A guest posting on WUWT by Werner Brozek says that global temperature has not risen for 17 years. The 17 years are significant in anyway you think about it, but Brozek makes the point that the warmists are on record as saying that it is sufficient time to determine if there is man-made forcing of global temperatures. Looking at the satellite global temperature measurements by the Remote Sensing System(RSS) after 204 months (17 years) the slope of temperature anomaly is zero. Look at this chart from the WoodForTrees org. below:
(Click on chart to enlarge.)
Brozek says this:
“The plot of the number on the left column from November 1, 1996 to October 31, 2013 can be found in the graph at the head of his article and here. When the “Raw data” is clicked, we see that for 204 months, the slope is = -0.000122111 per year. I wish to make it perfectly clear that the focus is not on the magnitude of the negative number since this number is zero for all intents and purposes. The only thing that is noteworthy is that the slope is not positive. And of course, 204 months is equal to 17 years. In the “Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale” Benjamin Santer et al. stated that:
“Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”
Brozek interprets Santer et al statement to mean:
“There is a lot of noise in the climate system and it is quite possible that the noise can mask the effects of man-made carbon dioxide for a period of time. However if the slope is zero for 17 years, then we cannot blame noise any more but we have to face the facts that we humans do not affect the climate to any great extent.”
That interpretation seems reasonable to me.
If you read this blog often, you probably know that I believe that the UAH satellite reading is an excellent source for global atmospheric temperature readings. It’s data, like the RSS data, is satellite sourced. Why these two satellites produce slightly different temperature records is a mystery to me. Brozek has this to say about the UAH data:
“It is interesting to note that over this same 17 year period, the largest slope is that of UAH with 0.009/year or less than 1 degree C/century. That is certainly nothing to be alarmed about.”
Often, the comments to a posting are informative and on occasion funny. I thought this one by “wws” was good for a laugh:
wws says:
I hate to say this, but you have missed something in Santer’s belief system that he obviously expected to be taken for granted. When Santer wrote:
“Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”
He intended this corollary to be taken for granted: “Of course that only applies to warming, but if we measure no changes at all for 17 years then it might take 25 or 50 or 100 years to see the Global Warming, because it’s tricky that way, and it hides in all the spooky places like a Halloween goblin – and just when you think it’s gone for good it’ll jump out of the Deep Ocean or something and shout “BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!!!”
cbdakota
Climate Change Sanity 
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Chuck: Thank you from the hinter lands! Ed Hubbeling
Ed
Thank you, my old College roomie. You were always the smartest one in the room, so you should be writing these blogs.
cbdakota
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The following is the “Google Translation” of this comment (It is not especially good, but I don’t speak German, so it is the best I can do.):
“While continuing lack of global warming since already 17 years further debate on the climate effects of CO2 are made and accept already one around half the climate effect of CO2 than previously believed , new studies , are the world’s climate reports of the IPCC as an international , intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change because of heavy criticism ( Climategate ) and almost completely wrong forecasts of current real temperature development (96.7 % of the models are next to it) apparently the brink of extinction :
Spiegel Online was on October 13, 2013 announced that the IPCC future will very likely write no more global climate reports :
“Whether there will be another UN climate report , you decide for at least two years , the IPCC said in Batumi. But there are many indications that the fifth IPCC report (…) has been over the climate of the last great progress report from the UN. The IPCC has done its job, the scientific journal “Nature ” presented already . ( … ) Instead of the great climate reports of the IPCC is considering according to reports , publish reports on individual smaller environmental issues. ”
Moreover, there are more :
” The problem of the so-called gray literature – . Therefore that the scientific documents in the environmental report , which had not been peer-reviewed ”
The reports from the IPCC climate thus seems closer than to be thought …”