Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age

[Duncan]

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.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.[/color]

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Clearly that evidence has been manufactured by the oil companies TWA. How dare you challenge the global warming orthodoxy. You are right up there with the holocaust deniers.

Don't you care about the children?

[PeterMP]

Do you think global warming caused the 10-20 cm increase in the polar ice cap or is this guy a liar? Come on Peter, certainly you can find a few links disputing this or attributing it to hair spray or something. Maybe you can link the scientists that admit "We missed what was right in front of our eyes" to an oil company.

In any given trend w/ respect to climate change, there will be temporary reversals that may make it seem like that climate change is not real. With respect to global warming, some areas are in fact expected to cool. How much and where depends on the model, but global warming is an expression used to describe the avg. global temperature so there is nothing specific about a colder (and therefore more ice) Artic that directly contradicts global warming.

Beyond all of that, it is possible that the solar output for the sun has decreased, but to pretend that somebody predicted it even two years ago, has any real knowledge of how long it will last, or how much the decrease will be is ignorant.

[Thiebear]

In any given trend w/ respect to climate change, there will be temporary reversals that may make it seem like that climate change is not real. With respect to global warming, some areas are in fact expected to cool. How much and where depends on the model, but global warming is an expression used to describe the avg. global temperature so there is nothing specific about a colder (and therefore more ice) Artic that directly contradicts global warming.

Beyond all of that, it is possible that the solar output for the sun has decreased, but to pretend that somebody predicted it even two years ago, has any real knowledge of how long it will last, or how much the decrease will be is ignorant.

When ice is lower its because of global warming.

When ice is thicker its because of global warming.

It's hard to argue with that stance..

[2006Skins]

Most scientists who aren't in blind lock step with the Environmetal Movement have started to address the fact that the Sun will be going in a period of "hibernation" in or around 2012 or so.

According to the records found within the earth, when solar radiation dips like it is supposed to, global temps drop about 1-3 f.

Would that be around 12/21/2012? :whoknows:

[twa]

Do you have a link?

A link to solar minimum prediction?

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2004/18oct_solarminimum.htm

Something strange happened on the sun last week: all the sunspots vanished. This is a sign, say scientists, that solar minimum is coming sooner than expected.

Hathaway is an expert forecaster of the solar cycle. He keeps track of sunspot numbers (the best known indicator of solar activity) and predicts years in advance when the next peaks and valleys will come. It's not easy:

"Contrary to popular belief," says Hathaway, "the solar cycle is not precisely 11 years long." Its length, measured from minimum to minimum, varies: "The shortest cycles are 9 years, and the longest ones are about 14 years." What makes a cycle long or short? Researchers aren't sure. "We won't even know if the current cycle is long or short--until it's over," he says.

Added

Hathaway and colleague Bob Wilson, both working at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, believe they've found a simple way to predict the date of the next solar minimum. "We examined data from the last 8 solar cycles and discovered that Solar Min follows the first spotless day after Solar Max by 34 months," explains Hathaway.

The most recent solar maximum was in late 2000. The first spotless day after that was Jan 28, 2004. So, using Hathaway and Wilson's simple rule, solar minimum should arrive in late 2006. That's about a year earlier than previously thought.

[DjTj]

When ice is lower its because of global warming.

When ice is thicker its because of global warming.

It's hard to argue with that stance..

That's not what he said at all.

When ice is lower, it's because of global warming.

When ice is thicker, it's because of global cooling.

That's not the debate. The debate is about why there is global warming or cooling. I don't think any reasonable person will deny that lower solar output can cause global cooling. The question is whether or not increased CO2 output can cause global warming.

There is a lot of evidence to support the connection between CO2 and global warming, but that doesn't necessarily mean that global warming is guaranteed. Lower solar output, weather patterns, volcanic eruptions, or a nuclear holocaust could all offset the effect of greenhouse gases.

I don't know if there will be global warming this year or next year. I do know that putting a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere can cause warming (and create many other problems with air quality, and CO2 output, in particular, is closely tied to our over-dependence on foreign oil), so I would like to see us lower our emissions regardless of where the temperature might go from year to year.

[GibbsFactor]

Everyone should be going green now. If each of us does what we can, we will make a difference. Just go green!

[Duncan]

Beyond all of that, it is possible that the solar output for the sun has decreased, but to pretend that somebody predicted it even two years ago, has any real knowledge of how long it will last, or how much the decrease will be is ignorant.

That has been my point every time I've engaged in these debates. We are ignorant and I will readily agree that I am, but to the global warming alarmists "the debate is over".

So if the planet over the next 5 years starts dramatically cooling what should we do. Burn more gasoline? If the idea is "the earth in the balance" do we try to warm it?

[twa]

DJTJ, have you seen the studies showing methane being more of a warming factor than co2?....Any opinion on them?

I'm not sure we really know enough to draw firm conclusions at this time,but then I'm just a layman.

[DjTj]

DJTJ, have you seen the studies showing methane being more of a warming factor than co2?....Any opinion on them?

I think the experimental evidence is pretty indisputable that methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

Methane content in the atmosphere also hasn't been rising as fast as CO2. While man-made methane has increased, it has been generally offset by man-made destruction of wetlands (which were nature's source of methane).

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/09/060927-methane.html

I'm not sure we really know enough to draw firm conclusions at this time,but then I'm just a layman.

I think you're right to be skeptical, but the only firm conclusion that needs to be drawn is one that I think has become pretty indisputable among scientists: atmospheric CO2 can cause global warming.

Whether it will cause global warming is a question for psychics to decide, because any number of things could happen, including a solar minimum.

I think that for me, the uncertainty actually weighs in favor of trying to do something. We really don't know what exactly will happen if there is twice as much greenhouse gas in the atmosphere than ever before. It seems to me that the safe thing to do would be to try to limit our impact on the environment, especially when it is also in line with America's current foreign policy interests.

[Duncan]

I don't know if there will be global warming this year or next year. I do know that putting a lot of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere can cause warming (and create many other problems with air quality, and CO2 output, in particular, is closely tied to our over-dependence on foreign oil), so I would like to see us lower our emissions regardless of where the temperature might go from year to year.

The problem with this line of reasoning is it's eerily similar to the neocons after invading Iraq. Change the terms of the debate when the facts dispute your argument.

It was about WMD. Oh wait, it was about freeing a nation and establishing a democracy. Oh wait, we are fighting them over there instead of here. Oh wait........

So now it's no longer about catastrophic global warming, it's about air quality and dependence on foreign oil, both fine goals but it's not what has been spoon fed to the ignorant. Any contrary evidence is immediately dismissed because it goes against the religion of global warming.

[Oldskool]

Do you have a link?

Start here and go through the links provided in the blog.

http://ideonexus.com/2008/02/13/sun-spot-cycle-prompts-fears-of-global-cooling/

[DjTj]

The problem with this line of reasoning is it's eerily similar to the neocons after invading Iraq. Change the terms of the debate when the facts dispute your argument.

It was about WMD. Oh wait, it was about freeing a nation and establishing a democracy. Oh wait, we are fighting them over there instead of here. Oh wait........

So now it's no longer about catastrophic global warming, it's about air quality and dependence on foreign oil, both fine goals but it's not what has been spoon fed to the ignorant. Any contrary evidence is immediately dismissed because it goes against the religion of global warming.

I completely agree.

I wish the environmental debate were more about air quality or renewable energy or endangered species or all that happy stuff I learned about in elementary school.

I wish that before invading Iraq, President Bush was up front with the American people about the desire to draw Al Qaeda to a single battlefield, to build a democracy in Iraq, and to have better control over the world's oil markets.

In reality, however, that's not how policy debates happen. It's a lot easier to bring a nation to war when there is a pressing issue like WMD's. It's a lot easier to push environmental goals when there is a pressing issue like Global Warming. The debate will always move towards the more immediate and more sensational issue.

It would be nice, perhaps, if we could debate every issue honestly and openly, and everyone could take the time to understand the dynamics of Middle Eastern politics or atmospheric chemistry, but that's just never going to happen.

I personally try to weigh all evidence, but in the high stakes world of national security or environmentally policy, politics often trumps reasonable debate. Don't confuse the science of global warming, which is sound and open to discussion, with the politics of global warming, which can be monolithic and may appear like a religion. A lot of politics seems that way.

[Tastes Like Chicken]

Ice age?

I haven't seen jack **** as far as snow is concerned.

I blame Ji.

j/k Ji.

[Special K]

Does ths mean AlGore can go back to flying everywhere in his private jet?

Oh wait. He never stopped that, did he?

:laugh: :laugh: :laugh: So true...he's such a hypocrite.

I actually saw a report like this on the news. I was half paying attention and I overheard reporters saying that there has been and increase in the arctic ice cap in some areas. Sorry, this post is so vague, but like I said, wasn't paying too much attention....none of this environmental hoopla phases me.

On a side-note, I am really pissed that I was forced to watch Al Gore's stupid environmental movie in a graduate school environmental health class a few weeks ago. It would have been fine if the prof. would have showed a movie about the other viewpoint to global warming, simply to balance Al's load of BS. But she showed us the movie as if it were unbiased fact, I was astounded.

[PeterMP]

That has been my point every time I've engaged in these debates. We are ignorant and I will readily agree that I am, but to the global warming alarmists "the debate is over".

So if the planet over the next 5 years starts dramatically cooling what should we do. Burn more gasoline? If the idea is "the earth in the balance" do we try to warm it?

If the Earth starts to cool to the point that it is going to have a pretty drastic negative affect on the US and the human population in general, I am all for trying to warm it.

The best way to try and warm it is probably to reduce aersoles that we release. We've done a good job at it since the 70's, but we can probably do even better.

Reduction of CO2 in the air clearly doesn't make sense in that scenario.

However, there is no real evidence that the Earth is going to cool drastically.

The global warming debate isn't that if the sun suddenly and unpredictably decreased solar out put that the Earth wouldn't cool. It is that the warming we've seen over the last 30 years or so is at least partially the result of man made green house gasses.

Nobody argues that the Earth's temp is not related to solar output.

[Thiebear]

Everyone should be going green now. If each of us does what we can, we will make a difference. Just go green!

Just don't plant trees above a certain latitude though right?

Because that kind of help is actually hurting...

I think we need to do whats right with emissions and such but lets not believe for a second we understand whats going on and we have the means to fix it.

If we went Amish today: the ice would get thinner and the air warmer and coral reefs smaller.

And then in 1000 years the ice would get thicker and the air cooler and coral reefs bigger.

[PeterMP]

Start here and go through the links provided in the blog.

http://ideonexus.com/2008/02/13/sun-spot-cycle-prompts-fears-of-global-cooling/

I don't see the mention of 2012. Until Jan. of this year, I didn't see anybody talking with any real conviction about the new 11 year cycle being less active than the past cycle (I'm sure you can find some links where they say it is possible because it was essentially a 50/50 chance (I believe the last cycle was just about "average")).

I read the links that he gave and I see comments like this:

"Despite the direct response of the model to solar forcing, even large solar irradiance change combined with realistic volcanic forcing over past centuries could not explain the late 20th century warming without inclusion of greenhouse gas forcing. Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century."

"Variations in the Sun's total energy output (luminosity) are caused by changing dark (sunspot) and bright structures on the solar disk during the 11-year sunspot cycle. The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years."

"Here we analyse the difference between the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12. Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate."

I don't see anybody mention the year 2012, and I don't see anywhere before Jan. of this year anybody talking about reduced solar output was coming.

Here's your original comment:

"Most scientists who aren't in blind lock step with the Environmetal Movement have started to address the fact that the Sun will be going in a period of "hibernation" in or around 2012 or so."

Anywhere where somebody says this BEFORE Jan of this year that a solar hibernation is coming?

I know now some people are saying it is possible, but that is after the late solar cycle start up, and I hope you don't expect the whole scientific community to change their mind after a month and a half of decreased solar activity.

Beyond that, we are talking about an ~11 year cycle that has with in it some variation. Unless you can provide a link that suggest otherwise, to my knowledge, this could be a less active cycle, and then next cycle things could return to "normal" or we could even have an above avg. cycle.

We're coming off of a regular min for the solar cycle. The next solar cycle has started slowly. Temps are down. It isn't surprising.

Could the solar cycle speed up and essentially be an avg. solar cycle?

Yes, but history shows that on avg. the later the solar cycle starts the less intense it is so we are most likely looking at the next 11 years having decreased solar out put and probably temps.

Does that mean we've entered into a new larger cycle where all of the solar cycles will be less intense then they have been in the recent past? No. History also shows that solar cycles go up and down. One is down, and the next is up.

Most likely the next solar cycle will be somewhere close to the "average" solar cycle.

Could this represent a long term (greater than the next 11 years) change in solar output? Sure, but I haven't seen anybody present any evidence to support that.

[Thiebear]

I think the previous mention of 12/21/12 is the Mayan(sp) calander of the end of the world.

[USS Redskins]

Additionally..this article seems to represent more of an internal struggle of the old school climatologists vs the new school ecologists.

This is an excellent point. More than anything, I think it shows that there is no consensus of opinion among scientists about Global Warming, there is actually a big disagreement but you never hear that in the mainstream media.

Guys like Al Gore and hollywood stars are, all of sudden, Scientists, telling everyone that we are doomed unless we change our way of life.

I am not a scientist so I couldnt say if its true or not but of course, there is no harm in conserving.

[stevenaa]

atmospheric CO2 can cause global warming.

Or more appropriately, atmospheric CO2 can contribute to global warming. It is one of many, not well understood, components. It may turn out that it is a major contributor, it may not be. We really don't know. I'm all for pushing for reduced emissions to reduce polutions. But this hysteria over Global Warming is just that. Hysteria. The ice reduction has been a huge selling point for the alarmists. There are already posts in this thread stating that, if the ice is returning, it's a local abberration. Afterall, we can see some areas get hotter, some get colder, and still have net Global Warming. :doh: Seems that same argument could be applied to the melting of the ice.

[speardog1]

Want more?

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=10866

World Temperatures according to the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction. Note the steep drop over the last year.

Twelve-month long drop in world temperatures wipes out a century of warming

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.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.

Historically, the warm periods such as the Medieval Climate Optimum were beneficial for civilization. Corresponding cooling events such as the Little Ice Age, though, were uniformly bad news.

This article is crap. It's one Year! Has anyone ever heard of outliers? it happens. The long term trend will continue to get warmer.

[PeterMP]

Or more appropriately, atmospheric CO2 can contribute to global warming. It is one of many, not well understood, components. It may turn out that it is a major contributor, it may not be. We really don't know. I'm all for pushing for reduced emissions to reduce polutions. But this hysteria over Global Warming is just that. Hysteria. The ice reduction has been a huge selling point for the alarmists. There are already posts in this thread stating that, if the ice is returning, it's a local abberration. Afterall, we can see some areas get hotter, some get colder, and still have net Global Warming. :doh: Seems that same argument could be applied to the melting of the ice.

All other things being constant increased CO2 will cause warming.

The question is how much of a role has the increase in CO2 caused the warming observed in the last 50 years. Many studies over a long period of time all conclude it has been a substantial component, but not the only component.

[alexey]

1) Global Warming is not just the same climate with higher temperatures. Global Warming means more extreme climate. We are talking about severe droughts in one areas and severe flooding in others, sudden uncommon freezing or warming that causes all kinds of agricultural problems, etc. Article that started this thread picks several "cold" extremes and tries to slap together a point out of them.

2) Sun's energy comes in. Some of it is reflected back. Some of it stays. This is called "Radiative Forcing". Radiative Forcing properties of CO2 are:

(from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiative_forcing)

For a greenhouse gas, such as carbon dioxide, radiative transfer codes that examine each spectral line for atmospheric conditions can be used to calculate the change ΔF as a function of changing concentration. These calculations can often be simplified into an algebraic formulation that is specific to that gas.

For instance, the simplified first-order approximation expression for carbon dioxide is:

where C is the CO2 concentration in parts per million by volume and C0 is the reference concentration (Myhre, et al. 1998). The relationship between carbon dioxide and radiative forcing is logarithmic so that increased concentrations have a progressively smaller warming effect.

[twa]

This article is crap. It's one Year! Has anyone ever heard of outliers? it happens. The long term trend will continue to get warmer.

Which long term trend?

The expected solar minimum(more cooling) or the overdue ice age?

Or do you prefer a trend that supports your conclusion.