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Cold is the new warm
Climate Resistance
Monday, Dec 08, 2008
When is a short term trend not a short term trend? When it’s an upward anomaly.
James Randerson in the Guardian tells us that,
This year is set to be the coolest since 2000, according to a preliminary estimate of global average temperature that is due to be released next week by the Met Office. The global average for 2008 should come in close to 14.3C, which is 0.14C below the average temperature for 2001-07.
But just when you thought it was safe to rush out to buy a guilt-free 4×4… <scary music>
The relatively chilly temperatures compared with recent years are not evidence that global warming is slowing however, say climate scientists at the Met Office. “Absolutely not,” said Dr Peter Stott, the manager of understanding and attributing climate change at the Met Office’s Hadley Centre. “If we are going to understand climate change we need to look at long-term trends.”
Here’s a curious thing… Whether or not global warming ever existed, if ‘relatively chilly temperatures are not ‘evidence that global warming is slowing’, then what is?
That’s not to say that cooler temperatures ‘prove’ that there’s no global warming, but that cooler temperatures must be evidence that ‘global warming is slowing’. The difference is between ‘evidence’ on the one hand, and ‘proof’ on the other. Evidence can support contradictory hypotheses.
If this was mere journalistic oversight, that’s one thing – even though Randerson, one of the Guardian’s science correspondents, with a PhD in evolutionary genetics, really really ought to know the difference between evidence and proof, and what they stand for. But if the argument belongs to Peter Stott, then it surely raises questions about his partiality. ‘Absolutely not‘? Cooling temperatures absolutely are evidence for the hypothesis that there is no global warming underway, necessarily.
Prof Myles Allen at Oxford University who runs the climateprediction.net website, said he feared climate sceptics would overinterpret the figure. “You can bet your life there will be a lot of fuss about what a cold year it is. Actually no, its not been that cold a year, but the human memory is not very long, we are used to warm years,” he said, “Even in the 80s [this year] would have felt like a warm year.”
Allen is right to say that people have short memories, but he is wrong to think that it’s only sceptics who have them, and make a fuss about exceptional years. For example, Anderson continues,
The Met Office predicted at the beginning of the year that 2008 would be cooler than recent years because of a La Niña event – characterised by unusually cold ocean temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. It is the mirror image of the El Niño climate cycle. The Met Office had forecast an annual global average of 14.37C.
Anderson has a short memory. So does Allen. Scientists at the Met office are so keen to make a big deal out of unexpected temperatures that they ‘overinterpret the figures’ before they have even happened.
(ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW)
At the begining of 2007, a BBC article informed the world that
“The world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007, the UK’s Met Office says.”
Such ‘overinterpretation’…
The global surface temperature is projected to be 0.54C (0.97F) above the long-term average of 14C (57F), beating the current record of 0.52C (0.94F), which was set in 1998.
The annual projection was compiled by the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre, in conjunction with the University of East Anglia.
Such ‘a fuss about what a hot year it is’… (even though it hadn’t happened yet).
We have actually run this forecast three times, updating it every month… and it is completely stable.”
But didn’t the Hadley Centre’s own Peter Stott just tell us that we ought to be looking at long-term trends? And yet, a forecast of a short term trend is considered newsworthy. Double standards are rife in climate science activism.
The Hadley Centre has been issuing the annual forecast for the past seven years and says it has just a 0.06C margin of error.
Eight months later, and the Met Office’s confident prediction was shown to be utter bunk. Temperatures were falling. They revised their predictions, saying that they had created a new, more powerful computer model for predicting the future.
Powerful computer simulations used to create the world’s first global warming forecast suggests temperature rises will stall in the next two years, before rising sharply at the end of the decade.
But as we suggested earlier in the year, the incautious statements issued by Met Office scientists looked less like the work of scientific enquiry, and more like post-hoc speculation about which way the weather would turn.
In January 2007, the Met Office backed the wrong horse – El Niño. When La Niña emerged as the favourite, they changed their bets. This wasn’t sophisticated computer modelling. This was gambling by gamblers posing in lab coats. It was a safe bet that La Niña’s effects would last until 2009.
In order to wrong-foot sceptics, activist climate scientists (for that is what they must be if they are not agnostic about global warming) have had to reinterpret the evidence. Any downward tendency is waved away as short-term ‘natural variation’, caused by La Niña. This creates a casuality for the alarmists – it means that the significance of the record temperature in 1998 is diminished – clearly it was caused by El Niño. But on the other hand, ruling out the ‘98 El Niño as ‘natural variation’ allows the claim that temperatures have increased since 1998 to be made.
Such chopping-and-changing appears to be the stock-in-trade of climate scientists and Guardian hacks. But this is because so much political capital is invested in the direction of lines on graphs representing weather statistics. And this is particularly clear in the pages of the Guardian, who have, over the last 12 or so months been especially keen to remind us that cooling trends are ‘not evidence that global warming is slowing’. There’s Randerson’s article, for example. Then there’s an article by Ian Sample, also a science correspondent, who last year reported that
The forecast of a brief slump in global warming has already been seized upon by climate change sceptics as evidence that the world is not heating. Climate scientists say the new high-precision forecast predicts temperatures will stall because of natural climate effects that have seen the Southern Ocean and tropical Pacific cool over the past couple of years.
Then, earlier this year, Fred Pearce, environmental writer and author of The Last Generation: How nature will take her revenge for climate change, said
A Germany study published earlier this month predicts the world will cool over the coming decade. British climate modellers at the Met Office don’t go so far. They think nature’s cooling will be more than counterbalanced by the warming effect of man-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
But nobody is sure. In any case, we can expect the deniers to make the most of this opportunity to pour cold water on the whole climate change narrative. No year has yet been hotter than 1998, they will say. True: it was a huge El Niño year. Now we are on the way back down, they will say. Nonsense. The underlying trend remains upwards; and as every decade passes, natural cycles can do less and less to counter the growing human influence on temperature.
As we pointed out about the dramatisation of the movement of Arctic ice extent recently, the progression of curves representing climate statistics are the dynamic driving political discourse. The unfolding, present-tense narrative of lines on charts fuels the commentary about the conflict between the bad-minded ‘deniers’, and the honest scientists, seeking to destroy or save the world respectively.
The twists and turns of little blue lines excite the audience, and provide superficially important news fodder. It fuels debates, but with wild speculation and utterly meaningless and inconsequential factoids that will be forgotten by the time the next climate record is set. Repeat ad nauseam. These artificial dramas are elevated to ludicrous heights by claims that our entire futures depend on them. Consequently, life imitates this art. The drama extends into our real lives. It becomes politics, ethics, laws. The more we look to little blue lines, the less we realise that whatever little blue lines do only determines what our existences will consist of if we believe that the direction of the little blue line is instructive. It isn’t.
As the comments supplied by scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) about sea ice extent and the Met Office’s scientists careless posturing demonstrate, they are complicit in the politicisation of the climate debate. That is to say they are not impartial. They are not agnostic about climate change. And they are not disinterested observers of nature. Climate science is not a value-free investigation of the material universe.
Climate scientists and science correspondents imbue statistics with undue political significance. Therefore, they have to resort to use combative rhetoric when the trends offer conflicting evidence they cannot yet explain. Rather than contradicting themselves about the significance of short term trends, and moving the goal posts constituting long terms trends, climate scientists ought to be distancing themselves from the political significance of their work. Because to do otherwise is to legitimise the very ‘deniers’ they seek to diminish. If ‘climate science’ is where politics happens, then it is not only reasonable to ask if changes in the direction of change do represent a weakness in the prevailing view, it is essential.
Of course, a trend of 0.14 below average does not represent a static climate, but neither does an anomaly of 0.54C represent the dawn of a new, hostile geological epoch. Fools rush in to make statements about what such small numbers mean about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
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18 Responses to “Cold is the new warm”
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December 8th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Its even worse here in Buffalo NY
visit http://www.armageddontruth.weebly.com
December 8th, 2008 at 8:39 am
The whole idea behind global warming
to place additional tax on people
December 8th, 2008 at 8:40 am
ook mister super duper elite men and women/breeders,you have finally convinced me that you’se are far far superior to the common muck that are using up all of your oxygen and minerals . i also admit that i have been breathing out copious amounts of [soon to be illegal]carbon die-oxide to pollute ‘your planet’[how thought less of me] i am flat out scrapping the carbon off of my feet,putting it into a weighing machine and working out the tax due.Please come and delete me from the planet now, as i don’t want to wait and would prefer to avoid the last minute rush to 95% eradication of the population.P.S. could you please send me a picture of your glorious leader as he /she/it has always remained in the shadows[that is unless a couple of you'se are infighting over who is going to be the big boss/god/ultimate being/master of the puniverse,i promise i will not tell any one else on the planet of you goreious plan,it's just that i have been duped[since birth]to believe that i was running my life,but now that i have seen the light, lumination/sun become an illumined one/become a know it all,i would just like to know who the f3ck you /me, we have been serving all this time,that is if any of you freaks actually know who the boss is ,or are you all ‘just following orders [for your whole/hole life]and not one of you know who the ‘big bwana’is,it would have been nice to have a poster of him above my bed instead of Leif garret .I would also like to know which form of self deletion you would like me to perform as i would like to be a happy little slave/non entity all the way till the end ,and i don’t want to add any more to my carbon foot print ,your devoted piece of s#it flatearther,by the way that story about the earth being round,that was your best yet.
December 8th, 2008 at 9:26 am
computers don’t lie… but liars DO compute.
December 8th, 2008 at 9:28 am
It’s not about “global warming”; it’s about “climate change.” What that means is that the jet streams are changing, bringing with those altered climates and weather patterns. Pilots know about the fundamental changes; military bases know about the fundamental changes; scientists know about these fundamental changes–as a matter of the routine functions of their job. Temperate zones play a large part in the locations of military bases, or have in the past, at least. But, those temperate zones are relocating as a result of climate changes, and in the process, regions that have been considered ‘temperate zones’ will have major climate effects. It’s the jet streams. Whether the weather at any given moment is warmer or cooler is just a symptom of a bigger, more fundamental problem: CHANGE. BIG CHANGE. Some areas that were previously tropical will become drier–more wildfires; some areas that were previously dry regions will receive heavy rainfall amounts–massive flooding. Warm climates will be cooler; some regions will receive record snowfalls; there will be bigger, more devastating hurricanes. Ice will melt in artic and antarctic regions, and water levels will rise; ice storms will devastate previously temperate regions of the globe. It’s the climate change, not the “global warming.”
December 8th, 2008 at 10:21 am
the only constant aboot climate is that it changes…
I liken it to an ancient king with a very good astrologer.. the astrologer tells the king that next wednesday at 2:00 p.m. there will be a solar eclipse… the king tells his people…
” if you don’t blah blah blah, i will turn off the sun next wednesday! ”
you can bet the king gets what he wants on Thursday.
In this case, global warming or climate change [ the fall back position] will provide the Kings with many happy Thursdays.
AND there needs be no proof offered at all….merely computer projections, paid for scientists, hysterical Warmists and a complicit media all controlled by the Kings.
it’s a brave new world.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Who is the author of this article? What are his/her qualifications in statistical analysis? If one is unqualified to analyze statistics they are unqualified to challenge the analysis of others or pose any theories on the subject.
“Fools rush in to make statements about what such small numbers mean about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.”
BIGGER fools discuss subjects upon which they are not well versed. BUFFOONS clearly don’t understand the subject at issue and challenge others who do. That is probably why the author of this banal, specious article saw fit to withhold his/her byline and a description of their qualifications to comment of the subject.
December 8th, 2008 at 11:43 am
Global Warming is a Farce. Government uses CHEMTRAILS & HAARP to modify the weather. They are the responsible parties causing droughts, tornadoes where tornadoes have never been before, sickness from CHEMTRAILS, Floods, earthquakes, etc. Just ask Al Gore; he seems to have some inside information.
December 8th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
Ah! but Gutting-Kilzer has cleverly intercepted ALL our possible future musings which run counter to his opionions, by implying that HE AND HE ALONE is a qualified analyst!
Analyst… well, the first four letters are accurate, at any rate…..
December 8th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
Actually the warmest year on record was 1932, but that doesn’t fit with the BS science of climate guesstimation. It’s better to wail and beat your gums over the lies spouted by our new communist leaders.
December 8th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Mark Gutting , I suppose you believe the man made global warming crap right? Lets look at climate change during the last say 2 billion years… (though accuracy of these findings is certainly in question never the less we see an interesting trend)
http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
Hmmm, the dinosaurs must have been driving giant SUV’s…. Oh no it must have been their gargantuan dinosaur gastric emissions. Its all about dino fart’s back then, and cow farts now right? Oh yeah and human farts too… The new fart tax, 2 dollars a fart….
December 8th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
According to this line of logic, Mexican food is a weapon of mass destruction.
December 8th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
According to Mark Guttings, along with the “logic” espoused by popular climate celebrities, i mean scientists, Mexican food should be deemed a weapon of mass destruction…
December 8th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Doh!… sorry about the double post.
December 8th, 2008 at 2:30 pm
“Cold is the new warm”
lol
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
Don’t fight the system:
Replace it
http://socialviability.com/
December 9th, 2008 at 6:40 am
“Global Warming” is a scientific hypothesis that was turned into a scam to make you pay for stuff you don’t need. It’s a convenient excuse to raise your taxes too.
We might affect the weather locally and temporarily but the sun is what makes the weather. Don’t buy into this GLOBAL WARMING PROPAGANDA!
When the next ice age comes I think we will wish we did have global warming.
December 9th, 2008 at 9:32 am
Global warming and climate change…those words always make me laugh…they make me think of the kool-aid drinkers who actually advocate these lies…it’s a religion, it requires faith to believe such nonsense.
December 9th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Providence Divine, Rockclimber, Sick Willie,
Perhaps each of you should hire yourselves out as psychics since you can glean insight into my personality, personal beliefs and personal habits based on a request that the author(s) identify themselve(s) and present their qualifications to analyze scientific data.
Ignorance and stupidity are not virtues, so you shouldn’t strive so hard to achieve them.