I'm not sure whether his data are accurate or not (but I am more inclined to trust Randall Munroe with his research than not), but otherwise it is a similar point (for the extreme cold case).
Tibor, I won't dispute Munroe's numbers (although it's entirely possible that he selected St. Louis because it gave the results he wanted), but the fact remains that globally the planet has been cooling for the last 17+ years (depending upon how you measure). Curious how that corresponds exactly with the time period Munroe cited, isn't it? Of course, over an entire planet one would expect there to be localized exceptions to the global trend, so citing one (or even several) cities doesn't really mean much.
Shaddox is correct: the CAGW crowd switched from "global warming" to "climate change" when the results didn't match their models' predictions and the cooling trend became widely known. It's a nice ambiguous phrase which covers a multitude of sins, and is hardly deniable (the climate is always changing. Yet still their models are worthless, and there remains no satisfactory explanation for the actual record.
Laird: Agreed. Although I am not sure about the exact number of years, I thought it was more like 10ish. However 10 years in such a huge thing as a global climate is almost like one day of weather in a month.
What it does show however is that the previous models were wrong because they did not predict that. It does not show that the warming has simply ended, but it indeed is a good reason to reexamine the methods used and the predictions policies are based on. Of course that is in theory. In practice you have a lot of lobbying going on, especially in Europe, of companies that live off the "green" energy and the subsidies and other benefits that come to them that way (including those who manufacture bio-diesel, which is not a sensible idea even from the strictly ecological point of view, I think even Greenpeace are against that now...but those biodiesel companies are already hooked and they won't let go easily).
What I find really irritating is the nuclear phobia (and here the word phobia actually fits well, because it really is mostly irrational fear), which is common, especially here in Germany. I think there are people who agrue that GW is a real problem who have some good points, but if those same people are also against nuclear energy (which is not perfect, but definitely a solution to a good deal of GW problems if they actually are serious), then I cannot take them seriously.
Speaking of observations popular with one side of the climate controversy:
"No one is betting big on global warming not happening. No one's buying up coastal property on the premise that it won't be inundated, but will meanwhile go for temporarily low prices."
Struck me as an interesting argument. I honestly don't know of anyone buying up enough coastal property to make a headline, but other than that, and perhaps purchase of land at lower latitudes thought to grow too hot, it's hard to imagine another type of big bet one might back on the earth not getting warmer. Thoughts?
Paul: You first need people who are trying to get rid of coastal property because they believe it will soon be under water. Is this happening (i.e. is coastal property getting cheaper in time)? If not, then you might also argue that nobody is bidding on global warming causing severe ocean rise (at least in the near future).
@Anonymous Changing the temperature of the entire volume of the ocean even a very small amount takes a tremendous amount of energy, as has been shown. Also, it has been shown that ocean heat content does not have a "pause" or a "hiatus".
RSS suffers from what Roy Spencer calls "spurious cooling". Why do you cherry-pick one dataset out of several and show only from 1998 onwards?
I picked the first dataset I found when I searched for temperature changes over the last ten years.
I chose the last ten years because that's when global warming is supposed to have stopped.
Whether changing the temperature of the entire ocean takes a tremendous amount of energy or not is rather esoteric considering the size of the system its occuring within.
The fact remains that global temperatures as seen in the oceans seem as flat as temperatures in the air, trend-wise, if we use comparable units of measurements, and the rise in ocean heat content actually seems pretty consistent since around 1900, though with how little historical data exists for it it's difficult to say.
Do you have any particular ones in mind? On hadcrut 3 and 4 I end up with the ocean heat content graph looking even flatter by comparison. (.3-4 ish for either one vs 0.005 for OHC).
I'm using the same methodology as I used in the earlier comment. I don't need to plot the OHC any longer since I have those numbers in the earlier comment.
20 comments:
One side has abandoned the phrase "global warming" in favor of "climate change."
CO2 is not climate either. Not by a long shot. The fertile crescent got turned into a desert without modern industry.
http://xkcd.com/1321/
I'm not sure whether his data are accurate or not (but I am more inclined to trust Randall Munroe with his research than not), but otherwise it is a similar point (for the extreme cold case).
Tibor, I won't dispute Munroe's numbers (although it's entirely possible that he selected St. Louis because it gave the results he wanted), but the fact remains that globally the planet has been cooling for the last 17+ years (depending upon how you measure). Curious how that corresponds exactly with the time period Munroe cited, isn't it? Of course, over an entire planet one would expect there to be localized exceptions to the global trend, so citing one (or even several) cities doesn't really mean much.
Shaddox is correct: the CAGW crowd switched from "global warming" to "climate change" when the results didn't match their models' predictions and the cooling trend became widely known. It's a nice ambiguous phrase which covers a multitude of sins, and is hardly deniable (the climate is always changing. Yet still their models are worthless, and there remains no satisfactory explanation for the actual record.
Laird: Agreed. Although I am not sure about the exact number of years, I thought it was more like 10ish. However 10 years in such a huge thing as a global climate is almost like one day of weather in a month.
What it does show however is that the previous models were wrong because they did not predict that. It does not show that the warming has simply ended, but it indeed is a good reason to reexamine the methods used and the predictions policies are based on. Of course that is in theory. In practice you have a lot of lobbying going on, especially in Europe, of companies that live off the "green" energy and the subsidies and other benefits that come to them that way (including those who manufacture bio-diesel, which is not a sensible idea even from the strictly ecological point of view, I think even Greenpeace are against that now...but those biodiesel companies are already hooked and they won't let go easily).
What I find really irritating is the nuclear phobia (and here the word phobia actually fits well, because it really is mostly irrational fear), which is common, especially here in Germany. I think there are people who agrue that GW is a real problem who have some good points, but if those same people are also against nuclear energy (which is not perfect, but definitely a solution to a good deal of GW problems if they actually are serious), then I cannot take them seriously.
Speaking of observations popular with one side of the climate controversy:
"No one is betting big on global warming not happening. No one's buying up coastal property on the premise that it won't be inundated, but will meanwhile go for temporarily low prices."
Struck me as an interesting argument. I honestly don't know of anyone buying up enough coastal property to make a headline, but other than that, and perhaps purchase of land at lower latitudes thought to grow too hot, it's hard to imagine another type of big bet one might back on the earth not getting warmer. Thoughts?
Paul: You first need people who are trying to get rid of coastal property because they believe it will soon be under water. Is this happening (i.e. is coastal property getting cheaper in time)? If not, then you might also argue that nobody is bidding on global warming causing severe ocean rise (at least in the near future).
Well, Al Gore DID buy a rather expensive beachfront property back in 2010...
I seem to remember both the huffpo and the WP running with that story.
-excel
@Anonymous Changing the temperature of the entire volume of the ocean even a very small amount takes a tremendous amount of energy, as has been shown. Also, it has been shown that ocean heat content does not have a "pause" or a "hiatus".
RSS suffers from what Roy Spencer calls "spurious cooling". Why do you cherry-pick one dataset out of several and show only from 1998 onwards?
@GM:
I picked the first dataset I found when I searched for temperature changes over the last ten years.
I chose the last ten years because that's when global warming is supposed to have stopped.
Whether changing the temperature of the entire ocean takes a tremendous amount of energy or not is rather esoteric considering the size of the system its occuring within.
The fact remains that global temperatures as seen in the oceans seem as flat as temperatures in the air, trend-wise, if we use comparable units of measurements, and the rise in ocean heat content actually seems pretty consistent since around 1900, though with how little historical data exists for it it's difficult to say.
-excel
We shouldn't assume we can predict either...
A changing, unpredictable climate should be the default null hypothesis.
@Anonymous, repeat your analysis at WFT with one of the other surface temperature datasets. It will be most illuminating.
@js290 Climate isn't strictly speaking unpredictable. I predict that on 1 July 2100, it will be far warmer in NYC than it will be at the South Pole.
That's a climate prediction.
@GM:
What's WFT?
-excel
@Anonymous (excel)
WFT == "woodfortrees.org", from where you got your RSS numbers.
It provides a few other surface temperature analysis datasets.
@GM:
Do you have any particular ones in mind?
On hadcrut 3 and 4 I end up with the ocean heat content graph looking even flatter by comparison.
(.3-4 ish for either one vs 0.005 for OHC).
-excel
Are you looking at ocean heat content or surface temperature?
@GM
I'm looking at ocean heat content compared to surface temperature, as you suggested.
-excel
@excel how are you looking at OHC and WFT? It's not one of the climate variables you can plot.
@GM:
I'm using the same methodology as I used in the earlier comment. I don't need to plot the OHC any longer since I have those numbers in the earlier comment.
Post a Comment