Climate Change

[mharratsc]

Last decade equals warmest on record: UN

Updated November 30, 2011 02:59:21



Photo: 'The world is warming' - the report found the 2002-2011 period equals 2001-2010 as the warmest decade on record (Karen Barlow: ABC News)

Thirteen of the warmest years recorded have occurred within the last decade and a half, the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said.

The year 2011 caps a decade that ties the record as the hottest ever measured, the WMO said in its annual report on climate trends and extreme weather events, unveiled at UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa.

"Our science is solid and it proves unequivocally that the world is warming and that this warming is due to human activities," WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said in a statement, adding policy makers should take note of the findings.

"Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have reached new highs and are very rapidly approaching levels consistent with a two to 2.4 Celsius rise in average global temperatures."

Scientists believe any rise above the 2.0 threshold could trigger far-reaching and irreversible changes on Earth over land and in the seas.

The 2002-2011 period equals 2001-2010 as the warmest decade since 1850, the report said.

2011 ranks as the 10th warmest year since 1850, when accurate measurements began.

This was true despite a La Nina event - one of the strongest in 60 years - that developed in the tropical Pacific in the second half of 2010 and continued until May 2011.

The report noted that the cyclical climate phenomenon, which strikes every three to seven years, helped drive extreme weather events, including drought in east Africa, islands in the central equatorial Pacific and the southern United States.

It also aggravated flooding in southern Africa, eastern Australia and southern Asia.

While La Nina and its meteorological cousin El Nino are not caused by climate change, rising ocean temperatures caused by global warming may affect their intensity and frequency, scientists say.

Delegates from almost 200 nations have gathered in Durban for the UN Climate Change Conference.

Countries are expected to make a last effort to save the dying Kyoto Protocol, which was adopted in 1997 and entered into force in 2005.

The talks are the last chance to set another round of targets before the first commitment period ends in 2012.

The European Union is willing to sign up for a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol but other signatories, including Russia, Japan and Canada, are not.

The United States - the world's second biggest emitter after China - never ratified the protocol.

Major developing nations with surging economies, such as China and India, were not covered in the first commitment period as they were classified as emerging economies.

AFP/Reuters

Topics:climate-change, world-politics, south-africa

First posted November 29, 2011 21:41:31

Hightlight mine

Well, there you have it. All the way up to the highest levels of international politics... Climategate.

[Jarvamundo]

Seems all according to script....

>From: Phil Jones [mailto:p.jones@uea.ac.uk]
>Sent: 05 January 2009 16:18
>To: Johns, Tim; Folland, Chris
>Cc: Smith, Doug; Johns, Tim
>Subject: Re: FW: Temperatures in 2009
>
>
> Tim, Chris,
> I hope you’re not right about the lack of warming lasting
> till about 2020. I’d rather hoped to see the earlier Met Office
> press release with Doug’s paper that said something like -
> half the years to 2014 would exceed the warmest year currently on
> record, 1998! Still a way to go before 2014.
>
> I seem to be getting an email a week from skeptics saying
> where’s the warming gone. I know the warming is on the decadal
> scale, but it would be nice to wear their smug grins away. >
>
> Cheers
> Phil

[Aardwolf]

So Phil Jones thinks it would be nice for millions to die of global warming.

[webolife]

It's all about prestige. Human history abounds with it. Does anyone know what the source for the decadal warming figures is? Who said it and what kind of data did they collect to support their claim?

[Aardwolf]

Most long term direct measurements are essentially flat. There may be a small increase but most reasonable individuals would attribute this to the Earth exiting the the Little Ice Age. Proxies are used maily to support the alarmism which are obviously subject to the underlying theory. Basically you can "prove" anything you want this way but its essentially meaningless.

In actual fact the Earth's temperature is incredibly stable over any sensible measurement period (a decade is a joke. it should be at millenium level). I suspect this is due to a natural regulating of the atmospheric temperature caused by having water as ice, liquid and gas simultaneously. If it got too warn then the atmosphere retains more vapour/clouds to reflect heat, if it gets too cold clouds & vapour dissipate to allow more heat through. We'll only have a serious problem if we lose water as a liquid on the planet. Obviously if that were to happen we would have more serious problems than temperature.

[MrAmsterdam]

If I want to read about science, please remind me not to do it of a "Nature" magazine.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 0006a.html

Climategate did no lasting damage to science. In fact, it can be argued that the incident fostered climatology and improved the way the field is perceived by the general public. The anonymous onslaught — illegal and grossly low, to be sure — has forced scientists to speak more openly about the gaps, difficulties and uncertainties that they are facing. On a more general note, it served to remind scientists, and hopefully legitimate critics as well, that respect, honesty and politeness are essential qualities in any intellectual endeavour.

If anything, Climategate 2 may damage the cause of the climate sceptics who eagerly promote it. Despite their obvious lack of anything approaching credible evidence, their hyperbole, accusations, claims and allegations remain the same. Beyond the echo chamber they inhabit, who is still listening? You cannot, as Abraham Lincoln said, fool all of the people all of the time. And it is getting harder to fool them some of the time too.

What kind of opinion is this???

[webolife]

I get this picture of a thriller movie where at the end the bad guy falls cursing into a bottomless abyss.

[Aardwolf]

What kind of opinion is this???

A self-delusional biased one.

[GaryN]

Chinese 2,485 year tree ring study shows natural cycles control climate, temps may cool til 2068

A blockbuster Chinese study of Tibetan tree rings by Liu et al 2011 shows, with detail, that the modern era is a dog-standard normal climate when compared to the last 2,500 years. The temperature, the rate of change — it’s all been seen before. Nothing about the current period is “abnormal”, indeed the current warming period in Tibet can be produced through calculation of cycles. Liu et al do a Fourier analysis on the underlying cycles and do brave predictions as well.

http://joannenova.com.au/2011/12/chines ... -til-2068/
No worries for the Chinese though:
China Finds Huge Shale Gas Reserves

Several companies have exploratory projects underway, including Sinopec, PetroChina, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Chevron. China has more shale gas reserves than any other country in the world, with 1,275tr cu ft of recoverable shale gas reserves, according to estimates from the US Energy Information Administration. That is enough to supply China for more than 300 years, based on current consumption levels.

http://econintersect.com/b2evolution/bl ... s-reserves

[dugiewugie]

I would like to know how mankind is warming all the Solar System?

[seasmith]

Himalayan ice melt estimates get a major downsizing

This view of the Himalayas was taken from the International Space Station.
By Miguel Llanos, ms...
Are global warming skeptics being armed with a new weapon? Estimates from satellite monitoring suggest the melt rate from the Himalayas and other high-altitude Asian mountains in recent years was much less than what scientists on the ground had estimated, but those monitoring the satellite data warn not to jump to the skeptical conclusion.
The region's ice melt from 2003-2010 was estimated at 4 billion tons a year, far less than earlier estimates of around 50 billion tons, according to the study published Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.

[MrAmsterdam]

Wall street journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 21366.html

No Need to Panic About Global Warming
There's no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to 'decarbonize' the world's economy.

A candidate for public office in any contemporary democracy may have to consider what, if anything, to do about "global warming." Candidates should understand that the oft-repeated claim that nearly all scientists demand that something dramatic be done to stop global warming is not true. In fact, a large and growing number of distinguished scientists and engineers do not agree that drastic actions on global warming are needed.

In September, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ivar Giaever, a supporter of President Obama in the last election, publicly resigned from the American Physical Society (APS) with a letter that begins: "I did not renew [my membership] because I cannot live with the [APS policy] statement: 'The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth's physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now.' In the APS it is OK to discuss whether the mass of the proton changes over time and how a multi-universe behaves, but the evidence of global warming is incontrovertible?"

In spite of a multidecade international campaign to enforce the message that increasing amounts of the "pollutant" carbon dioxide will destroy civilization, large numbers of scientists, many very prominent, share the opinions of Dr. Giaever. And the number of scientific "heretics" is growing with each passing year. The reason is a collection of stubborn scientific facts.
-
-
-
Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Speaking for many scientists and engineers who have looked carefully and independently at the science of climate, we have a message to any candidate for public office: There is no compelling scientific argument for drastic action to "decarbonize" the world's economy. Even if one accepts the inflated climate forecasts of the IPCC, aggressive greenhouse-gas control policies are not justified economically.

etc, etc go and read the article, I already heard about these arguments used in this essay somewhere before....

[MrAmsterdam]

Oh and before I forget, go and read the answer of so called CO2 scientists in the same news paper.
It would have been quite hilarious to read, if it was not done out of the name of science.

Check With Climate Scientists for Views on Climate

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 72662.html

Do you consult your dentist about your heart condition? In science, as in any area, reputations are based on knowledge and expertise in a field and on published, peer-reviewed work. If you need surgery, you want a highly experienced expert in the field who has done a large number of the proposed operations.

You published "No Need to Panic About Global Warming" (op-ed, Jan. 27) on climate change by the climate-science equivalent of dentists practicing cardiology. While accomplished in their own fields, most of these authors have no expertise in climate science. The few authors who have such expertise are known to have extreme views that are out of step with nearly every other climate expert. This happens in nearly every field of science. For example, there is a retrovirus expert who does not accept that HIV causes AIDS. And it is instructive to recall that a few scientists continued to state that smoking did not cause cancer, long after that was settled science.

Climate experts know that the long-term warming trend has not abated in the past decade. In fact, it was the warmest decade on record. Observations show unequivocally that our planet is getting hotter. And computer models have recently shown that during periods when there is a smaller increase of surface temperatures, warming is occurring elsewhere in the climate system, typically in the deep ocean. Such periods are a relatively common climate phenomenon, are consistent with our physical understanding of how the climate system works, and certainly do not invalidate our understanding of human-induced warming or the models used to simulate that warming.

Thus, climate experts also know what one of us, Kevin Trenberth, actually meant by the out-of-context, misrepresented quote used in the op-ed. Mr. Trenberth was lamenting the inadequacy of observing systems to fully monitor warming trends in the deep ocean and other aspects of the short-term variations that always occur, together with the long-term human-induced warming trend.

The National Academy of Sciences of the U.S. (set up by President Abraham Lincoln to advise on scientific issues), as well as major national academies of science around the world and every other authoritative body of scientists active in climate research have stated that the science is clear: The world is heating up and humans are primarily responsible. Impacts are already apparent and will increase. Reducing future impacts will require significant reductions in emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Research shows that more than 97% of scientists actively publishing in the field agree that climate change is real and human caused. It would be an act of recklessness for any political leader to disregard the weight of evidence and ignore the enormous risks that climate change clearly poses. In addition, there is very clear evidence that investing in the transition to a low-carbon economy will not only allow the world to avoid the worst risks of climate change, but could also drive decades of economic growth. Just what the doctor ordered.

Kevin Trenberth, Sc.D. (and others)

So based on the understanding of climate by CO2 scientists AND their computer-models they produced themselves;

The "doctor" orders you to pay your tax (, because he knows everything about the world and the rest of the universe)

This essay basically is a 21st century schoolbook example of " a call on authority"

[MrAmsterdam]

I would like to know how mankind is warming all the Solar System?

To my humble opinion it is the SUN that warms the SOLAR system.

[tholden]

http://www.icecap.us/

Feb 13, 2012
The Global Warming Hoax is Now Killing People and Media in the US is ignoring the inconvenient truth
By Alan Caruba

By Friday, February 10th, an estimated 500 Europeans had died from the freezing weather gripping the continent. This is the price they and British citizens are paying for embracing the global warming hoax, spending billions for wind power when they should have been building coal-fired and other sources of energy to heat their homes and businesses.

As the British daily, The Telegraph, reported on Friday, “Serbia has started implementing power cuts in a desperate bid to stave off the collapse of its national grid as the country suffers the effects of days of freezing temperatures.”

I and others have been warning for years that the Earth has been cooling since 1998 and that the planet is on the cusp of a new ice age because the average length of an interglacial period of warmth between such ages is now coming to an end after the passage of some 11,500 years.

All aspects of global warming legislation and spending programs must be utterly reversed if we are not going to see huge losses of life and the disruption of entire economies.

The Ottawa Citizen published an Agence France Presse article on Friday reporting that “Thick ice closed vast swaths of the Danube on Thursday, crippling shipping on Europe’s busiest waterway, as the death toll from bitter cold across the continent rose...as it has every day for nearly two weeks.” The report noted that “Navigation was impossible or restricted in Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Austria, as ice covered the river or formed dangerous floes in shipping lanes.”

No shipping means no delivery of coal and oil and no shipping of food and other necessities. Europe is freezing over as the United States has been experiencing an unusually mild winter thus far. That, too, is likely to yield to the increased cooling of the planet and then, maybe, Americans will realize the threat to their lives that the closing of coal-fired plants, instigated by the Environmental Protection Agency, really means.

In England, the Mail, reported on Sunday, February 12th, that large numbers of its elderly citizens are being ”frozen to death as fuel bills soar: hypothermia cases among the elderly double in five years.” England, now gripped by foolish green notions of renewable energy, has covered itself with wind turbines, despoiling its countryside and coasts while proving unreliable and incapable of meeting its energy needs.

Figures showed that “1,876 patients were treated in hospital for hypothermia in 2010-2011, up from 950 in 2006-2007” reported the Mail. “Three-quarters of victims were pensioners, with cases soaring among the over-60s more than any other age group.”

In Europe, other news organizations reported that “Many of the dead were homeless people, who literally froze to death as the temperatures dropped to minus 50 degrees in some parts of the continent. Their bodies were found in the streets buried under snow, in rivers, and in doorways. Dozens of people were also killed in weather-related accidents.”

Writing in a Turkish newspaper, the Hurriyet Daily News, Sophie Quintin Adali, an analyst for a project of the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, said, “As if the debt crisis weren�t bad enough news, the climate freeze sweeping across Europe is wreaking havoc by severely disrupting travel, business and people’s lives. Local authorities, indeed whole countries, are caught poorly prepared.” Turkey is experiencing record snowfall and low temperatures.

“The lack of readiness should come as no surprise because for decades the sensationalist message of global warming has dominated the public area,” said Ms. Adali.

“Politicians and decades of political environmentalism have a lot to answer for,” said Ms. Adali. “The man-made climate theory...is still supported by a mighty European Union bureaucracy and a green network addicted to public funds.” Even now, the Green Climate Fund “through which millions of taxpayer�s money will still be disbursed” is threatening the lives and the economy of people worldwide.

The current freeze is not just affecting Europe, but reaching across the Mediterranean to North African nations. And at some point America will feel it too.

We have not built a single new nuclear plant in America since 1978. EPA rules are forcing the closure of coal-fired plants throughout the nation. The national grid for the distribution of electricity is in need of upgrades.

The nation’s policies are controlled by the most environmentally insane administration in its history, wasting billions on so-called green energy. Its new budget raises taxes and proposes a trillion-dollar deficit without any significant effort to cut the spending that has left this and future generations in debt while the price of gas soars to new heights.

America and the rest of the world have been horribly deceived by the United Nations Intergovernmental Climate Change Panel that continues to drive the global warming hoax. The lying scientists who got on the global warming gravy train, the politicians that embraced it, and the media that misled millions are all culpable, all responsible.

They should be driven from office, defunded, and chased through the streets like villagers in pursuit of Frankenstein.

People are freezing to death in their homes and in the streets. What will it take to drive a stake into the heart of the global warming monster?