Sometimes there is a simple fact that is impossible to ignore. I have been vaguely aware of claims that the earth’s temperature has not warmed one little bit for a decade now, but had assumed they were the manufacturings of the anti-globalwarmists, so I ignored them. But on Friday night it leapt from the middle of a weather item buried in the BBC World news. It therefore must be true, and I say that with no sense of irony.
The BBC has been to the forefront internationally of promoting scare stories about man-made global warming. Scarcely a week goes by without its running several items purporting to show warming this or melting that is being caused by human-originated greenhouse gas emissions.
But the BBC also seeks to maintain its credibility and its deserved reputation for accuracy and reliability. Thus, while its bulletins are usually politically correct (and I mostly like political correctness, so I am not using the term disparagingly), its news editors also try to ensure they get inconvenient truths into a story, no matter how unpalatable that may be.
The story that caught my attention was well into one of BBC World’s regular hourly bulletins and started off innocuously enough. Reporter Roger Harrabin told us that global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 because of the cooling effect of La Nina.
La Nina, of course, is why Wellington has been enjoying the best summer in a decade, and I have been grateful to it for that. It is the opposing oceanic-atmospheric phenomenon to the more annoying, more powerful El Nino. During La Nina, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean is lower than normal, and it affects weather in much of the world.
Half-listening to the item and mentally thanking La Nina again, I was astonished to hear the reporter say that a cooler year this year would mean that global temperatures had not risen since 1998 and that this fact “had prompted some people to question climate change theory.”
Pardon? This explosive factoid is buried in a story about the weather? Surely the fact that global temperatures have not risen for a decade is a major news story? Maybe I got it wrong, maybe I misheard it. I immediately clicked on to the BBC news website and there it was again, the same explosive fact, again buried in the same story about La Nina.
The story quotes no less an authority than the secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, Michel Jarraud, hardly someone the True Believers could label a “denier,” that appalling term they use to try to shut down anyone who questions even the most extreme claims about climate change.
“El Nino warms the planet when it happens; La Nina cools it,” the BBC story added. Pardon?
It contined: “Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree. This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world. A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and the earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.”
Pardon? Pardon? Temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world? So 1998 was a warm year because of El Nino, and average global temperatures have not risen since? And some scientists, even a minority, are having doubts about global warming, when we have been force-fed the mantra of a universal “scientific consensus?”
Why aren’t the news media giving us more information about something like this? Why is the only news of it from a reliable source buried halfway into a weather story halfway through a news bulletin?
This was a genuine revelation to me, because, though I am sceptical about the more extreme claims of the True Believers, and though the news media are beating up the climate change issue into another Armageddon the way they did with the Y2K Bug and Bird Flu, I really had believed the underlying science, and thought the world had been getting warmer over the past decade, such was the dominance of news items claiming this. They couldn’t all have been wrong, surely?
Of course, given the line pushed for years by the BBC, and the WMO, the story could not end without trying to cast doubt on its own revelations.
It continued: “But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 1998 temperatures would still be well above average for the century. ‘When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year,’ he said. ‘You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming’.”
Well, I agree with Michel Jarraud that we should not look at any one year, but at the long term. I get particularly annoyed with the True Believers and journalists who try to blame every cyclone and iceberg on global warming, when there have always been cyclones and icebergs.
But 10 years is a “pretty long period,” and 10 years without any global warming, despite the massive increase in greenhouse emissions over the decade caused by the huge economic growth in China and India, is starting, just starting, to look to me a tad like the boy who cried wolf.
- Update 9.35am: Since I published the above at 6.11am, the BBC wesbite version of the story was changed from the original by the addition of contrary opinions and dates being inserted high up in it. Fortunately, I copied the original web story (as also run on the BBC World bulletin on Friday night) and this was it:
Global temperatures ‘to decrease’
By Roger Harrabin
BBC News environment analyst
April 4 2008
Global temperatures this year will be lower than in 2007 due to the cooling effect of the La Nina current in the Pacific, UN meteorologists have said.
The World Meteorological Organisation’s secretary-general, Michel Jarraud, told the BBC it was likely that La Nina would continue into the summer.
This would mean global temperatures have not risen since 1998, prompting some to question climate change theory.
But experts have also forecast a record high temperature within five years.
‘Variability’
La Nina and El Nino are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects are so huge they resonate round the world.
El Nino warms the planet when it happens, La Nina cools it. This year, the Pacific is in the grip of a powerful La Nina.
It has contributed to torrential rains in Australia and to some of the coldest temperatures in memory in snow-bound parts of China.
Mr Jarraud told the BBC that the effect was likely to continue into the summer, depressing temperatures globally by a fraction of a degree.
This would mean that temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.
A minority of scientists question whether this means global warming has peaked and the earth has proved more resilient to greenhouse gases than predicted.
But Mr Jarraud insisted this was not the case and noted that 1998 temperatures would still be well above average for the century.
“When you look at climate change you should not look at any particular year,” he said. “You should look at trends over a pretty long period and the trend of temperature globally is still very much indicative of warming.”
“La Nina is part of what we call ‘variability’. There has always been and there will always be cooler and warmer years, but what is important for climate change is that the trend is up.”
Experts at the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for forecasting in Exeter said the world could expect another record temperature within five years or less, probably associated with another episode of El Nino.
LA NINA KEY FACTS
La Nina translates from the Spanish as “The Child Girl”
Refers to the extensive cooling of the central and eastern Pacific
Increased sea temperatures on the western side of the Pacific means the atmosphere has more energy and frequency of heavy rain and thunderstorms is increased
Typically lasts for up to 12 months and generally less damaging event than the stronger El Nino
96 Comments
April 6, 2008 at 7:24 am
That is total nonsense, and I get very angry listening to people who are not talking reality. whoever made the claim is not being honest; they are not living in the real world. What they said is far from being “a simple fact”, it is the opposite. Do your own research, and check out the temperature information from major urban centres around the earth. The info is readily available. Telling people something the opposite of what they experience, have to live with, is really insulting.
There is no doubt that new records for high temperatures are being set and approached more frequently in recent years. Tell the people of northern B.C. in Canada, that temps have not increased in the last 10 years. Tell them that the resulting devastation to the forests from the pine beetle is all in their imaginations, and that it never used to be minus 40 or minus 30 celsius on a regular basis every winter. And see what the reaction is. I suggest you get your facts straight and go visit, physically, places around the globe; instead of propagating that which is just not true.
April 6, 2008 at 7:21 am
It’s called noise or variability, if you go look at any of the global surface temperature graphs you could argue that the globe cooled between 1980 and 1990, and again between 1983 and 1993, and also between 1987 and 1997. People don’t argue that such periods of apparent cooling are anything other than noise now because to do so, given subsequent warming, would be idiotic. Ten years is too short a period to make claims that there is a change in the trend.
As with other periods of no apparent warming this ten year period started with the 98 El Nino and finishes with a strong La Nina.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Instrumental_Temperature_Record.svg
Variability is the reason why the standard period for measuring climate is thirty years.
Tamino explains how any ten year period lacks statistical significance here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/you-bet/
An after thought; Poneke, considering how many posts you’ve done on GW, I’m surprised that you don’t know the subject better.
April 6, 2008 at 7:28 am
Goodness, despite it being 6.24am* the morning daylight saving ended, the first “very angry” response from the Thought Police took just 13 minutes after this story was published to arrive.
It is obviously an inconvenient truth indeed.
A day to duck, I fear.
* My computer’s clock clicked back automatically and shows the correct time, but WordPress’s clock is still on Daylight Saving Time, so the datestamps on stories and comments are an hour out.
April 6, 2008 at 7:30 am
You’ve been suckered, I’m sorry to say. Perhaps you should listen to climatologists on the subject of climate, not a weather forecaster. Global warming did not stop in 1998. This ‘argument’ keeps being trotted out by the deniers, despite being demonstrably wrong.
April 6, 2008 at 7:54 am
Cities are warmer because they are cities and they are getting bigger. Weather stations close to urban centres are not a reliable guide to the global temp. The satellites that measure temp change have found no increase for 10 years.
The solar physicists’ predictions based on sunspots has been more reliable than the computer models that have predicted large rises in temperature over the last decade. Not proof, but strongly indicative that solar activity in the biggest factor.
It seems nuts to make huge, expensive changes to our economy and energy supply based on such uncertain science.
April 6, 2008 at 8:00 am
silvercharm, Looking at the last line of your comment:-
“….;instead of propagating that which is just not true.”
I’m sure you meant to say:-
“….;instead of propagating that which is just not proven.”
Be assured that “proof” will be forthcoming in time, despite any further
comments you may provide.
Rather than pick various items of “temperature information from major urban centres
around the earth”, all taken at selected times, you may wish to look at satellite
data which gives global temperature readings more relevant to global warming
concerns.
Look particually for information about “high cloud versus low cloud cover” and
rain shadow effects.
April 6, 2008 at 8:24 am
Gosh, I’m hardly awake myself and all of a sudden my pager is blurting noise. Mullah Gore has detected some climate change denial in my quadrant and it’s up to me to silence it. I tell you the hours in this job are lousy. Good thing I am a zealot.
Poneke,
On any given day or any given year numerous factors contribute to global temperature. We are worried about human Greenhouse Gas (GHGs) emissions because they are very likely to lead to a trend of increased temperatures globally*. Such a trend will not be a perfectly linear increase because GHG’s are only one contributing factor to temperature. Amongst this signal we’ll see plenty of noise. The noise which caught your ear this morning is, for the most part, a product from the El Nino/La Nina cycle you talk about. 1998 was an exceptionally hot year because of the powerful El Nino effect that year.
In the Hadley Centre dataset 1998 was the hottest year since records began. In NASA’s dataset 2005 was. In both datasets, if you eyeball a graph of averaged temperatures, this means you’ll see a ‘dip’ or plateau in temperatures this millennium. However, in either dataset, if you place in trend lines the trend (the signal without the noise) is still one of warming.
You will also notice, if you look at a graph of temperature trends since 1975, that there have been two other similar dips. And then the rise continues.
Now, if our ‘dip’ continues for another 10 years, then we’ll have reason to believe that there is something missing in our understanding of the globe’s climate. But until then it simply isn’t accurate to claim that global warming has stopped.
Oh, and no one in the World Meterological Association is going to be called a denier for the simple reason that the don’t deny anthropogenic climate change. From Reuters:
In 5 minutes I will repost this comment at my blog with links and references (saving the risk of it getting zapped by your spam filter but giving the interested observer some further reading).
_____________________________
* And remember here, that global means global. Temperatures in specific locations may perform quite differently.
April 6, 2008 at 8:26 am
Linda, there has been no increase in solar output in the thirty years that we have had satellites monotoring the sun.
The 11 year solar cycle is barely detectable in the climate records.
Few solar physicists claim the sun has caused or contributed to GW since mid century.
April 6, 2008 at 8:32 am
Linda,
Scientists correct for the urban heat island effect in metropolitan temperature stations by correlating them with their rural counter parts (and, as it happens, it turns out that the UHI isn’t actually that great in general).
And sunspot cycles do not explain recent warming trends. No combination natural forcings can, this is one reason why climatologists are so certain that recent warming is human induced.
David,
Both satellite and balloon data show warming trends similar to land stations.
April 6, 2008 at 8:43 am
Of course, given the line pushed for years by the BBC, and the WMO, the story could not end without trying to cast doubt on its own revelations.
What’s your point? The fact remains that 1998 was absolutely the hottest year on record. But temperature trend has not significantly fallen since.
Your basic problem is that the underlying deterministic CO2 driven trend that AGW is all about, is a number in the order of 0.1 to 0.2 degC per decade. But the actual weather that we have to measure is a highly stochastic process with annual variability in the order of 2-3 degC. In other words the signal we are measuring is buried in noise about 10 times larger.
But 10 years is a “pretty long period,” and 10 years without any global warming, despite the massive increase in greenhouse emissions over the decade caused by the huge economic growth in China and India, is starting, just starting, to look to me a tad like the boy who cried wolf.
No it isn’t. A 30 year rolling average is the usual accepted measure.
[Poneke says: Not to those who blame every iceberg and storm on global warming. The 30 years to 1998 produced warmer temperatures than the previous 30 because the years from about 1940 to 1976 were exceptionally cool. In 1975, it was being claimed in huge headlines that we were entering a new Ice Age, so cold had been the previous decades.]
April 6, 2008 at 8:51 am
> Tell the people of northern B.C. in Canada, that temps have not increased in the last 10 years.
So if temperatures in northern B.C. rise, global warming is proven! Nice to see that even the believers can use fallacious arguments to support their cause.
April 6, 2008 at 8:53 am
Andrew W, RedLogix,
Fancy seeing you folks here. I guess Climate Conspiracy Central Must have woken me with the same message they sent you
Poneke,
On reflection I am inclined to agree with you. The BBC article is misleading. Particularly when they say:
To a casual reader this might create the impression that a significant minority of climatologists now doubt the AGW hypothesis. This, however, is patently false. The vast vast majority of climatologists still believes that AGW is a real and important issue.
April 6, 2008 at 8:55 am
…. yawn…
Global warming? Global cooling? Mini Ice Age?
The marks of a moribund society are living in a state of fear while being paralysed by the inability to accept and embrace change.
I don’t have enough scientific instruments to disprove the bullshit from the climate warmists, but I knoe enough to realise that the whole AGW scenario makes no sense and is counterintuitive… but the really idiotic thing is that we as a civilisation seem to have lost the ability and the will to adjust to change.
Of course the bloody climate(s) in some of the earth’s zones is/are changing somewhat. Science has shown that this has been the case ever since the formation ofthe planet. Geez people. Adjust and move on; its no big deal.
April 6, 2008 at 8:57 am
Poneke: “The 30 years to 1998 produced warmer temperatures than the previous 30 because the years from about 1940 to 1976 were exceptionally cool.”
Look at a temperature graph.
April 6, 2008 at 9:19 am
Or to precise DM’s comment above:
I see nothing, hear nothing and know nothing.
[Poneke says: One of the nicest things about this blog has been the lack of personally abusive comments. Please keep it that way. Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom.]
April 6, 2008 at 9:21 am
No offense Dave but, me personally, I am inclined to trust the scientists who spend their lives studying this stuff rather than your intuition.
Actually, probably, it is an awfully big deal.
If you don’t believe me go to: http://www.marklynas.org/sixdegrees
scroll down and watch the mini-videos. They are extracts from the National Geographic’s TV remake of Mark Lynas’s book Six Degrees. In this book he reviews the peer reviewed literature on what we can expect the ecological impacts of 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 degrees temperature rises to be. Even at 1 degree over the next century adaptation will be very costly. At 6 degrees it will be impossible. The chances of a 6 degree rise are very small (as are the chances of the rise in temperatures being limited to just 1 degree) but this risk alone is enough to warrant action. Not to mention the fact that the impact of the most likely rise (between the 1 and 6 outliers) will still be very large.
April 6, 2008 at 9:45 am
Whatever your views on anthropogenic climate change, I think the BBC’s placement and angle on this story merited its inclusion here. An apparent disagreement between Jarraud representing the WMO and a `minority’ of climatologists IS news and probably deserved better coverage.
L
April 6, 2008 at 1:02 pm
[Poneke says: One of the nicest things about this blog has been the lack of personally abusive comments. Please keep it that way. Nobody has a monopoly on wisdom.]
Poneke,
I’ve thought about it for an hour or so. OK so it was a testy comment. You get that when someone calls “bullshit” on an incredibly difficult and complex science, based on nothing more than his own “intuition”.
I draw again on the analogy with quantum mechanics. As generations of physics students will testify, there is nothing common sense or intuitive about it. In fact our whole concept on the fundamentals of how matter and energy works is built upon on layers of paradox. It was at one time quite controversial, yet today only a tiny, marginalised crew of fringe extremists call “bullshit” on it these days. After all we find the results of quantum mechanics, things like solid state electronics, and nuclear power plants to be both convenient and profitable.
Yet when science comes up with a result that we find inconvenient and could cost powerful vested interests some of their profits, a large portion of the scientifically illiterate and innumerate population reject the result and call it “bullshit” … despite the self-evident FACT that they have not the education, the information, or skills to understand it. Personally I find that immensely disappointing.
The marks of a moribund society are living in a state of fear while being paralysed by the inability to accept and embrace change.
Sounds insightful, but then in the next breath he contradicts himself, denying that there is any need for change and thereby acting out a perfect example of the very failure he comments on.
Even if AGW turns out to be wrong, or different to what we understand at present (and that is always a possibility) there are still any number of other good reasons for the human race to adapt to a sustainable mode of living that is not 100% reliant on extraction of irreplaceable, finite, fossil resources and then largely wasting them on piffling junk and trivia. The rapidly industrialising peoples of India and China would, if they adopted our current Western lifestyles, consume at least several times the current carrying capacity of the entire planet. That fact alone is a clarion call to adaption.
We have some little time left to make choices, whether to choose intelligent adaptive responses or allow catastrophe to catch up with us. David Man seems to think he is being very wise and clever when abdicates that choice. I call it something else.
April 6, 2008 at 1:51 pm
WordPress’s clock is still on Daylight Saving Time, so the datestamps on stories and comments are an hour out.
You’ll need to manually change this yourself. It’s under the Settings tab on your WP Dashboard.
But I’m glad that WP recognises how annoying this is! Under the Timezone box it says, “Unfortunately, you have to manually update this for Daylight Savings Time. Lame, we know, but will be fixed in the future.”
[Poneke says: Indeed. I have fixed it up, and thanks.]
April 6, 2008 at 2:07 pm
Well put RedLogix.
Frankly what I find depressing in the discussion around climate change are the same ‘talking’ points raised over and over again. They have,in the main,been thoroughly discounted,as even the most cursory google on say the peaking of temperature in 1998 indicates.
But next month sun spots will do the rounds and the month after will be all about hockey sticks.I guess disinformation is the other side of search engine coin.
April 6, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Poneke, that’s the second torpedo within a month to hit Al Gore below the waterline. Here’s the first.
http://nominister.blogspot.com/2008/03/hard-data-confounds-theoretical.html
April 6, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Redlogix,
Not my blog so maybe it’s not my place to comment but I didn’t see your comment as unduly harsh.
Enzer,
No worries, I have just the thing for you:
Denier Cricket
April 6, 2008 at 4:19 pm
The so-called global-warming of the last 100 years or so has been exposed as partially fake. 30-50% of the alleged temperature increase comes from bogus data and bogus data analysis. See http://www.climateaudit.org or http://www.icecap.us for more info.) Because of known deceptions still being repeated by the alarmist camp; you can be sure that all climate change is so tiny as to be “inconsequential”. (Except that thousands of people rely on it being true for their jobs!)
April 6, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Adolf, this “hasn’t warmed since 1998″ claim isn’t new, it’s not some devestating surprise, people have been pointing out the limits of such short term climate measurements for decades.
The Aqua cloud feedback data is interesting but only pertains to tropical regions and, if the data is correct, such a negative feedback isn’t enough to alter the projections because the positive WV feedbacks dominate.
Regarding the Arctic Ice situation, last Arctic summer the sea ice mass loss was far greater than had previously occurred, though ice mass has increased through the northern winter (surprise, surprise), ice mass is still well below the previous minimum for the time of year.
Ross, I had a look at climateaudit and icecap but couldn’t find anything about 30-50% of the alleged temperature increase over the last 100 years coming from bogus data and bogus data analysis.
April 6, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Terence wrote:
Even at 1 degree over the next century adaptation will be very costly. At 6 degrees it will be impossible.
If we look at the graph on this page:
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/11/4/175028/329
We are lead to believe that the temperature now is 1°C higher than it was in 1900. Not that painful, was it?
April 6, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Because of known deceptions still being repeated by the alarmist camp;
It is the denialists who have been proven to be wrong repeatedly. There are whole websites devoted to allocating bingo numbers to the tired old misinformation that is repeatedly trotted out and tracing the meandering trail of muddy holes left behind from your constant goal post shifting efforts. You are all dishonest fools. (But useful ones as Ivan Illyich once observed.)
(Except that thousands of people rely on it being true for their jobs!)
But of course there aren’t hundreds of millions more who perceive that THEIR jobs are vitally linked to endless growth and unlimited burning of fossil fuels.
April 6, 2008 at 5:49 pm
>In 1975, it was being claimed in huge headlines that we were entering a new Ice Age, so cold had been the previous decades.
So the carbon dioxide we generate might be the only thing saving us from a disastrous ice age?
It’d be irresponsible not to continue generating it.
April 6, 2008 at 7:19 pm
Frankly what I find depressing in the discussion around climate change are the same ‘talking’ points raised over and over again. They have,in the main,been thoroughly discounted,as even the most cursory google on say the peaking of temperature in 1998 indicates.
On the other hand, the “global warming stopped in 1998″ meme is a handy shortcut in assessing claims and the people who make them. I don’t claim to really understand the science (I rely on scientists for that), but even I can see the obvious problems with that claim.
In 1975, it was being claimed in huge headlines that we were entering a new Ice Age, so cold had been the previous decades.
Sigh … it was claimed by a few scientists and it was on the cover of Newsweek that year. Is a magazine cover the same as a series of peer-reviewed (and then politically vetted towards a conservative conclusion) reports by the world’s foremost climate scientists? Actually, no. It isn’t.
April 6, 2008 at 7:26 pm
On the other hand, the “global warming stopped in 1998″ meme is a handy shortcut in assessing claims and the people who make them.
Who is saying “global warming stopped in 1998?”
Average global temperatures not rising since 1998 is not the same thing as saying global warming stopped then. It is however food for thought.
April 6, 2008 at 7:55 pm
Who is saying “global warming stopped in 1998?”
Well lets look on the front page of the link given by Ross Nixon above:
Global warming? Don’t worry about it. It’s over. No longer does Al Gore have to fly around the world in private jets emitting greenhouse gases to save the world from – greenhouse gases. The United Nations World Meteorological Organization is reporting that global temperatures have not risen since 1998.
http://www.icecap.us/
And for an excellent overview on the history of all this:
http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.asp?showID=13459
April 6, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Spam,
Why would you expect the impact of the next 1C to be of the same order of magnitude as the last? Still, I’m willing to concede that the impacts of 1 degree of warming, while expensive to adapt to, would be surmountable. Trouble is, even if we dramatically reduce emissions ASAP, odds are, we’re already probably committed to something around 2C (IIRC).
David Pears,
Ah yes the Ice Age myth, not really credible science sorry: http://tinyurl.com/3425qf
Andrew W,
Nice comment.
April 6, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Andrew W, the 30-50% quote is on the front page of icecap.us. Instead of scanning for specific phrases and missing them, try Ctrl+F.
“Icecap Note: Roger is exactly right. Anthony and his band of volunteers are doing extremely important work. At least half a dozen peer review studies by Roger and others have shown that problems with observations or improper adjustments to the observations may account for 30-50% of the warming observed in the last century.”
April 6, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Thanks Ross, I see the claim is based on work done by Anthony Watts, that explains it.
Oh, I just noticed that the link Terence provides above leads to this post by Tamino:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/garbage-is-forever/
Where we find David Whitehouse also makes the warming stopped in 1998 claim.
Dr. Bob Carter has been claiming “global warming stopped in 1998” for about two years now, just recently he’s going even further, claiming the world has been cooling for the last three years, now given that any idiot can see that there is a lot of variation in the trend, and has been since records started, Carters claim is of such uncertainty as to defy all reason, but that doesn’t stop him.
http://www.nzcpr.com/weekly124.htm
April 7, 2008 at 3:23 am
Good post Poneke, I feared that the usual crowd of angry climate change fundys would try and shout you down. I think those who blame everything from Hurricane Katrina to ice shelves breaking up to GW are bordering on stupidity. No wonder you are getting abusive responses to it, these people don’t know how to handle it when people question GW rationally
China has had its coldest winter in 100 years, Baghdad had snow for the first time in recorded history and Nth America having the most snow cover in over 50 years. The Hadley Unit in the UK even published a nice little graph showing that the last years temperatures dropped sharply, enough to “possibly” wipe out a century of warming.
http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature+Monitors+Report+Worldwide+Global+Cooling/article10866.htm nice little article here too, apologies for the messy linkage!
April 7, 2008 at 6:58 am
it worries me that this debate has taken on a religious fervour. That’s not science.
That is my issue with it too. It is why I describe the most fanatical proponents of it as “true believers.” They seek out heretics and try to shout them down.
There is a trio of them that plays tag team every time there is a blog post or comment on this issue. They start attacking a post within minutes of its posting and reply to every comment that questions their beliefs. Many of their comments congratulate each other on the goodness of their comments. They clearly believe that their sheer volume equates with some kind of public opinion. If I didn’t aggregate some of their writings, my comments section would be overwhelmed by them!
I am starting to wonder if they are the same person using three identities, so similar is what they say
April 7, 2008 at 7:15 am
April 7, 2008 at 7:16 am
I’ve got some nice photos of it snowing in London yesterday. Guess it will be a few more years before there will be hippos wallowing in the Thames again.
April 7, 2008 at 7:28 am
I am starting to wonder if they are the same person using three identities, so similar is what they say
Heh.
The reason what we say is similar is because it’s based on the same rigourously studied science, denialists on the other hand have a whole bag of disconnected and often contradictory arguments few of which stand up to any scrutany.
Poneke, surely you don’t seriously expect real accuracy from the MSM when it’s talking about the science of GW?
It is the global warming fanatics who get excited by something that happens in a year, or even a day if it’s a hurricane or an iceberg.
I’m interested in your definition of “global warming fanatic”, does that include me?
I’ve spent quite a bit of time arguing that both sides are wrong when they use events covering short periods of time or space eg. heatwaves and snowstorms (as Andrew Bolt did recently) or dare I say it, a decade, as evidence that their point of view is the right one.
Do you apply the term “fanatic” to both sides?
So you AGW scientists – are your predictions falsifiable? What would count as falsification?
I posted a link earlier that addressed this.
it’s worth noting that the sceptics have put their money where their mouth is.
I’ve offered the bet covered in my link on several forums, there have been no takers.
April 7, 2008 at 8:36 am
I see people are relying on a website run by “Tamino”, that’s like expecting truth and honesty from RealClimate. Tamino is Grant Foster, and frankly he is a serial misrepresenter and flat out lier about climate science. He has a vested interest in “warming” and assiduously labours to misrepresent everything that might undermine his sources of finance. He is one of those who claims to win on-line debates by the method of simply censoring opposing posters.
And for those claiming that the surface records are “clean”, I suggest you attempt to get to the bottom of the adjustments yourself. For example, the raw data for NZ shows a distinct cooling trend, but the adjusted data shows a warming trend. Now find out why, and justify the results yourself. It ain’t easy, but then, sheeple always believe what they are told.
April 7, 2008 at 8:49 am
I am starting to wonder if they are the same person using three identities, so similar is what they say
You know perfectly well from my commenting history here and else here that I am a bona-fide individual. I comment on a wide range of topics and my opinion is my own.
For what it is worth. I have have a degree in Engineering, I worked for a major University in the Geophysics area for 5 years, I have made a career in Control Systems and working with process models and advanced systems all my life. One of my daughters lectures in Environmental Science, and I’ve maintained an active interest in the whole of science and technology all my life. I’m nothing like an expert in anything much, but I do have a solid grounding across a wide range of topics. On the other hand my advanced math is crap, and I don’t even pretend to follow the more arcane and heated debates revolving around the rigorous statistical validity of things like bristlecone proxies.
But here is the nub. I know just enough to know how little I know. So when I see people who have little or no background in science, holding forth as if their opinion was sacred writ, while at the same time spouting wholly wrong and discredited piffle…. on a matter of such vital importance… then yes you get a reaction.
Disclosure: I know these guys.
That’s not a disclosure. It’s something else. It implies that:
1. You know something you are not telling us.
2. You might tell if you think it can help you score a point later.
3. And without anyway to verify your claim it would be meaningless anyhow, so maybe you’ll just not tell us and leave it hanging.
Given this I’m not sure what would be accomplished by an honest response to your question.
BTW, a complete explanation relating to this thread is found here:
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/wiggles/#more-507
April 7, 2008 at 9:15 am
Poneke, you worry me.
Because if people agree closely, apparently whatever they agree on isn’t science, and if they don’t agree (indicating genuine Poneke-approved science) then clearly we don’t know which one to believe. Therefore we can ignore everything.
I’m also a bit taken aback by your criticism of people who reply to everything. That seems like damned if you do, damned if you don’t. Apparently the more vocally someone disagrees with you, the more likely it is that they are wrong… people who are right are people who just disagree somewhat, sometimes
[Poneke says: I'm glad I worry you. I don't believe anyone should agree with me on anything at all. Nor am I obsessed with the climate change issue; however I am amused that to some people, it has the status of Holy Writ and must not be challenged. That makes me want to challenge its more extreme manifestations.]
April 7, 2008 at 9:45 am
Its more the fact that if we ignore the denialist claptrap, and it continues to hold sway for a reasonable segment of the population, then it’s going to be a lot harder to make the changes necessary to avoid very serious climate change. It’s the magnitude of the possible changes, combined with the frustrating myopia of the denialists (the same few disproven canards repeated over and over).
Six degrees warming – a very possible result if we continue down our current emissions trajectory – is alarming. Is it alarmist to point this out? Not in the least.
You’d expect people to get quite alarmed if the house you were building was destabilising a cliff and threatening to cause a landslide on the village below, wouldn’t you?
April 7, 2008 at 10:26 am
“the correct reading of Tamino’s test is that it currently cannot distinguish between the warming and the not warming hypothesis.”
Fair point, but of course no statistical test can ever prove current warming, only historical warming ie. if we ask the same question in 2028 statistical analysis can give us high confidence in what the trend in the interim was but not whether warming is definitively happening in 2028. I think it’s reasonable to assume that an established trend is continuing unless there has been a forcing acting that changes that trend, a bit like Newtons laws of motion really.
April 7, 2008 at 11:35 am
Having used the euphemistic phrasing
“You’d expect people to get quite alarmed if the house you were building was destabilising a cliff and threatening to cause a landslide on the village below, wouldn’t you?”
it would be instructive if George Darroch could point to a reference, verified by a Soil Mechanics Engineering report, where a house built with a resource consent in such a situation has threatened a landslide devastation of a village below.
April 7, 2008 at 12:50 pm
Poneke,
One of the reasons that Andrew, RL and myself end up repeating ourselves is that my comments (and Andrew’s too by the looks of it) have to queue through your moderation system only to pop up later up thread. It’s your blog and you’re welcome to run it how you like but, if possible, white listing us (we’re hardly spammers) would at least make for a discussion that flowed better.
No one is suggesting that the theory of anthropogenic climate change should not be challenged. We’re simply pointing out the errors you keep making.
Malcolm
No. Or, at least, no if we are talking about the same article. The correct reading of Tamino’s post is simply that short term variations in the Earth’s climate are not the same as long term trends.
Ed Snack,
Thank you for your libelous little post. It is one of the best examples of ad hominem that I have seen on the internet. Seeing as Tamino is so disreputable you will no doubt be able to easily explain the errors in the post in question.
April 7, 2008 at 1:34 pm
Serum, we have just such a report, a comprehensive review of all the relevant literature. Care to guess what it is?
April 7, 2008 at 9:05 pm
And to think I once used to debate this stuff.. until I realised that arguing so many parts per million over 100 years, or hundredths of a degree over decades, and millimeters rise or fall of sea level over several hundred years, or tree rings and ice cores over millennia is pure flatulence.
Produce the goods, folks.
Show me sea rises of a metre, several degrees of temp. over a decade or so, CO2 levels that stop a match from firing and so on.. and then I might decide to do something.
And what I’ll decide is.. how to live with the weather.
JC
April 7, 2008 at 11:39 pm
JC,
Let me see now.
Several degC per decade? Allow me to politely assume you mean just 2 degC.
For how long? Let me guess that you have children or grandchildren even who you might hope would be alive in 50 years time. That’s 5 decades. At 2 degC per decade. Can you do the complex math required to estimate the resulting temp rise here? Or did you just want just one decade of warming and then for it to magically stop all by itself?
CO2 levels that stop matches firing, will stop you from breathing. You have to be jesting?
“Ignorance begets confidence more often than knowledge”.
Darwin
April 8, 2008 at 1:37 pm
‘ however I am amused that to some people, it has the status of Holy Writ and must not be challenged’
Perhaps it is the frustration of providing as much authenticated information as possible to show that in this case, climate change did not peak in 1998, and yet have folk simply ignore it because it suits their agenda.
April 8, 2008 at 8:10 pm
George – no one’s appetite is satisfied by double guessing the menu, the proof is in the pudding, mate and we haven’t even arrived at the first course yet.
April 11, 2008 at 6:49 am
I am amused that the warming alarmists dismiss the cooling because it is La Nina and then point to 1998 to prove their theory — ignoring the fact that El Nino was dominant then. When the currents cause cooling that doesn’t address their theory. But when the currents cause warming it does.
April 11, 2008 at 7:13 am
news, the mainstream argument is that 1998 was above the trendline because of El Nino, and that 2007 is below the trendline because of the La Nina, and that picking individual years and drawing a line between them is bad practice, for people trained in statistics to do it, as some of those AGW deniers that have done this are, is dishonest.
April 11, 2008 at 10:02 am
Historically El Nino’s have lead to above average global temperatures, La Nina’s to below average temperatures. I don’t think that’s in dispute.
There have been attempts to forecast these events but without much success.
May 7, 2008 at 1:56 am
Most of the comments to the article are excellent and thoughtful. I am, certainly, simply restating glaringly obvious.
Here is the simple problem with the article. It’s title : “No rise in world temperatures for the past decade, UN’s top weather man admits in BBC news revelation that also concedes some scientists doubt climate change theory” which is supported by the erroneous statement that “a cooler year this year would mean that global temperatures had not risen since 1998″.
Simply, a cooler year this year does not mean that the global termperatures have not risen since 1998. It takes little effort to pull the world temperature data from a NASA or simply go to wikipedia and see for oneself that the trend remains upward. Choosing two arbitrary dates, from a thirty year record of temperatures, and then drawing a conclusion is ridiculous. It is equivalent to concluding that one is not living in the desert because there was a flash flood NOW or that it isn’t it isn’t summer time because it is raining NOW.
The article should be titled “UN’s Top Eeather Man Should Go Back To School.”
Whether the global warming concept is indeed a fact, remains an unresolved issue for myself. But then, so does this next weekends weather when the weatherman says there is an 80% chance of rain. The facts remain that CO2 content is up, there is sufficient reason to be suspicious that CO2 content is significant in rising global temperatures, and the trend of global temperatures is clearly upward. Lastly, significant global temperature changes, whether they be up or down, is not a good thing. Just as an anecdote of one particular glacier retreating doesn’t prove global warming, neither does an anecdote of one particular temerature for one particular year disprove global warming.
Of all that I have been reading regarding the pros and cons of global warming, I find it curious that the anti-global warming articles consistently make gross errors, similar to this author, that would get a first year statistics student flunked out of class. On the other side, pro-global warming articles remain particularly thoughtful and comprehensive, often to a fault and to the point that I am ill advised to suppose that I have found an error in their presentation.
A curious reader might want to pick up a copy of Michael Shermer’s book “Why People Believe Wierd Things”. He does an excellent job of examining the thought processes of people who deny the Holocost, Evolution, the age of the earth and believe that ESP and precognition are real and natural phenomena.
This article falls clearly into these categories. It isn’t the authors conclusions that I am against. It is the foundation upon which he comes to that conclusion. Given his complete lack of ability to think clearly and logically, I am forced to dismiss him in his entirety and move on.
May 7, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Congratulations on your article Poneke. Your blog is leading all New Zealand news media on this important issue.
It is apparent from the vigorous responses of the local man-made global warming alarmists that they are concerned about the increasingly obvious lack of evidence to support their adopted hypothesis, and that this lack of evidence is being brought to the public’s attention by organisations such as the BBC and your blog.
NASA satellite data (as interpreted by the University of Alabama at Huntsville) shows that the rolling average temperature of the entire lower troposphere has increased by about 0.3 deg C in the 30 years since these measurements started. The rolling average temperature in the tropical regions only, is the same now as it was 30 years ago. During this 30 year period, these temperatures have fluctuated up and down within about a degree or so, so no significant trend can be said to have been established. Of course, a trend may become apparent in the coming decades, but this is just as likely to be down as up.
The AGW hypothesis postulates that the average temperature of the lower troposphere, especially over the tropics, will increase owing to the additional CO2 that humans are adding to the atmosphere. Much of this CO2 has been produced in the past 30 years, and the rate of production is increasing. The best available data indicates that the postulated temperature increases are not occurring. The AGW hypothesis is thereby falsified.
There is much historical evidence that suggests that sunspot cycles and the possibly related Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) are both significant drivers of climate. Current indications are that we are in for a significant cold spell that will last for many years. This is what we should be preparing for because cold, not warmth is the killer.
Keep up the good work.
May 7, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Poneke,
I think your post suffers from an over-reliance on one fact, the validity of which has been energetically debated in this thread.
There is a very useful concept in risk assessment called the ‘Weight of Evidence’ approach – fairly self-explanatory, but what it refers to is the necessity to not give too much weight to individual pieces of evidence or studies, but to look at the collective big picture. And in the case of climate change, nowhere has this been done better than in the IPCC assessments. Have you read the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report? I recommend it.
May 7, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Good one Carol. The entire AGW cause suffers from a lack of reliance on the facts. I concede that it has been a brilliant propaganda campaign until now. The problem is that the propaganda assault team has way out-run the supply lines of facts. The counter-attack has begun in earnest and we have the best weapons on our side – the facts.
May 31, 2008 at 2:22 am
The whole point of any warming trends is that CO2 has not been proved to be a major factor. That is the real glossed over fact that has all you so called activists and environmentalists just don’t get. The so called consensus is from the Rockefeller controlled UN. Why would one of the worlds elite allow for controls on emissions if it might cost them financially. Simply put it won’t cost them but us donkeys who will be paying a carbon tax. All this talk of cap and trade is a smokescreen to get in a CARBON TAX. CO2 does not cause global warming. CO2 deniers are not all being paid off from big oil but only some scientists who are part of a bigger scam of confusing an already duped society. Without a carbon tax your trusting media would not be so helpful in this scam. Think about the last time the corporate driven media was doing the right thing. Most of us people with brains know that answer is never and so that should be your clue that this CO2 and thus us bad CO2 emitters thing is a HOAX. It is for us to pay more but this time to a global tax collector. This tax collector is Rockefeller and friends. Analysis also has shown that a carbon tax will be profitable to the major entities who emit the most CO2. Forget about temperatures until they have proved conclusively that CO2 is a major factor in temperature rise and fall. Show us the proof. Al Gore deceived us in his movie because CO2 didn’t rise before temperatures but after by some 800 year delay. That might be proof that temperatures make CO2 levels go up but not the opposite. As a side note Al Gore was at the 1995 Bilderberg meeting. Still not suspicious?
June 6, 2008 at 6:47 pm
I invite you all to go look at the SOHO website. This year was supposed to herald in a record number of sunspots, its just not happening. There are theorys about active sunspots and warm cycles in weather. The lack of said sunspots indicates a cooling that happens every 11 years, however our new solar sunspot cycle is late. Up to the 1980’s the warm and cool cycles of the earth were matching the sunspot cycle pretty well but that changed, no one knows why, no one knows why the current cycle hasnt started as it was supposed to.. All this tells me is we dont have enough information to make even a educated guess about the warming and cooling trends of our planet caused directly by our own Sun.
So On the one side we have people screaming global warming, in what has been one of the coolest years for a long time and on the other hand we have folks hollering that the next ice age is coming, all a bit like chicken little either way you wanna put your spin on the sky is falling theory.
My little happy thought in all of this is: Clean air and clean water is good stuff, weither or not it is a global crisis, well that remains to be seen.
July 1, 2008 at 2:11 am
Whatever happened to the Ozone Hole?
Do you remember that back in the late 80’s and early 90’s all we heard about was the disappearance of the Ozone layer over Antarctica? CFC’s (chlorofluorocarbons- Freon) were the culprit. If we didn’t eliminate Freon from refrigerators and air-conditioners , all the Ozone in the upper atmosphere would soon be gone. All above-ground life on earth would be killed by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.
Ironically, it is the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation that creates Ozone (O3) out of Oxygen (O2) in the first place. Even so, it was going to take hundreds of years to repair the existing hole even if no further damage was done because Freon is almost a “forever” chemical. Meanwhile there would be millions of premature deaths from skin cancers because of the extra UV radiation streaming through the hole.
Exactly how UV over Antarctica was going to travel around the globe and land in the northern hemisphere where most of the world’s population lives was never explained. Light tends to travel in a relatively straight line through air. Given the very shallow angle of sunlight at the poles, one would expect that whatever UV managed to enter the stratosphere at such a low angle on one side of the hole would continue in a straight line back out into space on the other side of the hole.
A massive worldwide ban was put on the manufacture of standard Freon. Freon was reformulated. Worldwide recycling programs were put in place to extract and return old Freon to recycling plants that would break it down into harmless chemicals.
The Ozone Hole has disappeared from the headlines and Global Warming took its place. Carbon Dioxide (CO2) replaced Freon. Now it is said that we must completely eliminate the burning of fossil fuels if we are to avoid worldwide catastrophe by melting all the glaciers. If the glaciers melt, sea levels will rise. Coastlines will be redrawn worldwide. Florida will cease to exist. New York City will become the new Venice with canals replacing streets and gondolas replacing taxicabs. Submarines will replace commuter trains in the subways. Oceanic currents will cease to flow due to the introduction of all that freshwater into the salty ocean. Europe will no longer enjoy a temperate climate thanks to the disappearance of the gulfstream. Strangest of all, global warming will soon plunge the earth into another ice age. Billions will die of starvation due to the loss of farmable land under the new ice sheets.
CO2 is a “greenhouse gas.” It allows sunlight to penetrate but prevents the resulting heat from radiating back out into space. As a result, the Earth gets ever warmer. Polar ice and snow melts exposing the darker soil beneath. Since dark surfaces convert light to heat more than light surfaces, even more sunlight is converted to heat. That additional heat is now trapped by the extra carbon dioxide. This melts more snow that exposes more dark soil creating more heat, etc. etc. etc. They call it a runaway greenhouse.
To make matters even worse, all that northern tundra will melt since it is now exposed directly to the Sun. The tundra contains untold amounts of Methane from all that rotting vegetation that has been frozen for millions of years but has now thawed. Methane is an even stronger greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It was once claimed that each cow emits as much greenhouse gas (methane) as 80 automobiles. That estimate has lately been reduced to only 10 automobiles but the average person has no way to verify either figure. Furthermore, the warming oceans will release additional methane as the long-frozen methane hydrates melt. One theory blames methane hydrate belching up from the sea floor for sinking all those ships in the so-called Bermuda Triangle. Whether or not the Bermuda Triangle is real, frozen methane hydrate on the sea floor is a genuine material. On and on it goes. Warming creates more warming. There is no upper limit.
Now here comes the part I don’t understand.
Fast forward a few years. The atmosphere contains more CO2 than at any other time in the 4.5 billion year history of the Earth. There isn’t a snowflake to be found anywhere. There is nary an ice cube to cool your drink, but somewhere there lurks a mechanism to turn this tropical hothouse into an icebox. The atmosphere is still overloaded with greenhouse gasses trapping heat, but some magical, mystical, mysterious force will emerge that will suddenly allow snow and ice to form once again in the sweltering tropics covering the bare ground. Heat will once again start reflecting back into space right through those troublesome greenhouse gasses that so recently prevented their escape. The Earth suddenly plunges from the sauna of global warming directly into a deep freeze that will last millions of years.
Certainly the Earth has oscillated between hot and cold many times over its 4.5 billion year life. Everyone agrees that it has – but nobody can explain why. There are plenty of theories but no smoking gun. Popular theories include natural variations in the Sun’s brightness, variations in the Earth’s orbit and tilt, asteroid strikes and volcanic activity. It is likely that all of these causes have had some effect at one time or another. Everyone also agrees that the Earth is currently on a warming trend. Melting glaciers are hard to dismiss. For the sake of discussion, let’s say that carbon dioxide does trap heat. What are we to do about it? What PRACTICAL solution do we have? Urging the entire 6 billion people on Earth to simply stop all burning cannot and will never work. There are simply too many of us.
All animals take up oxygen and emit carbon dioxide. All plants take up carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Scientists refer to this as the “carbon cycle.” In fact you could define the difference between plants and animals by those two characteristics. It is said that the atmosphere of the early earth was loaded with CO2. Thanks to the emergence of life in the form of simple sea creatures, much of that atmospheric carbon was incorporated into their hard shells. As those creatures died, the shells sank to the sea floor and piled up in layers thousands of feet thick. Enormous pressure and eons of time compressed those mountains of shells into the limestone beds (calcium carbonate) we see today. It is a finely balanced system that has served the Earth reasonably well – albeit with some cyclical temperature variation over the eons. However, from the time that the first cave man built a fire to cook his food and warm his body, man alone is the only animal to release more carbon dioxide than his own internal metabolism requires.
Prior to the “industrial revolution” a few tens of millions of small household fires scattered all over the globe had minimal effect on the carbon cycle. All fires (except nuclear) combine carbon with oxygen and release carbon dioxide. It doesn’t matter whether the fuel is wood, coal, oil, or gas. All of these things are made of carbon in one form or another, and it is that carbon that becomes carbon dioxide when combined with oxygen. Note: hydrogen gas does not produce carbon dioxide because there is no carbon contained in hydrogen. When hydrogen burns it combines with oxygen and produce only H2O – pure water.
Feeding oneself is THE fundamental activity of all living things – plants and animals. Before the agricultural revolution, there was little difference between the hunter-gatherer activities of humans and the foraging activities of the rest of the animal kingdom. All humans fed upon whatever was found locally within walking distance using only their own muscle power. Nomadic existence was the norm. With the agricultural revolution came a more settled lifestyle. Towns sprang up in the midst of farmer’s fields. Crops were planted, tended, and harvested either by hand or with the help of animals. Grains that were harvested by hand in the field were carried to flour mills powered by flowing water, wind, animals, and often by hand at home.
In 1765 a Scot named Watt (James Watt) perfected a practical steam engine starting the industrial revolution. Wood and coal-fired boilers could be set up almost anywhere and used to power nearly any kind of machine. Soon steam-powered tractors came to the farm replacing the horse and the ox. No longer did every family need to grow its own food. Farming had become more efficient. One farmer with the help of mechanical beasts could feed many families. Those families in turn paid the farmer for his services by earning money working in factories that were also powered by fire-breathing, smoke-belching machines. With the money earned by selling his foodstuffs, the farmer was able to buy the products made in the factories.
Civilization has carried the human race past the tipping point. Individually, we all specialize in something and rely on many others for our basic existence. Except for a few primitive tribes living deep in the jungle, none of us would be able to maintain our own lives if the world suddenly stopped burning fossil fuels; so let’s have some PRACTICAL solutions from those who believe fervently in manmade global warming.
I prefer to continue heating my home and cooking my food. I think most people do. Offer me a way to do that IN EVERY CLIMATE ZONE throughout the world, and I’ll go for it. I know you can fry eggs on the sidewalk in Phoenix in August without burning fossil fuels. I know you can freeze ice cream in your Nome Alaska yard in January without consuming any electricity. I’m pretty sure residents of Nome like to eat cooked eggs from time to time, and Phoenix residents like ice cream too. The challenge for the manmade global warming crowd is to offer PRACTICAL year-round solutions to both kinds of tasks. Then, and only then, will I listen to their “Chicken Little – sky is falling” outcry.
August 17, 2008 at 7:53 am
An interesting blog! The climate change problem, as I see it from a political point of view from the UK, is that practically all the scientists supporting climate change (whether they are right or wrong and I’m not getting into that argument) are funded by Governments who will only fund them if they support their Government’s climate change agenda. Not a good situation in which to get any truth – exactly like ‘flat earth believers’! The net result of this is that neither the politicians nor the scientists are now believed other than by those who are the equivalent of religious zealots. Most regular voters in the ‘west’ consider that the political climate change agenda is about raising additional tax income during a downturn. To win back trust, there has to be much more funding of research about contrary views. If those views are not proven, people will being to believe climate change, but claiming that CO2 rise causes temperature rise where there does not appear to be any factual ‘history’ for instance, just wrecks the climate change case.
October 24, 2008 at 5:04 am
more people die from the cold than from the heat.
November 9, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I see we have a few chicken littles here. First off the primary greenhouse gas is water vapor (oh I wonder what the government can do about that we have to eliminate water from the earth oh no) Secondly the amount of carbon that human activity puts into the atmosphere is .117% of the carbon that is there. The rest comes from carbon trapped in ice and released from warming waters at cooler temperatures carbon is absorbed by water which then forms to ice. the other places that some of the carbon comes from is volcanoes, animals, and oh yea insects. Global warming is a natural occurrence period end of story. Solar activity is the primary cause of global warming the sun does not send out an even amount of energy continually it fluctuates and as it does the temperatures on the earth fluctuates just like it does on mercury venus mars and all the other planets. Don’t believe check it out mars was on a warming trend also for the last 50 to 100 years (oh I know that was caused by the mars landing it was manmade also) People need to smarten up and not put so much faith in the people that are trying to manipulate their lives for their own benefit or to gouge more taxes out of the public. Use common sense once in awhile do a little research and the truth will come to you.
December 23, 2008 at 7:51 pm
I’m a little behind time as I just came across this blog and the responses to it.
My thoughts:
First, reading many of the responses it sounds more like a religious issue of true believers versus infidels rather than a measured consideration of a scientific/political issue.
Secondly, The science is among the most complex that there is and much is unknown, such as a sound understanding of the water vapor cycle, water being the major greenhouse “gas”, not CO2. These unknowns have a significant impact on the models that we are relying on for future predictions. Small differences assumptions that are inputted into the climate model(s) can make major differences in long term predictions.
Thirdly, there are numerous political issues involved in “global warming”, both domestic and international. For instance, those third world countries, many run by little more than despots, stand to gain huge amounts of income selling carbon credits to industrialized nations. Those domestic “advocate” groups that want us to stop cutting trees on National Lands can use this. The anti-growth advocates find it a good tool and so on. Dramatic action by the U.S. under such flawed treaties as the Kyoto Protocol will likely be to the economic detriment of this country, a happy event for those nations that would like to see us weakened. Our homegrown environmentalist and their lawyers will use the courts to ensure that we are in strict compliance while many other signatories will have little, if any domestic enforcement.
Fourthly, at this point in time we don’t know with any reasonable degree of certainty that it is possible to actually reverse any trends that may be occurring. And I certainly realize that there is a large body of thought out there that says that we should immediately “do something”. We need to be mindful as a nation that actions have consequences.
Finally, it seems obvious to me that the media has bought into the earth warming scenario and the Kyoto Protocol as a solution scenario , hook line a sinker and they are either unable or unwilling to look at this issue without having predetermined conclusions. Since this is what the public is being fed day and night it is no wonder that we are shouting at each other. Sad!
We need less name calling, such as “deniers”, etc and more broad coverage of this complex issue. For instance, we have known for a long time about the impact of La Nina and El Nino, but when was the last time you saw it mentioned in the newspapers or on the TV news?……almost never! All storms and ice melting and unusual weather during the past number of years has been caused by the increase in CO2 and earth warming.
Thanks for considering my two cents worth
Mike Madden
December 24, 2008 at 6:13 am
how is it that ocean currents change air temp? how did the water in the pacific ocean change temp?
December 24, 2008 at 8:26 am
sorry about the trucated post. had to run.
the question i am trying to ask why is that any thing that happens can be blamed on MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING(AGW).
WHAT IN THE WORLD IS MAN MADE GLOBAL WARMING?
co2?
all scientist agree that co2 does not drive increased
atmopheric warming to bad levels.
bob hall is right (re privious post).
does co2 in the air cause global warming?
does global warming cause co2 in the air?
December 30, 2008 at 3:18 am
intresting enough to make me think especially as it is a long standing tradition for all governments to lie to its people, don’t worry I do not mean aliens living here, how about W.M.D and the promise to innocent soldiers that ther was no risk when they worked on nuclear weapons, I won’t go on as the list over the years is endless. I will end by saying wake up everyone, question and analyse every bit of information but please lets all get our heads out of the sand, truth is not illegal at least not yet, truth not opinions
January 10, 2009 at 7:15 am
1998 recorded the highest global temperatures in weather recording history! The temp did not rise beyond a record breaking high? Global warming does not exist. That was easy. Hard work. Stay the course. Sept. 11th.
January 15, 2009 at 3:59 pm
For the record, following on from my Arctic Sea Ice bet, I predicted the global temperature anomaly for 2008 back in July. I’m not aware of anybody else who made such a prediction, although I did invite others to do so.
My prediction, made on Gareth’s blog on 31 July, was for a global temperature anomaly of 0.43.
The result, out today from Nasa, is a global temperature anomaly of 0.44.
Given my forecasting success, I hope my questions about climate science will be seen as a little more reasonable, and attract a little less hostility.
Here are the links with the evidence:
http://hot-topic.co.nz/when-gray-turns-to-blueflung-a-dummy/#comment-1823
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2008/
January 19, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I stumbled across this blog debate late in the peice and just couldn’t resist relaying story about how credible the BBC’s reporting of climate change is (or not as is the case) . A couple of years ago I was watching the news and noticed an article from the BBC about sea level rise forcing the people of the Carteret Islands (off Papua New Guinea) off their islands. The BBC reporter was showing the world how the high tide level had risen 300mm in the last 5 years…irrefutable proof of global warming and sea level rising. 300 mm in five years!? “Hang on” I thought, that is way more and faster than even the IPCC high end estimates (700mm in 100 years). So I jumped into Google and 20 minutes later had a report from the US Geological Survey on the islands…they are volcanic and are subsiding back into the seabed at the rate of about 60 mm per year (ie 300mm in 5 years). At this point I realised that the media is not interested in the facts associated with global warming (or cooling as now seems to be the case, most probably due to the earth going into one of its lower energy sun spot cycles). No, what took me 20 minutes of Google surfing is beyond the might of the BBC, nor TVNZ or TV3, no they all just want hype and sensationalism. From then on I knew there was something odd going on in the media around global warming and climate change.
January 21, 2009 at 12:05 am
Well done on the post, poneke.
From what I can see, the globe is warming fractionally (and not nearly as much as it did in the Middle Ages), our CO2 imprint is tiny but totally beneficial, the Eskimos are enjoying the respite from the cold, and the polar bears are thriving with more food.
What’s the problem?
Well, global cooling apparently.
This Australian scientist, David Archibald, offers a most compelling view that the more we can heat the globe the better, cos it’s about to get rather chilly…
http://www.warwickhughes.com/agri/pastandfuture2.pdf
He wrote that in May 2007 and said his prediction would be proven in about three years. Over half way there.
One last point.
I was talking to a leading businessman the other day about the climate debate.
I said the evidence pointed to The-Crisis-Formerly-Known-As-Global- Warming being yet another lefty/media beatup.
He surprised me by saying, “Oh, we believe in climate change.”
“Really? Why?” said I, gobsmacked.
“Because we make money out of it.”
As, I imagine, do most of the IPCC.
February 28, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I noticed that no one has brought up the corrections to global temperatures.
From the GeoTimes, August 2007
Error in NASA climate data sparks debate
Due to an error in calculations of mean U.S. temperatures, 1934, not 1998 as previously reported, is the hottest year on record in the United States. NASA scientists contend that the error has little effect on overall U.S. temperature trends and no effect on global mean temperatures.
Another article of interest:
Did Media Or NASA Withhold Climate History Data Changes From The Public?
By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
August 9, 2007 – 10:30 ET
A change in climate history data at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies recently occurred which dramatically alters the debate over global warming. Yet, this transpired with no official announcement from GISS head James Hansen, and went unreported until Steve McIntyre of Climate Audit discovered it Wednesday.
For some background, one of the key tenets of the global warming myth being advanced by Hansen and soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore is that nine of the ten warmest years in history have occurred since 1995.
McIntyre has been crunching the numbers used to determine such things as published by GISS, and has identified that the data have recently changed such that four of the top ten warmest years in American history occurred in the 1930s, with the warmest now in 1934 instead of the much-publicized 1998.
The actual temperatures, prior to the error and after the error are shown below
Watts up with that… a commentary on puzzling things in life, nature, science, weather, climate change etc… report the temperature trends prior to and post correction of the data and analysis errors that global warming individuals base their arguments on.
Top 10 GISS U.S. Temperature deviation (deg C) in New Order
8/7/2007
Year Old New
1934 1.23 1.25
1998 1.24 1.23
1921 1.12 1.15
2006 1.23 1.13
1931 1.08 1.08
1999 0.94 0.93
1953 0.91 0.90
1990 0.88 0.87
1938 0.85 0.86
1939 0.84 0.85
March 1, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Kurt, are you being deliberately misleading or have you yourself been misled?
“nine of the ten warmest years in history have occurred since 1995.”
and “four of the top ten warmest years in American history occurred in the 1930s, with the warmest now in 1934″ are not contradictory statements as, obviously, America and the entire world aren’t the same thing.
April 28, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Having just read the new Ian Wishart book “Air Con”, I’m guessing from your post that this is ONE Wishart book you will be going out to buy David?
April 28, 2009 at 7:30 pm
Having just read the new Ian Wishart book “Air Con”, I’m guessing from your post that this is ONE Wishart book you will be going out to buy David?
I’ve bought most of Ian’s books right back to the Paradise Conspiracy, which Ian was writing when we both worked together at TVNZ.
They are usually good reads of their kind.
Despite my being a global warming skeptic, however, I don’t think I will be reinforced in my skepticism by Ian’s take on the issue.
I’ll report in due course.
April 29, 2009 at 12:03 pm
“I don’t think I will be reinforced in my skepticism by Ian’s take on the issue.”
Quite. A man who doesn’t believe in evolution is hardly well-placed to be taken seriously on matters of science.
April 30, 2009 at 5:29 pm
Carol
April 29, 2009 at 12:03 pm
“Quite. A man who doesn’t believe in evolution is hardly well-placed to be taken seriously on matters of science.”
So I suppose we can discard the “big bang theory”
eg an amusing anecdote from Alfvens biography.
“To Alfvén, the Big Bang was a myth – a myth devised to explain creation. “I was there when Abbe Georges Lemaitre first proposed this theory,” he recalled. Lemaitre was, at the time, both a member of the Catholic hierarchy and an accomplished scientist. He said in private that this theory was a way to reconcile science with St. Thomas Aquinas’ theological dictum of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothing.”
May 3, 2009 at 5:24 pm
Of course, it could mean nothing, but I see Professor Bob Carter from James Cook University has described Ian Wishart’s Air Con as the ‘definitive’ book on global warming.
http://briefingroom.typepad.com/the_briefing_room/2009/05/climate-expert-calls-air-con-the-definitive-book.html
May 4, 2009 at 11:42 am
Poneke and all others…
Regardless of whether you belive that climate change/global warming is caused by humans or is a force of nature, you have to admit that poisoning the air we breathe, the water we drink for the sake of a few bucks is wrong.
Do we really all want to be like Beijing and not be able to see our hand in front of our faces because of the thick pollution that corporations pump out into the air? Do you want you children and grandchildren to not be able to swim in the local river, because the local factories have poured all their crap into it?
Unlike you, and most of you posters, I actually like having clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, and pretty trees to look at and if that means we have to pay a little bit more, then so be it.
May 4, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Unlike you, and most of you posters, I actually like having clean air to breathe and clean water to drink, and pretty trees to look at and if that means we have to pay a little bit more, then so be it.
How dare you insinuate I don’t want clean air, water and nice trees everywhere.
Just read my blog.
Bah!
May 14, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I have a question for everyone. What makes something an atrocity or a catastrophic event? Human life, right? I think that if there is a problem that is causing the lives of humans we need to change it. How many people have died from climate change? That’s what I thought, little or none. Do you know anyone that has died from climate change? Didn’t think so, however how many people do you know that have died from cancer or other illness? Instead of spending billions of dollars on a problem that is nothing more than a media exaggeration why don’t we spend it on trying to find a cure for cancer or lupus?
June 18, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Well, the way I see it is this. The earth might be warming (depending on whether you believe certain statistical manipulations of tree rings are valid etc), and this might be due to human activity (depending on whether you believe the climate models) and this might cause bad things to happen in the future (depending on whether you believe that the climate models can predict temperatures decades out, as opposed to the weather forecasts, which are often wrong days out), and based on all this, we are supposed to take actions costing billions that will negatively affect the way of life of everyone? Have you all gone mad?
Imagine if the residents of New York one hundred years ago, decided that to prevent future generations from being mired in horse pooh, they should stop using horses for transport and walk everywhere? Would the generation of the Model T have thanked them, or laughed at them?
Our ability to predict the future is strikingly inadequate. If any of the doomsday predictions come true, our descendants will be far wealthier and have far more powerful technology than we have now to solve the problems. Unless, of course, we destroy the engine of economic growth that will give them these things, in a vain attempt to stop what no-one is certain will happen.
July 7, 2009 at 3:05 am
how fun to read this blog – how about jesus is the sun of god instead of jesus is the son of god ?¿
ever thought about this ?
July 10, 2009 at 8:11 am
I read a recent article about a weather phenomenon known as Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), look it up for yourself. This is a long term weather event watched closely by the salmon fishing industry in the northern Pacific Ocean. It mimics the impact of the better known El Nino and La Nina, except PDO cycles last much longer, 20 to 30 years. They impact the migration routes taken by Salmon, and that is why the fishing industry is interested in them. A warming PDO started in the mid 70’s and ended towards the mid to late 90’s. This time frame is in line with the cooling experienced over the last ten years. Again, look for yourself. I have remained neutral on the climate change subject, not willing to accept the unscientific nature of comments from either side. But by doing some research and not just listening to the talking heads in the media it is becoming evident to me that at times there is global warming and at times there is global cooling – neither of which is man made. Thank goodness we have the ability to remedy either event by turning on the heat or the a/c.
July 10, 2009 at 11:10 am
Tom R, I did some analysis of the PDO, and it convinced me that global warming was partly human induced, but mediated by the warming and cooling trends you describe. If you are interested, you can find my analysis here.
July 10, 2009 at 3:34 pm
I am often surprised about how many people are poluted by the media. I have studied world climate for 30 years and cannot confirm any of the claims of these experts.
Have any of the people reading this info heard of the dust bowl in the South USA From the 30`s.
OR the mini ice ages 3 of them between 1650 to about 1850. Europe almost starved but for the potato imported from South America.
The point being this… The climate is always changing. Up and down. The biggest notible thing that changes it is the Activity on the Sun and the changes of the currents on the Oceans. Because these items can only be monitored acurately for the last few years it is not possilbe to draw any conclusion. In the past a few major volcanic eruptions have had a direct corrilation to cooling with one exception that is unexplained. Meteor?
The only relativly accurate record for us to use is the core samples taken at the south Polar regions.
There are problems with this data also. Many times of higher Co2 have actually showen to be cooler. Why Volcanic activity is one reason. So the conclusion really cannot be accurately reached.
The funny thing is few people really address these facts they are just emotionally married to either side. I for one want to be sensitive to our planet. However removing the Co2 emmision could actually cause warming based on the Polar Samples above mentioned.
July 12, 2009 at 12:45 pm
The air poisoners are on the prowl, seeking their dream of the smog filled world full of asthma sufferers in the same of making money.
July 20, 2009 at 2:21 am
What I love about democracies and free speech is the right given to individuals regardless of race, creed, gender, IQ, or expertise, to not only state one’s sense of reality as if it were an infinitely undeniable fact, but to make political decisions supporting that sense of reality — decisions which have real impact. Human history is, among other things, a record of the unforseen and/or unintended consequences of our decisions resulting from our quaint, firmly-held perceptions of reality.
September 16, 2009 at 11:19 am
I Love how people quote meteorologists as fact when they talk about the undeniable proof of temperature yet most of you would not organise a family picnic 3 weeks in advance based on their reports of good weather on that day yet you take their computer models as fact for up to 100 years into the future. Their models said that this decade would warm. It hasnt. so in the 40 years since the focus went from global “cooling” to the current warming their predictions have been wrong for 20% of the time elapsed. Seems like a pretty large margni for error on “undeniable” scientific fact
October 29, 2009 at 9:19 pm
A simple search on the web because I was surprised by your story, and I found temperature graphics that show steady and significant global warming since the 1900’s.
It is a good thing to remark that sometimes, transitory events perturb this trend, but only to insist on the fact that it’s in the long run that global warming is perceivable. Questionning consensus is very sane, because sometimes a majority can be wrong, but then show the pertinent data, as it not hard to find at all!
I have also been interested in alternate theories to mankind’s responsibility in this, among which cosmic rays or unknown climate cycles, but I still find it compelling to advertise on reducing carbon emissions. If by chance we can do something about climate change, better take this chance, before this phenomenon triggers catastrophies that still only happen in our worst nightmares.
See the chart in this link for the long term trend I was talking about:
http://www.aip.org/history/climate/20ctrend.htm
October 30, 2009 at 11:23 am
A simple search on the web because I was surprised by your story, and I found temperature graphics that show steady and significant global warming since the 1900’s.
Actually temperatures have been slowly rising since the Little Ice Age of the 1700s. Prior to then, they had been slowly cooling since the Medieval Warm period around 1000AD.
The high priests of global warming don’t want you to know that, and even produced fabricated data that purported to claim there was no Little Ice Age nor a Medieval Warm period… a fabrication that was unable to survive scrutiny thanks to the extensive historical written and scientific records of those periods.
The climate warms and cools and always has done. This does not mean humans do not affect it because of course we do, through deforestation, the urban heat sinks created by big cities, and many other things we do.
November 21, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Thousands of embarrassing emails from and to the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit have been made available, showing how the CRU fudged data, ousted a skeptic from a professional organization, etc etc:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/19/breaking-news-story-hadley-cru-has-apparently-been-hacked-hundreds-of-files-released/#more-12937
There appear to be a further 140 megabytes of data yet to come!
November 22, 2009 at 10:39 am
In respect to the hacked and leaked data from the Hadley Centre’s Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University – one of the principal academic centres behind the anthropogenic global warming theory – if genuine, seems to suggest that an international conspiracy of scientific experts have distorted, falsified and went out of their way, primarily, to suppress existing evidence and vilify AGW doubters all in the pursuit of exaggerating man-made global warming.
If true, and on the face of it appears damning, a revealed systematic fraud of this magnitude will surely be the thin end of the wedge that splits open the case of global manipulation.
November 24, 2009 at 12:34 pm
It’s amazing how the alarmist viewpoints on this blog have dwindled to silence in the last couple of days, since the CRU email leaks.
Hmm…
November 25, 2009 at 6:43 am
Climate change is a hoax that is why it has not warmed since 1998.
November 25, 2009 at 10:59 am
Climate change is a hoax that is why it has not warmed since 1998.
Er, climate change is not a hoax. The world’s climate is always changing and always has changed.
What is a “hoax” is the claim by the warmists that the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age did not happen. They rely on claiming that to claim the world is warming now.
Well, the world has warmed since the Little Ice Age, and it cooled until then after the Medieval Warm Period.
Actually, claiming those well documented events did not happen is worse than a hoax, it is deliberate deception.