Why do the AGW alarmist say that it is weather if it gets colder for a long period but if it gets warmer?

Question

then it is global warming?

Answer 1

They don't.

It hasn't gotten colder for a long period in many years (although the temperature leveled out from 1940-1970, because of pollution).

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007/

Answer 2

The alarmists are so blind!

The weather is getting colder. It looks like we're going into a 30-year cooling cycle so they are now calling global warming "climate change". You cannot prove them wrong, because they have a faith-based belief, not a fact-based one. So, until the temperatures stop changing they will never be satisfied.

On the other hand, if the temperatures stop changing, they will probably say, "Oh my gosh, we're going to die because of global stagnation!"

Back to your question: They say it's global warming, because, technically it is. They just don't bother to say that the Earth warmed up from being cold. They don't bother to say that it isn't our fault. Amazing how those little facts change so much, isn't it?

*Down with Big Brother*

Answer 3

They assume that the cooling trend will give way to a resumption of warming.

They've been assuming this for several months now and it still hasn't happened yet:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

They were pretty smug a few months back, assuming that they were 30-60 days away from more warming.

I'm guessing they're a little worried now.

Thing is, it's NOT "one cold snap in East Podunk."     It may be a prolonged La Nina but this certainly isn't a few days in a single city, by any stretch.

Answer 4

Climate = Average of weather (generally over 30 years).

So neither a cold spell (as many scientifically illiterate doubters kept bringing up last winter, need I name names?) nor a warm spell (as you claim some alarmists are saying isn't weather) is an indication of climate change.

Answer 5

Because the Earth's temperature is generally going up.  Any downward temperatures are almost certainly a transient anomaly.   IOW, the cooling will only be temporary.

And BTW, people who recognize global warming are not "alarmists", though the problems associated with global warming are rather alarming - if you're paying attention and not blinded by a close-minded political fog.

Answer 6

Ironically, it's a case of denial.

Answer 7

Because of a lovely double standard they have!  They can't except that they're wrong.  They are wrong.

If it gets colder it's global warming, if it gets warmer it's global warming, if it rains it is, if there's a drought, it's gw....you get the drift, they blame everything on global warming.

It's a double standard!

Answer 8

You'll never see a post like this from a 'Warmer':

"Bear in mind that warming and cooling concerns are nothing new, as this alarming bulletin reminds us -

The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consul Ifft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers, he declared, all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met with as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts, which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

A RealClimate blogger? No, that was the US Weather Bureau in 1922.

We saw a global cooling scare in 1924, a global warming scare in 1933, another global cooling in the early 1970s, and another warming scare today. The changes the USHCN promised Watts won't help resolve anything for another decade or so, but perhaps future generations will be able to reduce the alarming increase in the number of climate alarms."

Answer 9

For the same reason that if it got hot for a couple of days in May you would not deny that summer is coming.  You need to evaluate Earth's mean temperature over long time periods, many years, so just because you have a cold snap in East Podunk it doesn't mean that global warming has stopped.

Answer 10

1998 was an unusually hot year (also known as an outlier, it seems that global warming denialists don't understand basic statistics).

Answer 11

Weather is a local phenomenon and its easy to measure.  Global climate change is global and is slow in human terms, though rapid in earth terms.  It the worst were to happen, it would be in the 2060s or 2070s when most who read this will not be alive.  It is about whether we have a moral obligation to try to not cause problems for our children and grandchildren.  It is about how selfish we believe we should be.

Answer 12

Because from what I have seen deniers class a long time as 1 winter or the cooling since 98' silliness, thats not a long time when change over 200 years is what is being talked about.

And on the subject of the cooling since 98' news just in.

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008...

Answer 13

They've never been good at coping with things that get in their way.