Global Warming Al Gore Ice Age?

Temperature Monitors Report Worldwide Global Cooling

Michael Asher (Blog) - February 26, 2008 12:55 PM

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

A twelve-month long drop in world temperatures erases global 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 every 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.

The great Messiah Al Gore is at an important conference with God somewhere near Australia (where they're experiencing the hottest weather on record). He'll come back and enlighten his followers when the weather is more comfortable for his sensitive skin. Then his minions will listen to his commands and follow them.

Oops, oh wait, I seem to be mixing up Al Gore with Rush Limbaugh. Rush is the one with the minions ;-)

As for your comment about "nastiest winters in years", I guess you must think that the US (representing only about 2% of the surface of the world) is all that's important.

Since December 2007 was the 8th warmest global December on record, I think I'd wait for the February and March data to come in before making any declarations about how this Winter compares with others. And even then, since 1 year is meaningless as far as long-term climate trends are concerned, I wouldn't make a big deal about it.

"The year 2007 tied for second warmest in the period of instrumental data, behind the record warmth of 2005, in the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) analysis. 2007 tied 1998, which had leapt a remarkable 0.2°C above the prior record with the help of the "El Niño of the century". The unusual warmth in 2007 is noteworthy because it occurs at a time when solar irradiance is at a minimum and the equatorial Pacific Ocean is in the cool phase of its natural El Niño-La Niña cycle."

As others have said...it's winter now. Because it's cold in few places means nothing, and people who think it does are demonstrating that they don't know even the basics of climate science and global warming theory. Al Gore is a politician by the way, and has nothing to do with global warming science.

The fact that we are having winter doesn't mean that global warming is not happening. Matter of fact if you actually watched the movie, Gore predicted more sporadic weather - meaning worse weather in areas - more droughts in some areas, coupled with flooding and severe snow storms in others.

What do you think causes an ice age??? It doesn't just magically happen. It is normally preceded by periods of extreme temperatures, and extreme weather... so after you stock up on sunscreen, make sure you have your parkas ready.

I think you have not understood the true meaning of Global Warming - its literal meaning is what you look at but its a wider term and needs to be understood clearly. The best answer to your question will be the movie "The Day After Tomorrow".

It takes a lot of heat to produce an outflow of glacial melt water over the ocean surface to produce la Nina effects.

But if we were getting that Nina effect without glacial melt water, would we persist for many years?

Al Gore is irrelevant to the science behind global warming.

You got the key point though. Temperatures will be back up soon. We're having a cold winter, but it's just that - one winter, and it's only so cold because we're in the middle of a strong La Nina cycle. Global warming hasn't gone away just because we've had a cold month or two.

The US is not the whole planet but less than 5% of its surface.

China also had a very cold winter but again... where I am from, we just had our mildest winter ever.

So no local temperatures give an idea of the present earth´s energy balance.

Typically a question would have a verb in it along with the nouns.

Oh no wait, I see, your questions are in the supplementary material. You just wanted to hit the high notes in the title.

Great questions. The answers are:

Al Gore and disciples generally take January/February to visit their home planet and receive further instructions from the giant floating brain that is their evil master.

Yes, they will be back provided the quantum-bubble Planck-scale transference drive unit is fixed in time. If not, their robot doubles will fill in for them.

Thank you for not asking anything about science.

Well here in Texas is said that someone trying to forecast the weather is a fool or a newcomer.