Fox Tries To Debunk Global Warming

FoxNews.com: Roy Spencer "Takes Issue With The Way That Data Is Normalized And Adjusted." The FoxNews.com article did not provide any information about Spencer's concerns but reported in a section sowing doubts about the temperature data: "Satellite data is arguably the most accurate way to measure temperature. Roy Spencer, a climatologist and former NASA scientist, takes issue with the way that data is normalized and adjusted, instead presenting raw, unadjusted data on his website. The WMO does not use this data." [FoxNews.com, 1/24/11]

Spencer: The Part That Mentions Me ... Does Not Make Sense." Media Matters asked Spencer via email to explain the "issue" Fox claimed he had with "the way that data is normalized and adjusted." In response, Spencer wrote that he "wasn't aware" of the FoxNews.com report. He further stated that he "read the part that mentions me, and it does not make sense." [Email to Media Matters, 1/26/11]

Spencer: "No One I Know Seriously Debates That Warming Has Actually Occurred." Spencer, who contends that the warming trend is natural rather than manmade, further told Media Matters via email, "I love FoxNews, but this was a little sloppy." He added: "We have differing opinions on the cause of warming...no one I know seriously debates that warming has actually occurred...so... ....I think whether 2010 was a record or not is not terrible relevant to the debate" [Ellipses in original]. [Email to Media Matters, 1/26/11]

Spencer's Data Is Not "Unadjusted." Spencer's website reports the "UAH [University of Alabama in Huntsville] Globally Averaged Satellite-Based Temperature of the Lower Atmosphere" and states that the datasets "represent the piecing together of the temperature data from a total of eleven instruments flying on eleven different satellites over the years." [DrRoySpencer.com, accessed 1/25/11]

Spencer Himself Reported That 2010 Was Tied As Warmest Year On Record. Spencer and John Christy, both of the University of Alabama in Huntsville, reported that according to their data, "2010 finished in a photo finish with 1998 for the warmest year in the 32-year satellite temperature record." They further noted that "oth 1998 and 2010 were years in which an El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event raised temperatures around the globe." [Newswise.com, 1/18/11]

In a separate global temperature report released last week, 2010 finished in a tie with 1998 for the warmest year in the 32-year satellite temperature record, according to John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (UAH).

Unlike the climate center's surface-based temperatures, UAH's data are based on instruments aboard satellites from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that measure the temperature of the atmosphere from the surface up to an altitude of about 5 miles above sea level.

The satellite data show that the globe continues to warm unevenly. Warming increases as you go north: The Arctic Ocean has warmed an average of almost 3 degrees in the past 32 years. [USA Today, 1/13/11]

Of course temperatures are up, said Joe Bastardi, a meteorologist with Accuweather: It's El Niño, stupid.

"El Niños cause spikes up. La Niñas drop it down," Bastardi told FoxNews.com. "Why have we gone up overall in the past 30 years? Because we've been in a warm cycle in the Pacific," he said. "But the tropical Pacific has cooled dramatically, and it's like turning down your thermostat -- it takes a while, but the house will cool." [FoxNews.com, 1/24/11]

The heat has to come from somewhere. In El Nino: or really the ENSO cycle of El Nino and then La Nina, the heat builds up during La Nina, and then is redistributed and comes out of the ocean during and following El Nino.

This is well documented (I can point you to papers). So there is a mini global warming (increase in temperature) in the latter part of El Nino.

The heat has to come from somewhere and so if the climate is warming because of a warm cycle in the Pacific, where did the heat come from? If it just comes from the ocean then the ocean must be cooling down. It isn't. Of course it is global warming from increased greenhouse gases that warms the ocean!

The statements are utter nonsense. [Email to Media Matters, 1/26/11]

This question reminds me of when I was young, and my grandfather took me and my 5-year old cousin on an elevator ride. My grandfather told her that if she jumped up and down, she could jump to the top of the building. So she energetically jumped up and down, and after a minute the elevator doors opened, and there we were at the top of the building! My cousin was mighty impressed.

Of course, she was only 5, so we can forgive her for not understanding that it's perfectly possible for two things to be happening at the same time. She was jumping up and down, but the elevator car was going up at the same time. El Nino and the warming we have seen over the last 30 years are like that. We have had El Ninos (warm events) and La Ninas (cold events), which push the Earth up and down in temperature. (By the National Center for Environmental Predictions's count -- they are part of NOAA, who also runs the National Weather Service -- we have had about 11 El Nino (warm) events since 1970, and about 10 La Nina (cold) events). At the same time, there has been a long-term, systematic warming of the planet. So the main way we know that El Nino is not responsible for the "global warming" in recent decades is that the up-and-down temperature sequence of the El Ninos and La Ninas does not match the long-term, secular rise in temperatures.

Another way you can check if El Nino/La Nina are responsible for he planetary warming is by examining the regions that they tend to influence, and see if there is a match. The planetary warming can be seen across broad swaths of the globe, but is concentrated in the polar regions. El Nino warming is concentrated in the tropics. So the spatial signature of El Nino warming does not match the spatial pattern of global warming either. [Email to Media Matters, 1/26/11]