Guest Post by Steven Goddard
It appears that global cooling recognition may be starting to make headway in the scientific community. We have this Discovery/MSNBC article about a NOAA scientist titled “Warming might be on hold, study finds”
“It is possible that a fraction of the most recent rapid warming since the 1970’s was due to a free variation in climate,” Isaac Held of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, New Jersey wrote in an email to Discovery News. “Suggesting that the warming might possibly slow down or even stagnate for a few years before rapid warming commences again.”
And Swanson thinks the trend could continue for up to 30 years.
Here’s the complete story from The Discovery Channel via MSNBC:
For those who have endured this winter’s frigid temperatures and today’s heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global warming may seem, well, almost wishful.But climate is known to be variable – a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn’t mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.
Earth’s climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.
“This is nothing like anything we’ve seen since 1950,” Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. “Cooling events since then had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current cooling doesn’t have one.”
Instead, Swanson and colleague Anastasios Tsonis think a series of climate processes have aligned, conspiring to chill the climate. In 1997 and 1998, the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed rapidly in what Swanson called a “super El Nino event.” It sent a shock wave through the oceans and atmosphere, jarring their circulation patterns into unison.
How does this square with temperature records from 2005-2007, by some measurements among the warmest years on record? When added up with the other four years since 2001, Swanson said the overall trend is flat, even though temperatures should have gone up by 0.2 degrees Centigrade (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) during that time.
The discrepancy gets to the heart of one of the toughest problems in climate science – identifying the difference between natural variability (like the occasional March snow storm) from human-induced change.
But just what’s causing the cooling is a mystery. Sinking water currents in the north Atlantic Ocean could be sucking heat down into the depths. Or an overabundance of tropical clouds may be reflecting more of the sun’s energy than usual back out into space.
“It is possible that a fraction of the most recent rapid warming since the 1970’s was due to a free variation in climate,” Isaac Held of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, New Jersey wrote in an email to Discovery News. “Suggesting that the warming might possibly slow down or even stagnate for a few years before rapid warming commences again.”
Swanson thinks the trend could continue for up to 30 years. But he warned that it’s just a hiccup, and that humans’ penchant for spewing greenhouse gases will certainly come back to haunt us.
“When the climate kicks back out of this state, we’ll have explosive warming,” Swanson said. “Thirty years of greenhouse gas radiative forcing will still be there and then bang, the warming will return and be very aggressive.”
© 2009 Discovery Channel
That is strange. We hear from highly respected authorities that we were in a period of “unprecedented warming.” How can it be both warming and cooling at the same time? Maybe those DC protesters didn’t need to stand out in the cold and try to shut down their primary source of energy today.
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lrg.gif
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tarpon (12:18:08) :
In the end, the sun will win.
Indeed it will. In some 5 billions years it will fry the Earth to a crisp.
Humans have understood for thousands of years that the only way to get the climate you want is through monetary and/or human sacrifice. The US and UK governments have both bought off on this time-honored tradition, though on a scale which Aztec priests never could have dreamed of.
Aron (09:05:47) :
Anthony Watt is currently being insulted by alarmists at the bottom of George Monbiot’s current column. They’re not able to provide any sound science though, just insults
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/mar/03/climate-change-poles
Insults are a badge of honour.
“Jarring their circulation patterns into unison”.
Isn’t it an oxymoron to “jar something into unison”?
I would use such an expression when I think I have an answer, but I really need to get some testing done and figure out a few problems that disagree with my theory.
Amusing, and such an obvious concesion.
geo (09:08:34) :
…
Yes, try to hide that with the big scary finish.
No scary finish = no air time.
The Media are not a charity, nor are they a foundation dedicated to revealing the truth – they are a business that have to make a profit (or if Government Owned – please their political masters).
Hence – if a story cannot capture and hold attention it will not be given any time or space.
Stories that are repetitive can easily become boring – there is a very real chance that people will begin to switch off.
The early power of the AGW Alarmist stories was that there was actual warming to which they were aligned – so they seem credible, serious and frightening. Now with the pervasive cold weather, the credibility is falling away and with it the attractive power of the fear. I.e. no one can be frightened by a non-credible threat.
The biggest threat to the AGW movement is the loss of credibility for their alarmist stories from pervasive cold.
The other thing is that pushing a threat to 30 years into the future virtually guarantees that no one will want to spend a single dollar on doing anything about it. The time frame is too long to care about and the distant threat is too nebulous.
Put that loss of credibility together with fewer jobs, and higher prices, and watch the electoral slaughter in 2 to 4 years time.
Jon (10:09:15) :
Central England Months February 1900-2009
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/CentralEng1900-2009.jpg
Central England Months February 1979-2009.
Ignore the trend line. 1979 is only used as the start date for cross reference with satellite data.
http://i599.photobucket.com/albums/tt74/MartinGAtkins/CentralEngFeb1979.jpg
Leif Svalgaard (12:27:38) :
Indeed it will. In some 5 billions years it will fry the Earth to a crisp.
Solar energy is not sustainable;
Leif Svalgaard (12:27:38) :
In the end, the sun will win.
Damn that CO2 is mighty powerful stuff.
Gene L (10:06:20) :
The Discovery article (also picked up by MSNBC and others) has an interesting comment: “But just what’s causing the cooling is a mystery. Sinking water currents in the north Atlantic Ocean could be sucking heat down into the depths”. I’m confused! What I don’t understand is how if the water that’s sinking is (possibly) taking heat with it, it must be warmer, and I thought that warm water RISES. Perhaps you can explain what I’m missing?
Not missing a thing. The only way warm water is going to sink is if hotter water is moving in on top of it. That won’t cause any cooling.
.
Aron (10:29:36) :
Leif Svalgaard (12:27:38) :
tarpon (12:18:08) :
In the end, the sun will win.”
Indeed it will. In some 5 billions years it will fry the Earth to a crisp.
Surely not another computer model prediction? Or are we relying on mere anecdotal evidence? 🙂
From the BBC article linked by Jon (10:09:15):-
“The Met Office added that global warming had prevented this winter from being even colder.”
I suppose we should have guessed that one was coming.
“conspiring to chill the climate”
I KNEW there had to be a conspiracy in there somewhere! lol : p
Mike McMillan (14:08:57) :
The great thing with stars is we can observe them, i believe whats being refferred to is when the sun swells after its lost enough mass through fusion, reducing its gravity. It will eventually swallow the earth.
My older brother does a bit o computer modeling, his phd is actually computer biology, he’s a physicist really… but something he told me about the climate models is that theyre all based on assumption, And if they can’t accurately reproduce the observations, it shows that the quantification’s used are either wrong, or they have completely missed factors… But probably both, … And this article shows this is slowly dawning on them… chaotic systems are nevr going to be explained so simply as the AGWers would like.
Mike,
I see no evidence for the Sphinx being older than its classical age. It isn’t carved out of the bedrock for one. All the rock it is built from was purposely carved for it.
The only pharaoh to have given it a bit of a brush up many generations after it was built was Tuthmosis IV who placed a stele at its feet.
The rain erosion we see has to date from after 4500 BCE, not before.
Speaking of Government regulations to control Global Climate Change (err…global warming??)…
California just adopted a regulation as allowed under the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32) that prohibits the emissions of certain fluorinated compounds, including sulfur hexafluoride. These chemicals are stated as having thousands of times the potency of CO2.
http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/nr022609.htm
MartinGAtkins (11:34:10) :
I’m not sure I draw the same conclusion from the data you presented…maybe I misread it?
That chart at the end of the post does seem to be going up rather than down.
John Galt (10:23:34) : “We will spend the next several years being bombarded by new studies which ‘prove’ that while natural factors are ‘temporarily’ ‘masking’ AGW, it will come back with a vengeance in 20 – 30 years.”
Yes, ‘masking’ seems to be the buzzword. But masking heat during a cooling cycle is like trying to hide a candle in an ice bucket. The idea is utter nonsense.
Mr Lynn (07:29:29) : “Unfortunately, to get such a unanimous and official declaration of surrender by the combined academic and political elites who are intent on using the AGW doctrine for ideological ends (and to gain control of the world’s economy) will take a counter-movement. And for that we need leadership. Where will that come from?
We live in the Internet Age. The rules have changed. We can lead this movement ourselves, given a suitable website. I am hoping Anthony may be prepared to use his website for this purpose.
Anthony – I can’t find an email address for you, to contact you directly, so if you are interested please can you email me (email address given when submitting comment) to discuss the form this pro-active challenge can take. Alternatively, reply here of course.
As I posted today in another WUWT page (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/03/pielke-jrs-take-on-an-amazing-conversation-with-a-climate-scientist/#more-6002), I have prepared a draft scientific challenge to AGW which you can read at http://www.richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=72103&st=7&start=50#p1775962.
The challenge is direct and simple, as befits the internet, but I believe it draws on the basic principles of science – which regrettably often seem to get ignored.
On a post somewhere, now lost in my memory, someone suggested that the solar wind adds energy to the Earth’s atmosphere. Indeed, it does. Just taking into account protons, it adds [1] 57.5 x 10**8 Watts. The regular sun light (TSI) adds 1.36 x 10**17 Watts.[2][3]
Now, I personally think that a small increment of insolar energy has a BIG impact, over decades; but, hey, who am I?
Note [1]: Assuming 100 km/S solar wind speed, 10 MeV proton energy and 1 proton/cm**3. These numbers scale; just read spaceweather.com for the latest numbers.
Note [2] Back of envelope calculation.
Note [3]. This assumes equatorial conditions throughout the Earth disc. (Hey, I did say “back of envelope”).
And here lies the problem, the idea that X or Y or Z is causing . The idea that modelling based on a single variable could even begin to describe our planet will, I’m sure, provide future school children with much entertainment. My view is that we have not even scratched the surface of “climate modelling”. It’s CO2, the Sun, the Oceans – rational thought might suggest, should we ever arrive at some unifying mathematical theory, a combination of these and many other (as yet un-considered) variables. After all, if current models of (moderately) complex systems were in any way accurate there would be no Stock Market.
Yes, it’s almost as though your “peasants” are demanding that you introduce new taxes, a wet dream for some, self flagellation for others, for the restof us – there’s always MasterCard.
Not sure either of you are right. Isn’t there a theory that the Milky Way is set to collide with Andromeda in about 2.5 billion years. Not an Astrophysicist but, if true, could I be the first to say … eat that one sinners.
Proof positive that he must be doing something right. Keep up the good work Anthony.
…see no evidence for the Sphinx being older than its classical age.
This is perhaps the first time that a reference to the Sphynx has occurred during a global warming thread – and with no violation of Godwin’s Law!
Amazing; just Amazing 🙂
Aron (14:50:32) : “I see no evidence for the Sphinx being older than its classical age. It isn’t carved out of the bedrock for one. All the rock it is built from was purposely carved for it.”
I saw a show once that theorized that the Sphinx was a natural formation that was shaped by the wind and then augmented by the Egyptian stone carvers. The show had films of a fairly good sampling of similar formations elsewhere. This could explain why the head is a bit out of scale–they worked with what they had.
Counter point: Someone seems to think I don’t know anything about ice ages. I speak of the interglacial period. Not the 10,000 year orbital cycle that brings about lotsa ice, and that I am well aware of. And I believe I referred to the interglacial period of time we are in, the one that reflects temperature variation sources other than Earth’s wobble, in my earlier post. Should I have used simpler language? In between ice ages.
Counter point: Someone seems to think I am a believer in CO2 global warming. I don’t think CO2 can overcome natural variation that is sourced from a cyclic yet also chaotic atmospheric/oceanic system that interacts with the Earth’s spin.
Counter point: Someone seems to think that the belief that the Sun will blow up and fry Earth is based on a model prediction. I don’t even want to address that one. It was recommended to me that I study what is known about the Sun, and other such fiery globes, some of which we have seen go supernova (yes, really). So I did. In turn, I recommend it to those who question whether or not the Sun will eventually blow. It will also help improve your understanding of how the Sun works (lots is known – I didn’t realize how much), as well as what is not well known yet.
Here is the thing: If direct measurements of the Sun, without Earth’s atmosphere clouding the data, demonstrates not much difference in what the Sun puts out, AND demonstrates little correlation to Earth’s MANY interglacial period temperatures (not talking about Earth’s well known 10,000 year wobble), you have to look at other things that show far greater correlation and that are big and strong enough to cause true weather pattern trended changes beyond Weather Channel’s two day forecast. In a too-worn phrase, “It’s the Earth stupid”. But NOT itty bitty things, like CO2. The source has to be bigger to create such a trended variation (and isn’t it nice that it varies so that we can choose were we want to vacation). Think big.
What is the biggest thing that sits (or to be more accurate, “moves”) on Earth’s top crust? If you were to say atmosphere, such as the jet stream, or surface winds and fronts, you would be heading in the right direction. If you were to say ocean (as opposed to water droplets or water vapor in the atmosphere), you would be heading in the right direction. Could it be both? Good example of Socratic questioning.
Jeff Alberts (09:23:23) : “No one can say with certainty that “it’s the sun” or “it’s not the sun”, or “It’s ocean cycles” or “It’s not ocean cycles”. It’s all these things and none of them. I seriously doubt we’ll ever know for sure how this system works. We sure as hell don’t know right now. ”
That’s why we must base a counter-attack not on what is causing it, but on what is not causing it. See my previous post.