Earth's Warming Enters a New Pause

Richard Muller is a University of California, Berkeley physicist who took an interest in climate science. Concerned that the temperature data analysis done by other climate research groups might be flawed, a popular accusation of climate skeptics at the time [1], in 2010 Muller founded Berkeley Earth, an independent non-profit organization, to independently investigate the modern climate record. Climate skeptics were enthusiastic, with Anthony Watts even pledging to accept whatever result Muller found. Unsurprisingly, when Berkeley Earth's results basically confirmed those of NOAA, NASA, etc [2], Watts and other skeptics found reasons to be dissatisfied.

With that as background, last week Berkeley Earth released their analysis of 2015 and found it to be "unambiguously" the warmest year of the modern era.

In their press release, Berkeley Earth highlights the fact that they were conservative in not being willing to declare 2014 as the warmest year, as NASA and NOAA did.

Berkeley Earth has taken a cautious approach to announcing hottest years. A year ago, we announced that 2014 was not a clear record, but only in a statistical tie with 2005 and 2010. Now, however, it is clear that 2015 is the hottest year on record by a significant margin.

As you can see from the figure above, the average global temperature fluctuates from year to year, yet there is clearly an underlying trend. Skeptics have charged that there has been no warming since 1998, which was a strong El Niño year. This 'pause' in warming has been trumpeted as though it is incompatible with warming due to CO2 emissions. Although the timescale was too short to be certain of any particular trend, even some mainstream climate scientists began to treat the pause as a real phenomenon, though usually attributing it to temporary secondary factors (e.g. La Niña). Others thought it might just be statistical noise. In the press release Muller says,

This new high temperature record confirms our previous interpretation that the pause was temporary and that global warming has not slowed.

Now that 2015 is the unambiguously warmest year (NOAA, NASA, and the U.K.'s Met Office Hadley Centre all agree on this), will talk of the pause vanish? It would not be surprising if the next few years--maybe even a decade--are not as warm as 2015 [3]. Is it too cynical of me to think that skeptics will start speaking of 2015 as the beginning of a new pause? Alternatively, they may discount 2015 as a strong El Niño year, ignoring the fact that 1998 was also a strong El Niño year. Or perhaps we will hear a lot more about the virtues of satellite data, which are more amenable to the skeptical view as demonstrated by a recent hearing held by Rep. Lamar Smith and Sen. Ted Cruz?

I'll end this post by including a short video of an interview with Richard Muller from a couple of years ago, where he explains how he came to join the scientific consensus.



Notes:
1. The 'climategate' brouhaha began at the end of 2009. You remember climategate, right? Remember how stolen emails were breathlessly reported to show that the warming was based on a biased and dishonest analysis?

2. It turns out that government grants are so powerful that even an organization not funded by the government is compelled to arrive at the scientific consensus. Government grants are some seriously strong stuff!

3. Just from a purely statistical standpoint.

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Some Science and Medical Myths are Tough to Correct

Last month the journal Nature published a news article, The science myths that will not die. It lists five myths that, while based on a kernel of truth, are actually false. They are:

1. Screening saves lives for all types of cancer
2. Antioxidants are good and free radicals are bad
3. Humans have exceptionally large brains
4. Individuals learn best when taught in their preferred learning style
5. The human population is growing exponentially (and we're doomed)

Myths can extend into the history of science as well, as a linked article from 2013 illustrates. Most of it revolves around Joseph Meister, the first person saved from rabies by a vaccine made by Louis Pasteur. The story goes that when the Nazis invaded Paris, they asked Meister, who was working as a caretaker at the Pasteur Institute, the location of Pasteur's grave. In an act of loyalty, Meister shot and killed himself rather than give up the location of the tomb.

However, newer research tells a very different and more tragic tale. (Those darn revisionist historians!) As the Nazis approached Paris, Meister sent his wife and children away. Believing that they had been killed in a bombing campaign, he committed suicide by gas a few hours before they returned. Eugene Wollman, a scientist at the Pasteur Institute, wrote of this in his diary, "Life has an extraordinarily refined cruelty."

Anyway, back to the first article: It is accompanied by a box where Nature lists the myths most frustrating to doctors and scientists polled by Nature.

1. Vaccines cause autism
2. Paracetamol (acetaminophen) works through known mechanisms
3. The brain is walled off from the immune system
4. Homeopathy works.

OK, really? The idea that acetaminophen works through known mechanisms frustrates doctors and scientists? I guess I fell for this one in that I assumed the mechanism of acetaminophen's actions were known. But how on earth does this rise to such levels of irritation as to be listed with vaccines/autism and homeopathy? Is this just a thing among pharmacologists? Does anybody out there know?

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