After looking at the data, do you think global warming has stopped?

Question

Much noise was made about the DailyTech article which concluded that the relatively cold January’s 2008 "wipes out a century of warming."

Here is a nice entry by Dr. Lisa Moore at Climate 411 which graphs the data:

http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/climate411/2008/02/27/cold_january/

After looking at that graph, do you agree with the DailyTech article that global warming has stopped and the past century of warming has been "wiped out"?

Answer 1

no global warming hasn't ended because even one the green house gases are in the air it takes them decades to be destroyed and all that time there destroying the ozone layer so no i don't think it's stoped

Answer 2

The point is, the change in temperature is so tiny over the last 100 years, that for anyone to say it's a global warming "trend" just because average temperatures change by + or - half of a degree celsius is preposterous.  The change in global warming over the last 100 years is to tiny, that one cold year (2008 for example) can "wipe out" the trend.

No one is saying that the average temperature has trended back down to where it was 100 years ago. The main thing to realize is that + / - 0.5 degrees celcius is nothing to be concerned about, and the trend should not even be a concern.  Liberals just want a vehicle to implement communist command and control dictates on the economy.  If it's not global warming, it's endagered species. If it's not that, it's some other environmental issue.

Liberals need global warming to control us and the economy. If you take that away from them, they get scared.

Answer 3

No, sure doesn't look like it:

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2...

January was cold in some places, but one month of particularly srtong La Nina weather influence doesn't overturn the underlying 1200+ month climate trend.

Answer 4

It's amazing that 10 people can look at the same graph and come to 15 different conclusions.

From 1850 to 1980 the temps were 0.5 deg below average.  From 1980 to present they rose to 0.5 deg above average, and in 2008 they are just average.

Seeing that for 130 years with below average temps must mean that for many years before that the temperatures were above average.  

Clearly to come to an average, 130 years below average and just 30 years above average just doesn't work out.  There had to be above average temps before the start of your chart to raise the 100 years below normal to normal levels.

What your chart proves is that we are just in a normal temperature range, and there is nothing abnormal with the temps today as they had to be this warm, if not warmer long before man was adding co2 to the climate.

Answer 5

No I don't think it has stopped looking at the graph and in the light of other information.  The rate of CO2 radiant forcing is increasing as the world industrialises further.  There is an interesting graph at  http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/globalchange/...  .

Answer 6

So many words, so little science.  Fortunately, the raw data is there so I can use this to determine if the temperature drop in January 2008 is statistically significant.  If it is, it may be the begining of the  30 year temperature occilation turn that I have projected for some time now, and probably he end of "global warming" as a political issue for some time (the last time this occilation turned negative, it led cries of "global cooling" from the scientific alarmist community.

Yes, clearly a significant decline in temperature occured in January, well outside of the six sigma band.  What is even more interesting, is the fact that based on this data, the longer term trend has in fact leveled off (again, this leveling is well within the six sigma band of certainty) indicating that the 30 year occilation swing to mild cooling has almost certainly begun.

Rainbow, the summers and winters are exactly the same length that they have been for all of recorded history.

Answer 7

It is interesting that the current decrease is as great as the increase in 1998.  Both are related to ENSO, and just as the 1998 increase didn't prove the Earth was warming, the current decrease doesn't prove the Earth is cooling.  

It is too bad that the greater the noise in the warming signal, the greater the noise from the skeptics.

Answer 8

Interestingly, the article on Anthony Watts' Blog on which the DailyTech article is based said nothing about a lull in the warming trend. In fact, Watts actually pointed out that the DailyTech article was quoting him out of context and that he didn't agree with it. That's why there's now a very short disclaimer at the bottom of the article.

If I can find the original article from Watts I give you the link to it.

Edit: Here it is:  http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200...

Answer 9

Nancy (Kent) - The stock market DID go up after January 1930.  Significantly.  That's always what happens over the long term when there's an upward forcing (e.g. increased atmospheric CO2).

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=%5EDJI&t...

Of course global warming hasn't stopped.  When significant amount of deep ocean water (2 - 4 C) is brought to the surface (as happens during a La Niña) that has a cooling effect on the average global surface temperature.  January is probably near the peak of its cooling effect and it will be followed by an El Niño (perhaps as strong as the one in 1998).

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/e...

http://www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysi...

Answer 10

I see she continues the stock market analogy that we've seen bandied about here.    Again, this is like a stock analyst in January of 1930 saying "aw come on, the overall trend is still up, it's only a few months of selling."   It's not a small decline, it's a significant decline.

And it's all relative - it's easy to cherry pick the starting point. The graph goes back to 1850.    We were coming out of a Little Ice Age then.  1816 was the "year without a summer."

To specifically answer your question, NO, the past century of warming has NOT been wiped out.    

But the warming since 1980 has.  

And that is the warming that is supposedly "unprecedented."

EDIT - yes Ken the market went up again, but not for years, during which it continued to decline.   And the factors involved are known - the money supply was literally reduced by 1/3 between 1929 and 1932, and the tariff hikes reduced trade and increased inefficiencies.

Answer 11

Not exactly an unbiased blog you're referring to "Climate 411 is the voice of the experts at the Environmental Defense Fund" but we'll set that aside.

Is it really just a single month that was so much colder than the 'average'? No, it was unusually cold in the southern hemisphere as well and their winter does not occur in January.

Who determines what the average temp we should strive for in the first place? If you decided to base the graph in 1700 the average would be much lower, if you only started it in 1934 then we wouldn't be seeing any warming whatever. That still stands as the single hottest year in US history, unless James Hansen at NASA's GISS has been playing with the numbers again.

No warming since 1998 is more than a single month as well. But to the point, they were making the point that the climate change isn't necessarily cause for panicking and turning over all our sovereignty to the United Nations. Why are some of you so eager to do that when they will require us to cut back CO2 emissions to 50% of the 1990 level which would devastate our prosperity and more than halve our economy?

I agree with Kent and Dr.Jello.

If it does get warmer, as it did earlier in the Holocene Period, mankind flourished from the very same warming the AGW advocates are so worried about. Talk of global temps rising dramatically ignores millions of years of data and I question the motives of those who would do that.

Answer 12

If you live in a place and style where you can be close to nature, you don't need any graphs and charts to know that the climate is changing.

Longer summers and shorter winters. Hotter summers and warmer winters. Plants popping up earlier in spring and birds showing up earlier. Birds also staying longer in the fall. Harvests being taken in earlier in the year. New insects that have not been around before. Rattle snakes in higher elevations. Ice thickness on lakes and streams getting thinner every year.

But what is the cause?

It is ridiculous for anyone who has been around for the past 40 or 50 years to say man is not the cause. Unless maybe your blind or have not taken note of the population growth and all the increases that naturaly go along with more people in any single area of the planet.

The locals every where I have ever been in the past 10 years

all agree that things have changed for the worst with more people...

But if you live in a large city, never travel far, spend all your time in a climate controled car, home and office... how would you know.

Maybe if some of the deniers got out and talked with some of the country folk, they might get a clue!