Thursday, July 21, 2016

Climate Communication - What Happens When We Don't Set a New Heat Record?

Both NASA and NOAA report that the first six months of 2016 have been the warmest half-year on record. This year, 2016, has a 99% chance of setting a new record for the hottest year ever recorded in global surface temperatures. It would surpass the previous record year, 2015, which surpassed the previous record year, 2014, thus making 2016 the third straight year setting a new heat record. But what happens when we don't set a new record?

This fact is inevitable. While increasing CO2 is causing a long-term trend in increasing temperatures, there is short-term variability that can make any year either a bit higher or lower. Check out the basics in this short video. [See also here for a good explanation of trend vs variation]



So even non-record-setting years are still getting warmer, just not record-setting warm. You can see this clearly in a NASA graphic of January-June temperature trends taken from the first link above: 2016 blows away the old records and even less warm years are well above the older years.




CO2 will continue to push temperatures upward over the long term. But short-term phenomena like El Nino and La Nina (and others) are what defines the level for any given year. For the earlier part of the 21st century we saw very little in the way of El Nino events after the massive 1998 El Nino that spiked temperatures higher. That is why deniers always pick 1998 as the start date for any dishonest claim of a "pause" in warming. There never was any "pause" or "hiatus," just short-term variation caused by lack of El Ninos and a series of La Ninas (the latter of which tends to dampen warming just as the former tends to enhance it). We've had a very large El Nino the last year or so, which is partially why the rising temperatures have broken the records by such a great amount (keeping in mind that the 2014 record was set without any help from El Nino).

That El Nino is dissipated and scientists anticipate a La Nina starting up this fall, so while 2016 is still likely to set a new record for the third year in a row, conditions appear to be setting up for 2017 not to set a new record. If it comes up less warm than 2016 we'll see all the climate deniers screaming "See, it's getting cooler," despite the fact that "less hot" does not equate to "cooler." [Think of your stove: the high setting is very hot, but the medium setting is not "cool."]

Just as it is inevitable that we'll have a year that is not as hot as this year (though the following years will continue the upward trend), it's inevitable that the climate denial lobbying industry will misrepresent the less hot year as "cooler." We've seen this with the non-"pause" and we've seen it with the "Arctic sea ice has recovered" every time the short-term variation gives a year where ice decreases slightly less than the previous year. These lobbyists know what they are saying is dishonestly misrepresenting the science, but they do it anyway. That is their job as fossil fuel lobbyists.

So scientists and science communicators need to be prepared to deal with the inevitable deceit of climate deniers when a year, possibly 2017, shows less warming than the previous record years.

7 comments:

  1. A reasonable assessment. Interesting to sea if "Coming Ice Age" promoters get it right. If they do, that would soundly dispense with AGW. But if they don't. . . .

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  2. There is no evidence for "coming of ice age," which is just one of many self-contradictory platitudes that lobbyists throw up to block honest discussion of policy options. We are warming our climate system. This fact is unequivocal.

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  3. In the 70s, alarmists were warning us of an impending ice age. Leonard Nimoy hosted a special on it, as did Walter Cronkite. More than 286 scientific papers in the 70s also supported the hypothesis. The ice age never happened, and James Hanses (who promoted the ice age idea) switched gears to global warming in the 80s. The earth has been slightly warming (.7 degrees Celsius per century) for many, many years. This is unequivocal. Mankind's influence over temperature rise has been subject to MUCH equivocation. (And it's just not a good idea to state that any hypothesis is "unequivocal"; Einstein equivocated often about his own hypotheses.) And I will not speculate about a coming ice age; that's as foolish as speculating about the effects of any climate change, as evidenced by all the failed climate computer models.

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  4. False. The consensus at the end of the 1970s was that the warming of CO2 far overwhelmed any cooling effects of aerosols.

    Do not comment if you are going to rely on the repeated falsehoods of non-science accountants supported by fossil fuel and political lobbying groups. If you're going to insist on ignoring all of the science and cherry picking falsely "reinterpreted" sound bites, you've shown yourself to be intellectually dishonest and incapable of discussion.

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  5. Those interested in correct information about the 1970s can start here: https://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s-intermediate.htm

    For a comprehensive discussion of the state of knowledge on climate change, read the latest IPCC reports: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/

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  6. 285 papers from the 60s and 70s that predicted an ice age. . . . http://notrickszone.com/2016/09/13/massive-cover-up-exposed-285-papers-from-1960s-80s-reveal-robust-global-cooling-scientific-consensus/ Links to the papers are provided. While the ice age hysteria might have faded by the end of the decade, it was alive and well when I was a teenager and terrified by the thought! Walter Cronkite produced a broadcast about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hms8rggsMDQ And so did Leonard Nimoy! https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nimoy+ice+age
    Are you still going dismiss these facts as false? if so, who is the true denier?

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  7. False. The consensus at the end of the 1970s was that the warming of CO2 far overwhelmed any cooling effects of aerosols.

    Do not comment if you are going to rely on the repeated falsehoods of non-science accountants supported by fossil fuel and political lobbying groups. If you're going to insist on ignoring all of the science and cherry picking falsely "reinterpreted" sound bites, you've shown yourself to be intellectually dishonest and incapable of discussion.

    Denial of 100+ years of science and reliance instead on non-science bloggers who intentionally get even the most basic facts completely wrong is a sign of intellectual dishonesty and willful ignorance. Further commenting in this manner will identify you as a mentally insecure troll, as you've shown on other venues, and will be dealt with accordingly.

    ReplyDelete

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