NOAA&NASA: 2014 Warmest Year on Record

[AE 87]

I can only speak for myself at this point but I care because there has been so much pure hokum spread in popular discussions denying that global warming even exists. This is clearly a more sophisticated forum but it still helps to establish a starting point.

For instance, this is the first time I had heard that you accept global warming.

"Global Warming" is a loaded term. Yes, I believe in global warming. I also believe in global cooling. The earth has periods of warming and cooling; what's not to believe? I believe that global temperatures correlate sufficiently with solar activity to suspect causation. I believe that the earth's climate is sufficiently complex that we do not fully understand all the factors affecting global temperatures.

I do not believe the major arguments in favor of human-originated global warming as they have been offered so far. I do not believe them for three main reasons. First, I was impressed by a lecture I saw from then MIT's Richard Lindzen pretty early in the debate, probably the 1980's. His argument made me keep an open mind on the topic. Second, the reported data do not match the modeled predictions, and third, some of the leading voices have been shown to be dishonest brokers of information.

 

[AE 87]

Okay, here's an article whose discussion of the topic matches where I'm coming from.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/what-catastrophe_773268.html?page=1

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I happened on this but haven't read it. It may give you further links.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wor...el-rise-adjusts-the-data-to-match-the-models/

Thanks. I looked at the free part of the Nature article and the critique. Nothing new here for me ..... data was as of 2010. Although the article was primarily one of redistributing seas level gains over the last century to decrease the most recent period from 1990-2010, they still had an average sea level rise per year of 3 mm (.12 inches).

As someone who lives on the Chesapeake Bay, I care very much about sea level rise as it affects my housing value as a retirement asset. In fact I think that most of the people on earth live within 2 miles of the ocean and would have to move if sea level continues to rise. But it's slow .... at least in terms of a human lifetime so people will adjust.

What concerns me more is the increase in atmospheric temperature increasing the energy in the atmosphere and thus the severity of storms. But like politics, weather is local. Here on the Virginia coast, we may be in for a period of fewer hurricanes due to the shifting of the jet stream down and eastward in the US with the warming trend. That same phenomena is what is leading to the California droughts.

How much of the .12 inches is man made? I don't know but *think* it is sizable since increased CO2 still allows most sunlight frequency light in and but blocks infra red heat going out to a greater extent .

What will the world do about it? Nothing until it affects the earning potential of the 1% IMHO. Business as usual.

 

[AE 87]

Thanks. I looked at the free part of the Nature article and the critique. Nothing new here for me ..... data was as of 2010. Although the article was primarily one of redistributing seas level gains over the last century to decrease the most recent period from 1990-2010, they still had an average sea level rise per year of 3 mm (.12 inches).

As someone who lives on the Chesapeake Bay, I care very much about sea level rise as it affects my housing value as a retirement asset. In fact I think that most of the people on earth live within 2 miles of the ocean and would have to move if sea level continues to rise. But it's slow .... at least in terms of a human lifetime so people will adjust.

What concerns me more is the increase in atmospheric temperature increasing the energy in the atmosphere and thus the severity of storms. But like politics, weather is local. Here on the Virginia coast, we may be in for a period of fewer hurricanes due to the shifting of the jet stream down and eastward in the US with the warming trend. That same phenomena is what is leading to the California droughts.

How much of the .12 inches is man made? I don't know but *think* it is sizable since increased CO2 still allows most sunlight frequency light in and but blocks infra red heat going out to a greater extent .

What will the world do about it? Nothing until it affects the earning potential of the 1% IMHO. Business as usual.

I think the politics of your last couple of paragraphs is based on bad science, if you care.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

I think the politics of your last couple of paragraphs is based on bad science, if you care.

I agree the last couple paragraphs are opinion and not science / fact. I wish I did care more but I've gotten tired of caring about things I'm not going to change. I understand enough to satisfy my own curiosity and do appreciate the thread.

 

[AE 87]

I agree the last couple paragraphs are opinion and not science / fact. I wish I did care more but I've gotten tired of caring about things I'm not going to change. I understand enough to satisfy my own curiosity and do appreciate the thread.

No worries, but that's not what I said.

 

[Oldgoldandwhite]

How can they predict climate change, when they tell me there is 50% chance of rain Friday? Is it goin to rain or not? Micheal Crichton had a great book on this topic and the money climate change generated to its coffers.

 

[AE 87]

Well, I guess we know why the headline was dishonest #stateoftheunion

 

[TechnicalPossum]

Well, I guess we know why the headline was dishonest #stateoftheunion

It always is. It should be called #stateofwhatithinkmaybecouldwork.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

How can they predict climate change, when they tell me there is 50% chance of rain Friday? Is it goin to rain or not? Micheal Crichton had a great book on this topic and the money climate change generated to its coffers.

You are kidding right?

 

[AE 87]

An op-ed that the science-deniers won't read or will mock without dealing with its substance:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/201...-year-on-record-so-why-did-nasa-claim-it-was/

 

[cyptomcat]

An op-ed that the science-deniers won't read or will mock without dealing with its substance:
http://www.breitbart.com/london/201...-year-on-record-so-why-did-nasa-claim-it-was/

I can see that kind of reasoning, and I think it's fair to say that 2014 was not the warmest year on record based on the 62% chance (or 52% chance). However, I disagree with the complaints about the "on record" part. In both of the releases that I linked in my OP, the fact that records begin with 1880 is made clear in the very first paragraph. If someone assumes "on record" goes further out than 1880, then that's their own assumption. It's literally first thing NOAA and NASA hammers you with in their release text.

Now more on the 'warmest' part. All kinds of algorithms for different applications have to carry out a ranking task, and when they do, they declare some object as #1 in some attribute. All it means is that it's chance of being #1 is larger than chance of any other single object's attribute being #1. In other words, the answer to the question "If you had to name a year as the warmest year on record?" is "2014" based on the chances NOAA and NASA have calculated as follows:

NOAA chance of being warmest year:
2014 - 48%
2010 - 18%
2005 - 13%
2013 - 6%
1998 - 5%

NASA chance of being warmest year:
2014 - 38%
2010 - 23%
2005 - 17%
2013 - 4%

It's crucial that NOAA gives the warmest year to 2000s with 85% chance, and NASA with 82%. It can actually be even significantly more than those numbers since other 2000 years are not given.

Slides here from the release to media:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/briefings/201501.pdf

P.S. I'll come back to your earlier post later tonight when I will finally have time to go over the links.

 

[cyptomcat]

Can't edit now, but I meant "since 2000" not 2000s.

 

[GTNavyNuke]

With warmest average temperature ever on earth, it's now 3 minutes till midnight ....... http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/23/opinion/ringenberg-doomsday-clock/index.html

 

[AE 87]

@cyptomcat I think your response missed the point. I don't think that author, or the links, would deny that a parsing of the information in the press release could be defended.

As I read it, the main point of the op-ed was that the press-release was a contribution to a propaganda campaign. Propaganda need not be lies. It can be the intentional spinning and biasing of data to affect public opinion.

Why are science agencies putting out press-releases saying "warmest year" if they mean a good chance its warmest by 2 hundredth of a degree C if we don't look at satellite data? That's not a science headline. It's a political headline released just in time for the President to use it for his agenda in the State of the Union.

 

[cyptomcat]

These agencies along with others release the results of these data sets for the ending of every year. Consider it as 'Christmas in January' for those who study the global warming data. It's not their fault that there is global warming to write some good headlines once in awhile

Btw, since I'll come back to the 'It's proven that NASA committed fraudulent reporting.' statement later tonight, would you like to qualify or define that statement? I am a bit puzzled; because, to my knowledge, fraud with federal funds (or state funds) is a very serious crime. If it's in fact proven as you say, then someone is not doing their job in terms of prosecuting it.

For example Cuccinelli came after UVA for fraud about climate science a few years ago, but the judge ruled that Cuccinelli had no justification for the investigation, and threw his investigation out.

 

[AE 87]

@cyptomcat, when you respond to the questions and issues of my last post, I'll respond to yours.

 

[RLR]

Bloomberg Visuals has a very cool graph for displaying average global temperature. http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2014-hottest-year-on-record/
Please don't think I'm endorsing (or denying) the accuracy of the data or drawing any conclusions from it. Really, I just think this is a cool way to construct a graph.

I took 1 EAS class in college. I'm not great at math. And frankly, I never took too much interest in the topic because, with my skillset, I don't have much of a contribution to make. That said, I've always had some questions about global temperatures and don't really know where to look. Since this is a board of engineers, would you mind pointing me in the right direction?

• Are the sources for the temperature inputs from 1900 the same as the ones from 2014? Intuitively, it seems like the late 20th century would have more input sources and more sources in remote regions of the world. If this is true, can we accurately compare the temperature in 1900 to the present temperature?

• What does the global average temperature even mean? I don't know how to ask this... just seems like you would have to somehow weight the temperature at every spot on Earth. What's the weight based on? total energy absorbed by the earth or just surface temperatures?

• If you look at map of the world that displays the long term above/below average temperature for all the regions, can you draw a connection between areas that are shaded red (above average) and their contribution to global warming/pollution? Or does that largely depend on geography/weather patterns? For example, would pollution from Atlanta just hover over the city, or does it flow east like storm systems?

 

[Animal02]

@cyptomcat I think your response missed the point. I don't think that author, or the links, would deny that a parsing of the information in the press release could be defended.

As I read it, the main point of the op-ed was that the press-release was a contribution to a propaganda campaign. Propaganda need not be lies. It can be the intentional spinning and biasing of data to affect public opinion.

Why are science agencies putting out press-releases saying "warmest year" if they mean a good chance its warmest by 2 hundredth of a degree C if we don't look at satellite data? That's not a science headline. It's a political headline released just in time for the President to use it for his agenda in the State of the Union.

And using surface temperature data instead of the satellite data.......just more of the fraud.

 

[Northeast Stinger]

Interesting recent report from Scripps Oceanographic Institute explaining the role of aerosols in heating and cooling the earth. The breakthrough in their research was in showing that the top one millimeter of ocean surface is responsible for much of what happens in the atmosphere that affects climate change.