New Iceage? Much Evidence? - Global Cooling

[keithlucky]

Global cooling is taking placelatest nasa data world temps have dropped 0.07 c in the last 12 months.

Edited January 15, 2011 by keithlucky

[Iceberg]

I should hope they do start to drop a bit after the first(or second) warmest year on record after 7 months of negative Enso figures and after low solar.

We would be in ultra serious doodoo if they didn't.

[full_frontal_occlusion]

Global cooling is taking placelatest nasa data world temps have dropped 0.07 c in the last 12 months.

Perhaps this is a rhetorical question for Mrs Mills?

ffO.

[Gray-Wolf]

Posted 26 October 2008 - 09:42

and maybe this is the point, we are often accused of "cherry picking " data to suit but surely a record El-Nino year is data outside the range of natural variability and ,as such, needs to be discarded in case it 'skews' the data set. That said I strongly suspect that we will experience yet another 'record' Nino' event within 5 years and , if I'm correct, we'll see the same folk wishing the data expunged from any 10yr rolling average showing slowdown/cooling of global temps.

We cannot have it both ways. We either allow 'extreme' climate events or discard them from any attempt to organise any climate 'trend'.

To include both the last years La-Nina 'cooling' in any graph along side a record El-Nino 'warming' event is poor science . As I have said, next up is a strong El-Nino (one after next???), do we prove record acceleration of warming by posting the 'cooled' La-Nina year hard up against the El -Nino year????

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

Posted by Gray-Wolf in 2008, well-done

Thanks for being so thorough!!!

[Essan]

Global cooling is taking placelatest nasa data world temps have dropped 0.07 c in the last 12 months.

LOL!

There's been record warming in some parts of the world though. In Evesham, average temps have increased by nearly 20c in the last 3 weeks alone! If warming continues at the current rate we'll all have fried to death by February :lol:

(And that's why anyone who thinks they can detect a current cooling trend beyond the longer term neoglacial cooling is seriously deluding themselves.)

[barrel1234]

So that's it, looks like the cold pacific due to La Nina has finally found its lag time,

Expect cooling, if the pacific stays in a cool PDO the Atlantic is going to follow, If this La Nina keeps going as long as some of the forecasters are predicting the Atlantic could cool too to below average withing a relatively short time (2-3 years?????) and then we will really see some cold events in out part of the world. The pace really depends on how this La Nina behaves, an extended one could set us up for a rather sharp fall in Global temps,

Before I start getting worked up about a possible Ice age its time to calm down and see what happens...... but I think the general trend is going to be down......... the pace at which that happens is really open to speculation. It makes me wonder how cold it might have to get for some warmists to possibly consider their stance.

The climate is full of surprises and perhaps it will end up surprising me, but at this time I think it's more likely to be the warmists that are surprised in the next few years.

Edited January 15, 2011 by barrel1234

[knocker]

So that's it, looks like the cold pacific due to La Nina has finally found its lag time,

Expect cooling, if the pacific stays in a cool PDO the Atlantic is going to follow, If this La Nina keeps going as long as some of the forecasters are predicting the Atlantic could cool too to below average withing a relatively short time (2-3 years?????) and then we will really see some cold events in out part of the world. The pace really depends on how this La Nina behaves, an extended one could set us up for a rather sharp fall in Global temps,

Before I start getting worked up about a possible Ice age its time to calm down and see what happens...... but I think the general trend is going to be down......... the pace at which that happens is really open to speculation. It makes me wonder how cold it might have to get for some warmists to possibly consider their stance.

The climate is full of surprises and perhaps it will end up surprising me, but at this time I think it's more likely to be the warmists that are surprised in the next few years.

As a matter of interest what exactly is the mechanism that would cause the Atlantic to cool so significantly in such a short period of time? Taking also into acount the that the Atlantic has generally been above average in recent years.

[waz20000]

There is no such thing As global warming simple

[Gray-Wolf]

Overturning of the surface layer? I know we have been 'subducting' warmer waters into the cold bottom currents since the planet started into it's 'warmer state' so there may well be a tipping point for boiling hot top 200m being 'swapped out' with waters of temps approaching the 'average' that they should be (until summer where the solar impact is re-radiating back from the surface of the ocean to then heat the water vapour/GHG's above).......LOL

I'm pinning colours here.

We will (over the next 15yrs) see a period of perturbation in the weather systems ,across the globe, and a hike in the rate of global temp change (to an 1980's/90's gradient).

Why?

Because we have done enough to topple the first of the major Global 'Tipping Point's' ('my' Belief, significant numbers will not accept even the notion of 'tipping Point's' so I will emphasise that this is my 'personal' belief here!!!). With the final phase of the Arctic Melt now ongoing (before our eyes for the past number of years , you draw your own line as to the 'point of no return!')

The 'added Energy' that extra CO2 puts into the system is no longer needed to drive the 'state change' in the Arctic (self fuelling because of positive feedbacks) so where next? The Global circulation system would be my guess, the propensity towards a direct N/S exchange of air mass (and not the 'old' meridional flow) bringing more 'extreme' interfaces between air masses (tornado alley-esque)

Time's up!

[barrel1234]

As a matter of interest what exactly is the mechanism that would cause the Atlantic to cool so significantly in such a short period of time? Taking also into acount the that the Atlantic has generally been above average in recent years.

Common sense, If the pacific can have such a massive effect on global temps I don't see why the Atlantic shouldn't follow suit especially with the low solar activity in recent years, as for the timescale I'm not sure thats why I put ????? after the comment, but if this turns out to be a long La Nina maybe this could happen within a few years but that is purely speculation on the timescale.

Although predicted to last the current La Nina could break down, we really don't know for sure.

[knocker]

Common sense, If the pacific can have such a massive effect on global temps I don't see why the Atlantic shouldn't follow suit especially with the low solar activity in recent years, as for the timescale I'm not sure thats why I put ????? after the comment, but if this turns out to be a long La Nina maybe this could happen within a few years but that is purely speculation on the timescale.

Although predicted to last the current La Nina could break down, we really don't know for sure.

I'm afraid that doesn't make much common sense to me. I agree that ENSO has a huge impact on atmospheric weather patterns but what do you mean by "I don't see why the Atlantic shouldn't follow suit "? As far as I know ther is no direct connection between this and and the heat capacity of the Atlantic. So pecifically why should the the Atlantic SSTs drop so dramatically particularly as there is normally an increase in hurricane activity during a La Nina? I think low solar activity is a red herring.

[osmposm]

Global cooling is taking placelatest nasa data world temps have dropped 0.07 c in the last 12 months.

I am puzzled by just about everything in this post. Are you seriously saying that because the global average temperature (?at 14,000 ft) on 11th January this year was 0.7^oF lower than it was on 11th January last year, the planet is cooling? And I don't fully understand the graph, it has two lines on it - could you give us the link and/or explain what it shows? And am I right in assuming that the '0.7^oF cooler' factoid relate to the temperature at 14,000 ft (as on the graph)?

(1) The temp comparison for one particular date is irrelevant; the weather changes all the time, some days are colder than normal, some warmer. If I find you a single day when this year is 0.7^oF warmer than the same date last year, would that prove to you that global warming is taking place? Of course not. That's why they measure the temps on all the days in a year, average them out, and compare them with the average of all the days of previous years. On that basis, at the surface, globally 2010 is either the warmest or second warmest (measurement/processing bases/methods vary) in the record.

(2) Why are you looking at the temps 14,000 ft up anyway? Can you tell us how that relates to temperatures on the surface? Or are you planning to move your house to the top of the Matterhorn?

(3) Not that it really matters for the reasons above, but 0.7^oF is not 0.07^oC. Multiply by 5/9: the answer is about 0.4^oC.

Edit: no, I think the graph actually has three lines on it, though one is rather hard to see. I see that it seems to come from Steve Goddard's website, but I can't find it there, and I still don't know exactly what the lines represent. Any ideas, Keith? I can't believe you would have posted a graph for us to look at at without understanding what it showed.

Second edit: OK, after much thought I reckon the blue line must be 2010, the short brown one is 2011, and the yellowish one the mean (for which years, though?) - is that right? The temperatures at 14,000 ft, that is.

Edited January 16, 2011 by osmposm

[Iceberg]

So that's it, looks like the cold pacific due to La Nina has finally found its lag time,

Expect cooling, if the pacific stays in a cool PDO the Atlantic is going to follow, If this La Nina keeps going as long as some of the forecasters are predicting the Atlantic could cool too to below average withing a relatively short time (2-3 years?????) and then we will really see some cold events in out part of the world. The pace really depends on how this La Nina behaves, an extended one could set us up for a rather sharp fall in Global temps,

You've said this before(about the La Nina being extended and that it might last a long time etc), however almost every serious forecast or organisaton has it ending this spring as it the norm. What forecast are you using to say it will be extended ?

[Iceberg]

I am puzzled by just about everything in this post. Are you seriously saying that because the global average temperature (?at 14,000 ft) on 11th January this year was 0.7^oF lower than it was on 11th January last year, the planet is cooling? And I don't fully understand the graph, it has two lines on it - could you give us the link and/or explain what it shows? And am I right in assuming that the '0.7^oF cooler' factoid relate to the temperature at 14,000 ft (as on the graph)?

(1) The temp comparison for one particular date is irrelevant; the weather changes all the time, some days are colder than normal, some warmer. If I find you a single day when this year is 0.7^oF warmer than the same date last year, would that prove to you that global warming is taking place? Of course not. That's why they measure the temps on all the days in a year, average them out, and compare them with the average of all the days of previous years. On that basis, at the surface, globally 2010 is either the warmest or second warmest (measurement/processing bases/methods vary) in the record.

(2) Why are you looking at the temps 14,000 ft up anyway? Can you tell us how that relates to temperatures on the surface? Or are you planning to move your house to the top of the Matterhorn?

(3) Not that it really matters for the reasons above, but 0.7^oF is not 0.07^oC. Multiply by 5/9: the answer is about 0.4^oC.

Edit: no, I think the graph actually has three lines on it, though one is rather hard to see. I see that it seems to come from Steve Goddard's website, but I can't find it there, and I still don't know exactly what the lines represent. Any ideas, Keith? I can't believe you would have posted a graph for us to look at at without understanding what it showed.

Second edit: OK, after much thought I reckon the blue line must be 2010, the short brown one is 2011, and the yellowish one the mean (for which years, though?) - is that right? The temperatures at 14,000 ft, that is.

Morning,

To try and help Keith out(not that I am saying he does need it).

Here is the discover UAH graph from Spencers site, which is looks very much like so I am assuming that this is where Steve G got his graph from.(http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/execute.csh?amsutemps is you want to play with various data plots).

According to Spencer this AQUA channel is the most reliable now wrt actual surface temperatures, due to deteriating data in the other sats/channels that must be cleaned before usage so this is probably the best channel to look at easy to read daily temps and does correlate pretty well with temperatures lower down. This channel is at 600mb, alot of the world uses an even heigher level 500mb to judge whether the surface temp will be cold enough for snow so I do buy this explanation.

If we look at the graph and the latest data we see that currently in the very short span of this year so far....Global temperatures are lower than 2010, but higher than 2009 and 2008(just). We are apparently 0.5-0.6 below 2010 levels but considering that according to the UAH dataset in question Jan 2010 was I believe the warmest Jan on record i am not sure what this really proves.

Judging from all this we are pretty much in line with previous la ninas of the last decade in Jan, so evidence of any kind of new cooling has to be pretty much zero. It's also worth saying that UAH does seem to have a predisposed bias towards Jan being colder than in other datasets..personally I think this is do with northern hemisphere landmasses in winter having a lesser correlation to atmospheric temperatures as other things such as snow cover and ice(or lack of it) effects surface temps more but hey....

[keithlucky]

Morning,

To try and help Keith out(not that I am saying he does need it).

Here is the discover UAH graph from Spencers site, which is looks very much like so I am assuming that this is where Steve G got his graph from.(http://discover.itsc...e.csh?amsutemps is you want to play with various data plots).

According to Spencer this AQUA channel is the most reliable now wrt actual surface temperatures, due to deteriating data in the other sats/channels that must be cleaned before usage so this is probably the best channel to look at easy to read daily temps and does correlate pretty well with temperatures lower down. This channel is at 600mb, alot of the world uses an even heigher level 500mb to judge whether the surface temp will be cold enough for snow so I do buy this explanation.

If we look at the graph and the latest data we see that currently in the very short span of this year so far....Global temperatures are lower than 2010, but higher than 2009 and 2008(just). We are apparently 0.5-0.6 below 2010 levels but considering that according to the UAH dataset in question Jan 2010 was I believe the warmest Jan on record i am not sure what this really proves.

Judging from all this we are pretty much in line with previous la ninas of the last decade in Jan, so evidence of any kind of new cooling has to be pretty much zero. It's also worth saying that UAH does seem to have a predisposed bias towards Jan being colder than in other datasets..personally I think this is do with northern hemisphere landmasses in winter having a lesser correlation to atmospheric temperatures as other things such as snow cover and ice(or lack of it) effects surface temps more but hey....

You just cant have a unbiased debate with some,i often get accused of posting posts without no evidence ,i produce some evidence that's says global cooling is taking place(all be it maybe short term)and get a tirade shot from the hip remarks from some.There's two sides to every story and I'm afraid some hate the other side of the story,blinkered is the best way to to describe them.

[Pennine Ten Foot Drifts]

You just cant have a unbiased debate with some,i often get accused of posting posts without no evidence ,i produce some evidence that's says global cooling is taking place(all be it maybe short term)and get a tirade shot from the hip remarks from some.There's two sides to every story and I'm afraid some hate the other side of the story,blinkered is the best way to to describe them.

Unbiased ??? All the posts above by Iceberg and osmposm deal in nothing but facts and data - how is that 'biased'. Honestly sometimes reading these threads is so infuriating. There is absolutely no peer reviewed, widely accepted data to support any notion of a long term cooling trend. All the peer reviewed data, all the data accepted by the scientific community clearly demonstrates that the Earth is still on a long term warming trend. There may be brief periods where this trend is not linear, but the overall trend is absolutely undeniable, (at least if you look at all the available accredited data that is..........). I'm not going to start speculating on why the warming is happening, (that's a different debate). But to deny that the Earth is on a warming trend is frankly bizarre when all the evidence clearly shows that the long term trend for global temperatures is manifestly upwards, (unless of course one is making a conscious effort to ignore the evidence for some reason.....).

[osmposm]

You just cant have a unbiased debate with some,i often get accused of posting posts without no evidence ,i produce some evidence that's says global cooling is taking place(all be it maybe short term)and get a tirade shot from the hip remarks from some.There's two sides to every story and I'm afraid some hate the other side of the story,blinkered is the best way to to describe them.

Sorry if that's true, Keith. We are all - certainly me and even you - subject to something called "confirmation bias" - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias.

But in order to be open to different opinions, I do need to understand fully the interesting evidence you've come up with.

Iceberg has attempted to clarify what the graph you posted shows, and why it may be relevant. Unfortunately, though, the link he gave doesn't work - and I'm still a bit uncertain about the different lines on it, and exactly what they represent.

So, as I previously asked, it would be really helpful if you could help us understand by explaining/confirming what they are yourself. I hope you think that's a fair request.

Edited January 16, 2011 by osmposm

[Guest]

Hard to say, because whilst we were having a particularly cold December in NW Europe, they were virtually having a heatwave in Greenland, so on a global scale I dare say it pretty much balances out.

A recent program of Bruce Perry visiting Greenland did show a lot of evidence of receeding glaciers but this may have been a result of what happened in the eighties and nineties when there was some warming. For the last decade warming according to a lot of people does not appear to have been evident.

The big question is whether this is just a lull and the warming will continue after this, or is it a turning point where we will go into a time of global cooling?

The theory that man made CO2 is a driver in global warming appears to be overstated especially in view of the fact that we have had warming and cooling cycles in historical times when the amount of CO2 emitted by human activity would have been virtually zero in comparison, so I tend to favour the argument of natural cycles, where at its worst we get a full blown ice age and at the other end of the scale we have virtually no ice at all, though for the latter I think it would need a movement of the Antarctic continent and Greenland into more temperate zones, which no doubt will happen over eons of geological time.

[osmposm]

Sorry if that's true, Keith. We are all - certainly me and even you - subject to something called "confirmation bias" - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias.

But in order to be open to different opinions, I do need to understand fully the interesting evidence you've come up with.

Iceberg has attempted to clarify what the graph you posted shows, and why it may be relevant. Unfortunately, though, the link he gave doesn't work - and I'm still a bit uncertain about the different lines on it, and exactly what they represent.

So, as I previously asked, it would be really helpful if you could help us understand by explaining/confirming what they are yourself. I hope you think that's a fair request.

OK, Keith - you're off the hook. I'm sure you were just about to post the help I asked for yesterday, but I don't need it now, thanks!

I've belatedly noticed the thumbnail at the bottom of Iceberg's explanatory post above, which makes things much clearer. And also playing around with the link that didn't work, I've found a link that does: http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/amsutemps.html .

As Iceberg says, if you go there you can ask it to draw the graph lines (on which we think yours is based) for a satellite measurement of the av global temp at various different heights in the atmosphere. There are problems with the near-surface measurements at the moment, but the 14,000 ft height is apparently a good substitute. You can ask it to show as many years as you like from July-Aug 2002 to today, and also the average.

2011's temperature trace has been rising rapidly since your post, and as of 14th Jan (the last date given) it is, by coincidence, precisely the same as the average. But your point (if it is relevant) is still valid - the 14,000 ft temp is now even cooler than the same date last year, by 0.48 or 0.49^oC. But how relevant is a single date, or short sequence of dates, that's the question - particularly when, as Iceberg points out, the year you're comparing it with (2010) was way above average, and easily the highest in this satellite measurement sequence?

Have a look at it yourself, Keith, and tell us what you think. Should we not at least wait till later in the year before being sure there's a cooling-down going on - even a short-term one?

Edit: a suggestion - why don't we revisit this dataset and graph once or twice a month, say, and see how things move as the year progresses? We do just that on the Arctic Ice thread using the IJIS graph, and I find it very interesting.

Edited January 17, 2011 by osmposm

[Methuselah]

The multiple of anecdote is not data...

[keithlucky]

I am puzzled by just about everything in this post. Are you seriously saying that because the global average temperature (?at 14,000 ft) on 11th January this year was 0.7^oF lower than it was on 11th January last year, the planet is cooling? And I don't fully understand the graph, it has two lines on it - could you give us the link and/or explain what it shows? And am I right in assuming that the '0.7^oF cooler' factoid relate to the temperature at 14,000 ft (as on the graph)?

(1) The temp comparison for one particular date is irrelevant; the weather changes all the time, some days are colder than normal, some warmer. If I find you a single day when this year is 0.7^oF warmer than the same date last year, would that prove to you that global warming is taking place? Of course not. That's why they measure the temps on all the days in a year, average them out, and compare them with the average of all the days of previous years. On that basis, at the surface, globally 2010 is either the warmest or second warmest (measurement/processing bases/methods vary) in the record.

(2) Why are you looking at the temps 14,000 ft up anyway? Can you tell us how that relates to temperatures on the surface? Or are you planning to move your house to the top of the Matterhorn?

(3) Not that it really matters for the reasons above, but 0.7^oF is not 0.07^oC. Multiply by 5/9: the answer is about 0.4^oC.

Edit: no, I think the graph actually has three lines on it, though one is rather hard to see. I see that it seems to come from Steve Goddard's website, but I can't find it there, and I still don't know exactly what the lines represent. Any ideas, Keith? I can't believe you would have posted a graph for us to look at at without understanding what it showed.

Second edit: OK, after much thought I reckon the blue line must be 2010, the short brown one is 2011, and the yellowish one the mean (for which years, though?) - is that right? The temperatures at 14,000 ft, that is.

http://discover.itsc.uah.edu/amsutemps/

So sorry daughter in and out of hospital dont view every day heres the link.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

The chances of this La Nina lasting a little longer are on the higher side of chance since prior to the switch in perturbation cycle in Feb 2007. During the cycle of approx 36 years we see a ratio of 20 La Ninas against 13 El Ninos and vice versa...we are in the La Nina phase now. Also re cooling, well looks like this month globally will come in below average, which is a sharp drop from the dizzy heights of Aug, Sept, Oct. However, this is normal fo La Nina but let's see the scale of the drop come May/June as it does seem to be a pretty steep tumble. The Atlantic is likely to cool but not for another 5-10 years as it has its cycle like the PDO.

BFTP

[Alan Robinson]

I'm afraid that doesn't make much common sense to me. I agree that ENSO has a huge impact on atmospheric weather patterns but what do you mean by "I don't see why the Atlantic shouldn't follow suit "? As far as I know ther is no direct connection between this and and the heat capacity of the Atlantic. So pecifically why should the the Atlantic SSTs drop so dramatically particularly as there is normally an increase in hurricane activity during a La Nina? I think low solar activity is a red herring.

I like your approach WS. Just out of interest though, when you put red herring, are you implying that all this speculation about low solar activity and these two previous winters, for example, is a deliberate attempt by some people to distract us from something else? If so, might you divulge what?

[jethro]

Quick question from idiot here.....

How would we recognise the beginnings of a new ice age? Is there a list of criteria?

[Gray-Wolf]

Quick question from idiot here.....

How would we recognise the beginnings of a new ice age? Is there a list of criteria?

From what I've read you need cool summers allowing snow patches to survive and then grow the season after? You get to the point that the 'albedo effect' then starts to have a small impact which then (no pun intended) snowballs as the years progress.

As we see these days a high winter extent in snow cover means nothing if it's all gone by Mid-May (like last years 'record' snow cover at winters end?) the same is true of the Arctic ice pack, no good having a high max if it all melts out by mid summer?