The BBC posted a surprising story this past weekend that has skeptics cheering and alarmists hopping mad.
Here’s the opener:
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
The headline?
What happened to global warming?
By Paul Hudson
Climate correspondent, BBC News
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue that man’s influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw it coming.
They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the evidence for this?
During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.
Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth’s warmth comes from the Sun.
But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.
The scientists’ main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.
And the results were clear. “Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity,” said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees.
He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.
He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month.
If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.
Read the complete story here at the BBC
It’s a big turnaround for the BBC.
Gives one hope that the MSM may be considering actually opening the debate on the root causes of climate change, rather than simply ignoring dissent, and providing a single and politically charged “alarmist” point of view.
I sincerely hope Mr. Paul Hudson may not be forced to internal job change, or demoted, or sacked……..
Because the AGW crowd has overstated their case, they are out on a limb. Their claim is not merely that AGW is true, but that anyone who disagrees is such a “flat-earth” loony that they should be silenced.
If AGW skepticism is merely shown to be plausible, the AGW crowd may quickly regret their impolitic words. Their slanderous treatment of skeptics could be grounds for lawsuits.
Slightly OT, but I wonder why the DMI seaice extent is somewhat languid these days:
http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
while the JAXA sea ice extent:
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
appears fairly vivacious.
“During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did warm quickly.”
Hockey stick?
“They argue that there are natural cycles,..”
Are there one or two ideas that stand out above all the other competing ideas; and are any close to being accepted?
“Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to (sic) the energy from the Sun increasing.”
Skeptics? Really? Which ones? How? How does this statement relate to the “natural cycles” mentioned above.
“…compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.”
I wonder who choose the “global average” and how was it derived?
“Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity,”
And so on.
Anyone reading this has got to be confused and or irritated and this will not cause anyone anywhere to change from one position to the other.
It seems like the BBC is just hedging/trying to cover themselves in case the Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming Narrative they’ve helped propagate comes unhinged. The BBC is still reporting garbage scare stories:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299426.stm
The BBC has become a sloppy propaganda machine and the British public should demand the revocation of its public funding.
When I see this story on the main news then I will believe that the BBC are intersted in debating the issue.
My suspicion is that they posted this story to cover themselves against the charge of bias, and as something to appeal to when the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Some day.
Pete
Did someone hack their web site?
If the ABC in Australia said something like this, I’d just about die of shock.
The article has been up for 2 days on the BBC web site. It hasn’t been pulled. It has the names Piers Corbyn and Don Easterbrook in it. And it has questions that allow doubts that man is the cause of global warming.
The article has been up all weekend on BBC news online. I’ll wait until tomorrow, Monday, to see if the BBC shows any regrets before I decide what to think of them leaving it up for so long.
correction :
I should have said “And it makes points that allow doubts…” not “And it has questions that allow doubts…”
—–
I like that the article opens with this and it is in bolds : …the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
Paul Hudson is described as a “Climate correspondent”. The usual misleading alarmist and biased global warming reporters for the BBC are described as “Environment correspondents”. Maybe this is the first person the BBC has employed who has a bit of knowledge about the climate. Or maybe he’s the only member of this new department and so can easily be disposed of by closing the department. He seems to be out on a limb without a safety net. The BBC is full of people with chain-saws.
I am sure that the BBC allowed this report to show how unbiased they were.
I am equally sure they were surprised if not horrified by how much attention it got. Which suggests word is spreading fast.
I am equally sure that the Sunday Times, sister to the London Times, which published a rather snide but more or less well informed article today did so to test public reaction.
This may all be straws in the wind or it maybe that they sense the British public is tired of this hobgoblin and wants a new one.
I may be wrong mind, it may be wishful thinking, but I think something strange happened this weekend. I don’t know how, why or what.
You cannot see beyond the bundobust. You can only sense: and may well be wrong. But it has my whiskers twitching.
indeed if it is so be sure the AGW story will be dead as mutton in months and the BBC and Grub St., not that it physically exists anymore, will have found some new apocalyptic scare to frighten the public.
No idea what it would be mind. Any guesses? A glass of champagne in my London club to the best suggestion offered by some worthy winner.
Kindest Regards
Re my previous post at 22:51:09:
“‘Scary’ climate message from past” was written by Richard Black, an “Environment correspondent”, not a “Climate correspondent”.
Just The Facts (22:34:57) :
It seems like the BBC is just hedging/trying to cover themselves…
I can see what you are saying. And you may be right. But it seems this article is a bit more than hedging.
“…we have not observed any increase in global temperatures…our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.”
Manmade co2, climate models, and warming—this is this is the essence of global warming. And this article puts doubt in to the heart of it.
And “Four degrees of warming ‘likely'” was by David Shukman, “Environment correspondent”. I need not go on. It is obvious that “Environment correspondents” are warmist alarmists and biased, whereas “Climate correspondents” are ……?
Meanwhile back at the funny farm. We have an animation designed by a simpleton to illustrate what a firm grasp of the sciences the intellectual dwarfs at the BBC have.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/sci_nat/04/climate_change/html/greenhouse.stm
I suspect some have looked outside the window, and have not seen the warming or the sea level rises predicted. They are seeing the opposite, and it has to be unnerving.
The second thing that has happened is several notables have been caught meddling with the data.
The 3rd thing is here comes what looks to be a brutal winter what with that early Arctic freeze-up.
Wake ’em up. Time to look outside.
MartinGAtkins: Yes the beeb has the usual garbage: “The greenhouse effect is the natural process by which the atmosphere traps some of the Sun’s energy, warming the Earth enough to support life.” The famous energy trap. All we need do is spring the trap and we’ll all be frozen to death.
RE BBC
In the UK right now 7:22 UK time, Radio 4 Today is giving the full monty to the latest report on the UK CC Act – the only legally binding legislation to reduce CO2 emissions – and how we are failing and must do more to transfer us to a low-carbon economy and reduce emissions by 80% (yes 80%) by 2050.
For complete tosh, just listen to the stuff – everyone can through the Internet and the listen again feature.
Cheers
Paul
Paul Hudson used to be the meteorologist on my local news and used to come across to me as a staunch AGW believer.. and now we read this, so maybe he’s changed his mind. Or maybe….
I think there are some games being played here though. As a newcomer to the BBC “climate department” I think one of his bosses asked him to pen an article called “What happened to global warming?”, and make it genuine. His boss would know full well the hullabaloo that would follow, and that this would stymie Paul’s chances of advancing any further. Boss’s job safe.
His boss isn’t SHukman or Richard Black is it?
Nice “quote of the week”.
I like it…
tokyoboy (22:31:25) :
Instead of ‘vivacious’, perhaps ‘rampant’ is a better word to describe the ‘erect’, ‘thrusting’ climb of sea ice extent ;-P…
tokyoboy (22:23:46) :
I sincerely hope Mr. Paul Hudson may not be forced to internal job change, or demoted, or sacked……..
Nah, he’ll just have to spend some time in room 101.
These people have no time for a debate
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8301586.stm
Just as the nights are getting colder