The 1998 spike in temperature was partly the result of the El Nino event drawing warmth out of the ocean. That warmth needs to be replaced – as is currently happening. In order to make the argument that mean global temperature has leveled off there needs to be a physical mechanism that somehow produced a step-function increase in temperature with a new mean and variance significantly different from the baseline historic trend – and then stopped reinforcing additional increase in temperature.
If energy was moving into the oceans and surface temperature returned to historic levels, it would not be evidence against AGW, but it might be evidence that AGW was a much slower process than we think. As it is, we have to explain the ocean heat uptake plus the fact that we continue to set record high surface temperatures year after year. That means we have a new baseline that is approximately the difference between the pre- and post- 1998 means – not including the energy being transferred (thermal energy) to the oceans.
That would suggest that model projections (at least over the short term) are significantly underestimating the AGW effect. Rather than rejoicing over how the last 17 years of temperature data contradict AGW – it should be making people who were not worried about AGW in 1998 nervous – because even though it may not be a worse-case scenario, it is definitely a really not-fcking-good scenario
Completely unreasonable! Global warming may have disappeared for now, but it will be back- with a vengance! Storms will increase, flooding, doughts, massive killer heat waves. You wait, it's coming, just like the Great Pumpkin.
"the yearly average increase in surface temps was 0.2C"
That's a whopper up there with Al Gore's six foot rise in sea level. A 0.2 degree rise in surface temperature translates to 3 degrees in 15 years. Even warming at 1/10 that rate is inflated. None other than leading denier James Hansen claims no warming over the last 12 years or so. And he does use combined land and ocean temperature data.
For me it makes an assumption that their predictions were valid and that they got it right except that sensitivity is on the low side of their prediction. That may be true but I am not convinced it is true. When they have demonstrated they really weren't that serious about the prediction in the first place, that it was more about exaggerating for a cause, I have to have serious doubts. Statements like his won't win him (or her) any friends with alarmists but it is still an unproved hypothesis. I am not willing to make assumptions that aren't proved.
Edit: LOL and I thought I was responding to someone like Curry.
For the 100th time....More solar heat is retained then is radiated into space in any given 24 hour period. Atmospheric CO2 is the reason. Atmospheric CO2 has risen from 286ppm in 1830 and will most likely stand at 430ppm by 2030. CO2 and methane are both powerful greenhouse gases. NO scientist says different!
Excess heat does NOT stay in the atmosphere as heat migrates from 'warm' to cooler. In the 6th grade we learned that heat energy moves via conduction, convection and radiation. Heat energy transfesr from the atmosphere to seawater and to ice. ALL of the data shows that seawater is absorbing this heat energy and ice below the zero degree Centigrade isotherm tends to melt as well as any sea ice where the sea water is above 32 degree F. Also noted is that in the northern hemisphere summers are slightly longer and winters slightly shorter.
Conclusion: Don't rest your case on atmospheric temperatures and don't be fooled by people that do rest their case on atmospheric temperatures as that's not the important part of this situation...yet!
A slight slow down =/= leveling off
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp...
They are looking to hundredths of a degree of warming in the deep oceans as proof that we will warm by many degrees C.
Completely unreasonable
Sounds like something straight out of a denier handbook and is certainly not representative of current climatologists view of GW The surface temps for thethis time period were "not statistically significant" according to Phil Jones in a link displayed by at least two deniers here. he goes on to say that for that time period "the yearly average increase in surface temps was 0.2C" which is an increase however small it may be and the combined surface and ocean temps show GW itself is not slowing down
one of the frequent denier claims here is the ever popular 15, 16 or 17 years no warming, which totally ignores the combined surface and ocean combined temps. The 15 year _no global warming for 15 years" was a lie perpetuated by David Rose in dailymail, Jan 29th, 2012 which they gladly printed even though Rose left out segments of the MET interview he conducted, and dailymail didn't take the time to verify which is their standard approach to denier articles
http://metofficenews.wordpress.com/2012/...
Of course the professional deniers picked this up and ran with it, duping millions of deniers worldwide via blogs and self named websites Although this lie has been publicly debunked, some deniers here knowingly post the same lie
Yes, I have heard this nonsense many times from those that do not look at everything else that is happening. It is what is known as "cherry picking". You look only at the data that supports your position while completely ignoring all the rest of the data. How many times have we seen this happen?
1. Since when is the surface of the planet all that is subject to planetary warming or cooling?
2. The deeper layers of the oceans have continued to warm over this same time period and at a faster rate than before since the beginning of the industrial revolution. - http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/arc...
3. It takes much more heat energy to warm water than it does to warm air. I would BOLD this statement if Yahoo allowed us to use HTML codes in the responses here.
What we have here is someone that cherry picks the data of surface temperatures and ignores the oceans. Both are a part of this planet and the oceans, by far, influences the global climate more than does the surface temperature. What happens when the stored heat energy of the oceans begins to be released to the surface again? Do you, or anyone else, believe that the oceans will permanently sequester this heat energy and it will not be emitted back to the surface areas again? What do you think will happen during the next strong and extended El Nino event? We may be coming into such an event now. We shall see what happens then if such an event does appear within the next few months. Will you, Ottawa Mike, simply blame the renewed SST warming on the then current El Nino cycle and ignore the fact that oceans have stored more heat energy from our continued global warming? My money is being placed on you do exactly this! I strongly suspect that you at least have a heavily invested interest in cherry picking. You may even own your own cherry orchard.
Why not source your quote, Ottawa Mike? I would like to have this person to go into further detail as to how they arrived at such a claim concerning the climate sensitivity based solely on surface temperatures. Would you like to give it a try yourself, Ottawa Mike?
Response to "Update 1".
Let me word this another way. Who are you quoting on this claim about climate sensitivity?
SST temperatures are still an indicator of global warming, but it is not the only indicator that is used. You are still ignoring the observational evidence that the deeper layers of the oceans are also warming. You are still ignoring the fact that it takes much more heat energy to warm water than it does to warm air. You are still ignoring the fact that the planet is in an imbalance with the amount of heat that the planet receives in relationship to how much of this heat energy is allowed to be returned back into space. Our moon's lack of greenhouse gases allows it to release it received heat energy from our sun back into space almost instantaneously when the sun sets below its horizon. Our planet traps some of our sun's heat energy on our planet after our sun sets below our horizon due to the greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. We are adding to the amount of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere at a tremendous pace and faster than our planet's natural carbon sinks can sequester them. It simply does not take a climate scientist to realize what the results of this action would be. Even a nitwit could figure this out for him/herself.
How do you explain the continued, long term trend of the loss of Arctic sea ice without also mentioning a warming planet?
How do explain the continued downward decline in most of our planet's glaciers without also mentioning a warming planet?
Will you claim that this is happening because of a newly found species of ice gophers that are eating the ice? Explain the melting of ice by showing how it is possible with a cooling of the planet or that the planet has not warmed over the past 1 1/2 decades. ... I'll get the popcorn.
You are also quite a card, except the word "card" uses one too many letter to explain who you really are.
Hmm from you only, from elsewhere we get exaggeration, misinformation, propaganda and lies, it seems to me that truth is no longer a commodity that anyone values.
The reality is that global surface temperatures have leveled off for at least a decade and a half. Have you ever heard or read words something like this?
"With the recent leveling off of global surface temperatures, it's possible we have been wrong about projected warming for the 21st century. Perhaps climate sensitivity is on the low side of estimations and warming is not the problem we thought it was. And that's great because it will mean that predicted extreme weather increases, sea level rise and other negative effects of warming may not occur and we will also not have to implement costly policies like a carbon tax."
Or is that a completely unreasonable position to hold?
