30 YEARS OF GLOBAL COOLING HAS ALREADY STARTED

[johnholmes]

fair enough, best I keep my promise to myself and try not to get involved in these chats.

[Michael Winston]

last bit is dead easy and I've explained it more than once.

short answer=Margaret Thatcher

Here's a but of what she said then................

''[fossils] and serpents have been found from even more ancient times..''

Serpents?

Regards,

Mike.

[sub-polar men]

John if I wanted that an internet messageboard wouldn't be my first port of call I think this debate is entertaining amateur stuff, end of. And I think the Met Office scientists are probably very good, it is the spin that comes out of the climate centre that is dubious, it's hardly balanced IMO.

yes, in the met centre there are vary good scientist but they are forced to spin.

[Iceberg]

Don't disappear John. This thread says most of what's wrong about the climate change discussion. Very little of the theory is backed up by science and even when it is it's on unstable ground.

I had to think long and hard about whether to post in it tbh, if you do get lynched if you don't it very quickly tries to become wrapped up in pseudo scientific credibility by mentioning terms and books and people with a prof at the start of there name.

BTW I know how to look for a book on Amazon but I want to know what the book says not buy it. Lots of idiots can produce a book(I have and knew very little about the subject matter) but evidence and facts will back up an arguement much more.

As to the shifting of the Jet Stream and historical weather it's very very interesting and deserves being discussed but cannot be used to back up such thoeries.

[Roo]

As a question (so not implying or offending anyone), I'd like to know how it works in paid scientific research. Does a scientist wake up one morning and say hey! I've a great idea, get some funding, and then conducts the research? Or are there hierarchies in research labs. So, one, day, Mr Scientist, will go to work, and Mr Boss Scientist will say 'Today we'll be looking at the effect of human flatulence on biomass expansion. Eat your beans' Just interested, that's all.

It depends what you are talking about. If it's postgraduate research, then either the student suggests that they'd like to look at a certain area (perhaps due to interest or following up research they have done either for an undergrad or masters dissertation). Or their supervisor will suggest something that they might be interested in. Alternatively a student may find an area/suervisor whose work they are interested in and then approach them. Sometimes a student will be given a topic and sometimes they'll work it out with their supervisor. Topics sometimes come with funding, or the student has to apply to somewhere like e.g. EPSRC (which has a board comprising many senior academics). A few, usually foreign students, will pay for their own research.

Once qualified, the researcher then has more flexibility: some go to groups where they are interested, some start their own groups and some start collaborations. Research can be inherited and taken further or can be brand new. Funding comes from all over the place: it can come from the same bodies which fund PhDs, etc, e.g. EPSRC, but t'other half was also funded by the Royal Society, the Welcome Trust, Levehulme, etc all of whom are independent charities or trusts. In fact funding can come from almost anywhere and there are hundreds of organisations who provide it. Usually you don't get it all from one place: the big lot for, say an experiment, might come from EPSRC, but for writing up or going to a conference to present the findings you would get funding from elsewhere to do each one. The departments also have funds to top up whatever the grants don't cover.

In all the stuff I've ever know you never get all the money from one place to do just one thing: it doesn't happen. And everyone I've known has always had trouble getting hold of enough money. As with all unviersity type things, cash is always short.

As John has said above, all the scientists I have ever known have been in it because they love it. They are THE LAST people who would be in for the cash (in fact, the ones that are tend to leave science and go off into computing becasue they can't hack the crap wages, short term contracts and poor job prospects). What's left is usually only there because they truly love their subject.

[SnowBear]

John, with your knowledge, links etc, your input on these threads is important. Perhaps sub doesn't realise we do have very experienced meteorologists here and also ex RAF and MetO meteorological personnel.

Sub, at best the painting study is just an interesting way to look at past weather, but can never be held in regard for any accuracy for many many reasons, some I outlined above.

The question of whether MetO personnel are untrustworthy you can address here, either through John, or directly to the MetO. I think you will find a lot of your mistrust is more to do with media and their take on the information rather than the MetO themselves. They have studied deeply into this subject, and bring a set of probabilities, the problem arises when the media or such takes hold of say a 65% probability and takes it as gospel xy or z is going to happen without fail.

The jet stream is very dynamic, something we only have data for for some decades, we do not know its entire behaviour yet, so we cannot say that in the time before we could measure it, or even indeed knew about it that it did this or that. The storms could equally have been due to a higher than normal number of hybrid storms tracking from the tropics, similar to the ones which skirted Portugal in past years.

The Dutch and German lowlands are prone to flooding, at that time dyke building was probably not in full flow and so the lowlands were as they are meant to be, sea swamps and marshes, and liable to flooding from any moderate storm that passes by.

We also have claims that large hail caused a lot of damage, we still get large hail all over Europe, and it is quite often, without more detail we cannot say whether the above normal damage for those years could have been down to just bad luck where cattle and crops happened to be. Much of Europe can get supercell thunderstorms capable of producing large hail, tornadoes etc.

At best an interesting study to put in the melting pot but doesn't provide much information on where today's climate will go as much is guess work in my view and very little detail or accurate records.

[Roo]

Interesting insights into funding and publication. From where I'm standing, it would appear the iffy funding practice is elsewhere

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7092614.stm

http://qwstnevrythg.blog-city.com/who_is_f...ge_skeptics.htm

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/press/features/2007/climatechange.asp

http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/4104/8/

EDIT: Another thought re funding. It is usually mandatory to accredit whoever provided your funding, so a quick peek at the end of any research paper will let you know who paid for what!

Edited June 26, 2008 by Roo

[Filski]

Perhaps he meant Melbourne as there was snow there for the first time in a long while, I believe, although it may have been Winter 2006, from memory.

Even if Melbourne was meant, nothing extraordinary happened there either. It snows at or close to sea level infrequently. I think 2000 was the last time I know that flakes were seen settling on the tops of office buildings. Not that long ago. It snows at sea level across the ditch in Hobart almost every other year I think.

Sceptics do not help themselves by trying to use these as examples. Freak weather systems in Australia are equally to blame on climate change as they are here. The 1yr cooling that was trumpetted early this year has reveresed with a number of record or near record land temperatures recorded.

[Roo]

To anyone with skeptical questions, this is well worth a look. NERC's very own climate change challenge.

A very interesting read from a leading funding body:

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/consult/debate...nge/summary.asp

[sub-polar men]

Even if Melbourne was meant, nothing extraordinary happened there either. It snows at or close to sea level infrequently. I think 2000 was the last time I know that flakes were seen settling on the tops of office buildings. Not that long ago. It snows at sea level across the ditch in Hobart almost every other year I think.

Sceptics do not help themselves by trying to use these as examples. Freak weather systems in Australia are equally to blame on climate change as they are here. The 1yr cooling that was trumpetted early this year has reveresed with a number of record or near record land temperatures recorded.

Take a look at this interesting article on the continuing global cooling.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...c4-c8accd44a47d

[johnholmes]

tks for that link Roo, lots and lots to read there.

also tks to those who asked me not to leave.

What I would ask is that ANYONE on here that reads a post from me that they feel is in any way unfair to anyone else please tell me. Sorry mods not trying to do your job just asking for help if I sound off a bit as someone who has some inside, admittedly, rather old inside knowledge.

To s-p-m, all I would ask if you are unable to accept my attempt to exonerate Met O staff is to send an e mail with your views to the Met O, or better still to the Hadley Centre. Don't go straight at them so to speak but ask what funding and how much of what they write is actually printed. The media are wonderful at listening to what you say, even write, and then, complete with '.......' present your words as something it is quite hard to actaully pick out what you really gave them.

I do know that the head of the UK forecast team, on Radio 4, when trying to explain the Met O winter forecast, was so misquoted and so annoyed at repeated questions trying to get him to agree he actually meant something else that he has vowed never to give an interview again!

So its extremely difficult to know if what we read is actually what any particular person wrote or spoke.

Edited June 26, 2008 by johnholmes

[Filski]

Take a look at this interesting article on the continuing global cooling.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...c4-c8accd44a47d

You are kidding me/us aren't you. Spencer, Wattsupwidat, a US political website....

This whole thread is a giant wind up.

[johnholmes]

Take a look at this interesting article on the continuing global cooling.

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?Fus...c4-c8accd44a47d

I hope anyone can see that taking short time slots is meaningless.

Se the chart below, its the one in the link above, purporting to show global(or is it USA) cooling.

All I've done is look at the graph and draw horizontal lines for highest and the next lowest in several places, most have about the same horizontal scale. As you can see the fall he is using to 'demonstrate' global cooling recently has been mirrored several times even before the 'supposed' GW of the late 20th century.

It is so easy as I keep saying to produce facts to bend to whatever view you want to portray.

I am, always have been, someone who believes the earth, in terms of centuries is getting warmer, I am unsure why. So in this upward trend there are bound to be downturns in that. What no one has yet proven to me is that the trend talked about in the link above is part of any long term trend. It may be I do not know enough to be able to give a view.

Do remember, both for and against GW that in the 70's the talk was all about it getting cooler, now its largely the other way. Do any of us know enough to be able to predict with any certainty what the earths' temperature will be 50 or 100 years from now.

IF the slow and, at times, erratic increase continues, what is for sure, is that more and more ice will melt. At what point we reach the truly serious stage, that of ice melting on the two major ice continents, Greenland and Antarctica, I do not know.

All I have ever suggested is that rather than arguing about is it cooling or is it warming, taking the major scientific meteorological/climatological evidence of temperature, regardless of CO2 or anything else, would it not be a sensible decision to start trying to get an agreement on what will be done IF that happens rather than waiting until its too close for rational discussion and decisions?

end of another JH sermon!

sorry after all that I forgot to post my chart

see below

Edited June 26, 2008 by johnholmes

[Mr Sleet]

You are kidding me/us aren't you. Spencer, Wattsupwidat, a US political website....

This whole thread is a giant wind up.

Fact is, in recent years we have cooled, as John's chart shows. The question is, will the cooling continue ? Nobody knows.

Edited June 26, 2008 by Mr Sleet

[VillagePlank]

.. snip ..

Some excellent links, today, Roo. Nice one Food for thought.

[Filski]

Fact is, in recent years we have cooled, as John's chart shows. The question is, will the cooling continue ? Nobody knows.

JH's reply above covered what I was about to say. I did some similar graphs a while ago for another forum:

These sorts of sudden drops are common and are no indicator of the climate trend to come. Even the degree of drop is not uncommon.

If you look at solar cycles, again there is no clear relationship in the last 10 years

El Nino, La Nina?

Finally a difference of just a week or 2 halves the change. If you select an appropriate time scale you can prove anything. I'd suggest that 1yr is just noise - in terms of global climate.

[sub-polar men]

JH's reply above covered what I was about to say. I did some similar graphs a while ago for another forum:

These sorts of sudden drops are common and are no indicator of the climate trend to come. Even the degree of drop is not uncommon.

If you look at solar cycles, again there is no clear relationship in the last 10 years

El Nino, La Nina?

Finally a difference of just a week or 2 halves the change. If you select an appropriate time scale you can prove anything. I'd suggest that 1yr is just noise - in terms of global climate.

There seems to be a Down trend since 2003. The up trend from 1996 to 2003 may be due to the short length of solar cycle 22 of 9.6 years and the amplitude of solar cycle 23. The down drend after 2003 may be the weakening of solar cycle 23 which still has not ended.

[johnholmes]

and another version of the same graph/chart

Another_version_of_the_same_temperature_change_chart.doc

[Filski]

There seems to be a Down trend since 2003. The up trend from 1996 to 2003 may be due to the short length of solar cycle 22 of 9.6 years and the amplitude of solar cycle 23. The down drend after 2003 may be the weakening of solar cycle 23 which still has not ended.

Seems, may, etc. Weasel words that allow you to suppose an assumption that has no real scientific backing. Pick any point you like and I'll pick another to demonstrate to complete opposite. Neither approach would acheive anything except chasing one another's tail.

We are all familiar with the idea of a 'perfect storm' - a set of factors that combine in such a way to produce a result where overall effect should exceed the sum of each individual factor. We have something of a perfect storm now - Solar, La Nina and PDO (plus a few I've forgotten off the top of my head) and yet we still record temperatures that are in the top 10% of records. We 'should' be having a year without a summer, a winter catastrophe to follow.

If global cooling were really taking place then the arctic should be seeing little melt. Instead we see a likely new record melt for the arctic and temperatures over land continue to be significantly above any measuring stick you are prepared to offer. All this time you look for a natural cause? The truth is that without AGHG the obersvations cannot be modelled.

[Andy_Calafell_Sheffield]

John Holmes; Thanks for giving a link to that temperature chart.

However, why do you talk about on your document that GW posters would show; forget the last 10 years, if you look at the rise since 1850 then you will see the huge increasing trend in global temperatures.

You know as well as I do that 1850 was at approximately the coldest point in the last 1000 years or so and even the IPCC has admitted that the warming before 1980 was simply natural variation.

Therefore, in the grand scheme of things, temperatures rose for 20 years, and have now stabilized and dropped slightly within the last 8 years?

GW supporters are quick to 'conveniently forget', well from all of the debates I have seen, about what El Nino did to global temperatures in 1998, which was cause a sharp increase. However, they are quick to included La Nina as the major reason for our current slight cooling. Why? It amplies the temperature increases to make it more dramatic.

Edited June 26, 2008 by Andy_Calafell_Sheffield

[sub-polar men]

Seems, may, etc. Weasel words that allow you to suppose an assumption that has no real scientific backing. Pick any point you like and I'll pick another to demonstrate to complete opposite. Neither approach would acheive anything except chasing one another's tail.

We are all familiar with the idea of a 'perfect storm' - a set of factors that combine in such a way to produce a result where overall effect should exceed the sum of each individual factor. We have something of a perfect storm now - Solar, La Nina and PDO (plus a few I've forgotten off the top of my head) and yet we still record temperatures that are in the top 10% of records. We 'should' be having a year without a summer, a winter catastrophe to follow.

If global cooling were really taking place then the arctic should be seeing little melt. Instead we see a likely new record melt for the arctic and temperatures over land continue to be significantly above any measuring stick you are prepared to offer. All this time you look for a natural cause? The truth is that without AGHG the obersvations cannot be modelled.

Most of the melting is likely more to do with the oceans recovering the 20 to 30 years of natural warming. It’s still releasing its heat. There are increasing articles on the web show the opposite evidence about ice caps malting. The mainstream media is only mandated to show one side of the argument. The evidence which they are showing is increasingly becoming more and more selective.

[johnholmes]

John Holmes; Thanks for giving a link to that temperature chart.

However, why do you talk about on your document that GW posters would show; forget the last 10 years, if you look at the rise since 1850 then you will see the huge increasing trend in global temperatures.

You know as well as I do that 1850 was at approximately the coldest point in the last 1000 years or so and even the IPCC has admitted that the warming before 1980 was simply natural variation.

Therefore, in the grand scheme of things, temperatures rose for 20 years, and have now stabilized and dropped slightly within the last 8 years?

GW supporters are quick to 'conveniently forget', well from all of the debates I have seen, about what El Nino did to global temperatures in 1998, which was cause a sharp increase. However, they are quick to included La Nina as the major reason for our current slight cooling. Why? It amplies the temperature increases to make it more dramatic.

sorry if my attempt at being non controversial did not work for you.

I'm well aware about 1850, I was merely using a chart someone else had used to show one thing to show that the same chart could be used for the opposite point of view - nothing more nothing less - no hidden agenda mate?

[Gray-Wolf]

So 'Polar Year' a meaningful multi disciplined study into the Poles or multi governmental spin?

The plethora of animations of last years melt across the arctic.....selective viewing?

The recent studies showing Greenland ablating 50% faster than was thought.....misinformation?

Really Daniel, when we are approaching any major downturn in global temps we will be well aware of it's arrival. Do you really think that there is some great global conspiricy of 'warmists' that have ,for over 40yrs, lied and cheated up a picture of the climate we exist in today?

[Filski]

Below-par Men - Sorry mate but your argument holds less water than a colander. It smacks of struthianism and an unwillingness to examine the science critically. You'll argue your case till blue in the face and no amount of discussion shall sway you, even when obvious errors and factual inaccuracies are pointed out. As I said, this thread is a bit of a fishing trip that I'll not take part in any further. If you are serious however you show a closed mind on the subject and never intended to enter into debate in which case my time is wasted also.

[sub-polar men]

Seems, may, etc. Weasel words that allow you to suppose an assumption that has no real scientific backing. Pick any point you like and I'll pick another to demonstrate to complete opposite. Neither approach would acheive anything except chasing one another's tail.

We are all familiar with the idea of a 'perfect storm' - a set of factors that combine in such a way to produce a result where overall effect should exceed the sum of each individual factor. We have something of a perfect storm now - Solar, La Nina and PDO (plus a few I've forgotten off the top of my head) and yet we still record temperatures that are in the top 10% of records. We 'should' be having a year without a summer, a winter catastrophe to follow.

If global cooling were really taking place then the arctic should be seeing little melt. Instead we see a likely new record melt for the arctic and temperatures over land continue to be significantly above any measuring stick you are prepared to offer. All this time you look for a natural cause? The truth is that without AGHG the obersvations cannot be modelled.

It seems to be that you don’t understand the correlation between solar cycles and global temperature. The correlation shows that an extra 2-years extension on the average solar cycle length would show about 20 years of cooling after the soler minimum.

Edited June 26, 2008 by sub-polar men