[troutman]

Originally Posted by zuluking

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencete...ing-again.html

http://skepticalscience.com/global-w...ed-in-1998.htm

Myth = It hasn't warmed since 1998

No, it hasn't been cooling since 1998. Even if we ignore long term trends and just look at the record-breakers, that wasn't the hottest year ever. Different reports show that, overall, 2005 was hotter than 1998. What's more, globally, the hottest 12-month period ever recorded was from June 2009 to May 2010.

Though humans love record-breakers, they don't, on their own, tell us a much about trends -- and it's trends that matter when monitoring Climate Change. Trends only appear by looking at all the data, globally, and taking into account other variables -- like the effects of the El Nino ocean current or sunspot activity -- not by cherry-picking single points.

There's also a tendency for some people just to concentrate on air temperatures when there are other, more useful, indicators that can perhaps give us a better idea how rapidly the world is warming. Oceans for instance -- due to their immense size and heat storing capability (called 'thermal mass') -- tend to give a much more 'steady' indication of the warming that is happening. Here records show that the Earth has been warming at a steady rate before and since 1998 and there's no signs of it slowing any time soon.

The planet has continued to accumulate heat since 1998 - global warming is still happening. Nevertheless, surface temperatures show much internal variability due to heat exchange between the ocean and atmosphere. 1998 was an unusually hot year due to a strong El Nino.

To claim global warming stopped in 1998 overlooks one simple physical reality - the land and atmosphere are just a small fraction of the Earth's climate (albeit the part we inhabit). The entire planet is accumulating heat due to an energy imbalance. The atmosphere is warming. Oceans are accumulating energy. Land absorbs energy and ice absorbs heat to melt. To get the full picture on global warming, you need to view the Earth's entire heat content.


BadAstronomer Phil Plait
Apparently, a climate change denier has attempted to refute an argument I made. Shocker: he's wrong
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/20..._misunders.php

The Wall Street Journal and the Daily Mail independently published highly misleading and blatantly idiotic pieces on climate change.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/20...nfirms_cli.php

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2012/...mate-nonsense/

One of my students asked me about a new article just printed in The Daily Mail, a right-wing newspaper in the U.K. The article’s title is, “Forget global warming – it’s Cycle 25 we need to worry about (and if NASA scientists are right the Thames will be freezing over again)“. Here’s a rule of thumb for you. If you ever read anything about climate change in The Daily Mail, the odds are excellent that it’s nonsense.

Most people would have no idea that the Daily Mail is quoting a bunch of fringe scientists, and they would have no idea why the views of these scientists are dismissed by the others. It turns out that Svensmark WAS taken seriously, but his hypothesis hasn’t panned out. It turns out that Scafetta’s ideas are little better than curve-fitted astrology, at this point. It turns out that climate models DO account for ocean circulation, but there is no convincing evidence that this does much outside timescales of a few years.

Like I said, this is why I’ve gone militant on these guys. I think they are patently dishonest.