“The researchers found that no other possible natural phenomenon, such as volcanic eruptions or variations in the activity of the sun, could explain the significant warming of the planet over the past half century as recorded on every continent including Antarctica.”  It goes on:  “It is only when the warming effect of emitting millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from human activity is considered that it is possible to explain why global average temperatures have risen so significantly since the middle of the 20th century.”

How did they arrive at this conclusion?  Well, they matched computer models of possible causes of climate change, both human-led and otherwise, to measured changes in factors such as air and sea temperature, Arctic sea ice cover and global rainfall patterns.  They call the technique “optimal detection”, and claim that it showed clear fingerprints of human-induced global warming.  Richard Lindzen has this to say about their application of “optimal detection”:

“they take models that can not reasonably simulate known patterns (such as ENSO, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation), claim that such models accurately depict natural internal climate variability, and use the fact that the models could not replicate the warming episodes… to argue that forcing was necessary and that the forcing must have been due to man”.

Well put.  As Lindzen also points out, their argument constitutes a rejection of scientific logic that makes arguments for Intelligent Design seem rigorous by comparison.  It boils down to argument from ignorance.  They have created models that include only the possible causes they know about and are capable of modelling, with all of their weightings tuned to enable reasonable hind-casting, applied it to a warming world, and shouted “Eureka!” when it sort-of matched expectations (nothing is said about the fifteen-year hiatus in warming from 1995).

To return to Dr Peter Stott, in his review: “”What we see here are observations consistent with a warming world. This wealth of evidence we have now shows there is an increasingly remote possibility of climate change being dominated by natural factors rather than human factors.”

Bunkum.  Stott’s “wealth of evidence” has no more significance than the Iraqi buildings.  There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.  And the endless list of the consequences of Global Warming does not show that we humans are causing it, or that it is catastrophic.  There is no need to go to war.

References:

NZ Herald Article on the Review:  http://www.nzherald.co.nz/science/news/article.cfm?c_id=82&objectid=10630087

Aust Age Article on Guardian report:  http://www.theage.com.au/world/climate-change-review-stresses-human-factor-20100305-pouc.html

Richard Lindzen on AGW  http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2010/02/dr-richard-lindzens-talk-at-fermilab.html

Yep. The data don’t lie.

They didn’t lie about the cooling from 1998 to last year, when the published global temperatures by the AGW lobby said the earth was still warming.

And they didn’t lie about the extra warm January in 2007.  And they don’t lie about January 2010.  It’s warm – very warm.

The Grumpy Old Man is in the mood for sooth-saying.

First prediction:  Many of the AGW lobby will now temporarily forget their distrust of satellite-measured temperatures and insist that this result supports their belief that the earth is warming as a result of man-made CO2.  They will forget that distrust, that is, until the satellite-measured temperatures fall, just as they did from 1998 to last year.  If the data don’t support their beliefs, then the data will be obviously wrong, and will be supplanted by carefully homogenised temperatures from an AGW-friendly source.

Second prediction:  Some of the responses to the Accuweather Global Warming blog post that reported the January record temperature will provide supporting evidence of the truth of the first prediction.

First Speculation:  The warmer Arctic temperatures caused by the negative Arctic Oscillation will result in thinner than usual sea-ice.  Spring and Summer will therefore bring a collapse of Arctic sea-ice, similar to the one that occurred in 2007.  Which will be cited as further evidence of AGW.

Second Speculation:  Global temperatures will drop dramatically in 2010, just as they did in 2007 after the record January temperatures of that year.  And the AGW lobby will suddenly mistrust the satellite record once more.  NASA will publish their own terrestrial records, homogenised and averaged beyond all recognition, which will diametrically contradict the satellite record.

We’ll be able to assess the two predictions after reading all the responses to the Accuweather post.  The speculations will take the rest of 2010 to assess.

1.6552 deg C per century (“corrected”), or 1.6539 deg C (uncorrected) based on analysis of temperatures from 1979 – 2009.  Should we be alarmed?

Nope.  The Accuweather hurricane forecaster Joe Bastardi, in his European blog, points out that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has just switched over from its warming cycle to the start of a thirty-year cooling cycle.  The Northern hemisphere similarly has just switched over – here in the Netherlands, the negative Arctic Oscillation has brought the coldest winter for thirty years, and there are more cold winters to come.  Now even the IPCC admits that we are headed for thirty years of global cooling.  From 1979 – 2009, the Atlantic and the Pacific have been in warming mode.  The warming rate in the last thirty years is completely normal in those circumstances.

In his blog entry for Saturday 16 January 2010, Joe Bastardi rhetorically addresses the NOAA people.  This is how he puts it:

“Its not like the 80s and 90s guys ( and gals) you were running the table with warm warm warm. Kick in the Atlantic switching to its warm cycle and what did you think would happen. Cmon now.. 75% of the worlds surface is water… the ice caps are surrounded by water…. the two biggest oceans in their warm cycle together.. Folks, if you bet warming, you have a free shot on goal, NO GOALIE!”

Right on, Joe!  To publish per century rates based on three decades of natural oceanic warming conditions, without mentioning those warming conditions is mischievously misleading at best, and downright malicious alarmist poppycock if I am to be less polite.  You can bet your shirt that when they publish the cooling trend during the coming years, the NCDC and the IPCC will shout about the negative PDO at the top of their lungs!

The NDCC warming rates based readings from 1880 – 2009 are 0.5911 deg C per century (“corrected”) or 0.5621 deg C per century (uncorrected).  That’s more believable.  One has only to look at environmental changes like the retreating glaciers in a number of locations like New Zealand to find evidence of warming.  Perfectly natural warming – the earth has warmed much more rapidly many times in its long history.  The rate of warming in the last century certainly does not indicate that we are warming the planet by our activities.  Sorry, chicken lickens.  The sky is not falling.  The earth will cool again.

You can read the whole story by following the link to the NCDC/NOAA report in the References section at the end of this grump.  I leave it to others to criticise the way they massage data, and their selection of temperature records.

You can access Brett Anderson’s and Joe Bastardi’s blogs from the links section of this website.

References:

NCDC Article http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cmb-faq/temperature-monitoring.html