Denial-land saw a bit of a ripple over the weekend with yet another in a long series of Daily Mail Climate fails.
The Mail’s David Rose wrote a piece making, once again, the tired, shopworn, “it’s no longer warming” claim.
The breathless headline caromed around the net – “Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it!”
Countless trolls, professional and amateur, fired up their keyboards and tweeted, posted, face booked, and comment-threaded the latest “scientific” results.
Things were going so well, until grownups at the Met Office stepped in and answered the bonehead claim.
An article by David Rose appears today in the Mail on Sunday under the title: ‘Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it’
It is the second article Mr Rose has written which contains some misleading information, after he wrote an article earlier this year on the same theme – you see our response to that one here.
To address some of the points in the article published today:
Firstly, the Met Office has not issued a report on this issue. We can only assume the article is referring to the completion of work to update the HadCRUT4 global temperature dataset compiled by ourselves and the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit.
We announced that this work was going on in March and it was finished this week. You can see the HadCRUT4 website here.
Secondly, Mr Rose says the Met Office made no comment about its decadal climate predictions. This is because he did not ask us to make a comment about them.
You can see our full response to all of the questions Mr Rose did ask us below:
Hi David,
Here’s a response to your questions. I’ve kept them as concise as possible but the issues you raise require considerable explanation.
Q.1 “First, please confirm that they do indeed reveal no warming trend since 1997.”
The linear trend from August 1997 (in the middle of an exceptionally strong El Nino) to August 2012 (coming at the tail end of a double-dip La Nina) is about 0.03°C/decade, amounting to a temperature increase of 0.05°C over that period, but equally we could calculate the linear trend from 1999, during the subsequent La Nina, and show a more substantial warming.
As we’ve stressed before, choosing a starting or end point on short-term scales can be very misleading. Climate change can only be detected from multi-decadal timescales due to the inherent variability in the climate system. If you use a longer period from HadCRUT4 the trend looks very different. For example, 1979 to 2011 shows 0.16°C/decade (or 0.15°C/decade in the NCDC dataset, 0.16°C/decade in GISS). Looking at successive decades over this period, each decade was warmer than the previous – so the 1990s were warmer than the 1980s, and the 2000s were warmer than both. Eight of the top ten warmest years have occurred in the last decade.
Over the last 140 years global surface temperatures have risen by about 0.8ºC. However, within this record there have been several periods lasting a decade or more during which temperatures have risen very slowly or cooled. The current period of reduced warming is not unprecedented and 15 year long periods are not unusual.
Q.2 “Second, tell me what this says about the models used by the IPCC and others which have predicted a rise of 0.2 degrees celsius per decade for the 21st century. I accept that there will always be periods when a rising gradient may be interrupted. But this flat period has now gone on for about the same time as the 1980 – 1996 warming.”
The models exhibit large variations in the rate of warming from year to year and over a decade, owing to climate variations such as ENSO, the Atlantic Multi-Decadal Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation. So in that sense, such a period is not unexpected. It is not uncommon in the simulations for these periods to last up to 15 years, but longer periods are unlikely.
Q.3 “Finally, do these data suggest that factors other than CO2 – such as multi-decadal oceanic cycles – may exert a greater influence on climate than previously realised?”
We have limited observations on multi-decadal oceanic cycles but we have known for some time that they may act to slow down or accelerate the observed warming trend. In addition, we also know that changes in the surface temperature occur not just due to internal variability, but are also influenced by “external forcings”, such as changes in solar activity, volcanic eruptions or aerosol emissions. Combined, several of these factors could account for some or all of the reduced warming trend seen over the last decade – but this is an area of ongoing research.
———–
The below graph which shows years ranked in order of global temperature was not included in the response to Mr Rose, but is useful in this context as it illustrates the point made above that eight of the warmest years on record have occurred in the past decade.
“We agree with Mr Rose that there has been only a very small amount of warming in the 21st Century. As stated in our response, this is 0.05 degrees Celsius since 1997 equivalent to 0.03 degrees Celsius per decade.”
That’s enough.
Seven people have marked negatively a verbatim quote from the Met Office itself.
That’s seven more people who will never learn.
In the meanwhile what the MO is actually saying is definitely not what Peter reported here. A crash course in British Establishmentspeak might be necessary.
Presumably, Maurizio, you have seen the graph of ranked warmest years?
Presumably also, you do not dispute the extreme improbability of this distribution occurring by chance?
Therefore, if climate change is being driven by anthropogenic CO2 (and has not stopped), what is achieved by pretending that it has stopped (and is not a problem) as the Daily Mail is doing?
Also can you tell me, is David Rose incompetent or deceitful? Or is there a third option (such as forgetful)?
Martin – I don’t seem to be able to communicate with you. Let me state I am talking about the accuracy of the Daily Mail reporting for this article.
And it’ll be mighty hard to claim inaccuracy after the MO has written what they have written.
What accuracy? The Daily Fail is trying to tell people global warming has stopped (when it hasn’t). This is not just inaccurate; it is either an incompetent or a willfully-deceitful misrepresentation of reality. End of story.
Given the reality that multi-decadal warming is occurring, the hiatus in warming over the last decade could only be good news if you think anthropogenic CO2 is not the main driver of change. This is because that would be the only reason for hoping that the long-term trend in warming has miraculously and inexplicably come to an end without any need for humans to stop doing anything…
P.S. I do not think we have a communication problem – you just don’t want to talk about the Big Picture.
You claim that you are only “I am talking about the accuracy of the Daily Mail reporting for this article”. No you’re not. You are finding any (thin) support for your new claim, but you are not at all refuting this story, or the Met Office response to David Rose.
“UK Met Office:
An article by David Rose appears today in the Mail on Sunday under the title: ‘Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it’
It is the second article Mr Rose has written which contains some misleading information, after he wrote an article earlier this year on the same theme – you see our response to that one here.
To address some of the points in the article published today:
Firstly, the Met Office has not issued a report on this issue. We can only assume the article is referring to the completion of work to update the HadCRUT4 global temperature dataset compiled by ourselves and the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit.
We announced that this work was going on in March and it was finished this week. You can see the HadCRUT4 website here.
Secondly, Mr Rose says the Met Office made no comment about its decadal climate predictions. This is because he did not ask us to make a comment about them.
You can see our full response to all of the questions Mr Rose did ask us below:
Hi David,
Here’s a response to your questions. I’ve kept them as concise as possible but the issues you raise require considerable explanation.”
btw, I’m very familiar with ‘Establishment RP’, or any other kind of speech, and this is not that. The MO is trying to use straightforward English to explain their perspective. Seems good to me.
That is just so disingenuous.It puts the short term trend into the wrong context,much the same way that the GOP used Obama’s …”you didn’t build that” to signify a meaning that they knew was false.
The Daily Mail and their apologists can cry “we’re just reportin’ the facts!” all they want,but when viewed in the full context of their history of distortions,lies,half-truths and spin that they are famous for,we know what they are trying to do,and that is to convince people that GW has stopped,and there is nothing to worry about.
It is a call to stand down on actions to curb Co2 ,chiefly for the benefit of fossil fuel interests,and that is a very dangerous game indeed.
“People who will never learn” – Pot aka omnologos
I said “more”
It’s got to a point now where I think I’d be perfectly happy if the MET Office did actually respond with “just f$&k off already”.
DM and MO agree on the basic points. The rest is sensationalization on the part of the newspaper, and hair-splitting on the part of the Governmental organization.
IOW they are all doing their jobs. The best thing we can do is to see through each one of their smokescreens, and figure out that indeed, they just agree with each other.
Another day, another another Daily Mail fail…..
Geoengineering in the news:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/15/pacific-iron-fertilisation-geoengineering?intcmp=122
The experimenter seems to have taken a lesson out of Jack Abramoff’s book. He scored $1 Million from a Native American tribe to dump 100 tons of an industrial byproduct into the sea. Whee!
Unclear from the comment what your opinion is omnologos, but I have this feeling that you may be approaching this from an AGW denial pov.
If so, the confidence you show is much misplaced. The statement “Over the last 140 years global surface temperatures have risen by about 0.8ºC” and that ~ 6% of that increase has been over the past 12 years should scare the bejasus out of us. It does me, but perhaps you are of sterner stuff, omnologos?
Even better Maurizio: “We agree with Mr. Rose.”
“Seven people have marked negatively a verbatim quote from the Met Office itself.”
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say they’ve marked negatively your reaction to it, not the quote itself. I’m not really sure what it is you’re saying, if anything. Here’s a screenshot of my own viz of hadcrut3vgl data with the small OLS trendlines set at 15 years. Blue are positive trends, red negative, when compared with the single OLS trend for the whole dataset. Do you have any point to make about the very last 15 year trendline that remains valid if we look at the entire dataset?
p.s. clunky controls, apols, but feel free to look at that data directly if you like, here’s the viz, control explanation and links to data load in the tabs.
Danolner – well, “bugger off” it ain’t. The MO is threading a careful path where it both agrees with Rose and pretends to be disagreeing. Eg they say there is an increase in temperatures, and then they say it is not statistically significant.
It’s easier to pull teeth and make blood pour out of stones than the get the MO speak out with a clear and unambiguous voice on climate.
In truth, they have replied to a comment of mine stating that the if the situation continues for >15 years, it becomes unusual. But I am sure that statement needs be carefully interpreted too.
Maurizio, can I suggest that you – and/or anyone else who thinks the Met Office is being anything other than clear or unambiguous about the need for action to mitigat climate change – need to read things more carefully. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide
“E.g. they say there is an increase in temperatures, and then they say it is not statistically significant.”
What’s the problem with that?
The ‘problem’ is that, as far as observations are concerned, the Daily Mail is saying the same thing the Met Office is saying, but the latter is pretending otherwise.
But you know there can be an increase in temp that’s not statistically significant, right?
Given the statistical nature of global warming, an increase in temperatures that is not statistically significant is equivalent to a zero increase (or even to a non-statistically-significant decrease).
Would you like to apply this ‘statistically significant’ method to this years reports of arctic ice loss?
What level of confidence do they use? Like 90% or 95% to define ‘statistically significant’? So something with a 85% chance of showing a warming trend is not statistically significant for warming, but it sure as heck doesn’t translate into a phenomenon that has an equal probability (i.e. 85% chance) of being a cooling trend (i.e. there would only be a 15% chance of the data being flat and/or cooling).
If you analyses a series of data in 10 year intervals and compare it to 50 year intervals, it is possible that all the 10 year intervals are not statistically significant, whilst the 50 year interval is, especially if the 10 year intervals are ‘only just’ not significant (i.e. 85% probability of warming).
At any rate, it doesn’t matter: if one is adamant about using the noisiest part of the data as their ‘starting point’, then their ability to see reality is destroyed from the get go.
It’s like they’re trying to find out how many people, for average conditions, use the fire exit door to a movie theater, but they’re only focusing on data for the number of people passing through the fire exit door during an active fire in the building. If they compare it to a recent data set where very few people are using the exit, then they would conclude that there is a steep decline in the use of the fire exits, and perhaps, therefore they should decommission some of the doors, since they are getting less and less use. The real trend is overlooked.
Both the MO and DM can agree that there was a steep decline in using the fire exits, but when the DM says that we don’t need as many fire exits, it is coming to a poor conclusion, compared with the MO, who sees an upward rise in the number of movie goers over a long period of time, and thus concludes more exits will be needed in the future.
Ok that’s kind of a crappy example, but the idea is if one party is laser focused on an anomaly and wants to paint the anomaly as normalcy, then they will come to a different conclusion as another party looking at not just the anomaly, but everything around it, as well.
Andrew – the statement about statistical significance comes from the MO.
“the Daily Mail is saying the same thing the MO is saying”
Ya, like how the guys running around blowing up abortion clinic’s or blowing up ferderal buildings are quote the same parts of the bible to justify that, which the Republican party is always quoting. Would you therefore suggest that the Republican party and such terrorists are one and the same thing?
The position of the Daily Mail is “global warming isn’t happening”. The position of the Met Office is that “AGW is happening, we’re causing it and that’s bad”. Quote mine all you want but you’ll end up in the same place, they are at opposite ends of the spectrum.
The problem with deniers such as yourself is you are clueless as to how to perform data analysis. You’ll climb over a mountain of evidence that supports AGW, and base you’re entire position on one tiny crumb of evidence that says the contrary.
Daryan12 – there is something the DM and MO totally agree on. The rest is interpretation.
And there’s something that I and the Catholic church agree on, that greedy war mongering Republicans are immoral and in violation of the teachings of the church.
That doesn’t make me a Catholic, or a believer in God….although if you listen to the pope, and there is a god, I won’t want to be Bush….or a GW denier like yourself!
You’re interpreting again. Must be “Amateur Hour”.
I was so astonished at this mindless repetition of the “global warming stopped in 1998” (or is it now 1996?) that I have emailed a complaint to the editor (Paul Dacre) – copied to the Press Complaints Commssion (yes them who do nothing about everything), it went like this:
————–
Dear Mr Dacre,
Complaint regarding serial misrepresentation of fact by David Rose
With reference to the rebuttal published by the Met Office yesterday… I hereby wish to complain about David Rose’s inaccurate reporting of relevant facts. The key points being as follows:
1. David Rose has done this – and been rebuked by the Met Office for misrepresenting facts – before.
2. The Met Office has not published any report (“quietly” or otherwise) on this subject.
3. Global Warming has never been consistent (because anthropogenic CO2 is not the only factor).
4. Any “pauses” can be explained by other factors (the Sun, volcanoes, ocean currents etc).
5. The overall multi-decadal warming trend can only be explained by the effects of anthropogenic CO2.
I should therefore be grateful if you could advise me as to whether David Rose is merely incompetent or being deliberately deceitful; and confirm that the Daily Mail will now publish an apology and/or correction.
———–
No response as yet!
You expect a response from the Daily Mail, aka “the newspaper that supported the third reich”
(That’s actually true, they were behind Hitler and the UK’s Blackshirts right up until about 1938 before they thought better off it!)
And ye Americans think Fox News is a bit too right wing!
Great letter. At least one person – stop! two persons, Peter Sinclair initiated it – is doing something against this right-wing paper seemingly willingly misinforming the public.
Martin. I second your letter.
The Press Complaints Commission has replied to me, saying it will ask the Met Office whether it wishes to make a formal complaint. Let’s hope they do.