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wili at 05:54 AM on 21 January 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #3
Thanks for your continual attention to the on-again-off-again El Nino situation. SOI 30-day average now below -8 so no longer neutral, iirc, but pointing toward El Nino. Daily value about -40.
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MA Rodger at 03:54 AM on 21 January 2015It's not us
scaddenp @83.
The papers under discussion are Trenberth et al 2013 & Hansen et al 2003, both of which calculate the ERB from back in the 19th century having modelled the climate to fit temperature records. T(2013) figure 1 and H(2003) figure 1c are graphs of this, the latter being figure 9 of the 'advanced' post here but which is mis-referenced.
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kmoyd at 02:59 AM on 21 January 2015Call to climate scientists: submit your quote for 97 Hours of Consensus 2015
Many of the deniers are changing their position to: yes the globe is warming and humans are contributing to the warming, but the consequences are not so great that extreme action has to be taken now. Some also claim that taking action will destroy the economy.
is there any possibility of asking the submitters to focus on the effects already happening, but with specifics; e.g., the increased wandering of the jet stream being caused by a decreased temperature difference between the Artic and more southern water.
Also, could it be opened to others, such as economists, who can deal with the impacts of not taking action and of mitigations/adaptation.
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wili at 02:49 AM on 21 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Tamino just added his two cents to the hottest-year discussion: https://tamino.wordpress.com/2015/01/20/its-the-trend-stupid-3/
“It’s the Trend, Stupid”
” The reaction of the “pausemaniacs” to the record hottest year has mostly been protest. Breakin’ some temperature record just don’t mean a gosh-darn thing worth payin’ no attention to. It only broke the record by a little bit. And besides, it ain’t the individual years, record hot or not, that count, it’s the pause that counts — a record hottest year don’t end the pause!
Methinks they do protest too much. Perhaps they fear that a record year really does threaten their beloved “pause.” But that’s not the real threat at all, it’s the fact that the data have followed the global-warming-continues-without-slowing-down pattern just about as closely as one could have expected, because all the while they’ve been bellowing about the pause that never was.
But the record year does do this: it makes it harder to sell the whole “pause” idea…”
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billthefrog at 20:48 PM on 20 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Oops! Typo alert - never work with very big (or very small) numbers when tired.
In #28, the overall concentration of CFCs + HCFCs should have read "2 parts per billion" not per trillion. These numbers were taken from the Trace Gas section of the Carbon Dioxide Information and Analysis Centre (CDIAC) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
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billthefrog at 19:44 PM on 20 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
@ Moderator(s)
Apologies for my Post #28
Whilst I was writing the above response to the appropriately named Madkatz, you obviously were doing much the same thing. When I had finished - at around half past midnight - I hit the Submit button and then went to bed. Had I waited until this morning, I would have seen the action you had taken and would not have bothered writing #28.
Cheers Bill F
Moderator Response:[DB] Madkatz has opted out of participating further at SkS.
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One Planet Only Forever at 15:56 PM on 20 January 20152015 SkS Weekly Digest #3
The dip in the Nino 3.4 value over the past month may be connected to the lack of a strong SOI (-8 or lower) over the past month.
The daily SOI values (here) show that since day 358 of 2014 the SOI has been above the -8 value considered a threshhold to help push the Tropical Pacific surface waters into an El Nino conditions. So it is no surprise that the Nino 3.4 average has been declining.
However, since January 16, the SOI daily values show another strong negative surge. Mind you, there was also a strong negative surge of the SOI daily values at the end of December.
Accurately predicting region specific near-term changes is definitely more challenging than understanding the likely long term global changes. That seems to be easily twisted into claims that the understanding of what is going on must be wrong about the future if it can't predict the near-term.
As important as near-term regional predictions are for many things like agriculture planning, emergency planning, and ocean transporation planning it may be prudent to try to avoid discussion of near-term predictions when discussing climate change. Explaining the importance of actual measured occurances like 2014 being the new Hottest Year even though it was not boosted by El Nino is helpful. Speculating too much about 2015 may not be helpful.
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John Cook at 10:32 AM on 20 January 2015Call to climate scientists: submit your quote for 97 Hours of Consensus 2015
Greg, that is actually what we found in our 2013 study - there has been an overwhelming consensus in peer-reviewed climate papers since the early 1990s, and it's getting stronger. So by 2013, it has grown to about 98%. The 97.1% figure we quote is the average over the 21 year period.
Naomi Oreskes might accuse me of erring on the side of least drama by emphasising 97.1% rather than 98%. But then, it's hard to imagine the reaction to our consensus study containing any more drama! :-)
Jack, the communication of the 97% consensus is to address the fact that the public think there is a 50:50 debate (although there's some evidence that public perception is now higher than that). So just the mere communication of that single number - 97% agreement - is a significant and powerful statement. That single number implicitly communicates what you're talking about - there is no longer a debate about human-caused global warming. There is a great deal of social science evidence demonstrating just how powerful consensus is as a simple, effective means of communicating the realities of climate change.
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billthefrog at 10:29 AM on 20 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
@Madkatz,
"Manmade CO2 is just 4% of the total CO2, in the atmosphere which is only .04% of the total gas in the atmosphere..."
On the tentative assumption that you merely have an unfortunate communication style, rather than simply being a troll, shall we try one or two little thought experiments?
1) Instead of jumping straight into atmospheric physics, why don't we kick off with some simple plumbing? Imagine that one has a 200 litre open-topped reservoir that starts off approximately half full. If there is a daily inflow of 100 litres, and that is matched by an equivalent extraction rate, the reservoir would remain about half full. Agreed?
Now, if some unrelated pipework develops a leak and drips an additional 4 litres per day (i.e. an additional 4%) into said reservoir, what happens after about 25 days? It should be obvious that about 4 litres per day will end up overflowing. Agreed?
Now, since the leak only accounts for (approximately) 4% of the new input rate of 104 litres/day, it is indeed true that only about 0.16 litre/day comes from the leak. But here's the $64,000 question: ask yourself "what mysterious agency prompted the other 3.84 litres to start overflowing at the same time"? It had been extracted quite naturally in the past without any problem, so what has changed?
2) It is probably a reasonable assumption that you would not care to be afflicted by severe sunburn or melanoma. The agency in the atmosphere which quietly goes about protecting you is stratospheric ozone (O3). The mean concentration of ozone across the globe is in the order of 600 parts per billion - as compared to our current CO2 levels of around 400 ppm and counting.
You may be aware of the 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. Chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) were finger printed as being responsible for the infamous Ozone Hole, and have been (and are still being) progressively phased out. (You could look at the 1995 Nobel Chemistry Prize citation.)
The total atmospheric concentration of CFCs and HCFCs is currently somewhere in the region of 2 parts per trillion, but that was enough to wreak havoc come spring time in the Antarctic. To put this in some perspective, approximately every 8 hours, the amount of extra CO2 added to the atmosphere is roughly equal to the total concentration of CFCs and HCFCs that has built up since their introduction about 85 years ago.
Getting really cheerful, the botulinum toxin has a median lethal dose (LD-50) at a concentration of somewhere just over 1 nanogram per kilogram of body weight. That's just over one part in a trillion! Were you to ingest such a dosage, you'd have a 50-50 chance of shuffling off this mortal coil.
Just because you appear to have trouble comprehending the fact that a small concentration does NOT perforce correspond to a small effect, doesn't make it any less real.
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Jim Eager at 10:22 AM on 20 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Sorry I didn't see madkatz' reply, but judging from the in-line moderator response from RH and TD and DSL's reply, it sounds like he pretty much proved my point. Repeating long-debunked assertions and selective half-truths based on a poor understanding of the science is not making a scientific argument.
Moderator Response:[RH] Yup. You got it.
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DSL at 09:07 AM on 20 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
By the way, "faith" is the distance between evidence and reality. Everyone has faith. There's no other option, unless you can show me absolute truth. A fool is someone whose faith outdistances their evidence. I'll take science over your common sense. The two aren't mutually exclusive, but trusting to common sense alone without continually challenging it is a sure bet for looking like a fool from time to time.
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DSL at 09:02 AM on 20 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
madkatz, if you want to be taken seriously, you should probably come to an understanding of the physics involved. Roughly 98% of the atmosphere is transparent to thermal infrared radiation. What's left--H2O, CO2, CH4, etc.--manages to keep the planet about 33C warmer than it would be without those "trace" gases.
You might also want to look at the PETM event to understand what can happen when the surface temperature of the planet increases .00417C per decade over 12,000 years. Keep in mind we're warming at about 30x-40x the rate of PETM warming.
Also, human-sourced CO2 comprises about 40% of the current 400ppm in the atmosphere. Using the total C cycling through the system each year is misleading, since the system was near long-term equilibrium before human emissions and land use changes began in earnest. What matters is how much change is occurring in the atmosphere as a result of disturbing that equilibrium.
Moderator Response:[RH] If madkatz returns for more please move individual discussions to relevant threads. Thx.
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madkatz at 08:27 AM on 20 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Jim Eager:
Manmade CO2 is just 4% of the total CO2, in the atmosphere which is only .04% of the total gas in the atmosphere. This little amount is going to bring on a climate catastrophe?!
Common sense should tell you otherwise
Yes, you have to have faith to believe this.
Any global warming is probably coming from sunspot activity.
Also don't forget we have been coming out af an ice age for the past
5000+ years. (Snip)
Moderator Response:[RH] Gish gallop deleted. You need to go back and read all the relevant sections of this site and place your comments in the proper sections. We have no tolerance for these sorts of baseless assumptions. Everyone here is open to honest discussion on any climate related issue, but you're going to have to up your game (significantly) in order to retain your posting privileges.
[TD] There are several posts that directly address your assertions. On each of the following, after you read the "Basic" tabbed pane, read the "Intermediate" and "Advanced" tabbed panes, when those exist.
Human activity has caused 100% of the rise of the atmospheric level of CO2 in the past many decades. Please read the rebuttal to the myth "Human CO2 Is a Tiny % of CO2 Emissions." For more about the mass balance evidence see "The Independence of Global Warming on Residence Time of CO2." See also "New Study by Skeptical Science Author Finds 100% of Atmospheric CO2 Rise Is Man-Made."
The CO2 (totaled across all sources) level as a percent of all the gases in the atmosphere is no more relevant than is computing the CO2 mass as a percent of the mass of all the sandwiches ever made. That's because the vast majority of gases in the atmosphere do not absorb the infrared radiation that the Earth radiates. The gases that do absorb that IR are called greenhouse gases. What matters is the percentage by which greenhouse gases have increased, and how fast. See "How Do We Know More CO2 Is Causing Warming?"
Regarding sunspots: See the counterargument to the myth "It's the Sun."
As RH told you, any comments on those topics must be put on those threads, not here where they are off topic.
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scaddenp at 06:09 AM on 20 January 2015It's not us
dvaytw - I am struggling a little to follow you. Can you please be more precise about which paper you mean where you find Trenberth and Hansen discussing TOA energy balance at times prior to the satellite era? In Trenberth et al 2013, there is discussion of how difficult this is given the uncertainity in OHC measurements prior to Argo.
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jack chirnside at 05:31 AM on 20 January 2015Call to climate scientists: submit your quote for 97 Hours of Consensus 2015
The concept of a "Climate Change Debate" allows the doubters too much wriggle room. The reality is that there is no longer a debate about anthropogenic climate change. We should become more aggressive in our stance. We should insist on discussing the "fact" of CC. The small element of doubt has been exploited by those in denial of CC. The result is that the public are genuinely confused.
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greg_laden at 03:56 AM on 20 January 2015Call to climate scientists: submit your quote for 97 Hours of Consensus 2015
The consensus study is getting old. The consensus is growing. Seems like you should be doig at least 98, not 97, scientist quotes.
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dvaytw at 22:28 PM on 19 January 2015It's not us
MA Rodger I think some of what you're responding to here is brought up in a question I asked in Trenberth on Tracking Earth’s Energy . In any case, thank you.
A follow-up question: so am I correct in understanding that Trenberth and Hansen are using temperature data to calculate the energy balance at the TOA prior to satellite data?And is there a way to explain the verified energy imbalance, other than the GHE?
Finally, I recall reading the criticism that the margin of error for Trenberth's TOA data is very large. Is this a legitimate criticism?
(Note to moderator: this comment and the one above it may fit more appropriately in the discussion under the "Trenberth on Tracking Earth's Energy" article. ) -
michael sweet at 22:24 PM on 19 January 20152015 SkS Weekly News Roundup #3B
Wiliam,
This topic has already been discussed here at SkS. In short, the satelite record does not measure the surface teperature. It estimates the temperature about 3,000 meters up in the atmosphere (satelites cannot directly measure the temperature of the surface). This is approximate as it is actually an average of the temperature at many levels of the atmosphere.
Since we actually live on the surface of the Earth, most people care more about the surface temperature. 2014 is the hottest year on the surface.
Arguing about statistics while the temperature continues to go up will not win any arguments here. Watch the escalator graph for a while and see how you feel.
Moderator Response:[DB] William has recused himself from further participation here, finding the strictures of the Comments Policy too onerous.
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MA Rodger at 19:43 PM on 19 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
madkatz @19.
The increase above the previous record year (2010) was 0.017ºC (GISS) or 0.035ºC (NCDC) if monthly averages are used for the calculation. And unlike 2010, that is without an El Nino.
I for one don't consider this 'exciting'. It is hardily unexpected just as the next record breaker can be expected in coming years.
As the Moderator Response suggests, perhaps you should take a little time to get some understanding of where humanity is pushing our planet's climate system and the implications of that change for our kids & grand kids. Displaying your gross ignorance is quaint but actually unhelpful to man nor beast.
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Glenn Tamblyn at 12:42 PM on 19 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
madkatz
"The actual measuring points on the earth's surface cover much less than 1% of the planets surface". Actually, no they don't. 70% of the earth's surface is oceans, and sea surface temperatures (which is the ocean component of the temperature record) are measured by satellites now so actually most of the earth's surface is sampled.
" What is the temperature of the area that is not recorded?? "
Think about it madkatz. These are average temperature anomalies. So the land stations are supplying the average of many readings for each station for periods of a month or longer. And the weather patterns that pass over each of those stations also pass over all those other nearby regions that don't have a station. So the average for those other locations is much the same. And the records deal in anomalies; how much the local average has changed from a past, longer term average. And these long term averages are very stable over long time periods - that's what climate is.
"How the hell can you measure tree rings and claim to know the temperature they represent? ". By understanding how the growth patterns of trees are affected by temperature and other factors. Basic botany really.
Just as understanding how the physics of why water that contains the heavier isotope of oxygen (Oxygen 18) doesn't evaporate as easily and condenses more easily than Oxygen 16 water which leads to changes in the proportions of Oxygen 18 in snow in the polar regions depending on the temperature when the water first evaporated. So we can measure the Oxygen isotope ratios in ice from ice cores (old snow) and infer from that what past temperatures were like.
madkatz. Your comments suggest you don't know much about these subjects. Yet your tone is of incredulousness and anger. Surely if you are incredulous of things you don't know very well, then that incredulousness is misplaced. If one does't understand a subject surely the best course of action is to defer to those who do, or gain an understanding of the topic oneself. Incredulousness of something one is ignorant of just makes one look foolish.
So, '...these scientists...'. They are the experts who understand this stuff far far better than you or I. To doubt them we first need to be as knowledgeable as them.
Moderator Response:[PS] Please keep discussion of paleotemperature records off this thread.
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Tom Dayton at 11:30 AM on 19 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
davidsanger, records sometimes arrive late from some stations that are remote, or from which communication has been disrupted. I imagine some stations deliver records chronically late, such as ones that accumulate records for months before a courier takes them. That doesn't happen in the U.S. very often, of course, but in many other parts of the world I bet it does.
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davidsanger at 11:15 AM on 19 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
tom@15 kevin@18 thanks. that's what I was looking for, along with finding out a bit more about the updated versions of GHCN.
It looks like ther next version (Version 4 due in 2015) will have a big jump to 30,000 stations. Sounds like an improvement. I wonder if that will cause much to change -
madkatz at 10:41 AM on 19 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Regarding Hottest Year since 1880!
Why don't you say how much warmer 2014 actually is?
It's .01C warmer, and you all are getting excited by this!
The actual measuring points on the earth's surface cover much less than 1% of the planets surface. What is the temperature of the area that is not recorded?? And these scientists act like they are measuring the temperature of a cup of coffee.
They process and "cook" the data so that it agrees with what they promoting. These number crunchers that call themselves scientists should go out and look at the world a little.
How the hell can you measure tree rings and claim to know the temperature they represent? Then they cobble this data onto actual readings and make a "prediction" that looks like a hockey stick.
Moderator Response:[PS]
Please note that posting comments here at SkS is a privilege, not a right. This privilege can be rescinded if the posting individual treats adherence to the Comments Policy as optional, rather than the mandatory condition of participating in this online forum.
Please take the time to review the policy and ensure future comments are in full compliance with it. Thanks for your understanding and compliance in this matter.
Your comment suggest you have multiple levels of misunderstanding which hopefully this site can help you with. Please see in particular the Temp Record is unreliable myth. Any comment on the paleo-climate record (determined from tree ring and many other proxies) should go on an appropriate thread. (eg here ). Off topic comments will be removed. Just because you dont understand something does not make it wrong. Please take the time to read and understand the science before attempting to criticize it.
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Kevin C at 05:27 AM on 19 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
David, KR, Tom:
It's possible for past temperature estimates to change even without any change in the methodology, so looking for such changes won't necessarily anwer your question.
Suppose that last 6 months of a station record shows unexpectedly high temperatures. The most likely explanation at this point is that the data are faulty, or at least require an unknown correction, and those records are rejected.
Then two years later, the station has reported 30 months of temperatures which look sensible compared to neighbouring stations, but are systematically warmer than the previous period. Now, with the same data for the year of interest, it look as though there was an undocumented station move. The station data get adjusted to remove the discontinuity rather than being removed, and you get a different final answer.
So NOAA temperatures for recent years can vary just from adding extra months of data after the year concerned. The trailing end of the temperature record tends to wag for a few years.
GISTEMP and Berkeley show the same behaviour, but slightly more so, because isolated stations can be upweighted to cover larger regions - Berkeley in particular.
Are the adjustments more likely to be one way that the other? I've not done a systematic survey, but in the cases I've looked at NOAA seem to be more likely to reject change (which is a good conservative approach), and so in a warming world are likely to have to adjust upward as more evidence comes in. However that conclusion is based on a handful of stations - it's little better than guesswork.
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One Planet Only Forever at 02:38 AM on 19 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
dana@6,
Got it. It may be clearer to say:
"As this graphic shows (click here for the source of this animated graphic), the last five times that record hottest years occurred (2010, 2005, 1998, 1997, and 1995), they were assisted by El Niño conditions."
It may help to add horizontal lines for each record hottest year.
p.s. I also changed the wording for the graphic since it is now animated
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Mal Adapted at 01:30 AM on 19 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Everyone is waiting for everyone else, if you guys won't cut emissions, who will ?
No doubt you've studied Environmental Economics. Individual voluntary sacrifices (that is, choosing to enjoy less benefit, or expend extra time and/or money, in order to reduce one's own emissions) shouldn't be discouraged, but they won't drive effective abatement of AGW. Economics will. There's a reason it's called "the dismal science" 8^(.
The key economic concept is "externality". As long as the climate-change cost of using fossil fuels is kept out of the prices we pay for them, rational economic actors will use fossil fuels. Hitherto, Americans have been able to hold climate change external to our individual energy-consumption choices. When climate change costs start showing up whenever we fill our gas tanks or pay our utility bills, we will switch to alternative energy sources with alacrity.
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Tom Curtis at 17:44 PM on 18 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
davidsanger @12 & 14, GISS keeps a running log of updates to their temperature series, which is, I suspect, what you are looking for. NOAA may do the same, or may simply relly on the technical reports from the GHCN to provide the relevant information. I doubt either is very usefull to the layman. That is, unless you run your own software to generate temperature series as per the reported methodologies (as done by Nick Stokes and others), the updates will not inform you as to why the alteration is as it is because you will be missing too much context.
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davidsanger at 16:31 PM on 18 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Actually KR those are not much help. I am aware of the general processing of temperature data. My question is about reprocessing of data already reported. It seems that each year (at least in the past 5 years reports) the global average for some of the previous years has changed.
I did some more searching and found documentation of an update to GHCN Monthly to version 3 and then up to version 3.2.0, and some reference to a planned version 4.
Is there some timeline, then, of the updates? Are there others?
They do seem minor but every year the top 10 shift around a little bit as one or more years' average is updated. -
Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
davidsanger - A quick Google search on "NOAA temperature data adjustments" finds this NOAA FAQ, linking details such as the NOAA pairwise homogenization methods. Menne et al 2009 may also be of interest in this regard.
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davidsanger at 12:47 PM on 18 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Could someone point out if there is online documentation of what seem to be adjustments to previously reported annual temperatures? Presumably there are good reasons for the adjustments but it would be helfpul to know the basis of them.
For example the NOAA 2010 Global Analysis reported the 2010 global land and ocean anomaly as +0.62 ± 0.07ºC (above the 20th century average of 13.9°C)
the NOAA 2011 Global Analysis reports the 2010 global land and ocean anomaly as +0.64ºC
the NOAA 2012 Global Analysis reports the 2010 global land and ocean anomaly as +0.66ºC
the NOAA 2013 Global Analysis reports the same.
the NOAA 2014 Global Analysis reports the 2010 global land and ocean anomaly as +0.65ºC
Thanks.. david -
Trevor_S at 08:46 AM on 18 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Thanks for all the replies but I think you suffer from the misguided thinking that data and science is what interests them :) It doesn't matter what Science is presented to them, they will keep denying.
As I have pointed out several times, it's not these people I am concerned about, they will deny in their grave. I was just answering the rhetroical question as to what deniers would use now. Just as an aside, none of them take this site seriously... sigh. If you want a reasonable synopsis of the nonsense they use, go to reddit
What concerns me is those that understand and accept the Science aren't doing anything. A recent example, the AGU conference, the LIMA comference, Dr Abrahams doing Aid work in Africa. All massive emitters. I know you think this is important work, which is the exact same reason everyone else gives and nothing is done. Everyone is waiting for everyone else, if you guys won't cut emissions, who will ? Causal Inefficeacy isn't a good reason. Yes, we have personally cut back enormously.
As to Dr Abrhams Aid work. I used to fly to Cambodia to do Aid work but now I rely on the support network in country and transfer funds electronically from here to fund the projects I support. So I can empathise with how hard it is not to be involved but the emissions are not justified. Once we've chewed away that emissions budget, there's no realistic way of going back.
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Tom Curtis at 06:47 AM on 18 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Trevor_S @7, a few things you may want to point out to your friends:
1) "Skeptics" are often dubios about surface temperature records because adjustments need to be made for time of observations (which has not been constant), change of site conditions, and change of instruments. Satellite temperature data, however, have come from a succession of 12 different satellites, requiring a site adjustment for the entire Earth at once for each transition. Further, the orbits of satellites decay over time, requiring a continous "site move" adjustments for the entire data set. Finally, satellites do not pass over a given point on the Earth at the same time each day (let alone punctually at the time of minimum and maximum temperatures), thereby requiring a continuous Time of Observation adjustment every day. (I have used the names for the equivalent surface adjustments rather than those used for the satellite adjustments.)
The fact that these adjustments need to be made for the entire record at the same time, rather than for individual instruments as with the surface record, means there are no nearby stations without the adjustments which allow comparisons to check for biases introduced by the adjustment. Consequently the story of the satellite record is a history of major errors corrected after some time in successive versions:
There is currently a peer reviewed paper pointing out a purported additional error that has not been publicly accepted by the authors of the UAH temperature set. They have, however, given notice that a new version is forthcoming which will make a significant difference.
2) The TLT record is not based on a single set of instruments but on the differences between two sets of instruments, meaning it compounds the errors of each seperate set of instruments. As Carl Mears (of RSS) says:
"TLT is constructed by calculating a weighted difference between MSU2 (or AMSU 5) measurements from near limb views and measurements from the same channels taken closer to nadir, as can be seen in Figure 1 for the case of MSU. This has the effect of extrapolating the MSU2 (or AMSU5) measurements lower in the troposphere, and removing most of the stratospheric influence. Because of the differences involves measurements made at different locations, and because of the large absolute values of the weights used, additional noise is added by this process, increasing the uncertainty in the final results."
(My emphasis)
UAH uses a different method, but the same problem applies.
3) As noted by Jim Eager, satellites do not measure surface temperature. In fact, they do not even measure the same portion of the atmosphere over different locations of the globe. RSS has provided the weighting functions for the TLT channel over land and water:
Thus, the altitude from 0 - 300 meters of the atmosphere provides around 4.5% of the signal over ocean, but only 4% over land. Of course, the amount provided over land depends on the altitude of the surface, so that the weightings over Denver, for example, would be different to the weightings over the qattara depression. The reason satellite records do not show temperatures over the Himalayas is not because the satellites won't clear the mountains, but because the difference in weighting is so great that it would make inclusion of the data nonsensical. Changes in surface pressure (the presence of highs or lows) will also change the weightings slightly.
The actual surface also contributes some of the signal (about 5% over land, and 3.8% over ocean), but that contribution also varies depending or surface type.
For what it is worth, about 50% of the signal comes from the first 3000 meters of the atmosphere (including the surface), and 50% from above. Because each altitude band above (approx) 2400 meters contributes less an less, that means the mean altitude of the temperature measurement in the TLT channel is close to, but above 3000 meters.
4) Actual attempts to measure the actual surface temperature using satellites have been made, with the current benchmark for accuraccy being +/- 1 K. For comparison, surface instruments read by eye have an accuracy of +/- 0.25 K for mercury thermometers, and 0.05 K for electronic thermometers. UAH can report greater accuraccy than that, but only by not actually reporting surface temperatures and not specifying too closely what part of the Earth/atmosphere system they are reporting the temperature of (as it varies by time, season, and geographical location).
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Enginerd at 04:47 AM on 18 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Trevor: In addition to what Jim pointed out, I recommend reminding your peers that UAH satellite data shows a long-term trend of +0.14 degrees per decade, which aligns pretty closely with the rate of temperature increase for the surface data sets.
I personally don't see the point of obsessing over which year has the highest temperature in which data set, because the ranking of specific years varies across them. We have known this for some time now. Much more important to me is that *all* reliable data sets show a steady temperature increase (behind a noisy year-to-year signal) and the rate of increase is indeed comparable across all of them.
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Jim Eager at 01:38 AM on 18 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Trevor, try pointing out to them that UAH (and RSS) does not measure surface temp. Not that it will make any difference to them, mind, but it may keep the conversation going a bit longer.
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Trevor_S at 20:22 PM on 17 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
The deniers I know all just say the UHA Sat. data doesn't show it as the warmest year, the sateleite data is more accurate and the conversation ends their.
I don't actually know anyone amongst my peers or friends who aren't deniers.
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dana1981 at 15:22 PM on 17 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
One Planet Only Forever @5 - the ones I listed are years that were records at the time, i.e. 1997 was the hottest year on record as of 1997.
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One Planet Only Forever at 13:02 PM on 17 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
dana,
The following statement does not seem to be correct. Perhaps it was meant to indicate the years of strong El NIno influence.
"As this graphic shows (click here for an animated version), the last five record hot years of 2010, 2005, 1998, 1997, and 1995 were all assisted by El Niño events."
The order of warmest J-D year averages in the GISSTemp data set are: 2014; 2010; 2005; 2007; 1998; 2002 and 2013 (tied); 2003 and 2006 and 2009 (tied).
The order of warmest year averages in the NOAA data set are: 2014; 2010 and 2005 (tied); 1998; 2003 and 2013 (tied); 2002; 2006; 2007 and 2009 (tied).
Reviewing the NOAA ONI data set (here) shows that the significant El Nino events were: 2010-11; 2006-07 (weak); 2004-05; 2002-03; 1997-98; 1994-95.
Knowing that increased surface temperatures lag behind the ONI 0.5C El Nino anomoly date it can be seen that except for 2013 and 2014 the record years were El Nino influenced. It also indicates thta the 1994-95 El Nino event did not produce an annual average surface temeprature result high enough tobe among the top 10 years. In fact, 1995 was only the 16th warmest in the GISTEMP data, and 17th in the NOAA data set.
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citizenschallenge at 10:50 AM on 17 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Here's another animated graphic that does an excellent job of putting the temperature trend into perspective -
2014 On Pace for Hottest Year - Climate Central
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Kevin C at 09:54 AM on 17 January 2015Uncertainty, sensitivity and policy: Kevin Cowtan's AGU presentation
This is a very brief outline. It's late and I'm tired, so apologies for the poor writing:
Why do we reconstruct temperatures over sea ice from land temperatures? There are four sources of evidence on which this decision was made:
- The physics.
- The models.
- The observations.
- The experts.
But first, one thing needs to be clear: rapid arctic warming is a winter phenomena. The central arctic can't warm in summer, because melting ice holds the temperature around zero. That's vital to understand the rest of this discussion - we are talking about something which happens in winter.
The physics
Global mean surface temperature is based on historical records, which limit how we can measure it. We can't use brightness temperatures because we don't have the data. We've got weather station data, so we use 2m air temperatures. But marine air temperatures are unreliable, so we use sea surface temperature as a proxy for air temperature over the oceans.
When it comes to understanding the physics of the problem, to a first approximation we can say that the sun heats the surface and the surface heats the air. If the surface is cool, it can cool the air too. That's true for land or ocean.
The big difference is that ocean surface is liquid, and surface mixing means that the effective surface heat capacity is much greater than for land. (Waves and spray improve heat exchange with the air too). As a result, temperature variation over land is much greater than over the oceans, whether it be diurnal or seasonal. Many of us experience this if we visit the coast - temperatures swings become smaller as you approach the sea.
What happens over sea ice? The air temperature is no longer coupled to the water temperature. Ice is a reasonable insulator, and snow on ice is very good (Kurtz et al 2011). So the thing which makes oceans different from land has gone away. Air temperatures over water behave differently from air temperatures over land. Air temperatures over sea ice, especially with a covering of snow, behave like air temperatures over land.
This different behaviour can be seen in the land and ocean temperature data. They show different amounts of variation over time, and they vary spatially over different distances. And if we use the land and ocean data to reconstruct temperatures in the isolated central arctic, we get very different results - mainly because of the different behaviour of the temperatures fields (but the distance to the nearest observation plays a role too).
The models
The reanalysis models incorporate the physics, including freezing/melting effects. And as we saw in my last post, the three modern models agree well with our reconstruction. Here's a month-by-month comparison to MERRA, comparing kriging reconstructions from the land and ocean data respectively. This is for the most isolated region of the central arctic, chosen to be most distant from any weather station, and so it's as hard as it gets. The SST based reconstruction doesn't show remotely enough variation, whereas the land data shows the right sort of variability, and fairly good agreement with the features even for the most isolated region of the Arctic.
Observations
In the paper we did a comparison over the same region with the international arctic buoy program (IABP) data of Rigor et al. In particular they produced a dataset by kriging combining land stations and temperatures measured on ice buoys in the central arctic. We showed a comparison with IABP in the paper. Rigor et al also examined kriging ranges by season, and found that while the distances over which temperatures were correlated in the summer were small, in winter they could be up to 1000km, including between land and ice stations.
In addition, the AVHRR satellite data also show rapid arctic warming comparable to reanalysis models. So there are two independent source of observational data showing similar behaviour over ice to us.
The experts
Because I was worried about this issue, I went to the 2013 EarthTemp meeting on temperatures in the Arctic. Which meant I could ask the experts about how air temperatures behave over sea ice. And they produced the same answer, for basically the theoretical reasons I outlined above.
Practical aspects
So what would happen if we were to reconstruct temperatures over the central arctic from sea surface temperatures instead of from air temperatures?
Winter sea ice extent hasn't changed as much as summer extent, which means that the limit of the winter sea ice hasn't moved very far. Sea surface temperatures at the edge of the sea ice are anchored at around freezing for the same reason as arctic temperatures in the summer. Further away from the ice other factors, such as tropic sea surface temperature and meridional heat transport also play a role. Even so, the variation in sea surface temperature in the northernmost sea cells in winter is small, and as a result a reconstruction from sea surface temperature will never show much change.
In other words, if we reconstruct air temperatures over sea ice from sea surface temperatures, we are imposing a constraint that the central arctic can not change in temperature, even in winter. But we're doing so with no physical basis - the freezing of water more than 1500km away doesn't constrain temperatures, any more than sea surface temperatures can do much to moderate temperature extremes 1500km inland.
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Esop at 05:42 AM on 17 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Record setting temp in an ENSO neutral year should send a rather clear message to the hordes of gullible MSM journalists that they have been duped by the deniers, but waiting for them to realize that is sort of like waiting for Godot.
Wonder what happened to the cooling that the ''skeptics'' (like Svensmark) promised us back in 2009 and even before that. Wasn't it something about cosmic rays, negative PDO, record low solar and other minor drivers?
I have asked the ''skeptics'' for years about what natural driver would be the cause when 2014 or 15 would break the record. ''Not gonna happen, it is cooling'', was the default response. However, don't be surprised when they come up with all kinds of excuses and how the record was ''expected'', though''. Sorta like when the BEST results came out.
Will the MSM buy those excuses and ''explanations''? Most likely.
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Dawei at 04:43 AM on 17 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
Good article Dana. It would be interesting to see how 2014 measures to previous warm years with respect to other natural cycles, and to see how it stands in a reconstructed temperature record that removes all of the natural signals (I know I've seen that somewhere before...)
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It's the sun
Postimage is quite usable, also free. Imgur is another option for image hosting.
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TonyMo at 02:15 AM on 17 January 2015It's the sun
Ah, I see, nothing easy in this life! So next stupid question - where and how do I host my images to do this? Thanks' very much for you reply. T
Moderator Response:[RH] Try tinypic.com
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Yvan Dutil at 02:15 AM on 17 January 2015Global warming made 2014 a record hot year – in animated graphics
I have used some of your graph for my blog. I think they are refered correctly, but if there is any issue let me know.
voir.ca/yvan-dutil/2015/01/16/une-pause-quelle-pause/
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TonyMo at 01:32 AM on 17 January 2015It's the sun
Sorry to be so stupid, but can anyone tell me how to insert graphs or pictures int a comment? Many thanks T
Moderator Response:[RH] Look at the comments text box. On top there are three tabs. One says "insert." You click the image icon and paste in a link to the image. Note that your image has to be hosted somewhere. You can't paste in images from your computer. That's just a limitation to our current systems.
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michael sweet at 21:03 PM on 16 January 2015Uncertainty, sensitivity and policy: Kevin Cowtan's AGU presentation
James Hansen has argued for decades that a satalite capable of measuring aerosols is desperately needed to measure the affect on climate sensitivity. Unfortunately, the mission with that capability was destroyed on launch a few years ago. Does anyone know the status of a replacement satalite?
Why does NASA put so much effort into Mars when holes in their data like this still exist?
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Kevin C at 19:54 PM on 16 January 2015Uncertainty, sensitivity and policy: Kevin Cowtan's AGU presentation
The issue of how to handle air temperatures over sea ice was in fact the most difficult question we faced. However that's not because there's any uncertainty in the answer - theory, observations, models and expert opinion all point the same way - it's just because no-one has collected all the evidence in one place before. I probably ought to write it up as a paper. I'll try and write a summary in this thread later today, but it's going to be quite long.
But here's one little result I've got pre-prepared. Here's a comparison of CWv2 against ERA-i and MERRA for the region N of 70N:
There's quite a lot of agreement there. Note that the reanalyses show 1998 as even cooler than we do, which would increase the trend since 1998 further.
The only big difference is the period 2010-2012, which MERRA shows as rather cooler, although they come back into line for recent years. What could that be?
The most obvious difference between MERRA and the other two is that MERRA doesn't use land station temperatures - only pressures. So my first thought was to look for a land station homogenisation problem. However, the data argue against that:
1. The difference between MERRA and ERA is seasonal - it only occurs in winter. (In fact all the warming occurs in winter, because in summer melting anchors the temperatures around zero). Station homogenization problems tend to involve jumps, not seasonal differences.
2. The difference isn't localised over a weather station. In fact it's concentrated in the central arctic in a region whose shape matches the region which is most distant from any weather station.
Given that we've already seen that MERRA can show large spurious trends in Africa for regions isolated from the nearest SST or barometer (see our 3rd update), then the current working hypothesis is that MERRA is at fault here. I haven't looked at JMA, but Simmons and Poli (2014) suggests that it is closer to ERA-i. The ERA temperatures also make more sense in terms of the 2012 sea ice minimum than MERRA.
One other feature of interest: Arctic temperatures (and hence the Arctic contribution to coverage bias) have largely stablised since 2005. The big change is from 1997-2005. From this and from looking at similar behaviour in climate models, I do not think that we should assume continued rapid arctic warming, or an early disappearance of Arctic sea ice. My currect working hypothesis is that the models are right when it comes to an ice free Arctic.
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mercpl at 18:48 PM on 16 January 2015The Antarctic ice sheet is a sleeping giant, beginning to stir
Correct FWL, in fact we already have an example of instantaneous effect of gravity changing sea-level in the daily tidal changes. So if the moon can change the sea level down at my local beach by a few metres in half-a-day, I expect that the GIS can do the same.
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robert way at 16:37 PM on 16 January 2015Uncertainty, sensitivity and policy: Kevin Cowtan's AGU presentation
Nic Lewis,
I should also mention that Comiso and Hall (2014);s AVHRR satellite skin temperature data and our tests with AIRS satellite data (see our supplementary documents we have uploaded on our website) both support the results of CW2014. Your argument, pardon the pun, is on thin ice. -
robert way at 16:35 PM on 16 January 2015Uncertainty, sensitivity and policy: Kevin Cowtan's AGU presentation
Nic Lewis at 09:19 AM on 16 January, 2015
"3) As I've pointed out to Robert Way before, the difference between ... HadCRUT4 and the Cowtan & Way ... appears to be largely due the way temperatures over sea ice are treated rather than a lack of high latitude coverage in HadCRUT4 per se. The global temperature rise from 1860-79 to 1990-99 per HadCRUT4 (v2 or v3) is virtually identical to the BEST reconstruction with sea temperature used for infilling where there is sea ice. Using air temperatures for infilling where there is sea ice, as the other version of BEST and Cowtan & Way reconsruction do, produces a temperature rise about 6% greater"
Nic Lewis,
Running your code with CW2014 as opposed to HadCRUTv4.2 increases the TCR from 1.33 to 1.47 which corresponds to a ~10% increase in TCR using your method.
Secondly, and more importantly, a thorough read of Cowtan and Way (2014) would show that air temperatures over sea ice should be treated in the same manner as land and not SSTs. You are also welcome to read Dodd et al (2014) and Simmons and Poli (2014) which each find general agreement with the approach we employ. You might also recognize that drift stations on the ice were used in validation of the approach in Cowtan and Way (2014) and these have supported the sea ice treated as land approach. It makes physical sense to those of us who have spent a fair amount of time in the Arctic. This has all been previously pointed out to you.
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