North Atlantic cooling means climate change of a different kind coming?

Is this the way the backdown plays out? The endless warming becomes cooling, and man-made change becomes natural cycles one paper at a time? The press releases still talk of “change”! No mention that natural cycles could have been the cause of past warming, and that skeptics have been saying this for years.

Atlantic ocean, temperatures, sea level circulation index

Figure 3 | Sea-level circulation index, the NAO and the AMO on multidecadal
timescales. Shown are the accumulated sea-level index (blue), which is
representative of subpolar heat content evolution, the accumulated NAO (red,
dashed) and the AMO (black). The heat content proxy and the accumulated
NAO have been normalized. All timeseries have been 7-year low-pass filtered.
The accumulated sea-level index and accumulated NAO have been detrended.

This Nature paper will be tricky to feed into the “Panic Now!” scenario. It’s still climate change, but it’s a half a degree of cooling that might be headed your way if you live around the northern Atlantic.

UPDATE: A quick summary of the paper. McCarthy et al created a circulation index (blue line, fig 3) which appears to lead the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, black line) by two years. The sea level index is generated by comparing sea levels north and south of Cape Hatteras, USA. The authors spend quite a bit of time explaining why that area is the most useful proxy for changes in ocean circulation. Their circulation index suggests the AMO has shifted to a “negative” colder phase which may last decades.

The press release is below for this tricky paper that doesn’t follow the IPCC plan. In the world of climate news it’s important that the headlines include the words “climate”, “global” and “change” and not the words “cooling”, “natural cycles” or “skeptics might be right”.

Global climate on verge of multi-decadal change

[Science Daily] A new study, by scientists from the University of Southampton and National Oceanography Centre (NOC), implies that the global climate is on the verge of broad-scale change that could last for a number of decades.

The change to the new set of climatic conditions is associated with a cooling of the Atlantic, and is likely to bring drier summers in Britain and Ireland, accelerated sea-level rise along the northeast coast of the United States, and drought in the developing countries of the Sahel region.

But global warming is still coming. One day. Sometime.

Since this new climatic phase could be half a degree cooler, it may well offer a brief reprise from the rise of global temperatures, as well as resulting in fewer hurricanes hitting the United States.

The study, published in Nature, proves that ocean circulation is the link between weather and decadal scale climatic change. It is based on observational evidence of the link between ocean circulation and the decadal variability of sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.

So ocean circulation is the link between weather and “decadal scale climate”. Doesn’t that mean the models that didn’t include this link didn’t predict this cooling, were wrong, and overestimated the CO2? No one seems to mention that.

Lead author Dr Gerard McCarthy, from the NOC, said: “Sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic vary between warm and cold over time-scales of many decades. These variations have been shown to influence temperature, rainfall, drought and even the frequency of hurricanes in many regions of the world. This decadal variability, called the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation (AMO), is a notable feature of the Atlantic Ocean and the climate of the regions it influences.”

Doesn’t that mean that natural variation is still more important than man-made emissions, and isn’t that what skeptics have been saying for decades?

These climatic phases, referred to as positive or negative AMO’s, are the result of the movement of heat northwards by a system of ocean currents. This movement of heat changes the temperature of the sea surface, which has a profound impact on climate on timescales of 20-30 years. The strength of these currents is determined by the same atmospheric conditions that control the position of the jet stream. Negative AMO’s occur when the currents are weaker and so less heat is carried northwards towards Europe from the tropics.

The strength of ocean currents has been measured by a network of sensors, called the RAPID array, which have been collecting data on the flow rate of the Atlantic meridonal overturning circulation (AMOC) for a decade.

Dr David Smeed, from the NOC and lead scientist of the RAPID project, adds: “The observations of AMOC from the RAPID array, over the past ten years, show that it is declining. As a result, we expect the AMO is moving to a negative phase, which will result in cooler surface waters. This is consistent with observations of temperature in the North Atlantic.”

Since the RAPID array has only been collecting data for last ten years, a longer data set was needed to prove the link between ocean circulation and slow climate variations. Therefore this study instead used 100 years of sea level data, maintained by the National Oceanography Centre’s permanent service for mean sea level. Models of ocean currents based on this data were used to predict how much heat would be transported around the ocean, and the impact this would have on the sea surface temperature in key locations.

Co-author Dr Ivan Haigh, lecturer in coastal oceanography at the University of Southampton, said: “By reconstructing ocean circulation over the last 100 years from tide gauges that measure sea level at the coast, we have been able to show, for the first time, observational evidence of the link between ocean circulation and the AMO.”

Back to the paper where they discuss mechanisms, heat content, and overturning circulation:

The 7-year sea-level index leads the 7-year rate of heat content change by 2 years with a maximum correlation of 0.58
(significant at the 95%level). The reason that the accumulated sea-level index leads the large rise in heat content  from40N to 60N in the early 1990s can be interpreted by looking at maps of the heat content anomaly evolution. Heat content builds downstream of the intergyre region from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s (Fig. 2b). This heat content anomaly is then observed downstream in the subpolar gyre in the late 1990s and early 2000s (Fig. 2c), indicating that the sea-level index could provide an early indication of subpolar heat content change.

They are quietly saying that natural cycles are are important drivers of sea level changes on the US East coast as well as Greenland ice sheets.

In recent years, the sea-level index (Fig. 1d) indicates that the AMOis again transitioning to a negative phase, consistent with observations of a reduced overturning circulation8.

Using the sea-level difference between subtropical and subpolar gyres, we have developed and validated a proxy for ocean circulation in the intergyre region. This represents a mechanism for ocean heat transport to the subpolar gyre and heat content changes there. When observations exist, heat content changes have coincided with the major phase transitions of theAMO, confirming that ocean circulation plays a key role in decadal Atlantic variability. The ocean responds to NAO forcing with changes in ocean circulation: on decadal timescales, the ocean integrates NAO forcing and returns it to the atmosphere as the AMO. This is implicitly the Bjerknes compensation that had previously
been seen in air–sea fluxes29. The sea-level difference provides an indicator of ocean circulation changes that precede phase changes in the AMO, thus explaining why, as the positive AMO declines4, sea-level rise is accelerating north ofCapeHatteras9,10.While Greenland ice sheet melt has been linked with accelerating sea-level rise in recent years, the fact that the period of accelerated sea-level rise from the 1950s to the 1970s10 (as well as the current period of sea-level rise) coincides with a declining AMO indicates that multi-decadal fluctuations in ocean circulation play a key role. In this framework, sea-level rise along the US east coast becomes entwined with the effects of the AMO on climate.

This paper will no doubt be valuable if the weather cools over Europe in the next ten years.

Reference:

Gerard D. McCarthy, Ivan D. Haigh, Joël J.-M. Hirschi, Jeremy P. Grist, David A. Smeed. (2015) Ocean impact on decadal Atlantic climate variability revealed by sea-level observations. Nature; 521 (7553): 508 DOI: 10.1038/nature14491

PS: Thank you to Peter from Adelaide who sent two letters this week. Both received gratefully. – Jo

8.9 out of 10 based on 107 ratings

198 comments to North Atlantic cooling means climate change of a different kind coming?

  • #
    JB

    The climate alarmist lobby are full aware of the trend towards global cooling. They were obviously hoping to have all their schemes in place before it occurred so that they could then claim credit for preventing catastrophic warming.

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    • #
      OriginalSteve

      “Do not look at the man behind the screen”. – Wizard of Oz

      Yeah well they knew cooling wa scomig, but cooling isnt as ascary as warming, so they cranked up the Socialist wealth theft plans before people relaize they had been had.

      The irony is , once people have been impoverished by the taxes paid to the parastic Communist UN, they wont be able to afford to pay for energy, thus millions more will die off in the cold coming.

      Its a perfectly evil plan in many ways.

      402

      • #
        GMac

        More than likely this was what was planned from the outset,the long range forecasts predicted a warming phase and it was the catalyst to get a co2 tax in place before the predicted cold phase came in,a warm world doesn’t need as much heating as a cool one thus extra co2 tax cheques in the mail.
        Bankers Politicians Scientists – the unholy trinity!

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      • #
        Glen Haas

        There are also 5X to 10X deaths due to significant cooling versus significant heating.

        40

    • #

      But what will the leading climate worriers do, if it actually does start cooling down fairly dramatically, if winter after winter becomes colder and longer than ever experienced previously, deaths from cold escalate like never before and crops fail to grow? Truth be known, they will show no shame whatsoever and find ever more convoluted ways to fill the troughs.

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      • #
        el gordo

        Let’s not become alarmist, we’ll tell the masses its only a Gleissberg Cycle and there is nothing to worry about.

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      • #
        ExWarmist

        There is always co-option of the new trend, after all it has happened before when they shifted from Cooling to Warming in the 70s…

        Hopefully life will not imitate art…

        When Green Chickens Come Home To Roost.

        Somewhere in the western world (NH), sometime in 2028…

        FADE IN.

        OUTSIDE: EARLY EVENING – NOVEMBER.

        – A weary group of men and women, chained into a gang, trudge along a city road. Their guards carry rifles, and short whips. A light dusting of snow is falling.

        – They pass a Primary (Elementary) school where the teachers and students have assembled to watch them pass. The Principle of the school turns and faces the assembled children and staff and raises her arms.

        Principle: (Stern Encouragement) “Now children all as one – Sceptics are Septics”.

        Assembled Children and Staff: (Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”

        – Some of the chained people steal glances at the children.

        Guard: “Eyes Front!”

        – The guard smashes his whip across the face of one of the chained men and bright blood splashes onto the snow.

        – One of the schoolchildren breaks ranks and staggers forward through the snow.

        Schoolboy: (Falteringly Disbelief) “That’s my Dad!?”

        – The principle turns abruptly towards the boy and signals to green frocked School Proctors, who leap forward and grab the boy before he can reach the road.

        – The struck man slumps to the ground, barely conscious, the man chained next to him takes his arm and drags him to his feet.

        Principle: (Outraged) “Shocking behaviour. Samuel Taylor – A months detention. Proctors remove him to the holding room.”

        – The proctors drag the boy away.

        Assembled Children and Staff: (Continue Chanting) “Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics… Sceptics are Septics…”

        – Two school cleaners stand quietly to the side of the assembly, not being teaching staff or students they are not required to join in. They talk quietly together.

        Cleaner One: “I’m not sure that your right about quantum fluctuations in N-Space?”

        Cleaner Two: “You have to consider the underlying space time continuum as a 10 dimensional space foam on the planck scale.”

        Cleaner One: “Do you miss the research at MIT?”

        Cleaner Two: “Of course – but at least I’m able to feed my little girl. – and what choice did I have, Particle Physics isn’t Environmental Science is it.”

        Cleaner One: “Same with Nuclear Engineering – now that all the reactors have been shut down – there’s just no more work for a PHD in Engineering in my field.”

        – Cleaner Two nods towards the steadily moving chain gang.

        Cleaner Two: “Still it’s better than what that lot are facing.”

        Cleaner One: “Which is?”

        Cleaner Two: “5 Years Hard Labour in the Pig Methane Plant.”

        Cleaner One: “Shovel Pig manure for 18 hours a day and get fed…”

        Cleaner Two: “Which would you prefer – that – or the alternative?”

        – Cleaner one shivered from more than the cold, and drew his coat more tightly around his thin frame.

        Cleaner One: “The fertiliser plant – but that’s just for capital crimes isn’t it?”

        Cleaner Two: “Apparently “Carbon Denial” is set to become a capital crime – rumour has it, that it’s to be the next Presidential Emergency Directive.”

        Cleaner One: (Quietly) “Oh my god… what have we become?”

        – Cleaner Two nods silently in agreement.

        – The Principle signals a halt to her students and staff.

        Principle: (Smug) “Now everyone – we have todays new mantra, lets chant it together for the benefit of these poor deluded people.”

        All: (Chanting in practised unison) “Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling… Man Made CO2 Causes Global Cooling…”

        FADE OUT.

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      • #
        Tim

        Could it just so happen that CAGW has been quietly morphed into Climate Change because a Little Ice Age would certainly qualify for that title a few generations down the track.

        40

    • #
      Tom O

      They knew it was coming, yes, they won’t want to take credit for it when it happens, and did not intend to. When rationally looked at, all their programs that they wish to implement “to fight global warming” are intended to maintain those most vulnerable to cold in that position. We all know cold kills far more than does warm. The programs are designed to force depopulation. No sense in pretending otherwise, and no sense in hoping that they have morality or ethics. If you don’t see value in ALL human life, you have neither morality or ethics.

      20

      • #
        Just-A-Guy

        Tom O,

        You wrote:

        We all know cold kills far more than does warm. The programs are designed to force depopulation. No sense in pretending otherwise, and no sense in hoping that they have morality or ethics. If you don’t see value in ALL human life, you have neither morality or ethics.

        Well, it’s about time somebody came out and spelled it out for us in plain English.

        The only question now is:
        “How to reach the unaware and uninformed in order to explain this to them?”

        Abe

        10

  • #
    Rick Bradford

    I think we’re in for an Alice in Wonderland future in climate science, where virtually everything the Alarmists predicted turns out to be wrong, but they try to convince others (having convinced themselves instantaneously, of course) that they were right all along.

    “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

    452

    • #
      Spetzer86

      We must be well down that rabbit hole, based on the discussions in Australia and the USA in regards to “permanent” drought followed by “unprecedented” floods, while both seem to remain within historic bounds.

      501

      • #
        William

        Just as they now say scorching heat for anything just over 32 degrees when that used to be a typical hot day.

        291

        • #
          Annie

          Have you noticed that inhabitants of places like Dubai regularly live with high temperatures, of the order or 40 or 41C at this time of the year, and much higher in summer when there is high humidity, and survive happily as they are also blessed with plenty of energy and clean water? Their lives contrast vividly with those poor people in India who are suffering in the present heat, where they do not have access to the necessary energy and clean water.

          There is plenty of hype about the current temperatures there in such as the hype-prone Daily Mail but they don’t make the obvious link to similar temperatures elsewhere where people’s well-being is not affected because they are fortunate to be living in a rich country.

          50

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      “Let them alone; they are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into a pit”( Matt 15:14 )

      Jesus was talking in terms of spiritual blindness, however the principal holds for climate science ( or anything else ) for that matter….

      142

  • #
    toorightmate

    I can not recall seeing/hearing such a profound statement than that from Dr Gerard McCarthy!
    Surely he is a comedian and is simply taking the p*ss out of everyone?

    “Sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic vary between warm and cold over time-scales of many decades.”
    Could you run that past us again please Doctor.

    481

    • #
      Yonniestone

      Breaking news, an IPCC study has uncovered a disturbing trend of climate disruption, “We found the northern hemisphere to warm significantly around June then some cooling for 6 months until December until our models predict another 6 months of warming, this bizarre cycle of climate change will continue into the near future with dire consequences from what we call the 4 “Reasons”.

      Anyone who doesn’t take this warning from actual experts seriously is simply a criminal and has no concern for future generations, you people make me sick!

      441

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        Peter Cook, taking a black silk cloth, and draping it over the judges wig, he is wearing:

        “For this heinous crime, you will be taken from whence you came, and from there, to a place of lawful execution, where you will be …” [Interruption the Clerk of the Court in a whisper] … “Really? Oh, very well then … for riding a bicycle without lights, you shall be fined ten shillings.”

        231

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      Sort of covers all options, doesnt it? Completely useless otherwise….

      61

  • #

    More models, this time “reconstructed ocean currents” from 100 years of sea level data (proxy alert!), and of course precise enough (they presume) to forecast the AMO–and its climate effects–in detail. They call this “observational evidence of the link between ocean circulation and the AMO”, yet the only observational evidence, as they admit, is the 10 years of RAPID data on the AMOC, which is too little to be definitive. It sounds like they are sure they can equate sea levels (where?) and Atlantic ocean currents (i.e., can predict the latter in detail from the former), and the reason why they can do that is just because they did it, they built their model to do it… Let us pause, waiting for the other shoe–no, a whole host of other shoes–to drop (as they will, bet on it).

    213

    • #
      Mark Hladik

      So right!!

      Let me get this straight: changes in sea level (from a long time ago) … … … wait, … … … sea level(s) has (have) changed before this? Has it changed BOTH directions (one direction for cooling AMO, and one direction for warming AMO), or is it a unidirectional change?

      Dare I suggest that these good chaps confer with Bilal Haq?

      Regards,

      Mark H.

      143

    • #

      Harry, as I read it, the models don’t appear to be central, and sea-level data was tide gauge data. You commented on my early version which was based on the (pretty superficial) press release. I added more detail to the post after reading the paper (see the update). The media release was begging to be taken apart for the way it avoided all the obvious implications.

      As for the paper? Maybe McCarthy are onto something, maybe their index will work, or maybe this is just another in a long line of attempts to figure out what drives these oscillations in the oceans.

      For the global ocean and atmospheric coupled models, the parody rolls on — they don’t understand these circulation changes, they can’t predict them, yet the currents dominate the climate.

      I think the name of the game is to produce enough contrary predictions now so that someone will be able to say “climate science was right” in ten years time.

      454

      • #
        Manfred

        …someone will be able to say “climate science was right” in ten years time

        I very much doubt anyone will be bold enough to say ‘climate science was evah right’.

        North Atlantic Cooling may offer ‘a brief reprise from the rise of global temperatures’, it would be interesting to learn the defintion of ‘brief’?

        We’ve already had a demonstration of abject model failure, the unpredicted trendless interval 19 years with an absence of global warming. Dr. Phil Jones – CRU emails – 7th May, 2009 identified the 
‘Bottom line: the ‘no upward trend’ has to continue for a total of 15 years before we get worried.’ He must be paralysed by now.

        The UNFCCC, IPCC, UNEP, IMF, WHO, WB are all as a Kollectiv extremely worried. And they will continue to be worried. They have demonstrably failed to distinguish between natural variation and politically installed global warming climate change.

        No, now they are being crippled with anxiety about not only being seen as a failed science but as the intellectually vapid, economically bankrupt, morally corrupt, power lusting eco-agenda that they are.

        313

        • #
          GMac

          “someone will be able to say “climate science was right” in ten years time”
          A bit like a busted clock being the right time twice per day!
          Sooner or later it will warm up,the thing is if the temps fall by the time it warms they will point to the graph and say “see we were right” the trend is going up,though I still have this nasty feeling that even if the average temp falls by 1% the BoM will still come out with “the hottest day/summer/year eva”

          41

        • #
          OriginalSteve

          I think the concept of Service to the Community, by Sceptics, needs to be invoked…..

          By this I mean keep talking to anyone whole will listen to explain the science, and, also maintaining a very long memory, so that when the snow job truly starts about global cooling ( poor pun…mea culpa… ) that we are there to remind them about being turn-coats who were happy to mortgage the whole planets’ well being to feather their own nests….

          81

      • #
        Binny

        ‘someone will be able to say “climate science was right” in ten years time.’

        Yeah, as a farmer I watch the 10 day forecasts.(I know, I know) but I do anyway.
        They update every 6 hrs, so over 10 days, you can get 40 different versions of what might happen…One of them is gunna be right 🙂

        222

        • #
          David-of-Cooyal in Oz

          Gee, you’re an optimist Binny. The overnight forecast for the following day’s minimum for my nearest town is consistently up to 2 degrees C out, either way. A bit disconcerting around frost time.
          Cheers,
          D

          91

        • #
          Binny

          I reckon over the last 5 years or so they have actually gotten LESS accurate.
          It used to be that 3 days out, you could pretty much take it to the bank.
          Now less then 24hrs out it can change from 100mm to 0.

          72

          • #
            William

            I’m with you – I play golf on the weekends and I no longer bother watching the TV weather as during the week as Saturday’s weather used to go from rain to sunny to overcast to showers to cloudy to sunny and back to rain in the course of a week. Now I just look out the window in the morning and keep wet weather gear in the bag if it isn’t raining when I head out.

            62

      • #
        Ceetee

        Jo, I was once asked by someone who heard me banging on about this whether I believed in dangerous man made global warming at all. I replied I didn’t but hoped I was wrong in a strange perverse kind of way because I believed nothing could be worse for humanity than a downturn in global temps. It’s almost as if we’ve moved on from their delirium and are paying due attention to the real problems such a circumstance would present. Talk about species decline, refugees, starvation and mayhem. These stupid buggers never really think too hard about the ramifications of their high browed prescriptions do they. For them it serves a shallow purpose. For me there are far too many exceptional people speaking far too much common sense for this aberration to survive. I live in hope and I believe in human nature. Just look at the incredible people who take the time to visit your wonderful site.

        50

      • #
        Radical Rodent

        Oooh, the red-thumbers are out in force on this one!

        Do they actually read what has been written or is it just some sort of Pavlovian reaction?

        It would be interesting to find quite what they are so contrary about – could it be the science involved in the comment, the tone of the comment, or the commenter? It would also be interesting – perhaps even more so – should they engage with reasonable, rational argument; it is a shame that those who do offer contrarian comments tend to merely indulge in infantile name-calling.

        20

      • #
        Glenn999

        After watching Obama and the MSM for the last few years, I find it amazing that they can lie, obfuscate and cover up with such skill. I’m afraid that their change from global warming to climate change is to cover their butts when it does get cooler. Too many people believe the MSM and the establishment to question anything about a science issue that is above their heads; and so they delegate their understanding of the CC question to a science authority.
        Perhaps an investigation with proof of wrongdoing and coverup (EPA rules) with enough high-profile media coverage could get the ball rolling towards being more skeptical in the mind of the public.

        20

  • #

    Wrong? No need for the W-word. It’s just that the science which was settled is now differently settled. And not only are things worse than they thought, they’re worse than they thought they thought. That’s settled.

    392

  • #
    TdeF

    Now how to blame CO2 and rich western industrial countries who are polluting the world with CO2? That is a puzzle, the only puzzle. What is certain is that whatever the problem, carbon (dioxide) is to blame. Those industrialist capitalists have wrecked the planet with their mobile phones and jet travel and luxury goods like toasters, microwave ovens and electricity and luxury cars.

    So we all have to meet in Paris and punish the Liberal Conservatives who have mocked our Marxist beliefs. We will tax them with their own systems, make ourselves rich and enslave their populations. It is our right. Why else would the UN exist, a massive world government without any elected officials? The Climate is right for revolution.

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    • #
      Sceptical Sam

      What is certain is that whatever the problem, carbon (dioxide) is to blame

      No, no. It’s Tony Abbott’s fault. He’s to blame.

      Stay with the programme TdF.

      71

      • #
        mikerestin

        You really don’t pay attention, do you?
        It’s Bush’s fault.
        Please don’t confuse the scientific facts.

        10

  • #
    Malcolm

    And all the while the true believers will fail to acknowledge that such natural internal variability could quite easily have caused the warming at the end of last century. The fact that the PDO was only discovered several years after the first IPCC report doesn’t bother them in the least. This display of wilful ignorance is what you can expect as the paradigm begins to shift, and it’s nothing new – when faced with evidence which strongly challenges an existing theory or hypothesis, some people will continue onwards as if nothing’s changed. Cognitive dissonance is a funny thing.

    272

    • #
      Graeme No. 3

      My take is that they are looking for the exit sign, but that is obscured by several large thugs so they are tiptoeing nearby waiting until the thugs go to their lunch break.

      202

  • #
    TinyCO2

    This explains why December in Paris is their last chance.

    231

    • #
      Ben Palmer

      Unfortunately, the French President Hollande is clinging to the COP at Paris like to a straw in the ocean. He wants to become this conference a success, the only success opportunity left for him before he will be history after the upcoming elections.

      181

    • #
      ianl8888

      … December in Paris …

      Nah … there always be April in Rio, or someplace 🙂

      71

  • #
    Robert O

    Isn’t it just some more confirmation that the climate is really controlled by solar input (which is variable) and its distribution from the tropics to the poles by the ocean currents and the weather systems?

    252

    • #
      el gordo

      The lag is in the ocean, with the oscillations switching on and off depending on the variability of our nearest star.

      72

      • #
        Rereke Whakaaro

        If “a lag” in the ocean is the real problem, then why doesn’t the IPCC just hire a ship, and send all of the climate scientists off to find it? Problem solved … simple.

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    • #
      me@home

      Robert O, on recent nights I have watched a couple of episodes of a show on BBC Knowledge featuring a youngish UK Prof spruiking various science topics – not bad overall. BUT, and so much for settled science, in one episode on Gravity, he told us that Einstein’s theory on gravity does not work for very small objects. Scientists postulate that there should be a very small object “graviton” whose existence they think they have proven by – wait for it – the fact that they can’t find it!

      Last night we were told with the same breathless earnestness that time can be measured to billionths of a seconds from deep space without any allowance or even recognition of the “bending” of space / time quoted in the earlier episode.

      61

    • #
      Wayne Job

      Indeed Robert O, It will also be real science one day that the suns variance is controlled by feed back from the positions of the gas giant planets and the solar systems plane of incidence to the galactic centre. Being a peculiar little solar system that does random walks through the arms of galactic spirals would also give some explanation to very long term radical climate changes. CO2 zilch.

      40

      • #
        Annie

        That’s very interesting Wayne Job. Any references?

        10

        • #
          Wayne Job

          Hello Annie, Try looking at the science of Miles Mathis he has a different take on all science.He is an odd ball an artist with a mathematical mind and a scientific bent. I have railed against the standard models of everything for fifty years this character has a new take on all science and I can not find fault in his analysis.

          Look first at how rainbows work science has been 100% wrong forever.

          10

  • #
    ROM

    Proff Ole Humlum’s Climate4you site has some excellent graphs on the world’s Oceans based on the ARGO data.

    Missing from Climate4you is the data for the Southern Ocean, the very large chunk of ocean surrounding the Antarctic continent which Ocean has been cooling at the surface at least in the latitudes between 50 degrees South to 70 degrees South for the last thirty years if you are prepared to believe the data from GISS, the Global CAGW hot house exponents.

    The Antarctic continent is itself very slowly cooling for over half a century now which is suggested as a yin / yan effect with the increasingly doubted warming of Arctic region.

    Once upon a time the proponents, scientific and otherwise ranging down through to a vast collection of climate predicting quackery and it’s associated pseudo scientific quacks who tried and often succeeded in morphing such reversals of their iron clad predictions into a newer form that got them past the doubts and questioning of the ignorati out there in the sticks.

    But not any more as their words and quotes are now firmly recorded for a few decades into the future at least in the annals of the Internet from where those same predictions of a man made calamitous blazing heat of a future world, spoken with such posturing sincerity and so firmly predicted with such scientific pomposity will if the world moves into a colder era , come back to haunt them at every turn until the day the lid is finally screwed down on their lifeless forms.

    And if the skeptics weren’t so damn cold along with everybody else it would really be a case for the warming the cockles of their hearts to see the climate catastrophe predicting quacks squirming and trouser wetting as they try to recover a smidgin of their reputations as the world, far from following their so carefully outlined catastrophic predictions of floods, droughts, hell fires, disease, death and other innumerable associated disasters due to mankind’s devastating heat inducing impact on the global climate all came to nought as Nature just decreed otherwise and there was nothing anybody could do about it.

    Surprisingly an item that has emerged in Judith Curry’s Climate etc blog where finally as so many skeptics have been claiming and alluding to for some years now and climate warming science is the archetypal example, the recognition that science is a mess and despite a lot of hurrumphing amongst the scientific class there, the growing admission that a fair lump of what we down here below the hallowed halls of science and academia were suppose to call Science it is utterly corrupt and about as far from real actual practice of Science as it is possible to get.

    Science: in the doghouse(?)

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    • #
      sophocles

      The Antarctic continent is itself very slowly cooling for over half a century now which is suggested as a yin / yan effect with the increasingly doubted warming of Arctic region.

      There is thought to be a Polar Seesaw [pdf] where the Arctic warms while the Antarctic cools and vice versa. At present, what “global warming” we have seen take place, seems mostly limited to the Northern Hemisphere and particularly north of the Arctic Circle. The Southern Hemisphere seems to have recorded the huge—and panic inspiring—increase of 0.28 to 0.3 degrees C in all this time.

      Unfortunately, the

      catastrophic predictions of floods, droughts, hell fires, disease, death and other innumerable associated disasters

      are a very real prospect for the return of cooling. The Dutch Zuiderzee was carved out by a series of storms and floods from the late thirteenth century onwards. Fifty to eighty thousand people died in St Lucia’s Flood (1287) across the Northern German coast and the Netherlands at the start of the post-Middle-Ages cooling marked by the Wolf solar minimum.

      The North Sea was, and is, a shallow sea and the north facing coasts are boggy and easily eroded. Waves and surges from strong storms easily overwhelmed what coastal defences were there then, with storm surges travelling inland and washing away whole villages. From 1310–1330, there were many severe winters and cold, wet summers across Europe, which were the first manifestations of the unpredictable and sometimes extreme weather of the Little Ice Age. The persistently cold, wet weather caused great hardship, and was primarily responsible for the Great Famine of 1315 to 1317. The resulting malnutrition contributed to the low immunity to disease which culminated in the Black Death of 1348–1350.

      A lot of this is detailed in Dr Brian Fagan’s book The Little Ice Age.

      The present solar minimum (the Eddy minimum is a proposed name) will probably not throw hell fires at us, but the other disasters are more probable. Disease always moves through populations in cold times, witness the annual outbreaks of colds and influenzas in today’s times. Each year sees newer and nastier influenza and corona (common cold) viruses rather than one of the five plagues caused by plagues. They may not be quite as deadly as Yersinia Pestis, but they are still unpleasant, with the death toll from the annual influenza outbreaks in the order of 250,000 to 300,000 people globally. The rhinoviral common colds are, fortunately, not so deadly but are still uncomfortable.

      152

      • #
        ROM

        sophocoles @ # 10.1

        I was very aware that the historical eras of colder climate were actually far more stormy and tempest ridden than during periods of a warmer global climate
        That is recorded quite extensively through history.

        The point I was making was in reference to the claims of the warmist quackery who slated every known weather and climate phenomena that deviated from a dead calm weather and a temperature range from roughly 22 C degrees [ 71.6 F ] to roughly 27 C [ 80 F ] and a relative humidity of roughly 30% to 50% to the increasingly doubted and challenged anthropogenic warming for which a quasi religious guilt complex of “we have sinned against the planet is used by the warmists as a lever to further their own lusts for power, wealth and influence.

        [ Standards of Human Comfort ]

        During the cooler climatic periods it appears that the equatorial regions barely changed in their temperature ranges from the temperatures experienced during the warmer climatic periods.
        But the temperature regimes in both of the polar regions changed their temperature regimes quite dramatically, albeit not necessarily at the same time but apparently during quite different time intervals where the North pole got a lot warmer or cooler than the South pole or vice- versa followed a couple or far more decades later by the other Pole also following the global temperature trend.
        Which accounts for the sometimes couple of centuries difference in the two hemisphere’s temperature proxy’s data used to ascertain [ very approximately! ] past global temperatures.
        Certain Bristle Cone Pines and Hokey Schticks comes to mind when mentioning of the accuracy of paleo temperature proxies !

        During colder planetary eras the contrasts between the warmer equatorial regions which change little in temperature and the much colder and cooling Polar regions leads to large contrasts between equatorial and polar temperatures and therefore much higher flow rates of heat energy from the equator to the polar regions from where it is radiated into space.
        The heat energy flow comes in both the warmer masses of air which weighs about 1.1 Kg’s per cubic metre for standard temperatures and sea level pressures and in the vast masses of warmer equatorial origin water that together with the air masses from the same equatorial regions flows northward and southward towards the colder polar regions at faster rates thus creating the much higher temperature contrast conditions between the air and water masses and therefore much increased storminess and severe weather as has been so dramatically recorded during the history of the Little Ice Age withy its tempests and storms of great strength and intensity.

        And this following is what the climate quackery such as SF as a very present example, supposedly have in mind for the human race in their fanatical devotion to reducing global temperatures supposedly to prevent the very disaster laden scenario presented below, the very opposite to that which they in their complete and apparent ignorance and in their warped fanaticsm are turning blind eye to.

        Storminess Of The Little Ice Age

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  • #
    A C Osborn

    Could it just be that some Climate Scientists are preparing the way for an even further roll back in the “it is only CO2”, due to the “pause” they have already conceded that perhaps they underestimated the affect of natural variability.
    Maybe they are looking for the face savers that they will need when it starts getting too cold for the Temperature Massagers to hide.

    113

  • #

    I’m sure some bright spark sometime will eventually pull a paper out of their butt proving that global warming is still happening, but unfortunately it’s the wrong sort of global warming. A bit like that academic who spent 30 years proving the Iliad wasn’t written by Homer, but by someone totally different, who also just happened to be called Homer.

    Pointman

    262

  • #
    • #
      Rereke Whakaaro

      Be fair Stephen.

      Most journalists can only read as fast as their finger can move, and they have real problems managing polysyllabic words, which is why the vast majority will have trouble with this comment.

      123

  • #
    sillyfilly

    A natural oscillation imposing itself on the long term trend anthropogenic induced warming, what a wonder. From the Nature paper:
    “This may offer a brief respite from the persistent rise of global temperatures, but in the coupled system we describe, there are compensating effects. In this case, the negative AMO is associated with a continued acceleration of sea-level rise along the northeast coast of the United States”
    Wonder if El Nino also has some climate impacts in it’s couple system?
    Merely another blip in the continued long term warming trend of the climate system.

    [The authors intended the reader to imply as you have that this is a natural cooling blip which will somewhat suppress long term anthropogenic global warming. That allows them excuses as to why global temperatures haven’t risen as predicted. But as Jo writes, ‘Doesn’t that mean that natural variation is still more important than man-made emissions, and isn’t that what skeptics have been saying for decades?’ You see if the General Circulation Models – the climate models the IPCC rely upon were any good at all, they would have factored in all these natural variations. Yet in the science they claimed was settled years ago, they are only starting to understand some of the natural climate variation. Therefore it is clearly nonsense to claim the science is settled, just as it is complete fabrication to claim they can be 95% certain that the bulk of global warming since 1950 is human caused. How could they possibly know that if they are still learning about natural variation and are incapable of calculating how much if any is anthropogenic warming, versus natural? – Mod]

    931

    • #
      Mark Hladik

      But the whole of the IPCC-CAGW-AlGore-Hansen-Trenberth-Jones thesis is that the ‘anthropogenic signal’ of ‘human-induced warming’ is GREATER than any and all natural variations. You know that’s what we’ve been hearing for well-on two decades now. Deny it at your own risk. As soon as you do, you’ll be hit with a plethora of references where IPCC-acolytes have said the very same.

      And, still waiting for that cross-correlation coefficient between Veizer and Berner & Kothavala. Any chance we’ll see it, sometime this century?

      Regards,

      Mark H.

      223

    • #
      sillyfilly

      Interest comments given the fact that the standard AMO is calculated from linearly detrended data to try and eliminate the direct impact of AGW on the original data. Trying any correlation of detrended data and actual temperatures is not a statistically clever idea. AGW is indeed driving the changes in NA SSTs while the AMO by itself would contribute minimally to any warming trend except in the high latitudes of the North Atlantic.

      431

      • #
        Ron Cook

        Sillyfilly

        “AGW is indeed driving the changes in NA SSTs”

        This remains pure conjecture based on failed computer modelings from the IPCC

        Where is your proof for such statements? I have never seen you produce any proof for your wild imaginings.

        R-COO- K+

        P.S. I, and many others are prepared to use our real names.

        233

        • #
          DavidH

          You’re assuming that S. Filly is not the person’s real name.

          242

          • #
            Rod Stuart

            As a staunch believer with ardent commitment to climate change and other delusions of imaginary origin without even a whiff of evidence, I contend that Silly Filly’s real name is Miriam O’Brien, a dedicated disturber of excrement and SS luvvie who lives in Mount Beauty, Victoria.

            152

            • #
              Gee Aye

              i don’t think so Rod. I think that you will find the answer at TC

              15

              • #
                Rod Stuart

                Thanks Gee Aye.
                The inverse logic and misunderstanding I misconstrued as being whopper specific. However, where there is one cockroach there are no doubt more.
                Since you were the sleuth that exposed the coptic traveler Michael the Magnificent or whatever he was, I’ll have to take your word for it.
                I need Alan Turing’s help to decipher you code!
                In any event, I think it is a pointless exercise to “fight” climate change. It would be far more productive to fight gravity.
                We’ve had war on moonshine, war on drugs, the war on poverty, war on terror, and the war on global warming. Any day POTUS will declare war on gravity and sunshine.

                122

              • #

                TC is “The Conversation”

                60

              • #
                Rod Stuart

                I thought you meant “Traveling Coeliac”. I never go near The Conversation for fear of damaging my bits and Bytes.

                82

              • #

                Hey that’s funny!

                41

      • #
        Manfred

        sillyfilly 14.2

        …the direct impact of AGW on the original data”

        Is there any original data left anywhere? Successive ‘adjustments’ and inexplicable ‘losses’ of original data have all but removed inconvenient data.

        Your statement appears to subsume that you know the empirical measure of the AGW contribution. If this knowing relies on these, then you may have been off the page since 1998 or therabout.

        Natural cycles and their natural drivers remain for all practical purposes the sole and dominant drivers of global climatic natural variation.

        As you have recurrently shown us, the ‘unnatural‘ counterpoint to natural variation are defined by the UN as the direct and indirect influences, an incarcerating array of political and economic ambitions justified by the strawman of anthropogenic ‘climate change’, once known as ‘global warming that wasn’t’, or as your friends in the MSM prefer to crudely call it, the weather.

        Your anthro-premise remains unproved, or your null hypothesis has not been disproved, meaning you are forced to rely on the precautionary principle where the required bar for evidence is speculation, you know, that evidential step above modeling. Your faux-proof resides in models that have been falsified by he record, even after it has been crucified and mangled by your Ministry of Truth. Your models are neither reliable nor valid. They fail to provide us with any meaningful insight about the real world and yet they are peddled in the real world as evidence.

        We all understand that politicised climate ‘science’ possesses not the slightest shred of credibility except that which is bestowed upon it by the institutions, institutions that fund with the left hand and gain with the right. To date, it’s all been a bit like a pizz-up in a brewery hasn’t it? And now those same institutions are quietly engineering a reconciliation between the unsurprising graphic disconnect of modeled fantasy and empirical reality, doubtless claiming at the same time far-seeing cognizance. Yes, the beer does run out, the headaches and hangovers become undeniable and you may think it quite unbelievable but everyone else eventually gets bored by endless vomit.

        The intellectual high ground and moral imperative still elude the eco-congregation, even blessed as you may be with an ability to coerce and compel. A natural end arises when humankind once again decides or more likely, needs to get on with such things as real progress and the business of prosperity as absolutes, rather than the impoverishing relativism being presently peddled by the eco-politicians of the UN.

        101

      • #
        Rod Stuart

        On the way into Launceston the other day, I saw a filly drop a steaming pile of fudge in a paddock near the road. The scene immediately made me think silly filly. It was absolutely FABulous.

        82

      • #
        Radical Rodent

        AGW is indeed driving the changes in NA SSTs…

        Said with such confidence! Pity you do not have a shred of evidence to back it up, but, hey-ho… There are those who believe debate is merely shouting louder than the opposition, and, if that doesn’t work, shooting quicker (pick your own examples from history; there are many, and many still have a perverse hero-status).

        50

      • #
        el gordo

        Silly said: ‘AGW is indeed driving the changes in NA SSTs while the AMO by itself would contribute minimally to any warming trend except in the high latitudes of the North Atlantic.’

        North Atlantic SST parallel world SST, except for an occasional slight deviation as the system adjusts. AGW is irrelevant.

        https://bobtisdale.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/figure-25.png

        20

      • #
        Mark Hladik

        SF @ 14.2:

        I’m taking that as a ‘no’ … … …

        X-corr challenges issued: 37

        X-corr challengers answered: 0

        30

    • #
      Ben Palmer

      heads up for the Mod reply!

      233

    • #
      James Bradley

      sillyfilly,

      Your position summarised:

      ‘If it isn’t predicted by the models then it didn’t happen.’

      272

      • #
        Craig Thomas

        The models being based on actual observations containing many more decades of data than the span of these cycles that are under study, it is clear that your “summary” demonstrates poor skills in analysis.

        222

        • #
          James Bradley

          Craig,

          Beg to differ.

          I observe:

          The models being based on actual observations containing many more decades of data than the span of these cycles that are under study – have all failed.

          I conclude:

          You prove my summary.

          162

        • #
          Bill

          If that were true, which it is not, then the models could at least demonstrate historical accuracy, which they have failed to do.

          30

    • #
      TedM

      Correct “Silly”. “A natural oscillation imposing itself on the long term trend….” up to that point. You should have continued, “since the little ice age”.

      193

    • #
      Craig Thomas

      “Mod” asserts, “…incapable of calculating how much if any is anthropogenic warming, versus natural”.

      If that were the case, they would not have been able to detrend the data in order to separate the natural cycle they are observing. Clearly, having detrended the data, they have indeed separated the effects of CO2-related forcing from the cycle that is under study.

      I have a feeling there is a general lack of understanding of what “detrending” actually means and how it is done. Of course, a lack of understanding has never stopped these commenters from inflicting upon us their half-baked beliefs.

      419

      • #
        TedM

        “having detrended the data, they have indeed separated the effects of CO2-related forcing from the cycle that is under study.”

        No Craig, they have separated the effects of all other forcings, of which CO2 may be one.

        82

      • #
        James Bradley

        Craig,

        The fact that CO2 based models failed only proves CO2 is not a factor.

        Again – you prove my summary.

        122

      • #

        Craig Thomas mentions this: (my bolding)

        Of course, a lack of understanding has never stopped these commenters from inflicting upon us their half-baked beliefs.

        To paraphrase some one else, Craig, I have never someone in such dire need of a shave.

        Tony.

        51

    • #
      Ceetee

      Silly, what “long term trend…” Honestly, you should read that post aloud and listen to yourself. Hopefully you’ll laugh. Everyone needs a laugh now and again.

      60

  • #
    Ruairi

    It’s all very well to be told,
    The Atlantic is now getting cold,
    When warned for decades,
    Global warming in spades,
    Would by now have long taken hold.

    292

  • #

    Having read the full paper I’ve added an update and some passages from the paper. The press release really wasn’t very useful at conveying what they did. I re-edited some other parts as well. The cooling involves a sizable section of the Northern Atlantic.

    UPDATE: A quick summary of the paper. McCarthy et al created a circulation index (blue line, fig 3) which appears to lead the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, black line) by two years. The sea level index is generated by comparing sea levels north and south of Cape Hatteras, USA. The authors spend quite a bit of time explaining why that area is the most useful proxy for changes in ocean circulation. Their circulation index suggests the AMO has shifted to a “negative” colder phase which may last decades.

    See the post above again, for more info.

    224

  • #
    Ron C.

    The key line is: It is based on observational evidence of the link between ocean circulation and the decadal variability of sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean.

    This is empirical evidence from the RAPID Project:
    https://i0.wp.com/www.rapid.ac.uk/rapidmoc/rapid_data/data/moc_2014_fig7.jpg

    Getting a reprieve from the dangers of global warming would be good news, but these facts were not well received by everyone last month at a conference in Vienna, as tweeted by Dr. McCarthy.

    https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/05/27/evidence-is-mounting-oceans-make-climate/

    191

    • #
      Greg S

      How surprising the oceans which cover the majority of the earth’s surface and provide a natural interface between themselves and the atmosphere may have something to do with the majority of climate variations.

      Why can’t all these scientists for the settled science see this?

      121

  • #
    leon0112

    It sounds like this paper is asserting the natural variability (AMO) has a larger influence on climate than man made CO2 levels. This follows with climate alarmists rooting for a big El Nino so that we end the pause. If an El Nino causes a temperature rise, doesn’t that also show natural variability dominates man made CO2 levels?

    I wish I had the time to re-do the Cook consensus paper to count all of these papers about AMOs and El Ninos as asserting natural variability is greater than variability due to man made CO2 levels. It would be great to do a re-do of that paper and do it correctly.

    142

  • #
    mwhite

    And despite current El Nino conditions in the Pacific the Pacific Decadal Oscillation(PDO) is now in its cool phase.

    http://www.climate4you.com/images/PDO%20AnnualIndexSince1900%20With7yearRunningAverage.gif

    Cool AMO and cool PDO. The next La Nina should make thing interesting

    http://www.climate4you.com/images/AMO%20GlobalAnnualIndexSince1856%20With11yearRunningAverage.gif

    111

  • #

    One more bit added:

    Is this the way the backdown plays out? The endless warming becomes cooling, and man-made change becomes natural cycles, one paper at a time? The press releases still talk of “change”! No mention that natural cycles could have been the cause of past warming, and that skeptics have been saying this for years.

    314

    • #
      Peter

      I’m looking forward to the climate change goose step. Backing down while still trying to move forward!

      172

    • #
      Spetzer86

      The key observation would be that the taxes will likely stay in place because the money will be providing support for important and critical work, whatever that happens to be then.

      92

    • #
      Manfred

      Short of erasing the the entire digital record, history will thankfully have every chance of dissecting out the truth.
      But if the totalitarian eco-bureaucrats of the UN wind up running the show with the help of the WHO, World Bank and IMF, doubtless we’ll be reading the kollected memoirs of Trenbeth, Mann and Figueres at bedtime in the salt mines.

      72

  • #
    Harry Twinotter

    The North Atlantic may well go thru a cooling phase due to circulation changes. But the globe on average can still continue to warm.

    627

    • #
      Ben Palmer

      … but nobody has convincingly shown to what extent CO2 has played a role.

      233

      • #
        David-of-Cooyal in Oz

        And here was I thinking I’d convincingly shown that the extent to which CO2 causes warming was, and still is zero. Exactly zero. And no error bars needed!
        Cheers,
        Dave B

        PS But they still seem to be winning the propoganda war…

        122

      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        Ben Palmer,

        is that your judgement?

        14

    • #
      handjive

      If Global Warming can cause cooling, couldn’t a cooling planet cause a little bit of global warming?

      142

    • #
      ROM

      Harry Twinotter @ #21

      “Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.”

      ― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
      .

      “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

      ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

      102

    • #
      TedM

      “The North Atlantic may well go thru a cooling phase due to circulation changes. But the globe on average can still continue to warm”

      Yes it can, but the pause has persisted for 18 years inspite of the AMO being in it’s positive phase.

      50

      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        TedM.

        When you say “pause” do you mean the Hiatus?

        If you have data showing the impact of the AMO on global average temperatures, post it.

        03

        • #
          tom0mason

          Yep definitely a PAUSE!

          Definitions —
          HIATUS
          noun, plural hiatuses, hiatus.
          1. a break or interruption in the continuity of a work, series, action, etc.
          2. a missing part; gap or lacuna: Scholars attempted to account for the hiatus in the medieval manuscript.
          3. any gap or opening.
          4. Grammar, Prosody. the coming together, with or without break or slight pause, and without contraction, of two vowels in successive words or syllables, as in see easily.
          5. Anatomy. a natural fissure, cleft, or foramen in a bone or other structure.

          PAUSE
          noun
          1.a temporary stop or rest, especially in speech or action: a short pause after each stroke of the oar.
          2. a cessation of activity because of doubt or uncertainty; a momentary hesitation.
          3. any comparatively brief stop, delay, wait, etc.:
          I would like to make a pause in my talk and continue after lunch.
          4. a break or rest in speaking or reading to emphasize meaning, grammatical relation, metrical division, etc., or in writing or printing by the use of punctuation.
          5. Prosody. a break or suspension, as a caesura, in a line of verse.
          6. Music. a fermata.

          10

          • #
            Harry Twinotter

            tomomason,

            I am glad you realise “hiatus” does not mean “pause” in this context – the IPCC never used the term “pause”.

            A hiatus is a break in a series, in the this case the rise in the global average temperature over time slowed down. I wonder if the wording in that section of the IPCC report was influenced by a geologist.

            00

    • #
      Radical Rodent

      But the globe on average can still continue to warm.

      That’s as maybe, but… it isn’t – and hasn’t for over 18 years! Or will you deny that? Whatever… I hope that warming does resume, as it has obviously been entirely beneficial; what I do dread is any cooling. History has shown us that the onset of any cooling phase is sudden and dramatic (look at the start of the previous Little Ice Age); should that happen, then there truly will be doom and gloom about the planet.

      20

      • #
        Harry Twinotter

        Radical Rodent.

        Not sure of the source of your data, there is plenty of evidence for warming in the last 18 years.

        I am not sure where people are picking up this idea of “global cooling”, there is no evidence for it. Perhaps if air-pollution goes nuts or we have a number of large volcanic eruptions we will see global cooling.

        03

        • #
          Radical Rodent

          The source of my information on the temperature plateau? Well, there are a few, but I cannot guarantee that they will meet your seal of approval… let’s start with the IPCC, NASA and the UKMO. Are they to be believed?

          As for global cooling – yes, you are right; there is no evidence of it. But, should you actually read what I wrote, you will note that I said “I do dread …cooling..” The inference being, I would have thought, that, while there is no cooling evident at the moment, I would rather that none was to occur at all – I do prefer warming. However, Mother Nature has little regard for my preferences, and may decide to play her fickle self.

          30

    • #
      Rod Stuart

      Oh yes, Harry. Glowbull worming. That would explain record cold snaps in both hemispheres in the the last few winters, record ice on the Great Lakes, record polar ice, to name a few.

      30

    • #
      Harry Twinotter

      The article has been clarified. The 0.5C cooling refers to speculation the sea surface temps in the North Atlantic may drop this much if the AMO changes into a different phase of it’s cycle. The article does not apply to Global Warming.

      00

  • #
    Peter

    Doesn’t that mean that natural variation is still more important than man-made emissions, and isn’t that what skeptics have been saying for decades?

    Perfect!

    Those who have been using the scare to promote environmental planet saving endeavours have indeed been ramping up the rhetoric. Fewer and fewer folk are listening these days and about time!

    203

  • #
    John F. Hultquist

    I dislike the term “cycles” in that it suggests a regularity seldom found in such things, unlike my clothes washer and dryer. Episodes or recurring episodes seems better. I don’t expect the term cycles will get scrubbed from the climate lexicon just because I don’t approve.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Interesting study, but …

    “… a maximum correlation of 0.58 …”

    I don’t know if it holds here but in some cases this would suggest about 1/3 of the variance explained; alternatively 2/3 not explained.

    121

    • #
      David-of-Cooyal in Oz

      G’day John,
      I don’t share your dislike of the term “cycles”, but do consider it a part of the hypothesis which needs to be proved.
      For example, I’m comfortable with the concept that planetary orbits are sufficiently regular to produce cycles, and the variation of our own axis of rotation does also.
      But this one? A bit early to call I think.
      Cheers,
      Dave B

      61

    • #
      Ted O'Brien.

      I also query the concept of cycles. Of course there are cycles, starting with the daily, monthly and seasonal cycles of sun, moon and its tides in both ocean and atmosphere.

      However, a lifetime of watching the weather, including the work of scientists, daily tells me that as far as cycles in the weather go, in the long run chaos rules. I have seen dramatic improvements in short term forecasting, but firmly believe that long range forecasting can only be a punt.

      My observation of human behaviour in regard to the AGW thing is that few people have a comprehension of the science of statistics. No comprehension of the concept of probabilities. No comprehension of compounding margins of error. And no comprehension of the fact that statistics just is not an exact science, and should never claim to be.

      And few seem to know that the science of climate/weather is wholly made up of statistics.

      10

      • #

        I agree with your general comments about statistics. Even professional statisticians are capable of taking a sample of 100 and quoting results to 1% accuracy.

        As for cycles, I see a hierarchy starting with the precise cycles of the planets and moons – the roiling of the sun’s plasma influenced slightly by the planets tidal and magnetic forces and in the turbulent extremes creating the sunspot cycles that we know vary but can still be seen as cycles and which influence UV output, solar magnetic field and flares – these influence ocean heat absorption and cosmic ray incidence that varies cloud formation. By the time we get to the Earth things are certainly messy but not totally random.

        I mentioned 60, 200 and 1000 year cycles in an earlier post on SST analysis. I might have added that the next in line according to strength is an 11 year cycle that varies in both strength and period. My models try to track this by having two cycles close together in period but differing in phase. There are also persistent but highly variable components at shorter periods, especially around 3y.

        Something that’s often ignored, I think, re the planets and sun, is that they have evolved together as resonant systems starting with a chaotic cloud of matter – beautiful.

        10

  • #
    Dennis

    Is it time to review the hacked emails, climate gate, and remind people about what the fraudsters were saying.

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      Cog Williams

      Why not mark the 10th birthday of a few of the better known emails with an analytical retrosective?

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    Grant (NZ)

    You have to wonder

    Since this new climatic phase could be half a degree cooler, it may well offer a brief reprise from the rise of global temperatures, as well as resulting in fewer hurricanes hitting the United States.

    I think the reporter is trying to make themselves appear more in command of the English language than they really are. If you replace the word “reprise” with “respite” the sentence actually makes sense.

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    el gordo

    I see the warmist hiatus, which is really a plateau and escarpment.

    http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Natural-cycles-and-HADCRUT4.jpg

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    Bruce of Newcastle

    The amount of warming due to the AMO/PDO combined cycle in the period 1970-2000 was quite large. You can see this in the detrended HadCRUT3 graph here – roughly 0.28 C of warming trough to peak (graph is from this webpage). The global temperature rise from 1970-2000 was about 0.4 C, so the ~60 year cycle caused fully 70% of the temperature rise in that period (ie 0.28/0.4 x 100).

    That is why the IPCC consensus is so reluctant to embrace the cycle. They are fine with it as an explanation of the “pause” but they never want to talk about the 30 years prior to the pause. Because if they were forced to acknowledge that the cycle caused 70% of the global temperature rise in that period the whole scam would be dead. And it is a scam since if they are talking about the cooling phase to explain the pause then they certainly are aware of the warming phase too.

    We are getting closer to the end-game, and it will be quite bad for the CAGW crowd.

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      el gordo

      ‘Because if they were forced to acknowledge that the cycle caused 70% of the global temperature rise in that period the whole scam would be dead.’

      Correct, it won’t be too long now.

      Also, looking at the graph in Jo’s post, the Great Climate Shift of 1976 is clearly visible.

      52

  • #
    manalive

    Since this new climatic phase could be half a degree cooler, it may well offer a brief reprise from the rise of global temperatures …

    They turn the scientific method on its head.
    The null hypothesis that nothing unusual is happening to the global climate that needs any explanation should be the starting point and if anything human activity could modify or exaggerate natural cycles rather than the other way round.

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    Rod Stuart

    Is this the way the backdown plays out?

    Lo and behold. You can listen to this interview on the ABC.

    81

  • #

    JoAnne,
    Can we ever get these fools to admit “I do not know”?
    Every engineer on this planet,including David, now has looked at and tries to figure whether to scratch head or A*s. And only can exclaim “what the f**k,over!”! 🙂

    83

  • #
    TdeF

    Natural variation? What a poor excuse for failure. What is lacking is any sort of comprehension, sufficient to make credible predictions. Observing El Nino, La Nina, AMO, Antarctic sea ice. None are understood to the point of predictability beyond repeating historical patterns. Drawing graphs and fitting curves let alone extrapolating them without understanding is no substitute for comprehension. This was the major problem with Manns hockey stick, prediction without justification and it was wrong in every sense.

    Complex systems are not amenable to absurdly simplistic models and having one and one only politically motivated cause, CO2 concentration for temperature variation would be laughable except that it is a billion $ a day industry.

    They may as well say they have no idea of what is going on and why but follow trends using lots of computer programs and models. Climate scientists would all be rich on the stock exchange if that idea worked.

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    Safetyguy66

    Its becoming completely comedic now isn’t it?

    You can just picture the wizards guild (BOM) back office now frantically retro fitting the data and models to make them look like this was all in “the plan”.

    Letting go is hard….. watch Inception, while not a fabulous movie it makes some excellent points about our conscious ability to let go of an idea we have been attached to for a long time.

    Its time to let go alarmists. We arnt controlling the climate. It would be nice if we could, but we cant and we don’t and we arnt. Now move on.

    102

    • #
      el gordo

      It seems they are warming to the idea of ‘Day After Tomorrow’ in slow mo, which they hope will let them off the hook.

      52

  • #
    el gordo

    It has long been assumed that the North Atlantic cooled because of iceberg influx, but now this idea has been turned on its head. They have discovered that icebergs follow a cooling trend.

    http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/93684-iceberg-armadas-not-the-cause-of-north-atlantic-cooling

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    • #
      Safetyguy66

      Well who would have thought you need cooling to get ice. The surprises just keep coming.

      71

  • #
    Skeptik

    Jo, when you talk about climate change you will have to specify whether it is the IPCC or UNFCCC definition.

    32

    • #
      Manfred

      There are several definitions, well four in this UN link. As I have mentioned recurrently, when someone speaks of ‘C’ & ‘C’ one needs to check whether they mean ‘KK’, which definition they are using.

      42

  • #
    Ross

    Sorry , this O/T but I think the “rubber is meeting the road” in Germany

    http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/05/28/german-government-in-crisis-over-escalating-cost-of-climate-policy/

    http://www.thegwpf.com/german-government-in-crisis-over-escalating-cost-of-climate-policy/

    Somehow I think the task for the Paris talkfest just got very much harder. Good !!!

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    pat

    backdown? hardly.

    as France’s top climate diplomat, Laurence Tubiana, told RTCC’s Ed King at the Carbon Expo 2015 in Barcelona (video in comments on jo’s previous thread “US Republicans vote…”,
    “it’s not an ideological question, it’s an economic policy question”. science doesn’t even get a look-in.

    even tho Bloomberg is a Media Partner, along with Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg does not appear to have written up a single article on the Expo, and Reuters has written plenty, but does not name the Barcelona event in any of them!

    27 May: Reuters: Carbon tax or trade? Debate loses steam as world embraces both
    Some in business prefer tax
    Emissions trading can be more closely linked to targets
    World Bank figures find $14 bln of carbon pricing is tax
    By Barbara Lewis and Susanna Twidale
    BARCELONA: ..The European Union set up the ETS in 2005 as a way of getting round policy-making rules that require the unanimity of member states to decide on a tax.
    Following years of legislative fine-tuning to overcome problems such as a glut of carbon allowances, they say it is on track and has advantages over a tax because it can be linked to a political target to cut emissions.
    China, the world’s biggest carbon emitter, is convinced.
    It aims to launch a national ETS next year, following on from pilot regional schemes…
    World Bank figures this week showed trading systems were dominant, but for the first time the Bank included a fiscal number, saying about $14 billion of the estimated $50 billion value of carbon pricing came from tax.
    “The debate over the choice between an ETS and a carbon tax has dissipated. The choice depends on the circumstances and context of the country,” it said.
    Big business, however, is still divided. Some say a tax is simpler and more predictable.
    “A tax is easier to administer, but the European Union has made the choice,” ExxonMobil’s vice president of strategic planning, Bill Colton, said in Brussels this month…
    David Hone, chief climate change adviser at Royal Dutch Shell, said at an industry event in Barcelona that achieving a global carbon price would be harder with taxes.
    “Taxation is an effective route at a national level but is a very slow way of achieving price harmony,” he said…
    In Portugal, a tax of five euros per tonne came into force on Jan. 1 to cover sectors not dealt with by the EU ETS.
    Sweden, which even before the ETS had a carbon tax, has the world’s highest carbon price of $130 per tonne, according to this week’s World Bank report…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/27/eu-carbon-tax-idUSL5N0YF0HU20150527

    28 May: Reuters: World Bank sets date, start price for $25 million U.N. CO2 credit auction
    By Susanna Twidale and Barbara Lewis
    BARCELONA: The World Bank will on July 15 hold a first of its kind auction worth $25 million for U.N.-backed carbon credits from projects designed to cut methane emissions, the bank said on Thursday.
    The Pilot Auction Facility will offer tradable put options, giving project owners the right to sell credits to the bank’s Methane and Climate Change Fund at a set price.
    The reverse auction will start at $8 per metric ton (1.1023 tons) of carbon dioxide, almost 16 times higher than the current market price for U.N. carbon credits…
    Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States have contributed around $50 million to the fund, which is hoping to raise $100 million to help finance schemes to cut greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.
    To be eligible for the auction projects would need to come from a pool of certain projects registered under the U.N.’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and meet the Bank’s own environmental health and safety social criteria…
    Brice Quesnel, a senior carbon finance specialist at the World Bank, said discussions are already taking place about a second auction which could be open to emission-reduction projects certified outside of the U.N. process by voluntary organizations.
    “We would probably need six months, at least, after the first auction before the second would take place,” he said at an industry event in Barcelona…
    http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/28/us-worldbank-methane-auction-idUSKBN0OD13X20150528

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    pat

    28 May: Reuters: Green investment bonds growing but rules needed to boost appeal
    By Susanna Twidale and Barbara Lewis
    BARCELONA: Engie, the utility formerly known as GDF Suez, this month launched the biggest green bond to date and found it was three times over-subscribed, in what analysts say is a mere baby step towards the maturing of green investment.
    A growing number of of investors and energy firms say fixed-income bonds are a user-friendly way to raise the huge amounts of capital needed for a transition to lower carbon energy.
    The overall size of the market for green bonds tripled last year and could triple again this year to reach around $100 billion, according to not-for-profit organization the Climate Policy Initiative.
    So far, with the financial rewards for investors much the same as for corporate bonds from the regular commercial sector, the pull of green bonds so far is mainly ethical and they make up only around 0.2 percent of the bond market.
    However, many advocates argue green bonds are even more solid than other kinds of bond because they help hedge against the risk from climate change and the “stranded asset” risk of fossil fuels from new regulations, litigation or the changing resource landscape…
    “For that share to grow significantly, voluntary guidelines that set out criteria for bonds labeled ‘green’ will likely have to achieve a greater level of standardization,” Moody’s ratings agency said in a report on Wednesday…
    The pressure is on as, from China to the European Union, companies and governments scramble for funding for renewable energy, whose upfront costs are extremely high.
    “What is happening right now is an energy revolution,” Brian Wolf of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents around 70 percent of the U.S. utility industry, said at an industry event in Barcelona. “It is clear that finance mechanisms must be established.”…
    As the momentum builds for a shift away from conventional investment, campaigners say it is a matter of time before the devaluation seen in European utilities is echoed in the oil and gas sector, for decades seen as a safe haven for long-term investors, such as ***pension funds.***…
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/28/us-carbon-green-invest-idUKKBN0OD12F20150528

    28 May: Reuters: Megan Rowling: Financial markets ignore climate impacts at their peril: experts
    BARCELONA (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Financial markets have yet to grasp the urgency of investing in measures to protect businesses and people from the worsening impacts of climate change, depriving those efforts of much-needed funds, climate finance experts said.
    Samy Ben-Jaafar, director of the private sector facility at the Green Climate Fund (GCF), a new $10 billion fund agreed at U.N. climate talks, said the majority of companies were failing to protect their assets and supply chains from natural disasters and other climate-related risks because “there’s no penalty for not doing it”…
    Last month, Standard and Poor’s Ratings Services said the prospect of more frequent and severe climatic events would make the information companies disclose about their exposure to natural disasters more relevant to their credit rating in future…
    In July, the Bank of England will submit to the British government a report on climate adaptation challenges to the insurance sector…
    He (Ben-Jaafar) urged the Basel-based Bank for International Settlements – to which 60 central banks belong – to change the international rules so that central banks would require financial institutions to test their lending portfolios for climate change exposure.
    “They could be mandated to do it tomorrow and, all of a sudden, adaptation will become front and center,” he said…
    Increasingly, multinational food manufacturers and retailers are becoming aware that global warming threatens the commodities they buy – from coffee and cocoa to cereals – and are beginning to take steps to ensure their procurement around the world.
    That could benefit small farmers in developing nations who produce raw materials but are being hit by shifting and erratic weather patterns, experts said…
    http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/28/us-climate-change-finance-idUKKBN0OD2EO20150528

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    pat

    scientific facts are irrelevant:

    29 May: Nation Pakistan: AFP/Reuters: Climate change worsens disasters: Obama
    MIAMI – US President Barack Obama warned Thursday that climate change was making natural disasters worse, as he toured the National Hurricane Center ahead of the annual storm season.
    “The best climate scientists in the world are telling us that extreme weather events like hurricanes are likely to become more powerful,” Obama said on a visit to the facility in Florida, restating his case for action to tackle manmade changes to the environment. “When you combine stronger storms with rising seas, that’s a recipe for more devastating floods.” “Climate change didn’t cause Hurricane Sandy, but it might have made it stronger,” he added, speaking about the storm which devastated parts of New York in 2012.
    “The fact that the sea level in New York Harbor is about a foot higher than a century ago certainly made the storm surge worse.” Obama’s comments came as Texas struggles against some of the worst flooding in years…
    Moreover, Responding to climate change in the next 15 years is the world’s “mega development project”, given the need to invest trillions of dollars in infrastructure, creating jobs and economic stability, the United Nations’ top climate change official said on Tuesday. “It makes fundamental economic sense” for countries to push forward on tackling climate change because of the benefits it will bring in terms of food, water and energy, as well as employment,” Christiana Figueres told a carbon market conference in Barcelona.
    This, together with the speed at which businesses are acting on climate change and efforts to put a price on carbon, mean “a decarbonised world is now irreversible, irrefutable,” the head of the U.N. climate change secretariat told the conference. “We are going to do it, because frankly we don’t have any other option,” she said…
    Decarbonisation refers to shifting from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, and improving energy efficiency, in order to cut planet-warming emissions to a net zero. Rachel Kyte, the World Bank’s special envoy for climate change, said to decarbonise economies, “we will need to begin with extraordinary ambition at the end of this year” in Paris where countries are due to agree a new global deal to tackle climate change. Experts say the national plans countries are now compiling for that deal are unlikely to add up to the reductions in greenhouse gas emissions needed to keep global warming to an internationally agreed limit of 2 degrees Celsius. Market mechanisms, such as carbon taxes and emissions trading schemes, would be key in mobilising a global response on a big-enough scale, Kyte said…
    The Paris agreement should send an “unequivocal signal” that markets will play a key role in tackling climate change and underscore the need to “get prices right”, she said…
    The U.N.’s Figueres said constructing a new international framework to curb global warming was going to be more complex than earlier thought. “We are currently in an era of transition – a construction site if you will,” she said. “By definition, transitions and construction sites are messy and that is a good thing, because everybody is trying to figure out how…they move forward.”
    http://nation.com.pk/international/29-May-2015/climate-change-worsens-disasters-obama

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  • #

    The establishment plodders are just laboring to discovering the obvious 60 year cycle that any schoolboy can see in the temperature data. How long will it take these slowpokes to notice and incorporate the quasi millennial temperature cycle which is equally obvious.
    For a discussion of the uselessness of the IPCC models for forecasting climate and an estimate of the timing and amplitude of the coming cooling based on the natural 60 year and millennial cycles so obvious in the temperature data and using the neutron count and 10 BE data as the best measure of solar activity see
    http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2014/07/climate
    We have just passed the peak of the quasi -millennial cycle in about 2003 and are now 12 years into the general cooling trend which will last ( modified by the 60 year and centennial solar cycles) until the depths of the next LIA in about 2635. See
    http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1980.1/plot/rss/from:1980.1/to:2003.6/trend/plot/rss/from:2003.6/trend

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  • #
  • #

    The north Atlantic is important for weather in adjacent continents but the southern oceans are far larger and almost certainly a better indicator of long term global temperature variation.

    After experimenting with a variety of cyclic models for southern SST, earlier this year I switched to seeing how a linear rise representing a CO2 influence could fit the data – even to the point of leaving out the quasi-millennial cycle completely. After several months of trying, so far I can get a linear component to the limits of -0.1 to 0.4 ˚C/century. Take the centre value of 0.15˚C/century and quake in your boots.

    Note, this does not show the existence of a CO2 ‘signal’ it just sets its possible bounds.

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    • #
      TdeF

      Not even a signal? What about devastating runaway warming tipping points? This was not an interesting challenge to see if CO2 could be potentially and plasuibly detected as a warming signal among the noise. It was Armageddon, the end of the world in the fires of hell. CO2 was the One Horseman of the Apocalypse. Now it is not even detectable as a signal based on a premise and suggested by a remotely plausible hypothesis or two. 220,000 windmills later…

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    oppti

    I don’t know if You all have observed the situation in Greenland this year. The melting has not started yet. It is one month late now.
    http://www.dmi.dk/uploads/tx_dmidatastore/webservice/e/n/i/b/m/Melt_combine.png

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    Timboss

    Funny how people start believing in model projections when it suits.

    Observations of OHC show warming continues in the oceans.

    37

    • #

      It rather depends on the model surely?

      SST data can be modelled by a simple three cycle model in a trivial spreadsheet. Each of the cycles – 60, 200, 100 yr aprox. have some external basis. Fit to southern SST 0.06˚C RMS error (0.03C for full curve fitting). No IPCC model comes within a bull’s roar of that despite months of supercomputer time and so complex nobody can really know what’s going on.

      The IPCC models are fundamentally flawed in many ways – scale too course to model cloud formation or thunderstorms, taking the Earth’s water cycle thermostat as a secondary effect of the minute CO2 influence etc. etc. but most importantly they don’t agree with any data.

      And I’m not telling anyone to trash their industrial base or denying power to the powerless.

      50

      • #

        Woops. That’s 1000yr or semi-millennial. I concede defeat on trying to pin it down more precisely but historical records show it’s there.

        30

    • #

      Southern ocean data show flat or decreasing temps on recent decades. Where’s your data?

      50

      • #
        • #

          No. That’s not data it’s model output.
          OK, SST data had been fiddled with but at a fundamentally simpler level.

          40

          • #
            Timboss

            Nope.

            http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/

            “Data distribution figures for temperature and salinity observations, temperature and salinity anomaly fields for depths 0-2000m”

            15

            • #

              No. That’s not data it’s model output.

              40

              • #
                Timboss

                I think not. From the documentation …

                “Our estimates are based on historical
                data not previously available, additional modern data, and
                bathythermograph data corrected for instrumental biases.
                We have also used Argo data corrected by the Argo DAC if
                available and used uncorrected Argo data if no corrections
                were available at the time we downloaded the Argo data”

                24

              • #

                “estimates” is the word. Estimate using a model.

                Averaging figures is modelling them too but can be transparent and you can usually get meaningful error estimates. Beyond that you rarely can.

                I don’t believe the OHC estimates and have never seen an error analysis – let alone a plausible one. But then these days you just get a bunch of self appointed experts to guestimate.

                Care to demonstrate that you have the faintest idea what you are saying?

                20

              • #
                Just-A-Guy

                Timboss,

                I too can cherry-pick what words to emphasize:

                You cherry-picked from this paragraph:

                Our estimates are based on historical data not previously available, additional modern data, and bathythermograph data corrected for instrumental biases. We have also used Argo data corrected by the Argo DAC if available and used uncorrected Argo data if no corrections were available at the time we downloaded the Argo data”

                They corrected everything they could. They even ‘apologise’ for not ‘correcting’ all the data. How sweet!

                Abe

                40

    • #
      el gordo

      ‘Observations of OHC show warming continues in the oceans.’

      The Indian Ocean is warm, but that is of little consequence in comparison to a cooling of the North Atlantic.

      http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sfc_daily.php?plot=ssa&inv=0&t=cur

      There appears to be a direct link between the sun and a negative NAO/AMO which should keep the North Atlantic cool for some time. Its a typical Gleissberg and the chilly conditions have the potential for large icebergs within a decade.

      Its the elephant in the room Timboss, cycles within cycles and CO2 has no part to play.

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      • #
        Timboss

        You (and others here) are confusing SST with OHC.

        02

        • #

          No. You are trying hard to do that though.

          Trolling 101: just keep repeating things and suggest that others are too stupid to see what you mean and hope a few climate-naive readers will think you have won the point.

          As far as I can see you have never tried to justify anything you say.

          I can safely conclude that you are a word-bot but probably in human form. Or are you doing an assignment for a UQ course?

          30

  • #
    John of Cloverdale, WA, Australia.

    01

  • #
    pat

    paywalled:

    27 May: WSJ: Paul H. Tice: Schoolroom Climate Change Indoctrination
    In one assignment, students measure the size of their family’s carbon footprint and suggest ways to shrink it.
    While many American parents are angry about the Common Core educational standards and related student assessments in math and English, less attention is being paid to the federally driven green Common Core that is now being rolled out across the country. Under the guise of the first new K-12 science curriculum to be introduced in 15 years, the real goal seems to be to expose students to politically correct climate-change orthodoxy during their formative learning years…
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/schoolroom-climate-change-indoctrination-1432767611

    28 May: Guardian: Has your job been affected by climate change?
    Whether you’re a health worker, urban planner or teacher, tell us what you wish others knew about climate change for our Keep it in the Ground campaign
    Emma Howard and Guardian readers
    What do you wish other people knew about climate change?…
    We’d like you to complete the sentence “What I wish others knew about climate change … ” using the form below and we will create an article with contributions from individuals around the world.
    You don’t need to supply your real name, but please do leave contact details if you’re happy for us to get in touch…
    ***Q. Has your daily work been affected by climate change? Tell us what has changed, what you have witnessed or issued you have had to think about.
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/28/has-your-job-been-affected-by-climate-change?CMP=soc_568

    ***no option for how your work wasn’t changed by CC.

    Guardian is carrying RTCC’s Ed King interview with French Climate Diplomat Tubiana but, other than that, i have found no other Guardian coverage of Carbon Expo 2015.

    no Carbon Expo coverage at all by ABC, Fairfax or News Ltd. MSM still keeping the public completely in the dark as to the financial shenanigans going on in the name of CAGW, for which i shall always blame the Greens/environmental NGOs & the MSM.

    it is these very financial shenanigans that the public would grasp instinctively (as they would if the details of the TPP were made public) because they would see the threat to their Super/retirements funds which are being targeted by the carbon cowboys & girls.

    ABC instead is still pushing rubbish such as:

    Pacific Islands on the front-line of climate change
    ABC Online – 4 hours ago

    52

  • #
    pat

    28 May: LA Times: Hopes rise for a strong El Nino to ease California drought
    Across Southern California, this month has been decidedly cooler and wetter. San Diego had its wettest May in 94 years, and Los Angeles saw nearly four times its average rainfall. This month, the San Diego Padres were forced to call a rain delay — only the fifth time that has happened in Petco Park’s 11-year history. Even the Mojave Desert is running as much as 5 degrees cooler than normal…
    “Can one big year ease the drought conditions? Yes, it can,” said Michael Anderson, state climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources…
    In December, California water officials said that it would take 75 inches of precipitation in the northern Sierra Nevada — a major source of water for the state — to end the drought and bring reservoir storage and runoff back to normal levels.
    So far, the traditional rain season has been a bust — only 34.9 inches have fallen, below the average of 50 inches.
    But the infamous winter of 1982-83 dropped 88.5 inches of precipitation into the northern Sierra Nevada, the wettest season on record, according to the Department of Water Resources…
    Record storms in Texas and Oklahoma over the last few weeks have dramatically ended a 41/2-year drought, said Oklahoma state climatologist Gary McManus, erasing “all short-term and long-term impacts, from agriculture all the way down to deeper soil moisture levels and those reservoirs that were going dry.”…
    http://touch.latimes.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-83644302/

    AUDIO: 18 Mins: 27 May: BBC Business Daily: California Drought: Finding a Fix
    We also have an exclusive interview with the state’s veteran Governor, Jerry Brown, on why he reckons a state-wide low-carbon agenda is part of a sensible policy response. And, we speak to Dr Alex Money, a research fellow at Oxford University’s Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, who assesses how business can be better harnessed to find a fix to the global water-supply problem.

    8mins30secs in:
    BBC’s Alastair Leithead to Jerry Brown: climate change is something you are a real believer in…
    Jerry Brown: u say “believer”…95% of the scientists are telling us we have a problem…population in my lifetime has increased blah blah…we’re impacting the web of life on which we depend.
    Leithead: you are something of an outlier when it comes to the US. there are people who ***deny climate change exists…and the US Govt is not taking the steps you are…
    Jerry Brown: Ontario is taking steps (doesn’t mention record cold temps, vineyards destroyed)…working with others, Canadian provinces, Mexico, Chinese Govt…etc
    Leithead: which is presumably salient to California given the drought…
    Jerry Brown: we know California is 4 degrees warmer than the temperature average of the last hundred years; so the south-west of america is very much subject to warming and we gotta deal with it…
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02rw1zn

    a little exaggeration, Jerry?

    ***surely GWPF or similar should be able to force BBC to stop saying there are people who DENY CLIMATE CHANGE. same goes for ABC/SBS in Australia.

    how on earth are public broadcasters, receiving taxpayer funding, allowed to keep repating this moronic meme when no-one denies the climate changes?

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    Leo Morgan

    I’m not seeing it.
    The ‘correlation’ there seems as absurd as Paul Nurse’s presentation of two absurdly different representations of the climate while wittering on about them being amazingly similar.
    It’s an interesting paper; appropriate to be brought up on a Science Blog, and it’s pretty nearly essential that sceptic blogs bring it up, since its unlikely to be mentioned at all by the climate faithful.
    That being said; let’s continue to be as sceptical about material that supports our judgement as we are about that which contradicts it.

    42

    • #
      Glen Michel

      The way it should be.This may take time to unravel so patience and balance should prevail.I am personally sick and tired of alarmists shrieking at me.Woe be to the unbeliever.

      40

    • #
      Dave

      The LINK is SPAM

      Delete it please

      11

      • #
        Leo Morgan

        The link I inserted was to a well known XKCD comic strip on the weakness of ‘95% correlation’.
        I’ve clicked again, and it brings up what I intended.
        Is anybody else not seeing the XKCD comic?

        60

  • #
    Dave

    That link is just garbage

    Why even put it in?
    That’s just SPAM JUNK!

    02

  • #
    pat

    29 May: Guardian: Matthew Wheeland: Warts and all: the route to sustainability isn’t always pretty
    “Over the past 10 years, a lot has changed, and in some ways not enough has changed,” explains Laura Gitman, a vice president at BSR, a corporate sustainability network and consultancy. “I’d say that certainly the conversation used to be about ‘why is [sustainability] really important?’ and while that question does still come up sometimes, now we’ve moved on to the ‘how’.”…
    There may be no more prominent example than Apple CEO Tim Cook, who last year made a blunt but profound decree about the company’s goals for operating for the ***greater good…
    At Apple’s 2014 annual meeting, an incensed Cook rebuffed a question from climate deniers about investing only in profitable projects – in other words, shifting Apple’s focus away from renewable energy and other sustainability efforts. “When we work on making our devices accessible by the blind, I don’t consider the bloody ROI (return on investment),” Cook told Justin Danhof of the National Center for Public Policy Research, a climate-denier network. “If you want me to do things only for ROI reasons, you should get out of this stock.”…
    “That was a historic moment,” says Natasha Scotnicki, the senior program director of Ceres’ corporate program…
    (This series, Business sustainability: tales from the front lines, is funded by The B Team. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled “brought to you by”.)
    http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/may/28/business-sustainability-challenges-solutions-apple-tim-cook

    linking to the BTeam brings up the members:

    About the B Team
    Richard Branson, Arianna Huffington, Paul Polman (Unilever) etc…

    even The Independent & Guardian are carrying the following – more unintended consequences? ironically, UEA involved:

    29 May: UK Telegraph: Sarah Knapton: Elderly face NHS discrimination under new UN death targets
    Elderly people will be treated like second-class citizens and denied medical care under new targets which give priority to saving the lives of young people
    Under the proposed Sustainable Development Goals, UN member states must cut the number of deaths from diseases like cancer, stroke, diabetes and dementia by one third by 2030.
    However because many are age-related illnesses people who succumb to those diseases from the age of 70 are not deemed to have died prematurely and so are not included in the target…
    In an open letter published in The Lancet, an international group of ageing specialists say the new guideline sends out the message that health provision for younger groups must be prioritised at the expense of older people.
    Prof Peter Lloyd-Sherlock, professor of social policy and international development at the ***University of East Anglia, and lead author of the letter, said: “This premature mortality target is highly unethical, since it unjustifiably discriminates against older people…
    The letter warns that the UN target: “has the potential to undermine cherished, fundamental principles of universality and health as a right for all.”
    “Put simply, it tells policy makers, particularly in poorer countries that older people do not matter,” the signatories warn…
    The Sustainable Development Goals which are due to come into effect later this year, replace the Millenium Development Goals which ran up to 2015 and include ambitions for climate change, health care, development and policy.
    If the target was met, around 42,000 lives would be saved each year for the under 70s. However if older people were included in the target an extra 130,000 lives would be saved.
    Although the guidelines are not binding, health experts warn that the UN is likely to take a dim view of countries who fail to comply…
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/elder/11637179/Elderly-face-NHS-discrimination-under-new-UN-death-targets.html

    from the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals website:

    Sustainable development goals
    One of the main outcomes of the Rio+20 Conference was the agreement by member States to launch a process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which will build upon the Millennium Development Goals and converge with the post 2015 development agenda (click here for information on different work streams). It was decided establish an “inclusive and transparent intergovernmental process open to all stakeholders, with a view to developing global sustainable development goals to be agreed by the General Assembly”
    In the Rio+20 outcome document, member States agreed that sustainable development goals (SDGs) must:
    1.Be based on Agenda 21 and the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation….etc

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    manalive

    Dr Akasofu’s simple diagram may turn out closer to reality than the IPCC projections.
    Being a tad flippant if the IPCC was in business back in the ‘30s the global temperature would already be about 2C above what it is currently.

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    el gordo

    ‘As could be expected, the alarmist mainstream media have so far chosen to ignore a paper that discusses an upcoming multidecadal natural suppression of global warming…probably because indicates the slowdown in global surface warming should continue and it implies the natural variability of the North Atlantic contributed to the global warming we have seen since the mid-1970s.’

    Bob Tisdale (WUWT)

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    Dan Pangburn

    The net of all ocean cycles explains the 64 year period of climate. When combined with the sunspot number anomaly time integral (which is a proxy for solar effect on clouds) and compared to a 5-year moving average of reported average global temperature measurements, R^2 = 0.97+ since before 1900. CO2 has no significant influence.

    Search “agwunveiled” for proof that CO2 has no significant effect on climate and identification of the two factors that do cause climate change.

    A paper published in Energy and Environment, vol. 25, No. 8, 1455-1471 also identifies the two factors.

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  • #
    Don Gaddes

    When is the penny going to drop? There is no such thing as ‘decadal oscillation’. It is a base ten construct with roots in the nefarious rise of the ‘computer model.’ There is no empirical evidence for the number ‘ten’ to be of any importance whatsoever as a factor in natural cycle occurrence.
    Forget ENSO – as long as this bogus concept is persisted with, there can be no understanding of real climate processes.
    For example; The X Factor is 11.028148 Years. The major Orbital Dry Cycle sequential durations (relevant to the present) are 6.75 Years and 2.25 Years.The period between these ‘Dry Cycle’ repeat sequences is 18 Years. The Lunar Metonic Cycle is 18.61 Years. The relative Solar Rotation Rate at the Sunspot Latitude is 1:27. (27 Earth days.)

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    Ian Wilson

    A detailed investigation of the precise alignments between the lunar synodic [lunar phase] cycle and the 31/62 year Perigee-Syzygy cycle between 1865 and 2014 shows that it naturally breaks up five 31 year epochs each of which has a distinctly different tidal property. The first 31 year interval starts with the precise alignment on the 15th of April 1870 with the subsequent epoch boundaries occurring every 31 years after that:

    Full Moon Epoch 1 – 15th April 1870 to 18th April 1901
    New Moon Epoch 2 – 8th April 1901 to 20th April 1932
    Full Moon Epoch 3 – 20th April 1932 to 23rd April 1963
    New Moon Epoch 4 – 23rd April 1963 to 25th April 1994
    Full Moon Epoch 5 – 25th April 1994 to 27th April 2025

    [N.B. During New Moon epochs, the peak seasonal tides are dominated by new moons that are predominately in the northern hemisphere.]

    [N.B. During Full Moon epochs. the peak seasonal tides are dominated by full moons that are predominately in the southern hemisphere.]

    If you allow a 10 year delay for the oceans to respond to the tidal changes you get transition dates that correspond to the (approximate) years of AM) maximums and minimums:

    1880 = AMO maximum
    1911 = AMO minimum
    1942 = AMO maximum
    1973 = AMO minimum
    2004 = AMO maximum
    2035 = AMO minimum

    This strikes me as something that is not the result of pure chance.

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    Another Ian

    “From the Journal of Preemptive Ass-Covering; ”

    Another take on McCarthy et al at

    http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2015/05/the-sound-of-se-476.html

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    Ross

    Ian Wilson

    Thanks for that. It is really interesting. Much simpler and plausible than any computer model run on over tortured and manipulated data in the back room of a university.

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    Don Gaddes

    Hi Ian,
    “About this time I decided to contact Dr Graham Nelson of the Spectroheliograph at Culgoora, NSW. He informed me that the correct value of the Sun’s rotation is 26.75 days at the equator, and that the period of the metonic cycle of the Moon’s nodes is 18.61 years.

    This confirmed my suspicion that the result, 18.73125 (above,) would probably turn out to represent the metonic cycle of the Moon.

    The sum now began to make sense; moreover, I now had the means of ascertaining the true value of the sunspot wave frequency, which validated its use as a Constant. Fig.2 (above) shows the new sum.

    To give further insight into the evolution of my Climate/Weather Model, I quote from one of my letters to Dr. R. Vines (CSIRO.)

    Room for Revision

    “….Subsequent study has indicated that there is room for further revision of either the solar rotation value, or the value of the metonic cycle, or both.

    “However, the anomaly is no more than a few years in a 500 year cycle, so it is near enough for the purposes of the minor cycles, with which we’ll have to learn to live.

    “You might recognize the 6.6875 year regional cycle, as the 6-7 year cycle you mention in your extremely interesting (and heartening) paper to the editor of the Journal of Agricultural Science.

    “The regional drought cycle also corresponds with the ‘old timers’ seven year drought cycle.

    Ever-present Threat

    “It has been the cycle behind the ever-present threat of drought which has dogged the Australian farmer from the early part of last century to 1949, when the climate/weather suddenly moved into a wet oscillation, which extended over 16 years to 1964, when it once again began to move toward the normal (?) dry pattern, which has culminated in this incoming drought-ridden period, probably extending to (at least) the turn of the century.

    “The 6.6875 year regional cycle is made up of three minor cycles of approximately 2.23 years period. You might also recognize this as one of the cycles you mentioned in the above paper.

    “ It has shown up most significantly since 1965, the previous 16 years wet period having more or less damped it out. It will be a force to be reckoned with in the immediate future.

    “There is another important dry cycle which occurs when the regional cycle comes close to the 18.61 year metonic cycle of the Moon (probably indicated by the 19 year cycle mentioned by you.)….”
    ( Extract from ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ Alex S. Gaddes (1990)
    An updated version of ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ (Alex S. Gaddes 1990) including ‘Dry Cycle’ forecasts to 2055, is available as a free pdf from [email protected]

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    Ian Wilson

    Don Gaddes,

    The draconic or nodal period of lunar precession is the period of a complete revolution of the Moon’s ascending node around the ecliptic: 18.612815932 Julian years (6798.331019 days – epoch J2000.0).

    “For astronomy and calendar studies, the Metonic cycle or Enneadecaeteris (from Ancient Greek: ἐννεακαιδεκαετηρίς, “nineteen years”) is a period of very close to 19 years that is remarkable for being nearly a common multiple of the solar year and the synodic (lunar) month. The Greek astronomer Meton of Athens (fifth century BC) observed that a period of 19 years is almost exactly equal to 235 synodic months and, rounded to full days, counts 6,940 days. The difference between the two periods (of 19 years and 235 synodic months) is only a few hours, depending on the definition of the year.” Wikipedia

    19 tropical years = 6,939.602 days (12 × 354-day years + 7 × 384-day years + 3.6 days).
    235 synodic months (lunar phases) = 6,939.688 days (Metonic period by definition).
    254 sidereal months (lunar orbits) = 6,939.702 days (19 + 235 = 254).
    255 draconic months (lunar nodes) = 6,939.1161 days.

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    Don Gaddes

    Extract from ‘Tomorrow’s Weather’ Alex S. Gaddes (1990)

    Fig. 3:

    Earth’s Period (No.1 Constant)

    Divided by 4
    (Obliquity, No.2 Constant) = Quarter Year

    Mulltiplied by 27
    (Ratio, No.3 Constant) = 6.75 Years
    (Regional Drought Cycle)

    Multiplied by 11.028148 Yrs
    (Sunspot Wave Frequency,
    No.4 Constant) =74.44 Yyears
    (Quarterly Sub-cycle
    of a full 297.76
    Year Sunspot Cycle)

    Divided by 4
    (Obliqity,No.2 Constant) = 18.61 Years
    (Metonic Cycle of
    Moon’s nodes)

    Multiplied by 27
    (Ratio, No.3 Constant) = 502.47 Years
    (Full Tree-ring Cycle;
    3×167.49 Year Tree-
    ring Sub-cycles.
    The 167.49 Year Sub-
    cycle is in turn made
    up of 9×18.61 Year
    Metonic Cycles of
    the Moon.)

    Multiplied by 11.028148 Yrs
    (Sunspot Wave Frequency,
    No.4 Constant) = 5,541.3135 Years
    (Which equals 2×2,770.6567
    Year Glacial Cycles.
    See J. Bray Ref.)

    Multiplied by 27
    (Ratio, No.3 Constant) = 37,403.864 Years
    (The Cycle Obliquity
    of the Earth’s Axis.)

    Multiplied by 11.028148 Yrs
    (Sunspot Wave Frequency,
    No.4 Constant) = 412,495.34 Years
    (=?)

    Divided by 4
    (Obliqity, No.2 Constant) = 103,123.83 Years
    ( Precession of
    Perihelion and
    Aphelion.)

    Revised Solar Rotation Rate = 27d ( According to
    Strahler, (Ref 17,) the rotation rate of the Sun
    differentiates at a slower rate, from lower to
    higher latitudes.)

    There are also tables for Half-Year, 3/4 Year, and Full Year Periods, which relate directly to the above 1/4 Year Period.

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    el gordo

    Missing heat not in the deep oceans, otherwise there would be thermal expansion and sea level rise. This has failed to come about.

    http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com.au/2015/05/new-paper-finds-18-year-pause-of-global.html

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    el gordo

    Breaking News: Tasmania predicted to become hot spot this winter.

    http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/outlooks/#/temperature/maximum/median/seasonal/0

    BoM has completely lost it.

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    Craig Abernethie

    Scum-Sucking, Bottom-Dwelling Mongrel Dogs. That’s the description of them I use sometimes. Thank you Jo and your network for bringing us the Truth about the excesses of Governments worldwide through just one aspect of their stupidity. Glad I found you.

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    Uncle Gus

    “Doesn’t that mean the models that didn’t include this link didn’t predict this cooling, were wrong…”

    Dear, nothing EVER means the models were wrong!

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    cly

    Winter is coming

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    It was -5˚C here the night before last.

    Winter is here. Seven weeks to go before its peak.

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