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TechnoratiWorld Will Warm Faster Than Predicted in Next Five Years, Study Warns
New estimate based on the forthcoming upturn in solar activity and El Niño southern oscillation cycles is expected to silence global warming sceptics
The world faces a new period of record-breaking temperatures as the sun's activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted over the next five years, according to a new study.
![[]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/warmingnextfiveyears.gif "warmingnextfiveyears.gif")
The hottest year on record was 1998, and the relatively cool years since have led to some global-warming sceptics claiming that temperatures have levelled off or started to decline. However, the new research firmly rejects that argument.
The work is the first to assess the combined impact on global temperature of four factors: human influences such as CO2 and aerosol emissions; heating from the sun; volcanic activity; and the El Niño southern oscillation, the phenomenon by which the Pacific Ocean flips between warmer and cooler states every few years.
It shows that the relative stability in global temperatures observed in the last seven years is explained primarily by the decline in incoming sunlight associated with the downward phase of the 11-year solar cycle, together with a lack of strong El Niño events. These trends have masked the warming caused by CO2 and other greenhouse gases.
As solar activity picks up again in the coming years, the new research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The research, to be published in a forthcoming edition of Geophysical Research Letters, was carried out by Judith Lean of the US Naval Research Laboratory and David Rind of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Lean said: "Our paper shows that the absence of warming observed in the last decade is no evidence that the climate isn't responding to man-made greenhouse gases. On the contrary, the study again confirms that we're seeing a long-term warming trend driven by human activity, with natural factors affecting the precise shape of that temperature rise."
Lean and Rind's research also sheds light on the extreme average temperature observed in 1998. The new paper confirms that the temperature spike of that year was caused primarily by a very strong El Niño episode. A similar episode occurring in the future could be expected to create a spike of equivalent magnitude on top of an even higher baseline, thus shattering the 1998 record.
Furthermore, the study comes within days of announcements from climatologists that the world is entering a new El Niño warm spell. This development suggests that temperature rises in the next year could be even more marked than Lean and Rind's paper suggests. A particularly hot autumn and winter could add to the pressure on policy-makers to reach a meaningful deal at December's climate-change negotiations in Copenhagen.
Bob Henson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado said: "If El Niño continues to develop, it's quite possible that the Copenhagen meeting will take place during one of the warmest Decembers in the global record."
He added that the paper was a reminder that temperature patterns observed over periods of just a few years can be misleading when it comes to the bigger picture: "To claim that global temperatures have cooled since 1998 and therefore that man-made climate change isn't happening is a bit like saying spring has gone away when you have a mild week after a scorching Easter."
Temperature highs and lows
1998
Hottest year of the millennium
Caused by a major El Niño event. The climate phenomenon results from warming of the tropical Pacific and causes heatwaves, droughts and flooding around the world. The 1998 event caused 16% of the world's coral reefs to die.
1957
Most sunspots in a year since 1778
The sun's activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The late 1950s saw a peak in activity and were relatively warm years for the period.
1601
Coldest year of the millennium
Ash from the huge eruption the previous year of a Peruvian volcano called Huaynaputina blocked out the sun. The volcanic winter caused Russia's worst famine, with a third of the population dying, and disrupted agriculture from China to France.
49 Comments so far
Show All"silence global warming sceptics"
Don't count on it. Their flesh could be melting off from the heat and they'd claim it was getting cooler.
Very interesting information and ideas here. My thoughts are that we're seeing a perfect storm developing. If sunspots and El Nino coincide, we would see a surge in temperatures, triggering faster ice melts and perhaps tipping our own Great Conveyor Belt into shutting down, causing some sort of ice age in the North Atlantic, including the Northeast US, along with global warming. Certainly here in Oregon, I've seen flooding and drought all at once. So conceivably we could have both, at least for awhile.
And we do have more than global warming on our plate. Pollution is an under addressed and serious problem. In the distant past, none of my pets died of cancer, but in the last 10 years, all of them have (4). And I know many people who are losing pets to cancer. When I was young I never heard of a child being diagnosed with cancer or leukemia. Now it seems commonplace. Our pets and children are canaries in the goldmine. And they're dying. There are many forms of pollution, including electromagnetic, and they're getting stacked up on each other. We're facing serious problems from many directions, not just pollution and warming and I don't see any of them being meaningfully addressed. In fact, this feeding frenzy by the rich looks psychotic. They are the ones fostering the denial of reality.
I thought biomusicologist's response to SuperDave was funny and well deserved.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
Global warming 'skeptics' will never be silenced, nor will the moron 'birthers' nor Palin cultists nor the liberals-are-evil brigade, nor any of the other super-fringe loons.
Hell, we can't even get the UFO nuts to shut up and go away...
Global warming will always be a 'hoax' to true-crazy-believers, and there's no reason to waste any more time trying to convince them otherwise...
we sure nitpick alot about the obvious...give me one good aspect of our non-stop industrial-chemical alteration of this planet's molecules from living to non...and increased human lifespan doesn't count, because that is not necessarily a 'good', from a planetary, and (here's the point), therefore, a human, viewpoint...humans are a dependent subset of the earth's lifeforms, not an animal capable of surviving naked in deep space...
in other words, one cannot argue that increasing individual lifespans while decimating the entire living world is 'good'...so, this glacier or that temp aside, can anyone argue our consumptive behavior is not ecocidal?
I know we should not stop research AGW and the affects of it. But does anyone have some links to resources that are working to try and fix the problem. This is going to take a whole lot of out of the box thinking and I would like to see who is on the forefront of solutions. I understand “cap and trade” and in my opinion it is not a solution as much as trying to force a solution. It increase the cost of CO2 emissions by decreasing supply but do we have something in place that can replace the decrease? Also in the mean time CO2 energy will be required to build non CO2 sources in which “Cap and Trade” would increase the cost of. Seems like creating a problem to fix a problem. I am to the point now of wanting to read about solutions instead of the debate on if it is happening.
You're right, cap and trade is nowhere near enough, but at least it is a start. We need to start SHUTTING DOWN coal plants and build renewables up enough so that we can replace every coal plant in the country sometime between 2020 and 2030. This needs to be done so that we can get all other countries in the world to do the same by 2050.
"Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the shadow"
That is where I have problem. I would think you would build the renewables first before you shut down the non renewables. And increasing the cost of fossil fuels would slow us down in that process?
One of the answers that no one likes, but is a good answer, is actually the nuclear power stop-gap.
Another answer that no one likes (though they like it on here better than nuclear power) is population control. This one is REALLY cheap. Problem is, you mention population control and everyone thinks you are either against Gawd or you are talking about Eugenics when in fact all you need are a few things:
1). Fully funded world-wide planned parenthood.
2). FREE access to ALL birth control methods and FREE voluntary male and female sterilization operations available world-wide and the education to use them.
3). Free abortions to any woman who wants one. But this will DECREASE if we educate people in the use of birth control...this has been demonstrated in America where the abortions went UP during the Bush years due to all those abstinence-only pregnancies.
This will have the effect of Decreasing population...the biggest cause of global warming.
Nuclear is not something I like, but it is not NEARLY as dangerous as a 3 meter rise in sea level. But even that is something I see only as a stop-gap until other renewables can be better developed and until the panacea power source finally works...fusion power. That is the only source that promises ultimate sustainability for humanity.....because I do not for one SECOND believe that we will voluntarily implement even the easiest of population control measures.
I agree with nuclear. But as I was discussing this on another website someone mentioned the couple of instances we had with nuclear power that was BAD. A good dose of reality that everyone should not forget.
For think tank material I believe nothing should be off the table. If you have an “ism” you believe in put it aside for a second when looking at solutions. “isms” in my opinion have a way of limiting thought to the box of the beliefs.
Population growth concerns me as well but many of the sites that believe in AGW will tell you that that the pure human carbon emission is a close system which means it does not add to AGW. But as another poster said here consumption does. More population = more consumption.
Then the other side is we know based on scientific consensus that the earth has went through massive global environmental changes that at this time we don’t have the technology to control.
So where does that leave me? Be mindful of the future but realize you are living in the present. Don’t let pessimism rule. In our search for solutions we need to balance this with stopping and smelling the roses. This is just how I am trying to deal with it and I am not assuming it works for everyone.
OK, first I have to declare my own bias as a person who reads the climate science and actually understands quite a lot of it (not all, I'm not an expert) and consequently I believe the words of the climate scientists when they warn us of climate change to come. Further, it is all but clear that some combination of C02 and methane is the cause of this change and this is a man-made change at it's heart.
However this article has a major flaw.
The sun spots have NOT appeared on time! This is according to the solar physicists who have recently written an article in "Sky and Telescope". The sun was virtually devoid of sunspots in 2006, this was expected because it corresponded to the sunspot minimum that naturally was expected. If the sun were following a normal 11-year cycle then we would have expected to see some sunspots in 2007 and even more in 2008, but the data indicate that there were virtually NONE in either of those years and it looks like 2009 might well have very few sunspots as well. This goes against the 11-year sunspot cycle that has been going on pretty much uninterrupted since the Maunder minimum in the mid 1600's.
This is significant because it means that solar activity is low by about 1% or so. This doesn't sound like a lot, but I have a feeling that it could explain why the temperature curve plotted above is beginning to flatten out in the last few years. We might even see a DROP in global temperatures this year over the last two even though the total will still be well above the 100 year average.
What this means, to me, is that the author of this article doesn't have any clue what he is talking about.
Now I do know that the climate models take the sun's variability into account...the total incoming energy to the earth is vitally important to climate models after all...but those models would assume that the 11-year sunspot cycle would continue indefinitely.
So I would like to get a take from the climate scientists what their models predict should it happen that our sun is, instead of continuing on it's 11 year cycle, passing into a phase of reduced activity like occurred during the late 1600's. At that time there was FAR less C02 in the air and the result was called "the little ice age".
The questions on my mind are what do the models predict in this situation given that we have much more C02 and methane in the air today than we did in the 1600's (by a factor of about 50% more for C02).
Will the added C02 exactly offset the drop in solar energy buying us some time (until the sun turns full-on again)?
Will the added C02 be such a good trap of heat that it will only delay climate change and not just offset the effect from the sun?
Or is the drop in solar energy this time so small that it near as much makes no difference?
I want to see these kinds of studies, not ridiculous statements of pure fantasy like "The last decade has seen cooling not warming...."
But I do agree this article is scientifically crap.
"If the sun were following a normal 11-year cycle then we would have expected to see some sunspots in 2007 and even more in 2008 ..."
Whoever "we" is, their expectations don't seem to be consistent with NASA's solar physics graphs for the sunspot cycle that show declining activity through 2009 and rising activity thereafter with a peak about 2013.
See http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/predict.shtml
We are in a long and deep solar minimum, and the that NASA "prediction" graph has been getting continually revised since 2006 by lengthening the bottom to the right - just like the weather forecaster who, forecasts rain only after it starts raining.
But a little bit of activity of the new cycle is finally starting to show up shown as on the SOHO website.
Also, a note to physics ctiizen. The decrease in solar irradiance with the recent deep solar mionimum is far less than 1%. It is a bit less than a part-per-thousand.
My understanding is that compared to other forcings, solar-cycle variations in solar irradiance are small enough to be ignored in the climate model. However, I recall reading about a scientist putting forth the hypothesis that reduced sunspot activity and/or reduced solar wind, may result in increases cosmic ray bombardment the upper atmosphere, which (through some mechanism) causes increased high-altitude cloud formation, which cooled the claimate.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Solar-cycle-data.png
Thanks for this information, I stand corrected regarding the amount of solar variation this represents.
I think my atmospheric physicist colleague whom I teach with a great deal actually knows of this work you mention on cosmic rays. My impression from him is that he was highly skeptical and that subsequent data didn't support that hypothesis.
But I am not really in a position to judge myself.
Cheers!
Ahh, I finally see where the deniers get that crap statement about that the last decade showed cooling rather than warming!
It is because one year, 1998, was the hottest in the last thousand or so and every year since that year has been cooler!
This is a pretty typical example of cherry picking. Why pick 1998? And how can one claim a 'trend' when your comparison is the global temperature for only one year? why not pick some kind of average temperature as a standard base-line and measure global temperatures against that?
Using this kind of "standard" I could pick the coldest year in the last 100years and then claim that ever since then the earth has been in a "warming" trend!
The claim about the poles and ice disappearing from one and appearing at the other is rather baffling though unless, again, stupidity is in charge and the claimant is comparing arctic summer to antarctic winter....which would then tell us the astonishing news that snow melts in the summer and accumulates in the winter!! Oh-my-gawd! I'm pretty sure if you compare both poles in their late-summer times, when the ice is normally at it's least extensive in both cases, you will see a REDUCTION in ice at both poles.
One man's solar storm and adverse consequences is another man's calling to spiritual transformation.
Gee you think? No shit? The title states the obvious. Millions will die while the richest 10% watch their daughter's tennis lessons progress.
Solar Storm Warning
03.10.2006
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March 10, 2006: It's official: Solar minimum has arrived. Sunspots have all but vanished. Solar flares are nonexistent. The sun is utterly quiet.
Like the quiet before a storm.
This week researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). "The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one," she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958.
That was a solar maximum. The Space Age was just beginning: Sputnik was launched in Oct. 1957 and Explorer 1 (the first US satellite) in Jan. 1958. In 1958 you couldn't tell that a solar storm was underway by looking at the bars on your cell phone; cell phones didn't exist. Even so, people knew something big was happening when Northern Lights were sighted three times in Mexico. A similar maximum now would be noticed by its effect on cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other modern technologies.
Right: Intense auroras over Fairbanks, Alaska, in 1958. [More]
Dikpati's prediction is unprecedented. In nearly-two centuries since the 11-year sunspot cycle was discovered, scientists have struggled to predict the size of future maxima—and failed. Solar maxima can be intense, as in 1958, or barely detectable, as in 1805, obeying no obvious pattern.
The key to the mystery, Dikpati realized years ago, is a conveyor belt on the sun.
We have something similar here on Earth—the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt, popularized in the sci-fi movie The Day After Tomorrow. It is a network of currents that carry water and heat from ocean to ocean--see the diagram below. In the movie, the Conveyor Belt stopped and threw the world's weather into chaos.
Above: Earth's "Great Ocean Conveyor Belt." [More]
The sun's conveyor belt is a current, not of water, but of electrically-conducting gas. It flows in a loop from the sun's equator to the poles and back again. Just as the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt controls weather on Earth, this solar conveyor belt controls weather on the sun. Specifically, it controls the sunspot cycle.
Solar physicist David Hathaway of the National Space Science & Technology Center (NSSTC) explains: "First, remember what sunspots are--tangled knots of magnetism generated by the sun's inner dynamo. A typical sunspot exists for just a few weeks. Then it decays, leaving behind a 'corpse' of weak magnetic fields."
Enter the conveyor belt.
"The top of the conveyor belt skims the surface of the sun, sweeping up the magnetic fields of old, dead sunspots. The 'corpses' are dragged down at the poles to a depth of 200,000 km where the sun's magnetic dynamo can amplify them. Once the corpses (magnetic knots) are reincarnated (amplified), they become buoyant and float back to the surface." Presto—new sunspots!
Right: The sun's "great conveyor belt." [Larger image]
All this happens with massive slowness. "It takes about 40 years for the belt to complete one loop," says Hathaway. The speed varies "anywhere from a 50-year pace (slow) to a 30-year pace (fast)."
When the belt is turning "fast," it means that lots of magnetic fields are being swept up, and that a future sunspot cycle is going to be intense. This is a basis for forecasting: "The belt was turning fast in 1986-1996," says Hathaway. "Old magnetic fields swept up then should re-appear as big sunspots in 2010-2011."
Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati's forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011.
"History shows that big sunspot cycles 'ramp up' faster than small ones," he says. "I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007—and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011."
Who's right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming.
this is from NASA science website.
Thanks for this, coco.
Here's the url for that info:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/10mar_stormwarning.htm
This is great stuff! Thanks for this!
We shall see soon if these predictions come to pass.
This is good science folks, as is climate science, they are making testable falsifiable predictions and we will see what happens!
I'm going to upset you all and tell you this is rubbish. Statistics show the globe is cooling and has been for nearly a decade. This is in keeping with the real patterns of earth temperature established for over 4 million years. Of course no IPCC stats will ever show that far back as it discredits their version of the 'facts'. Disappearance of ice at one pole is usually offset by an accumulation at the opposite pole. Actual global ice levels as a total have been static for years.
There is nothing you can say to change my opinion just as there is nothing I can say to change yours. All I suggest is stop watching Fox News, stop listening to the Lyingest liar of liars, Al Gore and his stupid and discredited hockey stick...oh look, that graph looks just like his last hockey stick. What do you know. Start researching for yourself and listen to some of the scientists who disagree because they have valid and comprehensive arguements. Question everything. Don't walk blindly into this without doing your own homework and stop listening to 'scientists' who create data to support AGW and, by extension, their funding. No AGW=No Funding
I look forward to the inevitable barrage of abuse. Thanks
SuperDave is right! The Earth is Flat! Nothing you well-read, literate, educated and enlightened posters can say will change my mind that you will simply fall off the world if you sail too far with your data gathering ships and spacecraft!
SuperDave stuttered:
"stop listening to the Lyingest liar of liars, Al Gore and his stupid and discredited hockey stick" (is "Lyingest" even a word?") (how do you discredit a hockystick?)
Wikipedia, thankfully, has a slightly greater breadth of scope on the subject than the television educated "SuperDave":
Global warming is the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the last century.[1][A] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that increasing greenhouse gas concentrations resulting from human activity such as fossil fuel burning and deforestation are responsible for most of the observed temperature increase since the middle of the 20th century.[1] The IPCC also concludes that variations in natural phenomena such as solar radiation and volcanoes produced most of the warming from pre-industrial times to 1950 and had a small cooling effect afterward.[2][3] These basic conclusions have been endorsed by more than 45 scientific societies and academies of science,[B] including all of the national academies of science of the major industrialized countries.[4]
Climate model projections summarized in the latest IPCC report indicate that the global surface temperature will probably rise a further 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century.[1] The uncertainty in this estimate arises from the use of models with differing sensitivity to greenhouse gas concentrations and the use of differing estimates of future greenhouse gas emissions. Some other uncertainties include how warming and related changes will vary from region to region around the globe. Most studies focus on the period up to the year 2100. However, warming is expected to continue beyond 2100 even if emissions stop, because of the large heat capacity of the oceans and the long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.[5][6]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
SuperDave --
"I'm going to upset you all and tell you this is rubbish."
Dave, I'm going to upset you and tell you that you're full of crap.
1. "Statistics show the globe is cooling and has been for nearly a decade"
Poppycock. You are simply spewing the discredited pablum of the likes of Michael Crichton. Take a minute and read item #2 here:
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/global_warming_contrarians/crichton-thriller-...
and more here:
http://www.pewclimate.org/state_of_fear.cfm
2. "Disappearance of ice at one pole is usually offset by an accumulation at the opposite pole."
Ah yes...more poop from the mouth of Michael Crichton. Read item number 5 at the Union of Concerned Scientists site, and more at the other link above. You are spouting pure baloney.
3. "All I suggest is stop watching Fox News"
I'm fine with that. But Fox News has nothing to do with Global Warming, other than the methane gas coming from their staff and guest's collective asses.
4. " Al Gore and his stupid and discredited hockey stick.."
I'm not going to defend Al Bore. But that does not mean that Global Warming is "discredited."
5. "Start researching for yourself and listen to some of the scientists who disagree..."
Name one mainstream climate scientist who disagrees that Climate Change is not occurring. And no, fiction writers like Crichton do not count.
For every crackpot you can come perhaps up with, I can come up with 10000 or more scientists who agree that climate change is happening, and at an alarming rate. There is a consensus, and we have facts to support the science. But even if there was more disagreement among scientists on this matter, all you need to do is open your eyes and take a look around. But in order to do that I guess you'd have to first pull your head out of that dark hole in your posterior. And from what I just read in your post that would obviously take some monumental effort.
Got some of those "statistics" about global cooling Dave? Go ahead and enlighten us....and sorry, no fiction writer's "facts" will do. Were talking science, not fiction. Show me some mainstream climate scientist with those "statistics" Dave. Go ahead.
matthew loughran
lol pretty damn funny and based on facts also with links.
i wish these moronic clowns denying climate change would just shut the hell up.
they are always wrong and have always have crap to back up their wrong opinions.
matt
Thank you for giving me the biggest belly laugh of the day.
You discredit your arguments by stooping to personal attacks and anal insults.
Get a clue!
At least he posted some links to his conclusions.
I hate it when people make broad claims about the climate, and assume that their veracity is in their originality. No links? No proof!
Here here !
No, Greenspark --- I think that this time 150% means 1.5 times the rate predicted. But that is serious enough.
Manning 120 --- Cooler subsurface water was always there, upwelling of it when some ocean currents bump into a continent or an atoll leads to a plethora of life as it is rich in nutrients. But when it is at depth, it has no effect on climate as interaction only occurs between surface waters and the atmosphere. El Nino is a stagnation of upwelling and a higher surface temperature over a very large area of the Tropical Pacific Ocean. La Nina is a spreading of cooler surface water, I think.
Yes, I see what you mean--You are right. Thanks for that.
And, Yes, serious enough. I just looked at the IPCC report to see what this means, and I used my calculator to multiply their figures by 1.5 It means, I think, if I'm reading it right, that the predicted temperature rises of 1.1 - 6.4 °C (2 - 11.5 °F) by 2100 are actually 1.65 - 9.6 degrees C (3 - 17.25 degrees F).
***
What this makes me wonder is... First, to summarize the above article, the temps are rising from Global Warming, and the above report warns that we've got a perfect storm combination coming with added El Nino and Solar Storms in the next five years. Doesn't that set in motion one of those positive feedback loops, that ultimately means that shortens ALL the time frames we're being given? Doesn't this mean that it is likely that once this major temp rise *boost* that's likely coming in the next five years will set in motion other forces like sea level rise, faster ice and glacial melting, methane release and other disastrous consequences that cannot be stopped?
I think that may be what you mean, Donkey Hote, when you reiterate that even if it's not 150 times the rate, it's still serious enough...
The world is filled with alarmists. The technological solution is of course quite apparent.
I live on the east coast so I am willing to cap El Nino 2 for one. As I am on the Atlantic and live close to the coast I am in a position to trade you two Atlantics for every one of your Pacifics. I am in a position to discount at a good rate. I am opening the trade board next week.
I also will be trading in sun spots. If you live near the coast or in a semi dry area you will want to get in early. I have lots of unemployed who I will be trading with people in these areas. My people will be paid a premium to stand all day holding a big mirror over their head to reflect and cap those nasty sun spots. I have a lock on the mirror industry, labor market ( Union of mirror reflector holders united) and am signing contracts now. get in on the ground floor now.
I hope someone paid you to post that, but judging by the coherency of your statement, you really disbelieve reality.
Abe's piece was S-A-T-I-R-E regarding the commodification and arbitrage-isation of everything - even climate catastrophe.
Is everyone here an aspergers child? I was, and even I got it. Will the left PLEASE get a sense of humor!
The lack of consensus among all groups regarding GW and AGW is real. There may be consensus among scientists, although the deniers strongly disagree, and some intelligent scientists side with the deniers. But the lack of consensus across other groups, including most importantly U.S. voters, could lead to failure of the U.S. and other governments to act against the gathering peril suggested by Judith Lean and David Rind's study.
To effectively address the problem requires more than cogent scientific work. It requires deciphering what's going on in the minds of deniers. Understanding that, it might be possible to make some headway against the myths.
There are problems on the other side, however. I for one remain skeptical that CO2 is a cause rather than a result of warming, or, if it's a cause, that it constitutes a major cause. The warming of El Nino and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation strike me as rearrangements of the oceans. I wonder if warmer surface water isn't offset by cooler subsurface water.
The declarations of the IPCC, and, I would wager, this new study, are hyped by the media's focus on the worst case scenarios. In the Guardian's article, for example, consider the statement, "The world faces a new period of record-breaking temperatures as the sun's activity increases, leading the planet to heat up significantly faster than scientists had predicted over the next five years, according to a new study." Record breaking (high) temperatures have occurred throughout history. Sunspots too have always increased periodically. How fast is "significantly faster"? How much did scientists predict, before this study, that the planet would heat up? All I've read is ranges of possible increases, not specific temperatures. Which, and how many, scientists have made predictions the new study contradicts (surely not all of them)?
Considering everything, my conclusion is that GW is a reality. I go with Jeff McMasters' idea that the trend over ten-year periods is upward for the last few decades, including the decade following 1998. However, I'm not sure the warming presents as great a problem as some would say. It seems likely humans have time to adapt. As land areas are submerged or for other reasons become uninhabitable, new areas will open up. Humans have always survived extinctions of animal species, and there's no reason to think that can't continue, even if polar bears, for example, become extinct.
If GW, and by implication AGW, aren't all that serious, then we should put resources into determining more precisely what's happening to the world's climate(s), rather than devote scarce resources to fighting a problem we don't understand very well. I also believe pollution (but not increased CO2) is a greater problem than GW/AGW. Many of the fixes for pollution are similar to those promoted to stem warming, but are more likely to be accepted if presented as weapons against pollution rather than warming.
snydly
Wherever land-borne ice (LBI) is, it will melt faster as temps increase. When LBI melts, the water flows to the ocean. As the oceans spin, rotate, with the earth, water level at the equatorial bulge initially will rise, but, the forces associated with the change in location of that water mass will put some pressure on the tectonic plates. Land unburdened by ice mass will tend to slowly rebound as well.
Is it not then quite plausible that a change in the forces that affect tectonic plates/activity will create conditions for volcanic warming of the ocean and atmosphere? Is it probable that tectonic activity will mark the onset of the "forcing-of-the-forcings"? USGS people have to be brought into the mix of scientists that are keeping tabs on our situation. Data from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge/magnetic striping must also be examined.
The Greenland ice sheet is a major player, as is of course, Antarctica, but do not discount all other LBI.
LBI was at some time moved from the seas to the land by weather systems, some ordinary and, I believe there is much documentation for, extraordinary system activity.
The IPCC/Gore chart of CO2/Temp Dev displayed prominently in Al's movie and book shows very clearly what can be expected.
Change will happen. HOW it happens and WHEN it will happen are the big questions. A macro-reversal into an Iceage is indicated by the chart. That is different from, but no less a threat to civilization than the runaway warming scenario.
Carbon-based energy choices are the wrench thrown into the workings of what could be a survivable natural cycle.
We must switch out of the oil/coal economy into the non-nuclear alternatives---where we should have been for the last 40+ years.
But have no doubts about the likelyhood of collosal change---it's coming whether we switch or not. The hotter it gets, the sooner it happens, and likely, the more severe it will be.
By virtue of our technology, we are the first humans to have a chance to prepare for the change. Will we prepare, or just fuck around with the status quo until our options run out?
Study the chart!
snydly July 27th, 2009 8:46 pm..........Oh, we'll prepare, but it will likely be much too late. It boils down to continued petrochemical profits being more important than human life. Don't make any plans for buying beach property in Florida...unless you like Orlando.
Want something to change? Start marching now. We wouldn't do it for the 2000 election, the 2004 election, the 9/11 false flag, the illegal invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, the trashing of the Constitution and habeas corpus, the torture of children, the deliberate destruction of the economy and the 27 trillion dollar bailout, 10,000 foreclosures a day, the healthcare sellout, and the largest unemployment percentage in real terms for 68 years. MAYBE WE WILL MARCH TO CONTINUE OUR OWN EXISTENCE. Good luck to us all, amigo!
I keep seeing this sentence over and over: '...the new research suggests, temperatures will shoot up at 150% of the rate predicted by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change..."
~~ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TIMES~~
Thats 1.5 times...
As I said, ubrew12... *see my note below*
As Donkey Hote thankfully noted (below), I read that wrongly, so please see my comment below...
Wait for all that methane locked in the Arctic and the ocean sea beds to get loose. Welcome to Hell! That should help to reduce the world's population by half. We'll all have a Beri-Beri hot time.
Surely, this cannot be true else El Porco Loco Grandissimo Limbaugh would have alerted his oviblovine audience aaallll about this. It amazes that you scientists spend all this time, effort and energy to produced this alleged data, when El Porco can with his extraordinary ability of MUS* in literally seconds or minutes at most, can refute them.
*Making Up Sh*t
Assuming that we all don't get nuked or conquered by the Taliban, the big bill of contention at the next election may be who can sell a "cool down the earth" program better than the next guy. Since Rush limbaugh and others adamantly deny global warming, I would say his day has passed -- wish he would along with it.
The Republicans have the wrong shoe on the wrong foot again.
In all honesty the American people are too stupid as a group to understand climate change. A full third (Republicans) are effectively flat-earthers and another third are still hoping the great sky fairy will help them win the lotto.
Expect things to continue getting worse "faster than expected" for the foreseeable future. The only important question about global warming left is will it kill most of the human race or all of it.
I suggest we use hemp flowers and lots of it; burned in enclosed spaces to ease the pain of reality.
[The Republicans have the wrong shoe on the wrong foot again.]
Have they shot their feet full of holes as well? If the last ten years has been stable, I'd really rather avoid the next ten. At least we live on very high ground...
Well, it would sure suck to go through all of this industrial devastation of our only planet, and not at least get to see some of the transitional drama that follows once change is irrefutable, and becoming increasingly 'problematic'...transitional, in that I still hold out hope for conditions allowing for some survivability...not a certainty, by any means...
I have been confident that feedback loops would accelerate change, just not sure how those accelerated changes would map against my lifespan, either anticipated, or experienced...will interim violence result in new alliances between smaller tribes? will environmental changes be drastic enough to offset fascist oppression, and the technologies they employ? will we ever stop making a mess of this place, and start cleaning it up?
may anarchy be akin to plunging into a clear pool of cool water after days in a desert (cool water ~ I wonder)...free will unleashed...even if only for a moment, to express one's thoughts and actions, rather than regurgitate those forcefed...imagine a world without the 'frames'...how liberating, even if only briefly...
Jim Shea
Very interesting and important article.
It would be helpful if the authors could make the temperature graph available in a much larger format, or provide a URL where one could access a larger version. As it is, the details of the graph are unreadable.
Jim Shea: I also wanted to see the graph better. So I took a magnifying glass to it and was able to read the source, which is: "Climatic Research Unit" I googled them and here, I found the graph, much kinder to the bare human eye...:
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
The graph is better in the original Guardian article. Click the link at the top of the story here.
Can you say self re-enforcing positive feedback loop?
Unless you are a climate change denier, I knew you could.
Walk in peace.