Sorry Global Warming Alarmists, The Earth Is Cooling

Forbes.com ^ | 31MAY2012 | Peter Ferrara

[Jack Hydrazine]

Climate change itself is already in the process of definitively rebutting climate alarmists who think human use of fossil fuels is causing ultimately catastrophic global warming. That is because natural climate cycles have already turned from warming to cooling, global temperatures have already been declining for more than 10 years, and global temperatures will continue to decline for another two decades or more.

[TigersEye]

Yeah, that was amusing. They throw out ice core samples as reliable indicators of global temperatures yet that's all there is to go by if you're going to go beyond a few thousand years ago. We don't have any 100,000 year old trees to check rings on.

There is just never any explanation for why and how there were periods in the distant past that were much warmer than the present or how plant and animal life managed to survive it in great abundance.

[TigersEye]

You are right, it only shows a correlation. But even if there is an intermediate mechanism, ie rising temps cause X-factor to occur which causes a rise in CO2 levels, even though indirect the rising temps would be causal to the rising CO2. The fact that it always seems to happen leads one to a causal connection even though it doesn’t reveal a mechanism to explain it.

[wonkowasright]

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bams-state-of-the-climate/2008.php

Well if you liked that here's another. Page S23 of the NOAA 2008 Climate Assessment. First 95% of all model predictions ruled out decade long stagnation of temps and they state that 15 years are needed before a serious discrepancy. We are at 16 years no so we are past the point of showing the models are not predicting observation. Which is the key....are the models predictive or not.

Back when I was a lad the temps leading co2 was conventional wisdom, and the natural cycle indicated we would be entering a cooling period. The science was never refuted but instead the computer models emerged predicting global warming. Because in those days using a computer was akin to "the gods said so" it took the land by storm. The question has always been are the models crap or not.

Anyway the real gem is in the third column where they claim the stable temps are potentially caused by the natural variability of "the solar cycle". Those who claim perhaps climate is tied to solar cycle have been beat over the head for decades that its silly to think the sun affects climate, yet here is NOAA claiming the solar cycle is to blame for no global warming.

[21twelve]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20413-warmer-oceans-release-co2-faster-than-thought.html

“As the world’s oceans warm, their massive stores of dissolved carbon dioxide may be quick to bubble back out into the atmosphere and amplify the greenhouse effect, according to a new study.”

I think of it as a soda goes “flat” quicker when it is warm.

And your long-term chart that shows the several inter-glacial warm periods is the one that concerns me. We are currently in what seems to be the longest one yet (so it MIGHT be that the switch to another ice age is imminent). And the TINY percentage of “global warming gases” that humans release will not make a difference to prevent it.

[spokeshave]

If the sun doesn't produce a good crop of siunspots by the middle of the next 11 year cycle....expect at best another 400 year long mini ice age.

[TigersEye]

Those who claim perhaps climate is tied to solar cycle have been beat over the head for decades that its silly to think the sun affects climate, yet here is NOAA claiming the solar cycle is to blame for no global warming.

I sometimes wonder if the purpose of this, and all socialist 'data,' is to simply overload the populace with so much cognitive dissonance that we all just stop thinking about anything.

[TigersEye]

I think that's likely true unless we're just lucky enough that this happens to be when the glacial/inter-glacial pattern deviates from its past performance. Vegas odds on that probably aren't very good.

I generally don't take the 'we deserve it' kind of view but maybe it is time for the 'planet' to humble its inhabitants a bit. 90k - 120k year's worth of glaciation would certainly do it. We all be movin' closer to da equator, mon. Goin' be a liddle crowded at da beach bar.

[LibertarianLiz]

Read the other day that scientist are admitting now that the Sun contributed to the warming cycle.

I remember my reaction when I saw a piece of film with Algore shouting (B.S!), only he used the actual words; when describing us terrible "deniers" who claim that warming is due to the Sun. I thought that anyone who watched that, and thought this guy had any idea of what he was talking about, was beyond naive. What a maroon. Honestly, didn't we learn that the Sun warms the Earth in grade school? Maybe I am just over-the-hill; but, I don't think I'm that old (58). Have we really come so far that we deny the obvious until we are simply forced to admit to it?

[thepoodlebites]

The record shows that CO2 concentration follow changes in temperature. So I would feel perfectly confident predicting that if temperatures keep falling in a few years CO2 will start to fall too.

Human output is about 7% of annual carbon cycle, ~30 gigatons. Still enough to see increase of about 2 ppm/year but may have slight drop from ocean uptake. Good point though.

[21twelve]

“Goin’ be a liddle crowded at da beach bar.”

Perhaps for a little while.

Hard to imagine these huge life-changing/extinction events that DO happen from time to time. And while an ice age by itself probably wouldn’t cause a human extinction - it would sure reduce the population. Although I suppose a combined ice age and nuclear war to prevent others from taking the best territory could lead to extinction.

[palmer]

The natural variations in CO2 are much larger than human input, by 10 to 1 or 20 to 1. But the natural variations mostly cancel out: with southern hemisphere ocean warming each summer (our winter), there is a release of CO2. Also northern hemisphere vegetation uptakes CO2 in our summer so there is less CO2 in our summer. But the browning leaves quickly release a lot of that CO2 each fall, so there is more in our CO2 in our winter.

So the graph looks like this: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ which makes it clear that natural factors are dominant, but at the same time there is a year over year rise that is due to human CO2 release.

The specific answer to your question is that year over year the human contribution is higher than the natural and in fact the natural contribution is negative (year over year) and the human is positive.

[palmer]

It's true that rising temperatures cause release of CO2 from the oceans. But the release is from about 5 to 15 ppm per degree C depending on the starting point. We have seen about a 1C rise in ocean temperatures since the late 1800's. Most of that temperature rise is natural. That rise caused at most a 15 ppm rise in CO2. The rest of the rise, and the ongoing rise, is manmade.

SPecifically there is a 2-3 ppm rise in CO2 per year (see link in my previous post). To be due to temperature there would have to be a 0.2C rise in average ocean temperature each year. That is certainly not the case.

[palmer]

Regarding that chart: of course sea ice area recovers each year so the less sea ice there is in summer, the greater the rise each year. But the reason is that there is less and less ice each summer. One debate is whether less sea ice in summer is bad (it is not). Another debate is whether sea ice is decreasing from global warming or a natural cycle (probably some of each).

[palmer]

BTW, Goddard is illogical much of the time. That’s why he was kicked off of WattsUpWithThat which is a much more balanced site.

[palmer]

Human output is about 7% of annual carbon cycle, ~30 gigatons. Still enough to see increase of about 2 ppm/year but may have slight drop from ocean uptake. Good point though.

The natural annual cycle is more or less balanced. The same CO2 that is absorbed by northern hemisphere vegetation in spring is released in the fall minus what is stored in woody mass and soil (relatively small considering how much forest we still chop down worldwide). The net effect is this:
The fluctuation is natural. The year over year rise is manmade.

[monocle]

Causality may be asymmetrical - heating may cause higher carbon dioxide concentrations. Heating the oceans can cause carbon dioxide to be expelled.

[urbanpovertylawcenter]

A solar scientist has recently theorized the sun is hot molten magma mainly composed of iron, like our earth’s interior.

Holy smokes, this means we are living on the sun. Is our molten interior which vents heat into the lower depths of the oceans and at a lesser extent in places like Yellowstone Park, cooling down, and do sun cycles play into heat absorbed through radiation into our upper atmosphere.

We are all going to die!

[PIF]

“There is just never any explanation for why and how there were periods in the distant past that were much warmer than the present or how plant and animal life managed to survive it in great abundance.”

The answer is obvious of course - you are supposed to not notice it: Life does better in warm and temperate climates.

What terrifies the lefties is sea level rise which they see as drowning the precious coastal cities. That and the loss of funding and associated power.

However, it would be interesting if someone could make a long term chart of the percentages of water vapor, CO2, sunspots, and temps. Water vapor being the largest component of the dreaded greenhouse gasses - 90 percent.

[New Jersey Realist]

Global warming always was a hoax. Back in 1975 Newsweek told us of the coming big freeze.

http://denisdutton.com/newsweek_coolingworld.pdf

[Buffalo Head]

"may" ??

Scientists don't use the weasel words of lawyers and politician.