Global cooling back again?

Just saw this, and thought it was pretty funny, you know, given how back in the 50's there was something of a panic about this, and then global warming somehow became absolute "fact" and now we're back to cooling again.

You'd think mother Earth was going through menopause.

So I'm curious to see what everyone's take on this is.

I remember reading something Gech wrote about how everyone who actually deals with the Earth on a professional basis basically thought global warming was a pile of shit.

I pretty much fell in line with that opinion. So I welcome this news as vindication.

DailyTech - Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

Quote:

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.

A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four 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.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by Arainach

News flash: When the globe warms, that doesn't mean everywhere gets warmer. The weather as a whole just gets more extreme - higher highs, lower lows, and increased turbulence. Large-scale trends are not predictors for individual events. Surprise, surprise.

Except for that whole discussion on reduced solar activity, but hey, I'm totally sure the sun has been dramatically impacted by the Earth's environment.

Also large scale trends and individual events, I'm glad we agree on something. Except an individual event is all the data supporting global warming amounts to in the scope of geological history.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It just occurred to me that it seems pretty silly to be referring to science as the ultimate arbiter in this debate. I mean, on the one hand, yeah, what other option do you have right? On the other, you've got scientists running research funded by the green lobby which says omg those bad people with their bad CO2 are killing the world, and you've got other scientists running research funded by people with other interests saying omg CO2 is negligible.

So talking about what Science would say at this point seems a bit like talking about what a person with multiple personality disorder might claim on any given day.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Arainach

You confuse science with think tanks. There is no great debate in the scientific world; the vast majority of minds and the overwhelming majority of evidence points in one direction.

The overwhelming majority in a situation where there's lots and lots of money to be made by agreeing and confirming etc etc.

Basically all I'm saying is that everything everyone is saying is suspect because of the vast, overwhelming amount of interest in the damn subject.

Which in turn means you can talk about the overwhelming majority all you want, and I can talk about social pressure, marketing, government funding and its effect on careers all I want, either of us could spin "science" to completely support either view point.

It's almost like interpreting the bible, in a somewhat ironic manner.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?