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2016/01/20 17:15:22
Subject: 2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
(CNN)Last year was the Earth's warmest since record-keeping began in 1880, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA said Wednesday.
It's been clear for quite some time that 2015 would steal the distinction of the hottest year from 2014, with 10 out of the 12 months last year being the warmest respective months on record -- and those records go back 136 years.
While it wasn't necessarily a surprise that 2015 finished in first place, its margin of victory was startling -- it lapped the field, with the average temperature across the entire planet 1.62˚F (0.90˚C) above the 20th century average, more than 20% higher than the previous highest departure from average.
This was aided by a December that looked and felt more like a March or April for much of the Northern Hemisphere, where traditional winter holidays had weather that was neither traditional nor winter-like.
In fact, December became the first month to ever reach 2 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for the globe. In the United States, December was both the warmest and the wettest on record -- no other month has ever held both distinctions for the country.
It is somewhat ironic that this news comes out of Washington on a day the city prepares for what could be one of the biggest snowstorms in its history -- but big snows can occur even in the warmest years. Remember Boston last year? Despite the snowiest winter on record for Boston, the state of Massachusetts still ended the year with temperatures far above average.
Why was 2015 so warm? The biggest culprit was a major El Niño, which has joined 1997-1998 as the strongest El Niño ever observed. El Niños, which are characterized by significant warming over topical ocean waters in the Pacific, not only warm the ocean but also pump lots of excess heat into the atmosphere, raising global temperatures.
El Niño years tend to be warmer than non-El Niño years (neutral or La Niña years). El Niño was a major driver of the heat this year, but certainly not the only factor. The change also was "largely driven by increased carbon dioxide and other human-made emissions into the atmosphere," a NASA press release said. This is evident in that recent neutral or even La Niña years have been hotter than previous strong El Niños.
Much like sports writers who start their preseason predictions immediately following the final buzzer of the previous season's championship, many climate scientists and weather forecasters are already saying 2016 could push the chart-topping temperature climb even higher, with El Niño lingering into spring and the continued influence from man-made climate change.
The odds would certainly favor that, as 15 of the top 16 warmest years have occurred since 2000 (1998 being the lone pre-21st century year on the list). The last time we had a year become the coldest on record was 1911.
What's interesting is that there's a Congressional investigation of NOAA underway, over evidence that NOAA falsified its temperature data. News been awfully quiet on this front... no?
I blame it on Trump.
Live Ork, Be Ork. or D'Ork!
2016/01/31 07:03:26
Subject: 2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
In case some people just want to read one of the responses to this "investigation" so that they can be totally surprised about what kind of investigation this could possibly be:
I don't think there's any way to more passive aggressively say "stop jerking us around over all this bull gak you <insert insinuation that committee chairmen is a moron>" without being overtly aggressive XD
I don't think there's any way to more passive aggressively say "stop jerking us around over all this bull gak you <insert insinuation that committee chairmen is a moron>" without being overtly aggressive XD
That's "honorable chairman moron" to you
2016/01/31 07:17:55
Subject: Re:2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
The official global temperature numbers are in, and NOAA and NASA have decided that 2015 was the warmest year on record. Based mostly upon surface thermometers, the official pronouncement ignores the other two primary ways of measuring global air temperatures, satellites and radiosondes (weather balloons).
The fact that those ignored temperature datasets suggest little or no warming for about 18 years now, it is worth outlining the primary differences between these three measurement systems.
Three Ways to Measure Global Temperatures
The primary ways to monitor global average air temperatures are surface based thermometers (since the late 1800s), radiosondes (weather balloons, since about the 1950s), and satellites measuring microwave emissions (since 1979). Other technologies, such as GPS satellite based methods have limited record length and have not yet gained wide acceptance for accuracy.
While the thermometers measure near-surface temperature, the satellites and radiosondes measure the average temperature of a deep layer of the lower atmosphere. Based upon our understanding of how the atmosphere works, the deep layer temperatures are supposed to warm (and cool) somewhat more strongly than the surface temperatures. In other words, variations in global average temperature are expected to be magnified with height, say through the lowest 10 km of atmosphere. We indeed see this during warm El Nino years (like 2015) and cool La Nina years.
The satellite record is the shortest, and since most warming has occurred since the 1970s anyway we often talk about temperature trends since 1979 so that we can compare all three datasets over a common period.
Temperatures of the deep ocean, which I will not address in detail, have warmed by amounts so small — hundredths of a degree — that it is debatable whether they are accurate enough to be of much use. Sea surface temperatures, also indicating modest warming in recent decades, involve an entirely new set of problems, with rather sparse sampling by a mixture of bucket temperatures from many years ago, to newer ship engine intake temperatures, buoys, and since the early 1980s infrared satellite measurements.
How Much Warming?
Since 1979, it is generally accepted that the satellites and radiosondes measure 50% less of a warming trend than the surface thermometer data do, rather than 30-50% greater warming trend that theory predicts for warming aloft versus at the surface.
This is a substantial disagreement.
Why the Disagreement?
There are different possibilities for the disagreement:
1) Surface thermometer analyses are spuriously overestimating the true temperature trend
2) Satellites and radiosondes are spuriously underestimating the true temperature trend
3) All data are largely correct, and are telling us something new about how the climate system operates under long-term warming.
First let’s look at the fundamental basis for each measurement.
All Temperature Measurements are “Indirect”
Roughly speaking, “temperature” is a measure of the kinetic energy of motion of molecules in air.
Unfortunately, we do not have an easy way to directly measure that kinetic energy of motion.
Instead, many years ago, mercury-in-glass or alcohol-in-glass thermometers were commonly used, where the thermal expansion of a column of liquid in response to temperature was estimated by eye. These measurements have now largely been replaced with thermistors, which measure the resistance to the flow of electricity, which is also temperature-dependent.
Such measurements are just for the air immediately surrounding the thermometer, and as we all know, local sources of heat (a wall, pavement, air conditioning or heating equipment, etc.) can and do affect the measurements made by the thermometer. It has been demonstrated many times that urban locations have higher temperatures than rural locations, and such spurious heat influences are difficult to eliminate entirely, since we tend to place thermometers where people live.
Radiosondes also use a thermistor, which is usually checked against a separate thermometer just before weather balloon launch. As the weather balloon carries the thermistor up through the atmosphere, it is immune from ground-based sources of contamination, but it still has various errors due to sunlight heating and infrared cooling which are minimized through radiosonde enclosure design. Radiosondes are much fewer in number, generally making hundreds of point measurements around the world each day, rather than many thousands of measurements that thermometers make.
Satellite microwave radiometers are the fewest in number, only a dozen or so, but each one is transported by its own satellite to continuously measure virtually the entire earth each day. Each individual measurement represents the average temperature of a volume of the lower atmosphere about 50 km in diameter and about 10 km deep, which is about 25,000 cubic kilometers of air. About 20 of those measurements are made every second as the satellite travels and the instrument scans across the Earth.
The satellite measurement itself is “radiative”: the level of microwave emission by oxygen in the atmosphere is measured and compared to that from a warm calibration target on the satellite (whose temperature is monitored with several highly accurate platinum resistance thermometers), and a cold calibration view of the cosmic background radiation from space, assumed to be about 3 Kelvin (close to absolute zero temperature). A less sophisticated (infrared) radiation temperature measurement is made with the medical thermometer you place in your ear.
So, Which System is Better?
The satellites have the advantage of measuring virtually the whole Earth every day with the same instruments, which are then checked against each other. But since there are very small differences between the instruments, which can change slightly over time, adjustments must be made.
Thermometers have the advantage of being much greater in number, but with potentially large long-term spurious warming effects depending on how each thermometer’s local environment has changed with the addition of manmade objects and structures.
Virtually all thermometer measurements require adjustments of some sort, simply because with the exception of a few thermometer sites, there has not been a single, unaltered instrument measuring the same place for 30+ years without a change in its environment. When such rare thermometers were identified in a recent study of the U.S., it was found that by comparison the official U.S. warming trends were exaggerated by close to 60%. Thus, the current official NOAA adjustment procedures appear to force the good data to match the bad data, rather than the other way around. Whether such problem exist with other countries data remains to be seen.
Changes in radiosonde design and software have occurred over the years, making some adjustments necessary to the raw data.
For the satellites, orbital decay of the satellites requires an adjustment of the “lower tropospheric” (LT) temperatures, which is well understood and quite accurate, depending only upon geometry and the average rate of temperature decrease with altitude. But the orbital decay also causes the satellites to slowly drift in the time of day they observe. This “diurnal drift” adjustment is less certain. Significantly, very different procedures for this adjustment have led to almost identical results between the satellite datasets produced by UAH (The University of Alabama in Huntsville) and RSS (Remote Sensing Systems, Santa Rosa, California).
The fact that the satellites and radiosondes – two very different types of measurement system — tend to agree with each other gives us somewhat more confidence in their result that warming has been much less than predicted by climate models. But even the thermometers indicate less warming than the models, just with less of a discrepancy.
And this is probably the most important issue…that no matter which temperature monitoring method we use, the climate models that global warming policies are based upon have been, on average, warming faster than all of our temperature observation systems.
I do believe “global warming” has occurred, but (1) it is weaker than expected, based upon independent satellite and weather balloon measurements; (2) it has been overestimated with poorly adjusted surface-based thermometers; (3) it has a substantial natural component; and (4) it is likely to be more beneficial to life on Earth than harmful.
Live Ork, Be Ork. or D'Ork!
2016/01/31 07:31:25
Subject: 2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
I'll be honest with you, I won't waste my time reading anything else you are going to post on this.
The response from NOAA makes it pretty clear that this is just another witch-hunt and I'm going to sit firmly in the science camp here. But feel free to add this to your collection of "truths".
2016/01/31 07:45:51
Subject: 2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
d-usa wrote: I'll be honest with you, I won't waste my time reading anything else you are going to post on this.
K.
The response from NOAA makes it pretty clear that this is just another witch-hunt and I'm going to sit firmly in the science camp here. But feel free to add this to your collection of "truths".
So those 300 scientists challenging NOAA are not... in the science camp?
Ooooookay.
What are they then? Band camp*? *not that there's anything wrong with band camp.
Live Ork, Be Ork. or D'Ork!
2016/01/31 09:26:47
Subject: Re:2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
Such measurements are just for the air immediately surrounding the thermometer, and as we all know, local sources of heat (a wall, pavement, air conditioning or heating equipment, etc.) can and do affect the measurements made by the thermometer. It has been demonstrated many times that urban locations have higher temperatures than rural locations, and such spurious heat influences are difficult to eliminate entirely, since we tend to place thermometers where people live.
So, human activity?
I do believe “global warming” has occurred, but (1) it is weaker than expected, based upon independent satellite and weather balloon measurements; (2) it has been overestimated with poorly adjusted surface-based thermometers; (3) it has a substantial natural component; and (4) it is likely to be more beneficial to life on Earth than harmful.
What is the natural component?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/01/31 09:28:33
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
2016/01/31 09:42:30
Subject: Re:2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
So those 300 scientists challenging NOAA are not... in the science camp?
That entirely depends what kind of scientists they are. Science is an absolutely gigantic field with relatively minor areas of overlap (aside from very basic principles). Someone who studies virulence factors in Streptococci or maps asteroids would be little better than a random talking head when it comes to climate science.
I used to spend time arguing about climate change on forums and a lot of the 'scientific' counter evidence originated from scientists who were working outside of their field (sometimes completely outside their field). I don't know about this specific instance, to be honest I don't care, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if this was more of the same.
That entirely depends what kind of scientists they are. Science is an absolutely gigantic field with relatively minor areas of overlap (aside from very basic principles). Someone who studies virulence factors in Streptococci or maps asteroids would be little better than a random talking head when it comes to climate science.
Spencer has a PhD in meteorology so he has expertise in a relevant area, and his research is pretty good. It's worth noting that he does believe that the Earth has gotten warmer, just not in line with model predictions. The problems come up when he deliberately tacks conservative.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
2016/01/31 13:00:11
Subject: Re:2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
What is the context of this letter? You are presenting it to imply that they signed some sort of letter disputing the NOAA findings. Is that what it is? I assume it comes from the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology, but where is the actual letter?
lord_blackfang wrote: Respect to the guy who subscribed just to post a massive ASCII dong in the chat and immediately get banned.
Flinty wrote: The benefit of slate is that its.actually a.rock with rock like properties. The downside is that it's a rock
2016/01/31 13:35:37
Subject: 2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
So those 300 scientists challenging NOAA are not... in the science camp?
(Let me rephrase that) No, those 300 dudes are firmly in the getting paid to post bs camp and either lack the necessary knowledge or just straight up lie about these things.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2016/01/31 22:51:03
2016/01/31 18:37:33
Subject: 2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
I thought blindly accepting the majority consensus is anithema to science? Having detractors constantly trying to disprove it only makes the theory stronger(if they don't end up disproving it of course ).
Really? Using that tired old nag? Have you been paying any attention to the price of oil over the last year? The oil companies have been losing so much money they couldn't afford a conspiracy against global warming if they even wanted to.
Which really shows how much GW is a for not lowing prices since plastic is cheaper than it's been in years.
2016/02/01 00:41:24
Subject: 2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
Sinful Hero wrote: I thought blindly accepting the majority consensus is anithema to science? Having detractors constantly trying to disprove it only makes the theory stronger(if they don't end up disproving it of course ).
A common misconception. In fact, accepting the majority consensus at some point is necessary for science to function, otherwise we'd still be sitting about pondering Zeno's Paradoxes - at some point if it looks 99.95% like a duck and quacks 99.95% like a duck, everyone usually accepts it's probably a fething duck and moves on. I mean it's still technically possible that I'll wake up one day and find a a PHD student has proven Phlogiston Theory or that the mechanism behind Quantum Gravity is driven by subatomic toffee, but, for some totally unknowable reason that I'm sure has nothing to do with the fact that the oil industry has no interest in Phlogiston as a source of income, there are no articles in national newspapers or politicians on committees or huge collections of internet conspiracy nuts claiming that relativity and quantum mechanics are totally fictional plots by dastardly physicists to secure grant funding.
Regardless, the process rather relies on the detractors in question being qualified scientists with honest motivations, rather than paid lobbyist shills, politically-motivated non-scientist officials or non-expert scientists, and idiots who genuinely pull that "hurr durr it's snowin' outside so howzit global warm? Lol science are dumz" nonsense. I mean seriously, would anyone be happy with the idea of letting their GP perform complex neurosurgery on you - afterall, they're all doctors, right? But many folk will seemingly happily accept geologists or botanists or theoretical astrophysicists telling them that climate science is wrong.
"Your society's broken, so who should we blame? Should we blame the rich, powerful people who caused it? No, lets blame the people with no power and no money and those immigrants who don't even have the vote. Yea, it must be their fething fault." - Iain M Banks
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"The language of modern British politics is meant to sound benign. But words do not mean what they seem to mean. 'Reform' actually means 'cut' or 'end'. 'Flexibility' really means 'exploit'. 'Prudence' really means 'don't invest'. And 'efficient'? That means whatever you want it to mean, usually 'cut'. All really mean 'keep wages low for the masses, taxes low for the rich, profits high for the corporations, and accept the decline in public services and amenities this will cause'." - Robin McAlpine from Common Weal
2016/02/01 02:06:51
Subject: 2015 is warmest year on record, NOAA and NASA say
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for not lowing prices since plastic is cheaper than it's been in years.
