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Published Date: 18 October 2008
Ian Baxter cites the Nasa temperature record in accusing me of propagating a myth of no recent global temperature increase. (Letters October 15).
The Meteorological Office's Hadley Centre data show

that from 2002 to 2007, the annual anomaly versus the long-term average has been about plus 0.4C with no statistical trend.

This is only a few years and no conclusion could be drawn about temperature trend, but what Mr Baxter ignores is that carbon dioxide, supposedly the major driver of man-made climatic warming, has inexorably and uniformly risen in concentration for every one of these years, with close to zero correlation with temperature. The previous three years 1998-2000 also show no temperature correlation with change, but 1998 was an atypically warm El Niño year.

We are making some of the most expensive global decisions ever, on the basis of what atmospheric physicist James Peden has described as "computerised tinker toys with which one can construct any outcome he chooses".

(DR) JOHN ETHERINGTON

Llanhowell

Solva, Pembrokeshire



Page 1 of 1

  • Last Updated: 17 October 2008 8:44 PM
  • Source: The Scotsman
  • Location: Edinburgh
 
1

nabodican,

Rural Scotland 18/10/2008 07:34:28
John Etherington is correct off course,however a whole industry is being built around this carbon myth and the likes of Al Gore are making a fortune out of it.
We are the mugs that end up paying for it.
2

Upbeat,

18/10/2008 10:32:25
Dr Etherington has " nailed his colours" on this subject many years ago. Since that moment he has persisted in ignoring any trend or fact which might appear to embarrass his belief. Dr Etherington will of course have plausible explanations as to why the Polar icecaps, and mountain ice cover worldwide are now in retreat. In the case of the Arctic sea ice this now appears to be be reaching a tipping point at which the radiation previously reflected back into space by the icefields is sure to be absorbed by the sea water, raising global sea temperatures still further.

To argue percentage points from one data source, against figures which are intended solely to devalue that research , while ignoring the damage being done to the world's ecology and climate is an 'agenda', not a 'science'. Such things as agricultural monoculture, the clearance of rainforest the carpetting of vast areas of land in concrete and tarmac, and the ineffecient use of energy are problems which mankind should take steps to address. But efforts to take this long term strategy further - to be less damaging to the planet - are hardly helped by the persistent and muddled theorising of people such as Dr Etherington.
3

Friend of Lewis,

18/10/2008 14:07:12
"We are making some of the most expensive global decisions ever, on the basis of what atmospheric physicist James Peden has described as "computerised tinker toys with which one can construct any outcome he chooses"."

Dr Etherington is not the only one to have those concerns.

See the article: Illusions of Climate Science on http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2008/10/illusions-of-climate-science

It would appear that alarmists are becoming alarmed that they will soon be proven wrong. I pray they are - before their agendas inflict more suffering on the already poor people of the world. Or is that the intention?

4

seanie,

18/10/2008 14:19:15
Given that the temperature record is 'noisy', with natural fluctuations year to year greatly exceeding the scale of the lobg term warmng trend,it would be unresaonbale to try to identify a 'trend' across five years alone.

Fortunately we don't have to.

We can compare the temperature of the last few years with previous periods. And what do we find;

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2007.csv

The average for 1990-1999 was 0.237 above the mean.

The average for 2000-2007 was 0.41 above the mean.

Mmmmm...looks like warming to me.
5

seanie,

18/10/2008 14:19:33
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

"The year 2007 was eighth warmest on record, exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2001."

"The 1990s were the warmest complete decade in the series. The warmest year of the entire series has been 1998, with a temperature of 0.546°C above the 1961-90 mean. Twelve of the thirteen warmest years in the series have now occurred in the past thirteen years (1995-2007). The only year in the last thirteen not among the warmest twelve is 1996 (replaced in the warm list by 1990). The period 2001-2007 is 0.21°C warmer than the 1991-2000 decade."
6

seanie,

18/10/2008 14:19:52
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/news/warming_goes_on.html

"Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand. The evidence is clear – the long-term trend in global temperatures is rising, and humans are largely responsible for this rise."
7

Man-O-Field,

Aberdeen 18/10/2008 15:16:48
Just to help things along; a comment originating from NASA/Jet Propulsion Lab that
ocean heat content - 'a better metric for global warming' - has shown no warming
for the past few years. Maybe again, this year, the skiing will be good!!!

8

seanie,

18/10/2008 16:12:19
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/06/ocean-heat-content-revisions/

"This isn't going to be the last word on OHC trends, and different groups are going to be publishing their own versions of this analyses relatively soon and updates to the most recent years are still forthcoming. But the big picture is that ocean heat content has indeed been increasing in recent decades, just like the models said it should."
9

seanie,

18/10/2008 16:19:10
http://www.oar.noaa.gov/spotlite/archive/images/ccdetect_5.gif
10

seanie,

18/10/2008 16:21:29
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn14527

"Since 1999, however, the heat content of the oceans has steadily increased again (despite claims to the contrary)."
11

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 18/10/2008 16:27:21
#3 Friend of Lewis

I've just had a quick skim through your quadrant.org article - haven't time just now for more.

It seems to me the major error in William Kininmonth's case is his reliance on the evaporation of water at the Earth's surface to keep the earth relatively cool. That is a fundamental misunderstanding. Cooling through evaporation of water does NOT remove heat from the Earth system - it merely redistributes it. If the evaporated water condenses again elsewhere (as rain/snow) the heat is again redistributed, but it does not leave the Earth system.

Indeed, cooling the Earth's surface by evaporation actually INCREASES the amount of heat retained by the Earth, in two ways: firstly, a cooler surface will radiate less long wave length radiation back out to space, and secondly, the resultant increased water vapour in the atmosphere will intercept more of that long wave radiation that would otherwise escape from the earth (the greenhouse effect).

I hope my rapid reading of his article has not led me to misjudge him, but on first reading he certainly seems to be talking nonsense.
12

Man-O-Field,

Aberdeen 18/10/2008 16:43:16
Seanie

Ocean heat content - warming ; last few years, no.
13

seanie,

18/10/2008 17:23:31
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080618143301.htm

"New research suggests that ocean temperature and associated sea level increases between 1961 and 2003 were 50 percent larger than estimated in the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report."

"Although observations and models confirm that recent warming is greatest in the upper ocean, there are widespread observations of warming deeper than 700 meters."
14

seanie,

18/10/2008 17:39:32
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/26/10768.abstract

"Observations show both a pronounced increase in ocean heat content (OHC) over the second half of the 20th century and substantial OHC variability on interannual-to-decadal time scales. Although climate models are able to simulate overall changes in OHC, they are generally thought to underestimate the amplitude of OHC variability. Using simulations of 20th century climate performed with 13 numerical models, we demonstrate that the apparent discrepancy between modeled and observed variability is largely explained by accounting for changes in observational coverage and instrumentation and by including the effects of volcanic eruptions. Our work does not support the recent claim that the 0- to 700-m layer of the global ocean experienced a substantial OHC decrease over the 2003 to 2005 time period. We show that the 2003–2005 cooling is largely an artifact of a systematic change in the observing system, with the deployment of Argo floats reducing a warm bias in the original observing system."
15

John M,

Melbourne, Australia 18/10/2008 22:01:20
Anyone who believes the CRU's temperature data is accurate is seriously deluded. There are numerous faults with this data, which incidentally has never been independently audited because Hadley won't allow it. In particular it has no record of which observation stations were used in each month (so comparisons are dubious), there are blatant inconsistencies in the data, and the base period from which anomalies are calculated varies between observation stations.

The problems comes down to trying to handle the dynamic variations in environments local to observation stations and the problem of those stations stopping, starting and relocating.

Some US data that claims to use averages from 1901 to 2000 as a base, which is remarkable given that prior to about 1950 less than 50% of the Earth's surface had regular temperature monitoring. The CRU data is better than than this US data but "better" is relative term, not an absolute.

The only data gathered in a consistent and comprehensive fashion is the tropospheric temperature data monitored from satellites and it's showing nothing extraordinary.
16

seanie,

18/10/2008 22:52:16
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2008/04/common-climate-misconceptions-global-temperature-records/

"Four different groups produce temperature records that attempt to compile a single global mean surface temperature: NASA’s GISStemp, the Hadley Center’s HadCRU, Remote Sensing Systems’ RSS, and the University of Alabama, Huntsville’s UAH."

"Despite differences in calculation criteria and a host of technical problems that have plagued the satellite-based records in the past, all four temperature records now show a remarkable degree of agreement. No single temperature record exhibits a significant or consistent warming bias relative to the others."

"...all four temperature series align remarkably well when normalized on the same baseline period. GISS and HadCRU both show a warming trend of 0.16 degrees C per decade from 1979 to February 2008. RSS shows a warming trend of 0.18 per decade over the same period, while UAH shows a warming trend of 0.14.
17

seanie,

18/10/2008 23:01:47
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Satellite_Temperatures.png

18

seanie,

18/10/2008 23:03:53
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11660

"The corrected temperature records show that tropospheric temperatures are indeed rising at roughly the same rate as surface temperatures. Or, as a 2006 report by the US Climate Change Science Program (pdf) puts it: "For recent decades, all current atmospheric data sets now show global-average warming that is similar to the surface warming."
19

seanie,

18/10/2008 23:24:45
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperature_record

"Satellites have been measuring the temperature of the troposphere since 1979. Balloon measurements begin to show an approximation of global coverage in the 1950s.

Several groups have analyzed the satellite data to calculate temperature trends in the troposphere; RSS find a trend of +0.169 °C/decade while UAH find +0.130 °C/decade, to April 2008; Fu et al finds trends (up to the end of 2004) of +0.19 °C/decade when applied to the RSS dataset; Vinnikov and Grody find +0.22°C to +0.26°C per decade (Oct. 03)."
20

Edufer,

Argentina 19/10/2008 01:02:01
Seanie:

1) For post #4: A baseline for comparing trends is an arbitrary thing. Once the temperature has reached a plateau in about 1997, (1998 is an outlier), if we set the baseline in 2000, there has been a noticeable cooling. It is a fact. If we set the baseline several hundred thousand years ago, we see the Earth is cooling. Baseline doesn’t mean much.

2) For Post #13: 2300 Bouys in the Project Argo show that there has been NO ocean warming, and maybe a slight cooling.

3) Various posts referencing Wikipedia: Can’t you give a more reliable source? I mean, a really scientific one, not one controlled by William “Wiki” Connolley. And references by the dubios scientific blog Real Climate, are worthless.

Siloch:

It looks you don’t know too much about what happens in the atmosphere and physical interaction between factors there. As physicist André Bijkerk says, “The evaporation taking 2500 joules per gram transports heat to other places, where the condensation takes place to be exact, or at so many thousands feets altitude.

The increased heat at altitude, and the clouds forming, are IR transmitting sources. But the optical depth distance to outer space is greatly reduced due to the reduced water vapour above cloud levels, therefore photons emitted upwards more easily escape the atmosphere than photons emitted downwards reaching Earth eventually.

It's a water world and water is renowned as a cooling agent.

I would add that you say: “Cooling through evaporation of water does NOT remove heat from the Earth system - it merely redistributes it.”

You are contradicting yourself: you first acknowledge that there is cooling through evaporation, something that goes along with the thermodynamics laws, but then you come up with a wild claim that there is no cooling but merely a “redistribution”. Yes, it redistributes heat UPWARDS, aided by convective currents that takes the heat high up to the stratosphere where the misnamed “greenhouse gases” radiate h
21

Edufer,

19/10/2008 01:07:40
Continued from and finishing my previous post:

You are contradicting yourself: you first acknowledge that there is cooling through evaporation, something that goes along with the thermodynamics laws, but then you come up with a wild claim that there is no cooling but merely a “redistribution”. Yes, it redistributes heat UPWARDS, aided by convective currents that takes the heat high up to the stratosphere where the misnamed “greenhouse gases” radiate heat to outer space. Cooling effectively “redistributes” heat –but to outer space.

Greenhouse gases redistribute heat in the Earth, yes. If not were for them, the Earth side facing the sun would reach easily 250ºC while the side in the shadow would drop to -150ºC –something that happens in satellites and NASA shuttles. Once the heat has been “redistributed” the usual radiating, convective, and conducting processes take place. GHGs simply aid in cooling the surface. Evaporation does it more strongly.
22

seanie,

19/10/2008 09:44:35
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/dept/0108_globaltemp.htm

"To determine if warming has recently stopped, consider the data from the past eight years, from 2000 to 2007. This is a more meaningful comparison than 1998 to 2007, as 1998 temperatures were anomalously high as a result of the "El Niño of the century" (pdf), a natural cyclical event that produced an enormous temperature spike relative to surrounding years. Choosing an El Niño year as that start of the dataset would amount to rather egregious cherry picking (though both GISS temp and HadCRU would still show a warming trend over the decade)."

"Over the past eight years, Earth has warmed 0.025 degrees C per year according to GISS, and 0.014 degrees C per year according to HadCRU, so GISS shows slightly faster warming than over the long-term trend of 0.018 degrees C per year, and HadCRU shows warming slightly slower."
23

seanie,

19/10/2008 09:45:09
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

"The year 2007 was eighth warmest on record, exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2001."

"The 1990s were the warmest complete decade in the series. The warmest year of the entire series has been 1998, with a temperature of 0.546°C above the 1961-90 mean. Twelve of the thirteen warmest years in the series have now occurred in the past thirteen years (1995-2007). The only year in the last thirteen not among the warmest twelve is 1996 (replaced in the warm list by 1990). The period 2001-2007 is 0.21°C warmer than the 1991-2000 decade."
24

seanie,

19/10/2008 09:46:01
http://www.pnas.org/content/104/26/10768.abstract

"We show that the 2003–2005 cooling is largely an artifact of a systematic change in the observing system, with the deployment of Argo floats reducing a warm bias in the original observing system."
25

fred bloggs,

Edinburgh 19/10/2008 09:53:34
21. Wrong.

The Greenhouse Effect:

The greenhouse gases absorb some of the radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface and in turn emit radiation out into space but the amount they emit is dependent on their temperature.

This radiation is emitted out to space near the top of the atmosphere where because of convection the temperature is much lower than at the surface and therefore the amount of radiation emitted is less.

The gases thus absorb some of the radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface but then emit much less radiation out to space. Therefore the gases act as a radiation blanket and help keep the earth warmer than it otherwise would be.
26

seanie,

19/10/2008 10:21:40
http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly

The Hadcru monthly data. If you look at 2000 you can work out the average anomaly as 0.27 degrees above the 1961-90 average.

So far, despite a strong La Nina in the early part of the year, 2008 is running at 0.30 degrees above the average.

With 2000 as a baseline there has certainly not been a 'noticeable cooling'.

Now, as I said before, the natural fluctuation is such that picking individual years for the purposes of comparison is really inappropriate. It's far better to take a smoothed avarage to filter out the 'noise' and so any trend is more clearly seen.

The smoothed average for 2000 was 0.39 degrees above the baseline.

The smoothed average for 2007 was 0.423 degrees above the baseline.

Even with an undelying warming trend it'd be perfectly natural to see peaks and troughs within that. But we're still seeing an upwards trend. The 1990's was the warmest decade in the instrumental record. The decade we're in is going to end up significantly warmer than that.

27

seanie,

19/10/2008 10:31:43
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/06/ocean-heat-content-revisions/

"Initial results from the Argo data seemed to indicate that the ocean cooled quite dramatically from 2003 to 2005 (in strong contradiction to the sea level rise which had continued) (Lyman et al, 2006). But comparisons with other sources of data suggested that this was only seen with the Argo floats themselves. Thus when an error in the instruments was reported in 2007, things seemed to fit again."

"But the big picture is that ocean heat content has indeed been increasing in recent decades, just like the models said it should."

28

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 19/10/2008 11:37:23
#20/21 Edufer

You are correct to point out that some heat is lost via IR to space from convected water molecules that radiate latent heat on condensation (that was not what Kininmonth was talking about though). But to establish that the overall effect of evaporation (in addition to the redistribution of heat via evaporation/convection cycles) is positive, one only has to imagine an Earth with no evaporation (ie with no water at the surface). The only way that could exist is with an anhydrous atmosphere. Since water vapour plays a dominant role in raising the Earth's temperature by c.33C via the natural greenhouse effect, the temperature of an Earth with no evaporation would be substantially lower.

In other words, the increase in water vapour concentration in the atmosphere (due to evaporation) must increase the heat trapping capacity (ie greenhouse effect) of the water vapour by a factor greater than the amount that latent heat is lost via the mechanism you outline.
29

M Whitty,

Cambridge 19/10/2008 15:26:11
If we accept that CO2 has some warming effect, this whole debate is about how large the effect is. The failure of the Earth to behave as the climate models predict, and the lack of correlation of average temperature (itself a mythical beast) with CO2 level over any reasonable timescale suggests strongly that other factors are dominant. Large-scale oceanic processes such as ENSO, the NAO and the PDO have a direct effect on regional weather patterns, as do solar cycles. If proponents of the AGW hypothesis want to be taken seriously, they need to look at ALL the evidence objectively, rather than just cherry-picking what suits them. Constant referral to IPCC data does not refute alternative arguments.
30

seanie,

19/10/2008 15:50:47
Lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature?

Over a reasonable timescale?

Try the last 400,000 years;

http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/ns/cms/dn11640/dn11640-1_800.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/acpp/images/co2_temp_unep.jpg

31

M Whitty,

19/10/2008 16:05:35
Seanie: yes, but the temperature rise precedes the CO2 increase. Correlation is not causation.
32

seanie,

19/10/2008 16:10:22
You said there was no correlation.

There clearly is.

It's also clear you don't know what you're talking about.
33

seanie,

19/10/2008 16:12:35
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/12/22/231145/76

"The current understanding of those cycles is that changes in orbital parameters (the Milankovich and other cycles) caused greater amounts of summer sunlight to fall in the northern hemisphere. This is a small forcing, but it caused ice to retreat in the north, which changed the albedo. This change -- reducing the amount of white, reflective ice surface -
led to further warmth, in a feedback effect. Some number of centuries after that process started, CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere began to rise, which amplified the warming trend even further as an additional feedback mechanism...

...So it is correct that CO2 did not trigger the warmings, but it definitely contributed to them -- and according to climate theory and model experiments, greenhouse gas forcing was the dominant factor in the magnitude of the ultimate change."
34

seanie,

19/10/2008 16:12:54
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

"It seemed that rises or falls in carbon dioxide levels had not initiated the glacial cycles.In fact most scientists had long since abandoned that hypothesis. In the 1960s, painstaking studies had shown that subtle shifts in our planet's orbit around the Sun (called "Milankovitch cycles") set the timing of ice ages. The amount of sunlight that fell in a given latitude and season varied predictably over millenia, altering how long snow ands sea ice lingered in the spring, which crucially affected how much sunlight the surface absorbed. The fact that carbon dioxide levels lagged behind the orbital effect should have been no surprise, since a change in the temperature would change the gas level. For one thing, warmer oceans would evaporate out more gas. For another, as Arctic tundra warmed up it would likewise emit CO2 and methane. The ice cores now showed, as theorists had predicted since the 19th century, that a powerful feedback cycle was amplifying the effect of the cyclical changes in sunlight. Even a small change in the gas level would bring further changes in the global heat balance, which would in turn alter the gas level, which... and so forth. This suggested how tiny shifts in the Earth’s orbit had set the timing of the enormous swings of glacial cycles.

Or, more ominously, how a change in the gas level initiated by humanity might be amplified through a temperature feedback loop. The ancient ice ages were the reverse of our current situation, where humanity was initiating the change by adding greenhouse gases. As the gas level rose, temperature would rise with a time lag — although only a few decades, not centuries, for the rates of change were now enormously faster than the orbital shifts that brought ice ages"
35

seanie,

19/10/2008 16:13:56
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/ccm/1007_co2.htm

CO2 as a Feedback and Forcing in the Climate System

"While the lag between temperature and greenhouse gas changes in the paleoclimate record is important in understanding the function of greenhouse gasses in the Earth's climate, and has helped in estimating the effects of CO2 concentrations on radiative forcing, it in no way discredits the conventional knowledge that CO2 is forcing recent changes in the Earth's climate."
36

seanie,

19/10/2008 16:14:17
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/

"At least three careful ice core studies have shown CO2 starts to rise about 800 years (600-1000 years) after Antarctic temperature during glacial terminations. These terminations are pronounced warming periods that mark the ends of the ice ages that happen every 100,000 years or so.

Does this prove that CO2 doesn't cause global warming? The answer is no."
37

seanie,

19/10/2008 16:14:39
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11659

'Climate myths: Ice cores show CO2 increases lag behind temperature rises, disproving the link to global warming'

'The ice ages show that temperature can determine CO2 as well as CO2 driving temperature. Some sceptics – not scientists – have seized upon this idea and are claiming that the relation is one way, that temperature determines CO2 levels but CO2 levels do not affect temperature.

To repeat, the evidence that CO2 is a greenhouse gas depends mainly on physics, not on the correlation with past temperature, which tells us nothing about cause and effect. And while the rises in CO2 a few hundred years after the start of interglacials can only be explained by rising temperatures, the full extent of the temperature increases over the following 4000 years can only be explained by the rise in CO2 levels.'
38

seanie,

19/10/2008 16:17:14
http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?tip=1&id=6231

Misleading argument 3: ’rises in CO2 occur after global warming, not before’

"It is true that the fluctuations in temperatures that caused the ice ages were initiated by changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun which, in turn, drove changes in levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. This is backed up by data from ice cores which show that rises in temperature came first, and were then followed by rises in levels of carbon dioxide up to several hundred years later. The reasons for this, although not yet fully understood, are partly because the oceans emit carbon dioxide as they warm up and absorb it when they cool down and also because soil releases greenhouse gases as it warms up. These increased levels of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere then further enhanced warming,
creating a positive feedback'.

In contrast to this natural process, we know that the recent steep increase in the level of carbon dioxide - some 30 per cent in the last 100 years - is not the result of natural factors. This is because, by chemical analysis, we can tell that the majority of this carbon dioxide has come from the burning of fossil fuels. And, as set out in 'misleading argument 1 ', carbon dioxide from human sources is almost certainly responsible for most of the warming over the last 50 years. There is much evidence that backs up this explanation and none that conflicts with it.

Warming caused by greenhouse gases from human sources could lead to the release of more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by stimulating natural processes and creating a "positive feedback", as described above."
39

seanie,

19/10/2008 16:20:29
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/3.html

"The bottom line is that temperature and CO2 concentrations are linked. In recent ice ages, natural changes in the climate, such as those due to orbit changes, led to cooling of the climate system. This caused a fall in CO2 concentrations which weakened the greenhouse effect and amplified the cooling. Now the link between temperature and CO2 is working in the opposite direction. Human-induced increases in CO2 are driving the greenhouse effect and amplifying the recent warming."
40

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 19/10/2008 17:02:03
# M Whitty says that "The failure of the Earth to behave as the climate models predict,and the lack of correlation of average temperature (itself a mythical beast) with CO2 level over any reasonable timescale suggests strongly that other factors are dominant."

The Earth IS behaving broadly as the climate models predict, but those models make no attempt to predict when things like El Nino or La Nina or volcanic eruptions (or changes in the sun) come along: those events have relatively large effects for a few months or years, possibly longer. To expect that the models should predict those short-term effects is fatuous. Those other factors ARE dominant over the short term, that is why the graphs are 'noisy'.

But it is the slow, relentless capture of more heat than is lost by the Earth system, because of the increased levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, that is significant. Even at a time when the global average temperature (measured by HADCRU for example) is falling, that increase in the amount of heat captured is still occurring: it is just that more of the heat is being absorbed by the cold oceans, which have an enormous thermal capacity, rather than remaining in the atmosphere - but the heat is being captured none the less.# M Whitty says that "The failure of the Earth to behave as the climate models predict,and the lack of correlation of average temperature (itself a mythical beast) with CO2 level over any reasonable timescale suggests strongly that other factors are dominant."

The Earth IS behaving broadly as the climate models predict, but those models make no attempt to predict when things like El Nino or La Nina or volcanic eruptions (or changes in the sun) come along: those events have relatively large effects for a few months or years, possibly longer. To expect that the models should predict those short-term effects is fatuous. Those other factors ARE dominant over the short term, that is why the graphs are 'noisy'.

But it is the slow, rele
41

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 19/10/2008 17:04:17
Sorry. Please ignore #40 - I've had an attack of the gremlins. Try again:

# M Whitty says that "The failure of the Earth to behave as the climate models predict,and the lack of correlation of average temperature (itself a mythical beast) with CO2 level over any reasonable timescale suggests strongly that other factors are dominant."

The Earth IS behaving broadly as the climate models predict, but those models make no attempt to predict when things like El Nino or La Nina or volcanic eruptions (or changes in the sun) come along: those events have relatively large effects for a few months or years, possibly longer. To expect that the models should predict those short-term effects is fatuous. Those other factors ARE dominant over the short term, that is why the graphs are 'noisy'.

But it is the slow, relentless capture of more heat than is lost by the Earth system, because of the increased levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, that is significant. Even at a time when the global average temperature (measured by HADCRU for example) is falling, that increase in the amount of heat captured is still occurring: it is just that more of the heat is being absorbed by the cold oceans, which have an enormous thermal capacity, rather than remaining in the atmosphere - but the heat is being captured none the less.

That extra amount of heat is estimated (IPCC) at 1.6 Watts per square metre. That is equivalent to having a 1kW electric fire burning continuously in every 25 meter square of the Earth, including the oceans, day and night, continuously. Therein lies the problem.
42

Edufer,

Argentina 19/10/2008 20:23:39
Seanie: “With 2000 as a baseline there has certainly not been a 'noticeable cooling'.”

With a 2001 baseline the trend is down:

http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-23/HadCRUT2000-2007.jpg

With a longer baseline (1988-2008) the 4th order polinomial trend line is really going down in the last 8 years:

http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-23/uah7908.jpg

slioch:

You said: “Since water vapour plays a dominant role in raising the Earth's temperature by c.33C via the natural greenhouse effect, the temperature of an Earth with no evaporation would be substantially lower.”

You still miss the point that GHGs (water vapour, CO2, etc) do not “warm” the Earth. There is a terrible misconception about the “greenhouse effect”. It does not “warm” the planet. They redistribute the heat and average the temperature. They warm the Earth’s portion in the shade, and cool the portion under the sun. As I said before, if there were no atmosphere in Earth, the side under the sun’s rays would be around 250ºC and the side in the shade would be around -150ºC.

You also say: “In other words, the increase in water vapour concentration in the atmosphere (due to evaporation) must increase the heat trapping capacity (ie greenhouse effect) of the water vapour by a factor greater than the amount that latent heat is lost via the mechanism you outline.”

Greenhouse gases cool the Earth, more than they warm it. You must start to accept this fact. If they warmed the Earth more than they cool it, there would soon be a runaway warming, and that has never happened on Earth's geological history. The Earth’s energy budget is something you can not avoid taking into account, and understand what’s all about.

Kind regards,
43

John M,

Melbourne, Australia 19/10/2008 20:41:06
Since the Great Pacific Climate Shift of 1976 El Nino conditions, or those approaching them, have become far more common.

No switch is turned on when El Nino and La Nina conditions are reached because the formal designation of these conditions is based merely on an arbitrary threshold.

In 1998 and again in 2002 we saw what El Nino events do to global temperature. In 1999-2000 and over the last 6 months we've seen what La Nina conditions do. When did global average temperatures start to rise? In late 1976 after the Climate Shift.

The trend to generally rising temperatures can therefore be blamed on this dominance of El Nino over La Nina.

Climate models are "tuned" to match historical temperatures. Those temperatures are influenced by El Nino and La Nina influences and yet the climate models don't include those forces. To claim, as the IPCC does, that models need an additional "human influence" to account for temperature variation since the 1950s is nonsense.

Also be cautious about the hasty dismissal of short-term weather influences such as winds. It might be a sustained change in the prevailing conditions that is really driving the temperatures.
44

Edufer,

Argentina 19/10/2008 20:41:44
Slioch:

Energy (or heat) absorption is related to the gas emissivity. See if you can draw any conclusion from this graph showing Emissivity from CO2 and water vapour if both were multiplied x10 from present values:

http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-23/water-vapor-CO2-emissivity.jpg

Kind regards,

Seanie:

You said: “Lack of correlation between CO2 and temperature?
Over a reasonable timescale?
Try the last 400,000 years;
There clearly is.
It's also clear you don't know what you're talking about.”

Look who’s talking!

Take a look to CO2 and temperature correlation since the Precambrian times and I beg you to point me out where do you see ANY correlation. The graph is from Scotese (2002 --peer reviewed study):

http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-23/CO2-Temp-geolo.gif
45

seanie,

19/10/2008 20:55:29
I see. You were wrong about 2000 so you decide to cherrypick a different year. However the fact remains;

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2007.csv

The average for 1990-1999 was 0.237 above the mean.

The average for 2000-2007 was 0.41 above the mean.

And some of your links to the fruitcake website don't work.
46

seanie,

19/10/2008 20:56:54
"Greenhouse gases cool the Earth, more than they warm it."

I think that says enough really. You're a fruitloop.
47

seanie,

19/10/2008 20:59:11
http://www.worldviewofglobalwarming.org/pages/paleoclimate.htm

"There is a tight correlation between the amount of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere and the average world air temperature. More carbon dioxide = higher temperature."
48

seanie,

19/10/2008 21:01:08
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.htm

"Pushing forward, by 1985 a French-Soviet drilling team at Vostok Station in central Antarctica had produced an ice core two kilometers long that carried a 150,000-year record, a complete ice age cycle of warmth, cold and warmth. They found that the level of atmospheric CO2 had gone up and down in remarkably close step with temperature"
49

seanie,

19/10/2008 21:08:59
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2007/10/common-climate-misconceptions-co2-as-a-feedback-and-forcing-in-the-climate-system/

"The figure to the right shows changes in temperature and CO2 concentrations over the past 450,000 years. Four distinct ice ages occurred during that time. The strong correlation of the curves makes it immediately apparent that some relationship seems to exist between temperature and CO2"

http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/pics/co2.jpg
50

Edufer,

Argentina 19/10/2008 21:25:54
Seanie:

Real climate says: “"Initial results from the Argo data seemed to indicate that the ocean cooled quite dramatically from 2003 to 2005 (in strong contradiction to the sea level rise which had continued) (Lyman et al, 2006). But comparisons with other sources of data suggested that this was only seen with the Argo floats themselves. Thus when an error in the instruments was reported in 2007, things seemed to fit again."

"But the big picture is that ocean heat content has indeed been increasing in recent decades, just like the models said it should."

However, Lyman et al. (2006) reported that the oceans of the world had been cooling since 2003. They published a correction the following year, to the effect that the oceans had not been cooling, but had not been warming either.

Now a definitive study based on readings from 6000 bathythermographs, shows that the oceans have indeed been cooling since at least 2003, in line with the atmospheric cooling noted in the observed temperature record.

Models are told to show something that could prove AWG. They are not trustable; they are mere proof of what’s called PlayStation® climatology. Expensive video games that were not able to predict the present cooling. The evidence is that models don’t include solar magnetic variations and cosmic rays influence on cloud formation. Not to mention ENSO, PDO variations, etc.
51

seanie,

19/10/2008 21:46:15
Now I see why you sound like a fruitloop.

You're copying and pasting Viscount Monckton of Brenchley.
52

seanie,

19/10/2008 21:48:20
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/an_open_letter_from_the_viscou_2.html

53

seanie,

19/10/2008 22:13:58
http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/sl_drives_longer.html

http://www.cmar.csiro.au/sealevel/images/th_exp.jpg
54

Edufer,

Argentina 19/10/2008 23:02:43
Seanie: "You're copying and pasting Viscount Monckton of Brenchley."

So what? It still is the truth. And you are copying and pasting everything that Real Climate and other utterly unscientific websites say (grist, Wikipedia, IPCC, etc).
55

seanie,

19/10/2008 23:12:51
I give the links. That's quoting.

Lifting other peoples words unacknowledged is plagiarism.

56

seanie,

19/10/2008 23:15:40
Oh... and Viscount Monckton of Brenchley isn't terribly reliable. Any links to this 'definitive study'?
57

Edufer,

Argentina 19/10/2008 23:17:47
According to Monckton of Brenchley, a scotsman, in the link you gradiously provided (it was a shot in your foot):

"It is no surprise, then, that the UN's climate panel [IPCC, 2007] has been compelled to cut by one-third its previous high-end estimate [IPCC, 2001] that sea level would rise 90 cm feet by 2100. Its new high-end estimate is less than 60 cm, with a best estimate of no more than 38 cm.

"The world's foremost expert on sea level is Professor Niklas Moerner, who has been studying nothing but sea level throughout his 30-year career. In a recent paper (Moerner, 2004), he condemns the IPCC for its baseless exaggeration of future sea-level rise, and says there is no reason to suppose that sea level will rise any faster in the 21st century than it did in the 20th - i.e., by about 20 cm.

"There is not and has never been any scientific basis for the exaggerated projections by a certain politician that sea level might imminently rise by as much as 6 m. That politician, in the year in which he circulated a movie containing that projection, bought a $4 million condominium just feet from the ocean at Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco.

"You may well ask whether he actually believed his own prediction and, if so, why he spent so much buying a condominium that - if his prediction were right - would very soon be worthless. In a recent case in the High Court in London, intended to prevent the transmission of alarmist pseudo-science to children, the judge said of this politician that "the Armageddon scenario that he predicts is not based on any scientific view."
58

seanie,

19/10/2008 23:29:19
So you didn't know who you were plagiarising?

Dear oh dear.

And no, he's not Scottish. Brenchley's in Kent. Kent is not in Scotland.
59

Edufer,

Argentina 19/10/2008 23:54:28
Whatever. It doesn't matter where he was born. It doesn't detract from being right in his opposition to the warming hoax.

Don't send red herrings and concentrate on what he said. I bet you cannot.
60

seanie,

20/10/2008 00:05:34
I don't waste time listening to the loopy lord.

61

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 20/10/2008 00:12:30
#42 Edufer said, "Greenhouse gases cool the Earth, more than they warm it. You must start to accept this fact. If they warmed the Earth more than they cool it, there would soon be a runaway warming, and that has never happened on Earth's geological history."

I think that statement goes along to explain why I feel there is not much point in continuing, but I will pick up just one point.

Greenhouse gases warm the Earth (that being a shorthand way of saying that greenhouse gases trap outbound IR that would otherwise escape into space). As a result of that the temperature of the Earth's surface increases. As a result of that the amount of outbound radiation itself increases (the amount of outbound radiation being proportional to the fourth power of the absolute temperature, in accordance to Stefan–Boltzmann's law), thus acting to cool the Earth. Thus there are two process acting in opposite directions, the greenhouse effect warming the Earth, and the outbound radiation cooling the Earth. That results not in a runaway warming but the eventual establishment (all other things being equal) of a new equilibrium at a higher temperature.

The moon has almost no atmosphere, and can therefore have no greenhouse effect associated with it. It is about the same distance to the sun as the Earth. According to your proposal, the moon should be warmer than the Earth on average. It is not. The average moon temperature is about -5C.
62

Edufer,

Argentina 20/10/2008 02:20:41
Slioch:

Who measured Moon's average temperature? How they did it and when? How did they measured the side in darkness?

The moon surface facing the sun is about 250ºC, the side in the shadow should be about -150ºC. So everything you said conforms my statement that greenhouse gases cool the Earth and GHGs only distribute them cooling the warm side and warming the other one. Oceans play a big role because their huge thermal intertia, so that's why Earth is not as cool as it should be without water present. When you you accept this fact you'll be in the right track to understanding how things really work in the world of physics.

This planet shouldn't be called Earth but Water.

Anotehr last question: Please explain the rest of the people hare why in the Sahara the temperature amplitude is about 55ºC and in the jungles -at the same latitude and the same day- the amplitude is about 8ºC.

In both sides CO2 concentrations are the same (perhaps a little more in the jungle) but relative humidity is about 5% in the desert and about 95% in the jungles. If CO2 is such a big warming gas, then it would have kept the temperature during the night. CO2 is worthless as a warming factor.

BTW, you mention the Stefan-Boltzman law but are leaving out everything related to the Claussius-Clapeyron issue on enthalpy. Review your theory.

Seanie:

On Monckton, of course, you are prevented by your religion to read or listen to herectics.

63

Edufer,

Argentina 20/10/2008 02:50:59
I will save you some time:

http://tiny.cc/bbjlH

“The measured pre-eclipse brightness temperature is around 337 K in the 165–365 GHz range. This temperature slightly increases with frequency to reach 353 K at 950 GHz, according to previous broader band data. The magnitude of the temperature drop observed during the eclipse at 265 GHz (central frequency of the band covered) was about 70 K, in very good agreement with previous millimeter-wave measurements of other lunar eclipses.”
**********************

http://www.ns.umich.edu/htdocs/releases/story.php?id=5864

"The Apollo 15 crew overspent their precious time on the moon for this particular task, yet could only penetrate a little more than half the depth they wanted to reach. When the probes were inserted into the boreholes, several thermometers designed for measuring subsurface temperature ended up measuring surface temperature instead."

Consequently, NASA acquired 41 months-worth of records of the moon's surface temperature.
**************

http://www.monstein.de/astronomypublications/MoonEnglishHtml/Moon2001V2.htm

I measured a mean temperature of Tmean=213 Kelvin. The minimum was about Tmin=192 Kelvin ~2,5 days prior to full moon while the maximum with 236 Kelvin was about ~5 days after full moon.”

******************
Which means that average Moon’s temperature is about -53 to -60ºC (220 K)

See graph:

http://www.mitosyfraudes.org/images-23/moon-temperature.gif
64

seanie,

20/10/2008 09:24:41
Nope. Life's too short to read every oddball and crank.
65

fred bloggs,

Edinburgh 20/10/2008 09:40:19
62. Edufer asks:

'Anotehr last question: Please explain the rest of the people hare why in the Sahara the temperature amplitude is about 55ºC and in the jungles -at the same latitude and the same day- the amplitude is about 8ºC.

In both sides CO2 concentrations are the same (perhaps a little more in the jungle) but relative humidity is about 5% in the desert and about 95% in the jungles. If CO2 is such a big warming gas, then it would have kept the temperature during the night. CO2 is worthless as a warming factor.'

The reason of course that at 95% humidity the air is near saturated with water vapour which is a strong greenhouse gas.

In the desert at low humidity and with a clear sky there is little water vapour in the air and the CO2 IR absorption isn't enough to keep the surface warm.

No-one argues that CO2 has much less effect than water vapour but the CO2 added by man is enough to upset the radiation balance and cause additional warming.
66

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 20/10/2008 09:45:00
#63 Edufer

According to my information (Wiki) the moon night side is -153C and the daytime is +107C - but whatever the figures, with the average is calculated to be -5C. Are you really asking me how to calculate the average?
Those figures, showing the average moon temperature to be much lower than Earth's, in no way "conforms with your statement that greenhouse gases cool the Earth".

Nor is the equilibrium temperature of the Earth effected by the oceans' thermal capacity - that merely influences the rate of attainment of equilibrium.

Your paragraph about desert versus rainforest:

"In both sides CO2 concentrations are the same (perhaps a little more in the jungle) but relative humidity is about 5% in the desert and about 95% in the jungles. If CO2 is such a big warming gas, then it would have kept the temperature during the night. CO2 is worthless as a warming factor"

demonstrates your confusion. CO2 is nowhere near a "big enough warming gas" to effect the diurnal temperature changes you demand, (those are concerned with issues such as evaporation and cloud cover preventing loss of IR - issues quite separate from the greenhouse effect) nor can I see any mechanism involving IR radiation that would enable it to have "kept the temperature during the night". But that in no way negates CO2's ability to absorb IR that would otherwise be lost to space and thus cause a slow relentless increase in heat within the atmosphere/ocean system.

As for you comments concerning www.Realclimate ... "references by the dubios scientific blog Real Climate, are worthless." is frankly just silly, and exposes you as someone determined to remain confused.

Your lauding of Monckton is revealing. I have spent some time, not much, looking at his work, some time ago. It is riddled with straw man arguments, inaccurate references and erroneous arguments. The only one I can recall (and I'm not going to waste any more time on him) offhand is his claim in his article "Apocalypse
67

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 20/10/2008 09:45:57
contd.

Your lauding of Monckton is revealing. I have spent some time, not much, looking at his work, some time ago. It is riddled with straw man arguments, inaccurate references and erroneous arguments. The only one I can recall (and I'm not going to waste any more time on him) offhand is his claim in his article "Apocalypse cancelled" Sunday Telegraph, 5 November, 2006 that a Soon and Baliunas paper stated that the medieval warm period was 3C warmer than the twentieth century. In fact the paper makes no such assertion, or anything like it. Monckton just made it up.

Wander round in the swamp of confusion in which Monckton has ensnared you if you must - I'm not going to waste any more time responding to you.
68

Friend of Lewis,

20/10/2008 11:32:21
The likes of Slioch, Seanie and Fred Bloggs will not give up defending the AGW scare until every hill and valley of Scotland is covered in wind 'farms', which they have vehemently defended in previous posts.

I wonder if they even defend the axing of forests as in the Amazon and elsewhere for the production of biofuels - justified, apparently, to reduce CO2 emissions!

How such environmentally damaging energy sources can be promoted by people who claim to be 'saving the planet' remains a mystery - unless they stand to make huge financial gains from these ventures.

Scotland must rank amongst one of the most beautiful parts of the world, but some of its residents don't seem to be able to see its beauty and are prepared to sacrifice it for a dubious energy source and a dubious cause. I still pray that common sense will prevail but there are none so blind as those that do not want to see. Absolutely tragic.
69

seanie,

20/10/2008 11:38:17
Don't recall vehemently defending windfarms. Sure you're not lying?

70

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 20/10/2008 12:11:19
#68 Friend of Lewis

I have never "vehemently defended" wind farms. They have their place in the in some parts of the broad spectrum of renewable energy production. As for the Lewis wind farm, I opposed it from its inception (though not on these Scotsman blogs).

As for "the axing of forests as in the Amazon" and being "prepared to sacrifice" the beauty of Scotland "for a dubious energy source and a dubious cause" ... I have spent more time and effort over a longer time period speaking out in defence of the Scottish landscape (and indeed being sometimes successful in that endeavour) and rainforests than ever I have about trying to educate people about the science of climate change. (though, again, not much on these Scotsman blogs - defending landscape requires a far greatly in-depth commitment, for which blogs are unsuited.)

Please get your facts right before slinging mud around.



71

fred bloggs,

Edinburgh 20/10/2008 14:07:38
68. Friend of Lewis:

It's interesting how climate sceptics wring their hands at the sight of a few wind turbines 'spoiling the landscape' and yet are curiously silent about industial monstrosities like Longannet which belches 10 million tonnes of CO2 per year into the atmosphere - not to mention unhealthy quantities of mercury, toxic gases and radioactive compounds.

72

alimac,

cambridge 20/10/2008 17:50:44
Interesting debate in typical Scots style

see this evidence on recent temp trend

http://www.factsandarts.com/articles/no-significant-global-warming-since-1995/.

Where is evidence that anthropogenic CO2 measurably affects climate

not theory, not political consensus and ......

puuurrrrleeese not inscrutable climate models which reflect assumptions
73

seanie,

20/10/2008 18:11:22
The Hadcru annual data;

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/gtc2007.csv

Temperature anomalies since 1995;

1995 - 0.275
1996 - 0.137
1997 - 0.351
1998 - 0.546
1999 - 0.296
2000 - 0.270
2001 - 0.409
2002 - 0.464
2003 - 0.473
2004 - 0.447
2005 - 0.482
2006 - 0.422
2007 - 0.403

All but three of the subsequent years have been warmer than 1995, and all the last seven. 2008 is currently running at 0.301 so, despite a strong La Nina at the beginning of the year, it looks like it could be warmer as well.

And as pointed out before;

The average for 1990-1999 was 0.237 above the mean.

The average for 2000-2007 was 0.41 above the mean.
74

seanie,

20/10/2008 18:12:18
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

"The year 2007 was eighth warmest on record, exceeded by 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2001."

"The 1990s were the warmest complete decade in the series. The warmest year of the entire series has been 1998, with a temperature of 0.546°C above the 1961-90 mean. Twelve of the thirteen warmest years in the series have now occurred in the past thirteen years (1995-2007). The only year in the last thirteen not among the warmest twelve is 1996 (replaced in the warm list by 1990). The period 2001-2007 is 0.21°C warmer than the 1991-2000 decade."
75

seanie,

20/10/2008 18:13:25
Oh and the phyiscal properties of CO2 and its role as a greenhouse gas have been part of scientific understanding for over a century.

Try educating yourself.
76

seanie,

20/10/2008 18:20:00
Correction - only 1996 and 2000 were cooler than 1995, and 2000 is the twelfth warmest year in the record.
77

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 20/10/2008 18:27:18
#72 Alimac

There are two obvious errors in the Albeck article to which you link. The first is that the best fit linear curve to the data he reproduces, of average monthly global temperatures 1995 to the present, is still positive: you can find the raw data here (extreme left hand column) and check it yourself if you know how to:

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh%2Bsh/monthly

Or look at exactly the same data condensed into average global annual figures for which a graph (with link to data) is shown here:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

Secondly, he asserts, without any evidence and without any theoretical basis, that there is a "climate recovery" from the little ice age, with a base rate of 0.5C per century. Does he believe that climate "recovers" from a cold period, a bit like a patient recovering from a cold? Climate changes for a reason, frequently several reasons combined, often some of the factors are obscure: but it does not bounce back from a cold period like a bouncy rubber ball, or recover like a sick person.

Further, the average rate of change of the annual global temperature from 1975 to the present has been 1.8C per century, significantly higher than Albeck's putative 0.5C, so even if one accepts that figure, it demonstrates that the last 30 odd years need an explanation.

No other explanation, other than the influence of increased amounts of CO2 and other greenhouse gases, has been presented without being shown to be false. That does not prove that CO2 is responsible: science does not deal in proofs. It deals in falsifications and verifications which together build increasing confidence that a given hypothesis is true: that is what has happened for the proposition that CO2 is causing global warming.
78

seanie,

20/10/2008 19:22:33
The NASA/GISS data for global temperatures;

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt

The ten hottest years worldwide since 1880 were:

2005, 2007, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2004, 2001, 1997, 1995.

So NASA have 1995 as the 10th warmest year in their record and every year that's hotter has occured since.
79

Man-O-Field,

Aberdeen 20/10/2008 19:44:30
fred bloggs

Please read ; Energy Storage Solutions.
80

John M,

Melbourne, Australia 21/10/2008 07:07:48
I see that people are still citing HadCRUT3v and GISS temperature data as if it was accurate.

It's not, so get over it. Neither can cope with variable operations of the observation stations.

For example, data from Hadley Centre indicates that more than 60% of its 5 x 5 (lat x long) grid cells that refer to land areas have 0, 1 or 2 observation stations. If one station fails to provide data then the results for that cell are wrong. If the periods from which anomalies are calculated is different for the two cells, the data is wrong. If there's insufficient data between 1961 and 1990 to determine an average in that month for that station and the WMO averages (or some variable period) are used, the results are wrong. If a station is relocated and insufficient data exists across 1961-90 for the new location, the data is wrong.

The lower tropospheric temperature data monitored consistently and homogenously by satellites should be far more accurate.

Just too bad if it doesn't fit your pet theory.
81

Slioch,

Scottish Highlands 21/10/2008 09:30:28
#80 John M

"The lower tropospheric temperature data monitored consistently and homogenously by satellites should be far more accurate."

Which agree well with the HADCRU and NASA GISS series ...
which rather negates your point.

It matters little whether what the temperature records reveal is "accurate" in any absolute sense: what matters is that they record changes with sufficient accuracy to indicate what is happening to the Earth's climate and to inform policy. The fact that they can all pick up events such as El Nino/La Nina, and volcanic eruptions show that this is the case.

As always, you sow doubt and confusion without substance: the hallmark of a professional denier.
82

seanie,

21/10/2008 10:20:08
http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2008/04/common-climate-misconceptions-global-temperature-records/

"Four different groups produce temperature records that attempt to compile a single global mean surface temperature: NASA’s GISStemp, the Hadley Center’s HadCRU, Remote Sensing Systems’ RSS, and the University of Alabama, Huntsville’s UAH."

"...all four temperature series align remarkably well when normalized on the same baseline period. GISS and HadCRU both show a warming trend of 0.16 degrees C per decade from 1979 to February 2008. RSS shows a warming trend of 0.18 per decade over the same period, while UAH shows a warming trend of 0.14."

The RSS and UHA records are satellite based. They broadly agree with the surface records.

Which is most accurate doesn't matter; there will always be errors in collecting the data. Systemic biases should be identified and corrected (such as the problems with orbital decay in the satellites), but other errors will be neutral. They're not particularly important.

We can be pretty sure of that since the four different data sets, compiled in differing ways, basically agree with one another. All show a significant warming trend across the globe as a whole.

That they agree makes the observation very robust indeed.

 

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