Dr. Roy Spencer presents the latest measurements of lower troposphere temperature as measured by two sets of satellites. See his post here. He presents a graph showing measured temperatures versus model predictions.

You can see that actual global temperatures have flattened out since about 1998. The “spaghetti” on the graph represents predictions of 44 models and the black line is the average of model predictions.

Spencer presents three possible explanations for the divergence:

“1) the real climate system is not as sensitive to increasing CO₂ as the models are programmed to be.” (His preferred explanation).

“2) the extra surface heating from more CO₂ has been diluted more than expected by increased mixing with cooler, deeper ocean waters (Trenberth’s explanation)”

The oceans have a high heat capacity and can absorb great quantities of heat. But have they? The subject is controversial. Anthony Watts discusses the problem here. He notes a recent study which says that between 1955 and 2010, the temperature of the global ocean, between the surface and a depth of 2,000 meters increased in temperature by 0.09 C. That’s not much and Watts wonders if we can even measure to that precision.

“3) increased manmade aerosol pollution is causing a cooling influence, partly mitigating the manmade CO₂ warming.”

However, a 2007 satellite-based NASA study shows that aerosols have been decreasing steadily since 1992. In particular, sulfate aerosols have been greatly decreasing since establishment of the 1970 Clean Air Act in the U.S. and similar measures in Europe.

Explanations #2 and #3 seem to have problems. That leaves #1: the climate is not very sensitive to carbon dioxide and is much less sensitive than models assume. The forcing effect of carbon dioxide, if any, is apparently easily overcome by stronger natural forces.

If Spencer’s first explanation is correct, the political war on fossil fuel emissions is futile and will have little or no effect on global temperatures, but that war will cost us dearly by raising energy prices and making our electric grid less reliable.

See also:

Global warming theory fails again

Failure of the Anthropogenic Global Warming Hypothesis

In his 2013 inaugural address, President Obama told Americans that the United States “will respond to the threat of climate change” and will take the lead for other countries to follow suit. Since the climate is always changing, it is possible that our way of life could be threatened by unpleasant changes such as a new glacial epoch. The President was, however, referring to the hypothesis that human carbon dioxide emissions are causing major, dangerous climate changes. If he follows this false assumption, then any resultant policy will be ineffective and could, itself, be dangerous.

Dr. Robert Carter, a specialist in paleo-environmental and paleo-climatic topics and author of the book, “Climate: the Counter Consensus,” shows how this hypothesis of dangerous anthropogenic global warming (DAGW) fails. Below are some excerpts from a long post titled “Global Warming: Anthropogenic or Not?” See full post here.

Many different lines of evidence can be used to test the Dangerous Anthropogenic Global Warming hypothesis (DAGW). Here are five pieces of evidence, all of which are based upon real world empirical data.

1. Over the last 16 years, global average temperature, as measured by both thermometers and satellite sensors, has displayed no statistically significant warming; over the same period, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased by 10%.

Large increases in carbon dioxide have therefore not only failed to produce dangerous warming, but failed to produce any warming at all. Hypothesis fails.

2. During the 20th century, a global warming of between 0.4̊C and 0.7̊C occurred, at a maximum rate, in the early decades of the century, of about 1.7̊C/century. In comparison, our best regional climate records show that over the last 10,000 years natural climate cycling has resulted in temperature highs up to at least 1̊C warmer than today, at rates of warming up to 2.5̊C/century.

In other words, both the rate and magnitude of 20th century warming falls well within the envelope of natural climate change. Hypothesis fails, twice.

3. If global temperature is controlled primarily by atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, then changes in carbon dioxide should precede parallel changes in temperature.

In fact, the opposite relationship applies at all time scales. Temperature change precedes carbon dioxide change by about 5 months during the annual seasonal cycle, and by about 700-1000 years during ice age climatic cycling. Hypothesis fails.

4. The IPCC’s computer general circulation models, which factor in the effect of increasing carbon dioxide, project that global warming should be occurring at a rate of +2.0̊C/century.

In fact, no warming at all has occurred in either the atmosphere or the ocean for more than the last decade. The models are clearly faulty, and allocate too great a warming effect for the extra carbon dioxide (technically, they are said to overestimate the climate sensitivity). Hypothesis fails.

5. The same computer models predict that a fingerprint of greenhouse-gas-induced warming will be the creation of an atmospheric hot spot at heights of 8-10 km in equatorial regions, and enhanced warming also near both poles.

Given that we already know that the models are faulty, it shouldn’t surprise us to discover that direct measurements by both weather balloon radiosondes and satellite sensors show the absence of surface warming in Antarctica, and a complete absence of the predicted low latitude atmospheric hot spot. Hypothesis fails, twice.

The null hypothesis – because it is the simplest consistent with the known facts – is that global climate changes are presumed to be natural, unless and until specific evidence is forthcoming for human causation.

So far, no evidence has been presented to disprove the null hypothesis.

The Heritage Foundation has some suggestions on how the U.S. can “take the lead” in climate policy, see here:

Undertake independent efforts to more accurately determine the severity of climate change and verify U.N. claims. The lack of warming in recent years is raising fundamental questions about the underlying assumptions of climate-change predictions. Undertaking actions with grave implications for the U.S. economy without greater confidence is irresponsible.

Work with a smaller group of nations through informal arrangements such as the Major Economies Forum to undertake appropriate steps that are cost effective, verifiable, and effectual.

Call for a moratorium on U.N. climate change conferences that emphasize financial transfers and
reinforce the flawed, ineffective Kyoto methodology of differentiated responsibilities.

Prohibit the EPA and other agencies from regulating greenhouse gas emissions and prohibiting the EPA and other agencies from using any funds to promulgate or enforce any regulation intended to mitigate global warming unless it is expressly authorized to do so by Congress.

UPDATE: This update is in response to comments below.

The comments are very instructive to the objective reader. They show how proponents of AGW divert attention from the main issue with ad hominem attacks, appeals to authority, appeals to a mythical consensus, and a Mr. Wolf even wonders how dare someone give me a platform to express an opinion. This shows that their passion is religious rather than scientific. It also shows they lack physical evidence to support their credulous belief in AGW.

Hidden in all the sound and fury, we see that not one of them presents physical evidence to show that human carbon dioxide emissions are the major cause of climate change or even a significant cause of climate change. Not one of them has presented evidence to refute the null hypothesis, i.e., that the climate variations are natural.

The facts show that the DAGW hypothesis fails the test when it comes to observational data.

A report released by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) called 2012 “the warmest year ever for the nation.”

Whether or not 2012 was the hottest ever in the continental United States seems to depend on which data set is consulted. Both NOAA and NASA have been making “adjustments” to the official temperature record, all of which tend to make older records cooler and more recent temperatures warmer.

Back in April, I reported on an investigation of the temperature record by Dr. Roy Spencer. He found that NOAA “adjustments” of the U.S. Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) could account for almost all of the reported warming since 1973 (See here).

Also, as I reported in September, NOAA keeps two separate sets of temperature stations (see here). The newer network, United States Climate Reference Network (USCRN), using modern instruments and sited well away from urban centers, shows the U.S. temperature to be 0.9°F to 7.2°F cooler than the temperatures reported by the old USHCN network upon which the claim that 2012 was the hottest is based.

The manipulation of the temperature record can more easily shown by looking at the version maintained by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). Note that the current claim is that 2012 was about 1°F warmer than 1998, the year of an El Nino caused warming spike.

The first graph shows the GISS temperature record as published in 1999 before political correctness had really taken over “climate science.”

Notice that 1934 was shown as 1.1°F warmer than 1998. The current graph from GISS shows “adjusted” temperatures. Notice that 1934 is now cooler than 1998.

Steve Goddard discusses this discrepancy in more detail here.

Another discrepancy is reported by Anthony Watts here. Watts noticed that there was a difference between numbers in the official NOAA database and the numbers being reported to the public in NOAA’s State of the Climate reports. “In almost every instance dating back to the inception of the CONUS Tavg value being reported in the SOTC report, there’s a difference. Some are quite significant. In most cases, the database value is cooler than the claim made in the SOTC report. Clearly, it is a systemic issue that spans over two years of reporting to the press and to the public.”

As I said at the beginning, the relative warmth of 2012 depends on the data set consulted. Keep in mind also that the continental U.S. represents just 2% of the planet, so temperatures in the U.S. really say nothing about global warming or cooling. To put that in perspective, take a look at the UAH global satellite temperature record which shows that 2010 was warmer than 2012. It also shows that there has been no net warming since 2000. That lack of temperature trend is also reported by the British HADCRUT dataset.

For more perspective on the “hottest” year see 2010 the 9000^th Warmest Year

NOAA’s announcement plays to a political agenda advocating a tax on carbon dioxide emissions. An op-ed in the Washington Post is typical in its flawed logic and invocation of bogeymen: “Scientists can’t yet know to what extent man-made emissions influenced the heat and calamitous drought. But the result is nevertheless ominous… The smartest hedge would be a national carbon tax.” The tax is proposed as a solution to a perceived problem even though “scientists still do not know exactly how sensitive the global climate system is to human carbon emissions.” They are uncertain about the cause of the problem; they are uncertain that there is a problem; but they are certain that a tax will fix it all.

A single year may be anomalous for many reasons. Another plot by Steve Goddard using NOAA data shows decadal average temperatures. This plot shows that there is nothing to get excited over.

UPDATE FEB. 6, 2013: NOAA backs off claim that 2012 was warmest on record, see here.