Global warming may be happening, and we may be partially responsible. I have generally believed both things for some time. I have criticized the global warming theology on other grounds, such as there's no way we can do anything about it, and it's not clear that its going to be bad.
But a solar wind of bad news has been hitting the basic climate models used to track and predict climate change. Consider this, from the International Journal of Climatology:
We have tested the proposition that greenhouse model
simulations and trend observations can be reconciled. Our
conclusion is that the present evidence, with the application
of a robust statistical test, supports rejection of this
proposition. (The use of tropical tropospheric temperature
trends as a metric for this test is important, as this region
represents the CEL and provides a clear signature of the
trajectory of the climate system under enhanced greenhouse
forcing.) On the whole, the evidence indicates that
model trends in the troposphere are very likely inconsistent
with observations that indicate that, since 1979, there
is no significant long-term amplification factor relative to
the surface. If these results continue to be supported, then
future projections of temperature change, as depicted in
the present suite of climate models, are likely too high...The last 25 years constitute a period of more complete
and accurate observations and more realistic modelling
efforts. Yet the models are seen to disagree with the
observations. We suggest, therefore, that projections of
future climate based on these models be viewed with
much caution.
Now that's pretty serious stuff. The models that predict climate change must be viewed with caution. That means that they are unreliable. And then there is this from NPR:
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. That could mean global warming has taken a breather. Or it could mean scientists aren't quite understanding what their robots are telling them.
According to the same climate models mentioned above, the ones that the entire global warming case is built on, the oceans should be warming. But they ain't, at least not for the last five years. We know this because of the 3,000 little temperate sensitive robots that have been crawling under Poseidon's tongue and taking his temperature. Instead, the ocean is cooling. Now how big a deal is this? It is a really big deal, if it continues.
Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says the oceans are what really matter when it comes to global warming.
In fact, 80 percent to 90 percent of global warming involves heating up ocean waters. They hold much more heat than the atmosphere can. So Willis has been studying the ocean with a fleet of robotic instruments called the Argo system. The buoys can dive 3,000 feet down and measure ocean temperature. Since the system was fully deployed in 2003, it has recorded no warming of the global oceans.
Now this may be a temporary period of cooling, and the world may start warming again any day now. Still, as our observations have been based on better and better technology, they have consistently failed to support the global warming models. We don't know what is going on.
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