Category Archives: Global Temperatures

Kerry and Gore Going for Nobel Prizes


John Kerry apparently wants to compete with Al Gore to see who can come up with the  biggest whoper!!     Kerry is going to have to go some based upon Al’s recent defining discovery of the temperature at the Earth’s core.   Al seems to be in line for another Nobel Prize, perhaps in Physics this time.    See this.

Now Kerry wants one too, and his will undoubtedly come as the Nobel Prize in Economics based upon his grasp of  figures.   He said that US greenhouse gas emissions, over past eight years, went up four times faster than in the 1990’s.  The people at the Institute for Energy Research show that Kerry is high by a factor of 32. You can read about this gaff and see it on video by clicking here.

Cbdakota

Alglore:Center of Earth Several Million Degrees.


Does it surprise you that Al Gore thinks the  temperature at the center of the Earth is several millions of degrees.    He did not specify the scale of the several millions of degrees,  but it maters not.

Click here to see Gore on TV announcing this previously unknown “fact”.

Cbdakota

 

Another Maunder Minimum Underway?


The Maunder Minimum was a period of low solar activity characterized by few sunspots.  During the roughly 75 years of this Minimum,  global temperatures were well below normal.

David Archibald figures that the time between  Cycle 23 and Cycle 24 Solar Maximum will be 15 years.  The time between Solar Maximums is typically 11 years.

Archibald conclude based on the longer period of time between Maximums that:

“Activity and timing of the current minimum, as well as the timing of the Solar Cycle 24 maximum in 2015, is paralleling the start of the Maunder Minimum.  There is no data to date which diverges from the pattern of the start of the Maunder Minimum.”

sporerslawchart-2009

Dr Lief Svalgaard presented this chart at Solar Analogs II,  September 22, 2009. This chart plots sunspot locations across the face of the Sun during cycles 21, 22, 23 and the new cycle 24.  Svalgaard overlaid a green arrow on the trail of the sunspots toward the Equator. This movement is called Sporer’s Law and it is chacterized by this statement from Wikipedia:

“At the start of a sunspot cycle, sunspots tend to appear around 30° to 45° latitude on the Sun‘s surface. As the cycle progresses, sunspots appear at lower and lower latitudes, until they average 15° at solar maximum. The average latitude of sunspots then continues to drift lower, down to about 7° and then while the old sunspot cycle fades, sunspots of the new cycle start appearing at high latitudes.

Archibald  overlaid a yellow bar that is a measure of years between the cycle 23 and the developing cycle 24 and gets 15 years.    This is technique is consistent with the measured 10 years between the former Cycles 22 and 23.   The Solar cycles during the Maunder Minimum period averaged 20 years.

You can read all of David Archibald’s posting by clicking here.

Lief Svalgaard’s presentation at Solar Analogs II can be seen by clicking here.

Svalgaard is a little more reticent than Archibald  about predicting solar cycles,as you will see if you read his presentation.

While I am not a big leaguer like Svalgaard and Archibald,  it seems to me to be a little early to call a new Maunder Minimum.

Cbdakota

OCT 09-US 3RD COLDEST SINCE 1895


TEMPS October_2009Joe D’Aleo has guest posted, on WattsUpWithThat,  information about current temperatures.  He prepared the chart shown above.  All but 7 of the lower 48 States had temperatures below normal in October 2009.

Remember,  Climate is measured in 10, 20 or more years.  What you are seeing in this posting is weather,  but this cold October is part of a trend of cooling global temperatures in this decade.  If this goes on for several more years we’ll have confirmed Climate cooling.  To read all of the story click here

Cbdakota

I have been doing only limited posting for several weeks as I am working on my Daughter’s house, preparing to put it on the market.  Two more weeks–I hope will finish it.

 

Climate Modelling Nonsense


An excellent entry in the Quadrant Online by John Reid titled “Climate Modelling Nonsense” discusses dangers of  governmental legislation based on the forecasts made by the General Circulation Models (GCM) developed by the IPCC and allies.  He believes that the scientific method has been abandoned by the man-made global warmist running these models.

Dr Reid is Phd who did his postgraduate work in upper atmosphere physics.  He says  the GCMs are not tested, but rather they are “verified”:

In the early 1980s I joined the CSIRO’s Division of Oceanography and worked in surface gravity waves (ocean waves) for a time. Much of the theoretical side of oceanography entails fluid dynamics which, because of its heavy mathematical load, is regarded as a sub-discipline of applied mathematics rather than of physics. Because of this, in my view, many practitioners of oceanography and climatology have a cavalier disregard for experimental testing and an unjustified faith in the validity of large-scale computer models.

Later in my career I was involved in running and refining numerical fluid dynamical models, so I gained some insight into how this modelling is done and how rigorously such models need to be tested. Naval architects and aerodynamical engineers do such testing in wave tanks and wind tunnels.

Meteorologists regularly test model “skill”. Climatologists don’t seem to have a concept of testing, and prefer to use the term “verification” instead—that is, they do not seek to invalidate their models; they only seek supporting evidence.

He also says it is his belief that the early models showed little increase in global temperatures with increasing atmospheric CO2, not the “desired” temperature increases they were looking for.  He adds:

However, an ingenious trick was used to make this happen. It is called “water vapour positive feedback” and appears to be used in all the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate models. Without it, the climate models would show negligible increase in global temperature with increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. Water vapour positive feedback is only an assumption; but, importantly for the modellers, it is an assumption which makes the models work. There is little experimental evidence that it is true, and radiometer data collected by NASA scientist Roy Spencer and others indicate that it is not true.

Reid concludes with

People are entitled to entertain whatever apocalyptic view of the future they choose, but such ideas have nothing to do with science. Climate prediction is not science, it is pseudo-science, and sooner or later more real scientists are going to wake up to this fact.

Read his complete entry by clicking here

Cbdakota

Two Climate Model Studies


There are two new climate-modeling studies that you might find interesting.

The first study uses global satellite temperature data trends for the period January 1979 through June 2009.  The abstract of this work says:

“The past 12 to 13 years show cooling using both satellite data sets, with lower confidence limits that do not exclude a negative trend until 16 years.”

(The original indicated “..until 16 to 23 years” but that was corrected.)

loehle_fig6_uah

Loehle’s Chart Shows UAH Data and the Model Projection

Loehle’s conclusions are that:

“…the satellite data shows a statistically significant cooling trend for the past 12 to 13 years, with it not being possible to reject a flat trend (0 slope) for …..16 years.  This is a length of time at which disagreement with climate models can no longer be attributed to simple LTP. “

The climate models (General Circulation Models) did not predict this cooling period.  And if the cooling period last for 16 or more years, it could be argued forcefully that the GCMs are not valid predictors of future climate.

I am a skeptic about the GCMs and do not believe that rational people should be planning their future based on their output.    My experience with curve fitting was usually less than successful so as much as I would like to, I can’t say I am willing to buy into this model’s output either.   To read more about this, click here

The other study discusses a New Method to Quantify Climate Modeling Uncertainty.

The good part of this study is based upon the conclusion “…that the range of uncertainty in climate projections may be greater than previously assumed.” The study group looked at global temperature projections under three conditions.  One case, A1F1, is high economic growth and continued use of fossil fuels for the remainder of the century, another, B1, is a major reduction in fossil fuel use and the last case, A2, is a middling scenario.

The study found:

“Interestingly, when the variance or “error bars” are taken into account, there is no statistically significant difference between the projected temperatures resulting form the high fossil fuel use, A1F1 scenario and the middling A2 scenario up through 2050. “ See more of the story here.

The authors included the obligatory statement that we can bank on even higher temperatures and more heat waves after 2050 if fossil fuels are not curtailed.

Still it is refreshing to see that the error bars keep getting bigger as the modelers are beginning to get a little more nervous about their skillfulness in predicting future climate.

Can you explain to me why we have politicians that want to bet our future on climate models that can’t seem to get it right?

Cbdakota

SPPI Monthly CO2 Report–September


This month’s CO2 report highlights charts of atmospheric global temperature, Ocean Heat Content, atmospheric CO2 content, sea level and additional discussions about Arctic and Antarctic sea ice, hurricane and tropical cyclone activity, a discussion of CO2 residence time in the atmosphere, etc.  See full report here

Cbdakota

Revision-Ocean Heat Content Updated



There is a correction to the data I posted on 12 Oct. with regard to the drop in Ocean Heat Content.

The following is a note from Bob Tisdale discussing this error:

After I posted the above, I found that Dr. Geert Jan van Oldenborgh had emailed me to notify me of the correction. I have received his permission to reproduce his email:

Dear Bob Tisdale,

please note that NODC discovered that they had accidentally posted the wrong version of their last file (apr-jun2009), a preliminary version with most data still missing had somehow made it to their web site. A quick look at the map for that quarter showed that there were hardly any anomalies visible and big anomalies in the North Atlantic and Pacific did not persist from the previous quarter, so the data were clearly suspicious. This mix-up has been fixed tonight (Dutch time) at NODC and in the Climate Explorer. A corrected version of the average heat content is attached, the value of apr-jun2009 is now more in line with the values of previous quarters.

Greetings from chilly Holland,

Geert Jan

The revised chart can be seen here

cbdakota




BBC Says The Earth Is Cooling


No hot flashes here, no pun intended, because for most of us, the fact that the Earth is cooling is not new news. However, for one of the biggest media outlets that is seemingly 100% in tune with the man-made global (AGW) warming theory to frankly admit it is cooling is a surprise.  To read their posting, click here.

The biggest laugh in the BBC article is when the UK Met office says their Centre

“…. incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.  In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host of known factors that influence global temperatures – all of which are accounted for by its models.

Get that  “all of which are accounted for by its models.”   If all are accounted for, then they would have predicted this cooling.  How it is that scientists of all stripes can hear organizations says such obviously bogus things and be silent?  The only explanation it seems is,  they fear retribution meted out by the AGWers’ right arm,  the media like the BBC.

The BBC says that two years ago a research team seemed to rule out solar influence.

The scientists’ main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.

And the results were clear. “Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity,” said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”

I know I can not prove that the Sun is responsible for global warming and cooling but, come on, the level of solar activity seems to be the most promising correlation anywhere to be found.

I have said this before, and here I go again:  Even though the exact mechanism linking the Sun and global climate change has not yet been definitively established, it is kind of like gravity—it is obvious even if we do not yet fully understand how it works.

cbdakota

Ocean Heat Content Updated


Bob Tisdale has updated the Ocean Heat Content (OHC) charts using data collected from Argo buoys for the first 6 months of 2009.   The global OHC chart, below, shows a drop in heat content that brings it back to levels found in 2003.

globaloceanhtcontent2009dev5ld

Tisdale has updated the various ocean areas and how they contributed to the Global total.   His work can be seen in detail by clicking here.

Several months ago, I reported on comments made in William DiPuccio’s  entry “Have Changes in Ocean Heat Falsified The Global Warming Hypothesis?”  see https://cbdakota.wordpress.com/2009/07/05/ocean-heat-content/.  That posting is still relevant.

To better your understanding of this issues related to OHC,  I recommend that you look through Dr Roger Pielke, sr’s thoughts that can be found  here and here

The OHC, prior to 2003 can not be considered as authoritative as post 2003 when the Argo Buoys were deployed and began providing the data used to compute OHC.  Having said that and in view of the jump in OHC at the time of the turnover, it makes one wonder how the jump can be explained except as a result of poor equilibration of the old and new readings.

cbdakota