By Stephen Murgatroyd, Innovation, Change and Development
The earth did get warmer between 1850 and 2007 by around 0.7 degrees. Most of this warming occurred before 1940, with the more recent period contributing just 0.2 degrees to warming. Global earth temperatures have not risen significantly since 1995. In fact, several prominent climate scientists are now confidently predicting that the earth is entering a significant cooling period and that we should be more concerned with a coming mini ice age than with the dire predictions of global warming.
In August 2008, the sun failed to produce a single sun spot - a key factor in the warming of the earth. The last time this occurred was in June 1913. Some scientists now suggest that the pattern of sun spot behaviour since 1749 is showing clear signs of change in line with the same patterns seen in the three previous periods of significant earth cooling since records began. Known as the Dalton, Maunder and Spörer Minimums, each was associated with a period of rapid earth cooling, one of which was cold enough to be known as a mini ice age (1450 to 1820). The dominant prediction amongst those scientists that take the view that we are entering a cooling period is that the earth will cool for a period of two decades. Even the Old Farmers Almanac takes this view of the future.
Meanwhile, carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions continue to grow. The fact that this is occurring at the same time that the earth is cooling suggest that we should be careful in assuming that the “cause” of global warming is CO2. It appears not to be the case. There have been many occasions in the history of the planet when CO2 in the atmosphere has been much more concentrated than it is today. During the Cambrian Period of the earth’s history they were eighteen times more CO2 and in the Late Ordovician Period CO2 concentrations were almost twelve times as much as today. CO2 is not a primary cause of warming or of cooling – it is just one of eighteen factors and possibly the least important. Much more important are: the effects of the sun; the orbit, tilt and movement of the earth; water vapour; methane; ocean currents; plate tectonics; vegetation; volcanoes and cosmic rays. When looked at in a comprehensive way, these key factors all point to a period of cooling.
Global cooling is much more difficult to deal with than warming, though both have their challenges. Agriculture is especially affected, as are energy demands for heat and power. Water supplies can also be adversely affected. We need to begin planning now for the possibility of abrupt cooling and balance our preparedness against continually changing data. Being seduced into thinking that reducing CO2 emissions (not a bad thing to be doing) will have an impact in climate change is misguided. We need really good strategic thinking that is open to adaptation and we do not need to be wedded to a single and growingly problematic view of climate change. See more here.
By Roger Pielke Sr., Climate Science Weblog
There is a news article in the Australian News by Leigh Dayton, entitled “North hottest for 1500 years”. It reads
“The northern hemisphere is hotter now than at any time in the past 1500 years, according to the most comprehensive reconstruction of the earth’s temperature over the last two millenniums.
It’s likely the southern hemisphere is also warmer than ever although data is sketchier, claim US and British scientists. While the new research also concluded that the so-called Medieval warmth from 950-1100 was hotter than previously thought, the last decade was hotter still. “The findings deeply reinforce the incontrovertible conclusion that we are warming rapidly outside natural variability,” said climate scientist Andy Pitman, co-director of the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of NSW.
The new findings come from a team led by Michael E. Mann, director of the Environmental Systems Institute at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Writing in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they reported that they’d pulled together the largest ever set of climate data, enabling them to assess changes on decadal and centennial scales. Associate Professor Mann and his colleagues used “natural climate archives” like tree-rings, corals and ice cores, along with historical documentary records and recently updated instrumental data to reconstruct the climate of past centuries in unprecedented detail and compare it with existing conditions. “Our results extend previous conclusions that recent northern hemisphere surface temperature increases are likely anomalous in a long-term context,” they claimed.
According to Professor Pitman, the work showed clearly that despite “wiggles” of warming and cooling in the past, driven by natural variation, surface temperatures in the modern period (1961-1990) show an upward trend not triggered by solar variability or other natural processes. He also said the report highlighted the need to obtain more southern hemisphere data. That would help scientists further refine the climate change models used to predict future conditions in regions around the world.”
This is, quite frankly, a very poor (and erroneous) news report. The data used for its construction are not temporally homogeneous (such as kludging a thermometer record on the end of a proxy temperature record) as well as ignoring the very substantial evidence of a warm bias in the surface temperature record that is summarized here and here.
If the scientists are quoted correctly in the news release [which is always a question!], then they have failed to examine the substantive issues that have been raised with the surface temperature record. The Reporter certainly neglected to properly investigate the claims of the authors and, as a result, has presented the public with yet another biased news article on climate.
See Roger’s post here.
Posted on August 30, 2008 by chillguy33 on hypsithermal.wordpress.com
Mother nature dumps 63 times more oil into the ocean than does drilling and extraction, through natural seepage. The Santa Barbara channel seepage is not exceptional, apparently. Seepage of oil into the ocean and U.S. coastal waters is widespread, even typical.
See larger image here
Oil in ocean is largely a natural phenomonon. See “Mother Nature, the biggest oil polluter on Earth”/ Some documentation here: CRS REport for Congress, Oil Spills in U.S. Coastal Waters.
The time to switch to solar energy, or to wind power, not only is not today; it may be never. The alternatives to oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy so often cited as if they are silver bullets in the battle to prevent imaginary global warming simply are not economically viable, on any scale.
In this abortive Massachussetts attempt (below) to prevent imaginary global warming, 19 turbines produced only 27% of planned energy. Other turbines produced only 17% and 15% of planned output, according to the Massachussetts Technology Collaborative. On the other hand, if T. Boon Pickens wants to build us a half-trillion dollar transmission system, he should get started. But he doesn’t, because he knows it cannot pay.
The practical and proven solution is build more nuclear plants, drill more oil and more natural gas. Convert coal to gas; then make hydrogen fuel. But we better do it quickly. We have no guarantee that Earth is not about to cool off by more than 5 degrees Farenheit; in fact, the climate gives every indication of doing exactly that. Read more here.