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Global Warming Continues
Posted by Rudy Baum on December 10, 2009 in The Editor's Blog
With apologies to Michael Mann, here’s a video that shows that global warming skeptics both, a) have a sense of humor, and, b) have a fair amount of time on their hands.
On the serious side, though, the “decline” that is the heart of this cute little ditty and video isn’t all the skeptics are cracking it up to be. No one denies that global temperatures, measured by a variety of methods, have declined slightly over the past decade.
That said, 1998 was the warmest year in recorded history. So the decline, which climate scientists attribute to a number of factors, is from a very high starting point. And every year since 1998, while slightly cooler than that benchmark year, has been one of the warmest years in history.
In fact, according to the World Meteorological Organization, the decade from 2000 to 2009 is the warmest in the modern record, and 2009 “is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record.” According to WMO, “This year [2009] above-normal temperatures were recorded in most parts of the continents. Only North America (U.S. and Canada) experienced conditions that were cooler than average. Given the current figures, large parts of southern Asia and central Africa are likely to have the warmest year on record.”
WMO also states that, “The decade of the 2000s (2000-2009) was warmer than the decade spanning the 1990s (1990-1999), which in turn was warmer than the 1980s (1980-1989). Does anyone sense a trend here?
2 Comments on Global Warming Continues
By Richard Waldron on December 11, 2009 at 3:52 pm
Your glossing over of the Climategate data dump shows your bias. Not only did scientists (I use the word loosely) publish fraudulent current data, the computer programs that they use to model future climate change were manipulated to show warming by the use of fudge factors. The sad fact is that there is no way prove or disprove CO2 caused global warming. Each time someone has a theory that doesn’t agree with CO2 warming, that person is reviled by the AGW true believers such as yourself.
Several years ago NASA published three studies on the loss of Arctic sea ice. The first blamed soot from Asia. The second blamed unusually clear weather during the summer. The third blamed changes is ocean currents that swept ice into the open North Pacific. None blamed increased CO2. Anthony Watts at wattsupwiththat.com has documented the siting of US temperature measuring stations in asphalt parking lots, on roofs next to AC exhausts, and near other heat sources. He and others have shown that stations (Santa Rosa, CA, is one) go from showing cooling in the 95 years of raw data to warming after GISS manipulation. That is why the raw data is so important.
The proposed solutions for lowering CO2 and paying developing nations not to emit CO2 will do little to reduce global temperatures. However, they will seriously reduce wealth available to solve other issues of human suffering.
By David Scott on December 11, 2009 at 8:30 pm
I could be paddling a rowboat down Market Street in San Francisco after the poles have melted, and there will still be conservative fanatics who deny that humans are responsible for Global Warming or that it is even real. I invite you to my web-pages devoted to raising awareness on this urgent issue: http://pltcldscsn.blogspot.com/2009/12/conservatives-still-deny-global-warming.html
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