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Published online 28 May 2008 |
Nature
453,
569
(2008)
| doi:10.1038/453569a
Corrected online: 30 May 2008
News
Climate anomaly is an artefact
Glitch in the twentieth-century climate record is explained.
The humble bucket turns out to be at the bottom of a perplexing anomaly in the climate records for the twentieth century.
The time series of land and ocean temperature measurements, begun in 1860, shows a strange cooling of about 0.
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Why does the same "glitch" occur in the land-based measurements as well? Many city met sites moved to airports after 1945, where the temperature was lower. The Pacific Decadal oscillation shows a dipat this point It rose agins in 1976. The sea surface glitch is one of the many influences which make the global mean surface temperature anomaly record so unreliable as a guide to global temperatures. Since 2000 reforms and corrections have led this record to give alomost identical results to the much more reliable satellite record in the lower troposphere
Thanks for this news story and for informing the public of an uncertainty in some of the temperature measurements. There has never been any doubt "about the reality of climate change." However, Al Gore, NOAA, NASA and the ICPP were blatantly wrong to ignore scientific evidence that Earth's climate follows cyclic changes in solar activity [1-8] rather than CO2 from the burning of hydrocarbon fuels. REFERENCES: [1] P. D. Jose: 1965, "Sun's motion and sunspots", Astronomy Journal 70, 193-200; [2] R. W. Fairbridge and J. H. Shirley: 1987, "Prolonged minima and the 179 year cycle of the solar inertial motion," Solar Physics 110 191-220; [3] Theodor Landscheidt: 1999, "Extrema in sunspot cycle linked to Sun's motion, "Solar Physics 189, 413-424; http://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/extrema.htm [4] O. K. Manuel, B. W. Ninham and S. E. Friberg: 2003, "Super-fluidity in the solar interior: Implications for solar eruptions and climate," J. Fusion Energy 21, 193-198; [5] J. Shirley: 2006, "Axial rotation, orbital revolution, and solar spin-orbit coupling," Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 368, 280-282; [6] W. J. R. Alexander, F. Bailey, D. B. Bredenkamp, A. vander Merwe and N. Willemse: 2007, "Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development," J. South African Institut. Civil Eng. 49, 32-44. http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/Conf2007/Alexander-etal-2007.pdf [7] O. Manuel and H. Ratcliffe: 2008, "Fingerprints of a local supernova," in Supernova Research [Nova Science Publishers, Inc., Hauppauge, NY, USA] in press. http://www.omatumr.com/abstracts2007/20071202_Manuel_and_Ratcliffe.pdf/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf
How is this new. The same result was reported by Steve McIntyre on his blog over a year ago. It does seem to bear witness to the low quality of work that is being done in this field. A known result is taken as new by important researchers and reported as new in Nature.
As Tom Gray observes, contrary to the assertion by Thompson et al 2008 that the 1945 discontinuity was "previously overlooked", this discontinuity had been previously discussed in a Climate Audit article on March 18, 2007 entitled "The Team and Pearl Harbour" http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1276. Merely googling "climate world war 2 adjustments" would have immediately located this discussion, which was at the top of the Google ranks when I looked earlier today. In that post, I noted that that the Folland et al assumption of 100% phasing in of engine inlet SST in December 1941 after Pearl Harbor (and all periods thereafter)was inconsistent with the information in Kent et al 2007 that 90% of SST measurements in 1970 for which information was available were obtained by buckets. While we noted that the WWII records for 1942-45 appeared to be dominated by engine-warmed intake data (a point common to all analyses), because 90% of SST measurements with known provenance in 1970 were bucket rather than engine inlet, we postulated that "business as usual" had resumed after the war, with a resulting preponderance of bucket, rather than inlet data. Accordingly, any transition to engine inlets had to be phased in from 1970 on, rather than instantaneously in 1941, as assumed by Folland et al and others. I illustrated the following scenario: - wartime transition to 75% engine inlets in December 1941 as per Folland's original adjustment (80% is estimated in Thompson et al.) - a return to "business as usual" engine inlet measurement proportion in 1946, using the 10% proportion later observed in 1970 in the Kent et al 2007 study; - phasing in the Folland adjustment for engine inlets between 1970 and 2000, rather than instantaneously in 1941. The impact of this alternative scenario was illustrated in the Climate Audit post last year, showing that a revised transition schedule resulted in a substantial change to received temperature history, eliminating the puzzling postwar decline in temperature. The problem may have been overlooked by IPCC, CRU and Hadley Center, but wasn't overlooked by everybody.
Oliver Manuel makes reference to an article by Alexander et al. (2007) J. South African Institut. Civil Eng. 49, 32-44, which purports to show that sunspot activity is a determinant of wet and dry phases in southern Africa. Any decent review of this article will show that there is no such relationship and that the article is based on cherrypicking of data. Correlations of major catchment runoff with Wolff or Hale sunspot numbers will show that no such relationship exists. The strongest influence on regional rainfall comes from ENSO and other SST-based oscillations.
Slightl OT: Sampling problems apart, I'm reminded by this story that it's still surprising difficult and/or expensive to get a temperature measurement set that you can put on a ship (or in a chemical reactor etc), and that gives confidence limits better than about +- 0.1°C. Mercury thermometers with visual reading still seem to be the most stable and reliable, but they're more or less banned.
Arthur Chapman asserts that any "decent review" of the article cited as [6] (W. J. R. Alexander, F. Bailey, D. B. Bredenkamp, A. vander Merwe and N. Willemse: 2007, "Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development," J. South African Institut. Civil Eng. 49, 32-44) -- http://www.lavoisier.com.au/papers/Conf2007/Alexander-etal-2007.pdf -- will show that "the article is based on cherrypicking of data." Numerous other peer-reviewed research articles show beyond any reasonable doubt that Earth's climate is linked with sunspot activity, and sunspot activity arises because the planets move in ever-changing orbits that jerk the Sun around like a yo-yo on a string. This causes the position of the dense, energetic solar core to shift relative to the visible solar surface [See reference #7 above]. Al Gore, NOAA, NASA and the ICPP overlooked the fact that they will have to stop the planets in order to stop global climate change. Arthur Chapman is correct in pointing out that cherrypicking is indeed unscientific - like playing God and selecting only one of seven peer-reviewed research articles to subjectively describe as indecently reviewed. -Oliver K. Manuel
One may wonder whether the discussion will be of much help to prove anything. The presentation of a global SST data-set does it certainly not. Ship measurements should be generally be handled with great constrain. This is particularly to reckon for the data taken during WWII as analyzed in two papers: “Reliability of sea-surface temperature data taken during war time in the Pacific�, 1997, in: PACON 97 Proceedings, pp. 240-250; http://www.oceanclimate.de/English/Pacific_SST_1997.pdf , and “How useful are Atlantic Sea-surface temperatures taken during WWII�, 1998, Oceanology International 98, Conference Proceedings Vol. 1, pp.121-130, http://www.oceanclimate.de/English/Atlantic_SST_1998.pdf . WWII-SST should definitely not be included in any data set. Remains the question why the world observed a global cooling from 1940 to ca. 1970? The ocean, or parts of the oceans, may have only needed a decimal degree of lower average SST to cool down the air temperatures to a much higher margin. In those days one could not expect such precise ship measurements. After all merely claiming that the mysterious post-war ocean cooling is a glitch explains little about the actual status of the seas back than.
Oliver Manuel It's "IPCC" and they do attribute part of the climate change to solar changes. This is evident in the WGI SPM; the most basic of reports issued. (figure SPM-2). Also, half the papers you listed were beyond the cut-off date for inclusion in AR4. For further discussion of the IPCC findings on solar forcings you should read AR4 chapter 2 "Changes in Atmospheric Constituents and in Radiative Forcing" specifically section 2.7.1.
It might be worthwhile to reconsider the sufficiency of all historical SST taken by ships. The "drop-dead date in 1941" seems to have started already, back in 1939, and make all WWII data completely unreliable as explained by Bernaerts; 1997 "Reliability of sea-surface temperature data taken during war time in the Pacific", PACON 97 Proceedings, p. 240ff; and Bernaerts; 1998, "How useful are Atlantic Sea-surface temperatures taken during WWII", Oceanology Int. 98, Proceedings Vol. 1, p121ff (see: Comments http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080528/full/453569a.html ). If one takes into account the vastness of the ocean space and volume any correction of SST data will hardly produce the information necessary.
Thanks, Daniel, for pointing out that IPCC is the abbreviation for UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. You are also correct in pointing out that IPCC mentions, and then dismisses, the Sun as the culprit responsible for "Global Warming." As our Western economies crumble, I expect that there will be official inquiries to find out why UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - and US federal research agencies like NASA, DOE, NOAA, NSF, etc. - worked together to promote this economy-wrecking web of misinformation: [_1._] CO2 from the tail pipes of Western economic engines caused global warming. [_2._] Earth's climate is immune from the cyclic changes in sunspots and solar activity. [_3. _] Hydrogen fusion in the Sun bathes planet Earth in a steady and unchanging flow of heat. [_4._] Solar neutrinos from H-fusion in the Sun magically oscillate away before reaching our detectors. I do not understand the motives for these actions, but therein lies the key to the debate over anthropologic global warming. With kind regards, Oliver K. Manuel, Emeritus Professor, Former NASA PI for Apollo Lunar Samples, http://www.omatumr.com
I neglected to mention that the first Letter in this issue of Nature, "An infrared ring around the magnetar SGR 1900+14" [Nature 453, 626-628 (29 May 2008)], exposes one of the fatal flaws in the consensus opinion at NASA, DOE, and NSF that [_a._] Hydrogen fusion powers the Sun and other ordinary stars in the cosmos, and [_b._] Neutron stars are the DEAD embers of once bright stars that have consumed all of their nuclear fuel by fusion. In stark contrast to this consensus opinion, authors of the Letter on pages 626-628 suggest that a giant flare from an unidentified energy source ejected material from a neutron star in August of 1998, and the material then formed into an elliptical ring surrounding the neutron star. The authors seemed to be unaware that neutron repulsion -- the most powerful source of nuclear -- has been identified as the primary energy source for the Sun and the cosmos [See: "On the cosmic nuclear cycle and the similarity of nuclei and stars", Journal of Fusion Energy 25 (2006) pp. 107-114, http://arxiv.org/abs/nucl-th/0511051] This NASA news release about a "STRANGE RING FOUND CIRCLING DEAD STAR" -- http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzer-20080528.html-- illustrates the current quandary of consensus science with this quote from Stefanie Wachter, the first author of the Letter in this issue of Nature, "The universe is a big place and weird things can happen!" With kind regards, Oliver K. Manuel, Emeritus Professor, http://www.omatumr.com
This is a new low, both for the journal Nature and for the climate science community. A paper is published which turns out to be a re-hashed version of a climate audit post. The "previously overlooked discontinuity" has been discussed at length by climate audit, and a corrected version of the graph without the discontinuity appeared on climate audit back in March 2007. This raises some serious questions for the journal and the scientists involved. What are the editors of Nature going to do? Withdraw the paper? Publish a correction and proper acknowledgment? And what happened to Nature's rigorous refereeing process? Did none of the referees think to Google the subject to check? What do the scientists involved have to say for themselves?
These comments concern me, because if NATURE is not an independent purveyor of information it will cease to hold its position as the world's pre-eminent scientific journal. I note that this can not be claimed to be a one-off error - for example, there have been concerns in the past about NATURE's lack of publication of corrections with MBH 1998/1999. In my opinion the position of NATURE's editorial team with regard to independence in Climate Change publications is not a satisfactorily one, and I suggest that a more inclusive attitude is taken, particularly with regard to the data disseminated by CLIMATE AUDIT.
The late actress, Tallulah Bankhead, reviewing a play she found elaborate but inconsequential, remarked "There's less to this than meets the eye". An artefactual component to the 1940's "dip" may be real but is probably exaggerated, as one can conclude by combining evidence from the Nature paper with IPCC AR4 WGI Chapter 3 and references. The early 1940's saw a temperature spike, concurrent with extended El Nino conditions and the warm phase of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. When that peak started to subside naturally (around 1943), the return toward more normal conditions created the appearance of a dip. This is apparent in SST measurements, but also in marine air temperature (NMAT) measurements unaffected by SST measurement errors. Both the peak and the downward decline are present but very slight in land temperature records. The SST temperature dip exceeded the NMAT dip, and that excess may well have reflected measurement artefact, but it is only a small fraction of the total dip, and probably requires less correction than implied recently. When the SST record is corrected as suggested in the Nature paper (mainly immediately post-1945 with little change much later), the mid-century temperatures from SST, NMAT, and land measurements all exhibit a flat interval until the 1970s, consistent with aerosol masking of CO2-driven warming, and also consistent with model projections. It therefore appears that the mid-century aberrations are explainable on the basis of natural climate variation, with a slight added element of artefact, but less than the current discussions imply.
I'd like to echo the concerns of some of the commenters above. The refusal to acknowledge Steve McIntyre looks to an outsider like bias. An editorial comment about why Climate Audit is not mentioned nor linked to with respect to this story would be welcome. Quirin?
I will acknowledge that my background is not in modeling climate change but I do have an interest in the history of the Second World War. The authors rule out the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic bomb blasts and subsequent firestorms as possible causes of the SST anomaly. However, during the later years of the War, multiple cities, towns, and villages were destroyed by fire in Europe and Asia, notably Dresden, Hamburg and the Japanese cities. Could the cumulative effect of burning of all these buildings, factories, and material stockpiles have contributed to the anomaly? -Dr. Jeffrey Waller, Horticultural Sciences Dept., University of Florida, USA