Met Office: Global warming sceptics 'have heads in sand'
The UK Met Office climate change bureau has issued a stinging attack on the idea that recent falls in global temperature might mean that global warming is over or has been exaggerated. "Anyone who thinks global warming has stopped has their head in the sand," said an unnamed Met Office spokesman in a statement released online …
After you last article about how there was more ice in the arctic this year than last year, I see that the northwest-passage and the northeast-passage are both now passible to ships for the first time ever (unless dinosaurs had boats ofc).
I am waiting for your follow-up article about how many sailors have been drowned after colliding with this "ice".
Did they publish their algorithm yet? The one they use to arrive from the raw observation data to their global temperature indices? The one that corresponds to the NASA/GISS adjustment algorithm? Anyone have a link to it, if they have published it? Or any explanation from them of why not, if they have not?
Hansen has published the GISS code, and very interesting it has been too, since you can now see how rural and urban stations get their readings adjusted so they are supposedly more consistent with each other, and you can see how the past and the present get adjusted to be supposedly more consistent with each other. Its not clear that all the adjustment has improved the data integrity, but at least its out in the open and we can argue about it. And at best it allows checking, so that the accusations about adjusting-in warming biases can be evaluated. Good for science.
So, where is our own Hadley code?
Never mind 'policy'! Your generic scepticism and cynicism are a breath of fresh air, Vultures - even when you are completely, madly, wrong!
Keep those servers churning out hot air, provoke all trolls into spasms of flaming - let's have more 'direct global warming'. Burn, fossils, burn!
With such inaccurate weather predictions (i.e. incorrect temperature readings on a daily basis) to letting you know it will be sunny when it rains and so forth how are we expected to believe a word these people huff and puff about.
Global warming has nothing much to do with civilians.
If these big organisations and gov's want to stop Global warming I suggest they approach the industries that cause it not us with our orange and black bin liners and our 20 w lights compared to 60w's.
Just what exactly do they propose besides a moan ?
If they want to stop global warming provide us with 100% fuel free cars (ahh they can't ) so why are they still preaching ?
Further more to all this I suggest they go watch the greath global warming swindle and come back with comments.
Its all a big con its as simple as that
If it is not if they are a 100% sure of it being global warming then they must know exactly what our climate is going through and they should be able to exactly give measurements on weather climate / changes all over the planet
ie. on nov 1 2009 in London it will be such a degree there will be so much sun
in Dec 1. 2010 in India Delhi will be such and such there will be so much extra water
and we need to hold them against their word
If they get their predictions wrong like they do over a 24 hour period well have they heard of the boy who cried WOLF
soon no one will listen to their puff and huff
Go preach to the people and countries that really matter i.e. USA and gas guzzlers (did you know in USA) they don't even know what diesel is hahahahah
go preach india and china about their manufacturing and when they stop manufacturing sit there buying plastic bags for 100 pounds a peice cos no one is producing anything for you
"which exists purely to do climate change research"
Hmmm.
No vested interest (jobs for the boys) there then?
As a sceptic, I'll take my "head out of the sand" when they take their heads out of their sanctimonious arses.
Proudly adding to (unproven) 'Global Warming' since 1962
I thought that this sort of thing was the reason we're all supposed to be saying "global climate change" now instead of "global warming"?
So, if its hot for a year its global warming, but if it isnt then we need to ignore it.
As no doubt we should ignore the trend that shows no warming for 9 years...obviously just a minor blip on the timescales of these climatic mandarins...
Mind, arent these the same people who are telling me this is the 2nd or 3rd warmest year ever in the UK? (hot rain, obviously...) Now WHY do I have difficulty believing them...?
The Met office isn't even keeping up - they're having a go at "global warming sceptics" for saying that there is no warming, but most of the sceptics have given up saying "there is no warming" in the face of insurmountable evidence to the contrary. The few counter-indications have been destroyed by the sceptics own data and research. The world is warming, and no-one with basic scientific understanding, and the ability to read the information can deny it.
The extent to which warming is man-made is now the sceptics chosen field of battle.
it's been going on since the last ice age ended. Every child in Canada lears about how the North American continent was blanketed in a 2km thick sheet of ice and how people crossed the Bearing Strait in something like 3000BC due to it being frozen over and how as the ice receeded they migrated further south and west. What I didn't learn about was the giant CO2 spewing factories churning out flint arrowheads and pottery at an unprecedented rate, that must have existed for all that nasty global warming to have occured.
The world isn't static people, it never was and never will be. The sooner the environmentalists get their minds around that fact the better.
So, temperature rises during a period of El Nino are are a sign of global warming - except for the extreme ones. But, should the temperature stop going up - or in fact, fall - during an Il Nina then that is all down to Il Nina, global warming is still happening, and anyone who dares to ask questions, start a debate or otherwise disrupt the band-wagon is a heretic and will be stoned!
Did David Blaine question Climate change?
The UK Met Office climate change bureau has issued a stinging attack on the idea that recent rises in global temperature might mean that global COOLING is over or has been exaggerated.
"Anyone who thinks global COOLING has stopped has their head in the sand," said an unnamed Met Office spokesman in a statement released online today. The statement goes on angrily:
Global COOLING does not mean that each year will be COOLER than the last, natural phenomena will mean that some years will be much warmer and others cooler. You only need to look at 1998 to see a record-breaking warm year caused by a very strong El Niño. In the last couple of years, the underlying warming is partially masked caused [sic] by a strong La Niña.
------------------
Swap the "warming" for "cooling" and it's even more logical. As far as I'm aware, the temperature on earth is a lot cooler now than it used to be millions of years ago - meaning the overall trend is down. Anything going up is a statistical blip.
I don't doubt that climate change is real. I don't doubt that continental drift is real either. But what exactly are we expected to do about either ? Sure we can reduce our emissions, but all the evidence says that the climate will warm naturally anyway. In a few thousand years are we going to see people crying that continental drift is going to destroy their economy, and it "MUST BE STOPPED" ?
I want some intellectual honesty from the global warming experts. "Cut your emissions" is a vague exhortation to action, but provides no defined objective. Are we to assume that we are aiming for complete control over the earths climate ? If not, what should the ideal composition of the atmosphere be, and why ? How much CO2 are we humans allowed to emit ? Is the natural world going to have to be regulated to keep our figures correct ? Are we aiming at a nice 1950s type climate or a nice 1700s type climate ? If you keep that up we'll find we end up much warmer than it is today. Right up until we slide back into an ice age. Sure the ice caps are melting now, but the water released is still at a lower temperature than "normal" and it would only take a relatively minor asteroid impact, or a large volcano to cause global temps to cool, thereby freezing a larger area than was frozen before we melted it with our CO2.
So come on, answer the real questions. What are we aiming at ?
If you think we can control the climate on a planet wide scale, is it wise to conduct the first experiment on our own planet ?
"Despite this, 11 of the last 13 years are the warmest ever recorded."
So? The thermometer was invented during the Little Ice Age. We've no record of temperatures in the Medieval Warm Period.
> "If global warming has stopped or isn't very significant, therefore, everyone at the Hadley Centre is out of a job. Which might explain why they're so cross about the recent cooling."
Are you serious? You actually went with that statement? And I suppose rape victims "just ask for it" and poor third-world people dying of starvation "have no-one to blame but themselves", etc.? If you keep taking that line, then don't be surprised if a roudy mob armed with pitchforks appears in front of the offices of Situation Publishing ...
"So? The thermometer was invented during the Little Ice Age. We've no record of temperatures in the Medieval Warm Period."
Well apart from 3000 year old trees and ice cores.
... is the only person I listen to in the whole GW debate. "All the Trouble in the World" should be a set text in schools: it's got more actual facts in it than Gore's film. It also scores highly in the common sense stakes, but I suspect his thoughts don't make such good headlines (or stuff as many research budget proposals at the Hadley) as other peoples'. On the long term future of oil, for instance, he recommends that we kick back with a drink and a cigar, and let the market alone to sort it all out- just as it did for Whale Oil.
Not being 140 years old, I was surprised to discover that we were surprisingly dependent upon this stuff, until something better came along and was used instead (due to the climb in whale oil prices as a result of a scarcity of whales).
Quite where this vogue for expecting politicians* to sort problems out for us is much more of a mystery. I'm sure that it wasn't always like that
Oh, and yes- well done on the cynicism- very welcome. I'll go to the BBC if I want the GROLIE take on things.
And very finally- can someone please explain the phrase "Emerging truth"? Something is surely true or not. Emerging truth seems like a weaselly way of telling people debating a theory to fuck off and leave the sacred cow alone.
*The folks who bought us NPfIT, ID cards, the recession, Wacky Jackie, Keith "Where's my Brain?" Vaz etc. etc.
This year's arctic summer melt total was second only to last year's (i.e. the second worst year in recorded history). So much for your vaunted "ice refuses to melt" statement.
Interesting argument. I assume then that since there are large amounts of scientists (and no doubt other professionals) employed to do genetics research and the like, you don't believe in Evolution since their jobs depend on it? As with any Scientific theory, it's also "unproven".
One thing that global warming skeptics commonly say is that weather comes in cycles, usually that we are just leaving a cooler part of a cycle. So why do they claim that this less-hot period is not a part of a cycle?
Even if climate change could be shown to have stopped, it would take a lot more than two years of cooling to do it, and the people at the Hadley Centre do all types of climate research, so unless Lewis Page thinks that the climate is static, they won't be out of a job anytime soon regardless of any results.
Being a contrarian is one thing, but how do you judge when it has flipped round the other way?
But it hasn't been getting warmer since the last ice age ended.
Temperature graph:
------- -----------/
/ \ /
/ \ /
----- ---------
It's been flat most of the last interglacial.
Within the error of an ASCII art chart.
The big problem is that none of the Global Climate Change doom sayers computer models predicted this small cooling period, or anything even remotely like it. In fact virtually all of them predicted the exact opposite.
When you predict doom, and the opposite happens (irrespective of the fact that it may or may not only be a short aberration) you loose credibility.
'So? The thermometer was invented during the Little Ice Age. We've no record of temperatures in the Medieval Warm Period.'
Absolutely correct - apart from the evidence obtained from pollen, varves, ice cores, oxygen isotopes, insect remains, soils, crop residues...
"Mind, arent these the same people who are telling me this is the 2nd or 3rd warmest year ever in the UK? (hot rain, obviously...) Now WHY do I have difficulty believing them...?"
As the temperature rises the models suggest we are likely to get less predictable weather. We are seeing changes in nature where temperature dependent hatchings are occurring earlier and the whole balance in the cycle of life is thrown out.
No scientific body is saying the world is not getting warmer.
It takes some of the world's most powerful super computers just to predict what the weather will be doing next week and yet everyone here is an expert and can predict what's going to happen next century all by themselves whilst sat at the bar in their local.
We use rocket science and brain surgery as benchmarks of complexity. If we were to dumb down and trivialise these sciences to the same level as we've dumbed down the science of climate change we'd end up with discussions like this:
"Rocket science is just a case of filling a big pointy tube with fuel and setting fire to it. If it burns fast enough it'll get out of the Earth's atmosphere."
"Brain surgery? Piece of piss! Just drill a hole in the patient's head, shove a stick with a camera and a knife on the end of it, chop the tumour out and you're done."
"Climate change? Pah! The Earth goes through ice ages all the time - we're at the end of one now so of course we're getting warmer."
All are supposedly correct as far as they go but are based on a very narrow and naive understanding of the subject matter. If you tried to explain rocket science or brain surgery in such Mickey Mouse terms, your inner voice would (should!) tell you that you clearly know fuck all about the subject.
Most of you clearly know fuck all about climate change, just quoting whichever scientist, politician, journalist or celebrity has the closest views to the ones you already have.
Climate change debate is hence now a waste of time.
We may as well discuss whether Christianity, Judaism or Islam is right - for all the good it will do us.
So... when are we going to put limits on how much we can breathe out? It seems that all these scaremongers are overlooking a simple fact - world population has grown expotenentially since about mid-1600s...
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Population_curve.svg
Looks like we need some sanctioned culling...
Paris, because even she would've spotted that...
Climate change is the biggest swindle since records began. It's the world's most fault science.
I only hope more and mor epeople remove their blinkers and see man made global warming as the big joke that it is.
If not i will offset your carbon footprint by living like an eco person (honest). Just pay me £100 per KG of Carbon to my paypal account please.
"So come on, answer the real questions. What are we aiming at ?"
Preventing the planet going over a point where it starts producing a massive excess of CO2 above the natural balance. Once this happens the process becomes self re-enforcing and there is probably not a lot we can do. Yes, this is only based on the best scientific knowledge available but the consequence of inaction are potentially disastrous for human-kind.
"If you think we can control the climate on a planet wide scale, is it wise to conduct the first experiment on our own planet ?"
It's a terrible idea. We should stop the experiment right now.
I guess we could carry on listening to the folks saying climate change isn't real - and thanks to the earlier AC for demonstrating that apparently someone took the Martin Durkin film seriously, I needed a good laugh! But since most of the worlds scientific bodies, plus an awful lot of business leaders believe in the evidence* that there is a problem, that carries more weight than the folks on the same side as Dubya, editing scientific papers to introduce an element of doubt that just isn't there.
* Note to other posters: climate change is NOT the same as predicting the weather. Might help if you did some reading.
1. Get a couple of oil tankers.
2. Load one up with all of the proudly self-declaring "global warming skeptics".
3. Load the second with all the idealistic hippies who want to reset civilisation to before the industrial revolution.
4. Take ships out in to the middle of the Atlantic.
5. Unload the cargo.
That should give the rest of us some peace and quiet to investigate what's really happening. Yes, the planet exists in a bi-stable equilibrium that moves between hot and cold, but pumping out shitloads of insulating gases into the atmosphere at a time of warming may well push it out of equilibrium. Or we might find out that we simply reach the high point of temperature sooner.
Either way, denying it completely is about as useful as saying "shut down all the power plants" and both extremes have used some very shoddy reasoning.
Environmental data shows us that the climate has been both a lot warmer and a lot colder than it is now, well before humans could possibly have had any impact on the climate.
So it goes to how far you want to take the data, which is, think, the core of the problem.
Take it over the last few days then the Earth is cooling. Take it over the last couple of weeks then it is getting warmer.
Take it over the last couple of years then it is getting cooler, but over the last few thousand it is definitely warmer.
Take it over the last hundred thousand or so and we get cooler, and take it over the last 4.5 Billion we get hella cooler.
Seems to me that both sides are cherry-picking the data that suits them rather than looking at the whole picture and coming up with a rational explanation.
Finally, for Keith, I am not being funny here but I genuinely don't get why temperatures rising would cause more unpredictable weather.
Seriously, I have been to North Africa and the Middle East and they are both much warmer than the UK but also have far more predictable weather. The word Scorchio springs to mind.
And so when you've been "hot" for a ten thousand years, you should either *stay* hot or go cold. else you're no longer in a system that has a bistable state between hot and cold.
So how come we're getting hotter now?
> Climate change is the biggest swindle since records began.
Quite an amazing accomplishment though. Getting several thousand scientists to be intellectually dishonest about their chosen subject with large amounts of false reporting of data without one major scientific body disagreeing with them.
Most impressive bit was finding anyone who has been reading temperature or CO2 levels since 1972 and getting them to be part of this great jape in case they spoil the punchline.
Nice one with getting NASA in on the act so their satellite measurement systems fed back the wrong data and said the earth was warming! That was brilliant.
Bit worried about the cost of all those heaters they needed to melt the north pole though to make it look like it was actually melting. And chiseling bits of ice shelf off the antarctic must have taken a while.
The people who orchestrated this could run the world's best logistics company. Astounding guys!
Strange that Igor should use that title and then trot out the scaremongering story as if it weren't.
You breathe out CO2. Where do you get that CO2? Not from fossil fuels.
So breathing is carbon neutral.
The title is a useful heuristic - never more appropriate to our hyperreal culture and civilisation.
The majority thinks either there is long term warming, or there is no long term warming to speak off. The heruristic therefore entails the contrary - there is an ice age coming. There is evidence to support this view.
In the last 20 years, G7 countries have out-sourced manufacturing. At present G7 economies are on the verge of a stagnation and contraction. Future pursuit of Kyoto and Morekyoto will not only complete the destruction of manufacturing, but with associated policies (e.g educational), will mean the loss of knowledge and technical expertise. New nuclear reactors in the UK? Who here in 2008 knows how to make them?
Fast forward to 2050. A Little Ice Age is well under way. Significant agricultural regions are no longer productive. The business practices of the GM mafia mean famine is globally endemic. If wars have not caused disruption of fuel supplies, and no efficient alternatives have been permitted to emerge, energy will be scarce, and unafforadable by many. The G7 governments of the day will wring their hand and say, what can we do?
Global warming, or not much global warming - suppose you have all been conned?
Why can't these Eco-warriors make their minds up???
In the 70's there was a load of bollocks about "The Big Freeze"
Then they were bongering on about "Global Warming"
Now because the numpties havent got any idea as to what's going on (if there actually is in the grand scheme of sunspot cycles and space weather), it's now called "Climate Change"
It's a big fat gravy train. I think I'm going to seek for sponsorship for a thesis on "The effects of drinking and smoking and shagging to excess on a beach in Goa and its effect on Climate Change" Some tree hugging twunt would probably back it.
See you on the beach!
I agree with Pinkerton - why is climate change science an area where everyone can be their own expert? The science is complicated, and as befits complicated science most practitioners will have spent decades studying, in an environment where a questioning mind and innate scepticism are de-rigueur. But never mind - 10 minutes reading a tabloid newspaper or half an hour trawling the web will put you on a par!
Paris because I expect she is as well qualified in climatology as most commentators on these threads.
Whenever I see pictures of tyrannosaurs in The Cretaceous, it's always a picture of rain-forest heat and giant ferns. Whenever I see pictures of woolly mammoths in The Ice Age, it's always a picture of fur-clad Ugh-the-Cavemen in the snow. There's cultural memes for you, suggesting viscerally that the entire planet was rain-forested or ice-heaped.
About the only place I see consistent white-hat fact-seeking is on www.withouthotair.com.
And that's what I want: facts not emotive propaganda. I also want a skeptic which is someone who says 'You haven't persuaded me' and not (as some seem to believe) 'I won't believe you' and El Reg (or La Reg?) works for me like that, even if you really just like twisting tails in your presenting of the news.
You say that the climate has been warming ever since the last Ice Age. Really? I bet that the people who lived during the 16th century through the early 19th (roughly on both sides) AKA "The Little Ice Age" would be interested in hearing that. And, we don't just have lots of physical evidence, such as tree rings, we have historic evidence if you know how to interpret it: numerous monastery records of when they plowed, sowed and harvested, showing how the growing seasons were getting shorter, as well as the fact that they weren't able to grow grapes in England any more.
The big mistake some of the more simple-minded Global Warming fanatics make is thinking that ever since the last Ice Age the climate had been stable and that suddenly, about 100 years ago or so, it started changing, and getting warmer. That, of course, is nonsense, and I hope all El Reg readers understand that. The climate is always changing, and right now, it seems to be getting warmer. The big questions are, how warm is it going to get and how much of this (if any) is man made?
Now, I'd be the last person to deny that it's probably a Bad Idea to continue our open-ended experiment of throwing CO2 into the atmosphere to see what happens, but I'm also skeptical about the need for drastic, irreversible measures. From what I've recently heard, painting your roof white will cancel out quite a bit of "CO2 footprint," and if you don't like the results, all it takes is a few gallons of black paint to reverse it.
Err, it's very simple. Offer people a choice : loads-a-wonga (by way of bountiful research grants) for anything that even remotely supports "official truth" or be exiled to the scientific equivalent of Siberia with no money to feed the family. A bit like the religion argument, if the "official religion" is so strong, why should it fear scrutiny ? Why should scientists have to threaten legal action to have their names taken off the contributors list in "the bible" ?
I suppose I'm in the camp that many would label as "global warming deniers" because I don't support 100% "the new religion" that the Earth is warming fast and it's all Man's fault. I'm not, I'm in the camp that would like to see rational debate of real facts. The only fact I am sure about is that something is being kept under wraps, that the whole issue is NOT getting the rational debate it deserves with both sides able to express their views and examine the assumptions and methodologies used by the others. This whole IPCC "here is the official truth, behold the new bible, non-believers will be stoned to death" approach stinks.
Scientists protect their reputations, just like businesses protect their profits.
I don't care whether temperatures go up or down a bit--what I care about is blind belief in computer fantasies.
It's a prediction about the future, so no one can prove you wrong!
It "predicts" natural variability, so no one can prove you wrong!
It is about saving the planet, so no one can prove you wrong without being labelled a greedy selfish ignorant criminal.
These are boomers who think their lives should be about ending famine, creating world peace, saving the environment. At least a businessman doesn't care what business they are in--nuclear, oil, or wind--as long as it is profitable. But boomer scientists need to feel that their cause is the most important. We have to act now!
Nobody is impressed. Paris because even she can be more honest about why she's doing it.
As I understand it an Ice Age is defined by standing Ice all through the year.
Interestingly there a new theory - man influenced climate much earlier than previous thought (at time they started clearing trees several 1000 years ago), and it stopped the ice advancing again. If true that probably means civilisation only exists as it is because of man's impact on the climate (unlikely to have evolved if Ice was advancing)
"In the 70's you scientists told us it was going to freeze!"
And the answer to that is
"NO, TIME Magazine and the New Yorker told you it was going to freeze".
There was ONE paper that said that this was uncertain and could be overcome by the CO2 industrialisation was producing and there wasn't a good enough model to show what was really happening.
It's all the denialists who are saying "it was going to freeze in the 70's!".
Really? So the majority who think fucking little kiddies are wrong and it's actually A-OK?
Absolutes are always wrong.
@ Andrew:
"why is climate change science an area where everyone can be their own expert?"
If a team of doctors tried a new drug on you that hadn't been tried on any human before, but assured you they knew with 95% confidence it would work, would you, despite being a layman, believe them? Or would you wonder that what they were saying, despite being experts, was nonsensical?
If a team of engineers designed a new material, and went ahead and used it in a real machine or building without testing it rigorously (in reality, not computer models) would you think they were acting wisely?
We are being told that the world as we know it will end unless we submit to the predictions of computer models--models that are making predictions about what will happen in 50 and 100 years. How can we sanely trust such models? They haven't predicted and tested (in the real sense of the word) anything so far.
So next time your doctor starts saying strange things, be sure to follow all his advice, will you?
Paris because even she has enough common sense.
It's nice to get an environmental story where we can actually comment - nice to see the Reg does occasionally have some balls, rather than just talking bollocks.
Is it just me who is well and truly peeved at all the attention global warming gets, at the expense of the current MASSIVE problem we have - widespread pollution of our planet.
Global Warming is the media "love child" of the moment, it's this wonderfully big and "fluffy" target everyone loves to get worked up about.
In the meantime, that ol' chestnut "pollution" is all but forgotten.
You know, those wonderfully "green" oil companies like Shell and their accidental oil spills in places such as the amazon.
Or perhaps the millions of tonnes of plastic floating around the oceans.
Lets leave pollution for a moment and deal with corporate rape and pillage of natural resources - fish for instance. Vast swathes of the ocean denuded of life in the interests of cheap food and big profits.
How about the burning of forests, or closer to "suburbia", the destruction of flood plains and deltas, the over farming killing bio-diversity?
The fact is, "global warming" is a comforting issue which takes our minds of the real core issues facing our planet. It's a diversion, it lets greedy corporate interests "off the hook" as they trade carbon, whilst continuing to rape and pillage good 'ol gaia.
It's all very well and good cutting back on air emissions to save the planet, while eating up other resources faster than they can be replaced - the end result will be the same, whichever way you look at it.
Without a holistic approach we don't stand a snowballs chance on earth of surviving.
Although it verges on being an appeal to authority, I have to agree with Andrew Alan McKenzie and Pinkerton that most of us don't know squat about any of this, that we're only confirming our own prejudices, and that we should take our partisan rants to the pub, where they belong.
Now, we can please start a mindlessly ill-informed argument about objective theories of quantum mechanics vs CHI.
Paris, because I'd like to interfere with her single slit.
How come you don't shovel the same amount of shit toward the arrant nonsense spouted by the professional sceptics?
Nary a word about one of the big backers of denialist sites being Phillip Morris. Who make cigarettes. Why are they funding anti AGW? Because if scientists can be shown as wrong, who's to say they aren't wrong about cancer?
But that passed El Reg's laser sight for ridicule.
Maybe they can't SEE red states.
Breathing carbon-neutral ?
Not if you take into account the fossil fuels input into agriculture & food transport. Without their input you wou;dn't be doing much breathing at all.
