How come 2007 was so chilly?

[Narz]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/e...008/01/06/br_r_r_where_did_global_warming_go/

Just curious as to what the Jr. Scientists here have for an explanation of this.

Note : I'm not denying global warming or making any comment myself as I have no expertise on the subject just wondering if anyone else has any thought or comment on the weather of '07.

 

[JerichoHill]

I had thought that the period we were actually in was a global cooling period because of our distance from the sun and our tilt?

 

[Zamphyr]

I guess being the second warmest year on record qualifies as chilly ?

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Temp/2008_data.htm#fig1
(charts using data supplied by NASA)

Article in OP provides no numbers or data, just . .. .. .. .. .es about cold winters. My guess is really hot summers cancelled out the winters. The past seven years have been seven of the eight warmest years on record (1880-2007), the outlier being 1998.

Any reason an article from January is being posted now ?

 

[Narz]

Thanks Zamphyr.

The reason is that someone linked to it on another thread.

Actually to this article.

This graph was displayed :

Which I should have immediately suspected was BS but I found a couple other articles (mostly propaganda though the B.G. piece was fairly neutral) which covered the "story".

 

[brennan]

This winter just gone we experienced a strong La Nina event, despite this global average temperatures remained above the baseline average, as the graph shows.

 

[ainwood]

Pacific Decadal oscillation. It is believed that the world is entering a period of cooling that, if we're unlucky, could last for 30 years (luck not due to the cooling, per-se, but more the regionalised droughts etc)

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpr...ific-decadal-oscillation-cool-the-pacific.pdf
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18012

 

[JerichoHill]

Holy cow, thanks Ainwood. That's what I had thought I heard.

 

[brennan]

*ahem*

The word 'boing' springs to mind.

 

[ainwood]

:snicker: I think you've over-estimated the spring constant, k.

That post that that graph came from was actually to highlight a difference between how different institutions measure the temperature variations. It is the HadCRUT one.

Contrast that with RSS:

Or with UAH:

GISS is similar to HadCRUT, but is consistently considered an 'outlier' because it uses a different base period for the mean temperature. Not sure why this affects the actual magnitude though; it should only be relevant when trying to compare one with the other.

 

[aaglo]

Apparently, last winter was among the coldest during the last 100 years. Except for Finland, where the winter was propably the warmest during the last 100 years or so.

 

[Ball Lightning]

Apparently, last winter was among the coldest during the last 100 years. Except for Finland, where the winter was propably the warmest during the last 100 years or so.

Um... Maybe where you are, but as for the global temperature it was not that cold. It was in the bottem 15 years but that is because it is part of the La Nina which usually lasts for any where from 1-6 years.

IMPORTANT

What is worrying is that this is one of the WEAKEST La Nina's ever recored. This is very disturbing and as this usually brings much needed rainfall to australiasia we have only slightly increased our rainfall then what we received over the El nino years.

Very bad...

Pacific Decadal oscillation. It is believed that the world is entering a period of cooling that, if we're unlucky, could last for 30 years (luck not due to the cooling, per-se, but more the regionalised droughts etc)

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpr...ific-decadal-oscillation-cool-the-pacific.pdf
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18012

Not sure where you got the 30 years from, La Nina usually only last for less then 10 years.

I had thought that the period we were actually in was a global cooling period because of our distance from the sun and our tilt?

Nope. That shouldn't be changing our temperature on a year to year basis.

 

[ainwood]

Um... Maybe where you are, but as for the global temperature it was not that cold. It was in the bottem 15 years but that is because it is part of the La Nina which usually lasts for any where from 1-6 years.

IMPORTANT

What is worrying is that this is one of the WEAKEST La Nina's ever recored. This is very disturbing and as this usually brings much needed rainfall to australiasia we have only slightly increased our rainfall then what we received over the El nino years.

Very bad...

From this image (which measures strength of La Nina & El Nino), it certainly looks like it was stronger than many in the last 30 years (albeit short).

Not sure where you got the 30 years from, La Nina usually only last for less then 10 years.

I was referring to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, not La Nina.

 

[Ball Lightning]

From this image (which measures strength of La Nina & El Nino), it certainly looks like it was stronger than many in the last 30 years (albeit short).

Well it isn't doing what it normally does here in Australia, all we are getting are short downpours of rain and have had only 1 month this year which was not below average.

And Feburary was our only month which was not above average temperatures for 2008, and it was about 0.2 Degrees off.

I was referring to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, not La Nina.

My fault

 

[ainwood]

Well it isn't doing what it normally does here in Australia, all we are getting are short downpours of rain and have had only 1 month this year which was not below average.

Yeah - look at those tiny la nina's in the early 80s. We were trying to run a sheep farm during those, and had drought after drought...

 

[Ball Lightning]

We haven't had lots of small droughts, just one huge prolonged one from the late 1990's to now. This is the first year in many to have any chance of even a half decent crop. And the last 3 years have been devestating, driving many farmers away from farming and this has not just happened in Australia which is why the world food prices are soaring.

 

[skadistic]

I guess being the second warmest year on record qualifies as chilly ?

http://www.earth-policy.org/Indicators/Temp/2008_data.htm#fig1
(charts using data supplied by NASA)

Article in OP provides no numbers or data, just . .. .. .. .. .es about cold winters. My guess is really hot summers cancelled out the winters. The past seven years have been seven of the eight warmest years on record (1880-2007), the outlier being 1998.

Any reason an article from January is being posted now ?

Was that before or after NASA redid its calculations because it was wrong?

 

[Zamphyr]

After. Charts were updated in january, this year.

 

[ainwood]

After. Charts were updated in january, this year.

Well, of course; Nasa just keeps-on updating its charts, again, and again and again.

 

[brennan]

From a statistical viewpoint, data recalculation should cause each year to have a 50/50 probability of going either up or down - thus the odds of all 70 adjusted years working in concert to increase the slope of the graph (as seen in the combined version) are an astronomical 2 raised to the power of 70. That is one-thousand-billion-billion to one. This isn't an exact representation of the odds because for some of the years (less than 15) the revisions went against the trend - but even a 55/15 split is about as likely as a room full of chimpanzees eventually typing Hamlet. That would be equivalent to flipping a penny 70 times and having it come up heads 55 times. It will never happen - one trillion to one odds (2 raised to the power 40.)

This is basically a completely moronic analysis analagous to ID proponents' arguments about the chances of proteins forming. Correction of a systematic error will lead to a change in all the affected data points. duh. It has nothing to do with an accumulation of chances, the method used was recalibrated and all the data was recalculated.

The NASA recalibration has had something like a -3% effect on global figures. Which are still going up.

 

[ainwood]

This is basically a completely moronic analysis analagous to ID proponents' arguments about the chances of proteins forming. Correction of a systematic error will lead to a change in all the affected data points. duh. It has nothing to do with an accumulation of chances, the method used was recalibrated and all the data was recalculated.

I agree - its a ridiculous comparison. I guess they were trying to suggest that any temperature 'corrections' should be randomly upwards or downwards, when I thinks it more likely that they'd be systematic changes - which by definition aren't randomly distributed.

The NASA recalibration has had something like a -3% effect on global figures. Which are still going up.

According to this graph, the Nasa changes have potentially added 0.5°F (0.28°C) to temperatures since 1900; most of it since 1960. Considering claims that total warming since 1900 is about 1°C, the implication is that warming is being over-inflated by around 28%.

And are they still going up? With this kind of data manipulation, its hard to see.