Get ready for a decades long chill - top climatologist warns

UN IPCC climate scientist Mojib Latif has warned overnight that global warming has come to an end for the current generation.

Prof Latif, who leads a research team at the renowned Leibniz  Institute at Germany’s Kiel University, has developed new methods for measuring ocean temperatures 3,000ft beneath the surface, where the cooling and warming cycles start.

He and his colleagues predicted the new cooling trend in a paper published in 2008 and warned of it again at an IPCC conference in Geneva last September.

Last night he told The Mail on Sunday: ‘A significant share of the warming we saw from 1980 to 2000 and at earlier periods in the 20th Century was due to these cycles – perhaps as much as 50 per cent.

'They have now gone into reverse, so winters like this one will become much more likely. Summers will also probably be cooler, and all this may well last two decades or longer.

‘The extreme retreats that we have seen in glaciers and sea ice will come to a halt. For the time being, global warming has paused, and there may well be some cooling.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1242011/DAVID-ROSE-The-mini-ice-age-starts-here.html#ixzz0cIoanDaV

Comments

[CM]

What a typically terrible, typical Daily Mail, piece.

Where is the mention of the places in the world that are experiencing temperatures 5 to 10 degrees warmer than usual?
See:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2010/images/20100106b-chart.jpg

Doesn't fit the narrative huh.

Given how badly Latif has been misrepresented before (including by you Ian, and again in that Daily Mail piece), I'd want to see some confirmation that he actually said these things.

Rose doesn't seem to understand that climate models don't predict weather. If he doesn't understand that, what hope is there that he can grasp anything else?

[CM]

>>>2. Confusion over cooling
In March, a rather technical paper discussing climate periodicity was widely misinterpreted as suggesting that we are in a period of global cooling, and much energy was expended trying to set the record straight. Kyle Swanson and Anastasios A. Tsonis of the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee reported in Geophysical Research Letters (36, L06711; 2009) that although temperatures rose overall during the twentieth century, distinct periods of warming and cooling of about 30 years each were superimposed on the warming trend.

The authors were investigating whether natural climate variability, including short-term climatic events such as El Niño, could explain the shifts between these phases. The authors found that there are times when different types of natural variation in the climate synchronize, which shifts the climate to a new state. We might have entered such a phase in 2001–2002, in which case there could be a pause in warming before temperatures start rising again, said the authors.

Some critics took issue with their data sets and asked whether the pair were misinterpreting normal year-to-year variability, in which temperatures drop some years and increase in others even though the long-term trend is upward. “Regardless, it’s important to note that we are not talking about global cooling, just a pause in warming,” wrote Swanson on the Real Climate blog.

In September, the issue of cooling resurfaced following an address by Mojib Latif to the World Climate Conference in Geneva. Latif, a climatologist at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany, was speaking of the need for greater accuracy in predicting climate change on a decade-by-decade scale. He noted that because of natural variability in the climate, it is theoretically possible that we could see “a decade, or maybe even two, when the temperature cools relative to the present level”.

Some news accounts reported that Latif had predicted global cooling, and climate change deniers echoed the claims. Lost in the ensuing game of telephone was the fact that in both cases the researchers accept that overall warming is occurring and will continue in the long run.

In November the Met Office, the Natural Environment Research Council and the Royal Society in the UK issued a statement that the previous ten years were the hottest on record.<<<

http://www.nature.com/climate/2010/1001/full/climate.2010.134.html

[CM]

Here we go Ian:

"A leading scientist has hit out at misleading newspaper reports that linked his research to claims that the current cold weather undermines the scientific case for manmade global warming.

Mojib Latif, a climate expert at the Leibniz Institute at Kiel University in Germany, said he "cannot understand" reports that used his research to question the scientific consensus on climate change.

He told the Guardian: "It comes as a surprise to me that people would try to use my statements to try to dispute the nature of global warming. I believe in manmade global warming. I have said that if my name was not Mojib Latif it would be global warming."

He added: "There is no doubt within the scientific community that we are affecting the climate, that the climate is changing and responding to our emissions of greenhouse gases."

A report in the Mail on Sunday said that Latif's results "challenge some of the global warming orthodoxy's most deeply cherished beliefs" and "undermine the standard climate computer models". Monday's Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph repeated the claims.

The reports attempted to link the Arctic weather that has enveloped the UK with research published by Latif's team in the journal Nature in 2008. The research said that natural fluctuations in ocean temperature could have a bigger impact on global temperature than expected. In particular, the study concluded that cooling in the oceans could offset global warming, with the average temperature over the decades 2000-2010 and 2005-2015 predicted to be no higher than the average for 1994-2004. Despite clarifications from the scientists at the time, who stressed that the research did not challenge the predicted long-term warming trend, the study was widely misreported as signalling a switch from global warming to global cooling.

The Mail on Sunday article said that Latif's research showed that the current cold weather heralds such "a global trend towards cooler weather".

It said: "The BBC assured viewers that the big chill was was merely short-term 'weather' that had nothing to do with 'climate', which was still warming. The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view."

Not according to Latif. "They are not related at all," he said. "What we are experiencing now is a weather phenomenon, while we talked about the mean temperature over the next 10 years. You can't compare the two."

He said the ocean temperature effect was similar to other natural influences on global temperature, such as volcanos, which cool the planet temporarily as ash spewed into the atmosphere reflects sunlight.

"The natural variation occurs side by side with the manmade warming. Sometimes it has a cooling effect and can offset this warming and other times it can accelerate it." Other scientists have questioned the strength of the ocean effect on overall temperature and disagree that global warming will show the predicted pause.

Latif said his research suggested that up to half the warming seen over the 20th century was down to this natural ocean effect, but said that was consistent with the 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "No climate specialist would ever say that 100% of the warming we have seen is down to greenhouse gas emissions."

The recent articles are not the first to misrepresent his research, Latif said. "There are numerous newspapers, radio stations and television channels all trying to get our attention. Some overstate and some want to downplay the problem as a way to get that attention," he said. "We are trying to discuss in the media a highly complex issue. Nobody would discuss the problem of [Einstein's theory of] relativity in the media. But because we all experience the weather, we all believe that we can assess the global warming problem."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/11/climate-change-global-warming-mojib-latif

Now, are you going to let your parroting of this distortion stand? Are you going to continue to align yourself with people that just blatantly make sh*t up?

[CM]

In an exclusive interview, Latif told me: "I don't know what to do. They just make these things up."

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/11/foxnews-wattsupwiththat-climatedepot-daily-mail-article-on-global-cooling-mojib-latif/

[Ian Wishart]

If you read what I quoted, Latif has not been misquoted.

If you read what I reported in Climate Reality (http://www.investigatemagazine.com/climatereality.pdf) a few months back when the story broke, Latif was not misquoted there either. He has been pretty clear that there is going to be a cold spell laid over the warming trend.

In Air Con, I have consistently made the point that temperatures have been rising since the end of the LIA and I don't see why the warming trend should end now in particular, therefore I'm comfortable with Latif saying warming will return. But probably not for a decade or two...as even Swanson and Tsonis, quoted in Air Con, are also picking.

I disagree with them that CO2 is the primary forcer.

[CM]

>>>If you read what I quoted, Latif has not been misquoted.<<<

For crying out loud Ian, he says HIMSELF that they've made things up. I.e. he's been misquoted in that Daily Mail piece.
Do you have better evidence than the man himself saying they'll got it all wrong?

So let me get this right - even though you now KNOW that he's been misquoted AGAIN, you're willing to align yourself with blatant misrepresentation?
Wow.

And are you trying to say that you aren't implicitly aligning yourself to the rest of the article? Without any sort of qualification, you effectively are.

You're aligning yourself with those who claim that natural variations undermine AGW theory. You know full well that isn't the case.

>>>He has been pretty clear that there is going to be a cold spell laid over the warming trend.<<<

That is most certainly not what your entry implies. You've deliberately written it to say a lot more.

Again, you are standing by reporting that has shown to be inaccurate.

[CM]

Call Dr. Latif up and ask him if accepts the IPCC’s finding that, as he put it, most of the warming in the past century was very likely due to human causes. He had me reread the quotes attributed to him a number of times, asking twice, “those are direct quotes?” After I did, he said to me: “I don’t know what to do. They just make these things up.” I suggested asking reporters to read quotes back to him.

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/11/foxnews-wattsupwiththat-climatedepot-daily-mail-article-on-global-cooling-mojib-latif/

Ian: "Latif has not been misquoted"

So presumably you must have listened to the interview and can recall it better than Latif. I can't see any other explanation

[CM]

Your 'Climate Reality' piece also wholly relies on the inaccurate New Scientist article of 4 September 2009.

See
http://thingsbreak.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/of-moles-and-whacking-mojib-latif-predicted-two-decades-of-cooling/

Or
http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/01/interview-with-dr-mojib-latif-global-cooling-revkin-morano-george-will/

Where Latif himself again says it's wrong.

Again, you're just parroting sloppy journalism.

[CM]

As for Swanson and Tsonis, Swanson confirmed:

"What do our results have to do with Global Warming, i.e., the century-scale response to greenhouse gas emissions? VERY LITTLE, contrary to claims that others have made on our behalf."

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/07/warminginterrupted-much-ado-about-natural-variability/comment-page-6/

Not remotely the same as "global warming has come to an end for the current generation" is it.

[Ian Wishart]

Craig, I read the Guardian piece and found nothing to disagree with vis a vis my reporting.

I gather you are now intimating the Mail made up direct quotes in quote marks? If true, then it makes the Mail coverage a mockery, but the Guardian article didn't make that allegation, it said
Latif disagrees with the Mail's spin on the significance of his research.

Tough. Uber-warmist Fred Pearce at New Scientist directly quoted Latif himself saying some people would use his findings as a weapon against global warming theory.

Again, I say so what.

But if Latif is suggesting that every journalist in the world is misunderstanding what he is saying and writing false quotes, I begin to get a little suspicious...

Pearce making quotes up? Really?

[Ian Wishart]

And then I see you are hanging much of your denialism re Latif on a think piece written by Soros-funded ClimateProgress? (which incidentally claims Andy Revkin is in on the conspiracy too)

Get real.

[CM]

>>>Craig, I read the Guardian piece and found nothing to disagree with vis a vis my reporting.<<<

Where is the chill you mention in the title?

Again, you're promoting false reporting. We know it's false because the main person they're relying on said they've misrepresented him.

As the Guardian piece said:
"Despite clarifications from the scientists at the time, who stressed that the research did not challenge the predicted long-term warming trend, the study was widely misreported as signalling a switch from global warming to global cooling."

You are doing that same misreporting by talking about cooling ('chill', 'global warming has come to an end for the current generation') and suggesting that's what Latif is saying. You know full well you're doing it too, because you're not stupid.
I'd love to know how you justify it to yourself.

You might as well say that Latif's graph shows linear temperature changes and then when that doesn't happen you can say he's been 'proven wrong'. That would be no different in terms of misrepresentation.

Accurate reporting would include a discussion about how Latif is routinely misrepresented (as detailed within the links I've provided), and if you wanted to be credible you'd add a disclaimer now. You did it after falling for the 'Gore says sea will rise 67 metres' debacle.

>>>I gather you are now intimating the Mail made up direct quotes in quote marks?<<<

As I quoted above:
"He had me reread the quotes attributed to him a number of times, asking twice, “those are direct quotes?” After I did, he said to me: “I don’t know what to do. They just make these things up.”"

>>>If true, then it makes the Mail coverage a mockery<<<

Their climate change coverage is an ongoing mockery. This piece is no different. They don't report objectively - they have a very strong political leaning. I laughed my way through it regularly over 4 years as a copy was usually lying around at Starbucks in Clapham Common when I worked in the area.

>>>the Guardian article didn't make that allegation, it said
Latif disagrees with the Mail's spin on the significance of his research<<<

Latif himself says "they just make these things up" in terms of misrepresenting him. The fact that he said that in an exclusive interview with someone ELSE is neither here nor there.

Deniers have a track record of misrepresenting him.

>>>Uber-warmist Fred Pearce at New Scientist directly quoted Latif himself saying some people would use his findings as a weapon against global warming theory.<<<

Yeah, if you watch the video of his presentation, he jokes that people will no doubt misrepresent what he was saying (and his findings). Predictably, that's exactly what happened.

>>>But if Latif is suggesting that every journalist in the world is misunderstanding what he is saying and writing false quotes, I begin to get a little suspicious...<<<

The Daily Mail, New Scientist, and WUWT represents every journalist in the world.

[Ian Wishart]

Craig. It's not false. He simply doesn't like it being construed this way. Tough.

He said this to Der Spiegel (are you going to accuse them of 'making it up' too now?)

The planet's temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. "At present, however, the warming is taking a break," confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany's best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. "There can be no argument about that," he says. "We have to face that fact."

"Perhaps we suggested too strongly in the past that the development will continue going up along a simple, straight line. In reality, phases of stagnation or even cooling are completely normal," says Latif.

Sorry, I can see you've now been using seriously discredited sources (Climprog, RealClim etc) to build your conspiracy theories.

From what I can see Latif has not been misrepresented by anyone. He just simply doesn't like their interpretations of the significance of his work. That's an artistic dispute, not a factual one.

[CM]

>>>He simply doesn't like it being construed this way.<<<

And why wouldn't be like it unless it was because he was being misrepresented (which he predicted would happen)?

His comments to Der Spiegel read consistently with what he is saying. Nowhere does he makes ridiculuos claims that there is going to be a 'chill', or that 'global warming has come to an end for the current generation'. They are your fabrications, on top of the fabrications made by The Daily Mail.

>>>Sorry, I can see you've now been using seriously discredited sources (Climprog, RealClim etc) to build your conspiracy theories.<<<

Critique the analysis then. Play the ball, not the man. Otherwise I'll just throw Morano and the Daily Mail at you.

>>>From what I can see Latif has not been misrepresented by anyone. He just simply doesn't like their interpretations of the significance of his work. That's an artistic dispute, not a factual one.<<<

Yeah, you and others think you've got some sort of right to use artistic licence and claim he's saying something which he isn't. It's pretty clear cut. The misrepresentations are there for all to see (and are explained in precise details in my links).

Since when does someone say that 'warming is taking a break' (explicitly because of natural variations on background warming) equate to 'chill' and global warming coming 'to an end' for an entire generation?

You just can't seem to help yourself!

[Ian Wishart]

Craig, in journalism the words inside the "" are considered sacrosanct.

Unless you or Latif can specifically show where the words between the quote marks were made up, neither of you have a leg to stand on.

It is not as if the words within the quote marks are ambiguous. He talks about the likelihood of bitter winters and cooler summers. He clearly talks about a limited time frame of within three decades. No one is saying he said global warming has gone for good.

We all know he's a committed warmist, just like he says he is. But the words inside the quote marks say it all.

[CM]

>>>Craig, in journalism the words inside the "" are considered sacrosanct.<<<

I understand that.
It seems you think you can therefore write anything you like outside the "".

>>>Unless you or Latif can specifically show where the words between the quote marks were made up, neither of you have a leg to stand on.<<<

I think most objective people would accept someone saying they've been misquoted ahead of The Daily Mail. Even those who don't know The Daily Mail.

He also says he can't/won't make any predictions beyond 2015. Where do you or the Daily Mail include that?

Taking comments out of context is misrepresenting. Continuing to do so even after the person making the comments says it's misleading is taking it yet another step.

>>>No one is saying he said global warming has gone for good.<<<

You've EXPLICITLY said that there will be a 'chill' and that that 'global warming has come to an end for the current generation'. Both of which are unsupported.

>>>We all know he's a committed warmist, just like he says he is. But the words inside the quote marks say it all.<<<

I could easily take a series of your comments out of context (ignoring crucial comments that change the meaning) and make out you're saying something different. It's not hard. And then I can ignore your protests. That wouldn't be hard either.

Face it, you're continuing to over-egg the pudding. Latif could certainly make himself clearer in what he actually means, but you're being continually dishonest taking advantage of that.

[Ian Wishart]

"He also says he can't/won't make any predictions beyond 2015."

Without going back to the article, I recall it was a little more nuanced than that. He couldn't vouch for any of his predictions beyond 2015, but let's face it that goes without saying really. The Met Office didn't see the British winter coming three months ahead.

It might help to explain what journalists, lawyers and a bunch of others do in regard to words, because there seem to be some pretty basic misunderstandings.

If someone says something, the something gets reported. I'd be the first to concede that print media, and radio sans tape recording, are some of the worst offenders when it comes to accuracy - having been misquoted many times by journos whose minds were working faster than their keyboards and they made intellectual shortcuts.

Nonetheless, it is always open to someone to challenge the accuracy of a quote.

The significance of a quote is in the eyes of the beholder. Unless the quote is ripped against the grain of its context, it is fair for the media, police, lawyers or anyone else to attempt to derive a meaning from it that matches the context of other pieces of evidence assembled.

The subject might not like the interpretation of the quote, but then that comes down to a dispute over whether it is in context or not.

You concede Latif could be clearer. I submit his meaning is clear. It's just that he feels embarrassed that skeptics and warmist media alike have taken a meaning from what he said that he personally doesn't like.

The fact that skeptics and believers have interpreted his comments the same way suggests to me he protests too much. His meaning is evident, he's possibly taking flak for it behind the scenes and regretting his turn of phrase.

The Climategate emails are full of snarky revenge attacks on those whose comments challenged the orthodoxy, so there would be nothing unusual in this.

BTW, Gareth DID take my comments out of context, and I didn't notice you leaping to my defence.

[CM]

Where did Gareth take your comments out of context, which I then ignored?

[CM]

>>>The Met Office didn't see the British winter coming three months ahead.<<<

Weather is chaotic and unpredictable, as opposed to climate, which is weather averaged out over time. While you can’t predict with certainty whether a coin will land heads or tails, you can predict the statistical results of a large number of coin tosses. Or expressing that in weather terms, you can’t predict the exact route a storm will take but the average temperature and precipitation will result the same for the region over a period of time.

But then you know that full well.

From the Guardian article:

"The Mail on Sunday article said that Latif's research showed that the current cold weather heralds such "a global trend towards cooler weather".

It said: "The BBC assured viewers that the big chill was was merely short-term 'weather' that had nothing to do with 'climate', which was still warming. The work of Prof Latif and the other scientists refutes that view."

Not according to Latif. "They are not related at all," he said. "What we are experiencing now is a weather phenomenon, while we talked about the mean temperature over the next 10 years. You can't compare the two.""

Notice he said "we talked", suggesting the Daily Mail has inaccurately ascribed comments he made. Why would

The problem seems to be that you and others keep treating this as an explicit prediction by Latif, rather than a hypothetical scenario that is a real, if not necessarily likely, possibility.

As Romm says:

"Hypothetically, it could happen — hypothetically, monkeys could fly out of my butt — but Latif was most certainly not predicting it."

"Their model has nothing whatsoever to do with anthropogenic global warming, and so it has no bearing whatsoever on the long-term temperature trend. They do model internal ocean-driven fluctuations around that trend, but if the temperature rise stalls for any length of time, the major impact is that subsequently, the temperature rise accelerates."

http://climateprogress.org/2009/10/01/interview-with-dr-mojib-latif-global-cooling-revkin-morano-george-will/

This is what is being misrepresented all over the place:

http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/nature5-1.jpg

"The first thing to know about the figure — indeed, one major source of confusion — is that “each point represents a ten-year centred mean.” That is, each point represents the average temperature of the decade starting 5 years before that point and ending 5 years after that point."

They are predicting no increase in average temperature of the “next decade” (2005 to 2015) over the previous decade, which, for them, is 2000 to 2010! And that’s in fact precisely what the figure shows — that the 10-year mean global temperature centered around 2010 is the roughly the same as the mean global temperature centered around 2005.

Lead author Keenlyside:

"However, as you correctly point out, our results show a pick up in global mean temperature for the following decade (2010-2020). Assuming a smooth transition in temperature, our results would indicate the warming picks up earlier than 2015."

Ian, how is LESS THAN FIVE YEARS a 'generation'? Please explain (instead of continuing to ignore)?

If anything, their model (which is what this issue is about) suggests we’ll see pretty damn rapid warming in the coming decade, just as the Hadley Center did in a 2007 Science piece and just as the US Naval Research Lab and NASA recently predicted.

Check out what we KNOW FOR CERTAIN that The Daily Mail made up, before the changed it. Romm has a screenshot of their whopper about the NSIDC’s work:

http://climateprogress.org/2010/01/11/foxnews-wattsupwiththat-climatedepot-daily-mail-article-on-global-cooling-mojib-latif/

So there's evidence of them just making stuff up in the VERY SAME article where you're expressing shock at an accusation that they could make stuff up.

"According to Latif, over a short time span, say, two decades, it’s hard to determine exactly what fraction of the temperature change is due to what cause, but Latif does not believe nor ever said what the Daily Mail suggests, which is that you can add those periods together and somehow negate the IPCC’s finding. His work simply “does not allow one to make any inferences about global warming.”"

According to that HE NEVER SAID IT TO THE DAILY MAIL.

"He insists he told the Daily Mail that you can’t draw any inferences from the recent cold snap, and he told me “I can’t really predict two decades in the future.”"

He said he told the Mail, but they implied it regardless.

Distortions and misrepresentations. Over and over again. Why?

[CM]

David Rose: yet another climate non-journalist

http://deepclimate.org/2010/01/11/mojib-latif-slams-daily-mail/#more-1409