A guest post by: Russ Steele from NCWatch
We can only hope the most people in the US are shopping on Black Friday and not watching the Oprah Winfrey Show today. Al Gore has brought his global warming propaganda machine to share with Oprah. You can find the details on Oprah’s web page. Here are some of the topics that Gore is pushing:
Classic Gore:
“Some of the leading scientists are now saying we may have as little as 10 years before we cross a kind of point-of-no-return, beyond which it’s much more difficult to save the habitability of the planet in the future,” Gore says.
Yes, but Al you have been saying that for over ten years and we are still here. And in the last ten years the global temperatures stopped rising and are now in decline.
Click for a larger image
Really Al, show me where the temperatures are beyond natural fluctuations:
Gore agrees that the planet’s temperature has indeed experienced up and down cycles, but he says the current up cycle is too extreme. “It’s way off the charts compared to what those natural fluctuations are,” he says.
Here is look at long term temperatures
One word of caution, these are USHCN numbers, which [have been] adjusted. Past temperatures are going down and the more recent going up.
Going, going Gored:
No place is immune to global warming, Gore says. “Of the thousand largest glaciers on every continent, 997 of them are receding,” he says. “And it’s not seasonal.”
Glaciers have been retreating long before CO2 was problem. (Graphic from Climate Skeptic) Now we learn that the glaciers have stopped retreating and are expanding:
DailyTech has previously reported on the growth in Alaskan glaciers, reversing a 250-year trend of loss. Some glaciers in Canada, California, and New Zealand are also growing, as the result of both colder temperatures and increased snowfall.
Al needs to take a second look at the North Pole:
“The North Pole is melting.”
Here is comparison of the ice in November 1980 and 2008. Do you see some major differences, like the “North Pole is melting.” (Note: Earlier photos do not show snow coverage) Details at Cryosphere Today
Katrina again:
“Temperature increases are taking place all over the world, including in the oceans. Gore warns that when the oceans get warmer, storms get stronger. In August 2005, millions of Americans were left homeless by Hurricane Katrina, one of the most powerful hurricanes in recent history. Gore says people should expect more Category 4 and 5 hurricanes if the ocean waters continue to warm.”
Looks like a decline in cyclone energy to me, not an increase.
Please let Oprah know that you expected more from someone of her intelligence and veracity here.
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John (10:09:07)
You’ve indicted yourself with cherrypicking of timescales. Sure, no one knows for sure whether it will continue cooling or not, but pretty obviously, the effect of CO2 has been exaggerated. The proposed wrenching changes to society are a big mistake until we know more.
Catherine (10:30:07)
If you’d defended your thesis with rhetoric like this, who’d have passed you? Do you not recognize the flaws? Furthermore, the only thing resembling sexism was in your remarks.
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Oops, I forgot:
We are cooling, folks. For how long, even kim doesn’t know.
Son of a gun, neither does John. So lay off the carbon demonizing until we do.
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Kim,
The cherrypicking indictment fails because I chose the neither the time frame nor the data set, they are in the post that starts the thread
And in the last ten years the global temperatures stopped rising and are now in decline.
which is demonstrably a false statement, as are nearly all the others. The phrase ‘the globe is cooling’ also does not sit well with the fact that, according to HADCRUT, the globe has actually been warming for the last 18 months.
TTFN
JP.
John (16:12:28)
Sorry, John, I’m talking about the three timescales you cherry-picked to sophistically make your arguments in previous posts. Were you defending a thesis, do you think you could get away with that baloney?
And please, don’t give me HADcrut. They are almost as suspicious as GISStemp. Depend on UAH and RSS, competing algorithms from publicly available data.
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Oops, I forgot:
The globe is cooling, folks. For how long even kim doesn’t know.
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But not monotonically. Heh.
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Kim: “The globe is cooling, folks.”
Not according to the UK Met Office.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/2.html
This graph covers the period 1850-2007, and makes the points that: “The rise in global surface temperature has averaged more than 0.15 °C per decade since the mid-1970s”; and “the temperature change over the latest decade (1998-2007) alone shows a continued warming of 0.1 °C per decade”.
The graph also shows two important factors: the short-term downturns in temperature are invariably followed by increases that take the trend to a higher average level; and the long-term trend is upwards.
So it’s still game on for global warming.
Brendan H. (23:58:41)
Yes, on that timescale, during a time that we have been emerging from the Little Ice Age, the trend has been warming. I say we are cooling now, because the PDO in its cooling phase puts a 30 year downtrend signal on that overall trend. But your point does help illustrate that CO2 does not seem to be modifying that long term trend. That there is a long term warming trend is part of the reason I say:
We are cooling, folks; for how long, even kim doesn’t know.
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Kim: “Yes, on that timescale, during a time that we have been emerging from the Little Ice Age, the trend has been warming.”
The UK Met Office says otherwise: “There is some evidence that increases in solar heating may have led to some warming early in the 20th century, but direct satellite measurements show no appreciable change in solar heating over the last three decades…Throughout the century, CO2 increased steadily and has been shown to be responsible for most of the warming in the second half of the century.”
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/myths/4.html
“That there is a long term warming trend is part of the reason I say: We are cooling, folks; for how long, even kim doesn’t know.”
I don’t follow the logic. What we have is a long-term warming trend due to AGW, punctuated by short-term cooling periods. However, these short-term cooling periods are not necessitated by the existence of a long-term warming trend. The trend could in theory be monotonically upwards. It is not so due to natural variation.
Therefore, your conclusion above does not follow, since the term “warming” refers to AGW, whereas “cooling” refers to natural variation.
#1 Question I want global warming people to answer.
We all agree there was an ice-age with ICE covering most of the planet. What caused that to melt? Cave-man cars? Shame on them!!! Come on smart people NON-man made changes and cycles are huge contributes.
Second on computer models….
If you don’t include all effects in your models they give you wrong results. An how do you explain the correlation discrepancies in the articles data? Seriously If I ask you to record the temperature on a summer day when you wake up until noon. Then I ask you to create a model and predict what temperature will be at midnight you will tell me seriously hot. Why? Because your model does not include all the cycles.
This whole global warming thing is next incarnation of the mob extorting money from people! Carbon offsets. What is wrong with people. If you have not 100% disconnected yourself from the power grid or if you use a car stop with the global warming mantra. You are a hypocrite.
Brendan H (14:22:23)
Oh, please, the Met Office is propagandistic and has no support for their contention that ‘Throughout the century CO2 increased steadily, and has been shown to be responsible for most of the warming in the second half of the century’.
First of all, if CO2 was rising in the first half of the century, why didn’t the temperature rise in consonant with it? In the second half of the century, the temperature only rose in the last quarter of it, representing, to my eyes, the greatest example of fallacious post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning ever, or at least the most momentous. Furthermore, if the mechanism by which the sun directs the climate is unknown, how can it be stated that it didn’t effect the climate?
If you look at the last century of temperature results, you will see the underlying gradually rising trend modulated by the alternating heating and cooling phases of the PDO. The CO2 curve only fits with the temperature curve for the last quarter of the Twentieth Century and that is what has fooled you and so many others. Neither before nor after that instructive quarter century does the CO2 rise match the temperature curve.
Look, I believe CO2 has an effect on climate. I don’t know how big it is and neither does anyone else, but I suspect it is pretty small. Else why does the earth cool, for how long even kim doesn’t know?
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Kim: “First of all, if CO2 was rising in the first half of the century, why didn’t the temperature rise in consonant with it?”
Temperatures did in fact rise in the early part of the 20th century, although increases in solar heating may have been a major factor in this rise.
“In the second half of the century, the temperature only rose in the last
quarter of it, representing, to my eyes, the greatest example of fallacious post hoc ergo propter hoc reasoning ever, or at least the most momentous.”
Beg pardon? You are ware of the heat-retaining properties of CO2?
“Furthermore, if the mechanism by which the sun directs the climate is unknown, how can it be stated that it didn’t effect the climate?
The assumption is that increased solar activity would cause additional warming of the atmosphere. No increased activity, no warming. Seems like a reasonable assumption.
“If you look at the last century of temperature results, you will see the underlying gradually rising trend modulated by the alternating heating and cooling phases of the PDO.”
You may have a correlation, but to demonstrate a net effect on the amount of heat within the atmospheric system, you would need to show a mechanism for a PDO-type event causing a change in the amount of heat being retained/lost. As far as I know that has not yet been shown, so the PDO and similar events may merely be redistributing the existing heat.
“Else why does the earth cool, for how long even kim doesn’t know?”
Natural variation, such as volcanoes and changes in solar activity, and other man-made phenomena such as aerosols.
Brendan H (21:13:26)
It looks like you’ve admitted climate and global temperature is multi-causal. It furthermore looks like CO2 is only a minor determinant of it. So you should agree:
The globe is cooling, and kim and even Brendan don’t know for how long.
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Kim asks, “Why does the Earth cool?”
Brendan answers, “Natural variation, such as volcanoes and changes in solar activity, and other man-made phenomena such as aerosols.”
You’re right Kim CO2, is a very minor player. Looks like the big player is “natural variation”. Thanks for clearing that up, Brendan.
It’s cool in Texas,
Mike
Kim: “It looks like you’ve admitted climate and global temperature is multi-causal. It furthermore looks like CO2 is only a minor determinant of it.”
As far as I know, all climate scientists agree that a number of factors affect the climate, but CO2 is currently a major long-term determinant.
In regard to the relationship between natural variation and CO2-induced warming, there seems to be a misapprehension that at times natural variation ‘overwhelms’ the CO2 effect. I think this is a misleading way of describing the relationship.
By way of example, take the El Nino phenomenon, where warm water spreads across the surface of the mid-Pacific Ocean to generate a flow of heat into the atmosphere. If temperatures in the combined ocean/atmospheric system are generally higher than, say, 50 years previously, the El Nino will enhance the underlying warming effect by making it more visible in the atmosphere.
In contrast, the El Nina will make the underlying warming trend less visible by subtracting it from the atmosphere. In that case, the warming effect is moderated.
So rather than natural variation ‘overwhelming’ the CO2 effect, it becomes more a case of natural variation enhancing or moderating an existing underlying effect.
One could hypothesise that the ENSO and similar events might induce an increase/decrease in total heat within the system rather than merely redistribute it, but to date no mechanism has been found for this.
Hmm. Sun’s a-shining, cicadas are chirping, heading for a balmy 25 deg C. Time to fire up the barbie.
From Brendan H (21:13:26) :
Temperatures did in fact rise in the early part of the 20th century, although increases in solar heating may have been a major factor in this rise.
-end quote
So “the sun did it”. I’m good with that…
-continue quote
The assumption is that increased solar activity would cause additional warming of the atmosphere. No increased activity, no warming. Seems like a reasonable assumption.
-end quote
So “the sun did it”. I’m still good with that…
-continue quote
Kim “Else why does the earth cool, for how long even kim doesn’t know?”
Natural variation, such as volcanoes and changes in solar activity, and other man-made phenomena such as aerosols.
-end quote
So “the sun & volcanos did it, as we can cool it too”. I’m still good with that.
Since man-made aerosols are able to reverse global warming (per the above) how about we call it a feature: Modern jets have multiple fuel tanks. We fill the take off and landing tanks with low sulphur fuel (don’t want smog in the lower air) and we fill the ‘cruise’ tanks with high sulphur fuel. At zero added cost (maybe even a savings since taking sulphur out costs money) we can put stratospheric sulphate aerosols in place and stop AGW.
Since a decent volcano can put out far more stratospheric sulphate than we ever could, clearly this is a green solution well inside the norms of natural processes that we are emulating.
Heck, we could even issue folks ‘sulphur credits’ for each mile they fly at altitude that could be used to offset their carbon footprint… Why with the US Air Force being the largest consumer of oil in the government, I’ll bet we could get the whole country carbon neutral in no time via their sulphur credits!
To: Jack Simmons,
Thank you for the NOAA Inauguration Day weather link. Using Google I found some additional NOAA links including one for 2005.
NOAA Retraces Inauguration Day Weather History
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s562.htm
Climate-Watch, Special Inaugural Report, January 12, 2001
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/extremes/2001/inaug/inaug.html
Presidential Inaugural Weather, January 20, 2005
http://www.erh.noaa.gov/lwx/Historic_Events/Inauguration/Inauguration.html
Using me original post and your additional information, I stated a thread on the “Global Warming and Weather Discussion” section of Solar Cycle 24:
http://solarcycle24com.proboards106.com/index.cgi?board=globalwarming&action=display&thread=280&page=1
Mike