Someone please help me.

Following Bish's post and the subsequent comments about the NYT article, I came across this post from the Guardian which attempts to explain the changes in warming in the last 15 years or so.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/apr/24/reuters-puzzled-global-warming-acceleration

From my rather ignorant perspective, it seems like we have the two sides claiming that two completely different things have happened. Skeptics say that there has been no warming. Whereas warmists say global warming has accelerated.

In his blog Mr Nuccitelli says that it's all gone into the oceans and that La Niñas cause temperatures to temporarilly flatten out.

During periods with more La Niñas, surface temperatures temporarily flatten out. But global warming does not. As long as humans continue to increase the greenhouse effect by burning massive quantities of fossil fuels, the planet will continue to warm, as is clear from the acceleration of global warming since 2000.

Is there anything wrong with his explanation?

And on the previous topic: is there any significance to his chosing 1970 for the beginning of this graph? What would it look like if he went back to another date? And which date would that be?

Sorry if this is covering old ground, but I'm trying to play catch-up.

Thanks Martin. But I need more specifics.

Doesn't his graph show that global average temperatures are continuing to rise and that the current slowdown is part of a long-term cyclical trend? What evidence is there to tell me that this isn't the case?

And Argo, do I take it, then, that there is no evidence that ocean temperatures are increasing?

(BTW I'm not here for a row, I want clarity!)

Martin

I don't know what I'm looking for. But I'm hoping for a clear explanation. This stuff doesn't mean much to me and I don't have the time/energy/inclination to track down/interpret the primary sources myself, hence my request for help here.

I don't have the time/energy/inclination to clean the grouting in my shower. Would a BH poster please come round and do it for me.

@Charlie Furniss

You should be aware that there is very little data indeed about the temperature of the deep oceans. When warmists like Nuccitelli (who isn't a climate scientist, btw) say the heat is going there, they're simply picking the one location that can't be examined to disprove their assertion (which, of course, they can't prove either).

Thanks for comments, all.

Martin: I might not have been clear enough in my original post: I was referring to what skeptics/warmists have said about warming in the last 15 years.

Green Sand: if only we could all go and make up our own minds by trawling through the research papers! Unfortunately, most of us don't have the time, let alone the required level of experience/education/intelligence to understand the complexities discussed in the primary sources.

Breath: Yes, I did write that piece, back in the days when things appeared much clearer than they do now!

Turning Tide and Paul: so when Nuccitelli tells us all the heat has gone into the oceans, he is just taking a punt? He refers to this research:

http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nclimate1863.html

Is this not what he claims it to be?

I can understand this (in the abstract):

Most of this excess energy was absorbed in the top 700 m of the ocean at the onset of the warming pause, 65% of it in the tropical Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Our results hence point at the key role of the ocean heat uptake in the recent warming slowdown.

But what does the following mean (also in the abstract) and is there a problem with their method which reduces the certainty of their claim?

Here we show successful retrospective predictions of this warming slowdown up to 5 years ahead, the analysis of which allows us to attribute the onset of this slowdown to an increase in ocean heat uptake. Sensitivity experiments accounting only for the external radiative forcings do not reproduce the slowdown. The top-of-atmosphere net energy input remained in the [0.5–1] W m−2 interval during the past decade, which is successfully captured by our predictions.

"Here we show successful retrospective predictions of this warming slowdown up to 5 years ahead,"

This bit means we did not see it coming, but now we know it hasn't got warmer we've managed to run a model with the right kludges to make it look like we did. Really, it's epicycles. All the way down.

Thanks Rhoda. What are epicycles?

"Thanks Rhoda. What are epicycles?"

Google -> Epicycles

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferent_and_epicycle

Yes indeed, that wikipedia entry under the 'slang for bad science' heading. Nailing more and more unsupported suppositions onto a theory to keep it alive. Thanks, Rob.

Wouldn't climatologists just love to be in something like physics, where you can say 80% of the universe is made of something we can't see and get away with it?

What are epicycles?

He's jerking you around.

Charlie

There are three people in a room. You, Mr Nuccitelli and me.

The sun has been shining through the windows since early morning and the room, which was originally a bit chilly is now comfortably warm. Mr Nuccitelli tells us the reason the room got warmer is because the carbon dioxide in our breath "traps heat". He tells us that, because of the carbon dioxide we have exhaled, the room is still getting warmer and will continue to get warmer as long as we remain in it exhaling carbon dioxide.

It is now 3pm. I point out that the wall thermometer now reads 21 °C, exactly the same as it did at midday. An hour later, at 4pm, it yet again reads 21 °C. I politely say that it makes no sense to say the room is still warming when its temperature has remained constant for several hours.

Mr Nuccitelli insists that it is still warming, because carbon dioxide is still trapping heat from the sunlight coming in through the windows. I ask him how he squares that with the temperature having remained constant. "The heat is being trapped in the water tank in that cupboard" he says.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To someone with a physics or engineering background, the claim that the Earth is still warming despite lack of rising temperature and that the heat is, by some unspecified means, getting into the deep ocean makes as much sense as my water tank story. It's such nonsense that probably very few people want to take the time to spell out exactly how it is nonsense.

Thanks for the continued interest in my questions. And for those who have replied with patience and given me the benefit of the doubt. I'll look at them again when I have time again next week. I have domestic responsibilities over the weekend.

Charlie

splitpin - good analogy! :-)

Charlie, is it a difficult question? "Nullis in verba" is a nonsensical concept and so we are left with "who do we trust"? We can either trust the general consensus of climate science that AGW exists and is a problem. Or we can reject that on the basis of ... what? That scientists are just feathering their nests? Or that they are all incompetent at what they spend their whole lives researching? Or that the UN wants a world government? Or that the world's highest scientific bodies are all corrupt? Or, etc. You can think of some other equally silly reasons no doubt.

Missy - There used to be a consensus that polar bears were in trouble. Fortunately for them it was wrong.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11656-climate-myths-polar-bear-numbers-are-increasing.html#.UbpW5tga6Vg

http://polarbearscience.com/2013/06/10/signs-that-davis-strait-polar-bears-are-at-carrying-capacity/