It should end in early February, when UAH releases their anomaly number for the lower troposphere. (Here I'll focus on UAH's LT data.)
Of course, this claim has always relied on anti-scientific cherry-picking: choosing your starting point to get the result you want, whether it's scientifically meaningful or not. As I wrote here, the claim of "18+ years of no warming" relies completely on the warming spike of the 1997-98 El Nino. If that event (= natural variability) had never happened, this "pause" wouldn't now being occurring.
But now, even that strong influence is being overtaken by higher temperatures.
Here are the numbers:
Red shows the "reverse warming" of the lower troposphere according to UAH -- the warming from any point on the x-axis to present.
As you can see, the "pause" in LT warming relies on a very careful cherry pick -- starting your calculation near the dip early in 1998.
Early this February, UAH will release their anomaly number for January 2015. As long as it is +0.51 C or larger, the warming (blue line) will no longer start in negative territory for any date in the past.
The "pause" will disappear.
Will January's LT anomaly reach 0.51 C? It'd better, or UAH's model is going to look awfully suspicious. Because during the 1997-98 El Nino, UAH LT anomalies increased drastically in the first few months of 1998:
So there's good reason to think UAH LT anomalies -- which so far have been larger than in 1997-98 (= probably AGW) by about 0.2 C, should easily be above 0.51 C this month.
Will Chris Monckton, Werner Brozek and the usual suspects find a way to keep the pause going? Probably, using error bars or statistical tricks. It will be fun to watch.
But it will be grasping at straws.
Note: I'm putting the "Numerology" logo atop this post because this kind of analysis has always been numerology, not real science. Live by numerology, die by numerology.
11 comments:
Cherry-picking may or may not be a problem, depending on what conclusion one draws from the data.
Example 1. No satellite warming for 18 years, so there's no global warming. WRONG
Example 2. No satellite warming for 18 years, so the IPCC results are questionable. RIGHT
Monckton slyly points out the fact of the 18-year satellite pattern without saying what he thinks it means. IMHO that's sneaky. He invites his readers to draw an invalid conclusion without saying something that's invalid.
BTW most commenters on all sides routinely cherry-pick data. E.g., when someone points out that 2015 is the warmest year or that current sea surface temperatures are at a record high, that's also cherry picking. However, I see no problem with that sort of cherry-picking as long as it's used only to conclude that the earth is warming. If either of those facts were used to estimate the long-term rate of warming, that would be wrong IMHO.
David in Cal wrote:
"Example 2. No satellite warming for 18 years, so the IPCC results are questionable. RIGHT"
Prove it.
Show me the IPCC's result for 18 years, and compare it to actuality.
David, we've been through this, and I know you don't agree with me. It's certainly conceivable that the rate of warming will rise and that the by year 2100 there will have been 3 or 4 or 5 degrees of warming.
"It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future." (attributed to Niels Bohr and to Yogi Berra) A scientific theory tends to get validated by making predictions that come true, especially unexpected predictions. The IPCC didn't predict an 18-year period of little warming in the troposphere. On the contrary, they predicted a fairly rapid rate of growth on the surface and a faster rate of warming in the troposphere. IPCC 4 had 2 degrees C as the bottom of their likely range of sensitivity. They reduced it 1.5 in IPCC5 because there was less warming than they expected.
Th failure of IPCC's predictions so far doesn't mean they're wrong, but it reduces my confidence in the IPCC. That's it.
Enjoy your vacation from blogging.
cheers
David in Cal wrote:
"A scientific theory tends to get validated by making predictions that come true, especially unexpected predictions."
Climate models, or any climate calculation, cannot predict anything about the future, ON PRINCIPLE.
Until you understand this, you understand nothing. I've explained why before. But your preconceived notions are controlling you. I'm not going to repeat myself again.
David in Cal wrote:
"The IPCC didn't predict an 18-year period of little warming in the troposphere."
What a stupid comment.
Climate models do not predict the short-term evolution of climate. Climate models CANNOT predict the short-term evolution of climate, even in principle.
Climate models do not start from a known initial state. You don't understand the mathematics of what this means.
You, David, are a first class denier -- you misunderstand the science, and then try to use that misunderstanding to find fault with the science.
It is stupidity at its best.
David wrote: "Show me the IPCC's result for 18 years, and compare it to actuality."
The GCM trend and the satellite trend are statistically identical.
DiC's statement about "The failure of IPCC's predictions so far" is not supported by the data.
I have a small question about your graph, what did you plot? Is it the trend in °C/decade from the year on the x-axis up to now or is it something else? This because the trend from 1992 up to now is about +0.11 °C/decade for UAH 6.0 beta 4 and in your graph the y-value of 1992 about 0.3.
This so-called "pause" will indeed disappear in the UAH TLT data, when my calculation is correct it will happen when the T of February is 0.53 °C or larger. About the same as your 0.51 °C. For RSS it will take some more months.
It will be interesting what the cherry-pickers will come up with when this happens: "The pause has shortened to less than a month!". They are creative though.
Regards, Jos
Jos: Sorry for the delay getting back to you.
I plotted warming from any and all points in the past. By "warming" I mean
linear slope * time interval
That's a common usage. It's not perfect -- it's only as good as the linear fit is, of course. Not sure what else to do.
Jos: I too am looking forward to seeing what the ....contrarians... come up with when the LT "pause" disappears.
As this post shows, there is plenty of room to be creative while appearing scientific!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2016/01/27/final-2015-statistics-now-includes-december-data/
Thanks for your answer David.
It's clear what you did now and I get the same graph using slope * interval.
The effect of an El Nino is later and stronger in the satellite datasets than in the surface temperature datasets, see this explanation of Geert Jan van Oldenborgh (climate scientist at the Dutch KNMI):
http://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2016/expectations-for-2016-global-temperatures/#comment-630934
Or there's something wrong with the satellite corrections (drift etc.). We will see the coming months.
Thanks Jos.
I think that if RSS & UAH don't set records in 2016, or don't at least come close to doing so, something will be seriously wrong in their models. In that case, I expect that people are going to lose a lot of confidence they're at all accurate in calculating atmospheric temperatures.
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