Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Global Warming Hysteria Continues!

Unfortunately, the folks who brought you the 80s "We're bringing on an ice age!" idiocy, are also still promulgating hysteria about global warming....

One of my regular Tampa reads.....Big Pauly.....posts on it today!

The problem is entirely that these folks wish to judge actual millennium changes by yesterday or last week!

Tain't fair folks....nor is it at all scientific.

NOAA announced last week that global warming was in force in 2006:

"SALT LAKE CITY - The year 2006 was the warmest in the contiguous United States since record keeping began 112 years ago, due in large part to an unusually warm December, US government weather forecasters said on Tuesday.


The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) preliminary forecast released in mid-December forecast 2006 as the third warmest year on record.

NOAA said in a written statement that no state was colder than average last month and five states had their warmest December on record -- Minnesota, New York, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire.

The average temperature in the United States in 2006 was about 55 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2.2 degrees (1.2 degrees Celsius) above the average temperature recorded from 1901 to the end of 2000.

The warm start to the winter was tied partly to the "rarity" of Arctic outbreaks across the country because of El Nino, NOAA said.

El Nino, which is Spanish for "the little boy," is an abnormal warming of water in the Pacific Ocean every three or so years that can wreak havoc with global weather patterns. It usually brings warmer weather to much of the United States.

Weather forecasters said another factor in the record warmth was a long term warming trend some have linked to increases in greenhouse gases.

"This has made warmer-than-average conditions more common in the US and other parts of the world," NOAA said. "It is unclear how much of the recent anomalous warmth was due to greenhouse-gas-induced warming and how much was due to the El Nino-related circulation pattern."

NOAA began keeping records in 1895."

However.....

Journey over to another agency of the government and the tale is the opposite:

"Global And NZ Temperatures Are Cooling, Not Warming

Figures just released by the U.S. National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) show that mean global temperature for 2006 was 0.24 deg C cooler than it was in 1998.

The seven years 1999 to 2005 were also cooler than 1998.

Unlike air temperature measured by thermometers on the ground, NSSTC data comes from highly accurate measurements by satellites, correct to one tenths of a degree C.

NSSTC is a research organization partnership between NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Alabama universities, US federal agencies and industry. click here

"This data suggests global warming might have stopped eight years ago, in line with what might be expected from the natural cycles of warming and cooling that are common features of climate" (my emphasis added!) said Professor Augie Auer, chairman of the scientific panel of the New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.

"It comes two days after the statement by the NIWA National Climate Centre that New Zealand can expect cooler but drier than average conditions over the next three months. This prompts the question: how much more cooling will have to occur before NIWA will admit that global warming is not happening.

"We know that emissions of carbon dioxide are still occurring, which prompts a further question: for how much longer can NIWA support claims by the present government that CO2 causes catastrophic warming, and needs to be curbed by the imposition of special taxes or emission charges. Surely it's now time to put a stop to these sensationalist claims, which are not supported by verifiable scientific data" said Professor Auer."


All said and done, the question is AT BEST very much up in the air, and it will take a century or two to find anything of real significance to report!

Duke