Peer-Reviewed Study Rocks Climate Debate! ‘Nature not man responsible for recent global warming…little or none of late 20th century warming and cooling can be attributed to humans’
Nature not man responsible for recent global warming
Three Australasian researchers have shown that natural forces are the dominant influence on climate, in a study just published in the highly-regarded Journal of Geophysical Research. According to this study little or none of the late 20th century global warming and cooling can be attributed to human activity.
The research, by Chris de Freitas, a climate scientist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, John McLean (Melbourne) and Bob Carter (James Cook University), finds that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a key indicator of global atmospheric temperatures seven months later. As an additional influence, intermittent volcanic activity injects cooling aerosols into the atmosphere and produces significant cooling.
"The surge in global temperatures since 1977 can be attributed to a 1976 climate shift in the Pacific Ocean that made warming El Niño conditions more likely than they were over the previous 30 years and cooling La Niña conditions less likely" says corresponding author de Freitas.
"We have shown that internal global climate-system variability accounts for at least 80% of the observed global climate variation over the past half-century. It may even be more if the period of influence of major volcanoes can be more clearly identified and the corresponding data excluded from the analysis.”
Climate researchers have long been aware that ENSO events influence global temperature, for example causing a high temperature spike in 1998 and a subsequent fall as conditions moved to La Niña. It is also well known that volcanic activity has a cooling influence, and as is well documented by the effects of the 1991 Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption.
The new paper draws these two strands of climate control together and shows, by demonstrating a strong relationship between the Southern Oscillation and lower-atmospheric temperature, that ENSO has been a major temperature influence since continuous measurement of lower-atmospheric temperature first began in 1958.
According to the three researchers, ENSO-related warming during El Niño conditions is caused by a stronger Hadley Cell circulation moving warm tropical air into the mid-latitudes. During La Niña conditions the Pacific Ocean is cooler and the Walker circulation, west to east in the upper atmosphere along the equator, dominates.
"When climate models failed to retrospectively produce the temperatures since 1950 the modellers added some estimated influences of carbon dioxide to make up the shortfall," says McLean.
"The IPCC acknowledges in its 4th Assessment Report that ENSO conditions cannot be predicted more than about 12 months ahead, so the output of climate models that could not predict ENSO conditions were being compared to temperatures during a period that was dominated by those influences. It’s no wonder that model outputs have been so inaccurate, and it is clear that future modelling must incorporate the ENSO effect if it is to be meaningful."
Bob Carter, one of four scientists who has recently questioned the justification for the proposed Australian emissions trading scheme, says that this paper has significant consequences for public climate policy.
"The close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions. The available data indicate that future global temperatures will continue to change primarily in response to ENSO cycling, volcanic activity and solar changes.”
“Our paper confirms what many scientists already know: which is that no scientific justification exists for emissions regulation, and that, irrespective of the severity of the cuts proposed, ETS (emission trading scheme) will exert no measurable effect on future climate.”
–
McLean, J. D., C. R. de Freitas, and R. M. Carter (2009), Influence of the Southern Oscillation on tropospheric temperature, Journal of Geophysical Research, 114, D14104, doi:10.1029/2008JD011637.
This figure from the McLean et al (2009) research shows that mean monthly global temperature (MSU GTTA) corresponds in general terms with the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) of seven months earlier. The SOI is a rough indicator of general atmospheric circulation and thus global climate change. The possible influence of the Rabaul volcanic eruption is shown.
Excerpted Abstract of the Paper appearing in the Journal of Geophysical Research:
Time series for the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) and global tropospheric temperature anomalies (GTTA) are compared for the 1958?2008 period. GTTA are represented by data from satellite microwave sensing units (MSU) for the period 1980–2008 and from radiosondes (RATPAC) for 1958–2008. Aft
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I’m not one who believes that man has caused any global warming, but don’t believe this "proves" it’s all natural.
I would point to another fact that indicates that man has not contributed to global warming.
Over the past decade, global temperatures have not risen at all. Not even a little.
This is in the face that greenhouse gas emissions worldwide have increased during this time.
What gives?
Stop preaching about global warming, and actually study the environment and see what’s really going on.
When science becomes dogma, it ceases to be science
Nothing is going to change their minds.
They’re "Club of Rome" types.
They will always have an agenda of taxing and limiting the activities that are the backbone of economic growth.
Their justification will change, the way it always has – but justifications are disposable – when one fails, they just latch on to a new one.
First they try to massage the existing justification to fit facts that it doesnt’ explain – that is how "global warming" morphed into "climate change."
20 years from now they’ll still want carbon taxes – or want to raise them if they manage to get them passed – - but since it won’t be any warmer, the rationale will have changed.
How dare you assult and insult their religion!
Dana’s link covers it. I’d also add that the press release doesn’t follow from the abstract. The authors are known contrarian political types. Note how carefully-worded the abstract is:
"The results showed that SOI accounted for 81% of the variance in tropospheric temperature anomalies in the tropics. Overall the results suggest that the Southern Oscillation exercises a consistently dominant influence on mean global temperature, with a maximum effect in the tropics, except for periods when equatorial volcanism causes ad hoc cooling. That mean global tropospheric temperature has for the last 50 years fallen and risen in close accord with the SOI of 5–7 months earlier shows the potential of natural forcing mechanisms to account for most of the temperature variation. "
It’s well-known that there is a correlation between ENSO and annual temperatures, particularly in the tropics, which is what this link is describing. The annual variance is indeed strongly related to ENSO. Note, however, there is no mention of the word "trend", since the ENSO oscillation doesn’t influence the longer term trend.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
The description is sufficiently ambiguous to perhaps fool a reviewer and to provide talking points for denier zealots.
Thanks for posting that. The Kool-Aid drinkers will not believe ANYTHING contrary to what their little "gods" and "messiah" (little m) tell them to believe.
Only the rational mind and researcher will see through the folly of Al Gore and his montage of "global warming" fear mongers.
They wouldn’t let a few facts get in their way; they have a cause; they are on a mission.
No because their methodology in the study automatically eliminates any impact of the trend rate in the data series on the resultant correlation.
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/old-news/
In other words, contrary to their claims, it’s impossible for them to have determined the impact from ENSO on the global temperature trend. Apparently Carter didn’t understand the methodology employed in his own paper.
More importantly, ENSO *can’t* impact long-term temperature trends. It’s not physically possible. The ‘O’ in ENSO is oscillation. It switches between positive and negative states, and the cool phases cancel out the warm ones. ENSO can’t create or retain heat, it can only move it around between oceans and air.
So not only do the methods of the paper make it impossible to attribute a warming trend to ENSO, but ENSO physically can’t cause a warming trend. Their comments have no basis in reality.