Posted on 01/06/2005 11:06:09 AM PST by cogitator
Preliminary data indicate 2004 likely will register as the fourth-warmest year in the world’s surface temperature record. Yet despite all the gloom-and-doom scenarios, we haven’t experienced an all-time record-setter since the big El Niño back in 1998. Our planet may be warming, but not at a torrid clip.
If global climate really were to respond the way climate models project it should, the ‘warmest year on record’ would be announced every other year or so after natural variation in annual average temperatures was factored in. But the ‘warmest year’ designation only is proclaimed every five years or so. At that frequency, earth’s climate appears to be warming at a rate somewhere near the low end of the range of estimates hypothesized by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC projects a temperature rise somewhere between 1.4ºC and 5.8ºC by 2100. The upper end of that range is a result of the IPCC researchers’ climate models routinely being fed extreme emissions scenarios that result in an extreme rise in global temperature.
Another indicator that ‘global warming’ is an under-achiever is that the overall warming trend since 1976 has been 0.17ºC per decade. Things began to warm back then after 30-plus years of cooling — a trend that prompted a mid-1970s fear we were plunging into an imminent Ice Age. There is no evidence the trend since 1976 is picking up despite claims things are getting worse at an ever-increasing rate (see Figure 1). A rudimentary calculation reveals the IPCC low-end warming rate to be 0.14ºC per decade with its upper-end 0.58ºC. Obviously, we are experiencing something akin to the lower rate.
This should be cause for celebration! If we can’t stop the warming no matter how hard we try (and we can’t) and we are pretty much ‘stuck’ with the fossil-fueled energy infrastructure we have, then we should be thankful things only appear to be warming up at a relatively slow rate. If you don’t feel especially thankful and are convinced there are alternative means to energize the needs of 6.5 billion people, that’s fine. We celebrate your optimism and idealism. Happy New Year!
But here’s our scenario: If the past three decades are any indication (we believe they are), then earth’s climate will continue its modest warming. In time, human dependence on fossil fuels will run its course and we’ll move on to other sources of energy and the environmental challenges that inevitably will accompany their use. Global average temperature will be a bit higher than now – as will agricultural productivity and average human life span. So here’s to realism, pragmatism, and the fourth-warmest year on record — 2004!
If 1998 was the warmest year on record, and we were cooler than that in 2004, then by any scientific standard of measurement we are cooling not warming.
Obviously does not read the New Yor Times, which every year in early December, the NYT proclaim this will be the warmest year on record. Only to have a really cold December that substantially lowers it rankings. Then in late January they write a correction which is usually right next to the answers of last weeks crossword puzzle.
You would be correct if the beginning of the trend you're discussing is the year 1998.
I'm pleased to hear that considering we are buried under 13 inches of snow right now.
It's 2005. ;-}
minor oversight.
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