What Is Causing The Warming ?

[Iceberg]

The coolest dataset of the 2000 decade is plotted below (Spencer/Christy), no fudging, no cherry picking of dates etc from Jan 2000 to Nov 2009.

This is from a very keen Skeptic supported frequently by WATTS and held up by WUWT as the best source of data(not that I agree with them).

Please can we put to bed the recent cooling comments now and admit that the METO are correct that this is the warmest decade on record.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Next people will probably be saying that the CET data has been "fudged" as part of its homogenisation to show warming, despite the overwhelming evidence for regional warming over the entirety of north-west Europe.

There are so many factors that point to the world having warmed by somewhere in the region of 0.4-0.8C that picking apart one of them- even if it yields results- isn't going to work.

There are plenty of good reasons for being sceptical about AGW- but surely, denying the recent warming trend isn't one of them!??

[Dartmoor_Matt]

And round and round we go.

[VillagePlank]

As far as I can tell, the most rational theory for an exceptionally warm last decade with more expected hot records and warmth to come, that doesn't require, directly, CO2, is the LI.

If it gets cool too quick, the LI will fall, as well as the CO2 hypothesis.

Pete, I have been following VP's work (I think VP knows this), but am waiting for his released paper, correlation etc before drawing any firm conclusions as I want to view it fairly.

However as yet nothing has been produced with the LI to give me any full confidence that it does account for the warming, but I know that VP is working hard to get it out there and I appreciate it.

Well, the theoretical basis pinning the LI to scientific law is already published on the main LI thread. That certainly isn't going to change. Please feel free to comment.

[VillagePlank]

Well, of course. So we need to look at trends?

'Ocean thermal inertia' is a key indicator of a lag in energy.

Edited December 9, 2009 by VillagePlank

[Methuselah]

And round and round we go.

To an extent, yes...If you really must play Watts's game of 'Oh yes it is! Oh no it isn't!' we'll be going round in circles forever...I suspect that that is his desire??

That, IMO, is where the LIH comes in: it doesn't rely on denial, but it does try to explain???

[Solar Cycles]

My guess would be that we may have to wait a wee while (if not forever!)??? :o

I never stated it as cooled, just remained static!

Sorry Pete, that was meant for Iceberg!

[Dartmoor_Matt]

To an extent, yes...If you really must play Watts's game of 'Oh yes it is! Oh no it isn't!' we'll be going round in circles forever...I suspect that that is his desire??

That, IMO, is where the LIH comes in: it doesn't rely on denial, but it does try to explain???

OK. But did I ever present that article as anything more than one study into one area of the world? Have I ever said there has been no warming? As far as I know, never.

[Admiral_Bobski]

Pete, I have been following VP's work (I think VP knows this), but am waiting for his released paper, correlation etc before drawing any firm conclusions as I want to view it fairly.

However as yet nothing has been produced with the LI to give me any full confidence that it does account for the warming, but I know that VP is working hard to get it out there and I appreciate it.

Questions, comments and suggestions are always welcome, even if you have no firm conclusions yet. Heck, even I haven't got any firm conclusions from it yet!

:o

CB

[SleepyJean]

The cynic in me adds, "because they don't show any warming trend over the course of the 20th century"...

I've had a look through that article (btw WhatsUpWithThat is hardly an unbiased site!). Firstly, using raw unadjusted data is often not the best way to assess a temperature record because some sites move over time, urbanisation occurs around some sites, and instrument exposure can change depending on where the instrument is sited and what type of instrument is used. For example, when compiling my own weather records going back to 1993, I calibrated readings for the earlier years because my old instruments consistently read up to 1C higher than my current AWS, particularly by night. Had I not done this, the Cleadon record would have shown a sudden step-cooling around 2004/2005.

Then, to be fair, they go into an analysis on how the temperature data are homogenised, and discuss the methods used. This is a good way to set about determining the reliability of the homogenisation. But they then refer to the Darwin record (which shows no warming trend), say that the record is homogenised using 5 nearby stations, and conclude that an imaginary warming trend has been added in order to support AGW. But they don't actually say whether or not the 5 nearby stations showed any warming trend, it's just taken as given that they don't. I'm not going to dismiss their analysis out of hand here, but there may well be more to the story than the WUWT article makes out... Of course, the conclusion "the data are adjusted in order to support AGW" is exactly the conclusion they want to support (that's the whole agenda of the site), so that makes me a little suspicious.

I don't care what the graphs show, I believe there has been warming. I am just a little sceptical about the causes of said warming, and there are questions emerging about whether the warming is continuing at present.

However, the graph did show the data from 5 stations, much of it overlapping. That was WUWTs justification for adjusting the temperature before 1941 rather than after, when it was backed up with extremely similar data from other stations.

Of course they are a cynic site and so will be biased in the anti AGW direction, which is why I read it very carefully, to make sure that they were saying what I thought they were saying and that it seemed correct. Of course that is based on what they are showing us, and it could all be fabricated of at least tweaked in the cynics favour....

[Methuselah]

OK. But did I ever present that article as anything more than one study into one area of the world? Have I ever said there has been no warming? As far as I know, never.

If you'd read my post properly (maybe my bad?) you'd have realized that I was comparing the approaches employed by sceptics (LIH) to those of deniers (OMG! All the data must be a priori gerrymandered!)...I wasn't pointing the finger at you, at all...

[Dartmoor_Matt]

If you'd read my post properly (maybe my bad?) you'd have realized that I was comparing the approaches employed by sceptics (LIH) to those of deniers (OMG! All the data must be a priori gerrymandered!)...I wasn't pointing the finger at you, at all...

Perhaps just a bad afternoon. My apologies.

[Methuselah]

Perhaps just a bad afternoon. My apologies.

No probs at all, mate. (I know I can sometimes come-across all wrong. )...Maybe, after the upcoming snowfest, we'll all get down to some proper discussion???

[Dartmoor_Matt]

No probs at all, mate. (I know I can sometimes come-across all wrong. )...Maybe, after the upcoming snowfest, we'll all get down to some proper discussion???

Maybe a snowfest up your way... I'm looking forward to an awful lot of No.

[Iceberg]

Well, well, well. RSS have come out and said that this Jan 2010 was the warmest on record, I've also got it on good authority that Spencer who does the skeptical global temperature record for sat's is also about to come out and confirm that according to him Jan 2010 was the warmest on record as well.

It was obviously going to be a high anom by looking at some of the raw data here.

http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps+001

However not even I expected it to be this high. Global temperatures over the last 6 - 9 months have been extremely high by anyones measurement and we could be looking at the warmest 12 month period ever recorded.

Now where did I put that solar/pdo/quasitemporalskepticphaseshift...

[jethro]

Now where did I put that solar/pdo/quasitemporalskepticphaseshift...

Tis lost in a snowdrift somewhere.....

[Iceberg]

Hopefully it will be found next month when the snow finally melts and spring returns....

[Gray-Wolf]

Then which bit of the elephant will the blind men be grabbing to call it a hot thing?

Tis strange. I'm left with images of Noah sat by his ark and the folk passing by saying "turned out nice again" coupled with the tale of the blind men and the elephant........really I should be focusing on the Sufi tale of "the day the waters changed"..........

[Iceberg]

Spencer has concured that Jan was the warmest Jan on record.

More interestingly when you look at the data it is the joint 2nd warmest anomaly for the Land in the N.Hemisphere and the 3rd largest anomaly on record globally.

[Iceberg]

Just a quick recap for Jan.

RSS and UAH warmest on record globally.

GISS joint 2nd warmest on record globally.

NCDC 4th warmest on record globally.

HADCRU still to come out.

[VillagePlank]

However not even I expected it to be this high ...

I did, here. Guess I got lucky.

Edited February 18, 2010 by VillagePlank

[Gray-Wolf]

V.P.,

I know from the latest figures from the Arctic that there has been a 30.6% increase in methane output over the past 6 years. Does the LI take into account the cumulative feedbacks that sustained warmth brings with it?

As you know I fear we are very close to (or have already) breaching a 'point of no return' with the northern ecosystem and the northerly migration of the permafrosts southerly limit ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100217101129.htm ) surely means an ever increasing expanse of northerly wetlands releasing huge amounts of the 'super' GHG into the atmospheric mix. With , from your models reckoning, we have another 25yrs of such warming how does this reconcile with the collapse of the northern cryosphere?

If we were the initial cause for our warming what of natures forced response to that 'nudge' and how does the LI deal with such?

[VillagePlank]

V.P.,

I know from the latest figures from the Arctic that there has been a 30.6% increase in methane output over the past 6 years. Does the LI take into account the cumulative feedbacks that sustained warmth brings with it?

As you know I fear we are very close to (or have already) breaching a 'point of no return' with the northern ecosystem and the northerly migration of the permafrosts southerly limit ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/02/100217101129.htm ) surely means an ever increasing expanse of northerly wetlands releasing huge amounts of the 'super' GHG into the atmospheric mix. With , from your models reckoning, we have another 25yrs of such warming how does this reconcile with the collapse of the northern cryosphere?

If we were the initial cause for our warming what of natures forced response to that 'nudge' and how does the LI deal with such?

Nice.

The LI is a global model designed to deal with cumulative global factors. Whilst, it's nice to see you localise, a bit, it is factored in from the global averages of sea-ice extent.

As for GhG? No need to use them, yet - r=0.91 already exceeds the CO₂ correlation by r=0.2. I'll let you know what the certainty of this correlation is shortly after I do.

In the meantime, I wonder if you could help me out? I've been looking at the core Ghg relation with temperature, and I am pretty much stuck on how to derive two constants: lambda, and alpha. You can find the root discussion on the technical thread. I can't find a discussion of them in any literature I've looked at - surely it must be somewhere, as it possibly couldn't be an arbitrary estimate given that the quantity of these constants (like the parameters of the LI) is crucial?

And, in line with other requests, a peer-reviewed physical basis would be perfect. Perhaps you could direct me to where it is?

Edited February 18, 2010 by VillagePlank

[Iceberg]

Totally unsubtantiated yet but....

After looking at various sat data and hearing a few rumours on the web Feb 2010 might well be a total record breaking for warmth.

The warmest global day ever recorder might be contained within it. Pretty certain, but I need to find the complete evidence for this and it won't be available until the Feb data set report in early March.

The warmest Feb recorded.

The largest positive anomaly ever recorded for a month.

All of the above will obviously not confirm global warming, but it will show that the globe is a very warm place atm, particularly given the recent spell of either record or near record months. BTW I fully expect this to be confirmed by the skeptical global temperature dataset, so none of the data fiddling nonsense that gets raised, still without any merit.

Anyway I await the Feb results with some anticipation......

[Solar Cycles]

Totally unsubtantiated yet but....

After looking at various sat data and hearing a few rumours on the web Feb 2010 might well be a total record breaking for warmth.

The warmest global day ever recorder might be contained within it. Pretty certain, but I need to find the complete evidence for this and it won't be available until the Feb data set report in early March.

The warmest Feb recorded.

The largest positive anomaly ever recorded for a month.

All of the above will obviously not confirm global warming, but it will show that the globe is a very warm place atm, particularly given the recent spell of either record or near record months. BTW I fully expect this to be confirmed by the skeptical global temperature dataset, so none of the data fiddling nonsense that gets raised, still without any merit.

Anyway I await the Feb results with some anticipation......

Your right Iceberg, none of this does prove AGW. I still stand by my Oceans are like radiators theory, it's as a good an explanation as any I've seen!