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Copenhagen Climate Hype – ‘Warmest Decade on Record’
The BBC and other media report that the past decade has been the warmest in the instrumental record. The past decade has also been one of temperature stagnation despite a 29% increase in man-made CO2 emissions. The recent BBC website article by Paul Hudson entitled: ‘What happened to global warming?’ caused quite a stir amongst the gatekeepers of climate alarmism, as revealed by the leaked UEA CRU emails. The claim that the 3 global surface temperature datasets (NASA GISS, NCDC, and CRU) are ‘independent’ isn’t entirely true – they share 90 to 95% of stations, although they apply their own adjustments to the ‘raw’ data. Also, NASA GISS uses a ‘cooler’ temperature baseline of 1951 to 1980, compared to 1961 to 1990 for the others.
The media don’t mention the unresolved issues/warm bias in the near surface temperature record:
Up to a 50% surface temperature warm bias: McKitrick, Ross R. and Patrick J. Michaels (2007) Quantifying the influence of anthropogenic surface processes and inhomogeneities on gridded global climate data. Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, 112, D24S09, doi:10.1029/2007JD008465.
A number of signficant uncertainties and biases in these temperatures when they are used to diagnose the magnitude of global warming; Pielke Sr., R.A., C. Davey, D. Niyogi, S. Fall, J. Steinweg-Woods, K. Hubbard, X. Lin, M. Cai, Y.-K. Lim, H. Li, J. Nielsen-Gammon, K. Gallo, R. Hale, R. Mahmood, S. Foster, R.T. McNider, and P. Blanken, 2007: Unresolved issues with the assessment of multi-decadal global land surface temperature trends. J. Geophys. Res., 112, D24S08, doi:10.1029/2006JD008229.
A 30 to 50% warm bias in the surface temperature: Klotzbach, P.J., R.A. Pielke Sr., R.A. Pielke Jr., J.R. Christy, and R.T. McNider, 2009: An alternative explanation for differential temperature trends at the surface and in the lower troposphere. J. Geophys. Res., 114, D21102, doi:10.1029/2009JD011841.
The ‘warmest decade on record’ hype is no doubt part of the unrelenting climate alarmism leading up to, and during, the Copenhagen ‘wealth redistribution’ Summit and doesn’t explore the aforementioned important issues with the near surface temperature trend.
BBC News website: This decade ‘warmest on record’
December 10th, 2009 at 2:35 am
The Met Office and MSM are always disingenuous to the point of deception in their presentation of the data.When you cross a mountain summit the last 5 steps to the top and the first 5 down will be the highest. Because of the thermal inertia of the oceans the best indicator of what is going on is the CRU SST data. This shows the following. Earth warmed about 0.8 degrees during the 20 th century. The warmest year was 1998- a Super El Nino year. But 2008 was cooler than 1997 – 11 years with CO2 up 6% and no warming in contradidtion to the Al Gore IPCC paradigm. The warming trend peaked in 2003 and the earth cooled from 2003 – 2008.
Global temps rose from the 1900 – 1940 declined from 1940 – 70 and rose until 2003. CO2 values rose steadily from 1900 – 2008.There is no obvious causal correlation showing that CO2 leads temperature. Ice core data show that CO2 follows temperature not vice versa.
The Sun’s activity levels have slumped suggesting a 20 – 30 year cooling spell and possibly a Dalton or even a Maunder minimum.This would be a far more dangerous threat to food production than a little warming. CO2 is the essential plant food. If this cooling develops we would need more CO2 not less to help feed the growing population. For example about 20% of the increase in food production in the last century was due simply to the increase in CO2.
December 26th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
I wish to endorse totally the comments by Dr Norman Page. The claimed consensus is only among a closed group of scientists who are unable to show in any that global warming has a relationship to CO2 and certainly not that warming is caused by increases in this atmospheric gas. When they can do that we will bne the first to listen and take note. Until that time and while the most positive statement the Australian CSIRO or the IPCC can make is that: “Most of the global warming observed in the twentieth century was very likely caused by increases in the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide”. Very likely indeedWhat sort odf science is this?
December 30th, 2009 at 5:33 am
To my knowledge (many scientists say the same), global warming is an over hyped concept. A few solar flares can increase the average global temperature up by a few notches, and continuous black spots in sun can decrease it.
The conspiracy therorist would put the blame on the developed countries, by saying that it is just a ploy to prevent the developing nations from rapid industrialisation.
However, at micro level everyone should work on afforestation, and atleast grow a tree per person, which can rapidly bring down the CO2 levels.