Will this article help educate people who think the earth has cooled in the past decade?

Oh now they are pulling the data is corrupt card. But somehow they forget the "data is corrupt" when they say the globe is cooling.

Based on the evidence and simple logic, there are only two possible conclusions to make:

1.) The data is not corrupt and any fair analysis shows the earth is warming.

2.) The data is corrupt and no conclusion can be drawn from corrupted data.

The idea that the earth is cooling has zero validity.

No. The deniers live in a world of their own, either totally ignoring the data, or "cherrypicking" years as they see fit. For example, consider this bit of utter nonsense:

"The Earth has been warming since 1850". This is right up there, as bad interpretation of the data, with the 1998 crap. The present warming trend didn't start until about 1920, after the first World War, and during the "roaring 20s". DATA:

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/f/f4/Instru...

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/b/bb/1000_Y...

I don't think people want to believe; doesn't that just put people in a bad mood?

People don't want to be told that they have to cut back.

If you really feel that GW is a problem, hide your motives (like reducing greenhouse gas emissions) behind the facade of "the joys of carpooling."

I find that it's much easier to twist a concept to show how giving something up can benefit the individuals.

If you want real trends, look at the planet's history of atmospheric CO2; the plants' CO2 levels rise and fall on a cycle that lasts about 100,000 years. This data comes from measuring CO2 trapped in layers of snow hundreds of feet below the arctic surface (compacted into ice over time). If you find the data, you might find that we are currently above the amplitude set for the past several-hundred thousand years.

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/...

-Look for the data on the past 414 thousand years to see the cycle

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/icecore/antarctica/...

You may have to graph it yourself.

Good luck!

You cannot educate those committed to lives of ignorance. Some will just claim that the data is corrupt because a worldwide conspiracy of scientists under the robotic-like control of Al Gore have altered not only current measurements, but because of their ability to travel through time and manipulate the time-space continuum they have gone back in time to alter every recorded temperature measurement ever made and to plant fake geophysical proxy records in every place every human could ever look.

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Meadow F --

I'm not sure that selecting the date generally used as the beginning of the second industrial revolution when urbanization, mass production, and industrial production replaced rural living and agrarian societies really helps your argument.

Your statement about the existence of a warming trend that is coincidental with the onset of the modern industrial revolution is the same one I made in a book chapter and several articles (peer-reviewed) in the early 1990s.

It implies that there is an anthropogenic cause behind the trend - at least that is what the screaming phone calls I received about it were claiming.

It still isn't any warmer than it was in 1998, and hasn't been warmer since 1998. The bit about "comparing an unusually warm year to an unusually cool year" doesn't fly - we're comparing 1998 to EVERY year since, and with each passing year there's more CO2. So at this point we're comparing every year to several years' worth of CO2 emissions. It's now more than a decade of CO2 emissions. So if one year's natural variability offsets over a decade of CO2 emissions, that's our point. We're not saying that CO2 doesn't "trap" heat, we're saying that the amount of heat "trapped" by the amount of CO2 in question isn't material. Also keep in mind that what was "unusual" about 1998 was an El Nino. We've had other El Nino years since then.

The Earth isn't "cooling" - temps have range from a few tenths to a few hundredths below the 1998 peak. But that also means that it hasn't warmed.

Comparing the average 2000s temps to the average 1990s temps is misleading, as is comparing the "30 year moving average." If you kid grew 2 inches per year from 5th through 8th grade and then stopped growing, his average height during high school would be greater than his average height during middle school - but it would be inaccurate to suggest that he grew during high school.

As for "people don't want to believe" or "people don't want to be told that they need to cut back" of course they don't. The fact that what you have to say is negative doesn't make it true. People don't want to hear that the world will end in 2012 either - doesn't make the Mayans right. People didn't want to hear in 1999 that at midnight on 1/1/2000, the computers would all go haywire. And they didn't want to hear that the computers would all go haywire unless people paid through the nose to have some consultant make some magic fix. A lot of them did pay through the nose - and it was like paying through the nose for a dream catcher. 1/1/2000 came and went and the computers were fine - even those that belonged to people who hadn't paid anything for a magic fix.

No, most people who think the Earth has cooled couldn't care less about facts or reality. They believe it because they want to believe it. You can show them the data and statistical analyses which disprove this myth until you're blue in the face, but for the most part, you'll never change their minds. They'll just find some convenient excuse to continue to deny this reailty, like claiming that NASA is biased and/or fudging the data (as predicted, all 3 denier answerers have said exactly that).

It is a good article though. Informative, as long as you're willing to learn from it.

I just love this particular line of warmist argument - the earth is warming! Ooooh! Aaaah! Quick: dismantle civilisation before it's too late.

The earth has been warming since 1850 so it's no real shock if it's still warming now is it?

What's next - the earth is rotating?

Contrarians will never believe the truth, they have to much invested in their lies. Either that or they are too stupid too understand elementary school level science

No it wont. The people that deny climate change are either ignorant or have a hidden agenda.

i don't believe anything from nasa as long as J hansen works there