Has global warming stopped?

1289 comments from readers

JZ Smith
19 December 2007 at 21:18

Mr Whitehouse,

Too bad the AGW has already left the station. As a skeptic moving further toward skepticism, I am disappointed that so many scientists have apparently accepted the finality of AGW. Those most strongly touting the "truth" of AGW are forcing themselves into the position of eventually either flip-flopping on the issue, or, more disturbingly, working to silence those voices with whom they disagree.

jimbeaux
19 December 2007 at 21:34

I'm confused. On one hand, I've read that 2007 is shaping up to be the 8th warmest year on record, and that seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and the 10 warmest have all occurred since 1997.

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/latest/recor...

On the other hand, we have this info here.

So a poor layman like me is confused by the contradictory stories. Which is correct? Can references be posted?

NORMSMITH
20 December 2007 at 03:04

Everything makes sense when you look at the graphs from the Vostok Ice cores. Earth goes through a predictable pattern of long ice ages which are separated by comparatively warm intervals called interglaciations. The ice ages last about 100,000 years and the warm intervals last about 12,000 years.

This pattern has nothing to do with human activity, as it goes back before modern man was here. CO2 always rises with the temperature.

Our current warm interval - The Holocene - is almost over. The previous warm interval - The Eemian - was way hotter than todays Holocene. If humans had been around 125,000 years ago there would have been some Al Gore type pointing to the rising temperature and CO2 and blaming it on human activity.

I encourage all Global Warming alarmists to look at the Vostok graphs. You will quickly see that everything happens in a natural cycle. Read up on the |Holocene and the Eemian.

Nothing new is happening. Mother Nature has her own patterns we barely understand. Humans don't have the ability to control the climate. That's ego and self-congratulatory backslapping taken to an unprecedented level.

And one more thing - look at the Sea Level history charts that go back 18,000 years. Now there's a big reality check if you can handle it. The charts show a trend that is decreasing and about to plateau.

Wake up and don't get suckered in by the carbon-taxers.

Frank
20 December 2007 at 08:30

This will not suit Gordon Brown. No tax revenue in it.

DennisA
20 December 2007 at 10:48

Since 1659, the hottest Central England temperatures are:

winter - 1869, followed by 1834

spring - 1893 followed by 1945

summer - 1976 followed by 1826

autumn - at last success for global warming, 2006, but followed by 1730, 1731 and 1729. This year ranked number 42 out of 349 years.

mitchy
20 December 2007 at 13:33

I think I'll reserve judgement for now, 7 years isnt a long time to suddenly decide global warming isnt happening.

Fact is, there are lots of factors affecting the planetary climate, its orbit, the sun's cycles, and the Earth's own natural cycles. However, I do not accept the arguement that our presence is not sufficient to affect the climate. I think this is a naive and frankly parochial view which fails to take into account the very clear effects we are indeed having on the planet. Massive deforestation, dying coral reefs, rampant loss of biodiversity, atmospheric and aquatic pollution are all having an effect, which is undoubtably contributing to what is happening overall.

Dont get me wrong, I'm not of the view that we are the sole cause of climate change, but I do think we are messing about with a delicately balanced system and, given enough time, we will eventually tip the system beyond the effects solely caused by natural oscillations.

Regardless of any of this, another inescapable fact is that we (particularly in the west) are consuming natural resources at an utterly unsustainable rate, which is reason alone to curb our excesses and try to think beyond immediate short-term gratification. China and India are catching up fast, so we really need to lead by example and start being a bit more sensible with our resources, before we start warring with each other over dwindling resources (like we arent already).

Mike
20 December 2007 at 13:51

Thank you Mr. Whitehouse.

In a day and age where the politics surrounding this issue have the potential to be far deadlier than the topic at hand, I am thankful for people like you.

Mike in California

sprungmonkey12
20 December 2007 at 13:53

jimbeaux - I'm with you, I'd like clarification on the conflicting reports, however, the link article you referred to is for US temps, not global temps. Perhaps that is where the difference lies. Wish someone would back this up. I need some ammunition before visiting some "over-the-top" global warming alarmists relatives for Christmas. We have to pack our own TP as they ration everyone's squares. True story.

SCEPTIC
20 December 2007 at 14:36

YOUR ARTICLE IS PAID GOVERNMENT NONSENSE

GLOBAL WARMING IS MEASURED NOT ONLY BY TEMPERATURES BUT ALSO BY AMOUNT OF MELTING ICE GO TO THIS LINK AND SEE YOURSELF......

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/

thuntley
20 December 2007 at 15:18

Hey SCEPTIC, you reference a site supportec by the New York Times. Not necessarily what one would call an "unbiased scientific resoure". Why not check out the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. They've got more weather data than anyone. Chillin'Out

david
20 December 2007 at 16:21

It seems odd Mr Whitehouse doesn't provide any data to support his idea. Is it because they don't?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/

Cybertiger
20 December 2007 at 16:39

I agree - global warming is cobblers. Our global problems are too many people and rapidly diminishing fossilised carbon energy. George Bush may spew a lot of hot air but let us be confident that he will do something about our little problems.

drpaulz
20 December 2007 at 17:06

Using year to year measures to determine the trajectory of global climate shifts is akin to measuring the effectiveness of a weight loss scheme over several hours. Take a step back from the data and the trends are clear. Average global temperatures are rising as was forecast by James Hansen, and others, due to increased carbon content in the atmosphere. The debate is over. It is time to adapt and respond. And to complete the analogy: if you are much more corpulent today than 2 years ago it matters little if your weight has remained constant for 7 hours.

DrColes
20 December 2007 at 17:36

Political propaganda is NOT science. UK court says Gore is a fraud. August 2007 Update: Man-made Catastrophic Global Warming Not True. Unfortunately, Hansen is a political hack of George Soros. Further, flawed NASA Global Warming data paid for by George Soros. In order to be an intelligent reader you must have a basic knowledge. Please do your own homework; a starting point http://www.InteliOrg.com/ Remember CONSENSUS is NEVER science it’s always a POLITICAL STATEMENT (a Party Line).

Eric the Half a Bee
20 December 2007 at 17:59

Much as I'd like the finger-wagging doom-mongers to be wrong, I'm afraid this doesn't do it. As a few previous commentators have noted, it's just not possible to draw any conclusions even from a decade of data if it has large errors associated with it. And this does. Boring stat fact: the standard deviation of the annual measurement is around 0.05 deg. Compare that to the latest IPCC report (2007) temp rise trend of 0.2 deg/decade, ie 0.02 deg/yr. In other words, the predicted signal is less than half the size of the error associated with it, so it's just not possible to tell if the overall trend is right even over a decade or so - it is, as we statisticians say, "lost in the noise".

Effrontery
20 December 2007 at 18:18

Can we keep this simple, please? Are we doomed or what?

Effrontery
20 December 2007 at 18:20

PS - these charts, http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ referenced above, seem to show that it's getting warmer. What's wrong with them?

JZ Smith
20 December 2007 at 18:48

"It seems odd Mr Whitehouse doesn't provide any data to support his idea. Is it because they don't?

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/"

The data referenced above has been shown to be manipulated heavily by James Hansen, from NASA, who could not be said to hold an objective POV.

To wit: http://www.climateaudit.org/?cat=40

Maz
20 December 2007 at 19:02

We're not doomed. We need to look after our environment like any other precious resource. Of course we have an impact on the planet but to suggest we are catastrophically changing our climate is absolute cobblers. There is simply no evidence that what we are seeing is not just natural climate variability with possibly a small and ultimately limited superimposition related to human activity. Not necessarily a bad thing especially since the only certainty about future climate is that we WILL have another iceage. It will cause untold misery and destruction wildly exceeding anything the current doomsayers are trying to scare us with! Evidence of warming (melting Arctic ice - not Antarctic by the way, the sea ice there is actually growing and that continent is cooling not warming) is not evidence that we are causing the warming. The commonest mistake, even in comments above!

Regarding the temp record - this is contentious to say the least. Do you believe the land based (remember the planet is mainly ocean) station data? Do you believe that the data is adequately corrected for urban heat islands? We can't tell because the chaps that do this refuse to make public how they do it!! Do you believe the satellite record which covers the whole globe but only goes back to 1979?

The Hadley Centre in East Anglia (funded by the Govt to investigate, monitor etc Climate Change) publish their own record http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/Ha... The levelling off in temp is clearly seen. But we clearly need more data to establish a meaningful trend. If the temps start to drop as the drop in solar activity starts to take effect then the global warmers clearly have a problem and it could be Millenium Bug all over again. Except this scam is much bigger.

robrtl
20 December 2007 at 19:19

please ,does rising co2 precede rising temperatures or do temperatures precede rising co2

Maz
20 December 2007 at 19:48

Over the last century the graph for temperature and the graph for CO2 actually bear little resemblance to each other.

If you look at ice core data to determine this relationship over the last series of ice ages then it appears that the temp rise leads the CO2 rise by about 800yrs. The logic is that the warming oceans released CO2 because the gas is less soluble in the warmer water.

Patrick Hadley
20 December 2007 at 20:33

I don't think any one has replied to Jimbeaux, about how can this year be the 7th warmest etc if global warming has stopped.

It is certainly true that 1998 at 0.546 degrees Celsius above average was the warmest year since proper records began to be kept in 1850. Global warming is a bit like putting on weight. Once the pounds are on you do not start back at your ideal weight next year. The warming that happened recently will have its effect for some time to come. However using the Met Office Data these are the figures for how much the years 2001 -2006 were above average: 0.409, 0.464, 0.473, 0.447, 0.482, 0.422. The figure for 2007 is estimated tobe 0.41 above average. The trend is now actually moving downwards (admittedly not yet in a statistically significant way).

All of these figures are higher than any other year in the list since 1850, except 1998. That is why we see some effects of warmer temperatures. However the word warming implies that we are getting more warm. David Whitehouse is therefore correct when he says that global warming has stopped. We are still warm, but we are not getting any warmer. The IPCC report asumed a trend of ever rising temperatures which is not happening at present.

juchestyle
20 December 2007 at 20:48

Hey Jim,

This is obviously one of those websites that is sponsored by people who are ok with selling out the human race by misrepresenting the truth. You are right, the last couple years have been the warmest on record. And to clarify the article, we should be in a cooling period according to the natural cycles, but we are warming, that is proof positive that we are destroying our exosphere. I am not worried about the earth it will be here long after we are extinct.

JZ Smith
20 December 2007 at 20:52

More interesting reading on this subject:

http://www.ecoworld.com/home/articles2.cfm?tid=445

Patrick Hadley
20 December 2007 at 22:39

JZ Smith, thank you for the link.

drpaulz is obviously exaggerating for effect when he compares the time periods of warming with a diet. He says that it is like getting excited after 7 hours compared with 2 years of fatness. Well not really. The exceptional warming occurred between 1978 and 1998 - a period of 20 years. It was only during this period that global temperatures left the range it had been in since 1850. The flattening of the smoothed curve has been going on now for nearly 10 years. So a fairer description would be to say that we have stopped putting on weight for a year after two years of pigging-out and gaining weight pretty fast. We are still plumper than ever, but perhaps the tide has turned.

bobclive
20 December 2007 at 22:52

Many temperature stations in rural areas have been closed within the last few years leaving mostly urban stations which are in heavily built up areas such as airports which suffer from the UHI effect, this would give a bias upwards for global temps as has been seen prior to 2001.

Could it be that over the last 7 years the temps have stabilised at the higher level because the weather stations that are left are now predominantly urban.

Could it be that the only actual temperature rise has been the urban heat island effect, that has been recently shown in China to be 65~80% of the overall warming in 1961~2000, and about 40~61% of the overall warming in 1981~2000.

Ref.: Ren, G. Y., Z. Y. Chu, Z. H. Chen, and Y. Y. Ren (2007), Implications of temporal change in urban heat island intensity observed at Beijing and Wuhan stations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L05711, doi:10.1029/2006GL027927

JZ Smith
20 December 2007 at 22:54

Mr. Hadley,

Well put, but don't forget that CO2 emissions for the 1998-2007 time period continued to rise, as far as I know consistent with prior years, yet global temps were flat. That is not a strong argument that CO2 from human activity causes AGW. In fact, as has been noted above, CO2 levels typically follow rather than precede temperature changes. Perhaps CO2 levels will soon flatten or decline??

joseph_joseph1@hotmail.com
20 December 2007 at 23:09

Now that the Arctic ice is melting, we need to open the Arctic up to oil drilling. We need cheaper oil close to home. And because there are no trees there, we will not have to worry about the tree huggers.

shibeg
21 December 2007 at 02:30

George Monbiot always provides references for his articles. Where are Mr. Whitehouses's article references ?

grantnw
21 December 2007 at 04:23

there's absolutely no doubt that central england is warming ... the record is here:

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat

owl
21 December 2007 at 07:00

Drinking this koolaide, global warming stops every night.

Make the El Nino anomaly of 1998 the base ref point. Change the reference frame to work the angles. Ignore the trashheap of past cooling-soon claims that never materialized. Hire gunslingers to pinprick the science. Misquote and misrepresent both the science and the critics as required.

Congrats, we're now on a course of overdrive mainlining greenhouse gases into the system. Sure hope all your re-assurances are valid - there's no mulligan on this one.

IanB
21 December 2007 at 09:37

The flat to downward trend of surface temperatures suggests, to this geoscientist at least, that the effectiveness of CO2 as an agent to heat the planet (or more accurately to retain the heat energy in the atmosphere for longer) has been significantly over-stated by the IPCC and the computer models used to project temperature.

One thing that really surprises me is that, whilst the topic of global warming was moving up the political agenda, the number of weather stations actually measuring temperature globally was decreasing, with about a 50% drop in the early 90s, principally in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, and particularly in the high latitude rural locations where the signal of atmospheric warming would be strongest. Surely making sure that the maximum and highest quality real world data is obtained is essential to support the AGW hypothesis.

The calculation (or more realistically, model construction) of the Earth's surface temperature includes mathematical/computational corrections to allow for this, but are difficult to validate, because what is the right answer? Something worth considering whenever you see a comment of how (something like) 15 of the warmest 20 years occurred since 1990, is that this could to some extent be an artefact of the correcions applied to the raw data.

mikh
21 December 2007 at 09:48

"The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it" H L Mencken

Maz
21 December 2007 at 09:52

Central England is hardly global, Grantnw!

You provide the link to the Hadley Centre for the CET series. The only value in this series is its continuity and duration. But as Philip Eden points out on his excellent website http://www.climate-uk.com/page5.html the nature of this series is not without controversy.

Whilst you were browsing the Hadley Centre (Met Office) site for the CET why didn't you have a look at their own (albeit corrected ?How) Global Temp Series. I provided the link earlier but here it is again http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/Ha... I think you'll find the data behind Mr Whitehouse's article that some posters here seem to think does not exist. Regards.

Antipodes
21 December 2007 at 10:14

Qualified:

It is certainly untrue that "the science is settled" - science is never settled and in this case it is far from settled, starting with the basic spectroscopy. If you read any text book on climatology, you will also conclude that climate is above all a "chaotic system", meaning that responses to several factors are non-linear. What is absolutely settled for global warming and anything else is that once an issue has been politicised, knowledge goes out the window. Specifically, the panic-mongers lie, most conspicuously about the "hockey stick effect" (sharp global temperature rise) now proven to be an artifact (look up Steve McIntyre, Toronto) and unaccountably removed from its pride of place in global-warming publicity.

johnmarshall940
21 December 2007 at 10:36

This intense argument is similar to the one in the 50's and 60's about Plate Tectonics. The only problem is that governments have jumped onto the band wagon and legislating left, right, and center for no good reason.

Jane Greene
21 December 2007 at 10:38

This article is a complete load of old cock and I'm horrified the New Statesman ran it!

puzzle270
21 December 2007 at 11:04

a commercial glasshouse is a closed system and in many currently used for food production co2 is raised up to 1500 ppm because the plants grow quicker, what is noticeable however there appears to be no increase in temperature at 1500 ppm compared with a standard glasshouse at 380ppm. can someone please explain why !

revel
21 December 2007 at 11:25

Congratulations Mr Whitehouse. Nowadays, it takes a brave person to point out the Emeror has no clothes.

Environmentalist priests now talk of Climate Change rather than Global Warming. They are 100% correct simply because climate has always changed and will always change. What they fail to prove is a causal relationship between human activity and climate change. Showing correlations, especially over short periods, is proof of nothing.

Indeed temperatures have changed but seldom show increases in CO2 preceding temperature increases and vice versa.

For example temperatures rose significantly after the centuries of the little Ice Age ended in the mid-19th century preceding the rapid increase in use of fossil fuels in the Industrial Revolution.

We should expect substantial rises in temperature over the next decade as we move into the Solar Maximun Cycle.

It requires a leap of faith, unsupported by scientific evidence, to believe humans can exert any significant influence either way on temeratures and climate.

RichardSCourtney
21 December 2007 at 11:48

Several persons here seem to think there is an inconsistency between the global temperature having flat-lined for the last 7 years and the warmest years since 1880 being recent. Not so.

Mean global temperature (MGT) has risen (with stops-and-starts) for the last 300 years as the globe has warmed from the Little Ice Age (LIA) when the Thames froze solid each winter. Around 1700, Londoners used to have “Ice Fairs” on the frozen Thames each year. The last Ice Fair was held in 1814, and the Thames has not frozen solid since. Of course the warmest years are recent because they are near the end of that warming trend that is recovery from the LIA.

The existence of global warming (GW) is not evidence of man-made global warming known as anthropogenic global warming (AGW) because warming of the Earth does not prove that human activity warmed it. At issue is whether human activity is or is not affecting the changes to the Earth’s temperature that have always happened naturally.

However, AGW asserts that human emissions of greenhouse gases will inevitably cause warming. But MGT reached a maximum in 1998 (an El Nino year) fell back in 1999 and recovered to nearly the 1998 value in 2000. Since then, MGT has been constant.

For data, methods and graphs see

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadsst2gl.txt

The cessation of global warming in 1998 is not consistent with the AGW hypothesis. But very little is consistent with the AGW hypothesis. For example the following facts do not support the scare.

Sceptical arguments concerning anthropogenic global warming (AGW)

The history of global temperature is not consistent with the suggestion that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases (notably carbon dioxide) govern global temperature. For example, mean global temperature has not again reached the high it did in 1998 (an El Nino year) and it has been stable for the last 6 years despite an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of by 4% since 1998. (Assuming the measurements can be trusted)

The regions of warming across the Earth are not consistent with AGW as projected by climate models. For example, global temperature has not increased since 1998 because, while the northern hemisphere has warmed, the southern hemisphere has cooled. Global warming was supposed to be global, not hemispheric. And the expected greatest warming of the atmosphere at altitude near the equator has not happened: indeed, radiosonde and MSU data both suggest a slight cooling of the atmosphere at altitude near the equator.

The bi-stability of the climate system over geological ages despite gross changes (e.g ~30% increase in solar radiative forcing) suggests that the climate system is not subject to disturbance by relatively small effects such as increased radiative forcing (of ~0.4%) from a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

Available evidence from ice cores and from analyses of recent atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations indicate that changes to the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration follow changes to temperature. A cause cannot follow its effect.

No unprecedented climate changes have been observed in recent decades or centuries. Hence, there is no evidence that AGW has altered natural climate variability.

There is no evidence that AGW has altered the rate of sea level rise. Indeed, measurements of sea level rise indicate it has not.

There is no evidence that AGW has altered the incidence or the severity of extreme weather events. Indeed, hurricane frequencies and intensities have reduced in recent decades.

It remains to be proven that the recent rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is a result of human activity and historic measurements of carbon dioxide concentration suggest that the concentration was higher in the nineteenth century (before significant human emissions) than now.

The available data of global climate are unreliable because they are based on imperfect measurements, are compiled using a variety of unsure compilation methods, and are biased (e.g. by the urban heat island – UHI – effect). Hence, the asserted recent changes to global temperature are not known with any certainty.

Cloud effects (e.g. Lindzen Iris) could cancel any AGW.

Observed climate variability over geological time is not explicable by the assumption that atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations determine global temperature. But the observed climate variability over geological time may be explicable by other hypotheses that remain to be tested (e.g. the Svensmark hypothesis).

A computer model’s output is only reliable to the degree that the model’s performance is validated. The computer models of the atmosphere are simplistic, contain gross assumptions and are not validated. Therefore, outputs of those models are evidence of how the models perform and are not evidence of anything concerning the world’s climate.

I – and many other scientists – do not accept that the above facts suggest a need for precipitate and damaging economic actions such as constraint of greenhouse gas emissions.

All the best

Richard

revel
21 December 2007 at 11:54

The Mediaeval Warm Period (11th to 14th Centuries) saw average temperatures significantly higher than at present. Without the assistance of industrially produced CO2 increases and human intervention.

revel
21 December 2007 at 12:38

If Greenpeace, Al Gore acolytes and the motley gang of pseudo scientists (who claim consensus for their views) want to make sacrifices on the altars of their climate gods to avert the ravages of climate, that's their affair.

But it becomes sinister once they subvert politicians and others who have the power to compel the rest of us to comply with their superstitions and prescribed behaviour.

Mankind has always flourished and prospered in warmer times. So I say let's hope the temperatures do in fact rise.

There is no evidence of past warm periods producing all the perils predicted by the environmental fundamentalists.

If the Arctic melts completely, sea levels will not rise significantly because the Arctic Cap is a mass of floating ice. That indeed is why Al Gore bemoans the melting of 40% of the Arctic already, but has no explanation why sea levels haven't risen yet. Perhaps it's only the second 40% that has this effect.

Also plants thrive with more CO2. Their growth is more luxuriant. Animals and humans thus have more food.

It's great we are experiencing a revival of higher C02 levels approaching levels experienced many times in the past.

Why are we shackling our economies and retarding growth to pander to those who prescribe behaviour that is clearly designed to impoverish us?

Cybertiger
21 December 2007 at 12:56

How will the Americans power their F16 fighter bombers when the oil runs out?

stargazer
21 December 2007 at 13:05

In say 50 years time this warming stuff will be brought out in classrooms. The kids being taught how science 'died' and mass hysteria took over around the 'turn of the century'. There has been no global warming for almost 10 years.1998 being the most recent warmest year. With the 1930's being the warmest decade and 1934 the warmest year. All this will turn out to be caused by the Sun...the Sun drives the climate as it always has. and the temp. goes up and down. Each of the last four interglacial's reached higher temps. than our current one. The temp has been higher at least 11 times during the past 10,000 years. Over the past 1000 years the medieval period being up to 2 deg C warmer than now...at the end of this period we had the 'little ice age' with very cold times between 1400 and 1850 when the temp. started to rise again. ~1850 is the date beloved by the AGW's they show this graph to 'prove' the temp.had gone up since... We can live with warm we should be glad it is. I think that the Sunspot-cosmic ray-cloud connection will turn out to be the 'smoking gun'. That said the next solar cycle (24) may be 'low' and the following one (25) lower still. This is from new research on a solar sub-surface 'conveyor' that has slowed in recent times. There is a pattern here (as there always is)... and I fear the immanent onset of a 'maunder' type sunspot minimum which bought on the little Ice age... We can live with warm...but millions may suffer (and worse) if we indeed get years/decades of extended cold...power/gas outages, crop failures, food/water shortages,all forms of transport snowed to a halt etc.And after this global warming stuff...who would now believe any scientist who says 'well we got it wrong... and forget what we said about warming ! global cooling is on its way so we must make it law to put Co2 into the atmosphere to counter it. We are being conned.... anyone interested please cut and paste these links onto your browser to see that there is no scientific consensus. The climate IS indeed changing but then it always has.

See here http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/968 http://icecap.us/ http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/ http://www.junkscience.com/ http://www.climateaudit.org/

The so call scientific 'consensus is actually only about 2,500 people... and not all of them are scientists. Here is a list of 20,000 scientists who think that the 2,500 are WRONG http://www.oism.org/pproject/

Here is more... including the eminent professor, Freeman Dyson http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/pol/508587158.html There are many more lists like this from PHD's from almost every country.... So much for consensus !!!!

cronopio
21 December 2007 at 13:29

I'm seeing claims and counterclaims that are equally hysterical. It all boils down to who you trust to give you reliable information, or whether you enter the debate with preconceived notions. I have no personal opinion on global warming.

Call me crazy (and I'm sure some of you will) but I believe in the self-regulating qualities of Wikipedia, which states in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_c...:

"With the release of the revised statement by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, no scientific bodies of national or international standing are known to reject the basic findings of human influence on recent climate."

Since the article does not have a 'disputed' or similar status, I'm inclined to believe dozens of groups of professional climatologists over a BBC journalist with a degree in astrophysics.

bitin
21 December 2007 at 13:36

I think that the global warming phenomenon is way less related to climate change than it is related to the mass psychology of "Western" mind:

The logic evolves the following way

a. we (Western civilization) are evil

b. therefore we inflict evil changes on the world

c. but we can do something about it

d. let's reverse these changes

Enjoy

bsacr2007
21 December 2007 at 13:50

People can absorb the extreme predictions that organisations like the Met Office blithely produce at the beginning of one year,

"2007 is likely to be the warmest year on record globally, beating the current record set in 1998"

only to have them dismissed at the end of the year as tosh: 2007 was statistically no different from 2006, 2005, etc..

And yet, are we just supposed to

- "wear it"

- to accept that "The Science"TM is settled

- individually and collectively obsess about our carbon footprint(s)

- allow our politicians to pontificate with every scientifically illiterate bone in their collective body?

The time has come for the scientifically literate amongst us to forcefully argue against anyone who indulges in scare-mongering from whatever side:

when the science does not support them.

The IPCC has never made a climate prediction since it was founded but does less to prevent its scenarios/**projections** from being treated as predictions the further you get away from its underlying Reports.

It selects the scientists to undertake the work, and write the chapters, which are not subject to proper peer review themselves (with original authors rejecting comments as they see fit), and avoids contentious issues by sticking with the dogma that the GHG aspect is decisive: thus ignoring large swathes of properly peer-reviewed material that contradicts this view.

And then of course, there is the Summary for Policymakers for each Working Group...

But then what do you expect when the goal of the IPCC is "to find consensus": the extent to which this is its raison d'etre is the extent to which it ought to fail in being regarded as a "scientific entity".

Really it is this blurring of science and politics that is damaging both AND our collective understanding of the issue.

"Investigative journalism" into the IPCC?

Why not start here -- at least you'll steal a march on the BBC. The House of Lords Report from 2006 and Lord Monckton's ongoing efforts might be a place to kick off.

"What? Unthinkable!" you say?

Well not, I wager, from here on in: 2007 will be seen as the high water mark for the anthropogenic global warming "theory".

In fact, Bali (which thankfully doesn't really promise an awful lot without EVERYONE getting on board - vanishly small probability in itself) points the way: realism has just started to kick in.

"Dissent is the native activity of the scientist, and it has got him into a good deal of trouble in the last years. But if that is cut off, what is left will not be a scientist. And I doubt whether it will be a man."

Jacob Bronowski

"No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power."

Jacob Bronowski

truf76
21 December 2007 at 13:54

It is astounding that such an ill conceived article can find its way into the pages of the New Statesman.

justaman37
21 December 2007 at 14:01

Everyone blames the warming on humans but they never want to discuss the repeated global warming and cooling of the past which has been much worse than now. They cry that Lake Chad is drying up be cause of “man” but Lake Chad has dried up about 6 times in the last 3,000 years do to repeated global warming. It is not new. Global warm or global cooling might kill us but guess what … it is going to happen. All indications are this is a normal minor warming that will be followed by a minor cooling. But there is no money or control in that. There is only money and control in crisis.

scott
21 December 2007 at 14:05

Our local high school participated in a government sponsored science program called "GLOBE". They faithfully recorded air temperatures (high/low/noon) for 12 years, even during vacations and summer breaks. No matter how the numbers crunched- no evidence for rising temperatures. Curious, we tapped into the data for all the other school's data participating- no evidence. We chalked it up to the fact that data since 1994 isn't a good enough time period ( but it feels like it when your doing the work).

ckingballwin
21 December 2007 at 14:08

i appreciate the article but everything that was stated relative to temperatures presumes that we can accurately measure the earths temps to within .5 degrees or closer. this is simply not known. the data that is being used for the purposes of measuring the surface temps has to many problems with it to accurately measure worldwide average temps (if such a measurement is even possible) and even if we could measure it we have no idea what "normal' should be.

Chris in Utah
21 December 2007 at 14:20

Two comments:

1) The usually very conservative magazine Business Week ran a cover story on climate change in 2004 that sets the issue out very reasonably.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_33/b3896001_...

2) Even if one accepts Whitehouse's conclusions (which I do not), the fact remains that an economy based on inefficient use of fossil fuels is, well, it's stupid. We have the smarts and the means to transition to a sustainable economy based on other energy sources. That transition will be marked by economic opportunity for those businesses smart enough to seize the moment. And the end result will be a less polluted world. That's good for all us, humans and nonhumans alike.

So we can begin this transition now or not. I say begin now.

Chris in Utah

Maz
21 December 2007 at 14:37

To Jane Green who wrote

"This article is a complete load of old cock and I'm horrified the New Statesman ran it!" and

to truf76 who wrote

"It is astounding that such an ill conceived article can find its way into the pages of the New Statesman."

You epitomise what's wrong with the Climate Change issue. You bemoan the fact that someone has dared publish and speak out against your firmly held beliefs but provide precious little by way of evidence for your point of view.

Do you just accept what "authorities" (whoever you perceive them to be) tell you? How about figuring things out for yourself. If you already have, why not tell how or why you reached your conclusions? Have you anything interesting to back up your point of view?

Unfortunately, your current approach (and those of many others) is to conveniently say "the debate is over, let us tell you all how we think you should change your lifestyle (to save the planet - sic)".

Perhaps that is, in the end, the actual point of it all.

Norm K
21 December 2007 at 14:48

The harsh reality of the physics of the Earth is that there is a limited amount of energy radiated by the Earth that can be captured by CO2.

This limits the possible warming from atmospheric CO2 to about 2.6°C and over 2/3 of this has been captured already.

Because of the logarithmic decay in effect from increasing CO2 a doubling of CO2 to 760ppmv is limited to a maximum of 0.12°C of global temperature increase.

None of the climate models that predict several degrees of increase take this limitation into consideration and are based on a limitless linear relationship with global temperatures.

This is why the models predict that the current massive increases in global emissions should be producing a significant rise in global temperatures, but as your article points out the global temperature has stayed constant.

The IPCC has managed to hide this fact by switching to a decadal average for temperature that gives no representation of the last 5 years of reduced warming.

Global warming will officially come to an end on January 1, 2009 when this decadal average will no longer be propped up by the temperature spike from the 1998 el Nino, and the IPCC will be forced to admit that the drop in global temperature on their own manipulated statistical representation signals the official end of global warming.

Straydingo
21 December 2007 at 15:33

Jane Greene states that this article is rubbish and that she is horrified that the New Statesman has run it.

Jane what is more horrifying is the fact that you, and the rest of the Global Warming Scare Mongering Community, feel that there should be no debate or challenging of the current thinking (or Group Think to be more precise) on this subject.

Tell me, would you have been one of the supporters of the then leading scientific community that challenged Christopher Columbus’s view that the world was not flat?

Of course, I respect the fact you are entitled to your opinion, but please be reciprocal in allowing other equally educated people have theirs.

crakes
21 December 2007 at 15:42

The satellite measures, the reduction of weather stations, the rural vs. urban measures all sound nice... but we are missing all that is right in front of us:

The polar ice cap IS shrinking. Ski lodges are closing (except for those at the highest altitudes). Snow melt sources of water are diminishing. My mountain region in Blacksburg VA (hardly an urban area) is warmer, with new record heat being set each year, and less snow than in the past (records show it). That we are getting warmer is real... Look at the charts or look out the window! I recall a story about monks using the bible to argue how many teeth were in a horses mouth... Are the scientists haveing a similar religious debate? Looking out my window the contination of the warming effect is pretty obvious... It hasn't stopped.

Don
21 December 2007 at 16:07

Once again the corrupt and dysfunctional UN is trying to force it’s will on nations. But why is this body so concerned with “global warming”. There is no money for these corrupt politicians in it……or is there? "The success of the conference signifies that the world is ready to take on active efforts, such as technology investments, to solve the problem of global warming…." “Carbon Sciences, Inc. is developing an innovative technology to transform earth destroying carbon dioxide (CO2) into earth friendly carbon products.” http://www.carbonsciences.com.

Wait a minute if we are going to try and us technology to change the weather there can be very big bucks involved……ah ha! There is a motive for the UN. And think of the Grant money to follow for these companies that are going to solve our natural climate changes. What really scares me is that politics and the media are now trying to come up with ways man can alter the weather. I for one don’t think man should start tinkering with the weather when we really know so little about it.

truthsayer
21 December 2007 at 16:21

Norm K

Yous say that 2/3rds of the energy available for CO2 to absorb is already taken up. I have been looking for a source to prove to others that most is taken up.. little escapes to space. Where did you find your info.

The problem I have with the anomaly in temperatures is that they take their base level from a period that includes the cool 70s they do not include the warm 30s. This makes things look worse.

crakes
21 December 2007 at 16:25

Here's a question for ice sampling...

If CO2 is associated with a warming planet, and if the ice melts as CO2 rises (as it is doing now), how can the ice core samples ever capture the CO2 level during the warming periods? The cap is disappearing and not gathering evidence, right? So when CO2 drops down and the caps grow again, we get a record of lower levels right? Is the peak CO2 ever revealed in the ice caps? How can it be?

Bobg
21 December 2007 at 16:31

I agree with Don. I love this when all these closed minded alarmists ask us to prove something that does not exist. All you have to do is follow the money. The environmental groups and political groups that fund the studies, will make trillions and consolidate their power over the world and our economies. What a wonderful, wonderful world it will be........

New Age Contrarian
21 December 2007 at 16:37

If the correction of the aerosol that was used to explain the unobserved rise in gloabl temperature (from Co2) over the period 1970-2000 were to be applied in the same way to adjust satellite temperature data over the same period, it would be concluded that the Northern Hemisphere, from about 40 degrees N lattitude to the pole, was covered by a sheet of ice

Eddie Gwinnet
21 December 2007 at 16:38

Of course humans can't affect the climate of the whole planet by releasing gigatons of C02 into the atmosphere. It's patently absurd. Next those enviro-wackos will be telling us how human overfishing can deplete entire oceans or that lead pipes will make you sick or some other nonsense. People used to worry that human hunting could make dodo birds go extinct, but I see plenty of dodos around...especially on this website.

davef
21 December 2007 at 16:41

Your statement of the physics is very interesting, but what evidence and physics do you base it on.

Not attacking you .. just interested.

Patrick Hadley
21 December 2007 at 17:02

Can the consensus of experts really be so very wrong? The answer to that question is certainly.

Ten years all the experts and computer geeks were unanimous that the Millennium Bug had the potential to cause chaos. As a result $300 billion was spent in the USA alone on "fixing" it. Other countries spent little, and many businesses ignored it completely.

It is fascinating to do a google search on "millennium bug". You can find lots of sites from the 1990s predicting the disaster that is going to happen because not enough people are spending vast amounts on Y2K fixes. Read a great speech from someone called Blair warning everyone about it in 1998.

In fact there were no more computer problems in January 2000 than average, even in countries and organisations that had not spent a penny on fixing the so-called bug.

The millennium bug was a goldmine for computer experts - who among them was going to say to a client, "Don't worry your systems will all work fine in 2000, so there is no need to give me thousands to fix them."

The parallels with global warming are obvious.

longshotlouie
21 December 2007 at 17:04

'Garcon ..... more Co2, please!'

Straydingo
21 December 2007 at 17:14

Bobg - you are spot on with your comment as well...Al Gore has been reported to have made $100m and is the icon of 18+ Uni students around the world.

I'm sorry but the usual factors such as fame, money and the sense of wanting to be morally superior (either consciously or subconsciously) are often what drive us humans to blindly follow a particular course of ideology.

yoddy
21 December 2007 at 17:17

I'm not going to argue with a Ph.D. in astrophysics but I do know if you stick your mouth on car tailpipe and turn it on, if you don't move it, you're going to die. How can shit like that be good for the world? So even if there isn't global warming from a historical perspective, I'm glad people are finally getting the idea in their head that pollution is bad for people, plants and animals.

vphayden
21 December 2007 at 17:45

- Global Warming is not about the environment. It's about money and power.

- I am convinced that there is no long term temperature change.

- I am convinced that the current temperature trend is part of a natural cycle that has happened many times since the begining.

- I believe many average and poverty level people will suffer economically because of the politics/econimics involved in the global efforts to appear concerned.

- Many corporate/political/econimic giants will get much richer.

- All of their efforts will will have less than 0.000000000001 % effect on global temperature.

- Americans will get hosed...

P. Hayden

marcrandrew
21 December 2007 at 18:05

The most lucid commentary in this debate is mitchy's. Climate change (or global warming) will likely go the way of prior apocolyptic forecasts. But what's clear is that incredible increases in carbon emissions are just one of the nasty environmental consequences of development. The planet simply doesnt have the resources to continue to power current trends, and the consequences will be heavy environmental degradation, more conflict, and eventually, poorer standards of living for all of us.

That corporations and politicians are beginning to move on this is fabulous news, not evidence of some now power conspiracy.

revel
21 December 2007 at 18:27

Yoddy is correct.

However, the noble cause of combatting polution is a very separate issue to enforcing behaviour in the farcical belief one is saving polar bears and stopping cyclones or sea level rises.

SkyHunter
21 December 2007 at 18:30

Mr. Whitehouse,

Now why would you, as a scientist mislead people by telling them that a chaotic system should respond to forcing in and "exact" correlation?

Shame on you, the entire premise is misleading. Solar activity is low, yet global temepratures are still at record levels.

Since you are a scientist, I must conclude that you are deliberatly obfuscating the issue.

That is correct sir.

I just called you a liar!

Maz
21 December 2007 at 19:24

Marcrandrew,

just because we're not taken in by the Climate Change hysteria that has gripped politicians and the media (esp the BBC) doesn't mean we're advocating wanton disregard for our environment. It's a precious resource to be managed like any other.

What's wrong with arguing for the truth in these matters? Are you suggesting that because the fallout from this scare is likely to be positive (in your view) that the end justifies the means. The trouble with making the wrong diagnosis is that there is every chance you will select the wrong cure. Instead of spending billions on stupidly trying to stop the climate from changing we could be spending the money on making sure that the poorest nations are developed enough to cope with anything Nature throws at us in the future. As it will do.

How about a concerted world effort to make sure that every individual on this planet has access to clean drinking water? It's by far a better use of our limited financial resources than funding a bunch of self-serving politicians and looney greens playing King Canute.

I don't trust Environmental Pressure Groups anymore than I trust Politicians and Multinationals to tell me the truth. Here's just one example of what can happen if you blindly follow what the environmentalists tell you. The ban on DDT was clinched on the strength of "research" (later shown to be seriously flawed) that it was detrimental to Osprey eggs. We lost a major weapon in the fight against Malaria. Malaria is not a tropical disease, by the way (regardless of what the climate doomsayers would have you believe). It is a disease of poverty. The poorest countries suffered the most with millions dying every year from Malaria. Some African countries are in fact now openly flouting the ban. Good on them. They know what their priorities are.

Just like I want my doctor to prescribe according to evidence based knowledge so do I want to see environmental solutions based on science that is unadulterated by ideology, Anti-Americanism and the fashionable guilt complexes of the industrialised West.

It's very easy to demonise fossil fuels from the comfort of your current standard of living. I prefer to remain appreciative of what we have managed to achieve in the past century because of fossil fuels whilst acknowledging that we are duty bound (to say the least) to minimise as much as possible the impact on our environment. Something that we have, admittedly, not been sufficiently aware of in the past.

Camaraderie
21 December 2007 at 19:42

One problem I see here is people getting environmentalism confused with global warming/CO2.

One can be a global warming skeptic (i.e. man made CO2 emissions are NOT contributing in any appreciable way to any global warming that might be naturally occurring) and still be very much in favor of cleaner cars, alternative energy solutions, clean water etc. I think it is disingenuous to equate the two.

Several comments have been made here regarding LAND based temperatures. In the interest of those here that are really interested in DATA....I would refer you to this slide:

http://gallery.surfacestations.org/UCAR-slides/page92.html

Anthony Watts has been surveying the 1200 or so USA based temperature monitoring stations along with a small group of volunteers. They have been taking pictures of each station and what surrounds it and evaluating EACH stations siting vs. the NOAA guidelines for such stations. With over 1/3 of the stations now having been visited and photographed they are finding that 85% of the stations have errors between 1-5 degrees centigrade...more than ALL the warming reported in the past century. Quite simply...the BEST land based data in support of warming is badly scrogged up. Proof of warming must come from other sources...atmospheric or oceanographic. (Of course those sources don't show anything much happening to warrant catastrophic claims.)

bobclive
21 December 2007 at 19:56

I refer again to the urban heat island effect, I believe this is the cause of the majority of the warming seen since the 1960`s, if I am wrong can someone put me right, see links below.

http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2006/01/29/do-urban-areas-hav...

http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1616

http://www.john-daly.com/stations/badwater.htm

Ref.: Ren, G. Y., Z. Y. Chu, Z. H. Chen, and Y. Y. Ren (2007), Implications of temporal change in urban heat island intensity observed at Beijing and Wuhan stations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L05711, doi:10.1029/2006GL027927

StephenB
21 December 2007 at 20:02

If I were an environmentalist, I would be concerned that the baby is going to be thrown out with the Global Warming Hype bathwater as Maz eloquently points out. Crying "Wolf!" will have its consequences.

Freewolf67
21 December 2007 at 20:06

"Crakes

Here's a question for ice sampling...

If CO2 is associated with a warming planet, and if the ice melts as CO2 rises (as it is doing now), how can the ice core samples ever capture the CO2 level during the warming periods? The cap is disappearing and not gathering evidence, right? So when CO2 drops down and the caps grow again, we get a record of lower levels right? Is the peak CO2 ever revealed in the ice caps? How can it be?"

Actually crakes, it's happening even now. The primary focus on the "disappearing" ice caps has neglected to inform folks that even though some are retreating/disappearing; other regions are in fact growing, becoming thicker, etc..... As more snow in these areas falls....more CO2 is trapped leaving a record behind for scientists a couple thousand years in the future.

Do yourself a favor and do a search for glaciers that are growing AND do a search on what the rest of the Antarctic Ice Sheets are doing (not just Larsen B).... The Artic sheets appear to be decreasing in overall size, but in parts of it....the ice is actually growing thicker.

Anyways.....yesterday was a balmy -47 degrees F at my house here in Fairbanks Alaska......could you blokes send some warming up this way?? 'Preciate it ;-) Thanks ;-)

rsknappmd
21 December 2007 at 20:39

My summary of the article is: 1. the global warming curve appears to have flattened out briefly. 2. We don't know enough about climate cycles to know what this means.

Implications: 1. Running off in all directions to reduce CO2 may not be the most prudent course of action, as the relationship appears to be correlative, not necessarily causal. 2. Better understanding of the phenomenon may lead to more effective countermeasures.

Recommendations: 1. be on the lookout for "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacies. 2. Don't assume long-term trends from short-term data.

My comments: Nothing in the article appears to suggest that we should continue to kill off the oceans, destroy the atmospheric quality, or nuke the whales.

Global warming is a well-substantiated hypothesis, but is not an article of faith. As a hypothesis, it is always subject to refinement. Information which appears to contrast with projections should be used to refine the hypothesis, and not attacked as nefarious heresy. Of course, all data, not only that which appears to contrast with the projected data, should be analyzed carefully as to possible sources of experimental error.

Summary: New information in not an inherent evil.

vphayden
21 December 2007 at 22:55

Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. "The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases. "

Hmmmmmmm.........

vphayden
21 December 2007 at 22:55

Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: "It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction."

Hmmmmmmm...........

bobclive
21 December 2007 at 22:57

Jones et al of CRU collected the measurements made by many land-based weather stations.

They started with around 250 stations, built up to 1700 in 1950. The period between 1970 and 2000, sees the number of stations dropping from 1600 down to 400. During that same period, the CRU global temperature estimate rises by 0.6°C. The stations left are mainly urban.

vphayden
21 December 2007 at 22:57

Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: "To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process."

Hmmmmm........

vphayden
21 December 2007 at 22:58

Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. "The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid," Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.

Hmmmmm........

vphayden
21 December 2007 at 22:59

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.S...

Aaaahhhhh!!!!!!

bobclive
21 December 2007 at 23:01

Jones et al of CRU collected the measurements made by many land-based weather stations

They started with around 250 stations, built up to 1700 in 1950. The period between 1970 and 2000, sees the number of stations dropping from 1600 down to 400. During that same period, the CRU global temperature estimate rises by 0.6°C. The weather stations left are predominantly urban, I wonder what caused the rise.

moe146
21 December 2007 at 23:32

This all has absolutely nothing to do with science OR the environment....it is about money. There is plenty to be made with fear mongering and propaganda. Which will go down as the biggest hoax in history -- WMD or GW? Hmmm. Lets wait and see.

hlb1121
22 December 2007 at 00:01

Maybe I missed the part about how the climate is statistically the same over the past seven years. Did someone average together all the regions temperatures and determine the average for each year for the past seven years is the same? if so, this is a flawed way to determine whether or not global warming has stopped. Firstly, climatology 101 tells us that climate is phenomena over an extensive period of time and seven years is a JOKE for an appropriate length of time. Secondly, global warming doesn't mean every place on earth is going to get hotter. In fact, the warming of the oceans can cause the ice sheet on Greenland to essentially fall into the ocean and cause an ice age for Europe. This is something you learn in basic climatology. Some places will become colder due to global warming and other places hotter. As someone who possesses a doctorate in science, David Whitehouse is incredibly naive about aspects of weather and climate that is learned in a freshman class at university.

disgustedmerida
22 December 2007 at 00:24

plus ҫa change ....

wonteach
22 December 2007 at 00:26

It is clear that the claim that "the argument is setlled" is made only by the ignorant or the dishonest. Personally, as a quasi-scientist (I'm a mathematician) who has followed the issue about as closely as an informed layperson can be expected to do, I find it impossible to hold to a strong opinion one way or another. I suppose I'd say 55% yes global warming is real, and 45% no.

One thing I can say with certainty, however, is that the scientific community is nowhere near as objective in its search for truth as we were led to believe in high school. Having spent decades in acedemia, I have been sorely disappointed in the degree to which political and philosophical agendas drive scientific opinions, including those held by the very most eminent scientists. Look at the furor over Lawrence Summers's comments at Harvard, where he speculated that women may be genetically less likely to have the capability to become great scientists or mathematicians. The research and the observable facts on that issue are so strongly in Summers's favor that one could almost say that THAT issue is settled - in the OPPOSITE direction from the conclusion espoused by the "eminent" faculty of Harvard University.

The most interesting question regarding global warming is sociological: Given the fact that the issue is so very UNsettled, why do so many people WANT it to be true? The press, and the liberals, can easily identify the ulterior motive of those who want it to be FALSE - i.e., the remedies might cost them money, directly or indirectly. But it is rare for any media outlet to discuss the propensity of people to believe in doomsday scenarios because the acceptance of those scenarios will allow the believers to dictate the solutions. In this case, the proposed 'solutions' will involve a major disruption in the entire way of life of the developed world. What could be more titillating to the neo-Puritans who are offended by the spectacle of our comfort and affluence, than to be given the power to tell people what cars they can drive, how big their houses can be, and what kind of appliances they can use? The prospect of micromanaging the lives of hundreds of millions of people is utterly intoxicating.

hlb1121
22 December 2007 at 00:27

It's also interesting to note that the oceans are becoming significantly warmer, particularly at the poles. Yes, land temperatures heating up or cooling down is a concern for humans, but a bigger problem is how much the temperature is increasing in the oceans and at the poles. You know what happened with Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans? It could happen again, and again, and again. Because global warming causes the oceans to heat up and that is fuel for storms like hurricanes. Just because a handful of scientists (that vphayden has been posting about) disagree, there must be something going on if most scientists believe that global warming is a real threat.

Boxorox
22 December 2007 at 02:36

hlb1121-Not correct! Recent SSTs reading have confirmed a trend over the recent years that the sea surface temperatures are decreasing. Huh!

bartofsky
22 December 2007 at 03:51

Mr.Whitehouse,

Don't you think that your name alone says it all, or it is just a coincidence? Lets run to the nearest dealership to by as many SUVs as we can, lets have the time of our life!

Are you really so brutally uneducated?

LionHeart
22 December 2007 at 05:02

All models are wrong, some are useful.

George Box (statistician)

wildebeest
22 December 2007 at 06:04

If one needs to decide whom to believe, one should at least look at who has a motive to deceive: those who would like to continue a comfortable, though profligate lifestyle and those who profit from the sale of things that accommodate that lifestyle or those who say we all have to make uncomfortable changes?

Menckenwasright
22 December 2007 at 07:05

hlb1121 has captured the evil and the essence of the exploitation of this complex phenomena. The world is being conditioned to believe that the USA is at fault for any extreme - excessive heat, excessive cold, excessive dryness, excessive wetness - more storms, less storms, more ice, less ice - and more (and less?) to come I’m sure. Just watch; regardless of how the climate changes, the USA will be blamed and will be expected to do something. (Remember that this same cabal of anti-fossil-fuel zealots made news in the 70s by reporting that fossil fuels were causing an imminent ice age.) Kyoto indicates that as long as wealth gets redistributed it really doesn’t matter what happens to the carbon output. It is remarkable and frightening that the world press has, in the main, ignored the input of thousands of respected and reputable international scientists under the politically popular mantra of USA bashing. It is really depressing to accept that the populous has reached the point where they replace “The Sky Is Falling” with any cry of climate extreme and blame it all on the same thing - fossil fuel consumption by the USA.

NORMSMITH
22 December 2007 at 07:44

Sure - humans and overpopulation have caused a lot of environmental problems. No doubt in anybody's mind. But to say humans control the climate is pure fallacy. The long term graphs tell the story. Keep in mind many of these graphs are read from right(present) to left(the past). Here is the Ice core data:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Image:Ice_Age_Temperature_Rev_png

Notice our current "Global Warming" (AKA The Holocene) is actually much cooler than previous interglaciations(warm intervals between ice ages).

Notice that CO2 and Temperature are NEVER STABLE. They always rise and fall in a natural cycle.

Look at those squiggly lines going up and down. Does anyone think humans caused all these variations? Just because one of the many upticks is happening in our lifetime does not mean we caused it!

Don't feel guilty or personally responsible. Please.

Here is a sea level history chart. It's probably the best indicator of when the Holocene (current warm interval) will end. Let's enjoy the warm while we can !!

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png

Cybertiger
22 December 2007 at 09:09

@Menckenwasright

"blame it all on the same thing - fossil fuel consumption by the USA."

The Americans voted for George Bush and his disciples - and then wonder why they're hated!!

PS. H.L. Mencken is my favorite curmudgeon.

PPS. I think one critter out of every breeding pair of Americans should be culled - as a sacrifice to G-d - and the greater go-d of the planet.

Patrick Hadley
22 December 2007 at 10:28

hlb1121 please have a good look at all the data on the Hadley Centre Met Office Site. Work out for yourself whether the trend of warming from 1978 to 1998 has been followed by a period of no warming for the last 9 years. You are right that climate trends can only be assessed in the long term, but the warming period was not long term either. We just do not know what will happen in the future.

The comment from wonteach about the neo-puritans is well worth thinking about. Sadly there is sometimes a tendency that when we see other people enjoying themselves we want to stop them. We can rationalise this for religious reasons or pseudo-scientific reasons, but it is the same impulse to condemn.

Maz
22 December 2007 at 10:34

hb1121,

Yes 7yrs is not enough to declare a new trend. But then, is 30yrs enough to determine that the recent warming (contaminated as it is by the way we measured it) is any different to the changes that have occured over this planet's climate history? At least try to be consistent.

Katrina was a Category 3 hurricane when it hit New Orleans. The devastation was due to the fact that the levees were poorly maintained to say nothing of the slow response in dealing with the aftermath. It was NOT the strength of the hurricane!

Can you remember the names of any hurricanes that have made landfall in the last two years? So what's happened? Why has it gone so quiet? Did you just read the Stern Review and swallow it all? According to Stern (and his infamous extrapolation) we should have seen several. It's one of the reasons he put forward to recommend that it was cheaper to spend billions now on reducing CO2 emmisions than to pay the costs of the ravages of Nature in the future. A freshman class in economics could punch holes a mile wide in that report. But that's for another blog!

Ian Perrin
22 December 2007 at 10:35

from: BBC World News - Monday, 12 November 2007

IF THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS RISING, IT HAS NOW STOPPED

Sceptic

Since 1998 - almost a decade - the record, as determined by observations from satellites and balloon radiosondes, shows no warming.

Counter

1998 was an exceptionally warm year because of the strong El Nino event. Variability from year to year is expected, and picking a specific warm year to start an analysis is "cherry-picking"; if you picked 1997 or 1999 you would see a sharper rise. Even so, the linear trends since 1998 are still positive.

Chris Schoneveld
22 December 2007 at 10:44

crakes on 21 December 2007 wrote:

quote: "Here's a question for ice sampling...

If CO2 is associated with a warming planet, and if the ice melts as CO2 rises (as it is doing now), how can the ice core samples ever capture the CO2 level during the warming periods? The cap is disappearing and not gathering evidence, right? So when CO2 drops down and the caps grow again, we get a record of lower levels right? Is the peak CO2 ever revealed in the ice caps? How can it be?" unquote.

The answer is simple, at least for the Antarctic. Warmer years are not causing the melting of ice in the Antarctic, it's too cold down there. That's why the Vostok ice cores show a continuous record of 450,000 years spanning Glacials and Interglacials..

dsart
22 December 2007 at 10:58

DR Whitehouse is entirely correct and has been very careful about sticking to the facts. The website quoted by Ian Perrin is plain wrong.

Look at this BBC site about recent temperatures. With or without 1998 it doesn't make a difference. Look at the figures and then draw a graph - you will see it's a straight line.

Of course it's significant. Temp has been rising since 1980 but it wasn't until 1993 that we saw it as significant. For a third of the time of the current warm spell the global temp hasn't been rising at all - that's highly significant.

We should congratulate a real, honest and couragous scientist like Dr Whitehouse to have the integrity to stick to observational facts and not rhetoric (like many of the comments here). We should also congratulate the New Statesman as well.

Interesting that Whitehouse has more comments than Dawkins.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7142694.stm

revel
22 December 2007 at 10:59

20,000 REAL SCIENTISTS signed a petition to the effect that an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere would have a beneficial effect. And that the dire predictions of the climate scare lobby were unfounded (The Petition Project).

See the document at:

http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm

Every single scientist signed his or her name and provided qualifications and positions held.

(Unlike reports from the environmentalist priests who generally remain anonymous and are often are mere bureacrats and pseudo-scientists and who always claim there is a SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS)

This report alone must tell us something about the scientific consensus fallacy.

The responses to Mr Whiehouse's article are about 95% supportive (I see 5 opposing views, all of which are superficial and insulting), many of those supporters being scientists.

The publishing of the Petition Project had the following consequences:

1) Acrimonious accusations that the signatures were falsified. This was disproved.

2) Many signatories lost their jobs and many found it impossible to have their views published in mainstream media

3) There was almost total silence in the media about the existence of the document. The fraudulent claims of a scientific consensus for the new environmental cult's creed were intensified.

There is no scientific consensus.

It has become commonplace to hear "scientists (unnamed) say", "all scientists (unnamed) agree", "scientific consenseus".

The mainstream media are at the heart of the censorship of scientific facts and of open debate.

jansz
22 December 2007 at 12:52

The AGW believers are so shrill, capital letters, terms of abuse, no rational discussion and the continued quoting of sources that have long since been discredited. The consensus is swinging to the sceptics - the activists and their media supporters will soon feel as silly as the Y2K proponents.

Nelthon
22 December 2007 at 13:45

So proponents of AGW continually link to 'sources that have long since been discredited'. Such delicious irony, given that the post above yours links to the Oregon Petition...

Nelthon
22 December 2007 at 13:48

Anyway, I look forward to seeing the trend analysis Whitehouse used.

Ian Perrin
22 December 2007 at 15:07

You can test the Goddard Institute of Space Studies data to show whether the BBC got it wrong or not at: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/

I suggest you use GISS for land temperatures, Hadley for Ocean, Annual for mean period, Begin 1998 to End 2007 for time interval and a statistically meaningful base period. Leave all the other values as you find them.

This is hard data, not assertion.

Maz
22 December 2007 at 15:48

Ian, (and Nelthon)

you’re playing with statistics. No one is denying that the planet has warmed over the last 100yrs (longer even). If you’re on a peak any trend line is going to give you a positive value.

The gist of David Whitehouse’s article is that the last seven years indicate a levelling off of Global Temperatures. I prefer to use the data from the UK’s publicly funded Hadley Centre because they are displayed nicely for all to see (ignoring for the moment the flaws inherent to all surface temperature records). Here’s the link again. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/obsdata/Ha... Anyone can see what’s going on. The question is – is this just a blip or is it the start of a downward slope? Nobody knows. What we do know is that CO2 levels have continued to rise unabated and if CO2 level is the key driver of global temperature I would NOT expect to see the temp rise level off as it is doing. I’m not saying it’s impossible though.

What is interesting is that recent indications of solar activity suggest we might be heading towards a period of reduced solar activity. This contrasts with the heightened activity in the 80s and 90s. Remember that the Solar Aa (Geomagnetic) index is still twice as high as it was at the start of the last century. So I don't think we're going to see obvious climatic effects immediately.

This seems to suggest that Solar Activity has a far greater influence on global climate than CO2. You only need to superimpose the graphs of Solar Activity and CO2 on the temperature graphs from the Hadley Centre and it kind of shrieks at you! Perhaps the next seven years will make things more obvious.

I’m prepared to wait.

taghioff.info
22 December 2007 at 18:39

The other issue is that temperature changes in relation to rising CO2 levels are highly non-linear. This basically means that this relatively trend in the temperature record is not very conclusive.

It is interesting that the skeptics used exactly this argument against a much longer and more pronounced warming trend, but now are strangely silent about the stochastic and non-linear character of short-term temperature variations.

IF reduced solar activity is balancing out CO2 emmissions, it means they have a similar effect to CO2. But this is not an either or scenario, since CO2 response to solar emmissions tends to amplify its effects. In other words, both the non-linearity and the other causes, when viewed form the point of view of the highly erratic historical record, indicate that rising CO2 will have highly unpredictable outcomes, but some of these are highly amplified outcomes driven by positive feedbacks.

Or in yet other words, these factors indicate that CO2 is more rather than less dangerous.

Nelson
22 December 2007 at 19:47

'Begin 1998 to End 2007 for time interval ' I'm intrigued. Why are we always pointed to 1998 as the start year? Is it chance, serendipity that you chose an obvious statistical outlier with inflated temperatures (1998 was a strong El Nino)? Or is it just plain naughty? It's precisely because there's significant noise superimposed on a small signal that you need to analyse temperature trends carefully:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/wiggles/

Tamino has already analysed the GISS and HadCRU data sets. Both show a significant trend in warming over the past decade. Even if you pick 1998 as your starting year:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2007/08/31/garbage-is-forever/

Nelson
22 December 2007 at 19:51

Regarding a correlation between solar activity and temperature - well, the field is a lot, lot murkier than you might suppose...

http://preview.tinyurl.com/39emdw

Robin Guenier
22 December 2007 at 19:55

I wholly agree with Maz and Patrick Hadley that “the consensus of experts” really can be very wrong. But I suggest they stop using the “Millennium Bug” as an example of this. The problem was all too real – if they are so sure it was not, perhaps they would explain for example how a banking system that assumed, as many once did, that “87” meant 1987 would, without being fixed, have automatically assumed that “07” meant 2007 and not 1907. Yet unfixed the impact on, say, interest calculations would have been serious. Fortunately, essentially all large organisations (the problem was most serious in the bespoke software used by such organisations) fixed it. It was largely done by junior IT staff (not “geeks” or “experts”) checking millions of lines of computer code for dates, fixing them and testing the fixes. It was mind-numbingly dreary work. There was no “goldmine” for “computer experts” – they were too busy hyping up the dotcom boom. All large organisations in the developed world had to check their systems. I think Mr Hadley would be unable to name, for example, any banking or social security organisation that did nothing.

There were some problems. But very few because thousands of unsung people got on and fixed it. Precisely the opposite of the point they are (correctly) trying to make.

Alan Cooper
22 December 2007 at 20:15

jimbeaux is unnecessarily perplexed by the apparent contradiction between the facts stated in the article and that "I've read that 2007 is shaping up to be the 8th warmest year on record, and that seven of the eight warmest years on record have occurred since 2001, and the 10 warmest have all occurred since 1997." This is not in any way a contradiction. In fact 1998 was an upward spike in a very jagged graph, which the subsequent years have not yet climbed to match even though they have all been higher than any others in the record prior to that. It is quite unremarkable that no significant trend is observable in a short segment from the record of a variable which randomly fluctuates above and below an average which is increasing by a much smaller amount each year.

I cannot believe that a person with a PhD in astrophysics could honestly believe that this was significant, so I join the other commenters who have accused David Whitehouse of dishonesty and I will try to remember his name so that I can avoid his prevarications in future.

JohnChwth
22 December 2007 at 20:22

Well what we should be looking at is the trends from as far back as possible. Thatshows the current period is by far the warmest for over 150 years.

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

andanotherthing
22 December 2007 at 21:36

Its not the scientists spouting the Al Gore message that we have to worry about, its the politicians who have embraced this rubbish and will think of ever more ingenious ways to tax us, saying these are green taxes and will help to save the planet!!

NORMSMITH
22 December 2007 at 21:47

re:JohnChw... 150 years is too short of a timescale to draw conclusions from. We are talking about climate which is controlled by long term cycles. Here is a graph of the last 12,000 years (since the last ice age melted away).:

http://earthintime.com/holocene.jpg

Note that 150 years ago we were coming out of a long cold period - "The Little Ice Age". The modern thermometer was invented after the Little Ice Age ended. Therefore thermometer data shows a rising trend. It's really that simple. What is important is the long term cycles and that trend is crystal clear: The Holocene Temperature peaked out 8,000 years ago and we are gradually cooling into the next glaciation (ice age).

Here is another chart (based on Ice Core Data) that shows the long term trend and the NATURAL fluctuations of CO2 and Temperature . http://lbs.hh.schule.de/klima/klimawandel/treibhausgase/carb...

Note that CO2 and Temperature are Never static/stable. Mother Nature has her own rhythm and we can't control the climate. We are not Gods.

Nelson
22 December 2007 at 22:13

But the fact that CO2 fluctuated in the past (incidentally, you might want to read up on the effects this had on temperature) doesn't exonerate us in any way. It doesn't mean we can spew gigatons of the stuff into the atmosphere without a care in the world. It will affect the climate. It's basic, fundamental physics. We're proving to be very poor keepers of this planet.

Mike D
22 December 2007 at 23:17

I located an artical by a group of scientists about the glaciers in the swiss alps that indicated that trees were growing where the ice currently is. Their conclusion is that the climate was warmer than now for 12 periods in the last 9000 years and colder than now for about 5000 years. there are similar reports of finding trees where there is now permafrost in northern canada. htere is a report from greenland that they located the remains of plants that had grown where the ice recently melted .

These articles and more are on the web if you are truely interested in studing the history of climate.

Also I would question any group such as your national weather service if they are telling you that the weather is getting hotter according to their adjusted data.

J.
23 December 2007 at 00:27

It is not that the humans or the USA are evil and must be punished. It is not environmentalists trying to force us to all live impoverished lives. (Our ancestors could only wish for such "impoverished" lives that many of us currently lead.)

It is the undeniable fact that with the ever expanding population of consumers on the planet, it means that everyone of us is responsible for the health of the planet.. The denial of this and that business as usual can just blissfully continue seems to be the convenient excuse of many of the global warming disputers.

Regardless, if the climate models are in error, humans cannot continue forever on the personally destructive path we are on. The resources and other processes of life on this planet will not be able to function in our favor at this unsustainable pace.

Now or later we will be forced to find alternative methods to produce and consume energy at reasonable and equitable rates. Most likely all of us will be have to find ways to live with less pressure on the ecology. I for one would love for our frenetic pace to slow down for the good of not only the earth but for our species sake.

Those with innovative and iventive minds can clearly see that living with a lighter footprint on the earth does not mean reverting to a primitive existence.

In the reality of biological terms there is not any real seperation from the earth, but it's only in our self made philosophical exclusions that we see ourselves as a special creation given life by supernatural agency. That is just part of the reason we do such a poor job of protecting and preserving the only home we will have probably for the long term future. Many of us feel this just a way station for some fantasy world after death instead of being in awe of our intrinsic connections to the richness of life as it is here and now.

Our modern consumeristic distractions and comforts have given us the false sense that we are no longer a part of the natural world and can just live in self-absorbed, disregard for it's well-being.

When we do that we are perhaps signing our own notice of impending extinction or at least a life of increasing discomforts because we are not willing to live sustainably now.

Nelson
23 December 2007 at 02:08

'Hlobal warming stopped in 1998'. This is a meme you find a lot on the internet. But is it true? With some statistical tricks you can claim that it did. Temperature data are inherently noisy, and global warming is 0.2 degrees per decade. Incidentally, this might look modest, but it's important to recognise that historical warmings of a similar magnitude to that projected to occur over the next century took orders of magnitude longer to develop.

I mentioned trend analysis above because it's easy to do wrong, it's easy to claim that global warming has 'stopped', or 'doubled', or 'reversed' using the same data.

http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/upload/2007/05/5-year-trends.p...

Even something as simple as the length of your sample can colour your result. In this figure 5, 10, and 15-year trends are used. This is why Whitehouse should post his analysis. Has he chosen a period long enough to detect a signal rather than noise? I'd hope as a PhD he hasn't...

NORMSMITH
23 December 2007 at 03:32

Please don't let me hear anyone else say "The science is settled." That's just a cop out for people too lazy to look at the science. Here is a new peer-reviewed study from the December 2007 issue of the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society : http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/908

-And these eminent scientists are not alone. Click the Global Warming link on that same page and you will see that hundreds and hundreds of scientists are now admitting that humans cannot control climate. Al Gore has pulled off a hoax bigger than the "Millenium Bug" and scientists are jumping on his bandwagon so they can score some of the billions of dollars in UN "research" money. This is a good example of Follow The Money.

NORMSMITH
23 December 2007 at 03:41

And here is the TRUTH about those poor "stranded polar bears.":

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Uw5WdmuGSfM

Ted
23 December 2007 at 04:18

OK, so the earth is warming. The alarmists automatically assume that change is necessarily bad. A warmer earth will extend the growing season in Canada, Scandinavia and Russia, increasing food production for the whole world. Rainfall patterns may change making some arid areas productive. There will be some displacement, of course, but who is to say that the overall effect is bad. There was a warm cycle form 900 to 1300 wherein temperatures were 2 degrees F higher than they are now and somehow the human and animal populations did just fine.

taghioff.info
23 December 2007 at 05:08

@Ted

Your assessment is based on the IPCC's headline finding that below 3 degrees of warming global net food production goes up.

But that finding does not include effects from extreme weather events. Temperate zones are not immune to these. The 2003 heatwave in Europe knocked 10-20% of harvests in many countries that year.

Also, if food supply declines in the poorest countries (which are generally in the tropics), this will hit the incomes of the poorest in those poor countries, the marginal rain-fed farmers.

Amartya Sen made the observation that it is not lack of food in itself that starves people, it is the inability to obtain food. So poor farmers faced with crashing yields and no alternate form of income will starve, even IF we have food to spare in the North.

This raises the possibility of mass starvation, which in turn raises the possibility of social collapse. It is for this reason that the UN secretary general is telling us we need to pay attention to Darfur, because it indicates what may be in store if we are all as complacent as you Ted.

mercury risin'
23 December 2007 at 05:10

If you look at the temp graphs, there are other flat spots that follow peak years. Each time it eventually got hotter. It's been a trend, and it still is the trend.

Menckenwasright
23 December 2007 at 05:18

Cybertiger

"The Americans voted for George Bush and his disciples - and then wonder why they're hated!!"

My, my; you are harboring such intense hatred! No wonder you think the planet is warm!

I appreciate very much the logical and considered scientific analysis posted here and the links to a gathering amount of evidence that should reduce AGW obsession. However, I am cynical. The world has been whipped into a frenzy of intense dislike, or "hate" in some cases, for the USA. I have observed that emotion rules over logic. As long as that emotion continues there will be no moderation of the cry for "reducing the carbon footprint" at the expense (primarily) of the USA. As long as the world press and world leaders continue to bash the USA, well intentioned people will see no alternative but to drink the koolaid. All of the historical data and valid scientific analysis that refutes AGW will go for naught as long as that hatred is cultivated and exploited.

dmgreer
23 December 2007 at 08:12

Nice. Also, the author doesn't seem to have much grasp of science or statistics... wait, what's this? David Whitehouse is an astrophysicist? More like an astro-charlatan.

Whitehouse claims that the data show a complete leveling of temperature over the past 6 years, but that's an out and out lie. If you look at the data http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2006/ann/glob_... you can see that there's no such leveling.

Given that, it's pretty easy to posit that sulphate aerosols from China's prodigious coal burning might have contributed to a decceleration of warming. Whether that's true or not is another matter, but it certainly is _not_ true that the warming trend would have to be exactly equalized by the cooling effects of aerosols.

David Whitehouse should be ashamed of himself for such a poor display of scientific understanding.

Robin Guenier
23 December 2007 at 08:16

Groan. Normsmith - the so-called Millennium Bug was no hoax. See my comment yesterday.

garryf
23 December 2007 at 09:14

I am frankly disgusted with some of the comments here - typical from the crowd that will take no crticiism - cherry pick the data and accuse the writer of dishonesty. Those who have done that should be ashamed of themselves, its dispicable.

On this list has been posted a link to the BBC news report of recent temperature records issued durung the Bali conference and without doubt they point to 2001-2007 being statistically flat. To 1999 and 2000 being cooler. 1998 being warmer (a strong el nino year). Before that we have an obvious rise from 1980 -1997 though with 1997 being less than the 2001-2007 average - Whitehouse has clearly made his case looking at the DATA. As he said it's not a viewpoint but an observational fact.

Also someone said earlier in these comments that sulphur particles could explain for the standstill because they reflect sunlight into space. Not so. Have you read the IPCC Synthesis report (obviously not). It says that sulphur aerosols (the only ones for which we have any data) have been declining for over a decade, so that blows your uninformed analysis out of the window "dmgreer."

Clearly David Whitehouse has been careful to stick to scientifically accepted standard data (unlike many of the deniers posting vitriol against him) and is being attacked for pointing it out. As far as I can see none of the personal attacks against him are sensible and say more about the lack of knowledge and intolerance of thoise who have posted them.

MODERATOR - please remove those personal comments from this list and do so oin the future.

David Whitehouse is to be praised for using a scientists logic to point out something that we should havge all seen and in my view stands head and shoulders over the bitter cowards who make calls of dishonesty whilst hiding behind a nickname - you should be ashamed of yourself.

Patrick Hadley
23 December 2007 at 11:59

Robert Guenier: Of course I know that there was something to be fixed in Y2K, but I invite you to compare the reality with the hype. If you do a google search for millennium bug you will find many examples of the doomsday scenarios. The Guardian article from 5th Jan 2000 gives a good summary and links to balanced articles. You will find out that pension companies, banks and social security had fixed the 00 problem many years before the scare, and that some countries spent very little but had no problems.

My point is not to deny that there was some truth behind the scare stories, just that the predictions of total chaos and disaster (and there were many of them) were very wide of the mark. At the Bali conference Ban Ki-Moon said that "Humanity faces OBLIVION" unless we act now to prevent global warming. Nothing in even the most extreme projections of warming could possibly justify that comment.

Nelson
23 December 2007 at 12:26

Normsmith, the paper you linked by Douglass et al. has been heavily criticised. It's main conclusion is basically unsupportable - it's a poor paper, and nicely dissected in the following link, which gives some insight into what peer review should have picked up:

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/12/tropic...#more-509

Nelson
23 December 2007 at 12:36

Garryf, I'm not making personal attacks against Whitehouse. I'm genuinely interested in his trend analysis of the temperature data. It's possible to come up with any number of conclusions from the same data (warming, cooling, stasis), but is the analysis valid?

ArchiesBoy
23 December 2007 at 13:53

I just had a look at Whitehouse's website. It is obvious that the man is in love with himself, and whatever he writes is written from that standpoint... Meantime, global warming proceeds apace.

keithw
23 December 2007 at 14:32

Actually ArchiesBoy I think that's a stupid comment and a waste of space. I think Whitehouse's website is rather modest - compare it to the editor of the News Statesman's John Kampfner's website and you will see.

Patrick Hadley
23 December 2007 at 14:56

Nelson: the Douglass paper was published after proper peer-review in the International Journal of Climatology of the Royal Meteorological Society. That is just about the most respected place to find a paper on this subject.

You say that it has been criticised by Real Climate. Well, blow me down what a shock that is! To the AGW fanatics at Real Climate it would have been about as welcome as a pork chop at a meeting of the Jewish vegan society.

Robin Guenier
23 December 2007 at 15:00

Patrick Hadley: I was CEO of the Government’s central computing agency (in the Cabinet Office) in 1996 when the Government first took the date change problem seriously. Yes, some large organisations were getting on with it then, but not many, including several in the financial sector. Hence my appointment as Executive Director of Taskforce 2000 (1996 – 2000) tasked with communicating the need for action. Had large organisations not taken notice, I assure you the outcome could have been chaotic: contrary to your assertion, those who said it had that potential were right. It was particularly true of the financial sector – the Bank of England and the Bank for International Settlements in Basle took it very seriously. On Friday, you suggested that “countries and organisations that had not spent a penny” had no problems; yet I’m sure you cannot identify one large organisation or country in the developed world that did nothing. I also doubt if you can name one “expert” who predicted chaos – those who did either were alarmists or were ignorant.

My point is simple: Y2K is an exceptionally bad example of the consensus of experts being wrong. Perhaps you should consider Avian Flu.

Loftur Altice Þorsteinsson, M.Sc.
23 December 2007 at 16:09

To me, this article by David Whitehouse is a delightful Christmas gift. His statements are fully accurate and reasonable. In my opinion, the continue