Study: satellites show no acceleration in global warming for 23 years

Posted: December 1, 2017 by oldbrew in Analysis, climate, Dataset, modelling, satellites, Temperature
Tags: ,

NOAA weather satellite [image credit: NASA]


‘Official’ climate science response: claim satellite data is not reliable, and play shoot-the-messenger. Predictable, as the results obviously don’t fit theories of man-made warming.
H/T The GWPF

Global warming has not accelerated temperature rise in the bulk atmosphere in more than two decades, according to a new study funded by the Department of Energy.

University of Alabama-Huntsville climate scientists John Christy and Richard McNider found that by removing the climate effects of volcanic eruptions early on in the satellite temperature record showed virtually no change in the rate of warming since the early 1990s.

“We indicated 23 years ago — in our 1994 Nature article — that climate models had the atmosphere’s sensitivity to CO2 much too high,” Christy said in a statement. “This recent paper bolsters that conclusion.”

Christy and McNider found the rate of warming has been 0.096 degrees Celsius per decade after “the removal of volcanic cooling in the early part of the record,” which “is essentially the same value we determined in 1994 … using only 15 years of data.”

The study is sure to be contentious. Christy has argued for years that climate models exaggerate global warming in the bulk atmosphere, which satellites have monitored since the late 1970s.

Christy, a noted skeptic of catastrophic man-made global warming, said his results reinforce his claim that climate models predict too much warming in the troposphere, the lowest five miles of the atmosphere. Models are too sensitive to increases in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere, he said.

“From our observations we calculated that value as 1.1 C (almost 2° Fahrenheit), while climate models estimate that value as 2.3 C (about 4.1° F),” Christy said.

While many scientists have acknowledged the mismatch between model predictions and actual temperature observations, few have really challenged the validity of the models themselves.

A recent study led by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory climate scientist Ben Santer found that while the models ran hot, the “overestimation” was “partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.”

Christy’s removal of volcanic-driven cooling from satellite temperature data could also draw scrutiny. The study also removed El Nino and La Nina cycles, which are particularly pronounced in satellite records, but those cycles largely canceled each other out, the co-authors said.

Christy said his works shows the “climate models need to be retooled to better reflect conditions in the actual climate, while policies based on previous climate model output and predictions might need to be reconsidered.”

Continued here.

Comments
  1. ivan says:

    If this keeps up we might see someone demanding that the models be validated or thrown out, just don’t hold your breath waiting.

    It is interesting that many scientists have acknowledged the mismatch between model predictions and actual temperature observations, few have really challenged the validity of the models themselves. but begs the question why has it been accepted as fact rather than speculation and why has so much public money been wasted on that speculation.

  2. oldbrew says:

    Causes of differences in model and satellite tropospheric warming rates
    Benjamin D. Santer, John C. Fyfe, Giuliana Pallotta, Gregory M. Flato, Gerald A. Meehl, Matthew H. England, Ed Hawkins, Michael E. Mann, Jeffrey F. Painter, Céline Bonfils, Ivana Cvijanovic, Carl Mears, Frank J. Wentz, Stephen Po-Chedley, Qiang Fu & Cheng-Zhi Zou
    Published online: 19 June 2017

    We conclude that model overestimation of tropospheric warming in the early twenty-first century is partly due to systematic deficiencies in some of the post-2000 external forcings used in the model simulations.

    http://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2973

  3. DB says:

    Comparing Tropospheric Warming in Climate Models and Satellite Data
    Santer et al.
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-16-0333.1
    Updated and improved satellite retrievals of the temperature of the mid-to-upper troposphere (TMT) are used to address key questions about the size and significance of TMT trends, agreement with model-derived TMT values, and whether models and satellite data show similar vertical profiles of warming….

    When the impact of lower-stratospheric cooling on TMT is accounted for, and when the most recent versions of satellite datasets are used, the previously claimed ratio of three between simulated and observed near-global TMT trends is reduced to approximately 1.7.

  4. oldbrew says:

    Santer et al want to tell us what *will* happen in the *projected* warming. This is supposed to be science?

  5. joekano76 says:

    Reblogged this on Floating-voter.

  6. JKrob says:

    Small point-of-order…the caption of your picture is incorrect. It may be a NASA image but it is a NOAA GOES satellite. NASA doesn’t do weather satellites.

  7. JKrob says:

    < OK. But it’s a NASA project

    No, you are wrong.

    "NOAA manages the GOES program, establishes requirements, provides all funding and distributes environmental satellite data for the United States…".

    I work at NOAA/NESDIS/CDA Station @Wallops Island, Va. performing Command/Control and Image Processing functions as well as operating and maintaining those systems since GOES-7 (1990). It always has been a NOAA project that NASA participates in.

  8. oldbrew says:

    JK – I was quoting from the caption to the photo of the satellite, see link in my comment.

    Under the image it says ‘Credit: NASA GOES Project’.

    If that’s not correct it’s their fault 🙂
    http://goes.gsfc.nasa.gov/

  9. JKrob says:

    > I was quoting from the caption to the photo of the satellite

    No, you “quoted” nothing – you (attempted) to make a statement of fact…which was wrong. There is a NASA division which is called ‘The NASA GOES Project’ (where they take a NOAA GOES image & place the NASA logo & credit on it) but GOES is not “a NASA project” (there, I quoted you). However, I see (again) you will not admit you are wrong. Are you sure you are not Willis Eschenbach…you sure have his mentality :-/

    Also, the credit for the image on this page is “Credit: NASA”

    You link provided says at the top says “GOES Project Science” All that NASA GOES Project does is provide a portal for NOAA GOES imagery.

    [reply] sorry, wrong link – looks like we’re both right: NASA image, NOAA satellite – caption updated

  10. tom0mason says:

    As we head to the end of the year and the usual shouts of ‘hottest year since’ for all the usual suspects, I wonder why the current snow in Tasmania is not reported over here —
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-03/welcome-to-summer-in-tasmania-its-snowing-again/9221090

  11. oldbrew says:

    tom – snow is just weather, heat is climate…if the propaganda is true :/
    – – –
    2017 US hurricane season was nothing startling – 3 landfalls.

  12. nickreality65 says:

    The 396 W/m^2 upwelling and net 333 W/m^2 GHG energy loop as shown on the K-T power flux balance diagram (Figure 10 Trenberth et al 2011jcli24) is calculated using the S-B equation with an assumed emissivity of 1.0 and an average surface temperature of 16 C, 289 K. Because of the conductive/convective/advective/latent heat participating processes of the atmospheric molecules the actual and correct radiative emissivity is about 0.16, i.e. 63/396.

    This GHG energy loop is an inappropriate calculation with zero physical reality.

    Without this energy loop the radiative greenhouse effect theory fails.

    Without RGHE man-caused climate change does not exist.

    It’s called “science.”

    Don’t be frightened, spit out the Kool-Aid and give it a try.

  13. Ve2 says:

    Without computers climate change would not exist, to hard to change all those readings manually.