No AGW for up to 16 years.

Cold comfort in this. The retained heat has been (1) melting formerly-permanent ice and (2) warming the deep oceans. Warming of the atmosphere has already resumed.

 

If, for any reason, one wants to look at instrumental temperature records separate from the influence of 1998's strong El Nino, they are available here

Met Office Hadley Centre observations datasets

and from the BEST project website.

If one were to say that the effects of extreme El Nino events are inadequately captured by current climate models, I'd agree. One can factor them out from the time series (has been done and published), but it seems an empirical, not mechanistic approach. Less than satisfying.

Anyway, as always, good luck to all in the coming decades. Atmospheric CO2 will continue to increase, even though it is amenable to policy changes. The infrared absorption by CO2 is not.

 

1) The Brits don't capture temperatures in the Arctic. The arctic is the fastest-warming portion of the globe. So focusing on the British data, to the exclusion of better series, is not smart.
2) In a series where there is substantial year-to-year variation, comparing pairs of years is not smart.
2') Oh, wait, I didn't read closely enough. They aren't cherrypicking the years, they're comparing two months. This newspaper article is about comparing global temperatures in two months? That's really not smart.

OK, weirder and weirder. I went and downloaded HadCRUT4 and it shows no such thing. The anomaly for the final listed point (August 2012) is about 0.5 degrees, the anomaly for January 1997 is about 0.2 degrees. Not 0.5 degrees as stated.

They got the year wrong. What the HadCRUT4 data show is that the January 2008 anomaly ("El Nino of the Century" year) was about the same as the September 2012 anomaly.

Yeah, look at their graph. See the big El Nino peak that they show in the middle of 1997? That famously occurred in 1998. So these "experts" on global warming somehow didn't notice that the 1998 El Nino occurs in 1997 in their graph. (You might weasel out of this by saying that they just labeled their graph eccentrically, but they specifically said "start of 1997" in the article.)




OK, to sum up. The took the good old "global warming stopped in 1998" argument, based on the substantial El Nino that occurred that year, mis-labeled 1998 as 1997, and presented this as something new.

Suppose for a second that you wanted to do this right. Ok, you wouldn't look at a short time-series of temperatures. You certainly wouldn't compare two months. You wouldn't focus on the HadCRUT timeseries.

But one version of "right" would just take the HadCRUT4 series, over the period they said they examined, and plot the data. Modest positive and statistically significant trend (which is essentially meaningless over this short a time period.) That's attached as a .jpg here.

Alternatively, you'd take the best available data on global temperatures (either of the US ground-based series), and account for the major sources of "natural variation" (meaning, solar cycle, El Nino, and volcanic eruptions). From that analysis you get a picture like the one shown below. This was eventually published in Environmental Research Letters:

The Real Global Warming Signal | Open Mind

 

IMHO the problem is the exagerations - Policy makers were told that 1998 was the new normal accelerated climate change. Individial years were put on graphs. Now when the british people have bought this line, and we see variability, it looks like the trend was false. From the OPs link
Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released... and here is the chart to prove it | Mail Online

He actually tried to obscure the natural variability. Why this academically dishonest person is still quoted in the press as anything else but a fraud is beyond me. He doesn't really talk about science here. He's convinced by his own ego that variability must be smaller than the trend. What he should be saying is this also buried further down.

The met office and I disagree about 15 years being unlikely. The osculations would likely get averaged out over this period, but historically there have been longer periods of decreased solar radiation, and this is not easily predicted.

Here is the effect of finding out the scientists at East Angola and the Met were puting out misleading predictions in the past.

 

OK.

Osculations = oscillations.
Angola = Anglia

The rest seems to be pretty much pure fiction. Possibly, like Tim Bikes of the past, my speculation is that this is paid fiction.

"Policy makers were told that 1998 was the new normal accelerated climate change"

Citations, please.

For the rest of it, smearing Phil Jones, all I can ask is that interetested readers Google it.

Otherwise, you think this depends on the smearing the academic reputation of a few individuals? I think that's unlikely to be correct.

 

AG, Is the Env. Res Lett article you mention Foster and Rahmstorf 2011? Probably says on Tamino's wordpress, but wordpress sites are generally 'closed' to me.

Anyway, there have been other attempts to separate El Nino, aerosols (volcanic or combustion), solar output, and other factors from the CO2 +H2O T increases, some of which have used more than 22 years of data.

AG would also wish to exclude Phil Jones (and from other comments, James Hansen) from the climate discussions based on perceieved untrue statements. Were such a limit appled to 'both sides', I reckon that it would particularly thin the herd of prominent sceptics! I'd prefer to exclude no voices, but to depend much more on the published science. But I always ask for that here, and all must be pretty bored with it by now.

I've forgotten where I read recently that 2012 would need to have a very cold finish, globally, for the year to not exceed 1998's annual T. Did anyone else (with a better memory) also read that?

 

The Daily Mail conservative tabloid is infamous for their "science" articles.

This one gets dissected and debunked here: Why the Mail on Sunday was wrong to claim global warming has stopped | Environment | guardian.co.uk

 

Wth, yes there are spelling errors, and a little joke about how poor the british do science - Angola style. The article was not written by me, what speculation do you see in my post. There is none at all

Phil Jones smeared himself. He would have been asked to leave my university even with tenure. Not much excuse for saying you will destroy data so that it can not be peer reviewed. Even less excuse for saying you can't find the data when asked for it. This is academic dishonesty. He is a politician not a scientist.

You can look at the graphs put out by jones in 1998-2001, clearly ending the smoothing and putting single exceptional years out on top. This is simply a distortion of the data, a statistical manipulation that will breed bad results. When the data goes against you, using this technique there are footnotes.

Yes, but we don't really need it for this thread.

Yes, you need to use 22 years for 2 half solar cycles to really be in the know. I don't understand why Jones and the Met office were talking about its not a trend until 15 years. Well we have passed there artificial bar, but to me there wasn't good reason to be talking about 15 years in the first place.

Jones, because he has been caught cheating and I assume he will do it again. I would throw out watts too as being all political, but he often points to actual scientific research, and that research, not his opinions of it are fair game.

Hansen does good legitimate science, along with a lot of politics lately. I would like to separate the two. When he is making political type statements I would like to exclude those. He is on the high end of forecasts, but these are legitimate. I simply disagree with some of the discussions in the conclusions. Its fairly straightforward when Hansen is doing science versus politics. When he says he's being muzzled or gets himself arrested its political. When something is published in a scientific journal its science. When he is quoted in the popular press its a combination of both.

I would rather be boring and discuss real science, than the more exciting political exaggerations.

We have 3 temperature records GISS, NCDC, and Hadcrut. We should beat GISS and NCDC. Hadcrut had a much warmer '98 than the other two. I doubt we will exceed hadcrut, which is what Jones and the Met office use.

Here is the GISS prediction
2012 Likely to Reach Record High Global Temperature, according to NASA - Climate Change - AccuWeather.com


Here is the NCDC actuality
State of the Climate | Global Analysis | September 2012

October,November, December were cooler in '98 than '05. 2012 may break the GISS and NCDC 1998 record, but we need to see how the year ends.

 

Jeff, while that does show a good lesson - that if climate is 30 years of weather, breaking it down to small chunks distorts the trend line.

Those versed in good statistical analysis will note that that skepticalscience.com chart is also very distorted. Why are we assuming a linear trend? CO2 based warming should be exponential, so the trend line can not fit if the model is correct. The chart shows land only, but global warming is land and sea. Land warming is higher than sea. The time period is short and arbitrary.

If you want to learn, the chart should be much longer, perhaps starting in 1880 or 1850. A straight line should not be used, a 10 year moving average would seem appropriate. The red line is 5 year average and gives you a decent feel below.

Data.GISS:GISS Surface Temperature Analysis: Analysis Graphs and Plots

 

Austin Green, why not take five minutes to set the record straight on Wikipedia. They, along with several official inquiries by the British government, seem to have gotten the story completely wrong. You'd be doing the world a service to set them straight.

Phil Jones (climatologist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Jones headed the CRU jointly with Jean Palutikof from 1998–2004 and by himself from 2004.[5] He temporarily stepped aside from this position in November 2009 following a controversy over e-mails which were taken and published by person(s) unknown.[6] The House of Commons' Science and Technology Select Committee inquiry concluded that there was no case against Jones for him to answer, and said he should be reinstated in his post.[7] He was reinstated in July 2010 with the newly-created role of Director of Research, after a further review led by Sir Muir Russell found no fault with the "rigour and honesty as scientists" of Jones and his colleagues, although finding that the CRU scientists had not embraced the "spirit of openness" of the UK Freedom of Information Act. The university said that the new position was not a demotion and would enable Jones to concentrate on research and "reduce his responsibilities for administration."[8]"

But seriously. We've got a newspaper piece, using a short time series, comparing values in two months, getting the dates wrong (and clearly not noticing it). Nicely debunked on line, as Jeff N pointed out. Yet you jump in vigorously to defend it.

So, simple question -- was the OP newspaper article a piece of crap or not? Yes or no?

 

As a politician Jones was doing what the british politicians wanted him to do. They weren't going to put him in prison. I would not hold up wikipedia as anything I need to correct. He was moved aside after the scandal. He should have been fired IMHO. I'm sure you believe the change in position had nothing to do with Jones academic dishonesty and shame it brought to the university. I'm also sure you believe that citibank ceo stepped down to spend more time with his family. The UK court not finding fault to the letter of the law only the spirit, was like bush saying "brownie your doing a heck of a job". I don't think many would want to put Brown back in charge of fema. A scientist that believe their conclusions so much that they destroy data and actively encourage other scientists to subvert peer review should not be shown deference in any way. In politics the crap often rises to the top, and is honored by those that love crap.

I thought I pretty clearly stated it was crap. Using curry and jones was all about controversy not science. There is a little science there but its hard to find. As I pointed out that fellow from the met office gave the proper response.

Note Hadcrut and Met often have released partial data. GISS and NCDC and now BEST attempt to put it all out there warts and all. I posted the GISS 5 year trend line above, and a 10 year line, more appropriate for climate change would show that this 16 year period likely is natural variation in a long term warming climate.

The science is really those that thought the only thing going on in the warming in the 90s was ghg were likely wrong. Oscillations and solar radiation are not well modeled, and more work needs to be done to nail down the ghg sensitivity. Still the best guess for sensitivity is the 2.8 degrees/doubling (Alley) or 3 degrres/doubling (IPCC) but their is much uncertainty.

 

Fair enough. The newspaper article is crap. We'll disagree about the rest of it. I've read both the Muir Russel and House of Commons reports. I found them convincing. Well, Muir Russel, anyway. You either haven't read them or didn't find them convincing. So be it.

 

I will pick on one thing in AG@11
"CO2 based warming should be exponential"
Based on infrared absorption, this is not correct. It 'should be' logarithmic, and multiply that by the (recent, approximately) exponential CO2 increase, linear is not an inherently poor result.
It is not the whole story, because after the atmosphere absorbs the additional energy, it goes somewhere. Some is re-radiated where the sky is without clouds. So the 'when and where' of cloud cover plays a role. Kerry Emanuel has a (IMHO great) Charney lecture touching on that, online somewhere.
Some of the energy melts ice and warms terrestrial surfaces. I understand this to be a smaller fraction, but again a linear fit does not seem inherently incorrect.
Then you have the elephant in the room, or perhaps the whale in the sea, energy transferred to the global ocean. There, as I've said before, the climate models are weak because they don't spontaneously develop ENSO, PDO, or the other multiannual 'sloshes' unless you give them a push. So the ocean sequesters heat as it will, modeling is less than informative, and the instrumental basis to assess marine heat storage (now, mostly ARGO floats) is sparse.
With all of that going on, I can't imagine suggesting that some other functional relationship is more appropriate than plain old linear.

T in 1998 has generated a lot of interest, but the last thing I'd say about it here is that it was both El Nino and at the solar max output. 2012 is ENSO neutral and middling in terms of solar output. If this years air T becomes the newest max, it could not be attributed to those factors that were both big in 1998.

If 2013 2014 etc. do not exceed 2012, I suppose that media will tell us again that 'climate change is over'. But that's just what they do. Not the home of comprehensive, long-term thinking...