Global Warming/Cooling Updates
ANN ARBOR, MI--This has been the snowiest winter ever in the Ann Arbor area, or at least since 1880 when record-keeping started. And it's not over yet. That's because we're not even into April, a month that normally averages almost 2.5 inches of that pesky white stuff.
NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO--80 to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. Some 3,000 scientific robots that are plying the ocean have sent home a puzzling message. These diving instruments suggest that the oceans have not warmed up at all over the past four or five years. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans. "There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant."
7 Comments:
"Puzzling" is a puzzling word to use.
Slight cooling is not significant? What would the response have been to slight warming?
I really liked the next few sentences in the article:
"There has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Willis says.... "Global warming doesn't mean every year will be warmer than the last. And it may be that we are in a period of less rapid warming."
So cooling can best be described as less rapid warming. Who knew?
This actually matches the lower atmospheric data, that shows cooling since the peak in 1998. If the solar theories are right, the decrease in solar activity will lead to cooling over the next decades. If we start slipping into an ice age, we will be glad that Al Gore was recognized as an idiot early enough to prevent him doing any real damage to the economy.
While I am a subscriber to NPR, I do tend to check their sources often. Turns out that this Willis guy recalled his cooling trends in the following paper.
http://oceans.pmel.noaa.gov/Pdf/heat_2006.pdf
There is so much information out their it is easy to miss something.
I can see some of us here do not think climate change is occurring, and some are down right disgusted with some of it's proponents, but can we agree on the fact that we should be collect more scientific data? More satellites, more probes, more unbiased as possible analysis? I think we can also agree on the fact that we do enjoy the debate. Really what would we do with our time without it?
Absolutely agree that there should be more extensive collection of data in the oceans and the atmosphere. We very much need to understand what is in fact happening.
"some of us do not think climate change is occurring".
Must disagree with you on this point. The area of disagreement seems to be between cause and effect. Namely, whether natural forcings or green house gases are responsible for the long term warming trend. I think we get these postings because many of us are sick of the media frenzy around every adverse weather event. Yes, we have warming as a long term trend but we are not living through a disaster movie quite yet.
The archelogical record very clearly shows that Greenland was substantially warmer during the medieval warming period than it is today allowing Greenland to support a large population base. Ancient pollen samples and extensive Viking settlements are very conclusive on what vegetation was growing in Greenland. Greenland got its name from the Vikings who described a very different place that the land of snow ice and growing seasons that are too short at present to grow most vegetables (carrots, lettuce, cucumber...all of these have to be imported at very high cost).
A similar warming period was experienced in Roman times. Many earth scientists and climatologists have concluded that there is a natural warming every 1500 years. The present warming is well within this natural range of warming.
We have to consider the equally likely possibility that the present warming trend is natural and is not necessarily catastrophic.
Agree that many of us are disgusted by the misinformation promulgated by leading proponents of global warming like Al Gore. Doomsday populism has little in common with the careful and methodical scientific approach.
Like you, I enjoy a lively debate and appreciate that we do not have to agree to respect each other's views or learn from one another. There is a saying that one hand cannot clap.
There are few things in life as exciting as ideas and learning.
It is a glorious sunny day here. Hope it is the same where you are. :)
I think the important thing here is to concentrate on these two data points of Ann Arbor's snow and this four year ocean study. The larger long-term warming trend reported by the scientific community is radically biased against those of us in the fossil fuel community.
There are also many environmental activists and small L liberals deeply opposed to the oil industry as well as other manifestations of capitalism. The oil industry is by no means the only target.
Just ask Walmart.
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