In the spirit of the Spring racing carnival, the team at Pure Poison would like to offer our readers the opportunity to show off their skills as punters. We’re not interested in your opinion on a bunch of gee gees piloted around an oval in front of drunken Melburnians, we’d like you to show us your chops as predictors of the punditocracy.
In 1998 global surface temperatures were the highest on record due to a very strong El Nino effect. Many people who don’t believe in science climate change skeptics use this weather anomaly as some kind of proof that the world hasn’t warmed since 2000, ignoring data that includes sea temperatures showing that climate change has continued unabated. What we have experienced is a La Nina cycle contributing to lower atmospheric temperatures and as a result of this the refrain has had to be repeated ad infinitum over the past few years that weather is different to climate. A cold day occurring when Al Gore visits does not disprove climate change.
But according the Bureau of Meterology
The tropical Pacific Ocean sea surface remains warmer than average and exceeds El Niño thresholds in central to eastern regions. The central Pacific has warmed further and now exceeds average values by the largest amount since late 2006.
Most leading international climate models surveyed by the Bureau predict the tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures (SST) to remain above El Niño thresholds until at least early 2010.
In laymen’s terms – it’s likely to be a hot Summer. While the coming El Nino cycle is not expected to be as extreme as the one in 1998 it’s probable that it will cause an increase in atmospheric temperatures, which will probably make a mess of those snazzy graphs that some columnists are so fond of.
The challenge that we have for you is to predict who will be the first climate change skeptic to come out and declare that any temperature increases in 2010 aren’t proof of global warning because of the El Nino cycle, despite using the ‘98 cycle as a reference point to claim that the earth is cooling. Who will it be and when will they say it? Leave your predictions in the comments.
37 Comments
Funny little coincidence….I was just opening a book at the Open Thread as to when Bolt would have a spazz attack about Al Gore’s new movie. I’ll have to state that Bolt is the most likely to win the prize here Dave, so I’m going to go the trifecta to make it more interesting:
Bolt, Blair, Ackerman in that order.
We need approximate dates as well monkeywrench.
Agree with MW: bolt will be first given that he..{ahem}…researches climate data. Tim will go next followed by Hendersen.
Reckon we’ll start seeing these sage warnings around January when BOM puts out it’s monthly summaries for december.
I like the way the believers are now distancing themselves from ever having stated that a single hot year is evidence of warming. The Bolt, Blair etc jokes about the Gore effect and freezing winter days is in direct response to believers repeatedly stating hot days and drought conditions is evidence of AGW… and AGW is blamed for everything
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm
(my favourite is global warming killed the Loch Ness Monster)
The arse fell out of the 1998 argument only after Steve McIntyre exposed a GISS data error making 1934 the hottest year so trends became the argument. Then along comes 2005 and the believers are beating the ‘one hot year doth global warming make’ argument again.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1532198.htm
The problem with Bolt and Blair is that they have laboured that point for too long and warmies memories are too short.
Am watching the Melbourne Gup (sic) coverage on Channel Stokes.
Have noticed some important jockey changes.
ALCOPOP – G. Milne.
SPIN AROUND – P. Akerman.
HARRIS TWEED – G. Henderson.
LEICA DING – A Bolt.
SHOCKING – T Blair.
The difference chistery is that once the el nino effect became apparent people dropped the alarmism and actually said it was due to the el nino cycle. Bolt/blair/news ltd idealogue du jour OTOH are still using the el nino year as a reference point to justify their cooling claims.
I’ll have twobob on henderson then bolt and then blair. All of this after pilmer initiates the party. bolt knows that it sort of screws his own arguments and will want a real scientist to say it first and gerard will add his own weight to pilmers perfect science. Tim will be right up bolts arse
it will all happen in early March and it will all be accompanied by much “alarmists don’t discriminate between the weather and climate” talk.
It’s a pity you haven’t got a picture of Chistery, Dave, cos he’s already making excuses.
Anyway, Bolt to do the backflip in March 2010, followed 11 days later by Blair. Ackerman will follow a distant third in May, but only with his backflip embedded in a post about Rudd and/or The Heiner Affair.
Andrew will Bolt it in, St Valentine’s Day, Feb 14th, 2010.
Monkeywrench: “…Chistery…, he’s already making excuses”
I think you missed this one, mate….
Confessions: “once the el nino effect became apparent people dropped the alarmism”
ROFL
Monkeywrench, you got there first. I was simply going to ask how Piers was going to link the El Nino event to the “Heiner Affair”. Are you sure he’ll manage to wait until May?? There’s a lot of column inches to fill between now and May.
The surest bet is that as soon as one of them makes the claim, the others will all link to it.
Okay. I’m going to go against the flow and say Bolt will come out last, with Piers first, and Timmeh second.
January 8 (Piers)
January 10 (Timmeh)
January 11 (Bolta)
Do we win anything?
Now, as with all horseraces, even one featuring nought but broken-winded, spavined old hacks like this one, it pays to keep an eye on the going.
Here’s a snapshot of track conditions.
The track is firming up slightly. It won’t be as hard as the last big El Nino in 1997, but with background amplification of AGW, it might not need to be. Who knows? Last year was a La Nina, and we got record temperatures in Victoria ( which Bolt cherry-picked: he ignored the record broken at Essendon Airport with 47 degrees, and picked the central Melbourne site that missed the record by half a degree. Such is the man’s casuistry.) So this year might see all sorts of weirdness; but it won’t matter, because whatever the evidence in hard numbers, if it goes against them, it will HAVE to be flipped over to save the denialist faces.
Bolt will be the winner, coming in during the second week of January. He will be backed by some compelling evidence from UEBC (University of East Bum Crack).
Actually, I like the week of idea of doing a weekly crystal ball, writing their columns in advance as they gear up to put a nasty spin on the controversy du jour.
Chistery,
“The Bolt, Blair etc jokes about the Gore effect and freezing winter days is in direct response to believers repeatedly stating hot days and drought conditions is evidence of AGW”
There is a difference between discussing whether something is caused by AGW and claim that it is evidence for AGW.
“The arse fell out of the 1998 argument only after Steve McIntyre exposed a GISS data error making 1934 the hottest year so trends became the argument.”
Oh dear.
1934 is only the hottest year on record in the United States. Not worldwide. No matter how many times Plimer and other ’sceptics’ repeat this claim it is simply not true.
And trends was always the argument.
… and was anyone bovvered? (copyright Catherine Tate.)
That should be “I like the idea of doing a weekly crystal ball”, or running a weekly book of odds. Because they’re nothing if not predictable.
Which one was sceptical about Saddam’s WMD, by the way?
I suspect the solar cylce maximum around 2013 is going to be a tough one to deal with for our denialist friends (even though it is predicted to be a relatively weak maximum by historical standards):
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/
Some of our cities and catchment areas have pretty well recovered from the last drought but I’m wondering whether the next hit is going to deliver some serious blows to those that haven’t.
Every year The Australian has an article about how the recent hot whether is nothing to do with climate change. It’s usually on page 4 or something and has a meteorologist or the like talking about the direct cause of a recent heatwave. The paper then interprets this to mean that there is no link to climate change. When it appears will depend on when the first major heat wave of summer occurs.
I know you’ve stated the mantra that weather isn’t climate, but I’d still be cautious about making any kind of short term predictions and what fulfilling them would portend. What if we don’t have a really hot summer (its not gauranteed) does this make Bolt correct? or at least closer to correct? (the answer is no by the way.)
Bogdanovist: A valid point, and always good to remember circumspection wrt short-term projections and look at the long range trends. However Dave has repeated what the BOM has forecast – very different from the cherry picking that bolt/blair/ackierman use to tell people the planet isn’t warming.
And Chistery: Please! The ‘gore effect’ and OMG GORE IS FAT!!1! jokes arose as a response to climate scientists misinterpreting the el nino year?! Now that’s ROFL material!! LOL.
I like Janet’s argument in the Oz today:
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/seeing_through_hoax_of_the_century/
It’s titled “Seeing through hoax of the century”
Not intended to be provocative at all of course.
And her apparent argument:
If you really believe that there is an issue in which there are severe and critical risks to be managed, you should put forward only the low or medium level risks so that you can be taken seriously by those that don’t understand and to ensure that they don’t believe you’re exaggerating claims to financially or politically benefit.
Of course, Janet doesn’t say what happens if people then believe that the medium level risks are perceived to be the high level risks and therefore believe that it’s only the low level risks that are to be dealt with.
The facts she presents in relation to sea level are not referenced and are contrary to what I can find on the net.
And apparently, so long as the “ordinary people” still have questions to be answered, no mitigating action should be taken?
And where was this “conservatism” when there were still questions being asked about whether bombing the shit out of Iraq and killing hundreds of thousands of civillians was really a necessary course of action?
Let’s look at this further:
We have a panel of experts in the EPCC that publically publish material and advice based on peer reviewed scientific literature and they say they are 90%+ sure that man is causing AGW.
Janet is stating (headlining) that it’s a hoax. She’s not saying that she believes it’s unlikely to be true (we know that she can’t know this based on any scientific analysis). Like Bolt she is stating conclusively that AGW is not happening and further, it’s being perpetrated for an ulterior purpose.
Surely she has to see that this is at least the equivalent or perhaps even more extreme than the most rabid, militant Greenie stance that could be taken on AGW?
She is what she claims she most despises.
Yet she gets to put her extreme views and commentary into a widely circulated publication. And will not be held accountable should she be proved to be wrong.
How ironic.
Sorry, should be IPCC.
You could have found better pictures Dave – they look sort of…normal…in those pictures. Anyway I think it will be Bolt first, Jan 20th, Blair later same day and Acker Bilk won’t even mention it.
I mean, as far as Bolt’s picture goes, you should have just pinched the one at the top of his blog in the HS. One of the most revealing pictures ever taken in my opinion.
Bob Tisdale has already pulled that trick over at WUWT.
“So there hasn’t been the anticipated rise in global temperature because, after you remove the effects of ENSO, the trend is zero. Therefore, if this year is a record year, it should be attributable to ENSO, not AGW.”
Bolt December 1. He will do a pre-emptive attack Dubya style.
Blair December 1 +10 seconds. With one sentence.
SCOWL!
Bolt 1. Blair 2. the rest
The figures won’t come out from GISS and Hadley until March. I’m guessing Bolt, followed by Albrechtsen, on or about 25 March. Blair will just ignore the data, the way he invariably does, and merely snipe on about cold snaps in Sweden or a frost in Guatemala.
Craig Allen: You wrote, “Bob Tisdale has already pulled that trick over at WUWT,” and quoted a sentence from my post that Anthony Watts was kind enough to co-post at WUWT, but you failed to quote the lead in to what you quoted, which were quotes from Knight et al (2009). Here’s the full discussion:
####
As you imply, global temperature variations are dictated by ENSO. This is confirmed by Knight et al (2009) “Do global temperature trends over the last decade falsify climate predictions?”:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/global_temperatures_09.pdf
They write, “El Nino–Southern Oscillation is a strong driver of interannual global mean temperature variations. ENSO and non-ENSO contributions can be separated by the method of Thompson et al. (2008) (Fig. 2.8a). The trend in the ENSO-related component for 1999–2008 is +0.08 +/- 0.07 deg C decade–1, fully accounting for the overall observed trend. The trend after removing ENSO (the “ENSO-adjusted” trend) is 0.00 +/- 0.05 deg C decade–1, implying much greater disagreement with anticipated global temperature rise.”
So there hasn’t been the anticipated rise in global temperature because, after you remove the effects of ENSO, the trend is zero. Therefore, if this year is a record year, it should be attributable to ENSO, not AGW.
Also note that Knight et al (2009) assume the relationship between ENSO and global temperature is linear. It is not.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/relationship-between-enso-and-global.html
#####
No trick involved, Craig.
Also, as noted, the relationship between ENSO and global temperature is not linear. The instrument temperature record confirms it.
Regards.
Can I change my bet?
Bob Tisdale, 5 November, 12:44 pm.
Remember, you heard it first here.
And quoting http://www.wattsupwiththat.com as a creditable source, too. You wouldn’t read about it.
Bob Tisdale (34): seems that in your rush to post you forgot to read the whole Met Office article you linked to. Far from “confirming” your mad “zero trend” assertion Knight et al go on to say:
“Near-zero and even negative trends are common for intervals of a decade or less in the simulations, due to the model’s internal climate variability. The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more…
The [ten model] simulations also produce an average increase of 2.0°C in twenty-first century global temperature, demonstrating that recent observational trends are not sufficient to discount predictions of substantial climate change and its significant and widespread impacts. Given the likelihood that internal variability contributed to the slowing of global temperature rise in the last decade, we expect that warming will resume in the next few years, consistent with predictions from near-term climate forecasts…” (emphases added)
In short, temporary short term fluctuations (which are entirely consistent with IPCC modelling) can and do occur within a long-term rising trend in global mean temperatures.
So you either deliberately quote-mined the Met Office article, or saw the headline and dismissed the rest of the article, assuming it supported your “position”. And you wonder why you’re pilloried?
Fractious: You wrote, “Bob Tisdale (34): seems that in your rush to post you forgot to read the whole Met Office article you linked to. Far from “confirming” your mad “zero trend” assertion Knight et al go on to say…” and you gone on to snip portions you deem appropriate to this discussion.
But this discussion was not about long-term trends. This discussion was about one year records caused by El Nino events. Nothing more, nothing less.
You also failed to address my closing sentence. Here, I’ll repeat it for you.
###
Also note that Knight et al (2009) assume the relationship between ENSO and global temperature is linear. It is not.
http://bobtisdale.blogspot.com/2009/09/relationship-between-enso-and-global.html
###
In other words, the instrument temperature record since ~1980 indicates that SST anomalies of ~25% of the global oceans and TLT anomalies of ~33% of the global lower troposphere rise in steps in response to significant traditional El Nino events (those that are not countered by volcanic aerosols), and those are the 1986/87/88 and the 1997/98 El Nino events. When viewing temperature data globally, these step changes give the appearance of an offset that cannot be accounted for through comparisons of global and ENSO index linear trends. But it’s the ENSO events that caused the rise.
These step changes indicate the relationship between ENSO and global temperatures are non-linear, which contradicts the Thompson et al findings referenced by Knight et al. And if you’d like to determine if your referenced IPCC Climate Models include the multiyear aftereffects of ENSO, you can examine them at the KNMI Climate Explorer.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/selectfield_co2.cgi?someone@somewhere
If and when GCMs can reproduce the past frequency and magnitude of ENSO events, if and when GCMs can reproduce the multiyear aftereffects of ENSO events, which are these El Nino-induced step changes (including the ones that also appear in the OHC records), then GCMs may have some predictive value. At present they cannot reproduce ENSO or its multiyear aftereffects. At present, they have no value.
Regards