back to article Decade to 2010 was hottest, wettest: WMO

Not only was the decade 2001-2010 characterised by extremes, according to the World Meteorological Organisation: there were more records broken in more places in the world than at any other time for which records exist. The WMO's report, which should but probably won't put paid to the idea that warming has stopped, is …

COMMENTS

This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. Anomalous Cowshed

    Notice how they missed out Europe from the list of hotter places...

    We completely missed out!

  2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Meh

    Perhaps a better question. How does this compare with the *models* of behavior

    That all those climate modellers have been busily running?

    If they are on track time to start being concerned.

    If substantially below perhaps it's time to look at those models?

    1. Tom 13

      Re: Perhaps a better question. How does this compare with the *models* of behavior

      You do know that well before Copernicus and Kepler they had very complex and reasonably accurate models that predicted where the planets would be don't you? Models are significantly less than worthless if you don't have good science behind them.

      Granted if the model doesn't at least predict the science behind it is wrong which is your major point, but just because the model is predictive doesn't mean the philosophy behind it is correct. Moreover, I think Galileo et al prove the extent to which some with a vested interest in certain philosophical ideas are will to go to preserve their belief systems.

  3. Sebastian Brosig

    Out on a limb

    I'm going out on a limb here but my hunch is that deforestation has a lot to do with this, and it _is_ something we can do something about.

    It's scary shit that's going down in Sumatra and the Amazon, all fuelled by our demand for Palmolive and biofuels and beefburgers, that's really fucking us up.

    And when there are no more limbs to go out on we will learn that Lewis was on the wrong Page and he was writing like his namesake Carrol, only not so artful or funny.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Out on a limb

      Lewis' articles are all being moved to the Reg's new "Fiction" section under the subheading "Spurious bollocks"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Out on a limb

        @AC

        "Lewis' articles are all being moved to the Reg's new "Fiction" section under the subheading "Spurious bollocks""

        Thats because the climate debate will be relocating there and so it is easier to find all climate articles if they are in the same place

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Out on a limb

      Deforestation causes less rainfall, not more.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Deforestation causes less rainfall, not more.

        And if you read the article, the rainfall has indeed decreased relative to 1900 and 1950.

  4. Phil E Succour
    WTF?

    Overdramatising?

    >> It was the wettest decade since 1901, except for the 1950s...

    Doesn't that just mean it was the wettest decade since the 1950s?? Why do they even mention 1901 if that decade was not as wet as the 1950s?? Seems to be a poor attempt to make it sound more dramatic than it actually is.

    1. NomNomNom

      Re: Overdramatising?

      They could have worded it as the 2nd wettest decade since 1901. Either way it provides more information.

      You are complaining that they've given you more information!

      WMO, give us less detail please!

  5. SnakeChisler

    FOCUS

    They can reduce the effects by tougher pollution rules very quickly the governments choose not to why?

    Everyone constantly bangs on about carbon emissions instead, look pollution on the Norther Ice cap increases its ability to absorb light/heat by a huge proportion.

    Were also trashing the sea using it as a dumping ground and scraping every bit of life out of it so can we PLEASE have a more balanced focus and at least tackle some of the things that will have a quicker effect.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FOCUS

      Err... The pollution on the ice caps which are allowing them to absorb more heat are mainly particulate carbon.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It was the wettest decade since 1901, except for the 1950s

    In other words, it's not as wet as it used to be.

    Is that really meant to support the argument they're making?

  7. Fading
    FAIL

    Less than 1 degree since 1880

    Woopie do.

    Not even enough to escape the error bars of the thermometers.

    So doubling CO2 has led to less than 1 degree.

    Can I have my taxes back?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Less than 1 degree since 1880

      I don't know which thermometers you use, but the ones I've got are certainly more accurate than +-1C, I've got an alcohol/glass thermometer, mercury/glass and a few semiconductor thermometers, these are all rated in the region of +/-0.1C. The ones that I own are crap as well, not a patch on the ones in proper weather stations.

      1. Fading
        FAIL

        Re: Less than 1 degree since 1880

        And how many did you have in 1880?

  8. Squander Two
    Devil

    Macro versus micro.

    Whenever anyone mentions the total lack of warming that took place during the Nineties, the response from the Global Warming alarmists is that climate is about long-term trends and a decade is far too short a period to deduce anything from. So they'll all be dismissing this information about the last decade as irrelevant. Aaaaany minute now....

    1. Tom 13

      Re: Macro versus micro.

      Yep. You need at least 20 years, quite probably more or could just be a statistical fluke. Even 19 is just a trifle to be ignored.

  9. Werner McGoole

    The usual weather hype dressed up as climate evidence

    This weather-records-being-broken thing really has got out of hand. If you want to show there's some sort of unprecedented trend from the mere fact of a record being broken then:

    a) It has to be the most extreme event on record. Otherwise it means there was a more extreme event in the past so the present has become less extreme than the past.

    b) The records have to extend back a reasonable distance in time. Starting in the 1900s is a pretty pathetic baseline on which to judge anything. We know some very extreme events have occurred in the centuries prior to that, even though we don't have continuous records.

    c) The events must have been recorded consistently in the past. For example, the number of countries reporting weather records broken during the year is surely a modern statistic that it'd be impossible to compare like-for-like with anything from the distant past. Likewise, improvements in weather monitoring make unusual events more likely to be widely reported in more recent times.

    So pardon me if I take this all with a pinch of salt.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The usual weather hype dressed up as climate evidence

      Yes it is and it's all directed at funding. They deny it, but I work in tech support for them. I've been in the office when they discuss these things. (IT help desk workers are to the current age what slaves were to colonial times - always there yet invisible to the powers that be.) They don't say it in so many words, but the bottom line is that they see climate change as a way to get that funding. If they can claim "non-partisan scientists" back them it makes it easier to roll the funding agencies.

      Anon for obvious reasons.

      1. NomNomNom

        Re: The usual weather hype dressed up as climate evidence

        "Yes it is and it's all directed at funding. They deny it, but I work in tech support for them. I've been in the office when they discuss these things. (IT help desk workers are to the current age what slaves were to colonial times - always there yet invisible to the powers that be.) They don't say it in so many words, but the bottom line is that they see climate change as a way to get that funding. If they can claim "non-partisan scientists" back them it makes it easier to roll the funding agencies.

        Anon for obvious reasons."

        Obvious reasons are you are lying.

        You work at an IT help desk and overhear scientists talking about conspiracies? What are they working in the IT help desk too?

        Or do they regularly come in groups to the IT help desk to discuss their own work (because that's why ANYONE would go to the IT help desk right?)

        Pull the other one. I bet you don't even work in IT, if you did surely you wouldn't imagine anyone could find that story remotely plausible.

    2. NomNomNom

      Re: The usual weather hype dressed up as climate evidence

      "This weather-records-being-broken thing really has got out of hand. If you want to show there's some sort of unprecedented trend from the mere fact of a record being broken then:"

      Do you also complain about Olympic records because we don't know how fast people were running in 15,000BC?

      Talk about irrelevant nitpicking.

  10. Jtom

    You could take any 10-year period from 1996 on and there is no statistical difference in the average temps. Of course, since only specific decades, e.g, 1991-2000, 2001-2010, they can hide the decade and a half of flat temps for at least another seven years.

    Additionally, the earth has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1850s, each decade SHOULD be warmer than the last. The time to worry is when temps start going down. Finally, I notice the article says the report gave the numbers of people who died from hot weather and cold weather, but didn't bother saying what those numbers were. Could it be because more die from cold than heat?

    How many mass extinctions have been recorded due to the much warmer temps in Earth's history? How many due to ice ages? Cold is bad; warm is good. If you want to follow a precautionary road, develop seek and destroy plans for earth-threatening asteroids, and how to prevent ice ages (massive dumps of CO2 in the atmosphere?). Those are the events that would cause mass extinctions. Global warming? Not a problem, regardless of what would cause it.

    1. NomNomNom

      "Additionally, the earth has been warming since the end of the Little Ice Age in the 1850s, each decade SHOULD be warmer than the last"!

      What, forever?

      Some skeptics argue "It is SUPPOSED to be warming!"

      Some argue "It ISNT warming!"

      Some argue "We can't tell if it's warming the records are too flawed"

      Any possible argument to deny what's happening it seems.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @NomNomNom

        "Some skeptics argue "It is SUPPOSED to be warming!"

        Some argue "It ISNT warming!"

        Some argue "We can't tell if it's warming the records are too flawed"

        Any possible argument to deny what's happening it seems."

        Some believers say it is co2 to blame.

        Some believers say a deities son will return.

        Some believers say a UFO will pick them up on a hill.

        How are we supposed to save our souls from the unsubstantiated claim if you dont know what is happening?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How are we supposed to save our souls...

          I don't know, but have some grape Kool-Aid.

          It's good for you and will make the time before the spaceship arrives go more quickly.

  11. conel

    Data

    The second paragraph of the article jumps out at me.

    "The WMO's report, which should but probably won't put paid to the idea that warming has stopped"

    I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding about what is meant by warming having stopped. By looking at the below graph from Wolfram Alpha it is very clear that there was a warming trend from approximately 1975 to 1998.

    http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=global+mean+temperature

    From 1998 to 2012 the temperatures have been shown to be flat, this is entirely consistent with the statement that the last decade has been the hottest on record and it would also be expected that a larger number of temperature records would have been broken in that decade than in previous ones. What isn't happening is the continuation of the trend from 1975 to 1998, I actually didn't think this was considered controversial.

    The report is just pointing out something which is obvious from looking at the Wolfram graph... The hottest 10 year period in the last 150 years has been in the last 10 years!

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like