Roy Spencer fail-fail

I am sure that many people here are familiar with the web site

Roy Spencer, PhD

At about mid-page, see (June 6) still epic fail. Click on the graph to see the disagreement between models (73 in CIMP5) and measured temperatures. Dr. Spencer will tell you it's game over for the models.

Or, you could realize that the T obs he has plotted against are mid-troposphere and only tropical. There are other T records we could overlay. In my overlay I chose the BEST, global, and did the 5 yr running means. The thick red squiggle.

As always, draw your own conclusions. Usually I don't debunk, but darn, the fish was in the barrel and I had this gun, see...

 

There are a variety of global T records, and they aren't different from BEST. It does not matter which one you choose to plot.

However if you use only low-latitude radiosondes (balloons) and mid-troposphere microwave brightness, it does matter. I suppose it is general knowledge that measured and modeled temperature increases are both smaller near the equator and larger near the poles.

 

Those interested in a bit more depth, google

troposphere temperature trends

and get the pdf by Thorne et al from the NOAA ARL website. For free, and readable by non-specialists.

 

Unrelated to this thread, but could someone who can access wordpress sites take a look at this

Mathematics of the environment in The Azimuth Project

and see if it might contain something useful for the climate-interested public?

TIA

 

I attach the full sized image instead, due to numerous (one is a number!) request

 

Oops. Now there are two big graphs. Polluting the web.

For me the most interesting thing is not that the instrumental T matches the model aggregate. It is that the smoothed T are so much jumpier than the models smoothed over the same scale. There is variation not being captured by these models. It is consistent with my notion that ocean processes are being inadequately handled in the models. It is not particularly consistent with the atmosphere aerosol load changing through time. Because those changes (as I understand them) are much slower.

Love 'em or hate 'em, the models are not up to speed on aerosols, ocean processes, or how the terrestrial carbon pool may change in the future. Those are problems that call for attention. My first response to the CMIP5 (seeing Spencer's graph or attending the ICDC9 meeting in Beijing which had several CMIP5 presentations) was "why do we need 75 models? 5 or 10 good ones would seem to be a better way to go".