Exposed: the myth of ‘global cooling’
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Welcome to America, where our new standard of truth is whether or not somebody said something out loud. Maybe the internet or cable television has made us more susceptible to believing whatever erroneous piece of information is spat from the lips of the latest know-it-all. This phenomenon is not limited to a particular political ideology. The left does it. The right does too. Women, men, young and old are all eager to give you an earful as to why they’re right and you’re wrong. Who needs experts when you’ve got cranky, home-grown skepticism?
Maybe that’s why I’m loving the latest global cooling myth and its swift debunking. Lately, climate change skeptics have coalesced around the notion that the earth is undergoing a long-term cooling trend rather than the opposite. I’ve read this sentiment written in the comment section here at True/Slant, heard it again and again from the commentariat class, and even seen it printed on the cover of other wise intelligent economic thinkers.
In short, these expert non-experts argue, global warming is the last thing we need to be worried about.
Well, a fun little experiment conducted by the Associated Press has now landed this cherry-picked pie smack dab in the faces of those who first dreamed it up.
In a blind test, the AP gave temperature data to four independent statisticians and asked them to look for trends, without telling them what the numbers represented. The experts found no true temperature declines over time.
In fact, the statisticians saw precisely what climatologists have been telling us: that the last ten years, even with two or three years during which average temperatures fell in relation to previous ones, have been the warmest on record. Just as we have consistently witnessed over the past 100 years, some years see dips, some big rises, and others stay flat. But over time, we are continuing to see the same trend: global warming.
Does this mean that over the next ten years the earth won’t cool? No. But why is it so hard to admit what HAS actually happened? We can’t formulate a hypothesis on global cooling when it isn’t supported by the data itself. Otherwise, science itself can simply be revised by any blowhard with an agenda.
True/Slant’s Jerry Lanson was musing about American apathy over global warming the other day, citing the sharp decline in the number of people in the U.S. who don’t think climate change is a serious, or man-made problem. Perhaps, as a nation, we’ve just become addicted to our simple soundbites, rendering us ever gullible to digestible little info-bits like “global cooling.” Or maybe global warming and its implications are just too depressing to contemplate, so we look for the first possible way to negate them.
On the other hand, actually looking at temperature trends over the past 100 years (to say nothing of the past 10) is pretty simple in itself. Just follow the arrow as it heads, incontrovertibly, in an upward direction.
Bravo … well said! Random variation in a complex system catastrophically heading up/warmer.
But let me ask, do you think the rationality you so nicely describe will have any effect?
David how dare you try to confuse people with facts! Shame on you! BTW how the kids? Recovered from the swine I hope.
I wonder if any of those statisticians managed to recognize what they were they were looking at. That data has made the rounds, especially in charts like the one illustrating your post. If they didn’t recognize it, they’d make great jurors.
Todd,
Unfortunately, it may be the case that the simpler narrative wins. For a time that narrative was that the planet is getting warmer. Then came the counter attack. We’ll see where it goes. If we can’t agree on numbers, there may not be much hope for American reasoning.
B,
Knock wood, I’ll have them both back at school tomorrow after eight days in home quarantine.
Good news, I’m sure you and your mrs are more than eager to see them return to the classroom!
In response to another comment. See in context »Statisticians are a class of people who try to convince you that if you stand a man on a block of ice and set his head on fire, on average, he should feel OK.
This is a very intelligent article Mr Knowles, and you’re even monitoring the comments, WOW. Here is a news tip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1iqa0dSJO0
Check out above link to a 2 and a half minute youtube video of a CNN report. What are the odds that the independent testimony below is fraudulent (not bloody likely unless you are a paranoid conspiracy theorist)? Here is a silver bullet technology: clean cheap and abundant energy.
In a joint statement, Dr. K.V. Ramanujachary, Rowan University Meritorious Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Dr. Amos Mugweru, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Peter Jansson P.E., Associate Professor of Engineering said, “In independent tests conducted over the past three months involving 10 solid fuels made by us from commercially-available chemicals, our team of engineering and chemistry professors, staff, and students at Rowan University has independently and consistently generated energy in excesses ranging from 1.2 times to 6.5 times the maximum theoretical heat available through known chemical reactions.”
Also, check out this article: http://green.venturebeat.com/2008/05/30/blacklight-power-claims-nearly-free-energy-from-water-is-this-for-real/
Faux News, birthers and others may not like the “facts” but we are responsible for the fact that the polar regions are melting at a rate never before seen in history. Call it what you want, global warming, climate change, it does not matter, the fact is we are playing with “fire” if we continue to treat our Planet this way.
fleetlee,
I always chuckle when I see this kind of statement “but we are responsible for the fact that the polar regions are melting at a rate never before seen in history.” because it is factually untrue. Sure, the North Pole has seen measurable melt. But in Antartica it is simple not true that they are melting because the opposite is true. It seems that the hole in the ozone down there seems to be contributing to a significant increase in precipitation which has resulted in a mass increase in Antartica ice volume. So once again, these outrageous exaggerations do no good as part of what should be a rational discussion.
In response to another comment. See in context »Nice post David. Get ready for a lot of hollering (I see it’s begun). Perhaps the site managers for True/Slant can help us both out. Someone from an national education center on global warming posted about a dozen links in a comment that for some reason was culled out for approval. I thought I’d done so but it’s not on my comments. I’d love to see all that hard work rescued.
To fleetlee, you say “we are responsible for the fact that the polar regions are melting at a rate never before seen in history”…oh really. In history??? You have accurate records for anything over say 100 years ago? Like the last 4.54 billion years the earth has been around??? That is the sort of scare tactic claptrap that makes reasonable non scientist people roll their eyes at talk of global warming and is better suited to what Fox News would say even though you seem to want to make fun of them (more alike than you want to admit, hey).
Saying all that, it is silly to think that humans don’t have an effect on their surroundings. We can see that the things we do are causing changes to the environment. Many have a hard time understanding the “global” implications of what is happening and only notice what is going on in their neck of the woods. We all need to be educated and have a rational discussion about the events happening, not go around making polarizing statements about the situation, it did not happen overnight and it can’t be changed overnight….
Actually through examination of ice core samples scientist do have a pretty accurate record of atmospheric conditions going back millions of years.
In response to another comment. See in context »Granted, you can get an ok record from ice core samples….. in geological time… in which talking about 1000 years is a small frame of reference. Within that scope it is really unfair to try and compare what we have done for the last 100 years of human industry to the past and that IMO is what makes it so hard for people, myself included, to understand.
I was on a site that explained it as such, if you stretch your arms out and say that is the whole length of time the earth has been around, a slice of fingernail would represent the whole of human history (unless you are believe ID…. then yikes)
So in that frame, like I have heard before, we are not trying to save the earth but rather the human way of life, the planet has had a wonderful way of adapting. If we change it too much for our species, then that is our fault. I think there is a need to consider all the evidence and take precautionary measures but it is unfair to make claims, on both sides of the argument, that can not be proven.
Then again, I am no scientist so I could be way off base but it does not seem like there is even a general consensus as to how much humans are doing.
In response to another comment. See in context »Dave,
But you have essentially done the very thing that you complain about. You’ve reprinted as gospel truth an article that is so obviously built around a straw man argument. Yes, the earth has warmed slightly over the last 30 years. But placed in the context of long term climate trends such variation is statistically insignificant (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png). So AP chose to analyse data over 20 or 30 years (”when records began”) but long term global temperature trends indicate that CO2 concentrations do not precede temperature change, they lag it. As a result, the basic argument should be not whether the earth has warmed or cooled but rather whether CO2 is the cause of such warming. An unbiased view of the science suggests that CO2 does not cause warming.
Patrioticduo,
Thanks for your comment.
Actually, the AP thing is pretty simple. They were addressing whether the claim that we’re actually undergoing a period of “global cooling” is correct. The claim of global cooling rests on recent, cherry picked evidence. It is made by those who want a certain agenda put forth. Hence, giving statisticians the numbers blindly, and asking them to evaluate them not knowing what they were looking at, in, in fact, a perfect way to address the problem of the politicization of data.
To claim that CO2 doesn’t cause warming is anything but unbiased. Whether CO2 produced by human beings is the cause of global warming is speculation. But increased methane and CO2 in the atmosphere does cause temperatures to rise.
Dave, I urge to reread your comment to me and attempt to try to see the ironic fallacies in your statements. Let’s start with, “actually, the AP thing is pretty simple”. No, the AP thing is not that simple at all. AP took their own cherry picked data and gave it to a bunch of heretofore unknown statisticians and had them produce a non peer reviewed result which you now claim is proof of no global cooling which was a straw man argument in the first place. Thus, your article makes the basic claim that anyone that shouts is an authority. Meanwhile you shout out that global cooling has been thoroughly debunked by a press organization that claims to have debunked a straw man argument. Do you see a problem here? I hope so.
In response to another comment. See in context »Patrioticduo,
No problem whatsoever, and no fallacy in logic, either. The claim is made by those who wish to disprove that humans cause global warming that temperatures have actually cooled since 1998. The AP decided to crunch the numbers using statisticians who have no direct dog in this fight. By giving them temperature data (simply numbers rather than theories as to what may or may not account for those numbers) they were keeping this issue to one of hard data alone. I have no doubt that the AP would have published an article titled “Statisticians Confirm Global Cooling over Past 10 Years” if that had been the finding (I know you beg to differ).
What I am saying is that there is no basis in fact for the claim that since 1998 we’ve been in a period of global cooling. That’s it.
It does strike me as odd that your rap against the use of non-experts to look at these numbers is so pronounced given that the vast majority of climate experts believe in the very thing you’re arguing against.
Might it turn out that we are in the beginning of a period of global cooling? Sure. But we can also say, with certainty, that over the past hundred years, we’ve been experiencing warming.
So if it turns out that we are indeed entering a period of global cooling then what of this supposed direct connection between increased atmospheric CO2 levels and a warmer climate? What then shall all of the AGW experts and their fellow traveller’s say? Perhaps AP put this article out because they realize that the public (much maligned as stupid though they are clearly not) are simply not buying into the contrived consensus. The public are waking up to the fact that the Sun – who would have thought? – is actually the primary driver of earth climate. And that even if CO2 levels are increased dramatically (as has happened hundreds if not thousands of times in Earth’s geologic past), all things considered, it’s actually a good thing (see http://nzclimatescience.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=471&Itemid=1).
In response to another comment. See in context »Who needs all these climate scientists and statisticians with their obscenely expensive PhDs and years of experience and study and laboratories and data and computer models and conferences and papers and publications, when “patrioticduo” already knows it all?
Jeff,
Ad hominem attacks provide the useful benefit of strengthening Hanlon’s Razor (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor) while at the same time avoiding any other usefulness.
In response to another comment. See in context »Maybe so, duo, but my comment isn’t an ad hominem attack.
In response to another comment. See in context »Your comment was that I am a know it all. Meanwhile you didn’t address a single point or argument that I made. That’s an ad hominem attack, although it was so weak as to be barely perceptible. Now, do you have any point worth making?
In response to another comment. See in context »