NASA GISS:Global Temperature Trends: 2004 Summation

Please see: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/data/update/gistemp/2004/ And the warming continues!

'expect it to continue'

Why? It could just as easily start to drop this year. NASA presented no data on the cause or duration of the current warming trend. We know for a fact that such trends do not continue forever. Looking at the last 100 years of data and predicting the future into eternity is as futile as picking your stock investments that way.

According to NASA, 2004 was the fourth warmest year in the last 100. So what? There is a 4% chance that any given year will be in the top 4 of the last 100. Rapid climate change is the norm, not the exception. It is normal for the Earth to get warmer. It is normal for it to get cooler. The only constant is change. Look at the temperature data for the last 18,000 years. Rapid change everywhere, and it's not anthropogenic.

Maybe you should finish your course.

And what are the odds that the the entire top four of the last 100 occured in just 6 years?

Thanks for the link, it is a good overview. But it does not suport your conclusions at all.

Gee, I wish my doctors told me that I was going to live long enough to collect on some major bets, (> $10,000), with fools like this.

If you're talking about the quote from the IPCC on the last slide, I am VERY suspicious of anything coming out of a UN sponsored body. The UN is corrupt and it is highly possible that the report is tainted by UN bias. But that's a topic for another group. This quote is the same one that is used over and over. I'm sure that very few people repeating the quote have reviewed the data personally.

Hell if I know. I'm not a climatologist or a meteorologist. You tell me. I will tell you that if average temperature was just a random number then the odds of the top 4 in 100 being clustered together in the last 6 years would be about 1 in 6.7 million. But temperature is not a random number. It's not like rolling the dice. There are patterns and trends. Annual average temperatures are not independent of the years immediately before and after. Of this you can be certain. The trends can only be explained by a science that is still developing.

Let me rephrase your question and I will take a shot at answering it:

Q - What is the likelihood that extreme hot years or extreme cold years will be clustered in near proximity?

A - Pretty damn high. Records assembled for the last 100 years show that sudden drastic change on an annual basis is unlikely but it does occasionally happen. Therefore, if one year is a hot year, it is likely that the years immediately before and after will be hot as well. The exact mathematical odds cannot be calculated because the science to understand the factors that influence temperature are still developing.
http://apollo.lsc.vsc.edu/classes/met130/notes/ chapter18/recent_trend...

I haven't made any conclusions. Only posed questions and remained

<snip>

Yes, extrapolating on past cycles is dangerous but, assuming past cycles continue, the current rise is not due to peak until the middle of this century. This ignores any effect from increased CO2, so the temperature may only level out before rising again towards the end of the century.

The scientists were gathered from all over the world; all the UN did was provide a venue.

Oh, the looney-right-wing fringe heard from.

It's highly likely you're a vegetable too.

How about in the last 2 decades?

No, I think it is a course on climate change in general and it covers all known influences on the climate. Human influence is one of many covered in the slides.

I am reviewing the data. Until I've finished and formed my own opinions, I'll be skeptical of any conclusions made by scientists funded by the UN.

And you have snipped the rest of my paragraph. The part that says that annual temperatures are not purely random so the 1 in 6.7 million does not apply.

together.

The largest annual change on the graph is 0.5 C but most years see only a 0.1 C change. So there is a very good likelihood that 4 consecutive years will be within 0.3 C.

I don't deny the trend is there. I just deny that anybody can say with certainty how long it will continue. The last two decades have gotten warmer. The four decades before that were getting cooler. Trends end.

I'm processing data that will be used in the next IPCC report; can you tell me what UN agency I can petition to give me some money?

I don't get one thin dime from the UN, nor do many, if not most, of the climate scientists and others who write the IPCC reports.

But greenhouse gas increases won't, and they are now the dominant factor.