Thoughts on climate change: global warming, cooling or weirding?

Since I first wrote this I have noticed several scientists saying it looks like the world is cooling not warming and in a letter to Metro Magazine February 3 2012 a writer notes that The UK Meteorological Office stated that global temperature has not risen since 1997.

I have a feeling some parts of the world are cooling and others getting warmer, and found an interesting review paper by Kaufmann that virtually demolishes the evidence presented for Global warming ( while noting the barring by mainstream scientific journals of papers that do not support global warming) , and now I find an article saying that sensors on at least five satellites providing data used to support global warming were sufficiently degraded that the temperatures they recorded were out by 10 to 15 degrees and an implication that was 10 -15 degrees too high ( one of the results was 612 degrees Fahrenheit). The article also states that the NOAA, ( the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) knew this as long ago as 2006 but did not publicise it and sold the data worldwide.

The picture I am building up in my mind is of herd behaviour in the scientific community which led to errant data becoming invisible and those who pointed to it being ostracised, like Wiccans inthe Bible Belt. I do not think anyone deliberately falsified data but I think they did not look closely enough at the data they had: basically believing was seeing

The Kaufmann article, Climate change revisited is available from the Journal of Scientific Exploration website.

As always Caveat Lector

January 2010 saw Europe and the British Isles in the grip of a rare burst of extremely cold weather and  lower than average temperatures in  warmer parts of the world.  The Global Warming Conference in Copenhagem late in 2009 took place in a snowstorm.  Talk of Global warming has been replaced by talk of climate change, a leading member of the IPCC has said we may be  on the verge of a coupel of decades of cooling, and this is echoed in a recent  article in the Daily Telegraph.. All round me I hear the sound of scientists and politicians backtracking.   What is going on?

But does it matter which? Whether the world is warming or cooling or staying the same we should conserve energy and reduce carbon emissions. We should recycle and reuse and get off the oil wagon.  Oil takes centuries to produce and we  may be  nearing the end of fossil fuel availability. It makes sense to downsize our lives but not to wear a hair shirt, to take a bus  or train rather than a car if possible but not to crucify oneself and use up valuable days of increasingly threatened holidays by taking train or bus rather than a plane: In any case I feel the panic over aircraft emissions was artificially created to justify tax  hikes in the UK and the undertone anti aviation activists  emanate  when castigating cheap airlines, that the poor should not fly and should stay in their own dunghill raises my hackles.

Many of the policies proposed for dealing with Global Warming make equal sense for Global Cooling or Global Staying the same.  We need to identify the policies which are  wrong for each cane and the cost of getting it wrong. I lack the skills for that but it must be done.  In fact many policies stand on their own as sensible.  Throwing away not recycling wastes land and can lead to health hazards. Carbon emissions make people sick. Oil may be running out. None of these need Global whatever as an excuse for action.  Research and considered action  are needed not academic politics, moral panic and eco-luddism. Unfortunately I think we are only liable to get  eco fascist luddism, panics and dirty academic  and real world poltics.  Maybe it is time for the people to act, intelligently of course,  rather than relying sheep like on their political and economic leaders.

Short answer yes, it is always changing.  The earth has seen Ice Ages  and heat waves lasting thousands of years. Lions and Hippopotami used to live  in the area of the Thames and I recall reading that in Roman times Britain was a producer of quality wines, which implies it was warmer than today.  The Sahara desert used to be lush forest, if not jungle and  the Russian Stepeps still turn up the corpses of Mammoths who died in the Ice age.

Climate changes constantly. A volcano can erupt and  perturb the atmosphere,  or the sea, if the eruptionis under water or an ice cap, causing long term changes  in climate,  normally small. A Tsunami could disrupt a current of warm or cold water making an island freeze or boil. Islands can rise out of the sea shifting currents and winds.  Continents can drift into and out of tropical zones, The changes these phenomena create are either imperceptibly slow or  are (usually) short lived and small but  just as  a small  problem in the finance industry led to the 2008-2010 recession so, under the right circumstances,  can these small changes tip global climate. 

The question not yet examined is  whether the world's climate as a whole is changing or whether  climatic regions are merely shifting round the globe. Perhaps we will be having our summer holidays in the Arctic and the Antarctic and  be driving dog sleighs over the frozen wastelands of Central Europe. Maybe the Ice caps will melt and the world have  two tonsures of ice  near each  now   tropical polar regions.

As I write in January 2010 the snow is unusually deep and has been here unusually long. I heard a meteorologist  say  there was a similar cold snap 5 years ago but  I have heard that some parts of Europe have had the worst weather for  a century  and laugh when I hear Global Warming advocates using the same argument their opponents have used, that the weather is in the normal  range of variation. 

A few decades ago the panic was about global cooling not warming,  and there is still a case to be made for global cooling not warming.  The most immediate  piece of evidence is the  current  big freeze. Sunspots are disappearing, and the last time they  disappeared  to the same extent as at present   is called  the Maunder Minimum and corresponded to the Little Ice Age of the Early 18th Century.  I read somewhere that there is a decrease  in the level of solar radiation  and somehow Summers here in Europe seem cooler than even ten years ago.

There is some other evidence. The emails taken from the Hadley Climate Research Centre seem to suggest that some scientists have cherry picked the data  to suggest Global Warming and  manipulated the data to an extent that may not be acceptable. A full analysis of these emails would be too long here so I am  temporarily withholding judgement save to say that  this is consistent with individual human nature and  the herd instinct which tends to produce an effect of “what you  believe in is what you see”. And some prominent global warming advocates are beginning to change their tune