The evidence that human CO2 emissions are not a primary factor driving climate change and global warming continues to grow - analyzing fundamental empirical evidence points to ocean/atmospheric patterns as the principal climatic forces
One of these two charts is a plot of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. The other chart a plot representing the 20-year global temperature changes (for example, the very first data point is the temperature change from January 1850 to January 1870).
Click on each chart to enlarge. Look carefully. Can you tell which is which?
The charts are very similar, representing the exact same time periods. Both charts have a black curve that is a plot of atmospheric CO2 levels. Note how the charts have a similar oscillation pattern that extends to their respective 5-year (60-period) averages (purple curves).
NOAA tells us that the AMO chart constitutes a "series of long-duration changes in the sea surface temperature of the North Atlantic Ocean, with cool and warm phases that may last for 20-40 years...These changes are natural and have been occurring for at least the last 1,000 years...The AMO has affected air temperatures and rainfall over much of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, North America and Europe. It is associated with changes in the frequency of North American droughts and is reflected in the frequency of severe Atlantic hurricanes...Models of the ocean and atmosphere that interact with each other indicate that the AMO cycle involves changes in the south-to-north circulation and overturning of water and heat in the Atlantic Ocean...studies of paleoclimate proxies, such as tree rings and ice cores, have shown that oscillations similar to those observed instrumentally have been occurring for at least the last millennium. This is clearly longer than modern man has been affecting climate, so the AMO is probably a natural climate oscillation...We are not yet capable of predicting exactly when the AMO will switch, in any deterministic sense."
So, in a nutshell, the AMO is essentially temperature variation of a large body of water between the equator and Greenland. NOAA states it's a result of the natural thermocline circulation change, while others suggests it is driven by solar irradiance and another expert, Bob Tisdale, suggests it is influenced by leftover heat from Pacific Ocean El Nino events. Regardless, the AMO is a natural climate phenomenon, unrelated to CO2 - it is a consensus.
In contrast, the other chart (20-year global temperature change), which has the basic look and feel of the AMO chart, is claimed by NOAA and the IPCC's green-sharia bureaucrats to be the result of human CO2 emissions, especially after 1960. The alarmist scientists claim that human CO2 emissions cause global warming to be rapidly increasing; dangerously accelerating; indisputable; irrefutable; incontrovertible; irreversible; and, yada, yada, yada.
If this were actually the case, then the chart depicting 20-year temperature change should reflect these supposed traits, and most definitely, not resemble the AMO chart.
Such a chart would at least indicate more extreme global temperature changes over the last two decades, plus the 5-year average would be continuously trending up. Instead, the actual 20-year change chart above reveals a shrinking of global temperature change range over the last two decades, and it reveals a 5-year average that modulates between increasing and decreasing, just as the chart for the natural AMO does.
Look at the charts again. NOAA states that atmospheric CO2 levels (black curve) are not the factor resulting in the AMO pattern, and to any observer that is very evident. Likewise, the rational and objective observer would find that the pattern of long-term global temperature change is also not the result of atmospheric CO2 levels. (The green curves are poorly correlated with the black CO2 curves in both charts.)
That then begs the question of what drives global temperature change. Well, that part is not terribly difficult to understand - it's called nature. Remember what NOAA said about the natural AMO: "The AMO has affected air temperatures and rainfall over much of the Northern Hemisphere, in particular, North America and Europe."
Ahhh...then it's not too big of a surprise that the
20-year temperature change chart seems to mimic that of the AMO chart, no? And when one
adds the Pacific’s ENSO and PDO climate modes to the mix, the outcome is
unequivocal: global temperatures are literally being driven by massive forces
of nature that simply swamps the greenhouse gas effect from a trace gas. (And that's why there is sucn an obvious a lousy correlation to CO2.)
One final thought…..for a great explanation of what is the natural cause for the apparent linear trend of global warming, watch this video to better understand how natural forces make it so.
Oh, and btw, which is which? The chart on the right is the AMO chart since 1870; the chart of the left is the 20-year temperature changes of the HadCRUT global (land/ocean) dataset since 1870.
