One of the very important climate temperature trends that NOAA omits from their never-ending, alarmist climate change PR is the fact that the Antarctic's warming has been at a standstill (numerically, a slight cooling trend) since early 1988.
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That standstill spans 35+ years, despite the large growth of atmospheric CO2 levels during that period. And during that span, the correlation between Antarctic's temperature and atmospheric CO2 levels is actually negative (-0.00152), resulting in a r^2 of a ludicrously low 0.000002.
This outcome is entirely contrary to the "global" warming hypothesis that increasing CO2 will cause temperatures to rise, especially at the polar regions.
Because of their cultish belief in the hypothesis narrative, no "consensus" government-funded scientists predicted that the Antarctic would literally not have warmed during an extended period of high human CO2 emissions.
Is the world 'HOT' and 'BURNING UP' from human CO2 emissions that "cause" global warming?
Well, the U.S. climate didn't get the memo. Average and maximum surface temperature trends recorded by NOAA's USCRN, the world's state-of-the-art climate measurement system, reveal that both have bucked the global warming trend since the spring of 2011.
And both the max and avg April 2023 temperature anomalies are lower than what USCRN recorded in April 2005. (The USCRN system came online in January 2005.)
Does anyone (other than the MSM news) still believe the politicians and climate scientists shouting that climate doomsday is just around the corner?
For the record, NOAA reports that the globe has been on a cooling trend ('pause', if you prefer) since 2015.
For a hypothesis to reach the status of being a legit theory, it requires withstanding the onslaught of observed empirical evidence. The CAGW hypothesis is no such animal.
Known by its more contemporary aliases, such as ''climate crisis," "climate emergency," "climate collapse," or "existential threat," the CAGW has zero empirical evidence to support it.
Unlike the related hypothesis regarding greenhouse gases (GHG) and global warming, at least the GHG hypothesis has warming global temperature data that somewhat coincides with increasing atmospheric CO2 levels, putting aside the growing possibility that the purported cause-and-effect direction is probably the reverse.
In order to reach a CAGW climate disaster, global warming temperatures must change rapidly in an accelerating manner that will initiate a 'tipping point' for the climate.
The rapid acceleration would present its occurrence in a continuous increasing of the slope, i.e., trend, of temperatures, such as monthly temperatures. Each subsequent month would represent a greater temperature magnitude increase than the month before, hypothetically.
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But those tipping point precursors are not occurring in the real-world climate.
For example, it is agreed by all climate scientists that oceans play a very major role in the world's climate and its global temperatures due to their being both the world's largest carbon sink and its largest heat content storage.
However, despite these characteristics, in totality, the global oceansHAVE NOT warmed since the year 2014. And certainly, there is no empirical evidence that oceans exhibit constant temperature increases of magnitude.
Quite the contrary, combined oceans exhibit a regular pattern of temperature decreases and increases, as the adjacent plot of NOAA's monthly ocean data indicates.
Specifically, this is a plot (dark blue) of moving 5-year temperature changes ending each month of the 60-year period from March 1963 through March 2023.
[Explanation: the first data point is the temperature change for the 60 months ending on March 30, 1963; and the chart's last temperature change data point is for the five 5 years (i.e. 60 months) ending on March 2023.]
The chart also includes a plot (green) of the moving 60-month CO2 level changes over the same sixty year period, plus a linear trend for both CO2 changes and ocean temperature changes.
The trend of the 60-month CO2 changes significantly exceeds the slight positive trend of ocean temperature changes by a factor of 117x. This huge differential undercuts the belief that global warming is primarily the result of GHGs. Which is confirmed by the paltry R^2 of +0.06 - an almost non-existent relationship between 5-year atmospheric CO2 changes and 5-year changes in ocean temperature.
Not only are the large increases in CO2 levels not causing a concerning uptick of temperature change magnitude, it also has not lead to any type of acceleration, per the linear trend since 1963.
Specifically, with a trend of a tiny +0.0001°C, that would project out 20 years to be an increase of 5-year temperature changes to an insignificant amount of +0.024 - definitely not an existential threat of 'runaway warming' or a CAGW 'climate crisis' as portrayed by bureaucrats, politicians and Hollywood celebrities.
So, if 5 years of increasing amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere barely influence 5-year changes in temperature over a 60-year span, either in magnitude or acceleration rate, then it is highly unlikely that this trace gas would cause a catastrophic climate disaster or an extinction event.
Thus, it is fair to state that for all those scientists pushing a narrative of an imminent climate change catastrophe from CO2 without the requisite empirical evidence, this has become the real climate science crisis facing society.
Notes: Temperature and CO2 data sources.Excel used to calculate 60-mth (5-yr) temperature and CO2 changes; used to calculate the respective trends; used to calculate correlation and r-squared; used to plot the chart.
Per the IPCC's own gold-standard for temperature measurements, the globe has been cooling since August 2014. The world's tropical oceans are cooling since September 2012 (also confirmed by the UAH satellite dataset).
Regardless of the actual scientific empirical evidence, legacy media, politicians and corrupted science will continue to claim that the world is warming at a rapid pace due to human CO2 emissions.
The World Economic Forum (WEF) is at the spear's tip for pushing climate change emergency and doomsday propaganda. It's not hyperbole to suggest the WEF's own hyperbole is off the charts in its attempt to frighten people, especially the young.
But the good news is that the empirical evidence simply debunks the WEF false claims when needed context is added.
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Yes, the world is warming since the end of the Little Ice Age, but at a rather unalarming, non-doomsday rate (see 20-year global average line on chart).
Significantly, the large increases in CO2 emissions has had little impact over the long haul on the global absolute temperatures.
And to put that 20-year global average in context, the chart includes the annual average temperatures for both the warmest country and warmest U.S. state; plus, the coolest country and U.S. state.
The modestly increasing 20-year global average is well within the temperature ranges -from Canada to Mali - that the vast majority of humans inhabit, comfortably.
The fear that warm temperatures are unusual or threatening to humanity just does not comport with the reality of the actual climate empirical evidence.
And as for anecdotal evidence, the WEF (and its cohort of global warming alarmists) just finished carousing at the COP27's climate scarefest in Bali, one of the very warmest and most beautiful regions of the world. Bali's annual average temperature is only a little below the world's warmest climate of Mali (see chart), which itself has a climate some some 14°C above the moving 20-year global average.
Importantly, context matters if one is to avoid becoming a victim of debilitating anti-science fearmongering.
Note: Excel was used to calculate both the moving 20-year temperature averages and cumulative CO2 increases. Dataset sources: Hadcrut5 global monthly temperature and NOAA CO2 data.
Rarely does a day pass without the Biden administration or some Congressional Democrat spewing scientific nonsense about our supposedly current global warming "existential" threat from fossil fuel CO2 emissions. But the latest empirical evidence and research does not support the Democrat doomsday narrative.
Way back in January 2005, the empirical evidence started rolling in from NOAA's USCRN project - the U.S. state-of-the-art climate reporting system - designed with the sole purpose of identifying climate change signals. The good news is that this land-based system has the best monthly temperature observations versus any other system currently used across the globe.
However, the bad news for the disaster-porn press and Democrats is that NOAA's USCRN datasets show no doomsday signal. This NOAA chart from January 2005 through August 2022 clearly reveals that there is no signal of any global warming existential threat that Democrats keep yammering about as a "clear & present" danger to Americans.
By using the USCRN's own data, one can measure and plot the rolling 60-month temperature changes to determine if CO2 emissions are causing monthly temperature changes to increase, which would fit the Democrats' narrative.
Instead, the scientific empirical evidence reveals that the rolling 60-month temperature changes are actually declining, not increasing as experts want the public to believe.
In addition, by using NOAA's monthly atmospheric CO2 readings, it provides undeniable proof that the correlation between the 60-month temperature changes and the 60-month rolling averages of atmospheric CO2 levels is highly suspect, bordering on non-existent. (In fact, there is a negative correlation between the two resulting in a R2 of 0.002.)
Besides the increasing temperature changes claimed by Democrat "experts", they claim that temperatures are rapidly accelerating higher, thus supposedly proving their existential threat beliefs. Instead - yet again - the USCRN empirical evidence of temperature trends counter that cult-like belief.
In an examination of rolling 60-month temperature trends on the below chart, it is critically non-ambiguous that temperature trends change constantly in both amount and direction over time; and, categorically proves there is no established current positive correlation with the ever-increasing atmospheric CO2 levels. (Again, the R2 between the two variables is ludicrously tiny.)
And the trend (red linear line) of the of the rolling 60-Mth trends confirms the direct opposite of what Joe Biden and the Democrats say and what the MSM reports. If fossil fuel CO2 emissions actually had the impact on global temperatures as claimed, the trend would be significantly upward sloping.
The following chart depicts the actual cooling trend that the U.S. has experienced since April 2014 - 8+ years. And the cooling trend is not just the U.S. Both NOAA's global temperature dataset and its ocean dataset are in cooling trends over the same time period. In addition, both major satellite (RSS and UAH) climate measurement systems report global lower atmospheric cooling trends since 2014.
Yet, Biden's Democrats, the MSM press, and the bought agenda "scientists" ignore all of the above unmistakable, scientific evidence that refutes their CO2 global warming doomsday narrative.
Notes: The cooling trends noted (or extended 'pause' if one prefers) are not climate significant other than in the context that politicians mislead the public by conveniently ignoring the real world evidence and saying the opposite is true. The top chart is sourced from NOAA's national temperature web site, which is also the source for all the monthly temperature data used in the remaining charts above. Monthly CO2 data sourced from this NOAA site. Excel was used to plot the data; to calculate the correlations, rolling trends, averages, and the linear trends. The top chart of monthly USCRN temperature anomalies has an R2 of 0.03 in regards to the monthly atmospheric CO2 ppm levels.
Per the 'consensus' climate model science - and its faithful apostles - a gigantic CO2 emission plume produced by civilization is supposed to increase global temperatures, especially in the lower atmosphere.
But quite the opposite has happened over the past 7 years and 9 months when some 230 billion CO2 tonnes were expelled from fossil fuel combustion.
More specifically, the global lower troposphere has been in a very slight cooling trend since October 2014; and the atmosphere over the tropics for about a year longer.
Using a combination average of the two primary (RSS and UAH) satellite global measurement datasets, the below plot shows the declining trend in temperatures in contrast to the growth of atmospheric CO2 levels reported by NOAA. (The R2 of the temp anomalies and CO2 ppm levels doesn't exceed +0.01, indicating that CO2 has had little, if any, influence on recent global warming/cooling.)
Utilizing the same combined average dataset, the moving 5-year changes in temperature anomalies can be calculated, as well as the 5-year changes in NOAA's dataset of CO2 levels. The below chart very clearly shows a distinct declining trend of the 5-year temperature changes while the trend of the 5-year changes in CO2 levels is increasing. (The R2 for the 5-year changes is not a very robust +0.20.)
Finally, the next chart plots for both the temperature anomalies and CO2 levels the moving 5-year trends. Essentially, the temperature plot exhibits a trend that continues to decline over the vast majority of months since 2014. And it's very obvious the moving 5-year CO2 trend over the 7 years, 9 month span is absolutely not driving the temp trend. (The R2 between the two is a measly +0.05.)
None of the above tells us that the current global cooling will continue. Like anything else with the global climate, this current state has a high likelihood of changing - that's a given.
But the above does tell us that the globe and civilization are not on some out-of-control freight train headed towards the cliff of an imminent system-wide doomsday meltdown. Not-Going-To-Happen would be a safe bet without one having to cross their fingers.
Conclusion: Politicians/bureaucrats who state there is an imminent existential threat from CO2 induced global warming and climate change are best thought of as flat-out liars, based on the actual scientific climate data.
Note: Source for RSS and UAH temperature data; source for NOAA CO2 data. Excel used to calculate combine RSS/UAH monthly temp anomalies average, trends; and used to plot the data.
Various institutions, politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, and legacy mainstream news outlets have long been trying to convince Americans that we are facing an existential crisis because of unprecedented climate warming - due to our lifestyle's CO2 emissions. Yet Americans remain skeptical, and for good reason.
The below chart (and the other two) is produced by NOAA's 'Climate At A Glance' site. It documents that the U.S. has experienced a warming climate since 1895.
Overall, our 48-state continental area has warmed at a non-existential "crisis" rate of 1.61°F per century.
The majority of warming appears to have occurred during the winter months (bottom spikes on chart), especially since the late 1970s. The warming of summer months (top spikes on chart) seems much less obvious in contrast.
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This next chart displays the warming trend (blue line) for the last 30-year period ending December 31, 2021. The last 30 years have exhibited considerably more warming with a trend per century rate of +5.4°F. Surely this must be the "unprecedented" warming that threatens all Americans with a civilization-ending climate disaster!
But hold on. Despite all the predictions, proclamations, and protestations that the U.S. and Americans face utter ruin from this recent upsurge in warming, the empirical evidence from the scientists at NOAA shows indisputably that the recent 30-year warming is not unprecedented. This level of warming has happened before.
This below chart displays the warming trend from 1912 through 1941 - as calculated by NOAA - which confirms the past warmed at a faster pace than the recent warming - +6.12°F per century rate versus the +5.54°F rate. Important note: Our society did not collapse, nor did our ancestors die off in droves as a result.
And this faster warming period, ending in 1941, took place during a time when CO2 atmospheric levels increased an anemic 11ppm versus the robust 61ppm increase for the 30-year period ending in 2021. That's a 5-times difference, suggesting that the actual CO2 emission-warming factor is not the dominant climatic influence claimed by the doomsday alarmists.
While a high warming trend at any given date might seem dangerous to the average politician or a mainstream news script reader, it is in reality not the case, since short-term accelerating trends always revert to a short-term decelerating trends. It is this natural ebb and flow of warming and cooling that maintains a very stable climate.
For example, per NOAA, at the end of 1941 there existed a +6.12°F trend that would have produced a +4.9°F warming by the end of 2021, if it continued on uninterrupted from climate cooing periods. Instead, the average U.S. temperature increased by +1.9°F for that 80-year span of time. (Within 6 months of the end of 1941, the 5-year U.S. temperature trend had dropped to a minus 21.3°F.)
Conclusion: The known empirical evidence indicates Earth has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age. The warming has frequently been interrupted by periods of flat and/or cooling temperatures. As documented by NOAA climate scientists, the recent 30-year warming is not unprecedented. Nor does the current warming present an existential crisis or threat to Americans since future climatic patterns, oscillations, and cycles will very likely temper or reverse temperature increases.
As earlier posts (post#1, post#2, post#3) have documented, recent global warming - aka climate change - has been rather uneventful, especially in the context of the last 6-7 years. But how does climate warming in the modern era with its high CO2 emissions compare to earlier periods of the 20th century during a low CO2 emissions era?
Using the same HadCRUT global temperature dataset as used in post #3, we compare the actual temperature change differences over multiple periods for the 20.5 year span ending June 31, 2021 versus the 20.5 year ending June 31, 1931.
This first chart has rolling 12-Month (1yr) temperature changes on the left, comparing those changes for for the span of time from January 1910 through June 1931 versus they same span length for the January 2000 through June 2021 span; and, on the right is a column chart of total cumulative growth of CO2 (ppm) in the atmosphere during those respective spans of calendar time.
The correlation between the temperature change and the CO2 ppm growth is shown on the CO2 chart. Both correlations are negative, strongly indicating that CO2 growth has no impact on short-term temperatures.
In addition, the linear trends of the the two calendar series of 12-month temperature change are almost identical (the trend for 2000-2021 span is actually cooling). This despite the simple fact that the last 20.5 years has witnessed a cumulative growth of atmospheric CO2 that is 6X greater than the 20.5 years ending at June 1931.
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This next chart is the comparison of rolling 60-month (5yr) temperature for the two calendar time spans.
Next is for the rolling 120-month (10yr) temperature for the two calendar time spans.
Finally, the 240-mth (20yr) temperature change empirical evidence comparison.
As these last two charts reveal, the linear trend for the span ending June 2021 is negative (ie - cooling) in contrast to the clear warming trend for the period ending June 1931. And the correlation between CO2 and temperature change remain the inverse for 2021 to what one would expect if CO2 was the actual driving force behind modern climate warming temperature change.
Conclusion: Warming of the climate has been taking place since least the 1850s, albeit sporadically. But the warming changes over the last 20 years are not indicative of any sort of an existential climate crisis being produced by human activity.
In fact, the temperature change empirical evidence since January 2000 confirms that the growth of CO2 atmospheric CO2 levels are seemingly irrelevant. In contrast, the earlier period ending June 1931 presents a much stronger case that CO2 emissions could have had an influence on producing a warming linear trend over an extended period.
Global warming is the grand bugaboo for all catastrophic climate change alarmists. In reality, though, this existential threat is without science merit.
For decades, the alarmists have predicted that there is an existential threat because temperatures are rapidly increasing due to human CO2 emissions. Their belief is that global temperatures are accelerating towards a 'tipping point' that will be civilization ending ..... and very soon, they say.
But, as this chart of accelerating/decelerating temperature trends reveals, not much has changed in a climate significant, long-term manner, due to the feared increase in atmospheric CO2.
(As an aside, it was in 1988, when NASA first presented the "existential" threat concept to gullible politicians.)
In a nutshell, global temperatures will accelerate - and then decelerate - regardless of the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. As can be observed, the 12-month per century temperature trend is extremely volatile, yet the 240-month (20-year) trend is relatively stable in contrast.
When viewed in context, the empirical evidence clearly demonstrates that the wild extreme swings in acceleration/deceleration for short-term temp trends does not translate into a wildly rapid acceleration of longer-term temperature trends.
And for further context, the current 20-year trend is at 1.46°C, which is significantly lower than the 2.43°C 20-year trend established way back in February 2004.
Yes, despite all the hair-pulling hysteria about the many multiple gigatonnes of CO2 emitted, the 20-year warming trend decreased by some 40% over the last 17 years.
Therefore, without that rapid acceleration of longer-term temperature trends, the existential threat of a climate tipping point is non-existent.
If the existential threat is non-existent, when should a potential climate tipping point become an issue of greater scrutiny and of serious debate?
Well, maybe when the aqua 240-month (20-year trend) trend starts rapidly increasing and then surpassing the red line (6.4°C) on the chart, which represents the minimum constant per century trend required every single month (from August 1, 2021 thru December 31, 2099) to produce a 5°C increase in global temps by 2100.
Notes: Excel was used for all slope calculations and then plotting of trends on chart. Green CO2 line on chart represents the CO2 atmospheric level cumulative growth (in ppm units) over time. Data sources: Modern CO2 levels & historical levels. UK's HadCrut4.6 monthly global temps.
The UK's global land and ocean dataset of temperature measurements confirms there has been a 7 year and 3 month span of cooling, as of the end of month, June 2021. Plus, the correlation between the global temps and atmospheric CO2 levels is negative for that period: -0.036
This is totally contrary to what politicians and crony-green capitalists have claimed, and also what "experts" have predicted.
Why are so many in the establishment's elite class wrong?
Simply, it's cult like anti-science belief in an unproven hypothesis that human CO2 emissions cause global warming that results in civilization-ending climate change. Or, they believe that the unproven hypothesis is a means to higher taxes and greater control over the masses.
Notes: The UN's IPCC has relied on the UK's HadCRUT4 near surface temperature data as the gold-standard of empirical global-warming measurements for years. Excel used to plot the datasets & to calculate the trend/correlation. Sources of HC4 global temp data and CO2 data.
Does the world only have 100 days before it's too late to save Earth from global warming and climate change per 'climate czar' John Kerry's recent claim? Nope.
NOAA's up-to-date empirical climate evidence debunks that hyperbolic claim easily.
Unfortunately, as the public has discovered with the multitude of claims and exaggerations that have been wrong about the Covid disease over the last 18 months, similarly, politicians, bureaucrats and climate "experts" have been stupendously wrong - for decades - with their false predictions that fossil fuel CO2 emissions will soon cause the end-of-the-world, as we know it.
While the world's climate has exhibited a warming trend since the end of the Little Ice Age, the warming has not been constant. There are scattered throughout the decades actual extended cooling periods that retrace the prior warming.
In fact, since 2014, multiple NOAA temperature datasets confirm that the world has been cooling over the last six years, as of June 2021.
At this point, it's noteworthy to mention that today's government and academia climate experts, and their models, are unable to anticipate or explain these extended cooling periods, since their hypothesis of never-ending rapid warming due to human CO2 emissions has not matched well with climate reality.
Below are the charts using NOAA's own climate empirical evidence confirming cooling trends that are now over six years in length.
First up, NOAA's global land and ocean temperature. From August 2014 through June 2021, there exists a cooling trend.
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Next, NOAA's global ocean temperature measurements. From March 2014, there exists a cooling trend.
Next, NOAA's global land temperature measurements. From November 2014, there exists a cooling trend.
Next, NOAA's U.S. temperature measurements. From March 2014, there exists a cooling trend.
Finally, the UAH satellite (NOAA partners with UAH) lower troposphere satellite measurements. From March 2015, there exists a cooling trend.
To make it clear, the above documented cooling trends cannot be extrapolated into the future. However, that these trends exist runs counter to the consensus orthodoxy science; and, the trends belie the belief that there is a high correlation between the hypothetical atmospheric CO2 control knob and temperatures.
For the record, the actual correlations are significantly low for each NOAA temperature dataset, ranging from a -0.0511 to 0.0176. These stubborn facts completely debunk the mythical "control knob" that bureaucrat scientists would be able to utilize in order to manage climate change.
Conclusion: The NOAA empirical evidence is undeniable. The world is currently not warming and the liars' claim that a soon-to-be climate catastrophic collapse for humanity is total bunk.
Be it Climate Doomsday, Climate Emergency or Climate Crisis: It's not just a matter of the global warming that has taken place since the late 1800s.
More importantly, it's how much the temperatures are changing over a period of time and the speed at which they are doing so that are the central characteristics determining if the climate is actually headed towards a disequilibrium state of doom.
If the Earth's climate is approaching a disequilibrium, or is already in a disequilibrium of existential climate instability, global temperature change and acceleration rates would have to be unprecedented.
By using the IPCC's gold-standard (HadCrut) of global temperature measurements, it can be determined if the global temperatures at the end of 2020 are exhibiting an amount of change and/or acceleration that are unprecedented.
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As these two accompanying charts establish, modern (red) temperature change and the rate at which it has changed are essentially similar at the 20-year mark to the pre-1950 (blue) changes and associated rates of change.
[The 240-month trend rate ending at December 2020 ranks only as the 362nd highest, and the 240-month temperature change ending for December 2020 ranks as the 340th largest, which means that neither are outside the realm of natural climate variability seen before.]
Yet, these similar global climate temperature characteristics for 2020 and 1941 exist despite atmospheric CO2 levels being one-third higher at the end of 2020 versus that of the year-end 1941 level.
And there was not a single, rational politician or responsible journalist of 1941 claiming that the Earth was facing a climate emergency.
The simple truth, based on the scientific empirical evidence: Our modern climate does NOT exhibit the two key characteristics required for an 'unprecedented,' runaway, tipping point global warming of climate change doomsday. And it's not even remotely close to being a possibility.
The much touted climate Armageddon by politicians, which is supposed to happen within the next 9 to 12 years, is a pure science fiction plot unless global warming across the continental U.S. exhibits a consistent trend of temperatures accelerating to new highs over recent decades.
But have accelerating maximum temperatures in the U.S. actually happened on a consistent basis?
Nope.
A simple review of recent decadal empirical evidence - from NOAA climate scientists - indicates clearly the U.S. climate is not suffering from a condition of accelerating maximum temperatures that the politicians, bureaucrats and mainstream media have been propagandizing.
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The following charts establish that during the majority of recent decades, the trend for maximum temperatures is not of dangerous accelerating rates but instead periods of decreasing rates.
And although the 2020s decade is still in its earliest years, this decade's trend so far for U.S. maximum temperatures is downward, in a continuation from the two prior decades.
During both the 1990s and 1980s, the warming trends of maximum temperatures in the U.S. are evident. But neither decade exhibits an accelerated temperature trend that would be the harbinger of climate doomsday that has been prophesied.
The 1970s were another decade of cooling maximum temps, and although not shown, so were the 1960s.
One has to go back all the way to the 1930s and 1940s to find two decades in a row that had maximum U.S. temperatures increasing at a positive rate.
In addition, an important observation is that every single decade sees a significant upward trend for atmospheric CO2 levels. Yet max temperatures in the U.S. often do much the opposite.
Again, the empirical evidence simply does not exist that would support claims of a mass extinction for our American society from an accelerating, terrible global warming. This simple look at decadal trends of maximum temperatures simply refutes the claims of existential threat and completely undercuts the demands for the end of fossil fuels.
One would think with the constant narrative barrage of climate change "doomsday" that there would be overwhelming empirical evidence proving that "catastrophic" global warming was creating continental wastelands of devastation from extreme temperatures.
But in reality, that isn't the case at all, as can be observed on the adjacent map image (click on image to enlarge).
When examining the hottest/coldest temperature records for the major continental masses, there has not been a new extreme temperature record established since 1994, per Wikipedia.
In fairness, there are smaller island and peninsula geographic areas that are surrounded by oceans that have new temp records since 1994. But those isolated incidents do not represent what is happening on the principal land mass of continents.
The fact that the "expert" predicted global warming doomsday from the trace greenhouse gas CO2 is not being observed at the continental level, even after decades of massive fossil fuel emissions, indicates that the global climate is not experiencing a "tipping point" of instability, which would result in an "existential" threat.
In summary, it's another case of those stubborn facts refuting the anti-science orthodoxy of dogmatic doomsday propaganda.
The Trump administration remains steadfast in its reliance on the actual climate scientific evidence that refutes Biden's hyperbole of climate doomsday and anti-science prophecies that plague the left-wing Democrats.
As the adjacent chart reveals, the empirical evidence is irrefutable: global warming trends indicate a 'situation normal' as the global climate continues to have spurts of accelerate warming and deceleration towards rapid cooling.
In contrast to Trump, Biden - and his Democrat cult of doomsday soothsayers - completely mislead the public with claims of global devastation within the next 9 to 12 years from civilization's continuing fossil fuel emissions due to energy production.
Climate doomsday is not an empirically-based claim but an irrational belief without data.
This charts plots the monthly observed warming/cooling trends - i.e. data - and the cumulative growth of the atmospheric CO2 levels (see green dots) since 1850.
Clearly, the scientific evidence indicates the following:
Prior to the 1950's start of massive consumer/industrial fossil fuel CO2 emissions, global climate change warming/cooling took place over the short-term with great frequency and intensity.
After 1950, despite the massive emissions, the great frequency/intensity of climate change continued with similar short-term patterns.
Yet, neither period of large climate short-term swings resulted in longer-term significant climate change. The 120-month, 180-month, and the 240-month trends reveal a very insignificant and slow change up and down. Put in the context of the climate volatility of short-term periods, the long-term volatility borders on being exceptionally unnoticeable and boring.
And after NASA's chief climate scientist claimed before Congress in 1988 that global temperatures would lead to tremendous climate destruction from CO2 emissions, the same climate change ups/downs simply continued as in the past (see 1988 arrow on chart) establishing that NASA "experts" were not so expert.
The incredible growth of human CO2 emissions are demonstrably shown to be unrelated to short-term climate swings of warming and cooling; and, if the emissions are truly impactful on long-term climate, it is an insignificant impact when compared to the natural ups/downs of climate change.
Most importantly, neither the short-term or long-term trends substantiate Biden's belief that a climate doomsday tipping point is soon to happen and wreak havoc. Instead, what the data reveal is a climate that will naturally cycle through extreme points but returns to normal from the built-in negative feedback.
It is a known fact that during the Obama and Biden administration, global warming accelerated to a very high rate, which in turn resulted in the overall climate change accelerating.
Since January 2017, the Trump administration has slashed regulations and introduced new energy policies that unleashed American firms to innovate and invest at a spectacular speed.
The end result has not only produced an actual cooling trend for global 'warming,' and thus a slowing of climate change, but Trump's policies have produced the long-sought energy independence and security that former President Jimmy Carter only dreamed of.
This chart reflects the empirical evidence of the Trump successes.
If only Democrats' Obama and Biden had embraced smart and innovative energy/climate polices during their tenure, the world would have been that much further along in addressing global warming.
Note: Source of HC4 global dataset plotted, from January 1850 thru June 2020. Excel used to calculate and plot slope and 10-yr moving average.
Fortunately for those who believe in empirical science, the facts are indisputable. The earth is not at risk of rapid global warming that would set off a soon-to-be 'climate emergency or 'climate crisis' tipping point.
We live in an era where cult-like beliefs have caused a great number of people to accept what resembles a prophecy about the world ending within 12 years, from a global warming 'tipping point' for the climate.
This fear-mongering myth takes the form that humanity is causing - due to fossil fuel emissions - a rapid acceleration of global temperatures that will wreak havoc and destruction as the tipping point is reached.
But is there actual empirical evidence that this doomer prophecy is playing out with a soon-to-be ending to civilization?
The included chart is a plot of the IPCC's gold-standard empirical global temperature data representing how fast/slow global temperatures are moving - it's a climate warming speedometer, so to speak.
In the real world, climate model simulations have been self-debunking over recent decades due to the constant prediction failures.
And the latest embarrassing example of model prediction failure is very relevant to the doomsday Arctic meltdown myth that the anti-science 'climate emergency' cult pushes.
A new peer-reviewed study by a group of researchers set out to determine the accuracy of top-tier climate model predictions of Arctic warming rates versus the actual Arctic warming rate. Their research involved the output of the same 36 climate models used for the UN's IPCC work.
This chart is a snapshot of their work, which visually portrays the computer climate model simulations over a 138-year period, from 1880 to 2017, and how they consistently overestimate how fast the Arctic is warming since around 1950.
Per the study's findings: "...the model-estimated rate of secular warming (the solid red line) increased quite sharply across the 138-year period, rising from a value of around 0 °C per decade at the beginning of the record to a value of 0.35 °C per decade at the end. Observations, in contrast, started off with a higher warming rate than that of the models (a rate of 0.13 °C per decade; the solid black line), but dipped below the rate of warming predicted by the models around the middle of the record, thereafter experiencing a lower rate of warming relative to the models through the end of the record. By the end of the record, the model-predicted secular rate of warming was 67% higher than that determined from observations (0.21 °C). Thus, the figure shows an increasing disparity between modelled and observed warming rates that starts around the middle of the record and grows to 0.14 °C per decade by the mid-2010s."
"Huang et al. state the obvious, that "anthropogenically induced secular warming has been overestimated by the CMIP5 GCMs during the most recent warming period, and the overestimation is aggravated with time." What is more, given the error bars shown on the figure, in the very near future the observed warming rate will likely soon fall outside the significance levels of the ensemble model mean, removing any remaining credibility left in the model projections of future Arctic warming."
Based on the well documented abundance of failures of even the most sophisticated climate models, it should now be considered criminal malfeasance or malpractice that any politician or bureaucrat utilizes said models for setting policies. While doomsday climate-crisis cultists propagandize using the untenable and unreliable model projections, those that represent the public should be employing more sober analysis and commonsense for policy development and implementation, if any.
A terse synopsis: Climate models can't predict squat.
Over the last three decades, advocates of climate change alarmism have claimed that the trace greenhouse gas CO2 is the rapid global warming control knob that humans can use to tweak the world's climate, thus allowing for a deceleration of the supposed "harmful" warming.
But after some 30+ years, the empirical evidence for that claim still remains missing in action (M.I.A.).
The adjacent chart of lower atmosphere temperature trend plots and atmospheric CO2's constant growth completely refutes the concept that warming rates (acceleration/deceleration) can be controlled by a magical bureaucrat's CO2 knob.
As it is blindingly obvious, atmospheric temperatures rates are constantly changing, going from a state of acceleration, to a deceleration state, and then back to acceleration, without any regard to CO2 levels.
Without any regard to CO2 levels?
The pale yellow boxes near the bottom of the chart the relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and the various plotted per century temperature trends. Those correlations barely climb out of the basement, with two even exhibiting a negative correlation.
The hypothesis that CO2 is currently a strong influencer on the world's warming is essentially factless.
Clearly, whether it's a reduction in human emissions or using technology to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, there will be no changing the natural planetary phenomenon of the constant change in temperature warming and cooling rates.
Simply stated, there is no 'control knob' for humans to utilize to slow or speed up global warming.
Once the public comes to realize the fake CO2 doomsday science being pushed by the establishment does not offer a solution, the sooner we can move to adaption strategies for coping with any negative outcomes from a warmer world (and also take advantage of the massive benefits from global warming).
Note: Excel was used to average the monthly global temperatures from the UAH and RSS satellite datasets; Excel was used to calculate the per century trends in the plots; Excel was used to plot the atmospheric CO2 levels from this dataset; Excel used to chart all data and to calculate the moving per century slope trends.
Empirical evidence is the bane of all climate change 'doomers' since it contradicts what they've been told as being true.
In a nutshell, the doomer contention is that a civilization doomsday will happen within the next 12 years because of climate change.
The principal foundation of their alarmist catastrophic scenarios is the never tested, never proven hypothesis that human CO2 emissions will cause incredible, tipping point global warming, thus leaving planet Earth uninhabitable.
However, fortunately for the world and its inhabitants, there is absolutely zero empirical evidence supporting the claimed soon-to-be "doomsday" from growing CO2 emissions.
The adjacent chart plots 3 evidence lines of significant importance.
The black line with white dots is a plot of total CO2 emissions for the prior 12 years. The very first white dot represents total 12-year emissions ending in 1958. The next white dot represents the cumulative emissions for the 12 years ending 1959, and so on. The last dot represents total emissions for the 12 years ending 2018.
The gray dotted line with the black squares is the plot of atmospheric CO2 changes over 12 months. For example, the first black square on the left represents the total change in atmospheric CO2 levels from November 30, 1958 through November 1959. Each progressive black square represents the 12-month change for the given period ending in November until the last square is reached for the 12-month period ending November 2019.
And the pale orange line with red circles is the plot of HadCrut global temperature changes over the preceding 12 months, all periods (red circles) ending in November.
The world's gold-standard USCRN climate station measurement system has now recorded 3 straight years of declining temperatures, based on 12-month averages ending in November.
And the 12-month period ending November 2019 is actually below (-0.06°F) the very first 12-month period ending November 2006 (+1.03°F).
Conclusion: "Global" warming appears to be on hiatus in the U.S., again.
With all due respect to the profession of mainstream journalism, there is no such thing as rapid, catastrophic "global warming."
In fact, there are vast land and sea areas that are not warming, which seriously counters publicized statements that the world is suffering from a "global" climate condition. And claims of rapid, catastrophic "global" warming are simply fictional derivatives of imagination.
For example, the Southern Hemisphere's and tropical-latitude oceans currently have sea temperature anomaly measurements that are essentially the same as those found during the during the period of 1997-1999, some 20+ years ago.
And a critical example of a large land mass without significant warming is the contiguous land mass of the lower 48 U.S. states.
The above chart (click on to enlarge) is a plot of average U.S temperature anomalies and one does not need to be a climate scientist to discern from the plot that the fear-mongering about rapid, dangerous, and catastrophic warming is empirical nonsense.
Putting some flesh on the empirical science bones, the chart is plotted from the datasets produced by the world's only state-of-the-art climate/weather USCRN measurement system with 140 station sites all across the contiguous U.S.
Notice that since the USCRN sites went online in January 2005, over the last 14+ years the average U.S. temperature has had periods of both cooling and warming.
And when comparing the latest August 2019 12-month average (green circle) and the 8-month average (yellow star) with their respective beginning averages in 2005, it's clear that the current averages are lower.
Also, as the chart's 6th degree fitted trend line (black) indicates, the most recent warming has turned towards a cooling direction.
Based on these facts, it can be fairly surmised that the climate doomsday cult prediction of a global warming inferno is without empirical evidence, and it can justly be called anti-scientific as well. With a little greater specificity, the claim that human CO2 emissions has produced a global "tipping point" with runaway warming is demonstrably false.
For the record, including 2005, there has been 441 gigatonnes of CO2 emitted into the atmosphere through 2018, which represents an overall increase of 25%.
In summary, apparently for politicians, celebrities, "journalists" and teenagers, science and empirical evidence are no longer to be taken seriously. Thus fossil fuels and their resulting emissions have become convenient scapegoats, nothing more. And wildly speculative climate change predictions are, unfortunately, tipping point catnip for the hysterical and feeble-minded.
Note: As occurs everywhere, in the U.S. during that 2005-2019 time span there were quite a few hot months; but the same can be said about cold months. When all is said and done, the hot period spans are canceled out by the cooler spans, which is what the 'average' natural climate cycle does. There has been regional warming and regional cooling as the the various regional climates continue to change; and climate expert predictions have failed to account for the non-consistent attributes of climate change.
HadCrut 4.6, the gold-standard global temperature dataset, confirms that Trump's energy and climate policies are delivering dramatic results the benefit of mankind!
After global warming temperature trends hit a post-1950 peak under the Obama administration, Trump has dropped the Obama's scary warming peak to a cooling status for the last 5 years.
Yes, temperatures have now decelerated to a rate of a cooling climate.
Obama couldn't lower the seas as promised but Trump lowered the world's fever of ever increasing temperatures.
One never tires of 'Winning.' :-)
[Note: Excel used to calculate 5-year temperature trends. Excel used to plot trends - HC4.6 global dataset. Trends are only temporary and not predictions. Climate change exists and constantly happens and warming has taken place since the Little Ice Age.]
What many journalists and politicians do not realize is that climate change warming is not global. At any given time, there are regions of the world that are warming, while at the same time other regions are either cooling or exist within a stable temperature range.
An example of the actual real-world climate regime is the South China Sea denoted by the accompanying chart.
A group of researchers from China produced a better methodology to reconstruct a historical dataset of sea temperatures for the month of March from 1893-2011.
"...above-average temperatures occurred in 1904-1913, 1929-1948, 1961-1973 and 1991-2006. Below-average temperatures, on the other hand, occurred in 1914-1925, 1949-1960, 1979-1990 and 2007-2011. What is particularly insightful about the reconstruction, however, is the absence of any apparent anthropogenic influence on the 119-year record of SST variability. In fact, there appears to be nothing unusual, unnatural or unprecedented about current temperatures. Indeed, temperatures of the past four decades have remained relatively stable over the whole length of the record."
(click on to enlarge)
And on the other side of the world, we have the example of a cooling Ireland, which clearly seems to have missed this "global warming" that everyone in media, Hollywood, and D.C. continuously claim - obviously, without ever checking the actual evidence.
But, don't hold your breath expecting either the mainstream media or politicians or celebrities pushing the climate change alarmism to inform the public that "global warming" is not truly global.
Does AOC's (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) well publicized and dramatic prediction that climate-doomsday will strike humanity in a very short 12 years have any empirical validity?
If indeed that is the case, then surely global warming must be accelerating at a fevered rate that should easily be detected within today's known empirical measurement evidence, or not.
Per the CAGW hypothesis, the coming climate collapse prediction demands that the rapid global warming acceleration be closely linked with the undisputed continuous growth of atmospheric CO2 levels.
But does the empirical evidence support such a link?
The adjacent chart plots the global warming acceleration per century rates (12 month, 36 month, 60 month, and 120 month) using the HadCrut global temperature dataset through February 2019. In addition, the levels of atmospheric CO2 are plotted.
The temperature plots show a wide range of acceleration/deceleration, especially for the shorter time frames.
Viewing the chart (click on to enlarge), it becomes obvious that a major 12-month acceleration trend can turn quickly into a major deceleration trend - a 40 degree +/- change in direction is not uncommon.
Currently, both the 36-month (bright red) and 60-month (bright green) are exhibiting a cooling rate (respectively, a -5.9°C cooling/century rate and a -2.1°C cooling per century rate).
The 120-month acceleration rate is falling but still in warming mode at +2.6°C/century; and the 12-month acceleration rate of 10.9°C warming rate/century has reversed its trend from a -31.8°C cooling rate reached in December 2017.
Putting the current 120-month (i.e. 10-year) acceleration rate in context, as recently as October 2013 there existed a deceleration period - i.e. a minus cooling rate trend. In addition, the February 2019 rate is significantly below the highest warming peaks of November 1983, September 1988, and September 2002; and it is below the pre-1950's peaks of 1941 and 1916.
The good news is that there is no indication in the chart's plots that anything extraordinary is now taking place suggesting there is a total climate system of "rapid" accelerated warming. There is nothing there that would provide a reasonable rational basis for any fear of climate change destruction in 12 years.
Since the actual current trends do not support the AOC climate change doomsday claim, is there at least any empirical evidence that establishes a strong link between atmospheric CO2 levels and rapid acceleration of warming trends?
Nope.
The correlations between the CO2 levels and the rate of temperature increase is close to being nonexistent. For the 12-month rate the r2 is +0.0006; the 36-month r2 is +0.008; the 60-month rate r2 is +0.04; and the 120-month r2 is +0.14.
With such low r2's, the claim that CO2 levels are a dominant forcing which determine the rate of increase in global warming is a hypothesis without empirical clothing. And puts into serious question the validity of the overall CAGW hypothesis.
Conclusion: Based on an analysis of the gold-standard global temperature dataset and current atmospheric CO2 levels, there is conclusive evidence that acceleration/deceleration rates of temperature are within a natural variation range, with little to any apparent relationship or enhancement from greenhouse gases, such as CO2. Doomsday from CO2 greenhouse emissions within 12 years is beyond unlikely.
The mainstream journalists have been reporting over the last 20 years that global warming was dangerously accelerating due to greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO2.
They reported that this rapid temperature elevation would bring untold climate change disaster and calamity to humanity - per the climate model based speculations - if we did not cease using the fossil fuels that produced the CO2.
Yet, despite growing emissions that now surpass 400 ppm in the atmosphere, at the end of 2018, according to HadCrut annual global temperature dataset, the globe warmed by a measly +0.056°C since 1998 - not even a tenth of a degree over 20 years.
A nothing-burger.
(Note: see the +0.056°C increase on adjacent thermometer where the small white dots represent the 1998 temperature.)
If that 20-year amount of "warming" is repeated every 20 years, then by the end of 100 years, global warming would have increased a barely measurable +0.3°C degree. This is not your AOC's warming that will end the world in a short 12 years.
In addition, the last 20 years of actual warming does not match well with the predicted warming from the most sophisticated climate models' compilation. For the 20 years ending 2018, the models' approximate mean estimate of global warming is +0.50°C .
Thus, the expert predicted warming is roughly 8 times greater than actual.
All of the above tells one that actual warming has not been either extreme or dangerous.
This has been literally worry-free warming over the last 2 decades notwithstanding the climate model scenarios of excessive near-death-warming that must be upon us.
Besides the recent actual tiny warming, there also have been multiple peer-reviewed studies published over the last 12 months that establish catastrophic global warming to be more science fiction than scientific reality. For example:
SUMMARY: There exists no empirical evidence, nor research studies based on actual empirical evidence, indicating that humanity is being threatened by disastrous warming or associated climate change manifestations. On the contrary, real world indications are that natural climate changes do occur but they do not amount to the claimed existential menace, even with the increase of atmospheric greenhouse gases. These facts confirm that proposed billions to trillions of American's dollars should not be spent on unproven and highly controversial attempts to fix what amounts to non-threatening global "warming" and mild climate "change."
From this recent article, the main takeaways from 2019 study are:
North America (180-0°N, 15-60°N) has been characterized as a “major cooling center” by the authors of a new paper (Gan et al., 2019) published in Earth and Space Science...The continent warmed from 1982-1998, but a cooling trend since 1998 has nearly wiped out all the previous warming...Overall, there has been no significant temperature change in North America since 1982.
Climate science alarmists are devastated by these findings and are scrambling to smear its scientific authors rather than challenge the empirical evidence, one would imagine.
Then again, possibly the alarmists will finally admit defeat by accepting the skeptical AGW viewpoint - that CO2 is not the dominant forcing in climatic trends, it is a minor one at best.
The authors of this study assess the likely reason for the cooling as being a natural climate change phenomenon from one of the known natural oscillations/cycles.
This study should again confirm that current climate predictions from "experts" and their computer models have been fabulously wrong.
Conclusion: Politicians and bureaucrats should table any discussions and regulations in regards to actual climate and energy policies, since the assumptions and hypothesis being utilized are clearly without scientific merit.
A few days ago, we discussed Japan's cooling winter temperature trend and now it's Germany's turn. If Italy also develops a similar cooling trend, it will be the new #ClimateChange Axis, so to speak.
As usual, we are beating a dead horse - climate expert predictions that are based on the trace gas CO2 are worthless.
No climate or energy policy should ever be based on computer models that are focused on human emission of carbon dioxide. These models cannot simulate natural climate cycle variation at all and thus make for incredibly lousy prediction outputs.
Just another case of those stubborn facts getting in the way of pseudo science by simulation.
The Washington Post is infamous famous for assigning multiple 'Pinocchios' to a variety of claims that challenge their liberal-lefty-Democrat-progressive standard of "truth".
It's A '5-AOC' Rating
But a new standard of incredulity may need to be established beyond the simple 'lying-Pinocchio' for a growing onslaught of clown claims.
A possible contender for a standard is the '5-AOC' for those claims that makes one wonder if the specific person is just flat-out stupid, or embarrassingly ignorant, or extremely gullible, or hilariously hysterical, or may suffer from an indisputable facts allergy. Most importantly, the recipient of a '5-AOC' could be affected by all the above characteristics to varying degrees.
Of course, the honorary recipient for the very first '5-AOC' should be none other than the original A.O.C., Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y. for her incredibly bizarre prediction that "the world is gonna end in 12 years" due to climate change from CO2-induced global warming.
For those millennial A.O.C. contemporaries who believe that the world's climate has changed immensely over the last 50 years, and is soon to be an uninhabitable climate disaster, the below image is based on the extreme hot and cold temperatures recorded, as tabulated by the UN's own World Meteorological Organization.
This world map image shows the year the hottest and coldest temperatures were recorded for each continent. For the record, the last "hottest" temperature for a major continent was recorded in 1982, which was 36 years (and billions and billions of CO2 emission tonnes) ago.
Does this mean the world is not warming?
No. It means that human CO2 emissions are not very climatic(ly) powerful since no new record-setting temperatures by continent have been recorded in over three decades.
Will there be new "hottest" temperatures recorded for the continents?
Yes. And it's primarily due to the fact that the natural climate forces can cause huge climatic fluctuations that are much more powerful than a trace gas emission produced by humans.
Are the majority of humans facing a catastrophic climate doomsday in 12 years?
The consensus regarding the catastrophic global warming hypothesis is completely reliant on a proposed positive feedback producing runaway global warming that will destroy human civilization. Simply, is it happening?
(click on to enlarge)
To answer that question, one can examine the HadCRUT4 (HC4) empirical climate surface temperature record in order to identify if a positive feedback is evident.
The positive feedback would reveal its existence if global temperatures were accelerating to a tipping point of runaway warming, due to the ever-increasing human CO2 emission releases into the atmosphere,
As done with a previous article involving the analysis of the satellite record of temperature acceleration warming trends, the same can be accomplished with the HC4 global dataset. Thus, this analysis will also focus on both short and long-term warming trends to determine whether a constant state of acceleration is present.
First, the chart on the right represents satellite short and long-term acceleration plots used in the prior article; the chart of the left plots the short and long-term warming per century acceleration rates derived from the HC4 land/sea global dataset.
To attain the best apple-to-apple comparison, both charts are based on a start date that coincides with the advent of the satellite measuring technology in 1979 and through month-end February 2018.
Visually, the chart similarities of the two different temperature measuring methodologies are striking.
When scrutinized closely, there are differences, but those would be expected when one methodology is measuring lower atmosphere temps and the other methodology is based on near-surface temps of land and water.
As found in the prior analysis of the lower atmosphere temperature record, global surface temperatures accelerate at a faster pace and then always decelerate to a slower pace that may even indicate the potential of a cooling climate regimen.
More importantly, the HC4 temperature dataset verifies what the prior article on the satellite dataset established: despite multiple major warming El Nino events, and with over 60% of all 1850-2016 total CO2 emissions being released since 1979, there is absolutely zero indication of a positive feedback's existence producing a runaway, "tipping point" warming acceleration.
On the contrary, as of February 2018, all 3 short-term temperature HC4 acceleration trends at the end of February 2018 are well below their respective beginning trend values; and the ending February 2018 long-term per century trend is practically the same as the beginning trend value.
This finding matches with what was identified in the previous satellite analysis.
Additionally, as noted at the bottom of each chart, the positive correlations between the rolling monthly temperature trends and the cumulative growth of CO2 levels (ppm) are empirically not much different from zero; plus, both the long-term satellite and surface global trends seemingly have an inverse relationship with accumulating CO2 gases (a possible explanation?).
If correlation is an indicator of potential causation, then one would need to look at an entirely different reason other than CO2 emissions for any attempt to justify a belief in the runaway global warming scenario.
Analysis Summary:
Since a dangerous accelerating climate warming simply does not exist after decades of vast amounts of human greenhouse emissions being released, it is fair to conclude that the consensus of a catastrophic runaway global warming is debunked and entirely without any empirical merit or validity.
It still remains mere speculation after all these years, and should possibly be considered another candidate for the ash heap of group-think "consensus science."
Note: Excel used to calculate trends and to plot. HC4 dataset. The satellite dataset is 50/50 weighting of the RSS and UAH datasets. Monthly CO2 dataset. Calculated trends do not predict the future trends.
One of the major tenets of the anthropogenic hypothesis of global warming is that the number of extremely hot days would increase, potentially causing catastrophic loss of life.
Such occurrences are the expected climate change manifestations from increasing CO2 emissions predicted by consensus experts and climate models.
But do these manifestations occur currently in a non-urban area with greater frequency than in years prior to modern global warming fears?
If CO2-driven global warming and climate change are as truly powerful and to be feared as many suggest, then the evidence of a greater frequency in the number of extreme hot days should be obvious.
As this article explains, there is a non-urban Japanese island (Hachijō Island) lying about 180 miles south of Tokyo in the Philippine Sea provides a long-term climate record of hot-day occurrences. (The island is administered by Tokyo.)
As in many countries, Japan uses the 30°C (86°F) minimum to designate an extreme 'hot day'.
The adjacent chart for the island identifies the number of 'hot and furious' periods going back to 1926 based on the 30°C criteria. For the 21st century specifically, including year 2000, there has been an average of 22.7 extreme hot days per year through 2017.
That's pretty high, especially when compared to the 1970's. But is that 22.7 number for the last 18 years unprecedented? Turns out the answer is 'no'.
The following 18-year periods, including 1929-1946, 1930-1947, 1931-1948, 1932-1949, 1933-1950, 1934-1951, 1935-1952, 1936-1953, 1937-1954, 1938-1955, 1939-1956, 1940-1957, 1941-1958, 1942-1959, 1943-1960, 1944-1961, and 1945-1962, had a higher average of hot days versus the 18-year period ending in 2017.
The 18-year span ending in 1958 had the absolute highest average count of extreme hot days - 25.8 days - per year.
What one can hypothesize from the above data and chart is that the huge growth of CO2 emissions has not produced the greater frequency of extreme hot days expected by experts. And also surmise that natural climate processes, for both the past and the present, are the responsible driver for periods with extreme hot weather events.
It should be noted that the modern count of extreme hot-day years has also been shown to be less in the modern U.S. era of high CO2 emissions when compared to the past.
This actual empirical evidence does refute the expert prediction that the frequency of extremely hot days across the globe would be a direct result of higher atmospheric CO2 levels. And although there certainly may well be regional areas of the world that have experienced a greater frequency - especially concrete/steel highly urbanized areas - there are indeed other areas of the world that have not.
Per our prior article, an examination of the empirical evidence for atmospheric warming was done to determine if Earth had crossed the 'tipping point' red line. This article drills down further to look at specific data points.
The adjacent chart - using the same information as before - narrows the focus down to a few specific markers of both short-term and long-term global warming acceleration.
Besides showing the cumulative CO2 growth, this chart depicts the plots (pinkish circles sans the connecting curve lines) of the 12-month, 24-month, and 36-month rolling per century warming acceleration trends
[For those counting: the count of their respective calculated trend points are as follows: 459 calculated points; 447 calculated points; 435 calculated points.]
On the chart, the 12-month first and last calculated trend points are marked as red dots; for the 24-month first and last, the representation marks are the blue dots; and for the 36-month first and last, those are designated by the two bright green circles.
Clearly, despite the substantial increase of atmospheric CO2 levels from 1979 to 2018, all the ending acceleration trend points of February 2018 are actually lower than the very first trend points for each short-term period.
Moving on.
The chart's aqua colored trend line is constructed using the 240-month rolling calculated trends (the count of calculated trend points making up the aqua line is 231). The aqua colored triangles mark the first, last, and highest calculated warming trend points.
For the long-term, the empirical evidence confirms that the February 2018 acceleration trend of 1.17°C per century is lower than both the beginning trend value of 1.74°C and the highest trend value reached way back in April 2004 of 2.52°C per century.
One could surmise that this result is climate evidence of a long-term atmospheric negative feedback mechanism in play.
Conclusion: For a tipping point and/or runaway warming to be reached, and then survive, the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis demands that the lower troposphere warms in a consistent and accelerating mode, due to the hypothetical positive atmospheric feedbacks supposedly produced from fossil fuel CO2 emissions. As this analysis substantiates what the prior article had found, the current climate "tipping point" claims and/or concerns are completely without empirical evidence merit or, if you prefer, categorically factless.
Note: This analysis of the empirical data from January 1979 through 2018 is about the past, and it should not be interpreted as a future prediction of climate change/response. Excel was used to calculate and plot the multiple rolling/moving LT temperature trends and monthly CO2 cumulative totals.
Every time there is a "hottest" day, a "warmest-than-ever" month, or an extended period of quickly rising global temps, there are many who instantly claim that the world has reached a runaway climate change condition, or a global warming tipping point, or a soon to be doomsday, a no-return cascade turning Earth into the next Venus.
Hyperbole or fact?
The adjacent graph is one that we have produced in the past. Every few months it is updated in the quest of finally identifying the no-return doomsday tipping point that so many celebrities, journalists, and politicians fear and speak of.
The graph contains simple plots exhibiting the constant linear growth of cumulative CO2 levels in the atmosphere and multiple temperature trends.
The per century trends plotted are derived from the gold-standard NASA satellite atmospheric - i.e., lower troposphere (LT) - temperature measurements. The measurements are produced by two organizations - RSS and UAH - and the graph's trend plots represent a 50/50 average of those RSS/UAH published datasets since 1979.
As the plots make abundantly clear, since the inception of satellite measurements, LT short-term temperature trends go up and then they go down. The LT temperatures regularly have an acceleration spike and then a subsequent deceleration spike follows.
These acceleration and deceleration trends obviously follow some sort of cyclical pattern that are completely divorced from the incessant growth of atmospheric CO2 and/or other human-based activities.
Those are the stubborn facts, with the end result being that nature totally trumps human influence in regards to climate.
Conclusion? And the "tipping point" remains nothing more than factless hyperbole.
Note: This analysis of the empirical data from January 1979 through 2018 is about the past, and it should not be interpreted as a future prediction of climate change/response. Excel was used to calculate and plot the multiple rolling/moving LT temperature trends and monthly CO2 cumulative totals.
The opinions on climate change from analysts, researchers, and academics continue to change as the evidence of global warming - or lack thereof - is presented.
This recent article reminds readers that global warming is not a 'global' phenomenon since many areas of the world exhibit cooling, as the adjacent image reveals.
Then there is this recent article that refers to a published peer-reviewed study by a group of climate scientists who have found the current land-based temperature measurement capabilities to be less than stellar and even unsatisfactory in many cases. The scientists go on to suggest an alternative measuring methodology being deployed globally that the U.S. has already developed.
Finally, there is this recent article indicating the forever changing "settled science" in regards to the predicted influence of CO2 on global warming. As the evidence grows that global warming has not been as great, nor as fast, as the climate models predicted, the experts (and the IPCC) have been continually forced to reduce their estimates of climate sensitivity to CO2.
Conclusion? Much to the dismay of many, the actual "global warming" is having a significant impact on science in a way they did not want. It's just another case of those stubborn facts that so often plague the elites.
Or, to put it another way: climate doomsday is delayed for another millennium.
Satellites, the advanced gold-standard technology that humanity has used to explore the moons, the planets, the solar system and beyond, are also widely deployed to explore Earth and its atmosphere. A key empirical satellite measurement that especially interests the scientific community is the global warming of the lower troposphere (LT) . This empirical evidence is critical to determine if catastrophic global warming beliefs are rational and deserving a response.
The widely held global warming belief is that human Co2 greenhouse gases will soon cause, via a positive feedback loop, a rapid tipping point warming of the lower atmosphere, resulting in a destruction of Earth's surface and an eventual decimation of civilization. Many who believe in this catastrophic global warming scenario even speak of the potential of Earth becoming another uninhabitable Venus.
As it turns out, satellites are situated perfectly to be the premier 24/7 monitoring system of the atmosphere, thus allowing scientists to measure and watch for a constant warming acceleration - i.e., indicating the existence of the hypothetical tipping point.
Over the last 3 full years, the satellites have measured a lower atmosphere (aka LT) temperature that has exceeded past temperatures of the previous 36 years. The same 3-year warmest temperature phenomenon has also been experienced on Earth's surface.
In the case of the lower atmosphere, the temperature rise has been about a half-degree Celsius - that's during almost 4 decades of satellite measurements. The increase possibly has raised the absolute lower atmosphere temps to about -4.0°C, which is still significantly below zero.
Conclusion #1: The absolute temperature of the lower atmosphere has not been raised significantly despite multiple decades of human Co2 emissions. The current level of LT temperatures are not likely in the least to produce an imminent global warming catastrophe, nor a feared "tipping point."
The included chart plots both the temperature anomalies (column plots) over the last 3 warm years and the moving 36-month (3-year) per century warming/cooling rate of the LT.
The global warming catastrophe premise requires that trace Co2 gases produce a positive feedback loop that creates the rapid and runaway tipping point of accelerating temperature increase.
Yet, despite the last three years being the warmest in terms of satellite measurements, the plot of the rate of global warming per century has collapsed over the last three years. Instead of the proposed positive feedback producing ever faster atmospheric temperature increases, the plot reveals a very strong warming trend that accelerated during the 2015/16 El Nino phenomenon, which then quickly decelerated to a per century trend of 4.3 degrees Celsius - and, in the recent past, similar deceleration patterns have lead to outright negative per century cooling trends.
Conclusion #2: There is absolutely zero empirical evidence from the most advanced and sophisticated scientific technology available that Co2 emissions produce a constant positive atmospheric feedback leading to an ever faster acceleration of global warming. The familiar strong acceleration and then strong deceleration repeating pattern is representative of natural climate variation, not of a human-induced runaway overheating of the climate.
Conclusion #3: Since Conclusions #1 and #2 are derived from the actual empirical science evidence, policymakers at the national, state, and local levels have no rational basis to make large expenditures and impose unnecessary regulations in an attempt to stop what has now become a fact-less, irrational, anti-science belief of human-caused catastrophic global warming and climate change "tipping points."
Notes: In the earlier version of this article, the wrong chart was used. The satellite temperature anomalies and 3-year warming trends calculated and plotted using Excel; datasets used to produce monthly anomalies in an equal-weighted combination of two satellite datasets - RSS and UAH. From Dec. 1979 to Dec. 2017, the LT anomaly increase of the combined average dataset was +0.54 degree Celsius. The satellite acceleration/deceleration climate pattern in the past has ranged from a +24.0ºC to a -23.1ºC per century trend for 36-month periods. Observed measurements represent scientific empirical evidence. Climate models are not scientific empirical evidence but instead just formula-based speculative prediction/forecasting tools that are unable to accurately portray future climate conditions. At best, climate models are 'what-if' scenario generators that are not capable of identifying the actual future 'what-if' real-world outcome.
'Winning': Trump team goes to work to save the planet!
The Trump administration inherited a climate change situation from the Obama presidency of an unprecedented 5-year global warming rate for the period since 1950.
During the modern era, Democrat presidencies have endangered the world with policies that boost acceleration of climate temperatures. And it's always the GOP saving the day by ushering in energy/climate policies that lowers the Earth's climbing fever.
Obama not only destroyed U.S. health care with his policies, but also came damn close to boiling the whole freaking planet, no?
And due to an unexpected electoral victory, Trump and his team will continue that long Republican tradition of "hitting the ground running," which, as the graph above shows, climate-healing has already started!
Note: Source of HadCRUT global temperature data. Excel was used to calculate 5-year slopes (Excel slope function) for each month; then used to produce moving 10.0 year averages of the 5-year slopes.
The 'Venus' prediction - quackery or a valid climate science prediction?
There are climate doomsday proponents and alleged "experts" who fear that Earth is warming so fast that it will soon reach hothouse Venus-like temperatures, primarily due to humans continuing global emissions of CO2, a trace greenhouse gas.
To summarize this alarmist position, the feared extreme global warming and climate change would result in the demise of all humans and civilization. More recent claims of similar outcomes, include: the '6th great mass extinction' and the one referred to as the 'human extinction'.
Indeed, Venus is quite uninhabitable for humans with surface and lower atmospheric temperatures in excess of 800°F (+400°C). This planet is an extreme hothouse that had a runaway warming tipping point in its past.
But.....do the scientific facts and latest empirical evidence indicate that sort of "runaway tipping point" and extreme warming fate is even remotely possible for Earth in the future?
(click on chart to enlarge)
As a starting point, the above chart plots the gold-standard satellite warming measurement trends of Earth's lower troposphere, and plots the cumulative CO2 increase, since 1979. (These are the rolling per century temperature trends by month.)
None of the current trends, as of the end of September 2017, reveal a significantly high acceleration of lower atmospheric warming that would indicate a Venus tipping point of runaway global warming is imminent, despite the growing amount of CO2.
From the chart, it is clear there are very abrupt changes in acceleration and deceleration of temperatures, which strongly suggest powerful natural climate factors are in the driver's seat, not human CO2 emissions. The chart depicts short-term warming trend peaks that correlate well with recent and prior El Niño warming periods.
Focusing just on the above chart's 12-month (bright red curve) and 24-month (bright blue) and 36-month (bright green) trends, one can visualize the quick shifts in atmospheric temperature direction, from warming to cooling and then back to warming.
Again, these abrupt trend changes are associated with known short-term natural climate forces.
(click on chart to enlarge)
The long-term 20-year acceleration shown alone in this above chart confirms that the short-term changes in acceleration/deceleration are somewhat reflected in the longer trends but with a much reduced variation - i.e. - a smaller trend range.
Instead of a huge trend range of +80 degrees per century acceleration or a -80 degrees per century acceleration, the 20-year trend variation is much narrower, from +0.5 to +2.5 degrees per century.
And this satellite 20-year trend evidence confirms that the longer temperature trend has actually declined since a March 2004 peak, indicating that its relationship with the steady growth trend of atmospheric CO2 is rather weak, at best. One could surmise it's more of an inverse relationship during this time span.
Or, one could surmise that this reflects the proven and much investigated 'pause' in global warming.
(click on chart to enlarge)
Going back again to shorter term trends, this above graph represents the moving 12-month trends over the critical 31 months for the last 2 major El Niños: 1998 and 2016. The 16-month mark is the peak 12-month trend for each event. Plus, each temperature trend plot includes the 15 months prior to the peak, and after the peak.
Based on the gold-standard empirical evidence, it can safely be said that the increased atmospheric CO2 levels of 2016 had little acceleration impact, if any, since the earlier period - at a much lower level CO2 - exhibited greater atmospheric temperature acceleration.
Fact Check Conclusion: Large increases in atmospheric CO2 levels, be they from natural or human sources, are not turning Earth into the next Venus. The prediction of a Venus-like runaway warming future is quackery.
In the scheme of important global priorities and concerns, the accelerated warming of Earth due to CO2 emission should not even rank in a list of priorities, per the real empirical evidence.
(It truly does make one wonder why really smart people would be tempted to utter such anti-science 'Venus' nonsense. Or, why they choose to ignore the known empirical evidence and scientific research challenging the wrongheaded Gore orthodoxy.)
(click on chart to enlarge)
Okay, this one last chart to put the entire Venus vs. Earth comparison into proper context.
On an annual basis, Earth's lower troposphere (5km high) averages around -4.25°C. In contrast, the Venus lower troposphere (5km) temp is around +430°C. The above chart reveals the gigantic difference in these temperature levels.
Obviously, Earth's LT temps are not accelerating to match the outlandish Venus temps, even after 30 years of large scale industrial/consumer CO2 emissions.
One reason that we are not becoming the next Venus is that its atmosphere is 96% CO2. In comparison, our atmosphere is less than one-tenth of 1% composed of CO2. And even if our CO2 levels doubled, it would still be less than one-tenth of 1% of the atmosphere.
The actual known laboratory physics indicates Earth's temps will only increase between 1-2°C after a CO2 doubling - not some 400+ degrees.
In addition, Venus is a lot closer to the sun and its rotation is 243 Earth days, not 24 hours - it is basically baking in the solar furnace all the time.
And Venus has an atmospheric pressure that is some 90 times greater than Earth's, which is going to create incredible hot temperatures on its own.
Simply stated: Earth will not turn into Venus unless a major catastrophic event (asteroid, comet, an alien 'tractor' beam weapon, etc.) changes Earth's position in the solar system.
Note: Excel used to calculate averages, rolling month trends, the resultant per century trends, and to chart the dataset plots. Lower troposphere (LT) temperature satellite datasets - RSS and UAH - an equal weighting monthly average dataset used in chart's plot; NOAA's atmospheric CO2 dataset. For Earth vs. Venus comparison: a 30yr baseline was calculated from this UAH file of daily Kelvin temps and then monthly UAH LT anomalies applied to result in absolute temps for each month from 1979. Venus 5km LT absolute temps found on this web page.
As the previous article laid out (see article's chart), the globe warmed substantially during the latest El Niño phase of ENSO (see past ENSO history).
But after a natural warming ENSO 'spike,' such as the one covering the 2015-2016 period, Earth's frequent natural reaction is to enter a cooling phase, which this time apparently commenced after the peak in February 2016.
The adjacent chart reveals the exact same lower troposphere (LT) warming and cooling spikes as the prior chart, but using a different plotting style.
This different style does not depict as much detail regarding the actual monthly temperatures as the earlier chart did. This style chart leaves a stronger impression that monthly global warming has been on a continuous upswing, instead of the actual frequent ups/downs of monthly climate temperature change.
For this chart, we changed from a simple 12-month average for both CO2 and temperatures to a 36-month average for both. In addition, a linear temperature trend curve (see dashed maroon line) has been added.
The Facts:
#1. As in the prior article, this chart indicates a long-term global warming trend of 1.07°C by 2100AD - this includes the most recent warming phase of ENSO. [Linear trends are not predictions - they have no predictive power since over the short-term they can change dramatically.]
#2. The chart's 36-month simple moving average (red curve) of LT temperatures indicates an extended pause - i.e. the 'Hiatus' - in overall global warming, from approximately mid-1999 to mid-2015.
#3. The chart's CO2 36-month moving average of ppm levels reveals a continuous linear growth status, whereas the 36-month satellite temp average is anything but.
Conclusions/Assessments:
The datasets used for this chart and the prior article's chart are exactly the same. However, the plot styles are different providing a different context of the cooling/warming of global temperatures. The different context is valuable and there will be future 'C3' charts depicting different plot styles (providing additional context for the reader) using the same dataset and sub-datasets.
This chart's linear trend is exactly the same: a trend that indicates a +1.07°C warming by 2100AD - a rather non-catastrophic warming trend that will likely produce more climate change benefit for the world than harm.
The recent weak scientific attempts to disappear the existence of the sideways movement of overall global warming is clearly debunked by the actual 12 and 36-month averages of LT temperatures from 1999-2015. The real empirical evidence confirms the 'Pause.'
This chart also shows that CO2 levels are not driving the considerable spikes of warming and cooling that take place - natural forces overwhelm any CO2 impact.
Additional global and regional warming/cooling temperature charts.
Note: Excel used to calculate averages, trends, and to chart the dataset plots. Lower troposphere (LT) temperature satellite datasets - RSS and UAH - an equal weighting monthly average dataset used in chart's plot; NOAA's atmospheric CO2 dataset.
The gold-standard for climate science temperature measurements is produced by the advanced, 24/7 monitoring accomplished by orbiting satellites.
Unlike the deployed small number of geographically-sparse surface thermometers, satellites essentially cover the entire world on a continuous basis.
And unlike earthly thermometers, which more often than not reside within known hot-spots, such as metro airports and urban heat sinks of concrete, asphalt and steel, satellite measurements are not affected by human structures, not by transit activities, not by industrial production, and not by power generation.
Satellites are the only available technology scientists have that truly measure temperatures in a global fashion, without all the inherent biases influencing surface-based thermometers.
This unrivaled, sophisticated technology has been performing its empirical measurement duties over the last 38 full years, which the adjacent chart is a plot of. Each month's temperature average is shown by an orange circle (each circle is the average of the two major lower troposphere (LT) temperature satellite datasets - RSS and UAH). The red curve is a moving 12-month simple average of the monthly datapoints.
In addition, the chart includes a plot of NOAA's monthly atmospheric CO2 level (see black dots) and its moving 12-month simple average (grey curve with arrowhead).
The Facts:
#1. As measured, the monthly CO2 levels continue to steadily increase at a linear rate, which if maintained, will almost reach an atmospheric level of 555ppm by 2100AD.
#2. As measured, the temperature trend for the last 38 years (starting with January 1979) indicates an increase of 1.07°C by 2100AD, if that trend is maintained.
#3. As measured, the global average temperatures sporadically gyrate up/down, which the red curve clearly depicts.
#4. As measured, there are very obvious significant warming/cooling spikes that took place in the recent past.
#5. As measured, global LT temperatures spiked warmer during the 2015-2016 period, achieving the highest recorded temperature during February 2016, exceeding the previous high from April 1998 by some +0.12°C. March 2016 was the only other month exceeding the April 1998 measurement (approximately by+0.005°C).
#6. As measured, global temperatures typically spike down after a strong spike up.
#7. As measured, LT global temperatures have declined considerably from the February 2016 high to the year's low of December 2016 - an average global temperature that is below both the December 1987 and December 1998 global temperatures (see magenta-tinted circles), respectively 29 and 18 years ago.
#8. As measured, this gold-standard empirical evidence reveals that only 12% of global LT temperature datapoints since December 1987 were higher.
#9. As measured, the combined RSS and UAH dataset averages show an extended pause in the overall warming - i.e. the hiatus - that stretched across a span from about 1999 to the beginning of 2015.
Conclusions/Assessments:
The below points should be viewed as opinions, or if one wants to be fancy about it, conclusions and assessments. While they are opinions, the actual empirical evidence from the satellites - the climate science gold-standard - is quite supportive.
Global LT temperatures will continue to decline sporadically throughout 2017, which the satellite empirical evidence from the past 38 years (456 monthly measurements) suggests will be a normal/natural cooling reaction to the warming spike.
During the next 18 months, it can be expected that a low temperature point will be reached before a rebounding commences.
Despite the steady increase of CO2 emissions and levels, the natural oscillation phases known as El Niño and La Niña totally overwhelm any modest warming influence of this trace greenhouse gas.
Global LT temperature spikes, both up and down, are primarily due to major natural climate oscillations/cycles, plus natural phenomenons, such as volcano eruptions; temp spikes are not a result of steadily rising human CO2 emissions and/or atmospheric CO2 levels. The 2015-16 El Niño produced the highest temperature anomaly spike since satellite measurements began.
Significant global absolute LT temperature warming, as of December 2016, has not taken place since December 1987. There indeed have been multiple 'hot' and 'cold' years in between these two Decembers but the latest December absolute temperature is still lower than that of December 1987.
Global LT temperatures are highly unlikely to achieve a 3 to 6 degree increase by 2100AD that many consensus experts speculate will happen.
The identified modest warning trend from modern satellite measurements supports the historical evidence and anecdotal recordings that a modest warming has taken place since the end of the Little Ice Age.
The orthodox anthropogenic hypothesis of catastrophic global warming that much of high-level governmental policy-making is based on, is for all practical purposes, invalidated.
Regarding that last point, consensus climate science has proposed a hypothesis on the claim that climate physics dictates that rising atmospheric CO2 levels will warm the atmosphere substantially, thus causing a positive feedback loop, which will then continuously accelerate warming until a tipping point of runaway temperatures take place, turning Earth into the next Venus. This one simple sentence is a nutshell summation of the supposed complex climate physics of "dangerous" global warming that has actually been tested.
The result of that 38-year long real test is that the gold-standard satellite empirical evidence clearly invalidates this hypothesis of positive feedback(s) leading to runaway, catastrophic warming.
Fortunately for the world and its populace, the climate science dogmatic consensus is robustly without any scientific empirical merit. It may indeed get warmer but the catastrophic predictions are not connected to science reality.
Additional global and regional warming/cooling temperature charts.
Note: Excel used to calculate averages, trends, and to chart the dataset plots.
UK's Daily Mail published article that discusses global warming collapse, based on latest empirical evidence being reported by the Met Office Hadley Centre.....the global temperatures have dropped hugely since the 2015-2016 El Nino peak...
The global temperature chart image on the left is from the Daily Mail.
The recent substantial drop in world temperatures is evident. Clearly, the temperature spike caused by the recent El Nino is in the process of being reversed, and quickly with some gusto.
The image on the right represents a plot multiple global per century temperature trends based on the same UK global anomaly dataset used by the Daily Mail to plot absolute temps. The blue 1-year (12-month) trends show the dramatic global warming trend reversal over the most recent months - from a peak in March 2016 to what now amounts to being a significant cooling trend by October 2016.
The other plotted trends for longer periods will eventually follow the direction of the 1-year trend as the slide of future global temperatures from the peak continues.
A note of interest is the fact that none of the different period warming trends plotted exceeded those reached in the past during periods of lower atmospheric CO2. Despite this incredibly powerful El Nino taking place during modern history's period of the highest CO2 levels recorded, the 2015/16 warming trends generated never surpassed those experienced in the past.
Stephen Hawking has gained a less than stellar reputation for predicting doomsday catastrophes multiple times. Seems his non-scientific predictions are classic clickbait catnip for mainstream media publications and net tabloids.
Hawking's space alien, robot, and nuclear war prognostications have gotten a lot of play and views. Yet they are essentially just vague fear-mongering memes provided by an individual with a high IQ.
And then there is his latest doomsday scenario of human CO2 emission causing global warming so hot that humanity on Earth is wiped out by a Venus-like climate of 250 degrees. Unfortunately for Hawking, the empirical evidence clearly indicates that Earth becoming Venus is such an absurdity that even the fear-mongers at the IPCC won't support this vaporfear.
Why is Hawking's Venus prediction so way out there in the twilight zone of black holes? Just look at the adjacent chart.
Plotted are the absolute temperatures for the tropical oceans and the atmosphere above the tropical oceans, as of April 2016 (purple columns). If the oceans are going to be boiled-off by Venus atmospheric temperature levels, then we are a very long way from that happening.
But what about Earth's temperatures a 100 years from now, due to that "runaway" warming Hawking insinuates that we suffer from?
Well, based on the linear trend of temperatures since the satellite measurement age began in 1979, the expected tropical temperatures for April 2116 (yellow columns on chart) will barely budge up - ahem, 250 degrees is not in the cards. Earth's actual experience with Hawking's modern "runaway" warming clearly indicates that we can't get there (250 degrees) from here (25.3°, -4.2°, -24.2°).
And by the time the next 100 years passes, humanity will no longer be using fossil fuels as the primary source of energy. Technology will advance far enough during that time to make the issue of runaway warming or climate change tipping points from human greenhouse gas emissions moot historical footnotes.
Note: Calculated rolling absolute temps using 12-month averages of anomalies and then adding an average absolute temp to the anomalies. Absolute average temp used for HadSST, 24.4C; absolute average temp for UAH lower troposphere -5.0C; absolute average temp for mid-troposphere, -25.0C. Excel used to calculate averages and plot column chart. Venus surface, lower and mid-troposphere temperatures are vastly hotter than 250 degrees that Hawking alluded to.
A group of scientists who researched past climate conditions near the coast of Japan made an interesting discovery.
As the article reports, the climate in that area has not experienced any of the hypothetical CO2-caused warming that "experts" claim is global, extreme and accelerating.
The chart associated with the peer-reviewed study makes it pretty clear that dangerous and unprecedented warming is absent from this part of the world.
The study's authors used tree-ring samples from Japan and Russia. Their proxy reconstruction even has a fitted trend (see red curve) that suggests temperatures there seem cyclical and being driven by natural cyclical forces. Those are thought to include ENSO and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.
When one thinks about what is reported in this study, it is amazing what scientists can unexpectedly discover from research and analysis when using non-thermometer climate measurements, such as tree rings. These proxies usually come from widely scattered locations, with probably a rather sparse number of samples. In addition, tree rings don't provide a daily or monthly climate recording, unlike thermometer instruments. Yet, at the end of the day, scientists can produce a temperature record and trends over extended periods from an exceptionally low minimum of datapoints, and then their results are widely accepted by the climate science community.
Sometimes one wonders about these studies.
That said, these scientists identified another region of the world where dangerous and extreme warming rates are AWOL.
Recently, multiple outlets chose to report to their readers and viewers that February 2016 temperatures were "astronomical" and "strange." Yet for a few hundred million people living in two of the leading industrial/consumer nations of the world, the February temperatures were definitely not astronomical, nor strange.
US February Temps (click on)
UK February Temps (click on)
From the U.S. and UK climate agencies, the above two charts plot the absolute temperature levels for the respective countries over the most recent 20 years, plus the global CO2 levels for February.
In the U.S., the February temperature was warm, but not exceptional; and not even the warmest February, especially when put into the context of 5% error bars.
In the UK, the populace experienced February temperatures that were rather well below average for the last 20 years.
As others have noted, the media frenzy regarding "astronomical" represent just more absurdities from alarmist advocacy by "journalists."
Obviously, the two above charts reveal the ludicrous terminology "astronomical" is not really global. Most of any "strange" surface warming likely was generated in regions of the world where there exists an exceptional sparsity of thermometers - in other words, probably the warmest surface regions were based on a given climate agency's strange-simulations.
And it would seem that continuously rising CO2 levels have had little influence on February temperatures in these industrialized countries. As the majority of experts agree, any high February 2016 regional surface and atmospheric temperatures were the direct result of a natural weather El Nino phenomenon in the the Pacific.
Finally, for those interested in the linear trends for both charts, the U.S. February temperatures are cooling at a robust -15.2°F per century pace; the UK February temps are no slacker as they are cooling at -7.2°C per century rate. Indeed, in the face of huge CO2 emissions, both the UK and the U.S. over the last 20 years exhibit a significant deceleration of temperature change warming.
Strange, does the all-powerful CO2 just ignore months starting with 'F'?
Note: Source of US and UK absolute February temperatures; source of February CO2 levels. Excel used to plot the line and bar charts and means; built-in Excel chart function for 5% error bars displayed on charts and linear trends calculated. Warning: linear trends should not be interpreted as a prediction(s).
The extremist green movement is the principal driver behind the story that recent climate change is the result of humans - more specifically, the result of consumer/industrial fossil fuel emissions.
Indeed, the fringe greens claim that modern global warming is solely caused by CO2 from coal, oil and gas combustion. Plus, they claim that natural climate change has had almost zero influence on temperature changes over the past 30 years.
Yet, the empirical evidence from NOAA does not support those claims. In fact, one could surmise that the greens' claims are refuted in many instances.
Using the U.S. temperature dataset from NOAA, which represents evidence from the most comprehensive climate reporting system in the world, a reality-based version of past and present temperature change emerges.
[Ed: The US dataset is considered by experts to be the best instrumental northern hemisphere proxy of climate change available. The longest instrumental northern hemisphere proxy is the CET dataset from the UK, which represents a much narrower band of geography.]
Most recently, we know that the super El Nino produced a 3-month winter period (Dec-Feb) that reached its highest winter average ever by the end of Feb. 2016. And amazingly, using a larger subset of the same dataset, the 5-year temperature trend ending Feb. 2015 is actually negative, cooling at -3.5°F/century rate for 12-month periods.
Now, the 3-month warming event and 5-year trends are absolutely worthless as predictive tools, but for comparison purposes they can be instructive. For example, the 5-year trend ending in February 1935 was an extreme +28.6°F/century versus that recent -3.5°F/century trend.
Those 5-year periods are the first instructive clue that the early 20th century climate change was extremely powerful, without any influence from large CO2 emissions. The significantly higher early climate warming rates versus modern warming are not only unexplained by experts, but also by the computer climate models that have become known for being utter flops.
This has resulted in a lot of embarrassing hand-waving distractions and "don't look behind that curtain" responses.
Expanding on the comparison of natural versus modern warming rates, the chart on the left plots various per-century trends for US temperatures ending February 1935 (red curve) versus those periods ending February 2016 (aqua curve).
Note that in all cases (5yr, 10yr, 15yr, 20yr, 25yr and 30yr) the warming trends of the early 20th century natural climate change ending on Feb. 1935 exceed (sometimes by a lot) the modern warming trends ending Feb. 2016.
How can this be one might ask?
Well, in a nutshell, the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis, which is at the center of modern climate-doomsday scenarios, cannot explain the powerful warming of the past. The AGW hypothesis essentially ignores the relevance, the strength and the significance of all natural climate change resulting from internal and external forces.
Thus, as previously mentioned, "experts" and computer simulated predictions have egregiously failed.
The AGW hypothesis is driven by the assumption that atmospheric CO2 levels produce the rapid accelerating warming trends that are so feared. However, if CO2 was the sole cause of global warming, then the chart on the right would be the supporting evidence, except it isn't.
The chart on the right plots changes in CO2 atmospheric levels for the the two comparison periods. Visually, the periods ending on Feb. 1935 and Feb. 2016, reveal the huge disconnect between the AGW hypothesis of CO2 climate warming and the actual evidence.
Over the last 30 years, the modern change in CO2 ppm levels is over 5 times greater than that experienced spanning the 30 years ending in Feb. 1935. Yet, as noted before, major period warming rates for the early 20th century easily exceed those of the modern CO2 "doomsday" era.
This past U.S. climate experience of extreme warming provides unequivocal evidence that natural climate change is variable and strong enough to easily explain the milder modern warming trends over the last 30 years.
In addition, this NOAA dataset also makes it perfectly clear that global climate change is not some simple linear function of human greenhouse gases, as proposed by low-information elites and media. On top of that, it is apparent that the greens' global warming is not really "global" for huge chunks of geography and populace at given times. (related: recent NOAA global dataset analysis)
As an aside, the press is constantly spreading the meme of the 'warmest', be it warmest day, month, quarter, year, decade and etc. Many times what they report is true in one sense but they forget to mention that it has been warming since the Little Ice Age. And today's reporters conveniently fail to mention that reporters of the 1930s' were saying the same for their period of extreme climate change.
Finally, NOAA reports that there exists a minor U.S. cooling trend of -0.7°F per century since 1999 - based on the past eighteen 12-month periods (18 non-calendar years) ending February.
Note: Source of U.S. NOAA temperature dataset (12-month periods ending February: choose 12-month time scale); modern CO2 dataset and pre-1958 CO2 dataset. Excel used to plot charts and to calculate temp trends and CO2 changes.
The short version: NOAA's latest empirical evidence reveals that last 25 year period of global warming is not exceptional, nor unprecedented. Unexpectedly, NOAA's own evidence debunks their own global warming propaganda that they claim is fact.
Yes, the warming isn't exceptional but the irony certainly is.
NOAA is well known to aggressively push the misleading myth of a dangerous modern warming rate from CO2, and that this rapid warming can only be man-made, not a result of natural forces.
Yet its own temperature dataset proves past natural global warming rates of earlier periods are similar and as powerful.
And of course, NOAA always conveniently forgets about the substantial warming and climate change periods of the historical and geological past, which far exceed what NOAA has reported over the last 25 years.
Moving on to the long version of this analysis.....
(click on any chart to enlarge)
The long version: Unprecedented modern warming? A simple factcheck of NOAA's temp information proves otherwise.
With a multitude of politicos, greens, activists, pundits, journalists, and wildly uninformed celebrities jointly wringing their hands over 2015 being the hottest ever, it's beyond empirical doubt that the rate of the last 25 years of warming is not unique.
Yes, in a nutshell, it's warmer today than 25 years ago, but that's to be expected due to the 150+ year natural rebound in temperatures since the extreme cold of the Little Ice Age.
Putting aside the overused "hottest" adjective, does NOAA's empirical measurement prove that modern warming is significantly different than past natural warming? Have the last 25 years warmed a quantifiably greater amount than prior periods?
To the charts of NOAA empirical evidence to compare two 25-year climate periods of global warming.
Chart #1: For ease of comparison, the earlier 20th century monthly anomaly sub-dataset was offset so as to start at exactly the same anomaly point as the modern sub-dataset. When that is done, it is easier to visually match the similarities/differences of the two warming periods.
Despite their obvious differences in anomaly variation, these two distinct periods reflect similar outcomes over their respective 25 years. Even though the earlier 20th century period (1919 to 1943) experienced little in the way of consumer/industrial CO2 emissions, its monthly warming anomaly increase is almost a perfect match to the last 25 years, ending 2015.
The chart's fitted trends (2nd order polynomial) reveal the earlier period with a closing warming rate that is accelerating away from the modern fitted trend.
Chart #2 plots the calculated linear trends for both 25-year periods. The difference in 'per century' trends is rather minuscule, especially when considering the massive greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere since 1950. Objectively, the small trend increase of +0.40 degrees per century over the last 25 years is well within known natural variation.
Clearly, any warming impact of CO2 emissions has barely surpassed the per century trend produced by natural climatic forces from 1919-1943. Based on this empirical evidence, a robust conclusion would be that the CO2-centric AGW hypothesis is exceptionally insignificant.
Chart #3 compares the 5-year average warming for each period, using the same starting anomaly point. From the start, the ‘Modern’ 5-yr average rises much faster; but in an exceptional (dare we say "unprecedented") spurt, the ‘Earlier’ period 5-yr average closes the gap to a mere +0.03 degree warming difference at the end of 25 years.
Based on that tiny difference, one can fairly surmise that the huge CO2 emissions production over the last 25 years has not distinguished itself as climatically significant versus natural variation.
And it is interesting (and somewhat unexpected) that both the ‘Earlier’ and ‘Modern' periods had extended pauses, which are noted on the chart #3.
Chart #4 depicts the cumulative temperature change for the full 25 years (300 months) ending in 1943 and 2015; plus, their respective changes in CO2 levels. Per NOAA’s own empirical dataset, the earlier 20th century warming cumulative amount was actually greater than the modern era period ending in December 2015 — and remember, the December 2015 temperatures anomaly just had an incredible surge due to the current El Niño peak.
In conclusion, as stated in the first paragraph, modern warming over the last 25 years is not exceptional, nor unprecedented in spite of the gigantic accumulation of atmospheric CO2 emissions during the fossil fuel era. Based on real world climate and the actual evidence, simulated predictions of future dangerous warming remain without any scientific substance.
Notes: The period of 1919-1943 was chosen for analysis and comparison due to its visual pattern similarities to the last 25 years ending December 2015. Source of NOAA global temperature dataset; modern and historical CO2 datasets. Excel was used to plot and calculate trends/averages for all charts. Chart#1 had 1919-1943 anomaly plot adjusted to start at same anomaly point as 1991-2015 period; chart#2 linear trends are based off plots of chart#1; chart#3 uses 5-year averages calculated from each period's anomaly dataset and then the 1919-1943 5yr average was adjusted (i.e. offset) to start at same anomaly point as 1991-2015 5yr average; chart#4 cumulative differences calculation: the December 31, 1943 anomaly minus the December 31, 1918 anomaly and the December 31, 2015 anomaly minus the December 31, 1990 anomaly (both calculations covering a full 300 months).
Empirical evidence is always a good disinfectant for doomsday fears and conspiracy theories. And it's no different for the exuberant, catastrophic hyperbole, irrational and anti-science prognostications being pronounced on a daily basis regarding global warming.
The below charts of empirical evidence are another 'bolus' of disinfectant for the climate change hyperbole - hyperbole that is pushing both climate science research and debate to the ludicrous, for example.
Chart #1 (click on any chart to enlarge)
Chart #2
Chart #3
Chart #4
Chart #5
Chart #6
Chart #1 is one that will never be shown by the establishment climate science community, nor by the climate-doomsday alarmists.
The chart plots the absolute global averages for both surfaces and atmospheric temperatures since the major 1998 El Niño peak. It is a peak-to-peak chart through December 2015 that reveals absolute global temperatures to be on a fairly stable path over the last 18 years.
Global temperatures move up and down in a narrow band, which is why the rolling 5-year averages are essentially flat. This stability has occurred in spite of the large increase in CO2 levels (see black dots on chart) during the same time frame.
Chart #2 is a plot of the same time period but using the familiar temperature anomalies instead of absolute temperatures.
Climate scientists and alarmists strongly favor anomalies for their lack of context. With anomalies, the public sees frightening large temperature spikes without realizing that real-world temperatures, while extremely variable, rarely remain outside a very narrow climate range - anomalies don't reveal the narrow range context that the absolutes show in Chart #1.
It's important to remember that in everyday life the public depends on the reporting of absolute temperatures. For example, the TV weather announcer would provide the following style of summation: "tomorrow will range from a cool of 45 degrees in the morning to a high of 73 degrees by late afternoon" - they don't state that tomorrow's temperatures will have an anomaly of +0.03 degree over the average baseline by late afternoon.
Simply stated, they use absolutes when reporting to the public, not meaningless anomalies. The absolute temperature degrees provide valuable context that allows the public, be they urban commuters, regional bureaucrats or rural farmers, to make informed and rational decisions.
With that said, it is certainly true that anomalies are invaluable for research, but for scientists to employ them for communications with the general public is in a reality a form of lying by context-omission.
By avoiding the use of absolute temperatures, the establishment can thus produce the desired agenda narrative, in a context vacuum, that our world is "rapidly warming" in order to persuade the public of favored energy/taxation policies.
But as this series of charts reveal, the context provided by the absolute temperatures is critically important to determining if the "rapidly warming" doomsday fears are rational and contextually evidence-based.
Charts #3 (absolutes) and #4 (anomalies) are plots of the same surface and atmospheric temperature datasets but for a different period: 1880 through 2015.
Charts #5 and #6 are more of the same, except the plots start at January 1979, the first full year of satellite temperature measurements and empirical 24/7 global measurement evidence - 37 years, as of the end of 2015.
With that long introduction out of the way, what do these 6 charts tell the policymakers, the taxpayers and the general public?
First, atmospheric CO2 levels have been climbing, relentlessly.
Second, the NOAA surface temperature dataset indicates that the globe has been steadily warming since 1880, but in a sporadic fashion.
The long-term warming trend since the Little Ice Age amounts to +0.7C degrees/century, per NOAA. The shorter term surface warming since 1998 has been at a rate of +1.4C/century; and the atmosphere has actually cooled at a -0.1C/century rate since 1998.
Third, climate change and its variation, as represented by global temperatures in Chart #4, is evident since the first decade of observations. Climate change 'has', and 'is', and 'will' happen - it is a natural phenomenon that happens.
Fourth, although the satellite evidence clearly indicates that the atmosphere has warmed since 1979, that warming has stalled since the 1998 peak - Chart #2's 5-year average for the RSS dataset vividly shows the 'Pause/Hiatus/Stall', equal to a cooling rate of -0.1/century.
Both the surface and atmospheric actual temperature changes are significantly below the estimates predicted due to the large CO2 increases.
And this fourth observation is especially critical.
The anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hypothesis states the greenhouse emissions will warm the lower atmosphere, which will then result in a subsequent warming of Earth's surface. Yet, since 1998 the surface has warmed (more on that surface "warming" here and here) while the atmosphere had not warmed at all through 2015 - this is a major AGW hypothesis disconnect.
In addition, the AGW hypothesis assumes that increasing greenhouse gases will cause the triggering of major positive feedbacks that in turn will cause dangerous, accelerated warming in the atmosphere and then the surface. In reality, the "dangerous, accelerated warming" has not taken place, anywhere.
Ergo, CO2 emissions are not resulting in the "consensus" predicted positive feedbacks.
Since there is no evidence of the doomsday positive feedback, which the climate experts and their computer models assume, the predictions of doomsday climate catastrophes actually remain without a sliver of requisite empirical evidence or scientific proof.
Notes: Datasets used: NOAA; RSS; CO2-modern; CO2-proxy. Excel was used to plot charts from the government's own climate data.
Even with the strong surge in global temperatures from the current El Niño and from the surge of 2015 global warming exaggeration and fabrication (here, here and here), there remains the strange case of establishment climate science models failing to meet expected outcomes.
Case in point. This chart replicates the famous climate model output presented to Congress and the world in 1988 by James Hansen, the then chief climatologist of the NASA/GISS climate research unit. (Here is an image of the original chart.)
The climate model predicted annual temperature changes would follow the bright green curve if greenhouse gases (GHGs) were not curtailed. GHGs include: CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluoride - the latter 3 are known as fluorinated greenhouse gases.
The orange curve represents the predicted annual temperature changes if the GHG growth rate were reduced over time.
The chart's cyan (aqua) curve datapoints are the predicted annual temperature changes if GHGs were curtailed by governmental polices and regulations so that year 2000 and beyond had a net growth rate equal to zero.
From the Hansen 1998 testimony, there is this statement:
"We have considered cases ranging from business as usual [BAU], which is scenario A, to draconian emission cuts, scenario C, which would totally eliminate net trace gas growth by year 2000."
From the 1988 Hansen peer-reviewed article that supports his testimony, there is this statement:
"We define three trace gas scenarios to provide an indication of how the predicted climate trend depends upon trace gas growth rates. Scenario 'A' [chart's green curve] assumes that growth rates of trace gas emissions typical of the 1970s and 1980s will continue indefinitely; the assumed annual growth averages about 1.5% of current emissions, so the net greenhouse forcing increases exponentially. Scenario 'B' [chart's orange curve] has decreasing trace gas growth rates, such that the annual increase of the greenhouse climate forcing remains approximately constant at the present level. Scenario 'C' [chart's cyan curve] drastically reduces trace gas growth between 1990 and 2000 such that the greenhouse climate forcing ceases to increase after 2000."
So.....since NASA's top climate expert's testimony, what has happened with the GHG growth and growth rates?
From a recent U.S. EPA report on non-CO2 greenhouse gases, there is the following:
"Global non-CO2 emissions are projected to increase significantly between 2005 and 2030 unless further actions are taken to reduce emissions...total emissions of non-CO2 greenhouse gases have nonetheless increased."
From the latest IPCC AR5 climate report, we know the following about GHGs (a synopsis here):
"Total anthropogenic GHG emissions have continued to increase over 1970 to 2010 with larger absolute decadal increases toward the end of this period. Despite a growing number of climate change mitigation policies, annual GHG emissions grew on average by 1.0 gigatonne carbon dioxide equivalent (GtCO2eq) (2.2 %) per year from 2000 to 2010 compared to 0.4 GtCO2eq (1.3 %) per year from 1970 to 2000. Total anthropogenic GHG emissions were the highest in human history from 2000 to 2010 and reached 49 (±4.5) GtCO2eq/yr in 2010.".....
In addition, the combination of CO2 fossil fuels emissions and CO2 emissions from deforestation, forest fires and peat burning have grown from 72% of all GHG emissions in 1970 to 76% of all GHG emissions.
Regarding fossil fuel CO2 emissions, specifically (CO2 data here): NASA and Hansen's 'BAU' Scenario A was proposed at a time when CO2 emissions were growing: since 1972, the 15 years ending 1987 the world emitted 285 billion tonnes of CO2. This represents a CO2 average growth rate of 2.2% per year for those 15 years prior to Hansen's 1988 testimony.
In contrast, for the 15 years ending 2014, the world has emitted a total of 467 billion tonnes - that is growth some 1.6 times greater than Hansen's 'BAU'. This represents a CO2 average growth rate of 2.9% per year for the period since 1999.
Without any doubt, both empirically and objectively, NASA's Hansen's projected GHG emissions for 'Scenario A' has easily been exceeded since his testimony in 1988. To state otherwise is a falsehood, categorically.
Now, back to the above chart.
For the year 2015, NASA's model predictions had temperature change for all 3 scenarios declining. Of course, we now know the exact opposite took place with the sharp increase in 2015 global temps.
It is important to note that since the 1988 testimony, the NASA climate predictions have very rarely been correct regarding annual temperature changes. (NASA is not an exception, though - all climate computer models and experts suffer the same level of failure.)
For what it's worth, the chart also shows the 2016 predictions: there is continuing decline for Scenarios B & C, but a sharp spike up for Scenario A to a record calendar year anomaly level.
While global warming alarmists are celebrating 2015 as the "warmest" year ever, the climate model failures clearly point to the absurdity of focusing on peak or trough moments as indicators of informed expertise. Peaks happen and troughs happen, in weather and climate, but pointing to either as scientific proof of computer simulations is not science.
Taking that to heart, the accompanying chart has 3-year average plots of highly adjusted observed temperatures from the NASA and UK climate agencies - the 3-year averages remove the focus from peaks/troughs.
As can be seen, 3-year averages of the GISS and HC4 datasets depict the last 3-year average increase due to the El Niño conditions, and those questionable man-made factors.
Be that as it may, the GISS and HC4 averages still remain closer to the realm of NASA's Scenario C range. As a reminder, the Scenario C predictions are a result of net zero GHG emissions simulated to have started in year 2000, which is yet another galaxy away from reality.
In conclusion, some relevant takeaways on climate models:
1. At this point, now close to 3 decades after NASA's testimony, one can safely surmise that expert climate models can't predict squat. The climate is a chaotic complex that defies even the most sophisticated and powerful forecasting tools.
2. GHG emissions have far surpassed the 1988 "world-will-soon-end" BAU construct - a construct that many alarmists still believe. Yet the predicted positive feedback from BAU has not occurred and thus runaway global warming is, without question, AWOL.
3. The climate models are still absolutely unable to discern either the amount or rate of global warming/cooling that is due to natural forces. The models were designed to purposefully rely on greenhouse gas forcings as their major causal factor, while diminishing natural climate impacts. It's no wonder that climate models remain on a fail path.
4. Based on the model outputs from 1960 to the present, policymakers and the public would be better served by rejecting the alarmist scenarios A and B; instead, moving forward, base all adaption and mitigation policies on Scenario 'C', which would likely produce better outcomes with superior allocation of scarce resources.
The climate models definitely have their important place in the climate researcher's toolbox. They are best suited to advance science's better understanding of our world, but their climate predictions, forecasts and prognostications should never be relied on - they are unreliable and inaccurate.
Update h/t: Video of climate scientist making the same point about climate model failure before a congressional committee on Feb 2, 2016:
Notes: NASA/GISS 2015 temperature dataset and HC4 2015 dataset. Excel was use to calculate chart's 3-month averages from their respective monthly datasets.
