2007 will be the 2nd hottest year on record, after 1998?

Question

Translation: it will be the second hottest year since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1860s, and while it's still almost as warm as it was nine years ago, the warm-ING ended then.

El Nino is a regional phenomenon - it makes it warmer in some areas, but there's X amount of heat, that heat has to come from other areas. On a net basis El Nino shouldn't affect the planet as a whole.

Parrot, no, "cherry picking" would be saying it's the hottest year "on record" with the idea that people will hear "ever" when the reality is that the "record" dates back only to the end of the Little Ice Age.

Cherry picking would also be plugging only some proxy data into models to get a "hockey stick" when plugging in all the data shows an MWP and a LIA and when the physical evidence shows an MWP and an LIA and when the model doesn't pick up late 20th century warming (which means its failure to model an MWP warmer than today is rendered meaningless).

Cherry picking would also be saying that because it was not uniformly hotter everywhere at all times during the MWP the MWP can be written out of the climate history, and then turning around and saying that the fact that it is not uniformly hotter now doesn't disprove global warming now.

Trevor you're cherry picking, your comparisons are to the period beginning in 1950 - - - from 1950-1970 temperatures cooled significantly, and scientists suspected it was due to aerosols and other particulates - - so you're comparing against an artificially cool period.

It's like saying the Red Sox in June played better than the average...... for Kansas City over the last two years....

Yes, cherry picking is taking the data that supports you and ignoring that data that doesn't, and starting the timeline at the end of a multi-century cool period is in fact cherrypicking, as is using proxy data that don't show the MWP and ignoring proxy data that show an MWP.

And my assertions with respect to the MWP are right on. All of them. Mann's model fails to pick up the warming from 1950 on. Thus its failure to show that the MWP was warmer than today doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Also Mann, and you, ignore the physical evidence. The evidence of what grew when and where, what land and sea-based trade routes were frozen over during what parts of the year, during the MWP, after, and today, is widespread and compelling - much more so than a handful of cherry-picked tree ring samples!

Answer 1

Only the second hottest year on reord since MAN has had reasonably accurate instruments to record temperatures...

There's evidence that a few times in the past the global climate has been considerably hotter. We just don't have any way to determine how much hotter.

Answer 2

The basic premise that the 20th century, and conversely they years 1998 or 2007 is the warmest on record, are based on Mann's temperature reconstruction records, and a few of his cronies, that have been proved false. According to him the medieval warm period and little ice age were minor events.

Soon and Baliunas in 2003 did a study were they studied over 100 temperature reconstruction studies from all over the world and concluded:

Climate proxy research provides an aggregate, broad
perspective on questions regarding the reality of Little
Ice Age, Medieval Warm Period and the 20th century
surface thermometer global warming. The picture
emerges from many localities that both the Little Ice
Age and Medieval Warm epoch are widespread and
near-synchronous phenomena, as conceived by Bryson
et al. (1963), Lamb (1965) and numerous researchers
since. Overall, the 20th century does not contain the
warmest anomaly of the past millennium in most of the
proxy records, which have been sampled world-wide.
Past researchers implied that unusual 20th century
warming means a global human impact. However, the
proxies show that the 20th century is not unusually
warm or extreme.

Answer 3

This argument is so lame it really doesn't deserve a response. But since ignorant people bring up so very often in these discussions I think it's important to address it anyway.

'1998 was warmer than 2006 so warming stopped then'. This argument is a classic example of cherry picking. That is, choosing data for the sole purpose of supporting a pre-conceived conclusion. You can't just choose any random point on a temperature graph as a starting place and expect to gain any meaningful conclusions from it. I could just as easily choose a point from any year that was cooler than this one, plot a line through it, and say 'look! The planet is warming!'. Heck, I could plot a cooling trend from winter to simmer just as long as I had a few cool days in August and a few warm ones in December. That still wouldn't change the actual trend though. If I plotted the data properly and adjusted for chaotic day-to-day temperature variations I would still see an obvious warming trend from winter to summer.

As you can see in the below graph, even though 1998 was an anomalously warm year (due to an especially potent El Niño), the average trend is still one of warming.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/2005cal_fig1.gif

Edit: Curse you, Bob! : p

Edit # 2: Dear Lord. Ok, that's not cherry picking. Cherry picking is the act of selecting data to fit a pre-concieved conclusion. Not the act of picking data at all.

But that aside, your entire response here is nothing more than a red herring argument. I won't bother responding to your claims about the MWP (which are all demonstrably false, by the way) until you either admit that your 1998 argument is flawed, or demonstrate to me exacly =why= 1998 can be used as a valid starting point.

Edit: You didn't do as I asked. You never showed how 1998 was a valid starting point. So I am not obliged to respond to your other points. But I'll get to them just as soon as we've finished with your original argument.

Since you seem so reluctant to admit to being wrong, here's a quick graph I made that should show you quite clearly the flaws in your reasoning. What you're doing is in yellow, the actual data is in blue, and the correctly plotted graph is in red (it seems rough because I didn't bother smoothing it much. 1998 appear as the large spike, and the graph starts in 1985).

http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k111/EnragedPirate/tempgraph.png?t=1183486728

Do you see now why 1998 can't be used as a starting point? There just hasn't been a stagnant or cooling trend since then.

Answer 4

As many people have pointed out, your logic is flawed. Picking one anonamously hot year (due to El Nino) and claiming that the planet hasn't warmed since then is simply poor analysis and also incorrect. Examine the following plot, if you please:

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

Notice how high 1998 is above all other years in the 1990s (and all previous years). Every year in the 2000s is hotter than every previous year since 1850 with the single exception of 1998. While the graph appears to be levelling off slightly, the addition of 2007 as the hottest year in recorded history (if that turns out to be the case) will change that, since 2006 was ONLY the 6th hottest year in recorded history.

If you want to go further back, how about 2000 years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2000_Year_Temperature_Comparison.png

Your case simply looks worse. As you can see in all 10 temperature reconstructions, the MWP was not nearly as hot as it is now.

Your claim that "there's X amount of heat, that heat has to come from other areas. On a net basis El Nino shouldn't affect the planet as a whole" is also flawed. El Nino causes increased temperatures in certain areas, and other areas remain at their usual temperatures. El Nino does not suck heat away from other areas of the globe, it simply traps additional heat.

Sorry, but your argument is extremely flawed.

Answer 5

Sorry, your facts are incorrect. 2005 was as hot as 1998.

The heat of 1998 was so high in part because of a strong El Nino effect. The El Nino effect in 2005 was weaker than the one in 1998, which means there was some other reason 2005 was so hot. El Nino is ruled out.

You might be able to refine your theory if you plot the global temperatures on a graph. I'm not sure if you use science and mathematics that you will come to the same conclusion.

Answer 6

Actually, 1998 is the second hottest year on record after 2005. No one knows where 2007 will fall yet because there is still almost half of the year to go.

Answer 7

Beat you to it, Enraged Parrot :-).

Climate is long term change. Individual years, like the very warm year of 1998, mean nothing.

This graph illustrates that well. Individual years jump around a lot. That's weather for you. But the 5 year average tells a very different story. The graph ends in 2004. Extending it until now shows an even faster increase.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record_png

Trevor, below, has it right.

Answer 8

The thing about climate is that it doesn't focus on any one specific year, instead it looks at long term trends. When we do that we see that every year the global average temperature is getting warmer and warmer. The last time there was a dip was following the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, since then the annual average has been increasing.

The ten hottest years on record are:
2005: 0.77°C above average
1998: 0.71°C above average
2002: 0.69°C above average
2003: 0.67°C above average
2006: 0.66°C above average
2001: 0.57°C above average
1990: 0.48°C above average
1999: 0.46°C above average
1995: 0.46°C above average
1991: 0.44°C above average

2007 is on target to become the new record holder, the first six months have been the hottest on record. The hottest first six months on record are...

2007: 0.805°C above average
2005: 0.76°C above average
2002: 0.75°C above average
1998: 0.715°C above average
2004: 0.685°C above average
2006: 0.62°C above average
2003: 0.595°C above average

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata/GLB.Ts.txt

Answer 9

No, it is actually well behind 1998 in my area. But I'm sure they'll find a way to skew the results to call it the hottest year ever again.

Answer 10

Ha! That depends where you are. It's a lot colder then usual here in Montreal. I'm starting to wonder if summer is already over.