Talk:Global warming hiatus/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

"Those skeptical of the theory of man-made global warming"

I have a real problem with this uncited phrase that keeps finding its way back into the article text. We all know about the sleight of hand that is used in the Gish gallop - torrents of errors, large and small, are built one upon the other. Each of which is crafted to take only a second or two to say, but a minute or two to untangle. First there is a clear difference between the scientific meaning of the word theory (a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world that is acquired through the scientific method and repeatedly tested and confirmed through observation and experimentation), and the everyday, such as having a theory as to where you may have put your keys. Second this article is not about that distinction that denialists used to want to draw by agreeing that the earth is warming, but still wanting to argue with the fact that human emissions and deforestation are the main causes (per IPCC and every scientific authority). The article is about the apparent slowdown in the rate of rise in global mean surface temperatures in recent years. Dragging in a bit of unnecessary verbiage that attempts to remind the reader of older denialist campaigns in the middle of talking about something else is unnecessary and disingenuous. Thirdly, the people being referred to in the cited source are not 'skeptical' of anything, in the sense that all good scientists are skeptical of any theories and observations that are new, untested and yet to become established by thorough repetition and verification. The people being referred to here are fully aware that the science is solid, but nonetheless have some kind of personal financial or personal emotional incentive to want to mislead the public and spread an erroneous meaning that is clearly not accepted by any in mainstream circles. Fourthly, neither of the cited sources used in that paragraph (or anywhere elsewhere in the article AFAIK) use the phrase or even the key words - theory, skeptical, man-made - at all or in any kind of proximity to create a meaning like this phrase is meant to have. --Nigelj (talk) 15:27, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

The Met Office page says "Global mean surface temperatures ... have been relatively flat over the most recent 15 years to 2013. This has prompted speculation that human induced global warming is no longer happening, or at least will be much smaller than predicted." This seems to me to be a longer way of saying the same thing, without mentioning skeptics. The weasel phrase "statistical sleight of hand" in the Mother Jones opinion piece implies dishonesty on the part of those who hold the opinion referred to by the Met Office, which I do not think is encyclopedic in style. The Met Office evidently accepts that the standstill is real, and so does NASA in the recent press release about the lack of warming in the deep oceans which we now reference ("In the 21st century, greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere, just as they did in the 20th century, but global average surface air temperatures have stopped rising in tandem with the gases.") So no "sleight of hand" according to them. Skeptic2 (talk) 18:49, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

If RS's explicitly say some folks are twisting the hiatus (e.g., a situation of ongoing warming that is warming at a slower rate but still able to set continued records for warmest decade on record) into an intentional falsehood (e.g., no warming at all, none-nada-zip) we can - and should - report that. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:52, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

My point was that the Met Office and NASA do not seem to question the standstill, but regard it as fact and seek to discuss its origins and attempt to explain it. The quote from Mother Jones seemed to me to imply deliberate dishonesty which Wikipedia should not perpetuate. This area of climate science is an active area of debate and is not improved by such accusations. Skeptic2 (talk) 19:11, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Neither NASA nor MET claim surface temp increase hit a brick wall. They both say it is warming, just slower. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 19:49, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Please explain more clearly why we cannot quote a source saying "statistical sleight of hand"? How is it unencyclopedic to state that a cited reliable news source has published a statement that implies dishonesty? The source says,

"For years, climate skeptics have been using a kind of statistical sleight of hand—the fact that 1998 was a record temperature year, due to a strong El Niño—to suggest that there had been no global warming ever since. For instance, here's an example of this argument being made, in the op-ed pages of the Daily Telegraph, as far back as the year 2006. And here's a contemporaneous rebuttal."

I would say that that more than adequately covers the statement, "For many years, it has been possible to use "a kind of statistical sleight of hand" to suggest that global warming has stopped," which you have removed. Please remember that in matters of science, Wikipedia's task is to represent the mainstream, not to portray false balance between discredited fringe theories and actual science. --Nigelj (talk) 20:09, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

I don’t want this to turn into an endless tit-for-tat, and I’m sure you don’t either. But if you are going to include accusations of dishonesty from one side you must include them from the other -- and there are plenty from the skeptics’ side, as I’m sure you are aware. Speaking as a (relatively) unbiased observer of this field for the past decade or so, I think I can see what’s happening here. Your post above includes accusations about skeptics which would be regarded as unacceptable ad homs in a discussion about, say, UFOs. I can also see that you have “rebalanced” (shall we say) the NASA release I originally referenced which cuts away the most favored explanation for the supposedly “missing” heat. You also seem more fond of referencing secondary opinion blogs than I do -- would a link to Watts Up survive here, I wonder. Let’s be clear: the current disconnect between rising CO2 levels and temperatures is a massive problem for climate science for which there is currently no satisfactory solution, at least as far as I can see. Granted the hiatus may be only temporary, but implying that it is only “statistical sleight of hand” is not going to impress or inform your readers. Skeptic2 (talk) 20:54, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

"if you are going to include accusations of dishonesty from one side you must include them from the other -- and there are plenty from the skeptics’ side..." With no RS provided, count me ultra-dubious. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:39, 12 October 2014 (UTC)

Skeptic2, I suggest you have a good look at the policy page at WP:UNDUE and the guideline WP:FRINGE. All this talk of 'balance' and 'fairness' does not apply in a case where the vast majority of practising scientists all agree, and a tiny minority of vested interests and internet wing-nuts have a different opinion, based neither on the science nor the facts. All the science and news sources cited in this area make it clear that there is no chance that global warming has 'stopped', and that is what we will report in the article. --Nigelj (talk) 13:13, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

There seem to be a misunderstanding what the Hiatus signifies. Yes, the AGW hypothesis states that warming should continue. The problem is that most climate models referred to by IPCC cannot present a Hiatus of the length observed (all fails on the 95% level)during the time period. The talk about pervious periods in the record is a bit dubious. All previous Hiatus periods contain larger vulcano activity. There has been none during the latest Hiatus period. The latest increase in CO2 emissions should have sent the temperature far above what is observed. Statistically, there has been NO global warming since 1997 due to the inherent uncertainty in the global record. AR 5, in the latest IPCC report, has lowered the upper projection limits for the temperature due to the Hiatus. It means a cut in climate sensitivity of more than 30%! The reason for the current Hiatus or Stasis, is simply not known. Heat going down in the oceans and so on, are pure speculations and cannot be validated in any way. Observations do not support it. The reason why the Hiatus is so interesting, or should be interesting, is because it could largely be due to natural variability. Then you may ask yourself, as the organisation APS (American Physical Society) does: "if that is the case, couldn´t also the recent warming period be explained by natural variability?" Other things that points in the "wrong" direction from the viewpoint of AGW is the record ice extension of the sea around Antarctica. Also, the spiraling down-period of Arctica seems to be over and the ice has been recovering two years in a row now. Could the Hiatus be a sign of imminent cooling? That´s a question that´s just recently been put on the table. Nothing you will hear in media, only in closed scientific fora. The scientific discussion is much more open and varied than what is shown in this talk. Unfortunately, there are forces who do not want this discussion in the open since it could be "misunderstood" and prevent any strong mitigation measures. But that has nothing to do with science. "If you don´t know the "pause", you don´t know the Cause" / Jan Lindström — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.44.242.18 (talk) 12:46, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

a 10-year period with no significant warming maybe [sic] our last.

A newly added edit states: “a 10-year period with no significant warming maybe [sic] our last. If emissions keep increasing by 2030, the chance of another hiatus period will drop to zero.” The current hiatus has lasted longer than 10 years. Emissions are still increasing and the hiatus shows no sign of ending yet. How does this stuff get published, and how does it end up in Wikipedia? I took it out as it looks like junk science. Skeptic2 (talk) 08:31, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Restore text but fix wording.

The intended RS, I think, is the newstory

<ref>{{cite news|last1=Slezak|first1=Michael|title=No more pause: Warming will be non-stop from now on|url=www.newscientist.com/article/dn26122-no-more-pause-warming-will-be-nonstop-from-now-on.html|publisher=New Scientist|date=8-31-2014}}</ref>

which was reporting on

• Watanabe: Nature Climate Change, DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2355;
• Maher: Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1002/2014GL060527

The story does not describe the current period as having lasted 10 years, so I agree that should be fixed upon restoration. The cite needs to also be fixed, and the text should emphasize Maher's name, as it was the latter study that reached the conclusion reported in this edit. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 12:15, 27 October 2014 (UTC)

Difficult to follow

This long article has some real problems. In particular, the paragraph "In a presentation to the American Physical Society, William (Bill) Collins of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and lead author of the modeling Chapter 9 of the IPCC AR5 said "Now, I am hedging a bet because, to be honest with you, if the hiatus is still going on as of the sixth IPCC report, that report is going to have a large burden on its shoulders walking in the door, because recent literature has shown that the chances of having a hiatus of 20 years are vanishingly small."[27]" There is no date given (yeah, maybe somewhere in the article, but that's what I mean by difficult to follow), and when is the 6th IPCC report due? If we had dates of when this was said (not just in a footnote ) and when the 20 years will be up, it would be much more useful to the interested reader.07:17, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

Summarising conclusions, not preambles

I just reverted an edit that changed the lead of the article, when it summarised the two NASA studies released in October, to summarising the preamble to the cited article rather than its conclusion. Our summary should say that the NASA studies "reaffirmed unequivocally continued warming from 2005 to 2013 of the upper ocean down to 1.24 miles (1,995 meters) depth." This is based upon the statement in the fourth last paragraph of the NASA press rlease, which says, "Coauthor Felix Landerer of JPL noted that during the same period warming in the top half of the ocean continued unabated, an unequivocal sign that our planet is heating up." All we have done is expanded (using information from elsewhere in the source) vague phrases like "the same period" and "the top half."

Looking at the NASA press release, it is clear that the fourth-last paragraph is pretty well the intended conclusion as the other three are devoted to (3rd last) the fact that Landerer was a co-author to both papers, making his statement sufficiently general and well-informed to count for both papers; (2nd last) that these papers come from a "newly formed NASA Sea Level Change Team"; and (last para) the work of NASA in general.

The edit I reverted was based upon the statement, "The temperature of the top half of the world's oceans -- above the 1.24-mile mark -- is still climbing, but not fast enough to account for the stalled air temperatures," which is found in the fourth paragraph from the start of the source. At this point the press release authors are still explaining scientists' frustrations with existing data prior to the two studies that it introduces in later paragraphs. There is no need to emphasise what we didn't know before the current data became available, at the expense of then not summarising what current data actually show. --Nigelj (talk) 15:54, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

It's used as a source for something it did not say. Here's what it said paraphrased: "Deep ocean have not warmed. Upper oceans have not warmed fast enough to account for the lack of atmospheric warming. The upper oceans have warmed." The lead should reflect that if we are going to use that as a source for saying the the hiatus is through ocean heat uptake. NASA says it doesn't account for it. --DHeyward (talk) 16:04, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

WMC removed the latest study. I removed the other ocean stuff. The citation for the new paper is in Nature Climate. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2387. Note the actual paper left out idiotic conversion to miles. Standard upper/lower sea level is usually 700m and 2000m and is pretty consistent. Pres release cites are a bad idea as can be seen by their 1995m level which is error from meters to miles back to meters. The abstract is citable as to their conclusions but it's numeric and would need a comparison to the existing forcing models. (my own curiosity is density/salinity/depth related but was not addessed - in fresh water max density is 3C so water that cools lower than that rises, it's not the case for salt water though - it would be interesting to see isothermal and isodensity and isosalinity lines vs. depth) --DHeyward (talk) 20:15, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Ocean warming

This is new on phys.org website, based on NOAA data. It concludes, "The current record-breaking temperatures indicate that the 14-year-long pause in ocean warming has come to an end." --Nigelj (talk) 15:30, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

Note that one year doesn't break a trend (unless warming continues). Grain of salt required here, as in WP:NOTNEWS. Best, Pete Tillman (talk) 15:47, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

LOL!! --Nigelj (talk) 15:55, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

More to the point, from a quick reading this seems to be about sea surface temps rather than deeper ocean warming, though it does provide useful comment on how the SST "hiatus" developed and has been affected by trade winds. No doubt other sources will report the outcome in datasets such as HadSST and hence HadCRUT. . dave souza, talk 11:14, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

NCSE Reports overview

Reports of the National Center for Science Education, Vol 34, No 6 (2014), "Continued Global Warming in the Midst of Natural Climate Fluctuations", John Abraham, John Fasullo, Greg Laden [PDF] gives an overview. . . dave souza, talk 21:32, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

The review you cite concludes: "Much of the extra heat is being stored in deep ocean waters." The NASA study we have been discussing above does not support this conclusion. Hence: big problem for the climate scientists. Skeptic2 (talk) 23:34, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Whereas some RSs discuss "deep ocean", other RSs observe that the expression "deep ocean" is subject to different definitions. To say anything intelligent and informed about any particular source's statement about the "deep ocean" we should try not to say "deep ocean", but instead substitute in that source's definition, e.g., "between x and y meters" or "bottom half" or "anywhere that's over NAEG's head, since he isn't that great a swimmer". Of course, I haven't seen any RSs that describe "deep ocean" with the latter specificity, but it's still the most important definition to me! The mileage of other interested parties may vary, according to their own personal or scientific perspectives, which is why we should avoid such ambiguous phrases in our debates. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 14:22, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Well as always Wikipedia has a page about it deep sea with a little diagram showing deep sea at 1000 meters down and the abyss at 4000 meters down. Unfortunately as you say those are not hard figures, the NASA papers seem to refer to below 2000 meters as the abyss and 700 meters for deep ocean. Which is fair enough as the thermocline can vary considerably in depth. I wonder if anybody has been monitoring the depth of the thermocline as I'd expect it to vary more than the temperature below it. Dmcq (talk) 16:43, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Ask any sonar operator in any navy about that. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:57, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

The NCSE review specifically refers to increased temperatures down to 2,000 metres, with less gain recently in the depths to 300m and 700m. So, looks completely compatible with the newer NASA studies: the only big problem is with those who don't look at the actual info in the studies. . dave souza, talk 17:19, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, you were just more blunt than I. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:23, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Re NASA press release 14-272 dated 10-6-2014 entitled, "NASA Study Finds Earth’s Ocean Abyss Has Not Warmed"

The focus of this article is the pause, including the flow of primary scientific theories explaining it. This article is neither a forum to ensure everyone is marching in lockstep nor a forum to debate global warming. One of the leading explanations for the pause had been deep ocean warming, but a recent NASA study appears to have refuted this, which was big news within the climate science community and has since sparked healthy scientific debate. At least the ocean subsection should prominently reflect this fact. And that's how science works, people; it is almost never a straight line to the solution. Everyone needs to chill on controlling spin, as there is simply no spin to control for this article (no one doubts there is a pause).Bdmwiki (talk) 13:27, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

The source you added doesn't say what you said: "One primary proposal to explain the pause has been that deep ocean warming could be storing much of the heat that meteorologists had expected to find in the atmosphere during the hiatus." does not appear to be supported by "Evidence Shows Global Heat May Be Hiding in Oceans". which reports research into long term warming based on organisms which live only at depths of 500 to 1,000 metres. That's the upper half of the ocean in terms of the NASA study, and so doesn't contradict it. The report doesn't say "pause", it does mention that "the rate of increase in global average temperatures has slowed" which is a better description of the hiatus. Also, no point in summarising [misleadingly] the NASA report in a section which goes on to discuss it in more depth. If there were other points, please explain them in talk so that they can be fully discussed. . dave souza, talk 14:16, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

The only thing misleading is that someone could have read the entire article and not have readily gleaned this important NASA finding. This is the nth time I've tried to include NASA's own language concerning this important study, yet each time someone tries to either remove it, confuse the language, or have it worded to convey something entirely off point. The sole reference is now NASA's own press release, and all the points are quotations from that release. NASA entitled its own press release to correctly summarize and prioritize the findings. Some have been responding to the inclusion of this research finding like it is a threat to global warming or the science -- which it is NOT (a point I've included prominently in the article). So chill -- NASA is amply qualified to speak for itself.Bdmwiki (talk) 14:48, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Please don't misrepresent sources. ArtifexMayhem (talk) 17:45, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Having read the stuff I agree with Dave souza and ArtifexMayhem though it may be misunderstanding rather than misrepresentation on your part. What was there before you edited was a much more accurate description of what the paper said. And as Dave souza said the hiatus refers to the warming not increasing as fast as was before but it is definitely does not look like a pause. Dmcq (talk) 18:31, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

As the person who first added the reference to the NASA study, I too found the NASA wording was later "rebalanced", shall we say, by other editors. I concluded they didn't understand the point, which actually undermines the main explanation for the "missing" heat. Skeptic2 (talk) 18:49, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

I've now included most of the NASA press release without editing (excluding only the part at the end that seems irrelevant, unless someone disagrees). Feel free to make the font smaller. Hopefully this will solve any disagreements over emphasis to everyone's satisfaction.Bdmwiki (talk) 11:56, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Okay, so someone doesn't want most of the press release. But the fact that I would be happy to have it shows I, at least, am being intellectually honest and not trying to spin the press release. I have quotations that strike me as terribly relevant (incl, e.g., NASA's own unaltered lead summary of their findings). And others have their quotations. Both paragraphs are now in place. So now let's discuss which redundant quotations to remove and how -- like gentlemen, rather than by undo'ing.Bdmwiki (talk) 13:13, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

I have moved this bit of copyright violation just after where the papers it talks about are summarized. Personally I can't see any new information there that is not already given in the previous paragraph. I have changed your own bit 'pause' to 'papers', as the summary itself that you put in says it is a slowdown. I would suggest this bit of duplication be quickly chopped down - would you care to say exactly what is the important part you thought was missing from the previous paragraph? Dmcq (talk) 16:23, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Redundant I agree with Dmcq to the extent this new paragraph is redundant with the prior paragraph. The NASA press release should be cited in the prior paragraph, but I'm not really seeing how the new text adds anything unique. Rebuttal welcome...maybe I'm just not seeing it. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:39, 17 November 2014 (UTC)

Hopefully, my slight reorganization will address any remaining concerns and improve the flow. I put all but the first sentence of what we agree was the more complicated paragraph second (moving its first sentence to the opening), removed that redundant/repeated quotation, added in a balanced fashion NASA's press release comment about the upper ocean as well as the large percentage increase (the actual numbers) in ocean temperatures, and adjusted the paragraph breaks so the section flows more logically. Now from the NASA section on, it moves from overview to methodology details, and I don't see any redundancy. I broke out the very last sentence (planet's sensitivity to CO2) as a new concluding paragraph for added emphasis. I also changed "stated" to "emphasized" in the overview paragraph quote at the end to even further highlight that NASA does not see this research as any threat to global warming. Most importantly, I did not remove any information. If there are any remaining issues, please explain so we can work on them.Bdmwiki (talk) 14:33, 18 November 2014 (UTC)

In the news

FYI, these were very good reads on the hiatus

• Weather Underground blog post
• Climate Central blog post

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 00:04, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Here's another, written by Nafeez Ahmed about the work of Michael Mann and others.

• A Major Surge in Atmospheric Warming Is Probably Coming in the Next Five Years, 2 March 2015.

--Nigelj (talk) 20:59, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

More:

• Gramling, Carolyn (25 February 2015). "Cold Pacific Ocean is offsetting global warming". Science News. Retrieved 5 March 2015. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Messer, Andrea Elyse (26 February 2015). "Interaction of ocean oscillations caused 'false pause' in global warming". Penn State University. Retrieved 5 March 2015. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• DelViscio, Jeffery (26 February 2015). "Scientists now know why global warming has slowed down and it's not good news for us". Quartz. Retrieved 5 March 2015. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Vaughan, Adam (26 February 2015). "Global warming slowdown probably due to natural cycles, study finds". the Guardian. Retrieved 5 March 2015. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• "The global warming slowdown is real - but that's no reason to question climate science". Washington Post. 26 February 2015. Retrieved 5 March 2015.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
• Osborne, Hannah (26 February 2015). "Global warming 'hiatus' ending say scientists: 'That argument is now dead'". International Business Times UK. Retrieved 5 March 2015. {{cite web}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)CS1 maint: date and year (link)

Ref formatting needs tidying. These show nuances, some aspects are over-somplified in our article. . dave souza, talk 12:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

POV

It seems the entire article is dedicated to denying the observed air and ocean temperature data and giving undue weight to various theories on why the data is wrong and where hidden unobserved warming could be occurring. A total re-write is needed. The lead and the main body should be about the observed data, and then there should be a section on theories opposed to the data such is deep ocean temps and perhaps a section on political effects. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.207.131.31 (talk) 20:27, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

You're welcome to make detailed proposals for rewording: please take care to make sure that everything you propose is verifiable. . dave souza, talk 20:46, 23 March 2015 (UTC)

Issues

Andrea Saltelli, Pawel Stano, Philip B. Stark, and William Becker. "Climate Models as Economic Guides: Scientific Challenge or Quixotic Quest?" Issues in Science and Technology 31, no. 3 (Spring 2015) sounds interesting. Authors are with the Joint Research Centre’s Unit of Econometrics and Applied Statistics of the European Commission. Philip B. Stark is professor and chair, Department of Statistics, University of California, Berkeley. Serten Talk 19:07, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I skimmed it but it didn't seem to have any relevance to the so-called hiatus. Can you quote any specific points? . . dave souza, talk 20:56, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Karl et al.: Possible artifacts of data biases in the recent global surface warming hiatus

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/06/03/science.aaa5632.abstract

Oh, and http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/06/noaa-temperature-record-updates-and-the-hiatus/

William M. Connolley (talk) 21:09, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/04/global-warming-hasnt-paused-study-finds --Nigelj (talk) 22:24, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

"A whole cottage industry has been built by climate skeptics on the false premise that there is currently a hiatus in global warming," said Mark Maslin, professor of climatology at University College London. "This important reanalysis suggests there never was a global warming hiatus; if anything, temperatures are warming faster in the last 15 years than in the last 65 years." (http://phys.org/news/2015-06-global.html) William M. Connolley (talk) 08:18, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Nurture: http://www.nature.com/news/climate-change-hiatus-disappears-with-new-data-1.17700 William M. Connolley (talk) 16:38, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Update the graphs for 2015?

The graph attributed to GISS annual data does not look current. Since they depend directly on the NASA data why not use the maintained graphics from http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/ If the article needs its own graph, perhaps it should be updated to include recent data?

In R it might be something like:

library(ggplot2); library(reshape2) ; library(scales)

giss<-read.table(
'http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A2.txt',
  skip=4,nrows=2015-1880+1,na.strings='*',col.names=c('Year','Annual','Avg_5y'))

p <- ggplot(melt(giss,id='Year',value.name='C'),
       aes(x=Year,y=C,colour=variable))+
       geom_line()+
       theme(legend.justification=c(0,1), legend.position=c(0,1))+
       ggtitle("Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index (C)\n (Anomaly with Base: 1951-1980)") +
       scale_colour_discrete(name="Time Series of annual anomalies",
         breaks=c("Annual","Avg_5y"),labels=c("Annual Mean","5-year_Mean"))+
       scale_x_continuous(breaks=pretty_breaks(n=20))
  ggsave("GISS_Global_Land_Ocean_Index_201505.svg",plot=p,width=10, height=8)

... which gives the graph below. Drf5n (talk) 16:07, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I help maintain a multilingual SVG graph of the GISS 'Fig A2' dataset at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Temperature_Anomaly.svg, which is widely used across Wikipedia. I never understood why this article had to have its own graph. It seems a bad way to ensure that the data is always out of date, and allows for errors to be introduced without so many eyes on the job to notice. I'd be much happier with that graph in this article as elsewhere where the data needs understanding. --Nigelj (talk) 17:27, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

I have [boldly] made the change. --Nigelj (talk) 17:37, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Cool. My R+ggplot graph was kinda fun, but referring to a graph with a good maintenance plan is a better solution. Drf5n (talk) 18:39, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

New information casts doubt on hiatus.

This is a new study. So I wouldn't say the hiatus is discredited at this point(although the name is misleading). If this study holds up to scrutiny over time this page may need to be completely overhauled. In the meantime this information needs to be mentioned.

Article on NOAA website Study published in Science. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ErictheJacobson (talk • contribs) 01:19, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

A place to start: treat it as a hypothesis. [1]. I'm not sure a "complete overhaul" will be necessary, since the article's definitions relate more tob periodic "pauses", and much of the controversy will remain as currently documented. Yakushima (talk) 12:43, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Judith Curry casts doubt on Karl et al.: Has NOAA ‘busted’ the pause in global warming?.

"My bottom line assessment is this. I think that uncertainties in global surface temperature anomalies [are] substantially understated. The surface temperature data sets that I have confidence in are the UK group and also Berkeley Earth. This short paper in Science is not adequate to explain and explore the very large changes that have been made to the NOAA data set. ... "

Given her (and other) criticisms, and the newness of this paper, might be best to back this one out. Or at least put in some qualifiers. Too new to tell if it will be a significant study. --Pete Tillman (talk) 23:16, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Curry can "cast" as much doubt as she wants. Her blog rambling has zero weight. — TPX 00:36, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Quoted in NYT article,

"The change prompted accusations on Thursday from some climate-change denialists that the agency was trying to wave a magic wand and make inconvenient data go away. Mainstream climate scientists not involved in the NOAA research rejected that charge, saying it was essential that agencies like NOAA try to deal with known problems in their data records.

"At the same time, senior climate scientists at other agencies were in no hurry to embrace NOAA’s specific adjustments. Several of them said it would take months of discussion in the scientific community to understand the data corrections and come to a consensus about whether to adopt them broadly."

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 01:03, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

These findings have drawn criticisms from both sides of the climate debate

I took that out. The LA Times does indeed say it, but its not a reasonable thing to say: presented here, its false balance; there, its just lazy journalism. Also, if we're going to quote people on what this study is about, the balance-of-quotes needs to reflect the balance-of-scientific response; which means quoting only Curry is, like, way out maan William M. Connolley (talk) 06:28, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the NY Times made much the same point, as N&EG pointed out in the discussion about this paper, @ "New information casts doubt on hiatus", above. Why didn't you post this comment there?

Perhaps we should combine the two news articles. We can't just ignore significant RS press commentary, especially on a brand-new primary-source paper. --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:53, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

You mean that it says that senior climate scientists said it would take months of discussion for the scientific community to come to a consensus about whether to adopt the new data broadly?[2] That's not a criticism of the research, that's a description of how scientific consensus works. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nigelj (talk • contribs) 22:12, 6 June 2015‎

For once, the Graun seems to have got it righter: "Dr Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the UK’s Met Office, said Noaa’s research was “robust” and mirrored an analysis the British team is conducting on its own surface temperature record. 'Their work is consistent with independent work that we’ve done. It’s within our uncertainties. Part of the robustness and reliability of these records is that there are different groups around the world doing this work,' he said. But Stott argued that the term slowdown remained valid because the past 15 years might have been still hotter were it not for natural variations." Moere from others, including NASA. The LAT looked a bit rubbish, seems to have failed to read AR5 and just got a mangled version from somewhere. . dave souza, talk 23:02, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

Since when is "new" research accepted as gospel? The is one study, which rightly has been criticized, plus it doesn't vibe with the other measurments. I am going to return the criticism for balance. Arzel (talk) 16:37, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Err, its not taken as gospel. The text now says "hypothesised", not "discredited". And its been widely accepted; the crit has come from a small number of the usual suspects, who as usual have been largely ignored; so should we William M. Connolley (talk) 16:42, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Our description of this new paper (published online June 4) is a paraphrase of the abstract, and (naturally) is pretty sunny re the authors conclusions: with "improved adjustments", the supposed "slowdown" disappeared! Others have pointed out that the adjustments are unproven and perhaps dubiuos, and that time will tell. These concerns need to be here, for NPOV, which is not optional.

It's also noteworthy that this study was added to our article on June 5, one day after online publication. One might speculate on how quickly it would have been added here, were its conclusions different. WP:RECENT suggests caution. Pete Tillman (talk) 14:00, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Others have pointed out that the adjustments are unprove William M. Connolley (talk) 14:09, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Also for "it doesn't vibe with the other measurments": an unreliable source reports that the NOAA record is now more in line with other datasets; from 1998-2012 it's increased from 0.039°C +/- 0.082 to 0.086 °C +/-0.075, but this tool apparently shows GISTEMP as 0.066°C +/- 0.156, Berkeley: 0.108 °C +/- 0.152 and a HadCRUT4 hybrid (of Cowtan and Way): 0.136 °C +/- 0.181. Can someone with more expertise check this out? . . dave souza, talk 18:15, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

2015 study?

"A 2015 study reanalyzed the temperature data which had formed the basis of IPCC's assessment" looks a bit wrong, since the reanalysis was already under way in 2008: see Smith et al. (2008) p. 2290: "Because ships tend to be biased warm relative to buoys and because of the increase in the number of buoys and the decrease in the number of ships, the merged in situ data without bias adjustment can have a cool bias relative to data with no ship–buoy bias.... The increasing negative bias due to the increase in buoys tends to reduce this recent warming. This change in observations makes the in situ temperatures up to about 0.1°C cooler than they would be without bias. At present, methods for removing the ship–buoy bias are being developed and tested." So, it's really a 2015 paper reporting long term work refining NOAA's temperature data. . dave souza, talk 18:01, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

That's a bit picky. Papers or works are generally referred to by their year of publication; that the actual work was done earlier is understood William M. Connolley (talk) 20:30, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

the basis of IPCC's assessment that had apparently confirmed the hiatus

What's the cite for that? We don't seem to have one. We seem to be taking it for granted that the IPCC did indeed do so. Did it? William M. Connolley (talk) 15:48, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Not sure offhand, so I removed the claim for now. If anyone has a source discussing the IPCC's assessment, we can review it and ensure its being summarized accurately.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:52, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Noticed that too. Thanks for writing it up! Cheers, Pete Tillman (talk) 18:19, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Missing cite might be AR5 WG1 Tech Summary, page 37 (as printed by publisher) "Despite the robust multi-decadal warming, there exists substantial interannual to decadal variability in the rate of warming, with several periods exhibiting weaker trends (including the warming hiatus since 1998)" (Parenthetical in original)

NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:33, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Also note, for example, "Trends for short periods are uncertain and very sensitive to the start and end years. For example, trends for 15-year periods starting in 1995, 1996, and 1997...." and much more in Box TS.3 pp. 61–63. For the pdf see ref. 1. in the article. . . dave souza, talk 19:48, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Box TS.3 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years is probably the most useful bit. I'm dubious that does anything as strong as "confirms" it though... for example, there is Even with this ‘hiatus’ in GMST trend, the decade of the 2000s has been the warmest in the instrumental record of GMST (note the quotes around hiatus, though that's the only time they do it) William M. Connolley (talk) 20:35, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

While we're on TS.3, they also say In summary, the observed recent warming hiatus, defined as the reduction in GMST trend during 1998–2012 as compared to the trend during 1951–2012, which does actually provide a definition, one which arguably contradicts the one this page uses. Should we update ours? William M. Connolley (talk) 20:37, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and here is the TS link for convenience: [3] William M. Connolley (talk) 20:37, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I think this page (A) defines the general notion of a hiatus and (B) talks about the recent one as an example. Regarding your question and item (B), sure we should use IPCC's def. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 21:05, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

However, the notion lies within natural variability: the interest is in seeing how far decadal modeling is possible, see below. . . dave souza, talk 21:52, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually... I think its more complex than that. If you look in Chapter 2, which would be the natural place to find this stuff, the word "hiatus" doesn't occur at all. Instead we have:

Much interest has focussed on the period since 1998 and an observed reduction in warming trend, most marked in NH winter (Cohen et al., 2012). Various investigators have pointed out the limitations of such short-term trend analysis in the presence of auto-correlated series variability and that several other similar length phases of no warming exist in all the observational records and in climate model simulations (Easterling and Wehner, 2009; Peterson et al., 2009; Liebmann et al., 2010; Foster and Rahmstorf, 2011; Santer et al., 2011). This issue is discussed in the context of model behaviour, forcings and natural variability in Box 9.2 and Section 10.3.1. Regardless, all global combined LSAT and SST data sets exhibit a statistically non-significant warming trend over 1998–2012 (0.042°C ± 0.093°C per decade (HadCRUT4); 0.037°C ± 0.085°C per decade (NCDC MLOST); 0.069°C ± 0.082°C per decade (GISS)). An average of the trends from these three data sets yields an estimated change for the 1998–2012 period of 0.05 [–0.05 to +0.15] °C per decade. Trends of this short length are very sensitive to the precise period selection with trends calculated in the same manner for the 15-year periods starting in 1995, 1996, and 1997 being 0.13 [0.02 to 0.24], 0.14 [0.03 to 0.24] and 0.07 [–0.02 to 0.18] (all °C per decade), respectively

so then I have to go to chapter 10. Page 870 then repeats the hiatus defn quoted already. Further on: GMST warmed strongly over the period 1900–1940, followed by a period with little trend, and strong warming since the mid-1970s (Section 2.4.3, Figure 10.1)... Since 1998 the trend in GMST has been small (see Section 2.4.3, Box 9.2). There may be more, but I didn't find it. Overall, I'd say they aren't very interested in it William M. Connolley (talk) 21:06, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Chapter 01 has "In summary, the trend in globally averaged surface temperatures falls within the range of the previous IPCC projections. During the last decade the trend in the observations is smaller than the mean of the projections of AR4 (see Section 9.4.1, Box 9.2 for a detailed assessment of the hiatus in global mean surface warming in the last 15 years
Which leads to Chapter 09 Box 9.2 | Climate Models and the Hiatus in Global Mean Surface Warming of the Past 15 Years. . . dave souza, talk 21:52, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Point to note: the AR5 refers to HadCRUT4, a journalist notes the recent update to Had which should be interesting when it's combined with CRUT. . . dave souza, talk

Just to note that there's now a post on RC (http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/06/debate-in-the-noise/) that mentions this specific point:

Some media reports even gave the impression that the IPCC had confirmed a “hiatus” of global warming in its latest report of 2013, and that this conclusion was now overturned... The IPCC thus specifically pointed out that the lower warming trend from 1998-2012 is not an indication of a significant change in climatic warming trend, but rather an expression of short-term natural fluctuations. Note also the uncertainty margins indicated by the IPCC.

- See more at: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/06/debate-in-the-noise/#sthash.jcqIuTXj.dpuf

Chris Mooney's Mother Jones essay, 2013

WMC reverted this edit diff, commenting "however, that one isn't reasonable; asserting or iplying that its only CM is clear bias". Can you unpack that, starting with "CM"?

Here's the edit:

In an essay for Mother Jones magazine, Chris Mooney wrote that climate skeptics argue that global warming has stopped since the record-breaking warm El Niño year of 1998: an example appeared as an opinion piece in the Daily Telegraph in 2006, and was rebutted at the time. These arguments were given new prominence in media reporting in March 2013. Research explaining the issue was after the deadline for inclusion in the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, and a leaked draft of the report was publicised by the press in August with assertions that scientists were struggling to explain the hiatus. When the full report was published that November[,] the wording was clarified. Mooney wrote that the IPCC's communication record is "pretty poor". [cite Mooney, 2013 opinion essay in MJ)

-- which does need a couple of tweaks[ ], I see. Perils of late-night edits!

Thanks, Pete Tillman (talk) 17:43, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Just to assist, CM might perhaps be not unconnected to Chris Mooney, since it's being used for checkable facts rather than opinion, and so attributing this mainstream view to one author fails NPOV. The section needs reorganised, it would work better as a history of this so-called "hiatus", showing the mainstream context. . . dave souza, talk 20:20, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Misconceptions

I was considering adding something to do with the global warming hiatus over at List of common misconceptions. While I wasn't considering putting "there is no hiatus" or something so certain like that, There do seem to be a lot of misconceptions about this topic. So, I brought it up on the talk page, and the response was to be cautious about this, and to only proceed if the other editors here have a consensus on the existence of a common misconception. It doesn't even need to be that the hiatus itself is a myth, I think a misconception ABOUT the hiatus would also be a candidate. Thoughts? SarrCat ∑;3 05:30, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Good idea! Thanks for your approach, too.

(A) Fact we have DS in place on the topic "climate change" means there is debate among Wikipedia editors. It does not indiciate anything (yes or no) regarding genuine scientific debate.

(B) It is indeed a common misconception that the hiatus means "no warming", or "global warming stopped". In the news lately is a genuine scientific debate whether the apparent hiatus may be due to biases in the data. We don't need that genuine scientific debate to finish in order to conclude that it is a misconception to think "'the global warming hiatus' means global warming stopped". Anyone who knows the scientific literature knows that's absurd for two reasons. First, the narrow meaning of "global warming" is strictly about surface temperatures, and to scientists the recent hiatus has been a period in which "surface temps are still rising, just not as fast". Second, to the lay public "global warming" means the overall story, which is about much more than just surface temps. It includes the climatological interactions between everything from sea floor muck to glacial base to upper atmosphere. The overall climate system is still taking in BTUs (i.e., it's warming) just as fast as ever, due to the imbalance of Earth's energy budget. There is some genuine debate regarding where that heat is going, but no debate at all for the fact we're taking it in and its going somewhere in the climate system. So yes, its a common misconception that "global warming hiatus means global warming stopped". Belief in that misconception is like fixating on the burning paint when your entire house is aflame.NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 08:59, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Second graph

I notice the second graph which used a shorter time frame and therefore showed the hiatus more clearly is gone Why is this? The subject of the article is this hiatus. The graph showing it more should be given preference not be excluded completely — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.74.133 (talk) 05:27, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Both of the previous graphs were out of date by well over a year. The present graph is updated regularly and used on dozens of articles. It is an SVG graph which means that if you click onto it you can zoom in to any area as much as you like. --Nigelj (talk) 08:16, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

File:GISS zoom 1970 2011 Temp.png was a cropped derivative of the main graph, it's now obsolete and appears only in Talk:Global warming controversy/Archive 11. The IPCC has defined the "hiatus" as the relationship between 1951–2012 and 1998–2012, Karl et al. extend that from 1950 to 2014. It would be helpful if we could have a cropped graph of the anomaly from 1950 to present and keep it updated: would that be possible? . . . dave souza, talk 10:18, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

If someone would like to code one up, and undertake to maintain it, I would have no objection. However, I'm not sure of the benefit when with an SVG graph any user can simply clink into it and use their browser's zoom controls to see all the detail that is there, in perfect graphical quality. I would be slightly worried about who would make the choice as to where to start the reduuced dataset - 1950, 1970, 1990 etc. We all know that by cherry-picking start and end points it is possible to show almost anything you like from noisy data, and I don't believe we can do better than display all that we have, and let readers make their own minds up. Lastly, it is possible, with papers like Karl et al, that the shape of all this will officially change in the near future and the whole issue will become of history-of-science interest only. --Nigelj (talk) 10:50, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Natural Variability

I added a short paragraph to the section on Natural Variability, to better explain in the big picture how a short-term 'pause' resulting from climate variability is theoretically compatible with a long term warming trend (resulting from increased CO2). Some people seem confused and therefore put off by the concept, but it is really quite simple and intuitively graspable when properly summarized.Bdmwiki (talk) 21:26, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

...A 2013 study (supporting anthropogenic global warming over both solar activity and cosmic ray explanations) showed that the increase in CO₂ from the pre-industrialization level of about 280 ppm to the current level of about 400 ppm would theoretically, with the CO₂ greenhouse effect taken unrealistically entirely in isolation, result in a 6.6° Celcius atmospheric temperature increase... Nah, 6.6 oC isn't at all plausible William M. Connolley (talk) 21:27, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, it's not plausible -- but it is taken in isolation, as noted. The general circulation models include the isolated simple model effect in addition to all the real-world effects. The math for the isolated simple model result is shown in the referenced study and ensues from accepted theory. This near parity of overall effects is good news, of course, for explaining common short-term pauses due to natural variability while maintaining a long term warming trend from increasing CO2. By contrast, if the simple model isolated result were drastically lower, say 0.85C vs the actual observed 0.8C, then it would be much less plausible/likely (or be an incredibly rare occurrence) for natural variability alone to explain a short term pause within a longer term warming trend resulting from increasing CO2.Bdmwiki (talk) 21:43, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

I've cut the para. I didn't believe your number, and it looks like you don't either. It was:

To understand how natural climate variability factors could in theory mitigate the warming effect of increases in CO₂ in the short-term, it is necessary to understand the relative impact of each. A 2013 study (supporting anthropogenic global warming over both solar activity and cosmic ray explanations) showed that the increase in CO₂ from the pre-industrialization level of about 280 ppm to the current level of about 400 ppm would theoretically, with the CO₂ greenhouse effect taken unrealistically entirely in isolation, result in a 6.6° Celcius atmospheric temperature increase. The reason for the lower actual increase of 0.8° Celsius is attributable to the real-world mitigating effects of "feedback mechanisms [both positive and negative] and all the other complications of the climate." Given the similar order of magnitude of these two groups of effects, even a small unexpected short-term change in real-world mitigating effects could slow-down, neutralize, or even overwhelm the incremental greenhouse effects of increased CO₂, thereby producing a hiatus; however, with such a short-term hiatus it is currently thought that the greenhouse forcing effects of increased CO₂ would nonetheless restore the warming trend in the longer term.

The number is so badly wrong that it hinders rather than helps understanding William M. Connolley (talk) 06:51, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Produce a coherent account, complete with solid scientific reference, to show that this properly published paper, authored by well credentialed scientists, using established physics, arrived at an erroneous result with respect to their (not my) number that inexplicably offends you. That is how Wikipedia works -- not by someone just scribbling, "Nah, I don't buy some number don't think you do either, so I'm removing your whole edit."Bdmwiki (talk) 05:29, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't have to. I have your own words, just up above: "Agreed, it's not plausible" William M. Connolley (talk) 06:51, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Wow, that is some serious intellectual dishonesty (not to mention a reductio ad adsurdum argument in interpreting my intent). Of course my obvious point being made was to (re-)emphasize, in the overly generous hopes such was the source of your confusion, that the simple model result is taken in isolation (hence the remainder of my sentence you intentionally left out). Again, come up with a coherent account per my previous request so we can assess your information/concern like adults; I remain open minded. Otherwise the edit will have to return. Bdmwiki (talk) 07:24, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

References