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World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.
Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

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

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

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

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

Update 2/27: The graph for HadCRUT (above), as well as the linked graphs for RSS and UAH are generated month-to-month; the temperature declines span a full 12 months of data.  The linked GISS graph was graphed for the months of January only, due to a limitation in the plotting program.   Anthony Watts, who kindly provided the graphics, otherwise has no connection with the column.  The views and comments are those of the author only.

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And the moral of the story is...
By geddarkstorm on 2/26/2008 1:48:45 PM , Rating: 5
Climate fluctuates. The world isn't going to follow our preconceived ideas even if a panel of scientists says it should. But that's what we call leaning; if we knew everything we'd have nothing to learn, and when it comes to climate we obviously have a lot. Things like this are very interesting to read and learn about, it just isn't a surprise, especially involving climate where one would expect there to be a lot of fluctuations.

I guess we'll find out in another year more of what's going on (what the trend is, or if this is just a blip so to speak), but this has definitely been one heck of a winter.




RE: And the moral of the story is...
By MadMaster on 2/26/08, Rating: -1
RE: And the moral of the story is...
By porkpie on 2/26/2008 2:09:27 PM , Rating: 5
Three hundredths of a degree. I'm quaking in boots here in fear over that.

The earth warmed up 1900-1940, when hardly anyone was driving cars. And now that CO2 is twice as high, the whole planet is cooling! Somehow I don't think CO2 is the devil-gas you people claim it is.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By liminality on 2/27/08, Rating: 0
RE: And the moral of the story is...
By Hawkido on 2/27/2008 6:05:17 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
I'm just a dad, husband and citizen who's trying to show some responsibility in a world of excess.


You forgot gullible fool...

And if you are not able to do without your plastics and modern appliances first without imposing your bunk legislation on the rest of us, then add Hypocrite to the list.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By robinthakur on 2/28/2008 9:21:32 AM , Rating: 4
Agreed, I find the whole global warming thing really disturbing. Its like the Akira cult (from Akira). Its like the scientists are competing with the religious nuts to convince us that "Armageddon is coming soon". The most disturbing thing is that Governments are being coerced by a mouthy minority lobby to act and legislate against a phantom problem and their is a real anti-progress, anti-west, anti consumerism and anti-technology flavour to it all. I would almost say that the mod's reaction is against how far we have come from more simple times and the extent to which technology has entered our lives and the puritan feeling that excess in all its forms is somehow 'wrong'?.

Global warming might well be completely unrelated to environmental pollution and to the fact that Oil and Gas (and eventually coal) are likely to run out, both utter tragedies whcih are 100% genuine. Don't get me wrong, I feel that pollution is absolutely wrong and we need to completely reduce the amount of items we send to land-fill and recycling them where possible makes sense. We need to urgently find replacement fuels to replace oil.

This does not imply that Global Warming is related to any of the above. I feel that the net effect of the overstated Global Warming craze is just one where Governments and companies tax you either directly or indirectly more on anything they can. Its already happening in the UK. To believe that they are motivated by concern for the environment is gullible at best and kidding yourselves. They do it for votes, and they do it to extract more money and control out of the populace. The human condition dictates that we must be having an effect on the planet (in our minds) After all we are more than 6 billion humans in the world, and that number seems awfully big, doesn't it? The whole CO2/warming correlation I have always considered tenuous at best and the whole idea seems entirely self-important and too far fetched to be believable...

The worst case scenario is that the earth gets too hot/cold to support human life, humanity dies out and then it returns to balance eventually in a couple of thousand years. Problem solved.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By plowak on 3/14/2008 11:38:33 AM , Rating: 2
2012, 2012, 2012...


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By cloudsifter on 2/27/2008 8:35:08 PM , Rating: 5
Dad, don't take "you people" so personally. Check the Constitution- there was no "right to not be offended". I know the school conditioned you to be offended at every little thing that 'feels' uncomfortable. I just purchased a chill pill offset in your name. And new evidence shows 'again' that it's ok to let your kid play contact sports, without getting a trophy, cause everyone DOESN'T win. Did you ever notice it's mostly the kids who were brought up in the timeout era who came up with all of this bunk? Now acting up in school is a 'mental disease'... what has come of this world? Keep drinking the fluoride water. Yes, even 1ppm was bad for us and it didn't help our teeth. Tell me, are you a member of K.O.O.K.S ( K eep O ur O wn K ids S afe)?

Showing some 'responsibility' is teaching your kids not to dive in head first when Mr. Al Gore claims to have thousands of scientists (many of whom flat-out deny endorsing the 'theory'), and is proven grossly wrong on the major claims of his global warming (oops, they changed it cause that wasn't popular- "Climate Change" now) theory in a liberal country, in a liberal court. Responsibility is teaching kids to practice what you preach- not "Al Gore's do as I say not as I do" while I spread the word on Global...sorry- Climate Change. Responsibility is to teach them what a joke "carbon offsets" or credits are. Responsibility is to show them what a crock it was to 'fill in the blank' on the chart when the Global Warming data didn't fit the model. So, I'm not sure what you mean by us people "ignoring' the evidence". Us people did not ignore the evidence- evidence that we did not have to "doctor". " but to deny that pumping billions of tons of small particles into the air may not lead to global warming is insane"? I don't deny that it may not lead - I go one further and say the evidence says it is NOT leading to that. But, once the GW crowd gets stuck in a loop, they just don't let go, even when the evidence is countered- scientifically. I don't blame you too much though, the education system has gone so liberal and if it feels good (save the earth- the new religion) do it. It's not your fault. And, of course, all of the new industry that was put on the fast track to come up around the bogus theory, well, if we changed now, jobs would be lost and we just can't do that. GW/CC is just a big money grab.

What science would YOU have to see to get you off this global warming bandwagon? Is the fact that those who came before you WROTE IT DOWN- including the ice age hoax of the 70's and now, the GW/CC crisis? How much more plain can it get besides a picture right in front of your face?

Dad, follow my voice- come toward the light... listen
real hard at about 4:30min mark.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCVQI-GI6Is

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-...


By SilthDraeth on 2/28/2008 9:31:22 PM , Rating: 2
Woot you mentioned fluoride. So many people do not believe me that it is horrible. And don't forget aspartame.


By initialised on 3/2/2008 8:43:09 PM , Rating: 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCVQI-GI6Is uses the same logic as the argument justifying belief in god and ignores the case in point where we cannot influence climate change.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By DrTech on 2/27/2008 10:54:12 PM , Rating: 2
You say we are "pumping billions of tons of small particles into the air" -- I think you are confused. Particles in the atmosphere (e.g., soot) cause cooling. The air has gotten cleaner, and this has contributed to warming. CO2 is a gas, and pumping billions of tons of it into the atmosphere probably causes some warming. By how much, who really knows. The point of the article is that while we are worrying about global warming, an ice age could come along and freeze our butts off. It seems we have a society of worriers. When I was growing up, we worried about global cooling. Then there was Ebola, the bird flu, nuclear melt downs, and pesticides. Look, on average, we are living longer, which says to me that the net effect of all human actions is good, not bad.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By KeypoX on 3/7/2008 10:20:14 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
You say we are "pumping billions of tons of small particles into the air" -- I think you are confused. Particles in the atmosphere (e.g., soot) cause cooling. The air has gotten cleaner, and this has contributed to warming. CO2 is a gas, and pumping billions of tons of it into the atmosphere probably causes some warming.


no no i think you are the one confused. C02 even though its called a gas is still made up of "billions of tons of small particles" despite you not being able to see it it is made of particles with a mass and weight. Soot is the incomplete combustion of carbon to gas. the theory of global warming is that the gas particles are getting trapped in the atmosphere causing a green house effect.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By PlasmaBomb on 3/13/2008 8:11:32 PM , Rating: 2
Technically Carbon dioxide is a molecule. It's made up of an atom (particle) of carbon and two oxygen atoms.

I think atom is a better way of expressing it, and saves confusion of a gas with particulates.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By plowak on 3/14/2008 11:48:55 AM , Rating: 1
Noop, carbon dioxide is just a bunch of hot air.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By Vangel on 2/27/2008 11:18:55 PM , Rating: 3
The moral of the story is that people are gullible and will believe all kinds of things rather than check facts and use common sense. When I was in school the scientists and the media were pushing the global cooling story and jumping up and down trying to get the governments to 'do something.' A few years later they were arguing for global warming driven by CO2 even though the science clearly showed that the earth had been warmer during the MWP and Roman Warming and common sense would expect that after a period that we called the Little Ice Age one would expect temperatures to go up.

As a father myself I do not want to see scarce resources being wasted on terrible mathematical models and wild speculation. There are too many problems in the world that require serious attention to waste resources on something that is not real.


By initialised on 3/2/2008 8:45:53 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
As a father myself I do not want to see scarce resources being wasted on terrible mathematical models and wild speculation. There are too many problems in the world that require serious attention to waste resources on something that is not real.
Sadly religion is part of being human


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By leebert on 2/28/2008 12:53:55 AM , Rating: 5
You seem well intentioned but you've been utterly misled:

1. Even the pro-AGW researchers concede that the sun played a dominant role in GW until the mid-to-late 20th century.

2. The IPCC cites CO2 as causing 40-45 PERCENT of AGW in the past century. According to them it's been the biggest component, but not the majority component.

3. By the "poles" I assume you mean the Arctic. Most of the Arctic melt-off of the past 150 years has been due to dirty snow caused by soot coupled with increased solar activity (see above). Same goes for Kilimanjaro in the tropics with the added factor of loss of recharge precipitation due to deforestation lossage of arboreal microclimates. Westerly-borne (Asian) soot has been causing more than half of the ice pack lossage in the American Rockies as well. The rest is due largely to local soot & land use changes (deforestation) that have altered recharge precipitation patterns.

4. Likewise SOOT has been discovered to cause more warming than surface dimming (cooling). SO much so that it's found to be accountable for up to HALF of what's been blamed on CO2. Time to revise some computer models, eh? Note how the rhetoric has shifted from "CO2" to "greenhouse gases."

Look, I think you are trying to do the responsible thing but what politicos around the world have latched onto is a way to conscript your conscience by calling you into a noble endeavor. But how noble is that endeavor, actually?

Let's look @ Kyoto. As it is structured Kyoto TAXES Western countries for their CO2 use, exempts developing countries (importantly China & India) from those same taxes & PAYS them instead (again CHina & India) to eliminate CO2 sources & develop low-CO2 energy sources. If you believe in AGW looks good on paper.

In practice this is how it's being found to work:

1. Western factory jobs are already being off-shored to China, India, elsewhere in Asia.

2. The Kyoto CO2 "taxes" further encourage the loss of domestic production by increasing the incentive to offshore production. Bad for labor? You bet. But somehow in pro-labor Europe this hasn't become a big issue quite yet, but it's starting to simmer.

3. The whole point of Kyoto is overall lower CO2 emissions. Although China emits 1/3rd the per capita CO2 of say, the USA, China's emissions per unit of production are 40 PERCENT HIGHER than the WORLD AVERAGE (and even higher than the West's avg). China's soot output (only recently discovered to cause more net atmospheric warming than surface cooling, up to HALF of what had heretofore blamed on CO2) is the highest per capita in the world.

So do you see what this means? It means that the rank & file environmentalist bloc has been snookered into both offshoring & destroying domestic production & jobs AND increasing CO2 emissions!!

Noble endeavor? Kyoto's about ready to be exposed as a big lie, as big as the Children's Crusade.

And when the rank & file pro-environment people figure out how they've been led by the nose by Al Gore the same way the wicked witch of PETA leads her cult of fools, all around the world Gore be hung in effigy by his former followers, the labor bloc will register their votes from the rooftops.

/leebert