Mathematician Luboš Motl takes on the new UAH data (source here) and some current thinking about slopes in global climate by adding his own perspective and analysis. Be sure to visit his blog and leave some comments for him – Anthony
UAH: June 2009: anomaly near zero
UAH MSU has officially released their June 2009 data. This time, they’re faster than RSS MSU. The anomaly was +0.001 °C, meaning that the global temperature was essentially equal to the average June temperature since 1979. June 2009 actually belonged to the cooler half of the Junes since 1979.
Global warming is supposed to exist and to be bad. Sometimes, we hear that global warming causes cooling. In this case, global warming causes global averageness. In all three cases, it is bad news. The three main enemies of environmentalism are warm weather, cool weather, and average weather.
It is not a coincidence that these enemies are very similar to the four main enemies of communism. The four main enemies that were spoiling the success of communism were Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter. 🙂 See Anthony Watts’ blog for additional discussion.
Bonus: trends over different intervals
You may have been intrigued by my comment that the cooling trend during the last 8.5 years is -1.45 °C. What is the result if you choose the last “N” months and perform the linear regression?
You may see that the cooling trends are dominating for most intervals shorter than 110 months; the trend in the last 50 months is around -6 °C per century. Only when the period gets longer than 150 months i.e. 12.5 years (but less than 31 years), the trend becomes uniformly positive, around 1.2 °C per century for the intervals whose length is close to 30 years.
Note that those 12.5 years – where you still get a vanishing trend – is from January 1997 to June 2009. If you consider the UAH mid troposphere data instead (relevant for the part of the atmosphere where the greenhouse warming should be most pronounced, according to both proper atmospheric science and the IPCC report, page 675), all the trends are shifted downwards:
You need to consider time periods longer than 180 months i.e. 15 years (at least from Summer 1994) – but shorter than 31 years – to see a uniformly positive warming trend. And the trend that you can calculate from those 30+ years is just 0.4 °C per century and chances are that this 30+-year trend will actually drop below zero again, in a few years. At any rate, the blue graph makes it clear that in the right context, the longer-term warming trend converges to zero at a very good accuracy.
According to the IPCC, the surface warming trend should be around 3 °C per century which should translate to a 4-5 °C warming per century in the mid troposphere where the greenhouse effect has the strongest muscles. You see that according to the last 30 years of the data, the IPCC overestimates the warming trend by one order of magnitude!
Because the mid troposphere is the dominant locus of the greenhouse “fingerprint”, this is the most appropriate method to check the validity of the IPCC predictions. Their order-of-magnitude error is equivalent to the mistake of a biologist who confuses squirrels and elephants.
To be more specific about a detail, half of the Earth’s surface is between 30°S and 30°N – because, as Sheldon Cooper said in TBBT, sine of 30 degrees is exactly 1/2. But the mid-troposphere warming (8 km above the surface) is faster than the surface at least between 40°S and 40°N, i.e. on the majority of the surface, so it is likely that even when you take the global averages of both quantities, the mid-troposphere should see a faster warming than the surface.
Someone may argue that those 30 years represent too short an interval and the trend will be higher in 100 years. But such a reasoning is a wishful thinking. Moreover, periods longer than 30 years don’t really belong to the present generation. In 30 years, most of the population of the Earth won’t remember the year 2009 – and they shouldn’t be affected by stupid fads of those mostly dumb people from 2009.
“”” David (14:30:01) :
Unbelievable denialism here. Those of you who are actually still considering the issue, rather than wedded to one side of it than the other, please consider the following paragraph from the Hadley Climate Research Unit for a moment before resuming this counter-constructive online banter: “”””
Should take a dose of your own advice David.
For a start, there isn’t any reliable global temperature data dating back before the deployment of the Argo Oceanic Bouys, that established in 2001, that oceanic water temperatures, and air temperatures are not correlated (why on earth would anyone expect them to be). That means the believable climate data era begins about 1980, around the same time that polar orbit satellites were launched.
Secondly, the Data reported by the Hadley Climate Research Unit; comprises only the data gathered by the Hadley Climate Research Unit; much as the GISStemp reports only the data gathered by the GISStemp network of sensors.
Neither one of those data gathering networks complies with the Nyquist Sampling Theorem on Sampled Data Systems; either in spatial sampling or in temporal sampling, and in both cases the violation is by factors large enough to corrupt even the zero frequency value of the recovered function, which is the average being sought. So garbage in; garbage out !
Thirdly, it is widely acknowledged that since the IGY in 1957/58, and more recently in the post cooling frenzy of the mid 1970s, there was a very brief period of warming lasting til about the mid 1990s save for that anomalous 1998 El Nino; that was so short lived; but ever since and certainly since 2000, the trend has gone cooler, and decidedly so in the late 2000s, so the data shows we have definitely gone theorugh a climate temperature peak; which is now behind us.
Mathematicians have a habit of placing all of the higher values of any function in the vicinity of a peak; and conversely, by convention, we place the lower values ina region around the minimum; it sort of works out more fairly that way.
So you are merely stating the obvious in pointing out that 2008 was one of the warmest recent years; somewhat akin to saying that the higher elevations on earth can generally be found up in the mountains; we like it that way.
But the causal CO2 of course has not ceased its inexorable climb; nor even paused.
But we have gone from cold scare to cold scare in a mere 30 years; passing through a hot scare on the way.
Don’t you think you are just over dramatising things a bit much ?
By the way, in that radio interview from last week, Howie points out that Dr Lindzen is wearing a down vest, in July. I know, it is weather. The lake here is almost 10 degrees below normal, and the longest days are over, so I wonder when it is going to freeze this year? The past year the bays froze very early, around Thanksgiving, the same time the ground froze,and the cold was incredible this past winter, I will be curious what happens this year.
The 30 year period is consistent with the Akasofu Wave Theory with oscillations of approximately 30 years since about 1880.
If, as some scientific theories assume, the world is billions of years old, a 30-year baseline is preposterous. Why is ‘normal’ not calculated on the basis of all known accurate records? The longest time span I’ve heard for such records is about 150 years. So if climate norms are based on the longest, best set of data, what does the trend show?
Bob K. (15:37:19) : said:
“Anthony,
too many zeros in “The anomaly was +0.001…” ? The original article shows only +0.01…”
Bob, these two numbers are from different files on the UAH website. They are both global lower troposphere temperature anomalies for June 2009.
I asked:
“On the UAH website the file
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/tltglhmam_5.2
shows the June global temperature anomaly at 0.001, but the file http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc
shows the June global temperature anomaly at 0.01.
Could you please explain why these files show different values?”
John Christy, Director, Earth System Science Center, UAH responded:
“The uahncdc.XX files are produced from gridded maps which interpolate farther into the polar regions (to 86.25) where as tXXglhmam_5.X are produced from programs that deal only in zonal anomalies (higher signal to noise) and go only to 83.75. Also, the grid-based datasets have some screening for high elevation which are then interpolated, but the zonals do not have this done (i.e. high elevations included). Also too, uahncdc.XX files are rounded to 0.01 and the zonals are rounded to 0.001. The differences between the two are well below any significance values and can be used interchangeably.”
Just to note, the National Weather Service, for all their faults, uses a 30 year rolling average to calculate average temperatures at any given location. We are still in the 1971-2000 30 year period. In 2 years we will jump to 1981-2010. Average temps around the country change when the rolling average is changed. This makes it hard to compare temperature differntials, needless to say.
a few great temperature links:
review of all 4 main temps
http://www.climate4you.com/GlobalTemperatures.htm#Recent%20global%20satellite%20temperature
the measurement of global temperatures – National Climate Data Center
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/GW_Part2_GlobalTempMeasure.htm
WoodForTrees -flat from 1997. go play.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
Historical Climatology Network – Check out where you live. but these use suspect surface data
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/epubs/ndp/ushcn/usa_monthly.html#map
The second link should be
http://www.nsstc.uah.edu/public/msu/t2lt/uahncdc.lt
@David (14:30:01) :
Though satellite data does not fully support your list from the Hadley Center, who still refuses to make their algorithms public, a temperature increase has taken place since the little ice age.
The millenium record stuff, however, is a wild guess and unsupported by science andin pure contradiction to various historical reports, especially higher historic sea-levels and smaller glaciers.
For an introduction to this topic, I would recommend you to read this http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2322 and this http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=4866 .
After that, how can you justify towards your grandchildren, that you helped in wasting their resources, prosperity on the basis of bad science ?
Re: Gerry (15:17:25) :
Dear Gerry, David and of course Anthony 🙂
While some posts in this thread seems to refute Davids statements about recent temperature measurements quite well, it should also be mentioned that his statement about the recent proxies is also not correct!
Steve McIntyre (&Ross MK.) and the Jeffs did a lot of work showing that the used math for some of the famous proxy studies is flawed while C. Loehle holds a peer reviewed publication showing the possibility of a warmer global middle age period than nowadays with up-to-date proxies.
All the best,
LoN
This is july? Where is the heat.
http://www.iceagenow.com/Where_is_the_heat_Record_low_temps_in_Kentucky.htm
I wanted to compare several linear trend lines to a centered moving average based on the UAH data thru June 2009. The chart is available as a pdf file using this SendYourFiles link:
http://syfsr.com/?e=2C0FBDC0-8A7F-4071-AC6A-486C2DA2E273
It has:
UAH data
37-month Triple Centered Moving Average (Hybrid)
Linear regression from May 1998 until December 2007
Linear regression from January 2002 until June 2009 (the chart has a typo)
Linear regression from June 1999 until June 2009
Linear regression from January 2000 until June 2009
For full disclosure, the centered average is a 37-month triple centered average i.e. a centered average of a centered average of a centered average. I refer to this as a “hybrid” for want of another term. Normally a centered average stops as soon as the leading or trailing data stops. This one uses the data points that are available and keeps going to both ends. The last point on the right is an 18-month trailing average because there is no leading data. The first point on the left is an 18-month leading average because there is no trailing data.
The nice thing about linear regressions is that we can get whatever we want. We can “prove” that it’s warming, cooling, or staying the same. A centered moving average isn’t as versatile. 🙂
Bruce Richardson
Houston, TX
Regarding the statement from Hadley Center. According to their data, it has been cooling since around 2004. But even with that cooling, we are still at the warm end of a long-term warming trend. It isn’t a surprise that it is warmer now then it was when it was cooler. The last time I checked their site, they did not mention the approximately 5-year cooling trend that their own data is showing. Do they really consider that to be irrelevant?
Bruce Richardson
Houston, TX
Adam from Kansas (16:30:36) :
You must be pulling my leg Ron de Haan, I do not doubt what that honest person says about what cooling is in store weather-wise, but please tell me it won’t mean an early freeze here in Wichita despite some sunflowers at my transition school blooming, the reason is we have a tomato and cucumber plant growing in two upside-down planters and I hope my parents and others can enjoy a bumper crop of them before the first freeze kills them, we’re just about to get a big wave of little tomatoes and cucumbers in addition to the 5 already seen, so it’d be nice if the first freeze waited until…………oh should I say the average date somewhere in October so we have time to actually pick a bunch.
Adam,
I really hope you will have bumper crops and sufficient time to harvest them.
I am not pulling your leg, these are serious observations by serious people.
If you are interested to read all the postings: http://www.seablogger.com/?p=15659
I wish you and your family all the best.
David (14:30:01) :
“Unbelievable denialism here. Those of you who are actually still considering the issue, rather than wedded to one side of it than the other, please consider the following paragraph from the Hadley Climate Research Unit for a moment before resuming this counter-constructive online banter:
The time series shows the combined global land and marine surface temperature record from 1850 to 2008. The year 2008 was tenth warmest on record, …..”
David, I find it interesting that the time period selected is 1850 to 2008. Do you think that going back to 1850, when it was mighty cold, might distort the story? This selection tells me that they are intentionally distorting the picture with this selection? Surprisingly you missed one of the messages of this blogg; namely how the arbitrary nature of how one picks the timeframe to sell their story. Why 1850-2008? For those who don’t know better, it fools them into believing global warming is a crisis.
If you want to live in a climate of the 1850’s I suggest you move North possibly to iceland, I don’t want colder temperatures.
Finally I find it insulting to suggest that deniers are selfish and not thinking of their grandchildren. Quite the opposite, I am concerned that the current cap and trade fad will ruin the economy for our grandchildren and cause a significant deterioration of their lifestyle.
For what it is worth, Los Angeles has had below average temperatures since May 22, 2009, a streak of 47 days and counting.
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/lox/scripts/getprodplus.php?wfo=lox&prod=laxpnslox
It’s been quite cool for June in So Cal, nice for those of us without AC but I hear the farmers in Canada seem to be losing summer crops due to the cold.
http://www.cwb.ca/public/en/newsroom/releases/2009/061109.jsp
Doug
David:
Here’s a link to a 52-page paper, “The Recovery from the Little Ice Age”:
http://people.iarc.uaf.edu/~sakasofu/pdf/recovery_little_ice_age.pdf
Here is its Abstract:
“Two natural components of the presently progressing climate change are identified.
The first one is an almost linear global temperature increase of about 0.5°C/100 years (~1°F/100 years), which seems to have started at least one hundred years before 1946 when manmade CO2 in the atmosphere began to increase rapidly. This value of 0.5°C/100 years may be compared with what the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientists consider to be the manmade greenhouse effect of 0.6°C/100 years. This 100-year long linear warming trend is likely to be a natural change. One possible cause of this linear increase may be Earth’s continuing recovery from the Little Ice Age (1400-1800). This trend (0.5°C/100 years) should be subtracted from the temperature data during the last 100 years when estimating the manmade contribution to the present global warming trend. As a result, there is a possibility that only a small fraction of the present warming trend is attributable to the greenhouse effect resulting from human activities. Note that both glaciers in many places in the world and sea ice in the Arctic Ocean that had developed during the Little Ice Age began to recede after 1800 and are still receding; their recession is thus not a recent phenomenon.
The second one is the multi-decadal oscillation, which is superposed on the linear change. One of them is the “multi-decadal oscillation,” which is a natural change. This particular change has a positive rate of change of about 0.15°C/10 years from about 1975, and is thought to be a sure sign of the greenhouse effect by the IPCC. But, this positive trend stopped after 2000 and now has a negative slope. As a result, the global warming trend stopped in about 2000-2001.
Therefore, it appears that the two natural changes have a greater effect on temperature changes than the greenhouse effects of CO2. These facts are contrary to the IPCC Report (2007, p.10), which states that “most” of the present warming is due “very likely” to be the manmade greenhouse effect. They predict that the warming trend continues after 2000. Contrary to their prediction, the warming halted after 2000.
There is an urgent need to correctly identify natural changes and remove them from the present global warming/cooling trend, in order to accurately identify the contribution of the manmade greenhouse effect. Only then can the contribution of CO2 be studied quantitatively.”
Luboš Motls’ math underscores a well understood concept in wave theory. How and when you measure a wave is of critical importance. If you measure from any point in the cycle to the same point in the next cycle, the positive component of the cycle will be equal to the negative resulting in a net value of zero.
If, however, you measure only a partial cycle, say 3/4 of the cycle, you can arrive at a net value that is greater or less than zero, depending on what point on the wave form you begin your measurement. If your measurement begins at 1/4 wavelength past the peak of the waveform – at the point of zero crossing on the negative slope – the overall value derived will be positive by a value = 25% of the amplitude.
When an AGW alarmists says 30 years of satellite measurements is sufficient to prove global warming it is a weak argument. One must ask how do you know you aren’t just measuring a net positive component of a cycle that is greater than 30 years?
it seems to me that to pick 30 years as a measuring stick based solely on the availability of satellite data is so arbitrary in the bigger picture of climate cycles that it yields worthless conclusions if you don’t know at what point of a cycle the measurement begins and nailed down a complete Fourier analysis of the phases, amplitude, and the constructive and destructive relationships of other cyclical components of climate. To my understanding, climatology isn’t there yet.
The AGW argument strongly rests on a specific length of measurement with a specific beginning point. Start changing the measurement properties and the case for AGW turns cold. That is why the warmists cry “cherry picking” any time you slide the measuring stick – you’re moving it out of that sweet “hot spot.”
Lubos wrote: “Global mean temperature according to UAH MSU for the first 8.5 years i.e. 102 months of this century. Linear regression gives a cooling trend by a hefty -1.45 °C per century in this interval. So if someone tells you that the trend is “of course” positive as long as we omit the year 1998, you may be very certain that he or she is not telling you the truth.”
Come on Lubos, we are skeptics alright, but we shouldn’t resort to the deceptive tactics of the AGW crowd. To cherry-pick 8.5 years to show a negative trend is also spurious. Add another 1.5 years and the trend is positive again. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1999/plot/uah/from:1999/trend
Even a starting date on the other side of 1998, for instance 1996 so including 1998, you get a positive trend: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1996/plot/uah/from:1996/trend
Lubos, this work is really usefull.
I can only recommend everyone to read and understand this.
The major warming should happen in the mid troposphere.
There has been no such warming for 15 years!!!
And the warming back from 1979 is only 0,4K/century.
Applause, and I understand why Anthony uses this!
rogerkni (00:47:56)
Here’s an overlay of Akasofu’s plot with the GISTEMP data:
http://i44.tinypic.com/33pf41z.png
As you are citing Akasofu, could you please explain to me how his smoothing algorithm (he is smoothing the gray 5-year mean line of GISTEMP, not the annual data) resulted in a major deviation from the data in the period 1905 to 1935 and shifts in the maximum of the peaks at 1900 and 1945? Or how he interpolated the beginning and the end, where the GISTEMP 5-year mean has no data at all? Can you name a reasonable smoothing algorithm that will reproduce Akasofu’s smooth? Free hint: it’s not a running mean.
Oh, and please note, how his plot relies on the above distortions to give the impression of oscillations superimposed on a linear trend.
Hank Hancock (01:14:47) : The AGW argument strongly rests on a specific length of measurement with a specific beginning point. Start changing the measurement properties and the case for AGW turns cold. That is why the warmists cry “cherry picking” any time you slide the measuring stick – you’re moving it out of that sweet “hot spot.”
Can anyone contradict this point, or is it simply true? Going from one question of definitions or starting points, to another, the strong precautionary principle is often invoked to claim that it is a moral duty to “do no harm” to the environment, and specifically it puts the onus on the polluter to prove that the substance is actually safe. Funny then, that when people try to demonstrate that CO2 is fairly safe (even necessary for plants), they are accused of denialism.
Environmentalists who follow the strong PP create the role of denialist, because environmentalists don’t hold themselves to a high standard of proof–remember, they don’t need to prove the treat is real, only suggest there is a threat–so someone else has the burden of proving the treat is unlikely.
The question is, where do you set the threshold between a threat we must play safe about, and a threat that is too weak to be actionable? It seems we are back to basic questions–does 30 years even make sense for climate?–do we have any idea how to distinguish a weak threat from a severe threat? (particularly with the environment).
For example, a killer plague is always a threat. Containment might be the only way to handle it. And yet we allow rapid global air travel. PP says we shut down business and holiday air travel. No?
@ur momisugly David (14:30:01) :
“Unbelievable denialism here.”
I think a better word would be ‘scepticism’. I’m a sceptic and I’m proud of it. It means that I don’t accept something to be true simply because it comes from authority, and that I try to ask awkward questions. If a theory is sound then it should be able to answer awkward questions, and therefore honest scientists should have no fear of scepticism. In fact scepticism is – or should be – the very foundation of science. Galileo was one of the great sceptics, and there are many, many more such as Einstein and Wegener. Oh, yes, and Buzz Aldrin!
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If some people believe that most of the warming is caused by CO2 and that we’re doomed unless we slash our emissions, I can respect that belief – provided, of course, that their data and arguments are sound and honest. Unfortunately, much of the ‘science’ that underpins the strong AGW theory is so bad that it verges on willful deception.
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You present a statement from Hadley as if it were some profound revelation that will have all the sceptics instantly recanting their beliefs. Maybe you’re a newcomer to WUWT (and Climate Audit) but if not you will be aware of the enormous amount of discussion that goes on about the claims emanating from Hadley and all the other pro-AGW organisations. This is precisely what the debate is about, so to give that quote as if it might be news to us is a little odd. It’s also relying on authority, which can be very dangerous.
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The Hadley statement effectively refers to the Hockey Stick, which claims that the 20th century warming is ‘unprecedented’. You must be aware that McIntyre and McKitrick published a devastating criticism of the original Mann paper (MBH98). Among other things they were able to demonstrate that Mann’s algorithm would generate hockey sticks even if you fed in red noise. Others have reproduced this claim and, as far as I’m aware, no one has been able to disprove it. If the claim stands then MBH98 is dead in the water and, worse, is close to scientific fraud.
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Apart from bad science, MBH98 (and all the other copies of the Hockey Stick) is contradicted by a huge amount of ice core and proxy data and, perhaps just as important, by history itself. MBH98 is a particularly bad example, but sadly much of climate science has been corrupted by money and politics, and the behaviour of some prominent climate scientists reflects this. For example, they often fail to make public their data and methods, as required by the rules of virtually all scientific organisations, and people have been forced to use freedom of information laws to try to obtain this information. This isn’t how science is supposed to operate in the 21st century. Maybe these scientists are simply lazy or incompetent. But at the very least it gives grounds for suspicion that they have something to hide.
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“We should all remember having read that, when we consider how we will justify our inaction to our grandchildren.”
The Hadley statement is so bogus that I doubt if it’s of any significance to anyone. But you were making a more profound statement. If we really are doomed by our emissions then, yes, we should take action. But that action will be unimaginably expensive and will actually make our grandchildren significantly poorer, and will be the cause of increased poverty in other parts of the world. If dangerous climate change does eventually happen (it certainly hasn’t yet) then we will have robbed them of the resources that could have helped them protect themselves against the climate change.
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But if climate change is primarily natural, as the evidence increasingly indicates, then the warming will come to an end and we will enter an era of global cooling. We will then see politicians around the world throwing away trillions of dollars trying to make the world cooler when the world is actually becoming – umm, cooler. I hope you agree that this, possibly hypothetical situation, would be about as barking mad as it’s possible to imagine.
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Very often it’s not floods or droughts or starvation that kill enormous numbers of people. It’s poverty that kills. The best thing we can do for our grandchildren is to drive up prosperity while protecting the environment in a sensible way. Through foreign aid and investment, prosperity in developed countries will – or certainly should – translate to increased prosperity in less developed regions such as Africa. The tragedy is that this obsession with CO2 may lead to a distinct fall in global prosperity. Yes, climate change may already be killing hundreds of thousands. But it’s not the climate itself that is causing the damage. It’s the almost demented belief in man-made and destructive climate change that is causing the damage. This belief has caused the US to switch a third of its grain production to bio fuels. It caused a big spike in food prices which probably led to death from starvation. I regard this as obscene, almost as if filling up a gas tank is more important than filling stomachs. But this is an almost inevitable result of the AGW delusion, and things will get much worse if it continues unchecked. Of course, AGW is built on delusions within delusions. For example, there is good reason to believe that over the next few decades, a switch to biofuels will actually increase CO2 emissions, as a major cause of emissions is land use change.
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Probably like many others here, I feel we have been very fortunate to have lived during a warming period. History repeatedly shows that mankind prospers when the world gets warmer. It’s when the world gets colder that people starve and civilisations fail. With this in mind, and after trying to understand the arguments on both sides, I have come to the conclusion that, probably due to the effects of dominant negative feedback mechanisms, carbon dioxide has a negligible effect on the global temperature, both in the 20th century and in the entire history of the earth. With this in mind, the present policies of politicians around the world can only be described as barking mad. Hopefully we are at the high tide of strong AGW, and that good sense will eventually prevail. But there is one promising sign apart from science itself: opinion polls in the UK and US show that a healthy majority of people believe that the warming is natural, and there is also a strong trend of increasing scepticism.
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With this in mind, I would say that the denialism here – or rather, scepticism – is totally believable. Because, among people who live in the real world, we are in the majority.
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If you want to engage in reasoned debate here then I’m sure you’d be most welcome. But quoting Hadley like that wasn’t a good start, as you were simply relying on authority. For sceptics that’s a bit like showing a red rag to a bull. But if you quoted actual scientific research it would be another story. According to New Scientist there is ‘overwhelming’ proof of strong AGW, but strangely they resist the temptation of telling us what it actually is. If you know what this ‘overwhelming’ proof is I’m sure we’d like to hear!
Chris
Sorry for all the typos… “treat” should be “threat”.
“If you eliminate 1998, the trend (in temperatures) is clearly upward.”
If you eliminate 1927, Babe Ruth would have hit 654 homers, rather than 714. Don’t even get me going on the subject of A-Rod.