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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


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By rcc on 2/28/2008 5:40:08 PM , Rating: 3
Unfortunately, that would require them to admit that the Emperer has no clothes. Not going to happen, they'll segue it into something else first.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By davemay135 on 2/28/2008 10:30:41 AM , Rating: 3
I just want to know one thing: when a cooling trend does establish itself (this may or may not be the start of one, but one will occur) does that mean we need to pump more pollution into the atmosphere in order to keep the Earth's temp right?


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By rcc on 2/28/2008 5:41:20 PM , Rating: 5
No, it means we leave the frikkin' thing alone and adapt. : )


By eye smite on 3/1/2008 7:35:48 AM , Rating: 3
Actuallly it's the height of man's hubirous to think he can predict the weather on a global scale. In the early 70s scientists were saying global cooling and as a kid I distincly remember making a snowman in Pasadena Texas where it never snows. The short and long of it is, looking historically, you'll find that scientists take a pinch of data, paint a big picture and hold their hands out for more grants and funds to continue research. If you really dig you'll find that repeatedly. Let me ask this though, how often does your local weatherman actually make an accurate prediction on the weather? Based on whatever answer you give for that, then try and ask that same question about these experts trumpeting the global warming trend.


By flutedude2005 on 3/10/2008 12:27:40 PM , Rating: 1
well said sir.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By ArcliteHawaii on 2/29/2008 3:04:44 PM , Rating: 5
I am truly amazed at the level of ignorance here.

quote:
The earth warmed up 1900-1940, when hardly anyone was driving cars.

No, but we had been burning coal for hundreds of years already. Coal produces twice the CO2 per unit of energy.

quote:
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.

A single data point does not a trend make. Did you even look at the graph above? The winters in '93 and '94 were colder than the current cold temps. The trend for warming has been going on for over 150 years. Some points will be above the trend and some below. There will be outliers. That's statistics. If we'd had these cold winters for a decade, you'd have some standing. As it is, you're just showing your lack of understanding.

If reduced solar activity is cooling the planet, then all we've been granted is a reprieve. That's not at all proof that CO2 doesn't cause the earth to retain heat. We should take advantage of that to reduce CO2, methane, and NO2 levels in the atmosphere, so when there is a period of increased solar activity, we don't all fry.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By tsdogg on 2/29/2008 3:43:54 PM , Rating: 4
quote:
No, but we had been burning coal for hundreds of years already. Coal produces twice the CO2 per unit of energy.


Actually CO2 emmitting hydrocarbon usage has had a six-fold increase since 1940. During that time global temporature decreased from 1940 to 1970 and been on a slight upward trend since 1970. The majority of the warming in the twentieth century took place before 1940 and before a large amount of Hyrdorcarbon use.

quote:
The trend for warming has been going on for over 150 years.


Correct. Ever since we emerged from the little ice age around 1850. Studies have shown an extremely high correlation between solar activity and temperature, where as C02 lags temperature and is more of an effect than a cause.

quote:
That's not at all proof that CO2 doesn't cause the earth to retain heat. We should take advantage of that to reduce CO2, methane, and NO2 levels in the atmosphere, so when there is a period of increased solar activity, we don't all fry.


Actually there is no proof that it does and everything to suggest that it does not. Drasticly reducing C02 would be costly and reduce the stadard of living for most and doom people in less developed counties to continue a life of poverty.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By bmdowney on 2/29/2008 3:52:59 PM , Rating: 2
yes, coal burning was occurring, but at what volume were we burning coal?

I do agree with you in response to the second quote. One year, is not enough to make a trend, and as a greenhouse, CO2 must have some sort of warming affect (though exact figures differ too much to be exactly sure how much). However, if past trends in solar cycles have *note the 'IF' because further research must occur before any exact conclusions can be made* a coorelation with weather along with the La Niña and El Niño events then to say that they only offset what heating the CO2 levels now will cause seems like you mean that CO2 outweighs these others, but that has not been conclusively evaluated with actual scientific research for all those fields.
(if i interpreted your comment incorrectly, i apologize, however there is my two cents)


By bmdowney on 2/29/2008 3:56:00 PM , Rating: 2
darn, mine was in response to ArcliteHawaii's post on 2/29/2008 3:04:44 PM
sorry for confussion


By jimbojimbo on 3/3/2008 3:22:24 PM , Rating: 2
Everyone forgets that water vapor is also a greenhouse gas and much more plentiful than CO2. Let's wait for the call from environmentalists to destroy all H20 on earth!


By eye smite on 3/1/2008 7:42:47 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
We should take advantage of that to reduce CO2, methane, and NO2 levels in the atmosphere, so when there is a period of increased solar activity, we don't all fry.

That's the real dramatization in all this isn't it, that we're going to fry? It's the height of man's hubirous to think can predict the weather on a local level much less a global level. I've lived long enough o hear scientists say we're in a global cooling period to global warming and now back to a global cooling trend. Pssst, they just want more funding and they scare you with words like we're frying because of all this. Try digging deeper in your research say at least 50 yrs back.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By ChronoReverse on 2/26/2008 2:44:48 PM , Rating: 5
Wait, there's a normal temperature now for Earth?


By T4RTER S4UCE on 2/26/2008 4:28:37 PM , Rating: 4
It doesn't matter what temperature it is, it's always room temperature.


By Hawkido on 2/27/2008 6:12:41 PM , Rating: 5
quote:
Wait, there's a normal temperature now for Earth?


Of Course there is!

The Global Normal temperature of the Earth is a complex mathmatical formula... I'll fill you in.

Current temp - 1 = Normal temperature

Now apply what I have told you and see if it works out according to the GNN (Gore News Network)

"A hundres years ago the global Normal temperature was 1 degree cooler than it is now!"

See, it works perfectly!


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By spikeitnow on 2/27/2008 7:52:05 PM , Rating: 5
No, there's no 'normal' temp.

Everybody is misinterpreting the chart. Zero on the chart isn't 'zero degrees above normal,' it's 'zero degrees C,' i.e. the freezing point of water. The chart shows that over the last 21 years, the global average temperature has fluctuated between .1 degree below freezing, and .75 degrees above freezing, Celsius.

That's right, as a whole, the planet's surface is less than one degree above freezing. I'm not a climatologist, but I suspect that when it drops much below zero, glaciers tend to spread out from the poles, and when it's much above zero, they tend to recede.

The chart shows that this January, we're .037 degrees above freezing, on average. Not a margin I particularly like.


By jbartabas on 2/27/2008 8:07:57 PM , Rating: 2
LOL, too bad I have posted already, I would have rated you up! Hope you get a 5 for that :-D


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By JustTom on 2/27/2008 9:38:48 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
The chart shows that this January, we're .037 degrees above freezing, on average. Not a margin I particularly like.


If that is what the chart says, and I do not agreethat it is, then the chart is wrong. The world mean minimum daily temp for January is around 12C (see http://tinyurl.com/2llc4n ). What I think the chart is depicting is the change in temp from a baseline year. Also from Masher's intro:

quote:
The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees


Thinking the chart is expressing temp in absolute terms rather than changes from a baseline year is just weird. The chart then would depict the mean world temp never rising above 1 degree C.


By jbartabas on 2/28/2008 11:05:17 AM , Rating: 2
You may want to check these references to complete you research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonsense_verse


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By plowak on 3/14/2008 12:01:55 PM , Rating: 2
Cooling does not cause glaciers, warming does. You have to evaporate lots of water to create lots of snow to pack into lots of ice which takes lots of heat. Somebody pointed that out a long time ago...Lord kelvin? Erny Centigrade?


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By dever on 2/26/2008 4:36:44 PM , Rating: 2
Chrono beat me to it... but please, we're waiting. What is the "normal" temperature of the earth? (Climatologists get your pencils ready.)


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By jbartabas on 2/26/2008 4:49:07 PM , Rating: 2
'Normal' means average over a given period of time considered representative of a stable state. It is commonly used in meteorology, probably a bit more tricky to define in climato where you deal with scale where stability in rare. However the notion is not especially shocking and is the basis for an anomaly analysis.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By rykerabel on 2/26/2008 6:44:06 PM , Rating: 2
They stopped using "normal" without qualifiers about 20 years ago. now they always include "more" and "closer to" and similar inexact terminology.

no meteorologist will ever make a claim to a specific value for any weather related phenomenon.

(LOL, I didn't trust myself, I had to look up "inexact", and yes it is an acceptible word)


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By jbartabas on 2/26/2008 6:55:00 PM , Rating: 1
Considering the 'normal' has a quantitative definition, the anomaly can be quantified (that's the all point) and later qualified with whatever word you'd like.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By dever on 2/27/2008 3:55:26 PM , Rating: 2
If you use the term "normal" that implies that an "abnormal" temperature is possible. When change is continuous, the terms "normal" and "abnormal" become less meaningful outside of historical data confined to an arbitrarily contrived time period. The terminology becomes much less useful for the purpose of categorizing present or future temperatures.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By jbartabas on 2/27/2008 4:34:08 PM , Rating: 2
Except that "abnormal" would be referred as anomaly, yes the terminology is meaningful, nobody ever said it was not arbitrary, and it is not only useful but used on a regular basis and you obviously have no clue of what you're talking about (I don't even understand what the fact that a change is 'continuous' or not (sic!) has to do with the definition of a normal ...)


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By masher2 (blog) on 2/27/2008 4:36:59 PM , Rating: 2
> "nobody ever said it was not arbitrary"

On the contrary, when one attempts to rebut an argument with "but we're still above normal!", they're implying the baseline standard is not arbitrary, and has meaning in itself.


By jbartabas on 2/27/2008 5:09:07 PM , Rating: 2
Again, arbitrary does not mean 'meaningless'.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By dlong500 on 2/26/2008 6:03:09 PM , Rating: 2
What the hell is "normal" temperature? You need to get better terminology. There is no such thing is a "normal", or correct, temperature for the Earth. This is the kind of misguided thinking that causes all the problems in the first place.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By jbartabas on 2/26/2008 6:15:27 PM , Rating: 3
Again, you don't understand the context for ' normal 'here, it has nothing to do with 'correct', 'right', 'good' or any other moral statement.

A few general definitions:
quote:
Conforming with, adhering to, or constituting a norm, standard, pattern, level, or type; typical: normal room temperature; one's normal weight; normal diplomatic relations.


quote:
Biology. Functioning or occurring in a natural way; lacking observable abnormalities or deficiencies.


As for the point of concern here:
quote:
Climatologists define normal temperature as the 1961-1990 average temperature for a given area.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s570.htm

Note however that slight differences exist in this definition among various climate centers.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By grenableu on 2/26/2008 7:48:56 PM , Rating: 2
The problem is that 1961-1990 period was unusually cool. So when you say we're half a degree above "normal", it sounds like we're heating up when really we're just returning to a normal state.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By jbartabas on 2/26/2008 8:14:34 PM , Rating: 2
1/ I am not saying anything ;-) I just state what's the way many climatologists define as the 'normal' (that, again, as no moral meaning, it's just a reference point).
2/ When you say 'unusually cool' for the period 1961-1990, are you referring to the cooling period post 1950 in particular? Is that what you meant by returning to a normal state, or else, what would constitute a 'normal state' to you?


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By dever on 2/27/2008 3:58:37 PM , Rating: 2
Yes, exactly the point. The term "normal" is fairly useless in this context without a well defined reference point... which was lacking when originally stated.


By jbartabas on 2/27/2008 4:14:41 PM , Rating: 2
Again, the reference point is well defined to whom knows even a little bit about the subject:

quote:
Climatologists define normal temperature as the 1961-1990 average temperature for a given area.


The difference is that he knows what he's talking about and you obviously have no clue ...

The author of the article on which Masher's article is based states himself:

quote:
January 2008 was an exceptional month for our planet, with a significant cooling. January 2007 started out well above normal.

Note he also reports the numbers above normal (the anomaly) in black.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By MadMaster on 2/26/2008 11:50:25 PM , Rating: 1
When I was referring to normal, I was referring to the graph. It says a temperature anomaly of .037 degrees. So hey, it's cold, but it's still not colder than the average. Btw, the normal is the average from 1850 to 2008. Here is another graph that shows the temperatures of the last 150 years...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Inst...

Oh and between 1961 and 1990 (actually it's more like 1940-1970), there was not a cooling. There was a halt of global warming. There is evidence that this was caused by aerosols. However, it is difficult to prove with any certainty.

More info here on aerosols...

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/cate...

Oh and btw, a month is FAR to short to statistically plot any climatic trend.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By Topweasel on 2/27/2008 3:16:55 PM , Rating: 5
What is wrong with taking anything that only goes back as far as 1850 is a.) 1850 is still considered to be part of the Little Ice age that started in 1200. B.) It coincides with the start of an upward trend in temperature that eventually triggered the end of the Little Ice Age. C.) Temperature in 2004-2005 only just exceeded the highest temperature at its highest just prior to the Little Ice Age. D.) That 1000 year high has already decreased over the last 2 years and if January and February are any signs that we will see at least as significant of a drop in 08 as the increase in 04. E.)That due to increased car usage in China the most that best case in CO2 generated by cars is level with the 04 numbers but most likely has increased.

I am really fearful of this quick fix philosophy that we as a world, and most definitely the US environmentalist groups in the US have. The world has always seemed to be able to deal with gradual changes better then we think whether is through changing the coverage area and density of the Ozone or increased or decreased plant life. It seems to me the earth is has always been a pendulum, always a second late on its changes but finding balance in chaos. Our quick fix attitude seems to me that again we find ourselves more important then we are (like we could actually cause the planet to self destruct)when actually us changing to rapidly to fix one problem could cause the world the pendulum to swing faster till everything spirals out of control.

In the end taking the average of a constantly rising temperature of a world coming off an Ice Age isn't exactly the best way to judge what the perfect temperature is. How about we wait 800 years (after the Ice Age for the length of the ice age) and then maybe we could find the "normal" temp.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By MadMaster on 2/27/08, Rating: 0
By Topweasel on 2/28/2008 9:16:34 AM , Rating: 2
The 0 point on the graph isn't the normal temperature, and honestly it was probably taken to prove that 2004 was this super high number and it was only gotten worse. My point was we had one year that spiked above the medieval high in 1200 that immediately started what is referred to as the mini ice age and since that spike we have progressively in 05 and 06 have been seeing a drop in temperature and if Jan and Feb are any sign then this year might bring us below what any increase we have seen over the last 100 years.

What I was saying about the temp part was 1850 was at a low point that started an increase in temperature that signaled the end of something we refer to as an ice age.


By TDurden on 2/28/2008 7:11:36 PM , Rating: 2
> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/Inst...

Oh, what IPCC-licking collection of data-twisters did THAT come from? It looks exactly like the IPCC's infamously WRONG "hockeystick".

(For those of you with no clue "infamously wrong"=="outright lying").

Here's a graph of 50-state record highs for the last 110 years:
http://bp0.blogger.com/_b5jZxTCSlm0/R5yRPjfAIQI/AA...

That's the number of record high temps in each state, broken into years in which they occurred, for a period of over 110 years, and a running 10-yr average

http://hallofrecord.blogspot.com/2008/01/global-wa...

That reveals:
a) a 70 year cycle is suggested from 1895-1975 -- note the similarity between 1975-2005 and 1895-1925 (this also suggest another possible peak in a decade, then another long decline for the next 30 years).
b) That your "hockey stick" is a load of rubbish.

I'll leave the worldwide data to all the other sources listed here. You're either ignorant or a fool, and probably both.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By clovell on 2/27/2008 2:31:19 PM , Rating: 3
The flip side of the coin is that when you introduce ENZO into your argument against global cooling, global warming proponents also lose the argument that AGW affects the level of Hurricane activity.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By dever on 2/27/2008 4:07:24 PM , Rating: 2
Dumb question... what is ENZO?


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By masher2 (blog) on 2/27/2008 4:34:52 PM , Rating: 2
"ENSO"...aka the El Nino Southern Oscillation.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By clovell on 2/28/2008 2:22:20 PM , Rating: 2
Thanks for catching that, Michael, I spelled it completely wrong. They make us use IE 6.0 at work - no FF allowed on the validated systems.


By JonnyDough on 3/9/2008 1:31:04 PM , Rating: 2
Firefox wouldn't help you to catch it anyway, since ENSO is highlighted as a misspelled word due to it being an abbreviation. Furthermore, ENZO is the name of a model made by Ferrari, although it too is flagged as a misspelling.

Therefore, if you didn't know it spell check wouldn't have helped you to realize the miss-abbreviation. It doesn't much matter though, as I suspect the majority reading this have likely never even heard of the Ferrari.


By GoldBoar on 3/1/2008 12:21:41 AM , Rating: 2
quote:
is still .037 degrees above normal...


The problem is that he who defines "normal" determines whether the current temperature is higher or lower now than it was at some particular period of the Earth's 4 billion or so years. No one argues that since the last ice age it has been both much colder and much warmer than it is today. Even the El Nino peak of 1998 was much colder than the temperature during the Holocene optimum.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By noodles2 on 2/27/2008 3:45:56 PM , Rating: 3
This has been a fascinating series of posts, but I really just need to understand, if global cooling is the result of decreased solar activity, then how in the world will someone be able to blame USA automobile drivers?


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By dever on 2/27/2008 4:11:28 PM , Rating: 2
The "how" is easy. Our freedoms allow anyone to say anything. However, the more important question is "why?" It seems that those enjoying the freedom to blame, do so in an attempt to sacrifice everyone else's freedoms through government control. It seems to be a means to an end.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By rcc on 2/28/2008 5:55:56 PM , Rating: 2
Hah, that's an easy one. Our facination with driving keeps us from concentrating on warming the sun.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By bfonnes on 3/7/2008 3:15:59 AM , Rating: 2
I knew without even opening the story that the author would be masher. My apologies to the author, as I know he is intelligent and has vast stores of technical knowledge, but I think dailytech's credibility as a news source has been going down since the time they started allowing his blogs to appear as news articles. He likes to argue fringe topics and I wouldn't exactly call it news.


RE: And the moral of the story is...
By bfonnes on 3/7/2008 3:23:31 AM , Rating: 2
Oh, and I didn't mention... There are two issues besides the silly debate... I have read Al Gore's book, and I looked at the numbers in it and I think that the whole global warming debate isn't exactly getting the point. Climate change is normal. Rapid temperature fluctuations are not. I think we face a far greater danger from massive temperature fluctuations and the resulting weather disasters and the consequences of that. These are my own conclusions. I'm not repeating anything I've read. The other problem is... who wants to breath dirty air all the time? It's not healthy. Have you considered the consequences of your all out assault here, masher2?


By bfonnes on 3/7/2008 3:30:26 AM , Rating: 2
edit: The greater danger is in the near term while the earth's climate has to constantly correct itself. Maybe we're not doing permanent damage to the earth, but we're certainly gonna get our butts kicked by Mother Nature, so to speak, if we just ignore it.

Also, another thing to consider. It's a proven fact that polar ice caps are melting. The freezing and melting points of water are finite. If they melt, no "average cooling temperature" or localizing trend is going to magically make them reappear. Do you have any science showing how they formed in the first place? I hope anyone that would be so arrogant to claim that we won't lose them forever can furnish this kind of science before making any claims.


By bfonnes on 3/7/2008 3:42:53 AM , Rating: 2
I think you should leave the science to the scientists, masher2. You're comparing apples to oranges. There aren't any studies that I know of that can provide the kind of logical leaps that you're making in your conclusions. Gore's main points in his book have to do with rising CO2 levels. Data that has been recorded for at least 60 years real time. Now, 20 years of data doesn't trump 60. Also, why was that chart even made? Where's the context and what were they studying? If they were studying temperature fluctuations, how do you know that it had anything to do with global warming. You're comparing a specific observation with a theory. The comparison isn't valid. And the range of values until the last spike down that your whole rant is about is not even significant in regards to the totality of the data. If anything it does more to prove warming. If the earth is indeed warming, then, at some point, equilibrium would say that the rebound will be ever more pronounced.

Think about it.


By Golferdude7238 on 3/7/2008 12:00:30 PM , Rating: 2
The year without a summer in the Carolinas....

The year 1816 was famous as "the year without a summer." That year started out, in Stanley as well as other regions of the south, so mild for the months of January and February that many folks let their fires go out and burned wood only for cooking; however, March was very cold and windy. Showers started the Month of April but ended with snow and ice. In May the temperature was like that of winter. The young buds that began forming in April were stiff and frozen. Ice, one half inch thick formed on ponds and rivers in North and South Carolina. Corn was killed and after being planted again and again nothing was reaped from the cornfields. June was cold, the coldest month ever experienced in this latitude. Almost all green things as well as fruits were killed. There was ice, frost, and some snow flurries in July. August proved to be the worst month of all not only here but even in Europe. September started out with two weeks of pleasant weather and the rest of the month was cold. October and November were extremely cold and then December was mild. This extraordinary weather condition in 1816 had been caused by the volcanic eruption of Mt. Temboro in the Dutch East Indies, blowing 50 cubic miles of dust into the air and killing some 66,000 people. The volcanic dust clouded the skies all over the earth causing doom and gloom and the "year without a summer."

What do you think, could humans do this much damage to planet Earth's weather in a lifetime???????

I think not. Volcanoes put more CFC's into the atmosphere every day than all of mankind has already done.

Global Warming ALGORE style is a FARCE


Global warming or climate change?
By maven81 on 2/26/08, Rating: 0
RE: Global warming or climate change?
By nbachman on 2/26/2008 1:49:44 PM , Rating: 3
Reduced solar activity perhaps.


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By 16nm on 2/26/2008 3:37:34 PM , Rating: 2
Agreed. That's exactly what I keep reading about...


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By ConfrontingReality on 2/27/2008 2:08:08 AM , Rating: 1
11 of the last 12 years have been the hottest 11 years on record since 1850. One year of declining temperatures should hardly be called a trend or the start of an ice age.

An alternative to the solar irradiation theory might be all the new SO2 and particulate matter coming from all the new dirty coal plants in China and India.

Both SO2 and particulate matter have the effect of reducing global warming. There is a correlation between increased global warming and when we began scrubbing our coal plants here in the USA.


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By James Holden on 2/27/2008 3:28:24 AM , Rating: 2
Ooops. This was disproven after it was discovered that GISS, the institute cited whenever someone mentions the words global warming, flubbed the data:

http://www.dailytech.com/Blogger+Finds+Y2K+Bug+in+...


By wildlifer on 2/27/2008 6:45:25 AM , Rating: 1
You're wrong. That barely changed the data.


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By Staples on 2/26/08, Rating: 0
RE: Global warming or climate change?
By porkpie on 2/26/2008 2:26:32 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
it does not mean that the world will get hotter.
Err, yes it does. Greenhouse gases trap heat, the planet gets hotter, the icecaps melt and we all drown or die from massive heat waves. Haven't you been listening to the rhetoric of the past 20 years?

Ever since the world started cooling off in 1998, enviros have been hedging their bets by referring to it as 'climate change'. But man-made CO2 doesn't cause the whole planet to cool off. It can't.

Climate Change is what's happening right now. The sun changes a little, and the earth gets colder. Global warming is what's not happening. SUVs are not causing the end of civilization as we know it.


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By Esanity on 2/26/2008 2:35:24 PM , Rating: 2
Thank you for speaking truth to power. Golbal warming isn't a science or based on one. It is a political movement to end the use of fossil fuels. If climate change does not mean warming, then why do we care if we add greenhouse gasses. And if the ice isn't going to melt, what are we worried about?


By cheetah2k on 2/26/2008 9:43:07 PM , Rating: 2
Did Tom Cruise and Scientology have anything to do with starting the Global Warming rumors???


By StevoLincolnite on 2/26/2008 10:57:49 PM , Rating: 2
Actually it is a Science, To much green house gases WILL cause the heat to get trapped, and thus the planet get warmer, To little green house gases will allow the heat to escape the planet and thus cool the planet down, thus we must have a "Balance" in between the "Too little and to much" areas.

What happens after this cooling period will end? And we have a crap-load of green house gases stuck in the atmosphere? It may just get hot rather quickly. (Maybe!)


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By zethy on 2/27/2008 12:37:05 AM , Rating: 2
You know what, you are right, i mean measuring CO2 levels is no science, looking at climatic changes and their trends is in no way a science, it just meteorology and atmospheric studies.

you are right again, ice wont melt if it is heated and THEN cooled, it will stay totally solid.
And i mean extreem snowy winters and drought filled summers just mean that countries all around the world will be forced to face flooding and drought in the summer and blizzards in the winter, and what grows in these conditions?
not crops but mosquitos and other disease carrying insects.

you're right global warming is all just a big hoax
and if you werent keen enough to note my sarcasam, well i huess you couldnt notice the problems at hand.


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By Ferny on 3/6/2008 11:19:25 AM , Rating: 2
Allow me to shed some light on the problem of letting politicos manipulate environmental science:

DDT has been banned for decades because of the harmful effects it has on species like birds. We now know that bad science was involved in the determination that it was harmful. It actually has been found to be acceptable for use now. Unfortunately, since a ban was placed on it, it is nearly impossible to raise the ban and begin production of it. In Africa alone, tens of thousands of real people of all ages die because DDT can't be used to kill off the insects you mention and eliminate the diseases they spread.

Like something closer to home? How's this:

Remember the big worry that "everyone" had before Climate Change/Global Warming? The hole in the ozone layer? Remember how we eliminated highly efficient refrigerants in order to slow the growth of the ozone hole? We now all use more energy in everything from our homes to our cars to keep things and ourselves cool. Oh yeah... there is no hole in the ozone layer after all.


By PlasmaBomb on 3/13/2008 9:06:32 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
Oh yeah... there is no hole in the ozone layer after all.


You got a link to support that?


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By jbartabas on 2/26/2008 4:21:47 PM , Rating: 3
quote:
Greenhouse gases trap heat, the planet gets hotter, the icecaps melt and we all drown or die from massive heat waves. Haven't you been listening to the rhetoric of the past 20 years?


Greenhouse gases trapping heat is only a component of the system, as important if not more are the feedbacks. The net feedback happen to be globally positive, that's why it gets globally warmer.

quote:
But man-made CO2 doesn't cause the whole planet to cool off. It can't.


Depends on the feedback, the highly improbable scenario of a disruption of global oceanic currents could prove your assumption wrong, at least for a while.

But to come to the point, clearly a long term decreasing global temperature is not what is predicted for climate change, at least under constant solar output. But it remains to be seen if these two conditions are verified; is it a long term trend and is it not related to change in solar output.


RE: Global warming or climate change?
By masher2 (blog) on 2/26/2008 5:29:30 PM , Rating: 2
> "the highly improbable scenario of a disruption of global oceanic currents could prove your assumption wrong, at least for a while."

No, not quite. In theory warming can cause circulatory changes that would cause some regions to cool. However, heat can't be destroyed -- a shutdown of circulation means some other region must warm even more to compensate. Greenhouse gases therefore can't cause cooling on a global scale. The heat has to go *somewhere*.

BTW, the second link in the story above contains statements from two prominent climate modelers, who explain how the theory of Thermohaline Circulation Shutdown was debunked. We no longer believe GW can cause cooling in Northern Europe.


By jbartabas on 2/26/2008 6:29:51 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
In theory warming can cause circulatory changes that would cause some regions to cool. However, heat can't be destroyed -- a shutdown of circulation means some other region must warm even more to compensate. Greenhouse gases therefore can't cause cooling on a global scale. The heat has to go *somewhere*.


You're right, the heat is not destroyed. And it does go somewhere, indeed. But you seem to think that the system is frozen (sic!), and think in terms of all other things being equal. But the heat is constantly added and removed to/from the system, and the net balance depends on the state of the system. If you assume one second that a major disruption occurs to the current redistributing the heat, leading to a regional cooling of large part of high and mid-latitudes (that would globally be overcome by a larger warming trend in low latitudes in the first phase, as you rightly point out), and that this cooling is enough to cover large regions with snow & ice after a while, then you have changed your forcings, more energy is reflected to space, and you may have triggered a feedback that will for a while or the long run compensate or invert the effect of increased GHG.

Now I am not saying that this is necessarily a credible scenario, and you pointed out this alternative has been dismissed as very unlikely (and the TH circulation impact would probably not change the global outcome). It is just illustrative of the fact that the direct effect of CO2 is far from being enough to understand the warming, and that feedbacks from the system are the most important and complex part of the climate response to understand.

But the bottom line is that feedbacks as they are known now would not explain a long term global cooling.


By Bill In DC on 2/26/2008 2:29:05 PM , Rating: 2
Well, the concept of facing 'Climate Change' is deceptive as the climate is ALWAYS changing, therefore we are always 'facing Climate Change'. Humans cannot stop climate change. Even if we could the first question that would necessarily be asked is 'What is the optimal climate to change to?'. We don't know the answer to that question and most likely never will.

What this is beginning to show, I think, is that the human contribution to the level of CO2 in the atmosphere is not the primary driver of temperature change for the planet. If this is true then the draconian measures to reduce it will be pointless.

Holding up signs that implore politicians to 'Stop Climate Change' are nonsensical.