What happened to global warming?

So what happened to global warming?

It’s not just that it’s disappeared from media headlines this year - shoved off by the credit crunch and natural disasters, for example. It can’t be ignored that 2007 came and went as another very warm year - the 7th hottest on record since 1850 according to the World Meteorological Organization.

But it wasn’t a record. In fact that was 1998, a full 10 years ago — the year of an exceptional El Nino, a Pacific weather pattern which heats the whole globe. So is global warming not living up to the hype?

Two weeks ago Leibniz Institute’s Noel Keenlyside stirred an academic hornet’s

nest by saying that we may have to wait longer - a decade or more - for another

peak year, because a natural weakening in ocean currents may be cooling sea

temperatures.

Many scientists flatly rejected the idea, saying Keenlyside had over-estimated the effect. But some pointed out that a recent switch in a weather pattern called the North Atlantic Oscillation could indeed cool temperatures globally.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said last year recent warming was

“unequivocal” and most of it ”very likely” manmade. And almost all scientists in the latest debate, including Keenlyside, agree that any temporary cooling doesn’t alter that - blips due to natural effects are to be expected.

But how long is a blip? No-one knows.

It could be many years before there’s an El Nino as bad as 1998, scientists say. And in the meantime the doubts will grow, just as policymakers try to negotiate one of the most complex global treaties ever. A new Kyoto Protocol will affect issues of equity and poverty: in the case of poor countries the right to grow, for island states perhaps the right to exist, and for rich countries the right to compete on a level economic playing field.

Meanwhile one or two doubters are already saying the present lull in warming

casts doubt on just how far manmade greenhouse gases are influencing the climate. MIT’s Richard Lindzen reckoned that if it was as bad as all that temperatures would be rising faster.

Global Warming is already going down. Its already right here and we will quit it. all people will have to have the danger to understand approximately this and it's going to be their alternative to support DO anything approximately it. If men and women maintain dwelling the way in which we're dwelling proper now, no we can now not live to tell the tale. Maybe we can and our youngsters will however what approximately our grandchildren or generations after that? the little one boomers technology used to be an technology of first-rate technological innovations and the young adults now , I consider, are the folks that may do anything approximately it and can! Teens(and adults for that topic) now are extra mindful of whats going down with this global and what we will do to maintain this earth even as we're dwelling . Going vegetarian for illustration can diminish plenty of the greenhouse gasoline emissions additionally jus unplugging the whole lot once we don't seem to be making use of it. Remember. if anything is plugged in although it isnt grew to become on, it's nonetheless making use of electrical power.. Turn your lighting off , mild a candle, now not each mild for your condo demands to be on. teach your self! Learn extra approximately worldwide warming and what you'll be able to do retailer our earth. We could make a change

I have to say I'm surprised this came from the BBC...

Anyway, we have not been in an 11 year cooling trend if you look at a more global measurement, such as NASA's GISS. Their measurements extrapolate for polar regions, whereas Hadley (the only one of the three main temperature records which shows 1998 as the warmest year) simply ignores the poles.

NASA and NOAA both show 2005 as the warmest year on record, and 2007 as the 2nd warmest.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lr...

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/glob...

The summer of 2009 also saw the warmest sea surface anomaly ever recorded.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2009/20090916_...

Also important to note is that even in Hadley or the satellite data, which show 1998 as the warmest year, it was not that we were warming at a constant rate and then suddenly stopped at 1998. 1998 was an outlier due to a very strong El Niño event. If it were removed, you would still see the usual warming trend. This is clear from the RSS satellite data:

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/02... (the graph stops at 2008 for dramatic effect; 2009 is looking to have an anomaly around +0.3)

The article also illustrates the main problem with the skeptical argument, and that is that there is no solid argument. They say it's solar irradiance, and if not that then cosmic rays, and if not that then PDO. They just jump around, not really believing strongly in anything except "not AGW".

Actually if you use the data from NASA GISS instead of the British Hadley Center (NASA is more complete because they model for the Arctic where the warming is greatest, whereas Hadley simply omits that region because there are few temperature stations there), 2005 was the hottest year on record.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.lr...

Anyway the only reason 1998 was so hot was that there was a massive El Niño that year - the largest in the past century. In 2005 there was a much smaller El Niño cycle and yet the planet was hotter that year because of human-induced warming.

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009...

And no, the solution to global warming is not mass murder. It's becoming more energy efficient and using cleaner technologies.

First, remember that the concern is total warming, including the oceans. Most of what gets talked about is the air and land surface, but most of what is important is the ocean. When we have ocean current patterns, such as a La Nina, that churn very cold water from the deep to the surface we get cooling in the air -- the heat transfer is to the oceans. We know that 1998 was the warmest year on record; this is not new information. 1998 was a year of a very strong El Nino pattern. The La Nina since then has been absorbing the heat from the air into the ocean, and we now have warmer oceans. None of this is new. We know we will experience year to year and decade to decade variances, but when we look and total heat including surface, air and oceans, we are getting consistent warming.

"But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures."

http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-sto...

The suggestion that it hasn't warmed in 11 years is one deniers continue to try and make, it is clear that 1998 was above what had been the slow rise of global temperature this is visible in the temp data

http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/

and the reason for that is pretty simple, the strongest El Nino in a century

http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/tao/elnino/faq.html#deal

So many people were following like sheep to the myth of Global Warming. Now they realize it was only a Liberal agenda that they were in fact duped

It was caused by the sun and now the temps are going the other way.

We never caused it and we could never stop it and now it's getting colder and there is nothing we can do about that either.

I was hoping Al Gore would have came over last winter when it was 32 degrees below zero and helped me shovel snow. Then he could have told me how dammed warm it was. Where I live our winters are getting colder and the summers aren't as warm as they used to be.

global warming is not only increasing temperature but also other effects of it, floods in other areas of the world, tsumnami, typhons, melting of ice, rise of sea water, dininishing foof supplies, problems of drinking water etc.