Global warming is so five years ago. Say “climate change instead.”
Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on. No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
Do try to keep up.
Well, you know what they say. Maybe Al Gore didn’t really invent The Internet… But don’t hold that against him. After all, he DID invent Global Warming.
Flatlander … umm, Gore invented ‘man-made’ global warming. And he made a large amount of money doing it, as well as earning the Nobel Peace Prize, as did Yasser Arafat and Jimmuh Carter. A man is known by the company he keeps. Isn’t he?
Marianne
Cooling?? Egads. Gotta get a bigger car and drive more!
We have got to be the most arrogant species on the face of the planet. I mean, ‘cept for those damn seals at the childrens beach of course.
Right you are Marianne. Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho won the “Nobel Peace Price” too. Le Duc Tho didn’t show up to accept it, which made a great deal of sense later on. I mean it would have been quite embarrassing in retrospect.
I wonder if Gore will give the award back after a few more years of random variation?
Ok fine. If its not global warming-which this anecdotal evidence does not necessarily disprove-then it means colder winters which increases in world oil consumption.
Which increases demand.
Bad news either way.
Skippy,
No, the anecdotal evidence doesn’t disprove it, but the scientific evidence referenced in the article goes a long way towards disproving it.
From the article:
Now, as far as increased demand for oil… you’re right. There will be increased demand. That’s all the more reason to build new refineries, drill off shore, and drill in ANWAR. If we want energy independence (and I don’t know of too many who don’t) then we had darned well better start doing something serious about it. And, as nice as it may sound, the technology for affordable and practical battery operated cars just isn’t there. Neither is it there for many of the other green alternatives.
Should industry invest in R&D for green energy and green transportation? Yes, they should. My point is that right now we don’t have any option other than oil, so let’s do what we can with what we have.
Jim C
Hey, nuclear energy seems to be working out for subs. Why not try it out for real, this time round?
There are, in fact, a lot of options to oil. But they are not economical options. That’s the problem.
“That’s all the more reason to build new refineries,”
No real need, just increase efficiency. We’ve halved the number of refineries we had 25 years ago, and more than doubled production. As for ANWR, no need on that fron either. We just have to continue working with Canada. They have over 1.5 TRILLION barrels in tar sands, enough to last several hundred years. Lets take that first, it’s closer!
Nuclear energy is a good option. Working with Canada is good as well. But, working with Canada is still relying on Canada. Lets use What we have, and not have to rely on anyone. The US has vast oil reserves. All we have to do is drill for it.
As far as the refineries go… if we can increase effiency then great. But, I think you have to admit that building another refinery would help not hurt our situation. By the way, Colorado has a good supply of oil shale that the oil companies are looking at too. The big problem with oil shale is finding a cost effective way of extracting the oil.
Jim C
This change in data was probably due to the fact that many scientists pointed out the flaws in previous sampling methods (I.e. a temperature sensor near a generator exaust or in the middle of a blacktop parking lot might read a bit high, on average).
Kudos for these guys though, they’ve probably just put some of their grant funding at risk due to defying the words of our holy Goracle.
Interesting article. But check the article’s data graphic. A similiar rate of change for (approx.) months 110 thru 120, except temps increasing.
Anecdotal evidence and ONE WHOLE YEAR of data collection!?!? Where’s the reference/link to “Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, …”? Sorry, it just doesn’t do it for me in terms of providing an accurate indication of global climate change trending. “Need-More-Data” says Robbie the Robot.
Hate to be the fly in the ointment, but I does consider myself a scientific-type, and there are some issues here.
bobble called it when he said one data point is not statistically significant. Need more than on point to establish trend or prove/disprove anything.
Global Warming is a bit of a misnomer. Climate change is closer to the truth because the theory actually points to wider swings in the undamped oscillatory motion of climatic highs and lows. Our hots are going to get hotter, and our lows lower, with a shifting mean line moving toward the hotter. Let’s see what happens next year. Or the next 5 before we call it all silicon snake oil.
Also, why does it hurt us to eco-conscious, even if this while thing isn’t as dire as certain pontificating windbags make it sound? Seems to me increasing efficiencies and broadening energy sources could only do good things for us. “Carbon Credits” on the other hand. . .
Look to the sunspots.
What sunspots?
Exactly.
Maunder Minimum Mini Ice Age, here we come!
Someone stops using afterburners and relying on steam catapults to get airborne.
The earth cools.
I see a correlation there.
Well, the Climate has been changing for millenia. And the rate of climate change has also been fluctuating for millenia. Science says the burden is to disprove the null hypothesis, not the other way around.
Let’s face it, the probability of this whole thing being BS continues to increase.
I agree that more nuclear power and more North American energy sources would be a very good thing, but that has everything to do with not funding the dysfunctional, and nothing to do with “climate change”.
As a somewhat scientific person, I humbly agree al gore is a full load of BS! Ancedotal evidence is as dangerous as false facts are if truth and understanding are the goals. True factual Science always implies “predictability” without it you have very little of value. Math, physics and chemistry are almost totally predictable … weather and climate are not! Green can be good or it can be dumb, think al gore and carbon credits!