2008: Year AGW Was Disproved (Telegraph)

[krazy kaju]

Link (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3982101/2008-was-the-year-man-made-global-warming-was-disproved.html)

Excellent column, we need more of these in the U.S.

[The_Orlonater]

About time. :)

I wonder if America will listen? Probably not, especially with all this change coming.

[Uriel999]

Nice. :p

[Kludge]

This is because Global Warming has literally caused Global Cooling due to what is known as a shutdown of thermohaline circulation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutdown_of_thermohaline_circulation).


... :p

[krazy kaju]

^ That doesn't happen in the Pacific though. ;)

[Paulitician]

Eh, not quite. I still believe in AGW but I have my doubts. One's years worth of data or activity does not disprove AGW (but neither would I say that AGW is anywhere close to being proven either, but going over the scientific material it does seem to me to be the best explanation so far). I'll just have to wait another 30 years to see how this whole global warming/climate change controversy develops, and resolves itself (if ever).

[krazy kaju]

What about other years?

http://www.kowabunga.org/images/pictures/misc/sunspot.gif

The AGW hypothesis simply cannot hold up when we look at the data. How can we have global cooling that coincides with the greatest economic boom of the 20th century (post-WWII boom) and, consequently, the greatest expansion of carbon emissions in a few decades?

[Paulitician]

My support for the AGW hypothesis is based on the last 30 years. The warming before then was mostly natural, so it's not something I'm really concerned with. Scientists are predicting we could have a decade of cooling (people who say that we've had a cooling the past decade a stretching the truth a bit IMO, it's not very apperant) due to some natural forcing which could/will offset the anthropogenic forcing, but AGW could continue after that, and depending on climate sensitivity, the problem could get quite bad. But as I said, I have my doubts, I'm not at all an alarmist, and we'll have to wait another good 30 years to see how things develop (climate is not 1 years worth of phenomena, climate is a long-term thing).

[krazy kaju]

So what makes you think that what caused global warming/cooling previously all of a sudden will change?

[Paulitician]

The best explanation for what we've had warming the past few decades is AGW IMO. It could turn out that the science was wrong and we have a better explanation in the future. I mean, climate is complex and we don't fully understand it. Anyway, because of natural activity, we should have seen slight cooling the past decades, but instead we saw warming. This could be an anomoly, something we don't quite understand yet, or a secular trend because of CO2 and other greenhouse emissions. It's not "all of a sudden will change." It has changed already. Whether it continues or not is another matter we'll just have to wait to observe.

[krazy kaju]

But if we look at the data, sun activity has been increasing the past few decades, which has corresponded with global warming. Decreased sun activity has corresponded with global cooling.

[Paulitician]

Temperature kept advancing even when sun activity wasn't.

[krazy kaju]

Temperature kept advancing even when sun activity wasn't.

Are you sure?

http://i27.tinypic.com/21joktg.jpg

[nickcoons]

Temperature kept advancing even when sun activity wasn't.

Actually, the activity in the sun matches climate very nicely. On the other hand, there is no evidence anywhere that CO2 or any other man-made emissions have any impact on the climate.

Al Gore shows a timeline of 650,000 years, and illustrated a correlation between CO2 levels and temperature. There is indeed a correlation, but not the one he intended to show. CO2 doesn't cause temperature rises, but in fact temperature rises cause rises in CO2, and there's about an 800-year lag (something not visible on a 650,000 year timeline).

Here's the reason. Virtually all of the CO2 emissions come from the ocean, far more than any CO2 emissions from man, plants, animals, and volcanoes combined. The ocean is vast in size and takes quite a bit of time to react. When the global temperature rises, it takes several hundred years for the ocean to respond, causing it to release CO2. When the global temperature drops, the ocean absorbs CO2. But because of its size, this effect is delayed for centuries.