New paper finds the 'hot spot' predicted by climate models doesn't exist

A paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters finds, once again, that climate models get the core assumptions wrong and that the fabled 'hot spot' is still missing. All climate models predict the tropical troposphere will warm the fastest to produce a 'hot spot,' yet observations from satellites and 28 million weather balloons confirm that there is no hot spot, and that the surface has warmed more than the tropical troposphere. This new paper confirms that "The modeled [tropical tropospheric] trend is significantly higher than that of the measured ones, confirming that the vertical amplification of warming is exaggerated in models." The authors "suggest that the vertical amplification of warming derived from modelled simulations is weighted with a persistent signal, which should be removed in order to achieve better agreement with observations." Most likely, that "persistent signal" that "should be removed" from the models is the core assumption of an anthropogenic 'hot spot' present in all climate models.

Plausible reasons for the inconsistencies between the modelled and observed temperatures in the tropical troposphere

Costas A. Varotsos et al

Abstract: We herewith attempt to detect plausible reasons for the discrepancies between the measured and modeled tropospheric temperature anomalies in the tropics. For this purpose, we calculate the trends of the upper-minus-lower tropospheric temperature anomaly differences (TAD) for both the measured and modeled time series during 1979-2010. The modeled TAD trend is significantly higher than that of the measured ones, confirming that the vertical amplification of warming is exaggerated in models. To investigate the cause of this exaggeration, we compare the intrinsic properties of the measured and modelled TAD by employing detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). The DFA-exponent obtained for the measured values reveals white noise behaviour, while the exponent for the modelled ones shows that they exhibit long-range power law correlations. We suggest that the vertical amplification of warming derived from modelled simulations is weighted with a persistent signal, which should be removed in order to achieve better agreement with observations.

Related: 

Why the AGW "Hot Spot" Won't Happen

Prior posts on the 'hot spot'