For those who have already made up their minds that its humans that are causing the Earth to warm up, new data should increase the debate on the issue.
There is no question that pollution is bad for all of us. The question is how best to stop it and how long that should take. The following article from this weekend’s Wall Street Journal by Jeffrey Ball is well worth reading.
The Earth Cools, and Fight Over Warming Heats Up
Many Scientists Say Temperature Drop From Recent Record Highs Is a Blip, While a Few See a Trend; Inexact Climate Models
By JEFFREY BALL
Two years ago, a United Nations scientific panel won the Nobel Peace Prize after concluding that global warming is “unequivocal” and is “very likely” caused by man.
Then came a development unforeseen by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC: Data suggested that Earth’s temperature was beginning to drop.
Global climate models did not account for a drop in global temperatures since 2006, but climate scientists believe the lower temperatures are temporary.
That has reignited debate over what has become scientific consensus: that climate change is due not to nature, but to humans burning fossil fuels. Scientists who don’t believe in man-made global warming cite the cooling as evidence for their case. Those who do believe in man-made warming dismiss the cooling as a blip triggered by fleeting changes in ocean currents; they predict greenhouse gases will produce rising temperatures again soon.
The reality is more complex. A few years of cooling doesn’t mean that people aren’t heating up the planet over the long term. But the cooling wasn’t predicted by all the computer models that underlie climate science. That has led to one point of agreement: The models are imperfect.
“There is a lot of room for improvement” in the models, says Mojib Latif, a climate scientist in Germany and co-author of a paper predicting the planet will cool for perhaps a decade before starting to warm again — a long-term trend he attributes to greenhouse-gas emissions. “You need to know what you can believe and can’t believe from the models.”
The renewed discussion of inherent shortcomings in climate models comes on the cusp of potentially big financial commitments. In five weeks, diplomats from around the world will meet in Copenhagen to try to hash out a new agreement to curb global greenhouse-gas emissions. The science continues to evolve.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Wave of Freedom.com, George Gombossy. George Gombossy said: Earth’s Cooling In Recent Years Throws Monkey Wrench Into Climate Change Models http://bit.ly/2kDET6 via @AddToAny [...]
We do need to have this discussion (debate?) on global warming and climate change, so I thank you for linking to the WSJ article in spite of the criticisms which follow.
The article reminded me of an axiom used by industry for years to oppose environmental legislation of any kind, from banning ozone depleting refrigerants or installing equipment to clean up acid rain, to denying the cancer – tobacco link. “Teach the controversy!” The
public relations people understand that the deep science is not on their side, so obfuscation and confusion are used to create enough doubt in the general public to neutralize opinion and delay, for as long as possible, the adoption of regulations which are not in their own interest. Unfortunately, climate science is complex, thus easily subjected to distorted interpretations.
The tip-off in this article is in the second sentence. “Then came a development unforeseen by the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC: Data suggested that Earth’s temperature was beginning to drop.”, implying that the poor scientists got that part
wrong. Now, go to this link at NOAA.gov, , study the two charts, and tell me that any reasonable person would actually doubt the existence of a warming trend based on the last couple of years relative cooling. The use
of selective quotes from varied sources in this article emphasizes the small uncertainties in timing and measuring minor fluctuations, and then jumps to the conclusion that the whole 150 year trend up, a trend that has completely obliterated a gradual cooling for most of the past 1000 years, is therefore in doubt. Not even close! Only someone blind to reality can study these graphs and conclude that somehow the warming has stopped due to a few years of cooling.
From a statistical point of view you can draw trend lines across the bottom of the slopes in the data. Mathematically speaking a trend remains in force until it’s supporting trend line is breached. But what if the trend up from the 1960′s was breached? Look at the
lower chart. There is a clear cyclical trend with successive lows prior to 1900 and in the early 1960s. When that trend is broken by several years of data, the whole uptrend from the late 1800s would be in doubt, and not until then. That’s what the UN panel is seeing,
not the short term year to year fluctuations that the WSJ article is so excited about.
Do we wait for 90% public agreement to do anything? Is that reasonable, or should we act now as though this trend will continue with disastrous consequences unless we act? The answer is supplied by a simple cost/benefit analysis. If we act globally to turn down the thermostat by reducing CO2 levels we will incur a relatively small cost, comparable to maintaining home owners insurance, perhaps. We will also reap many benefits along the way, from the employment created and the secondary benefits, both in human health and environmental health, that giving up fossil fuels will produce. Or we can wait until we are positive we need to do something. Stopping climate change doesn’t happen fast. It’s taken hundreds of years of industrial activity to provoke a noticeable increase in temperatures
and it’s likely to take nearly as long to stop and reverse the trend. I always wear my seat belt. Years ago it saved me from severe injury. I didn’t plan on being in a collision, but it was cheap insurance. Even if absolutely conclusive “proof” that global warming is a threat may be slim, it still makes sense to buy an insurance policy! The strong preponderance of the evidence supports this path.