CLIMATE scientists yesterday stunned Britons suffering the coldest winter for 30 years by claiming last month was the hottest January the world has ever seen. The remarkable claim, based on global satellite data, follows Arctic temperatures that brought snow, ice and travel chaos to millions in the UK.
At the height of the big freeze, the entire country was blanketed in snow. But Australian weather expert Professor Neville Nicholls, of Monash University in Melbourne, said yesterday: “January, according to satellite data, was the hottest January we’ve ever seen.
“Last November was the hottest November we’ve ever seen. November-January as a whole is the hottest November-January the world has seen.” Veteran climatologist Professor Nicholls was speaking at an online climate change briefing, added: “It’s not warming the same everywhere but it is really quite challenging to find places that haven’t warmed in the past 50 years.”
His extraordinary claims came after the World Meteorological Organisation revealed 2000 to 2009 was the hottest decade since records began in 1850. But UK forecaster Jonathan Powell, of Positive Weather Solutions, said: “If it is the case and it is borne out that January was the hottest on record, it is still no marker towards climate change.
“It’s all part of a cyclical issue and nothing should be read too deeply into that.
“It’s been the coldest for 30 years in Britain but we predicted that and climate change always tends t o throw up anomalies. It’s all in line with predictions and I won’t be sold on climate change at all. The data is either faulty or manufactured to make it look like it shouldn’t.”
Cripes! My head hurts.
Re#57, Deowll,
That about covers it. It’s a bloody circus.
Skeptic–I look forward to a continuing exchange and growing understanding of how we see our positions evolve.
I wonder if Dvorak has decreed that there should be no pro-climate change stories since there’s a pretty high publicity book coming out debunking a famous climate change skeptic http://yalepress.yale.edu/Yupbooks/book.asp?isbn=9780300161038
>I happen to be a skeptic of human caused global warming.
Really? Could you clarify what you mean by this? I find it hard to believe you are more skeptical than me.
Mike–you really need to include a name and/or post number otherwise you will only get egotistical maniacs responding to your posts.
I am skeptical because the IPCC is formed for the express purpose of providing GW information to the end that it is happening. Thats a strong bias intermittantly making the news.
There is no “proof” in that there can be no control group.
The early models did not include the effect of water vapor which is 97 per cent of greenhouse gas. When the constant criticism of this foible finally was included==no difference in the outcome. Same with Cloud Cover.
I’m uncertain just how predictive in the short term the long term prediction models should be.
Algore getting the Peace Prize he didh’t deserve all for the reward of being an advocate. Just as Big Business has a business need to obfuscate the science of AGW, so does Algore and the IPCC in the other direction pushing Carbon Credits.
I don’t know the science at all except in too small bits and pieces.
I don’t know the “models” at all.
Just as skeptical on the other side but I am “a man of science” and go with the lab coats.
I see. So you are skeptical of the idea that the case has been proven, despite the hockey sticks and the models
http://pajamasmedia.com/zombie/files/2010/02/AGW_hockey_stick_graph_big.gif
but you think it is possible humans cause global warming. OK that makes more sense.
I think you are right that the answer is decided by advocacy science ahead of the analysis. Models with different physics get similar results, and reading the papers they make a great deal of emphasis about how their model agrees with other models.
So it looks like they are fine-tuning parameters in the models until they get the results they want. And throwing out the ones that show chaos, runaway climate, etc.
I tend to waver between ‘lukewarmer’ that human CO2 emissions are causing a small amount of warming, about 2C, and that the problem will take care of itself.
Well Mike, we mostly agree.
“If” I had a gun to my head and had to choose, I would go with AGW. Fill a balloon with atmosphere and another one with extra co2. Extra co2 heats up faster and gets hotter. I think that evidence while not conclusive sets the bar. Idiots arguing local weather events completely miss the argument.
The “case” is not proven as a matter of definition in the scientific field.
ALL THE POLITICAL ISSUES ARE UNRESOLVED: what to do, how fast, how much money to spend===but we should take steps with “the most likely physics involved.” — ie, reduce carbon emissions as reasonable.
Being reasonable is difficult for hoomans.
Silly hoomans.
Read this (ignore the source – because the article is based on hard facts and summarizes all the scandals thus far!)
[You already had the link. No need to quote the entire article. — ed.]
Here in Israel we’ve had a frickin’ HEAT WAVE – I’m talking put-on-a-T-shirt-and-go-to-the-beach level of heat wave – in the middle of FEBRUARY. A couple of days later and the temperature’s dropped by 12-15 centigrade (about 30F) and it’s back to the rainy season. Now it’s raining like we’re in the middle of the tropics (we’re not). Extremes of weather? You better believe it.
#70–Serious==all politics.
Where is your science data?
Them collidge boyz think ther so smart! Ther awl a-lyin to yez… Why, fer awl yew know, we maht not even be speakin English! They maht have secretly bin teachin us Chinese our entire lives! ‘At’d be jist lahk ‘em!
WE’RE ALL SPEAKING CHINESE, I TELL YA!!!
One of the scariest Climate Change scenarios is disruption of the Gulf Stream. Picture Europe with the climate of Mongolia. IF it happens, it will happen rather quickly (in “climate” terms) and won’t in any straightforward way be subject to anthropogenic reversal. So, yeah, some places can get colder in a shift that’s generally warmer. Old news.
And, yes, it’s reasonable to expect extreme weather events in a system (World) where old equilibria (such as the ones that bless us with the Gulf Stream) break loose. When the new equilibria click in, that weather won’t seem so surprising, after a few years.
Stick your heads in the sand you chicken littles! At least until Glenn Beck comes back on to tell you what to believe.
Funny how the solution to climate change usually hinges around the transfer of wealth from the people to a government.
Yes, CO2 causes warming, but only a bit over 1C per doubling of CO2. So 540 ppm gets you 1C of warming 1100 ppmCO2 gets you about 2.5C, etc. The effect of CO2 and this amount of warming is not disputed very much by skeptic and scientist.
The higher numbers from the IPCC comes from models. The 1C of warming causes water to evaporate and that water vapor causes more warming. Arctic ice melts and releases methane causing even more warming. Our sophisticated model tells us 3C of warming, ours tells us 4C but it could be 5-7C depending on certain values, etc.
I’m a bit skeptical of such high positive feedbacks, but it’s possible. I wouldn’t be surprised if nature had built-in negative feedbacks, so the warming by CO2 is less than 1C.
@bobbo #72 – what data? did you not read – It has all been falsified from China to Russia to Europe to Africa to the U.S to the antarctic to the arctic..(see my post #70) every piece of data that is “supposed” to tell you that it is warming in the IPCC report has been either manipulated, falsified or based on a student or magazine article.. NO PEER REVIEW WHAT SO EVER! So cling on to your dreams mate. Face the FACTS; there has been no STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT warming as mentioned by one of the leading author of the IPCC report Phil Jones – the man behind the hockey stick graph! And if all you can write is to tell me that it is “only politics” when it has been proven, some even being taken to court; and the IPCC has admitted to all of these mistakes and that it was conjured up, you my man is lost, living in fantasy world. Keep on dreaming! Not to mention the addition of several more “gates” these last few days..
#79, serious,
Can you provide some evidence that all the data is false? Not some right wing nut blog, some honest evidence.
BTW, Phil Jones had nothing to do with the “hockey stick”. It was Michael Mann and associates that published the data. The term “hockey stick” was coined by a BBC reporter. So if you can’t get that part correct, what faith can we have in the rest of your blather?
The important thing is the climatologist (ie scientists) opinion is what counts.
EVERYONE knows the deniers are gossiping on the conditions of a tree while the climatologists are debating the health of the forest.
#79–Serious==the defects and short comings of one theory do not “prove” the correctness of any other theory.
Axiomatic.
If I take everything you have posted as “the truth” you have not provided any scientific data in support of any other theory.
Fail.
The planet will NOT END..
Only human LIFE, as we know it…
Its one way to solve pollution problems..
“Grey Science?” Quite a misnomer. ha, ha.
Well it can warm up in the Midwest anytime now.
Hey, these people cannot predict a week and yet their telling us all kinds of crap like this.
Oh I think we should all just agree, to disagree…. that these climate scientists are living on a different planet from the rest of us.
This data should be simple enough to get if someone wanted to refute the claims. I don’t see them as that surprising. Maybe we’ve had fluke or anomalous seasons, but over the past 50 years, the data seems to say that most places are getting warmer. We might have different reasonings for it, but data is data.
Interesting how they CHERRY-PICKED the period between November and January. Ignoring (and avoiding) the record early snowfalls of October 2009.
http://live.tetongravity.com/_46-Ski-Resorts-Open-World-Wide-in-Historical-October-Early-Winter/BLOG/1448989/75233.html
And of course the blizzards of February of 2010. Yeah, I guess if you look for the warmer climate ANOMALIES, you can find them. Just as we can also find the bitter, colder than normal, months. With record breaking snow accumulations. Plus it’s snowing in TEXAS! Now that’s got to be the tie breaker.
Please refer to the almighty Jon Stewart on this take on the issue(s). I agree with him and his staff that we are now suffering from a blackout of total darkness!
Take care people, in just a few hours you see why!
#88, Glenn,
Don’t strain your brain. The subject is “January 2010 was the hottest January on record.”
#35 for the win
“Global warmers are closer to the religious right than they’d like to admit.”
My first thought when I hear a “fact” in support to global warming is that I don’t view said “fact” as credible because of past exaggerations.
Maybe January was the hottest one on record.
Or maybe it wasn’t.
But I won’t get my “facts” from a source with an agenda.
There’s snow on my porch!!!
Global warming doesn’t exist!
Hmyers==”All your facts are belong to us!”
Its not worth the effort, so I’ll just punch it: all facts come with an agenda. The cure is not to pick and choose those which you emotionally bond and think yourself pure, but rather to add the agenda/bias into your evaluation.
Thank you.