Researchers at the Hadley Centre in Britain have produced the world’s first short range climate forecast, covering the next ten years. And there are no surprises, it’s going to get warmer. From New Scientist:
Although average global temperatures have been relatively flat in recent years, the model says they will start rising again next year. At least half of the years between 2009 and 2015 will exceed the current warmest year on record. By 2015, global temperatures will be 0.5 °C above the average value for the last 30 years.
[More from the BBC, Guardian, Telegraph, Nature]
The forecasts, prepared by Doug Smith and colleagues using the Decadal Climate Prediction System (DePreSys), are reported in a new paper in Science. DePreSys fills the gap between weather forecasts, which are good for about two weeks at best, and climate modelling, which aims to predict climate many decades in the future. The near term predictions are only possible because scientists are collecting much better information about ocean heat content and how it moves around the globe. Smith and his team have created a global ocean database that can be used to initialise, or start up the model, allowing it to track likely near term global changes.
This is an exciting development, because good near term predictions will be immensely valuable in helping the world to plan adaptive strategies for the warming that’s clearly on its way. Decadal climate forecasting and improvements in regional climate projections are going to be the focus of a lot of research in coming years. Watch this space.
Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Washington reckon they’ve found a clear statistical link between variations in the sun’s energy output over the 11-year solar cycle and changes in global average temperature [New Scientist: subscribers only].
Ka-Kit Tung and colleague Charles Camp, both of the University of Washington in Seattle, analysed satellite data on solar radiation and surface temperatures over the past 50 years, covering four-and-a-half solar cycles. They found that global average temperatures oscillated by almost 0.2 °C between high and low points in the cycle, nearly twice the amplitude of previous estimates [GRL].
We’re currently close to a solar minimum, so that would imply an “extra
Whatever. More guess work at hand just like in the 70’s with “It’s going to get much colder”. Geez some people really do have blind faith.
Dailytech.com
As opposed to wearing blinkers, bat?
Realclimate address that issue here:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that/
Errors do creep in, that’s the reality of dealing with complex issues, in this case it should be noted that the 1934 vs 1998 comparison being made is for US data, and the impact on global warming data overall is negligable.
Gareth, yeah your right about the blinkers so why not do yourself a favour and remove them. Oh that’s right, you can’t change your mind now cause then you’d have to write another book contradicting you first one.
Andrew W, what’s with you and realclimate ? Is this your online Global Warming bible ? Don’t those guys just defend Manns’ hockey stick all the time ? I posted the link mainly to point out how ‘unscientific’ the science really is. How many other mistakes are in the data, models etc ? Remember, junk in = junk out.
Cheers
batnv said:
As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said (and I’ve mentioned to you before): “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Global warming is a problem we need to address: that’s a fact, not an opinion. What we do about it: that’s arguable.
So, bat, do you want to argue about what we should do, or are you just going to snipe irrelevantly from the sidelines?
Realclimate is certainly the first on line reference I use batnv, if you want more opinions on the data error you can check out the blogroll above. If your goal was to “point out how ‘unscientific’ the science really is” you failed completely, errors happen in science, infact the most important part of science is testing and retesting what we think we know to make sure it’s accurate, Steve McIntyre deserves credit for recognising the error and questioning it, if he finds lots of other errors, and those errors add up to zero AGW he will deserve a Nobel prize. Don’t hold your breath though, McIntyre and other sceptics have been questioning everything about AGW for years, and 19 times out of 20 when they think they’ve found an error, the error has been their own, and as with both this and the corrected data on the paleoclimatology graph you referred to, the corrections to date have not had any significant impact on the measurements of the overall climate trend. In fact the sceptics have steadily been losing ground, first they denied that there was global warming of any type, then they attributed all of it to natural causes, now they accept that there is at least a small anthropogenic contribution, soon they will accept that the major contributor is Human activity but will continue to deny that climate change is of any importance, after that they will say that they always said AGW wasn’t taken seriously enough.
Their positions (and they have many different, often mutually exclusive positions) are continually changing though it seems to be a lot like pulling teeth.
Best wishes.
Gareth, nobody said you can’t have your own opinion. However when you read your ’13 facts’ page I wonder if this site and the info on it are more about promoting and keeping in line with your book. They are NOT facts. They are assumptions based on your own beliefs.
“truth or reality, as distinguishable from ‘conclusions or opinions'”
One fact I will agree on is that the climate is changing worldwide. Is it all warming, no. Is it due to human activity, I doubt it. Don’t go playing the my scientist is bigger than your scientist game. For every article you post here, I could probably post a link debunking it. So I guess it depends on which side of the fence you are on. Each side probably has their own flaws however you my friend seem unwilling to even contemplate any view that doesn’t fit your trained thought. Cognative dissonance perhaps ?
As for what we should do, well certainly not pay a global carbon tax as whether or not AGW is real this will do absolutely nothing to change it.
Andrew W, sorry but to me that fact that Mann is involved with Realclimate they are likely to be unbiased.
“If your goal was to “point out how ‘unscientific’ the science really is
“… to me that fact that Mann is involved with Realclimate they are likely to be unbiased.”
It’s part of human nature for people to have biases, again your comments simply illustrate your poor understanding of what science is, it is a process of testing and measuring the characteristics of world around us over and again, overwelmingly it is this process that determines the conclusions rather than the human prejudices and opinions of the scientists.
“Their positions (and they have many different, often mutually exclusive positions) are continually changing
Andrew H, “…..It’s part of human nature for people to have biases”
Agreed, however there is no room for bias in science. It’s science, let the figures speak for themselves. As for Realclimate isn’t a lot of ‘their science’ based around Manns’ hockey stick which McIntyre disproved back in 2003 ?
“….your comments simply illustrate your poor understanding of what science is”
Wrong. I understand science well which is why I can see right through the IPCC. Politics and propaganda is not science. Mixing a small amount of truth into the message does not make the rest of the info sound. Using your words ……….your comments simply illustrate your poor understanding of how world politics and adgenda’s work.
“….it is a process of testing and measuring the characteristics of world around us over and again, overwelmingly it is this process that determines the conclusions rather than the human prejudices and opinions of the scientists.”
Yes this is how it should be in a perfect world. However we don’t live in a perfect world rather one fulled will deceit on many levels.
“….Nonsense, the only firm views these people have of AGW are those supported by the science”
Again, whos science ? Why is theirs the correct science ? Like I’ve said to Gareth it depends on who you choose to believe. Remember Andrew, there is actually an opposing view in the scientific field.
“….we don’t attach our egos to them. In comparison the sceptics and cranks are adement that their scientifically unsupported opinions are right and the scientifically supported IPCC conclusions wrong.”
That is a very bold statement to make and I would challenge you to back it up with solid proof. It also reeks of bias on your part IMHO.
Cheers
Batnv from your content free comment I can only assume that you are making it up as you go along.
First Realclimate comprises a group of climate scientists working in a number of relevant fields. Mike Mann is just one of these and is one of the least active on the blog. The site is a useful resource because they explain things clearly and as simply as the science will allow. In some cases some of them (MM for one) have demonstrated exasperation when they have to explain basic scientific principles over and over to people who either are too lazy, too stupid, or too ideologically blinkered to understand.
If you have evidence of scientific bias you should present to his oversight committee at his university or the NAS. Otherwise it is just scurrilous muck raking and tells me more about your character than Dr Mann’s.
Despite your assertion climate science is not mainly based on proxy reconstructions (the so called Hockey Stick) in also includes basic physics (conservation of energy), atmospheric chemistry, paleogeology, ecology, statistics, computer modelling, and direct measurement of the biosphere (air and sea temperatures, changes on the cryosphere etc.).
In any case the review of proxy reconstruction by the NAS validated the usefulness of methodology (subject to current technical limitations that should and are being addressed as the field of study develops)
The IPCC provides for the review of the current status of climate science. It comprises authors and expert reviewers (some not so expert but that is the down side of it being a very open process).
If there is any politics it has occurred during the drafting of the Summary for Policymakers reports by the Government’s of China, Saudi Arabia and the US and resulted in the downplaying of some of the emerging the risks arising from climate change. I suggest that you read the full reports. Just to make it easy for you here are the URL addresses
WG1 (Physical basis for climate change) http://ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/wg1/wg1-report.html
WG2 (Impacts, adaptation and vulnerability) http://www.ipcc-wg2.org/
WG3 (Mitigation of Climate Change) (Pre copy edit version) http://www.mnp.nl/ipcc/pages_media/AR4-chapters.html
You state
“Why is theirs the correct science ?”
Their scientific conclusions are almost certainly going to be the closest that we have as a model to reality because their conclusions are the ones that have been the most thoroughly tested, what model/s (I’m not refering specifically to GCM’s here but am talking in general terms) of how the climate works have the cranks/denialists/sceptics advanced as an alternative?
Nothing worth a damn, and what they have isn’t worth a damn because their alternatives (GCR theories, Ice cores aren’t reliable theories, heat island distortion theories, blah, blah, blah) fail testing, or aren’t coherent enough to even be tested!