Of course we already have had a heads up from all the wire reports around the world talking about the significant winter weather events that have occurred worldwide in the last month, but until now, there hasn’t been a measure of how the planet was doing for the winter of 2007/2008.
Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa just posted the latest MSU (Microwave Sounder Unit) data.
January posted a -.08°C near global anomaly between -70S and 82.5N latitude (the viewshed of the satellite sounder). That makes it the coldest month since January 2000, and the 2nd coldest January for the planet in 15 years. Both northern and southern hemispheres posted negative anomalies of -012°C and -.038°C respectively, happening for the first time since January 2000.
The United States posted a -.557°C anomaly for January 2008 and a -0.196°C anomaly for December 2007.
One can reasonably argue that this is a La Nina event and therefore cyclical rather than a sign of cooling or not-warming (January 2000 was also in a La Nina). Which is all well and good except for a couple of things. First, scientists used to think that El Nino’s and La Nina’s didn’t heat or cool the world so much as redistribute it across the surface. Now, with satellites being able to watch the whole world at the same time, they are being forced to rething this proposition.
Second, while climate scientists can reasonably argue that current cold temperatures are cyclical rather than part of a longer trend because they are an La Nina, they did NOT make this same argument when the 1998 El Nino produced cyclically hotter temperatures. All I remember about 1998 is Mann, Gore, Hansen and company all saying 1998 was the hottest year on record and proof of global warming.
I suppose that long term the biggest cost of all the ineptness and, eventually, dishonesty that has constituted the Global Warming scam, will be that Everyman will decide that he need never again take seriously anything promoted by “scientists”.
You forgot Schmidt at realclimate, who’s just as mendacious and pretentious
I’d always wondered about the much-vaunted “el nino” and “la nina” effects… Surely, they’re both convection currents and thus cannot add or subtract to the total heat content of the planet – but merely redistribute it.
You seem to be saying it’s a bad thing for scientists to come up with new theories when presented with new data.
Are you sure you remember 1998 accurately? I have just searched with google news to see what I could find about what Hansen, Mann and Gore were saying and the best I could find was “…this general warming trend is making the effects of El Niño worse,” Vice President Al Gore said, in the New York Times on 8 June 8 1998. That hardly sounds like claiming El Niño as proof of global warming to me.
“I suppose that long term the biggest cost of all the ineptness and, eventually, dishonesty that has constituted the Global Warming scam, will be that Everyman will decide that he need never again take seriously anything promoted by “scientists”.”
I wish that were so. But it has never worked yet. Coming quickly to mind (but not an exhaustive list I am pretty sure):
The ozone hole. (We did all the expensive (and ecologically costly) things–the hole is still there.
Back yard incinerators and smog. (Got rid of them and the artivated charcoal (oooohhh! Carbon!!) they put into the air in the Los Angeles basin. Butadiene plants in El Segundo and steel mills in Fontana near killed us all.)
Global colling. (See Hansen and others.)
Nuclear Winter (Which should also have been triggered by Mt. St. Helens and others.)
Alas, Larry, you may be right. Perhaps mankind never learns.
So…because someone else made a flawed argument in their defense, you will make it in yours? Would you do the same with business analysis? With math or science? But wait…this is science! Sheesh!
oh….and this whole “it’s hot today, it’s cold today”, is not just illogical. It’s boring. It’s buttfucking boring. Jeezuz H Christ. Enough with the god damned Groundhog Day. Turn the radio off!!!!