How Long Is the Pause?

[John Reece]

List of excuses for ‘the pause’ in global warming is now up to 52

Here is an update re the OP:

From Watts Up With That?

List of excuses for ‘the pause’ in global warming is now up to 52

Anthony Watts / September 11, 2014

Updated list of 52 excuses for the 18-26 year ‘pause’ in global warming (compiled by WUWT and The HockeySchtick) [...]

[John Reece]

Comment by Joseph Bastardi

From Climate Etc.

HOW LONG IS THE PAUSE?

Posted on September 1, 2014

by Judith Curry

With 39 explanations and counting, and some climate scientists now arguing that it might last yet another decade, the IPCC has sidelined itself in irrelevance until it has something serious to say about the pause and has reflected on whether its alarmism is justified, given its reliance on computer models that predicted temperature rises that have not occurred. – Rupert Darwall

The statement by Rupert Darwall concisely states what is at stake with regards to the ‘pause.’ This seriously needs to be sorted out. Here are two recent papers that contribute to setting us on a path to understand the pause.

Judith Curry reflections at end of her blog post (emphasis added to concluding sentence):

The climate community is in a big rut when it comes to climate change attribution – as I’ve argued in previous threads, climate models are not fit for the purpose of climate change attribution on decadal to century timescales. Alternative methods are needed, and the two papers discussed here are steps in the right direction.

We will not be successful at sorting out attribution on these timescales until we have more robust paleo proxy data. The paleo proxy community also seems to be in a rut, with continued reliance on tree rings and other proxies having serious calibration issues.

The key challenge is this: convincing attribution of ‘more than half’ of the recent warming to humans requires understanding natural variability and rejecting natural variability as a predominant explanation for the overall century scale warming and also the warming in the latter half of the 20th century. Global climate models and tree ring based proxy reconstructions are not fit for this purpose.

This is a reply to the post above on Judith Curry's website [brackets added by JR]:

Joseph Bastardi | September 1, 2014 at 9:01 am | Reply

Its the PDO and then the AMO. This is not only going to last, but there is likely to be a return to the satellite measured temps at the start of the era, when the PDO suddenly flipped. I have written extensively about this idea since 2007. The fact is that the “warming” is a distortion of temps brought about by major natural cycles, not the least of which is the PDO/AMO cycle. However the bulk of the warming has been in the arctic winters, which has very little effect on the number one GHG, WV . The cooling PDO leads to less frequent and less strong enso events, and an overall reduction in water vapor over the tropics (hence the global downturn in ace [sic? ice?].. spoke about this and showed mixing ratio flip at heartland). This in turn drives yet another dagger into the heart of the trapping hot spot, quite the contrary the reduction of wv over tropics in an area where there is much bang for the buck will lead to the opposite. This is clearly seen in the NCEP Temps since the PDO flip.. the spiking for enso events but the overall downturn that has begun

The pause will end when the AMO [Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation] which will flip to cold in the coming years has matured and the PDO [Pacific Decadal Oscillation] warms again. The test of the theory is already on. The basic equation is the sun/oceans/stochastic events effect far far greater than co2, which is rendered as immeasurable in the noise, except to those who think they have found the needle in the haystack holy grail of climate, at the cost of 165 billion to the American taxpayer (and God knows how much other treasure and effort, given all we have lost) [emphasis added by JR]

Its simple..like any forecast.. watch and verify

[Leonhard]

Us down in NatSci, wanna know why there's so much science up here in Civics all of the sudden.

*Takes the elevator down again*

[John Reece]

From Climate Etc.

HOW LONG IS THE PAUSE?

Posted on September 1, 2014

by Judith Curry

With 39 explanations and counting, and some climate scientists now arguing that it might last yet another decade, the IPCC has sidelined itself in irrelevance until it has something serious to say about the pause and has reflected on whether its alarmism is justified, given its reliance on computer models that predicted temperature rises that have not occurred. – Rupert Darwall

The statement by Rupert Darwall concisely states what is at stake with regards to the ‘pause.’ This seriously needs to be sorted out. Here are two recent papers that contribute to setting us on a path to understand the pause.

Judith Curry reflections at end of her blog post (emphasis added to concluding sentence):

The climate community is in a big rut when it comes to climate change attribution – as I’ve argued in previous threads, climate models are not fit for the purpose of climate change attribution on decadal to century timescales. Alternative methods are needed, and the two papers discussed here are steps in the right direction.

We will not be successful at sorting out attribution on these timescales until we have more robust paleo proxy data. The paleo proxy community also seems to be in a rut, with continued reliance on tree rings and other proxies having serious calibration issues.

The key challenge is this: convincing attribution of ‘more than half’ of the recent warming to humans requires understanding natural variability and rejecting natural variability as a predominant explanation for the overall century scale warming and also the warming in the latter half of the 20th century. Global climate models and tree ring based proxy reconstructions are not fit for this purpose.