Global warming? No, actually we're cooling, claim scientists

[FiftyTwo]

Arctic and Antarctic circles have been studied for decdes - from the 19th century and are a major key to our climate history - locked in the ice and the ground below. If you are unaware of the research at the poles etc then you are not in a position to comment on climate change

I'm not sure 'decades' counts as history.

Especially when the subject, polar ice, covers millennia.

Nobody had been to the South pole until 100 years ago, so it can't have been studied that well.

There are claims the North pole wasn't reached until 1969, even if untrue, it can't have been a popular research location.

Great thinking, batman, who's talking about the North and South Poles? Some of us are talking about the Arctic and the Antarctic, quite large areas on the map you may have noticed. Please google 'ice sheet research' or something like that.

WP specifically stated 'research at the poles', 'Arctic and Antarctic circles'.

I replied about the stated area. I didn't equate 'circles' with 'ice cores'.

Scientists uses exacting terms, religious acolytes don't.

Edited November 18, 2013 by FiftyTwo

[boomerangutang]

Volcanic ash, if it gets above the ice sheet and into the atmosphere has an overall cooling effect. Continent sized chucks of ice floating into the open water, however, could be a problem.

I had heard that if ice gets a covering of ash, whether it be gray or black, it would likely hasten melting, because of its dark color, rather than reflecting light, as clean ice does.

Not much of a surprise, Antarctica is highly volcanic. Why is this suddenly news? Is it another attempt to fuel climate angst by bringing out yet another well known and documented natural process as something new. Some new wrinkle for the doomsday machine?

For some folks, hearing that the Antarctic is volcanic - may be a new bit of info. Every bit of info we 'know about' was new at some point in each of our brains. Some folks are younger and/or less well-versed than others. The 'news' about volcanism at the Antarctic appears to carry an added dimension of discovery of late. In other words, some interesting new data has been discovered.

As for 'doomsday machine' or 'climate angst' ....call it what you want. I call it concern for what changes the planet is going through (or about to go through). It affects people, for sure, but other species are, to me, as important. Even inanimate parts of the planet are important. In other words, I'd rather see a river running free, than dammed. I'd rather know a mountain stands, than is blasted and leveled - in order to fill swampland and/or to extract minerals, metals and gems.

[attrayant]

I am really trying to stay out of this hot mess of a thread as it's just so much mud slinging, but this gave me the biggest belly laugh I've had in a long time:

I am a scientist [...]

followed by...

Evolution is a Theory, that is why it is called 'Darwin's theory of evolution', if it had been proven, then it would no longer be called a theory.

Here are some more things that you can rile against, as they are all "just theories":

• germ theory
• theory of general relativity
• atomic theory

Your statement shows a huge misunderstanding about a scientific theories. A theory is an explanation for why something happens in nature. Theories have been tested and are reproducible and can be backed-up with evidence.

The word "theory" means something very different to a layman than it does to a scientist. Your usage shows us which group you belong to, in spite of your claims.

Here's some help from your scientific peers. Number 2 on that list is all for you.

[RickBradford]

Theories have been tested and are reproducible and can be backed-up with evidence.

Which is why global warming 'theory' is nothing of the sort.

It is a woolly conjecture which is certainly not reproducible, whose discrepancy from the evidence has been shown on countless occasions, and which lacks the key criterion of any scientific theory (falsifiability).

Yet it is still held up as the over-riding reason for the 'war on CO2' which is as futile and damaging as the 'war on drugs'.

[attrayant]

Which one are you taking issue with? That global warming (1) hasn't been tested, (2) isn't reproducible or (3) cannot be backed up with evidence?

[RickBradford]

Let me recap.

The central policy plank of global warmists is: "We must act now to cut CO2 emissions, because if we don't do so, the world will face catastrophe." This is the policy thrust being debated by thousands of delegates from 100 or so countries at the COP19 conference in The National Stadium, Warsaw, right now.

The rationale is:

1) Man-made CO2 emissions are causing climate change

2) That climate change is dangerous

As regards 1), the UN IPCC has just reaffirmed in its latest report that there is "95% certainty that humans are the dominant cause behind global warming since the 1950s."

Have they tested that proposition? No. How could they? Is it even a testable proposition? No. Is the 95% figure even a scientific number? No. It's just a conversion into a number of the general view of the bureaucrats and scientists who haggled over what the report should say.

All they have done is to write some computer programs (aka climate models) to make a conjecture about future temperatures, based on their supposition that CO2 is the principal culprit behind global warming. As pointed out, all the 73 models they used were shown to be badly wrong, and all in the same direction (they grossly exaggerated the real-world temperature rises).

And based on that, the world is spending $1 billion a day on inefficient renewable energy sources, ramping up everyone's electricity bills and plastering modern-day windmills all over the countryside. And the rest.

The 18th century French scientist Antoine Lavoisier, an ardent opponent of phlogiston 'theory', would have recognised global warming 'theory' immediately.

"Chemists have made phlogiston a vague principle, which is not strictly defined and which consequently fits all the explanations demanded of it. Sometimes it has weight, sometimes it has not; sometimes it is free fire, sometimes it is fire combined with an earth; .. It explains at once causticity and non-causticity, transparency and opacity, color and the absence of colors. It is a veritable Proteus that changes its form every instant."

Hot and cold, wet and dry, snow and no snow, increasing polar ice and decreasing polar ice; it's all global warming, of course.

[boomerangutang]

If a person is determined to be against the concept of GW, then that person is free to do so, and it's not difficult to do.

There's a bit part in a movie, which takes place in a royal residence in Europe in 17th century. The court jester is entertaining the royals and their entourage with a witty and lively spoken proof of God's existence. Everyone listening is smiling and pleased, and applauds when he's done. Immediately afterwards, the jester says, "I can also prove that God doesn't exist, just as easily." ....and all the listeners look at him, hushed and aghast.

[boomerangutang]

Hot and cold, wet and dry, snow and no snow, increasing polar ice and decreasing polar ice; it's all global warming, of course.

The most recent National Geographic has a feature about global warming. There's a wealth of scientific data attesting to it happening - too much to copy and paste here.

If a person wants to gauge what's happening, look at the trends, the data from scientific studies. One could also tune in to what scientists are saying - their summaries on their and others' data.

To be a GW denier, in lieu of the mountains of evidence backing the concept, is to be a person who is strongly fixated on not wanting to believe it.

[canuckamuck]

But the models are wrong? Are we just supposed to ignore that.

[RickBradford]

look at the trends, the data from scientific studies.

I have, extensively, and here's a sample of what the data shows.

The measurements and the data say clearly: There has been no global warming for the last 17 years, during which time more CO2 has been pumped into the atmosphere than ever before.

Even the committed Warmists have realised how devastating this data is to The Cause, and have been desperately searching for some way of saving the day.

They have suggested: the damage to the ozone layer; the repair of the ozone layer; China's excessive burning of dirty coal (really); low climate sensitivity; the heat having taken an unscheduled and unnoticed vacation in the deep ocean. Most recently,they have engaged in extreme prestidigitation to conclude that the temperature over the last 17 years has actually gone up a tiny amount. Doesn't matter. Their models were still way wrong.

That's what the data from the four main temperature records says.

I expect some nimrod will be along shortly to say "it's not all about the warming, look at the glaciers and the polar bears."

Fail. If there's no warming, then by definition there's no man-made warming, and so the rationale for the War on CO2 collapses utterly.

To be a GW alarmist, in spite of the mountains of data opposing the concept, is to be a person who is strongly fixated on wanting to believe it.

[Rsquared]

It's quite simple really....our measurements cover (and this is just off the top of my head) just a mere fraction of the earth's existence. During that time the earth has undergone numerous "climate changes" and has survived.

Fauna and flora adapt to these changes....it's called evolution, Whether we are here or not, the earth will survive.

Politicians and the like twist facts to brainwash the average person in the street, who is really only concerned about their own welfare and getting on with life.....we don't need this other 2Y2 bullshit that sucked-in so many millions before.

Just my two-bobs worth.

Cheers.

[wilcopops]

It's quite simple really....our measurements cover (and this is just off the top of my head) just a mere fraction of the earth's existence. During that time the earth has undergone numerous "climate changes" and has survived.

Fauna and flora adapt to these changes....it's called evolution, Whether we are here or not, the earth will survive.

Politicians and the like twist facts to brainwash the average person in the street, who is really only concerned about their own welfare and getting on with life.....we don't need this other 2Y2 bullshit that sucked-in so many millions before.

Just my two-bobs worth.

Cheers.

Thanks for sharing that - it shows how so many people have absolutely no understanding of the issues involved. (I think you'll find that most of those who promulgate the concept of MMCC are actually aware that the planets climate has gone through many changes. Their studies also include looking at evidence of those climates back through the millennia - which is why they are so concerned about the significantly different kind of changes taking place now. Previous rapid changes have already been shown to be too fast for thousands of species to survive.....earth will survive, whether it will have flora and fauna in particular homo sapiens is a different matter.

[wilcopops]

"The measurements and the data say clearly: There has been no global warming for the last 17 years, during which time more CO2 has been pumped into the atmosphere than ever before."

So RB keeps saying - but totally out of context - I guess if you keep saying it to your self often enough you can convince yourself. I personally think there's a lot more to it than that.

[F430murci]

Figure 2. Average of NASA's GISS, NOAA"s NCDC, and the UK Met Office's HadCRUT4 monthly global surface temperature departures from average, from January 1970 through November 2012 (blue), with linear trends applied to the time frames Jan '70 - Oct '77, Apr '77 - Dec '86, Sep '87 - Nov '96, Jun '97 - Dec '02, Nov '02 - Nov '12. Climate change skeptics like to emphasize the shorter term fluctuations in global temperatures (blue lines) and ignore the long-term climate trend (red line.) The global surface temperature trend from January 1970 through November 2012 (red line) is +0.16°C (+0.29°F) per decade. Image credit: skepticalscience.com.

[F430murci]

Figure 3. Departure from average of annual global temperatures between 1979 - 2012, adjusted to remove natural variations due to the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle, dust from volcanic eruptions, and changes in solar energy. The five most frequently-cited global temperature records are presented: surface temperature estimates by NASA's GISS, HadCRU from the UK Met Office, and NOAA's NCDC, and satellite-based lower-atmosphere estimates from Remote Sensing Systems, Inc. (RSS) and the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH.) Image is an update (via realclimate.org) of one from a 2011 study, Global temperature evolution 1979 - 2010 , by Grant Foster and Stefan Rahmstorf, Environ. Res. Lett. 6, 2011, 044022 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/6/4/044022.

[F430murci]

Figure 4. Average of NASA's GISS, NOAA"s NCDC, and the UK Met Office's HadCRUT4 monthly global surface temperature departures from average, from January 1970 through November 2012 (blue), with linear trends applied to the time frames Jan '70 - Oct '77, Apr '77 - Dec '86, Sep '87 - Nov '96, Jun '97 - Dec '02, Nov '02 - Nov '12. Climate change skeptics like to emphasize the shorter term fluctuations in global temperatures (blue lines) and ignore the long-term climate trend (red line.) The global surface temperature trend from January 1970 through November 2012 (red line) is +0.16°C (+0.29°F) per decade. Image credit: skepticalscinec.com.

[F430murci]

Figure 5. Land, atmosphere, and ice heating (red), 0-700 meter ocean heat content (OHC) increase (light blue), and 700-2,000 meter OHC increase (dark blue). From Nuccitelli et al. (2012), described at skepticalscience.com.

[F430murci]

Rick constantly cherry picks the 17 year and, I have stated over and over, he completely ignores anything and everything weather and climate related such La Nina and El Nino cycles. 1998 involved an extraordinarily powerful El Nino event.

The graphs I used above illustrate why people such as Rick cherry pick certain recent years as a starting point and refuse to go back 5, 10, 15, 20 or more years because their arguments vaporize into thin air.

The charts I used above illustrate changes and also address La Nina and El Nino influences.

Below, Dr. Jeff Masters explains weather influences and why people like Rick cherry pick the 1998 to 2000 time frame as a starting point, but refuse to look backwards.

Climate is so much more than just numbers and, as some may wish to ignore, the melting of the ice caps can actually have a cooling effect in certain regions by decreasing water ocean temps. This cold water is then transferred by the great conveyor belt in the oceans. Then we have places like Australia where the conveyor belts are warmer waters. What are the temps like in Australia this year? How about Russia last year? What about the work in 2010?

-----

One often hears the statement in the media that global warming stopped in 1998, or that there has been no global warming for the past 16 years. Why pick 16 years? Why not some nice round number like 20 years? Or better yet, 30 years, since the climate is generally defined as the average weather experienced over a period of 30 years or longer? Temperatures at Earth's surface undergo natural, decades-long warming and cooling trends, related to the La Niña/El Niño cycle and the 11-year sunspot cycle. The reason one often hears the year 1998 used as a base year to measure global temperature trends is that this is a cherry-picked year. An extraordinarily powerful El Niño event that was the strongest on record brought about a temporary increase in surface ocean temperatures over a vast area of the tropical Pacific that year, helping boost global surface temperatures to the highest levels on record (global temperatures were warmer in both 2005 and 2010, but not by much.) But in the years from 2005 - 2012, La Niña events have been present for at least a portion of every single year, helping keep Earth's surface relatively cool. Thus, if one draws a straight-line fit of global surface temperatures from 1998 to 2012, a climate trend showing little global warming results. If one picks any year prior to 1998, or almost any year after 1998, a global warming trend does result. The choice of 1998 is a deliberate abuse of statistics in an attempt to manipulate people into drawing a false conclusion on global temperature trends. One of my favorite examples of this manipulation of statistics is shown an animated graph called "The Escalator", created by skepticalscience.com (Figure 1).

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/global-warming-continues-with-no-slow-down

[F430murci]

Other Physical Evidence of Continued Warming

It's also important to point out that global temperature measurements aren't our only evidence of the long-term global warming trend. We've observed many physical indicators of global warming (Figure 2).

http://www.skepticalscience.com/going-down-the-up-escalator-part-1.html

[isawasnake]

We hairless apes have done nothing to alter our environment. Our activities have absolutely no impact on the earth. Like the Indians tribes of the North America frontier, we live in complete harmony with our surroundings. We are thus free to live our lives with a clear conscience.

If you disagree with any of that, you are wrong.

Edited November 20, 2013 by isawasnake

[F430murci]

We hairless apes have done nothing to alter our environment. Our activities have absolutely no impact on the earth. Like the Indians tribes of the North America frontier, we live in complete harmony with our surroundings. We are thus free to live our lives with a clear conscience.

If you disagree with any of that, you are wrong.

I guess this poster is trying to be smart....only a few problems......

"Hairless" -?? If that was true we wouldn't have gillette .....

"Like the Indians tribes of the North America frontier," ......

"Indians" - ???? - Don't they live in Asia?

"tribes" - ???? - I think nation would be less patronising

"North America" - ??? - nowhere else?

"Frontier" - since when did any indigenous people live on a frontier?

"no impact?" - I think you might look again.....

I believe we are warming and the Ocean's PH is being impacted by C02, both of which are causing huge dead spots in the oceans and destruction of coral reefs.

I am not sure that I believe warming is caused solely by humans or results from other non-human factors such as general climate changes, but it is an entirely reasonable assumption that CO2, pollution and etc. are impacting weather and climate.

I believe the models that warming and climate change is going to get progressively worse in the future. Melting of the ice caps and introduction of fresh water into the great ocean conveyor belt can also cause abrupt climatic change due to shut downs of the Meridional Overturning Circulation

I believe humans are impacting the world's resources. Pollution and dead spots occurring in the oceans in just the last 10 to 20 years should be a real cause for concern.

I was at Lake Meade this past weekend. Record heat and draught have caused shocking water level drops. The lake looked dang near empty in some places including next to Hoover damn. This is the primary water supply for Las Vegas and provides energy to Nevada, Arizona and California. Powell is at same low capacity.

[RickBradford]

I am not sure that I believe warming is caused solely by humans or results from other non-human factors such as general climate changes, but it is an entirely reasonable assumption that CO2, pollution and etc. are impacting weather and climate.

A perfectly reasonable statement. If only the activist organisations and mainstream media could be so measured.

I believe the models that warming and climate change is going to get progressively worse in the future.

Everyone is free to believe what they wish. But the recent scientific analyses strongly suggest that the mild global warming we are experiencing (however caused) will on balance be beneficial until late this century, and human society will be vastly different then, just as the world in 2013 would be unrecognisable to someone from 1933.

Melting of the ice caps and introduction of fresh water into the great ocean conveyor belt can also cause abrupt climatic change due to shut downs of the Meridional Overturning Circulation

A Hollywood fantasy, pure and simple

I believe humans are impacting the world's resources.

True, but hardly a ground-breaking discovery

Pollution and dead spots occurring in the oceans in just the last 10 to 20 years should be a real cause for concern.

Indeed. Let's stop chucking stuff into the ocean.

No close inspection of the science justifies the present hysterical War on CO2, and countries such as the UK (which has pledged to cut its carbon emissions 80% by 2050) are either committing economic suicide or engaging in extreme political posturing, or most likely both.

Note: I'm not going to recycle the 'how long is the Pause' discussion -- it's ground that's been covered so often on this thread it looks like the terrain at the Fourth Battle of Ypres.

[FiftyTwo]

I am not sure that I believe warming is caused solely by humans or results from other non-human factors such as general climate changes, but it is an entirely reasonable assumption that CO2, pollution and etc. are impacting weather and climate.

Pollution is known to cool the climate.

The tests are clear and repeatable.

CO2 effect, if any, is entirely different.

[boomerangutang]

We hairless apes have done nothing to alter our environment. Our activities have absolutely no impact on the earth. Like the Indians tribes of the North America frontier, we live in complete harmony with our surroundings. We are thus free to live our lives with a clear conscience. If you disagree with any of that, you are wrong.

Is that an attempt at humor, or are you really stating that?

"We ....have done nothing to alter our environment."?!?!!

I guess Saddam Hussein torching the Kuwaiti oil fields had no effect on environment? Or nearly 50 billion tons of CO2 released by human machines each year. That's 137,000,000 tons per day, or an average of 5.7 million tons an hour, 24/7.

"Atmospheric CO2 is accelerating from decade to decade, made ever worse by feedbacks. The rate of increase the past decade is more than DOUBLE that of the 1960s. In 2011, CO2 emissions increased overall 3% with huge increases of 9% for China and 6% for India. Between 2000 and 2011, 420 billion tons of CO2 was emitted of which China and India contributed about 100 tons." source

Edited November 21, 2013 by boomerangutang

[boomerangutang]

I am not sure that I believe warming is caused solely by humans or results from other non-human factors such as general climate changes, but it is an entirely reasonable assumption that CO2, pollution and etc. are impacting weather and climate.

Pollution is known to cool the climate.

The tests are clear and repeatable.

CO2 effect, if any, is entirely different.

Ok, so let's go with the premise that pollution cools climate. Then, perhaps we'll have the warming trend continuing, while concurrently, the smog will balance things out with cooling effect. The result: temperatures steady, while CO2, methane, smog and a witches brew of other air-borne toxins increase. So, we're ok then, because temps stay pretty much the same?

[FiftyTwo]

I am not sure that I believe warming is caused solely by humans or results from other non-human factors such as general climate changes, but it is an entirely reasonable assumption that CO2, pollution and etc. are impacting weather and climate.

Pollution is known to cool the climate.

The tests are clear and repeatable.

CO2 effect, if any, is entirely different.

Ok, so let's go with the premise that pollution cools climate. Then, perhaps we'll have the warming trend continuing, while concurrently, the smog will balance things out with cooling effect. The result: temperatures steady, while CO2, methane, smog and a witches brew of other air-borne toxins increase. So, we're ok then, because temps stay pretty much the same?

For the past 15 years the western world has been reducing airborne pollution, so if anything the temperature should be increasing.

Despite everything it isn't increasing, what if the only think between us and an ice age is man made CO2?

The greenies could be trying to make the human race suicide.

[wilcopops]

Here's something interesting.....

"Just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made global warming emissions"

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/nov/20/90-companies-man-made-global-warming-emissions-climate-change?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

[RickBradford]

Despite everything it isn't increasing, what if the only think between us and an ice age is man made CO2?

There are an increasing number of scientists around the globe who are looking at the unusually passive behaviour of the Sun in Solar Cycle 24, and concluding that the world is in for a sharp cooling over the next 20-30 years.

You won't read much about them in the press, as it doesn't fit the anti-CO2 Green narrative, but they include a number of well-credentialed scientists, such as Habibullo Abdussamatov of the Russian Academy of Science, Professor Mike Lockwood of Reading University, Professor Cliff Ollier of UWA (Western Australia ), Nir Shaviv, Henrik Svensmark, Nicola Scafetta.

A former German regional environment minister, Fritz Vahrenholt, recently co-authored a book called The Cold Sun: Why the Climate Crisis Isn't Happening, which skeptics might be interested in.

Edited November 21, 2013 by RickBradford

[F430murci]

This may not be such a bad solution . . . or help to problems or concerns.

http://msnvideo.msn.com/?channelindex=8&from=en-us_msnhpvidmod#/video/05cdb28e-2199-b73c-aab9-b4528203e327

[RickBradford]

The War on CO2 is going well this week.

* China led a block of 132 nations in a walkout from the UN COP19 climate talkfest over "loss and damage", where the West basically refused to pay compensation for any adverse weather event that happens in the Third World. Even the silly EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard, who is preparing to waste €30 billion per year of tax money on 'climate activities' in Europe, said No.

"We cannot have a system where we have automatic compensation when severe events happen around the world. That is not feasible."

Exit stage left China, India, Brazil, Indonesia +++

* And exit stage left environmental groups including Greenpeace and WWF, in a huff: "We are walking (out) to send a strong message due to the total inaction at the talks, due to lack of ambition and finance." Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

* Poland (the COP 19 host) has fired its environment minister, who is also President of COP19, in the middle of the conference. Why? Because Poland's PM Donald Tusk wanted someone with a deeper commitment to fracking.

* Meanwhile, UK Prime Minister David Cameron has told his ministers and bureaucrats: “We’ve got to get rid of all this green crap.” 'He’s absolutely focused on it,' said a source. 'Woe betide anyone who doesn’t get the memo.'

In more ways than one, there is a cold wind blowing up the boho hippie drop-crotch pants of the Green movement.