Climate Big Picture

[marchesarosa]

I'm going right back to the opening post of this thread because I have just come across a data presentation that effectively refutes the assertion presented by Visitor. This was Visitor's graph of land temperature change from John Cook of SkS.






Why didn't Visitor show the trend in temperature like this one, below, I wonder? She could also have extended the graph a little further back in time as shown below. She could have included ocean temperatures (71% of the planet's surface area and 97 percent of the planet's water) in the nice picture, instead of just the land temperature that John Cook at SkS used, also cherry-picking his starting point from when global temps began to rise a bit at the end of the 1970s.

Here, you see a nice staircase and the steps are divided by the naturally occurring El Nino phenomenon starting with what is called the Great Pacific Climate Shift in 1976 which shifted the surface temperature of the entire Eastern Pacific Ocean (about 33% of the surface area of the global oceans) up about 0.17 deg C.

There are two more break points. They occurred at 1987 and 1997, both of which correspond to the monstrous, but naturally occurring, El Niño events of 1986/87/88 and 1997/98.

El Niño and La Niña events are the largest naturally occurring weather phenomenon Mother Nature has devised. Sea levels in parts of the eastern tropical Pacific temporarily rose approximately 33 cm (about 1 foot) and warmed in places almost 5 Deg C (9 Deg F) during the El Niño of 1997/98—all the result of a huge volume of warm water that was created naturally during the 1995/96 La Niña and then shifted east almost halfway around the globe by that El Nino. All of that warm water, much of it now on the surface, released a tremendous amount of moisture through evaporation into the atmosphere. Weather patterns changed for years after that El Niño.

When the planet is on a stepwise warming trend driven by natural Oceanic variation the sequence of warmer decades is unexceptional, visitor. No-one denies the planet has warmed since the Little Ice Age ended in the mid-19th century. The point, however, Visitor, is why? And why have global temperatures not increased since 2000?

Bob Tisdale has provided an answer to the questions of "Why" above. Can you?

[aubrey]

I was thinking about my personal list of concerns, the big ones, and the honest answer is climate change is pretty far down the list, after health care, income (and so, the economy), clean local air and water, crime, and then things like war and terrorism and then hungry and poor people across the globe and animal suffering and probably a few things that aren’t occurring to me now, and then climate change.

He lives in a rich country, doesn't he? And he's probably (like most of us) going to be dead before we'll really notice anything.

[marchesarosa]

Tell that to visitor, Aubrey. She's a fan (or was) of David Appell. Looks like he has now seen sense. Pity she has not
See reply # 46 here thesequal.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=656&page=4

Incidentally, aubrey, the IPCC reports are composed mainly by people just like David Appell, except brighter (and that's saying something!)

[marchesarosa]

Try to stick to the subject that Visitor opened, Aubrey, please..

But since you mention it, the very long timescale of almost imperceptible change in the climate means there's no rush to do anything immediately. Far wiser to wait for more data to become available cos a decade and even a half century is nothing in climate change terms. We'll soon find we need all the fossil fuels we can lay hands on, is my guess.


p.s. whatever happened to that "global warming" by the way? Seems to have stopped lately.

[aubrey]

Aye, it's bloody cold today, isn't it? And they talk about global warming! (This is about the level of most anti arguments I have heard.)

I don't see how your reply before that in any way contradicts my point, though. Obviously, anyone is going to worry most about stuff like not having enough money, etc etc: and if the effects of AGW will be felt in rich countries long after they're felt in poor countries (especially if we close down immigration, as right-wingers want to), rich countries are not going to be that bothered about it, especially as Govts tend to look no more than 5 years ahead (long-term plans are often changed or abandoned).

Note how Hurricane Sandy was reported: it was nearly all about NYC and NJ and the US, with hardly anything about Haiti, where the effects were so much more severe.

[marchesarosa]

This is about the level of most anti arguments I have heard

Not surprising since you refuse to inform yourself about the nature of the debate.

Have you read what I posted above re El Ninos and the global step change in temperature which has accompanied them?

That would be a start for you. there is an awful lot that I have posted here and elsewhere that could give you a leg up in understanding what is disputed and what is accepted.