Earth may be close to the warmest it has been in the last million years, especially in the part of the Pacific Ocean where potentially violent El Nino weather patterns are born, climate scientists reported on Monday.
This doesn’t necessarily mean there will be more frequent El Ninos — which can disrupt normal weather around the world — but could well mean that these wild patterns will be stronger when they occur, said James Hansen of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York City.
The El Nino phenomenon is an important factor in monitoring global warming, according to a paper by Hansen and colleagues published in the current Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
El Ninos can push temperatures higher than they might ordinarily be. This happened in 1998 when a so-called “super El Nino” helped heat the Earth to a record high.
Human-caused global warming influences El Ninos much as it sways tropical storms, the scientists wrote.
“The effect on frequency of either phenomenon is unclear, depending on many factors, but the intensity of the most powerful events is likely to increase as greenhouse gases increase,” they wrote. “Slowing the growth rate of greenhouse gases should diminish the probability of both super El Ninos and the most intense tropical storms.”
Isn’t it a foolish contradiction — when scientists try to explain something to politicians and then politicians try to tell scientists what they’re allowed to say?
Update: It may daunt the neo-con-artists; but, here’s a link to NASA’s take on the report.
Almost as foolish as scientists trying to explain something and using a qualifier every third word, then expecting their theory to be taken as fact.
I don’t question the science, I question the intent. There’s always a motive behind what is being published, even in the scientific community.
Graph Of Temperatures in The Northern Hemispheres For The Past 10,000 Years
We’ve still got a way to go before we’re as warm as we were in the High Middle Ages or the days of the Roman Empire.
#2: A vague, poorly laid out graph from a conservative think tank specializing in political issues rather than the pursuit of science is hardly an authoritative source on the subject of climate change.
The only dramatic global changes that will occur in a human life span is catastrophic changes due to volcanism or extraterrestrial impact. Future generations will adapt. A small change can product significant economic turmoil, especially in agriculture. Droughts and famines occur far more frequently. The concentration of crops geographically and the use of high yield hybrids is a significant risk.
#1, Funny you talk about motives pushing things to be published by the scientific community. Don’t you think there are huge short-term economic motives behind global warming denial theories?
If you deny global warming, you will not feel guilty driving your SUVs. If you deny global warming, you’ll be able to sell fuel like crazy. If you deny global warming, your entire industry isn’t forced to rethink the way it gets its energy. I mean, we do live in an oil economy. What do you think about that as a motive behind denial theories?
x axis = millennia since present time, with right end = present
y axis = degrees C (between 10 Cand 17 C, with the “zero” at 15 C, the running average)
Seems pretty clear to me. Or maybe you need new glasses?
Translation: “I disagree with their findings.”
There are plenty of “economic” motives for pushing global warming hysteria, Miguel Correia.
It’s a cash cow for many government agencies, NGOs and research institutions, not to mention some corporations as well.
But Frank – it would also mean the death of big oil. The Duh would never do that. Better many many Americans die than big oil loose a cent.
Specialized isn’t the word for your graph, Frank — specious is more like it.
let me just check my farmers almanac for 998,000 BC…. woah, record highs!
Umm… Enron was one of the biggest pushers for the Kyoto Treaty.
Frank IBC
Your posts are exactly what I would expect from someone who can’t see past their belly to tie their own shoes. First if your chart was accurate, which it isn’t, It doesn’t point to the reasons for the increase in temperature. Second, The medieval warm period has been in dispute for quite some time now as to whether it was a local climate issue or a global change.
BUT Let’s just assume for a moment that one of the alternate explanations are correct and that it is just a natural ebb and flow of climate. Why make it worse by add more greenhouse gasses? Because of our greed and stupidity? Does that sound like the behavior of a rational person? Of course it doesn’t.
If you really love America and really want to protect Americans then you would want people to reduce their output of unnecessary greenhouse gas as to not excel what you claim is a natural process.
If you don’t take the reduction of greenhouse gasses position then you must hate America!
One good thing comes from this–> Solar energy
Nice headline. Since when is “at warmest point” the same as “close to the warmest point”. Yeah, it’s “only” 1.8 F away from the Million Years point, but the Washington Post said it’s increasing at a rate of .36 F per decade, meaning that, at the current rate, we are 50 years from this major milestone.
Just my little gripe on how headlines can be misleading, especially if people fail to read the article.
@13 Richard -> not so! For about 50 years solor energy was going down while global warming was increasing. It’s called Global Dimming, and it’s a big issue, because it tends to hide the true effect of global warming.
From Wikipedia:
Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global hemispherical irradiance (or total solar irradiance) at the Earth’s surface, observed since the beginning of systematic measurements in 1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it is of the order of a 5% reduction over the three decades from 19601990. This trend has reversed during the past decade. Global dimming creates a cooling effect that may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming.
Just keep going with your ‘facts,’ until people agree to live your preferred lifestyle.
http://epw.senate.gov/speechitem.cfm?party=rep&id=263759
AB CD
You win the award for most ironic statment of the day!
The earth warms up for a period of time, then cools down for a period of time, then warms up, etc, etc…..
I don’t see what the big deal is…
#11
AB CD I just tried to google it and can’t find it . Prove it
“…Earth may be at warmest point in 1 million years…” untill next year anyway.
Nice to know the Illuminati (or whomever) kept themometers back a million years ago. Sheesh.
My concern is that once the neocons are out of power all this global warming stuff will disappear conveniently. I don’t want to broadly change people’s lifestyles, nor do I want to keep shoveling money to the Middle East. We don’t have to do this alarmist crap over and over, do we? Keep it up and people will just give up and stop caring. We need to cut polluting technologies, yes. We need to invest in alternative power sources, yes. But I’m convinced the people promoting this gw stuff are promoting some agenda other than cleaning up the environment.
It’s so predictably farcical to watch Right-Wing fops prance around with cut-and-paste semantics exercises — copied from seersucker pundits who don’t read the actual work of the scientists concerned — either.
Try reading Hansen or any of the climate scientists who agree on concerns — and participate in extending our knowledge of the discipline. I’ll help you pronounce the big words.
Sounds the Alarm, what did you Google? Enron Kyoto seems to be a good start.
#7, Frank IBC… I did understand and acknowledge your point of view on the motives beind the global warming hysteria. Even if they do exist, you didn’t make a case for the inexistence of motives behind global warming *denial* theories. In fact, considering such hard evidence as the North Pole being sailable by ordinary ships (doesn’t seem like hysteria to me), the burden on proof seems to be on the side of the latter theories, whose economic motives you didn’t dismantle.
Where I now sit was once covered by ice several thousand feet thick.
It melted a few thousand years ago.
How the hell did that happen without SUVs???
Crust displacement
#27…smartalix….ok….this is new to me….I will have to start looking for stuff on this theory. I didn’t get the connection to the discussion(using the term loosely) here from the small amount in your link though.
I’m starting to hate using the term *global warming* because it immediatly gets people in a defensive mode and ready to strike you dead if your ideas don’t match theirs.
Weather is such a tough subject because we don’t have an accurate way to really know just what the global scene was 150 years ago, let alone 1 million. Core samples tell us a lot, but only for that area and then we expoliate from there based on what we see today a lot of times and not based on what may have been totally different conditions back 1 million years ago.
When you have proof that Europe and large parts of North America where under ice, meters thick at the same time as North Africa being a tropical paradise and then less than 10,000 years later one area is a desert and the others are productive arable lands…..you have to think that far more is going on than just man producing greenhouse gases.
But, I’m no scientist, and I didn’t sleep at a Holiday Inn last night…..but I’m smart enough to know that of course man has to be involved in the changes, at least in the last 200 years. There is no way we could put so much pollution into the air without it having some effect.
I stay with my original thinking on this until proven otherwise, and that is, it’s more a natural occurance(cycle if you wish) than a man made one, but that mans activities have possibly accelerated the process. So, we need to do what we have to, to decrease our contributions to pollution in any way we can. Reduce our waste and emmissions.
It sure as hell can’t hurt.
I’m also starting to agree with some on this issue that claim all the scare mongering will turn people off to the issue. In Britain for example, the scientists are issueing warnings that make people think there is no hope of changing anything, so why bother. This is what I’m afraid will happen, that the public(not the most thoughtful bunch on a good day) will just say….*why bother*