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

[francescoassisi]

The issue is CLIMATE CHANGE - not short periods of cooler or warmer weather. One also needs to look at the depth and amount of ice not just the area covered.

[francescoassisi]

A bit of perspective.......

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/09/top-climate-myths-ipcc

[canman]

The issue is CLIMATE CHANGE - not short periods of cooler or warmer weather. One also needs to look at the depth and amount of ice not just the area covered.

The climate is always changing. The issue is whether it is being affected by man made CO2.

[francescoassisi]

What some posters fail to do is differentiate between known earth climate cycles and the changes now which are unprecedented and only explainable through human activity.

I think one thing that people find hard to appreciated is the relative time scales.

This actually makes a mockery of the "claims" or rather interpretations put on this so-called leak.

[francescoassisi]

And Global Warming is the latest on their hit list. Some people, some 'experts', will do anything for a dollar.

Those Merchants of Doubt include Galileo (who was a 'denier' of the 'settled science' that the Earth was the center of the Universe); Charles Darwin, who spread misinformation denying the 'consensus opinion' that Man was made in God's image and could therefore not be descended from the apes; Alfred Wegener, who proposed in 1912 the absurd theory of continental drift, and who was not vindicated until the 1960s, and even Albert Einstein, who faced systematic and sustained opposition to his theory of relativity (as summarised in the publication A Hundred Authors Against Einstein).

Without people prepared to think outside the common herd, to look forward, to go against the 'mainstream consensus', we would probably all still be living in caves chalking bad drawings of mammoths.

As far as I know, climatology is the only 'science' which has explicitly called a halt to progress ("the science is settled -- the debate is over"), and hence reveals itself not to be a science at all, but a political and bureaucratic boondoggle of the first order.

It is also ludicrous to say 'some 'experts', will do anything for a dollar.' Al Gore, for example, won't do anything for less than $100,000 plus expenses. And he's about as far as it's humanly possible to get from an expert.

Galileo Darwin and others were not "dissenters" they are methodical scientists who spent years ' a lifetime - sifting through EVIDENCE in order to come up with a theory that despite consensus to the contrary would stand up against all argument.

The science of climate change is just that - a theory based on several lifetimes of study and evidence. If you look at the counter arguments they are largely partial, or based on singular events taken in isolation.

As for "progress" well facilitating human endeavour to continue on planet earth would seem to be progress in my book.

[samran]

So hands up here if you are a climate scientist?

Yep, figured as much...

[francescoassisi]

For a good analysis of climate change skeptics" tactics before the publication of the IPCC report try this.....

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/16/climate-change-contrarians-5-stages-denial

[francescoassisi]

Could it be that man-made CO₂ emissions are slowing down the onset of the next ice age?

I really just cannot see how a trace amount of CO2 can have any effect at all on global temperatures.

Becausevyou don't "see" it doesn't mean it isn't there. What do you mean by "trace"?

[NumbNut]

This is how science is supposed to work. You put a proposition forward, you state your evidence and it gets reviewed by your peers. Your peers either agree with you or refute you... and then publicly, on the record, state their reasons why with their supporting evidence.

And this is exactly the opposite of how climatology operates. That is why so many people are skeptical of their results

That is patently not true. I would suggest the exact opposite, it's yourself and others like you who have nailed their colours to the mast and are refusing to accept anything that does not fit with their perceptions and world view. Why is this so?

Perceptions and individuals world views is where we should start on this. We are being played, and not by the scientists. You spoke of vested interests in an earlier post? Little bit of reading for ya:-

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/donors-trust-climate-denial

People are skeptical because of vested interests above muddying the waters for their own ends. Don't take my word for it, read the link above, not just the heading

[francescoassisi]

So hands up here if you are a climate scientist?

Yep, figured as much...

Can you explain this post? I can't see your point.

Are you saying that you are a "climate scientist"? Or are you saying that to post on this thread you need to be?

[RickBradford]

..... theory that despite consensus to the contrary would stand up against all argument.

The science of climate change is just that ....

Climate change is not a science -- to be a science it would have to be 'falsifiable' -- that is, there would need to be a set of circumstances which would mean that the theory was proved wrong. There are none.

The climate models predicted continuous warming; Nature has shown that to be wrong, but even that isn't allowed to prove the models wrong.

The climate models predicted warm winters and less snow for Northern Europe; which has now had 5 brutally cold winters in a row, but that isn't allowed to prove the models wrong. In fact, they now tell us that they knew that all along, but for some reason decided to tell us the opposite.

The climate models said eastern Australia would suffer near-permanent drought. Now the place is awash with rainwater; they predicted the loss of all Arctic ice by now; tens of millions of 'climate refugees'; submerged Pacific nations; coral reefs will vanish.

None of these predictions has been anywhere near right, yet this evidence is not allowed to prove climatology wrong.

Climatology is cargo-cult science at best, a massive shamanistic fraud at worst.

True science was well explained by the late Professor Richard Feynman:

"If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't make any difference how smart he was who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's all there is to it."

[francescoassisi]

..... theory that despite consensus to the contrary would stand up against all argument.

The science of climate change is just that ....

Climate change is not a science -- to be a science it would have to be 'falsifiable' -- that is, there would need to be a set of circumstances which would mean that the theory was proved wrong. There are none.

The climate models predicted continuous warming; Nature has shown that to be wrong, but even that isn't allowed to prove the models wrong.

The climate models predicted warm winters and less snow for Northern Europe; which has now had 5 brutally cold winters in a row, but that isn't allowed to prove the models wrong. In fact, they now tell us that they knew that all along, but for some reason decided to tell us the opposite.

The climate models said eastern Australia would suffer near-permanent drought. Now the place is awash with rainwater; they predicted the loss of all Arctic ice by now; tens of millions of 'climate refugees'; submerged Pacific nations; coral reefs will vanish.

None of these predictions has been anywhere near right, yet this evidence is not allowed to prove climatology wrong.

Climatology is cargo-cult science at best, a massive shamanistic fraud at worst.

True science was well explained by the late Professor Richard Feynman:

"If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't make any difference how smart he was who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong."

And other problem clearly illustrated here is that many people don't understand what science actually is - it is essentially a thought process - skepticality and critical thinking a proicess of testing and evidence.

[francescoassisi]

...and this kind of total misquote doesn't help either

The climate models predicted warm winters and less snow for Northern Europe; which has now had 5 brutally cold winters in a row,"

This is quite inaccurate and has nothing to do with how science interprets climate change.

It is this urge to see issues limited in scope, in black and white and expect short-term results that prevents so many from fully grasping the concepts behind this science.

[RickBradford]

And other problem clearly illustrated here is that many people don't understand what science actually is - it is essentially a thought process - skepticality and critical thinking a proicess of testing and evidence.

Exactly.

If only climate 'science' was held to those standards as well, more people would believe in it.

[francescoassisi]

..... theory that despite consensus to the contrary would stand up against all argument.

The science of climate change is just that ....

Climate change is not a science -- to be a science it would have to be 'falsifiable' -- that is, there would need to be a set of circumstances which would mean that the theory was proved wrong. There are none.

The climate models predicted continuous warming; Nature has shown that to be wrong, but even that isn't allowed to prove the models wrong.

The climate models predicted warm winters and less snow for Northern Europe; which has now had 5 brutally cold winters in a row, but that isn't allowed to prove the models wrong. In fact, they now tell us that they knew that all along, but for some reason decided to tell us the opposite.

The climate models said eastern Australia would suffer near-permanent drought. Now the place is awash with rainwater; they predicted the loss of all Arctic ice by now; tens of millions of 'climate refugees'; submerged Pacific nations; coral reefs will vanish.

None of these predictions has been anywhere near right, yet this evidence is not allowed to prove climatology wrong.

Climatology is cargo-cult science at best, a massive shamanistic fraud at worst.

True science was well explained by the late Professor Richard Feynman:

"If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn't make any difference how smart he was who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment, it's wrong. That's all there is to it."

You seem to be destroying your own "opinion"

[canman]

Could it be that man-made CO₂ emissions are slowing down the onset of the next ice age?

I really just cannot see how a trace amount of CO2 can have any effect at all on global temperatures.

Becausevyou don't "see" it doesn't mean it isn't there. What do you mean by "trace"?

By trace I mean 400 parts per million.

[F430murci]

An international panel of scientists is expected to issue a report Friday that dismisses nearly every doubt that human activity has caused temperatures to warm, glaciers to melt, and seas to bulge since the middle of last century. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise precipitously, the report will warn, there will be catastrophic consequences. Whether these strong words will be met with meaningful response is another matter.

http://m.nbcnews.com/science/final-verdict-expected-friday-humans-caused-global-warming-8C11266754

[RickBradford]

...and this kind of total misquote doesn't help either

The climate models predicted warm winters and less snow for Northern Europe; which has now had 5 brutally cold winters in a row,"

This is quite inaccurate and has nothing to do with how science interprets climate change.

It is this urge to see issues limited in scope, in black and white and expect short-term results that prevents so many from fully grasping the concepts behind this science.

Documented fact: Central Europe has seen its 5th consecutive colder than normal winter in a row - a record since measurements began in the 19th century.

Climatology says:

"Due to global warming, the coming winters in the local regions will become milder."

(Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, University of Potsdam, 8 Feb 2006)

"More heat waves, no snow in the winter" … "Climate models… over 20 times more precise than the UN IPCC global models ...Temperatures in the wintertime will rise the most … there will be less cold air coming to Central Europe from the east.

Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 2 Sept 2008.

"Winters with strong frost and lots of snow like we had 20 years ago will cease to exist at our latitudes."

Mojib Latif, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 1 April 2000

"Ice, snow, and frost will disappear, i.e. milder winters" … "Unusually warm winters without snow and ice are now being viewed by many as signs of climate change." Schleswig Holstein NABU, 10 Feb 2007

[F430murci]

...and this kind of total misquote doesn't help either

The climate models predicted warm winters and less snow for Northern Europe; which has now had 5 brutally cold winters in a row,"

This is quite inaccurate and has nothing to do with how science interprets climate change.

It is this urge to see issues limited in scope, in black and white and expect short-term results that prevents so many from fully grasping the concepts behind this science.

Documented fact: Central Europe has seen its 5th consecutive colder than normal winter in a row - a record since measurements began in the 19th century.

Climatology says:

"Due to global warming, the coming winters in the local regions will become milder."

(Stefan Rahmstorf, Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, University of Potsdam, 8 Feb 2006)

"More heat waves, no snow in the winter" "Climate models over 20 times more precise than the UN IPCC global models ...Temperatures in the wintertime will rise the most there will be less cold air coming to Central Europe from the east.

Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 2 Sept 2008.

"Winters with strong frost and lots of snow like we had 20 years ago will cease to exist at our latitudes."

Mojib Latif, Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Hamburg, 1 April 2000

"Ice, snow, and frost will disappear, i.e. milder winters" "Unusually warm winters without snow and ice are now being viewed by many as signs of climate change." Schleswig Holstein NABU, 10 Feb 2007

Haha, the funny part is you don't get it. Melting ice pack causes decrease in water temp causing decrease in temp in Europe. Haha, what's the use and why do you care so much?

[canman]

A bit about glaciers and what they really represent:

Around 1250 A.D., historical records show, ice packs began showing up farther south in the North Atlantic. Glaciers also began expanding on Greenland, soon to threaten Norse settlements on the island. From 1275 to 1300 A.D., glaciers began expanding more broadly, according to radiocarbon dating of plants killed by the glacier growth. The period known today as the Little Ice Age was just starting to poke through.

Summers began cooling in Northern Europe after 1300 A.D., negatively impacting growing seasons, as reflected in the Great Famine of 1315 to 1317. Expanding glaciers and ice cover spreading across Greenland began driving the Norse settlers out. The last, surviving, written records of the Norse Greenland settlements, which had persisted for centuries, concern a marriage in 1408 A.D. in the church of Hvalsey, today the best preserved Norse ruin.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2013/05/26/to-the-horror-of-global-warming-alarmists-global-cooling-is-here/

[canman]

31,487 U.S. scientists (including 9,000 Ph.Ds) with degrees in atmospheric Earth sciences, physics, chemistry, biology and computer science have signed a statement that reads: “There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing, or will in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.”

http://www.petitionproject.org/

[RickBradford]

Haha, the funny part is you don't get it. Melting ice pack causes decrease in water temp causing decrease in temp in Europe.

Well, if I don't get it, neither do the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, the Schleswig Holstein Naturschutzbund, the German Weather Service, the German Federal Ministry of Environment, the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, the UK Met Office and, of course, the IPCC.

“The lowest winter temperatures are likely to increase more than average winter temperature in northern Europe. …The duration of the snow season is very likely to shorten in all of Europe, and snow depth is likely to decrease in at least most of Europe.”

IPCC Climate Change, 2007

[boomerangutang]

look:

source

[NBD]

Important to qualify all the "science" behind climate change, on both sides. Testing a scientific hypothesis by experimentation is all well and good if you're testing, say, the effect of heat on an ice cube. You put an ice cube in a temperature controlled environment and time how long it takes to melt. You will get fairly predictable, repeatable results and be able to come up with a reliable model for how quickly an ice cube will melt at different temperatures.

We don't have a planet in a box, in a clean room, in controlled conditions where we can alter various factors while holding others constant and measure the results. We have a planet and climate that are so vast and varied we don't understand it. We can't accurately measure it, and we haven't even been really trying for above 100 years.

So we build models based on assumptions and observations. Historical measures of climate and carbon levels are educated guesses rather than accurate measurements, and this makes climate science essentially guess work. Educated guesses, but guesses none the less.

You can talk all you like about advanced techniques for measuring, celebrated scientists and rigorous peer reviews, but none of that changes the fact that everything we know about our influence on the climate is entirely theoretical.

Enter the journalists and suddenly global warming is "scientifically proven" (a phrase that makes me cringe) and will be flooding your home next week. "Scientists Model Proves Inconclusive" or "Model Suggests Some Correlation" wouldn't make much of a headline, would it? Not when you can have typhoons and hurricanes, displaced islanders and a desert in your back garden.

And then the politicians come in, to do what every politician dreams of doing and saving the world from impending doom. And it gets better, because unlike politicians in the old days who had to start a war or appease a deity to save us from peril, today's politicians can save us by taxing us and making impassioned speeches, and flying off to Rio, Kyoto and elsewhere to agree with other saviours that we need more saving.

[Neurath]

Important to qualify all the "science" behind climate change, on both sides. Testing a scientific hypothesis by experimentation is all well and good if you're testing, say, the effect of heat on an ice cube. You put an ice cube in a temperature controlled environment and time how long it takes to melt. You will get fairly predictable, repeatable results and be able to come up with a reliable model for how quickly an ice cube will melt at different temperatures.

We don't have a planet in a box, in a clean room, in controlled conditions where we can alter various factors while holding others constant and measure the results. We have a planet and climate that are so vast and varied we don't understand it. We can't accurately measure it, and we haven't even been really trying for above 100 years.

So we build models based on assumptions and observations. Historical measures of climate and carbon levels are educated guesses rather than accurate measurements, and this makes climate science essentially guess work. Educated guesses, but guesses none the less.

You can talk all you like about advanced techniques for measuring, celebrated scientists and rigorous peer reviews, but none of that changes the fact that everything we know about our influence on the climate is entirely theoretical.

Enter the journalists and suddenly global warming is "scientifically proven" (a phrase that makes me cringe) and will be flooding your home next week. "Scientists Model Proves Inconclusive" or "Model Suggests Some Correlation" wouldn't make much of a headline, would it? Not when you can have typhoons and hurricanes, displaced islanders and a desert in your back garden.

And then the politicians come in, to do what every politician dreams of doing and saving the world from impending doom. And it gets better, because unlike politicians in the old days who had to start a war or appease a deity to save us from peril, today's politicians can save us by taxing us and making impassioned speeches, and flying off to Rio, Kyoto and elsewhere to agree with other saviours that we need more saving.

800,000-year Ice-Core Records of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

See: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html

[wilcopops]

firstly "theory" is a word used in day to day conversations in a completely different way from science.

There is no such thing as "proven" in science not in normal conversational sense anyway - (many people misunderstand the meaning of "prove" in the expression - "the exception that proves the rule" or in "40 degree proof" as in alcohol)) - science is permanently skeptical - it questions and changes all the time....climate change theory is like smoking and cancer and evolution a theory that is "accepted" by the majority of the scientific community..... (who do you think noted the "cooling" effect of last year?)

It involves many different fields chemistry, physics biology etc...of science and a lot of research. - to say someone is a "climate scientist" would be no more than a label to describe their current job.

A good way of finding poor scientists is their intractability - global warming science is constantly changing and reviewing - the "contrarians" are simply cherry picking the odd email or leak here and there to try and justify their entrenched (i.e.flat-earth) position.

Finally there is the media - for one reason or another, politics, ignorance sales thew media is notoriously bad at reporting science - the absolute champion of bad science is the UK's Daily Mail. they are not alone though and headlines as the one in the OP are incredibly misleading as they are concentrating on one PARTIAL statement in a huge report that covers a plethora of subjects - i.e. - cherry picking - but they only have one cherry out of the whole bag to look at - it's not even a whole cherry - hardly a representative sample.

[NBD]

800,000-year Ice-Core Records of Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide (CO₂)

See: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html

My point exactly.

Very technical, very clever, but still only an educated guess and in no way proves anything about our influence over our climate or otherwise.

[NBD]

firstly "theory" is a word used in day to day conversations in a completely different way from science.

There is no such thing as "proven" in science not in normal conversational sense anyway - (many people misunderstand the meaning of "prove" in the expression - "the exception that proves the rule" or in "40 degree proof" as in alcohol)) - science is permanently skeptical - it questions and changes all the time....climate change theory is like smoking and cancer and evolution a theory that is "accepted" by the majority of the scientific community..... (who do you think noted the "cooling" effect of last year?)

It involves many different fields chemistry, physics biology etc...of science and a lot of research. - to say someone is a "climate scientist" would be no more than a label to describe their current job.

A good way of finding poor scientists is their intractability - global warming science is constantly changing and reviewing - the "contrarians" are simply cherry picking the odd email or leak here and there to try and justify their entrenched (i.e.flat-earth) position.

Finally there is the media - for one reason or another, politics, ignorance sales thew media is notoriously bad at reporting science - the absolute champion of bad science is the UK's Daily Mail. they are not alone though and headlines as the one in the OP are incredibly misleading as they are concentrating on one PARTIAL statement in a huge report that covers a plethora of subjects - i.e. - cherry picking - but they only have one cherry out of the whole bag to look at - it's not even a whole cherry - hardly a representative sample.

Is this deliberately ironic? A nice little summary of the role of scepticism, enquiry and an open mind as essential components of good science, then you go on to dismiss anyone who questions climate change as a flat earther and reject any research if it's results are published in a certain newspaper.

[wilcopops]

My family has worked in antarctica for 2 generations - and I can tell you that the notion of manmade climate change is not recent - the evidence has been building up for decades - the evidence itself is thousands of years old - ice samples, rock samples etc etc give a picture of earth over bilions of years - one cool year is so insignificant that to try and wipe out the theory ies of climate change based on one article in the Daily mail is quite frankly risible.

PS - an afterthought - do you own any silver? If so you will notice that it requires regular cleaning or it tarnishes. Before the UK industrial revolution this wasn't a significant problem - but increased use of fossil fuel is believed to have increased the amounts in the atmosphere enough to cause this.

[wilcopops]

Haha, the funny part is you don't get it. Melting ice pack causes decrease in water temp causing decrease in temp in Europe.

Well, if I don't get it, neither do the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, the Schleswig Holstein Naturschutzbund, the German Weather Service, the German Federal Ministry of Environment, the Climatic Research Unit, University of East Anglia, the UK Met Office and, of course, the IPCC.

“The lowest winter temperatures are likely to increase more than average winter temperature in northern Europe. …The duration of the snow season is very likely to shorten in all of Europe, and snow depth is likely to decrease in at least most of Europe.”

IPCC Climate Change, 2007

Rick - the others DO geddit - you are on your own mate!