North pole to melt this year?

A devastating rebuttal to Bronc's post.

I bet if we had the internet hundred's of years ago Bronc and mop would be hot and heavy on the whole flat-earth thing.
 
The original claim was that temperatures have been flat for the last 15 years. This claim is false even if you just take the raw data from HadCRUT3.

I stated that not only is it false, but the warming was statistically significant. This is absolutely true if you know anything about temperature records, statistics, science, or math. I did not link this claim to a specific data set because this is non-sensical.

mop then tried to get cute and limit it to exactly fifteen years of records and the HadCRUT3 data set. This was a cute little trick played by Watts Up with That. The reason that this is a trick is: (1) HadCRUT3 goes back to 1850 and you can examine it for trends over much longer time frames which is what a scientist would do; (2) HadCRUT3 undersamples the arctic which reduces some of the warming signal; (3) HadCRUT3 shows 1998 (because of El Nino) as the warmest year; and (4) there are at least four other temperature data sets.

I then linked a number of graphs from a peer-reviewed paper that shows statistically significant warming over the 1979-2010 time frame proving exactly what I was claiming. This should end the debate unless you have some actual issue with their adjustments for El Nino and other noise.

There also has been statistically significant warming over the last fifteen years. This is true for the raw data if you expand the time frame (which you would do if you were interested in science not silly non-sensical style points). I thought you and AwK were more honest than this, but I guess not. I do love the quote mining though.
 
I love internet scorekeepers especially where one side is utterly dishonest.

The peer-reviewed paper that I linked shows statistically significant warming over the past 32, 15, and 10 years (are we seriously going to get cute about 2011 vs. 2010 as an end point?). The trend is the same (and would be even if you were to add in 2011).

If you do not "get" this, I suggest returning to school and studying statistics and/or climatology.
 
for the record…this is the period and dataset about which i claimed the earth's temperatures had been flat.

Hadcrut 3 1997-present

Notice that to call it flat is hardly a stretch at all. does it have a VERY SLIGHT upward trend? yes, it does. but come on…at that trend it would take centuries years to go up 1/10th of a degree.

here is the BEST land based data set for the same period:



www.woodfortrees.org/plot/best/from:1997/plot/best/from:1997/trend

that shows a more pronounced trend, but let's face it, that is land only, which leaves out a huge chunk of the world's surface (is it 70%?).

Here is the RSS satellite based data and it shows COOLING:

RSS

But to be fair, the UAH Satellite data (run by 2 skeptics) shows warming:

UAH shows warming

but that is about 1/20th (.05) of a degree warming over 15 years which is SIGNIFICANTLY less than the trend of .18 degree per decade. Still, it shows warming.

Finally, we have the GISS (NASA) which shows very mild warming as well (about 1/10th of a degree over 15 years, so still much less than the .18 degrees per decade that has repeatedly been mentioned in this thread).

So if you are keeping score, we have 1 data set that shows cooling, 1 that is indeed virtually flat, and 3 that show warming but at a rate considerably below what was happening in the previous 20 years before this timeframe.
 
GT, you are a funny guy. Declaring that a debate is over doesn't make it so. It's rather pathetic to see you trying to defend Paso after a month of him running scared from the discussion by playing strange games rather than just being straight with us. At any rate, at least he finally admitted that there was no SSW over the past 15 years. I am satisfied with at least that point.

As for Global Warming, I don't question it's existence, I question its cause. I don't even fully question that as my view allows for some anthropogenic influence. I just don't think that man's contribution is terribly significant and I suspect we will see that soon enough. In the past few years we have seen MANY of the dire predictions reversed or put off into the "safe" future where those making the predictions won't ever have to answer for them. We are 12 years into this new Century and so far the results are far from impressive in regards to predictions of what was coming down the pipe.

But as much as you would like me to go away, I will have to disappoint you and keep posting. It is fun to put up graphs of 15 years of virtually no warming. It is fun to show that what has been promised is not materializing. Even if a few of you rant and rave, it is clear that many are watching this thread and seeing that there is a good discussion to be had despite horrendous logic (ad hominem, appeal to authority, strawman, etc etc) employed by the likes of you. My strongest suggestion to you would still be to peak in on the next logic class offered at your university. In your particular course of study it seems to have almost entirely evaded you somehow.
tongue.gif
 
I have never admitted there is no statistically significant warming for the last 15 years. This is false. I have linked a peer-reviewed paper demonstrating the trend is fairly linear for the last 32 years including the last 15. This is statistically significant warming exactly as I indicated. Your silly parlor trick is nothing more than a demonstration of your lack of interest and/or understanding of science and math. The earth is warming and is continuing to warm just as the models predict.
 
The key is to give meaning to all the the words someone writes and understand the entirety of what someone writes. You continue to quote mine. The raw data set from HadCRUT3 is not the only record of temperature over the time frame and it contains at least two features that make it less than ideal. As I have repeatedly stated in this thread, HadCRUT3 undersamples the arctic and also shows 1998 as warmer than any of the other data sets. You can correct for this by looking at all five data sets, expanding the time frame, or removing various short term distortions (noise) such as El Nino. When you do this, all the data sets show statistically significant warming in intervals as short as 11 years.

Why would you ever do this though?

We have reasonably good records from 1850 to the present and really good records from 1979 to the present. Wouldn't you look at these records and see if you can discern trends?

What do you think the raw data from HadCRUT3 shows from 1979 to the present?

I informed mop that the trend was not flat for the last 15 years. I was correct even on the raw data from HadCRUT3. I also told him and AwK that the warming was statistically significant. I did not however select the raw data from HadCRUT3 but rather mop did.

I did post a link to a peer-reviewed paper indicating that the warming over the last 32, 15, and 11 years was statistically significant and the trend is relatively constant. Nobody debating me has apparently even read the paper. Their methods appear very sound because El Nino is periodic noise that needs to be removed to reveal the underlying signal.

Maybe you can quote mine some more. This is almost fun.
 
Does ENSO add or substract net heat from the planetary system over time or is it just a transfer from water to atmosphere and vice versa? Your paper does not seem to conflict with mine. If the total amount of heat in the system was increasing (which it most assuredly is), you might expect more or perhaps more intense El Nino events and fewer or less intense La Nina events. This is all the paper is saying. ENSO is noise because it distorts short term the actual signal. It is not the cause of the signal.

As an aside, this is a very interesting topic and I enjoyed thinking about it.
 
Paso, it looks a bit certifiable to make completely contradictory statements and then try to act as if you haven't. You clearly admitted that the warming for the past 15 years has not been statistically significant, but you also are saying dogmatically that it has been. You keep appealing to one paper as if it is a widely accepted correction of the actual temperature records. It isn't. It is just a peer reviewed paper, which makes it a contribution to the larger discussion and nothing more at this point.

As for the temperature records, I linked to all 5 above. The one I called "flatline" is functionally flat. It could not be much more flat without being negative. I am quite comfortable that my use of the word was appropriate. I also will point out again that I could have chosen the RSS which was even friendlier to my point since it actually shows cooling of a more dramatic slope than the HadCrut3 shows warming (not that this is very difficult!). The other 3 records do show warming over the past 15 years, but much less than the .18 per decade figure you keep saying has been consistent over the past 3 or 4 decades. I hope even you can see that, due to the past 15 years, that figure will be dropping soon unless we go back to warming at the same rate as before.

By the way, Dr. Spencer makes a reasonably good argument for why our record March temperatures were part of natural variability:

Dr. Spencer's argument about March 2012
 
Oh, and unless the next El Nino comes on VERY quickly and is VERY strong, there is virtually no chance that this year will set a new temperature record. Most of this year has been in the bottom half of temperatures for the past 10 years and some of it has been the coldest of those 10 years. In the past month it has warmed up a bit, but it is still at around the middle of the pack.

Here is a link to the AMSU satellite data. If you go to this site and use channel 5 (primarily) and channel 6 (secondarily) you will see that this year (2012) has been quite modest in terms of warmth. In fact, almost all of this year has been cooler than 2011, which was a relatively (to the past decade) cool year.



AMSU source
 
It does not add heat to the system (earth as a whole including the water and air). El Nino is an overabundance of warm water in a region of the Pacific. As heat is added to the system, El Ninos may occur more often. The paper you cited does not indicate that El Nino adds more heat to the system, but rather indicates that El Nino may occur more frequently with higher water temperatures.

We are going to need to add the heat content of the entire ocean to the equation if we want to include El Nino and La Nina in global temperatures. Quite frankly, this is a silly exercise over long time frames because it balances out with El Nino distorting the signal upwards and La Nina distorting in downward.

Their methodology, as I understand it, was to take out the influence of both La Nina and El Nino so you could get the true signal. This all depends on when the event occurred (ie timing) because El Nino increases temperature and La Nina decreases it. Using this methodology I do not see why or how the event is not exogenous.
 
Here is what the ocean is doing:

robust_ohc_trenberth.gif


The Link

Water is a huge repository of heat, but the temperature trend is in one direction because of radiative imbalance making El Nino and La Nina events exogenous for air temperatures (or really global heat retention).
 
My primary science training is in biology not physics so I apologize if I am loose with language or use improper terminology. I am interested in the concepts and certainly am sloppy with my language at times. While I know what noise is from math and biology classes, I did not know this particular term until maybe two years ago.
 

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