Posted on 01/17/2013 12:07:52 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach
James Hansen puts an interesting spin on reports of the ninth warmest year on record
2012 was a kind of glass-half full, glass half-empty year in terms of global temperature.
I. Climate Chief: Don't Worry, We're Still Doomed
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) in-depth analysis of satellite and other forms of climate data ruled the year was the ninth warmest on record. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) independent analysis of ground and sea-based climate stations reported that the year was the tenth warmest on record.
The NASA report states that the average global temperature was 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit (14.6 Celsius), which is 1.0 F (0.6 C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline, or 1.4 F (0.6 C) warmer than the earliest comprehensive observations from the 1880s.
Still, the year marks the fifth year of a relative flatline in global temperatures after a decade in which the record was regularly broken.
Global warming proponents like James Hansen, director of NASAs Goddard Institute for Space Studies, blame this deviation from their "doomsday" calculations on a specialized cooling phenomenon called "La Nina", which lowers temperatures in the Eastern Pacific.
Despite flat-lining surface temperatures over the last five years, some climate researchers insist we're headed to doomsday warming and should keep our fingers on the panic button.
[Image Source: GISS]
The climate official claims that aerosols, which reflect solar radiation, also had a cooling affect on temperatures.
Mr. Hansen argues that the public shouldn't just look at the numbers, but look at more nebulous and abstract observations, which he sees as supporting his beliefs of runaway warming. He writes, "The observant person who is willing to look at the past over several seasons and several years, should notice that the frequency of unusual warm anomalies has increased and the extreme anomalies."
He and other global warming advocates have pointed to the summer's drought in central North America and high temperatures in the Rocky Mountains as such "extreme anomalies".
II. A Hot Year for the U.S., Arctic, but a Cool One Elsewhere
2012, according to a separate NOAA report, was the hottest year on record for the U.S. The year did mark a new low for summer Arctic sea ice, according to NASA. However, that could bring some benefits for mankind, such as opening up oil resources.
Parts of the globe cooled, others warmed in 2012. [Image Source: NOAA]
And temperatures for the year were actually cooler than average in several regions -- Alaska, far western Canada, central Asia, parts of the eastern and equatorial Pacific and parts of the Southern Ocean.
California meteorologist Anthony Watts, a known critic of doomsday predictions from folks like James Hansen, casts the U.S.'s record year in a different light, commenting, "If anything, U.S. temperatures are warming at a slower rate in recent decades compared to the early warming period, even with all of that lovely warm weather last year."
He points out that the recent increase (1980-2012) in U.S. surface temperatures was dwarfed by a sharp rise between 1919-1934, which was followed by a period of cooling.
In a follow-up piece, he argues the overall flatline may indicate that natural forces (including in a cooling direction) have a greater impact on global temperatures than human ones, based on his independent analysis over the last half decade.
Sources: NASA, NOAA, Jame Hansen [note]
Where does it fall after it’s adjusted?
There is no global warming.
I think that we should, according to Obama’s new gun control Executive Orders/Rules, report James Hansen to the mental health authorities for being crazy and a threat to humanity.
Hey Jim. We have a nice new coat for you. No bells or whistles but lots of belts and straps. Here, try it on.
Fun BS for later HA HA’s.
I think that we should, according to Obama’s new gun control Executive Orders/Rules, report James Hansen to the mental health authorities for being crazy and a threat to humanity.
Hey Jim. We have a nice new coat for you. No bells or whistles but lots of belts and straps. Here, try it on.
He has froends in high places....they want the message to be believed.
All the more reason for him to replace the spook hanging by his wrist on the cell wall, with the bowl of swill filled with say tree bark on the cold dungeon floor.
James Hanson is daft.
Top Climate Scientist. Not anymore.
We’d like some of that “global warming”.....been fogged in at 32-34 degrees for a week now.....wet...cold....much prefer global warming!
Precisely! The only "science" that is involved is "political science".
I just got off a story that was telling the oh so sad tale about the carbon credit market going belly up. My mind has just been boggled about the fact that there was a place where people use real money to trade, essentially, air.
I’d like James Hansen to come over to my house every morning and scrape the global warming off my car windows.
My question
Isn’t global warming a good thing. More farmable land. more wild life habitat.
Isn’t an ice age a bad thing? Don’t they wipe out populations?
The temperatures have actually been cooling.
Global Warming on Free Republic
Sorry, there's no one on earth who could convince me that temperature records from 1880 could be used to determine the average temperature of the atmosphere to a tenth of a degree. It's just silly. Before the use of satellites, I question that any such measurement could be made or derived from data. I can't believe that otherwise intelligent scientists could persuade themselves that such fairy tales are true.
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