With update (7/19) comparing global land/ocean temperature anomaly 2012 vs. 2010 and 2005
From NOAA:
The United States reported its warmest spring since records began in 1895,…
… with 31 states in the eastern two-thirds of the country observing record warmth. The national temperature was 2.9°C (5.2°F) above its long-term average, surpassing the previous record by 1.1°C (2.0°F).
Here’s the May Global Mean Surface Temperature Anomaly:
Figure from NOAA, State of the Climate
Global Analysis, May 2012.
Note in particular the land temperatures.
Well, not to panic. We can easily adjust to the temperature changes. Just change what we’re planting and where. And crank up the air conditioning. Or will it be so easy? From WSJ:
A year after historic flooding brought the Mississippi River up to record levels, the severe drought hitting the central U.S. has caused water levels along parts of the waterway to plummet, disrupting barge traffic from Cairo, Ill., to Natchez, Miss.
…
Barge operators have sharply reduced their loads to get through tightening river passages. They say major rain is needed soon or they would have to reduce commerce even more, causing shipment delays and driving up transportation costs. With forecasts showing little prospect of significant rain, hydrologists see no relief in sight for the giant inland waterway that also includes the Ohio River.
…
Some river ports have been forced to close temporarily or shut down parts of their operations because of the low water levels. At the port of Rosedale in the Mississippi Delta, port director Robert Maxwell Jr. said water levels are about 50 feet below what they were last year, when flooding shut down the port. If the water falls any lower, there was a “high likelihood” he would have to close, he said. One of the port’s public loading docks is inoperable, with equipment normally in the water now hanging the air. The Army Corps of Engineers is supposed to come this week to dredge, where heavy equipment is used to dig out sediment from waterways to make them passable for shipping.
“This is absolutely not normal,” Mr. Maxwell said.
Crops are also being hit hard [1].
Here is a meta-analysis of the scientific consensus on the reasons why global climate change is happening.
Forecast temperatures for Madison, WI are for 99 degrees tomorrow. And the day after. Which wouldn’t be so strange except for the many other days we’ve been in that range over the past months.
Update, 15/7, 12:27pm: Scary reading, for a Californian in Wisconsin, from Wisconsin State Journal,”
Ask the Weather Guys: How does our recent heat wave stack up against past events?”:
Q: How does our recent heat wave stack up against past events?
A: Now that the latest heat wave has finally broken (though perhaps not for long) it is of interest to consider how it rates alongside other memorable heat waves. First of all, each day from July 4-6, 2012, Madison’s high temperature was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit with the 104 degrees on July 5 ranking as third highest of all time.
Moreover, we set record high temperatures for five consecutive days from July 2-6. The last time a three-day streak of temperatures over 100 F occurred here was July 1936. During that heat wave, Madison set its all-time high temperature record of 107 degrees (on July 13, 1936) while the state record of 114 degrees was set that day at Wisconsin Dells. During that July 1936 heat wave, 14 states set their all-time high temperature records — incredible!
From June 27-July 9 we had 12 of 13 days with a high temperature of 90 degrees or greater, with an embedded streak of 10 days in a row that ended on July 6 (ranking it third all-time after a 15-day streak in July 1901 and a 13-day streak in July 1936).
As of July 9, we have had 20 days with a high temperature at or over 90 degrees this year. By the time you read this article, we may have added two more days to that total and will be poised to add a third. The record year for such days was 1988 when 90 degrees was reached 35 times — well beyond the average of 13. By July 9, 1988, we had had only 13 such days so we are well ahead of the pace for 90 degrees days set in that record year.
And from The Weather Channel, “New Data: 2012 Drought Rivals Dust Bowl
“:
In a monthly report to be released Monday, the National Climatic Data Center is expected to announce that this year’s drought now ranks among the ten largest drought areas in the past century.
Preliminary data computed from the Palmer Drought Severity Index shows that 54.6 percent of the contiguous 48 states was in drought at the end of June, the highest percentage since December 1956, and the sixth-highest peak percentage on record.
Monday’s State of the Climate drought report from NCDC is expected to show that since 1895, only the extraordinary droughts of the 1930s and 1950s have covered more land area than the current drought.
And by a slight margin, the current drought actually covers more area than the famous 1936 drought, though other droughts in the Dust Bowl years – particularly the extreme drought of 1934 – still rank higher.
However, when excluding areas in “moderate” drought, the historical rankings change a bit. Some historical droughts were extremely intense, but more focused on specific regions rather than sprawling across large swaths of the country.
For example, infamous droughts in 1988, 2000, and 2002 each included over 35% of the country in the “severe” to “extreme” drought categories on the Palmer drought scale. By comparison, severe to extreme drought covers 32.7% in June 2012.
In short, the overall 2012 drought now covers more territory than any drought since the 1950s; but the more severe drought categories don’t cover quite as much land now as did the droughts of 1988 and the early 2000s.
That being said, the 2012 drought still ranks as the 10th-largest severe drought since 1895, even by that stricter definition.
And with July typically being the hottest month of the year, the drought may yet worsen. Note that among the top ten largest “severe” droughts on record, five of them peaked in the months of July and August.
Impact on grains futures are obvious. Here is a picture of CBOT Corn (July 2012) futures, as of 7/13.
Figure from ino.com
Update, 7/19 9:50am Pacific: I use NOAA’s land/ocean global temperature anomaly data which is downloadable here to plot the data for 2012, and for 2010 and 2005, which Econbrowser reader CoRev cites (via Accuweather) as the second warmest (tied) years. One can download the data here to replicate this graph.
Figure 3: Global temperature anomaly for 2012, 2011, 2010, and 2005. Source: NOAA.
My observation is that this series does not evidence that 2012 is substantially below 2010 and 2005, the years that are identified in the Accuweather graph as tied for warmest. My guess is that Accuweather plots one of the other global temperature anomaly series, rather than the land/ocean one.
Recently we have seen some pretty hot temps. Some would have us believe that these are records, and are indicative of global warming. So let’s look at the US records and see when we actually set those really, really hot records. http://www.worldclimatereport.com/wp-images/state_records_table2.jpg
The fractions are from multiple years sharing records. Here’s another graph by decade with an overlay of that magic gas: http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/us-high-records-by-date.png?w=350&h=380.
From here: http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2012/07/13/the-heat-was-on-before-urbanization-and-greenhouse-gases/.
There really is no point in arguing that man-caused climate change is real. This is an issue on which people won’t agree.
What bothers me, however, is the way people react to ideas about what to do IF it’s real. If we assume there is a reasonable chance global warming is real, then it makes sense to treat it as a potential threat. We normally prepare for potential threats: we build dykes to prevent potential floods, build roads to withstand potential floods, etc. The weird thing about the anti-global warming argument is that it leads to saying this is not in any way a reasonable threat and that we should not react to it as we would to other potential threats. Weird.
We spend many billions preventing potential terrorist attacks that might kill a handful of people in out of the way places. (And the way police departments around the country have armed themselves is amusing and sad, both because it’s silly and because maintaining those arms and training for their use costs money they don’t have.) The cost-benefit of anti-terror spending has been discussed in detail but we spend it.
We spend lots of money doing things like replenishing beaches that then are swept away by the next round of storms. But we can’t do anything about the potential in global warming because that isn’t allowed. It’s anathema, which means the issue has taken on a quasi-religious status in which admitting there is potential danger becomes heretical.
jonathon frames the argument incorrectly: “There really is no point in arguing that man-caused climate change is real. This is an issue on which people won’t agree.
What bothers me, however, is the way people react to ideas about what to do IF it’s real….”
and
“…the issue has taken on a quasi-religious status in which admitting there is potential danger becomes heretical.”
Man caused global warming is clearly a reality for the vast majority of the population. The arguments circle around what options are there to do anything about it, and how dangerous is a .6C temperature rise/ over the past century plus?
There is so much more complexity to this argument, and the quasi-religious position is actually one taken by the “indoctrinaire” class. Skeptics question various points of the issue, and when it is done they receive similar straw man false arguments similar to jonathon’s.
This may make for a very bad winter. If this is part of transition to global cooling, it may be a sign of a very bad decade.
Might be a consequence of the ~60 year PDO cycle. And coincident cold north Atlantic oscillation.
We had a HUGE spike in US temps–even worse than this–in ’34, just befor global temps declined.
Global temps have been moderate. There is a possible el Nino forming. That could raise global temps some, but I doubt well have a record year.
Ho-Hummm….
The globally-averaged temperature across land and oceans for the first five months of 2012 was the 11th warmest January–May on record.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/
The skeptic view of global warming states that the globe is warming by 0.1 deg C / decade, which it has been since the end of the Little Ice Age.
If you’re arguing catastrophy today, you should also have argued catastrophy in 1900. We’re about 1 deg C warmer today. Was it the disaster you expected? On the East Coast, everyone except the skiers loved the mild winter.
I’d also note that using the US is anecdotal. The global UAH temp anomaly for June was 0.37 deg C. Warmish, not EOW, though.
johathan,
What’s your solution?
Asia is going to drive carbon emissions in the future as it steps up energy consumption to provide first world living standards to people who live there.
A bigger problem is the fact that policies designed to prevent global warming by lowering carbon emissions have caused environmental disasters. Recognition of that fact and moving away from the generic “we must do something now” sloganeering is an absolute requirement if future environmental disasters caused by poorly thought out carbon reduction policies are to be avoided.
I’d welcome a post on this whole LIBOR issue.
Best I can tell, the issue arose in the 2007 to 2009 period, a time of stress for the London banks. These reported below market rates for LIBOR, in part to disguise their peers’ views of their financial condition. This distortion was reported to the government (by Barclays, no less!), but the authorities completely failed to act.
Now, if we follow Gorton’s “Slapped…” piece, this is pretty much what we might expect to happen. LIBOR “smoothing” seems the interest rate setting equivalent of suspending mark-to-market accounting. Thus, it was not in the government’s interest to i) show the banks in financial trouble, ii) increase the banks’ borrowing costs or iii) increase the cost to LIBOR-based borrowers more broadly as a result of a transient crisis. It seems likely, therefore, that governments either actively or passively colluded in LIBOR price fixing as a way to maintain systemic stability.
If so, then the issue is not whether the banks fixed LIBOR, but rather that they lacked an institutional framework for doing so. Thus LIBOR should have a force majeur clause, which entitles banks, during period of “systemic instability” (as designated by the US Fed or the Bank of England) to post “normalized” LIBOR rates, which would reflect rates estimated to have prevailed in the absence of transient fiscal shock.
Now this may be viewed as massive interference in the market designed to obfuscate. And that’s true. But it’s just the interest rate version of suspending mark-to-market. And, it seems to me, is entirely consistent with Gorton’s assertions in “Slapped by the Invisible Hand”.
In any event, I have only a very partial view of the matter. I’d welcome a post on the topic.
quoting my hyperlinked mailing from this morning:
the early summer heat wave with its accompanying record high temperatures that we mentioned last week lifted in the east this past week, but it continues in the plains states & eastern rockies; as we expected, the first six months of this year are now in the record books as the hottest ever for the continental US; in addition, the 12 months ending June 30th also ranks as the hottest 12 month stretch in history, as June temperatures came in at an average 71.2°F for the contiguous 48 states, which was 2.0°F above the 100 year average…the more significant weather story, however, continues to be the worsening drought over the south and the important agricultural states, which has become severe enough for the US Dept of Agriculture to declare to declare a federal disaster area in more than 1,000 counties over 26 states, the largest agricultural disaster ever declared due to drought; the drought declaration covers almost every state in the southern half of the US, from s.carolina to california, with parts of Colorado, Wyoming. Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Nebraska also included… according to the weather service’s drought monitor, 61% of the US was listed as being in drought this week, up from the 56% of last week’s report….corn crops in particular have been hard hit; the USDA cut its corn crop forecast by 12%, from 166 bu/acre to 146 bu/acre this week, as corn growing regions in illinois and indiana in particular are experiencing drought conditions of “severe” and “extreme” intensity, as you can see in dark orange and red on the adjacent map, a larger 12 week animation of which will be embedded below…with higher corn prices making refineries unprofitable, ethanol output fell to its lowest in 2 years…the USDA also cut its yield forecast for the soybean crop nearly 8%, to 40.5 bushels per acre from 43.9 bushels per acre…this will likely translate into higher prices for variety of foods from cereals to soft drinks and cooking oil, as well as for meat, dairy & poultry products, as producers pass their costs on…
i’ll be posting that later, with links and other reports, on my MW666 blog…
while you’re talking rivers, take a look at the reservoir levels behind the hydroelectric damns along the colorado:
http://snowpack.water-data.com/uppercolorado/index.php
http://lakepowell.water-data.com/
http://lakemead.water-data.com/
Steven Kopits, the point isn’t “catastrophe today” but rational steps to address a potential threat. Because people refuse to accept even the potential in global warming, we can’t discuss those steps, what might be costs, what might be benefits.
I can’t think of another policy issue which is dominated by utter rejectionist thinking.
@CoRev:
Do you have anything that is based on actual science, instead just opinion pieces from the fake-skeptic blogosphere with the usual straw man arguments and other logical fallacies?
Thanks rj. Good information without going all global warmy.
The entire CAGW arguement rests on positive feedbacks to magnify the direct, but small, effect of changes in atmospheric CO2. How many stable systems have a positive feedback in response to a positive shock?
Where is the positive feedback associated with the increase in CO2 over the past 15 years? It appears we are nearing the peak of another cycle and if we use historical data as our guide, then temperature anomalies will begin falling in the near future and become negative.
Stable systems are characterized by dampening feedbacks.
Here is an article, based on actual data, not models, that puts current climate in perspective – http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1589.html
”This figure we calculated (a cooling of -0.3°C per millennium ) may not seem particularly significant,” says Esper. “However, it is also not negligible when compared to global warming, which up to now has been less than 1°C. Our results suggest that the large-scale climate reconstruction shown by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) likely underestimate this long-term cooling trend over the past few millennia.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/09/this-is-what-global-cooling-really-looks-like/
tj: You ask how many stable systems have positive feedback in response to a positive shock. Well, it’s almost tautological that there are none, since such a feedback mechanism with the right parameters would be unstable.
Now, you might ask what real world mechanisms have the positive feedback loop. And I would argue the Bernanke-Gertler financial accelerator, in operation in the run-up to the last crisis.
Corev and the libertarian world seems more and more reduced to word salads about this issue.
1. It has been known since late 19th century that CO2 was a key component in maintaining thermodynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere. http://books.google.com/books/about/The_Physics_of_Atmospheres.html?id=PrU8AAAAIAAJoumaning. If rising CO2 does not cause a change in that equilibrium, the CoRev and the denialists should explain a testable theory to explain the corrective mechanism.
2. Human beings burning billions of tons of coal, oil, and natural gas in geologic eye blink of 100 years has raised the level CO2 in the atmosphere. If not, again, CoRev and the denialists should explain what is happening to the surplus CO2.
3. The events and temperture rises observed over the last 40 years, including the migration of growing seasons to the north, is consistent with the model predicting AGW, corrected for the effects of clouds and the decline of NO2 and SO2 pollution being washed out of the atmosphere.
Menzie
If an accelerator type mechanism, or a positive feedback to CO2 is at work, then it is swamped by other effects. CO2 concentration has continued it’s upward trend, yet temperature anomolies have not. The historical record simply does not support the exaggerated sensitivity of temperature to changes in CO2.
The previous paper I cited establishes a long run negative trend of -.3C per century. If we take the non-feedback positive trend from man-made CO2 of +1.0C per century, it nets +.7C, or a little more than +1F per century. It’s likely that in 100 years, the use of fossil fuels we be greatly reduced. Why should we hand trillions of dollars today to irresponsible bureaucrats to solve a problem that will solve itself, and is of questionable magnitude?
There is nothing unusual about the current temperatures in the United States. Yes, some areas are hot but we are still cooler than we were in 1998 and 1998 was cooler than 1934. And while we have seen some areas to be warm other areas are cold.
What I find far more interesting is the fact that the NOAA has been ‘adjusting’ temperatures upwards.
http://jjprzy.envy.nu/images/globalwarming/200907/US-net-temp-adjustments.jpg
Yet, maximum temperatures have not been any more frequent in recent decades than decades past.
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/ftp/CO2%201930s.jpg
Jan Perlowitz asks: “Do you have anything that is based on actual science, instead just opinion pieces from the fake-skeptic blogosphere with the usual straw man arguments and other logical fallacies?”
Try this one. It confirms some of the record info, but its conclusions are even more interesting.
“1) Based on a composite of urban stations, warm minimum temperature exceedences have increased at a rate of 0.26 exceedences yr22. This slope is nearly 3 times greater than that for the rural composite series and about double the composite suburban trend.
2) Half of the stations classified as urban experience significant warm minimum temperature trends.”
Some warming records are due to UHI?
The Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) theory is based upon a couple of simple concepts, but exceptionally short records. Concept 1) Today’s temps and rate of temp change is unprecedented. When we look at longer range proxy data for this interglacial (Holocene optima, Minoan, Roman, and the Medieval) we find that previous warming periods were warmer. A Greenland ice core proxy: http://jonova.s3.amazonaws.com/graphs/lappi/gisp-last-10000-new.png This graph is backed up by this recent report: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1589.html
2) The unprecedented warming claim is based upon a measured temperature data length of ~132 years, ~1% of total time since the last glaciation. All other quality data is from the satellite era ~33 years.
3) Most claims are based upon a theory that can not be measured. The theory is inferred by computer models that even the modelers admit do not well cover some factors, water vapor, clouds, sea currents and their cycles.
The evidence is mounting that the ACO2/CAGW advocates are under estimating the natural influences to warming.
These are the kinds of things skeptics bring up, but those who are convinced of CAGW ignore all alternative explanations. Then they resort to name calling, deniers, and war on science. Who is in denial and fighting the science?
This climate-nonsense stuff was pushed by Al Gore, this guy has already cashed out and lives in St. Barth.
It’s better Menzie that you spend your time posting about the LIBOR drama.
Alright, Jonathan, what do you think is the appropriate rate of reduction per annum, in percentage terms in the United States, for
– oil
– coal
– natural gas
What are the numbers that you think would be a success from your perspective?
jonathan the point isn’t “catastrophe today” but rational steps to address a potential threat. Because people refuse to accept even the potential in global warming, we can’t discuss those steps, what might be costs, what might be benefits.
Exactly. I’m an ORSA guy with the Army, and we work with decision risk models for unlikely events all the time. If people only knew!!! And more to the point, too many commenters here do not understand the difference between risk and uncertainty. Risk is measurable and basically reflects random variability. Uncertainty is inherently unmeasurable because you don’t even know the true mean. If risk were the only thing we had to worry about with climate change, then the problem would be quantifiable and manageable. The problem is that the evidence is really beginning to mount that climate change is a “fat tail” phenomenon, which means you really need to worry about extreme events. A 7 standard deviation event in a “normal” distribution is impossible. For example, even the 14 billion years since the Big Bang wouldn’t be long enough to generate a reasonable chance of a 7 or 8 standard deviation event. But with fat tail distributions you really do have to worry about 7 or 8 standard deviation events actually happening. If GHG driven climate change only adds a few degrees Celsius over the next 150 years, then it’s a manageable problem. But a 7 degree Celsius increase is not manageable and would be economically catastrophic. Probably civiilization ending. So we really do need to worry about exteme events if the density function has a fat tail. A good perspective on this is from my personal guess as next year’s Nobel winner, Marty Weitzman at Harvard:
http://www.nber.org/papers/w18144
Weitzman also has other papers that connect these fat tailed distributions to the appropriate social discount rate that we should be using to evaluate the costs of manmade global warming. Unlike the deniers on this site, you seem to have the math skills needed to understand some of Weitzman’s papers, so I would encourage you to visit his homepage. Krugman leans heavily on Weitzman.
I have to laugh at some of the comments here. The scientific basis for CO2 creating a radiative effect has been known for a long time and is rooted in quantum mechanics. That is not in dispute and it is well understood…to the extent that quantum mechanics can be understood at all. Look at all the links to Anthony Watts…a television weatherman with a high school diploma. To quote Paul Samuelson, who paraphrased Max Planck, “Funeral by funeral, science makes progress.” That’s probably the case with the global warming argument.
@CoRev at July 15, 2012 11:48 AM:
What is the scientific source of your quotes? You didn’t name it.
@CoRev at July 15, 2012 01:15 PM
What is the “Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW) theory” proposed by whom? I don’t know such a theory. What are supposedly the specific basis statements of this theory?
Again, just a picture, w/o any further information, and no scientific source is given. For instance, the information isn’t provided that the most recent data point in the GISP2 temperature record shown in the picture is from the year 1855. Someone without the background information might easily miss this. I do not think this is irrelevant, if one wants to compare temperature trends in Greenland in the context of anthropogenically caused global warming since 1855 with data from ice core records of thousands of years before anthropogenic global warming was happening. Something has been happening since the year 1855.
And it’s called “global warming”, but not “Greenland warming” for a reason. It’s a logical fallacy to try to refute statements about the globally averaged temperature anomaly with temperature proxies, which are representative for only a specific region of the planet.
There are always new results from research, which refine our understanding of Earth’s climate. And sometimes or even many time, new evidence leads to a revision of this understanding. This study in Nature doesn’t contain anything, though, which is in contradiction to what mainstream climate science has said about the anthropogenic causes of global warming that can be increasingly observed since the start of industrialization, particularly for recent decades since the mid-70ies of last century, and it doesn’t refute that this man-made global warming (or man-made climate change, since global warming is only one aspect of it) is actually happening.
You are aware that the current change of the Earth orbital parameters since the climate optimum 6000-8000 years ago implies global cooling, not any global warming, unlike observed, aren’t you?
To what claim made by whom and in what publication do you refer here, specifically? Please could you provide a quote and source so that we can examine the merits of this claim?
What is this statement supposed to mean? Theories are never being “measured”. Physical variables are being measured. Yours is a meaningless statement.
What “theory” is this supposed to be, about which you are talking here? We have a theory of climate, which has not been derived from computer models, but through a process of testing hypotheses in the areas of physics, chemistry and biology against empirical evidence, like it is done in any other field of science, and which are based on previously accumulated findings of science in these areas (e.g., radiation theory). Climate models are just mathematical tools in this whole process, which help us with the understanding. The claim that climate scientists derived their statements about climate of Earth merely from model simulations is one of the many factually false assertions disseminated from the fake skeptic crowd.
What evidence for this natural influence are you talking about, which is allegedly mounting? This statement is just an assertion. The role of the Earth orbital parameters can’t be it, can it?
I’m certain it’s not me. You make bold claims, yet without any evidence. You reproduce the usual non-scientific talking points of the fake skeptics, but so far you haven’t brought anything that supports your views and is actually based on published scientific research. But you whine about alleged name calling and do the martyr pose.
solar flares?
Jan, you are correct I forgot the link: http://faculty.ucr.edu/~rjallen/Publications_files/DeGaetanoAlJClim02.pdf
The first graph I showed of the GISP2 Ice cores usually gets the same response as yours, denial that it applies as a global record. Absolutely true. At the same time we see noted climatologists use similar proxies loosely temporally linked to form a more perfect picture. Why is that OK? How do we take a proxy from a single locale and make it world wide? They certainly haven’t been ignored, as some famous names use just that approach.
The second article reference was to try to validate the findings of the first. If you disagree with these researchers take it up with them.
Dr Hansen, in his mid 80s Congressional testimony made many of the claims of unprecedented warming in the past 100,000 years.
I never said this: “The claim that climate scientists derived their statements about climate of Earth merely from model simulations is one of the many factually false assertions disseminated from the fake skeptic crowd.” I specifically used the term “inferred”, which has a different meaning. I used this meaning: Inference is the act or process of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true. Perhaps you hold that back casting and projecting future temperatures from GCMs and from those future temperatures project possible future impacts is different. OK.
I could have better phrased some of my commentary, but it is less arrogant and shallow as others we see above.
Fake Skeptic? After I closed my offensive to you comment with: “These are the kinds of things skeptics bring up, but those who are convinced of CAGW ignore all alternative explanations. Then they resort to name calling, deniers, and war on science. Who is in denial and fighting the science?” By what scientific law do we stop skepticism? Who determines fake skepticism?
Jan Perlwitz asks: “You are aware that the current change of the Earth orbital parameters since the climate optimum 6000-8000 years ago implies global cooling, not any global warming, unlike observed, aren’t you?”
This article has one explanation how the Sun/solar energy has changed since 1750. http://thegwpf.org/the-observatory/6159-climate-change-and-earths-changing-orbit.html
Some one of the key points are: “There is, however, an orbital parameter that changes rather swiftly. This is called the longitude of perihelion: it is the solar longitude (the angle measured around the plane of the Earth’s orbit from the vernal equinox) at which perihelion (our closest approach to the Sun) occurs…. Since 1750 it has progressed by more than four days.
and…one can see that all latitudes to the north of 20°S now receive more sunlight. On that basis it is hardly surprising that spring is coming earlier. The peak in flux change of above 3 W/m2 for 80°N compared to actual insolation around 180 W/m2 near day 100 indicates an increase of almost two percent: no wonder the polar bears are worried. On the other hand, at about day 240 (the end of August) the minimum at about −4 W/m2 for that polar latitude indicates a cooler summer and autumn.
Truth be told, that two percent (and less elsewhere) is not much, representing a shift of typically one to three days in terms of the time when a certain insolation level is reached in the (shifting and altering) seasonal cycles. But three days is a tenth of a month,…”
This may explain well the difference in the two hemispheres. Will this result in a new “peer reviewed” paper? Dunno, but it certainly provides a thought experiment.
Am I claiming that this explains why we are warming? NO, I am claiming that this may explain some of that warming, and its not due to CO2.
Maybe Jan can tell us where this ARTICLE is wrong.
Besides the fact that the word “denier” is rarely used in a civil conversation the way 2slugs is using it. The self-appointed enlightened ones, like 2slsugs and several leaders within the climate community use the word to associate Holocaust deniers with those who demand empirical corroboration of the claimed sensitivity of temperature to changes in CO2 concentration.
If the science is sound then why do they resort to insults? The reason is that they don’t have the evidence, other than simulation, to back up the claimed magnitude of the sensitivy. Without the exaggerated sensitivity, there is no Catostrophic in CAGW.
Some of you may find this intersting.
Skeptics Are Not Deniers: A Conversation
A conversation between Robert Brown, a Lecturer of Physics at Duke University and John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State Climatologist and a Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at Texas A&M University .
http://blog.chron.com/climateabyss/2012/07/skeptics-are-not-deniers-a-conversation-part-1/
Excerpt:
There’s a subtle alignment of known and unknown parameters that include but are not limited to solar and history state, galactic state and history, planetary state and history (all the way down to the positions of the continents, the thermal state and history of the oceans, and the heights and positions of mountain ranges and chaotically changing global circulation patterns that SOMETIMES take the Earth as it happily tools along in an interglacial, lots of CO_2, warm, stable, and drops it, fairly suddenly, into glaciation. 80,000 or so years later — depending on this and that which we cannot measure, infer from observation, compute or be at all sure of beyond storytelling, certainly not to where we can falsify any given hypothetical explanation with real data — the stars align and the perfectly happy, stable ice with its enormously reflective albedo is no longer sufficient to prevent it from warming right back up, not even when atmospheric CO_2 drops to barely the level required to sustain land based plant life at the coldest points.
This suggests — to me, again, based on my experience modelling bistable systems in optics — that there are vast, serious forces at work here, forces that quite literally overwhelm mere perturbation of CO_2 levels= by factors of two (which barely register on the DECIBEL scale that should describe the LOGARITHMIC response to CO_2 forcing). After all, they DO overwhelm a 3 dB variation, every glaciation cycle. The alignment may be subtle; the EFFECT is as subtle as a Tambora going off year after year for a hundred years — or its opposite — in the teeth of ambient levels of CO_2.
N-G: You see unknown vast, overwhelming forces at work, whereas I see feedbacks (largest: ice albedo; second largest: CO2), with fast feedbacks (H2O, etc) and dust (hard to classify) along for the ride. The thing you don’t seem to be getting is that the ice albedo and CO2 feedback magnitudes are commensurate with the bistable states. For either state to be stable, the Earth must be in energy balance. The changes in radiative forcing associated with the known changes in ice albedo and CO2 are consistent with both the temperature changes back then and the way we observe the climate system to respond to forcings today.
RB: The problem then is that we do not know — or at least, if we do, I would like to know how — what this unknown alignment of forces is doing, or what it is contributing to the natural variation from year to year. When it warmed in the 70s and 80s, was it CO_2 or was it relatively extreme solar maxima affecting this subtle alignment? When we had the LIA in the seventeenth century, was it CO_2 or grand solar minima affecting this subtle alignment and producing highly nonlinear responses? It won’t do to try to build a model to answer the question, because multivariate models were born to beg questions and give you any answer you like as long as their complexity is up to the task.
“the GISP2 Ice cores usually gets the same response as yours, denial that it applies as a global record. Absolutely true. At the same time we see noted climatologists use similar proxies loosely temporally linked to form a more perfect picture. Why is that OK?”
Who says it doesn’t apply to the global record? The whole idea of constructing a global record is to throw in as many quality proxies as possible, weighted this way and that because more data exists for some regions than others, to try and get a meaningful global average out. What noted climatologist who spends his time building multi-proxy reconstructions hasn’t used GISP2?
buermann asks: “What noted climatologist who spends his time building multi-proxy reconstructions hasn’t used GISP2?” That is funny. The first time I used this graph one of those who believe used the same argument then showed another multi-proxy graph. YUP! GISP2 was included.
I can not over emphasize the importance of the article I referenced in my 0424 comment. If it actually holds up to scrutiny it may well explain some gaping hole(s) for why we have longer intermediate interglacial climate cycles. It may explain what catalyzed the exit from the LIA.
“Will this result in a new ‘peer reviewed’ paper?”
Because there have never been any peer reviewed papers published on the Milankovitch cycle and orbital forcing…
It’s fine to argue for the empirical evidence of Global Warming.
But you’re trying infer changes in the parameters of a distribution (i.e., change in global average temperatures) from local extremal events.
I don’t think you know much about inference of extremal events. There’s no reasoning in your post to that regard.
Giuseppe Paleologo: Gee, you don’t get the idea of mentioning local flavor to add to a general article. Of course, I am focusing on global factors (the global temperature anomaly), as I have on most of the previous posts on this subject, as a major piece of support. If you had any sense of perspective, you’d note the observation that (as shown on the link to the NOAA website) the Madison temperature deviation is highly correlated with deviations over most of the United States. Duh!
I look forward to discussing statistical measures, and higher order moments of distributions in our further, hopefully less obtusely nitpicky exchanges.
Menzie, this NCDC graph gives a truer picture of what the actual GLOBAL temps are for 2012. http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/includes/columns/climatechange/2012/590x534_07161906_201206.png
CoRev: Since the graph doesn’t identify which series is used, I pulled this one (global land and ocean). Can’t exactly replicate your graph, but I don’t know why yours is “better”. When I import it into my statistical package, and look at temperatures, I see a much closer gap between 2012 and 2010.
Menzie, I can not tell what you graphed, but the data from my reference seems to confirm it was the same as what you provided. Both are NOASA, NCDC.
The Accuweather graph is of the 5 highest annual anomalies compared to 2012 to date. From your NCDC reference I compared the Jan data for each year, 98,02,03,05,10 and 12 to that in the Accuweather graph. They matched.
The was and remains, notice how much cooler is the 2012 anomaly to date.
CoRev: Pull down the data series I have (land/ocean) and replicate my Figure 3, which I have added just now to the post. I have provided the link to the data in my previous comment, and in the text.
Menzie, both graphs are from NOAA/NCDC. The graph I provided is from the State of the Climate Report here: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2012/6
In the Report they explain: “For the merged land surface and SST analysis, temperature anomalies with respect to the 1971–2000 average for land and ocean are analyzed separately and then merged to form the global analysis.”
So we have at least two differences,
1) different base lines, your graph – 1901-2000 mean and SOTC Report used the 1971–2000 mean
2) different data sets SOTC graph Global Historical Climatology Network (GHCN) dataset versus the http://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.land_ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat.
It took a little detective work, but at least we know why they are different.
Note: these graphs are created using data from the very same US agency with multiple data sets. Details do make a difference.
CoRev: Thanks; your original cite was Accuweather which didn’t have the documentation. Still not sure why your assertion that yours is better. I just used the data consistent with the graphs NOAA shows in the report for the anomalies.
Menzie, I never did say it was better, I called it truer picture for 2012, since you were citing many claims of LOCAL records and extremes. 2012 actually is starting cooler than the immediately 5 record years. Remember its Global Warming not local weather.
Finally, be very careful citing the William R. L. Anderegg, 97 – 98% study. Its a very bad study, maybe atrociously so. Raw data came from a very poorly constructed survey for Masters Thesis. Worse there are several hundred comments complaining about the quality of the original survey. Here’s one of the latest reviews http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/18/what-else-did-the-97-of-scientists-say/
CoRev, you wrote at July 15, 2012 07:58 PM:
Thank you.
Hmm. Why are you complaining about the term “denier” as “name-calling”, if you use “denial” in a way that it even can be done by making true statements? Being “in denial” by being right?
I would appreciate, if you were more specific, instead of just making unspecific and unverifiable claims about “noted climatologists” who allegedly did something.
Each proxy data set by itself is local and represents a certain region. The point is to use multi-proxy data sets to get representations of as many regions of the globe as possible. The better the hemispheric or global coverage the better for drawing conclusions about the hemispheric/global climate.
How is such an approach the same as what you did here?
In what scientific study was this supposedly done that the global temperature anomaly was derived from a single proxy? Some “noted climatologist”? A study that was generally accepted as scientific valid by other climate scientists? Please name it.
I do not disagree with the findings of this study. Nor do I agree with it. I only can note this study at this moment. And your reply isn’t really an answer to what I said.
Well, than you won’t have any problems to produce some of the many claims by Hansen where he said that the warming, already observed until the mid 80s, had been “unprecedented” for the past 100,000 years, will you? I very much doubt that your assertion is true.
So what you say is the theory is being inferred and infer has a different meaning than the one of the word derive, the word that I used. The meaning of infer how you use it, is to derive logical conclusions from premises, instead.
You were talking about some “theory”, though, not specifically about future projections of the temperature.
Guess what. Astronomers use computer simulations to calculate future trajectories of asteroids. Engineers use computer simulations to project the behaviour of air planes in an air flow to make sure that those planes don’t fall down.
None of these calculations are the theory. They are based on physical theory.
Projections of future climate scenarios using computer simulations are the asteroid trajectories of climate science. The theory is not “inferred” from those computer simulations. It’s the other way around. The computer simulations are based on theory, on our understanding about how Earth’s climate system works.
I do not claim that this understanding is complete.
What alternative explanations are being ignored? The merits of an explanation depends on the evidence that support it, doesn’t it?
What about you name one alternative explanation and tell me, why you think it is on equal footing as the explanation that attributes global warming largely to human activity, particularly the one since the mid 70ies? And where this explanation is being “ignored”?
What do you mean with “ignored”, anyway?
The better question is, “What determines fake skepticism”?
It’s the motivation and the approach toward science and the results, which are presented by scientists from their research. True skeptics argue based on science. If they don’t agree with findings presented by scientists, they do this using scientific arguments. They embrace the scientific method, use logic and test alternative explanations, if they hypothesize those, against empirical data. Scientists are skeptics. It’s part of their professional profile.
False skeptics act differently. They do not argue on the grounds of science, they mostly use non-scientific arguments to attack the findings of science. They misrepresent the science, use logical fallacies, acknowledge empirical data only very selectively, insofar those appear to be in support of their views. The motivation of fake skeptics is mostly not just some scientific disagreement. It’s rather the rejection of findings from scientific research, because those findings are in contradiction to preconceived economical, political, ideological, or religious views of the ones who act as fake skeptics. Consequently, since the scientific arguments are lacking, fake skeptics often resort to attack not just against the results from research, but also against the scientists who have presented those results. Scientists are being defamed and confronted with libeleous accusations. Accusations or innuendo against scientists of fraud and manipulation of data and studies are common. Resort to conspiracy theories is common too. Not really surprising. How else can the worldview be made whole, if most scientists who work and publish in the field of question say something else?
To what group do you want to belong?
@tj at July 15, 2012 11:21 AM:
The paper you cited, and even the statement by Esper you quoted talks about a trend of -0.31 K/millennium not per century. What now?
Why should I listen to people whose preconceived views makes them see what they want to see for whatever non-scientific motivations, but not what is?
CoRev, you wrote at July 16, 2012 04:24 AM:
What is wrong with this article. First and foremost it doesn’t stand up to the scientific standards.
Then the suggestive statements with respect that the change in the radiative fluxes (+3 W/m^2 at 80 deg N) due to the change in the perihelion is large compared to the forcing since 1750 of 1.6 W/m^2 in the IPCC report, suggesting that something important was just neglected that could explain global warming to a large degree. This is obviously the conclusion you draw from this.
Only, the 1.6 W/m^2 in the IPCC report is the top of the atmosphere radiative forcing for the global and annual average, and the 3 W/m^2 is the radiation change only at some point in the seasonal cycle at a certain latitude. The globally and annually averaged radiation change due to the change in the perihelion is 0 W/m^2 since 1750.
It doesn’t mean the different distribution of the energy input between the seasons and latitudes, depending on the perihelion was without any effect.
But what makes you think that hasn’t been studied and wouldn’t been taken into consideration in climate change studies? This effect has been studied already in the 80ies (see Kutzbach and Guetter, JAS, 1986, doi: 10.1175/1520-0469(1986)0432.0.CO;2). The change in the longitude of the perihelion is one of the orbital parameters with which mainstream climate science explains the climate optimum 6000 to 8000 years ago, and the cooling trend since then.
You cited the Nature article above. Did you notice that the article compares the temperature reconstructions from the proxies with results from state-of-the-art climate model simulations, which take into account the change in the orbital parameters, including the one in the length of the perihelion? One of the conclusions of the paper is that the new reconstruction from the proxies is in better agreement with the results from the model simulations. Do you read the papers you cite?
CoRev, you wrote July 19, 2012 02:10 PM:
How is it relevant especially in the context of global warming that the particular year 2012 started cooler than the immediately 5 record years?
Jan, thank you for responding. This comment of yours is disturbing: “First and foremost it doesn’t stand up to the scientific standards.” because it seems aimed at deflecting attention. What scientific standards are there for articles?
You then go on to compare ANNUAL AVERAGE radiative flux which was not the subject of the article nor my comment. Finally you say: “It doesn’t mean the different distribution of the energy input between the seasons and latitudes, depending on the perihelion was without any effect.” Which was the point of the article and my comment. From this I conclude that maybe Jan can NOT tell us where this ARTICLE is wrong.
Moving the peak solar flux earlier has an effect on average seasonal temperatures. Fully understanding the phenomenon since the 80s would surely be mentioned in the many GISS and NOAA Pressers for Spring temperature records.
Furthermore you claim that: “The globally and annually averaged radiation change due to the change in the perihelion is 0 W/m^2 since 1750.”
Then you claim: “The change in the longitude of the perihelion is one of the orbital parameters with which mainstream climate science explains the climate optimum 6000 to 8000 years ago, and the cooling trend since then.”
So for one answer it is meaningless for warming, but explains why it was warmer earlier. We skeptics might cal that blowing smoke. As appears was much of the remaining commentary.
BTW, I do appreciate the admission: “…and the cooling trend since then.” It is am important issue also almost NEVER mentioned by most of those convinced of the “unprecedentedness” of the current temps.
Menzie, that last comment was for you. It has been cooling for since soon after the past glaciation, the Holocene Optimum.
Jan:
Thanks for taking a turn with CoRev. You have shown you are a more coherent thinker and writer than he. But CoRev is a good propagandist. I suspect he may get paid to discredit AGW (and other “librel” causes) on blogs and such. If so, he should go to another blog. I think we are too smart at Econbrowser to be fooled by his bullshit.
MarkOhio says: “I suspect he may get paid to discredit AGW (and other “librel” causes) on blogs and such.” If only it were true.
BTW, thanks for confirming: “…those who are convinced of CAGW ignore all alternative explanations. Then they resort to name calling, deniers, and war on science. Who is in denial and fighting the science?”
This argument is over in the deep state. At the collateral level (SCI and special access programs), global warming is accepted, planning is complete, and implementation is underway. The policy aims to manage global warming and attendant climatic instability by allocating productive land and controlling transhumance. Whether you’re an African, a Mexican, or a redneck, when you try to escape from your dust bowl, the government will be there to stop you.