICSU, UNEP and WMO figured they already knew that it was the work of dastardly humans.
And therein lies the problem—the only intergovernmental agency on climate was created to investigate the extent and influence of the one climate force presumed to be significant.
To the lay person, and quite likely to politicians, the IPCC’s main procedure sounds impressive. I wonder, however, whether its mission was defined by intelligent people who fully understood the implications, or by naive people who thought the approach sounded fine but had no idea what it implied.
The IPCC’s task is to create reports that summarise the current level of knowledge on climate matters. To do this it relies heavily on “peer-reviewed and internationally available literature”.
There is not a word in the IPCC “Procedures” document about IPCC authors first reviewing the peer-reviewed papers they cite, verifying that the processes they describe produce the claimed results, or checking that the papers’ conclusions are consistent with the rest of the paper. If something is written in a peer-reviewed paper the IPCC peers no closer—this despite many papers being accepted by reviewers but savaged by the wider scientific community.
With a charter directing it to deal only with the pre-supposed human influence on climate, the IPCC tries to find evidence and peer-reviewed papers to confirm that assumption. The IPCC can hardly be accused of cherry-picking to support the claim of significant man-made warming when its very charter directs it to focus exclusively on that subject.
Incidentally, there is no sign either that the IPCC audits or otherwise verifies the data it cites. In the widely referenced HadCRUT3 dataset used by the IPCC one location in Russia has also no data for the 1990s save for two Januaries, when temperatures can and do vary widely depending on winds. Two warm Januaries thus produce two warm annual averages and a rising temperature trend, compared to the 1980s when more data was supplied.
In typical UN fashion, government representatives are dragged in to give the literature review, which is basically all the IPCC assessment reports are, the formal seal of approval. Governments of the world thereby implicitly endorse the flawed assumption on which the IPCC was created, after which representatives unelected by you and I sign off on the reports’ findings. Ultimately, the UN’s special brand of peer pressure—both carrot and stick varieties—pressures governments into action in response to agreements reached by government representatives. Put simply, governments are both co-lobbyists and the targets of that lobbying.
The IPCC is under no obligation to report on all fields of climate research. Indeed, it would be stepping beyond its remit were it to do so. It is not required to report on research that refutes the IPCC’s position nor, like most lobbyist groups, does it seem keen to provide information that undermines its own argument. The second Draft of the Working Group I contribution to AR5, (due for release in 2014) took until Chapter 8 before mentioning that there has been no statistically significant warming since 1997.
The mistaken belief that the IPCC is an authority on all aspects of climate occurs in part because its charter directs it to present material that supports a highly publicised hypothesis, and because, even 25 years after the establishment of the IPCC, there exists no single global agency that deals with all aspects of climate variability, its consequences and counter strategies.
We can be certain that climate will change in future. But no matter the direction of that change, if science and the public are to be served a global agency dealing with these issues is a necessity. Many years ago the WMO could have been extended to cover climate as well as weather, but now it’s been hopelessly compromised by its co-sponsorship of the IPCC, a much-hyped mono-focused lobby group.
In the absence of a global agency we can only watch the IPCC’s acolytes, the media, the CSIRO, the Australian Climate Commission and others faithfully reproduce, without challenge, the latest utterances from the lobbyist organization as if it is that global authority.
John McLean was co-author with Chris de Freitas and Bob Carter of a paper that became the centre of controversy when submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research. Their experience with the censors of science can be read here.