The New York Times put the news of 2014 being the warmest year on their front page, in the precious space known as “Above The Fold.” But, the venerable paper of record continues to give credence to science denialists by calling them “skeptics,” and continues to imply that there really is a debate between consensus based science and politically motivated denial of science. To underscore this point I created the above graphic.
I would also like to congratulate the Washington Post for putting this piece by Joby Warrick and Chris Mooney on the front of section A1.
And, TIME has also placed the latest AGW news in a prominent place, and explicitly puts deniers in their place: A Bad Day for Climate Change Deniers … And the Planet. (Hat tip: Paul Douglas)
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
Calling anti-skeptics “skeptics” is an insult to skeptics such as as myself. New twitter hash tag: #BEHEADTHOSEWHOINSULTSKEPTICS
Your use of the offensive denier term helps poison the debate, Greg. Is that your intention?
Please read this: http://www.thespec.com/opinion-story/5257712-errors-in-thinking-are-sabotaging-climate-change-discussion/ . A similar piece was published in over a dozen papers over the past month, so editors are obviously fed up with the destructive language too, Greg. Please stop it.
Tom Harris, B. Eng., M. Eng. (Mech.)
Executive Director,
International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)
http://www.climatescienceinternational.org
Your use of the offensive denier term helps poison the debate
Fact #1: there is no debate: the issue was settled decades ago.
Fact #2: the word “denier” fits perfectly, and is the correct word.
If you dislike the word “denier,” feel free to come up with a better word or phrase. (Good luck with that.)
Denier must strike close to home eh Tom? Your organization still taking money from the Koch brothers? Tell us, does your organization pay better than what you got by being an energy shill?
According to the ICSC website,
“Since its formation in 2007, ICSC has been funded and supported exclusively by private individuals… We have never received financial support from corporations, foundations or government.”[2]
Yet ICSC received $45,000 from the Heartland Institute in 2007, according to Heartland’s Form 990 for that year.[3].
ICSC unwilling to resolve discrepancy
Requests that ICSC resolve this apparent discrepancy between IRS records and the ICSC assertions have been rebuffed.[4]
Perhaps my favorite denier assertion of year 2014 was from a denier at the denier conference in Las Vegas Nevada put on by the denier organization “Nonintergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” (the denialist Heartland Institude Church) when the denier denied in front of over a dozen deniers (and several people pretending to be deniers) that he has never been paid by the petroleum industry— after being paid by the ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute to deny it. Who was that? Fred Singer, again? The same denier who was paid by the tobacco industry? Deniers are all the same, so it is hard to remember one denier from other deniers.
The faux outrage over the term “denier” is what is called denial of denial.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial#Denial_of_denial
It’s a reflex to reject the idea that one is in denial.
The faux outrage over the term “denier” is what is called denial of denial.
If deniers dislike the word, they are free to come up with a better one. “Liar” is still available.
Tom Harris: “And calling someone an eco-nut or a denier is an ad hominem logical fallacy, against the man, instead of the idea, a tactic that has no place in rational discourse.”
Illogical: Science denialism is a real problem and science denialist are real people who need to be taken to task for their destructive promotion of anti-scienctific propaganda. Do you not understand that heavily criticising science deniers is NOT an ad hominem logical fallacy?
@#2 I followed your link. You start off with what sounds like a balanced view. But then quickly devolve into a climate denier/anti science agenda. You set up any researcher for failure by saying only Math can tell you a “truth”. Who said anything about a “truth”. So everyone but Mathematicians are lairs? Really Mr. Harris. How does it feel when your head is in the logic vise?
Unfortunately I suspect you and your ilk will be censored in the future. Not by any governing body or organization but by unfolding events. The changes this Earth goes through and the misery it brings will make your words shallow and worthless to anyone who can read. Everyone will be severely and directly affected by climate changes and you will be without allies.
What they’ll said, Tom. Well said, all.
If you dislike the word “denier,” feel free to come up with a better word or phrase.
= CRICKETS =
So now it’s OK to BEHEAD those that disagree with you. What’s the difference between Scienceblogs and ISIS? You guys create more problems for scientists that any “denier”. Disgusting lot.
So now it’s OK to BEHEAD those that disagree with you.
Why, yes. Yes, it is okay to behead people. You have my permission.
Happy now?
I just now looked up “International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC).” That’s the church Tim Ball preaches at, it looks like. An association of mechanical engineers and “free market” fundamentalists.
The church is still attacking Al Gore on its front page, for the love of gods! How funny is that?! As if President Elect Gore is the only sane, intelligent, education person on the planet that just happened to mention humans have caused and are causing climate change— and attacking him means the missing ice will come back.
I read Reverend Ball’s book, wherein he claimed the tort litigation against him ended in his favor. I immediately put down my Kindle reader and looked up the facts. He was still being sued, and he was still trying everything to delay the judicial verdict including, if I read correctly, evading the discovery phase. If Reverend Ball thought the case against him is not valid, wouldn’t he want to have the judge issue a judgement? And why lie about the law suit not existing? Why claim Dr. Mann “faces bankruptcy?”
Maybe Tom Harris here can explain why the book with Reverend Ball’s name as the author made such false claims— and yet his web site claims they are “interested in scientific integrity.”
LOL, Desertphile is the perfect example of why everyone is laughing at you “climate hawks”.
Desertphile is the perfect example of why everyone is laughing at you “climate hawks”.
Thank you. You can enjoy me on The Discovery Channel’s new reality TV show in the fall.
Yup – I know when I want information on physics and statistical issues I run to mechanical engineers.
That dogma tank also has a habit of denying they accept money from places like the Heartland Institute – but their IRS disclosures show the opposite – as I mentioned earlier. Real center of integrity the ICSC (/snark)
Das
The only people laughing at what you call climate hawks are those either too stupid, or too venal, to understand the reality of man made global warming, deniers. Far be it from me to say which of those two categories you fit.
Well golly, I sure hope people are laughing at me. I work very hard to be funny.
@1. Desertphile :
How ’bout this alternative suggestion?
Nobody* gets beheaded but the Deniers get ignored and laughed at and taken as little seriously and with as little respect as we take those who still say the Earth is flat?
Seriously, jokes aside, I don’t think beheading is side-splittingly hilarious whoever it happens too and whilst I agree the Deniers are utterly evil – no. They deserve to be mocked, ignored, treated with contempt and I hope they wake up, accept reality as the science tells us and move past the stage of denial into the other stages of grief.
But chopping heads off? That jus ain’t right.
* Okay , yeah this is this one (or five) odd folks who maybe kinda do deserve beheading .. or so I’m almost tempted to say.
But chopping heads off? That jus ain’t right.
Indeed. My polite, perfectly reasonable suggestion was that people who insult skeptics should have their heads whacked off because #1 I am some times paid to be funny and #2 I’m weary of people using the word “skeptic” incorrectly, and death is the best solution to make them stop. A joke, you see….
Humans being such flawed beasts, they often have no idea what a skeptic is. Perhaps that is a product of far too many people not being skeptical. It’s freaky to see people call anti-skeptics “skeptics.” It’s like calling bigots and greedy venal bastards “liberal.”
I recall Nero Wolfe burning a dictionary, calling is “subversive,” because some of the proposed word usages were demonstrably wrong. I like his solution, but humans are much harder to light on fire.
Or funny.
@15. Das :
Everyone? Yeah? Prove it. I’m not. Doubt many are actually.
Climate hawks? Huh?
Would that include 98 out of 100 experts in the field of climatology? Y’know people who do know what they are talking about then? Just who do you mean to cover by that remark please?
@13. Desertphile – pretty clearly saying sarcastically but :
Xie doesn’t have mine. No beheading okay. That stuff ain’t cool nor helpful.
@2. Tom Harris : What everyone else has said. Don’t want to be called a Denier – then don’t deny reality.
@12. Das :
(Numbers added for ease of reference. – Ed. Moi. )
1) No, it isn’t. Not by me or most everyone I know.
2) Holy hyperbole Batman! Really? Okay, one really big difference amongst about a bazillion and one others (which ain’t hyperbole but rather understatement instead) – Daesh (IS-IL/S) aim to murder people and Scienceblog’s bloggers and commenters do not. D’uh!
3) In your erroneous opinion which you are entitled to hold but are also still very wrong to do so. We’re disgusting? Because? We disagree with you and say so in a number of ways. We support the scientists – in this case specifically the climatologists – and are willing to listen to them and appreciate what they say. OTOH, the Deniers are not and a fair percentage of the Deniers have been accusing the climate experts and scientists of all sorts of absurd and offensive things and are even sending them death threats quite regularly. Those latter courses of action are what I, for one, find disgusting, dude.
“Your use of the offensive denier term…”
Evidently it’s escaped everyone’s attention that Greg didn’t use the term denier. The term he used was denialist. Though my reasoning isn’t the same as Tom Harris’, I agree with him that the term denier is inappropriate.
What does it mean to call someone a climate denier? Does it mean that they deny the existence of climate? Does it mean that they deny the reality of climate change? The answer to the first question is a clear no. A fairly standard response to the second question, “The climate is always changing,” indicates that the term denier has limited descriptive value and is too easy to refute.
Denialist and denialism make much more sense. They infer an ideologically based opposition to recognizing the severity of climate change, and taking action to limit it. The ideology also involves attempts to minimize human responsibility combined with fealty to the fossil fuel industries. Perhaps Tom Harris would prefer to be called a fossil fuel industry whore?
Closely related to denialist and denialism are contrarian and contrarianism. My own preferred term is (climate) septic, which was an attempt at meeting more than halfway a denialist who had complained that he should be called a skeptic.
I agree with him that the term denier is inappropriate.
Alas, I do not see how “denier” does not fit people denying the evidence for human-caused climate change. Neither do the psychiatrists, psychologists, and sociologists who have studied the people who deny the evidence for human-caused climate change.
My own preferred term is (climate) septic….
Yes, and that is wrong. Skeptics accept evidence: deniers deny evidence. Regarding the evidence for human-caused climate change, the skeptics were all convinced decades ago: only deniers are left.
Yup – I know when I want information on physics and statistical issues I run to mechanical engineers.
Much like how Big Name Creationists are often engineers: they are qualified to “educate” people about how evolution did not and is not happening, and how evolutionary theory is wrong, because they learned where to place the decimal point when using a slide rule.
There is one physicist that I am aware of that denies the fact that humans have caused and are causing climate change: he lives in Russia, if I recall correctly. He looked at what the sun is currently doing (cooling), and concluded Earth is “going into a new ice age:” he ignored the fact that Earth has an atmosphere. It is a fine example of a perfectly reasonable conclusion that is wrong.
Desertphile –
This is what I wrote:
“My own preferred term is (climate) septic, which was an attempt at meeting more than halfway a denialist who had complained that he should be called a skeptic.”
Can you see the difference between septic and skeptic? Do you understand the difference? Do you bother to understand what you read, or do you prefer to jump to conclusions?
Do you bother to understand what you read, or do you prefer to jump to conclusions?
I prefer the latter: I’m American.
<
To me your objection is based on the notion that these terms are used in isolation, out of any context. In fact they are part of a broader, well-established discussion, and “climate denier” is understood to mean “a person who denies the scientific consensus on climate change”.
I would say it goes a little further than “climate s(k)eptic” as bandied back and forth above: “climate septic” gives me the message that the person is merely part of a group, while “denier” implies an active participation.
…. while “denier” implies an active participation.
According to the literature on the subject (such as Sally Weintrobe, et al) there are two major versions of denialism regarding the evidence for human-caused climate change.
One version, what we see in the USA Congress and the “free market” fundamentalism cults (I know of no better word to use) such as the Heartland Institute, is the public denial of that which they know is true— for venal and therefore political reasons. This is also known as “disavowal:” about 70% of the USA Republican Party members in the Senate disavow the evidence for human-caused climate change even though they are not in fact as ignorant and stupid as they claim to be.
The other version is the “true denier:” one who denies what she or he knows to be true, and therefore holds both mutually self-contradictory beliefs to be correct. This is a trait common among humans: they believe as true that which they know to be false— and the trait has been observed and written about for at least 2,300 years. I offer Senator James M. Inhofe as an example of this: his chief (and it appears his only) constituent is the petroleum industry, according to the public records that show who has bribed him with the most money), so one can think with reason that he is merely a greedy anti-social bastard who does not care about human life and heath— but some of his behavior, including expending his own money on various properties and projects, suggest he really does believe the claims he has made that he also knows to be false. The trait is so common among humanity that it isn’t even considered a mental health care issue.
“active participation”
Dean, would that be as opposed to an “inactive participation? D’oh.
That’s what I get for typing while watching a bad movie on SyFy.
Desertphile –
A mea culpa:
I’ve noticed that the post uses both denialist and denier, so I too should have been more careful. I appreciate your self-deprecating humor.
dean –
Here are some definitions of septic:
adjective, Pathology
1. pertaining to or of the nature of sepsis; infected.
2. putrefactive.
septic sep·tic (s?p’t?k)
adj.
1. Of, relating to, having the nature of, or affected by sepsis.
2. Causing or producing sepsis; putrefactive.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/septic
The difference between septic and skeptic is not a matter of subtle nuance, and climate septic does not in any way deal with individual versus group. It suggests that “climate skepticism” is pathological and miasmatically poisonous.
I accept that the term climate denier functions within a context, but I also find that it’s easy to object to in the ways I’ve mentioned. I prefer denialist because we’re not primarily talking about isolated individuals, but about more or less organized adherents of an ism. The arguments are provided by right wing media and conservative think tanks. And the ism isn’t motivated by the rejection of climate science, but by support for the fossil fuel based status quo and opposition to threats against it.
Re. #23
To finish my little cleaning job:
“I agree with him that the term denier is inappropriate.”
No. Inappropriate was a very bad choice. Not as exact or precise as it could be would have been better, so the stated agreement with Harris doesn’t apply here.
Just for the record I’m not interested in giving much thought to the use of terms like denier, denialist, etc. beyond what I’ve already spent on it (which is not a small amount). The words are all appropriate for those who chose a conservative anti-environmental agenda over the science, at any level.
Greg, why don’t you link to the ‘supplemental/page 1’ of the (NOAA) Global Analysis – Annual 2014 – Calculating the Probability of Rankings for 2014?
Is it because it states quite clearly that 2014 was only 0.04°C higher than 2005 & 2010 with a ±0.09°C level of uncertainty or “margin of error”?
Or, is it because it states quite clearly that because of this known uncertainty, NOAA are only 48% confident (“more unlikely than likely”) that 2014 is/was the hottest year on record?
I do believe that Gavin Schmidt from NASA (GISS) is only 38% confident that 2014 is/was the hottest year on record also.
To their credit, BEST thinks it’s too close to call as it’s impossible to conclude from their analysis which of 2014, 2010, or 2005 was actually the warmest year.
They also state “that the Earth’s average temperature for the last decade has changed very little”.
As a journalist, I’m sure that you would only like to report the truth and you wouldn’t like to misinform your readers, wouldn’t you Greg… 😉
BruceC… It’s pretty amazing that you folks are arguing this point.
Even if the figure had come in just below the previous record it would still be highly significant since this has occurred without the assistance of a strong El Nino.
Think about it for just a second. We’ve had all sorts of negative (cooling) factors in play over the past 15 years and still the global surface temperature has refused to fall. No one is talking about statistically significant cooling trends, have they?
What’s going to happen when all those cooling influences turn positive (toward warming)?
Think about it for just a second. We’ve had all sorts of negative (cooling) factors in play over the past 15 years and still the global surface temperature has refused to fall.
The ININO5 value for year 2014 was +0.24 and yet it was still the record high year global average temperature: that has not happened in the entire Kaplan reconstruction (started year 1856). It means ENSO was neutral (lower than +0.5 or greater than -0.5) on the yearly average, and yet the derived surface temperature average still set a record high—- and “BruceC” here is complaining about the new record falling within a wide margin of error, therefore it was not *REALLY* a new record high.
When deniers engage in this behavior, why do they get upset when they are called deniers? By the gods, it’s a perfect example of denialism.
(sigh)
You just not understanding the significance of this. This doesn’t suggest that there’s something wrong with AGW theory. It’s merely an interesting aspect of global warming relative to surface temperatures and little to no implication for long term temperature rise due man-made carbon emissions.
Rob, I’m not interested in your babysitting RC and/or SkS spin-talk, my questions are simple.
Why didn’t Greg or the MSM link to NOAA’s page regarding the uncertainties involved in the so-called ‘2014 Hottest Year Ever’ claim?
@24. Desertphile :
Okay. I kinda figured it wasn’t a serious suggestion but I gotta say I’d didn’t find it terribly funny as jests go. I don’t think its helpful indeed quite the opposite. I’m sure you can find funnier ways of putting things so please I hope you do so in future.
The Bad Astronomer, Phil Plait, has this good blog post :
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/09/im-skeptical-of-denialism/#.VLyi9dKUf3M
on the difference between skeptics and deniers. I also agree with Greg Laden here :
By now with all the overwhelming weight of evidence and science and understanding that we’ve developed since the days of Svante Arrhenius denying the reality of Human-Induced Rapid Global Overheating (HIRGO) is pretty much equal to denying evolution, gravity and saying the Earth is flat and has our daytime star going around it.
O…M…G. Now I’ve heard everything…HIRGO. Just as well I just finished my mouthful of beer. Astrostevo, can you help me in citing the peer-reviewed study in which this came from? Is it included in Cook et al’s 41 (out of 11,450) papers that endorse AGW >50%? I can’t seem to find it anywhere??
HIRGO – Human-Induced Rapid Global Overheating. THIS is defiantly a keeper.
Sorry, of course that should be definitely instead of defiantly. Had too many tears in my eyes from laughter.
Tell me Astrostevo, would this HIRGO be the 0.836°C/Century from Jan 1901 to Dec 2014, or the 0.374°C/Century from Jan 2001 to Dec 2014 as per GISS?
https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/556142616862289920
Tom Harris: ” A similar piece was published in over a dozen papers over the past month”
And why would that be? It’s not because you submitted it to TWO dozen papers, is it? It really looks like your value to Heartland is based purely on the NUMBER of articles appearing in local papers. Which is weird – I would have thought a competent propagandist would want to count hearts and minds, not tendentious newspaper articles.
By the way, I also notice that your article has been removed from several papers. It appears that many small papers will print anything, until they find out what you’re selling.
http://grist.org/climate-energy/climate-hawks-are-not-impressed-by-obamas-methane-plan/#comment-1798052812
Once again Greg refuses to answer any questions.
And Desertpile, where is this ININO5 region? AFAIK there are only 3 ENSO regions: NINO3, NINO3.4 and NINO4.
But what would I know, you guys are the experts.
ENSO for the past 2 months and current.
November
NINO3 +0.8
NINO3.4 + 0.8
NINO4 +1.0
December
NINO3 +0.9
NINO3.4 + 0.9
NINO4 +1.0
Currently
NINO3 +0.5
NINO3.4 + 0.5
NINO4 +0.8
We are currently still in an El Niño-like condition. You do know what the ENSO thresholds are don’t you?
EDIT. Dec & Nov figures should be swapped. Sorry, my mistake.
BruceC, what question?
ININO5 is NINO3.4
No one has declared an El Nino for those time periods, though there are some El Nino-like conditions. It is, however, not coming together. If the major meteorological agencies are not declaring an El Nino, you can’t really overrule them in a blog post comment.
However, yes, there is heat coming out of the Pacific, having been storing up there for a while, and we can expect more of that. This is as predicted. Most of the storing up and releasing of heat over time actually happens vis-a-vis the global ocean, with a lot of that happening on the tropical Pacific. I’m not sure how the fact that this is happening is especially relevant to the issue. It isn’t like the Pacific is some magical non-global-warming entity. The effects we are seeing there are the effects of global warming.
Most of the storing up and releasing of heat over time actually happens vis-a-vis the global ocean, with a lot of that happening on the tropical Pacific.
Who was the USA Senator who insisted Earth was not warming due to human-released greenhouse gases, but was warming because “the oceans are getting warmer?” When I read that, I literally had hot cocoa spew from my nostrils from laughing so hard.
Over a very brief time period (159 years), ENSO variation has summed to zero (R^2 = 0.0062 negative slope). It seems to me, guessing, unsupported by any evidence at all, that eventually ENSO will start to be over-all positive, as the anomalously warming layers in other oceanic regions and depths become “saturated” with heat. If so, El Nino events would no longer belch out all of the stored heat, but will start retaining some of it.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/inino5.dat
No one has declared an El Nino for those time periods, though there are some El Nino-like conditions.
Australia meteorological predicted El Nino conditions at various times for the past 20 months and “everyone” is still baffled over why it didn’t happen. The best guess is that air surface temperature was too warm.
First of all Greg, thank you for replying. My question is/was:
Why didn’t Greg or the MSM link to NOAA’s page regarding the uncertainties involved in the so-called ‘2014 Hottest Year Ever’ claim?
Simple question, which only needs a simple answer. Why?
Regarding the 2014-15 ENSO, even though no one has officially called it an El Niño ‘event’, it has been borderline since at least May-June 2014 and going on the latest Aust. BoM data appears to be ramping up again in the 3 major zones. This El Niño may end up being an El Niño ‘Modoki’ (Japanese for same, but different). Who knows? Technically speaking, the 2014-15 ENSO is far from neutral as all zones have been above +0.5 since around March-April of 2014. Infact, they are at the highest they have been since 2010.
NOAA ranked global land temperatures as the 3rd highest, it is because of 2014’s so-called ‘neutral’ El Niño that drove the global temperatures up, especially in the 2nd half of the year.
Also, can you supply me with an ‘official’ reference/link to this so-called [I]NINO5 region? I cannot find it anywhere. According to the BoM, there are only 5 NINO regions;
1&2 are small regions of the west coast of South America, then you have the three major ENSO regions, 3, 4 and 3.4. 3.4 overlaps both 3&4, hence it’s name.
Desertpile, your best guess would be wrong.
The best guess would be that the SOI, Southern Oscillation Index (sea level pressure differences between Tahiti and Darwin, Australia) levels have only averaged out at about -6 during 2014. One needs a sustained negative value below ?8.
P.S. Thank you Desertpile for the link to NINO3.4. In other words there’s no such region as ININO5. Just another made up name like HIRGO.
In other words there’s no such region as ININO5
Let me see. You are a member of an anti-science cult, and you are telling us sane educated intelligent people that the sea surface dataset record for earth’s latitude region between 5N to 5S doesn’t exist…. Ah, okay. Does that mean the 40+ temperature buoys NOAA has out there don’t also exist, or does that mean NOAA doesn’t exist, or does that mean Earth is two separated hemispheres kept apart by mysterious forces (“ANYTHING BUT CO2!”, and that ten degrees of latitude are missing between -120 and -170 longitude, with secret Nazi war bases on the flat inner sides?
And your church really expects us sane people to take your complains seriously?
Oh dear, I seem to have upset Desertpile and now he calls me uneducated and not intelligent and I belong to some sort of ‘anti-science cult’ (what-ever that is?). Desertpile, the very first words of that data link you supplied are;
‘NINO3.4 index‘. Can you show me where it states, ‘ININO5‘?
As far as the rest of your post…….WTF?
“Why didn’t Greg or the MSM link to NOAA’s page regarding the uncertainties involved in the so-called ‘2014 Hottest Year Ever’ claim?”
I’ve written about this before, and about half my posts on “warmest year” probably link to my main post on the uncertainties. Otherwise, I linked to an excellent explainer that covers that. Overall what I’ve written here and what I’ve linked to cover that topic at least as well as the link to which you refer does. So, no particular reason that I didn’t like to it, but it is an important topic to cover, and I’ve done so at length.
ININO5 isn’t a region, it is a data set. It uses 3.4. As stated, it is bounded N/S at 5 degrees. Desertphile put a link to it above. Pretty standard.
I’ll take my ENSO from the ENSO experts, if you don’t mind, Bruce. You can argue until you are blue in the face about when we have El Nino vs. not, but you won’t be correct until you agree with the experts. Because you are, in fact, not El Galileo.
But, again, see my remarks above about Tropical Pacific heat. There’s plenty of it.
Funny thing is, Bruce, you can’t have your cake (the pause) and eat it too (heat coming out of the Pacific).
I’ll take my ENSO from the ENSO experts, if you don’t mind, Bruce.
Like high school sex education.
[Good gods! I need a vacation!]
I don’t get “my” science from blogs, nor from the petroleum industry, nor from “free market” cults (i.e., “on the streets”). I get science from scientists. When I am told by a member of an anti-science “free market” church that there is no such thing as the ININO5 dataset, even when I am staring at the ININO5 dataset at that very moment, I am forced to re-evaluate my opinion of humanity “downward” another ratchet notch.
My preference for the data series of sea surface temperatures spanning the equatorial Pacific between -120 to -170 is because it is the median range and therefore less prone to extremes: watching that region gives the best estimates on if (and in some cases when) the ENSO state changes. The ITCZ has the effect of “repaving” the Pacific cooling / warming cycles (if there are cycles), and allows scientists to have a “clean slate” to work with (i.e., lowest noise level, strongest signal) every few years.
As far as I know, no science body has said El Nino formed in year 2014, nor does El Nino currently exist. Yet the median global average temperature estimate for year 2014 set a record high value: something I would have wagered a few hundred dollars would not happen for another 15 years or so. This, during a period of slow solar TSI. As far as I know, the event has no precedent in the data going back at least 156 years; as far as I can tell (and I am a cattle ranch hand, not a scientist) this shows two things:
#1: all of the world’s scientists working in the related science venues are correct about human-released greenhouse gases being responsible, and;
#2 Earth’s climate is extremely sensitive to tiny changes.
Low climate sensitivity can be a good thing as well as a bad thing. It means geoengineering to solve the crisis can be done in very tiny steps, cautiously, and the effects still be measurable.
The odd complaint, once again, is that the new high temperature record falls within the error bars of the previous record high, and vice-versa, is just….. silly. The complaint makes no mathematical sense. Pick any point in the error margin— bottom, top, or center: it’s the same bloody thing.
By the way, the error bars keep narrowing. It means year 2014’s error margin is a tiny bit smaller than year 2013; year 2013 was a tiny bit smaller than year 2012. Shouldn’t “BruceC” be complaining more about year 2013’s value? Year 1998’s value has a larger error bar than year 2014: where’s his complaint about that? Why pick year 2014 and year 2010?
If I estimate the atmospheric CO2 for year end of 2014 at 398.5 ppmv (2 ppmv more than last year), PPMCC then stands at 0.93150 with a global average temperature of 14.68c which is exactly what all of the physicists and climatologists in the world said would happen—- no sign at all of this mythical “pause” deniers love to claim has happened (all the while insisting it never warmed in the first place, and at the same time saying it’s cooling, and at the same time saying it’s warming but humans are not the cause).
@BruceC – #41, 42 & 43 :
This terminology came from a discussion or three on the Bad Astronomy blog some years ago where it was suggested by a commenter there. (Not myself. I think I recall the originating commenter’s nym but would have to do a lot of checking back to confirm it for sure.)
I use that acroynm and terminology because I think it best and most directly describes and names the problem which goes by a range of other terms from “The Greenhouse Effect” (most commonly used in the mid-late 1980’s) through to (Catastrophic*) Anthropogenic Global Warming or often more simply Global Warming.
It stresses – without technical jargon – that this current change in climate is created by Human activities. (Human-Induced.) That it is excessively rapid in contrast to previous slower climate changes such as those induced by the Milankovitch effects, occurs world wide in scale. Finally it emphasises that the problem is that the planet and its environments are over-heating – getting too hot – rather than using the milder word “warming’ which has deceptively pleasant and positive connotations.
The “Greenhouse effect’ is a slightly different phenomenon and isn’t actually problematic indeed it has enabled life on Earth to thrive throughout prehistory.
‘Climate change’ is very generalised and non-specific and can refer to a whole series of changes caused by a whole set of varying variables.
That’s why I think HIRGO is better and like to use it and wish more folks would do so. Not quite sure why you found my use of HIRGO so humourous but glad I gave you a bit of a laugh! World could always do with more laughter – and less excessively hot planetary average temps. (More GAGs fewer GHGs I say!)
The HIRGO reality – which is ongoing – would cover both of those timespans and indeed many more periods of unnaturally increased planetary average temperatures and changes dating back far earlier.
The Industrial Revolution is often taken as a common starting point for HIRGO (when atmospheric Co2 now 400 ppm was down at only 280 ppm) but other people have argued it could have begun even at the very dawn of human history when our species first started altering regional and global environments by land clearance, farming, etc ..
* Funnily enough its usually the deniers that use the ‘C’ word in front of AGW in that particular formulation. No, not that other ‘c’ word!
@55. Desertphile :
Yes. A good suggestion noted by this Slate blogplexy-thingummy article here :
http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/11/06/el_ni_o_prediction_2014_why_weather_forecasters_were_wrong_about_a_super.html
If things are this hot without an El Nino, I hate to think how its going to be when (not ‘if’) we do get an El Nino.
That’s funny Greg, my ENSO data DOES come from ENSO experts, The Australian Bureau of Meteorology,
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/nino_3.txt
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/nino_3.4.txt
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/nino_4.txt
The BoM have been on El Niño ‘Watch’ or ‘Alert’ since ~Feb-March 2014, as have the JMA. Although they rely more on the NINO4 region, which has been the highest of all three zones.
According to my uneducated, non-intelligent, insane mind reading data supplied by an ‘ENSO expert’, my comment still remains, 2014 had the highest ENSO recordings since 2010.
… 2014 had the highest ENSO recordings since 2010.
Yes. El Nino did not form, however; ENSO was still neutral. Yet year 2014 set a record high global average temperature, and all of the world’s scientists working in the related science venues agree on why. =SHRUG!=
UPDATE: Latest BoM ENSO report, released just today (within the past hour actually).
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/
Please note their first sentence;
Issued on 20 January 2015
Since late 2014, most ENSO indicators have eased back from borderline El Niño levels. As the natural seasonal cycle of ENSO is now entering the decay phase, and models indicate a low chance of an immediate return to El Niño levels, neutral conditions are considered the most likely scenario through into autumn.
Central tropical Pacific Ocean surface temperatures have fallen by around half a degree from their peak of 1.1 °C above average in late November. Likewise, the Southern Oscillation Index has weakened to values more consistent with neutral conditions, while recent cloud patterns show little El Niño signature. As all models surveyed by the Bureau favour a continuation of these neutral conditions in the coming months, the immediate threat of El Niño onset appears passed for the 2014–15 cycle. Hence the ENSO Tracker has been reset to NEUTRAL. The Tracker will remain at NEUTRAL unless observations and model outlooks indicate a heightened risk of either La Niña or El Niño developing later this year.
BoM have just revised their ENSO meter to ‘neutral’.
As I stated in an earlier comment, the 2014 ENSO event was far from ‘neutral’, and it was this late 2014 ENSO event that drove up the 2014 global figure…all be it a huge, we’re melting, we’re all gunna die, 0.04°C with a ±0.09°C level of uncertainty.
In other-words, nothing, nada, zip, SFA, 2/3’s of 7/8’s of FA, or 0.037°C/Decade from Jan 2001 to Dec 2014 as per GISS (trend supplied by Nick Stokes).
P.S. Astrostevo, noticed I haven’t used the ‘c’ word in any of my posts… 😉
P.P.S. Desertpile, your an idiot.
Desertpile, your an idiot.
My an idiot? Huh? I own an idiot?
A correction to one of my above comments. I stated that NOAA’s land only was 3rd highest. This is incorrect, it was rated 4th.
Must have been all those Hiroshima’s deep within the ocean where it can’t be measured.
Since late 2014, most ENSO indicators have eased back from borderline El Niño levels.
That’s right: not El Nino conditions at any time last year. Everyone here but you already said that. And?
Meanwhile, Earth set a record high global average temperature in a year (2014) when El Nino didn’t exist: all of the world’s scientists working in the related science venues agree on why. Why does that fact upset you?
Tropical Pacific Ocean moves from El Niño to neutral
Issued on 20 January 2015 | Product Code IDCKGEWW00
Since late 2014, most ENSO indicators have eased back from borderline El Niño levels. As the natural seasonal cycle of ENSO is now entering the decay phase, and models indicate a low chance of an immediate return to El Niño levels, neutral conditions are considered the most likely scenario through into autumn.
Central tropical Pacific Ocean surface temperatures have fallen by around half a degree from their peak of 1.1 °C above average in late November. Likewise, the Southern Oscillation Index has weakened to values more consistent with neutral conditions, while recent cloud patterns show little El Niño signature. As all models surveyed by the Bureau favour a continuation of these neutral conditions in the coming months, the immediate threat of El Niño onset appears passed for the 2014–15 cycle. Hence the ENSO Tracker has been reset to NEUTRAL. The Tracker will remain at NEUTRAL unless observations and model outlooks indicate a heightened risk of either La Niña or El Niño developing later this year.
BruceC, your data may come from experts but you are in no position to interpret it correctly, based on the things you are saying here.
BruceC, your data may come from experts but you are in no position to interpret it correctly, based on the things you are saying here.
“Free market” fundamentalist’s behavior is very much like Creationist’s behavior, and often they use the same phrases and excuses. “We have the same data; we just have different world views to interpret those data” is often heard from both cults. Thus observed reality is recast in to “just people’s opinions.”
As for expert’s data, as I noted I am uneducated and ignorant: I try damn hard to *NOT* interpret the data experts have compiled: I accept the expert’s interpretations instead, I hope. This is what separates skeptics like myself from True Believers like “BruceC” here.
…. plus he just wrote that I own an idiot. What’s up with that?
“According to my uneducated, non-intelligent, insane mind reading data supplied by an ‘ENSO expert’, my comment still remains, 2014 had the highest ENSO recordings since 2010.”
Yes, it did, but that doesn’t mean that there was an El Nino, officially. Highest wasn’t high. It was at best borderline. And yes, everyone’s been on an El Nino watch. About half the time we are either in an El Nino or on an El Nino watch, actually.
Highest wasn’t high. It was at best borderline
The index is arbitrary: >1 = El Nino, <-1 = La Nina. Nature doesn't cooperate with humanity's desires to fit observations in to well-defined niches. By definition, El Nino did not exist throughout year 2014, and by definition it was "borderline" in November.