Global Cooling - Climate and Weather Forecasting.

Introduction.

Over the last 10 years or so as new data have accumulated the general trend and likely future course of  climate change has become reasonably clear. The earth is entering a cooling phase which is likely to last about 30 years and possibly longer. The major natural factors  controlling climate change have also become obvious.Unfortunately the general public has been bombarded by the scientific and media and political establishments with anthropogenic global  warming  - anti CO2 propaganda based on the misuse and misrepresentation of already shoddy IPCC "science"   for political ,commercial and personal ends.
The IPCC climate science community  largely abandoned empirical Baconian inductive scientific principles  and  built  worthless climate models based on  unfounded assumptions designed to show that anthropogenic CO2 was the driving force behind changing climate. Most of the IPCC output is useless as a tool for predicting future climate trends and their impacts and in particular the IPCC Summaries for Policymakers can be safely ignored for practical purposes. The divergence between the IPCC Hansen projections and the observed trends is shown below.
                                                                                     
                                   Fig 1 ( From Prof. Jan-Erik Solheim (Oslo) )

Fortunately, however , the basic data is now easily available so that any reasonably intelligent person can check on line daily or monthly to see what the incoming empirical data actually is and draw ones own conclusions.Here's how to do it in a few simple steps. I have put  in CAPITALS the main empirical observations on which one can draw conclusions re climate change ,its causes and future trends and also get a good idea of weather patterns and trends for the next year or so.

1. Check the Temperature Trends and Data.

Because of the Urban Heat Island effect ,the built in local variability of the NH land data and the thermal inertia of the oceans, Sea Surface Temperatures are the best measure of global temperature trends. These show that the global warming trend ended in about 2003. THERE HAS NOW BEEN NO NET WARMING SINCE 1997 -15 YEARS WITH  CO2 RISING 8.5% WITH NO GLOBAL TEMPERATURE INCREASE.  SINCE 2003 THE TREND IS NEGATIVE.
To check the past years go to
 ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/annual.ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat
and for monthly updates go to.
 ftp://ftp.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/anomalies/monthly.ocean.90S.90N.df_1901-2000mean.dat



The 2012 average NCDC SST anomaly thru Sept was .4438 versus the 1997 annual anomaly of  .4575.
The peak anomaly was .5207 in 2003.

An excellent site for reviewing all the basic temperature data is  http://www.climate4you.com/

2. Check the current phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.

Here  is a plot and suggested projection based on the Hadley SST3  from Tallbloke.

Fig 2

(See:  http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/the-carbon-flame-war-final-comment/)  He says “I have put together a simple model which replicates sea surface temperature (which drives global lower troposphere temperature and surface temperatures a few months later). The correlation between my model and the SST is R^2=0.874 from 1876 FOR MONTHLY DATA.” The model is shown  with predictions to 2050 (blue) along with the HADsst3 (red).

I included Fig 2  because an approximate 60 year cycle is obvious by inspection and this coincides well with the  30 year +/- positive (warm) and  30year +/ negative (cold) phases of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.  Figure 2 shows warming from about 1910 -  1940-45  , cooling from then to about 1975 -.warming to about 2003-5 and cooling since then. Total warming during the 20th century was about 0.8 degrees C. For a complete discussion and review of the data relating the PDO to the other oceanic cycles and temperatures see
 http://myweb.wwu.edu/dbunny/pdfs/aleo-easterbrook_ch5Relationship-multidecadal-global-temps-to-oceanic-oscillations.pdf

For latest PDO data see  http://jisao.washington.edu/pdo/PDO.latest

IT IS CLEAR THAT WE ARE IN THE EARLY STAGES OF A THIRTY YEAR NEGATIVE  (COOLING ) PDO CYCLE.

Fig3    ( from http://www.climate4you.com/)





3. Check Solar Activity - where are we at?

The major ice age  climate cycles are controlled by the sun - earth orbital eccentricity,and the earth's obliquity and precession. These cycles are approximately 100,000, 41,000 and 21000 years  in length respectively and are well documented in the ice core and geological record. It is useful to keep in mind that the warmest temperatures in the current interglacial occurred about 7500+/- years ago and the GENERAL TREND IS NOW A COOLING TOWARDS THE NEXT ICE AGE.

                                Fig 4  http://colli239.fts.educ.msu.edu/1999/07/11/vostok-1999/

These long term cycles are modulated by quasi cyclic trends in solar activity  which may be decadal ,centennial or millennial in length.Of particular interest in deciding where we are with regard to the solar cycles is the approximately 1000 +/- year cycle which produced succesively the Roman Warm Period, the Dark Ages,the Medieval Warm Period, the Little Ice Age and the recent 20th century warming.

Fig 5  (From  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/07/10/global_warming_undermined_by_study_of_climate_change/ )




The red line shows the continuing cooling trend from the Holocene optimum and the 1000yr +/- solar cycle is clearly seen.
NOTE -  A REASONABLE CASE CAN BE MADE THAT THE WARMING PEAKS OF A 60 YEAR  PDO CYCLE AND THE 1000 YEAR SOLAR CYCLE COINCIDED AT 2000 +/- AND WE ARE LIKELY ON THE COOLING SLOPE OF BOTH.
The clearest empirical measure of  solar activity is the solar magnetic field strength. On an empirical basis Livingston and Penn have shown that the decline in solar magnetic field strength suggests that sunspots could disappear by about 2015 signalling THE START OF A NEW  MAUNDER MINIMUM WITH SIGNIFICANT COOLING.
For a semi-empirical estimate of the possible cooling if a Maunder Minimum does develop see http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/2001/2001_Shindell_etal_1.pdf

Note the abstract of the Shindell  paper (Mann is one of the et als) says  "THIS LEADS TO COLDER TEMPERATURES OVER THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE CONTINENTS ESPECIALLY IN WINTER (1 to 2 C), IN AGREEMENT WITH HISTORICAL RECORDS AND PROXY DATA FOR SURFACE TEMPEERATURES

 "For a good review of the latest sunspot and magnetic data see
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/09/03/the-sun-still-slumping/     and to keep  with the decline in solar magnetic field strength  and the liklihood of a Maunder Minimum  check  monthly the Livingston and Penn thread at
http://solarcycle24com.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=855

Perhaps the best indicator of the effect of the declining solar magnetic field can be seen in the Galactic Cosmic Ray flux.
This can be checked on a daily basis at http://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/#database

Fig 6 Neutron count since 1964 from the Oulu data base.

 The Dec 2009 neutron maximum  ( solar cycle 23 -24  minimum) is greater than anything seen previously and the neutron count is now (Nov 2012) higher than at any comparable time in previous cycles since we are only 12 -18 months away from the cycle 24 solar maximum.There was a secular change in solar magnetism in 2005 - check the WUWT link posted earlier. The neutron count ties to earths climate via cloud cover and albedo. Simply put -  the lower the neutron count the lower the cloud cover  and the warmer the temperature. Because  of the enthalpy and thermal inertia of the oceans there is  a 10 - 12 year lag between the neutron troughs  and global SSTs. The short term  temperature record is variable over shorter times than 12 years because of El Ninos and  La Ninas  and volcanic and lunar effects but  the increasingly lower counts on the three troughs from 1970 -  1991 are well matched by the temperature rise from 1981 - 2003. THE RELATIVELY HIGH NEUTRON COUNT IN 2012 COMPARED WITH 1970 SUGGESTS THAT BY 2024 GLOBAL TEMPERATURES WILL BE BELOW THOSE OF 1970 WHICH WERE ALREADY BELOW 2012  BY ABOUT 0.36 C.
4. Check the Southern Oscillation Index.

Having checked the PDO a look at the SOI  will give  a shorter term look at climate and weather trends over a three or - five year period and a good idea of climate and  related weather  over the next six - 12 months.On a global scale, during El Ninos temperatures are warmer and during La Ninas temperatures are colder. El Ninos are more common during the positve phase of the PDO and La Ninas are more frequent during the negative or cold phase of the PDO. Here is where we are now.(Nov 2012)

                                  Fig 7  http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/

In Fig 7 values above +8 indicate La Ninas, values below -8 are El Ninos and values in betwen are neutral or La Nadas.
 Figure 7  also has some predictive value relative to global temperatures. ( Mclean et al JGR 2009)  Global temperatures appear to lag the SOI by about 7 months.


5. Climate , Weather  and Extreme Events.

Sections 1 - 4 above show that the earth has entered a cooling trend which will continue for at least 30 years and perhaps longer. To get some idea of possible extreme weather events we might look at extremes found between the MWP and the Little Ice Age. It is unlikely however that any future extremes will be "unprecedented".There is a large literature on this topic which interested parties can consult.Some general empirical observations can be made.
On a cooling earth there is a steeper temperature gradient from the Tropics to the Poles. This produces instabilities with the jet stream swinging meridionally further south and north. Thus blocking  high pressure systems develop with extremes  of cold and heat and sharp temperature gradients between air masses with for example Sandy type blizzards or tornado swarms. A cooler world will be a generally drier world with increasing droughts globally and  in e.g the USA corn belt and in the USA in general When combined with shorter growing seasons and possible early and late frosts this is likely to threaten world food production as population increases.
The PDO and SOI  indices are the main ocean climate and weather indicators.Obviously ,for regional analyses at particular times, the phases  of other ocean systems relative to the first two -  for the U.S for example  the AMO and NAO need to be considered. These are easily checked by looking from time to time at the work of the best climate and weather  interpreters Joe D'Aleo and Joe Bastardi on http://www.icecap.us/ 


6.Summary of some Future Trends and Policy Suggestions.

The empirical observations highlighted in CAPITALS above indicate that the global warming  temperature  trend has peaked .The peak is broad with only a little cooling to date but this will likely accelerate from 2015 or 2016 on reflecting the beginning of the increase  in the cosmic ray count already seen   from 2004  - 2009 in Fig 6. The cooling will last until 2030- 2040. Often the signal for a climate direction change is a see saw effect between Arctic and Antarctic sea ice. The Arctic is still reflecting the peak in the warming  trend with low summer ice values.
The first indication of a cooling event is however the increase in Antarctic sea ice which has already occurred.
This alters the oceanic deep water circulation patterns and spreads the cooling world wide. The Arctic ice will begin to catch up in a five years or so.
With a cooling world sea levels will stop rising and begin to fall  as glaciers and ice caps begin to increase and the oceans compress with cooling.Eventually the rate of CO2 increase will slow and may even reverse even if human emissions continue to rise .
Because the error bars in our rough estimates of natural temperature variations are larger than any possible

effect of  anthropogenic CO2 ( the sensitivity curve is logarithmic and there is currently no observed empirical connection between CO2 and measured global temperatures) we cannot even measure the small effect of anthropogenic CO2 .Furthermore it is simply delusional to try to control temperature by emmission caps when the warming threat is non existent. Indeed because crop production is helped by CO2 it would make more sense to increase CO2 emissions to ameliorate the deleterious effects of cooling.

The increasing  damage from extreme ( but not unprecedented ) events arises because billions of people have moved into coastal areas,deserts and semi -arid regions during a period of unusually optimum climate. We should review infrastructure and water resources in light of the climate and weather trends outlined above and make adaptive investments as necessary after cost benefit analysis.In general ,food stocks should be built up, GM seeds adapted to drought and cold should be developed.The use of ethanol from food stocks is criminal folly and all subsidies and mandates should be abolished immediately. The best way to reduce the human footprint on the planet is to reduce population growth by getting the cheapest energy and food to the maximum number of people possible . This would free billions of women from toil so that they could pursue education , and raise their standard of living . The birth rate would drop significantly if women's status were raised in this way.

Post on Dot Earth 11/1/12 - Adaptation

Dr Norman Page Houston.

You ( Andy Revkin) say

"Pursuing wise policies on curbing greenhouse gas emissions and on boosting resilience to extreme events both make sense,"

This is not true.It is now likely that for the next 30 years at least the earth will be in a cooling trend. Anthropogenic CO2 emissions have a hardly measurable effect on global climate compared with natural variability. Check my various posts on

climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com to see the empirical basis for this viewpoint.

The IPCC now says

"“Uncertainty in the sign of projected changes in climate extremes over the coming two to three decades is relatively large because climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability”.

Unless we get the science right we will make the wrong decisions.Cooling would bring e.g.more east coast hurricanes with some accompanying blizzards,more violent and frequent tornadoes and corn belt droughts and western forest fires . Warming e.g would bring more equable weather with better crop yields but with more category 4 Gulf Coast hurricanes.

We must identify the threats from either cooling or warming correctly and make the necessary infrastructue investments based on empirical cost - benefit analysis.

Even if the climate were to warm, curbing CO2 would make little difference at enormous economic cost - especially to the worlds poor , especially if ethanol and biofuel use continue to be mandated.

Adaptation is the only sensible policy in either case .

Hurricane Sandy-Extreme Events and Global Cooling

By way of introduction I will repost a piece from my blog  www.climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com

"30 Year Climate Forecast -- 2 Year Update. (posted on 7/19/2012)


The original Forecast was posted on 6/18/2010. Two more years of Termperature, Ocean Current patterns, and Solar, and "weather" data have considerably confirmed and strengthened the original forecast.

In brief - NOAA - HCN - SSTs show that warming peaked in 2003 and there has now been no net warming since 1997 - 15 years with no net warming and CO2 up 8.2%. Since 2003 the global temperature trend is slightly negative. The PDO remains in its negative phase while the solar magnetic field strength continues an inexorable decline ,which is looking more and more likely to be a precursor of a Maunder type minimum. Sunspot data and the relatively high GCR count for this stage in solar cycle 24 confirm the secular change in solar activity relative to the previous century.

Meanwhile the weather patterns - particularly in the US and Europe - have been as forecast in the earlier post. I repost some relevant parts below with some of successful predictions in bold.

". A cooler world with lower SSTs usually means a dryer world. Thus droughts will be more likely in for example east Africa with possible monsoon failures in India. In California the PDO will mean less rainfall with more forest fires in the south. However in the Cascades and Northern Sierras snowpack could increase since more of the rain could occur as snow. Northern Hemisphere growing seasons will be shorter with occasional early and late frosts and drought in the US corn belt and in Asia repeats of the harsh Mongolian and Chinese winters of 2009 – 10 . In Europe cold snowy winters and cool cloudy summers will be more frequent .

There will be a steeper temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles so that violent thunderstorms with associated flooding and tornadoes will be more frequent in the USA, At the same time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South thus local weather in the Northern hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with occasional more northerly heat waves and more southerly unusually cold snaps. In the USA hurricanes may strike the east coast with greater frequency in summer and storm related blizzards more common in winter."

The general conclusions of the original post are confirmed"

Hurricane Sandy is a precursor of extreme events which will become more frequent as the empirically observed cooling trend accelerates  from 2014 on as solar cycle 24 winds down.It is now very clear that the generally more meridional path of the Jet Stream  on a cooling planet with the associated development of blocking highs with steep temperature and pressure gradients between the air masses is a recipe for such extreme events.The obvious climate signal is the development of  heavy snows and blizzards on the west side of this  storm.
By contrast a warming world would have a less steep temperature gradient between the tropics and the poles with a more latitudinal Jet Stream path and a more equable climate.
Another sign of cooling is  an increase in La Nina as opposed to El Nino events,.It is not perhaps merely coincidental that Sandy developed just as an El Nino event much anticipated by the AGW faithful  failed to appear. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology said on 10/29/12;

"The retreat from El Niño thresholds over the past several weeks is considered highly unusual, as September–October is typically the time when developing El Niño (or La Niña) events consolidate and mature."

Another  straw in the climate wind is the recent record extent of Antarctic sea ice. It may well be that this is one of the first signs of a major change in the climate regime as discussed recently for example by Elderfield et al      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6095/704.abstract

The general relationships between climate and earth - solar orbital relationships and solar activity are becomong increasingly clear.The relation betwen Ice Ages  and earths eccenticity, obliquity and precession  are well documented while the lunar declination cycle is well represented in the earths temperature power spectrum.These orbital cycles are modulated by solar decadal,centennial and millenial cycles mainly , but not entirely,through changes in the solar magnetic field strength and its effects on the GCR flux and the effect of the latter on clouds and aerosols and earths albedo.The late 20th century warming can be easily accounted for by the increase in sunshine reaching the earth's surface  as shown by Wang et al.

Atmospheric impacts on climatic variability of surface incident solar radiation
K. Wang1, R. E. Dickinson2, M. Wild3, and S. Liang4
http://www.atmos-chem-phys-discuss.net/12/14009/2012/acpd-12-14009-2012-print.pdf

It is now clear that  anthropogenic CO2  can play only a minor role in climate change and policies to control CO2 emissions are completely irrelevant or indeed counterproductive. Hurricane Sandy does however show what may be in store and that we should consider carefully what steps need to be taken to adapt our infrastructure to more frequent extreme events and  world   food production to the likelihood of  more general cold and drought  with intermittent floods and shorter growing seasons with unseasonable frosts.

Post to Frontline 10/23/12

The slant of the program was to show that the decline in the public's concern about climate change was largely due to organised political activy paid for by various right wing pressure groups.This effort could not have succeded had the world warmed as predicted by the IPCC and the ecoleft environmentalists. The real earth has been in a cooling phase since about 2003.

Because of the Urban Heat Island effect and the thermal inertia of the oceans Sea Surface Temperatures are the best measure of global trends. These show that the global warming trend ended in about 2003. There has been no net warming since 1997 since when CO2 has risen 8.5% with no global temperature increase. Since 2003 the trend is negative. The current decline in the solar magnetic field strength is so marked as to suggest a possible coming Maunder Minimum (Little Ice Age) and the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation suggests a likely 20 - 30 year cooling phase. For the next 30 years or so cooling is more likely than warming .Beyond that we know too little to make any actionable predictions.A colder dryer earth would,however be much more harmful to world food production than a warmer wetter one.
Any journalist or TV producer interested in the facts should have done due diligence because all the basic data is easily available on the web. Instead you rely on presenting the opinion of advocates of the competing viewpoints but continually kept emphasising the statistically ridiculous notion of a 97% consensus for AGW.
Clearly Frontline did no due diligence on this nonsense.
Lawrence Solomon said:
"This number will prove a new embarrassment to the pundits and press who use it. The number stems from a 2008 master’s thesis by student Maggie Kendall Zimmerman at the University of Illinois, under the guidance of Peter Doran, an associate professor of Earth and environmental sciences. The two researchers obtained their results by conducting a survey of 10,257 Earth scientists. The survey results must have deeply disappointed the researchers — in the end, they chose to highlight the views of a subgroup of just 77 scientists, 75 of whom thought humans contributed to climate change. The ratio 75/77 produces the 97% figure that pundits now tout."
for a full discussion see http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01/03/lawrence-solomon-97-cooked-stats/
There is a real need for a reputable news organisation - Frontline? to undertake a truly objective analysis of the current state of what we know about climate science - based on the empirical data and not on the political propaganda productions of the IPCC

Post on Economist 10/18/12

The entire anthropogenic global warming meme is a mass delusion foisted on a scientifically illiterate British and Western public by a grant ,position and honour seeking sycophantic scientific establishment and by ecoleft politicians ( including Cameron ) to reward their rent seeking campaign contributors and wind farm land owning friends.


Because of the Urban Heat Island effect and the thermal inertia of the oceans Sea Surface Temperatures are the best measure of global trends. These show that the global warming trend ended in about 2003. There has been no net warming since 1997 since when CO2 has risen 8.5% with no global temperature increase. Since 2003 the trend is negative. The current decline in the solar magnetic field strength is so marked as to suggest a possible coming Maunder Minimum (Little Ice Age) and the phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation suggests a likely 20 - 30 year cooling phase. For the next 30 years or so cooling is more likely than warming.A colder dryer earth would be much more harmful to world food production than a warmer wetter one.

In light of the real world climate situation Britain and Europe's climate and energy policies can only be described as lunatic or criminal - probably both

Post on Dot Earth 8/13/12

There has been no net warming since1997 with CO2 up 8.5 %. The earth has been in a cooling trend since warming peaked in 2003.The IPCC in their SREX report recognised that they could no longer scaremonger on the basis of the trend and so in that report and in the forthcoming AR5 they have chosen to concentrate on "extreme" events to promote their scaremongering anti CO2 policy propaganda..Droughts are generally more common on a cooler and dryer not on a more humid wetter earth and in N America with the current cooling phase of the PDO droughts are likely to be more common for the next 20 - 30 years.On a cooling earth with the jet stream swinging more meridionally, climate is much more variable with blocking highs bringing extremes of cold and heat.
The core alarmists Hansen, Mann, McKibben and Romm and their female acolytes are simply following the IPCC script with their ever more hysterical predictions of future extreme disasters as the current earth obstinately refuses to warm up. Andy I detect that you are not entirely comfortable with these wild speculations - but cant quite bring yourself to admit that cooling is more likely than warming in the next 30 years.

30 Year Climate Forecast -- 2 Year Update.

The original Forecast was posted on 6/18/2010. Two more years of Termperature, Ocean Current patterns, and  Solar, and "weather" data have considerably confirmed and strengthened the original forecast.
In brief  - NOAA -  HCN -  SSTs show that warming peaked in 2003 and there has now been no net warming since 1997  - 15 years with no net warming and CO2 up 8.2%. Since 2003  the global temperature trend is slightly negative. The PDO remains in its negative phase while the solar magnetic field strength continues an inexorable decline ,which is looking more and more likely to be a precursor of a Maunder type minimum. Sunspot data and the relatively high GCR count for this stage in solar cycle 24 confirm the secular change in solar activity relative to the previous century.
Meanwhile the weather patterns - particularly in the US and Europe - have been as forecast in the earlier post. I repost some relevant parts below with some of  successful predictions in bold.

".  A cooler world with lower SSTs usually means a dryer world.  Thus droughts will be more likely in for example east Africa with possible monsoon failures in India. In California the PDO will mean less rainfall with more forest fires in the south. However in the Cascades and Northern Sierras snowpack could increase since more of the rain could occur as snow. Northern Hemisphere growing seasons will be shorter with occasional early and late frosts and drought in the US corn belt and in Asia repeats of the harsh Mongolian and Chinese winters of 2009 – 10 . In Europe cold snowy winters and cool cloudy summers will be more frequent .
There will be a steeper temperature gradient from the tropics to the poles so that violent thunderstorms with associated flooding and tornadoes will be more frequent in the USA, At the same time the jet stream will swing more sharply North – South thus local weather in the Northern hemisphere in particular will be generally more variable with occasional more northerly heat waves and more southerly unusually cold snaps. In the USA hurricanes may strike the east coast with greater frequency in summer and storm related blizzards more common in winter."
 
The general conclusions of the original post are confirmed
"The most general advice is that world food production will be subject to occasional serious severe restriction because of cold and drought. The use of food crops for biofuels should be abandoned and stockpiles built up for possible lean times ahead.. Northern cities and transportation systems should prepare for more frequent heavy snow and ice storms.
There is no threat from the burning of fossil fuels for the forseeable future, indeed an increase in CO2 would positively help in feeding the burgeoning population."
 
All the recent empirical data - especially the negative phase of the PDO  and the continued decline in the Solar magnetic field strength  now ( July 2012) suggest  that once solar cycle 24 starts its decline  in 2014-15  we will see an acceleration of the current slight cooling trend and that this trend  might well last for 25 -30 years. Beyond then we do not know enough at this time to make useful predictions.
 
 

Letter to London Review of Books - Climate Change

Most of the Western Political and chattering eco-left classes have enthusiastically adopted the new anti-capitalist religious belief in AGW as a useful tool by which they can try to assert a claim to control the world economy while feeling conveniently self righteous.They,like Gardner,are only too happy to frame the discussion in ethical and moral terms.They eagerly claim that the science is settled to avoid dealing with the actual data. Bull , in order for his recent article to have any relevance ,opens with the main beliefs in the warmist creed. One ,that it is currently getting warmer, two, that humans are causing it and three, that by controlling GHG emissions we can do something useful about it. All of these beliefs are patently false.


The Hadley Sea Surface Temperature Data is the best measure of Global Trends.The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an nine year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.Since 1997 – CO2 is up 7.9% with no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Nine years is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend. Beyond that we supply do not know enough to make any actionable predictions.Today anyone can check these statements not by reference to an imaginary and irrelevant consensus or authority but by checking the basic data via Google on line.

The 2007 IPCC AR4 Summary for Policy Makers is the current basis for the alarmist predictions of disaster but this Summary is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. It should be noted that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:

“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”

What could be clearer. The IPCC itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.

In order to predict the disaster required by the policymakers the modelers had to assume a positive feed back to increasing CO2 from increased humidity and cloud cover changes. Measured feed backs are actually negative and indeed must logically be negative otherwise the oceans would have boiled away long ago.

What we have had is a perfect storm of first the misuse and misrepresentation of the data and the scientific method to support the IPCC's political agenda and a rush to the public trough by establishment scientists , second Corporate rent seeking by e.g. Al Gore ,GE ,Goldman Sachs ,Microsoft ,Solar Power companies,and Wind Turbine manufactures and third the enthusiastic adoption of the AGW paradigm by the Politicians who see it as the perfect means to assuage their Messiah complexes and save the world by gathering power to themselves through using fear and then reward their campaign contributing corporate friends and the landowning classes via solar and wind subsidies.

The climate and energy policies of Europe the UK and the USA are economically suicidal and in fact immoral.They raise food prices world wide and would keep billions in poverty by raising energy prices thus slowing the economic and social emancipation of women and thereby worsening the population problem

Comment in Response to Rodbell on Concordiensis

Dr Norman Page March 7, 2012 at 11:54 pm Permalink Reply
As an Earth scientist I am appalled by the whole tone of this piece. You say “Frankly, the sentiment vacillated between utter disgust and sheer anger. ” You sound like a bunch of priests being appalled at hearing heresy which questions your received truth. In the piece there is nothing but unsubstantiated assertions and appeals to authority not one reference to data of any sort. That you think of yourselves as scientists shows the extent of your self delusion.There is currently a difference in approach to climate science between the sceptical Baconian – empirical appraoch solidly based on data and the Platonic IPCC approach – based on theoretical assumptions built into climate models.The question arises from the recent Muller – BEST furore -What is the best metric for a global measure of and for discussion of global warming or cooling. For some years I have suggested in various web comments and on my blog that the Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for the following reasons . (Anyone can check this data for themselves – Google Hadley Cru — scroll down to SST GL and check the annual numbers.)1. Oceans cover about 70% of the surface.2. Because of the thermal inertia of water – short term noise is smoothed out.3. All the questions re UHI, changes in land use local topographic effects etc are simply sidestepped.4. Perhaps most importantly – what we really need to measure is the enthalpy of the system – the land measurements do not capture this aspect because the relative humidity at the time of temperature measurement is ignored. In water the temperature changes are a good measure of relative enthalpy changes.5. It is very clear that the most direct means to short term and decadal length predictions is through the study of the interactions of the atmospheric sytems ,ocean currents and temperature regimes – PDO ,ENSO. SOI AMO AO etc etc. and the SST is a major measure of these systems.Certainly the SST data has its own problems but these are much less than those of the land data.
What does the SST data show? The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows an eight year global SST cooling trend since then .The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 – 15 years with CO2 up 7.9% and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend.
It is clear that the IPCC models , on which AL Gore based his entire anti CO2 scare campaign ,have been wrongly framed. and their predictions have failed completely.This paradigm was never well founded ,but ,in recent years, the entire basis for the Climate and Temperature trends and predictions of dangerous warming in the 2007 IPCC Ar4 Summary for Policy Makers has been destroyed. First – this Summary is inconsistent with the AR4 WG1 Science section. It should be noted that the Summary was published before the WG1 report and the editors of the Summary , incredibly ,asked the authors of the Science report to make their reports conform to the Summary rather than the other way around. When this was not done the Science section was simply ignored..I give one egregious example – there are many others.Most of the predicted disasters are based on climate models.Even the Modelers themselves say that they do not make predictions . The models produce projections or scenarios which are no more accurate than the assumptions,algorithms and data , often of poor quality,which were put into them. In reality they are no more than expensive drafting tools to produce power point slides to illustrate the ideas and prejudices of their creators. The IPCC science section AR4 WG1 section 8.6.4 deals with the reliability of the climate models .This IPCC science section on models itself concludes:
“Moreover it is not yet clear which tests are critical for constraining the future projections,consequently a set of model metrics that might be used to narrow the range of plausible climate change feedbacks and climate sensitivity has yet to be developed”
What could be clearer. The IPCC itself says that we don’t even know what metrics to put into the models to test their reliability.- i.e. we don’t know what future temperatures will be and we can’t yet calculate the climate sensitivity to anthropogenic CO2.This also begs a further question of what mere assumptions went into the “plausible” models to be tested anyway. Nevertheless this statement was ignored by the editors who produced the Summary. Here predictions of disaster were illegitimately given “with high confidence.” in complete contradiction to several sections of the WG1 science section where uncertainties and error bars were discussed.
A key part of the AGW paradigm is that recent warming is unprecedented and can only be explained by anthropogenic CO2. This is the basic message of the iconic “hockey stick ” However hundreds of published papers show that the Medieval warming period and the Roman climatic optimum were warmer than the present. The infamous “hide the decline ” quote from the Climategate Emails is so important. not so much because of its effect on one graph but because it shows that the entire basis if dendrothermometry is highly suspect. A complete referenced discussion of the issues involved can be found in “The Hockey Stick Illusion – Climategate and the Corruption of science ” by AW Montford.
Temperature reconstructions based on tree ring proxies are a total waste of time and money and cannot be relied on.There is no evident empirical correlation between CO2 levels and temperature, In all cases CO2 changes follow temperature changes not vice versa.It has always been clear that the sun is the main climate driver. One new paper ” Empirical Evidence for a Celestial origin of the Climate Oscillations and its implications “by Scafetta from Duke University casts new light on this. http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/scafetta-JSTP2.pdf Humidity, and natural CO2 levels are solar feedback effects not prime drivers. Recent experiments at CERN have shown the possible powerful influence of cosmic rays on clouds and climate.Solar Cycle 24 will peak in a year or two thus masking the cooling to some extent, but from 2014 on, the cooling trend will become so obvious that the IPCC will be unable to continue ignoring the real world – even now Hansen and Trenberth are desperately seeking ad hoc or epicycle type fixes to locate the missing heat.You might want to open your closed minds by checkinghttp://impactofcc.blogspot.com/2012/02/richard-s-lindzen-reconsidering-climate.htmlor http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/unified_theory_of_climate_poster_nikolov_zeller.pdfIn my first term as an undergrad at Oxford the value of geologists holding multiple working hypotheses was impressed upon me – y’all would do well to keep that thought in mind

Comment on Dot Earth 1/4/12

Andy - At various times over the last year you have appeared to consider climate science more objectively - yet here you go again with the notion of a "fundamental Republican science problem " . The Hadley Sea Surface Temperature data is the best metric for climate change . The 5 year moving SST temperature average shows that the warming trend peaked in 2003 and a simple regression analysis shows a nine year global SST cooling trend since then ..The data shows warming from 1900 – 1940 ,cooling from 1940 to about 1975 and warming from 1975 – 2003. CO2 levels rose monotonically during this entire period.There has been no net warming since 1997 – 14 years with CO2 up 7.9% and no net warming. Anthropogenic CO2 has some effect but our knowledge of the natural drivers is still so poor that we cannot accurately estimate what the anthropogenic CO2 contribution is. Since 2003 CO2 has risen further and yet the global temperature trend is negative. This is obviously a short term on which to base predictions but all statistical analyses of particular time series must be interpreted in conjunction with other ongoing events and in the context of declining solar magnetic field strength and activity – to the extent of a possible Dalton or Maunder minimum and the negative phase of the Pacific Decadal a global 20 – 30 year cooling spell is more likely than a warming trend. Please see http://www.fel.duke.edu/~scafetta/pdf/Scafetta_models_comparison_ATP.pdf IPCC models are junk science.