Tipping point reached: UK Met Office makes blistering attack on those who make 'Apocalyptic climate predictions'

Well, I for one, have to say the MET is doing a fine job. Pity it’s come to internecine conflict but it would appear things are a bit tense in ‘Merry Old England’.

One could also go to the original article by Dr Vicky Pope, Met Office Head of Climate Change:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090211.html
Here are selected quotes, all emphasis added.
About Arctic Ice tipping point

The truth is that there is little evidence to support this. Indeed, the record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer sea ice increasing again over the next few years. This diverts attention from the real, longer-term issues. For example, recent results from the Met Office do show that there is a detectable human impact in the long-term decline in sea ice over the past 30 years, and all the evidence points to a complete loss of summer sea ice much later this century.

She is chastising both sides, the “advocates” and the “sceptics”

“The most recent example of this sequence of claim and counter-claim focused on the Greenland ice sheet. The melting of ice around south-east Greenland accelerated in the early part of this decade, leading to reports that scientists had underestimated the speed of warming in this region. Recent measurements, reported in Science magazine last week, show that the speed-up has stopped across the region. This has been picked up on the climate sceptics’ websites. Again, natural variability has been ignored in order to support a particular point of view, with climate change advocates leaping on the acceleration to further their cause and the climate change sceptics now using the slowing down to their own benefit. Neither group is right and all that is achieved is greater confusion among the public. What is true is that there will always be natural variability in the amount of ice around Greenland and that as our climate continues to warm, the long-term reduction in the ice sheet is inevitable.

Finally, Dr Pope’s stance on climate change

“When climate scientists like me explain to people what we do for a living we are increasingly asked whether we “believe in climate change”. Quite simply it is not a matter of belief. Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity’s activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.”

It’s difficult to fathom the Met Office. Largely, they are an inept organisation who have been at the forefront of man-made global warming nonsense. They have certainly been ‘economical with the truth’ on many aspects connected with climate change – and continue to be. Some even might say they have lied.
Having spoken to someone who works there, I have to say their belief is genuine. Unlike some ‘scientists’ who may just be after some grant money, the Met Office seem to actually believe what they’re saying. However, they do remind me of the man who shouted ‘fire!’, then ran out of the room because he had heard the word ‘fire!’.
But it’s all too late for the Met Office. They haven’t just complied with the warming debacle, they’ve been a big part of it. They won’t look good back-peddling now. Perhaps this is their way of seeing that all is not going to plan – and they’re looking for a door out. If so, then we should see these change http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climatechange/guide/bigpicture/ especially ‘Fact 2’.

Did I just wake up in an alternate universe?

“Nobel Prize winning scientist Al Gore”
Is Al Gore a scientist?

Is this sanity for real? And what will it mean for correcting raw-data gathering, honest analysis, and providing transparency of the process? Will a dedication to the SCIENCE of climate change — local. regional, global, and historical — return? Who is speaking for the Met Office now? Will the MO name those “scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming”? Who from the MO is among them?
I notice that this break-in-the-wall occurs at almost the same time as a Congressman’s admission that someones were trying to turn the U.S. financial system into a catastrophe around mid-September last year.
Are apocalyptic-causing visions and actions being disciplined? Will the liars be shunned? Wouldn’t that be a victory for democracy! The final victory would be if the “evil-doers” were tried and punished if (when) found guilty. Oh, I forgot. That would be taking responsibility for the consequences of one’s behavior — hardly happens anymore.

It is refreshing to find that, at long last, we are able to read an “official” pronouncement which goes some way to separating different issues which are too often conflated.
Issue one: is the planet warming?
Issue two: if so, is human activity contributing to warming?
Issue three: if so, to what extent?
Issue four: what are the likely direct consequences of human-caused warming?
Issue five: whether or not the planet is warming, is human activity affecting the climate adversely?
Issues six & seven: repeat three and four in relation to non-warming adverse activities.
For far too long the mere fact of warming has been trumpted as a disaster, regardless of its extent and effect; and the mere fact of some human effect has been trumpeted as a disaster regardless of its extent and consequences.
It is only by keeping these (and the many sub-issues and knock-on issues they raise) separate, and subjecting each to searching analysis, that everything can be kept in perspective and facts can be established independently of any political agenda.
An encouraging first step. Let’s hope it is the first of many because many are required to reverse the confusion, hype and political opportunism that is rife in this field.

Some of our posters may not be impressed by this statement from the Met office and I can understand their feelings. However, can you imagine James Hanson or Gavin Schnitt doing anything like this? They can’t even admit to obvious errors in the climate record or the reconstructions.
When I start to think the other side is dishonest or just plain stupid I read or ask questions of people connected to the Met office. They seem more honest, in fact I have a positive impression of the ability and integrity of Tom Wigley though I think he is wrong to fear large scale warming, he doesn’t seem to have near the conceit of the aforementioned Americans.

“The criticism reflects mounting concern at the Met Office that the global warming debate risks being hijacked by people on both sides who push their own agendas and interests.”
Apparently this particular group of alarmists, have become circumspect about the alarms. The apocalyptic predictions arise entirely from the AGW camp. They have been continuously shown to be wrong or vastly overstate. IPCC and Hansen have fallen into disrepute. More and more active and retired government officials speak out as skeptics.
The Met office is seeing its house of cards teetering on its self-described apocalypse and are edging back from the precipice. A statement such as this, they hope, will signal their “lack of bias,” – particularly if the billions spent trying to wrestle CO2 into the ground yield little or no climate change. In business it’s called, “Cover Your As*!

Richard Heg (06:22:40) :
Just ask any school girl or boy.
Of course Al Gore is scientist – he won the Nobel Prize after all.

Richard Heg (06:22:40) :
“Nobel Prize winning scientist Al Gore”
Is Al Gore a scientist?
Is the Pope a Muslim?

Crumbling in every direction! Hansen is under attack in published letter to AMS. See the following:
Claude Harvey
On The Hijacking of the American Meteorological Society (AMS)
by Bill Gray
Professor Emeritus
Colorado State University
(AMS Fellow, Charney Award recipient, and over 50-year member)
I am appalled at the selection of James Hansen as this year’s recipient of the AMS’s highest award – the Rossby Research Medal. James Hansen has not been trained as a meteorologist. His formal education has been in astronomy. His long records of faulty global climate predictions and alarmist public pronouncements have become increasingly hollow and at odds with reality. Hansen has exploited the general public’s lack of knowledge of how the globe’s climate system functions for his own benefit. His global warming predictions, going back to 1988 are not being verified. Why have we allowed him go on for all these years with his faulty and alarmist prognostications? And why would the AMS give him its highest award?
By presenting Hansen with its highest award, the AMS implies it agrees with his faulty global temperature projections and irresponsible alarmist rhetoric. This award, in combination with other recent AMS awards going to known CO2 warming advocates, is an insult to a large number of AMS members who do not believe that humans are causing a significant amount of the global temperature increase. These awards diminish the AMS’s sterling reputation for scientific objectivity.
Hansen previously studied the run-away greenhouse warming of Venus. He appears to think that man’s emittance of CO2 gases, if unchecked, will eventually cause the Earth to follow a similar fate. Hansen’s arrogance and gall over the reality of his model results is breathtaking. He has recently warned President Obama that our country has only 4 years left to act on reducing CO2 gases before the globe will reach a point of irretrievable and disastrous human-caused warming. How does he know what thousands of us who have spent long careers in meteorology-climatology do not know?
Hansen’s predictions of global warming made before the Senate in 1988 are turning out to be very much less than he had projected. He cannot explain why there has been no significant global warming over the last 10 years and why there has been a weak global cooling between 2001 and 2008.
Hansen and his legion of environmental-political supporters (with no meteorological-climate background) have done monumental damage to an open and honest discussion of the Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) question. He and his fellow collaborators (and their media sycophantic followers) are responsible for the brainwashing of a large segment of the American public about a grossly exaggerated human-induced warming
threat that does not exist. Most of the global warming we have observed is of natural origin and due to multi-decadal and multi-century changes in the globe’s deep ocean circulation resulting from salinity variations (see the Appendix for scientific discussion). These changes are not associated with CO2 increases. Hansen has little experience in practical meteorology. He apparently does not realize that the strongly chaotic nature of the atmosphere-ocean climate system does not allow for skillful initial value numerical climate prediction. Hansen’s modeling efforts are badly flawed in the following ways:
1. His upper tropospheric water vapor feedback loop is grossly wrong. He assumes that increases in atmospheric CO2 will cause large upper-tropospheric water vapor increases which are very unrealistic. Most of his model warming follows from his invalid water vapor assumptions. His handlings of rainfall processes are, as with the other global climate modelers, quite inadequate.
2. He lacks an understanding and treatment of the fundamental role of the deep ocean circulation (i.e. Meridional Overturning Circulation – MOC) and how the changing ocean circulation (driven by salinity variations) can bring about wind, rainfall, and surface temperature changes independent of radiation and greenhouse gas changes. He does not have these ocean processes properly incorporated in his model. He assumes the physics of global warming is entirely a product of radiation changes and radiation feedback processes. This is a major deficiency.
Hansen’s Free Ride. It is surprising that Hansen has been able to get away with his unrealistic modeling efforts for so long. One explanation is that he has received strong support from Senator/Vice President Al Gore who for over three decades has attempted to make political capital out of increasing CO2 measurements. Another reason is the many environmental and political groups (including the mainstream media) who are eager to use Hansen’s modeling results as justification to push their own special interests that are able to fly under the global warming banner. A third explanation is that he has not been challenged by his peer climate modeling groups who apparently have seen possibilities for research grant support and publicity gains by following Hansen’s lead. Yet another reason has been the luck of his propitious timing. His 1988 Senate testimony occurred after there had been global warming since the mid-1970s and we were experiencing a hot summer. And the global warming that occurred over the next 10 years (to 1998) gave an undeserved justification to his CO2 warming claims. Had Hansen given his Senate testimony in the 1970s or today (since we have seen weak global cooling since 2001) his alarmist rhetoric would have been taken much less seriously.
I anticipate that we are going to experience a modest naturally-driven global cooling over the next 15-20 years. This will be similar to the weak global cooling that occurred between the early-1940s and the mid-1970s. It is to be noted that CO2 amounts were also rising during this earlier cooling period which was opposite to the assumed CO2 temperature relationship.
An expected 15-20 year cooling will occur (in my view) because of the strong ocean Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) that has now been established and in place for the last decade and a half. This same condition had been present in the mid-1940s when the globe began a sustained three decade weak cooling. I explain most of the century and-a-half general global warming since the mid-1800s (start of the industrial revolution) to be a result of a long multi-century slowdown in the ocean’s MOC circulation. Increases of CO2 could have contributed only a small fraction (0.1-0.2oC) of the roughly ~ 0.7oC warming that has been observed since 1850. Stronger natural processes have had to have been responsible for most of the observed warming over the last century and a half.
AMS. The American Meteorological Society (AMS) was founded in 1919 as an organization dedicated to advancing scientific knowledge of weather and climate. It has been a wonderful beacon for fostering new understanding of how the atmosphere and oceans function. But this strong positive image is now becoming tarnished as a result of the AMS leadership’s capitulating to the lobby of the climate modelers and to the outside environmental and political pressure groups who wish to use the now AMS position on AGW to help justify the promotion of their own special interests. The effectiveness of the AMS as an objective scientific organization has been greatly compromised.
We AMS members have allowed a small group of AMS administrators, climate modelers, and CO2 warming sympathizers to maneuver the internal workings of our society to support AGW policies irrespective of what our rank-and-file members might think. This small organized group of AGW sympathizers has indeed hijacked our society.
Debate. The AMS is the most relevant of our country’s scientific societies as regards to its members having the most extensive scientific and technical background in meteorology and climate. It should have been a leader in helping to adjudicate the claims of the AGW advocates and their skeptical critics. Our country’s Anglo-Saxon derived legal system is based on the idea that the best way to get to the truth is to have opposite sides of a continuous issue present their differing views in open debate before a non partisan jury. Nothing like this has happened with regards to the AGW issue. Instead of organizing meetings with free and open debates on the basic physics and the likelihood of AGW induced climate changes, the leaders of the society (with the backing of the society’s AGW enthusiasts) have chosen to fully trust the climate models and deliberately avoid open debate on this issue. I know of no AMS sponsored conference where the AGW hypothesis has been given open and free discussion. For a long time I have wanted a forum to express my skepticism of the AGW hypothesis. No such opportunities ever came within the AMS framework. Attempts at publication of my skeptic views have been difficult. One rejection stated that I was too far out of the mainstream thinking. Another that my ideas had already been discredited. A number of AGW skeptics have told me they have had similar experiences.
The climate modelers and their supporters deny the need for open debate of the AGW question on the grounds that the issue has already been settled by their model results. They have taken this view because they know that the physics within their models and the long range of their forecast periods will likely not to be able to withstand knowledgeable and impartial review (see Appendix). They simply will not debate the issue. As a defense against criticism they have resorted to a general denigration of those of us who do not support their AGW hypothesis. AGW skeptics are sometimes tagged (I have been) as no longer being credible scientists. Skeptics are often denounced as tools of the fossil-fuel industry. A type of McCarthyism against AGW skeptics has been in display for a number of years.
Recent AMS Awardees. Since 2000 the AMS has awarded its annual highest award (Rossby Research Medal) to the following AGW advocates or AGW sympathizers; Susan Solomon (00), V. Ramanathan (02), Peter Webster (04), Jagadish Shukla (05), Kerry Emanuel (07), Isaac Held (08) and James Hansen (09). Its second highest award (Charney Award) has gone to AGW warming advocates or sympathizers; Kevin Trenberth (00), Rich Rotunno (04), Robert D. Cess (06), Allan Betts (07), Gerald North (08) and Warren Washington and Gerald Meehl (09). And the other Rossby and Charney awardees during this period are not known to be critics of the AGW warming hypothesis.
The AGW biases within the AMS policy makers is so entrenched that it would be impossible for well known and established scientists (but AGW skeptics) such as Fred Singer, Pat Michaels, Bill Cotton, Roger Pielke, Sr., Roy Spencer, John Christie, Joe D’Aleo, Bob Balling, Jr., Craig Idso, Willie Soon, etc. to ever be able to receive an AMS award – irrespective of the uniqueness or brilliance of their research.
What Working Meteorologists Say. My interaction (over the years) with a broad segment of AMS members (that I have met as a result of my seasonal hurricane forecasting and other activities) who have spent a sizable portion of their careers down in the meteorological trenches of observations and forecasting, have indicated that a majority of them do not agree that humans are the primary cause of global warming. These working meteorologists are too experienced and too sophisticated to be hoodwinked by the lobby of climate simulations and their associated propagandists. I suggest that the AMS conduct a survey of its members who are actually working with real time weather-climate data to see how many agree that humans have been the main cause of global warming and that there was justification for the AMS’s 2009 Rossby Research Medal going to James Hansen.
Many thousands of scientists from the US and around the globe do not accept the human-induced global warming hypothesis as it has been presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports over the last 15 years. These IPCC reports have largely followed the global modeling results and despite the Noble Prize Award that its authors received, should not be taken as having any credibility concerning its future of its climate predictions.
A doubling of anthropogenic greenhouse gases will not cause global warming anything like the 2-5oC as projected by nearly all of the GCMs climate simulators and as accepted by the IPCC. I estimate that we will see a global warming resulting from a doubling of CO2 of only about 0.3-0.5oC (see Appendix). Humankind can adapt to this much lower level of global warming without having to sacrifice much of its fossil fuel energy usage to much costlier renewable energy. If society is to eventually convert from fossil fuel to renewable energy it would be much more economic and far wiser if this conversion took place over a long period of time without having to be held hostage to the belief that we must hurry because a massive global temperature increase is rapidly approaching.
Global Environmental Problems. There is no question that global population increases and growing industrialization have caused many environmental problems associated with air and water pollution, industrial contamination, unwise land use, and hundreds of other human-induced environmental irritants. But all these human-induced environmental problems will not go away by a draconian effort to reduce CO2 emissions. CO2 is not a pollutant but a fertilizer. Humankind needs fossil-fuel energy to maintain its industrial lifestyle and to expand this lifestyle in order to be able to better handle these many other non-CO2 environmental problems. There appears to be a misconception among many people that by reducing CO2 we are dealing with our most pressing environmental problem. Not so.
It must be remembered that advanced industrial societies do more for the global environment than do poor societies. By greatly reducing CO2 emissions and paying a great deal more for our then needed renewable energy we will lower our nation’s standard of living and not be able to help relieve as many of our and the globe’s many environmental, political, and social problems.
Obtaining a Balanced View on AGW. To understand what is really occurring with regards to the AGW question one must bypass the AMS, the mainstream media, and the mainline scientific journals. They have mostly been preconditioned to accept the AGW hypothesis and, in general, frown on anyone not agreeing that AGW is, next to nuclear war, our society’s most serious long range problem.
To obtain any kind of a balanced back-and-forth discussion on AGW one has to consult the many web blogs that are both advocates and skeptics of AGW. These blogs are the only source for real open debate on the validity of the AGW hypothesis. Here is where the real science of the AGW question is taking place. Over the last few years the weight of evidence, as presented in these many blog discussions, is swinging very much against the AGW hypothesis. As the globe fails to warm as the models have predicted the American public is gradually losing its belief in the prior claims of Gore, Hansen, and the other AGW advocates.
Heartland Institute. We should all be grateful to the non-profit Heartland Institute of Chicago for attempting to break up the one-way group thinking mentality on AGW by its beginning sponsorship of annual global climate change meetings each year in New York City. The second annual Heartland sponsored meeting will be held on 8-10 March 2009 at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in central Manhattan. This meeting offers an international venue (the only one I know of) for an open and fair discussion of the many problems associated with the AGW hypothesis.
Obama Administration Impending Actions.
In November ’08 President-Elect Barack Obama said,
“storms (i.e. hurricanes) are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season.”
In his inaugural address on 20 January, President Obama said,
“we will roll back the specter of a warming planet” and
“we will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories.”
All three of these statements are either untrue or impossible to accomplish without severe (and unacceptable) economic penalties.
It is obvious that the new Obama administration believes the AGW propaganda. They have listened and continue to listen to the wrong set of advisors. We can expect the new administration to make a major effort to push for CO2 restrictions despite this very troubled time of economic downturn. Obama has appointed AGW sympathizers to head the Dept. of Energy (Stephen Chu), Director of NOAA (Jane Lubchenco), Director of Science and Technology Policy (John Holdren), and for his new Global Warming and Energy Czar (Carol Browner – a lawyer and a former Clinton cabinet member). Our new Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, has appointed Todd Stern (the man who lead the U.S. delegation at Kyoto) to be her and our country’s official climate advisor. Stern will act as our country’s representative to all upcoming international climate conferences. Lisa Jackson is the new Chief of the EPA and is empowered to enforce clean air standards. If President Obama moves to classify carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant to be regulated by the EPA, as he pledged during his campaign, a powerful edit to reduce CO2 gases could be forthcoming from the EPA. This would cause many negative changes to American society and do nothing of significance for the environment. We also have powerful congressional leaders such as Henry Waxman, Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, and John Kerry, waiting in the wings to make a strong push for reduced CO2 emissions. Reducing CO2 amounts at his time is definitely not in our country’s best
interest. Especially if we are to encounter a modest global cooling over the next 10-15 years (as I am confident will occur).
The economic crisis that has suddenly come upon us is quite sobering. Let us hope it will justify a postponement of plans for any significant reduction of CO2 gases for the next few years at least. Postponement of action on CO2 reductions would allow more time for a deeper and more objective analysis of the AGW question. And if the current lack of global warming (since 1999) and/or the weak global cooling since 2001 continues for a few more years, it may be possible to convince enough of the American public, the Obama administration, and our congressional leaders to alter their AGW views. The science just isn’t there to justify action on large reductions of CO2 at this time. Our best policy now should be to “do nothing.”

Richard Heg
“Nobel Prize winning scientist Al Gore”
Is Al Gore a scientist?
I believe the former Vice-President would only qualify as a Cargo Cult Scientist.

Couple that with Met O’s recent acknowledgment of their models getting it wrong after all the hoopla predictions in 2007/2008, and there may be a “natural cooling trend” to 2014, one has to wonder what is going on internally at Met O.
Met O has been a consistent promoter of AGW for many years as their archives make it self evident, however is it possible they are now forced to reevaluate their position as the evidence is mounting against them?
Time will tell.
Link to article on Met O back pedaling:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/4534358/Snow-Britain-Further-snow-and-ice-forecast-for-rest-of-the-winter.html

Richard, anyone can be a Scientist. Even Professor Honeydew.

New Scientist has an interesting article about the sudden and catastrophic cold winter of 1709
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126942.100-1709-the-year-that-europe-froze.html?page=1
Makes interesting reading even if the last sentence is the usual ‘but the situation is different now’ observation. Based on what is described before it, how can one know?

Surprised to see this from the UK Met Office of all places. I was a little pessimistic on just when the house of cards known as AGW would begin to tumble. This is a good start.

Dr Pope’s earlier stated position on climate change was rather…apocalyptic.

Has it occurred to anyone that perhaps this is just a positioning (defense) to try to keep things going full strength in the upcoming absence of reportable warm-based weather extremes. “Our lack of apocolyptic weather observations is ‘consistent with’ our claims that apocolyptic weather extremes are not required for true armegeddon to occur.”
In other words. Most everyone is becoming aware of how many attribution fallacies are present in your typical gloomy weather headline. Now the Met can say, “we always agreed, but global warming is REAL!”

For ‘climate change’, read ‘MOTHER NATURE!’

it would ne nice to add some comment on the guardian website as well.
however, like many others in theagw camp, the guardian does not allow it’s readers to express their opinions.

First of all he is idiot. Just look in his eyes.

Oh how foolish of me to think that this storey would have slipped passed you guys! I am so sorry I doubted your diligence.
Following on from the previous post on Cycle 23/24, I get it, clever Dr Pope, she wants everyone to listen to her & the Met Office ONLY, & no other sources of information, data, or scientific observations should be listened to. Very 1984 I must say. Very clever indeed, a bit like Gorey Al telling the kiddies to not listen to the old folk. I’ll get that so ‘n so for discrimination toward the elderly one way or the other!
The other minor point she seems to be making is about natural variations in the climate system, when the skeptics have been claiming precisely that this is what is happening all the time. Why is it so convenient to claim natural variations when the computer model doesn’t work again.
As for Peter Stott, carping on about a short time scale to make judgements on climate trends is exactly what has been going on. 30 years is not even a spit in the ocean by comparison. Especially the bit about extrapolating data for future predictions, isn’t that what they’ve been doing all this time?

It’s maybe a bit off topic, but can someone explain why January 2009 and now also February 2009 global temperatures are running so high above normal?
If I remember well, there is a La Nina now just as last year and the sun also hasn’t changed much. But last winter temperatures were much lower than they are now.
So, what’s causing those high temperatures now (and where is the heat)?

The question is not if human activities impact the environment or the climate.
That answer has been ‘yes’ since humans started cutting down trees and draining swamps and planting fields.
The issue is whether or not burning fossil fuels is going to cause some sort of climate tipping point with apocalyptic consequences.
AGW promotion organizations, like the Met office, ahve said the answer is ‘yes’ for decades. Gore was just in front of the Senate saying that an apocalypse is at hand in the last few days.
Hansen is still blithering about this, and much of the AGW promtion leadership still uses the Venus comparison to keep the fear alive.
The evidence that our current CO2 forcings are minor and well within the normal range of climate responses, and that no tippiing point is even close, is pretty plain to see.
But the Met, even in their ‘announcement’ is still promoting climate fear.
They, and all AGW promoters, need to be slaped down,and the policy solutions they have been promoting for their non-existant crisis need to be halted.

Hold the Bus!!!!!!!
I implore everyone to hit site Bishop Hill Blog. The very same Dr Vicky Pope talking on You tube about climate change & manmade warming in the Arctic. That’s a huge change from what she has just tried to whitewash us with in her latest proclamation!
Absolutely priceless.

Sounds like a good old Britsh compromise. Just sit on the fence, look both ways, you can’t be faulted. Be the envy of the world.

Sekerob,
“…as the climate continues to warm…”
Seems they are flat out on the Warming side there. No equivocation such as “…IF the climate continues to warm…”
You HAVE noticed that the climate HAS NOT continued to warm haven’t you??

To be cynical about it, the problem that Dr. Pope and the Met Office has is that they
need a simple, consistent narrative, scary enough to be taken seriously, with no easily falsifiable statements in the near future, and hedging their bets a little if the scam folds.
I’ve read reports such as “Global Warming predicts no skiing in Scotland within
50 years”, “Global Warming predicts the UK will get colder, as the Gulf Stream stops”, “There’ll be more extreme weather but the UK won’t get hotter or colder”.
I’m sure it’s possible to weave these into a narrative, but it gets complicated.
You can only scare people for so long before they get bored, or cynical, or just
laugh, especially when they see apparent contradictions. Keep it up, with green
taxes in a recession when most folks think there are better things to worry about than what might or might not happen in 50 years time, and people get angry.

They may just be thinking that the apocalyptic message is turning people off.
So they’d rather go for a more moderate message, to gain support from the public.
But their aims may be no different.

It is not the Met Office back-paddling, it is the Guardian’s David Adam selectively quoting from Dr. Vicky Pope that turns her balanced view into a supposedly “blistering attack”. Don’t take my word for it, do compare the Guardian article to this Met Office press release and see for yourself:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2009/pr20090211.html
As I have already pointed out above, Dr. Pope chastises advocates and skeptics who point at extreme events (either high or low) as either prove or disprove of climate change. Her stance on climate change is still:

Our concerns about climate change arise from the scientific evidence that humanity’s activities are leading to changes in our climate. The scientific evidence is overwhelming.

Show me a climate scientist that does not have a conflict of interest – I will show you a climate realist.

Is Al Gore a scientist?
Well he did invent the internet, and television, and the telephone…and the bicycle.

Bill McClure says:

suppress dissent and ignore reasonable information presented by others

You are to be commended for your accurate portrayal of environmentalists.

Oops, crap. The last paragraph was mine, the rest was quoted from Simon.

I think they’ll totally backpedal on this article.

Wondering Aloud (06:36:13) :
Some of our posters may not be impressed by this statement from the Met office and I can understand their feelings. However, can you imagine James Hanson or Gavin Schnitt doing anything like this? They can’t even admit to obvious errors in the climate record or the reconstructions.

They admit to them, they just say the errors don’t matter.

If a tipping point comes when a UK politician (albeit one from Northern Ireland, not Westminster) is prepared to stand up to the BBC, live (OK on Radio 5live, not BBC1) and say that they do not believe there is an overwhelming concensus concerning AGW, then that happened on Monday….
I sent the BBC two articles as a result, the NGPCC 2008 report and a paper by Jo d’Aleo on linkages of US 20th century temperature to PDO/AMO cycles…..
No idea if this has had anything to do with anything……….but I’ve never heard anyone stand up to the BBC before on this, so either the guy was very brave, had nothing to lose or he’d been tipped the wink that the house of cards was a little less solid than previously suggested………
At least if this means that warmers and skeptics can have scientific discussions, that funding targets genuine areas rather than political ‘chaud pommes de terres’ and that we address the possibilities that climate fluctuates up and down through solar cycles, lunar cycles, Gleissberg Cycles and longer cycles, some of which are impervious to our influence and some of which may be influenced by humans, then maybe we are ready to start some SCIENCE on this subject………
Not a decade too soon, I have to say……..

I agree with george h. (09:30:20)
How long are we going to let these charlatans operate?
Their continuous denial of the self-evident is a danger to all of mankind, and they should be put on trial for crimes against humanity.

Action Item: Need current Info on the AGW debate – Please help.
Background: I’d like to make presentation to an activist group and am looking for inputs on what to include in a PowerPoint Presentation. The subject would either be about the AGW debate, or about key information that refutes widely held AGW claims. Any suggestions on Content, Graphs, Video Clips, Key Concepts, Sources, Implications, Conclusions, etc. are very welcome.
More individuals need to be exposed to “the other side.”
At the end of the presentation, hopefully more people will understand that what they have been led to believe is not necessarily so. Hopefully more will understand that some activist actions may not be as helpful as they thought, while others still make sense. Yes, that is a lot to take on and maybe the scope needs to change, but why not set high goals on the front end?
Maybe it will become a two part effort. Again, your inputs are welcome.
Many thanks in advance for your suggestions.

‘We don’t need no cloud albedo, we don’t need no PDO
No dark albedo in the Arctic, teach us not of AMO!
Hey! Teacher!1! Leave that sun alone………
All in all you’re just a-nother nail in Al Gore………’

Australia is a beautiful country as is all nature in it’s wildness. We have become complacent in that such beauty could harbour peril. We move from our cities into a idealized wonderland made famous by Enid Blyton. The reality is nature is merciless and unforgiving of the foolish.
Look at the creatures that surround you. Did you think they got there by living in a fools paradise? Look at the harshness of the terrain and ask yourself if paradise would show such rugged scars.
The problem is not just the city greenies but the whole mindset of middle class city folk who wish to be closer to nature and their naive assumptions of what that is.
Greenies didn’t vote for the council, the inhabitants did.

How the world turns, and the predictions of impending doom fail. Anyone want to buy some discounted carbon credits?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/07/cost-carbon-credits-falls

Thanks for the link bluegrue (08:34:55), the ideologically motivated stupidity being displayed by both extremist views becomes a little depressing after a while, for them it’s all a political game and bugger the science.

Sekerob (06:08:39) :
In jumping on to the fence, as the Met Office have just done, it it still necessary to maintain a balance because you still don’t know which side you will eventually land on.

A return to reason?

It was Michael Asher in the Daily Tech who pointed out recently that a sea change had been occurring over AGW and in the last year or two, and to judge by the lampoon of the Goracle he may well be right.
But in the case of the Met Office I suspect the explanation is simple.
When the Labour government came to power in 1997 it pursued a middle class greenish agenda and has done so with increasing vigour whilst ignoring growing opposition, for instance over rubbish [trash] collection taxes, to the point that recently no local authority would agree to try out its newest much trumpeted scheme that would penalise local taxpayers. Labour has also handed out great largesse, creating numerous green working parties and the like as well as funding the Met Office and research programmes handsomely.
But it is now pretty clear, short of some incredible political surprise, that by the middle of next year the UK will have a Conservative government which despite some token greenery is essentially both sceptical, indeed many members are actively hostile, to AGW. Moreover with a recession it will be looking for major cuts in expenditure.
Thus it behoves the Met Office to start looking less like an AGW propaganda machine and more like a serious research body inquiring impartially into the subject. Otherwise it might be deemed largely expendable in the new harder times.
You may begin to see a similar shift in BBC coverage because it it likely the new government will want to review its funding: and it too has few friends amongst the Conservatives.
Interesting times eh? what fun.
Kindest Regards

Rhys Jaggar (09:47:11) :
“but I’ve never heard anyone stand up to the BBC before on this,”
David Bellamy did and it cost him his career. Here he is in a recent interview on Irish TV talking about AGW, (interview starts about 3 minutes into the footage and you need real player to run it)
http://www.rte.ie/tv/latelate/av_20090123.html?2480831,null,228

@ Steven Goddard (08:15:27) :
The Vikings on Greenland are one thing.
Far more compelling is the great famine in Europe of 1315-1317 wich killed an estimated 10-25% of the European population, it would take another 7 years before food supply was restored to normal level, but at this time most of population was seriously weakened, right in time for the “Black Death”.
The average lifespan of a European went from almost 36 years in 1275 to just over 17 years right after the Bubonic Plague wich killed an estimated 30-60% of the European population.
And that’s just because weather took a turn for the worse.

BTW chaps, we’re talking about the Meteorological Office or Met Office, the Met is short for Metropolitan Police in London. This has been pointed out by others before, it’s a very easy mistake for others outside the UK, & will confuse them, the UK of course being a minor & insignificant state within the Peoples Democratic Republic of the EU.
AtB:-)

The Met Office appears to be agreeing with the point I have been trying to propagate in the articles.
i.e. Human caused climate change is real, but the claims of imminent catastrophe and the data behind those claims are suspect – at best.

Four years to save the world
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7885036.stm
“The US president has just four years to save the planet, said Prof McCarthy.”

…or, as Ron de Haan (10:54:11) says, “NOTHING HAS CHANGED”

Joel Shore wrote:
In fact, her point about climate change consisting of a steady-ish change over time with natural fluctuations superimposed on top of this is one of the main points I have been trying to make when people here get hung up on the latest variations.
Just a nit-pick, I would argue it’s the other way around – it’s man-made changes superimposed on top of natural fluctuations. But, hey, we’re basically on the same page.

Joel Shore (11:33:34) :
Jeff Alberts says:
So then, climate models have no predictive value, period, since all they do is “take a few years data and extrapolate to what would happen if it continues.”
No. Climate models aren’t based on extrapolations. They are based on physical principles.

And extrapolated data, i.e. anything that isn’t completely understood, as well as climate data for areas where no climate data exist.

You don’t miss a thing do you Anthony? I just came here to mail you a link to the met office article you’ve posted above :(. One day I’ll find something you haven’t already seen.

Robinson (12:30:34) :
One day I’ll find something you haven’t already seen.
What about this interesting perspective?

“Nobel Prize winning scientist Al Gore …”
A blight on the scientific community.

I too am angry that so many people died as a result of misguided policies. That is why I’m ending my posts “Remember Victoria”

Jeff Alberts says:

And extrapolated data, i.e. anything that isn’t completely understood, as well as climate data for areas where no climate data exist.

Again, I don’t know where you are getting this idea that the models are based on extrapolations of climate data. Like all models, they are verified by comparing them with real data. But, they are not extrapolations of data and your simply taking the statement by Peter Stott that a common misrepresentation was to take a few years data and extrapolate to what would happen if it continues and saying that it applies to climate models is not correct.
Flanagan says:

Waaah, Smokey, a paper of the Journal of american physicians and surgeons? As a “peer-reviewed” paper on climatology?

Yeah…It kind of reeks of desperation when one has to mangle the meaning of “peer-reviewed” that severely to find an example!
lightduty says:

I’ve a question. Is there a study published anywhere on the Web comparing the accuracy of various climate models? I’d like to know which models have been accurate in predicting average temperature for a region or the globe as a whole.

You might try looking on this website: http://www-pcmdi.llnl.gov/ I think for the most part, the answer is complicated…i.e., no one model is clearly superior to the others in all metrics.

Smokey,
let us forget for the moment about the journal not being listed either on MEDLINE/PubMed nor at the Web of Science, do you routinely look at medical journals for the latest research on climate?
The above does not bode well, but let us do some critical reading of the article. The text referring to figure 1 is talking about the Earth’s temperature,
but all the figure shows is the reconstructed temperature of the Sargasso Sea.
As you have recommended the article, Smokey, please do explain to me, why the Sargasso Sea on its own is a good proxy for global average temperature.

actually, i am more happy with hansen’s or gore’s view, that have already been proven wrong or will be proven wrong shortly. these projections are at least testable.
the met simply tells us, “the scientific evidence is overwhelming”.
the met seems to try to get away with a position that tells us, their models may not be proven or challenged for the next 50 years or so and in the meantime people should spend all their money they can afford for a world government and a better climate.

bluegrue,
Had you read the article more carefully you would have known that it includes a link to Dr. Pope’s original comments and that nowhere in the article did I make any claims that climate change is not real.
FALL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION:
Galloping Glaciers of Greenland Have Reined Themselves In
Richard A. Kerr
Ice loss in Greenland has had some climatologists speculating that global warming might have brought on a scary new regime of wildly heightened ice loss and an ever-faster rise in sea level. But glaciologists reported at the American Geophysical Union meeting that Greenland ice’s Armageddon has come to an end.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/323/5913/458a

The MET Office is normally one of the first off the block each month to publish UK temperature data here:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/seriesstatistics/uktemp.txt
Calendar 2006 was the warmest in the 95 year series, and calendar 2007 the second warmest. Calendar 2008 was the 18th, and 2009 has got off to a very cold start.
Here we are, heading towards the middle of February and still no MET Office data for January 2009. I wondered what they could be up to …. preparing the press release and excuses maybe?
And then this jumps up from nowhere – let’s not latch onto individual events. Looks like January 2009 is going to be a cold one. Right now, my guess would be a 25-30 year low.

bluegrue,
Since the Met Hadley Center has been one of the prime sources for alarmist hyperbole, I think the remarkable press release you link to is the equivalent of a drunk in the early stages of admitting they are a drunk- full of equivocations and dissembling.
The incredibly bad track record of the Met office, as has been well documented here and elsewhere, and the plain fact that global climate is not anywhere close to any sort of catastrophic tipping point or apocalypse, as they themselves have been promoting, is simply beginning to overwhelm their ideology.
Now they are in effect turning on the AGW team leaders- the IPCC Hansen and Gore, in order to salvage some scrap of legitimacy.
You can seek all of the context you wish in this, but AGW- the idea we are radically damaging the world climate- is dying as a viable bogey man before our very eyes.

To Bernie (08:49:54)
Yes, when Steven Goddard referred to Al Gore as a “Nobel Prize winning scientist”, I assumed he was being ironic.
Apparently a few readers thought he was serious, which I find a bit…ironic. 🙂

bluegrue,
Met O has a history of throwing out hysterical blurbs to the media, but since 2007 their models have failed miserably despite their CYA in this PR campaign. Why do they feel the need to downplay AGW?
Now they are back pedaling at Olympic speeds to save face. A cooling “trend” until 2014? What happened to their ‘new and improved state-of-the-art first time ever’ decadal climate climate model they bragged about in August 2007 that predicted 1998 would be on the ash heap of history after 2009?
What is obvious to me is Met O is preparing their hoards of true believers for a long period of cooling. Oh, and do a search on their website for “Pacific Decadal Oscillation” and report your findings 🙂

Smokey (15:23:39) :
Flanagan:
…..ad hominem attacks like those above are the default fallback position for the AGW crowd.
Oh really? Let’s examine the rest of your post –
“….the alarmist contingent…..the scary hypothesis that is being shouted from the rooftops….Alarmists can not let go of their CO2 scare story….without bad ol’ CO2 to frighten the school children with….Those promoting the CO2/AGW scam are completely cognizant of the fact that CO2 is not only harmless, but beneficial….When these hypocritical AGW/CO2 promoters start to lead by example, wake me. In the mean time, keep spinning your scary tales, and crying “Wolf!”….that inconvenient fact is studiously ignored by the AGW Elmer Gantrys….just a pretext fro government to get its hands deep into our pockets, and to use it for political control….”
Amusing as usuial Smokey. You do actually know what ad hominem means, I presume? One might think not from the fact that you accuse others of it whilst so relishing an indulgence in it yourself.

I think what she’s really trying to say is that if it’s cooling it’s weather and if it’s warming it’s climate and we think we are in for some weather for a while and climate will resume after this brief interruption at which point we will go back to alarmist mode.
just wonder if they realize how much cooling we may be in for if the skeptic predictions come to fruition.

Psi (15:54:07) :
I donb’t really understand your post above, regarding CO2 lag. CO2 in the past has been a feedback, not a forcing, a response to temperature change. Current CO2 increase in the atmosphere is not a response to temperature change, but is the outcome of anthropogenic activity. It is thus a forcing, not a feedback.

I’m wondering whether this is the start of a push to rebrand and repackage AGW for the masses, ahead of Copenhagen (10 months away now.) Perhaps those in the Met Office sense that hitherto they have been failing to win hearts and minds. If so, we could expect to hear more of this sort of thing in the months ahead. The proposition might be: forget that crazy old-style millennial GW talk, but instead, buy into the new sober, sensible, affordable, recession-friendly GW mitigation strategies we’re proposing. For the long term, you know, something put by for the great-grandchildren.

Simon Evans says:

Amusing as usuial Smokey. You do actually know what ad hominem means, I presume? One might think not from the fact that you accuse others of it whilst so relishing an indulgence in it yourself.

Yeah…And, it is even worse than that. Because when we note the deficiencies in the credentials or reasoning or the clear political connections of some people, what we are essentially saying, “There are a few kooks, deceptive, or misguided people in the world,” which I think is an eminently reasonable proposition.
What Smokey is trying to claim is that the kooks, deceptive, and misguided people have somehow taken over essentially all of the reputable scientific journals, scientific societies, etc., etc. I will leave others to decide how reasonable a proposition that is!

“Is Al gore a scientist?”
Well, he flunked out of divinity school. As such, he is a wannabe cleric. Consequently, he is well qualified to be the chief cleric of AGWism. His fire and brimstone sermons must be believed. Otherwise, you will suffer eternal damnation.

Ron de Haan (16:41:30) :
You’re displaying an attitude which is below all standards.</i
Er no, Ron, I am pointing out hypocrisy – as in when someone accuses another of ad hominem and then launches into extravagant ad hominem themselves. However, I am prepared to accept that as evidence of the ‘standards’ you espouse.

Here is an interesting article from “The New Scientist” regarding the coldest European Winter ever…of 1708/1709. I thought everyone might enjoy the read.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126942.100-1709-the-year-that-europe-froze.html?full=true
The fact that so many people left accounts of the freeze suggests the winter of 1708/1709 was unusually bad, but just how extraordinary was it?
In 2004, Jürg Luterbacher, a climatologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, produced a month-by-month reconstruction of Europe’s climate since 1500, using a combination of direct measurements, proxy indicators of temperature such as tree rings and ice cores, and data gleaned from historical documents (Science, vol 303, p 1499). The winter of 1708-1709 was the coldest. Across large parts of Europe the temperature was as much as 7 °C below the average for 20th-century Europe.
Why it was quite so cold is harder to explain. The Little Ice Age was at its climax and Europe was experiencing climatically turbulent times: the 1690s saw a string of cold summers and failed harvests, while the summer of 1707 was so hot people died from heat exhaustion. Overall, the climate was colder, with the sun’s output at its lowest for millennia. There were some spectacular volcanic eruptions in 1707 and 1708, including Mount Fuji in Japan and Santorini and Vesuvius in Europe. These would have sent dust high into the atmosphere, forming a veil over Europe. Such dust veils normally lead to cooler summers and sometimes warmer winters, but climatologists think that during this persistent cold phase, dust may have depressed both summer and winter temperatures.
None of these things accounts for the extremity of that particular winter, however. “Something unusual seems to have been happening,” says Dennis Wheeler, a climatologist at the University of Sunderland, UK. As part of the European Union’s Millennium Project, which aims to reconstruct the past 1000 years of Europe’s climate, Wheeler is extracting data from Royal Navy logbooks, which provide daily observations of wind and weather. “With daily data you can produce very reliable monthly averages but you can also see what happened from one day to the next,” says Wheeler. He and his colleagues have now compiled a database of daily observations stretching back to 1685 from the English Channel area. “This is a key climatic zone. The weather there reflects wider conditions across the Atlantic, which is where in normal circumstances much European weather originates.”

Not a crack in the wall at all. They’re covering themselves in the “it’s just natural variation” excuse. They were perfectly happy to go along – and participate in – the apocalyptic talk up until now. A few years of no warming has them scurrying for foxholes. They are playing it as even-handed, but that just allows them to deny any significance for especially cold temps, heavy snows, etc, currently occurring. This gives them a few years of cover before they have to own up to the “trend” not being there any more.

Climate of Change: UK Met Office Issues ‘Blistering Attack on Scientific Colleagues’ For ‘Apocalyptic Climate Predictions’
Posted By Marc Morano
Mark Morano, shame on you: you do AGW sceptics a disservice with this alarmist hyperbole!

MarkB (17:26:23) :
Here’s a link for you to consider:
White House, June 8 [2008] – Vice President Gore and NOAA scientists announced today that The 1997/98 El Niño, one of the most significant climatic events of the century, produced extreme weather worldwide.
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/stories/sir3.html
Looks like ‘they’ were recognising the impact of natural variation when the global temperatures soared high as well!

One swallow does not make a summer.
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics

Ron de Haan (19:09:05) :
Simon Evans (17:08:39) :
Ron de Haan (16:41:30) :
You’re displaying an attitude which is below all standards.
Er no, Ron, I am pointing out hypocrisy – as in when someone accuses another of ad hominem and then launches into extravagant ad hominem themselves. However, I am prepared to accept that as evidence of the ’standards’ you espouse.
Simon Evans,
Your pointing out nothing of the kind.
I have only seen clear arguments, answers and references posted up for discussion.
There is no hypocrisy here, only serious attempts for fact finding.
From your answers I conclude you are not only frustrated but also deluded and theatrical.
The latter is simply annoying does not contribute to a balanced discussion.
Do you get the message?
I get the message that you don’t understand what hypocrisy is, Ron.
For illustration, “….that inconvenient fact is studiously ignored by the AGW Elmer Gantrys” is a very clear example of an ad hominem comment.
However, you see only “clear arguments, answers and references posted up for discussion. There is no hypocrisy here, only serious attempts for fact finding.”
Therefore, either you don’t understand what ad hominem means, or you don’t understand what hypocrisy means, or you are not reading the same comments that I am reading.
I am not entirely surprised, since your serious attempts at fact finding have led you to the conclusion that one volcanic eruption is equivalent to 100 years of anthropogenic emisssions.
I wish you well in your fact finding mission.

Ron de Haan (19:09:05) :
And by the way, Ron, consider the following –
“you are not only frustrated but also deluded and theatrical”
Is that ad hominem or is it not? I’d just like to check out whether or not you understand the term. The approach appears to be your ‘default position’.

It is forgotten by some people that Al Gore did not give his self a nobel prize, it was given to him! He does not take money from people, they give it to him (although it does seem that some of the money that is given to him is tax-payers money. That is the price of democracy).

Sorry if I upset your finely tuned sensibilities by using the current synonym for Man’s Evil instead.

Well, the problem is that the story gets more and more untruthful with each telling. It is in fact true that in the 1970s, scientists did not yet agree whether the warming effects of CO2 or the cooling effects of aerosols would dominate. (In fact, some weren’t even sure if the net effect of aerosols would be cooling.) However, to claim that Hansen…or any serious segment of the scientific community…actually thought CO2 would cause cooling is a distortion of the science on top of the gross distortion of Hansen’s connection to the science.
Sorry if I actually like people to have some modicum of scientific and historical accuracy.

Of course he could have been waiting for the proper time by aiding research he didn’t believe in.

Yes, because we have to come up with some contorted logic to continue to believe our myths in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Hansen, by his account, wasn’t even thinking about the issue of climate change on earth at this time. (I think one can verify that he hadn’t published anything on it.) Given that he worked at NASA and was colleagues with those two folks and that he had a piece of code that he had written to do a calculation that they needed done, he let them use it. It would have been highly unusual for him to make their using it contingent on their conclusions…and likely they didn’t even yet know themselves what their conclusions were going to be at the time that they got the code from Hansen.

@ F Rasmin (19:55:32) :
But then the procedure to award someone or a group the Nobel Peace Price differs from the other Nobel prizes. And does not take money from people, those millions that he earned after leaving the white house have come from somewhere.
I am always told “Follow the money and the women when investigating a subject like this”, the women are not intresting enough in this case, the moneytrail however…

Simon Evans (17:43:40) :
MarkB (17:26:23) :
Here’s a link for you to consider:
White House, June 8 [2008] – Vice President Gore and NOAA scientists announced today that The 1997/98 El Niño, one of the most significant climatic events of the century, produced extreme weather worldwide.
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/stories/sir3.html
Looks like ‘they’ were recognising the impact of natural variation when the global temperatures soared high as well!

Simon, please read that full article.
This is unprecedented and is not likely to occur in a stationary climate.

Here is a Washington Times article about the Washington Post article (I liked the single viewer comment at the end by “B472PIC”)-
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/sep/19/inside-the-beltway-69748548/
Here is the Washington Post archive search to purchase the article for your own viewing-
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/144703752.html?dids=144703752:144703752&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&fmac=&date=Jul+9,+1971&author=By+Victor+CohnWashington+Post+Staff+Writer&desc=U.S.+Scientist+Sees+New+Ice+Age+Coming

the guardian has another disgusting story online.
i placed a brief comment (bmann025):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/10/australia-bush-fires?commentpage=3

DAV: “Yes indeed it was Rasool.”
Yes, the research was by Rasool. What made you think it was by Hansen?

Dr Vicky Pope (Met Office): “The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change.”
In other words, it’s not a matter of either/or but both/and. This principle agrees with NOAA’s comments in 1998 about that year’s El Nino: “In other words, the extreme weather and climate conditions related to naturally occurring El Niño events could be exacerbated by an ongoing global warming trend”.
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/stories/sir3.html
So the understanding of the relationship between AGW and natural events has been a consistent feature of the AGW theory, at least as propounded by scientists.
Dr Vicky Pope also offers some germane words to advocates on both sides of the AGW divide:
“The most recent example of this sequence of claim and counter-claim focused on the Greenland ice sheet….with climate change advocates leaping on the acceleration to further their cause and the climate change sceptics now using the slowing down to their own benefit.”
This is a timely reminder of the important difference between short-term variability and long-term trends. Many people understand this difference intellectually, but their understanding can be overwhelmed by the need for a headline (“Tipping Point reached…”) or to satisfy agendas or personal desires.
Pope is advising everybody to be cautious about claims based on short-term variation, and that would include claims about global cooling based on a couple of cold winters and speculation about sunspots and PDOs etc.
I am personally heartened by Pope’s comments, which strike me not only as sensible but also as sound scientific advice. The discourse between AGW supporters and sceptics would benefit by adopting the measured attitudes she espouses.