Leading Alarmist Climate Scientist Concedes NO Anthropogenic Signal Found In Tropical Pacific

Mojib Latif: Climate models fail to simulate tropical Pacific. No detectable anthropogenic signal

By Dr. Sebastian Lüning and Prof. Fritz Vahrenholt
(German text translated/edited by P Gosselin)

Prof. Mojib Latif is a widely sought out speaker for events and the German media, and he never passes up the opportunity to warn the public of the impending climate catastrophe. However at his his daytime job he is also a scientist, and there he publishes research results on a regular basis. On many occasions we have noticed that in his scientific papers he appears to be far less dramatic and more balanced than he is in the media. Some examples follow:

On April 5, 2017, in the Geophysical Research Letters there’s yet another example to behold. With his colleagues Latif examined the tropical Pacific. In the eastern and central parts temperatures have cooled over the past two decades. Climate models are having a hard time recreating this development. Latif and his group looked at this case and assumed that natural climate variability is behind it. They have not been able to find an anthropogenic impact on the temperature development in this region.

They conclude that the climate models would be too uncertain to make forecasts concerning the acting circulation in the region.

With that in mind, wouldn’t it be nice if Latif mentioned this the next time he appears on a talk show? But don’t hold your breath thinking this will happen anytime soon.

It’s the two faces of Mojib Latif. It’s unclear how her goes about justifying this scientifically and ethically. What follows is the abstract with the highlighted main points:

Role of Internal Variability in Recent Decadal to Multidecadal Tropical Pacific Climate Changes

Mohammad Hadi Bordbar, Thomas Martin, Mojib Latif and Wonsun Park

While the Earth’s surface has considerably warmed over the past two decades, the tropical Pacific has featured a cooling of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in its eastern and central part, which went along with an unprecedented strengthening of the equatorial Trade Winds, the surface component of the Pacific Walker Circulation (PWC). Previous studies show that this decadal trend in the Trade Winds is generally beyond the range of decadal trends simulated by climate models when forced by historical radiative forcing. There is still a debate on the origin of and the potential role that internal variability may have played in the recent decadal surface wind trend. Using a number of long control (unforced) integrations of global climate models and several observational datasets, we address the question as to whether the recent decadal to multidecadal trends are robustly classified as an unusual event or the persistent response to external forcing. The observed trends in the tropical Pacific surface climate are still within the range of the long-term internal variability spanned by the models but represent an extreme realization of this variability. Thus, the recent observed decadal trends in the tropical Pacific, though highly unusual, could be of natural origin. We note that the long-term trends in the selected PWC indices exhibit a large observational uncertainty, even hindering definitive statements about the sign of the trends.

Highlights:

  • Pacific Walker Circulation strongly varies internally
  • Anthropogenic signals in the tropical Pacific sector are hard to detect
  • There is large model uncertainty about the future of the Pacific Walker Circulation”

23 responses to “Leading Alarmist Climate Scientist Concedes NO Anthropogenic Signal Found In Tropical Pacific”

  1. Kenneth Richard

    Not sure why it would be a surprise that large regions of the ocean have been cooling. After all, between 1992 and 2011, “the entirety” of the Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean, and eastern Atlantic all cooled below 2000 meters according to Wunsch and Heimbach, 2014.

    Wunsch and Heimbach, 2014
    http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JPO-D-13-096.1
    About 52% of the ocean lies below 2000 m and about 18% below 3600 m.

    Over the 20 yr of the present ECCO state estimate, changes in the deep ocean on multiyear time scales are dominated by the western Atlantic basin and Southern Oceans. … In those same regions [western Atalantic basin and Southern Oceans], a longer-term general warming pattern occurs below 2000 m.

    A very weak long-term cooling is seen over the bulk of the rest of the ocean below that depth, including the entirety of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, along with the eastern Atlantic basin.

    The sea surface temperatures of the Southern Ocean have been cooling since the 1970s.

    Fan et al., 2014
    http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/cdeser/docs/fan.antarctic_seaice_trends.grl14.pdf
    Cooling is evident over most of the Southern Ocean in all seasons and the annual mean, with magnitudes approximately -0.2–0.4°C per decade or -0.7–1.3°C over the 33 year period [1979-2011].

  2. tom0mason

    Pierre, small typo in your text above —

    “It’s the two faces of Mojib Latif. It’s unclear how her goes about justifying this scientifically and ethically. What follows is the abstract with the highlighted main points:”

    …her goes about…?

    1. Graeme No.3

      Just a small case of the confusion normal in Climate “Science”.

  3. AndyG55

    “While the Earth’s surface has considerably warmed over the past two decades”

    Nope !! Any duo-decadal warming is from UHI or “adjustments”.

    Basically ZERO trend from 2001 – 2015

    The transient fin 2015/2016 seems to be settling down with no change to overall temperature.

    1. SebastianH

      Zero trend looks different than this:
      http://imgur.com/a/8Atz4

      1. Kenneth Richard

        AndyG55: “Basically ZERO trend from 2001 – 2015

        SebastianH: “Zero trend looks different than [a temperature graph with trend line for 1979-2017]

        Why are you showing a trend line for 1979-2017 when you obviously knew that he wrote 2001 to 2015? Because you’re not honest, that’s why.

        Here’s the trend line for 2001-2015: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2001/to:2015/plot/rss/from:2001/to:2015/trend

        1. SebastianH

          AndyG55 is claiming that there is no warming except due to “transient” El Nino events. That graph simply shows that this is not true.

          Regarding trendlines:
          http://imgur.com/a/FRxEy

          I plotted all trendslopes for 14-year trends and they become negative for just a few months in the entire dataset. It’s dishonest to pick a start date out of those view months and claim that there was no warming at all when the overhelming majority of months show a positive future trend … don’t you agree?

          P.S.: When we increase the length of the trend it doesn’t become negative at any startdate with 19 or more years length.

          1. SebastianH

            *few

          2. AndyG55

            Graphs show SFA except the slightly negative trend from 2001 to 2016

            It is load of nonsense, meaningless CRAP

            …. just like everything you produce.

          3. AndyG55

            It is MORONIC to show much LACK of comprehension of climate events.

            But that is EXACTLY what you do , with every post !!

          4. AndyG55
        2. AndyG55

          “Why are you showing a trend line for 1979-2017 when you obviously knew that he wrote 2001 to 2015”

          Because the low-brain putz is an AGW shill.

          Although why anyone would pay for his base-level incompetence is beyond me !!

          If he is not paid, then he really needs to think about what he is doing with his totally backward, ineffective life.

          TROLLING with meaningless yapping on a climate realist site, seems to be how he gets his jollies.

          SAD, and really quite PATHETIC.

          GET A LIFE , seb !!

          Find something worthwhile and productive to do with your life..

          Oh wait.. you are a far-left AGW cultist…

          … there is NOTHING productive you have the ability or the desire to do.!!

      2. AndyG55

        Again, the MORONIC use of the El Ninos.

        I know its all you have , seb..

        ..but gees you look like a mathematical retard when you do it !!

  4. Dan Pangburn

    CO2 has insignificant effect on climate.

    I intentionally us the weasel word ‘insignificant’ because I cannot be certain that it is zero. Whatever it is, I am certain that it does no harm, and, there is substantial evidence that it is doing a lot of good (more food). The planet is still impoverished for CO2 as shown graphically in Fig 7 of my analysis. (Click my name)

    So why has average global temperature (AGT) been increasing? The top-down approach as used in my analysis (strongly influenced by Dr. Roy and Lord M although I’m not so sure they like the idea) identifies the three factors that matter and matches reported measurements 98% 1895-2016.

    Water vapor molecules have more than 170 absorb/emit bands at lower energy levels than the single OLR band for CO2 and there are about 35 times as many WV molecules as CO2 molecules.

    NASA/RSS has been measuring & reporting WV content of the atmosphere (Total Precipitable Water, TPW) since 1988. It is increasing at about 1.5% per decade. With my extrapolation, that amounts to about 8% increase since the more rapid increase began, about 1960 (Fig. 3). This is more than 2.5 times what it would be based on temperature increase alone (feedback). This WV increase is countering the temperature decline that would otherwise be occurring. ‘Otherwise’ results from declining net effect of ocean cycles since 2005 and declining solar activity dropping below ‘breakeven’ in early 2016.

    Preventing the temperature decline is a good thing but the added WV is certainly exacerbating the risk of flooding. IMO all rainwater retaining systems (dams, dykes, etc.) should be upgraded from 100 yr floods to 10,000 yr floods.

    1. Mindert Eiting

      ‘Significant’ is a term introduced by Ronald Fisher in his decision procedure and applies at a certain small probability (five or one percent, seldom mentioned) that the data come from a population with zero effect, under the assumption of random sampling. It depends on population variance (probably seriously underestimated) and sample size. With sufficient sample size the smallest sample effect already becomes ‘significant’. The Latin term got a magical sounding, much more suggestive than a more meaningful estimate of effect size. Note that the verdict of ‘significant’ also may mean that the sample is not random.

      Worth noting that of the article above Latif is just a co-author. Perhaps in the context of a few scientists an alarmist cannot easily go wild.

  5. Ron Clutz

    Clive Best did an interesting analysis, supported by work of Christopher Scotus (Paleoclimatologist) showing that in the history of climate change temperatures rise not in equatorial zones, but in the higher latitudes. Temperature anomalies mislead by over representing change in mid and higher latitudes. Tropics fluctuate with El Ninos and other cycles, but average temps there do not change much.

    If there is warming in the future, the gradient between equator and poles will get flatter. The world will not get hotter.

    https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/fact-future-climate-will-be-flatter-not-hotter/

    1. Ron Clutz

      Sorry. I meant Christopher Scotese.

      1. Ron Clutz

        Help! My comment is stuck in moderation.

    2. Ron Clutz

      Clive Best did an interesting analysis, supported by work of Christopher Scotus (Paleoclimatologist) showing that in the history of climate change temperatures rise not in equatorial zones, but in the higher latitudes. Temperature anomalies mislead by over representing change in mid and higher latitudes. Tropics fluctuate with El Ninos and other cycles, but average temps there do not change much.

      If there is warming in the future, the gradient between equator and poles will get flatter. The world will not get hotter.

      https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2017/02/02/fact-future-climate-will-be-flatter-not-hotter/

      1. AndyG55

        Not much polar amplification in the Antarctic.

        Or the Arctic for that matter.

        Neither is showing any signs of warming apart from normal ocean oscillations in the NH.

        Just a much more benign, pleasant and friendly climate than during the colder, more erratic times of the LIA.

  6. tom0mason

    Hummm, El Nino have been shown to be correlated with solar events, and high sun-spot number correlate with hot summers. Sudden Stratospheric Warming (SSW) and wobbles in the jet-stream are aligned to solar wind variability …

    But, the UN-IPCC says that solar effects are negligible on climate, I say they are blowing smoke …, I’d say they haven’t a clue about climate …, I’d say they are a bunch of power-hungry ne’er-do-wells attempting to control the fuel markets through controls on CO2.

    In the mix of air that we breath, CO2 is just a rare atmospheric gas with no observed record of damage to the natural environment.

    1. SebastianH

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