In The News

[laserguy]

I imagine that the cold over the next week will give rise to another suite of "global warming at an end" type reports and , if so ,folk would do well to bring our 'weather' back into the context of global climate?

Doubt it,more likely there'll be sciency types on the BBC news stood in front of a totally ice-encapsulated Houses of Parliament saying that the current onslaught of what amounts to ice-age II is entirely within projections and we have to act etc etc. Mind you,that's what we usually get after a coupla days of 28C in the middle of July - except that it rarely gets that warm these days.

[callmedick]

Opposing news

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70

No, let's hope it gets colder and then more so - it's the only way we'll win this argument. It will be incredibly difficult for the corrupt governments of this world to get the public to sleepwalk into signing away more of their freedoms and wealth in the name of global warming when everything is feezing over. The debate is being played out like a football match with a crooked ref. Every goal scored by the skeptics is scratched off for no good reason, meanwhile Al Gore's nonsense film is being shown to our children in school when he's a proven liar. The AGW team have the huge banroll, the big wages, the nice cars, the lifestyle - of course most professionals want to play for them.

[knocker]

Mind you,that's what we usually get after a coupla days of 28C in the middle of July - except that it rarely gets that warm these days.

That rather depends where you are.

2010 is becoming the year of the heatwave, with record temperatures set in 17 countries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/12/heatwave-record-temperatures-world

[Gray-Wolf]

That rather depends where you are.

2010 is becoming the year of the heatwave, with record temperatures set in 17 countries.

http://www.guardian....peratures-world

LOL! Now lets not have reality interupt a blossoming affair!

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101128220357.htm

I suppose this would mean more intense 'lake effect snow' from the great lakes?

I wonder how this would be viewed and whether some folk will be able to make the link between a warmer world and more snow?

[osmposm]

Opposing news

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded.........

.........The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70

Keith, I have looked carefully at your claims, and followed all the links you give looking for your evidence.....

.......Please show some respect for us here, Keith. Cutting and pasting chunks of stuff from other sources without checking what they say, whether they are relevant, and whether the links still work is an awful waste of everybody's time. Like Jethro, I feel you are in danger of giving serious and considered climate change scepticism a bad name.

Keith, when I wrote that a day or two ago I knew that some of your post was copied; however I now realize that the whole thing - every single word of it bar the first two words - was lifted from elsewhere. Even the link to heavy snow in Greece that I thought was current in fact dates to Feb 2008 - my mistake, the temperature in Athens at the moment is +23C.

It's impossible to know exactly where you copied the piece from, because in early 2008, when it first appeared, it was immediately cut and pasted so widely in blogs and forums that there are countless versions of it out there - a google search for an exact quote of two long, consecutive sentences produced no less than 16,600 hits !! The original seems to be this Feb 2008 blog by Michael Asher in Daily Tech: http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm .

How I wish I had looked earlier - I spent two hours of my life reading, researching and refuting "your" post, under the impression that your views were worthy of some respect. I doubt that you'll even have read my post - you certainly haven't replied. A sad lesson for all of us on here, perhaps: do the google search first, and then decide if respect is due. I'm sorry if anyone thinks I am being too harsh, but I am really quite angry.

Edited November 29, 2010 by osmposm

[Gray-Wolf]

http://wtaq.com/news/articles/2010/nov/29/special-report-weird-weather-leaves-amazon-thirsty/

Second major Amazon drought in 5 years (on the back of last years catastrophic floods). Seems like 'weather extremes' are becoming the 'norm' for our age? I've read a theory where we would expect more weather 'extremes' as our climate warmed...............are we seeing this come to pass or will I be berated (again) for being 'closed' to new research/evidence?

[Methuselah]

http://wtaq.com/news/articles/2010/nov/29/special-report-weird-weather-leaves-amazon-thirsty/

Second major Amazon drought in 5 years (on the back of last years catastrophic floods). Seems like 'weather extremes' are becoming the 'norm' for our age? I've read a theory where we would expect more weather 'extremes' as our climate warmed...............are we seeing this come to pass or will I be berated (again) for being 'closed' to new research/evidence?

I suspect that you are right enough, Ian. But, first of all, we'll have to endure two-years' of having the (perfectly normal) La-Nina-generated temporary cooling being 'proof positive' of a long-term cooling trend?

[Gray-Wolf]

I suspect that you are right enough, Ian. But, first of all, we'll have to endure two-years' of having the (perfectly normal) La-Nina-generated temporary cooling being 'proof positive' of a long-term cooling trend?

I dearly hope you're right about the temps Pete!

With a couple of papers ,yet again, showing us we may have 'undercooked' our predictions what if we just plateaued?

Edited November 30, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[knocker]

I'm not sure whether this has been posted before. If so kindly ignore. I remember there was a brief discussion on soot and albedo but think this was a different study.

As the ice-capped Arctic Ocean warms, ship traffic will increase at the top of the world. And if the sea ice continues to decline, a new route connecting international trading partners may emerge -- but not without significant repercussions to climate, according to a U.S. and Canadian research team that includes a University of Delaware scientist.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101025161150.htm

[Gray-Wolf]

I think it was jethro who was big on soot W.S.?

The 'Dirty coal' of China turned Siberias snow 'Green' the other winter?

With ships within the Basin (and not just external) the land surfaces that the Sea ice once protected will also be at risk?

[PersianPaladin]

Only an economic "catastrophe" will save us from Climate Change Catastrophe.

http://hozturner.blogspot.com/2010/11/climate-change-catastrophe-not-quite.html

[Gray-Wolf]

Only an economic "catastrophe" will save us from Climate Change Catastrophe.

http://hozturner.blo...-not-quite.html

Maybe that is what the IPCC lacks? a body of folk projecting /modelling economic cost's should we do now't (but carry on regardless!).

[paul tall]

http://wtaq.com/news/articles/2010/nov/29/special-report-weird-weather-leaves-amazon-thirsty/

Second major Amazon drought in 5 years (on the back of last years catastrophic floods). Seems like 'weather extremes' are becoming the 'norm' for our age? I've read a theory where we would expect more weather 'extremes' as our climate warmed...............are we seeing this come to pass or will I be berated (again) for being 'closed' to new research/evidence?

How much does The Climate Change Industry pay you to fly their flag? You're on their books aren't you?

[Gray-Wolf]

How much does The Climate Change Industry pay you to fly their flag? You're on their books aren't you?

"Climate Change Industry"....proper Karl Pilkington that!

Edited December 1, 2010 by Gray-Wolf

[knocker]

The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) -drawing on climate data from networks of land-based weather and climate stations, ships and buoys from its 189 member states -reported that most parts of all continents experienced above-normal temperatures last year. Maximum daily temperatures in northern China were routinely above 40°C, breaking historical records; Australia had its third-warmest year on record, marked by three exceptional heat waves, one of which brought Victoria's highest recorded temperature (48.8°C) and the worst bushfires in the country's history.

Rainfall was also marked by extremes. China suffered its worst drought in five decades, with water levels in some reservoirs dropping to 50-year lows; India endured one of its weakest monsoons since 1972; drought in Kenya caused severe damage to livestock and a 40 per cent decline in the maize harvest; Mexico experienced severe-to-exceptional drought; and drought in central Argentina caused severe damage to agriculture, livestock and water resources.

Meanwhile, the northern plains of the USA were affected by record flooding, and the Amazon Basin had its second-worst floods in 100 years. Other areas experienced unprecedented bursts of intense rainfall: in Burkina Faso, 263 millimetres of rain, the highest in 90 years, was recorded in less than 12 hours; more than 300 millimetres was recorded in less than 48 hours in southeastern Spain, where the long-term annual average is 450 millimetres; and the highest September rainfall in 80 years produced severe flash floods in northwestern Turkey. Havoc also came in the form of extreme storms, with Ontario in particular experiencing record numbers of tornadoes and related fatalities.

But is this caused by GW?

Simple science reinforces such a view, according to Bob Ward, policy director of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London Earth is getting warmer, that can't be disputed, he says. On the purely theoretical basis of atmospheric physics, we expect to see a change in the frequency, intensity and distribution of extreme weather as a result of climate change. A warmer atmosphere contains more energy, and so you are more likely to have more extreme weather events.

Nevertheless, scientists are generally wary of committing to a direct link between severe weather and climate change, although many do believe the evidence firmly points that way. 'You need a reasonable amount of data and it's just not there yet,' says Professor Meric Srokosz, co-ordinator of the rapid change programme at the National Oceanographic Centre, University of Southampton. 'From a global perspective, the models show very clearly that we expect more droughts, rainfalls and storms. We are expecting more extreme events, but it's unclear whether any such events have yet occurred.

'I'm fairly comfortable with the thought that the climate models are predicting more extremes,' he continues. 'There are indications that something's going on, but it's difficult to say it's definitely global warming.'

Experts from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia are equally cautious. 'There is very likely a link between climate change and the characteristics of extreme weather events, but it isn't a simple case of all types of extremes in all parts of the world increasing as the globe warms,' says the CRU's Dr Tim Osborn. 'Our observations of what may already have happened, in terms of extreme events, are incomplete, and even where they are extensive, it isn't an easy task to separate real trends from natural variability. It's difficult to sign up 100 per cent to it.'

Source: Geographical Magazine, October 2010

I think I'll opt to raise the flag

Edited December 1, 2010 by weather ship

[PersianPaladin]

Maybe that is what the IPCC lacks? a body of folk projecting /modelling economic cost's should we do now't (but carry on regardless!).

[Yorkshiresnows]

I suspect that you are right enough, Ian. But, first of all, we'll have to endure two-years' of having the (perfectly normal) La-Nina-generated temporary cooling being 'proof positive' of a long-term cooling trend?

How about working on the 30 year PDO.

The La Nina is bringing down global temps as widely predicted. As we are now in -PDO territory we may expect a continued cooling with greater arctic ice retention over the coming years. Cyclically predictable and little to do with Co2.

Should world temps fall next year to near average ..... what then for the AGW debate ....... surely this must mean that greenhouse gas emissions are not the ONLY factor and that CO2 forcing is not overridingly strong?

It was not so long ago that folks were talking about the world climate being a 'closed system' and that La Nina and El Nino could not affect the grand scheme of climate change. Not in my book.

Also not so long ago that GW was posting all sorts of rubbish to do with certain heatwaves etc using this as evidence of increased global warming.... Obvously this was not so, equally as the early European cold winter is not evidence of a cooling climate.

Y.S

[PersianPaladin]

How about working on the 30 year PDO.

The La Nina is bringing down global temps as widely predicted. As we are now in -PDO territory we may expect a continued cooling with greater arctic ice retention over the coming years. Cyclically predictable and little to do with Co2.

Should world temps fall next year to near average ..... what then for the AGW debate ....... surely this must mean that greenhouse gas emissions are not the ONLY factor and that CO2 forcing is not overridingly strong?

It was not so long ago that folks were talking about the world climate being a 'closed system' and that La Nina and El Nino could not affect the grand scheme of climate change. Not in my book.

Also not so long ago that GW was posting all sorts of rubbish to do with certain heatwaves etc using this as evidence of increased global warming.... Obvously this was not so, equally as the early European cold winter is not evidence of a cooling climate.

Y.S

If we want to avoid global climate catastrophe....we have to end all economic growth worldwide.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/239642-the-political-economy-of-climate-change

Maybe it's high time to close the Strait of Hormuz. Permanently.

Edited December 3, 2010 by PersianPaladin

[full_frontal_occlusion]

If we want to avoid global climate catastrophe....we have to end all economic growth worldwide.

Maybe it's high time to close the Strait of Hormuz. Permanently.

Excellent idea then maybe those actions will also ensure the global nuclear war we need to justify the cost of Trident.

ffO.

[PersianPaladin]

Excellent idea then maybe those actions will also ensure the global nuclear war we need to justify the cost of Trident.

ffO.

lol

[full_frontal_occlusion]

How about working on the 30 year PDO.

Should world temps fall next year to near average ..... what then for the AGW debate ....... surely this must mean that greenhouse gas emissions are not the ONLY factor and that CO2 forcing is not overridingly strong?

Also not so long ago that GW was posting all sorts of rubbish to do with certain heatwaves etc using this as evidence of increased global warming.... Obvously this was not so, equally as the early European cold winter is not evidence of a cooling climate.

Y.S

What we really need is to let AGW go on a little cull. Let's face it, the people to go first will be those already least able to help themselves and are mostly undesirables anyway. A bit of flooding will be good to redistribute inafrastructure whilst population growth will be reversed.

Heck, we could even use GW as a control variable to manipulate global population. Presto, in a few decades AGW will self limit population. We would need to determine the optimal system damping to avoid oscillation though.

Once at a more sustainable level, we could even afford to let population rise again. And then with post AGW economic growth returning to the post war boom years level, folks would wonder what all the fuss was about.

ffO.

[knocker]

How about working on the 30 year PDO.

Should world temps fall next year to near average ..... what then for the AGW debate ....... surely this must mean that greenhouse gas emissions are not the ONLY factor and that CO2 forcing is not overridingly strong?

Y.S

This comment highlights much that is wrong with debate concerning climate change. Firstly, the whole sentence is dependant on the word 'should' which is an assumption based on nothing except that there are obviously global weather changes during an El Nino.

Secondly, and more importantly, is the arrogant assumption that hundreds of scientists who have spent years researching the issue and firmly believe that levels of CO2 are a driving force in GW have not taken into account cyclical events. For some peculiar reason people often think they are the only ones who have thought of the point they are making. The combination of cyclical events and pouring billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere is one of the reasons there is no definitive answer but only probabilties based on the available evidence.

Pondering over a couple of facts over the last 800,000 years. A period 667,000 years ago the level of CO2 in the atmosphere was at it's lowest at 170ppm. This figure peaked 317,000 years later at 300ppm. This led scientist to the not unreasonable assumption that this was the natural range of CO2 levels in the atmosphere. The level now stands at 390ppm and I for one, taking into account what I've read on the subject, cannot believe this is not having a significant effect on the climate.

Regarding the rubbish GW is supposed to have written. I got the distinct impression he was posing a question not stating a definitive point of view.

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

http://wtaq.com/news...amazon-thirsty/

Second major Amazon drought in 5 years (on the back of last years catastrophic floods). Seems like 'weather extremes' are becoming the 'norm' for our age? I've read a theory where we would expect more weather 'extremes' as our climate warmed...............are we seeing this come to pass or will I be berated (again) for being 'closed' to new research/evidence?

I have to say that I find the idea that 'extremes' are firm evidence of AGW simply standard clueless media story searching. Doughts, deluges, heat-waves, freezing blasts are part and parcel of our climate they have been around since our wee planet and its atmosphere first developed. We live within a swirling mass of constantly heating and cooling moisture-laden air which is perpetually trying to balance it's temperature evenly and never succeeding so what else would we expect? Go visit the S pole then the equator or even just stand in the desert and feel the sun go down (roasting then freezing in the space of a few hours) - our planet is extreme.

I imagine a glacier advancing over this green and pleasant land would also be considered 'extreme', i.e if the world was cooling down, then we can expect extremes too.

Saying that AGW definitely explains some recent Amazonian droughts/the latest flood in india is like me saying the 0.5 m of snow in my garden is a direct result of AGW no doubts. Bet if you dug down in Amazon lake beds etc you'd find lots of droughts and floods recorded. If you told me the level of the amazon was exactly the same every year and it had been like this since time immemorial - then I'd be worried something was very odd about the data. Likewise, droughts could also result from global cooling - less moisture in the air so less rain....

This not berating you personally, but the media (and scientists who love the attention so big up this stuff when interviewed) who portray this sort of 'lets scare everyone into buying our paper' as gospel.

If we are warming and this continues to accelerate, then we can expect some areas might experience more 'extremes', other areas might become much nicer with no complaints thus no reports of scary extremes. The same would apply if we cooled down. If we stay roughly the same, extremes will affect some areas due to cyclic patterns before moving on to others but the media would not have something scary and convienient to blame.

I was thinking the other night about switiching to climate science - it's a job for life. Think about it - world looks like it's warming, apply for grant on warming. After a while, world looks like it's cooling - apply for grant on cooling. World now appears to be warming again, submit new grant on warming..... All the way through to retirement. Son/daugher can carry on the good work. Brilliant - the work is never ending!

'

[Scottish-Irish Skier]

Secondly, and more importantly, is the arrogant assumption that hundreds of scientists who have spent years researching the issue and firmly believe that levels of CO2 are a driving force in GW have not taken into account cyclical events.

To clarify the often quoted AGW argeument that 'scientists are very intelligent + they have worked for years on this = must all be true'.

Just like to note that I'm a working research scientist, well up in top names in my field, and I'm not that clever and neither are my colleagues globally. Granted, we may be clever than the average joe in certain respects, but we're not all super geniuses nor have we worked out how to make crystal balls as yet.

It is in no way arrogant to have concerns that a scientist is wrong. They very often are - in fact a lot of science is about showing how earlier research was not right. Science is still very much trial and error.

In fact, a scientist that claimed to be definitely right is more arrogant. I use 'appears to be' 'seems to suggest' 'points strongly too' and such conservative terms in my work because that's generally what we're faced with; we are concluding based on what we have in hand but might not have got it right.

Edited December 3, 2010 by scottish skier