Alarmists, satellite data indicates that the world has cooled.?

Question

In response to a question Jello asked, he made the statement "Now that global temperatures are falling worldwide" and I observed many asking for a reference to back up this statement. The RSS dataset clearly shows a general cooling trend for over three years, with a rapid plunge for 2007.

Do you dispute these findings?

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/rss-msu-2007-2008-delta.png

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/

Answer 1

The problem with using MSU satellite data is that MSU measures the entire atmosphere, from the surface to the stratosphere. MSU does not measure surface temperatures in polar regions, which is where the bulk of global warming has been. People who don't understand this can easily get confused by certain blogs that post graphs that lack an adequate explanation of what or where is being measured.

Answer 2

Most of us realize that Global Warming is a scam and was created using junk science to benefit a small group of one world elitists, among them Al "The Blimp" Gore. The idea is to sell the rest of us fools "carbon credits" so they may profit and we may suffer.

Answer 3

No, do you dispute the Ice caps are melting? Global warming "Alarmists". as you call them, predicted warming in the poles and cooling in other places. Have you researched this, or just parroting "World press"!?

Answer 4

Does this mean you're willing to take the bet Dana offered last week?

After responding to 100's of false alarms when doubters proclaimed they've found the silver bullet that will kill AGW, I think it would be prudent to wait for a real scientist to actually publish their findings in a real scientific journal related to climate science.  Don't you agree?

Edit:

Tomcat - actually I am a real scientist that has worked for real research labs, analyzed real scientific data, created real computer models, and published real reports that other scientists utilized.  I'm not a climate scientist, and have never claimed to be.  But I do know enough to see through your post, which is why I wrote what I wrote about waiting for "real scientists to actually publish their findings in a real scientific journal related to climate science".  If you have a problem with NOAA's chart of global temperature that I linked too, I suggest you take offer your expert services to them so they can publish a more "accurate" one ;-)

Answer 5

Global warming has caused the temperature of the earth to rise less than one degree over the past 100 years.  It has done this many times before.  Now, it is changing and we are in for a period of global cooling.  I can't disagree with you because it's true.  Solar activity cause these minor variations and we'll experience more.  We don't cause them.

I agree with you, and it's time to get out our sweaters again!

Answer 6

TC:

If you believe the world is cooling, where is the 1.6 W/m^2 radiative forcing from CO2 going?  Not only do you have to find a cooling mechanism for that heat, which will dissipate it to space, but you have to find even more than that to actually cool the planet.  

Where is the cooling mechanism?  If you think it is deep convection, then you have to have at least a 30% increase (more actually, since 30% increase just balances the forcing from CO2) in deep convection globally.  So you would see a 30% increase in clouds in the tropics, and a 30% increase in the Hadley circulation, roughly.  I don't think this has happened, but maybe you know else that is cooling the planet.  Where is the heat leaving?

p.s.  RSS says that channel is dominated by ENSO effects.  Aren't we going through a large la Nina right now?  Could the "global cooling" you are inferring be simply an atmospheric response to la Nina and not a long-term cooling?

edit:  dude, yeah!  but you need to show the deep convection cooling is *increasing*, not just explain in a garbled fashion how convective cooling via latent heat works.  So, if you think the planet is cooling, you need to show how the cooling mechanisms are increasing to remove the excess heat from the radiative forcing from CO2.

Answer 7

Thanks for the follow up.  Good links.  Too bad the believers would not look for this objective data.

Funny that they now claim that 3 years doesn't prove anything, as this is too short for a trend, but in 2005 when their were a couple hurricanes above average numbers, well that was proof that they were right.

The ice caps could cover New York City and believers would still claim that global warming was real.

Answer 8

I also found data suggeating the planet has cooled.

The global warming crew just wants to put the screws to the USA.  No one is complaining that the Chinese are the problem due to the massive burning of coal.

Answer 9

How could anybody dispute it when it is completely unqualified data? Where was it recorded? the same site for each month? One graph shows a stead rise over a few years. The second over the useless timescale of a year and a half shows our current cold winter.

No, it is indisputable.

But I wouldn't bother anyway.

Answer 10

I'm sorry, did you really just refer to a 3-year trend?

I've said it before and I'll say it again - there are issues with the satellite data.  Maybe it's right and maybe it's not.  I don't know if you call that "disput[ing] these findings", but I don't have the confidence in them that I do in the surface record.

Regardless, 3 years worth of data means diddly squat.

Answer 11

Throughout these hysterical times, my only worry was a return to cooling, but I don't lose any sleep over it.  It is a far greater concern than warming IMO.

Answer 12

How could we dispute the "essentially global" findings? We don't know which channel, or altitude range, or the satellite the information is coming from. For all we know, it could be the upper atmosphere (TLS) that is shown from only 1 satellite, just to prove your beliefs?

Also, the graph does show steep dives in temperature during periods in the 80' and 90's, so the "rapid plunge" you speak of is nothing new. Weather is unpredictable and tornadoes in Memphis in February and snow in Baghdad in January are testament to that fact.

Answer 13

I believe that it is alarmist thinking that has us controlled and in the grip of global warming fear.  However, I feel that since we question the data and how reliable it is for the global warming folks that we can't neccesarily use other data to say that it is cooling, whether it is or not.  

Quite a few scientists that there is no good scientific method for determining the earth's climate and that at any one time the earth could be warming in one place and cooling in another.  Since I do not see where the data is actually coming from and cannot determine for myself that there are no inherit flaws in the gathering of the data for or against global warming, I choose to say I can't have my cake and eat it to....even if I think that what you are saying is correct.