Long Live the Pause

Scientists balk at ‘hottest year’ claims

Ignores Satellites showing 18 Year ‘Pause’ – ‘We are arguing over the significance of hundredths of a degree’ – The ‘Pause’ continues

Climate Depot's Marc Morano: 'Claiming 2014 is the 'hottest year' on record based on hundredths of a degree temperature difference is a fancy way of saying the global warming 'pause' is continuing.'
Astrophysicist Dr. Dr David Whitehouse: 'The NASA press release is highly misleading...talk of a record is scientifically and statistically meaningless.'
Climatologist Dr. Roy Spencer: ‘Why 2014 Won’t Be the Warmest Year on Record’ (based on surface data)– ‘We are arguing over the significance of hundredths of a degree’ 

Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels debunks 2014 ‘hottest year’ claim: ‘Is 58.46° then distinguishable from 58.45°? In a word, ‘NO.’

No Record Temperatures According To Satellites

Physicist Dr. Lubos Motl: ‘Please laugh out loud when someone will be telling you that it was the warmest year’

Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr.: 'We have found a significant warm bias. Thus, the reported global average surface temperature anomaly is also too warm.'

Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry: 'With 2014 essentially tied with 2005 and 2010 for hottest year, this implies that there has been essentially no trend in warming over the past decade.'

By: Marc Morano - Climate Depot 

January 16, 2015 

The global warming establishment and the media are crowing about 2010 being in a tie for the “hottest year” ever. The UK Guardian headline sums up the media’s promotion: 

UK Guardian: ‘Hottest Year’ Claim: 2014 officially the ‘hottest year’ on record US government scientists say - ‘Nasa and Noaa scientists report 2014 was 0.07F (0.04C) higher than previous records…The global average temperatures over land and sea surface for the year was 1.24F (0.69C) above the 20th century average, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) and Nasa reported. The scientists said 2014 was 0.07F (0.04C) higher than the previous records set in 2005 and 2010.’

But scientists and climate skeptics are countering that the claims of “hottest year” are based on immeasurable temperature differences that are based on hundredths of a degree differences.

Climate Depot’s Marc Morano issued this statement: “There are dueling global datasets — surface temperature records and satellite records — and they disagree. The satellites show an 18 year plus global warming ‘standstill and the satellite was set up to be “more accurate” than the surface records. 

See: Flashback: 1990 NASA Report: ‘Satellite analysis of upper atmosphere is more accurate, & should be adopted as the standard way to monitor temp change.’

Any temperature claim of “hottest  year” based on surface data is based on hundredths of a degree hotter than previous “hottest years”. This immeasurable difference is not even within the margin of error of temperature gauges. The claim of the “hottest year” is simply a political statement not based on temperature facts. “Hottest year” claims are based on minute fractions of a degree while ignoring satellite data showing Earth is continuing the 18 plus year ‘pause’ or ‘standstill’. See: The Great Pause lengthens again: Global temperature update: The Pause is now 18 years 3 months (219 months)

Claiming 2014 is the “hottest year” on record based on hundredths of a degree temperature difference is a fancy way of saying the global warming ‘pause’ is continuing.”

End Morano statement. (Morano was former staff of U.S. Senate Environment & Public Works Committee and producer of upcoming documentary Climate Hustle. He also testified in West VA on the climate school curriculum. )

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Even former NASA global warming chief scientist  James Hansen, the leading proponent of man-made global warming in the U.S., conceded in 2011 that the “hottest year” rankings are essentially meaningless. Hansen explained that 2010 differed from 2005 by less than 2 hundredths of a degree F (that’s 0.018F). “It’s not particularly important whether 2010, 2005, or 1998 was the hottest year on record,” Hansen admitted on January 13.

Climatologist Dr. Judith Curry, former chair of the school of earth and atmospheric sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology, had this to say about 2014 being the ‘hottest year’: “The ‘warmest year’ is noticeably missing in the satellite data sets of lower atmospheric temperatures,” Curry wrote on January 16. 

Curry predicts another decade of a global warming ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’. “I’ve made my projection – global surface temperatures will remain mostly flat for at least another decade,” she eexplained 

“With 2014 essentially tied with 2005 and 2010 for hottest year, this implies that there has been essentially no trend in warming over the past decade. This ‘almost’ record year does not help the growing discrepancy between the climate model projections and the surface temperature observations,” Curry told the Washington Post.

Curry continued: “Berkeley Earth (temperature analysis) sums it up well with this statement: ‘That is, of course, an indication that the Earth’s average temperature for the last decade has changed very little.’

Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels, mocked the notion of the “hottest year.”   “Whether or not a given year is a hundredth of a degree or so above a previous record is not the issue. What IS the issue is how observed temperatures compare to what has been forecast to happen,” Michaels said.

Michaels continued: “John Christy and Richard McNider, from University of Alabama (Huntsville) recently compared climate model projections to observed lower atmospheric temperatures as measured by two independent sources: satellites and weather balloons. They found that the average warming predicted to have occurred since 1979 (when the satellite data starts) is approximately three times larger than what is being observed.”

Climatologist Dr. John Christy, professor of atmospheric sciences, University of Alabama-Huntsville, noted satellites do not agree with “warmest year” claims. “The satellite and balloon data of the deep atmosphere have 2014 in a cluster of warmish years well below the hottest two of 1998 and 2010″, Christy said.

Christy continued: “With the government agencies reporting that the surface temperature as highest ever, we have a puzzle. The puzzle is even more puzzling because theory (i.e. models) indicate the opposite should be occurring – greater warmth in the deep atmosphere than the surface. So, there are just many very basic and fundamental aspects of the global climate we have yet to comprehend.”

Climatologist Dr. Roger Pielke Sr., professor of atmospheric science, Colorado State University, downplayed the accuracy of the surface temperature record. “There remain significant uncertainties in the accuracy of the land portion of the surface temperature data, where we have found a significant warm bias. Thus, the reported global average surface temperature anomaly is also too warm.”

“More generally, we need to move beyond just assessing global warming, but examine how (and if) key atmospheric and ocean circulations, such as El Nino, La Nina, the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, etc. are changing in their intensity, structure and frequency. These are the climate features that determine if a region has drought, floods, and so forth, not a global average surface temperature anomaly,” Pielke added.

Astrophysicist Dr. Dr David Whitehouse declared “talk of a record is scientifically and statistically meaningless.’ “The addition of 2014 global temperature data confirms that the post-1997 standstill seen in global annual average surface temperature has continued,” Whitehouse wrote on January 16.

“According to the Nasa global temperature database 2014 was technically a record ‘beating’ 2010 by the small margin of 0.02 deg C. The NASA press release is highly misleading saying that 2014 is a record without giving the actual 2014 figure, or any other year, or its associated error.”

“In reality of course it is no record at all as the error of the measurements is about +/- 0.1 deg C showing NasaGiss’ statement to go against the normal treatment of observational data and its errors. Talk of a record is therefore scientifically and statistically meaningless,” Whitehouse added.

“It is clear beyond doubt by now that there is a growing discrepancy between computer climate projections and real-world data that questions their ability to produce meaningful projections about future climatic conditions,” Whitehouse concluded.

Another analysis noted: NASA Hottest Year Claims Not Supported By The Data: NASA admitted in 2011 that “hottest year” differences were “smaller than the uncertainty in comparing the temperatures of recent years.”

Via the website ‘Not A Lot Of People Know That: “Nowhere does their (NASA 2015) press release tell us that it only beat the previous record by a tiny, effectively unmeasurable 0.02C. Nor do they mention that the error bars are many times greater, or even tell us what they are. This is all very strange because in their (NASA) report on 2010 Global Temperatures, NASA said:

“Global surface temperatures in 2010 tied 2005 as the warmest on record, according to an analysis released Wednesday by researchers at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. The two years differed by less than 0.018 degrees Fahrenheit. The difference is smaller than the uncertainty in comparing the temperatures of recent years, putting them into a statistical tie.”

Meteorologist Dr. Ryan Maue of Florida State University ridiculed the same “hottest year” rankings in 2010 and NASA’s Hansen’s admission that it “was not particularly important” which year was declared the “hottest.” “Well, then stop issuing press releases which tout the rankings, which are subject to change ex post facto,” Maue demanded in a January 14, 2011 commentary at WattsUpWithThat.com.

Other prominent scientists have said that temperature rise since 1850 has been very small.
See: Top Swedish Climate Scientist Says Warming Not Noticeable: ‘The warming we have had last a 100 years is so small that if we didn’t have climatologists to measure it we wouldn’t have noticed it at all’ – Award-Winning Dr. Lennart Bengtsson, formerly of UN IPCC: ‘We Are Creating Great Anxiety Without It Being Justified’. Dr. Bengtsson announced his skeptical climate views in 2014.

Nobel Prize-Winning Physicist Dr. Ivar Giaever, declared his dissent on global warming and noted that the temperature rise over the 20th century was “so little. It is not even fever.”  Giaever won a Nobel Prize for physics.

“.8 degrees we will be discussing in global warming. .8 degrees if you ask people in general they will think it is 4 or 5 degrees they don’t know it is so little. It is not even fever,” Giaever said.

“I am amazed that the temperature can be so stable,” Giaever explained. ‘The temperature (of the Earth) has been amazingly stable, and both human health and happiness have definitely improved in this ‘warming’ period.’

“I don’t see that co2 is the cause of all this problem,” he added.

Related Links: 
It’s Official – There are now 66 excuses for Temp ‘pause’ – Updated list of 66 excuses for the 18-26 year ‘pause’ in global warming Eco-Activists Warn 2014 Could Be Hottest Year On Record – Satellites Disagree

‘Hottest Year’ Update: NASA & NOAA ignore satellite data which reveal 2014 ‘well below’ hottest claims

Even ignoring satellite data Year-to-date ‘record’ temps are 0.21C *below* climate model projections

New paper finds excuse #66 for the ‘pause’: There’s no pause if you look at only at the warmest & coldest day of the year – Published in Environmental Research Letters

2014 might be 0.01C warmer than 2010!

No Record Temperatures According To Satellites – BBC put up a deliberately apocalyptic picture while telling us the world is on course for the warmest year on record. What they failed to tell us was that the more accurate satellites, which monitor atmospheric temperatures over nearly all of the globe, say no such thing.  Figures from UAH are out for November, and these show a drop from the  October anomaly of 0.27C to 0.33C. This means that at the end of November, this year is only in a tie for 3rd with 2005, and well below the record year of 1998, and 2010.

Flashback: 1990 NASA Report: ‘Satellite analysis of upper atmosphere is more accurate, & should be adopted as the standard way to monitor temp change.’

2014 ‘Warmest ever’? ‘Conflicting Reports’ – Surface temps show it may be warmer by ‘a couple hundredths of a degree Celsius’ — A Fancy Ways of Saying Temp Standstill Continues! - ‘As a result of data and computational uncertainty,  none of the surface compilations will 2014 be statistically different from 2010′ – ‘The three major groups calculating the average surface temperature of the earth (land and ocean combined) all are currently indicating that 2014 will likely nudge out 2010 (by a couple hundredths of a degree Celsius) to become the warmest year in each dataset (which begin in mid-to-late 1800s).’ – ‘The two satellite datasets ‘show that 2014 is nowhere near the warmest (in data which starts in 1979), trailing 1998 by several tenths of a degree Celsius. This difference is so great that it statistically clear that 2014 will not be a record year…The super El Niño of 1998 set a high temperature mark that will likely stand for many years to come, or at least until another huge El Niño occurs.’ – ‘If you want 2014 to be the “warmest year ever recorded” you can find data to back you up, and if you prefer it not be, well, you can find data to back up that position as well. In all cases, the former will make headlines.’