Climate deniers love to declare a “pause” in global warming. What they don’t seem to care for is finding out the truth about whether or not it’s real. When it becomes so obvious global warming hasn’t paused that claiming it’s still paused becomes untenable, they’ll declare that it did — for a while, at least — and that it has already begun another “pause” — with the same amount of real evidence as before. None, that is.
No problem! Just fake it. But how? All you fellas out there with deniers to impress, it’s easy to do, just follow these steps.
STEP 1: Make a graph of global temperature. How about data from NOAA, from 1950 through 2017? If making graphs isn’t your forte, don’t worry, there are plenty of websites that will do it for you. I made my own:
STEP 2: Cherry-pick a time range which you think will make a good “pause” picture. How about 1998 through 2013?
STEP 3: Draw a flat line:
… and that’s the way ya do it, yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Beware! If you draw a line estimated by least squares regression,
or some other method such as Theil-Sen regression
you might not get what you want.
And whatever you do, if you include statistical analysis make sure it’s not valid analysis. If you do that, you might find out the truth, and you don’t want that. But do be careful, if somebody comes along to “check your work” you might end up embarrassed because you got it wrong. Maybe even twice.
Who would do this? How about Larry Kummer? He made an even better graph than I did:
You can find it in a post on the WUWT blog, but apparently it comes from the “Fabius Maximus” website. Perhaps we should christen it the “Fakius Maximus” website.
This blog is made possible by readers like you; join others by donating at My Wee Dragon.
Open Mind 
Yep, You got it right… others agree
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/long-term-warming-trend-continued-in-2017-nasa-noaa
The first thing he/they will do is point to all of the papers that openly discuss a warming pause/hiatus/slowdown. There are a lot of them, including by notable scientists like Kevin Trenberth and James E. Hansen. They will not mention Karl, except in some pejorative sense.
That the horrific attempt to smear Karl in a congressional hearing failed to lay a single finger on him or the science, all conveniently forgotten.
They are a cult. They are praying for a “new” pause. Fervently. The stadium wave; the AMO, something, anything.
Meanwhile, the current La Niña could be faltering before the end of January.
“Fibious Maximus” rolls off the tongue better.
I believe it was Dana Nuccitelli who hit the nail square on the head with the escalator analogy. Deniers seem to be constantly beguiled by finding flat steps through ad-hoc and frankly bull shit means of analysis, that they cannot tell they’re going up.
Year after year they fall for the same trick. I repeat my refrain from the most recent post on Walker’s such self-beguiling analysis: it’s just embarrassing by now.
Now they are obsessed with the current “stasis” in sea level rise since 2016.
Since 2016? Impressive… but not as impressive as the guy on CBC.CA who pointed out that global temperature was “droping”, based on *one month!*
[Response: Let’s spread the news of their “methods” far and wide.]
Doing my best…
I know I’ve linked this in the past, but maybe it’s time once again.
And maybe it’s getting to be time for a Part II.
https://hubpages.com/politics/When-Did-Global-Warming-Stop
Do note that Larry Kummer, the Wattsupian OP author and Boy Scout Leader fails to complete the STEP 3 described above as he fails to provide a flat “pause”. Rather his “pause” exhibits a rise of 0.°02C over the 15 year period. (His second attempt at plotting a flat “pause” on a second graph, this one 7 years in length, achieves the same upward slope.) Perhaps this inability to be straight with folk is why he also makes the assertion that “The global surface temperature did not exceed the 1998 high (by more than the ~0.1°F margin of error) until the 2015-2016 El Niño.”
(It is possible that the Wattsupian is comparing not annual but the wobbly monthly data at the height of an El Nino with monthly data over the period end-1998-to-end-2014 but if so he woud be comparing El Ninos rather than global temperature.)
The dunderhead (=Wattsupian genius) is happy repeating the AR5 attribution “It is extremely likely (95 – 100% certain) that human activities caused more than half of the observed increase in global mean surface temperature from 1951 to 2010”
But he finds RCP8.6 unrealistic for a BAU scenario, this suggesting that without RCP8.6, a more acceptable BAU would not require AGW mitigation. What that would be he fails to make plain.
Indeed, he insists that AGW mitigation require folk to be scared into action and during these “pauses” the scare has to be scary weather rather than scary temperatures.
And OHC isn’t scary, apparently, so he is happy to present a graph of monotonic OHC rise showing pausless AGW is alive and well. (And why not. Didn’t Old Man Pielke say OHC was a good measure of AGW, and Pielke is a proper skeptical denialist.)
Being happy with OHC then is why the dunderhead cites a bogus bit of climate science (produced by a couple of Australian economists) that may be walking on thin statistical ice to produce their stepped temperature record. [Response: Statistically, “thin ice” is too kind, it’s just plain wrong.] But I am mystified as to why he also cites Yin et al (2018) which finds:-
His finale is a bit of a mystery. Looks like he’s simply trying to confuse those poor Boy Scouts so he an steal their woggles.
First, this post discusses the possibility of a future pause, as described by Hanson et al on Jan 18. If that happens, it would be evidence supporting the proposed “store and release” mechanism described by Jones and Ricketts (2017). Full citations and links are in my post.
Second, I conclude by puting this discussion in a larger context. First by showing the steady rise in ocean heat content (in some ways the best metric for global warming). Second, by pointing out “That’s all a sideshow” to the more important issues about climate change.
Third, it is entertaining to see you give us some old-fashioned science denial! (That’s gallows humor, since such behavior is one reason the climate policy debate has deadlocked in the US.)
For any of your readers who are interested in science — here are two dozen papers describing the pause (aka “hiatus”), with full citations, abstracts, and links:
In the past few years attention shifted to analysis about possible causes of the pause. Here are four score papers about this. It’s a sample, not comprehensive. ~17 of these are from 2017, with Jones & Ricketts one of the most recent (with full citations, abstracts, links).
A last note — I’m confident that the policy debate will advance despite folks like you (so similar in tactics to those on the other side). As they say, “the dogs bark but the caravan moves on.”
[Response: Thanks for dropping by.
First, your post does more than just discuss “the possibility of a future pause, as described by Hanson [sic] et al on Jan 18” (it’s spelled “Hansen”). It not only asserts, multiple times, that a “pause” already happened, you even treat us to a graph of your concept of it, one in which you 1)started with a graph, 2)cherry-picked a time span, and 3)drew a flat line.
You mentioned the literature discussing it and its possible causes, but, like the authors of those papers, you failed to do any valid statistical analysis to show that it’s real.
You even suggest that “A new pause might already have begun.” Based on what … the work of Jones and Ricketts (which I consider “not even wrong”), or simply on four years of data?
Second, good on ya for directing attention to ocean heat content. Too bad that discussion is surrounded by continued affirmation of the pause that never was.
Third, it’s entertaining to see you give us some old-fashioned cherry-picking of the literature! (Isn’t gallows humor fun?) You didn’t mention Foster & Abraham (2015, US CLIVAR 13(3), 6), or Cahill et al. (2015, Env. Res, Lett. 10 (8), http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/084002/meta), or Karl et al. (2015, Science, 348, 1066-1067 doi:10.1126/science.aaa5632), or Rajaratnam et al. (2015, Climat Change, 133, 129, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-015-1495-y), and that’s just off the top of my head. There’s another recently submitted to ERL which is likely to kill the “pause” idea completely.
Here’s what happens in science: an idea appears, maybe takes hold, some repeat it without any evidence other than “looks like,” others seek an explanation of *why* it happened, some will actually do some analysis but get it wrong (e.g. Fyfe et al.), but eventually the issue is plumbed to its depth — and if found wrong, the idea dies. It doesn’t always happen easily (I’ve had some heated discussions with some of the authors of those papers), our egos are too easily bruised, but eventually mistaken ideas fall by the wayside. The whole “pause” idea is on its deathbed, only occasionally revived by poor-quality work (my opinion of Jones and Ricketts).
Here’s what happens in climate denial: an idea that fits one’s preconceptions is seized upon, then repeated endlessly with no valid analysis, not even any critical thinking applied. Then, no matter how thoroughly or often it is proved wrong, the falsehood will *continue* to be repeated endlessly with no valid analysis, not even any critical thinking applied. God forbid they should exhibit any actual skepticism.
Yet more amusement arises from the fact that “pausemaniacs” can’t seem to agree on when this supposed “pause” even happened! You’re a bit out of step with the times, since most (even among deniers) no longer start at 1998 — that’s just too easy to show ridiculous. Still, you “demonstrated” it graphically to your readers by 1)starting with a graph, 2)cherry-picking a time span, and 3)drawing a flat line. And that’s the way you do it …
A last note — your basic premise is wrong, that “another plateau … A pause perhaps lasting 10 or 15 years … A post by James Hanson [sic] et al. describes why this is ‘plausible, if not likely'” That paper does not describe why a “pause” is “plausible, if not likely,” rather, as the excerpt you included plainly states, it only talks about how the near future might “… leave an impression of a ‘global warming hiatus’.” There’s a giant difference between a “pause” and the “impression” of a pause. That’s what you, and climate deniers, and even many of the scientists in your long list of literature on the subject, seem not to have understood. Climate deniers seem determined never to get it.]
Larry, I also applaud you for coming here. It shows more courage than you find in the average Wattsupian. However, Tamino identifies the problem–there is no “pause” to explain, and by attaching significance to the short-term trends, you are missing the actual science.
Temperatures fluctuate. When the system is in equilibrium, they fluctuate around some equilibrium value. When there is an upward or downward trend, they fluctuate about that trend. The question of what causes or drives such fluctuations is of scientific interest, but it tells us nothing of the underlying trend. The physics of the trend we are seeing now is well understood. It is textbook climate science, not cutting edge science.
Looking at fluctuations about the trend–that is cutting edge, and as a result, the papers that look at a “pause” or some other fluctuation are more speculative. They may be interesting, but they are unproven and shouldn’t be taken as established science. If the ideas underlying these speculations are true, they will be found to be useful for explaining behavior in the climate well beyond the fluctuations for which they were originally proposed. If not, well, they’re pretty much tits-on-a-boar useless. This process takes time, so it is a mistake to try to draw conclusions before the wheat is separated from the chaff. Your post is chaff.
Larry Kummer (Editor)
What is entirely confusing about your statements here (& elsewhere) is that you fail to explain what you mean by ”the pause aka hiatus”. That may make sense on Wattsupia but here on planet Earth, rationality in such matters is obligatory. So can we clear this matter up.
Of course, you do appear hear as some sort of Wattsupian expert on this matter but as you are new and you are evidently not very good at ‘rationality’, I have made things easier for you by setting out my enquiry in the form of a multiple-choice question.
QUESTION
Is the ”pause” (please chose one and only one of (A) to (E) below):-
(A) A product of the early-noughties up-wobble, the late-noughties down-wobble and the early-teens strange-wobble (‘strange’ in being not a normal wobble).
(B) Discrepancies between GCM averaged global-average-temperature-outputs and measured global averages, a discrepancy often so well amplified by John Christy before Congressional Committees.
(C) The insignificant Lindzen/Harrobin ’15-year statistically insignificant trend’, a function of the wobble/warming ratio being too high for the analytical period employed.
(D) The Mad Monckton cherry-flavoured zero-trend-period identified using exclusively-chosen data-sets and exclusively-chosen analytical periods, thus fittingly exclusively inbred to suit his Lordship’s own inbreeding.
(E) A fifteen year period which simply starts-&-ends with identical global temperature anomalies, a coincidence straightforward enough to be served up to the readership of the Daily Rail by gobby-git journo David Rose.
Of course, my prefered method of gleaning what people mean by the (lack of) pause is both colourful and entertaining, but this may be too tricky for a Wattsupian. Which cell have the nasty climatologists imprisoned Pippa Pause in? Remember chindren, it has to be between 1997 and 2017 and has to last for some years or Dan-Dan the Denialistman will get very very grumpy.
Let NOAA draw the line connecting 1998 to 2013 for themselves. The “pause” shows a trend of +0.88°C per century using their tool. If using their Climate at a Glance tool, might as well use the whole thing.
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global/globe/land_ocean/ytd/12/1880-2017?trend=true&trend_base=100&firsttrendyear=1998&lasttrendyear=2013
the willingness of the deniers to parade their ignorance and stupidly to such a wide audience really is hilarious – and worthy of the academic study it attracts
that last graph reminds me of the old Marx brothers quote
“who are you going to believe – me our your own eyes”
Fabius Maximus – know as Cunctator (the delayer) because of his scorched earth delaying strategy against Hannibal.
I’ve often thought that “delayer” is a more appropriate label than “denier” for some. They don’t necessarily believe what they say. They are only interested in creating doubt in order to delay any effective action.
[Response: My opinion: far more of them than you suspect actually believe what they say.]
Well, one of the first denialist hearings on Capitol Hill was held by Congress Critters Doolittle and Delay, good buddies of Jack Abramoff.
Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.
Ah, the benefits of a classical education 8^)!
Did you catch this one?
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/01/26/al-gore-would-have-lost-global-warming-bet-academic-says.html
I did. Note that they are using UAH 6.0, and they do no fitting. Seriously, how do these people’s heads not collapse from the perfect vacuum inside. Thick skulls, I guess. That also prevents any actual facts from tunneling in.
Unfortunately, it seems likely their heads are filled not with vacuum but with nonsense, leaving no room for sense.
Yes, that’s the role of sites like WUWT: to keep up a steady inward flux of nonsense, in the face of natural human forgetfulness. Absent that, these folks would gradually forget most of what they ‘know’, and approach a state of actual naivete. From there, who knows what facts might ‘tunnel in?’
It is surely insincere proclaiming you have won a bet over something that you proposed but which wasn’t accepted, and certainly now with the details of the bet shrouded in mystery.
The 2007 Professor Armstrong bet was never agreed-to yet it required agreement over what Armstrong’s ‘naive no-change’ temperature projection would be measured against and also which climate model Al Gore would choose as his projection. (In a later attempt to set up the bet, Armstrong suggested what he refered to as the Hadley Center Forecasts but the linked archive is blank.)
This graphic suggests what Armstrong is saying he has won uses UAH TLT v6.0 data and sets his zero-warming against a projected 0.3C/decade rise. But even if actually devised in 2007, this set-up is not as naive as Armstrong makes out. Even so he is very lucky to win it.
His projected IPCC temperature rise is +0.3ºC/decade, 50% higher than the +0.2ºC/decade projections set out in IPCC AR4. Thus the naive no-change is effectively boosted by +0.1ºC/decade. And the baseline start year is an El Nino year which by June 2007 was already known would be followed by a La Nina, Thus the baseline for the bet is boosted by +0.1ºC (so the IPCC AR4 projection at +0.2ºC/decade will now will take the whole decade to catch up Armstrong’s effective +0.1ºC/decade) and the first year of the bet will surely be in Armstrong’s favour.
Even so, had Armstrong used RSS TLT he would only have won 25 of the 120 months. And UAH TLT v5.6 only provides 44 of 120. So Armstrong is only able to say he won because Woy Spencer published UAH TLT v6.0 during 2017 allowing Armstrong to say his rules give him 83 of the 120 months. This would drop to 64 in 120 if the +0.1ºC bias of 2007 is removed and then drops to 54 in 120 if the true +0.2ºC/decade IPCC AR4 projection is used. Thus even with a cherry-picked temperature series, Armstrong would have lost in a fair running of the bet.
Fabius Bogosus should be invited into the arena for Trial By Experiment:
What test must a slowdown pass, for you to call it a “real” slowdown (as opposed to a “fake” slowdown)?
[Response: What test must a slowdown *fail* before you admit it’s false? You already tried your “proof at 99% confidence level” test, but it fails (something you had to learn from those who know what they’re doing). Then you proclaimed your “proof at 90% confidence” test, only to fail that too (but again, you had to learn it from those who know what they’re doing).
I’ve made my criteria clear, many times, but you don’t accept it because it doesn’t give you the result you want.]
Are you implying that you know everything, and never make any mistakes?
When I did the first test, I didn’t know much about autocorrelation. Now I know a bit more.
When I did the second test, I got the scale wrong on the Y-axis of the graph, but the testing was correct, as far as I know. So I don’t regard that as a fail.
I genuinely believe that there was some sort of slowdown in the warming rate between about 2002 and 2012. Note that I have never claimed that it makes any difference to global warming. It was a temporary slowdown. I suspect that it was caused by ocean cycles.
Do you know the story of Robert Bruce and the spider?
If you don’t like my articles, then I suggest that you don’t read the next one.
By the way, you keep using the phrase “you had to learn it from those who know what they’re doing”. Would you rather that I learnt it from those who don’t know what they’re doing?
[Response: Your second attempt was as wrong as your first. The fact that you still don’t “get it” in spite of my demonstrating it (and Nick Stokes valiant attempts to enlighten you) emphasizes the point I’ve tried to make when mentioning “those who know what they’re doing.” YOU DON’T.
Learning a little, here and there, by virtue of the mistakes you make and foolishly pronounce as “proof” — that’s doesn’t make you qualified. You keep talking and trying different things but the one thing you haven’t yet done and show no sign of doing is ADMITTING YOUR INCOMPETENCE. You are not sufficiently knowledgeable about time series or trend analysis to do the analysis right. Perhaps some day you will be, but IT WILL NOT HAPPEN OVERNIGHT, IT WON’T HAPPEN WITH “A LITTLE RESEARCH ON THE INTERNET,” AND IT DAMN SURE WON’T HAPPEN UNTIL YOU FACE REALITY: THAT NOT ONLY ARE YOU NOT THERE YET, YOU’RE NOT EVEN CLOSE.
But despite being a rank beginner, you set yourself up as critic of “those who know what they’re doing.” Despite an abysmal level of ignorance, you still won’t ask whether what you find is right — you pronounce it as proof. THAT IS THE REAL MANIFESTATION OF ARROGANCE. Such arrogance, in spite of great ignorance — that too has failed to show a “pause.”]
Sheldon Walker,
If you are so convinced you are right, talk us through it.
You say the Jan2002-Dec2012 GISTEMP data demonstrates a statistically significant slowdown. In you post at Wattsupia you proclaim “The blue circles show the 10 year warming rates which are statistically significantly less than the average warming rate – these are called Slowdowns. Note – statistical significance is at the 90% confidence level.” How do you calculate that? Me, I have a quick squint at the SkS trend calculator and get the Jan2002-Dec2012 trend on their Trend Calculator as being +0.223ºC/decade to -0.195ºC/decade (2sd CI). This you plot as a “blue circle” of value 0.0 degrees Celsius per century which you tell the world is “crystal clear”.(You elsewhere state that the value is a little below zero “-0.0016 degrees Celsius per century “)
So how do you make this statistically different from the average (the Jan1970-Jan2017 average which is calculated at SkS to be) +0.206ºC/decade to +0.148ºC/decade? I note this is considerably different from your result which you say is:-
By the looks of it, I’m pretty sure that you and I have greatly differing understanding of the concept ‘autocorrelation’. And you finding:-
So go on!! Get out your shovel. Talk us through it.
Sheldon,
What about the “slowdown” from October to November 2017, or from March to April of the same year?
Sheldon,
I am not a statistician like Tamino, but I have read his posts for a long time. If you have a long series and you pick out a short period for no reason except you think you see a pattern there it changes the math. You must account for the fact that you picked a specific period for a specific reason.. Tamino has discussed this issue many times and it is possible for you to correct your calculations. (I think he explains how in his book, buy a copy.) It will dramatically lower the chances that your choice is actually significant. Since you only have 90% confidence already it will make your calculation insignificant.
As an example imagine I want to flip a coin 10 times and see if I get all heads. The chances are about 1 in 1000 that I will get all heads. I have students in my chemistry class flip 1000 coins for a lab. It is common for one student to get 10 heads in a row and I have seen 14 heads in a row. I cannot claim that one coin is not fair because I had 1000 tries. Since you picked the interval 2002-2012 out of a long series you had many choices and that lowers the chance that your series is significant. (Tamino I am sorry if my example is not correct for a time series analysis, I am not a statistician).
[Response: Your example is spot on.]
As Tamino pointed out, since you do not know how to do the calculation you should not denigrate those who do. Tamino DOES know how to do the calculation correctly and he has proven that there is no interval in the past 40 years that has a significant “pause”. Other expert statisticians have confirmed that Tamino’s calculation is correct. Scientists argued about this calculation for several years and now the overwhelming consensus is that Tamino was correct.
Since you have continued to make your claim for months after experts have shown your work to be incorrect and you admit that you have no idea how to correctly do the calculation, you do not appear to be arguing in good faith.
Sheldon,
“When I did the second test, I got the scale wrong on the Y-axis of the graph”
I raised that at WUWT. So did commenter jim. But there is no acknowledgement there, let alone any explanation of what went wrong, or correction to show what is right. All your trends are reduced by a factor of about 3 – not a trivial matter.
Nick Stokes,
Do we need an explanation to see what went wrong?
You say of the graph of century-rates presented by Sheldon “All your trends are reduced by a factor of about 3 – not a trivial matter.”
If you look closely, they are pretty-much 37-times the annual numbers. And note he has 37 points on the graph. More convincing is that a simple OLS through the monthly LOTI numbers Jan1970-Jan2017 = 0.017954degC/yr. Times-37 = 0.6643. If you allow for minor changes in LOTI since Sheldon ballsed-up his analysis, it is noticeable that he quotes a number 0.6642degC/century. So to get his “century” values the fool multiplied by 37 instead of by 100. And his “value of the average warming rate … per century” likewise but apparently this using the non-autocorrelation-adjusted value.
“If you look closely, they are pretty-much 37-times the annual numbers. And note he has 37 points on the graph.”
I’m not so sure. There are actually 47 points on the graph.
Nick Stokes,
Goodness!!
You are correct in that there are not 37 points on the graph. There are atually 38 points. And they together use 47 years (+ one month) of data (1/1970-1/2017).
But the period covered by the graph, from 1980 to 2017, that is 37 years.
Michael
” Scientists argued about this calculation for several years and now the overwhelming consensus is that Tamino was correct.”
Thereby proving that it is incorrect, as science is not a matter of consensus. Or at least in the view of the WUWT’ers.
It’s so easy to mock them. It’s far less easy to convince.
I assume, that this is not possible across the front line, but more in a kind of evolutionary way, at the fringes of the “conviction domains”.
And it helps a lot to put ones money where ones mouth is – and communicate it. This is creating credibility.
We are group animals, not science animals.
If by ‘front line’ you refer to a hard core of AGW-deniers that will never be convinced of its reality, because accepting the consensus of working climate scientists would be psychologically costly to them, then I assume as you do. I’m referring not to cynical mercenaries like James Inhofe or Benny Peiser, who almost certainly do accept the reality of AGW privately, but to people like Sheldon Walker and Larry Kummer, who appear to fool themselves they are genuine skeptics. IMHO, their ‘courage’ in showing up here merely demonstrates successful self-deception.
However, collective action by US voters to avert global tragedy doesn’t require all of them to be convinced, only an effective plurality. I can only hope that doesn’t depend on how many voters visit this blog 8^|.
Reblogged this on Cloak Unfurled and commented:
I nice little discussion on the global warming “pause”.
Maybe you might look at https://thsresearch.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/ef-data-research-report-second-editionfinal041717-1.pdf
Apparently they manage to explain all of global warming by looking at the sun, volcanoes and ocean currents, leaving no role at all for CO2 (and no role at all for critical thinking or honesty…)
I may read this later, but I have to ask first: is their graph XXI-1 a joke or something? It’s difficult to believe that people who made it through secondary education could make a graph like that, in the form it’s in right now, and actually paste it into a final paper.
Had a look out of curiosity.
I would guess they edited the graph at a late stage to minimize the impression of a warming trend.
To do so they enlarged the title fount and changed the y axis scale resulting in clipping the forth digit in the x axis date labeling.
“cynical mercenaries”
Willing to trade humanity’s future for a few shekels or to protect their corrupt ideology.
I read a bit of the paper. It’s pure unadulterated crap, intended for an uneducated audience that doesn’t know better. They use a variety of variables in their analysis which are nowhere defined or graphed (such as the “D 77 CT” variable), and they also include nonsense variables like “cumulative total solar irradiance anomalies”.
This one in particular gets on my nerves. Setting aside the fact that their cumulative TSI anomaly graph is clearly smoothed over the actual solar cycle (plot, say, the “diffinv” TSI data from the link below), the MATHEMATICAL and PHYSICAL interpretation of using *that* variable as an input (notice they don’t actually use TSI!) is that the Earth’s temperature is at equilibrium when TSI is at the mean value over whatever time period they averaged, and even at that, whenever TSI returns to that mean value, temperature is constant and cannot change—whether or not the temperature is higher or lower than before.
Can anyone guess what that means? It means that a positive increase in TSI, so long as TSI is below this average, causes a negative drop in the cumulative anomaly. They’re saying temperature changes only with the mean-relative value of sunlight, not with the actual change in sunlight.
Want to highlight how stupid that is? Create a series that is entirely flat except for one point (say, all values are 10), which we can set to a unit higher at 11. Subtract the means and take the inverse difference of the series. The resulting series is two pairs of discontinuous negative line segments, where the first decreases in time until the point where we moved one of the original series points up a unit; the second line starts from 1 unit above the end of the last, and strictly decreases until the end.
What does the original mock series PHYSICALLY represent? Constant solar output, except for a single point where, let’s say, there was some freak small peak. These putzes are saying that the constant solar output is irrelevant; no, instead their “perfectly correlated with sunlight” temperature curve will DROP in temperature while sunlight is constant, and then jump up during the spike and DROP again while sunlight is constant.
Or, take a single sinusoidal TSI period, mimicking a sine function (starts at mean, rises up, goes down to min, returns to mean). The cumulative anomaly of this is series peaks in the middle, where TSI returns to mean value. But let’s say that we have an extended constant-TSI period between the first half of the sinusoid and the second half. Their “perfect correlated” temperature curve then has a prolonged maximum while TSI remains at its mean value, which it started at. HUH?!? TSI can be at the same level, but temperature be at different levels? Maybe in Narnia.
The punchline of all of this is that TSI, over the time period they give (1950-present) actually peaked in the 1970s-1980s and has has a very mild decrease since then. Their cumulative anomaly series tells the exact opposite story, it flips the real pattern. With the smoothing (check their graph), no freaking wonder they find that it is highly correlated with global temperatures in their regression analysis. Falling TSI means increasing temperatures, bravo. Top minds right there.
It’s a garbage paper. The authors should be ashamed of themselves.
Annual TSI:
http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/sorce/data/tsi-data/
You know though, Swarn – you’re preaching to the converted. Sadly those most needing to hear the voice of reason rely on Fox News. And that’s to the peril of the planet.