Did Global Warming "Stop" Sixteen Years Ago?
An acquaintance of mine who’s very statistically savvy (and quite conservative) posted the following link on Facebook today.
I replied as follows (I’ve replaced a link here with a clickable image):
As a statistics guy, you know way better than most how important sample size is. There was a 30-year plateau in the HADCRUT data, mid-40s to mid-70s. But the longer-term trend is obvious and apparent:
(This is one just data set, but you can view and compare many others at this link. They’re remarkably similar. Try the rolling-average smoothing to get a less noisy picture.) For me the really big sample relates to arctic ice. We don’t really know when the summer arctic ice cap was last as small as it is now, but we do know that the last time it melted completely was approximately three million years ago. To me, if that’s just sort of happening due to random climate variation, over mere decades, it’s looking like a quite spectacular statistical anomaly.
I added: if he’s been saying this for years, he’s been basing those statements on even smaller sample sizes.
Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
Here is the one thing about the entire climate change argument that this is just natural blah, blah, blah…
We have no record of anytime in history an entity on this planet extracted a carbon based substance at ever increasing rates of extraction, burned it at ever increasing rates of extraction and released the resultant CO2 into the atmosphere.
We know what increased CO2 does to our atmosphere as it relates to heat. We know the reverse as we look at the history of our atmosphere and the extraction of carbon from it such that the atmosphere would be more oxygen, the planet cooled and life of an oxygen/carbon base could exist.
We also never thought we could pollute the oceans or fish out the oceans.
So why would your statistically savy friend not get this? How does he explain this unique planet activity of extracting carbon substances and converting it to CO2 releasing it into the air?
re: “but we do know that the last time it melted completely was approximately three million years ago”
Yearly minimum sea ice volume for the 2005-2012 period (in km3):
2005: 9159
2006: 8993
2007: 6458
2008: 7072
2009: 6893
2010: 4428
2011: 4017
2012: 3263
Basic rule of statistics: It does not prove anything.
I do not think that the sun will rise tomorrow because of a time series.
Steve, I recommend staying away from commenting on climate science. I think you’re making mistakes. You’re 0:2 in just the two statements you’ve made in this very short article. This is telling me you don’t look at the facts, but are following the media (which is often wrong).
You can show nearly anything you’d like to see in a timeline if you change the size of the window. 16 years, 60 years, 600 years, 6,000 years all give you a different picture (just like a stock chart might do when you zoom in/out of the data). The long-term chart shows nothing unusual about our current climate (unless you zoom in to just the “right” window on the “adjusted” charts). If instead you focus on just the period of fossil fuels and without the adjustments, then the temperature isn’t following the predictions of increased CO2.
That’s the significance of the latest news from the Met office. While CO2 has continued to increase, there has been no warming for 16 years. Clearly nature is more powerful than CO2, and therefore the claims of AGW are exaggerated.
Second problem, why are you talking about the loss of just 2% of the world’s ice located at the north pole? 90% is at the south pole, which has been increasing for decades. This more than makes up for the loss at the north pole. This loss, by the way, is also within normal variability. It happens about every 70 years.
Related to this loss is the cherry picked level of the low point for 2012. First, this was caused by a naturally occurring cyclone (not by melt). They happen at the end of summer, and break up the newly forming fragile ice.
Further, if you look at the current data you’ll find that the north pole is recovering ice at a record pace! There’s more ice there now than in 2007 (the last record low point). Look at the data and you’ll see we have been gaining new ice at a significant rate.
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/ice-area-and-extent-in-arctic
Please don’t fall for the media nonsense and start quoting what they say. Stick to the data (and also stay away from these predictions and op ed pieces). Follow the data.
That is because we are in a -PDO phase, in otherwards, when the +PDO phase begins again, another surge in global temps is coming. Period.
All the “cool” phases of earth’s cycle is stop the warming for awhile.
Your post is overstated. AGW understated.
Don’t pay attention to some “Anonymous” person making baseless claims I’m a shill for the oil companies (I’m not associated in anyway with any energy companies). This is a classic distraction from the science because they find the facts inconvenient. It’s the hypocrisy of those that call us paying attention to the data a “denier.”
FYI – here’s the “official” records from NASA and other scientific groups that keep track of the ice at the south pole. You will find, if you bother to examine the data, the ice is at a record high.
“winter sea ice extent in Antarctica has reached a record high”
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/
Chart showing the long-term growth trend from the National Snow and Ice Data Center
http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/files/2000/09/Figure6b.png
More…
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/timeseries.south.anom.1979-2008
ftp://sidads.colorado.edu/DATASETS/NOAA/G02135/south/daily/data/
And from the doomsayer himself at NASA, Zwally, show claimed an ice free polar region.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/20120013495_2012013235.pdf
PS – note that I’ve given facts and other have only given their anonymous opinions.
@Jim Reekes:
“Please don’t fall for the media nonsense and start quoting what they say. Stick to the data (and also stay away from these predictions and op ed pieces). Follow the data.”
Jim: that’s exactly what I’m doing, right? Looking at the data? Your suggestion that I’m a dimwitted and uncritical sap who just falls for whatever the “liberal media” tells me is insulting and seemingly delusional.
On the data you provided from arctic-roos.org. Am I completely confused? The graphs seem to say unequivocally that both extent and area of peak summer ice in 2012 were at their lowest levels ever — below the exceptionally low year 2007, and *far* below 1979-2006 average.
I don’t see how this demonstrates “that the north pole is recovering ice at a record pace.” Please help me understand.
Or wait a minute — no — you couldn’t possibly be making this argument based on THE LAST 30 DAYS OF DATA? Could you? I really hesitate to insult you so profoundly by suggesting you could be doing that. Please tell me I’m wrong.
i’ve always accepted that the planet was warming, but i’ve always suspected that heating incidental to human activity might be a greater contributor to AGW than the greenhouse effect, but i had never seen it quantified…
to give you an idea, during the aftermath of fukushima, Takashi Hirose, a japanese scientist, in showing that nuclear power is no answer to warming, computed that in japan’s nuclear energy program before fukushima, two thirds of the heat energy, or approximately 100,000,000 kilowatts of energy per day, was being lost; meaning “that every day they were pumping into the sea energy equivalent to 100 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima”…
we can guess that the heat loss from other forms of electric generation is comparable, but whatever the case, it’s obvious that our heating of the planet goes far beyond the heat trapped by human generated greenhouse gases…
the CO2 problem is really with the oceans, which have become 30% more acidic since the Industrial Revolution began…they’re the carbon sink for our emissions, & have absorbed more than 500 billion tons of carbon dioxide that has built up in the atmosphere, killing off the coral, interfering with the ability of shellfish to reproduce, & god knows what else…
A change in temperature is not the only indication of increased heating. When an ice cube melts, its temperature stays at 0 degrees C until it is completely melted. Until it melts, it does not get any warmer. The fact that temperature has stayed relatively fixed for 16 years, in the face of increased CO2 emissions, may be indicative of a phase change, like the ice cube melting, and thus cause for even greater concern, since the result may be a climate which is radically different in its characteristics, from that which we have now. Certainly, should the ice all melt, the only buffer between an increase in heat, and temperature change, will be evaporation. This would imply a more active atmosphere.
I wonder what happened 39-45 which caused global cooling ? Maybe if Republicans discover that the only effective anti warming policy we’ve ever had is to bomb the crap out of our enemies, they will learn to believe in global warming.
I recall being amused as George Will resorted to more creative ways to assess global warming only by comparing the latest data to 1998. in 2008 he said there had been no global warming in the past 10 years (no mention of the past 9 or 11). 2009 was more challenging. He said someone who turned 29 would have experienced no global warming in their adult lifetime (29-18 = 11 not quite as obvious cheating as past 11 years).
Then he gave up. Your friend is not as creative. Come on “16 years” it’s not just grossly false (14 not 16 you dailmailers) it makes the cherry picking obvious.
I’d say someone getting a drivers licence as soon as possible would have experienced no global warming in his lifetime (sounds as if it’s about cars cause you know we libruls hate cars cause we hate freedom).
2016 might be easy, but i’d guess it will leave 1998 (and us) in the dust.
apparently the UK Met Office felt a need to immediately debunk the daily mail article with a blog post and a chart included here:
Ten Charts That Make Clear The Planet Just Keeps Warming
Jim Reekes,
To whom in what party did you say:
“I am your huckleberry”?
There is a chance (outcomes), of MASSIVE human suffering to come if global warming occurs.
You can do nothing and keep you high octane/benezene content gasoline for your soccer Mom SUV, and say: human activity don’t cause it, or too late now, or it don’t exist or we can’t do anything…….
Or you can say: hydrocarbons are in limited supply, might minimize the worst human catastrophe since pharoah went up against Moses and reduce human cost of breathing polluted air……….
I think you are an oil company’s “huckleberry” or a tea party anti UN sustainable growther.
To gain enlightenment don’t be anyone’s “huckleberry”.
Does anyone know what character in what fils said “Iam your huckleberry”?
ilsm
@Steve Roth
I never said you were “dimwitted.” I also do not believe in a “liberal media” bias. I’ve simply suggested you avoid a discussion of climate change in a financial web site (where we’re unlikely to find experts that can discuss such matters). As you can see, people get very irrational and attack people and do not understand the data.
As a writing on economic data, you’ll easily understand that looking at the data is critical, and that you have to look at all the relevant data (not just one bit or look for correlations, but more deeply for causation).
As for the arctic ice, you’ve stated don’t know when it was “small as it is now.” The media is calling this a “record” low, but this is only (narrowly) framed within a few decades of satellite observations. Are you simply following what the media said? Have you looked at all the data? This is a VERY short period of time to make claims about the significance of the current arctic ice cap.
We do have historic records showing the ice retreats in long-term cycles. It’s possible the current low point of 2012 is not unusual. We have documents describing similar low amounts of ice in the 1930s recorded by Soviet ships that travel those waters. The MWP very likely had less ice than today. We cannot make definitive conclusions about the current arctic ice level if we’re only considering a few recent decades.
You seem to imply the loss of ice is due to melting (which is wrong) and at least evidence of global warming. There may be a correlation, but what’s the causality linking one with the other? In your same article it shows no warming and a record loss of ice. You haven’t acknowledge the real cause of the low ice extent was a cyclone – a MAJOR cyclone. One of the biggest on record! Read the data for “Great Arctic Cyclone of 2012.”
The “biggest” loss of Arctic ice was due to the “biggest” cyclone. This major cyclone broke up the ice. It did not melt. In fact, the cyclone brought in colder than normal temperatures. Before trying to link the cyclone with AGW, note that even the IPCC says they have “low confidence” in extreme weather being linked to global warming. Linking the current ice loss with AGW is literally on thin ice.
Your concern seems to be completely focused on the end of this summer (when the cyclone hit). If you look at the arctic-roos.org chart again you can see the prior winter had the highest amount of ice. If you’re not “falling” for what the media is reporting, why have you chosen just the very bottom point of the 2012 cycle (when the cyclone hit)?
If we are to focus on just the last month or two in the 2012 cycle, then we should also look at what’s been happening since that low point. We have a full month of data so far to look at now and we find the ice is recovering faster than any other year in that chart. That’s about 20% of the next phase, and we can extrapolate a trend.
Can you show where the first month of new ice has grown this rapidly? Are you able to ignore this, but still claim we should only focus on the months leading up to this low point? If you want to dismiss the past 30 days of recovery, I cant appreciate why you seem to focus on just one day (after a major cyclone).
I’m very interested in looking at the rate of new ice in next month (and the rest of the year). Will you follow up with an article talking about the 2012 winter gains?
Most of all, why are you focused on just 2% of the world’s ice in one area and implying something about the state of the entire world’s climate? As we can all see, 90% of the world’s ice at the south pole has been increasing. It’s been doing this for as long as we have kept satellite records. Why was the record level of ice at the south pole not included in your article?
@ Jim Reekes – 10 years ago the arctic ice was 3 times as thick and a cyclone wouldnt have touched it…
http://neven1.typepad.com/.a/6a0133f03a1e37970b017c32491387970b-pi
(chart based on data from the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington)
@ reekes, again:
the antarctic broke the record for one day by half a percent; the arctic broke the 2007 record for 3 weeks by 18%; here’s a comparison:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/poles-apart/
the antarctic has it’s own unique manmade problem that contributes to a colder upper atmosphere…ever heard of the ozone hole?
@Jim Reekes: “I’m very interested in looking at the rate of new ice in next month”
Okay, Martin, I get the joke. (“Jim Reekes.” Hah!) You just went too far in parodying the deniers. Even they would know how ridiculous that is. Thirty days evidence versus three million years. Hah.
You just couldn’t resist pushing it, could you? Tipped your hand. Pretty damn hilarious though.
I’ll see you at The Georgetown next week!
@Steve Roth
A pathetic (and cruel) ad hominem. You consider yourself a journalist? You’re an ideologue, and haven’t displayed intellectual honesty.
This was my last visit to this site.
My thanks to rjs. I’m looking at the interesting data he’s presented.