Can you speculate as to why 2007 is not going to be the new warmest year on record as predicted?

Question

In the presence of record high CO2 levels, what is the mechanism that has prevented record warming?
How can we trust these predictions?
http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSL0318315620070106
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6228765.stm
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070104-warmest-year.html

Answer 1

As your links indicate, record warmth for 2007 was predicted based on the likelihood that the El Niño which started in 2006 would continue throughout 2007. Since El Niño events typically last about 2 years, that was a reasonable expectation. In fact, the El Niño ended in midyear.

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/current/soi2.shtml

Answer 2

There are more to just Co2 causing warming if that is even the case now. It's the El Nino's La Nina's Pacific Decadal Oscillations. There's various things that can create a different climate for a certain period of time. The sun can be accounted for the warming of the first part of the 20th century that's for sure. Then we cooled until around 1980, then temps started to creep up again. So some say it is the sun others say it is man. Frolich says that the sun output dwindled since 1980. Another report issued to refute Frolich says that's not the case that the sun has been doing it's thing up until around 2000. So which one do you believe? Who knows and that's what it all boils down to. Nobody knows yet!!! I don't know how anyone can say that it is or isn't man-made. Climate models sure as hell can't tell you!!! Weather models can barely tell you what the weather will be tomorrow. Much less freaking 100 yrs. Give me a break and wake up and know that we need to do more research before we start taxing and everybody jumping on the Go Green Band Wagon. Now it's good for the environment but do it for whats right and not b/c people are scared to death of a catastrophic climate that we may never see!!!

Answer 3

Primarily because there has been a shift in which temperature records are used. Until recently pretty much all references were to the GISTemp temperature record which, until a few week ago, indicated 2007 was likely to be the hottest year on record. The average to date is 14.7590°C compared to the record year of 2005 which recorded temps of 14.7592°C. Winter months generally see a greater deviation from the base period mean than the summer months so it's probable that by the end of the year the GISTemp record will have 2007 as the hottest year on record.

During the year I have done a lot of work on the temperature records and have been encouraging people not to reference the GISTemp record as much (because of the methodology used it tends to show maxiumum values) and instead to use the HADCrut3 record or an average of all the records.

When we look at the HADCrut3 record then 2007 is currently the 6th warmest year on record and an average of all records puts 2007 as the 3rd warmest year.

Had there not been a shift in the referencing of temp records then the news articles would indeed have been correct.

You mention record warming, this is what we are experiencing at present. In the long climate record there is nothing to indicate temps have ever risen as fast as they are doing now. To put it into context - 19 times as fast as during the end of the last ice age (7°C in 7,500 years), 177 times as fast as the period from the end of the last ice age right up to the onset of industrialisation (1°C in 10,000 years).

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EDIT:

Excellent point by KEITH P about El Nino, this does indeed have a short term but significant impact on temperatures.

JIM: CO2 (and the other greenhouse gases) is just ONE of many components that affect the global temperature. When all other factors are eliminated (such as a rig in a lab) then there is a perfect correlation between temps and CO2. The climate is infinitely more complex and all factors have to be taken into account. At any one time there will be several negative and several positive forcings, it's the net result of these that determines whether temps go up or down. All in all there are hundreds of factors that affect the temperature, CO2 is important but it's just one of the many.

Answer 4

If we cannot predict exactly when and which particular radioactive atom in a sample of many billions of radioactive atoms will decay or why they don't, does that invalidate the calculations of radioactive decay? Of course not. So your Q about 2007 is like that expectation of particular atomic decay and is illustrative of an erroneous understanding of the nature of scientific prediction and the nature of data analyses. I see the usual anti-GW suspects are piling on ,answering your Q in their usual ad hominem fashion,debasing the whole Q&A endeavor. Your Q was respectfully worded in a manner that did not warrant the observed ugly unscientific answers posted in response. Peace

ps Playing the "Al GOre is a jerk" card is so totally discredited as a rhetorical tactic that it does not merit anymore than this passing note. If it pleases you to raise it, please do so, it only makes it easier to confirm the degree of intellectual bankruptcy behind the anonymous usernames! LOL

Boatman has provided an interesting link which includes some of Hansen's data. I searched the link for "CO2", "carbon" &"dioxide" and this was all that I could find on historical CO2 levels: " What caused this? Maybe a sudden release of greenhouse gases - carbon dioxide from volcanos, or a "methane burp" released from gas hydrates on the sea floor. People have indeed found drastically different carbon isotope ratios at this time." I have 2 Q's. So where is that CO2 data and who is the person who authored the webpage?

"What Is the Difference Between Weather and Climate?
It’s a sweltering midsummer day. “It must be global warming,” mutters someone. But is it the Earth’s changing climate that has made the day so warm? Or, is it just the weather that is so unbearable?

Weather is the mix of events that happen each day in our atmosphere including temperature, rainfall and humidity. Weather is not the same everywhere. Perhaps it is hot, dry and sunny today where you live, but in other parts of the world it is cloudy, raining or even snowing. Everyday, weather events are recorded and predicted by meteorologists worldwide.

Climate in your place on the globe controls the weather where you live. Climate is the average weather pattern in a place over many years. So, the climate of Antarctica is quite different than the climate of a tropical island. Hot summer days are quite typical of climates in many regions of the world, even without the affects of global warming.

Climates are changing because our Earth is warming, according to the research of scientists. Does this contribute to a warm summer day? It may, however global climate change is actually much more complicated than that because a change in the temperature can cause changes in other weather elements such as clouds or precipitation.


Explore weather and climate! ...."
at this link: http://www.eo.ucar.edu/basics/

Who exactly are the people oversimplifying GW in the debates? Not the trained people who recognize and understand the data, who collected and analyzed the data over their lifetimes. Continental drift theory took a long time to be understood. And GW is no different. But the speed & time factor of the changes demands remedial action now bec we humans are beginning to exceed or have exceeded the tolerances in the dynamics of the biosphere. GW is the first of many crises to come. The Ozone Hole, and the Bee Colony Collapse Disorder may be another. Rising sea levels may be the least of our problems unless you are an Islander somewhere on a sea level island and have no higher ground to go to.

Answer 5

Any one year proves nothing, that's just weather.

The question is - Is this graph still going up? Individual years (weather) jump around a lot but the long term trend (climate) is undeniable.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif

Whether or not 2007 is the "warmest" will probably be a matter of less than one-one hundredth of a degree, by the way. Not crucial, either way.

By the way, read your cites:

"According to the researchers, there is a 60 percent chance that 2007 will be the warmest on record."

EDIT - heeltap - GREAT example. I'm going to steal it.

jim z - If you look at the recent (last 50 years) data, it's clear that CO2 is driving this. The Sun definitely isn't. Proof:

"Recent oppositely directed trends in solar
climate forcings and the global mean surface
air temperature", Lockwood and Frolich (2007), Proc. R. Soc. A
doi:10.1098/rspa.2007.1880

http://www.pubs.royalsoc.ac.uk/media/proceedings_a/rspa20071880.pdf

News article at:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6290228.stm

Boatman1 - read your own link:

"If we didn't mess around with the climate, our Earth's climate might remain stable for another thousand years or more. As it is, we're bringing on more sudden changes."

The optimum temperature is the one set by nature, not the one we're heading for because of what WE'RE doing.

"If the Earth came with an operating manual, the chapter on climate might begin with a caveat that the system has been adjusted at the factory for optimum comfort, so don't touch the dials."

Answer 6

Once again I want to start by telling Jello that they found out years ago the world isn't flat.

Co2 isn't the problem when we are simply warming the globe and changing weather. Weather is the result of the interaction of 3 things, water vapor, air pressure(cold and warm air) and temperature.

Go to http://www.thermoguy.com/globalwarming-heatgain.html to see where UV is causing extreme heat generation. That changes air pressure and weather.

Ask a meteorologist to explain what happens with winds with different air pressure. There is weather information at the link above and our atmosphere is so big, the interaction so subtle that it takes time. Some of the temperature interaction will be extreme and cause snow, it doesn't mean the planet isn't warming.

Due to the flawed Co2 theory, scientists are left to predict temperature they can't see. Go to the link and see 17,000 hours of very specialized temperature science.

Answer 7

Probably for the same reason that the National Weather Service recently admitted that their hurricane predictions for the last two years have been so much BS ...

They don't know jack sh!t about what they are saying! The models they use in their computers can't even take into consideration the amount of water vapor in the air - water vapor being one the major "greenhouse gases" that could influence global temperatures.

It has also been shown that CO2 levels increase AFTER the peak of the warming trend has been achieved.

The predictions at the sites you referenced go to prove the point I think you are trying to make. They are so much junk, merely propaganda pushing an agenda intended to gain control over the world's economies, and spouted by the "chicken-littles" that follow that hypocritical guru, Al Gore.

Answer 8

The earth runs through cycles. Some years are warmer, some are colder.

I like all the people running around now declaring "global warming". They forget that in the 70's they were decrying "global cooling".

It is just part of nature. I remember Christmas 1975, or 1976 in the East coast of the US, it was 75 degrees on Christmas day. The next year, we had 27" of snow on the round and it was below zero.

So go figure.

One of the things they seem to leave out of the "warming climate" is that they have reduced the number of weather stations that they record the temperatures on. And guess what ??? The stations they took off line are all North of the Arctic Circle.

So less temperatures recorded in cooler weather, means more recorded in warmer weather.

Do you see the pattern.

Try reading "The Politically Incorrect Guide To Global Warming"

Answer 9

Aparently, according to the MET, the very fact that they predict a warmer year is evidence of global warming. That doesn't sound very scientific to me.

I don't think the BBC are going to do a balanced story that the evidence for AGW might be a little bit less than previoulsy reported. Information is only news if it's pro AGW.

This is from the BBC storey.

"This new information represents another warning that climate change is happening around the world," said Met Office scientist Katie Hopkins.

Answer 10

What Trevor and Bob fail to see is that in spite of the increasing CO2 levels, 2007 may not be the hottest year on record. How could this be if CO2 is the main driver in determining temperature. Obviously if you look back at history and observe the cylces, it becomes plainly obvious to an honest observer that the sun drives temperature variance and CO2 concentrations increase with increasing temperature. It has not been demonstrated that temperatures increase due to increasing CO2 concentrations except in the feeble explanation that CO2 is a greenhouse gas and therefore temperatures should increase with increasing CO2. The problem is that it hasn't.