Carbon Purging

I recently invited Professor Anastasios Tsonis, of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, to participate in an email interview regarding a research paper written by Tsonis and Professor Kyle Swanson titled "Has the climate recently shifted?". The peer-reviewed paper is said to conclude that global warming due to anthropogenic causes is on hold.

Here is the interview in its entirety:

Carbon Purging (CP): What is your background, and what typical activities do you do in your background?

Anastasios Tsonis (AT): I am a professor of Atmospheric sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I teach and do research related to climate dynamics and variability.

CP: What prompted the researching of this paper?

AT: Our interest in understanding the natural variability of climate.

CP: Was this paper peer-reviewed?

AT: Yes.

CP: If so, who were the reviewers, and did they come to the same conclusions as you did for your research paper?

AT: The reviewers were anonymous. Their comments were supportive of our conclusions.

CP: Would a break in the mean global temperature trend suggest that anthropogenic sources are or are not the main cause of average warming global temperatures from 1880 onward?

AT: If the overall warming is due to anthropogenic sources (and not some unknown very low-frequency feature of our climate system), then a break will indicate that at this point the natural variability signal is stronger than the anthropogenic signal.

CP: Do you agree that average global temperatures have continued to increase since 2001?

AT: No. In fact it appears that the (average) global temperature has at least leveled off if not decreasing.

CP: Do the conclusions of this paper support the existence of anthropogenic global warming?

AT: The research was not designed to address this issue, however the conclusions do not rule out that natural variability may "ride" on the top of some anthropogenic or other low-frequency signal. In fact we state this in our conclusions.

CP: Would you be more inclined to say that average global temperatures are cooling, that average global temperatures are trending no change, or that average global temperatures are warming?

AT: Right now we would say that the rapid warming in the 80s and 90s has stopped and we are entering a cooler regime.

CP: In layman's terms, how did you form your conclusions?

AT: The conclusions are the results of a rigorous mathematical analysis of observed and modeled data.

CP: In layman's terms, what modeling or testing did you do to research this paper?

AT: This is too complicated to explain here.

CP: In your expert opinion, would you agree that the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere via anthropogenic sources contributes to the increase in average global temperature?

AT: Yes.

CP: Would you allow part of, or all of, this email interview to be excerpted at my blog?

AT: We would prefer the whole thing as we wrote it.

CP: Would you consider a follow-up interview should I have additional questions?

AT: Sure.

Professor Tsonis' time is very appreciated and his expertise is undoubted. There are some things I disagree with, however. For starters, global warming is NOT on hold.

Earth's average temperatures have been increasing; just click the link in the prior paragraph and the following links for oodles of data.

I offered a follow-up interview with Tsonis with the following questions:

Would you describe, as per your paper, the current leveling off of average yearly temperatures as "global cooling"?

I'm sure you're aware that, according to the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Sciences Directorate, average yearly temperatures have been increasing since 2001:

2001, 14.57 degrees Celsius
2002, 14.69 degrees Celsius (increase from 2001 & year prior)
2003, 14.67 degrees Celsius (increase from 2001)
2004, 14.60 degrees Celsius (increase from 2001)
2005, 14.76 degrees Celsius (increase from 2001 & year prior)
2006, 14.66 degrees Celsius (increase from 2001)
2007, 14.73 degrees Celsius (increase from 2001 & year prior)

Also, per the NOAA, 6 of the last 7 years since 2001 have been warmer:

year °C Anomaly from mean(1901-2000)
2005 0.6058
1998 0.5768
2002 0.5575
2003 0.5566
2006 0.5524
2007 0.5499
2004 0.5332
2001 0.4939

According to those records, every year has been warmer than 2001 (with 2008 just under 2001's average). How would you account for the increases in average global temperatures since 2001 according to Goddard/NASA and the NOAA in general?

How would you account for the increases in average global temperatures since 2001 according to Goddard/NASA and the NOAA in comparison to your findings?

Do you think that NASA/Goddard's and the NOAA's records are dependable?

Can your findings coexist with NASA/Goddard's and the NOAA's records?

Per you research, do you think, or would you agree, that although over the short-term, average global temperatures may not be increasing at the rate they were, that over the long-term, average global temperatures will continue to rise?

If so, would you agree that any continued rise in average global temperatures directly correlates to the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere?

Would you agree that the rapid average temperature increases seen in the 80's and 90's are simply increasing in the 00's by smaller percentages than they have been trending?

Tsonis responded in kind, "At this point I would not get into a debate. The NASA data below practically show a leveling-off and there are other records around that show cooling. Again, our study is all about what is the natural variability, not whether there is or there is not greenhouse warming."

Tsonis points me to a Hadley Center graph which shows short-term cooling trends but ignores polar amplification, which explains the supposed cooling trend according to Hadley's data. However, even the Hadley Center predicts, per the current generation of models, unprecedented anthropogenic warming this century.

With virtually all credible scientific data continuing to forecast and prove continued anthropogenic global warming, and due to receiving little information on the study's methodology, my answer to "Has the climate recently shifted?" is no. The Earth's climate is continuing to warm beyond any doubt.