George Will - on calamaties

Mike Gaskey

according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.[^] George Will is a conservative, one that I don't always agree with. He has an interesting opinion, that being real calamaties push the phoney ones to the background.

Mike - typical white guy. The USA does have universal healthcare, but you have to pay for it. D'oh. Thomas Mann - "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.

Lost User

With conflicting reports etc, such as Global warming 'underestimated'[^] this must make fat_boy's day.

John Carson

Mike Gaskey wrote:

according to the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade, or one-third of the span since the global cooling scare.

Will doesn't give a cite for this but, assuming the claim is accurate, it doesn't mean much. For short-term weather reasons (in addition to long-term climate reasons), 1998 was unusually hot, which means that any measure starting at 1998 has a bias toward cooling. The 2008 report of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization gives the following rankings for the hottest years on record (going back over 150 years to 1850): 1. 1998 2. 2005 3. 2003 4. 2002 5. 2004 6. 2006 7. 2007 8. 2001 9. 1997 10. 1995 Accordingly, I don't think there is a lot of comfort for the denialists in the record of the past decade. http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/wcp/wcdmp/documents/WMO1031_EN_web.pdf[^]

John Carson

Rob Graham

Actually, John, It would be intersting to know where Will got his information. Quoting from the document you linked to: "Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74°C, but this increase has not been continuous. The linear warming trend over the past 50 years (0.13°C per decade) is nearly twice that for the past 100 years." That seems to contradict Will's assertion as to what the WMO is saying. [Edit] apparently the statement stems from this.[^][/edit]

John Carson

Rob Graham wrote:

Quoting from the document you linked to: "Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the global average surface temperature has risen by 0.74°C, but this increase has not been continuous. The linear warming trend over the past 50 years (0.13°C per decade) is nearly twice that for the past 100 years." That seems to contradict Will's assertion as to what the WMO is saying.

Not necessarily. It could be true both that a linear fit to the data over the past 50 years shows a warming trend and that a linear fit to the last 10 years doesn't show a warming trend --- provided there was sufficient warming in the first 40 years. Like I suggested, if you get the hottest year on record in 1998 and then the temperature bounces around in the vicinity of that hottest year for the next decade, then a linear fit for those 10 years could show no upward trend. Nevertheless, the fact that temperature stays at near record levels is highly suggestive. If Will's claim is correct --- on which I reserve judgement --- then I strongly suspect that continued warming will show up in the data in the next 2-3 years as short-term weather effects wash out.

John Carson

oilFactotum

Here are a couple of responses to Will's column: http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/environmentandenergy/archive/2009/02/15/can-george-will-save-the-quot-global-cooling-quot-myth-sadly-no.aspx[^] http://climateprogress.org/2009/02/15/george-will-global-cooling-warming-debunked/[^]

Stan Shannon

Hey, I see you showed up at an Obama event...[^].

Chaining ourselves to the moral high ground does not make us good guys. Aside from making us easy targets, it merely makes us idiotic prisoners of our own self loathing.

Tim Craig

I see you attended one of your events.[^] Oh wait, they were carrying US flags, you don't salute that anymore. :laugh:

"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke

BoneSoft

Tim Craig wrote:

Oh wait, they were carrying US flags, you don't salute that anymore

Does that mean he's supporting Obama[^] now?

Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.

Tim Craig

Turned into a real right wing troll since the election, haven't you? :laugh:

"Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." -- P.J. O'Rourke

BoneSoft

Some left wing trolls might see it that way. Other people might see it as calling you on your trolling. ;)

Visit BoneSoft.com for code generation tools (XML & XSD -> C#, VB, etc...) and some free developer tools as well.

Lost User

Whether the cooling period its 11 or 7 years depends on whether you accept the exceptional el-nino 1998 as the peak. If not, the GW peaked at around 2002. Either way, its a significant trend. Re the calamities thinhg though, I think its true. We always liie something to worry about. And so post cold war we had to comeup with somehting to replace the bomb and AGW was the result.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Lost User

Well, to take a look at the article you link to: "He says that a warming planet will dry out forests in tropical areas making them much more likely to suffer from wildfires." But a warming planet has a higher humidity and rainfall so it wont be drier. (At least according to AGW alarmists such as the GUardian: the Sahara desert is expected to shrink with global warming as more plentiful rain [^] In any case we know forest firs are mostly started by arsonists, and exacerbated by not keeping the forest floor clear of scrub and dead growth bu clearing a controled burning. This is as we aslo know a result of environmental activism.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Lost User

Satellite data shows an averaged cooling trend of around 3` per century since 2003. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/18/giss-divergence-with-satellite-temperatures-since-the-start-of-2003/[^] The bronze age was a lot warmer than today, the MWP was warmer too. We had it very cold during LIA, and warming since then up to around 1930. After that due to increased data the picture is less consistent: The US, Greenland, Canada, the Arctic, and much of the rest of the far north got colder, then hotter, but no hotter than the 1930's. (Ignoring the 1998 freak year) Antartica and parts of the south have kept getting colder. And now we seem to be at the beginning of a general cooling trend. Warming? Nope. Global? Nope. Its just plain variabilty and any CO2 we produce is good for crops and should not be limited. Any other stance than that is unscientific self delusion and lies.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Lost User

The first link only attacks Wills assertion that the cooling scare of the 70s has a bearing on todays situation. (Which is arguable, depending on you position) The second uses language such that it discredits itself.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Lost User

John Carson wrote:

Not necessarily. It could be true both that a linear fit to the data over the past 50 years shows a warming trend and that a linear fit to the last 10 years doesn't show a warming trend --- provided there was sufficient warming in the first 40 years.

For sure. And the longer term trends all show cooling. Post MWP, post bronze age, and for the last 10,000 years. Fact is todays temperatures are many degrees off either the highs or the lows. (The rate of change isnt spectacular either).

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Mike Gaskey

fat_boy wrote:

so post cold war we had to comeup with somehting to replace the bomb and AGW was the result.

must have boogey man, repeat, must have boogey man. so, yup, I agree with you.

Mike - typical white guy. The USA does have universal healthcare, but you have to pay for it. D'oh. Thomas Mann - "Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil." The NYT - my leftist brochure. Calling an illegal alien an “undocumented immigrant” is like calling a drug dealer an “unlicensed pharmacist”. God doesn't believe in atheists, therefore they don't exist.

Rob Graham

Although I am inclined to agree that 10 years is to short a period for a reasonable assessment, it is surprising considering that CO2 increase rates have been greater than the IPCC worst case scenarios in recent years. One wonders what factors were wrong or missing in the computer models...

Lost User

Rob Graham wrote:

One wonders what factors were wrong or missing in the computer models

CO2 forcing is doubled, the earth is flat, it is constant day light, clouds dont exist... As you state, CO2 has kept climbing, even more than thought, and for 7, possibly 10 years temps have fallen (in the last 7 by 3 degrees C a century). So is CO2 in the driving seat? Nope. Its somewhere in the back with the also-rans. Even the IPCC downgraded CO2s forcing from 2.4 to 1.7 w/m^2 s between the third and fourth reports. The IPC also state that 4/5ths of climate science has a "very low level of scientific understanding". Its not surprising the computer models are so wrong.

Morality is indistinguishable from social proscription

Oakman

BoneSoft wrote:

Does that mean he's supporting Obama

Nope, just that he's a self-confessed traitor. Probably an agent of a foreign government - probably Argentina.

Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface Algoraphobia: An exaggerated fear of the outside world rooted in the belief that one might spontaneously combust due to global warming.