Global Cooling

Paul Hudson is the "Climate Correspondent" for the BBC. The fact that such a job exists is evidence of the BBC's commitment to the climate change orthodoxy. You would think that his job would be to explain how the news, no matter what it is, confirms the theory. But that is not what he did. Perhaps he thinks his job is to accurately report the news of climate change. I will be more than mildly surprised if he is right about that. Here is what he says:

For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures. And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise. So what on Earth is going on?

So let's consider this. There has been no increase of global temperatures over the last eleven years. That's curious because anyone who follows the climate news knows that all sorts of disasters are happening right now (glaciers receding, etc.) because of global warming. But how can this be if global warming isn't exactly happening, right now?

We also note that the climate models on which the anthropogenic global warming hypothesis are based aren't accurate, over the last ten years. Man-made carbon emissions have sure enough been increasing, but clearly that has not produced warmer climates. What on earth is going on?

Hudson tells us this:

Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes from the Sun.

But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal Society, seemed to rule out solar influences. The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature. And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But one solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising in long range weather forecasting, disagrees. He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures. He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell the international scientific community at a conference in London at the end of the month. If proved correct, this could revolutionize the whole subject.

Well, maybe Corbyn is right. If he is, it would indeed "revolutionize the whole subject," if by "revolutionize" you mean refute the orthodoxy. It's amazing how inconvenient science can be.

It's not just Corbyn or Hudson who have doubts.

To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.

Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate modellers. But he makes it clear that he has not become a sceptic; he believes that this cooling will be temporary, before the overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself.

The theory of anthropogenic global warming has not been refuted at all. We should take it seriously, and be working on plans to deal with it if indeed it reemerges as a problem. But it's not a problem right now and we can't be sure how much of a problem, if any, it will be in the future.

Only relatively wealthy nations can afford to care about the environment. Or to put it more directly, only such nations will in fact care and act about it. If we act so as to hobble our economies on the basis of slim evidence, we run the risk of discrediting science and provoking an anti-scientific backlash. If you really want to promote responsible environmental policies, you have to make sure that economic growth is restored.

Comments

[Steve]

This video explains what exactly is going on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khikoh3sJg8

[Palscience]

Interesting, the argument of the earth being cooling down has been for a long time, but the scientific community never believed that fact. I think their argument is kind of strong, but who is right???

[George Mason]

It has been my observation that real scientists (that is those without a vested interest in the "Global Warming" business) have always approached the subject
with great skepticism if they did not completely dismiss it. I am old enough
to remember many of the same people promoting the coming of the next "Ice Age"
in the 1970's. The world turns of course and a couple warm summers ended that
screed and they moved on to the Ozone Hole. When it was discovered that the Ozone Hole was caused by periodic volcanic activity not hairspray "Global Warming" became the cause. These people never seem capable of comprehending either the "Conservation of Matter" nor the laws of Thermodynamics. What they proclaim as science is actually their religion.

[KB]

I appreciate these comments but I do not share the view that everyone no real scientists believe in global warming. The AGW thesis was based on real science, and for a little while it seemed to be a pretty reasonable thesis. Unfortunately, just as the theory was gaining widespread acceptance in the political world, the evidence shifted against it.

There has certainly been a long range increase in temperature over the last century, but it doesn't correlate well with CO2 increases. The current climate plateau may not last, or maybe it will. The problem is that, even if the theory is true, we don't know enough to make sound policy decisions based on it. To be sure, when political forces invest in such a thing as a scientific theory, there is corruption.

[steve1953]

Where are all the hurricanes? 2005 was supposed to be the beginning of the Apocalypse. Florida should be gone. Corruption is the name of the game and global warming climate change whatever is the means to the big pot of money!

[duggersd]

There was a conference just this past weekend in which Al Gore actually took questions. When someone asked a question about the British courts finding nine significant factual errors, Gore apparently just said the film was still being showed in England. Then they cut off the microphone of the person asking the questions http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/article_dacf39c7-c2f8-5718-a5a0-d0cfb39f80bc.html
This is what appears to me to be the problem. Whenever someone wants to factually debate the issue, the believers just brush off the skeptics.

[lexrex]

"There has certainly been a long range increase in temperature over the last century ...."

of course that was to be expected, because prior to that, the earth was enveloped in a cold period. as cold can the enemy of life, thankfully, there was a warm-up. but of course, al gore and the rest know this, which is why they no longer rely on the term "global warming," but instead say "climate change."

smart, but stupid. smart because we needed a global warming the last 150 years. stupid because of course the climate changes. it always has; always will.