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| Where did global warming go? |
| 2008-01-07 |
| Brutal Afghan WintersTM may make a comeback! The stark headline appeared just over a year ago. "2007 to be 'warmest on record,' " BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government's Meteorological Office, the story announced that "the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007," surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998. But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold. In South America, for example, the start of winter last year was one of the coldest ever observed. According to Eugenio Hackbart, chief meteorologist of the MetSul Weather Center in Brazil, "a brutal cold wave brought record low temperatures, widespread frost, snow, and major energy disruption." In Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the cold was so intense that hundreds of people died and the government declared a state of emergency in 14 of the country's 24 provinces. In August, Chile's agriculture minister lamented "the toughest winter we have seen in the past 50 years," which caused losses of at least $200 million in destroyed crops and livestock. Latin Americans weren't the only ones shivering. University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, a specialist in temperature and heat flow, notes in the Washington Times that "unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007." Johannesburg experienced its first significant snowfall in a quarter-century. Australia had its coldest ever June. New Zealand's vineyards lost much of their 2007 harvest when spring temperatures dropped to record lows. Closer to home, 44.5 inches of snow fell in New Hampshire last month, breaking the previous record of 43 inches, set in 1876. And the Canadian government is forecasting the coldest winter in 15 years. Now all of these may be short-lived weather anomalies, mere blips in the path of the global climatic warming that Al Gore and a host of alarmists proclaim the deadliest threat we face. But what if the frigid conditions that have caused so much distress in recent months signal an impending era of global cooling? "Stock up on fur coats and felt boots!" advises Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences and senior scientist at Moscow's Shirshov Institute of Oceanography. "The latest data . . . say that earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012." Sorokhtin dismisses the conventional global warming theory that greenhouse gases, especially human-emitted carbon dioxide, is causing the earth to grow hotter. Like a number of other scientists, he points to solar activity - sunspots and solar flares, which wax and wane over time - as having the greatest effect on climate. "Carbon dioxide is not to blame for global climate change," Sorokhtin writes in an essay for Novosti. "Solar activity is many times more powerful than the energy produced by the whole of humankind." In a recent paper for the Danish National Space Center, physicists Henrik Svensmark and Eigil Friis-Christensen concur: "The sun . . . appears to be the main forcing agent in global climate change," they write. Given the number of worldwide cold events, it is no surprise that 2007 didn't turn out to be the warmest ever. In fact, 2007's global temperature was essentially the same as that in 2006 - and 2005, and 2004, and every year back to 2001. The record set in 1998 has not been surpassed. For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming. Even though atmospheric carbon dioxide continues to accumulate - it's up about 4 percent since 1998 - the global mean temperature has remained flat. That raises some obvious questions about the theory that CO2 is the cause of climate change. Yet so relentlessly has the alarmist scenario been hyped, and so disdainfully have dissenting views been dismissed, that millions of people assume Gore must be right when he insists: "The debate in the scientific community is over." But it isn't. Just last month, more than 100 scientists signed a strongly worded open letter pointing out that climate change is a well-known natural phenomenon, and that adapting to it is far more sensible than attempting to prevent it. Because slashing carbon dioxide emissions means retarding economic development, they warned, "the current UN approach of CO2 reduction is likely to increase human suffering from future climate change rather than to decrease it." Climate science isn't a religion, and those who dispute its leading theory are not heretics. Much remains to be learned about how and why climate changes, and there is neither virtue nor wisdom in an emotional rush to counter global warming - especially if what's coming is a global Big Chill. |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #18 It's currently 25 and snowing in Colorado Springs, with more expected. It was 61(?) on Wednesday, I believe, then snowed 3" on Friday morning... What Darth said. The mountains are getting pounded with snow, with up to five feet of new stuff in the last week. If you like powder skiing, this is your kind of weather. The only problem is getting to the slopes. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2008-01-07 20:33 |
| #17 #11 BP: "Those temps are all in farenheit?" Honey, if 'Murkins are discussing temperature, you bet your sweet bippy it's in Fahrenheit. We don't need no stinkin' Celsius. ;-p Richmond, VA - 72º F today, 74 forecast for tomorrow. Not a record, though - that was set (according to the local weatherman, several degrees higher than today, I think he said 76 or 78) back in the early 1900's. But how can that BE? The Prophet AlBore and his |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2008-01-07 18:36 |
| #16 48 degrees and appallingly foggy in Wisconsin for three days. There was a hundred-car pileup on 90-39 yesterday. |
| Posted by: mom 2008-01-07 17:33 |
| #15 We had our annual New Year's snowfall. This year it melted on the third. Today it was close to 70F in Cincinnati -- and I just bought a new winter coat that it looks like I won't wear until December. :-( |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-01-07 16:52 |
| #14 64F in Chicago as I post. Gorgeous, gorgeous day. If this is global warming I want more of it, and I'll eat Rhode Island oranges. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2008-01-07 16:09 |
| #13 Balmy and sunny 40 degrees this morning, now heading for 20 with snow. Colorado, you don't like the weather wait 5 minutes. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2008-01-07 14:35 |
| #12 Heh. 55 right now in Southern Cal. And the ocean looks wonderful... |
| Posted by: Iblis 2008-01-07 14:15 |
| #11 Those temps are all in farenheit? |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2008-01-07 13:56 |
| #10 60 deg here in NE OH. A few days ago it was 11 on my front porch. I confidently predict temperatures will continue to fluctuate regardless of expert opinions. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2008-01-07 13:48 |
| #9 59F and sunny here in the Philadelphia suburbs at noon. Just took down my outdoor Christmas lights. Can't remember it ever being such a pleasant task. A little over a decade ago we had approximately 25F and 30 inches of snow around this date, so my Gore Extrapolation Formula (TM) projects that we will have steam outside on this date in 2040. |
| Posted by: Darrell 2008-01-07 12:21 |
| #8 Might hit 70F today here in Cincinnati, and, as a bonus, the office building doesn't smell like crap! |
| Posted by: Rob Crawford 2008-01-07 10:31 |
| #7 Not that I believe in the global warming cult, but it is 61 degrees in Chicago today and I couldn't be happier. |
| Posted by: danking70 2008-01-07 09:44 |
| #6 That's why the rebrand to climate change. |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles in Blairistan 2008-01-07 09:32 |
| #5 All your warmth are belong to us!!! |
| Posted by: The Sun 2008-01-07 09:31 |
| #4 No, the AGW true believers will continue to believe, just like true believer commies still believe, no matter how much evidence of their wrongness is shown to them. |
| Posted by: M. Murcek 2008-01-07 09:05 |
| #3 Paging Al Gore. We made a mistake. We want that medal and ALL the award money back right now. Sincerely, Nobel DF Committee |
| Posted by: Woozle Elmeter 2907 2008-01-07 09:02 |
| #2 Thanks Phil for the link. As noted at that site, there are a bunch of methods of measuring the global annual temperature. |
| Posted by: mhw 2008-01-07 09:00 |
| #1 Lubos Motl had a great post on this. http://motls.blogspot.com/ |
| Posted by: phil_b 2008-01-07 08:30 |