Posted on 01/30/2008 10:55:29 PM PST by justa-hairyape
OSLO (Reuters) - Climate change is still nudging up temperatures in the long term even though the warmest year was back in 1998 and 2008 has begun with unusual weather such as a cool Pacific and Baghdad's first snow in memory, experts said.
"Global warming has not stopped," said Amir Delju, senior scientific coordinator of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) climate program.
Last year was among the six warmest years since records began in the 1850s and the British Met Office said last week that 2008 will be the coolest year since 2000, partly because of a La Nina event that cuts water temperatures in the Pacific.
"We are in a minor La Nina period which shows a little cooling in the Pacific Ocean," Delju told Reuters. "The decade from 1998 to 2007 is the warmest on record and the whole trend is still continuing."
This year has started with odd weather including the first snows in Baghdad in memory on Friday and a New Year cold snap in India that killed more than 20 people. Frost hit some areas of Florida last week but orange groves escaped mostly unscathed.
Iraqis welcomed snow as an omen of peace. "It's the first time we've seen snow in Baghdad," said 60-year-old Hassan Zahar. "I looked at the faces of all the people, they were astonished."
Last year, parts of the northern hemisphere were having a record mild winter with even Alpine ski resorts starved of snow.
Delju said climate change, blamed mainly on human emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, would bring bigger swings in the weather alongside a warming trend that will mean more heatwaves, droughts, floods and rising seas.
"The more frequent occurrence of extreme events all over the world -- floods in Australia, heavy snowfall in the Middle East -- can also be signs of warming," he said.
"UNEQUIVOCAL" WARMING
The U.N. Climate Panel said last year that global warming was "unequivocal." It said temperatures rose by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.3 Fahrenheit) in the 20th century and could rise by a "best guess" of another 1.8 to 4.0C (3.2 to 7.2F) by 2100.
The record year for world temperatures was 1998, ahead of 2005, according to WMO data. Among recent signs of the effects of warming, Arctic sea ice shrank last year to a record low.
Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N. Panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, said he would look into the apparent temperature plateau so far this century.
"One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.
He added that skeptics about a human role in climate change delighted in hints that temperatures might not be rising. "There are some people who would want to find every single excuse to say that this is all hogwash," he said.
Delju said temperatures would have to be flat for several more years before a lack of new record years became significant.
He noted 2005 was the second hottest year and that 1998 was boosted by a strong El Nino event which can raise temperatures worldwide in the opposite of the La Nina cooling.
Underscoring an underlying rise in temperatures, British forecaster Phil Jones said 2001-07, with an average of 0.44 Celsius above the 1961-90 world average of 14 degrees, was 0.21 degree warmer than the corresponding values for 1991-2000.
WMO is the meteorological arm of the United Nations. What else is this corrupt goatherd going to say if he wants to keep his cushy job?
snow in Baghdad? I bet Algore will figure out a way to claim this cooling is caused by ... global warming.
China tries to avert emergency and anger amid snows
Travellers describe China chaos (Paging Al Gore)
Statement by Amir Delju, senior scientific coordinator of the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) climate program
"The more frequent occurrence of extreme events all over the world -- floods in Australia, heavy snowfall in the Middle East -- can also be signs of warming," he said.
If he really believes that snow in places that have not seen snow in over 50 years is a sign of Global Warming, he needs to be locked up in an insane asylum.
Never. Socialists are always right. They will just drop the issue of global warming. They already are using "Climate Change". That way no matter which way the temperature goes, up or down, they are right.
That will be the only out they have. Eventually the evidence of cooling will be so overwhelming that they will embrace it and try to make money from the efforts to address the cooling. Some however will continue to deny cooling is even occurring. Those can be marginalized and put out to pasture. Hey, even some leftist still think that socialist economic programs are productive when we have over 100 years of evidence that they are counter productive. My worry is that the cooling deniers will cause the Earth to cool even worse just as the socialist counter productivity deniers have caused economic misery for millions.
Oh well. What is happening now in China makes it worthy of repost perhaps.
According to the theory, we are suppose to be in a period of accelerating warming, yet we are cooling.
Climate is very much uncertain science which needs very serious scrutiny and research... but losers keep making “predictions”, “assertions” and other “reports” dismissing any other research and other reports.
It’s politics, who wants to control climate, who wants to be god. It’s the old Marxist adage under a new form.
The Globowarming rank has a disease akin to rabbies.
From the article
One would really have to see on the basis of some analysis what this really represents," he told Reuters, adding "are there natural factors compensating?" for increases in greenhouse gases from human activities.
The entire canard of Global Warming is based on placing controls on human activities because humans are causing the warming. They want to control human activity, since controlling the Sun is not possible and not taxable. So they have to be dragged kicking and screaming to look at any effects that lead to less control of human activities. Like the above quote illustrates. They assume that 'natural factors' are compensating for the human factors causing Global Warming. They will not even acknowledge the possibility that human global cooling factors could be compensating for the human global warming factors. That possibility cannot not even be acknowledged because it would mean additional controls on humans are not presently needed. A true scientist would now start questioning the Human induced Global Warming theory. Observations are not supporting the theory. Either the theory is wrong or some other factor is of a magnitude much greater then the theory. IE - The sun. The main problem with all this is we as a people should not have to freeze to support some Utopian Theory of Control. People are literally freezing to death all over the Northern Hemisphere and these Utopian Idealist could care less.
LONG LIVE GLOBAL WARMING! [/sarc]
Denial is not just a river in Egypt.
True. But it would not surprise me that some of the gullible idiots out there may have actually bought into this theory hook, line and sinker. What if some governments actually thought warming was going to be a serious problem. What if they had covert programs that were designed to cool the Earth. What if the Earths warming was only a short term cycle controlled by solar activity. What if these idiots actually managed to come up with cooling programs that were effective. The theoritical implications could be quite chilly.
If it keeps getting colder we may need some AGW to keep humanity functioning. They recently released some warm water from a Nuclear Power Plant to thaw ice on a river in Illinois. Apparently Ice Flow Jams were causing flooding. So it is correct to state that we are already employing AGW to compensate for the SGC (Solar Global Cooling). The weather blogs are also predicting a massive snow storm for the Eastern US on February 9-11. Kinda hard to make those types of long term predictions. Apparently some government based agency was making the prediction. They have been wrong in the past, but so far this winter the actual weather has tended to be worse then the predicted weather.
Good point, I’ve noticed that >
At any rate, I thought the Chinese were claiming that they could control the weather ?
All China needs now is another Tiananmen square uprising, and they will be in a bucket of trouble.
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