Taylor should read my blog before he writes his bilge

James Taylor (not that talented singer, obviously), writing an inane, ignorant, biased, heavily stupid column in Forbes:

2015 Was Not Even Close to Hottest Year on Record

Really.  And how, in the light of steaming El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, does he make this claim?

Three words: "satellite temperature readings" Of course.

There should be a soap opera entitled "As the Deniers Cling".  Because they are clinging to the satellite temperature record (despite its many flaws), even though the surface temperature record is what sets the "warmest ever" record.

But then Taylor lowers the bar for climate knowledge when he states THIS howler:

"This past year saw what is likely the most powerful El Nino during the satellite temperature record. With a record El Nino, we should have experienced record high temperatures. Yet we didn’t.

A record El Nino resulting in less-than-record temperatures is another sign that global warming is not all that activists crack it up to be. Indeed, if a record strong El Nino cannot bring global temperatures back to the warmth of 1998, what can – and when will that be?"

(By the way, that's exactly how he wrote it. You'd think someone writing about climate could at least get the name right, i.e., El Niño. It can't be that hard to find a tilde.)

Well, propangandist Taylor, you should read my stuff and look at my plots.  Because just like in 1997-1998, the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) are peaking in the prior year (2015), but the approximate 6-month lag time for this heat to influence the atmosphere is only now making the temperatures of the lower troposphere rise, so that the highest atmospheric temperatures are likely to occur in the latter year.  And the atmospheric temperature, specifically the lower troposphere, is what the satellites measure.  And that's why 1998, not 1997, was the highest temperature recorded in the lower troposphere (which is NOT the surface).

And that's why 2016, not 2015, could be on its way to providing us with the highest Temperature of the Lower Troposphere (TLT) ever.  But we won't know for months;  actually, we won't know until 2017 if it's the hottest year ever for the TLT (higher than 2016), but we should know by the beginning of summer in the Northern Hemisphere if we've had a month in 2017 exceeding the peak TLT of 1998.  (I should note that we're looking at the TLT anomalies, of course).

Much of which he could have known very quickly had he read my contribution from early in the month (which has links to my three previous articles on this specific subject):

The TLT rise is here

Quickly, let's put it in simple terms Mr. Taylor might be able to comprehend:

During the 1997-1998 El Niño, the SST in the Niño 3.4 region peaked in October and November 1997.   The highest temperatures in the TLT were observed in April 1998, after clearly starting to rise in December 1997 (and even though SSTs headed way down later in the year).  And thus 1998 is the warmest year in the TLT -- for now, because...

... the TLT is clearly starting to rise in December 2015, and is a couple tenths of a degree higher now than December 1997.

The primary point here, in case anyone missed it, is that Taylor is jumping the gun big-time to say that with this El Niño "we should have experienced record high temperatures".  We haven't to date, because the warming of the lower troposphere due to the massive El Niño is just getting started.

Simple stuff, really.  But it's not simple if you are paying attention to the basics.