It's official, Global Warming dead

[woodchip]

"The world stopped getting warmer almost 16 years ago, according to new data released last week. "

"The figures, which have triggered debate among climate scientists, reveal that from the beginning of 1997 until August 2012, there was no discernible rise in aggregate global temperatures."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... ve-it.html

So there you have it. All you warmers can "Move along, nothing left to argue about". And yes you'll find disagreement from those who were getting nice fat research grants to show mankind is a filthy beast, soiling the air and causing soon to come catastrophic flooding. Have fun and try not to get too emo.

[Heretic]

So did you not read the whole article?

"So let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed – a conclusion with enormous policy implications."

[Top Gun]

Woody? Read?

And lol, the Daily Mail. Take a look at that picture of a power station spewing out "smoke." Unless I've completely lost my mind, those are cooling towers...which only emit steam. We're supposed to put any stock in their reporting when they can't even manage to get that detail right?

[Krom]

Haha, yeah those look like steam cooling towers typical of a nuclear power plant.

(Although it is worth noting that water vapor is actually a greenhouse gas that is considerably more potent than CO2, it just condenses out of the atmosphere a lot faster as long as it gets cool enough...)

[Top Gun]

Yeah, exactly. I've seen a few people try to downplay the effects of CO2 emissions by saying, "But water vapor is a much stronger greenhouse gas!", which always makes me think, "Well, yes, but there's this little thing called 'rain' you may have heard of."

[vision]

I always get my science news from sources that are equally interested in celebrity gossip! \o/

Related: Neil deGrasse Tyson On Global Warming. It's quite interesting.

If global warming stopped 16 years ago, that would be awesome. But this doesn't mean we should stop pursuing carbon-less alternatives and the policies that go with them. Let us not forget, warming is just one part of our problems. We need to have clean air and water too. And if you are worried about all this crazy money being spent on green energy, well damn, why don't get involved in that industry and get rich, fool?

[Nightshade]

Anthropogenic 'global warming' is the religion being pushed- though the earth has /slightly/ larger components to its warming and cooling cycles than lil' ol' humans.

Can you say, 'it's the sun, stupid?'

BTW, this solar max (the 11 year cycle of solar activity) is the weakest recorded in modern times. We may actually be in for temperature fluctuations worldwide that are way beyond our feeble control.

An extended solar minimum may be in the works and the last time that happened, we had a 'mini ice-age.'

I am indeed concerned about human pollution- but not tied to this supposed anthropogenic warming (or cooling for that matter.) It's related to the acidification of the oceans (reef and fishery destruction) and the giant plastic patch in the middle of the Pacific. If you want to see destruction by pollution, look at China:









Maybe you should think twice about buying your next iPhone or iPad... Do you really want to feed this beast?

[vision]

Anthropogenic 'global warming' is the religion being pushed- though the earth has /slightly/ larger components to its warming and cooling cycles than lil' ol' humans.

Can you say, 'it's the sun, stupid?'

What you are saying is both true and false at the same time. I agree, the ultimate causes of both heating and cooling are not anthropogenic, but we are definitely causing those effects to be distorted and disrupted. What you say about the sun is only partially true. Yes it does have an effect, but is not the sole contributor to warming and cooling. Also, the current solar max is not the weakest in modern times (I guess that partially depends on where you draw the line for "modern." Stanford university has an informative page on solar warming.

And I definitely agree pollution is an even bigger concern than strictly warming. China doesn't have EPA regulations comparable to the United States, thankfully for us. Some people will politicize environmental spending and regulation saying it hurts our economy. Sorry, but I'll take a sluggish economy any day over living in filth.

[Top Gun]

As nasty as the pollution going on in some parts of China is, that doesn't make anthropogenic global warming any less of an issue. That audio from Neil deGrasse Tyson should be required listening for every skeptic out there.

[Tunnelcat]

It's not the heat that will get us, it's the extremes in weather that will be more severe. More tornadoes and hurricanes, flooding rains, high winds, ice storms, droughts, etc. We just got done with 100 days without any measurable rain, then bam, someone turned on the spigot last weekend. Very rare for the PNW in September and October. Not that I'm complaining.

[woodchip]

So did you not read the whole article?

"So let’s be clear. Yes: global warming is real, and some of it at least has been caused by the CO2 emitted by fossil fuels. But the evidence is beginning to suggest that it may be happening much slower than the catastrophists have claimed – a conclusion with enormous policy implications."

Yes I did, especially:


Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.

[woodchip]

Woody? Read?

And lol, the Daily Mail. Take a look at that picture of a power station spewing out "smoke." Unless I've completely lost my mind, those are cooling towers...which only emit steam. We're supposed to put any stock in their reporting when they can't even manage to get that detail right?

First off are you saying we should ignore the message and kill the messenger? The Met Office is the UK's national weather service skin to our NOAA. By your logic we should dismiss the whole article based on who reported it. And what cooling towers as I see none pictured in the article.

[Krom]

Haha! They pulled the picture.

[flip]

Sorry, but I'll take a sluggish economy any day over living in filth.

Exactly! Next time someone complains about all those jobs being shipped overseas, show them these pictures. They did us a favor.

[snoopy]

And I definitely agree pollution is an even bigger concern than strictly warming. China doesn't have EPA regulations comparable to the United States, thankfully for us. Some people will politicize environmental spending and regulation saying it hurts our economy. Sorry, but I'll take a sluggish economy any day over living in filth.

I think I'm with you, as long as things are handled with reason. There's lots of politicizing on both sides... if "reducing emissions" turns into either an extra hidden tax on everyone or a PR/vote buying technique I'm not particularly in favor of it. If the government's policies are aimed at creating long-term sustainability for both the earth and the country's economy, then I'm all about it. If we're going to err on any side, I'd tend to err on the side of preserving the earth. That being said, I'm not unplugging my unused appliances and I'm running my desktop computer 24/7, so I guess my love for the earth (and my own money) only goes so far....

I'm convinced that successful long-term pollution control (and global warming/climate change control) should revolve around rewarding/supporting development of technology that makes it economically beneficial to be greener, regardless of government intervention. I.E. don't tax carbon emissions, or give tax kickbacks for creating green roofs.... encourage technology that makes green roofs increase the company's efficiency - resulting in a lower bottom line because they suck less resources. If technology makes petroleum-based engines more expensive to run in the long term, only a fool would stay with them.

I think LED lights are a great example (I'm going to purposely skip over CFL's here....) as the technology is developing, the break-even time as compared to incandescent bulbs is getting shorter and shorter.... pretty soon (if not already) it's going to be a no-brainer to run with LED's because it simply costs less money.


(BTW, cudos to all for keeping this cleaner than a lot of topics of late...)

[vision]

Haha! They pulled the picture.

Wow, they really did. WTF. I guess they wait until after they publish articles to check for mistakes...

[Top Gun]

First off are you saying we should ignore the message and kill the messenger? The Met Office is the UK's national weather service skin to our NOAA. By your logic we should dismiss the whole article based on who reported it.

What I am saying is that, because this article can't even get basic facts correct, and because the Daily Mail has so little journalistic credibility in general, I would take any conclusions that it draws from these data with a massive grain of salt. Hell, I'm not even confident that they've managed to get the data from the Met Office correct.

[Pandora]

always the same old arguments...

[Pandora]

What I am saying is that, because this article can't even get basic facts correct, and because the Daily Mail has so little journalistic credibility in general, I would take any conclusions that it draws from these data with a massive grain of salt. Hell, I'm not even confident that they've managed to get the data from the Met Office correct.

good instincts.

Dave Rose has been caught manhandling climate data before (discussed on an old thread here).

With regard to the current article:

An article by David Rose appears today in the Mail on Sunday under the title: ‘Global warming stopped 16 years ago, reveals Met Office report quietly released… and here is the chart to prove it’ [...] Firstly, the Met Office has not issued a report on this issue. We can only assume the article is referring to the completion of work to update the HadCRUT4 global temperature dataset"

Secondly, Mr Rose says the Met Office made no comment about its decadal climate predictions. This is because he did not ask us to make a comment about them.

even Judith Curry (who is generally on his side) feels to be misquoted:

I have no idea where the ‘deeply flawed’ came from, I did not use these words in any context that Rose should be quoted (perhaps I used them somewhere on my blog?)

this refers exactly to Woody's quote above:

Others disagreed. Professor Judith Curry, who is the head of the climate science department at America’s prestigious Georgia Tech university, told The Mail on Sunday that it was clear that the computer models used to predict future warming were ‘deeply flawed’.

And, she agrees that the 16 years that David Rose uses is too short...

as I said, same old $hit, no learning, on goes the threadmill...

[vision]

I suspect Pandora saw the same article I did, debunking the Daily Mail report.

[Pandora]

ah, cool, no, I didn't. thanks! I really like the skeptical science site.

[Mobius]

Look, this is all academic. The fact is, the world is warming and it does not matter why.

If we want to look at the core reason the world is warming, we don't need to blame the sun, nor human beings regardless of their inputs into the equation. Why? Because we can't change the output of the sun (yet) and we can't switch off CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere by humans. (We can reduce it over time, but that is not the issue here.)

The real reason the world is warming, and will continue to warm for thousands of years regardless of human activity or lack thereof is that the planet is coming out of an ice age. Currently, the world's temperatures are at a significant discount to the normal temperature of a non-ice-bound planet.

THIS IS UNAVOIDABLE. THERE IS NOTHING HUMANS CAN DO TO PREVENT IT.

And frankly we should be damned glad about it!

For if the world was cooling, we would be 100% fucked. In a cooling world, it only takes 20 years for ice to destroy EVERYTHING. Why? Because snow builds up and starts moving. When it does, it scrapes everything (and I do mean everything) back to bare rock.

A cooling world might reduce the area of arable land, and occupy-able land by as much as 40% world wide, and it would mean no one living above the 40th parallel in the Northern hemisphere. This would mean most of Europ was ice, and large parts of North America. Canada would cease to be a nation at all, and simply be a single sheet of ice.

Consider where the world is going now: into a warmer phase where northen and southern latitude agriculture will expand like never before.

The real issue with warming, has absolutely nothing to do with the future and safety of the human race: those things are assured, as we know exactly what needs doing to mitigate the effects and take advantage of them nicely. No, global warming IS A GEO-POLITICAL THREAT and nothing more. The fact of the matter is that changing climate will alter the global balance of power.

Climate change is likely to make the US a net importer of food, and places like Siberia and Kamchatka and Alaska will become prime farm land. Russia and China will be the countries on the rise as they become the world's food basket.

THIS is what concerns the politicians, and not the weather, nor any humanitarian reason.

It should be pretty obvious to you, if you think about it for a while, too!

Consider if you will, the problem of CO2. Consider the history of CO2 production by humans over time. From the time we first set fire to wood to keep warm, and cook food, our CO2 output per kilowatt generated has been reducing without anyone ever passing any laws or providing any subsidy to do so.

There is more money in making power by putting out less CO2. Subsidizing efforts in this regard is ★■◆●ing stupid. If there is money to be made, corporations will make it. And there is plenty of money to be made. Trillions of dollars in fact. That is a strong incentive to commercialise the next generation of power production technologies. And these include cutting science like Polywell Inertial Confinement, Focus Fusion, and LENR. I specifically exclude retarded projects like the NIF and ITER, which will never, and CAN NEVER produce viable commercial reactor designs.

Look to the future. What do you suppose the biggest problems facing humanity will be in the year 2112? Do you think they will even think for A SINGLE SECOND about the CO2 they are releasing into the atmosphere? They never ever will. Why? Because no matter how much we think we know today, we CAN NOT say what the problems 100 years from now will be.

What we CAN say with 100% accuracy, is that whatever we think the problems 100 years from now will be, those problems WILL NOT feature in the future. Prediction is 100% pure bull★■◆●.

Consider London in the year 1900. If you asked a Londoner in 1900 "What will be the biggest problems facing Londoners in the year 2000", we can almost guarantee that almost everyone will give the same answer "How are you going to get the ★■◆● from 3 million horses out of the city each day? And where will all the horses come from?"

CO2 in 2012 is the exact same thing as horse ★■◆● in 1900 London: not a problem at all.

[Top Gun]

always the same old arguments...

Heh, indeed. Kudos to that site for debunking this little article so thoroughly. We see yet again why citing info from irresponsible sources is completely useless.

And that was...some post you made there Mobius.

[vision]

THIS IS UNAVOIDABLE. THERE IS NOTHING HUMANS CAN DO TO PREVENT IT.

This is somewhat true, but misses an important point. First, I want to quote myself from a previous post:

"You know, the planet has been warmer in the past. Actually, a warm planet is better for everyone, so we shouldn't have an issue it. The problem is, Earth is warming way too fast."

We absolutely have the power to change the climate. Right now we are (probably) adding to a natural forcing that contributes to climate change, that of course being greenhouse gasses. The planet may be destined to rise in temperature, but we are definitely helping it along at a dangerously accelerated pace. And since you are so learned in climate change, surely you know about all the possible Geo-engineering ideas floating around? We can change things, either through policy or more extreme measures.

[Tunnelcat]

This September was one of the warmest on record too. We only had one day with a trace of rain, and I mean a "trace". Every day except that ONE was sunny and dry. August was totally dry. And that's in the notoriously rain soaked Pacific NW.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nati ... e/1634361/

I think that we are too late to stop any change. There are far too many of us on earth that use electricity and fossil fuels. I don't think we could even survive if all that fuel use was suddenly stopped tomorrow. We wouldn't even be able to feed all of ourselves on the huge scale required now without fossil fuel use.

[Nightshade]

For if the world was cooling, we would be 100% ****. In a cooling world, it only takes 20 years for ice to destroy EVERYTHING. Why? Because snow builds up and starts moving. When it does, it scrapes everything (and I do mean everything) back to bare rock.

There's a good chance that the sun will be entering a grand minimum. Cooling may be coming.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... ed-it.html

[Pandora]

What we CAN say with 100% accuracy, is that whatever we think the problems 100 years from now will be, those problems WILL NOT feature in the future. Prediction is 100% pure ****.

Consider London in the year 1900. If you asked a Londoner in 1900 "What will be the biggest problems facing Londoners in the year 2000", we can almost guarantee that almost everyone will give the same answer "How are you going to get the **** from 3 million horses out of the city each day? And where will all the horses come from?"

Well, you shouldn't ask people on the street. Svante Arrhenius predicted even BEFORE1900 that the world is going to warm if we continue with CO2 emissions.

[woodchip]

And, she agrees that the 16 years that David Rose uses is too short...

as I said, same old $hit, no learning, on goes the threadmill...

And the same can be said for a 50 year span claiming the world is warming.

Oh and nice post Mobman

[Pandora]

Why, then, Woody? In her post, she is quite clear why 15 years is too short (i.e. to filter out slow ocean oscillations). Why is 50 too short?

[woodchip]

Even 50 years is too short as you have to factor in other things like solar activity, deep oceanic vent activity and even the earths wobble. There are too many factor that even a span of 100 years may not be adequate. Remember, 50 years ago scientists were worried about the possibility of another Ice Age.

[Pandora]

Remember, 50 years ago scientists were worried about the possibility of another Ice Age.

They were not --- the media was. We have been over this several times already.

[Pandora]

Even 50 years is too short as you have to factor in other things like solar activity, deep oceanic vent activity and even the earths wobble.

the difference is that these things can be factored out. Take solar activity as one example: you just take the sattelite recordings that measure incoming radiation, you see if there is an increase that co-incides with the warming. You find there is none. Problem solved.

[Burlyman]

Runaway greenhouse scenarios will never happen. Have any of you global warming guys actually made any measurements yourselves, or are you getting your information from people telling you what to think?

[Top Gun]

And I suppose you have a big stack of global data from the past century sitting in your hands right now?

[Burlyman]

I'm not the one making claims about this or that.

[Top Gun]

You seem to be making the claim that there are people "telling us what to think," so I took that to mean that you had a way of generating a bunch of data on your own. Since you don't, I'll just go ahead and assume that you're talking out of your ass, per usual.

[Ferno]

Runaway greenhouse scenarios will never happen.

I'm not the one making claims about this or that.

[Pandora]

Have any of you global warming guys actually made any measurements yourselves

Yup. I look at our thermometer several times a week.

If you mean whether i have analyzed some climate data myself, then yes, i have done that, too.