Are the anthropogenic global warming skeptics/deniers setting themselves up for a fall?

Question

I think we can all agree that the AGW skeptics and deniers are making a huge deal out of the fact that there was a 0.75°C decrease in the average global temperature from January 2008 (the hottest month on record) to January 2007, according to NASA GISS (which showed the largest temperature drop).

There have been countless 'questions' about global warming having stopped, global cooling/ice age setting in, the Daily Tech blog linked about a dozen times, etc.

All of this hubub based on 1 month of relatively cool average global temps. I say 'relatively cool' because January was still 0.12°C above the 1951-1980 global average temperature, and only 0.05°C cooler than January 2000, which was also at the peak of a strong La Nina cycle.

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/people/klaus.wolter/MEI/

The current La Nina cycle will last a few months, and overall 2008 will be relatively cool, but it will not last.

Are the AGW skeptics setting themselves up for a fall when temps return to normal?

Answer 1

You're saying that our logic is flawed because we're taking a short amount of data and applying it to a larger trend? Is that like taking 50 years of global warming data and applying it to the thousands of years that the Earth has been around?

To answer your question no, I don't think we will.

Answer 2

A lot less than the AGW 'Embracers'.  Actually, we skeptics provide a valuable service...... we challenge the alleged 'facts' of AGW on behalf of the non-professional science community.   Call it 'Peer-Review for the innocent masses'.

When the 'Embracers' are able to provide actual proof of AGW..... rather than educated guesses based on questionable data.... we skeptics (at least this skeptic)....will become one of the AGW Cause's greatest supporter(s).

Answer 3

no

if you talk to any true scientist I'm talking people at NASA they will say that global warming

caused by humans is not, only wrong but improbable

Answer 4

No. I don't think so. You say that taking a month out of a year is not a big enough trend. Compare that with the earliest time frame for AGW versus the time since the inception of the earth. Is that not really a slice of time as well?

Answer 5

Could be, after all, no one can predict the future.  Climate prediction can't go forward more than 5 days.

If this happens, it will be reminiscent of 2006 when we were to have record number and stronger hurricanes, positive climate feedback, arctic ice gone, polar bear extinction, 130 deg days in Washington DC, and no more white Christmases ever again.

Answer 6

To a denier a few months of cooling trumps decades of warming.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabled...

EDIT - the same thing happened in 2000 and 2002 with a drop in temperature year-over-year, then 2001 and 2003 temps went up again. Nobody seems to want to talk about that. Why? Because the temps went up again! Point is, yearly data are variable, but displayed together in decades shows an upward trend. Don't believe me, see the data...

Who is the alarmist here? One who tracks data and notices warming over decades, or one who sees a few months where global temps decline and yells global cooling...

I'm not going to jump the gun like a denier looking for anything to refute AGW.

Answer 7

It's not just one link to one blog - it's the global average temps as measured by NASA GISS, Hadley Centre, etc...

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200...

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200...

http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.c...

http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/200...

You're also referring to 1951-1980 as if it were some kind of baseline Dana when actually it was viewed at the time as a cool period.

http://www.denisdutton.com/cooling_world...

The fact is, it's no warmer now than it was before the late-20th-century warming - - - - it's precisely the post-1970s warming that the AGW proponents point to as being the out-of-the-natural-course-of-events warming.

What that means is that even if they're right the late-20th century warming is out of the natural course of events, it's within the natural variability - a generation of man-made warming can be wiped out by the first nine months of a strong La Nina.   Actually what it really means, if we assume that the IPCC is also right about the 1940s-1970s cooling, is that a generation of man-made warming AND reduction in man-made aerosol-driven cooling is totally offset by the first nine months of a strong La Nina.

Keep in mind these are GLOBAL averages, and while NASA GISS doesn't adjust for NH bias resulting from more land mass in the NH and from more measuring stations in the NH, Hadley Centre UK does - so it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that for most of the folks posting on-line, it's currently winter - it's currently summer in half the world too.

And you're also ignoring the potential for a prolonged La Nina period, which is what happened during the last global warming event.

http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/res/div/ocp...

An equally valid question is, did the AGW proponents set THEMSELVES up for a fall by making so much hay in 1999 and 2000 out of 1998 being the "hottest year on record."

Lastly the use of the word "deniers" is insulting other members - a violation of community guidelines.

EDIT - it DOESN'T MATTER HOW LONG IT TOOK TO WARM OR HOW LONG IT TOOK TO COOL.    This is why your argument is the same as Dan Duquette's argument about the Red Sox being in first place for more days than was the case during Theo's first two years.  It's like a stock broker in December of '29 saying "it's only two months of selling, but it was five years of buying, the long term trend is still up."

And even if time-at-temperature was more important than the ultimate temperatures reached, that brings back the MWP even going by your side's version of it.

Who is the alarmist here?   The one who tracks temperature over two decades and assumes that the previous temperature was the baseline?   Is it not more rational to consider today's trends COMPARED TO TRENDS OVER THE CENTURIES?

Answer 8

There's no kinder way to put it than to say that those doubters claiming the warming is over are statistically naive.

Using GISS data:

12-month average 2/2007 - 1/2008 is 0.504 C above base

12-month average 2/2006 - 1/2007 is 0.574 C above base

That's only a difference of 0.07 C.  The Standard Deviation of both the 20 & 30 year trend-lines from the annual measurements is 0.16 C.  So the past 12-months are clearly well within the expected error bars.

What if February is only 0.12 C above the background too?  Well, that would drop the 12-month average to just 0.461 C above the base, but it wouldn't have any statistically significant effect on the long term climate trend.  To achieve any statistical (i.e. meaningful) value, we'll have to see many more cooler months before anyone should assume it's anything other than short-term noise caused by La Nina.