The Pause draws blood – A new record Pause length: no warming for 18 years 7 months
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/...ause-length-no-warming-for-18-years-7-months/
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
For 223 months, since January 1997, there has been no global warming at all (Fig. 1).
This month’s RSS temperature shows the Pause setting a new record at 18 years 7 months.
It is becoming ever more likely that the temperature increase that usually accompanies an El Niño will begin to shorten the Pause somewhat, just in time for the Paris climate summit, though a subsequent La Niña would be likely to bring about a resumption and perhaps even a lengthening of the Pause.
Figure 1. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years 7 months since January 1997.
The hiatus period of 18 years 7 months is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.
The start date is not cherry-picked: it is calculated. And the graph does not mean there is no such thing as global warming. Going back further shows a small warming rate.
The Pause has now drawn blood.
In the run-up to the climate conference in Paris this December, the failure of the world to warm at all for well over half the satellite record has provoked the climate extremists to resort to desperate measures to try to do away with the Pause.
First there was Tom Karl with his paper attempting to wipe out the Pause by arbitrarily adding a hefty increase to all the ocean temperature measurements made by the 3600 automated ARGO bathythermograph buoys circulating in the oceans. Hey presto!
However, the measured and recorded facts are these.
In the 11 full years April 2004 to March 2015, for which the ARGO system has been providing reasonably-calibrated though inevitably ill-resolved data (each buoy has to represent 200,000 km3 of ocean temperature with only three readings a month), there has been no warming at all in the upper 750 m, and only a little below that,
so that the trend over the period of operation shows a warming equivalent to
Figure 1a. Near-global ocean temperatures by stratum, 0-1900 m. Source: ARGO marine atlas.
And in the lower troposphere, the warming according to RSS occurred at
Figure 1b. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the UAH satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years 5 months since March 1997.
Then along came another paper, this time saying that the GISS global temperature record shows global warming during the Pause and that, therefore, GISS shows global warming during the Pause. This instance of argumentum ad petitionem principii, the fallacy of circular argument, passed peer review without difficulty because it came to the politically-correct conclusion that there was no Pause.
The paper reached its conclusion, however, without mentioning the word “satellite”.
Figure 1c. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the UAH satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years 5 months since March 1997.
For completeness, though no reliance can now be placed on the terrestrial datasets, here is the “warming” rate they show since January 1997:
Figure 1d. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC terrestrial monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly datasets shows global warming at a rate equivalent to a little over 1 C° per century during the period of the Pause from January 1997 to July 2015.
Bearing in mind that one-third of the 2.4 W m–2 radiative forcing from all manmade sources since 1750 has occurred during the period of the Pause, a warming rate equivalent to little more than 1 C°/century is not exactly alarming.
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As always, a note of caution. Merely because there has been little or no warming in recent decades, one may not draw the conclusion that warming has ended forever. The trend lines measure what has occurred: they do not predict what will occur.
Furthermore, the long, slow build-up of the current el Nino, which has now become strongish and – on past form – will not peak till the turn of the year, is already affecting tropical temperatures and, as the thermohaline circulation does its thing, must eventually affect global temperatures.
Though one may expect the el Nino to be followed by a la Nina, canceling the temporary warming, this does not always happen. In short, the Pause may well come to an end and then disappear. However, as this regular column has stressed before, the Pause – politically useful though it may be to all who wish that the “official” scientific community would remember its duty of skepticism – is far less important than the growing divergence between the predictions of the general-circulation models and observed reality.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/...ause-length-no-warming-for-18-years-7-months/
By Christopher Monckton of Brenchley
For 223 months, since January 1997, there has been no global warming at all (Fig. 1).
This month’s RSS temperature shows the Pause setting a new record at 18 years 7 months.
It is becoming ever more likely that the temperature increase that usually accompanies an El Niño will begin to shorten the Pause somewhat, just in time for the Paris climate summit, though a subsequent La Niña would be likely to bring about a resumption and perhaps even a lengthening of the Pause.
Figure 1. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the RSS satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years 7 months since January 1997.
The hiatus period of 18 years 7 months is the farthest back one can go in the RSS satellite temperature record and still show a sub-zero trend.
The start date is not cherry-picked: it is calculated. And the graph does not mean there is no such thing as global warming. Going back further shows a small warming rate.
The Pause has now drawn blood.
In the run-up to the climate conference in Paris this December, the failure of the world to warm at all for well over half the satellite record has provoked the climate extremists to resort to desperate measures to try to do away with the Pause.
First there was Tom Karl with his paper attempting to wipe out the Pause by arbitrarily adding a hefty increase to all the ocean temperature measurements made by the 3600 automated ARGO bathythermograph buoys circulating in the oceans. Hey presto!
- All three of the longest-standing terrestrial temperature datasets – GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC – were duly adjusted, yet again, to show more global warming than has really occurred.
However, the measured and recorded facts are these.
In the 11 full years April 2004 to March 2015, for which the ARGO system has been providing reasonably-calibrated though inevitably ill-resolved data (each buoy has to represent 200,000 km3 of ocean temperature with only three readings a month), there has been no warming at all in the upper 750 m, and only a little below that,
so that the trend over the period of operation shows a warming equivalent to
- just 1 C° every 430 years.
Figure 1a. Near-global ocean temperatures by stratum, 0-1900 m. Source: ARGO marine atlas.
And in the lower troposphere, the warming according to RSS occurred at
- a rate equivalent to 1 C° every 700 years.
Figure 1b. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the UAH satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years 5 months since March 1997.
Then along came another paper, this time saying that the GISS global temperature record shows global warming during the Pause and that, therefore, GISS shows global warming during the Pause. This instance of argumentum ad petitionem principii, the fallacy of circular argument, passed peer review without difficulty because it came to the politically-correct conclusion that there was no Pause.
The paper reached its conclusion, however, without mentioning the word “satellite”.
- The UAH data show no warming for 18 years 5 months.
Figure 1c. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the UAH satellite monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly dataset shows no global warming for 18 years 5 months since March 1997.
For completeness, though no reliance can now be placed on the terrestrial datasets, here is the “warming” rate they show since January 1997:
Figure 1d. The least-squares linear-regression trend on the mean of the GISS, HadCRUT4 and NCDC terrestrial monthly global mean surface temperature anomaly datasets shows global warming at a rate equivalent to a little over 1 C° per century during the period of the Pause from January 1997 to July 2015.
Bearing in mind that one-third of the 2.4 W m–2 radiative forcing from all manmade sources since 1750 has occurred during the period of the Pause, a warming rate equivalent to little more than 1 C°/century is not exactly alarming.
- However, the paper that reported the supposed absence of the Pause was extremely careful NOT to report just how little warming the terrestrial datasets – even after all their many tamperings – actually show.
=======
As always, a note of caution. Merely because there has been little or no warming in recent decades, one may not draw the conclusion that warming has ended forever. The trend lines measure what has occurred: they do not predict what will occur.
Furthermore, the long, slow build-up of the current el Nino, which has now become strongish and – on past form – will not peak till the turn of the year, is already affecting tropical temperatures and, as the thermohaline circulation does its thing, must eventually affect global temperatures.
Though one may expect the el Nino to be followed by a la Nina, canceling the temporary warming, this does not always happen. In short, the Pause may well come to an end and then disappear. However, as this regular column has stressed before, the Pause – politically useful though it may be to all who wish that the “official” scientific community would remember its duty of skepticism – is far less important than the growing divergence between the predictions of the general-circulation models and observed reality.
