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Climate science A sensitive matter The climate may be heating up less
The Economist ^ | March 30, 2013 | Staff

Posted on 04/12/2013 3:00:31 PM PDT by Titus-Maximus

OVER the past 15 years air temperatures at the Earth’s surface have been flat while greenhouse-gas emissions have continued to soar. The world added roughly 100 billion tonnes of carbon to the atmosphere between 2000 and 2010. That is about a quarter of all the CO₂ put there by humanity since 1750. And yet, as James Hansen, the head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, observes, “the five-year mean global temperature has been flat for a decade.”

Temperatures fluctuate over short periods, but this lack of new warming is a surprise. Ed Hawkins, of the University of Reading, in Britain, points out that surface temperatures since 2005 are already at the low end of the range of projections derived from 20 climate models (see chart 1). If they remain flat, they will fall outside the models’ range within a few years. The mismatch between rising greenhouse-gas emissions and not-rising temperatures is among the biggest puzzles in climate science just now. It does not mean global warming is a delusion. Flat though they are, temperatures in the first decade of the 21st century remain almost 1°C above their level in the first decade of the 20th. But the puzzle does need explaining. The mismatch might mean that—for some unexplained reason—there has been a temporary lag between more carbon dioxide and higher temperatures in 2000-10. Or it might be that the 1990s, when temperatures were rising fast, was the anomalous period. Or, as an increasing body of research is suggesting, it may be that the climate is responding to higher concentrations of carbon dioxide in ways that had not been properly understood before. This possibility, if true, could have profound significance both for climate science and for environmental and social policy.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: globalwarming
These climate models couldn't tell you if it was raining out. Let alone what the temp will be in 10 years.

Climate prediction, at the present level of knowledge is the equivalent of doing brain surgery with salad tongs. You will never succeed.

1 posted on 04/12/2013 3:00:31 PM PDT by Titus-Maximus
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To: Titus-Maximus

Duh. As if any rational person couldn’t see it.


2 posted on 04/12/2013 3:07:42 PM PDT by A Navy Vet (An Oath is Forever)
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To: Titus-Maximus

you know how it is with computer models - garbage in garbage out


3 posted on 04/12/2013 3:11:39 PM PDT by elpadre (AfganistaMr Obama said the goal was to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-hereQaeda" and its allies.)
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To: Titus-Maximus

The Left has already accepted man-made climate change as Gospel, despite the lack of evidence. Their agenda precedes them in this case. It allows them to attack industry, capitalism, the very heart of American competitiveness. For myself, I want to see some actual evidence if that’s not too heretical, and then if necessary find a measured, reasonable solution, not a mad panicky rush into the dark ages.


4 posted on 04/12/2013 3:15:41 PM PDT by Telepathic Intruder (The only thing the Left has learned from the failures of socialism is not to call it that)
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To: Titus-Maximus

IMHO....The Sun God and the Volcano Gods have complete control over the little Blue Marble’s temperature.....and the real God runs that control panel


5 posted on 04/12/2013 3:17:06 PM PDT by M-cubed
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To: Titus-Maximus

Freeman Dyson points out that the models in use cannot hind cast. By that he means the models, if loaded with known variables from 1998 and forward cannot predict the current conditions. Since both ends the tested period are known absolutely, this is a fatal critique of the models. They don’t even come close.


6 posted on 04/12/2013 3:19:17 PM PDT by muir_redwoods (Don't fire until you see the blue of their helmets)
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To: Titus-Maximus
It does not mean global warming is a delusion.

Of course not. Why, one of the best indicators of global warming is that the temperature doesn't go up.

7 posted on 04/12/2013 3:24:46 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Titus-Maximus

Interglacial Period

Maunder Minimum

Little Ice Age

Medieval Warm Period


8 posted on 04/12/2013 3:58:44 PM PDT by henkster (I have one more cow than my neighbor. I am a kulak.)
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To: Titus-Maximus

The whole premise that molecular level increases of CO2 in the atmosphere drive global temperature increases is not supported by actual observations and thus is faulty. Scientific method would say that the theory of CO2 driven temperature increases is not supported by the data and thus should be drastically revised or abandoned. To stubbornly cling to this theory is dogmatic not scientific.


9 posted on 04/12/2013 7:38:38 PM PDT by The Great RJ
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To: Titus-Maximus
Climate prediction, at the present level of knowledge is the equivalent of doing brain surgery with salad tongs. You will never succeed.

As is evidenced by the fact that weathermen can get it so wrong so often and remain in work. It's not odd for a two-day forecast to be "updated" a few times a day and still be wrong; and that's with all the pertinent information readily available and observable on a real-time basis..

10 posted on 04/13/2013 2:54:54 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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