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Global Warming: On Hold? (Ooops)
The Discovery Channel ("Global Warming's" premier television cheerleader) ^ | March 2, 2009 | Michael Reilly

Posted on 03/02/2009 2:50:43 PM PST by presidio9

For those who have endured this winter's frigid temperatures and today's heavy snowstorm in the Northeast, the concept of global warming may seem, well, almost wishful.

But climate is known to be variable -- a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is cooling. Still, according to a new study, global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades.

Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.

"This is nothing like anything we've seen since 1950," Kyle Swanson of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee said. "Cooling events since then had firm causes, like eruptions or large-magnitude La Ninas. This current cooling doesn't have one."

Instead, Swanson and colleague Anastasios Tsonis think a series of climate processes have aligned, conspiring to chill the climate. In 1997 and 1998, the tropical Pacific Ocean warmed rapidly in what Swanson called a "super El Nino event." It sent a shock wave through the oceans and atmosphere, jarring their circulation patterns into unison.

How does this square with temperature records from 2005-2007, by some measurements among the warmest years on record? When added up with the other four years since 2001, Swanson said the overall trend is flat, even though temperatures should have gone up by 0.2 degrees Centigrade (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) during that time.

The discrepancy gets to the heart of one of the toughest problems in climate science -- identifying the difference between natural variability (like the occasional March snowstorm) from human-induced change.

But just what's causing the cooling is a mystery. Sinking water currents in the north Atlantic Ocean could be sucking heat down into the depths. Or an overabundance of tropical clouds may be reflecting more of the sun's energy than usual back out into space.

"It is possible that a fraction of the most recent rapid warming since the 1970s was due to a free variation in climate," Isaac Held of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Princeton, New Jersey wrote in an email to Discovery News. "Suggesting that the warming might possibly slow down or even stagnate for a few years before rapid warming commences again."

Swanson thinks the trend could continue for up to 30 years. But he warned that it's just a hiccup, and that humans' penchant for spewing greenhouse gases will certainly come back to haunt us.

"When the climate kicks back out of this state, we'll have explosive warming," Swanson said. "Thirty years of greenhouse gas radiative forcing will still be there and then bang, the warming will return and be very aggressive."


TOPICS: Front Page News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: catastrophism; climatechange; globalcooling; globalwarming; globalwarmingtheory; snowstorm; weather; whateverwesayitmeans; winter
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1 posted on 03/02/2009 2:50:43 PM PST by presidio9
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To: OKSooner; honolulugal; Killing Time; Beowulf; Mr. Peabody; RW_Whacko; gruffwolf; BlessedBeGod; ...
Image and video hosting by TinyPic

FReepmail me to get on or off

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Climate Research News

Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown

GREENIE WATCH

Ping me if you find one I've missed.


Amusement ping.
2 posted on 03/02/2009 2:52:30 PM PST by xcamel (The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it. - H. L. Mencken)
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To: presidio9
But just what's causing the cooling is a mystery.

Gee, you think this bad boy might have something to do with it?


3 posted on 03/02/2009 2:53:32 PM PST by dirtboy
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To: presidio9
global warming may have hit a speed bump and could go into hiding for decades

I see. It's still global warming. It's just hiding. For decades.

4 posted on 03/02/2009 2:54:00 PM PST by jiggyboy (Ten per cent of poll respondents are either lying or insane)
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To: presidio9

So we don’t need no stinkin Cap and trade crap. Right?


5 posted on 03/02/2009 2:54:30 PM PST by wolfcreek (There is no 2 party system only arrogant Pols and their handlers)
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To: xcamel
The kool aide drinkers haven't expired yet.
6 posted on 03/02/2009 2:55:13 PM PST by boomop1
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To: presidio9; Defendingliberty; WL-law; Genesis defender; proud_yank; FrPR; enough_idiocy; ...
 




Beam me to Planet Gore !

7 posted on 03/02/2009 2:55:23 PM PST by steelyourfaith (How many face lifts were required before the Speaker began speaking from her anal orifice?)
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To: xcamel
climate is known to be variable -- a cold winter, or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is cooling

Unless you drink the Algore koolaid...two warm days in a row = global warming! Catastrophe! Dogs and cats living together! Total chaos!

Two cold winters in a row = aberration.

8 posted on 03/02/2009 2:56:12 PM PST by NorCoGOP (Recession: friend loses his job. Depression: You lose your job. Recovery: Obama loses his job.)
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To: presidio9

a theory that predicts both “A” and “not A” is not a theory. It is an unfalsifiable conjecture.


9 posted on 03/02/2009 2:56:19 PM PST by ari-freedom (Hail to the Dork!)
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To: wolfcreek
So we don’t need no stinkin Cap and trade crap. Right?

If they were not such great opportunities for confiscatory tax policies...

10 posted on 03/02/2009 2:57:32 PM PST by jimmyray
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To: presidio9
Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.

That's because most people...including this "journalist" have confused weather for climate.

11 posted on 03/02/2009 2:58:15 PM PST by AntiKev ("Within the strangest people, truth can find the strangest home." - Great Big Sea - Company of Fools)
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To: presidio9
Earth's climate continues to confound scientists. Following a 30-year trend of warming, global temperatures have flatlined since 2001 despite rising greenhouse gas concentrations, and a heat surplus that should have cranked up the planetary thermostat.

Nope, scientists understand quite clearly what bogus data is, and looking for the most likely culprit. It's that wacked out liberal arts major bunch who style themselves as climatologists who are starting to figure out that the nearly 100 billion we've tossed at them over the last 7 years has resulted in absolutely no verifiable model of the most basic environment.

12 posted on 03/02/2009 2:58:31 PM PST by kingu (Party for rent - conservative opinions not required.)
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To: presidio9
Thirty years of greenhouse gas radiative forcing will still be there and then bang, the warming will return and be very aggressive."

Wow... these guys are amazing! THIRTY YEARS of cooling... all the while, still believing that CO2 is the culprit behind potential warming. Is THAT what they expect us to believe??

13 posted on 03/02/2009 3:00:06 PM PST by SomeCallMeTim ( When you find yourself going through Hell, keep going!)
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To: presidio9
But climate is known to be variable -- a (warm summer), or a few strung together doesn't mean the planet is (warming). Fixed it.
14 posted on 03/02/2009 3:01:23 PM PST by torchthemummy (If You Still Have A TV Subscription You Are Funding The Socialist Takeover!)
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To: presidio9

For Global Warming alarmists, that had to hurt.


15 posted on 03/02/2009 3:02:11 PM PST by benjibrowder (Looking forward to kicking Obama out of office in 2012.)
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To: ari-freedom
It is an unfalsifiable conjecture.

Do I finally have a good definition of a "tautology?" For some reason, that one always eludes me.

16 posted on 03/02/2009 3:02:26 PM PST by freedumb2003 (Communism comes to America: 1/20/2009. Keep your powder dry, folks.)
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To: presidio9

OMG! The climate warms and cools all by its self! Who knew?


17 posted on 03/02/2009 3:03:56 PM PST by Ditter
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To: SomeCallMeTim

If people would read the farmers almanac they would have read that every 30 years there is a climate change. We are now entering a cooling stage according to this years Almanac.


18 posted on 03/02/2009 3:04:31 PM PST by electricallady
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To: SomeCallMeTim
Wow... these guys are amazing! THIRTY YEARS of cooling... all the while, still believing that CO2 is the culprit behind potential warming. Is THAT what they expect us to believe??

Exactly. If CO2 has been and is going to be released in higher quantitities (even with "reductions") and yet there is actual cooling for three decades then the only rationale to claim that the "build-up of greenhouse gasses" will continue and then "Bang!" major warming was delayed is due to the fact that the Sun and, to a lesser degree, other cylindrical factors are at play. It's truly insulting.

19 posted on 03/02/2009 3:07:52 PM PST by torchthemummy (If You Still Have A TV Subscription You Are Funding The Socialist Takeover!)
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To: benjibrowder
They're abandoning the term Global Warming. It's now called Climate Change so all bases are covered. If you ever encounter one of these “people” in the future ask them when doesn't the climate change? The results will either be hilarious or violent actions on the part of the zealot.
20 posted on 03/02/2009 3:08:46 PM PST by Hillarys Gate Cult (The man who said "there's no such thing as a stupid question" has never talked to Helen Thomas.)
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