Last updated at 7:21 PM on 13th October 2009
In the freezing foothills of Montana, a distinctly bitter blast of revolution hangs in the air.
And while the residents of the icy city of Missoula can stave off the -10C chill with thermals and fires, there may be no easy remedy for the wintry snap’s repercussions.
The temperature has shattered a 36-year record. Further into the heartlands of America, the city of Billings registered -12C on Sunday, breaking the 1959 barrier of -5C.
Closer to home, Austria is today seeing its earliest snowfall in history with 30 to 40 centimetres already predicted in the mountains.
Such dramatic falls in temperatures provide superficial evidence for those who doubt that the world is threatened by climate change.
But most pertinent of all, of course, are the growing volume of statistics.
According to the National Climatic Data Centre, Earth’s hottest recorded year was 1998.
If you put the same question to NASA, scientists will say it was 1934, followed by 1998. The next three runner-ups are 1921, 2006 and 1931.
Which all blows a rather large hole in the argument that the earth is hurtling towards an inescapable heat death prompted by man’s abuse of the environment.
Indeed, some experts believe we should forget global warming and turn our attention to an entirely differently phenomenon – global cooling.
The evidence for both remains inconclusive, which is unlikely to help the legions of world leaders meeting in Copenhagen in December to negotiate a new climate change deal.
There is no doubt the amount of man-made carbon dioxide, the gas believed to be responsible for heating up the planet, has increased phenomenally over the last 100 years.
For the final few decades of the 20th century and as the atmosphere’s composition changed, scientists recorded the planet was warming rapidly and made a positive correlation between the two.
But then something went wrong. Rather then continuing to soar, the Earth’s temperature appeared to stabilise, smashing all conventional predictions.
The development seemed to support the view of climate change cynics who claimed global warming was simply a natural cycle and not caused by man.
Some doubters believe that the increase was actually down to the amount of energy from the Sun, which provides 98 per cent of the Earth’s warmth.
Sun or sea? The importance of the ocean’s cooling and warming cycles are now under serious consideration as a key factor in global temperatures
Previously, the fluctuating amount of radiation given out by the sun was thought to play a large role in the climate.
But Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, who was part of the team to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, studied solar output – the heat leaving the sun’s surface – and cosmic ray intensity over the last 40 years, and compared those figures with global average surface temperature.
He told the BBC: ‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.’
Scientists have intensified the search for alternative explanations
Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University believes the key to the connumdrum may be the temperature of the world’s seas.
Figures show the Pacific Ocean has been cooling over the last few years, and Easterbrook’s research shows a correlation between this and global temperatures.
He says the oceans have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically, known as Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).
And after a 30-year heating cycle in the 1980s and 1990s, pushing temperatures above average, we are now moving into a cooler period.
Professor Easterbrook said: ‘In the last few years [the Pacific Ocean] has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down.
‘The PDO cool mode has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.’
In Alberta, Canada (above), temperatures dropped to -16C on Monday, breaking the day’s previous record, from 1928, by about three degrees
His figures show that the global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.
Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), stressed the impact of the ocean currents in the North Atlantic – a phenomenon called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the Atlantic Meridional Oscillation.
He believes we may be in a period of cooling – but that it will be temporary before global warming reasserts itself.
He said the NAO may have been responsible for some of the rapid rise in temperatures of the last three decades.
‘But how much? The jury is still out,’ he said.
So is the sun really going down on global warming?
The Met Office is not convinced.
They incorporate solar and oceanic cycles into their models, and they say that – even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.
h/t to a jones
Read the article at the Daily Mail here
Brilliant. Global warming will reassert itself when the cooling ends.
“The Met Office is not convinced.
They incorporate solar and oceanic cycles into their models, and they say that – even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.”
Honestly. Just what do they base that on? Faith?
What is so nice is to see is that the Daily Mail does not suggest a catastrophic freeze – they actually talk rationally that everything could just possibly,perhaps, maybe, after all just be naturally getting cool!
What a breath of cool fresh air….ahhhh.
‘connumdrum’? Hmmmm. Must be the English spelling.
================
They make one error, however. The given “top 10” numbers are for the US, not the globe.
Slowly, ever so slowly doubt is begining to enter the religion of Dangerous Anthropogenic Global Warming. Many political and science careers will be wrecked
Hmm …
The Daily Mail is not generally known for investigative journalism.
So I am wondering where Mr or Ms Reporter got the story from?
It reads like a well-informed and well-balanced press release. But released by whom, and why?
And if Mr or Ms Reporter did research and write the story all by themselves, then why not give them the by-line, and The Mail the kudos?
Curiouser and curiouser …
I can’t help but wonder if this media U-Turn is from the effects of the Enchanted Larch of Yamal. Those reporters don’t understand the statistical details of the McIntyre revelation, but they know there are too few trees for the study to have much meaning. Rather than try to explain it to their readers, they can start to promote the skeptical points that they do understand, having been subjected to them now for a year or two. The recent cooling helps, too.
I’m waiting for Andy Revkin in 3-2-1.
============================================
I’m happy to see some articles countering warming alarmism, but this article has some problems:
“…turn our attention to an entirely differently phenomenon – global cooling.”
No, let’s just let the climate be. I don’t want governments concerning themselves with global cooling either.
“‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.’”
No? What about the possibility, not yet totally disproven, of solar modulation of cosmic radiation affecting cloud formation.
“…virtually assuring us of about 30 years of global cooling.’”
Virtually assured? A little overly certain, no?
Kim (20:08:14)
Nope, t’aint no English spell’n.
I think the AGW rose is now without petals, and it doesn’t even have a good set of hips
for the winter…
And one question. Where does the other 2% come from (“the Sun, which provides 98 per cent of the Earth’s warmth.”)?
And last time I looked WRITING is spelt with two Is.
But whoever the reporter was the homework is better than the BBC, and refers to NASA for some data: such as the US numbers even if it did not say they were US ones.
Cut the chap or chapess a little slack: it’s a pretty workmanlike job after all the rubbish we have been reading.
Only trouble is I don’t know whether it was in the print edition, but I note it is marked as an editor’s pick on the website.
Kindest Regards.
“Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, who was part of the team to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change”
“He told the BBC: ‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.”
That’s one small prize for Forster, one giant mistake for mankind
a jones (20:25:08) :
But whoever the reporter was the homework is better than the BBC,
—————
I think it’s quite a poor article. The author could have done a lot better. The US vs. global records mistake is pretty sophomoric, and why didn’t they feature the Antarctic? The fact that it is better than the BBC is more of a sad commentary on the BBC, than praise for the Daily Mail.
Straying slightly off topic here, can any of you Brits tell me if the BBC is a propaganda outlet for champagne socialism, or is it a lap dog for whoever is in power? Also, will Cameron be able to replace the individuals responsible for their idiotic AGW position over the past few years? Does the BBC report to the government?
I know that Cameron spouts on about AGW, but after he’s got the AGW sheeple vote, I assume he can change position due to the cooling. Are the individuals at the BBC thinking about their future salaries, and hedging?
Global Warming has never stopped… because the Goracle did not say so.
“Bret (20:24:36) :
And one question. Where does the other 2% come from (”the Sun, which provides 98 per cent of the Earth’s warmth.”)?”
The other 2% comes from radioactive decay in the earth’s crust and core.
You really notice it in deep mines, some of which require air conditioning to keep the air cool enough for the miners to be productive.
“even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.”
I have no problem agreeing that the long term trend may be up, I just have a problem with the degree to which it will rise due to GHG, let alone man-caused GHG’s. The cooling to come means that a major portion of the warming to date has been caused by natural variation rather than GHG which means any further warming due to GHG’s won’t be salute worthy either.
Some thousands of years ago Earth was experiencing a glacial episode. Then, about 17,000 years ago the massive ice sheets began to melt and sea level rose. Why? In any case, as time went by and Earth’s atmosphere and oceans responded to the interglacial environment there came periods of less or more warmth, unexplained during the events and mostly still. As the interglacial period lengthens there seem to be natural swings in some physical variables causing cooling and warming to be overlaid on the general warming-recovery from that long ago glaciation.
Modern technologies are seemingly now helping to explain some of these ups and downs. I don’t sense anyone really knows why the last great glaciation occurred nor why it ended. Has whatever ended it now changed? Who thinks so? What is the accepted reason? If it hasn’t ended then Earth ought to continue to warm – until those things (what?) change.
Thus, if this or future years are warmer than many in the past, so what? If physical processes of a cyclical nature bring the temperature down for a few years or a few decades, why would we not expect those to cycle through and then for it to continue warming?
To promote CO2 as the driving force of these processes shows a lack of understanding of the historical records and the physics involved.
Kim
“The Enchanted Larch of Yamal”
Love it. I see a picture coming on.
Enchanted Larch of Yamal to al Gore: With this tree-ring I thee wed.
🙂
“In Alberta, Canada (above), temperatures dropped to -16C on Monday, breaking the day’s previous record, from 1928, by about three degrees”
But a week before we had +34C breaking a daily record high.
That’s Alberta for you.
“kim (20:19:33) :
Enchanted Larch of Yamal.”
Reminds me of a Monty Python sketch.
mkurbo (20:33:40) :
“Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, who was part of the team to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change”
“He told the BBC: ‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.”
That’s one small prize for Forster, one giant mistake for mankind
I’m looking forward to Piers Corbyn’s revelations later this month on his solar prediciton method. Perhaps Anthony could cover that and we can do a “Piers review” at the end of the month. 🙂
philincalifornia (20:50:45) :
In general, the BBC is regarded as something of a bastion of liberal left political correctness.
As to whether Cameron is likely to replace the individuals responsible for their idiotic AGW position over the past few years, the answer is “no, he won’t. Happily, the government doesn’t control the BBC to anything like that extent. If it could, the BBC would be far worse than it is. Mind you, there’s considerable doubt over whether Cameron would do anything such as you suggest, even if he could. This, after all, is the man who installed a wind turbine on the roof of his house in Central London. I think it may take something stronger than a dose of global warming reality to bring him to his senses. Maybe a huge structural deficit in the nation’s economy might do it, after all, that’s what he’ll inherit, assuming he wins the general election next year.
“They incorporate solar and oceanic cycles into their models, and they say that – even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.”
Of course the long term trend is up, at least since the start of this inter-glacial. We also know 100% for certain that all but 20 of the last 30 years of this warm trend had no coincidence with CO2. That’s like no coincidence for 99.999% of the last 10-20,000 years!
Here we go again: Deep Solar Minimum Winter #3.
Record lows of early winter well outnumber record highs of summer, and they weigh even heavier on the minds of untold billions.
The world is watching. How can they not notice? AGW Climate Change has primed the weather watching pump, and man is a natural-born weather nut.
Plus the word’s out about the strain on agriculture and the widespread troubles with gardens.
However the Solar Minimum mechanism works, and that jury will be out for a long time if big breakthrus are not forthcoming, it is clearly not so much a linear correlation as it is an association with history.
The Arctic freezes up nicely, recovering, the Antarctic is bulging with ice, and winter finds many on the fence to hurl it’s icy breath at.
Syl (21:23:41) :
“even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.”
I have no problem agreeing that the long term trend may be up,
It is not. (In fairness, it depends on “how long long is” 😉
From 1880 to now is up, but from 12,000 years ago to now is down…
John F. Hultquist (21:28:36) : As the interglacial period lengthens there seem to be natural swings in some physical variables causing cooling and warming to be overlaid on the general warming-recovery from that long ago glaciation.
Um, the last glacial ended in a spike of warming that has been on a (roughly) 12,000 year slow trend downward. We have not been having a ‘general warming – recovery’, but a “pop and drop” and we’re in a slow drop phase. (With ripples, yes, but steadily colder, if slowly).
Take a look at the charts here:
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2009/10/09/how-long-is-a-long-temperature-history/
for a clue about how to best harvest cherries… and about which way a “long term trend” is really trending…
philincalifornia:
“Straying slightly off topic here, can any of you Brits tell me if the BBC is a propaganda outlet for champagne socialism, or is it a lap dog for whoever is in power?”
It’s accused of all that and more, depending on the viewpoint of the ones doing the accusing. It’s also liberal and conservative and broadminded and oppressive – all at the same time apparently.
The BBC goes through fluctuations. It got an undeserved kicking from the government over completely true allegations that the non-existent evidence for WMDs was hyped and has been on the back foot ever since.
On the other hand there is far more material critical of the government (any government) on the BBC, not just in current affairs but in drama and comedy than any commercial station here (and far, far more, I get the impression, than on mainstream US channels).
philincalifornia:
” Also, will Cameron be able to replace the individuals responsible for their idiotic AGW position over the past few years?”
Not directly. The BBC is supposed to be independent of the government and both usually try to at least maintain this idea in public, but in reality the government ultimately holds the purse strings and usually approves the most senior board appointments, so no doubt a great deal of secretive pressure is exerted.
In any case, Cameron is pretty much as wedded to AGW as all the other major UK (and most European) politicians. Even if he could go on a wholesale firing rampage he would face justified accusations of hypocrisy.
If the consensus collapses during any spell in power he has, I don’t expect him to kick up too much of a fuss as it would raise the issue of his own words and actions – quite apart from Thatcher, also a Tory, being one of the main begetters of the whole mess.
But most pertinent of all, of course, are the growing volume of statistics.
🙂
@ Rereke Whakaaro:
Rereke wrote: “The Daily Mail is not generally known for investigative journalism. So I am wondering where Mr or Ms Reporter got the story from?
It reads like a well-informed and well-balanced press release. But released by whom, and why?”
Compare the The Daily Mail article with the BBC article; the two articles are very similar in tone, style and even cite identical sources.
So, I’d say it’s a “press release” by the BBC.
So, then the question is why?
I suspect The Daily Mail noted how many internet “hits” the BBC article received in England and around the world:
And wanted “in” on the action.
Hey, I don’t care about the reason or who they copied it from, I’ll take whatever I can get because when people see an articulation of their own private concerns or doubts, as the case may be, it firms up their resolve and gives them more cover to spread the word at the “water cooler”.
“Hey, Joe, did you see that article in The Daily Mail where they said Global Warming is a bunch of BS?…”
George Bruce (19:58:23) :
“… the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.”
Honestly. Just what do they base that on? Faith?
By looking at data that begins at the point when the earth is warming as it emerges from the Little Ice Age.
They don’t start at the point when Greenland was green approx.1000 years ago. That would show “long-term trend” still on the down.
evanmjones (20:12:12) :
They make one error, however.
Lots of errors afoot in global warming. Speaking of which… what about that Al Gore movie!
philincalifornia (20:50:45)
Lap dog!
Definitely a lap dog. It has long been recognised that the BBC is a left-of-centre political organisation with a simple policy to maintain that. All jobs are advertised in “The Grauniad” (the Guardian) a PC left wing broadsheet newspaper famous for its typographical errors, hence its name.
tallbloke (22:04:14) :
I’m looking forward to Piers Corbyn’s revelations later this month on his solar prediciton method. Perhaps Anthony could cover that and we can do a “Piers review” at the end of the month. 🙂
I am hoping Anthony does a thread on it too. It does seem like important news. Also, I am curious about everyone’s thoughts on it.
Gordon Ford (20:55:31) :
“Bret (20:24:36) :
And one question. Where does the other 2% come from (”the Sun, which provides 98 per cent of the Earth’s warmth.”)?”
The other 2% comes from radioactive decay in the earth’s crust and core.
So if Dr. Piers Forster’s statement that “Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity” is true, then the heat from the Earth’s core and crust is causing all the climate variation during this time?!
Neil Jones (22:44:33) :
philincalifornia (20:50:45)
It has long been recognised that the BBC is a left-of-centre
Left out left. Not close to centre.
noaaprogrammer (22:55:33) :
“Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity” is true, then the heat from the Earth’s core and crust is causing all the climate variation during this time?!
Excellent way to put it! Good on ya!
p.s. did you see “The Cloud Mystery” ?
This just looks like a new flavor AGW Cool-aide – AGW is real but the PDO is masking it.
Guess the fact that its cold might have tipped them off that the usual “were all gonna die” rhetoric is loosing its luster.
In that Daily Mail article there is another interesting link concerning historical climate sources:
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1218474/How-Captain-Cooks-ship-logs-helping-scientists-chart-global-climate-change.html
Now it’s gone pass CNN, there is no going back…
Ecotretas
The weather in the south-east of Australia (where most of the people live) is also not helping the AGW build-up to Copenhagen. Since late September Tasmania, Victoria & southern New South Wales have been buffeted by one cold front after another. One particularly cold and wet event unfortunately occurred on the Spring day reserved for the Australian Football Grand Final – this went down in the record books as the coldest ever played in its 110 year history. But they can at least be thankful that this pattern began in the very week that the ski season closed – and so just as media attention dropped off the white stuff. Snowcover in the hills that we call ‘Alps’ is at best tenuous, but in the 30 years since my first alpine Springs snow camp, I have only once (in 1981) seen an October snowcover like what I saw blanketing Mt Hotham this weekend. Over these 4 weeks there has been more days than not of snowfall, with 3 significant dumps – one happening as I write. Most dont see this, and the media prefers dust-storms, but, all the same, everyone in Melbourne is asking: Where’s our Spring? And so with the Government opposition (The Liberals) experiencing an internal revolt over carbon trading legislation – and the blocking of which still threatening to spark a general election – then…if DownUnder dont warm up soon…we might see the whole issue rapidly spiral into crisis around the time of Copenhagen. We can only wait…and ski.
Daily Mail also running a balanced story on recovering climate data from ships logs…
http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1218474/How-Captain-Cooks-ship-logs-helping-scientists-chart-global-climate-change.html
Syl (21:31:07) :
Enchanted Larch of Yamal to al Gore: With this tree-ring I thee wed.
So close, but not quite. –
“With this tree-ring I thee wood.”
If Cameron has a turbine on his roof, it may have nothing to do with his belief, or otherwise, in AGW. I’m a fairly robust sceptic, but I would do the same if I could sell surplus power into the grid and only draw out when the wind isn’t blowing. In other words, when it makes economic sense, I’ll do it. Nothing to do with belief systems.
Indeed. It says
“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”
Well this is what the warmers always say, and it is true…as far as it goes. The solar ‘ouput’ in warmth (lets call it ‘warmth’ to keep it simple) does not change much, but the solar magnetic field does (and so does UV light)
and its the magnetic field that is the root of this theory
see here
http://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1180849
AND HERE
the sun’s underlying magnetic field has weakened by more than 30% since the mid-1990s,” says Posner. “This reduces natural shielding even more.”But any extra cosmic rays can have consequences”.
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/23sep_solarwind.htm
‘In the last few years [the Pacific Ocean] has been losing its warmth and has recently started to cool down’
The oceans are the majority heat store for the Earth (as I understand it), so what on earth is the heat flux associated with an ocean cooling? Where does the heat go when an ocean cools? If can’t be re-radiating unless AGW is rubbish. If it is transfering from surface to deep down, this can be measured.
Surely if we have a CO2 greenhouse effect, then there is a net radiation imbalance and heat inflow – where does this go? Something must be getting hot, so what is it? The atmosphere can only take a small amount of inbound heat
Nemetz, Greenland never was green. How come this myth is so tough??
I don’t think it is the Yamal tree that’s got the Britisch thinking. In contrast to the European continent they have had a pretty bad summer even for their standards. Now winter seems to arrive very early in Europe even two weeks earlier then last year when the alps had the longest lasting snow covering in 30years. Already after two years of solar minimum things are getting noticed…
philincalifornia (20:50:45)
Lap dog!
Definitely a lap dog. It has long been recognised that the BBC is a left-of-centre political organisation with a simple policy to maintain that. All jobs are advertised in “The Grauniad” (the Guardian) a PC left wing broadsheet newspaper famous for its typographical errors, hence its name.
As a life long listener and sometime viewer of the BBC output I would have to disagree with this statement. Artwest (22.24.08) gave a much more balanced representation on the BBC today. Yes, it has been completely off the wall with its MMGW stance and, despite the slightly questioning article the other day, is still piling in with heavily directed nonsense. (The radio programme Home Planet recently hosted a discussion on rising sea levels; as the conversation evolved the catastrophe got worse and, after a few moments the commentators were talking about the effects of a 30ft rise in sea levels as if it was going to happen tomorrow. In a news report on the popular Radio 4 Today programme last Saturday, a reporter gave the latest on the drought in Kenya. He stated that he country’s leaders are desperate for an “agreement” to come out of Copenhagen, because “climate change means it’s just getting warmer here year after year”. I never realised “global” warming could be applied so selectively!).
As much as the BBC have got MMGW so wrong (and it seems this is because of the bloody nose it received over WMD when it crossed “accepted” opinion), it is generally fair and balanced in news reporting. It has never been a government mouthpiece and, in all honesty, comments of left or right wing bias tend to arise from bodies or individuals who are not having their own biased points of view given prominence. Perhaps the best way to describe the corporation is “cosy middle class” and, given this, it tends to reflect middle class views and aspirations.
Hope this is helpful…
Reaction of the Met Office:
The Met Office is not convinced.
They incorporate solar and oceanic cycles into their models, and they say that – even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.
They didn’t mention that their HadCM3 model does a poor job in representing any natural cycle (ENSO, PDO, NAO,…), see the frequency response of the model(s) for the ocean’s heat content by Barnett e.a. (Figure S1):
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/data/1112418/DC1/1
As they underestimate the influence of natural cycles, the model overestimates the influence of CO2. That means that with a more realistic distribution of the influences between the natural cycles and CO2, the real influence of CO2 is about halve what the model has implemented. Thus 1.5 degr.C i.s.o. 3 degr.C for 2xCO2.
Now it is pretty hard to underestimate the intelligence of large parts of the media but just lets suppose that a few of the more intelligent members of that media settle down at night or after work to browse through some climate blogs.
After all, they are having this climate stuff thrust in front of them in a mind numbing truckloads of press releases from innumerable quangos, do gooder outfits, power hungry elitist and enviro organisations, government departments of every color and stripe all trying to carry on their nasty little internecine turf wars amongst themselves and curry favour with who ever is the top chicken at the moment.
So a tiny proportion of the more thinking members of the media might just like to check for themselves whether a lot of these claims of global catastrophes in the making actually carry any weight so they just quietly do a bit of personal internet browsing on climate change / global warming.
And lo! They find that there is a whole subculture [ like WUWT ] out there populated by some pretty smart people and even some big names in science are in there, who are openly skeptical, sometimes disparaging and often just plain derisive of the claims of the innumerable climate change disaster press releases that these media types see pass across their desks every day.
Press releases that parrot the endlessly and now the increasingly boring theme that imminent climate change/ global warming disasters are about to engulf all of mankind and damage and destroy ocean life and will be disaster for most living things and this will all happen by [ insert appropriate year, month, date, minute! ]
That sort of claim will make any good media person start to snort with derision sooner or later.
And strangely some of those skeptics on those blog sites seem to have some pretty good reasons, even if the media person doesn’t really understand what they are on about, to back up their claims that global warming and climate change from man made influences is a non event.
And the browser of the climate change blog sites carefully mentions in passing while gossiping around the coffee pot or water cooler that something he came across last night while looking through the internet did not seem to back up a lot of those claims in those press releases today.
And surprise, surprise, somebody else pipes up that, yes, he saw that too and wondered about the claims of a lot of that way out stuff from that enviro mob.
And somebody else says, who is this turkey that reckons the polar bears will all fall of their icebergs and drown tomorrow?
Never heard of him before.
From there it is a short step to some arguments in the newsroom and soon a feeling that there just may be a bit more to this story than we in the news room have been told.
And then the competition starts to find variations on the climate change story and some serious digging gets underway and editors start getting just a touch toey in case they are left out on a limb if this story just happens to be much bigger than they thought and they might just get caught backing the wrong horse.
And then the very careful, have it both ways, ass covering terminology raising, just raising the possibility that maybe all is not what it seems on the climate change front.
From there, hang on for the ride!
The media, despite what we may all think. is after all, populated by ordinary, very fallible and often ornery human beings, just like the rest of us!
philincalifornia (20:50:45) :
Straying slightly off topic here, can any of you Brits tell me if the BBC is a propaganda outlet for champagne socialism, or is it a lap dog for whoever is in power? Also, will Cameron be able to replace the individuals responsible for their idiotic AGW position over the past few years? Does the BBC report to the government?
When Greg Dyke became Director General he said that he learnt that the BBC is “only partially independent of Government.”
But in every area that they can control, this government has systematically got rid of anyone who knew what they were talking about (usually through generous early retirement packages), and replaced them with those who will say what they want to have said.
Fiddling the figures is their other ploy. This is a national joke/scandal. eg. When the number of serious road injuries was not reducing, they changed the definition of ‘serious’ to fix the problem; only trouble was they fiddled the police figures, but forgot to fiddle the hospital figures. There was an embarrasing discrepancy.
As for ‘Chlorophyll Dave.’ Look who bankrolls the Tory party: the likes of Zac Goldsmith, editor/owner of the (loss making) Ecologist magazine.
James F. Evans (22:32:00) :
“Compare the The Daily Mail article with the BBC article; the two articles are very similar in tone, style and even cite identical sources.
So, I’d say it’s a “press release” by the BBC.”
OR … a press release from person or persons unknown, that was sent to both organizations, and perhaps others?
I agree with you, that anything that influences public opinion towards rationality is good.
But I am also wondering if this is somebody hedging their bets, prior to the Copenhagen meeting.
“The Met Office is not convinced.
They incorporate solar and oceanic cycles into their models, and they say that – even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.”
As a non-scientist, I wonder how this could be falsified except by waiting for several decades?
Temperature fell more than 10C in Southern Europe in 1-2 days.
Need to rewrite this as “The 19th century pattern of global cooling, which we saw again between 1949 and 1979, has reasserted itself after a temporary warming excursion brought about by excessive aerosol and particulates control regulations. We will now continue with the previously experienced long downward descent into the next Ice Age. If you wish to cease evolving, don’t forget to turn out the lights on western civilization on your way out the door.”
“But Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, who was part of the team to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, studied solar output – the heat leaving the sun’s surface – and cosmic ray intensity over the last 40 years, and compared those figures with global average surface temperature.
He told the BBC: ‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.’”
You’d think a guy working at this level would understand the basics of physics! Solar activity was notched up significantly over the course of the 20th then levelled off at the higher levels. This doesn’t mean the heating is instantaneous! Just as if you turn up the heat under a pot of water, its temperature will continue to rise until an equilibrium is reached! We are now starting to see the reverse as the heat has been turned down and things are beginning to cool. This is evident in the drop in ocean heat content – that is not caused by ocean cycles!
“He [Piers Foster] told the BBC: ‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.’”
Leaving out the cosmic ray hypothesis, it fascinates me how “climate scientists”, whilst paying lip service to the idea of a chaotic non linear system, seem totally clueless about how a chaotic system behaves.
If a system is described as chaotic, it means it cannot maintain a steady state even when driven by a constant force. A pot of water on the stove overall is not chaotic (although the behaviour of particles within it are) and so the temperature of the pot reaches a steady state temperature, unless the heat source is altered or the insulation changed, in which case it equilibriates at a different temperature. A chaotic climate system such as our earth, can never equilibriate at any given temperature even when all external forcings are held constant. It simply oscillates around great attractors, moving from one state to another. Each attractor, to some extent, represents an overshoot in one direction or another.
If we adopt this way of seeing our climate, then we will never find this missing forcing because none exists and none is called for. Therefore, the argument that warming must be caused by manmade greenhouse gases BECAUSE no other forcing can account for it, is a false argument.
The article reads, “Figures show the Pacific Ocean has been cooling over the last few years, and Easterbrook’s research shows a correlation between this and global temperatures.”
Pacific Ocean SST anomalies have taken a recent upswing, pretty much eliminating any thought that it’s been cooling:
http://i34.tinypic.com/t7fono.png
And if we’re talking about the heating and cooling of the Pacific Ocean, it has not been cooling for the past few years. Pacific Ocean OHC looks like it’s been rising to me:
http://i33.tinypic.com/33ljnzn.png
The PDO cannot, in and of itself, impact Global Temperatures. The PDO reflects a pattern of SST anomalies of the North Pacific, North of 20N. Nothing more, nothing less.
“Indeed, some experts believe we should forget global warming and turn our attention to an entirely differently phenomenon – global cooling.”
See, this is what I hate about this whole situation. It is impossible to have a cooling trend last long enough to dispel the world of this global warming alarmism, without ginning up global COOLING alarmism. Oh, and you can bet dollars to donuts that someone is going to come up with a way to blame the cooling on mankind.
And speaking of trends and their lengths, the REALLY Long-Term trend is one of warming. As the sun burns brighter and hotter over its 10-15-billion year lifespan, temperatures on Earth will slowly increase. About a billion years from now, even the “ice ages” will be far too hot for humans to live here. But don’t tell the global warming alarmists about this. They’ll build it up into another major threat, and somehow, again, blame it on mankind.
Stargazer … I think you are right on the mark … our understanding of earth’s climate and what drives it is weak at best. For all we know we could be slipping into another ice age … that would make an unfortunate mockery of many people.
>>So I am wondering where Mr or Ms Reporter got the story from?
>>It reads like a well-informed and well-balanced press release.
>>But released by whom, and why?
And rather similar to the BBC report.
Yes, I wonder where this is coming from?
.
“Previously, the fluctuating amount of radiation given out by the sun was thought to play a large role in the climate.
But Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, who was part of the team to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, studied solar output – the heat leaving the sun’s surface – and cosmic ray intensity over the last 40 years, and compared those figures with global average surface temperature.
He told the BBC: ‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.”
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2008-178
“In 2007, Ulysses made its third rapid scan of the solar wind and magnetic field from the sun’s south to north pole. When the results were compared with observations from the previous solar cycle, the strength of the solar wind pressure and the magnetic field embedded in the solar wind were found to have decreased by 20 percent. The field strength near the spacecraft has decreased by 36 percent.”
If any, what affect does the suns and the earths magnetic field have on the climate?
If any, what affect may Slar Flares have on the climate?
If any, what affect do Coronal Mass Ejections have on the climate?
Perhaps none Dr Piers Forster, but denying the posibility without an openminded investigation is not good science.
There are those who believe the moon also has an influence on the weather.
https://www.predictweather.co.nz/#/home/
Perhaps there is an influence on the climate as well????????????
Hey! What’s with the mongrels comment?
‘Closer to home, Austria is today seeing its earliest snowfall in history with 30 to 40 centimetres already predicted in the mountains.’
I’m not sure how you define ‘earliest snowfall’ here. There was a snowstorm in the middle of July 1981 with about 30cm down to the valleys overnight. I was there on a language exchange, so I am a reliable witness!!
If you’re saying ‘snow which may remain through the winter’, then that may be true. I don’t know.
But I’d be careful about the definition. Although I agree that this is very early, most unusual and predicted to bring further snow at the weekend after some cold days and nights in between.
philincalifornia (20:50:45) :
“Straying slightly off topic here, can any of you Brits tell me if the BBC is a propaganda outlet for champagne socialism, or is it a lap dog for whoever is in power? Also, will Cameron be able to replace the individuals responsible for their idiotic AGW position over the past few years? Does the BBC report to the government? ”
The BBC is a biased organisation. It is always involved in some sort of campaign or another, and will pander to any activist. Its coverage of AGW has never been impartial, and once David Attenborough became convinced that AGW was real, he has degraded the quality of his wildlife programs so much, that in many years time, you won’t be able to view them because the claims therin will be laughable.
As for David Cameron (some of us refer to him as BlairLite). This is the chap who rides a bike to Parliament to cut down on his ommissions, but behind him, a chauffeur drives his Jaguar containing his briefcase. In the old days we called this hypocrisy, today it is all about image.
With politicians like this, what are we to do? Soon our power stations will be shutting down through age, and after the intervention of people like Hansen, we are not replacing them, except with windmills. Last winter a windmill broke, during a high pressure cold snap, windmill stationary, in freezing fog, ice build up, off balance snap… blade fell off obvious- doh! What did we get in the MSM – must have been a UFO.
It would be funny if it were not so serious, and I for one would like some quality scientists get their collective backsides off the fence, be brave for once, go to the POTUS, and the Prime Minister, to tell them the consequences of the idiocy that is going on around us. Make no mistake about it, our entire way of life in the west will be destroyed without a reliable and continuous supply of electricity. Take a look at the ice graphs on WUWT. The iceing of the arctic has started earlier in the last 2 years, and already it is cold in UK – very cold. This is not rocket science, just obvious. I deduce that winter this year will be 4 to 6 weeks longer than last. Wake Up England. Wake Up USA.
>>BBC left=of-center?
>>As a life long listener and sometime viewer of the BBC output
>>I would have to disagree with this statement.
Nonsense. The BBC is so left-wing and AGW it is off the chart.
It not only reports anything and everything to do with AGW climate change and all Green issues, it actively campaigns for them.
With the Heathrow airport protest, the BBC advertised the protest well in advance (what other protests or campaigns get BBC advertising?), gave it good coverage, and when not enough protestors arrived it advertised for more. “Not very many protesters have arrived as yet, but we are hoping for many more to join us soon” etc: etc: This great newsworthy event was, of course, about 50 dread-locked hippies in tents (bussed in by the BBC?), camping by the airport.
Regards any political issues, the BBC is also very left wing – denigrating any organisation or party that happens to be anti-Europe, anti-immigration or anti-multiculturalism. There is nothing fair or balanced about their reporting.
.
>>“Compare the The Daily Mail article with the BBC article;
>> the two articles are very similar in tone, style and even
>>cite identical sources.
Viscount Monkton could be a contender here. His Science and Public Policy Institute is still quite influential.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/
When the government wanted to put Gores’ ‘Inconvenient Truth’ into every UK school, a ‘private court challenge’ stopped them. I did wonder at the time who had the money and influence for that sort of challenge. Guess who – Viscount Monkton and his SPPI.
.
‘Straying slightly off topic here, can any of you Brits tell me if the BBC is a propaganda outlet for champagne socialism, or is it a lap dog for whoever is in power? Also, will Cameron be able to replace the individuals responsible for their idiotic AGW position over the past few years? Does the BBC report to the government?’
1. The BBC has a Board of Governors, who oversee activities on behalf of the Government. Each year the BBC gains revenue due to UK citizens paying a ‘license fee’, as well as international revenues gained from selling programming in the commercial world. The Government and the BBC have a horse-trading session every few years to determine what the BBC must do in order to get what license fee.
2. All politicians think the BBC supports the other lot. It is duty bound to be impartial. Right now the Political Editor, Nick Robinson, is a well known Tory although his reporting is, in my judgement, accurate and fair. It’s just a fact that the Tories are doing rather well and the Labour party very badly, something he is duty bound to report. The fact that he comes across as enjoying himself doing this is probably that he’s just a happy chappie. Boris Johnson, the Tory Mayor of London, went on the soap opera Eastenders recently, presumably a bung to stop him beating up on the BBC, which he tends to do with any sort of encouragement. He’d get rid of it and let Murdoch rule supreme if he thought the British people would wash it. They won’t!
3. As far as AGW is concerned, the BBC followed the party line of the Government, the LibDems and some Conservatives. In other words they were following establishment lines and the lines of huge numbers of brainwashed children who are, believe you me, educated to believe that Carbon Dioxide is a poison. Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor of the Exchequer in the 1980s, wrote a very reasoned book called ‘A cool look at global warming’, which remains a very fair analysis of the uncertainties faced by politicians in making decisions in the field, but pointing out, at a time of AGW hysteria, that not all folks thought that way. His view was that humans should evolve with climate, not try and control it.
4. The BBC has plenty of MI5 and MI6 moles in it, which is the UK equivalents of the FBI and CIA. This was shared by John Simpson, Foreign Affairs Editor and long-term BBC heavyweight in one of his books, who presumably knows who quite a few of them are!! This is not unique – it will undoubtedly also be true of the Daily Telegraph, one of the leading right wing newspapers in the UK!
5. The BBC is not liked by Americans as it refuses to bow down before Right Wing American Presidents. It is not in its charter to do so and nor do the British People expect it to. We view Fox News with similar levels of scorn…..
6. Mr Cameron cannot pick staff, however he will be consulted on the appointment of Governors, whose overall composition must remain neutral in party political terms. Governors are responsible for overseeing the appointment of key executives who in turn run the organisation. So no, Mr Cameron can’t turn the BBC into Goebbels’ propaganda machine. Even if you Americans want him to.
Re:philincalifornia (20:50:45)
Straying slightly off topic here, can any of you Brits tell me if the BBC is a propaganda outlet for champagne socialism, or is it a lap dog for whoever is in power?
—
It can be. Former BBC head, Greg Dyke was mentioned. He lost his job for challenging the government over WMD and the BBC’s independence.
It is supposed to be independent and impartial, but is dependent on UK government for funding and all senior appointment, ie Director General and Trust members. There have been quite a few articles in the UK regarding bias, but generally I think it’s a ‘natural’ bias. Media seems to attract liberal leaners.
Bigger problem is general challenges facing journalism, and that’s a global problem. Dead tree press and TV’s revenues are falling, budgets are being slashed, jobs are being cut and pressure piled on journalists left standing. So less money to do quality reporting, investigation or basic fact checking. Plus in the UK (and elsewhere) a lot of news is outsourced, so stories are plucked off the wires, given a light edit and published as ‘news’. So we get press releases passed off as news like the infamous NE Passage story.
So far, the warmists have exploited this effect very well, eg it’s the reason a PR company created Real Climate, to spread the correct news and interpretation, and created the current appearance of consenus. Any counters get slammed as oil-funded propaganda by people that don’t understand the irony regarding who’s paying for warmist press releases.
Nick Reynolds wrote a good book explaining the reality of what passes for news-
http://www.amazon.com/Flat-Earth-News-Award-Winning-Distortion/dp/0099512688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255524853&sr=8-1
which is depressing reading. Fortunately, we’ve got sites like this one to provide a counterbalance.
Of course they aren’t. They are loving their big budget Bertha of a new computer and all of the grant money they are getting to keep it running!
Reality check: Global warming “resquiescat in pace” R.I.P.
In great need of fossil fuels/nuke power, forget about windmills.
Bye, bye, Gorie.. your time is over.
I wonder why the people that complain that a news article seems to be be biased against AGW, and request their source (and proof), don’t request the source (and proof) of articles made saying runaway AGW is worse than we thought?
““even if there are periods of slower warming, or temporary cooling, the long-term trend in global temperatures is still on the up.”
Here is where I really get ticked when it comes to this issue. The Warmers always go back and drag up their cherry picked starting point to make the above statement, with no acknowledgement that the direction may have changed.
And then, there is this issue of solar TSI. I’ve seen the graph, and so have all of you. The TSI was higher throughout the entire 20th century than it was through out the entire 19th century. I’ve still yet to see any recent numbers on the TSI for 2008-2009, but, if I was a betting man, using the past as precedent, if the TSI sinks to 19th century levels and stays there for the next ten years, I would bet that the temp would follow, returning to 19th century levels as well. [in about ten years .. I think that is what Judith Lean published as being the lag time between solar influence and global temp.]
I love it. Climate scientists for years have claimed that the ONLY explanation for climate change is CO2. They said they have examined all other reasons and could not find anything which could explain climate change like the increase in CO2. So it’s not the sun, or anything else, it is CO2 only.
Now it looks like perhaps they might have been examining other explanations with a bias toward CO2. Or pehaps they did not examining anything else at all. Climate science; when will people learn that it is not a real science after all, it’s a sham. It’s more like an elaborate Ponzi scheme than a science.
Indeed, the whole statement is idiotic, because if there’s some kind of natural cycle here, it’s OBVIOUSLY going to get warmer once it’s finished getting cooler!
The “long-term trend in global temperatures” will always be going up or down until it reverses…
Irrespective of whether or not the ~60-year post-LIA climate cycle is caused by the PDO (with which it correlates) or variations in the length of the Schwabe sunspot cycle (with which it also correlates)… Every 30 years or so, just as the PDO is shifting gears, the media and the Chicken Littles of the scientific community begin to raise hysterical warnings about imminent ice ages or catastrophic warming.
Prior to 1988, it wasn’t such a big deal… There were about 8 climatologists in the world (sarcasm). No one really paid attention to them. Back then the gov’t was wise enough to know that even if the warnings were valid, there wasn’t very much that the gov’t could do about it. And… Most geologists and meteorologists said that the impending ice age and/or catastrophic warming was just part of the Earth’s natural climate and weather cycles.
Since 1988, universities have been minting climatology PhD’s faster than law degrees and Al Gore became a rock star of science. Al Gore and some of the vastly expanded population of climatologists convinced many of our politicians that the Earth’s climate was changing in a way that it never had before… And it was all due to the burning of fossil fuels. So… The geologists would now be ignored because they often made their livings finding fossil fuels; and the meteorologists would also be ignored because weather has nothing to do with climate.
If we economically survive long enough to see the early 21st century cooling trend fully supplant the late 20th century warming trend, it will be very fascinating to see how Al Gore and the Hansen/Mann/Schmidt branch of the climate science community explain the expanding ice caps, falling sea levels and decline in agricultural output that will occur over the next 20-30 years.
Al Gore intimated that he was instremental in helping to create the internet. That did not turn out to be true. Al has also gone a long way to creating the AGW myth. It looks like old Al is 0 for 2.
Bob, the jet stream runs right over the top of the PDO. Given that, what information are you using to state that the PDO has no influence on global temperatures. NOAA has developed statistical information on how land masses East of that area react to PDO conditions and use that information in its broad regional forecasts. Why would they do that if there is no correlation?
The problem is the phrase “global warming” has been phased out for several years now since it started to become clear that there is no such thing. The spin is all “climate change” – that amorphous term that politicos are latching on to, so that they can impose the same old carbon control nonsense, but under a different, fuzzier banner. They won’t go down without a fight.
OBSERVED RATE OF CLIMATE CHANGE 1908-2008 was O.0075C/year [over 100 years
OBSERVED RATE OF CLIMATE CHANGE 1999-2009 was 0.0072C/year [over last 10 years]
While it is true that the temperature anomalies have had short term [ about 5 months] rise during 2009, the decadal level trend of the global temperature anomalies has been declining per least square trend lines since 2001 at -0.009 C/year [ over the last 8.6 years]
With all of the September 2009 SST’s declining except South Atlantic SST, AMO declining again for two months in a row and NAO negative , the cooler weather is likely to continue .
Pamala,
I think what Bob is getting at is it does not seem that the PDO can explain Climate Change. I do not think Bob was trying to infer that it cannot influence weather.
Here is the problem I have with this article… It is no more informed then a AGW article is. Look the main problem with ‘AGW’ is that Carbon Dioxide does not fit. The main problem with saying ti is the Sun or the PDO is that those don’t fit either. There has been no real increase in the suns output. there has been no real increase as far as I can tell based on the numbers I have seen of Cosmic Rays. Basically it is really hard to see an increase in temperature coming from an external source at this point.
The reason that AGW does not fit is not because an increase in Carbon Dioxide won’t add a little heat tot he atmosphere. Rather it is the amount of heat that they claim it will cause to add. By increasing Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere there will be a small amount of warming caused by it. The problem I have is when it gets above really more then half a degree of warming. Which can only be accounted for by feedback effects which HAVE to be programmed into the simulations they run.
So I am sad about this article, in several places it gets it right by talking to one of the scientists ( who is pro AGW ) where the scientist agrees it cannot be the sun or Cosmic rays. But goes no further then that. No model predicted that there would be a stabilization of temperatures for a decade. I wish he had asked the scientists about that instead… So why has there not been any warming? The sun is steady, CO2 is rising? Where are the feedbacks? Which is really the question. Who cares if over the last 100 years it is up… The question is WHY is it not rising now. To which I have not heard any pro AGW person adequately explain, they simply say “aw well just you wait”.
As skeptics we cannot simply disagree with AGW and embrace bad theories that try to explain what is occurring. At this point in time I have not seen any explanation that is right. Not to say that I don’t enjoy learning on this right which I have because of most of you. SO thanks and lets keep looking for the explanation. Lets make sure we do not become what the pro AGW are, attached to only the explanation we like best.
If anyone can point me to information that shows any part of this post is wrong please do so. I would love to better understand something that I may have missed.
It’s entirely possible that the media sees the writing on the wall: Labour to lose the election.
They probably want to curry some favour with the next occupiers of 10 Downing Street.
My wife informs me it snowed in Munich today – shame Copenhagen isn’t away from the coast, it would be fun to see them discussing GW up to their backsides in snow and ice. Next times they will do it in Singapore, just to prove it’s still warm(er).
Its intresting to see all these articles coming from the BBC story and we do have to remember this is the daily mail and it doesnt have much respect from the people who dont read it in fact most non readers will outright dismiss it.
It has also always suprised me that newpapers have been pushing the AGW lets face it surely there days would be numbered as newspapers are a pretty inefficiant way of circulating the news and with falling salles because nobody want to pay for yesterdays news when we can get todays on the internet and countless news channels.
Its almost in someways that the BBC has opened a gate and now everyone is coming out so to speak.
The question in my mind is why did the BBC let there story publish so close to copenhagen when all the prior evidence suggests that they really are not intrested in this side of the argument, you only have to look at the patching together of obamas inauguration speach to see which side of the fence they are on.
Innocentious … the sun is not “steady” and I really don’t think we know enough about it (limited data, solar wind effects etc. etc.) to ignore it’s effect on our climate.
Bob,
With regard to Pacific Ocean Heat Content:
The graph you linked includes the famous data splice in 2003 when ARGO was brought on line. There is no clear evidence, that I know of, that Pacific OHC has increased since that time. Further, removing the step change from the graph at that crucial juncture gives a very different impression: flat (or nearly) values for ~15 years.
Regards
“the PDO has no influence on global temperatures”?
I’m beginning to think of ‘global temperatures’ in the same vein as ‘number of angels able to dance at one time on the head of a pin’.
Lies, damned lies, and, well you knows the rest.
Al Gore is a baby boomer from the “New Age” era, which originated back in the 1960’s, in the so called beginning of the “Age of Aquarius”, submerged in psychodelic dreams of fantasy. Global warming cult has became one more of this pagan cults, so it is perfectly explainable if we consider this salad of beliefs, from Castaneda’s “Teachings of Don Juan”, Aldous Huxley’s “A brave New World”, to Timothy Leary…
All just a “bad trip”, very but very far away from reason and common sense.
Science Policy and the History of Climate Change
http://royalsociety.org/downloaddoc.asp?id=4858
An interesting read.
From ARISTOTLE to JAMES HANSEN
“noaaprogrammer (22:55:33) :
Gordon Ford (20:55:31) :
“Bret (20:24:36) :
And one question. Where does the other 2% come from (”the Sun, which provides 98 per cent of the Earth’s warmth.”)?”
The other 2% comes from radioactive decay in the earth’s crust and core.
So if Dr. Piers Forster’s statement that “Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity” is true, then the heat from the Earth’s core and crust is causing all the climate variation during this time?!”
For all practical purposes the heat flux from the earth’s radioactive decay is constant.
Long term?
in billions of years, one thing is certain, sun will gobble up its planet including earth, that will be the true global warming
>>“the PDO has no influence on global temperatures”?
The PDO can only influence global temperatures on a temporary basis. It has only so much energy that it can take or give to the climate, before it runs out. Five years, max?
The source of the PDO’s energy is the Sun, which is why we need to look closer at how the Sun ‘charges up’ any increased temperatures in the oceans. Cloud cover would be one logical variable.
.
Harold Ambler: You wrote, “There is no clear evidence, that I know of, that Pacific OHC has increased since that time. ”
Do you have a source? A graph of Pacific Ocean OHC, please?
“For all practical purposes the heat flux from the earth’s radioactive decay is constant.”
Interesting statement.
All underwater black smokers, volcanoes and sea-floor forming are known and measured?
Pamela Grey: You wrote and asked, “NOAA has developed statistical information on how land masses East of that area react to PDO conditions and use that information in its broad regional forecasts. Why would they do that if there is no correlation?”
Western North America is not the globe. The U.S. statistics fail to consider the opposite effect that’s taking place in the Western Pacific and its influence on Eastern Asia.
A positive PDO is represented by the Eastern North Pacific being warmer than the Western and Central North Pacific. The SST anomalies of the North Pacific, North of 20N, can be greater than (less than) the global mean, which adds to (subtracts from) measured global temperture, but just as long as the Eastern North Pacific is warmer than the Western and Central North Pacific, the PDO is positive. The PDO is not a measure of the SST of the North Pacific. The PDO only indicates a pattern.
In other words, the SST of the North Pacific is a component of global SST and global surface temperature, while the PDO is not.
Hi Bob.
Like I said, I’m looking at your graph, the one with ARGO data spliced in after 2003.
I don’t see a rise since the ARGO data have been entered into the record, and subtracting the dubious step change I don’t see a rise since the mid-1990s.
Help!
From Richard Black at the BBC
“Biases, U-turns, and the BBC’s climate coverage”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/2009/10/climate_issue.html
“According to the National Climatic Data Centre, Earth’s hottest recorded year was 1998.
If you put the same question to NASA, scientists will say it was 1934”
~snip~
1934 is only the warmest year on record for the US, not the entire Earth.
Harold Ambler: You wrote, “I don’t see a rise since the ARGO data have been entered into the record, and subtracting the dubious step change I don’t see a rise since the mid-1990s.”
Regardless, do you see a drop, a cooling, as mentioned in the article?
Rereke Whakaaro (02:40:45) :
But I am also wondering if this is somebody hedging their bets, prior to the Copenhagen meeting.
I’m sure of it, and I’m also sure that this kind of thing will increase.
william (06:46:11) :
Al Gore intimated that he was instremental in helping to create the internet. That did not turn out to be true. Al has also gone a long way to creating the AGW myth. It looks like old Al is 0 for 2.
————–
I think technically he’s 1 for 2. He didn’t invent the internet, but he sure as hell invented global warming.
“…But Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, who was part of the team to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, studied solar output – the heat leaving the sun’s surface – and cosmic ray intensity over the last 40 years, and compared those figures with global average surface temperature.
He told the BBC: ‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity’….”
I think these words will come back to haunt Piers in a few years time. The sun is the only driver of our climate, with the land, sea,and the atmosphere just containing mechanisms which provide us with the conditions to sustain life.
I feel sure that with the vast and unprecedented array of scientific instruments pointing at our current quiet sun, the mysterious link will soon be found.
But Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, who was part of the team to win the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change, studied solar output – the heat leaving the sun’s surface – and cosmic ray intensity over the last 40 years, and compared those figures with global average surface temperature.
He told the BBC: ‘Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity.’
Professor Don Easterbrook from Western Washington University believes the key to the connumdrum may be the temperature of the world’s seas.
Figures show the Pacific Ocean has been cooling over the last few years, and Easterbrook’s research shows a correlation between this and global temperatures.
He says the oceans have a cycle in which they warm and cool cyclically, known as Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO).
The solar wind and spot activity is the lowest measured in over 50 years and Dr Piers Forster see’s no change in solar output for at least 40 years, therefore it’s not the sun! and why only 40 years? a short climate cycle is nearly 60 years long as has been known for over 200 years. Is this another worthless Nobel Prize?
Professor Don Easterbrook says the oceans are the cause of heating and cooling and not the sun. Just where can energy in the oceans come from? and it’s very little geothermal, a lot less then 2 %.
Just because they can’t figure out the manner of it, does not mean it is not the sun.
The hydrosphere and atmosphere is a heat engine that the sun powers.
Come on people look at all the clues and not just the ones of your pet theory. The people that post on this site are the most knowageble in this field in the world and actually talk to each other. Figure it out together.
Richard Heg (10:29:49) :
I’ve just had a look at that article. Basically Black is saying that the BBC isn’t biased and presents all points of view. And he backs that up by illustrating the article with Mann’s hockey stick.
If you are saying the greenland ice cap has existed for a long time, you are correct but there is a lot of historical evidence that at the time of the Vikings the coastal areas were much more moderate than in modern time, (ie green), they supported large sheep herds, and archeological digs show areas that were habitable then that are not habitable now (ie it is cooler now than in the recent past). Ice cores drilled in 1992-93 show that the climate cooled significantly where the vikings lived around 1350.
There were certainly other issues involved in the survival of the Greenland viking colonies, but climate cooling and increased sea ice significantly changed their culture.
http://www.archaeology.org/online/features/greenland/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2007/12/18/greenland-is-as-warm-as-today-as-in-prior-eras/
Larry
Jimmy Haigh (11:48:02) :
Not just hockey stick but also an iceberg with an upset looking polar bear on it. Oh and protesters with banners saying “save the climate” what does that even mean?
Computer models….didnt a leading scientist say not long ago that computermodels cant even predict how an egg soufle(spelling?) will behave in an oven.So how the hell can they predict climate.Are the met office and the IPCC good at making soufle,s.I bet there not.
“Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can’t have been caused by solar activity”
Here is what the BBC reported just over 11 years ago:
“Climate changes such as global warming may be due to changes in the sun rather than to the release of greenhouse gases on Earth.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.stm
Since then it changed its mind to follow pro AGW beliefs and now seems to be questioning it again.
From the article: “In the freezing foothills of Montana, a distinctly bitter blast of revolution hangs in the air.”
Here’s what it looks like today in those foothills between Browning and East Glacier, Montana on US 2. http://rwis.mdt.mt.gov/scanweb/swframe.asp?Pageid=Camera&Units=English&Groupid=629000&Siteid=629002&Senid=255&WxId=6292&DisplayClass=Java&SenType=All;&SenStatus=&Camera=1
So Richard Black claims that the BBC has no bias in its reporting of “climate change”. Who does he think he is trying to kid?
Anyone who wants to test the BBC’s bias can follow the following links:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/climate/
These pages are mainly devoted to the ‘science’ of climate change (ie. The theory of global warming). There is a tiny section devoted to climate sceptics. They even have a few links to climate sceptic sites but are they the most useful for giving the sceptic point of view? Certainly no link to WUWT!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/guides/457000/457037/html/default.stm
These pages are all about the ‘evidence’ for climate change. There is even a graph with a hockey stick.
Don’t believe any of Richard Black’s attempts to portray the BBC as neutral and just reporting the ‘facts’. 95% or more (OK, that’s not scientific but it’s meant to indicate the level of intensity) of BBC reporting is pro-global warming. This is hardly surprising, given the bias of the pages linked to above.
They reported in all seriousness the publicity stunt of sending Ban Ki-Moon to the Arctic to observe the melting Arctic ice at the time of the year when the ice is always at its lowest extent. Did the BBC point this out? Nope. The BBC also reported the almost suicidal expedition to measure Arctic ice in terms which expressed total belief in the organisers’ claims of what the expedition was supposed to achieve. No room for any scepticism there.
Have any of the BBC news programmes (thank goodness the BBC still calls them programmes, not ‘shows’) ever reported key findings such as the McIntyre researches? Nope. How many climate sceptics will be interviewed during the Copenhagen meetings? Don’t hold your breath. In fact, when WAS the last time a climate sceptic was interviewed on the BBC?
A nice ploy used by the BBC is to tell us what ‘scientists’ have discovered. (As in: “Scientists have discovered that the problem is worse than was previously thought.”) This gives the impression that whatever has been claimed by a few scientists is to be seen as representing the views of all scientists.
I think that Richard Black will have to try a lot harder if he wants to convince us that the BBC lacks bias on this issue at least.
I don’t know if we can blow these statistics out of proportion. It may just be a temporary short-term trend like they say and that global warming will “reassert itself” at some point in the near future. The thing about statistics like these is that I have to question their validity simply due to the fact they contradict everything I saw in Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth.
jon (07:54:22) :
Innocentious … the sun is not “steady” and I really don’t think we know enough about it (limited data, solar wind effects etc. etc.) to ignore it’s effect on our climate.
Okay let me define steady… Basically as far as output goes over the last 50 years the sun has not varied by more then .1% ( this is based on Leif Svalgaard’s posts ) so in noting that the total energy output of the sun has not varied over the last 50 years it truly calls into question the suns role in causing temperature fluctuations. ( on a climatic scale )
Since the temperature of the earth has supposedly changed over the last 100 years by .2% this calls into serious question the suns role in causing that change.
Now that is not to say that there are not any number of other problems that need to be addressed in just the raw data alone. The point I was trying to make before is that based on all available data the temperature variation that exists is minuscule and has as of yet anything to truly correlate to. ( the sun just being one object that cannot be solely responsible as our understanding to date of temperature fluctuations as neither can CO2 and the HYPOTHETICAL feedback effects )
I wish more articles would call into question the idea of the feedback loops since that is where almost all of the ‘warming’ takes place. CO2 causes global warming as a CATALYST and nothing more according to all the literature I have really read on this subject.
This article was at best a weak attempt to question Global Warming by raising an issue of “where has the warming been for a decade” but rather then actually get real answers it allowed a global warming proponent to simply shrug and say it is being masked right now? HOW IS IT ABLE TO BE MASKED?????? Natural fluctuations? I thought all of those had been thrown out as even existing by the IPCC!!!!
Cooling detected on global warming fears, Australia. (News report extract) :
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26202152-11949,00.html
BTW, it looks like the official snow ski season was closed rather prematurely this year, and Melbourne’s water reserves are already better than last year..… only a few short bursts of spring so far.
Patrick Davis (21:53:46) :
The real reason Monty Python ended?
Life became more surreal than the sketches 😉
DaveE.
RR Kampen (01:13:04) :
Nemetz, Greenland never was green. How come this myth is so tough??
Because we have their written records and their teeth and bones that all show them raising and eating land ruminants (i.e. grass eaters) on the green fields near their homes (i.e. not under the old ice cap). We have their abandoned homes with barns and facilities for ruminant animals and we have the remains of said animals in their trash heaps.
It is hard to have grass grazing animals and not have green grass.
The whole place was not green, but the part where they lived was.
Over time, as the ice and snows returned, they could no longer graze animals nor save enough hay for them for the winter; and their diet shifted to more fish. (Again, evidenced by their bones and teeth). Finally, the ice returned to the seas and the fish left. Then the people left or died.
There is a lesson here. A very important lesson.
When it is warmer, life thrives (both human and other).
When it is icy, things die.
Warm is good.
Ice is bad.
Cold is not good for animals, children, and other living things.
Burn more oil and coal: Do it for the children…
From: gary gulrud (08:16:40) :
… I’m beginning to think of ‘global temperatures’ in the same vein as ‘number of angels able to dance at one time on the head of a pin’. Lies, damned lies, and, well you knows the rest.
Okay, let’s kill this myth (and the associated Everyone thought the Earth was Flat” myth too)
Scholastics did not debate this. Protestants invented it. Please see…
http://web.maths.unsw.edu.au/~jim/medmyths.html
Sigh…
I would go for champagne socialism more than anything else. Very difficult for any Government to force the BBC one way or another.
Also, will Cameron be able to replace the individuals responsible for their idiotic AGW position..
That assumes that he would want to. Watching a potential next Prime Minister apologise to “greens” for turning up to a meeting in a car really does send a message.
The message I got though was “don’t vote for me, I have no spine”. Quite why our politicians don’t get the message that if we had wanted national policy set by “greens” we would have voted for them is beyond me. You can be sure that none of them will be around taking any responsibility for the results of current UK (non-existent) energy policy though.
Bob, isn’t surface energy in the oceans energy that is entering atmosphere and so leaving?
>>But I am also wondering if this is somebody hedging their bets,
>>prior to the Copenhagen meeting.
You bet – especially if the conference takes place during a howling blizzard. Bit stupid of them, to have the conference in winter, or perhaps they were so blinded by their own propaganda they all thought they should take their sun-cream and beach towels.
.
>>Jimbo (13:04:01) :
Yes, interesting BBC comment from yesteryear – climate change caused by the Sun.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/56456.stm
Quote:
Using ancient tree rings, they show that 17 out of 19 warm spells in the last 10,000 years coincided with peaks in solar activity.
Endquote
I thought that Leif et al claim the Sun’s output is more or less constant. Make up your minds chaps.
.
If I can see that increases in global temperature are much more pronounced at higher latitudes, particularly in the Arctic, and that these increases are stronger at certain times of the year, namely Dec/Jan and around the equinoxes, I would be interested as to what effect these changes have on PDO and ENSO, as opposed to how PDO affects global temperature.
Here’s another example of the BBC’s unbiased reporting of climate change:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8307272.stm
It’s all about ice-free summers in the Arctic and how that wonderful Caitlin expedition has advanced the science.
Innocentiousxii … so why is the current (and past) sleep like state of the sun correlated with low temperatures on earth?
Additionally, among the written records are records of wheat and flax shipments from Greenland to Iceland and Denmark over a period of about 150 years. The colonists produced enough surplus to be able to trade it for things they could not build/obtain in Greenland.
The colony had been economically viable enough that when the western Greenland settlement “disappeared”, the King of Denmark sent an expedition to find out what happened.
Why is it these facts are so hard to understand?
Re: JLKrueger (07:22:14) :
Why is it these facts are so hard to understand?
Because they are disputed.
Because there never were more than two small settlements on the southwestern tip of Greenland, which had a very hard time surviving (partly because for some reason the Vikings didn’t learn anything from the local Inuit specialists). In this area it could still be possible to culture some grains of wheat, by the way, but I wouldn’t bet on making a living from it (as the Inuit never, but never! did).
Trade between Vikings and Inuit for some reason was nil. Other trade can never have been much (why trade with far off Europe instead of with the locals?).
Because the ice sheet isn’t a couple hundred years old, but a couple hundred thousands.
Is there some source online ref the written docs on shipments you refer to?
3X2: You listed my statement, “Pacific Ocean SST anomalies have taken a recent upswing, pretty much eliminating any thought that it’s been cooling,” then asked, “Bob, isn’t surface energy in the oceans energy that is entering atmosphere and so leaving?”
I’m not sure what you’re driving at. Wouldn’t SST also include energy being input (shortwave and longwave radiation), upwelling of waters from lower levels, changes in evaporation due to variations in surface winds, etc.?
RR Kampen,
Your speculations on Greenland are riddled with misinformation. I suggest you get up to speed on the topic if you’re going to comment on it. Here’s a good place to start:
http://climate4you.com
Click on the climate history tab in the left column.
I understand exactly why the alarmist crowd is so desperate to undermine the history of Greenland. They must keep the hokey stick alive, which requires that no natural climate change can ever be admitted.
Smokey, that is no place to start except maybe for kids (whom you will have to tell the graph above is for the Greenland ice sheet only).
The article notes nothing about agriculture on Greenland. Actually it gives virtually no info about Greenland at all.
Of course, the article DOES show the hockeystick (simply because it exists) -> http://climate4you.com/images/GlobalMAATvs1961-1991since1850.gif
There are a number of fine Dutch wines today and wine industry is strongly on the increase in our country. This is in locations that are cooler than SW-Britain up to 53 degrees North. But warm enough and more lucrative than other agriculture nowadays. Prize winner example http://www.vanflevolandsebodem.nl/index.cfm?pid=1373 .
As talk about an ‘alarmist crowd’ is entirely off topic, I cannot answer you on that.
RR Kampen:
“As talk about an ‘alarmist crowd’ is entirely off topic, I cannot answer you on that.”
It is exactly on topic. The topic is climate skepticism. The other side of that coin is climate alarmism. You should take it easy on that ‘prize winning’ Dutch wine.
To repeat my comment above:
“I understand exactly why the alarmist crowd is so desperate to undermine the history of Greenland. They must keep the hokey stick alive, which requires that no natural climate change can ever be admitted.”
And of course the hokey stick I referred to is Michael Mann’s debunked fabrication. The fact that natural global warming has taken place does not prove that human activity is the cause.
Trying to re-frame the argument to show that natural climate change is caused by humans is a scientifically baseless claim. If human activity caused the most recent warming cycle, provide the raw data backing up that conjecture.
Smokey, can you find where I alluded to the ‘A’ in AGW in previous posts?
You concede the fact of the ‘hockey stick’. Okay. As to the cause of this figure, I think it can only be that ‘A’ and you don’t.
Raw data?
1. It is getting warmer. This warmth is superposed on existing cycles and this warming is accelarating, slowly blotting out the significance of those cycles.
2. There’s a sound physics theory on what CO2 does with certain radiation.
3. The only principal driver of world temperature that is changing with sufficient amplitude and velocity, is the concentration of a couple of GHG’s of which CO2 is the main.
You believe this set of data is coincidence (there is simply no other ‘theory’ you can come up with!). Well, as a realist, I don’t. When I’ve seen enough swallows, I call it summer. Even if a day may still be spoilt by rain.
RR Kampen:
Thank you for showing that you have zero data to back up your AGW conjecture. But don’t feel too bad about it, no one else has data measuring AGW either.
Your “sound physics theory” is not data. And speculating that the ‘only principal driver’ of temperature is CO2 is ridiculous. As CO2 has been steadily increasing, the planet’s temperature has been flat to declining. You are still trying to blame a tiny trace gas for global warming that isn’t even happening.
Face it, the CO2=AGW conjecture isn’t based on empirical data. Without real world data, skeptics will continue to question the increasingly absurd claim that natural warming is a result of changes in a tiny trace gas.
Alarmists have the burden of showing, through empirical measurements, that CO2 is causing [currently non-existent] global warming. So far, they have failed.
Smokey, I can’t prove Pi is irrational to some people either. Let me rephrase this. What kind of empirical evidence would you suggest?
So how would you prove empirically that more CO2 gives a temperature rise? Problem being you can’t SEE a radiation balance… If that is your argument – you can’t SEE it – then I hope you trust your computer, as it functions on the basis of a lot of physics you can’t see.
Hey, this really is like physics! You have a theory, you have phenomena behaving according to that theory, you call these phenomena ’empirical evidence’, well, and that’s it. Never was a theory relying on emperical evidence ever proved mathematically! This means you can never know there is no planet whose gravitation operates horizontally over the surface. And that is true. So, Smokey, no-one will ever be able to prove the AGW-hypothesis. And no-one will ever be able to disprove it. I mean, mathematically. See Popper for a reference.
RR Kampen,
Albert Einstein proposed a hypothesis. It was confirmed repeatedly with empirical measurements. But now you admit that AGW will never be proved or disproved empirically.
That confirms the fact that AGW is simply a conjecture, not a hypothesis. Alarmists claim that AGW exists, but they can’t provide data based evidence. They can not measure AGW. But based on their belief system, they say we should raise taxes sky high, and spend $Trillions on something that they can’t show even exists.
That situation demonstrates the value of skepticism in the scientific method. All skeptics are saying is: prove it. Or at the very least, provide strong, real world evidence that AGW exists.
Show the data that measures the temperature change caused specifically by human activity, versus natural global warming caused by the planet emerging from the LIA. The fact that no such data exists means that AGW is speculation.
If AGW can not be falsified, then it is not science… as stated by the same Karl Popper you refer to, who states:
1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations.
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.
3. Every “good” scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of “corroborating evidence.”)
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a “conventionalist twist” or a “conventionalist stratagem.”)
One can sum up all this by saying that the criterion of the scientific status of a theory is its falsifiability, or refutability, or testability.
We can see the CO2=AGW conjecture between the lines throughout Popper’s rules — confirming the fact that the AGW conjecture may be many things, but scientific isn’t one of them.
[snip, Sorry Dave, a bridge too far. Take off the gloves and try again ~ ctm]
Awwww, it was so much fun to write. I wasn’t wrong and it was kinda funny. The part about AGWA was clever, no? Phlogistons post on the “beeb” truly was devastating, wasn’t it? Anyway, I always defer to your wisdom. It is what makes this blog great!! 8^D
I would like to add that Smokey can bring the pain as good as anyone. He also corrects me when I get outta line. I tip my hat to you, Sir !!
Bob Tisdale (07:48:04) :
3X2: You listed my statement (…)
Bob, sorry if my question appeared to be blunt or critical. It was certainly not intended that way.
I was just trying to get a grip in my own mind of what SST anomalies represent. I directed the question your way simply because I would put more trust your view.