back to article Chinese coal blamed for global warming er... cooling

The refusal of the global temperatures to rise as predicted has caused much angst among academics. "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't," wrote one in 2009. Either the instruments were wrong, or the heat energy had gone missing somewhere. Now a team of …

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        1. Peter Mc Aulay

          Re: that can be demonstrated to be accurate

          "We don't replace a theory with one that is better. We replace it with one that is slightly less wrong." -- Stephen Hawking

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        @AC 13:17 GMT

        "one side has taken a look at all the evidence, developed hypotheses and models, produced predictions that can be demonstrated to be accurate..."

        You must have been reading the Beano instead of following the published science papers. The General Circulation Models have been way off. CO2 and temperature are not in phase, and the scientists blame the thermometers.

        http://rankexploits.com/musings/2008/ordinary-eyeball-how-did-hansens-predictions-do/

        1. NomNomNom

          title

          you forget that when those predictions of warming were made by Hansen, skeptics were still arguing over whether it had warmed at all. They certainly didn't expect any warming or cooling. Hansen called it. Quibble over the magnitude of warming all you want, but Hansen was only out by about 20% and he was using knowledge from 1988

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  1. Mark152

    Chinese coal blamed for global warming er... cooling

    Yes, who else to blame but the Chinese. They have been blamed for almost all the world's problems anyway. Many of these people just could stand the idea that China is finally standing up. What a heavy burden China has to bear in order to join the world club.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Acid Rain

    Seems in line with comments I've read before that the sudden rise in global temperatures had a strong correlation to the action taken over "acid rain" which reduced the amout of sulphur emissions. No doubt in 20 years time some other global panic will have taken hold and people will start to wonder if its being caused by the actions taken to counter global warming!

    1. ArmanX
      Facepalm

      I've always wondered if the actions we take help or harm...

      I read a story some time ago about a well-meaning group of marine biologists. They had discovered what they thought was a new species, and were in the process of documenting it. However, in that process, they found that several of the creatures had been swarmed by some sort of parasite, and were growing noticeably weaker. Unsure of how to proceed, they eventually decided that in the interest of preserving this new species, they would carefully clean off the parasites. This worked beautifully; the creatures lived, they were able to continue studying them, and all was wonderful... until the creatures all died of old age. Turns out, those "parasites" were actually the creatures' young. In trying to help, they ended up destroying the next generation.

      Right now, we know that the Earth warms and cools. We know that the sun plays a major role in this. We know that certain weather patterns and natural events (such as volcanoes) affect the temperature of the Earth. However, beyond that, we're pretty much clueless, and like those hapless marine biologists, are in some danger of harming more than helping...

      1. Jack Ketch
        Thumb Up

        Title

        So assuming that we don't have a very good understanding of how the climate works. Are you saying that it's probably not a good idea to continue to emit billions of tons of additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every year?

        That sounds sensible enough to me.

        1. ArmanX

          And how do you actually stop them?

          Limiting the release of those gases isn't free...

          You can't use offsets; it's like only breathing in when I breathe out. It doesn't save anything.

          Dumping the gases underground or into the ocean may end up damaging the planet worse than releasing into the air; we don't know. And regardless, it'll all bubble back out eventually, and we're back where we started.

          Limiting the amount of gas produced simply means cutting back on production, which is a great way to kill the economy. And don't give me that "more efficient" nonsense; trends show that has no long-term impact. It's CFL *or* turn off the lights, not 'and'.

          So no, I'm not saying that it's not a good idea. I'm saying that releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere vs. using the current tactics to 'reduce its impact' is a "it might be bad" vs "it's definitely bad" situation. Quit panicking and killing the future. If it's really as bad as all that, well, we're already dead; if it's bad but not that bad, well, we have time to actually figure out what to do, don't we?

  3. another_vulture

    Acid rain

    The U.S. suppressed global warming in the same way in the 1970's. The problem is that the sulfur that created the aerosols that cause the cooling also causes acid rain. This is really bad for lakes and ponds (e.g., in the Northeast) that are not naturally buffered, so we started scrubbing the sulfur out to the stack gasses, which increased global warming.

    Of course, if you live where the lakes and ponds ARE buffered (i.e., in a limestone area such as the southeast) then the extra sulfur is good for the crops.

    1. Disco-Legend-Zeke
      Pint

      "We Need All The Acid Rain We Can Get"

      Actual quote from agricultural extension agent in Arizona.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Coat

        Wozzat?

        "... agricultural extension agent..."

        Wozzat? Viagra for bulls or an Arizonian who gets them all excited in the first place?

  4. Chris Miller

    More parameters required

    If you allow me four free parameters I can build a mathematical model that describes exactly everything that an elephant can do. If you allow me a fifth free parameter, the model I build will forecast that the elephant will fly.

    John von Neumann (1903-1957)

    1. Gannon (J.) Dick
      IT Angle

      @Chris Miller

      Engineering is goal orientated. Science is observation. Math is the least common denominator.

      IT is ... mid-air collision prevention for pigs and elephants.

  5. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    More coal please

    This is a message from the Chinese National Union of Coalminers and the American Coal Lobby

    http://www.theonion.com/video/in-the-know-coal-lobby-warns-wind-farms-may-blow-e,20876/

    Harping on about "global warming" was always going to lead to problems but it was also always more marketable than "human induced climate change" or electorally unpalatable discussions about the politics of oil.

    Whether or not we understand the science of climate change, it's still probably too mindboggingly complicated for us to model properly. But that is not really a good reason for pollution as usual or sending more people to their deaths.

    Anyway nice to see companies like Schneider Electric (re)introducing the "negawatt" to their advertising.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    If:

    "The political consequence of this article seems to be that the simplest solution to global warming is for the Chinese to burn more coal, which they intend to do anyway," writes Curry.

    Although when the particulates from the Chinese coal burning eventually fall out of the atmosphere, they will no longer counteract the warming effect of the CO2 released at the same time.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Yep it's right there in the abstract

      The article is a very selective reading of the accessible paper which includes the section:

      'The finding that the recent hiatus in warming is driven largely by natural factors does not contradict the hypothesis: “most of the observed increase in global average temperature since the mid 20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations (14)'

      These compounds are short-lived, they are incredibly reactive with moisture - in the atmosphere and in the human lungs and are stabilised as sulfates within a few months of their release. They don't even have the half-life of massive volcanic sulfur emissions which rise into the stratosphere and remain in circulation for years.

      The Chinese and Indians will have to curb their sulfur emissions anyway no matter what effect they have on the climate for one reason.

      They kill people.

      Look up London smog if you have any doubts why massive sulfur emissions are a bad thing.

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  8. James Pickett

    Understanding

    Or, however bad things are, we think they're going to get worse, and can we have some more money, please?

  9. Yamal Dodgy Data

    How will the greenies react to this one ?

    Global Warming (a.k.a Anthropogenic Climate Change, a.k.a Climate disruption) has been decreed to be the greatest threat to humanity.

    Apparently no cost is to too great to mitigate it's effects, which why trillions are to wasted on windmills, carbon credit trading and green taxes.

    But ... the science is proven and settled now,

    Sulphur Dioxide PREVENTS global warming.

    The solution is simple, building several thousand old model coal-fired power stations in the UK, WILL SAVE THE ENTIRE WORLD.

    Of course this means acid rain, but as we've been told;

    "No cost is too great to prevent climate change"

    It's obvious, if the Green Party are true to their beliefs in saving mother Gaia from thermageddon, they MUST not rest until every squirrel is burned from it's tree by acid rain.

    And this is the final result of a "belief" in a dodgy scientific methodology.

  10. Jamie Kitson

    Typo

    "The IPCC's 2007 assessment but acknowledged the negativ..."

  11. Sam Liddicott

    the model doesn't work

    Basically, the climate model is rubbish.

    That's forgivable - we know it's hard to get a good model (and harder to prove it).

    But will you now stop the rudeness, and the social ostracising of people who don't believe your models?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    So taxing the ass off of us has worked then.

    Can we have some cash back then.

  13. H'arj Imladd

    Quote of the week...

    OK so..... "The level of scientific understanding was low"

    SO why oh why spend aTrillion+ dollars fixing something for which we have been previsouly told "The scientific concensus in AGW = unequivocable" ????

    I call BS

    1. Martin Smith 1
      Paris Hilton

      If I had 50 cents

      ...for every comment I made to support the interests of extremely wealthy companies, I would be...er...just another one of the majority posting here. Whores.

  14. BristolBachelor Gold badge
    Coffee/keyboard

    YOMANK

    "First we blame them for warming the planet, but now we blame them for cooling the planet."

  15. Danny 5
    Pint

    at least

    this news shows that, even though there's good reason to be good to mother nature, we're not causing global warming persé.

    This is starting to look like something i always wanted to see in this debate, solid evidence to either support, or dismiss humans as the cause for global warming. i've never been against rules and regulations regarding the environment, i simply wanted to know more about how much influence we have and felt the news has always been very one sided (we are to blame and that was pretty much final).

    Obviously this news doesn't dismiss us, but at least it puts things into perspective a bit more.

    be good to our planet, we only have one of them, but be good for the right reasons and not because some crazed enviro-nutcase says you are directly responsible for the destruction of the planet.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    Who should I listen to?

    The economist or 98% of climatologists?

    Tough choice.

    lets hope (despite the preponderance of evidence) that Prof Kaufmann is right about AGC.

    1. Gareth Jones 2
      WTF?

      98% of climatologists?

      Would that be the same as the "97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming" that turned out to be 75 out of a sample of 77 (carefully selected out of a much larger sample so as to give the right answer)?

      And, yes, I did read the source paper to check whether those nasty sceptics were telling the truth when they pointed this out.

      Or maybe you're quoting a different source - if so can you provide a link?

      BTW: I used to believe in global warming till I started checking some of the claims. I'm sure that lots of other technical people have had a similar change of mind.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Fact Checking

        Most engineers and scientists know global warming is entirely fake. If you do any research or fact checking it is very obvious. The media doesn't do any fact checking, as has been proven many times when they echo twitter comments that turn out to be 100% false placed with the intent of misleading the media.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Devil

        Expert Credibility in Climate Change

        Expert credibility in climate change.

        Here, we use an extensive dataset of 1,372 climate researchers and their publication and citation data to show that (i) 97–98% of the climate researchers most actively publishing in the field support the tenets of ACC outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and (ii) the relative climate expertise and scientific prominence of the researchers unconvinced of ACC are substantially below that of the convinced researchers

        http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2010/06/04/1003187107.full.pdf+html

        (But of course we ALL know its really a plot by scientists, commies and the New World Order to take over the planet, don't we?)

        BTW, another link: http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/global_warming/exxon_report.pdf

        1. Grumpy Old Fart
          FAIL

          read the feckin paper you just posted

          and if you read the paper you just posted (like I just did) then you'd find that the 97%-98% only holds true for the top 50-100 (respectively) cited researchers in the field. Include more researchers and you get more UE researchers (sceptics) in the figures.

          Which entirely agrees with the sceptic position that the science is being hijacked by a small minority of the senior climatologists (a position supported by the climategate material).

          So...did you read the paper and come to a different conclusion? How?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            FAIL

            @Grumpy Old Fart

            Clearly the ones who have the most published papers are the ones whose work is most open to scrutiny by everybody else in the scientific community (and beyond).

            Thus far, there has not been ONE paper published in a peer-reviewed journal.

            Science today is based upon skepticism.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Gareth Jones: RE 98% of climatologists

        Look up John Snow (the English physician) - at that time statistically equivalent to 100% of the scientists and medical people agreed that cholera was caused by miasma (bad air basically) - whereas just one lone guy thought it was caused by water-borne agents.

        I am not bothered about scientific consensus, you want consensus based truth go to Wikipedia, personally I will continue to question the things I don't agree with or understand.

  17. John I'm only dancing
    Thumb Down

    Crow bar

    My data doesn't quite fit in with what my sponsors want. Can I borrow your equation to make it all balance out neatly, (especially my bank account).

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Changing levels of certain chemicals in hugely complex environment

    has side effects you didn't predict.

    More at 11.

  19. GaboonViper67
    FAIL

    Here's why.

    "The fact is that we can't account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can't," wrote one in 2009. Either the instruments were wrong, or the heat energy had gone missing somewhere".

    Sorry guys, wrong again. God is just giving you a gentle reminder that you're still just mere scientists. Look on the bright side, you scientists can just call it 'Climate Change', now. After all, that's the best cop-out for failure I've heard in political circles. If it's good enough for a politician, it ought to be good enough for a scientist.

    1. Steven Roper
      FAIL

      At least

      the scientists, both those who support AGW and those who don't, are actually making some effort to discover the facts and provide proof for their assertions. You, on the other hand, simply threw in the towel and gave up trying to understand how the world works the day you started explaining things as "works of God".

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @GaboonViper

      I thought global warming was just God hugging us a little closer?

      I saw it in SNL so t must be true.

  20. This post has been deleted by its author

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    "... it is a travesty that we can't"

    Tsk - silly scientist!

    All it means is that there is an observable inconsistency between the model and reality.

    And as any psientist nose that just means another round of funding if u pleez.

  22. davcefai

    Another Summary

    Could this be summarised as:

    The globe should be warming up, but it isn't, but it should be.

    Therefore we'll assume that it is, that way we get to keep our research grants.

  23. TeeCee Gold badge
    Joke

    Here's a plan.

    Ban those low-sulphur fuels that became all the rage a few years back.

    Then we can all do our bit to combat Global Warming by driving around in humungous SUVs and/or massively powerful supercars........ideally petrol ones as we would want to burn as much of that shit as possible.

    The countdown until Clarkson recycles* this comment on Top Gear starts now.

    *He's probably against that sort of thing, so he'll claim his version's original and this one will go to landfill........where it will break down and emit methane.......christ, I'd better get that 8.7 litre LandWilly Turbo 4x4 now, I'm killing the planet here.

  24. mememine69
    Happy

    Climate

    If one applies the scientific method, CO2 Climate Crisis is revealed as a criminal exaggeration turned into a comfortable politically correct lie. So why is our first reaction to this expressed as: “ no, it can’t be”? Why did we want this misery to be real? Why did we demonize deniers and defend what was supposed to be a comet hit of an emergency? Maybe it was humanity that the CO2 phenomenon hated, not as much about love for the planet. Let history show that “this” planet lover is happy a crisis was averted. As for the rest of you………

    Scientific Consensus:

    Don’t’ sanctify scientists because it was scientists who made environmentalism necessary in the first place after they polluted the planet originally with their cancer chemicals and pesticides. Didn’t scientists produce cruise missiles too, deadly chemicals, land mine technology, nuclear weapons, germ warfare, cluster bombs, strip mining technology, Y2K, Y2Kyoto, deep sea drilling technology and now climate control?

    Consensus was an impression and a perception, not the clear cut truth the mainscream media and politicians made it out to be.

    -Because how else could there be countless thousands of consensus scientists when that many of scientists clearly outnumbered the protestors?

    -If there “WERE” thousands of consensus scientists, why is it that every science organization and individual scientist, has their own unique and personal definitions of climate change?

    -Political science maybe?

    -And if there were thousands of consensus scientists why are they not clambering to get on CNN to warn us the greatest emergency ever and why are they not marching in the streets? Especially when Obama never even mentioned the crisis in his state of the union speech and when all American IPCC climate research funding was pulled?

    It doesn’t matter anyways because the new denier is anyone who still thinks voters will still vote yes to taxing the air to make the weather colder. The climate change blunder has done to progressivism and science and journalism, what nasty priests did for respecting the Catholic Church. The new fear mongering neocons were the fear mongering climate blamers who condemned billions of children to a CO2 death just to get them to turn the lights out more often. History is watching.

    1. Zippy the Pinhead
      Stop

      mememine69

      Here's the problem I have.. Scientist have not proven yet they really know if its happening or if it even has human causes and yet we have people and organizations screaming and we are killing the planet.

      Yes we should keep our planet clean and not waste but lets not kill our global economies trying to head off something we really know nothing about. Let's not do additional damage trying to fix something we don't even know is broken yet. We have scientist wanting to dump hundreds upon hundreds of tons of iron filings into the oceans to attempt to create algae blooms to suck CO2 out of the air.. which will probably do nothing but WARM the areas impacted and kill millions of fish. We have companies paying to offset carbon as a tax.. a tax on something we don't even know we are causing which does nothing but increase the cost of the goods and services we depend upon each day.

      Keep the planet clean and minimize our impact upon it.. but don't tell me that I'm the cause of global warming when right now the largest impact on the planet's temperature appears to be that bright shiny yellow thing up in the sky.

  25. Peter Clarke 1
    Flame

    Global Dimming

    It's been known about for quite some time

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/dimming_trans.shtml

    and the Met Office include it in their model

    http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-change/guide/science/explained/dimming

  26. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    So, commentards...

    Did you notice the paper is a peer-reviewed contribution to PNAS - The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - it's right at the bottom of page one if you care to take a look.

    That's a pretty well respected journal. In general scientific journals, its roughly third to Nature and Science. Some of the reviewers won't be climate scientists, will be be familiar with the modelling techniques and inclined to do more than just kick the tyres of something that looks like an important paper with a real contribution.

    So the conspiracy is a bit bigger than one or two climate scientists looking to feather their nest... Ho hum.

    Sulphur aerosols seem to have a half life of over a year. That's plenty of time to be widely distributed around the world from the highly active Hadley cell powered by convection at the equator... that of course covers China and South East Asia. So the idea that they might have a global effect would seem to make some sense, would it not? Of course, I haven't had my name on a paper in atmospheric chemistry for 25 years, so who am I to say?

  27. JJz

    Let me look at the WHOLE PICTURE!

    This article selectively culls quotes out of context and presents the information in an manner that suits the authors point of view. Perhaps he should refer first to Mark Bowen's account of "Censoring Science: The Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen and the Truth of Global Warming", a detailed look at the concentrated attempt not to address this crisis for short term profits.

    As far as cooling, read Dr. Hansen's book, "Storms of My Grandchildren" for the dynamics.

    Unfortunately, there was a satellite to be launch to study such and in takeoff exploded.

    One thing for such, the planet has warmed one degree C already, because of a delayed response will warm another degree, business as usual 2-4 degrees (game over).

    Oh, real proof of the harmful change added CO2 in the ecosystem is in the oceans, the ph level is being lowered because the carbon gas gets absorbed in the water turns to carbonic acid, thus ocean acidification. 30% lower since industrial age began, ill for marine life, especially hard shelled creatures, such as, coral.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Headmaster

      Clean sheets fpr JJz please, Nurse

      "One thing for such, the planet has warmed one degree C already"

      The planet warmed 0.7C in 150 years.

      "because of a delayed response will warm another degree, business as usual 2-4 degrees (game over)."

      Thanks Nostradamus, but your team's predictions have been rubbish so far, I'll take my chances and not wreck the economy. China has already made that bet.

      The mean monthly temperature here varies by 20C. In Japan it varies by 30C. You reckon 2C is "game over" ??

      I see a bedwetter. You could try reading back what you wrote to hear how ridiculous you sound.

      1. JJz

        You are a Coward, Caoward!

        Oh, please review the acidification while you are in the mood to discredit the statement!

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