A passing trend

Hansen throws cold water on cooling climate claim

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 1:08 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Read more about: climate | climate science | James Hansen

NASA's James Hansen has weighed in (PDF) to ...

... expose the recent nonsense that has appeared in the blogosphere, to the effect that recent cooling has wiped out global warming of the past century, and the Earth may be headed into an ice age. On the contrary, these misleaders have foolishly (or devilishly) fixated on a natural fluctuation that will soon disappear.

As Hansen explains:

Weather fluctuations or 'noise' have a noticeable effect even on monthly-mean global-mean temperature, especially in Northern Hemisphere winter. Weather has little effect on global-mean temperature averaged over several months or more. The primary cause of variations on time scales from a few months to a few years is ocean dynamics, especially the Southern Oscillation (El Nino -- La Nina cycle), although an occasional large volcano can have a cooling effect that lasts a few years. The 10-11 year cycle of solar irradiance has a just barely detectable effect on global temperature, no more than about 0.1°C, much less noticeable than El Nino/La Nina fluctuations.

So what happened this winter?

The past year (2007) witnessed a transition from a weak El Nino to a strong La Nina (the latter is perhaps beginning to moderate already, as the ocean waters near Peru are beginning to warm). January 2007 was the warmest January in the period of instrumental data in the GISS analysis, while, as shown in Figure 1, October 2007 was # 5 warmest, November 2007 was #8 warmest, December 2007 was #8 warmest, and January 2008 was #40 warmest. Undoubtedly, the cooling trend through the year was due to the strengthening La Nina, and the unusual coolness in January was aided by a winter weather fluctuation.

Small long-term temperature changes have vastly more consequence than large short-term temperature changes:

The large short-term temperature fluctuations have no bearing on the global warming matter or the impacts of global warming ... A global warming much smaller than weather fluctuations has the potential for dramatic effects, e.g., by setting in motion future large sea level change, species extinction, and various other impacts.

His final point goes to the heart of a common misconception among many people:

Cold weather does raise an interesting point, though. People who do not like cold weather, and might have welcomed the idea that Minnesota may become more like Missouri or Massachusetts like Virginia, must give up that notion, unless they wish ill for a large fraction of the planet's inhabitants, both human and other creatures. We are going to have to figure out a way to keep climate zones pretty much where they are now (winters will continue to happen, as always). It is possible that we can still do that -- just barely. But I digress -- that will be in our next paper, almost finished.

I'll post that as soon as he does.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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9 Comments | Post a Comment

"Undoubtedly"

For a man of Science...he sure does ask us to take a lot on Faith.

AGW is being defrocked in New York City this week.

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 1:39 AM on 05 Mar 2008

It's not "faith"...

...it's knowin' the difference between "weather" and "climate".

by Tasermons Partner at 3:29 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Its a shame ...

that Alfred the Gore doesn't know the difference

Stockypig

by stockypig at 5:54 AM on 05 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

and worse yet...

The weather and or the overall climate are the result of the interaction of many natural forces and factors. The energy produced by the sun, the distance of the earth from the sun and the composition of the atmosphere are just a few of these.

The data that we have shows us that at least one major factor in this system is changing. The composition of our atmosphere has shown a rise in the percentage of CO2 in its' mix of gases and a decrease of O2. There has also been an increase in the overall amount of water vapor in the atmosphere.

This being the given it is interesting to consider all of the possible effects that this changing atmosphere might produce. For example, the earth is a giant capacitor in both literal and figurative terms. There is a difference in electrical potential between the surface of the earth and the ionosphere. The earth's surface charge is fairly constant but electrons are descending to and rising from its' surface constantly. Charged particles from the solar wind are adding to the sheath of electrically charged particles that surrounds the earth (the ionosphere).

Between the two charged "plates" of the ionosphere and the surface of the planet there is a mix of dielectric gases. In a capacitor the dielectric between the plates determines the amount of potential difference that can be created between the plates. The earth has a potential difference between the ionosphere and the surface of the planet of around 360,000 volts.

If the charge between the plates of a capacitor gets too large dielectric breakdown occurs and current can pass between the plates. Lightning is an example of this in our earth capacitor.What the dielectric is composed of determines how much energy can be stored between the plates. In the case of the earth we are changing the composition of our atmospheric dielectric. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the system overall. :)

http://www.myspace.com/enki09

by enki09 at 6:29 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Grist nails it

"But the more I've listened to these speakers, the more I've realized that for most of them, it's not about the science. Panels don't go five minutes without attacking Al Gore or comparing climate activists to socialists who want to destroy capitalism. Deniers are part of a political culture that frames the world in terms of left and right, so they've absorbed global warming into that broader paradigm of partisan politics."
(http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/4/155110/4814)

And as we see here, another prediction is verified.

by gzuckier at 7:35 AM on 05 Mar 2008

Would the public response be different if

our emissions were bringing on an ice age? We probably should never have called it "warming." That is one of the most comforting words in our language.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:00 AM on 05 Mar 2008

The Trolls are doing their job

The trolls probably work for PR firms or think tanks, and this activity is part of their billable time on the job. Ignore the ethically-challenged; they have little real power any more. The majority of people in the country are finally waking up to what anyone with an environmental background (who wasn't being paid to ignore the facts) has known for years.

But they lead me to make a point: scientists and environmentalists in particular need to learn from their tactics. Science is a language of equivocation and qualification, with constant questioning and critical analysis. Public relations and marketing, on the other hand, is a language of hyperbole and symbolic absolutism. When communicating to the public, science needs to find simple, concrete language and frame the need for action in that language, not the language of science.

Several years ago Republican pollster and "framing expert" Frank Luntz was asked by the RNC to test language describing global warming in language that would be least likely to cause public alarm and spur action to address the problem. His answer? "Climate change." Change is neutral, and can be a good thing. Global warming, on the other hand, sounds "dangerous."

So I propose new framing: "catastrophic climate imbalance."

by Robco1 at 4:17 PM on 05 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

Methane hydrates concern me more

Personally, I'm a little more alarmed by the discovery of several trillion metric tons of methane hydrates in solid form under the earth's oceans. Pressure and temperature keep these hydrates in solid form. A change in ocean temperatures could cause them to revert to methane gas, which is 20 x more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2. Plus it is extremely flammable. And it smells bad.

by Robco1 at 4:24 PM on 05 Mar 2008
[ Parent ]

Hot winter!

Well, over here in Sweden we have had the warmest winter in 250 years. In some cities it has not even been a metereological winter (below 0 deg C during 5 days). Darn boring for the kids and even if it's not a scientific proof of global warming it really makes you wonder. Plants are starting to grow, slugs have woken up and birds think is spring!!! So I think we have local variations, some places got a lot of snow and a cold winter, but not the one who usually are cold. Kind of scary anyhow.

Roberticus

by roberticus at 10:23 AM on 06 Mar 2008

ADVERTISING POLICY

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