by Peter Westmore
News Weekly, May 20, 2017
Recently published data from independent meteorologists Dr Ryan Maue of WeatherBELL Analytics and Dr Roy Spencer show that global temperatures have fallen back to about the levels of 20 years ago.
The two scientists use different data sources – one terrestrial, the other from satellites – so the convergence of their findings is particularly significant.
Dr Roy Spencer
WeatherBELL is a commercial forecaster using land-based climate data, and specialises in providing long and short-term forecasts for the agriculture, energy, hydrology, retail and aviation industries. It has its own computer models, but also accesses information from both the American NOAA and Britain’s Met Office.
According to Dr Maue, global temperatures dropped 0.5 degrees Celsius in April. In the northern hemisphere they plunged a massive one degree. The Global Warming Policy Foundation commented: “As the record 2015–16 El Niño levels off, the global-warming hiatus is back with a vengeance.”
Dr Maue said the fall in temperatures (in degrees Celsius) over the past year are seen in the following variations from the 1981–2010 average:
March 2016 +0.673
April 2016 +0.557
March 2017 +0.558
April 2017 +0.375
The explanation of the temperature pause since 1998 – which contradicts the computer models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – has been the subject of widespread discussion in academic journals, including the American Geophysical Union journal, Geophysical Research Letters, as well as Climate Dynamics, and the Scientific Report of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. All agree that temperature rises have stalled, but there is no consensus on the cause.
Dr Roy Spencer publishes every month the average global temperature derived from satellite observations. Since 1979, satellites have been sending back to earth data on the temperature of the lower atmosphere, and this data is published by the University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) and on Dr Spencer’s website.
The satellite data indicates that average temperatures in April 2017 were 0.27 degrees above the 30-year average from 1981–2010. In the previous month, the data showed that the temperature was just 0.19 degrees above the 30-year average. The IPCC had forecast temperature variations five to 10 times as large.
The UAH chart for the entire period shows that in the 1990s, temperatures remained relatively steady until the large El Niño of 1997–98, and then oscillated around a new higher level until the El Niño of 2015–06, when it rose again, before falling back towards the 30-year average.
Another recent source of climate alarm has been the appearance of a large crack on the Larsen C ice-shelf of the Antarctic Peninsula, which stretches up towards the tip of South America (News Weekly, March 11, 2017).
The ice-shelf is fed by several glaciers, which flow into the sea.
The splitting off of ice-shelves is an entirely natural phenomenon, and is the cause of icebergs, which are common around Antarctica and, historically, have been observed as far north as New Zealand’s South Island. The most recent media report of icebergs being seen off the coast of New Zealand was in 2016. Previously, they had been reported in 2009 and 2006.
Calving of the Larsen C ice-shelf would be the largest recent iceberg to break off from Antarctica, prompting claims that it is caused by global warming or “climate change”.
However, the overall area of sea ice around Antarctica is close to normal for this time of year, and recent research indicates that temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula have fallen slightly in recent decades.
Dr Marc Oliva from the Centre for Geographical Studies at the University of Lisbon, with others wrote a recent paper, “Recent regional climate cooling on the Antarctic Peninsula and associated impacts on the cryosphere”, which was published in last February’s issue of Science of the Total Environment.
They looked at the temperature record on the Antarctic Peninsula from 1951 to 2011, using data from 10 weather stations dotted around the peninsula.
Earlier conclusions of warming of Antarctica had been based on the recorded weather at just one station, the Faraday/Vernadsky station, where temperatures had risen by 0.54 degrees per decade, one of the largest warming trends on earth since the 1950s.
“Accordingly, most works describing the evolution of the natural systems in the [Antarctic Peninsula] region cite this extreme trend as the underlying cause of their observed changes.”
However, when data from all 10 stations is considered, a very different picture emerges.
It shows that a more moderate warming trend of 0.32 degrees per decade from 1979–97 was succeeded by a cooling trend of -0.47 degrees per decade in the period 1999–2014.
The figures also show that the most pronounced cooling occurred in the north and northeast of the peninsula, where it lies adjacent to Cape Horn and South America.
The new data contradicts the repeated claims of the IPCC that global warming is causing irrevocable damage to the Antarctic continent.
