back to article Earth will feel the heat from 2009: climate boffins

Chuck out your thermals: global warming is coming, and it isn't waiting for 2100. A new climate model predicts that by the end of this decade, there is an even chance that global temperatures will be hotter than 1998, the warmest year on record. The model, developed by scientists at the Met Office in the UK, suggests that the …

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  1. Mike Robinson

    ironic

    Glad to see you did your research, rather than just rehashing a pile of crap.

    Thanks to the work of Steve McIntyre over at http://www.climateaudit.org/, the data used for this nonsense theory has been proved incorrect in the last few days, and GISS has been forced to change their published data as a result.

    Marc Sheppard has blogged about it here:

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/08/revised_temp_data_reduces_glob.html

    Cheers.

  2. Barry Zubel

    but 1998 wasn't the hottest year on record!

    http://www.dailytech.com/Blogger+finds+Y2K+bug+in+NASA+Climate+Data/article8383.htm

    Funnily enough, published today...

  3. Chris Miller

    As Freeman Dyson put it:

    "[Climate] models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.

    "The real world is muddy and messy and full of things that we do not yet understand. It is much easier for a scientist to sit in an air-conditioned building and run computer models than to put on winter clothes and measure what is really happening outside in the swamps and the clouds. That's why the climate model experts end up believing their own models."

  4. Steven Moore

    1998 Not Warmest

    "...there is an even chance that global temperatures will be hotter than 1998, the warmest year on record."

    Sorry, but 1998 isn't/wasn't:

    http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/

    I know that that applies only to the US, but considering the US has the single largest climate data network, don't be surprised to find out it applies to the global record as well.

    (Actually, I'd be surprised if the folks at Hadley owned up to any errors)

  5. Daniel

    "events such as floods and droughts"?

    1-1=0?

    Don't they kinda cancel each other out. Either way, as I've said it before, the less we plow out of the town, the more the ground can "absorb" the rain water and the more the plants (trees) can shade the land keeping it from drying up.

    BUT, you will always have a shifting climate. Last I looked, the deserts are always changing, whether we like it or not.

    For the last few hundred years, we've been living our way; but unless we evolve (or learn to deal) like other creatures, we're up for extinction. Good example: Your house is destroyed every 2 years because of hurricanes. So you rebuild again. You expect this? Great, you've moved on. You sue the government? Time to take up a hobby scuba diving without gear.

  6. Tom

    Amazing innit?

    They don't even know what the weather is going to do tomorrow, never mind in 2 years time.

  7. Steven Knox

    "there is an even chance that global temperatures will be hotter than [in] 1998"

    Yeah -- either they will or they won't. I could have told you that. Now where's my government grant?

  8. Tim

    climat

    Look at the rock the UK is made of Sand stone /limestone /granite etc and then say we have a stable climate .FFS limestone is dead tropical sea crustaceans and sand stone ? (the clue is in the name ) from a warm climate .global warming ok but we are just coming out of an ice age . On a earth time scale the human race is not even a blip of a second.

  9. Ryan Nix

    A prediction is never a fact....

    Why do so few seem to understand that?

    "For example: 1998 was a record breakingly hot year. But it was also an El Nino year, and the effect of that current shifting should be accounted for."

    And over at Slashdot, a major correction came out:

    "According to an article at DailyTech, a blogger has discovered a Y2K bug in a NASA climate study by the same writer who accused the Bush administration of trying to censor him on the issue of global warming. The authors have acknowledged the problem and released corrected data. Now the study shows the warmest year on record for the contiguous 48 states as being 1934, not 1998 as previously reported in the media. In fact, the corrected study shows that half of the 10 warmest years on record occurred before World War II."

    http://www.dailytech.com/Blogger+finds+Y2K+bug+in+NASA+Climate+Data/article8383.htm

  10. Dale Morgan

    I stopped reading when...

    I relised this was being done by the met office, they can't predict anything, all they ever do is take blind stabs at the weather. The met office tells me its sunny when it p*ssing it down outside then they tell me its raining during a heat wave.

    their the most useless disorganised bunch of morons.

    incompetents of the highest order.

  11. Chris Goodchild

    Ah, well....

    Don't worry, two years is plenty of time to come up with a reason why the forecast is not quite accurate. Remember. An expert is someone who, before the event can tell you exactly what is going to happen and why. After the event he will be able to tell you exactly why it didn't happen.

  12. Webster Phreaky

    One Word for this story - BULLSHIT. Story Even Contains a LIE

    The HOTTEST YEAR in the last Century according to NOAA was 1935 and then 1936, the years of the Great American Dust Bowl.

    Global Warming is the Religion of the Leftists, and Al Gore is the Bullshit Pope of the Church of Global Warming Lies.

    Look a t this Google Search for the "Hottest years in the 20th century" and see all the bullshit conflicting claims of which years were the hottest! Proof that every claim is bullshit.

  13. Paul Graham

    A small correction

    1998, is still considered the hottest year on record; Steve McIntyre change only effects American temperatures. This is due to the necessary requirement to adjust temperatures for the urban heat island artifact, which effects is cities/towns have less wind, to drive temperatures down, and more heat adsorbing surfaces, i.e. asphalt.

    The dataset in question has their temperatures adjusted in comparison to rural temperatures; where hopeful these artificial temperature artifacts are minimized. What happened is unadjusted data replaced the adjusted data at around 1996, giving an artificial jump in temperatures. This was an unbelievable failure in basic competency; and NASA should pay a significance price is the respect given to it.

    Now I have heard comments that so what the rest of the world is still warming up; however the rest of the world temperatures either haven’t been adjusted else don’t stretch back far enough to see if temperatures are part of a natural trend or caused by AGW (Green House Gases). What now is needed A) all currant temperature dataset and methods to be publicly available, this will allow for auditing of claims made B) utilization of all available data to get a reliable historical view of the climate, only then can verify that AGW theories are effecting the planet.

    Also I point about the article in question contains a lot of guff about ElNino keeping a lid on temperature changes; CRAP you would still see a upward trend anything else is a LIE. The Problem that Climate alarmists have is world temperature have stagnated since 2000; again this is inexplicable and a might blow to AGW theories. Now let me make a prediction 2009-2014 will see temperatures increases because that totally in-line with the solar activity theories that are derided but now proven.

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/index.php?feed=Science&article=UPI-1-20070802-14092000-bc-us-climatechange.xml

    Therefore, during this period we would expect to see global temperatures rises of around .2 of degree; I would expect rises between .1 to .3 depending on the strength of the next solar cycle; thought if is an unexpectedly weak solar cycle I could foresee temperature drops.

    What we have is a preemptive strike by the Met Office to stake a claim on Solar Forcing for AGW theories, and thus keep its reputation for a few more years. So how did that come about this prediction? Well only with full access to the Models, methods and dataset could we be sure. Nevertheless, I will hazard two guesses; what has happen by using the hind-casts they’ve stumbled on an 11 year cycle, but as they haven’t included the 11 year solar cycle in there models, they believe their entitled have any effect. Alternatively, they have utilized a learning algorithm/neural nets, which learned on this cycle. This would allow them to dishonestly claim it’s the models fault and the next version is better. This please upgrade approach has allowed there sidestep incorrect predation when in truth it’s an unscientific approach

    Of could it’s possible that this was deliberate act to misinform the public.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Grow up

    Bizarre, these denialists.

    OK, so NASA have changed their figures a bit to correct an error.

    Even without running a statistical analysis, you can see at a glance that the last 15 years' figures are anomalously warm.

    The last 10 years looks even worse.

    That's why proper grown-up climatologists don't say "It snowed last night in Hicksville: that proves global warming is a con" or "1921 was hotter than 2005, that proves global warming is a con".

    These sorts of "arguments" are childish and indicative of the intellectual quality (er, lack of..) within this AGW-denialist mob.

    Have a look at some 3-year averaged trends, for example.

    The NASA correction certainly doesn't indicate anything like "the data used for this nonsense theory has been proved incorrect" as posted by the looney above.

  15. John Stag

    Hottest year on record

    Webster Phreaky:

    Grow up.

    The "1935" thing was announced yesterday, and you know it. Writing something before the announcement doesn't make anybody a liar, and it doesn't make you superior in any way.

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Grow up

    "Bizarre"

    "childish"

    "intellectual quality (er, lack of..)"

    "denialist"

    "looney "

    Why is it that when Man made Global Warming is questioned, (as does happen in a democratic and rational society) we get the terms above applied to anyone who raises any legitimate questions?

    If the evidence is clear for the argument that Man Made Global Warming is undeniable then why would you need to belittle people in this way?

    Me thinks you doth protest too strongly.

  17. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Denialists are kooks

    "Why is it that when Man made Global Warming is questioned, (as does happen in a democratic and rational society) we get the terms above applied to anyone who raises any legitimate questions?"

    Raise a legitimate question and you probably *won't* see the above words.

    Raise utter crap like

    "Thanks to the work of Steve McIntyre over at http://www.climateaudit.org/, the data used for this nonsense theory has been proved incorrect in the last few days,"

    and you will get insults.

    The denialists make stupid assertions and on the rare occasion they try to back them up, they demonstrate no aptitude for science nor logic.

    Climate change is a fact of life.

    Man-made climate change is a fact of life (and has been for millennia).

    Carbon-14 dating is factual.

    CO2 is a greenhouse gas.

    These are some of the things which are regularly denied by the kooks who want to invent some kind of half-witted "debate" over global warming.

    Obviously, these people are bored of agitating against immunisation and trying to have Creationism taught as science and this is their latest wheeze.

    They're quite plainly idiots.

  18. William Bronze badge

    It seems to me...

    The people who deny global warming and mans effect on the climate are the same very people who piss and shit in their own bath water and claim it hasn't made a blind bit of difference.

  19. Adam Nealis

    1934 and all that

    This article appears to address the 1934/ 1998 issue. Looks like posters here have been frothing over a difference that is not statistically significant.

    <http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that/>

    These next paragraphs only concern the USA.

    "There were however some very minor re-arrangements in the various rankings (see data). Specifically, where 1998 (1.24 ºC anomaly compared to 1951-1980) had previously just beaten out 1934 (1.23 ºC) for the top US year, it now just misses: 1934 1.25ºC vs. 1998 1.23ºC. None of these differences are statistically significant."

    "More importantly for climate purposes, the longer term US averages have not changed rank. 2002-2006 (at 0.66 ºC) is still warmer than 1930-1934 (0.63 ºC - the largest value in the early part of the century) (though both are below 1998-2002 at 0.79 ºC)."

    Globally, we have:

    "In the global mean, 2005 remains the warmest (as in the NCDC analysis). CRU has 1998 as the warmest year but there are differences in methodology, particularly concerning the Arctic (extrapolated in GISTEMP, not included in CRU) which is a big part of recent global warmth. No recent IPCC statements or conclusions are affected in the slightest."

  20. Steve Roper

    Want some visual evidence?

    If you think climate change is not happening, just hop onto Google Earth, roll down to Antarctica, and have yourself a look at the bloody great crack across the Ross Ice Shelf where a section of ice-cap bigger than Texas is coming loose. See it for yourself.

    Whether climate change is man-made or part of a natural cycle, it's still happening. So I hope all you climate-change deniers don't live in low-lying floodplains, because if you do, you're going to get a rude and very wet awakening very soon. Come to think of it, I believe quite a few people have had very wet awakenings recently.

  21. Dax Farrer

    Biosphere

    The key is in the title. The biosphere is produced by life. How could man not have an effect.

    @GrowUp - because we have free speech you cunt

  22. Robinson

    Title

    Mr Roper, please get a grip. Antarctica is not melting. In fact satellite observation shows it to be getting BIGGER, as it should be (warmer weather, more precipitation, more snow and ice). Indeed, the mean global temperature of the earth has not increased since 1998. Global cooling anyone?

    This is a non-story. Climate models are useless and can be made to show any trend you so desire. If I told you I had an economic model that predicted 25% interest rates in the year 2030, you would call me an idiot. So why do you believe these models? They contain even more unknowns, use unreliable initial data for their forcings and do not adequately take into account the sun, precipitation systems, clouds, etc. (the list is endless).

    The fact that this one spits out a prediction of "evens" that something is going to happen increases my view that this whole debate is a cretinous insanity of the most pointless kind.

  23. Neil

    So the sun

    Has nothing to do with it?

    This huge, nuclear ball with a core temperature of 14,000,000F, whose heat travels 90 million miles, yet can still burn your skin, has no effect on the temperature? It's so completely and utterly stable that it won't fluctuate at all?

    Ooookay....

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So the sun has nothing to do with it

    No, the sun has nothing whatsoever to do with it.

    The Earth is heated SOLELY by the CO2 in our atmosphere.

    This is precisely what climatologists have been trying to tell you for years.

    Cretin.

  25. Ogdru

    Too little data, too big a system

    The earth is approximately 4.4 - 4.5 billion years old (give or take a few million). Now I don’t know exactly how long we’ve been collecting “accurate” data for these climate models, but I’ll be generous and call it 50 years.

    Let me get this strait. Data from .00000005 of the total running time of the planet proves what? It proves you can tell me what happened for the last 50 years. THAT’S IT. You can’t even come up with a good guess with that little data compared to the total life span of the earth.

    I just don’t understand the belief that a system as HUGE and COMPLEX as the planet earth is supposed to be constant, stable, and predictable. It’s very egotistical of the climate alarmists.

    Climate alarmists are VERY small picture people. They study infinitesimally small pattern and try to apply them to the inconceivably huge systems. What they end up with is bad theory and junk science. I hate to use the analogy but it’s the whole Chicken Little mentality.

    Now, here’s the kicker, I believe in globe warming. I just don’t believe we really have anything to do with it. We just haven’t been around long enough is the grand 4.5 billion year scheme of things to have any effect.

    The earth goes through climate cycles (and there IS billions of years of evidence of this fact), but anything more than that is still just a guess.

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Climatologists....

    ..are the ones studying this stuff.

    To characterise them as people having "a belief the earth is constant, stable and predictable" is the opposite of the truth.

    They are NOT the ones trying to paint a picture based on tiny data sets and they are NOT the ones trying to draw conclusions based on cherry-picked data.

    You want to see some real climate-related dishonesty - go and watch that crank "Global Warming Swindle" (or what's left of it after the lawyers have forced them to remove so many lies and misrepresentations).

    The bottom line is that CO2 levels went up from 280ppm before the industrial revolution to 330ppm around 1980, then since then have gone up again to 380ppm.

    This *rate* of this increase is unprecedented, hence the scientific curiosity about it.

    Analysis of the Carbon isotopes reveals the new CO2 is organic in origin: ie burning of organic-origin carbon has put massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

    The anthropogenic nature of this CO2 increase is therefore an established fact.

    A similar anthropogenic climate effect was observed in the post-war years when industrial-released aerosols caused solar clouding (and cooling).

    What does it all really mean? Who knows?

    Scientists measure, hypothesise, test, etc.... to continually advance our understanding of what's going to happen.

    Here in Australia, for example, they are currently conducting experiments in growing eucalyptus trees in high-concentration CO2 environments - the results are a 30% INCREASE in the speed of carbon-uptake in this trees.

    Sounds pretty good - can we look forward to our tomato plants growing faster, stronger and fruitier than ever before?

    We'll just keep on experimenting...

    MEANWHILE, the denialists talk shit, just like the creationidiots and the anti-immunisation looneys.

  27. Ed Zuiderwijk

    It's the Sun ...

    Stupid!

  28. Ed Zuiderwijk

    Growing Tomatoes

    "Sounds pretty good - can we look forward to our tomato plants growing faster, stronger and fruitier than ever before?"

    They actually do that in Holland using flue gasses from nearby industry as source of CO2. Works a treat, large juicy and tasty tomatoes.

    By the way, I'm not talking "shit" and I object to being lumped together with creationists and anti-immunisation freaks.

    Perhaps it is you who should try and understand what the "denialist" are actually saying, namely that it is not CO2 which drives the climate, but variation of cloud cover as a result of changing solar (magnetic) activity. Nobody "denies" that CO2 is increasing because of us, or that the Earth has warmed up over the last century.

  29. Jim Cripwell

    Look at the track record

    Before believing someone's prediction, it is as well to look at their track record. In January 2007 CRU made the following prediction "Our best estimate forecast of the global temperature anomaly for 2007 is 0.54+-0.16C, with a 95% confidence interval from 0.38C to 0.71C. This is a best estimate forecast for the warmest year on record, warmer than the hitherto warmest year, 1998 ( 0.52C). Thus there is a 60% probability that 2007 will be as warm or warmer than the warmest year (1998, 0.52C) ." While we only have some 7 months of data from 2007, it looks like the CRU prediction will be wrong by a country mile. It looks like the actual value for the temperature anomaly for 2007 will be significantly less than the 0.38C of the lower 95% confidence interval. If true, it does not give one much confidence in their new predictions.

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