2008: The year the world will cool down

2008: The year the world will cool down

www.dailymail.co.uk

The world will experience global cooling this year, according a leading climate scientist.

The head of the World Meteorological Organisation said La Nina - the weather phenomenon which is cooling the Pacific - is likely to trigger a small drop in average global temperatures compared with last year.

The prediction - which follows a bitterly cold winter in China and the Arctic - is prompting some sceptics to question the theory of climate change.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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[edit on 4/7/2008 by biggie smalls]

What comes to mind is the natural cycles the Earth goes through: warming and cooling, warming and cooling.

We've been in a period of warming since 9,500BC give or take a few years. Before that was the last "ice age."

A background to the last ice age.

One scientist is claiming that we're going through a period of cooling now. Are we cooling or warming? Nobody seems to know.

I'm actually enrolled in a climate change class right now, but we've mainly been focused on anthropocentric climate change. I would have liked to focus on both the natural and human-induced cycles, but that's not the point of this class.

Its rather interesting though to look at it this way.

However, the World Meteorological Organisation insists that this year's cooling has nothing to do with global climate change.

In fact, this year's temperatures could still be way above the average - and it is possible that 2008 will exceed the record year of 1998 because of global warming induced by greenhouse gases.

Yeah yeah yeah, usual dribble.

Let's face it, you have no idea what's going on and you try to save face by saying this year's cooling isn't connected with global warming.

Humans have destroyed natural cycles, that's a fact most can see. To what extent, we don't know. Weather is becoming increasingly severe and periods of cooling and warming happen often.

Michel Jarraud, the World Meteorological Organisation's secretary general, said La Nina was expected to continue into the summer, depressing global temperatures by a fraction of a degree.

But he said temperatures in 2008 would still be well above average for the last 100 years.

The truth at last. "Temperatures in 2008 would still be well above average for the past 100 years."

Thanks for shedding some light on our current situation.

The Met Office predicts that 2008 will be around 0.4C warmer than the average for 1961-1990.

I think the average is much higher than .4 degrees, but for sake of argument, I'll go with it.

It said temperatures are influenced by a range of variables - including changes in the sun's output, pollution and weather cycles such as La Nina.

But most scientists argue that the long-term temperature rises since 1880 can only be explained by carbon dioxide from human activity.

I can agree with the first sentence, but I'm not so sure about the second. Long term rises cannot be explained away solely by human emissions.

Its a combination of the factors described above: solar flare cycles, natural earth cycles, pollution, and some we don't even know about I'm sure (polar shift?).

Get ready for a bumpy few decades .



The news that the earth appears to be cooling would seem to contradict most experts who say that global warming is melting ice at the Poles




www.dailymail.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by biggie smalls


Expert: "We're brainwashing our children" about global warming

I don't really know what classifies someone as an expert, but ok...

William Gray, the well-known Colorado State University hurricane forecaster, routinely uses the annual National Hurricane Conference as a platform to bash global warming. In a statement to Florida Today, Gray argued that the scientific consensus on global warming is bogus — and "a mild form of McCarthyism has developed toward those scientists who do not agree" that mankind is in danger.

If you don't think mankind is in danger, whether through "global warming" or not, you're not paying enough attention.

There is a huge problem with the food and water supply trying to support 6-7 billion people (plus other species) and countless other environmental disasters happening as we speak.

To deny the fragile planet is to deny reality and quite frankly I'm a little sick and tired of the denial.

Wake up, we're killing our home people!

"We are also brainwashing our children on the warming topic. We have no better example than Al Gore's alarmists and inaccurate movie which is being shown in our schools and being hawked by warming activists with little or no meteorological-climate background," Gray wrote.

I am no fan of Al Gore either. I think he's done more harm than good in this field, although raising awareness to the climate/weather pattern in general isn't such a terrible idea.

I would have gone about educating the public in a much different manner. I would have taken into account natural cycles for instance instead of blaming climate change on humans.

We're just not that special, sorry.

As for the brainwashing part, I don't particularly agree. Brainwashing is what religion and schools do already. I don't think we could really hurt them more than they already are, but nice try.

I for one am glad that people are staring to realise that global CHANGE (not global warming or cooling) is in fact a natural phenominon. Yes, we humans do have some degree of impact but have we not learned yet that mther nature is still in the drivers seat?
It has been stated many times that not just earth but out whole solar system has been changing whether it be from solar or cosmic influences.
I wonder if the world does cool significantly will the 'experts' tell us to start driving more and turn ON the lights in order to pull on the global jumper as it were?
Make up your mind people.....

reply to post by VIKINGANT


The amount of anthropocentric pollution has messed up natural cycles. Whether or not that means global warming/cooling is completely our fault, I don't know for sure.

There's no way to quantify the natural cycles as compared to the cycles that humans have helped change.

CO2 goes up by billions of metric tons every year, not to mention methane, sulfur, nitric oxide, and other noxious chemicals. We are polluting the land, air, and sea at an alarming rate.

That alone is disheartening, forget global warming/cooling. Let's worry about keeping our planet alive.

Airbus boss says aviation unfairly targeted over climate change

The aviation industry is being unfairly targeted over climate change and future reductions in aircraft emissions should be based on technological innovation rather than regulation, Airbus chief Tom Enders said Wednesday.

"We think it's a little bit unfair that the aviation sector is singled out for attack by many environmental groups, maybe because we are more visible than other groups," Enders told a media briefing in Auckland.

No I think its the amount of planes that fly every day and the amount of fuel you burn. The US military is the number one polluter in the world. There's clearly no laws against how they can operate, so targeting civilian companies is the next best thing.

"We are absolutely convinced that the solution is not new taxes, new constraints, but technology and innovation," he said.

Technical innovation has already made large commercial aircraft about 70 percent more efficient that they were 30 years ago and new technology, such as bio-fuels, would lead to further improvements.

"Roughly 30 percent of all jet fuel by 2030 could be coming from bio-fuel," Enders said.

This would come through a second generation of biofuels, which unlike some current bio-fuels, would not displace food crops, he said.

I agree, but taxes are going to happen whether we like it or not. I for one am against any new taxes, but I don't run the government.

2030 is about 100 years too late for biofuels. We could be running all our automobiles on algae oil now, but thanks to the oil companies, we're not going that route anytime soon.

Corn-based ethanol is a terrible idea, as is soy-based biofuel. We do not need to use food crops to create fuel.

Why not use alcohol? There's tons of surplus per year, why not burn it for fuel? Problem solved right there...But I guess you need wheat/potato/barley depending on what the alcohol is based from...So another band-aid solution.

Climate experts predict temperature to drop

Michel Jarraud, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organisation, said temperatures in 2008 are likely to be cooler because of the effects of the La Nina in the central and eastern Pacific.

He said it was likely that the La Nina phenomenon would continue into the summer. If his forecast is right it would mean temperatures have not risen globally since 1998 when El Nino warmed the world.

La Nina (the little girl) and El Nino (the little boy) are two great natural Pacific currents whose effects can be felt worldwide.

Recently La Nina caused one of the coldest winters in memory in China, Canada and the Arctic and brought torrential rains to Australia.

This is how the current usually appears:







El Nino occurs when the strong equatorial and peruvian currents die down and the counter current from Australia messes up the local ecosystem:






You can see the pacific conveyor belt changes. Cold water doesn't flow from South America to Asia anymore, but vice versa.

The ecosystem typically adapts quickly to the el nino event.

The la nina event is the part that worries scientists. The ecosystem takes a little bit longer to return to normal, which is essentially a la nina event. This usually (but not always) follows the season after el nino.



BUT...Here's the big but:

Mr Jarraud said La Nina was expected to continue into the summer, depressing global temperatures by a fraction of a degree.

But he said temperatures in 2008 would still be well above average for the past 100 years. The Met Office predicts that 2008 will be around 0.4ºC warmer than the average for 1961-1990.

Temperatures will still be higher than they have been for the past year. All that debunking that's been going on ATS and elsewhere isn't really grounded in scientific fact.

We are still undergoing a warming event, although partially cyclical.

Some areas are going to have wetter winters (American southeast) and others are going to have dryer winters (American northwest).


March 2008 climate


NOAA gives a completely different figure on the national weather:

Temperature Highlights

For the contiguous United States, the average temperature for March was 42°F (6°C), which was 0.4°F (0.2°C) below the 20th century mean and ranked as the 52nd coolest March on record, based on preliminary data.

Only three states in the contiguous U.S. were warmer than average for March (Arizona, New Mexico and Rhode Island), while near-average temperatures occurred in 39 states and below average temperatures in seven states.

On the Regional level, much of the U.S. experienced near normal temperatures during March. The East North Central and Northwest regions had below average temperatures.
Virginia had its second-warmest April-March on record with an average temperature of 57°F (14°C), which is 1.9°F (1°C) above the 20th century average.

March temperatures contrasted sharply with those in March 2007, when record breaking temperatures covered large parts of the nation during the last two weeks of the month. The broad area of near-average temperatures this year kept the nation's overall temperature-related residential energy demand for March near average based on NOAA's Residential Energy Demand Temperature Index (REDTI). For the cold season (October-March), the energy demand was 3.1% below the mean period of record consumption and was the 30th lowest value in 113 years.

Is there a trend? I don't know. Some areas were warmer, some were colder. Its really hard to predict anything.

The la nina and el nino events definitely correlate with "climate change" so its really difficult to understand what's going on with the weather.

Its been very windy here in Arizona the last few weeks, and cloudier than usual. No rain, but not a lot of sun either.

Precipitation Highlights
This was the 35th wettest March in the 1895—2008 record. An average of 2.6 inches (65 mm) fell across the contiguous U.S. this month, which is 0.2 inches (4 mm) above average.

Nine states from Oklahoma to Vermont were much wetter than average for the month, with Missouri having its second wettest March on record.

In the western U.S., the rainfall pattern in March bore a greater resemblance to a typical La Niña, with especially dry conditions across Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California. March was extremely dry in much of California, tying as the driest in 68 years at the Sacramento airport with 0.05 inches (0.13 cm), a 2.75 inch (7.0 cm) departure from average.

March was the 5th wettest on record for the Central U.S. and the 5th driest for the Western U.S.

January—March was the wettest on record for New York and the second-wettest for Missouri and Pennsylvania.

October—March was the wettest on record for New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the wettest on record for the Northeast Region.

Lastly, the latest twelve month period (April—March) was the driest on record for North Carolina and the third wettest for Oklahoma.

As I said, some areas are going to be wetter than usual, others dryer. The southwest is very dry at the moment...


Alaska though doesn't fit any of the models:

Alaska had its 17th warmest March since records began in 1918, with a temperature 3.8°F (2.1°C) above the 1971—2000 average.

Alaska had its 41st warmest January—March on record, with a temperature 0.2°F (0.1°C) above the 1971—2000 average.

Alaska had its 20th warmest October—March on record, with a temperature 2.2°F (1.2°C) above the 1971—2000 average.

Alaska is warming and scientists can't explain why. Possibly permafrost melting releasing all that methane gas, but I didn't think it would cause a local area heatup. Maybe, maybe not.

Check the link I posted to find out more interesting statistics.