As climate denial goes the way of snake oil and table tipping, real Skeptics would like the media to please stop sullying their good name.
Prominent scientists, science communicators, and skeptic activists, including Bill Nye “the Science Guy,” physicist Lawrence Krauss, Cosmos co-creator Ann Druyan, and many others are calling on the news media to stop using the word “skeptic” when referring to those who refuse to accept the reality of climate change, and instead refer to them by what they really are: science deniers.
The statement, signed by 48 Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), comes as a response to a New York Times article from Nov 10, 2014, “Republicans Vow to Fight EPA and Approve Keystone Pipeline,” which referred to Sen. James Inhofe, who believes climate change to be an elaborate hoax, as “a prominent skeptic of climate change.”
“As scientific skeptics, we are well aware of political efforts to undermine climate science by those who deny reality but do not engage in scientific research or consider evidence that their deeply held opinions are wrong,” says the joint statement. “The most appropriate word to describe the behavior of those individuals is ‘denial.’
“Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific inquiry.”
Signatories to the statement, drafted by physicist and science communicator Mark Boslough, also included Nobel laureate Sir Harold Kroto, philosopher Daniel C. Dennett, science education advocate Eugenie Scott, and David Morrison, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe at the SETI Institute, as well as CSI executive director Barry Karr, Skeptical Inquirer editor Kendrick Frazier, and Center for Inquiry president and CEO Ronald A. Lindsay.
CSI promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is an affiliate of the Center for Inquiry. The complete statement is available at bit.ly/DeniersNotSkeptics.
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry:
Public discussion of scientific topics such as global warming is confused by misuse of the term “skeptic.” The Nov 10, 2014, New York Times article “Republicans Vow to Fight EPA and Approve Keystone Pipeline” referred to Sen. James Inhofe as “a prominent skeptic of climate change.” Two days later Scott Horsley of NPR’s Morning Edition called him “one of the leading climate change deniers in Congress.” These are not equivalent statements.
As Fellows of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, we are concerned that the words “skeptic” and “denier” have been conflated by the popular media. Proper skepticism promotes scientific inquiry, critical investigation, and the use of reason in examining controversial and extraordinary claims. It is foundational to the scientific method. Denial, on the other hand, is the a priori rejection of ideas without objective consideration.
Here, leading climate “skeptic” and outgoing member of the Science Committee, Paul Broun on Science, and “lies from hell”.
Real skepticism is summed up by a quote popularized by Carl Sagan, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” Inhofe’s belief that global warming is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” is an extraordinary claim indeed. He has never been able to provide evidence for this vast alleged conspiracy. That alone should disqualify him from using the title “skeptic.”
As scientific skeptics, we are well aware of political efforts to undermine climate science by those who deny reality but do not engage in scientific research or consider evidence that their deeply held opinions are wrong. The most appropriate word to describe the behavior of those individuals is “denial.” Not all individuals who call themselves climate change skeptics are deniers. But virtually all deniers have falsely branded themselves as skeptics. By perpetrating this misnomer, journalists have granted undeserved credibility to those who reject science and scientific inquiry.
We are skeptics who have devoted much of our careers to practicing and promoting scientific skepticism. We ask that journalists use more care when reporting on those who reject climate science, and hold to the principles of truth in labeling. Please stop using the word “skeptic” to describe deniers.
Mark Boslough, Physicist
David Morrison, Director of the Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe, at the SETI Institute
Bill Nye, CEO the Planetary Society
Ann Druyan, Writer/producer; CEO, Cosmos Studios
Ken Frazier, Editor, Skeptical Inquirer
Barry Karr, Exec Director, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Amardeo Sarma, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry Executive Council, Chairman GWUP (Germany)
Sir Harold Kroto, Nobel Prize in Chemistry
Ronald A. Lindsay, President & CEO Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Center for Inquiry
Kenneth R. Miller, Professor of Biology, Brown University
Christopher C. French, Dept of Psychology, Goldsmiths University of London
Daniel C. Dennett, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University
Massimo Pigliucci, Professor of Philosophy at CUNY-City College
Douglas Hofstadter, Director, The Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition, Indiana University
Stephen Barrett, Co-founder of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF), and the webmaster of Quackwatch
Scott O. Lilienfeld, Professor, Department of Psychology, Emory University
Terence Hines, Dept of Psychology, Pace University
James Randi, President James Randi Educational Foundation
Seth Shostak, Senior Astronomer and Director of the Center for SETI Research
Joe Nickell, Senior Research Fellow, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry
Henri Broch, Physicist, Emeritus, University Nice Sophia Antipolis, France
Eugenie C. Scott, Chair, Advisory Council, National Center for Science Education
Edzard Ernst, Professor of Medicine, Emeritus, University of Exeter, UK
Indre Viskontas, Cognitive Neuroscientist, Host Inquiring Minds Podcast
David J. Helfand, Professor of Astronomy, Columbia University
Mario Mendez-Acosta, Journalist, Science Writer, Mexico City
Cornelis de Jager, Astrophysicist, Past President, International Council for Science
Sanal Edamaruku, President, Rationalist International
Loren Pankratz, Psychologist, Portland VA Medical Center, Retired
Sandra Blakeslee, Science Writer
Benjamin Radford, Deputy Editor of the Skeptical Inquirer Magazine
David Thomas, Physicist and Mathematician
Stuart D. Jordan, NASA Astrophysicist, Emeritus
David H. Gorski, Cancer Surgeon, Wayne State University School of Medicine
Anthony R. Pratkanis, Professor of Psychology, UC @Santa Cruz
Jan Willem Nienhuys, Mathematician, Waalre, The Netherlands
Susan Blackmore, Psychologist, Visiting Professor at the University of Plymouth
Ken Feder, Anthropology, Central Connecticut State University
Jill Tarter, Bernard M. Oliver Chair, SETI Institute
Richard Saunders, JREF Million Dollar Challenge Committee, Producer – The Skeptic Zone Podcast
Jay Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor of Astronomy, Williams College
Lawrence M. Krauss, Director, The ASU Origins Project, Arizona State University
Barbara Forrest, Philosophy, Southeastern Louisiana University
Kimball Atwood, Physician, Newton, MA
James Alcock, Psychologist, Glendon College, York University, Toronto, Canada
Massimo Polidoro, Science writer, author, Executive Director CICAP, Italy
E.C. Krupp, Director, Griffith Observatory
Dick Smith, Film Producer, Publisher, Australia
Adelady -you’re arguing we should keep quiet on the pause lest the general public gets confused. I can reply that the different reactions to the pause by otherwise consensual outlets is confusing already and no quietness here will change that..
For Romm, Peter and most commenters here, the pause does not exist. For Nature.com, SciAm, the BBC, Trenberth, Rahmstorf and several dozen mainstream climate scientists the pause exists, however its meaningfulness in the context of centennial climate change.
This does appear a significant rift in the whole approach to the world, let alone climate science. If you read jpcowdrey above, he’s saying the pause exists only if it’s described as meaningless.
Schrödinger would’ve been proud. The scientists publishing papers about it, not so much.
Ps can you elucidate how describing the difference between Rahmstorf and Romm makes me look “contrary for its own sake”???
“…. can you elucidate how describing the difference between Rahmstorf and Romm makes me look “contrary for its own sake”
Semantic fallacy: A distinction without a difference.
Simply, maurizio; You are following the dog, not the man.
Hey man – GREAT News!!!!!
HUGE uptick in the rate of global surface warming seen MULTIPLE times since 1998!!!!!
And the past year , compared to last year AND compared to other years has been OFF THE CHARTS!!!!
The pause is OVER!!!!!
Let’s talk about the new accelerated warming TREND!!!
(See what I did there?)
These replies are senseless. I’ve used the words of a mainstream climate scientist, posted links to mainstream scientific and journalistic outlets. All of them speak about the pause or slowdown or lesser warming.
I even explained that my point has nothing to do with centennial scale global warming.
All the replies have been about the worry or fear that even admitting the pause or slowdown or lesser warming might be used to show there is no Agw. Senseless indeed. Let me repeat: even Trenberth knows 15 or more years of pause can be mentioned without seeing them as a refusal of climate science.
You guys have a problem with Rahmstorf and Trenberth when they don’’t say what you like to hear. Hypocrites to say the least.
And you don’t really understand what Trenberth and Rahmstorf were talking about – or you would not keep talking about the evidential legitimacy of a bogus 15-year “trend” based on a cherry-picked year.
Rahmstorf and Trenberth are NOT on your side. Stop trying to purloin their authority by using them as supposed proof sources for your miserable propaganda efforts.
We’ve watched you pull the same stunt by gleefully quoting the IPCC as if you actually respected it, or as if anything the IPCC said was supportive of the denier talking points you were trying to score.
You STILL don’t get it. You will almost certainly NEVER get it.
You don’t reason well but either your ego is so enormous you don’t realize it, or you are just another sadist enjoying being a troll. Or both.
I think most of us here have a real problem with people who choose spin, distortion & wordplay to obscure or trivialize the issue. I don’t have an issue with bon mots but with deceit.
And, to be blunt, I don’t trust your motives. Period.
I’m now going to list a number of things that should clearly demonstrate why “slowdown”, “hiatus”, “lesser trend” are not accurate. I will say that the various oceanic oscillations and wind patterns will strongly impact weather & temperature but a scientifically literate person should know better than to think that massive amounts of heat can be added to a chaotic system with no impact.
Here are some notable highlights – all of which YOU should be very well aware – that have taken place during the “hiatus / slowdown”. A key factor here are the properties of H2O.
1) As has been stated multiple times, 14 of the 15 globally warmest years on record have occurred since the then-record year of 1998 – which was one of the strongest El Nino years of which we’re aware.
2) Of the 1/2 dozen La Nina ENSO events since ’98, ALL but one has been WARMER than every EL NINO year prior to the “hiatus” except for 1998. And the other La Nina year is only slightly cooler than the previous El Ninos.
3) The long-running decline in ice sheets & glaciers has picked up speed during the “slowdown” – contradicting the well-understood meanings of both “slow” and “down” except for the vertical direction of all that meltwater.
Greenland & Antarctica are losing ice at nearly double the rate at the end of the 20th century, and are now contributing 500 gigatonnes annually to annually to sea level.
4) Arctic sea ice extent, area & volume has also dropped dramatically during this “pause”.
5) Ocean heat content, already on an upward trend at the beginning of the ’90s has accelerated all the way down to 2 kilometers and the energy added since 2000 is about double the that of the known fossil fuels reserves of the entire world.
If converted to electricity, it would power the USA for several millennia.
6) Flooding has become endemic in many places and the “once-a-century” flood now seems to happen every 5-10 years. In case the mechanism is unfamiliar to you, flooding is caused by very large amounts of water either falling from the sky or melting of snow & ice. Unsurprisingly, HEAT plays a crucial role.
Note that when ice melts or water evaporates, you get a change of phase but NO immediate rise in temperature, so if you’re looking at a giant block of ice next to a equivalent pool of ice water and think that no “warming” has taken place, you’re technically correct but simultaneously very much mistaken.
Well said!
And if he still doesn’t get it, present it again wrapped around a baseball bat.
Omno said:
“For Romm, Peter and most commenters here, the pause does not exist. For Nature.com, SciAm, the BBC, Trenberth, Rahmstorf and several dozen mainstream climate scientists [says] the pause exists, however its meaningfulness in the context of centennial climate change. ”
Rahmstorf says the pause exists? Really??
This is what Rahmstorf just said about the pause:
” There simply has been no statistically significant slowdown, let alone a “pause”.
and:
” There simply is no further significant change in global warming trend, not in 1998 nor anywhere else.”
“it is factually wrong to claim there has been no warming since 1998. There has been further warming despite the extreme cherry pick of 1998.”
“since the 1970s we simply are in an ongoing global warming trend which is superimposed by short-term natural variability.”
“Given the warm temperature of 2014, we already see the meme emerge in the media that “the warming pause is over”. That is doubly wrong – there never was a significant pause to start with, and of course a single year couldn’t tell us whether there has been a change in trend.”
I think I have a handle on what Trenberth and Rahmstorf think, having interviewed each of them on this issue, and I don’t think either of them believe the planet has stopped warming.
Now might be an apposite time to point something out.
I’m not a schoolteacher, but I am a tutor. I’ve heard far too many year 9 students whining that they don’t see the point of algebra (or grammar or spelling rules or whatever they don’t want to do). I’ve dealt with too many kids of all ages arguing about criticism of their work on the basis of “see, look here, that bit of arithmetic was right. Wasn’t it?” or “I spelled most of the words on that list correctly” or “my atlas was out of date” or “that’s what wikipedia said” and all the other feeble, inadequate, terribad, no-good excuses for not doing the work properly.
You simply cannot say that someone reputable said something that you interpret in a particular way to justify building a whole argument. You have to use all of the relevant information, data, conclusions from reputable sources when you’re talking climate. As a start you should check that what you’re saying/inferring/implying about a scientist’s remarks is consistent with the whole of the statement/report/speech you’re extracting from. Maybe, possibly, you could check that it’s consistent with their other statements on the topic.
You could at least have enough ordinary manners to not bring reputable scientists into your little word games. That’s downright rude.
Its a classic trait of a denier brain, as well as cherry picking data to support their hypothesis, they also cherry pick statements from reputable scientists in order to make it seem that they support their views in some bizarre way too. I believe that clown Monckton is a prime example of how to misuse both as he is perfectly fine with cherry picking like 3 years back in time, which is no doubt a favorite about those deniers who want to peddle a silly Arctic recovery these days. He also likes to quote scientists by taking their statements out of context, rearrange words a bit and if anything do not add the conclusions of their papers (as they certainly would not agree with Moncktons views). He is a snake oil salesman as pure as you can get.
The whole debacle of Michael Mann’s “hiding the decline” is a classic in this regard, and there are still tons of people who still use this actively in any debate about climate change. They fudged the data, etc, etc… Its like meeting a stubborn child in a debate which is supposed to be an intelligent one around a scientific term. When I meet people who so stubbornly refuse the real science and physics involved I often ask them how they think we e.g. “tamed” the electron to make iPhones and all kinds of gadgetry – if they have any idea what kind of understanding of physics goes into that? It is quite clear however that the denial is more like a religious belief in order not to take any responsibility for their actions or to defend their “freedom to consume” even if people drop dead from toxins down-creek. In other words, just immense egomaniacs with no empathy or caring for other people besides defending their turf.
We’re back to square one. You all refuse to answer my point and fall back onto the usual “not enough years” argument, despite the fact that I have already said I agree with that.
Let me recap.
I’m not saying the planet has stopped warming . I’m not saying 15 years matter wrt global warming or anything to do with climate change. I’m not trying to put any spin or to show AGW is a hoax or whatever else you’re imagining me doing. Please stick to the letter of what I’m writing here.
I’m saying that there’s been an observation regarding global temperatures. This observation has been discussed in mainstream scientific outlets.
The observation might or might not be a thing of the past. For example Rahmstorf spoke of a “lesser trend” a year ago and has changed his mind this year as the 2014 figure gets an estimation. I do not know if Nature.com thinks the same.
For my argument it doesn’t matter. We could say that the observation concerned the 1998 2013 period.
The observation has been given a name. Nature.com went for “pause” and so did the BBC and SciAm . This might have been a journalistic choice. Rahmstorf went for caution and spoke of a “lesser trend”. Personally I’d opt for “slowdown”. A slowdown in the raising, that is.
OTOH Romm has chosen to deny anything has happened.
So from one side reputable scientific outlets have given a name to something Romm and many here refuse to acknowledge it’s ever existed. This is a clear disagreement.
As I said this has little to do with climate change, AGW and the likes. My interest is in figuring out why you keep going on about trusting the scientists and yet in this case you went the other way.
Once again. The slowdown or whatchamacallit isn’t about climate change. It belongs to the science of short term global temperature variability. There’s no indication this is a lesser science of absolutely no interest to anybody, hence the various papers written about it.
Let’s see if anybody will raise to this challenge. Just one will suffice.
You’ve been told again & again that the hyped “hiatus” is no such thing.
Rahmstorf has said it, Tamino has demonstrated it, RealClimate has discussed it.
So stop asking us what color is the invisible elephant.
Is it green?
Ask O-Log – he should be able to answer unless his all-seeing eye is colorblind.
Omno. I will once again post my favorite visual about the decline of Arctic sea ice, and ask you to explain how 1998 (the beginning of your so-called “hiatus”) coincides so nicely with the beginning of the ever-accelerating decline in ice volume. Where did the heat come from to melt all that ice, and why is melting increasing if no heat has been accumulated since 1998 by the planet?
I realize that your limited cognitive abilities may make it hard for you to understand this graphic because several variables are being plotted at the same time. I suggest you pause it frequently so that you don’t miss the year changes in the upper right.
http://youtu.be/qUO23Y179pU
“It belongs to the science of short term global temperature variability.”
To reiterate what everyone else has been telling maurizio, repetitively:
1.) The ‘pause’ does not have statistical significance.
2.) The ‘pause’ may very well be an artifact of insufficient global temperature coverage. (Cowtan & Way, ERA interim, Simmons & Poli 2014)
3.) When corrected for natural forcings (TSI, DVI) and internal variability (SOI), the ‘pause’ disappears. (Foster & Rahmstorf 2011, Lean & Rind 2008)
2 and 3 suggest the anthropological component of the GST is accelerating.
All three together suggest maurizio is making a mountain out of a molehill. It is of interest because clowns like maurizio and his noisy band of denialistas insist on making it a big deal. The scientific response is to accept the premise of the ‘pause’, for the sake of argument, and then analyze whether it has any valid scientific meaning. It doesn’t. This form of argument is called reductio ad absurdum. Joe Romm isn’t doing the analysis. He is only reporting what those who have are saying. The ‘pause’ is an illusion.
You keep on circling around and around on this, maurizio, as if no one has addressed your so-called ‘challenge. You have already regressed from being merely absurd, through inane, and onward to pathetic, and are teetering on the edge of pathological. A landscape you should be quite familiar with, had you an ounce of self-awareness.
MorinMoss – I posted a link where Rahmstorf called it a “lesser trend”. That was up to 2013. If 2014 makes that “lesser trend” disappear, still it is possible to say there has been a “lesser trend” between 1998 and 2013.
Dumboldguy – you are talking heat. I explicitly asked to stick to what I has written. I made no claims about global heat. Besides, if the heat to melt the ice came from global warming, does that mean you agree that there was a “lesser trend” in surface temperature as the heat was not totally available to warm the planet’s surface?
jpcowdrey – you mention a 2008 and a 2011 articles that should dispel the very notion of a “pause”. However, as I keep having to repeat, you are not discussing that with me. Let me quote directly from Nature.com
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n3/full/nclimate2155.html
“Natural variability can explain fluctuations in surface temperatures but can it account for the current slowdown in warming?”
Is anybody suggesting that Nature magazine as recently as last February was part of a noisy band of denialistas?
Another link (broken to avoid the spam filter on Crocks)
http_www.nature.com_news_atlantic-ocean-key-to-global-warming-pause-1.15755
“An apparent slowdown in global warming since the late 1990s”
This piece is from August 21st. No mention of articles that should have shut down the debate years before. In the Science article referred to, they write “The latter part of the 20th century saw rapid global warming as more heat stayed near the surface. In the 21st century, surface warming slowed as more heat moved into deeper ocean”.
“Surface warming slowed” – this doesn’t seem to be compatible with it being “an illusion”.
It most certainly is an illusion and I’ve provided enough to clearly show that it is.
One thing I left out is that solar output has been on a downward trend for about 20 yrs and has reached the levels seen in the early ’40s.
And STILL, the globe has been busting all-time records left, right & center WHILE “hiding” staggering amounts of heat in the ocean.
Newsflash: that heat hasn’t gone away forever. Like MacArthur or Schwarznegger, we’ll see it again.
Plenty of scientific papers mentioning an illusion. The state of climate science is worse than we thought.
It may seem that way – if you’re not keeping up
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/nov/13/global-warming-underestimated-by-half
“Natural variability can explain fluctuations in surface temperatures but can it account for the current slowdown in warming?”
Can it? Yes it can.
“An apparent slowdown in global warming since the late 1990s”
Apparent? Really!
If you are just asking if there is something in some data sets that looks like a ‘slow down’ to the untrained observer, well then, yes. (Is that what you’re looking for?)
If you are asking if it is scientifically meaningful, that has been answered many many times.
‘ “Surface warming slowed” – this doesn’t seem to be compatible with it being “an illusion”.’
It does when qualified by “…as more heat moved into deeper ocean. As others have noted, your propensity removing context via selective quotation, is not flattering.
Illusions always ‘seem’ real to those suffering from them. Do yourself and others a favor and let it go.
Given Typhoid Mauri’s frequently cryptic, nonsensical & eccentric ramblings, I believe the version below is much more appropriate
Give up! (Parody of Let It Go from Frozen)
Your answer is a bit crowded Jp. If natural variability can account for the slowdown it means there’s a slowdown to account for?
If natural variation can account for an ‘apparent’ slowdown, it means the ‘apparent’ slowdown is not a real change in the overall trend, it is just noise (i.e, random up and down fluctuations).
Yes, there is an apparent slowdown. No, it is not real. It is an illusion.
More articles
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n7/full/nclimate1863.html
“Despite a sustained production of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, the Earth’s mean near-surface temperature paused its rise during the 2000–2010 period”
These are not the words of denialistas. Please explain why Nature’s reviewers and editors let through these pieaces about an “illusion”.
http_www.sciencemag.org_content_345_6199_860.summary?sid=1785b675-4e93-4167-9204-534831b4a02d
“Armchair detectives might call it the case of Earth’s missing heat: Why have average global surface air temperatures remained essentially steady since 2000, even as greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere?”
I would go for “essentially steady” if anybody else had the courage to, with whatever caveats added.
http_www.climate.gov_news-features_climate-qa_why-did-earth%E2%80%99s-surface-temperature-stop-rising-past-decade
“The most likely explanation for the lack of significant warming at the Earth’s surface in the past decade or so”
“Just because the global surface temperature has not risen significantly in the past decade doesn’t mean the Earth’s heat energy imbalance has vanished, though”
There I am agreeing with NOAA, Nature, Science. Maybe somebody ought have a word with them.
Jps confusion deserves another clarification. I am not talking about anthropogenic global warming. That might as well be continuing even if surface temperature doesn’t go up a lot.
I’m referring in my quest for an open mind here strictly and only to surface temperatures.
If natural variation can account for an ‘apparent’ slowdown, it means the ‘apparent’ slowdown is not a real change in the overall trend, it is just noise (i.e, random up and down fluctuations).
Yes, there is an apparent slowdown. No, it is not real. It is an illusion.
There, I am agreeing with you, maurizio. The quest for an open mind is now in your court.
jp – “is not a real change in the overall trend”
I said just as much in countless messages. As in the past, you are refusing to answer my point, about short term temperature variability, and keep coming back with the “long term trend” argument that has nothing to do with my quest for an open mind around all these commenters.
Now, let’s try again: assuming that 15 years are not enough to discern any chance in the centennial global warming trend, what is the name to describe the observed “pause” or “standstill” or “lesser trend” during those 15 years?
We know the answer as written by many scientists in many reputable journals. But not one soul here can dare admit as much, and we are treated to the absurdity of seeing people who tell me to follow the scientists, openly deny instead what the scientists are saying.
You can mark the “pause” as “noise” but that’s useless from the point of view of the science of short term global temperature variability. Analogously the weather is only noise compared to the climate, but this doesn’t mean meteorology is not a science.
If you’re searching for an Open Mind that fully understands how to interpret and explain trends, seek no further, your quest has succeeded
Lol, are you still going on about this omno?
I ask you again to e.g. look at the hadcrut4 dataset here:
http://retro.lonningdal.net/eee/HadCrut4-trends.jpg
I have posted this once before. Its the same exercise that Tamino has done before on one of his blog posts, although I carefully picked the first year where there actually is a downward “trendline” you can draw, and that is from 2001 to 2013.
In spite of this look where most of the temperature points are in relation to the pre 2001 trend? And remember the pre-2001 trend would then include the 1998 whopper El Nino year, and is much faster than IPCC predictions. In spite of this, 9 out of 12 temperatures are above the trendline.
So is there a slowdown of atmospheric warming (which btw accounts for a small percentage of the total warming happening)?
We can also wonder if the pre-2000 warming was in fact faster than expected too, which if it includes the 1998 El Nino, certainly is. So is post-2000 a return to mean? You see the whole “hiatus” game is all based on the 1998 year which even if its included in the trend is way way above the variations around that trend.
Since we, like most climate scientists, know there is a physical relation and a reason for global warming, we really do not need to ask the question if there is a hiatus as it would go against anything we know in physics. And the underlying physical reasons have not changed, there is still a buildup of CO2, and earth is still nowhere near equilibrium with the amount of energy coming in vs the amount coming out. As long as that is happening, we know there will be warming – while the atmosphere will no doubt show a very variable reflection of this signal based on a number of factors and how heat gets out of the oceans and into the atmosphere for a chance to escape earth.
Why are you nitpicking around the wording of articles? What does it mean to you? Are you expecting a change in atmospheric warming to one of cooling? And if so, what are the physical reasons for this change? Please explain to us instead of playing word games on who said what?
no nitpicking John Christian. You can read above that I agreed with dumboldguy, and so he stopped replying (in order not to acknowledge the pause).
MorinMoss keeps blathering about multidecadal climate change, despite my repeated comments about the pause having little to do with multidecadal climate change. This too, in order not to acknowledge the pause.
The same applies to you. I am not sure what more I can say. I have written “15 years are not enough to discern any chance in the centennial global warming trend” and you reply if I had never said anything of the sort, and explain the point again. I say, fine, I’m ok with that, but can you please for once leave aside multidecadal global warming, and move down to the 1- or 2-decade level?
And if you can’t, why can’t you?
I have made the microscope/telescope analogy. What is interesting in microscopy (weather) is not interesting in astronomy (climate). There are also many things in the middle that don’t interest either because are not small or large enough (short-term temperature variability), but this doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Why is such an elementary thing so difficult to acknowledge here? Dozens of scientists have no qualms about it. Here’s Trenberth last August, in Nature
http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v4/n10/full/nclimate2341.html
“Factors involved in the recent pause in the rise of global mean temperatures are examined seasonally”
He doesn’t describe it as an “llusion”. The pause is there. One can say that it is irrelevant to long term global warming. But one cannot say the pause is _not_ there.
And here’s Trenberth a year ago
http_onlinelibrary.wiley.com_doi_10.1002_2013EF000165/full
“increases in global mean surface temperatures have stalled in the 2000s”
“there has been a slowing in the rise of global mean temperature over the past decade, often referred to as a hiatus or plateau”
Note that he continues asking “Has global warming stalled?” to which he answers “no”. For the umpteenth time, I’m ok with that. I am not talking about “global warming” in the multidecadal sense, and so if the pause exists or doesn’t, it won’t matter wrt “global warming”.
For me this is an exercise in honesty. I have not seen much. People choose Romm over Trenberth and Rahmstorf.
The honest answer is obvious to dozens of scientists: “There has been a slowdown/pause/plateau but it doesn’t mean global warming has stopped”. One could even add a qualifier, saying that the slowdown/pause/plateau appears to have gone by 2014.
Instead what I read here is “There hasn’t been _any_ slowdown/pause/plateau”.
It’s history and science denial, happening in front of my eyes. Good to know.
The weather-climate-microscope-astronomy “analogy” is one of Omno’s more inane and inept utterances. He never ceases to amaze me—-that someone would work so hard to look so stupid is hard to understand.
And notice how quick he is to claim victory because DOG has not responded instantly to his maunderings? His game is seeking attention, folks, and the more stupid crap he posts and the more we respond with sanity, the more he likes it.
We are skirting Einstein’s definition of insanity with these extended exchanges with the village idiot with no differing outcomes. Who’s the dummy here? Omno has a bunch of smart, well-informed, and concerned-about-AGW folks jumping through his hoops.
I will again ask him to go away (he won’t) and ask that we ignore him for a while until he deflates (we won’t). Einstein got it right.
There is only one sane response: PDFTT.
Who says we have enough sanity left to do that?
Still waiting for an answer, Omno.
Please explain to us how 1998 (the beginning of your so-called “hiatus”) coincides so nicely with the beginning of the ever-accelerating decline in ice volume as shown here.
Where did the heat come from to melt all that ice, and why is melting increasing if no heat has been accumulated since 1998 by the planet?
http://youtu.be/qUO23Y179pU
“Where did the heat come from to melt all that ice, and why is melting increasing if no heat has been accumulated since 1998 by the planet?”
I had replied earlier but there is no problem in repeating/expanding the point.
I have made no claims about global heat. I was talking about surface temperature.
I have no problem making the assumption that global warming has continued as before, or ever worse. I can also agree with you that the heat has gone in melting a lot of ice.
Now, can you do the additional logical step, and state (as many scientists have done) that the additional heat since 1998 has not gone into increasing surface temperatures as much as expected?
In your case, it would be a glacial-melt-caused surface warming slowdown, or whatever you want to call it, provided you can get that far.
So far, zero takers, despite at least 53 different peer-reviewed scientific papers having been published with just as many different explanations for the pause/slowdown/lesser-trend observation.
You asked for an “open mind” to discuss surface temperatures – I’ve provided that.
Now go away and argue with Tamino about what the trend implies.
His analysis on the surface temp warming trend, which I and others have posted on multiple occasions on various Crock discussions, clearly shows where your “reasoning” is flawed.
The semantic argument you’re so stubbornly chewing on is one of STATISTICAL SIGNIFICANCE.
As luck would have it, Tamino is a statistician so you have all you asked for so Godspeed to you on your quest, O Wise Man, and Merry Xmas.
“53 different peer-reviewed scientific papers having been published” sounds like YOU, of all people, are making a CONSENSUS argument for an apparent illusion.
You’re a failure on so many levels. I’ve already written at least three times that yes, the “pause” has no significance wrt centennial global warming. No need to repeat the concept unless you’re just refusing to read what I write.
Listen, there’s weather science and it concerns weekly trends. There’s climate science and it concerns multidecadal trends. But trends happen on so many levels, so there’s also the science of phenomena that occur on a decade basis. That’s where the “pause” happens.
The “pause” doesn’t matter for weather or climate science. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist in general. It means it exists for what concerns short term variability. Right? Wrong?
It’s like saying there’s microscopy and astronomy. Following Romms reasoning people don’t exist, because you can’t find them in a microscope or a telescope. Yeah right.
I have repeated this concept several times. There’s not one soul who’s entered the fray either to agree or disagree. You’re all knotted up in a paralyzing fear of agreeing with me on anything, to the point of refusing to follow what the scientists are saying. Little wonder your camp is so politically inept.
Please don’t trample on any world heritage site on the way out.
You have a well-developed inability to comprehend. Is that a talent or a skill?
If it doesn’t matter, then why be so dogged to claim it exists at all?
FYI, this is something the deniers cooked up as part of their campaign of confusion & obfuscation and has been discredited at least as far back as 2009, not least by Tamino in his “Riddle Me This” post fully 5 years ago,
He also later pointed out that the Deniers conveniently overlooked a very dramatic 15-yr warming trend that ended around 2007.
Back in 2008, New Scientist pointedly stated that the region that was warming the quickest – the Arctic – is severely lacking permanent temperature monitoring stations as well as coverage and that the HadCRUT dataset excludes it entirely.
This cannot POSSIBLY be news to you unless you have a badly cracked palantír.
In this universe, there was also a ThinkProgress post from Nov 2013 that included a graphic showing the global average temps by decade.
From 1940 – 1979, the decadal average was from 13.92 – 13.95.
The next 3 were 14.12, 14.26, and 14.47 ( that last was for 2001-2010 ).
I trust your arithmetic is sufficiently advanced to find in which decade the “pause” occurred?
Cowtan & Way took a stab at filling in the missing Arctic data and their result was a warming trend that’s double the HadCRUT one.
But despite all that, here you are, capably filling the role of the Denialists’ Most Useful Idiot. I trust they know where to post the medal you so richly deserve.
I have tried to stay out of this round in the never-ending battle to educate Omno. Jimbills and I have found an Omno clone on a another old thread (“Glum and Glummer”) to play with. He is a lot smarter than Omno, but just as deluded and perhaps even more narcissistic. Take a look over there at j4zonian in all his glory.
May I suggest that all this attention has pumped up our strange little friend with the big name to the size of the Goodyear Blimp, and that if we don’t stop feeding him he will soon explode? Our friends in the UK will not appreciate the damage that will do to their lovely countryside.
We are making little progress at this point. Omno is now in “repeating loop” mode. Rather than answer our questions or acknowledge the truth of all the great insights we have shared with him, he just keeps muttering things like “I’ve already written at least three times…..No need to repeat the concept unless you’re just refusing to read what I write”.
We are again wasting our time.
maurizio,
“It is not only not right, it is not even wrong.” Wolfgang Pauli
You’ve entered the Twilight Zone, maurizio. You are attributing to others motivations that you are repressing from your own self-awareness.
Denial. Projection. Rationalization. The trifecta of borderline narcissistic personality disorder.
Get help.
No. Why won’t I? Is it because I’m knotted up in a paralyzing fear of agreeing with you? No. It is because in spite of the apparent pause in GSTs since 1998, the rate of increase hasn’t decreased. It has actually increased.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/graph/gistemp-dts/from:1967/to:1997/mean:12/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1999/mean:12/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1967/to:1997/trend/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1999/trend/plot/gistemp-dts/from:1967/trend
Please show where any scientist has published a conclusion that fits your description. Not as an hypothesis to be tested, but a conclusion. Do you understand the difference?
Jp – when Trenberth says “there has been a slowing in the rise of global mean temperature over the past decade, often referred to as a hiatus or plateau” he’s not talking about a hypothesis to be tested. It’s a description of what has happened. It’s an observation.
His hypothesis to be tested was if the pause meant global warming has stalled. He concluded it didn’t, and it hasn’t. I’ve got no problem with his conclusions, but you’re denying his observation.
If you say so.
Then you are conceding that the ‘pause’, when put into context, is utterly meaningless.
That’s all that I’ve been saying. What appears to be a pause (naive observation) is not a pause at all. It is an illusion due to the stochastic nature of the data.
Am I wrong?
There’s a lot more to be worried about than an annoying idiot who exists only to argue semantics here because he’s unwelcome everywhere else.
China has begun to clean up its ridiculous number of coal plants and don’t intend to grandfather any of the old ones. The standards that were set a couple years ago and should have taken full effect back in September are on par with the most stringent anywhere in the free world.
http://www.chinafaqs.org/library/chinafaqs-china-adopts-world-class-pollutant-emissions-standards-coal-power-plants
The quicker they clean up their coal emissions, the better for their citizens BUT that means that any cooling effect of pollutants or sulfate aerosols will be lost.
However that also means less soot so this emissions cleanup should result in slower melting of Himalayan glaciers.
MorinMoss why do you speak so badly of Trenberth. /sarc
Best thing of this thread is that I’ll forever have an argument when the usual suspects bemoan about me not following peer reviewed papers. There’s a disagreement between scientists like Trenberth and Rahmstorf on one side and bloggers like Romm and Tamino on the other.
You’ve all chosen to believe the bloggers and dismiss the scientists.
The pause or slowdown or lesser trend in global surface temperature over 15 years, whilst inconsequential wrt global warming on centennial timescales, isn’t an illusion. It can happen, does happen and isn’t even incompatible with mainstream scientific understanding of climate change. But nobody here has any courage to say that, and prefer outright denial.
You’re late to the party with this argument.
Having been one of the 11 people who have stumbled onto what could be charitably be called your blog and survived the excruciating eye-bleeding, I’m well aware of how you enjoy shit-disturbing.
Whatever gets you off.
You neglected to point out that Phil Jones, a scientist, had already addressed this back in 2010 and stated that there was warming and how much but that it wasn’t at the 95% confidence level that is accepted as being STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT.
Many of us had been looking at the global temp graphs for years, wondering how a consistent toppling of records, La Nina or La Nada years hotter than every El Nino year EXCEPT ’98, all the while watching more and more ice around the world melt but not “recover” could imply a “pause”
When you sit down to cherrypick this thread to harp & crow about, do try to include at least one or two sentences about how you chose to ignore the counterarguments.
I suppose that you were hoping that one of the “bloggers” we’d agree with would be you. Disappointment happens.
Don’t be so unkind. Take a look at the ‘testimonials” page on Typhoid Mauri’s blog. You will find there:
“Maurizio is one of lifes great people, he gives the precious gift of knowledge, and he encourages great thought and debate. He doesn’t go for the pat or glib answer, he goes for the right answer, and always researches it. Glad to have connected with you, always glad to read your blogs, you have one of the finest minds I have ever encountered, don’t let it go to waste. Ever”.
He probably wrote that one himself and has it taped in the corner of his self-admiration mirror. If it IS “real”, we know that there is one person on the planet more deluded than Mauri.
“One of the cleverest people on Ecademy complete with a touch of madness. Where would be without Maurizio’s genius and madness? Not progressing that’s for sure”.
Also deluded, although the “touch of madness” does resonate.
You are as relentless and mindless in your “arguments” as a Whack-A-Mole game.
Which game you have now ruined for me since I will forever see your face on the Whack-A-Moles. Of course, if they ever did come up with a “Whack-A-Maurizio” game it wouldn’t work—-all the little useful idiots would be stuck in the up position and wouldn’t go down even if you dropped a car on them.
(That’s a metaphor, Omno, and I know that’s beyond you so I’ll explain a bit—–i.e., the weight of fact and logic that we “drop” on your ignorant, stupid, and stubborn BS is as “heavy” as an automobile).
I would think Rahmstorf would be quite surprised to find himself on the opposite side of this issue from ‘Tamino’. Can I assume that you know who “blogger Tamino” is ?
Skeptic – Am referring to a particular topic and to public statements made during the last year or so, not in general.
MorinMoss – I’ve already said that the pause isn’t relevant wrt multidecadal global warming. You’re not answering my point.
Dumbo – wish I had the time to read whatever you’re saying. You went quiet when I did and I agreed with you.
You’ve been told repeatedly why the “pause” is illusory. It’s a double cherrypick which is, no doubt, very tasty & satisfying to the denier crowd.
Pick a short trend from an incomplete dataset.
Spend some time with one of the trend calcs and you’ll have little trouble finding multiple 15yr periods of “hiatuses/ plateaus / slowdowns”.
Go off and find them all so you’ll have even more to harangue us over “denying” those ones as well.
Some hope at last. Finally one person dared say it. ..”kinda flat” is enough. .Thanks JP.
It is irrelevant to long term global warming but it’s not an illusion. It’s like driving from New York City to LA…mostly going West and the various twists and turns are irrelevant to the overall journey. But they’re not illusions.
How long is the length of a trend?
“various twists and turns are irrelevant to the overall journey” – it was already pointed out to you that you’re following the dog, not the man.
Not illusions?
You can melt ice without raising its temperature – if your only tool was a thermometer, it would look like nothing had changed.
And that thermometer had better be precise – the difference between the freezing point of H2O and its triple point, where you can simultaneously have ice, water and vapour is a mere ONE HUNDREDTH of a degree Celsius.
Good luck spotting that change in a “trend”.
It’s been a bit over 33 years since Hansen predicted accelerated warming in the Arctic and that has really picked up the pace during the “irrelevant pause” that has you in its clutches.
Given your oft-demonstrated penchant for not letting go of a dry bone, I wonder what other irrelevancy you’ll be gnawing on in 2030, 2040 or 2050 if we don’t get our act together and things fall apart.
Cherry picking where warming happens is one of the “contrarians” favourite distractions. It is very important for them to ignore every other sign when they focus on one where there is a hiatus. This conveniently makes e.g. the two past years of “recovery” in the Arctic make headlines in right-wing-nut media. Or that the US is experiencing a cold winter while the rest of the planet is way above average temps, which is a favourite of them today. I am not sure I recognize this kind of reasoning any reflection of real intelligence though, as its basically at the level of what a monkeys reasoning works – “monkey see, monkey do” – which is why these people always seem to end up in the monkey trap with regards to the dangers of CO2 emissions too.
I’ve already got my argument for when things start falling apart. I’ll blame you all who in the time of having to build an inclusive coalition went instead on a rampage of exclusivity always obsessed at finding out if the dreaded Others weren’t Pure Believers the way you are 8)
WHAT???? the heck is he talking about?
The WHAT? was directed at Omno, of course—-as usual, JCL makes perfect sense, Omno doesn’t make any sense at all.
yes dumbo everyone knows you’re only here to try to bully me away so you keep writing these completely senseless comments. carry on.
More Omnowhining. Too bad he can’t instead spend the energy on making comments that are minimally comprehensible.