How Accurate are Global Temperatures?

[SteveGinIL]

Crap! I have to post one more...

 

[SteveGinIL]

True, but 1850-1880 and 1910-1940 where mainly caused by increase of solar output. 1950 was the peak of the highest level of solar output in 2,000 years. Since then it has been going down, so how do you explain the fact that we are also warming now and warming within a period that has the lowest solar output since the late 19th century?

Doesn't make much sense besides 1# Global warming or 2# they're screwing with the data. Here in Portland we've not gotten back to the 40-60 inches a winter we had in the 1880-1900 period and that tells me that our planet is much much much warmer today then it was at that time. So I'm not sure of either 1 or 2, but I lean towards something causing it and the question is what. The green house effect of some kind becoming more effective would be the most logical answer.

It is completely valid to think that SOMETHING is causing it. It is also human nature to trust that the climatologist are the experts, so they must know what is going on. Just in case you don't know about it, there are a LOT of climatologists and meteorologists who disagree with AGW. They didn't happen to be in the majority - before Climategate. The numbers since then have changed, but I wouldn't say it has switched. But even if only 30% or 40% disagreed - would that not mean there is a prima facie case that the science is not settled?

The Sun: I have always understood that the climatologists have ruled out solar irradiance as even POSSIBLE to cause warming, because the most it varies by is like 0.1%, total, from high to low, in the frequencies they say are important. So I am very surprised to hear you assert that someone has come up with that conclusion. The lack of solar irradiance being a potential "forcing" is EXACTLY why they say, "Oh the Sun's output can't possible be the reason for today's warming - therefore it is certainly human activity. If it ain't the Sun, what else can it be?" Just like you are asking.

I've said for a long time that I don't disagree that it is human activity - I just happen to think that it is something other than CO2. I think land use (paving parking lots for example, and air conditioners throwing the heat out of our buildings and out where the weather stations are, the HEAT exhausting from our internal combustion engines, buildings absorbing heat all day and holding it long into the night*, etc.) is the real culprit, if anything is. But that is only IF the warming is not merely a result of the adjustments being made.

[*It is mostly the nighttime temps that drive up the global averages, not the daytime temps...]

But at the same time, none of the warmers are arguing we should stop developing LAND, and stop our urban sprawl. They just say, "Shut down your factories and stop driving your cars!"

The thing that startles me about the adjustments is that they do it GLOBALLY, or at least globally within each dataset. That is beyond belief to me. The one guy on here EdtheCynic or whatever his name is, can deny it all he wants. It is WRITTEN IN THE CODE, there for all to see (since the release of the files). I saw the code myself in the Climategate files. I got in and looked carefully at it, and by Jove, they had the adjustments STEPPED UP in recent decades and STEPPED DOWN in past decades. So there are two issues about the adjustments - that they do it globally and that they step it intentionally higher in recent time and even NEGATIVE in more remote times.

[They don't even CARE if individual stations are actually showing DECLINES. And MANY DO. And, no, this is NOT what "Hide the decline was about - but it SHOULD be, too.]

It isn't science if each station's data isn't treated uniquely. Global adjustments are the EASY WAY to do it - but it sure as hell ain't science. It is just slapping something together. I LEARNED A LONG TIME AGO: YOU DON"T ROUND TILL THEN END. Every piece of data is unique. Throwing them all into one garbage bag is not science. Yeah, I know - compiling them all is a HUGE job. But if they were going to take it on, don't you think they should have done it RIGHT? This point really pisses me off.

And I don't care WHAT their reasons are for those recent adjustments up and up and up, and the older ones down and down and down - if they don't spell out why they are doing it and why they are using the values being used, well who in HELL would call that science?

Oh?? Excuse ME?! They've got some VAGUE and undocumented adjustments?! And they want us to believe them? To trust them? NO. How did that get past the peer reviewers? (My guess? LAZINESS on the part of the reviewers.)

As to Portland not getting the snow anymore - do you consider that a negative? Or a positive? I know that growing up in and around St Louis, that there were legends of people walking across the Mississippi in the 1880s. Is it a positive or a negative that it doesn't do that anymore? You tell me. But around Chicago in the 1975-1984 period, our winters were absolutely BRUTAL - blizzards every year and temps below 0°F as often as not. People who want us to go back to that - they can kiss my arse.

If you are wondering WHAT the cause is, I suggest you look into something called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, especially - but also the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Check out this URL: AMO+PDO= temperature variation – one graph says it all | Watts Up With That?.

And look at this chart from that:

Figure 18: With 22 point smoothing, the correlation of US temperatures and
the ocean multidecadal oscillations is clear with an r-squared of 0.85

Now THAT is cause and effect. and that r-squared of 85%? WOW. Very good.

...I notice that on the upswing, the PDO-AMO leads, and on the downswing, the continent leads. I find that interesting, to say the least,since oceans warm up and cool down slowly. But it is a sight better than the CO2 charts Al Gore showed, which actually had the CO2 TRAILING the warm times BY 800 YEARS. (I personally have no problem with Al Gore, in general. But I think he is dead wrong on this issue.)

I am certain the PDO is the main driver, since the Pacific covers nearly all of one hemisphere, so it is the bull in the china shop. It is like Babe Ruth in baseball in the mid-1920s - hitting more home runs than entire teams were hitting. THAT is how big the PDO is. FAR bigger than the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Also, the average length of a full PDO cycle is just about right on what the cyclicity is of the climate swings. (But then, the adjustments they've been applying make me not even trust that the cycles we see are even real.)

One thing about the PDO, is that at the time (~1990) the warmers had pronounced the science "settled," NO ONE HAD EVEN HEARD OF THE PDO, because it wasn't discovered until 1997 or so. And - to rub salt in their wounds - IT WAS DISCOVERED BY A BIOLOGIST, not a climatologist or meteorologist. The single biggest factor on Earth - the heat sink that is the Pacific Ocean - and the climatologists missed it. But their climate models in 1990 didn't include it, either - so HOW could they say that the models could POSSIBLY be correct then? The short answer is that the models were wrong. And they surreptitiously added the PDO into the code since then, while not happening to mention that it wasn't there before. That would have been too embarrassing.

So, were the models correct? In 1990? No. In 1995? No. In 2000? No. They did not start to see its importance until about 2005, perhaps a bit earlier. but certainly not by 2000. I was aware of it before 2000, and there wasn't a PEEP out of the warmers about it until at least 2003.

 

[ScienceRocks]

True, but 1850-1880 and 1910-1940 where mainly caused by increase of solar output. 1950 was the peak of the highest level of solar output in 2,000 years. Since then it has been going down, so how do you explain the fact that we are also warming now and warming within a period that has the lowest solar output since the late 19th century?

Doesn't make much sense besides 1# Global warming or 2# they're screwing with the data. Here in Portland we've not gotten back to the 40-60 inches a winter we had in the 1880-1900 period and that tells me that our planet is much much much warmer today then it was at that time. So I'm not sure of either 1 or 2, but I lean towards something causing it and the question is what. The green house effect of some kind becoming more effective would be the most logical answer.

It is completely valid to think that SOMETHING is causing it. It is also human nature to trust that the climatologist are the experts, so they must know what is going on. Just in case you don't know about it, there are a LOT of climatologists and meteorologists who disagree with AGW. They didn't happen to be in the majority - before Climategate. The numbers since then have changed, but I wouldn't say it has switched. But even if only 30% or 40% disagreed - would that not mean there is a prima facie case that the science is not settled?

The Sun: I have always understood that the climatologists have ruled out solar irradiance as even POSSIBLE to cause warming, because the most it varies by is like 0.1%, total, from high to low, in the frequencies they say are important. So I am very surprised to hear you assert that someone has come up with that conclusion. The lack of solar irradiance being a potential "forcing" is EXACTLY why they say, "Oh the Sun's output can't possible be the reason for today's warming - therefore it is certainly human activity. If it ain't the Sun, what else can it be?" Just like you are asking.

I've said for a long time that I don't disagree that it is human activity - I just happen to think that it is something other than CO2. I think land use (paving parking lots for example, and air conditioners throwing the heat out of our buildings and out where the weather stations are, the HEAT exhausting from our internal combustion engines, buildings absorbing heat all day and holding it long into the night*, etc.) is the real culprit, if anything is. But that is only IF the warming is not merely a result of the adjustments being made.

[*It is mostly the nighttime temps that drive up the global averages, not the daytime temps...]

But at the same time, none of the warmers are arguing we should stop developing LAND, and stop our urban sprawl. They just say, "Shut down your factories and stop driving your cars!"

The thing that startles me about the adjustments is that they do it GLOBALLY, or at least globally within each dataset. That is beyond belief to me. The one guy on here EdtheCynic or whatever his name is, can deny it all he wants. It is WRITTEN IN THE CODE, there for all to see (since the release of the files). I saw the code myself in the Climategate files. I got in and looked carefully at it, and by Jove, they had the adjustments STEPPED UP in recent decades and STEPPED DOWN in past decades. So there are two issues about the adjustments - that they do it globally and that they step it intentionally higher in recent time and even NEGATIVE in more remote times.

[They don't even CARE if individual stations are actually showing DECLINES. And MANY DO. And, no, this is NOT what "Hide the decline was about - but it SHOULD be, too.]

It isn't science if each station's data isn't treated uniquely. Global adjustments are the EASY WAY to do it - but it sure as hell ain't science. It is just slapping something together. I LEARNED A LONG TIME AGO: YOU DON"T ROUND TILL THEN END. Every piece of data is unique. Throwing them all into one garbage bag is not science. Yeah, I know - compiling them all is a HUGE job. But if they were going to take it on, don't you think they should have done it RIGHT? This point really pisses me off.

And I don't care WHAT their reasons are for those recent adjustments up and up and up, and the older ones down and down and down - if they don't spell out why they are doing it and why they are using the values being used, well who in HELL would call that science?

Oh?? Excuse ME?! They've got some VAGUE and undocumented adjustments?! And they want us to believe them? To trust them? NO. How did that get past the peer reviewers? (My guess? LAZINESS on the part of the reviewers.)

As to Portland not getting the snow anymore - do you consider that a negative? Or a positive? I know that growing up in and around St Louis, that there were legends of people walking across the Mississippi in the 1880s. Is it a positive or a negative that it doesn't do that anymore? You tell me. But around Chicago in the 1975-1984 period, our winters were absolutely BRUTAL - blizzards every year and temps below 0°F as often as not. People who want us to go back to that - they can kiss my arse.

If you are wondering WHAT the cause is, I suggest you look into something called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, especially - but also the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation. Check out this URL: AMO+PDO= temperature variation – one graph says it all | Watts Up With That?.

And look at this chart from that:

Figure 18: With 22 point smoothing, the correlation of US temperatures and
the ocean multidecadal oscillations is clear with an r-squared of 0.85

Now THAT is cause and effect. and that r-squared of 85%? WOW. Very good.

...I notice that on the upswing, the PDO-AMO leads, and on the downswing, the continent leads. I find that interesting, to say the least,since oceans warm up and cool down slowly. But it is a sight better than the CO2 charts Al Gore showed, which actually had the CO2 TRAILING the warm times BY 800 YEARS. (I personally have no problem with Al Gore, in general. But I think he is dead wrong on this issue.)

I am certain the PDO is the main driver, since the Pacific covers nearly all of one hemisphere, so it is the bull in the china shop. It is like Babe Ruth in baseball in the mid-1920s - hitting more home runs than entire teams were hitting. THAT is how big the PDO is. FAR bigger than the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Also, the average length of a full PDO cycle is just about right on what the cyclicity is of the climate swings. (But then, the adjustments they've been applying make me not even trust that the cycles we see are even real.)

One thing about the PDO, is that at the time (~1990) the warmers had pronounced the science "settled," NO ONE HAD EVEN HEARD OF THE PDO, because it wasn't discovered until 1997 or so. And - to rub salt in their wounds - IT WAS DISCOVERED BY A BIOLOGIST, not a climatologist or meteorologist. The single biggest factor on Earth - the heat sink that is the Pacific Ocean - and the climatologists missed it. But their climate models in 1990 didn't include it, either - so HOW could they say that the models could POSSIBLY be correct then? The short answer is that the models were wrong. And they surreptitiously added the PDO into the code since then, while not happening to mention that it wasn't there before. That would have been too embarrassing.

So, were the models correct? In 1990? No. In 1995? No. In 2000? No. They did not start to see its importance until about 2005, perhaps a bit earlier. but certainly not by 2000. I was aware of it before 2000, and there wasn't a PEEP out of the warmers about it until at least 2003.

You make some very good points, but PDO doesn't add energy into the climate system. All it does is it shifts weather patterns and storm tracks around. Only Solar, which caused the little ice age and the well known cycles that allow for the ice ages through orbit changes from more cyclular to more oval around the sun, which helps increase or decrease the amount of out put from our sun as the earth maybe closer to the sun for part of the year or further away.

Orbital forcing
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Orbital forcing is the effect on climate of slow changes in the tilt of the Earth's axis and shape of the orbit (see Milankovitch cycles). These orbital changes change the total amount of sunlight reaching the Earth by up to 25% at mid-latitudes (from 400 to 500 Wm-2 at latitudes of 60 degrees). In this context, the term "forcing" signifies a physical process that affects the Earth's climate.

This mechanism is believed to be responsible for the timing of the ice age cycles. A strict application of the Milankovitch theory does not allow the prediction of a "sudden" ice age (rapid being anything under a century or two), since the fastest orbital period is about 20,000 years. The timing of past glacial periods coincides very well with the predictions of the Milankovitch theory, and these effects can be calculated into the future.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orbital_forcing

Unless the PDO can add clouds, which would work as a negative or cooling agent on earth's atmosphere through deflecting solar output back into space that is. which I'm not saying can or can't because I don't know the answer to this one.

Like I said; Solar up to 1950 was likely the cause for us getting out of the little ice age. You think PDO and AMO didn't happen 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 1,000 years ago. I'd bet on it. In its effects just as likely caused the storm tracks and weather to change then just as today.

Our stars solar output caused the warm periods like the roman, med evil warm period and the climatic maximum of 5,000 years ago. Now our stars solar output is slowly drifting downwards.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Carbon14_with_activity_labels.svg

The funny thing is unless you think the satellites are full of shit and they maybe are! but they hint at some warming; yes climate gate and the scientist where wrong to fuck with the code and to fudge the fucking numbers to a high bias...But there is no way in hell we're colder today then we where 80 years ago, 100 years ago and sure as hell not 300 years ago. Anyone that says we're as cold as the height of the little ice age don't know a thing about how cold it was in thoses days. It was cold in the US, Europe ect...World wide hell.

Also your map shows the United states, which is greatly effected by the PDO and favors more cold air moving down from the arctic into the US instead of the more zonal flow pattern of the PDO+, which may promote warmer weather over the US. This is not the world my friend in which we're avging to get global temps. In yes the PDO is a good tool to use for the US. The US makes up a small percentage of the world...

Of course within that small part of the world the jet stream had more ridging within the gulf of Alaska, which drove the cold air down into the central United states more often. In 2008 to today we appear to be going into more of a negative pdo, which favors more snow for portland..But anyways it is not the whole world and is only a small factor in the puzzle.

Robert Felix at ice age now believes under water volcano's, which heats the ocean with the warmth of the earth....But outside of that there is not to many ways to get a positive energy balance without our star or green house gasses.

If you disagree please tell me how the PDO increases clouds to reflect the on coming solar energy away back into space. Sure it models closely with the US because it has a direct effect on storm tracks and the jet stream...Within the negative PDO as said above means colder winters within the US.

 

[SteveGinIL]

You make some very good points, but PDO doesn't add energy into the climate system. All it does is it shifts weather patterns and storm tracks around.

Matthew, you make good points on the Milankovitch cycles. I agree that these are part of the forcings that affect climate.

You say the PDO does not add energy into the system. Well and good. That only the Sun's output is of any consequence. Yet solar irradiance varies so slightly that climatologists on both sides of the aisle agree that the Sun's output is not a significant factor in the recent warming trends.

I would only say that we don't yet know squat about how the PDO works. (That is part of my curiosity as to how they've incorporated them into the GCMs.) My speculation is that the oceans sequester heat energy, and how the oceans give it up later will tell us what they do and how - when we learn enough about the PDO and AMO. Right now both of them - like the ENSO - are only intermediate transporters of energy. I might even call it "focusers of energy."

Yet it is a fact that during El Niño years the global average temperature DOES go up. That being the case, where that extra energy comes from? It obviously isn't sending a message to the Sun to send more energy, right? So we have to believe that if only the Sun's energy counts, then the energy it is releasing has been stored and somehow is being released later.

But my I think also includes that some of the energy is coming from below the ocean. My understanding of hydrothermal vents and undersea volcanoes tells me we have much to learn from them. One vent was just discovered in the Indian Ocean that puts out 200 times what we thought was average for them. Given that there are only 220 known vents (so far), that one vent essentially doubles the known total heat output of these vents.

Some of those vents are propitiously located right where they might affect the El Niño - along the equator near Ecuador. DO they have an effect? I don't know. I suspect they do, but I don't have a university budget with which to go study it. It is probably #1 on my list of things I would check out.

This [orbital forcing] mechanism is believed to be responsible for the timing of the ice age cycles. A strict application of the Milankovitch theory does not allow the prediction of a "sudden" ice age (rapid being anything under a century or two), since the fastest orbital period is about 20,000 years. The timing of past glacial periods coincides very well with the predictions of the Milankovitch theory, and these effects can be calculated into the future.[/B]

I've never understood why anyone really even brings the Milankovitch cycles into the AGW discussion. Those cycles being such long term and slow - as you point out - what difference do they make when we are talking about something here on the scale of a few decades?

Unless the PDO can add clouds, which would work as a negative or cooling agent on earth's atmosphere through deflecting solar output back into space that is. which I'm not saying can or can't because I don't know the answer to this one.

You and everybody else. None of the climatologists knows, either. It is the one thing they should all be putting energy into, because until we know what is going on with water vapor and clouds, we don't claim to understand ANY of it. Water vapor is far and away the biggest greenhouse gas. Yet all the predictions from the future come from GCMs that have fudge factors - literally - to substitute for water vapor.

I have little respect for scientists who fudge anything, much less fudging the major greenhouse gas. I would, of course, think they had something IF the models even were remotely reliable at replicating the known recent climate history.

[quoet]Like I said; Solar up to 1950 was likely the cause for us getting out of the little ice age.[/quote]
Of course that is the case. I agree completely. The Maunder Minimum, having to do with sunspots, and the Spörer Minimum are documented in hundreds of papers as having some correlation with the Little Ice Age and the subsequent warming. I would disagree with your date - 1950 - however. The end of that heating was right around 1940, not 1950. And the heating came in TWO waves - one from 1850 (considered to be the end of the LIA) to 1880 and the other from 1910 to 1940. The third wave - the one called "global warming" - was from about 1977 to around 2000.

You think PDO and AMO didn't happen 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 1,000 years ago.

You are putting words in my mouth here. First off, I have been keeping up with news on the PDO for over 10 years - specifically because I saw it as a long-term mechanism. As far as I can see, the PDO has been with us as long as the geography of the Earth has been in its present configuration. At no point did I say or imply that I thought the PDO was some recent phenomenon.

Our star's solar output caused the warm periods like the Roman, medieval warm period and the climatic maximum of 5,000 years ago.

That is pretty much what I think, too. I disagree with those who say that the small amount of solar irradiance flux is too small to cause the recent warming. I think they are either looking at the wrong outputs or the affect is stronger than they suspect. They THINK they understand the mechanisms, on the Sun and Earth, but I think there is far more to be learned than our grand total at this time.

***BTW, I would advise you to go to other sources than Wikipedia for your climate information. See Wikipedia climate revisionism by William Connolley continues Connolley pathetically deletes anything except the AGW point of view, and he apparently does it on a daily basis. It is not possible for the Wikipedia reader to tell what is AGW spin and what is objective fact, if they haven't read up on the subject elsewhere. But if they've read elsewhere, why go to Wikipedia, anyway?

At least so you get some of the other side of the story, I suggest WattsUpWithThat.com and ClimateAudit.org. Both of them are at the nexus of the anti-AGW skepticism. That makes them something you should read discerningly - but then I am saying to read EVERYTHING about AGW discerningly. Read both sides of the issue - and the sides in between, too.

The funny thing is unless you think the satellites are full of shit and they maybe are!

Actually, I DID trust them - up until about 2005. All through the 1990s the pro-AGW side was bitching about how the satellites must be wrong! since they didn't show any warming. The people at UAH kept running diagnostics and determining that the satelites were doing just fine, thank you. Then in about 2005, the pro-AGW folks finally whined enough to get them to recalibrate the satellites. Ever since, the satellites have shown MORE warming than the land-based instruments showed.

I believe they tweaked the satellites too much - but since being off in THAT direction was okay with them, the pro-AGWers let it go. I am actually upset at the UAH people for allowing themselves to be bullied.

but they hint at some warming

But I don't believe the numbers, no. I think in time they will find errors and have to go and back-adjust the readings.

[...]yes climate gate and the scientist where wrong to fuck with the code and to fudge the fucking numbers to a high bias...

All I can say is that such "science" isn't science.

But there is no way in hell we're colder today then we where 80 years ago, 100 years ago and sure as hell not 300 years ago.

I grew up in and around St Louis, in the 1950s and 1960s. I can tell you, it was HOT there then. I think people's anecdotal memories aren't worth a lot, because people tend to forget a LOT of what weather was like decades ago. But I do know that the asphalt in the streets would form waves near any stop signs, due to the cars' braking. And we could scrunch up the asphalt with our bare feet, ti was so soft. (We had to be careful - and have tough feet.)

I now live near Chicago. In the 1975-1985 period here, the winters were freaking BRUTAL - temps often WELL below zero F, with near blizzards a few times every winter. I saw "whiteouts" several times every winter. I haven't seen ONE in this area since 1984. We are warmer here than THEN.

[quote[Anyone that says we're as cold as the height of the little ice age don't know a thing about how cold it was in those days. It was cold in the US, Europe ect...World wide hell.[/quote]
EXACTLY. It is Michael Mann of Hockey Stick fame who is the one driving the idea that the LIA didn't exist except in one little corner of the world.

But I also look at the global averages for that time and dispute them. They seem to show that the temps were only several tenths of a degree C colder. I challenge ANYONE to go outside when the temp has dropped 0.7C and tell me they can even notice it, unless someone points it out - and even then they will only sense a TINY difference. The LIA was more severe than that.

Also your map shows the United states, which is greatly effected by the PDO and favors more cold air moving down from the arctic into the US instead of the more zonal flow pattern of the PDO+, which may promote warmer weather over the US. This is not the world my friend in which we're avging to get global temps. In yes the PDO is a good tool to use for the US. The US makes up a small percentage of the world...

Map??? You mean the graph?

A large % of the weather stations in the GHCN database are in the U.S. It is the best-recorded area in the world. (It ALSO has not shown warming since 1970.) It is also the SOURCE of the most CO2, so one would think that the US weather trend IS the best indicator.

If global warming IS global, it should be showing up EVERYWHERE. Not everywhere equally, but in rural locations, in the mountains (where the glaciers are melting), and especially where the CO@ is being released.

Yet, somehow, whenever the US record of recent years is brought up, the first argument against it is, "Well, the US is only 5% of the land mass and 1% of the total area." (or something like that.) That is a b.s. argument, IMHO, BECAUSE if the warming isn't happening where the CO2 is concentrated the most, then where ELSE could it be happening? And WHY would it show up elsewhere and not here? And it is NOT showing up here. Yes, you can point at SOME stations that show it - and so can I.

So: I mistrust the post-adjustment CRU/GISS/NASA/NOAA/GHCN data. Far too many stations out there are showing warming ONLY in the post-adjustment data, not in the raw data. I know all the reasons for making adjustments, and I agree with them in principle. However, as they are currently constituted, I see them as GIGO.

Of course within that small part of the world the jet stream had more ridging within the gulf of Alaska, which drove the cold air down into the central United states more often. In 2008 to today we appear to be going into more of a negative pdo, which favors more snow for portland..But anyways it is not the whole world and is only a small factor in the puzzle.

The people in the know have been predicting since about 2003 that the PDO would go negative any day now. The length of the PDO cycle is more variable than the sunspot cycle, from what I've read, and we are just now beginning to learn about it, so in 2003 they didn't know exactly when it would go cool. They only knew that it was due any time. (By comparison, look at SC24, the new sunspot cycle: The predictions of its beginning have been screwed up royally. It has them ALL confused. Due about 18 months ago or more, it still has barely begun.)

Robert Felix at ice age now believes under water volcano's, which heats the ocean with the warmth of the earth....But outside of that there is not to many ways to get a positive energy balance without our star or green house gasses.

See above. I've been thinking this for a VERY long time. I believe the undersea sources are the CAUSE of El Niño. But like I said, I don't have the means by which to study it.

If you disagree please tell me how the PDO increases clouds to reflect the on coming solar energy away back into space. Sure it models closely with the US because it has a direct effect on storm tracks and the jet stream...Within the negative PDO as said above means colder winters within the US.

I am not certain I would say the PDO itself increases clouds or decreases clouds. I have lately begun to learn that the clouds are the self-regulators of the climate - they increase as needed and decrease as needed. With the main solar input arriving in the tropics around the Equator, that is also the area where there are clouds more constantly.

I think one of the main reasons the warmer GCM modelers can't get a handle on water vapor as a forcing is because the clouds are always self-adjusting as a response to other factors - increasing when it gets too hot, and vice versa. No wonder they can't figure it out - the water vapor is a RESULT feeding back. They need to first look at what is triggering the clouds.

Thanks for the discussion.