Against-AGW-Consensus Article on the FPS Before Monckton’s

I can’t help but laugh at the incredible somersaults being performed by the Council of the American Physical Society (APS) to reaffirm thieir unshakeable belief in AGW, after allowing the publication in their “Forum on Physics & Society” (FPS) of an article by Christopher Monckton, “Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered“.

Note: there is one thing I agree with the APS. Monckton’s paper has not undergone any scientific peer review. You see, he’s a Lord (a Viscount, no less) whilst on the ”Council of the APS”’s side there is obviously no trace of nobility. They have been “discorteous” indeed.

Time will tell about the position (and nobility) of Jeffrey Marque, the Editor of the FPS that has seen his July 2008 comments severely rebuked by the Executive Committee of the FPS. Who’s going to choose what will be published in the October 2008 issue, is anybody’s guess.

Interestingly, the FPS and the APS did not make too much of a fuss in the past, when publishing “heretical” climate-related opinions. For an example, see Gerald E. Marsh’s “Climate Stability and Policy” in April 2008.

Mr Marsh is not exactly your average AGW proponent: he argues that current CO2 levels are too low and contributing to climate instability, suggests that even 750ppmv could still be not enough to stop an upcoming, catastrophic Ice Age. and recommends that the IPCC switch its focus towards “determining the optimal range of carbon dioxide concentrations that will stabilize the climate, and extend the current interglacial period indefinitely”.

For some reason, the above did not cause any digestive pain at the FPS, either with its Editor, with its Executive Committee, or with the Council of the APS itself.

Is Monckton’s paper simply too hot to handle? Plenty of nutrients for conspiracy theorists there, no doubt.

Is It Ethical To Hold a Biased, Negative View on Climate Change?

There are at least two key omissions in John Broome’s “The Ethics of Climate Change” (Scientific American, June 2006). One is about the uncertainties of predicting the future. The other concerns the unethical stance of considering Climate Change as purely a collection of negatives.

(1) There are many things we do not know about future climate. The IPCC itself is not in the business of predicting anything, rather of working on projections of where the global climate may be heading to, for those variable that we can compute. There are other variables involved, that are not captured by climate models (for example, of course volcanoes cannot be foretold). In other words, there is no way to know what the climate of 2058 or 2108 will actually be.

There is no trace of such uncertainty in Broome’s discourse. I would go as far as to say, Prof. Broome completely disregards the concept of risk management.

And so we are told at some point that we should take a “temporally impartial” stance, that is the death of a child today is as important as the death of a child in 100 years’ time (Broome rather unethically recommends to read his books to find out why).

But a child dying today is a certainty, whilst little can be said about children decades in the future: their very lives, and their deaths are a matter of probabilities. And surely the longer we try to see in the future, the fewer the chances of getting those probabilities right.

A Victorian scientist would have had no idea of how many children would survive today into adulthood. To claim that we are better today at seeing the XXII century is truly preposterous.

(2) As many sad articles about Climate Change, Broome’s is a collection of negatives.

Now, does one have to be a philosopher to understand that, as in almost everything else, in climate matters too there are positives and negatives whatever happens? Because the alternative would be, to consider a cooling world as a collection of positives…

We are told for example of how many deaths and disasters will Climate Change bring. Is Prof Broome aware of the fact that heat waves kill the already-dying, whilst cold waves simply kill? Death rates get below average at the end of a heat wave: they only get back to normal at the end of a cold wave.

Where are the people whose lives will be saved by an increase in global temperature? Certainly nowhere to be seen or taken care of in Broome’s article. And why not? Are some deaths more equal than others?

WIll people matter if they die because of heat, and matter less or not at all if they die because of cold?

=========

Until such huge reasoning and moral gaps are not filled up properly, I will say thank you, but no thank you, I don’t need your ethical lessons, Prof. Broome.

So What has the BBC’s Roger Harrabin Actually Done?

There is considerable buzz about reports that “the BBC has changed the news to accommodate an activist“.

The BBC journalist involved is environmental correspondent Roger Harrabin, with whom I must say I have privately exchanged views in the past (wrong…it was Richard Black).

And the BBC article is “Global temperatures ‘to decrease‘”, Friday April 4, 2008.

The “accusation” regards the contents (and title) of the article having been changed to please an environmental activist, allegedly called “Jo Abbess”.

This being the internet, with Fool’s Day not that much in the past, there is not much one can be sure of. So I have compared the three available version of Mr Harrabin’s article. Versions (1) and (2) as per Jennifer Marohasy’s blog. Version (3) as currently on the BBC web site (I am sorry but I have to take (1) and (2) at face value, hoping they are not the product of fakery).

My conclusions are: Mr Harrabin’s article is clearly biased in favour of AGW but not more than other articles in the past by Harrabin and others (see here for more about BBC’s biased reporting); and the whole evolution of the article’s text is compatible with the story of “Jo Abbess” being true. Despite of that, there is still hope.

=================================

a. Differences between (1) and (2)

Version (1) starts with:

Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 due to the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said. [...] But experts have also forecast a record high temperature within five years.

Version (2) instead:

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said. [...] But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years. The WMO points out that the decade from 1998 to 2007 was the warmest on record. Since the beginning of the 20th Century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74C. While Nasa, the US space agency, cites 2005 as the warmest year, the UK’s Hadley Centre lists it as second to 1998. Researchers say the uncertainty in the observed value for any particular year is larger than these small temperature differences. What matters, they say, is the long-term upward trend.

There is a slight “style” change from “lower” to “drop slightly”. Not sure one can make much of a fuss about that. More important, there is a whole new section reiterating that there is a “long-term warming trend”.

This doesn’t appear much of a “scandal” to yell about, even if it clearly shows the BBC party-line of driving home the “world is warming” message no matter what, perhaps even no matter where.

b. Differences between (2) and (3)

Version (2) starts with:

Global temperatures will drop slightly this year as a result of the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said. [...] This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory. But experts say we are still clearly in a long-term warming trend - and they forecast a new record high temperature within five years.

Version (3) starts with:

Global temperatures for 2008 will be slightly cooler than last year as a result of the cold La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said. [...] But this year’s temperatures would still be way above the average - and we would soon exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

So we are back to “slightly cooler” instead of “drop slightly”, some sort of “middle way” as AGWers won’t like the use of “cooler” and skeptics will object to “slightly”.

Another change is that there is no more mention, at least at the beginning of the article, of those “questioning climate change theory”. AGWer Ms or Mr “Jo Abbess” will be surely happier.

Furthermore, in the latest version Mr Harrabin has added yet another mention of “greenhouse gases”, in what looks like a clarification: a clarification, that is, that Mr Harrabin’s article really does follow the aforementioned BBC “party-line”.

Conclusions

The BBC article is clearly biased in favour of AGW but no more than previous pieces (see here for more about BBC’s biased reporting). The whole evolution of the text is actually compatible with the story of “Jo Abbess” being true.

There is hope though: Mr Harrabin’s “initial forgetfulness” allegedly corrected after exchanging e-mails with “Jo Abbess” might be a sign that, when free to think, even BBC journalists are not fixated with accusing mankind of burning up the planet.

Former BBC science correspondent David Whitehouse, in fact…

UPDATE: The Register’s Andrew Orlowski has something to say about “blog bully” Jo Abbess

Too Much Ice? Who Knows?

Much blogosphere talk about a report by “Svend Erik Hendriksen, a certified weather observer in the Kangerlussuaq Greenland MET Office, who is responsible for all the weather observations at Kangerlussuaq Airport (near to Sisimiut)” according to whom polar bears this year are “very hungry” because of “too much sea ice“.

Since skepticism is not something to turn on and off at will, I have done some research on the topic. Turns out that there is at least one member of a forum that calls himself “S.E. Hendriksen” and claims to be from Kangerlussuaq.

He mentions metereological stuff in at least one post.

Has Mr Hendriksen commented about hungry polar bears in 2008, and too much sea ice? I haven’t found any “original” text so I am simply unable to tell.

One thing for sure, he is not your average AGWer, and publishes curious if somehow jaw-dropping “Roschach-like” analysis of Al Gore’s movie.

Let’s wait a few more days…usually, fake or overblown remarks don’t live that long.

Venus Warming Revisited

(third post in a series dedicated to the planet Venus as “example” of runaway greenhouse warming)
Venus post #1: Venus: Cool Greenhouse?
Venus post #2: Venus Warming Revisited
Venus post #3: Venus Missing Greenhouse Warming
Venus post #4: Venus and a Thicker-Atmosphere Earth

In reply to Dr. John W. Nielsen-Gammon’s comment published at Eric Berger’s SciGuy blog entry “Is the global temperature now falling?“

I am the author of the Venus blog originally pointed out in a comment by Jim Mayeu.

I am all for understanding the behavior of atmospheres and the reasoning behind current scientific theories. Chances are, I have not discovered anything major, or nothing at all. But do allow me to probe this further.

(1) First question that springs to mind is, if the terrestrial and venusian atmospheres behave so differently, how could any “greenhouse effect” act similarly in both? Wouldn’t moist convection for example drastically change the consequences of an increase in atmospheric CO2?

Is it a matter then of asking people that mention Venus when talking of anthropogenic global warming, to please shut up in the name of Science?

(2) Also, the “albedo” as a single number for a whole planet is a good approximation to start from, but once again the differences between those atmospheres will surely reflect in different albedo/radiation frequency curves (not to mention how solar radiation diminishes the nearer it gets to the planetary surface).

(3) But let’s go back to the whole adiabatic business.

Lapse rates depend on gravity, and the heat capacity of the atmosphere. Gravity is similar between Venus and Earth, and CO2 responds to compression in a manner similar to air. Is that not enough to expect a similar lapse rate?

In fact, or at least in theory, the “dry” values are:

Venus: 10.468 K/km
Earth: 9.760

In practice, the Pioneer-Venus descent probes actually measured a lapse rate of 8K/km between 60 and 10km above the venusian (or shall I say, Cytherean) surface, and of around 2 between 120 and 60km.

“Under normal conditions” on Earth the lapse rate is assumed to be around 6.38, with a maximum for “dry” air of 10 and a minimum for 100% saturated air of 5.46.

(4) The “energy balance” computation you mention simply assumes a specific “greenhouse effect”. But we cannot use the thesis to demonstrate the hypothesis, so to speak.

All we know is that in terms of flux at the surface, there are 500K left to be explained.

For example, has anybody tried to compute the Earth’s surface temperature with 90-100 times more atmospheric pressure than it has, or better yet, Venus’s with 90-100 times less? (chances are, somebody has done that already). Any “greenhouse effect” would be on top, not instead of that.

===============

The elegance of the Fred Singer’s “explanation” recently partially revisited by John Huw Davies, a geodynamicist at Cardiff University in the UK, is after all the fact that it considers all of the Venus’ peculiarities.

Otherwise, we must imply it’s only by chance that the hottest temperatures belong to the youngest surface, in the one planet with an almost perfectly retrograde rotation (Uranus’ axial tilt is 98deg, Venus’ 177.36deg).

That’s 2.64deg away from the planet’s orbital plane’s vertical. If such a “coincidence” doesn’t scream for an explanation, I don’t know what does.

Venus: Cool Greenhouse?

(originally published as “Venus Forecast” on Aug 17. 2007):

(first post in a series dedicated to the planet Venus as “example” of runaway greenhouse warming)
Venus post #1: Venus: Cool Greenhouse?
Venus post #2: Venus Warming Revisited
Venus post #3: Venus Missing Greenhouse Warming
Venus post #4: Venus and a Thicker-Atmosphere Earth

In a few years, the old ideas of Fred Singer will come back into fashion.

Venus’ retrograde rotation, incredibly massive atmosphere and relatively young (<500 million years) surface will be elegantly explained by the crash of a massive satellite half a billion years ago (with subsequent melting of much if not the whole crust, and humongous outgassing).

UPDATE FEB 28 2008: Space.com: Venus Mysteries Blamed on Colossal Collision

Current lead-melting surface temperatures will be just as beautifully explained by simple adiabatic processes.

The role of CO2 in the heating of the atmosphere via some “greenhouse effect” will be seriously reconsidered and almost completely dismissed.

========

Some quick computations:

Ratio of available solar energy Venus/Earth: 190%

Earth, surface pressure: 1000 mbar; temperature: 288K
Venus, 50km altitude pressure: 1000 mbar; temperature: 330K
330K/288K = 114% < 190%

Venus, surface pressure: 90,000 mbar; temperature: 735K
Temperature of terrestrial air compressed from 288K/1,000mbar to 90,000mbar: 887K
735K/887K = 82.9% < 190%

Far from showing any CO2-induced global warming, Venus is much cooler than expected, likely because of the high-altitude clouds that prevent us from looking at the surface.

Leopardi (1832) on…Climate Change

Wholly convinced that civilizations make climate milder as they progress, Italian poet and essayist extraordinaire Giacomo Leopardi wrote about Anthropogenic Climate Change around 1832 (from “Thoughts”, “Pensieri”):

(39) [...] I think everybody will remember having heard from his parents several times, just as I remember hearing from mines, that years have become colder than they were, and winters longer; and that when they were younger, already around Easter they would leave the winter clothes for the summer ones; whilst such a change today, or so they say, is only bearable in May, and sometimes in June.

And not many years ago, some physicists seriously searched for a cause to this alleged cooling of the seasons. Some said it was the fault of the deforestation of the mountains, and some others said something else I don’t remember: all to explain a fact that is not happening: because actually, on the contrary, it has been noted, for example, in quotes from ancient writers, that Italy at the time of the Romans must have been cooler than today.

That is wholly believable as experience makes apparent that as the men’s civilization progresses, so the air, in the lands inhabited by them, gets progressively milder: and such an effect has been evident in America where, so to speak, according to memory, a fully-fledged civilization has replaced in part a barbarian state, and in part empty deserts. [...]

[One and a half centuries ago Magalotti wrote] in the Family Letters: “It is certain that seasons’ natural order is worsening. Here in Italy it is common saying and lamentation that the half-seasons have disappeared; and in this confusion, it’s without doubt that the cold is advancing. I have heard my father that in his youth, in Rome, on the morning of Easter Sunday, everybody would change into summer clothes. Nowadays whoever can afford not to sell his shirt, I can tell you he’s very careful not to abandon any winter piece of clothing”. This is what Magalotti wrote in 1683.

Italy would be cooler than Greenland, if between then and now, it would have cooled as much as they were saying at the time.

It goes almost without saying that the continuous cooling that is said to be occurring due to intrinsic reasons in the Earth mass, is of no interest whatsoever with the present thoughts, as it is so slow to be impossible to appreciate in tens of centuries, let alone a few years.

Joe Bastardi: Love the Weather, Hate the Climate (Models)

From “Today, We Have “Gods” Walking Among Us That Know The Future, Armed With Idols Known as Models“, by Joe Bastardi, Meteorologist at Accuweather.com

To those who want this debate shut down, it seems to me that you simply wish to run away from discussing what you don’t have the facts to fight. Or do you have other reasons, perhaps unrelated to the issue of climate change [...]

Instead of confronting cold, hard facts with open and free debate to try to get to the right answer, we have a group of people that know better and will use future projections of a model as fact. And I ask how can it even be allowed to assume that a model knows the answer?
This is not just a problem of prediction – who is right and who is wrong. It is bad for democracy and bad for science, too. And it can ruin the lives of many through the turmoil it can cause in unintended results.
And what about those models. Has anyone in the media paid attention to how how bad the forecasts of the last El Nino and the La Nina have been? [...]

Why the model bust? It is because most of these climate models have little or no ability to foresee regime changes in the oceans short and long term. It should be a warning shot to climate modelers that their longer term climate models are clueless as to the parameters predicted. In the end, it may be ice, not fire, that is the problem. As this powerful La Nina could be the sign of the regime change back to cool like the one in 1949/50 [...]

My fondest hope is that you take this in the spirit I am writing it. The weather is calling you to get involved in this argument for the sake of yourselves and the sake of your children. You must look at all the ideas to make your decision, not accept pat answers or answers that refuse to accept scrutiny and be tested. And I don’t ask you to believe what I say as far as what I think the answer is, no matter how much research I do. I am but a man. But do go look for yourself, at all the information, while there is still the chance to do so.

China and the BBC Warming Bias

(here and here and here some more thoughts on the all-too-apparent bias at the BBC towards global warming and doom-and-gloom news in general)

There is almost no need to comment the following at all…

(1) Almost six years ago
BBC News - Wednesday, 17 July, 2002, 07:53 GMT 08:53 UK
“Seven die in Chinese heat wave“

[...] The heat has intensified in recent years as a result of the increase in vehicles on the roads, which raise street temperatures.

(2) One year ago
BBC News - Tuesday, 6 February 2007, 12:34 GMT
“Climate change ‘affecting’ China - Unseasonably warm weather in north China has been linked to climate change“
(page is chock-full of climate change links)

At least 300,000 people in north-west China are short of drinking water because of unseasonably warm weather, which officials link to climate change. Parts of Shaanxi province face drought after January saw as little as 10% of average rainfall, state media say. Frozen lakes are melting and trees are blossoming in the capital Beijing as it experiences its warmest winter for 30 years, the China Daily reported.
[...] The country’s top meteorologist, Qin Dahe, said the recent dry and warm weather in northern China was related to global warming. [...]

(3) January 2008
BBC News - Thursday, 31 January 2008, 13:53 GMT
“Food warnings amid China freeze - Millions of people have been affected by the severe snow“
(not one climate change link in sight)

China is struggling to cope with its worst snowfall in decades, with officials warning of future food shortages as winter crops are wrecked.[...]
Dozens are thought to have died as much of the country endures one of its harshest winters for half a century.

How many people died in the 2007 heatwave? Perhaps…zero.

(4) How about Shaanxi? Sadly, no space for it this year on the BBC (at least, so far). Here’s what is happening though:
rediff - January 30, 2008
“Snowstorms paralyse China“

[...] In northwestern Shaanxi province alone, 1,200 people were reportedly ill or injured in snow-related incidents [...]

UPDATE: This particular post has become quite popular having been linked from “Biased BBC”

China: Quasi-Tropical Snowstorm

I know that weather is not climate but this is too good to pass…(thanks to D88 for pointing this out)

The extraordinary 2008 snowstorms in China may have to be remembered also for having reached so far south.

Look at the NOAA’s “current snow” picture for Asia and Europe as it is at the time of writing:

The southernmost tongue of white stuff is ominously pointing towards Hong Kong itself. Actually, it can be estimated to have reached the city of Guiyang (26.32N, 106.40E: around 200 miles north of the Tropic of Cancer).

In fact, the current weather forecast for Guiyang is light snow, between 1C and -6C between January 31 and February 2 at least.

Climate-wise, placed at an elevation of 1,100 meters, Guiyang is know for the occasional flurry, although the average January temperature is 10C.

HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (III)

Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (I)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (II)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (III)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (IV)
Click here for Results of HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (V)

Let’s have a look now at the graphs for yearly averages, ranked from #0 (coldest) to #157 (warmest) for the period 1850-2007. Source is once again the HadCRUT data.

We are looking for trends, so instead of simply taking the published average temperatures for the year, I have averaged the monthly ranking for each year taken into consideration. There is anyway no considerable difference between the results of the two approaches.

Figure 1 above shows the rankings for the whole period. Things to note:

(a) There is a clustering of warmer years during the past 20 years or so. This does suggest an overall warming. Taking the HadCRUT data for good (otherwise there would be no point examining them), it is also possible to say that the “warmest X years happened within the past Y years”.

(b) The steepest gradient IN TERMS OF RANKING  is by far between the cold years around 1910 and the warm years around 1938.

(c) All the graphs end up with a “cap”

To investigate point (c), Figure 2 above shows the rankings for the past 10 years. Things to note:

(d) Only Land/Northern-Hemisphere gives any indication of continuous warming to date.

(e) Temperatures in the Southern Hemisphere have not been warming on a decadal scale.

I have been notoriously bad at making predictions but on the basis of figures 1 and 2 it is plausible that at least for now, and at least everywhere but on Land/Northern-Hemisphere, temperatures have reached a high and may not increase further.

HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (II)

Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (I)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (II)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (III)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (IV)
Click here for Results of HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (V)

The following contains a list of warmest/coldest year, by data set and by month, plus the ranking for 2007 (where #1=warmest).

Among the values to note :

(a) The year 2007 has seen the warmest month of January since 1850 for Land/Northern Hemisphere and Land/Global. It also ranked second warmest for Sea-surface/Northern Hemisphere in January and February.

(b) For Sea-surface/Southern Hemisphere, November 2007 has been the 29th warmest, and December 2007 the 34th warmest. That is, they were quite cool compared to the maximum values, achieved in both cases in 1997. The same can be said for Sea-surface/Global, ranked #20 in December 2007.

(c) In 2007, Land/Southern Hemisphere temperatures ranked #19 (August), #23 (November) and #33 (December)

MONTHLY TEMPERATURES

Sea-surface Northern Emisphere
January
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1861
2007: #2

February
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1861
2007: #2

March
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1864
2007: #4

April
Warmest: 1878, 2004
Coldest: 1911
2007: #6

May
Warmest: 2005
Coldest: 1910
2007: #8

June
Warmest: 2005
Coldest: 1858
2007: #10

July
Warmest: 1868
Coldest: 1863
2007: #9

August
Warmest: 2005
Coldest: 1862
2007: #8

September
Warmest: 2003
Coldest: 1858
2007: #6

October
Warmest: 2006
Coldest: 1863
2007: #10

November
Warmest: 2006
Coldest: 1863
2007: #14

December
Warmest: 2004
Coldest: 1862
2007: #13

Sea-surface Southern Emisphere

January
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1852
2007: #7

February
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
2007: #8

March
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1861
2007: #9

April
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
2007: #11

May
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1858
2007: #10

June
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
2007: #6

July
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1861
2007: #7

August
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1862
2007: #16

September
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1911
2007: #10

October
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1903
2007: #16

November
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1910
2007: #29

December
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1910
2007: #34

Sea-surface Global

January
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1864
2007: #4

February
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1861
2007: #4

March
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1850
2007: #7

April
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
2007: #8

May
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1858
2007: #8

June
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1858
2007: #7

July
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1857
2007: #9

August
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1862
2007: #10

September
Warmest: 2003
Coldest: 1859
2007: #9

October
Warmest: 2003
Coldest: 1903
2007: #10

November
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1910
2007: #17

December
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1862
2007: #20

Land Northern Emisphere

January
Warmest: 2007
Coldest: 1893
2007: #1

February
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1862
2007: #6

March
Warmest: 1990
Coldest: 1867
2007: #4

April
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1884
2007: #3

May
Warmest: 2005
Coldest: 1866
2007: #3

June
Warmest: 2005
Coldest: 1913
2007: #5

July
Warmest: 2005
Coldest: 1913
2007: #7

August
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1912
2007: #5

September
Warmest: 2005
Coldest: 1912
2007: #5

October
Warmest: 2003
Coldest: 1864
2007: #6

November
Warmest: 2004
Coldest: 1862
2007: #7

December
Warmest: 2006
Coldest: 1870
2007: #10

Land Southern Emisphere

January
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1864
2007: #8

February
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
2007: #7

March
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1850
2007: #9

April
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
2007: #8

May
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1858
2007: #10

June
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
2007: #11

July
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1909
2007: #11

August
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1862
2007: #19

September
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1911
2007: #7

October
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1903
2007: #11

November
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1910
2007: #23

December
Warmest: 1997
Coldest: 1910
2007: #33

Land Global

January
Warmest: 2007
Coldest: 1893
2007: #1

February
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1862
2007: #5

March
Warmest: 2002
Coldest: 1917
2007: #7

April
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
2007: #4

May
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1861
2007: #6

June
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1907
2007: #7

July
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1909
2007: #7

August
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1862
2007: #9

September
Warmest: 2003
Coldest: 1859
2007: #8

October
Warmest: 2003
Coldest: 1864
2007: #9

November
Warmest: 2004
Coldest: 1862
2007: #11

December
Warmest: 2006
Coldest: 1892
2007: #15

HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (I)

Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (I)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (II)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (III)
Click here for HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (IV)
Click here for Results of HadCRUT Data Rank Analysis (V)

PLEASE LOOK AT POST (V) FOR A DISCUSSION OF THE RESULTS

=============

Finally the HadCRUT data for the whole of 2007 have been published.

As we have been told time and again that the world has been the warmest most recently, I have conducted a rank analysis on those values.

Three things of note for now:

(a) The year 2007 has been the coolest this century in most data sets, apart from Sea-Surface Northern Emisphere (second coolest) and Land Northern Emisphere (third warmest)

(b) In all data sets, there has been considerable cooling in November and December (and partly, in October 2007)

(c) Sea-surface Southern Emisphere temperatures in December 2007 have been the coolest since December 1995

There is more to the HadCRUT data and I shall return to this shortly.

Here the first results:

(1) In terms of YEARLY TEMPERATURE AVERAGES:

Sea-surface Northern Emisphere
Warmest: 2004
Coldest: 1910
#7: 2007

Sea-surface Southern Emisphere
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
#11: 2007

Sea-surface Global
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1910
#9: 2007

Land Northern Emisphere
Warmest: 2005
Coldest: 1862
#4: 2007

Land Southern Emisphere
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
#10: 2007

Land Global
Warmest: 1998
Coldest: 1911
#8: 2007

(2) In terms of INDIVIDUAL MONTHLY TEMPERATURES:

Sea-surface Northern Emisphere
Warmest: Jul 1868
Coldest: Feb 1861
#45 Jan 2007
#55 Aug 2007
#57 Feb 2007
#58 Jul 2007
#66 Jun 2007
#70 Sep 2007
#81 Mar 2007
#87 Oct 2007
#95 Apr 2007
#105 May 2007
#144 Dec 2007
#147 Nov 2007

Sea-surface Southern Emisphere
Warmest: Mar 1998
Coldest: May 1858
#61 Feb 2007
#73 Jan 2007
#73 Jul 2007
#88 Jun 2007
#97 Mar 2007
#110 Apr 2007
#131 May 2007
#144 Sep 2007
#205 Aug 2007
#258 Oct 2007
#330 Nov 2007
#426 Dec 2007

Sea-surface Global
Warmest: Aug 1998
Coldest: Feb 1861
#56 Jan 2007
#58 Feb 2007
#63 Jul 2007
#77 Jun 2007
#85 Mar 2007
#93 Sep 2007
#95 Apr 2007
#97 Aug 2007
#104 May 2007
#126 Oct 2007
#195 Nov 2007
#246 Dec 2007

Land Northern Emisphere
Warmest: Jan 2007
Coldest: Jan 1893
#1 Jan 2007
#21 Feb 2007
#33 Apr 2007
#43 Mar 2007
#47 Aug 2007
#62 Jul 2007
#65 May 2007
#67 Sep 2007
#68 Oct 2007
#70 Jun 2007
#103 Nov 2007
#109 Dec 2007

Land Southern Emisphere
#Warmest: Jul 1998
#Coldest: May 1858
#52 Feb 2007
#75 Apr 2007
#78 Jan 2007
#93 Sep 2007
#96 Mar 2007
#110 Jul 2007
#120 Jun 2007
#137 May 2007
#161 Oct 2007
#209 Aug 2007
#297 Nov 2007
#396 Dec 2007

Land Global
Warmest: Feb 1998
Coldest: Jan 1893
#3 Jan 2007
#23 Feb 2007
#42 Apr 2007
#58 Mar 2007
#78 Sep 2007
#82 Jul 2007
#87 Jun 2007
#88 May 2007
#92 Aug 2007
#99 Oct 2007
#144 Nov 2007
#174 Dec 2007

Cooling Kills More Than Warming

Something to keep firmly in mind…

W R Keatinge et al, “Heat related mortality in warm and cold regions of Europe: observational study” BMJ 2000;321:670-673 (16 September)

“All regions showed more annual cold related mortality than heat related mortality.

Some of those who died in the heat may not have lived long if a heat wave had not occurred. Mortality often falls below baseline for several days after the end of a heat wave, and this has been interpreted as indicating that some of the people dying during the heat wave were already close to death.

Some of the excess deaths in the cold may have resulted from non-thermal seasonal factors such as winter diet, but deaths due to such factors are likely to be few.

Falls in temperature in winter are closely followed by increased mortality, with characteristic time courses for different causes of death.

The increases are of sufficient size to account for the overall increase in mortality in winter, suggesting that most excess winter deaths are due to relatively direct effects of cold on the population.“

In other words: Heat kills the already-dying. Cold kills.

As per the following diagrams: the slopes to the left (cooling) of the “black squares” (minimum mortality temperature bands) are steeper than to the right (warming).

Tehran Joins Axis of Evil Places Refusing to Warm

News from South Asia are of exceptional cold, with exceptional amounts of snow.

Tehran in particular had really a lot of snow. “heaviest in 40 years”…here some pictures.

Never mind though…what gets to the BBC Science pages is “strictly come warming” stuff. 

=======

Current forecast for Tehran, Iran: 
Jan 10
28° F | 12° F
-2° C | -11° C

Monthly averages for January:
45° F | 33° F
7° C | 1° C

HadCRUT Data Reveal the World is (Mostly) Cooling

Contrarily to what hastily announced at Bali and acritically repeated in news reports including on the BBC web site, the published HadCRUT data strongly support the notion that warming has stopped, globally.

The month of November 2007 has been:

In terms of global sea-surface temperatures, the 2nd coldest November since 1994, and the coldest month since January 1997.

In terms of southern hemispheric sea-surface temperatures, the 2nd coldest November since 1988, and the coldest month since January 1997.

Regarding northern hemispheric sea-surface temperatures, the 2nd coldest November since 1996, and the 2nd coldest month since March 2001.

In terms of global land temperatures, the 2nd coldest November since 2000, and the coldest month since January 2001.

In terms of southern hemispheric land temperatures, the 2nd coldest November since 1989, and the 2nd coldest month since January 1993.

Regarding northern hemispheric land temperatures, the 2nd coldest November since 2000. and the 11th coldest month since January 2001.

Records broken and almost-broken in most sets, but on the cooling side…is that perhaps why there has been no indication of the above in news releases?

Cooling Event? Meteorologist Joe Bastardi’s Latest Forecast

Joe Bastardi, one of AccuWeather.com’s most expert senior meteorologists, has written a very opinionated piece about the possibility that a very strong, almost unseasonable La Nina (i.e. cooling) event will be “a kick in the teeth of people pushing man-made global warming. Why? Because this is exactly what should be happening in the natural cycle that develops when the AMO is in its warm state“.

We will see if that will happen. It is just a matter of waiting for March/April 2008.

In any case, Mr Bastardi’s courage to put himself right in the middle of potential unfriendly fire is commendable.

Pity the meteorologist. If he’s wrong, he/she’ll be without a job soon. And Accuweather out of business. And this goes on and on for the whole of his or her career.

It’s the complete opposite of the cushioned world of climatologists that can forecast everything and nothing, ready for just-so stories to justify whatever is going to happen.

Younger Dryas

This is something absurdly overlooked.. .a cooling of 10C in a decade? and then a warming of 7C in less than 50 years?

http://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/ Younger_Dryas

Why hasn’t Gore been laughed off by this??

Or perhaps von Daeniken was right, and aliens were driving SUVs in 9530BC