Maximum temperatures at Svalbard 24 Jan till 10 Feb:
Pinched this from Nevens Blog to highlight the 'Arctic' side of things.
And, of course, it's had an remarkably warm last 12 months as well.
You seem to suggest it's an indicator of unprecedented arctic warming, but that is only a small part of the Arctic which has been warmer as a consequence of the persistent anticyclone to our east.I think Paul Hudson makes a sound point that something is not right if the Met Office super-computer predicts warmer than happened 11 times out of 12.i.e. it's skewed to predict warmer, because the models say it should be warmer.
I think the areas ,north and south, that used to have ice and are now open water, is significant esp. if there are 30c anoms over the open waters?
Should this not be on the weather thread?.
I dont see a climate trend here.
There are 30c anomalies elsewhere at the moment.Interesting weather for the weather thread indeed.
Edited by user 12 February 2012 10:27:18(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Would that be in the same way that you are skewed to dismiss anything that suggests the planet is warming?
I don't see any relevance Gandalf.Wrongly predicting it would be warmer that many times is unlikely to be pure chance."half the years between 2010 and 2015 would be hotter than the hottest year on record" also seems highly unlikely and verging on scaremongering.Why make such predictions if no agenda behind it.
Edited by user 12 February 2012 17:12:17(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Because that's what the predictions are....
If the models can't get it right at short time scales how wrong might they be at forecasting climate change over longer time periods? And climate drivers outside the obvious ones, are greatly more subtle and numerous than the weather drivers, including the complexities of trends of weather types, ocean temperatures and sun cycles and further complicated by the lag and attenuation of the various imputs and outputs.
PW I'm sorry but you stating things doesn't mean you're right - if you were right, if you had worked out climate better than they (as your post implies) you'd be working at Hadley in Exeter.. The models are doing well and if you read the rest of article four partly quoted you'll find Paul Hudson goes on to explain what is going on.
I see your membership of the consiracy theorists remains fully paid up.
Your thinking demonstrates rather more about your agenda than it does about a non-existent Met Office one.
The evidence speaks for itself - there is a warming trend. Within the warming trend there are natural warming and cooling cycles, not all of which can be predicted accurately.
Until we reach 2016 it might be wise not to rubbish the predictions for the period to 2015. Even if in 2016 the forecast proves to have been wrong then it will still be because of natural cooling cycles, not because the level of GHGs has miraculously dropped. Unless you dispute the basic science more GHGs mean more heat retained in the atmosphere.
In what way is that 'absolutely spot on'? You would need to show evidence that it isn't just chance. Your reply doesn't address Four's point. We all know the models are capable of improvement. Four is arguing for a Met Office conspiracy. I do hope you are not subscribing to that nonsense as well?
I think we had this debate here a year or two ago.
"When does a sequence of weather become climate?"
Discuss.....
Anyway, what is the probability of this run of date record temperatures occurring naturally, I wonder?
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts" – Richard Feynman
If everybody believed what the experts were saying then science would become nothing more than a religion - there would only be very limited progress. It's only the questioning and the belief that the experts are wrong that drives science.
I regard Feynman highly, but I don't think what he said was the last word....
Which I why I question you and the rest.
Nothing wrong with questioning if it's relevant.
Edited by user 19 February 2012 11:10:03(UTC) | Reason: (have) added
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213244084429540.html?KEYWORDS=climate And on the "98%" consensus:
"Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused." However, the claim of 97% support is deceptive. The surveys contained trivial polling questions that even we would agree with. Thus, these surveys find that large majorities agree that temperatures have increased since 1800 and that human activities have some impact.
But what is being disputed is the size and nature of the human contribution to global warming. To claim, as the Trenberth letter apparently does, that disputing this constitutes "extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert" is peculiar indeed.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203646004577213244084429540.html?KEYWORDS=climate
If those plots are right the warming rate predicted by the 1995,2001 and 2007 reports is pretty much spot on compared to observations for the last 20 years. There is some scatter but no more than the uncertainty in the temperature measurements which you can see through the differences in the series from the sources. In addition the Hadley data us available with error bars. As every scientist knows you should include those. The starting points of the predictions should of course be about 2 years before the report publication date (a small error in the plotting).
Edited by user 21 February 2012 22:13:54(UTC) | Reason: Not specified
Does anyone else find it amusing that Four puts up a graph that shows a clearly warming trend in the actuals, not to mention as you say Tom, a remarkable consistency in trend line across 17 years and four reports?
What is more the warming rate averaged over the period of the graph (which is the only real comparison you can make, the start and end point of the lines are arbitary)shows excellent agreement between the models and obswervations.
There is a detailed piece on Realclimate with respect to this incompetent graph:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2012/02/bickmore-on-the-wsj-response/
Cheers - John