edit - removed drunken, unnecessary attack.


Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?
Email|Print| Text size – + By Jeff Jacoby
Globe Columnist / January 6, 2008

THE STARK headline appeared just over a year ago. "2007 to be 'warmest on record,' " BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government's Meteorological Office, the story announced that "the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007," surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998.


But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.

In South America, for example, the start of winter last year was one of the coldest ever observed. According to Eugenio Hackbart, chief meteorologist of the MetSul Weather Center in Brazil, "a brutal cold wave brought record low temperatures, widespread frost, snow, and major energy disruption." In Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the cold was so intense that hundreds of people died and the government declared a state of emergency in 14 of the country's 24 provinces. In August, Chile's agriculture minister lamented "the toughest winter we have seen in the past 50 years," which caused losses of at least $200 million in destroyed crops and livestock.

Latin Americans weren't the only ones shivering.

University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, a specialist in temperature and heat flow, notes in the Washington Times that "unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007." Johannesburg experienced its first significant snowfall in a quarter-century. Australia had its coldest ever June. New Zealand's vineyards lost much of their 2007 harvest when spring temperatures dropped to record lows.

Closer to home, 44.5 inches of snow fell in New Hampshire last month, breaking the previous record of 43 inches, set in 1876. And the Canadian government is forecasting the coldest winter in 15 years.

Now all of these may be short-lived weather anomalies, mere blips in the path of the global climatic warming that Al Gore and a host of alarmists proclaim the deadliest threat we face. But what if the frigid conditions that have caused so much distress in recent months signal an impending era of global cooling?

"Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012."

Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse gases, especially human-emitted carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to grow hotter. Like a number of other scientists, he points to solar activity - sunspots and solar flares, which wax and wane over time - as having the greatest effect on climate.

"Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change," Sorokhtin writes in an essay for Novosti. "Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind." In a recent paper for the Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change," they write.

Given the number of worldwide cold events, it is no surprise that 2007 didn't turn out to be the warmest ever. In fact, 2007's global temperature was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every year back to 2001. The record set in 1998 has not been surpassed. For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to accumulate - it's up about 4 percent since 1998 - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That raises some obvious questions about the theory that CO2 is the cause of climate change.

Yet so relentlessly has the alarmist scenario been hyped, and so disdainfully have dissenting views been dismissed, that millions of people assume Gore must be right when he insists: "The debate in the scientific community is over."

But it isn't. Just last month, more than 100 scientists signed a strongly worded open letter pointing out that climate change is a well-known natural phenomenon, and that adapting to it is far more sensible than attempting to prevent it. Because slashing carbon dioxide emissions means retarding economic development, they warned, "the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it."

Climate science isn't a religion, and those who dispute its leading theory are not heretics. Much remains to be learned about how and why climate changes, and there is neither virtue nor wisdom in an emotional rush to counter global warming - especially if what's coming is a global Big Chill.

http://www.winnipegsun.com/Comment/2007/12/31/4746417-sun.html

""With only a few days remaining in 2007 ... the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006, as well as every year since 2001," he writes. "Global warming has temporarily or permanently ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should, according to the fundamental theory behind global warming -- the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly."

Doubting doomsday

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | April 15, 2007

"WHY SO GLOOMY?" asks the headline over Richard Lindzen's guest commentary about global warming in the current issue of Newsweek. The cover of the magazine features a dire warning -- "Save the Planet -- Or Else" -- but Lindzen, a world-class climate scientist at MIT, doesn't buy it.

Yes, he writes, the planet has warmed a bit, and human-generated greenhouse gases may be partly responsible, but that is hardly cause for panic. Alarmism over global warming may be in vogue, but climate change is normal -- "the earth is always warming or cooling by as much as a few tenths of a degree a year." The current fearmongering "rests on the false assumption not only that we live in a perfect world, temperaturewise, but also that our warming forecasts for the year 2040 are somehow more reliable than the weatherman's forecast for next week."

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edit - removed drunken text

I have never been for or against global warming, even after looking at all the "proof" on both sides. I always felt alot of the changes were just good things to do.

Make cars cleaner? Who wants to live in smog? I grew up where we had sig alerts, nothing like checking the morning news to see if the air is safe enough to play in.

Anyways I am a bit confused by your posts, but stuck around long enough due to your angry opener. I will have to backtrack but didnt you support global warming theory? (I could be wrong here but for some reason thats what I remembered.)

LOL I don't understand the opening... are you being sarcastic? I mean seriously Swift - you know we all love to pick on you because of your viewpoints ;)

As for Global Warming... well I am enjoying the 60 degrees in January right now. /shrug Hate me please!!

Lots of Rye .... that's my excuse ...

It's now called "Global Climate Change" meaning that the weather patterns are disturbed.

How can this be happening? Over the last decade the polluters fan-club have been saying that rising temperatures were one-off's, natural variation, and single results couldn't indicate any trend. Now we can see the argument that 2007 isn't any hotter than previous years and therefore global warming isn't happening. I don't need to spell it out. Draw your own conclusions.

If you consider that the temperature last year was one of the highest ever, globally, then there's very little comfort in stating that it wasn't much different from the other ten warmest years we've ever seen.

Try this link http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7169690.stm.

The UK's top 10 warmest years on record (in order) are 2006, 2007, 2003, 2004, 2002, 2005, 1990, 1997, 1949 and 1999.

Globally, there is a similar trend - the top 10 being 1998, 2005, 2003, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2001, 1997 and 1995.

"Nine of the 10 warmest years have happened since 1989," said Dr Huddleston.

"There is an inexorable rise in temperature that is small compared to daily weather changes," he added. "There is much greater certainty that this is because of manmade pollution."

The Met Office originally predicted that 2007 could be the warmest on record globally. The year began with a weak El Nino, a Pacific Ocean phenomenon that normally raises temperatures.

But since the end of April 2007, its cooler relation, the La Nina, has prevailed, taking some of the heat out of what could have been an even warmer year.

2008 is expected to be another warm year with global temperatures forecast to be 0.37C above the long-term average.

How long is the recording?

And how accurate has the recording been every year?

How long is the recording?

And how accurate has the recording been every year?

Oh yeah! Let's claim that the human race can't measure anything. Then we can all be lazy polluters and let the world go to ruin. Solution.

Oh yeah! Let's claim that the human race can't measure anything. Then we can all be lazy polluters and let the world go to ruin. Solution.

But Anka, you know that any problem that you ignore long enough ceases to be a problem? (of course that generally is because it gets replaced by a more serious problem, but still ...)

To answer Fyyr's question though.

Accurate temperature measurements world wide have been going on about 150 years now. More localised sequences of measurements have been going on for 250 years.
All of these were accurate enough for the purpose of determining medium long term trends in temperature changes.

Incidental measurements have been recorded since the invention of the thermometer (several centuries), though comparison is difficult until after the invention of the celsius scale with its easy to recognise zero point.

Indirect measurements of temperature are less accurate, generally limited to a few points each year and are always local, but can be taken back hundreds of thousands of years. They are only relevant for very long term comparison and should not be used for any conclusion regarding our current climate situation as their uncertainty is greater than the short term variation we are talking about now (more than 0.3 degrees celsius).

Other things to keep in mind, the annual variation in average temperature is (much) greater than the estimated trend of rising of the average temperature due to the greenhouse gas effect. (average annual temperature varies several degrees from year to year, depending on the variability of the local climate. Estimates of the rise of the average temperature range between less than 0.1 degree to up to 0.3 degrees according to the last figures I have seen).
Climate is an chaotic system, which also means that tiny changes can have huge effects (look for 'bifurcation' as an example of a simplified chaotic system that has the same characteristics as climate). I have to look up things to be certain but I recall reading somewhere that the difference between an ice age and our current interglacial is a few degrees in the world wide average temperature. There is very little reason to assume a similar change in the other direction will not have a equally drastic effect on (local) climate.
There is very little point in making global comparisons when it comes to climate. Local climate differs hugely and may (will) be affected differently by changes in incoming warmth. Parts of the world may well get colder when the global average temperature rises.


Eri

Just show me the temperature data.

Is that too much to ask?

I can say that the last 10 years have been the hottest on record, if the record is only 10 years long.(actually that would be incorrect, half would have to be the hottest, and half would have to be the coolest). Ok, if the record is only 20 years long, well since the late 70s since this hypothesis was formed.

If accurate temperatures have been taken for 150 years, then there has to be data, right? Where is it. Standardized data. Where is it?

Honestly, I would be inclined to believe this whole thing if the model was not a small little glass box designed to grow plants in winter, or Venus. I would be more inclined to believe that the actual activity of humans, all the machines, all the lights, all the heat coming off of car engines is heating up the environment. I can usually heat my whole room up with just my computer, for example(unless it is really freezing outside, like now). Hell, even the body heat generated by all the people living, is a more plausible explanation.

Regardless, I find it interesting that the West(UN), the developed countries, are going to have to dictate to developing third world countries that they can not go through the industrial revolution because by just the sheer sized of their populations, the world can not afford it.

Is China, South America, India going to listen to any of your UN-Kyoto'esque chortling?

Do they get to develop and pollute(CO2 and CO), while the main cost is borne by the US, Japan, and Europe, because we just happens to BE developed and can afford it?

While we spend trillions on CO2 reclamation, and put CO2 splitters into our vehicles(and respirators), the undeveloped countries will not, they can't afford it. And will forcing them or trying to force them will prevent them from ever developing. Is that fair to them?

And by their ignoring such things, they will out and over compete with us, won't they? Western guilt is all fine and dandy(if you are prone to such facile emotions and motivations), but is it really all that needed.

Don't get me wrong, CO2 reclamation and splitting is going to be big business. HUGE! Invest in aluminum companies, like Alcoa now, before this whole thing starts. Invest in the first companies which develop CO2 splitting, turning it into pure Carbon and pure Oxygen. But it is going to be a tax on the developed countries, that developing countries are just not going to swallow.

One of the other theories, well, not really a theory, but, certainly an extra factor to be considered not specifically contributing to global warming, but certainly worthy of mention. The procession of the poles. Basically, Earth has a slight wobble in it's orbit. This wobble causes the earth to move and change its axis constantly, moving about 50 inches or so every year. So, one of the things that happens is the ever so slight changes helps the temperature changes by exposing the nothern hemisphere allittle closer to the sun, while at the same time removing the southern hemisphere from the sun slightly, which would help explain some of the temperature deviations.

Some of the melting of the northern ice caps are helped by this phenomenon, and is fairly consistent through time and other projected mini ice ages and stuff from around the 13th-14th century. Again, nothing concrete, that the procession of the poles is the main cause, but, certainly worth considering.

Just show me the temperature data.

Is that too much to ask?

I can say that the last 10 years have been the hottest on record, if the record is only 10 years long.(actually that would be incorrect, half would have to be the hottest, and half would have to be the coolest). Ok, if the record is only 20 years long, well since the late 70s since this hypothesis was formed.

If accurate temperatures have been taken for 150 years, then there has to be data, right? Where is it. Standardized data. Where is it?


The 250 year sequence is kept by the dutch meteorological institute (KNMI). You could possibly send in a request for the average temperatures each year over that time period. I have no idea if they hand it out to anybody who asks for it or if there is some book you could look into.
The 150 year sequences are kept by most european countries as well as the USA, all countries that had ocean crossing vessels at that time (1857 I believe), since there was a treaty at that date to start collecting and exchanging that data (to obtain an accurate map of wind direction and ocean currents for trade and naval purposes). Again, you will have to write to the relevant meteorological institutes to obtain the data.

The 'warmest 10 years' record presented in this thread mentioned 1949, so they go back close to 60 years already. The KNMI has a list of various extremes for each months. For Januari that month includes 1902 for least hours of sunshine, so that institute has data stretching back over a 100 years in its records. I am inclined to think that other institutes have records at least as long. This means that the average annual temperature records that were presented here are likely at least stretching back a 100 years, and quite possibly about 150 years.


Honestly, I would be inclined to believe this whole thing if the model was not a small little glass box designed to grow plants in winter, or Venus. I would be more inclined to believe that the actual activity of humans, all the machines, all the lights, all the heat coming off of car engines is heating up the environment. I can usually heat my whole room up with just my computer, for example(unless it is really freezing outside, like now). Hell, even the body heat generated by all the people living, is a more plausible explanation.


Actually, no, it is not. Read up on the relevant physics texts regarding heat transmission through various materials (houses are designed to minimise heat transmission). Then make a guess about the volume of earth's atmosphere and the how many magnitudes bigger it is than your room. Direct heat is a small effect compared to the amount of sunlight that hits the earth every moment. Still, it can be measured (try searching for the effect that cities have their own micro climate. I can not provide search words in English though as I only ever read articles about it written in Dutch).

I understand you are disinclined to believe in greenhouse gasses and the effect they have on earth temperature. So trying to convince you is pointless, you already are decided not to believe it. Still, if you are good at physics, you can try to calculate how much solar energy hits the earth every day and what would be the equilibrium temperature. (Or perhaps you can find the average temperature of the moon, since that would be the same as earth without atmosphere). If you figure that out you also know the effect that our atmosphere has on the temperature. You will find it to be quite substantial (towards making the planet inhabitable).


Regardless, I find it interesting that the West(UN), the developed countries, are going to have to dictate to developing third world countries that they can not go through the industrial revolution because by just the sheer sized of their populations, the world can not afford it.


It may be ironic, even futile, but that does not make it any less true. Of course the Chinese are already finding out that all those expensive regulations in the west about not polluting and reducing emissions are not because they like to make things difficult, but to keep their part of the world inhabitable. And I think that the effect of all that Chinese pollution is already crossing the pacific ocean and is affecting the west coast of the USA.

But what is needed is not to keep these people from developing, but to make sure the development does not exterminate all life on the planet. I.e. to make ecologically sustainable development rather than burn up all resources in an orgy of unbridled consumption and pollution.


Is China, South America, India going to listen to any of your UN-Kyoto'esque chortling?


Eventually yes, they will. They simply can not afford not to. Of course by the time they realise that the problem is very real it may be too late for them to do anything about it, but yes, they will eventually listen.
And please, try to use less emotionally charged words in your arguments. It does not give credibility to your argument and only annoys those who would argue with you.


Do they get to develop and pollute(CO2 and CO), while the main cost is borne by the US, Japan, and Europe, because we just happens to BE developed and can afford it?

While we spend trillions on CO2 reclamation, and put CO2 splitters into our vehicles(and respirators), the undeveloped countries will not, they can't afford it. And will forcing them or trying to force them will prevent them from ever developing. Is that fair to them?

Of course it is not fair to them, but since they will be the ones who are going to be primarily affected they have little choice. And the rich countries will have to not only set an example, but also help the undeveloped countries cope with the cost of environmentally sound development. And yes, that is enlightened self-interest too. Hundreds of millions of people fleeing floods and droughts are going to those places that are less affected like e.g. Europe and the USA. Already the EC is increasingly funding development in northern africa and the various states in the former eastern USSR, just to make sure those people have less reason to migrate en masse to the north and west respectively. Given how large a part of the world's population lives less than 10 meters above sea level, and how many of those are living in third world countries who can not afford dikes and other protection against the sea we are looking at a mass migration of close to half a billion people if only a modest degree is realised of the expected rise of the sea level.


And by their ignoring such things, they will out and over compete with us, won't they? Western guilt is all fine and dandy(if you are prone to such facile emotions and motivations), but is it really all that needed.


Please. That is overly dramatic. Are you really concerned that countries where the average wage can be measured in cents rather than dollars are outcompete western industries over ignoring environmental common sense?

In case you did not realise, they already do. Both the ignoring and the outcompeting. The Chinese are finding out even now that by doing so they are destroying their own country (droughts, soil polluted to a degree that it can no longer be used for farming, or even building homes on. Lakes and rivers that are completely dead because of toxic waste and pesticides dumped into them without concern for the consequences. They already had several local uprisings over such situations though the news has been firmly suppressed. China too is going to enact increasingly strong environmental regulations, you do not have to worry about that).
Still, the western economies seem not to have suffered overly much from these countries that 'out compete them'. The point is that they can only outcompete the -industry- but the main income is no longer generated there (any more than it is generate by agriculture).


Eri

Just show me the temperature data.

Is that too much to ask?

Yes. Go read the IPCC climate change reports for yourself instead of playing message board games. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm.

I can say that the last 10 years have been the hottest on record, if the record is only 10 years long.(actually that would be incorrect, half would have to be the hottest, and half would have to be the coolest). Ok, if the record is only 20 years long, well since the late 70s since this hypothesis was formed.

You could say that if you were an uninformed <.....> who can't take the time to read the full data yet still wants to use schoolboy logic to disprove complex climatology.

Western guilt is all fine and dandy(if you are prone to such facile emotions and motivations), but is it really all that needed.

Nobody is asking you to feel guilty that your nation produces the highest per capita pollution on the planet. What's needed is a practical plan for all nations, including the US, to clean up.

You could say that if you were an uninformed...
I could say it if I were informed, or uninformed, truthfully.

If I don't have to tell you where the data was taken, how it was taken, and for how long; what I said would be absolutely irrefutably true, as well.

I could say it if I were informed, or uninformed, truthfully.

If I don't have to tell you where the data was taken, how it was taken, and for how long; what I said would be absolutely irrefutably true, as well.

Just out of morbid curiosity, what would it take to satisfy you?
Irrefutable truth?
You will not find that outside of zealotic religious types who hold that a particular book is absolute truth to the letter, evidence to the contrary be damned (literally, as well as bombed into oblivion).

I bothered to look things up for you a little more. The KNMI (dutch meteorological institue, which incidentally has several sceptics as leading researchers), keeps track of highest and lowest temperature/rainfall/sunshine as well as other aspects of weather, since 1901.
They have accurate measurement dating back to 1858 (when everybody started using the same scale for temperature)
The oldest sufficiently reliable and long series of measurements they have starts in 1706 and lasts close to 30 years. It is reliable in that the measurements are made under consistent conditions and with similarly calibrated instruments. It is however difficult to compare to more modern measurements since there is no immediate apparent reference point.

So, of the hottest 10 years over the last century 8 of them fall in the last decade. And the last 2 decades are also overrepresented.
It is not 'irrefutable' evidence, but it is cause for concern and it does collaborate with other models that attempt to predict the effect of greenhouse gasses on the temperature amongst others.

The reason to make a lot of noise about this is not because it is certain but because the potential economical and ecological damage is immense, not to mention that the effects can not readily be undone. By the time scientists have this 'irrefutable' evidence it is far too late to act on it.


Eri

Question:

I have heard the phrase "destroy the planet" used in this thread. Although a few degree tempature increase could have serious negative effects, How many believe that global warming will actually destroy the planet? or make it mostly uninhabitable?

I have heard the figure of 100million refugies by the end of this century due to global warming induced sea level rise. This is nothing to dismiss, but it is approximately 1% of the world population if the worlds population is approximately 10billion by the end of the century. China has seen around 200million migrate within its borders over the last 3 decades. So 100 million people moving at least 50 miles over the next century is serious, but it is not destroying the planet, is it?

So who thinks we will literally destroy the planet by burning fossil fuels?

( I would also like to point out that predictions of more severe weather are no where near as strongly supported by science than the science behind CO2 rises causing climate change. In other words, it is quite possible that severe weather could become less common as a result of gloabal warming. If anyone has any info on this topic, please post. )

Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.

I'm all for changing the way we treat the world we live in but Carbon Dioxide is not the problem. Mercury from coal burning, fluoride (http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=second-thoughts-on-fluoride) and various other chemical wastes are pollutants far more damaging to our environment.

Technology is suppressed regularly that would save energy etc.. There are cases locally where a farm truck has gotten over 100 MPG. (Google search HHO fuel hybrid) We could use more glass bottles and recycle more, but the choice has been removed from the consumer by the product producers. The only reason you still get beer in a bottle is because they could never get people past the metal taste you get from canned beer, the measly 10 cents a bottle is motivation enough to get most people to recylce.

I have heard the phrase "destroy the planet" used in this thread. Although a few degree tempature increase could have serious negative effects, How many believe that global warming will actually destroy the planet? or make it mostly uninhabitable?

I'm not sure anyone did use the phrase 'destroy the planet'. I personally can't imagine that happening, just because the humanity will eventually cease pollution if climate change moves in such an extreme direction. That isn't the issue though.

How how many ports have to be flooded, how many people have to migrate, how much farmland has to be recultivated, how many industries have to relocate, how many transportation links have to be rebuilt, before we have a human and financial cost that is unsustainable? We can carry the cost of controlling pollution. We don't know the cost of climate change but it is likely to be very large and we'll be the ones paying it.

Those opposing climate control often talk of financial and economic disaster. Who actually thinks that we'll have the largest ever world recession if we attempt to curb pollution?

Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant.

I could claim that water isn't a pollutant. Little difference though if your house is 10' deep in the stuff.

Go read the IPCC climate change reports. http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg1.htm. They explain why carbon dioxide in the atmosphere can affect global temperatures.

Carbon dioxide increases trail the temperature increase, meaning they are an effect not a cause.

For the glaciers once covering much of Canada to recede thousands of years ago, the temperature had to rise and must have been cooler for a good period of time. Since man didn't have much to do with anything so long ago how would you account for the warming and cooling?

There have been warmer and cooler periods through history some of which allowed for settlement of Greenland. Higher carbon dioxide levels and temperatures are better for plant health and yields and many biologists suggest we are currently in a carbon dioxide starved state. As carbon dioxide levels increase plant growth increases which translates to more oxygen creation, which then promotes overall better human health.

For the glaciers once covering much of Canada to recede thousands of years ago, the temperature had to rise and must have been cooler for a good period of time. Since man didn't have much to do with anything so long ago how would you account for the warming and cooling?

We know there has been global warming and cooling in the past. There is a natural cycle. Nobody is denying that. It doesn't mean human beings can pollute endlessly and be unable to accelerate, skew, or break the cycle.

The current changes in climate temperature are far more rapid than anything seen in the past. This has persuaded climatologists, who know full well the historical cycles, that man-made factors are affecting climate change. Go read the IPCC report.

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/

There's your starting point. Be aware that the EPA has, for the past 7 years, been staffed at the highest levels by a President who refused to believe in global warming or climate change or whatever you want to cause it.

So anything the EPA says, is likely to be LESS alarmist and LESS "global warming nut" inspired than most. Yet, even though the highest level of the EPA were appointed by someone who denied until recently that it exists and is in bed with the oil industry, they still say it exists.

Are human activities responsible for the warming climate?

Careful measurements have confirmed that greenhouse gas emissions are increasing and that human activities (principally, the burning of fossil fuels and changes in land use) are the primary cause. Human activities have caused the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane to be higher today than at any point during the last 650,000 years. Scientists agree it is very likely that most of the global average warming since the mid-20th century is due to human-induced increases in greenhouse gases, rather than to natural causes.
Can changes in climate be attributed to natural factors?

Natural variations within the Earth’s climate system can cause small changes over decades to centuries. Larger changes can occur through factors such as gradual changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun, which are thought to be the key contributors in the comings and goings of past ice ages over many millennia. The Sun’s energy can also vary over time. Large volcanic eruptions and collisions with large meteorites can cool the planet for a few years by spewing out particles that reflect sunlight back out to space. However, while natural variations have altered the climate significantly in the past, it is very unlikely that the changes in climate observed since the mid-20th century can be explained by natural processes alone.
When will the climate change?

The Earth has already warmed 1.3°F over the past century, and it is projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to increase by an additional 3.2-7.2°F over the 21st century. These increases may appear minor compared with short-term local temperature changes, such as those from night to day or winter to summer, but they are changes in the Earth’s global average temperature. To put this in perspective, global temperatures during the last ice age (about 20,000 years ago) were “only” 9°F cooler than today; however, that was enough to allow massive ice sheets to reach as far south as the Great Lakes and New York City. At the high-end of projected warming, human activities would change Earth’s climate by up to 7°F but in the opposite direction.
THEY GIVE YOU LINKS TO ALL THE FIGURES AND "PROOF" you could want.

Unless the only proof you accept is when someone puts a loaded gun at your head, you refuse to believe it would kill you until they actually pull the trigger and do so.

There was an interesting point in a novel I read where a group of people were together in a seminar and the leader pulled out a .45 handgun. He asked someone to come up to the stage. He then loaded the gun with a full clip and shot out a target to prove it was loaded with live ammo. From three feet away, he pointed it at their head and asked, "If I pull the trigger, will you die?"

They then said, "Well, I might die but the gun might misfire or you might miss, or I might survive the shot." The leader moved to place the gun right up against his head and asked again.

The person kept refusing to admit that, yes, if the leader pulled the trigger, he would die.

If you really want to, you can look at any issue and claim that there really isn't enough proof. Global climate change, evolution, the failure of abstinence education to prevent sex, condoms help preventing STDs, second hand smoke, whatever.

Yes, there are times when conventional wisdom has been shown to be wrong. Yes, there are times when it seems something was proven when it is found to be wrong.

But we live our lives every day based on the fact that your car brakes will work, because the science and engineering says they will. Gravity will pull you down at 1G and won't suddenly go to 20gs. Food will nourish you and not kill you. The airplane you are flying in will not suddenly fall out of the sky because the concept of forward motion over an airfoil equals lift is suddenly found to be wrong.

Is it possible that your car brakes will fail? Of course. Could gravity suddenly decide that it doesn't want to be 1g but 20? Well, since science really doesn't understand gravity, there is no proof it couldn't. Could your food poison you? Yes, and many people die from food poisoning each year. Airplanes fall out of the sky all the time.

So do you never ride in a car? Do you live in fear that gravity will change? Do you refuse to eat any food but what you grow yourself? Do you refuse to fly airplanes?

Most people don't worry about that. And if something does fail, they look at why it fails. But they don't decide that there isn't really enough scientific proof that friction on a brake drum causes it to stop, just because some car brakes fail or that because science doesn't really understand how gravity works that every building needs to be designed to withstand 20gs.

Actually, I thought he was in bed with the natural gas industry.

http://www.walgreens.com/dbimagecache/349537.jpg

Yea, well, its 19 outside right now. I think everyone here probably knows everyone else's views on Global Warming and have long ago formed opinons about said view holders already.

For the love of pete, 60 seconds between replies....

Dailytech (http://www.dailytech.com/Temperature%2BMonitors%2BReport%2BWorldwide%2BGlob al%2BCooling/article10866.htm)

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 nearly all 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.

We better up our carbon emissions ...fight global cooling now ... everyone needs to do their part.

From the linked article - Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Read again the posts above. Any single year does not prove or disprove a trend over decades. This what all the opponents of global warming cried out repeatedly at the end of the last century. Now in this century they seem to have forgotten their old advice. They're using one cool month's data to argue against decades of evidence. They're also convently comparing this cold january against the previous January, but forgotten to mention just how warm that previous January was. They're just using the difference between the two, which as far as I can tell only suggests there are greater variations in annual weather at the moment. Moreover, anyone can look at the data this claim is based on and see that there were two colder months even in the 90's, so it's more accurate to say that even a decade's worth of global warming hasn't been wiped out (in their terms).

If anyone expects global temperatures to rise consistently and incrementally every month, every year, then I suggest they learn more about the earth's climate in general. Go read the IPCC report for starters.

More fuel for da fiya (http://newparty.co.uk/UserFiles/File/carterstatement.pdf)

Above link is a .pdf.

A mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” has been published in debate on global warming in Physics and Society, a scientific publication of the 46,000-strong American Physical Society.

Christopher Monckton, who once advised Margaret Thatcher, demonstrates via 30 equations that computer models used by the UN’s climate panel (IPCC) were pre-programmed with overstated values for the three variables whose product is “climate sensitivity” (temperature increase in response to greenhouse-gas increase), resulting in a 500-2000% overstatement of CO2’s effect on temperature in the IPCC’s latest climate assessment report, published in 2007.

The article, entitled Climate Sensitivity Reconsidered demonstrates that later this century a doubling of the concentration of CO2 compared with pre-industrial levels will increase global mean surface temperature not by the 6 °F predicted by the IPCC but, harmlessly, by little more than 1 °F. Lord Monckton concludes –

“… Perhaps real-world climate sensitivity is very much below the IPCC’s estimates. Perhaps, therefore, there is no ‘climate crisis’ at all. … The correct policy approach to a non-problem is to have the courage to do nothing.”

► The IPCC’s 2007 climate summary overstated CO2’s impact on temperature by 500-2000%;
► CO2 enrichment will add little more than 1 °F (0.6 °C) to global mean surface temperature by 2100;
► Not one of the three key variables whose product is climate sensitivity can be measured directly;
► The IPCC’s values for these key variables are taken from only four published papers, not 2,500;
► The IPCC’s values for each of the three variables, and hence for climate sensitivity, are overstated;
► “Global warming” halted ten years ago, and surface temperature has been falling for seven years;
► Not one of the computer models relied upon by the IPCC predicted so long and rapid a cooling;
► The IPCC inserted a table into the scientists’ draft, overstating the effect of ice-melt by 1000%;
► It was proved 50 years ago that predicting climate more than two weeks ahead is impossible;
► Mars, Jupiter, Neptune’s largest moon, and Pluto warmed at the same time as Earth warmed;
► In the past 70 years the Sun was more active than at almost any other time in the past 11,400 years.

A mathematical proof that there is no “climate crisis” has been published in debate on global warming in Physics and Society, a scientific publication of the 46,000-strong American Physical Society.
...and this "proof" is discredited by another article in the very same issue.

Newsletter Article Causes Climate-Change Kerfuffle (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,387542,00.html)
Monday, July 21, 2008
By Paul Wagenseil

Despite rumors to the contrary, global warming is still happening, the American Physical Society says.

The climate-change blogosphere buzzed last week that the entire organization of more than 4,000 American physicists had suddenly changed its position on global warming and decided that humans were, in fact, not responsible for the rise in average temperatures over the past century.

What did happen was that the July 2008 newsletter of the APS' Forum on Physics and Society, one of 39 separate units within the APS, included an article written by British Viscount Christopher Monckton refuting the main points of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's conclusion that humans are changing the world's climate.

Monckton is a Cambridge-educated classicist, journalist, hereditary peer and former adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He's not a scientist, however, and his article was headlined with this disclaimer:

"The following article has not undergone any scientific peer review. Its conclusions are in disagreement with the overwhelming opinion of the world scientific community. The Council of the American Physical Society disagrees with this article's conclusions."

Published alongside it was another article written by two physicists entitled "A Tutorial on the Basic Physics of Climate Change," essentially discrediting Monckton's refutation.

[More... (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,387542,00.html)]

*shrugs* People already pointed out that the author of this 'refutation' is hardly a qualified meteorologist or climatologist.

Regarding some of his points.
The effect of CO2 is fairly well known (it can be measured experimentally after all). There is some uncertainty how to extrapolate from small scale experiments to atmospheric conditions, which is why the models have a fairly broad range between most optimistic and most pessimistic estimates. However, the biggest uncertainty is not CO2 but the effect of water vapour (cloud formation).

The 0.6 degrees celsius rise in temperature globally is the absolute lowest number -anybody- has been able to come up with. Most experiments agree that the actual effect is going to be somewhat higher. However, the rise in temperature from CO2 is only a small part of the equation (even though a world wide average rise of even 0.6 degrees is hardly insignificant, small as it may sound). The question is what this small rise will do to the somewhat unstable balance that we call climate. Think of climate as a ball balancing on top of another one. It only takes a tiny push to make it fall off. Or as the tower of Pisa which was only a few degrees off the vertical but still in iminent danger of collapsing.

I am not sure what he means with the three key variables, but the things that are of immediate importance to us can be, and are, easily monitored by satelites (surface and 10km altitude temperature, air pressure and cloud coverage. Even CO2 and H2O concentrations can be measured with a little more effort). The biggest problem is that climate is, by definition, something that can only be observed over very long periods of time.

Regarding the computer models, they are operating on a rather coarse scale, but they are being improved every day and the results they produce increasingly match the historical observations (yes, scientists regularly start calculations from e.g. 1960 to see if their models more or less match the observations of the following 50 years, and yes they are aware that they risk selective modelling).
Actual measurements show that average temperatures world wide have been rising at rate well within the limits predicted by our current best models. Only a month ago the Dutch meteorological institue published a report that confirmed (again) that the world is warming up at a more rapid speed than is healthy and that it is doing so (due to local climatic effects) more than twice as fast in western Europe than globally. They also shown that they have no doubt left that this change is triggered by human activity (e.g. emission of vast amounts of greenhouse gasses). Note the emphasised word.

I am not sure where Mockton found evidence of dropping global average temperatures, but I fear he looked at the inside of his refrigerator. Just about every serious climatological institute in the world has published measurements that the average temperature world wide has been rising steadily over the past several decades. There have been some places where the temperature dropped, but those were isolated regions, just as there are regions where the increase was even faster than average.

Regarding the ice melt. You only need to have a look at the satelite pictures of the arctic to see that its summer size has decreased by over 50pct compared to two decades ago. Even last winter which was severe and created a winter coverage that was quite high was already undone before summer really started. If Mockton comes up with a 1000pct overestimate then he is pulling figures out of thin air. Or he is comparing winter coverage measurements to summer coverage predictions (in which case he is deliberately lying!).

It also was 'proven' a hundred or so years ago that rockets were physically impossible. And a couple of centuries ago that the sun revolved around the earth and a couple of millenia ago that if you slit the throat of a sheep you would have luck for the rest of the year. As computing power increases weather predictions become more accurate. There will always be a margin of error in them, but clever use of different models and calculating slightly different scenarios and averaging the results has made short and even medium term predictions pretty accurate. Interestingly enough climate predictions are more accurate than weather ones, simply because the scale of climate is much vaster and thus less subject to inaccuracies and a rather coarse sampling grid we must necessarily accept (due to calculations constraints) for weather predictions. The problem scientists are facing with climate predictions is simply that they have accurate measurements of only a fraction of the time that they need to observe climate changes and that only for a small part of the world.

The effect of solar activity on climate changes is highly uncertain at best. Nobody really knows if the temperature on other planets have increased simply because we have not been looking for that for much time (and our ability to do so accurately has not been that old either). Most of the planets mentioned (and why only 4 out of hundreds of celestial bodies in our solar system?) are so cold that our atmosphere would be liquid on them. They certainly have no atmosphere that can produce anything remotely like earth's climates. Also, we have not been measuring solar radiation long enough to make any claim about it being greater for the last 70 years. The only thing we have been able to observe about the sun for that kind of time scale was the amount of sunspots and even that was indirectly. Those are known to be on a much shorter cycle than the 70 years mentioned. Not to mention that sunspots are actually cooler areas on the sun's surface. They are however related to magnetic effects inside the sun and there is no evidence that they are causing more or less energy output from the sun.
I would also like to point out that the last 70 years has seen more than a doubling of the human population and disappearance of far more than half of the world's forest covering. Both of those are far more likely to have an effect on earth's temperature.

I do not expect that any fact or best scientific guess presented above is going to do anything to sway your belief that there is a vast scientific conspiracy afoot. However, you can rest assured that nothing is going to change until it is far too late to do anything about. There is too much vested interest in maintaining the status quo to allow politicians to force any change. Especially when that change ends up costing voters money or would require them to give up some of their comforts.


Eri

Some random thoughts on the topic...
Media bias. The media's interest above all else is ratings, not objectivity. The media loves alarmist issues because it attracts more viewers than objective debates.

The "Day After Tomorrow" theory - where ice caps melting stops the gulf stream which brings mass cooling - gets main stream attention, when in reality it's a very fringe theory.

When the Antarctic ice cap reached record biggest size a couple months ago, it recieved a fraction of the coverage as the Arctic reaching record smallest size. In addition, most main stream media outlets that did cover the record Antarctic ice cap included "but some scientists say the Antarctic ice cap is growing because of global warming," even though there was no opposing argument stated when the Arctic ice cap reached it's minimum.

Skeptics are in the pocket of big oil. Actually going through and debating someone takes time, and the media will only cover short sound bytes. It's much easier to say "he/she is in the pocket of big oil" because you can sum up your whole argument in one sound byte, and avoid actually being put on the spot and having to name facts and stuff.

However, the logic of "they're in the pocket of big oil" is flawed, because that implies that only skeptics are motivated by self interest. Solar companies, wind farms, biofuel companies are all big companies with big lobbyists and big unions behind them. Additionally, it's in politicians' self-interest to be alarmist about global warming because it wins them votes.

There is a consensus on global warming. When Al Gore, for example, says "there is a consensus on global warming," he's stating a half truth. There's a consensus that the earth is warming and humans are likely the primary cause, however, when Al Gore says there is a consensus on global warming, people think that he means there is an consensus on Al Gore's verison of global warming, which simply isn't the case. There is hardly a consensus on any specific issue around global warming.

Global warming documentries. Al Gore was an out of work, out of the spot light wash up when he was producing his movie. He knew he couldn't get back in the spotlight unless he did something that'd be popular, and he knew a movie about a slide show wouldn't become popular unless he made it scary as ****.

Someone in England made a skeptical global warming documentry, The Great Global Warming Swindle, that was equally as bias and riddled with as many half truths and debunked theories as Al Gore's movie, however, this guy was treated a bit differently. Al Gore went on to win countless awards, when this guy had different TV networks bring on panels of scientists tear his movie apart, and had interviews intended to ridicule him.

The bottom line. There is a lot of misinformation out there, and the bulk of it is in the side of the alarmists.

I do not believe in the greenhouse gass effect. I do belive that energy released during combustion or nuclear reaction release heat energy that has to be absorbed before going away. As use of fuels continues to increase, the temperature can continue to increase.

Also, at some point during the last Ice age, the climate went from global cooling to global warming. To assert that the climate was perfectly in balance without a very large set of date ( 1000 years or so) is dubious at best.

I do not believe in the greenhouse gass effect. I do belive that energy released during combustion or nuclear reaction release heat energy that has to be absorbed before going away. As use of fuels continues to increase, the temperature can continue to increase.

Also, at some point during the last Ice age, the climate went from global cooling to global warming. To assert that the climate was perfectly in balance without a very large set of date ( 1000 years or so) is dubious at best.

The 'greenhouse gas effect' is pretty well understood. The principle behind it is that air is fairly transparent to light. Which of course is why we can see through it at all. However, some gasses, like CO2 are a little more likely to absorb infrared (heat) radiation. So light from the sun travels through the atmosphere, hits the earth and gets absorbed. This in turn heats up things. These warmer objects give off some of that heat in the form of infrared light. The highter the CO2 content of the atmosphere the more of that heat is trapped in the air instead of radiating out to space. The net result is that the lower atmosphere and surface get warmer.

Obviously there are other factors that can affect the global average temperature (large scale volcanic eruptions are one of them). There are also other means to measure temperature from before the invention of the thermometer. These are obviously not as accurate as what we have now, but it is sufficient to indicate trends. The ice caps also provide an indication of not only temperatures but also of the constitution of the atmosphere in the past. Which is why scientists are confident to say that the percentage of CO2 in the air is higher than it has been for the past half million or so years, and that the rise in temperature is faster than any they have seen evidence of in the past.


Eri

I do not believe in the greenhouse gass effect.
The fact that some gasses absorb more heat than other gasses is, well, pretty much a fact.

I do belive that energy released during combustion or nuclear reaction release heat energy that has to be absorbed before going away. As use of fuels continues to increase, the temperature can continue to increase.
The effect of energy from human sources contributes very little to global warming when compared with the sun's energy. The reason that greenhouse gasses are a problem is that they increase the amount of energy absorbed by the atmosphere.

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=287279412587175

The Sun Also Sets

By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, February 07, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Climate Change: Not every scientist is part of Al Gore's mythical "consensus." Scientists worried about a new ice age seek funding to better observe something bigger than your SUV — the sun.

Related Topics: Global Warming

Back in 1991, before Al Gore first shouted that the Earth was in the balance, the Danish Meteorological Institute released a study using data that went back centuries that showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

To many, those data were convincing. Now, Canadian scientists are seeking additional funding for more and better "eyes" with which to observe our sun, which has a bigger impact on Earth's climate than all the tailpipes and smokestacks on our planet combined.

And they're worried about global cooling, not warming.

Kenneth Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada's National Research Council, is among those looking at the sun for evidence of an increase in sunspot activity.

Solar activity fluctuates in an 11-year cycle. But so far in this cycle, the sun has been disturbingly quiet. The lack of increased activity could signal the beginning of what is known as a Maunder Minimum, an event which occurs every couple of centuries and can last as long as a century.

Such an event occurred in the 17th century. The observation of sunspots showed extraordinarily low levels of magnetism on the sun, with little or no 11-year cycle.

This solar hibernation corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. Frigid winters and cold summers during that period led to massive crop failures, famine and death in Northern Europe.

Tapping reports no change in the sun's magnetic field so far this cycle and warns that if the sun remains quiet for another year or two, it may indicate a repeat of that period of drastic cooling of the Earth, bringing massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.

]

Mind, I would love if the rise of the global average temperature was nothing but a temporary flux.

However, I would really hate to assume it is and then find out that the scientists were right after all. The social and economical cost of mistake a change are staggering. Especially for countries like the Netherlands that would cease to exist to a very large extent. So if it comes to hoping for the best (because it is more convenient to do as we always did) or preparing for the worst, I rather err on the side of caution.

And just a little report last week that hardly got any attention. For the first time in recorded history the summer of 2008 has seen the arctic ice shelf completely isolated from all land. A boat can sail around the north pole through the arctic sea without needing the help of an ice breaker to do so. That is an awful lot of ice gone (and a huge area that has grown considerably darker and thus absorbing solar radiation rather than reflecting it back into space).


Eri