How can people claim that global warming has "stalled"?

Question

Here's an excellent graph (from NASA data) showing the truth.

http://tamino.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/bet3.jpg

Note that, if global warming actually stalled, it would be front page news. It isn't, not because of some imaginary "conspiracy", but because the data shows it hasn't.

While individual years vary, long term we're clearly on a fairly steady warming trend.

Answer 1

They can make this claim because they don't understand the difference between signal and noise, weather and climate.  They don't understand that one cold day or month or even year does not reverse a 30 or 100 year global warming trend.

They ask 'how many years cooler than 1998 will it take for alarmists to admit global warming has stalled?' because they don't understand that 1998 was hot due to a weather anomaly, and that the global temperature trend has continued upward since then even though no individual year (with the possible exception of 2005) has been warmer.

The answer to that question is illustrated nicely in Tamino's plot which you linked.  If we have 2 years which fall within the blue area, then we can say global warming has stopped.  Until then, claiming that it has stopped simply illustrates a lack of understanding of basic statistics.

It's important to note that very few scientists (even the 'skeptical' ones) argue that global warming has stalled (with the exception of Bob Carter and Svensmark).  Most scientists know enough basic statistics to realize the global temperature trend continues upward even if we have a cool day or month or year.

Answer 2

Bob - Global climate in January was 0.3 degrees BELOW average.  That puts January squarly in the blue area.

So I guess Non Warming Wins.

global warming is a "total crock of s---,"

General Motors Corp Vice Chairman Bob Lutz

Answer 3

saq486 - get a clue.  Al Gore has nothing to do with the reality of AGW.  Scientists have predicted this problem and been studying it for over 100 years.  Any doubter who throws out the "Al Gore" red herring only demonstrates their own dishonesty or ignorance.

imbredo - you got one thing right in your post.  The end statement about "nothing but hot air".  Only it applies to your own post.  Do you really think climate scientists are so ignorant that they aren't aware of natural climate forcings?  Get a clue.

The best presentation of the continued warming is in another post by Tamino at:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/24/g...

Nobody without a huge bias (i.e. refusal to admit it's still warming) that understands anything about statistics could disagree with his data.  I especially like his use of the phrase "statistical naivete of the general public", because that's the whole basis for why some non-scientists are claiming it's stalled or stopped.

Answer 4

They feel that if you repeat the same lie over and over again it becomes ture. In reality though we are wasting time by not acting and we should just ignore people who do not know what they are talking about.

Answer 5

Stalled?It seems to be going in the reverse.

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200...

Answer 6

Sadly Ken, most of the climate scientist I talk to dismiss planetary effects out of hand – to paraphrase one such scientist:  ÃƒÂ¢Ã‚€ÂœTo consider that the movement of the planets has any effect on the long term weather patterns on earth is nothing more than wishful theorizing. To really think that the eccentricities of the orbit of the moon around the Earth, or the Earth around the Sun can have any long term effect on the Earths climate is absolute poppycock”.

Answer 7

How can people claim that global warming is real?  Because Al Gore said so?  I still see no proof.  It's just an agenda.

Answer 8

did you draw that gragh bob ? no you didnt well i dont believe it !

Answer 9

Even if temperature has stalled, the radiative forcing hasn't.  Climate is changing.  

TC:  Always a bad idea to believe things on JohnDaly.com

You ought to read that article on RealClimate.org about how you can always find some parts that correlate in uncorrelated two random aperiodic time series.  It's not really about climate and the math there is right.  

Title:  Differences in the quasi-biennial oscillation and quasi-triennial oscillation characteristics of the solar, interplanetary, and terrestrial parameters

Author(s): Kane RP

Source: JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-SPACE PHYSICS    Volume: 110    Issue: A1  Article Number: A01108    Published: 2005  

Times Cited: 2     References: 36    

Abstract: [ 1] The 12-month running means ( 12 m) and the parameter ( 12 - 36 m) representing the quasi-biennial oscillation (QBO) and quasi-triennial oscillation (QTO) were examined and spectrally analyzed for several solar, interplanetary, and terrestrial parameters. Solar indices ( including solar open magnetic flux in solar latitudes < 45°) had a QBO in the form of double peaks separated by ∼ 2 - 3 years during sunspot maximum years and smaller waves in other phases of the sunspot cycle. In the interplanetary space a similar structure was seen only in interplanetary total magnetic field B. Interplanetary N and V had long-term variations different from solar variations. For ground-level solar proton events as well as all solar proton events observed in satellites and for geomagnetic Dst and Ap, a partial relationship with V ( solar wind) is indicated. Cosmic rays observed on Earth seem to have peaks matching with those of solar indices. In the terrestrial atmosphere, stratospheric wind has a predominant QBO similar to solar indices, but the sequence is more uniform than that of the QBO of solar indices. The El Nino-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) indices (T-D) and Pacific sea surface temperature have overall characteristics different from those of stratospheric winds or solar indices. Thus there seem to be probably at least four QBO-QTO regimes, namely those of ( 1) solar indices at low solar latitudes, ( 2) interplanetary parameters near Earth, ( 3) terrestrial low-latitude stratospheric zonal winds, and ( 4) terrestrial ENSO phenomena.

Answer 10

The only ones left claiming there is no global warming are the dittoheads - and it is beyond me why people would follow a HS drop out.

The good news is all three candidates for president believe Global warming is an issue and will do more than the current administration has done...so we are moving forward.

Answer 11

Alright, so I am going to get some thumbs down for this post, but that is the way of the global warming alarmists. Challenge their twee little ideas and they just dismiss things out of hand.  The first time I heard of the problem of global warming due to man’s activities and carbon dioxide was back in 1993. A T.V. documentary in England, Equinox, investigated the claims that were being made about the problem. The global warming phenomenon was first noticed through data collected over almost a century from a number of land based weather stations. This clearly indicated a constant rise in temperatures over the period of time used to collect the data. Obviously, this was cause for concern. However, a number of the weather stations used to support the evidence of global warming only actually indicated changes in local conditions. Many had been originally built in open fields and whilst they had never been moved, towns and commercial developments had grown up around them and therefore they were subject to the urban island effect. This essentially means that there were increases in measured temperatures due to reflection from buildings, concrete, glass etc. One station was still in an open field, but also showed a marked increase in temperatures. This was taken as an indication that the other readings were more or less showing a trend until it was pointed out that this particular station was now at the end of the runway of an international airport. At that time, insufficient data was available from satellites to support any trend in temperature variation across the globe. But the AGW juggernaut had started and research funding was starting to flow.

The main problem now is sorting out –

- what is real

- what is purely alarmist

- what is sane science

- what is dumb science (no such thing – dumb science is pure bollocks dressed up as credible science)

- what is money grabbing

- and is this a cunning method of pushing alternative fuel technologies rather than openly admitting that the west is just too reliant on fossil fuels which is not enough of an incentive to change?

- Why does it matter? All our industry stopped working, all the cars stopped running ‘cos every computer in the world fell over ‘cos of Y2K (a great money making scheme for some)

- Well no it didn’t happen, but we all died in the global SARS outbreak (oops, that didn’t happen either)

- Not to worry, the chicken flu will get you in the end.  

Climates are changing, no doubt about that. But where a great deal of the problem lies is in the climate models. The current models tend to support AGW where it suits. However, those who are pushing the AGW band wagon merely dismiss out of hand any data or input that upsets this model or could reasonably be used to explain current climate change on factors other than AGW. Ken Ring predicts the weather in New Zealand using the cycles and orbits of the Moon. Whilst some of his other ideas are somewhat strange, the basic premise that the gravity of the moon can pull the atmosphere around the earth into different shapes and in different directions (just like it can pull the seas around causing tides) and thereby affect the weather, is generally sound. However, just because the standard meteorological forecasting techniques do not take this into account, the venerable scientists from the National Institute of Weather and Atmospheric Research react by dismissing the whole notion as mere “poppycock” with no scientifically research data to disprove it. Highly scientific – I don’t think.  

Most AGW supporters completely dismiss the activity cycles of the sun in the overall equation. It doesn’t fit in with their models. Neither do the Milankovitch Cycles in the orbits of the earth around the sun, or the moon around the earth. Essentially these are the wobbles and eccentricities of planetary orbits. They have different cycles and do have a climatic effect. The various cycles in the earth’s orbit around the sun vary, some lasting 100,000 years and some 23,000 years and the one we are all aware of that has dramatic weather changing effects, the yearly seasonal cycle. The great cycle of the moon’s orbit lasts 190 years, with smaller cycles lasting 36 and 19 years. All these have an effect on the atmosphere and consequently on climate – but not according to AGW supporters who will dismiss these cycles as more to do with witchcraft, or voodoo. Around 4,000 years ago the tilt of the earth to the sun was far more pronounced than it is now. It was possible to see the Southern Cross from England. Around that time there was catastrophic climate change in England. Within less than a generation people were forced to move from their hilltop homes and into the valleys to escape the bad weather. This incidentally led to the land wars and trenches dug for protection of low lying villages from marauding hilltop dwellers. The trenches were also used for mass graves. 4,000 years ago rapid climate change was certainly not caused by man’s activities. Supposedly we are seeing the melting of polar ice caps that will lead to flooding of coastal areas due to rising sea levels. Well apart from some Pacific atolls that may be experiencing flooding due to the fact that they are sinking, caused by normal tectonic plate movement (which also has an affect on climate not factored into the AWG model), I haven’t see any rise in sea levels at the beach. I could do with a rise in sea level as I still have to walk as far to get to the water and the black sand is bloody hot on your feet.

There are certain other illogical areas to the AGW argument. In New Zealand they were going to introduce a tax on farmers for every cow that they owned so that work could be done to neutralize the global warming effect from the methane produced when the cows burped or farted. The farmers were up in arms about the cow f**t tax. But if grazing animals and methane are so bad for the climate, then why didn’t the Earth fry when there were literally millions of burping and farting buffalo roaming the prairies of North America, or millions of burping and farting Wildebeests trampling the plains of Africa. NASA scientist spent years puzzling over orbital data that showed great clouds of methane over the Amazon rain forests. Turns out trees produce methane – yes plant a tree and destroy the planet.  

Do you think that Greenland got its name from someone being bloody sarcastic about the place being covered in ice all the time? No it didn’t. When the Vikings were all running around in their short sleeved summer shirts, it was warm and lush and GREEN. The medieval warm period was much warmer than today’s earth and the polar bears survived that. Romans grew Mediterranean grapes in England because it was warmer then than it is now. But hey, the AGW brigade cannot fail. It’s the best scam ever. Warm weather – global warming. Severe storms – global warming. Record low temperatures – global warming. The Earth hasn’t got any warmer in the past 10 years – well that is still part of the global warming trend.

Climates will change – they always will. As to man’s input? We should stop s******g the planet. We should stop pollution and oil should be used for better purposes such as pharmaceuticals and health care products. But stopping our dependence on oil as a fuel by this global warming scam – good way to generate revenue from nothing but hot air.

Answer 12

Because the entire global climate has just erased decades of warming over the last 8 months, and please spare us with your, it is weather comment. The climate of earth has just been rapidly modulated by a well known cyclic phenomena associated with the tropical Pacific, which is more likely than not, caused by cyclic changes in the intensity of the solar magnetic field.