Its official 17 years of no warming in RSS data

RSS stands for Remote Sensing Systems, which is a satellite temperature data set similar to the University of Alabama – Huntsville (UAH) dataset that John Christy and Roy Spencer manage. Information about RSS can be found at here and the data set can be found here.

The plot of the number on the left column from November 1, 1996 to October 31, 2013 can be found in the graph at the head of his article and here. When the “Raw data” is clicked, we see that for 204 months, the slope is = -0.000122111 per year. I wish to make it perfectly clear that the focus is not on the magnitude of the negative number since this number is zero for all intents and purposes. The only thing that is noteworthy is that the slope is not positive.

And of course, 204 months is equal to 17 years. In the “Separating signal and noise in atmospheric temperature changes: The importance of timescale” Benjamin Santer et al. stated that:

“Our results show that temperature records of at least 17 years in length are required for identifying human effects on global-mean tropospheric temperature.”

I am sure that I will be corrected if I am wrong, but in plain English, my interpretation of this statement is as follows:

“There is a lot of noise in the climate system and it is quite possible that the noise can mask the effects of man-made carbon dioxide for a period of time. However if the slope is zero for 17 years, then we cannot blame noise any more but we have to face the facts that we humans do not affect the climate to any great extent.”

Is that reasonably accurate interpretation?

Richard Courtney offered a very interesting perspective in a comment previously:

“The Santer statement says that a period of at least 17 years is needed to see an anthropogenic effect. It is a political statement because “at least 17 years” could be any length of time longer than 17 years. It is not a scientific statement because it is not falsifiable.

However, if the Santer statement is claimed to be a scientific statement then any period longer than 17 years would indicate an anthropogenic effect. So, a 17-year period of no discernible global warming would indicate no anthropogenic global warming.

In my opinion, Santer made a political statement so it should be answered with a political response: i.e. it should be insisted that he said 17 years of no global warming means no anthropogenic global warming because any anthropogenic effect would have been observed.

Santer made his petard and he should be hoisted on it.”

...

 

It's official, 100 years of warming.

 

actually since the last ice age went form 110000 to 12000 years ago...

its official 12,000 years of warming...

but 400,000 years of being in a range.

 

As soon as FC gets here, it's on!!!!

 

So 17 years is pretty trivial.

 

I would expect it to be trivial and insignificant in the overall scheme and temperature record.

but it is not trivial when it further invalidates the models which were the only science the agw nutters had pretending they could show man made co2 causes warming.

it was the agw nutters who made that period of time significant.

 

Just to stir the pot:

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/sun-s-bizarre-activity-may-trigger-another-ice-age-1.1460937

"Sun’s bizarre activity may trigger another ice age"

"...Three leading solar scientists presented the very latest data about the weakening solar activity at a teleconference yesterday in Boulder, Colorado, organised by the American Astronomical Society. It featured experts from Nasa, the High Altitude Observatory and the National Solar Observatory who described how solar activity, as measured by the formation of sunspots and by massive explosions on the sun’s surface, has been falling steadily since the mid-1940s...

...The fall-off in sunspot activity still has the potential to affect our weather for the worse, Dr Elliott said. Research by Prof Mike Lockwood at the University of Reading showed how low solar activity could alter the position of the jet stream over the north Atlantic, causing severe cold during winter months. This was likely the cause of the very cold and snowy winters during 2009 and 2010, Dr Elliott said.

“It all points to perhaps another little ice age,” he said. “It seems likely we are going to enter a period of very low solar activity and could mean we are in for very cold winters...”

 

Your problem is, it's not even true. Gwb and I had this discussion. The heating is in the ocean. The rate is low, but it is steady; it has not paused during this 17 years.

 

the agw nutter models currently being invalidated had nothing to do with ocean warming.

agw nutters are free to develop ocean warming models.
and then try and tell us co2 warms the ocean even though as oceans warm they release co2.

 

Now you are just babbling. Stop. You are embarrassing yourself.

The models are still valid. They need to be improved to include oceanic influence. A difficult thing.