As Temperatures Hit Record Lows, Global Warming Takes a Punch to the Gut

Snow cover around the world is greater than it’s ever been in over four decades. The Arctic Sea ice that was hysterically lamented this past year for having hit the "lowest levels on record” (which actually weren’t even kept for the region before 1972) is on the rebound. Temperatures in the US are at record-breaking lows. According to the National Weather Service, temperature were just one degree shy of beating a record low held since 1888 earlier this month, as temperatures fell to an extreme 40 below zero in Embarrass, Minnesota. (Yes, that is the real name of the city, and it’s purely a humorous coincidence that the name appears to cleverly poke fun at global warming alarmists everywhere.)

According to Canadian newspaper National Post, a senior forecaster with the Canadian Ice Service in Ottawa, Gilles Langis, recently confirmed that the Arctic winter has been so bitterly cold that the ice has not only recovered, but is significantly thicker than it was this same time last year in many places. Siberia and China are experiencing some of the most bitterly cold winter in years. According to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) the average temperature in January for the US was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average. Does that mean that Global Warming is an over-hyped “hoax”, or at least based on well intentioned, yet limited science? That’s a fair question.

Anthropological and geological evidence both show that there have been much greater melts and freezes than we’ve seen at any time during this last century or even millennium. The Earth has experienced extreme cycles of prolonged warmth and cold long before humankind stepped onto the scene with our SUVs and penchant for plastic. We may be polluting the environment with our wanton waste; however, we’re still too puny of a factor to significantly raise the temperature of planet Earth, according to some critics.

Okay, so maybe we haven’t heated things up as bad as we’ve been told, but what if the Hollywood hit The Day After Tomorrow had it right all along and climate change really means we’re all going to freeze to death? Well, that probably isn’t going to happen either, admits two prominent climate model experts, Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona.

They say that their computer models showing polar ice-melt cooling the oceans (which would then stop the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and trigger another Ice Age) were wrong too.

"We missed what was right in front of our eyes," admits Prof. Russell. Apparently, it's not ice melt but rather wind circulation that drives the ocean currents northward from the tropics. Climate models until now have not accounted for the wind's effects on ocean circulation, so researchers over-compensated by unduly emphasizing the role of manmade warming on polar ice melt. After Toggweiler and Russell updated the models to include the 40-year cycle of winds, they found there was nothing particularly alarming going on.

Even so, several prominent scientists say that we’re more in greater danger of record cold temperatures than record highs in the coming years. According to Canadian scientist Kenneth Tapping of the National Research Council solar activity has entered an inactive phase. Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences agrees. He calls manmade climate change "a drop in the bucket" compared to the cold brought on by inactive solar phases. He advises people to "stock up on fur coats."

In fact, the last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered unusually cold weather that lasted about five centuries up until around 1850, which led to widespread crop failures and subsequent famine. While no one is suggesting that the same thing is about to happen, it’s worth noting that if scientists can’t agree on whether we’re about to roast or freeze to death—it’s safe to say that they probably don’t have all of the answers yet. It seems a bit premature to assume much of anything at this point.

Maybe global warming is going to be as bad as some experts surmise, or maybe it isn’t even worth worrying about. Hopefully, however, the growing trend of greater environmental responsibility, that global warming fears helped usher in, will not be abandoned should global warming prove to not be as dire as predicted. Devastating climate changes or not, the Earth is still in desperate need of better stewardship. Habitat destruction resulting in rising plant and animal extinction rates, air pollution, contaminated water, and many other man-made maladies, should still serve as reminders that the need for humankind to figure out how to generate clean energy and better conserve our resources hasn’t disappeared—even if global warming headlines have.

Posted by Rebecca Sato

Forget global warming: Welcome to the new Ice Age
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289

Nation's 'Icebox' hits record 40 below zero
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/02/11/minnesota.cold.ap/

Br-r-r! Where did global warming go?
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/01/06/br_r_r_where_did_global_warming_go/

"Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" -A Contrary Point of View
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/11/unstoppable-glo.html

Comments

[Ken Bingham]

"Everything that is supposed to be up is down, and everything that is supposed to be down is up" Algore proclaimed this during his ill-fated presidential campaign. These words can also be said about his theory of global warming. What was supposed to be up, ie. global temperature is down, way down. There is new evidence that the Earth is going the opposite direction than the vaunted computer models have predicted. This year we have seen record cold temperatures all over the globe. China is in a deep freeze, it has snowed in Baghdad, the first time in recorded history. In Iceland and Greenland icecaps that have been receding, and have been used as evidence of global warming, are reforming. Scientists do not know why this is happening but they suspect it is a decrease in solar activity. They are now acknowledging that the sun plays a much larger roll in earth's climate and trumps anything humankind is doing.

[Dennis]

Gee, I wonder if the poster has a bias on this? You couldn't *possibly* tell from the *very* balanced and objective delivery style.

Look, even for someone without a strong opinion on whatever horse is being beaten, that kind of Coulter-style over-the-top gleeful derision is just going to hose any possible credibility the article might otherwise have had.

[Dennis again]

For an interesting (and much more self-controlled) rebuttal, check the link.

[Dennis yet again]

Oh for crying out loud. When you post a URL in the URL box, isn't that supposed to produce a link?

I hate computers.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/02/27/global_warming_deniers/

[Mitch the Bitch]

Liberalism (Progressive) is a failed ideology. ALways has been always will be.

When in doubt look to the founders of this GREAT country. They were all conservative BTW...

Libtards are DESTROYING America from within the hallowed halls all the way out to the lib biased media. As Stalin said, give me Hollywood and I will rule the World.

Time for a Revolution...

[Dennis, still]

Yeah. That's not a troll.

[Alex S]

Too bad the daily Galaxy fell for this article, you've slipped down in my estimation.

The opening of this article discredits scientists' work by ridiculing them and the millions of dollars spent on their work.
And it's not just Liberals looking into global warming, its insurance companies too - they've been VERY interested as to what is actually happening out there.

Climate science is an evolving science and the supercomputers needed to compute the equations are not just sitting on your desk.

[Mr Krinkle]

The NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami says, "There is nothing in the U.S. hurricane damage record that indicates global warming has caused a significant increase in destruction along our coasts." Now I'm sure that they meant "climate change" ... but you get the point. Global warming has not caused more intense hurricanes. In fact, a team of scientists have found that economic damages caused by hurricanes have increased in the United States NOT because of global warming but because of greater population, infrastructure and wealth that has piled up along U.S. coastlines. There has been no increase in hurricane intensity, only the number of people that could be affected by them.

Here's a way to look at it. If the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane hit during this upcoming hurricane season ... it would cause $140 billion to $157 billion worth of damage. To put that into perspective, Hurricane Katrina caused $81 billion worth of damage. It would be so "devastating" because rich people have decided to come to these vulnerable coastal towns and build mansions and tennis courts, keep yachts and private jets.

[Dan]

I hate it when people use how cold it is this (or any) season to "disprove" global warming. While global warming aka CLIMATE CHANGE may produce higher temperatures on average in the foreseeable long term, it also wreaks havoc with established global patterns of weather, resulting in extreme occurrences on BOTH ends of the temperature gauge. The commenter above (Ken) failed to mention the record high years in the past decade too.

If the worst case scenario eventually plays out and an ice age is triggered millennia sooner than is naturally supposed to happen, no doubt there will still be idiots (frozen idiots) saying global warming was something someone fabricated (for what gain, anyway?).

[B.B.]

The post isn't saying that global warming isn't real--it's merely saying that it might not be real, which is the same thing that a lot of credible scientists are wondering about right now. It suggests that:

"...it’s worth noting that if scientists can’t agree on whether we’re about to roast or freeze to death—it’s safe to say that they probably don’t have all of the answers yet. It seems a bit premature to assume much of anything at this point."

Why do people keep bringing politics into the issue. It's not like all Republicans think we're heading into an ice age, and that all Democrats think we're going into a global warming phase. If science is based on politics then we may as well admit that "science" isn't very scientific at all.

In reality, credible scientists of every political persuasion can be found on both sides of the debate. Lets look for the real SCIENTIFIC answer, not political ones.

[Dennis]

I guess what really banjaxes the GW-deniers' arguments is when for instance they claim that the NOAA has disclaimed any indication of gw effect in hurricanes -- then you hear directly from those people that the number and strength of hurricanes are up significantly year over year. Then the anti-gw's tell you that the scientists are thinking that gw is probably caused by the sun (5 minutes ago they were denying it existed at all) -- and you hear directly from the scientists that they believe exactly the opposite. They say that "a lot of creditable scientists" doubt gw -- but when you check specifics, well, check out the URL I posted earlier. They claim the scientists are saying it's actually getting colder -- but the scientists say no we ain't neither.
Now we're not talking about what the actual evidence might indicate -- we're just talking about putting words in other peoples mouths to make it *look like* you have a valid stance and some support from the scientific community. This is not science, and it's not debate -- it's Damage Control. We see Damage Control all the time in politics and business, and you can recognize it by such things as vague claims of overwhelmingly vindicating evidence (for which no specifics are ever supplied), claims of events which on further checking turn out to be untrue, and excessive use of derogatory and inflammatory adjectives for one's opponents -- like "hysterical", "alarmists", "hoax", "elite", and my favorite, "conspiring".

Notwithstanding the previous poster's disavowal, the gw debate does run very strongly along party lines. The people who claim that gw is junk generally are the same people who think that environmental laws are a left-wing conspiracy, that taxes are evil, that social programs are unnecessary, etc. And I know, any number of people will jump in saying "I'm not like that", and no, it's not a 100% correlation, but it's a damned sight more than random, and I'll bet it's at least as strong a correlation as the relationship between right-wingedness and fundamentalism.

Actually, given the amazing similarity in argument styles, I have a personal theory that many of the gw-deniers will also turn out to be creationists.

[Tom]

How about this. There is a planet full of scientists out there...lets see some evidence one way or the other, and lets stop fighting about it until we do.

Science can be proven, or disproven, with fact. Lets spend time looking for facts and testing theory rather than bitching at one another about who is liberal, who is an idiot, etc...

[Dennis]

Fair enough, Tom. Except for one thing (you just knew there had to be something :-) )

The problem is, how much "fact" do you need? And how long are you willing to wait? The phrase "fiddling while Rome burns" comes to mind. I guarantee that the hard-line anti-gw's will never be satisfied with anything less than a fait accompli, and even then they'll probably claim it's just coincidence. It's long past time to stop pretending that the majority of anti-gw's are just "skeptical". They simply don't. want. it. to. be. so. They don't want laws, they don't want taxes, they don't want limits on behaviour, they don't want to have to recycle, they don't want to have to deal with a green vehicle, they don't want to have to retool their companies to lower the carbon footprint.

Meanwhile, for the rest of us, we have to decide when enough is enough. If we decide gw is real and we fix it, the cost is some billions of dollars and the payoff is we get to live. If we decide gw is real and we fix it and we were wrong, we still get to live, we end up with a much cleaner planet, and we still spend some billions. Boo hoo.
That's branch 1.
Now in branch 2, if we decide gw is wrong and we do nothing and we're right, we save some billions and we get to live in an increasingly poluted planet. If we decide gw is wrong and we do nothing and we turn out to be wrong, WE'RE ALL F#((#ING DEAD!!!!!! NOT inconvenienced, DEAD! What part of DEAD is unclear? (Sorry, I feel better now).

The point is that the only branch that leads to a completely unacceptable conclusion is branch 2. All other paths lead to outcomes that are either better, or not nearly as bad. So the only sane thing to do is avoid the worst case by acting as if GW is a real threat even if you are not completely 100% convinced yet.

If you are still refusing to accept GW, you either A) have significant REAL evidence (not rhetoric and damage control) that the problem is overblown (and you don't), or B) are insane, or C) have a conflict of interest which makes you unwilling to bite the bullet. My money is firmly on (C) for 99.9% of all gw-deniers.

Actually, I have a (D), but it would go way off topic...

[Laz]

I would believe the article if it wasn't delivered in a mocking tone. Now it just seems like some political rant.

Since when did science vote either democrat or republican?

[Rebecca Sato]

I wrote this article, and just for the record, I agree with Dennis. Of course, I don't know which "experts" are right. Nor does anyone else - that's the whole point of the post. There's a lot of conflicting evidence when it comes to climate change, but that doesn't mean we should forget about environmental responsibility.

Anyone who reads the Daily Galaxy regularly can attest that I'm constantly writing articles lobbying for greater sensitivity and responsibility when it comes to the environment. Pollution levels and worldwide rates of habitat destruction are appalling, but solutions are complicated and often approached counter-productively. that doesn't mean we shouldn't do everything we can, but it does mean that we should at least try to look at things from different angles.

The only thing that I don't agree with Dennis about is that I don't think we should use "science" to manipulate people into making smart decisions. Real science is about truth, whether that truth is politically popular or not.

I did not personally make this year unusually cold (if only I had that kind of power), nor did I say that an unusually cold year automatically discounts GW. However, I do think it's worth looking at both sides of the debate. Dennis basically says, "better safe than sorry" and I agree with that, but it's not necessarily safer to prepare for only one scenario while ignoring all other possibilities.

[Nathan]

Actually you kind of did Rebecca:
"According to the U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) the average temperature in January for the US was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average. Does that mean that Global Warming is an over-hyped “hoax”, or at least based on well intentioned, yet limited science? That’s a fair question."

Of course it's a fair question, and it is an important debate, but taking info from one year and extrapolating that into "well, I guess all those global warming "alarmists" are just nutty" is kind of irresponsible.

It snowed last week here in NYC (for the first time this winter I might add), but I didn't walk outside and say "Hey, looks like global warming is a sham... lets buy a hummer!"

[Mitch the Bitch]

I, along with the vast overwhelming majority of rational individuals do believe in Climate Change. It's been proven and can be seen with YOUR own eyes.

Man-made Global Warming on the other hand is complete crap and totally baseless.

The political spectrumm despite what many think isnt a straight line that begins on the far left and ends on the far right. It's nearly a complete circle with both ends of the spectrum touching.

[Mitch the Bitch]

Continued from above...

Creationism? Is that something along the lines of Intelligent Design theory?
If yes then you will see clearly how both sides of the spectrum touch. Sitchin believers on one side saying exactly the same thing as Intelligent Designers... Same breed of idiot opposite ends of the spectrum...

Demoncraps and Rupukikans have both slid so far left as to be unrecognizable from just 30 years ago.

[davey]

I go along with Mitch's idea. As with a lot of other problems that are being addressed, the extremists dominate the situation and for either side, the extreme of either side is never the right solution.

The sad thing is that there are many real man made environmental conditions that really do affect regional climates. But until the GW hysteria dies off (and it will, because it's a bunk conclusion based on weak\stilted cpu models), they will never see the light of day.

The lessons that need to be learned from this deal is:

Branch 1: Don't shove BS down people's throats. GW was seen as the fait accompli for some groups, and the resulting lame, condenscending, pharisaical strategy revealed too much of their "finally - see I told you so" mentality. Remember that for the next pretense that you will inevitably grasp on to. GW deniers = creationists? Smug-O-Meter in the red.... Shame and logic do not mix.

Branch 2: There are quite a few in the scientific community that truly do not have a problem being government grant hustlers and pimps - wowsa

[Al Fin]

Like Dan said, I hate it when people use one hot summer to claim a global disaster is crashing down on us all.

One season does not a climate make, right? So what will it take to disprove your climate hobby-horse? Climate models (GCMs) are sophisticated computer programs put together with a lot of data and a huge number of mathematical equations.

Can GCMs go wrong? Of course! Just like any other computer model, they contain a multitude of assumptions. We would be stupid to worship GCMs, particularly when they fail to predict important phenomena that occur.

So we have to decide just what would falsify our climate worldview. If you haven't done that, you are either a holy-warmer or a fixed-denier. Neither one deserves any credit.

[Dennis]

To davey:

Say, should you really be using words like "lame", "condescending", "pharisaical","pretense" - words with no real content except derision - in one breath, then accusing me of unlogical argument in the next?

At least I (A) actually made some reasonable arguments, and (B) clearly labelled my opinion about gw&creationism as such ("personal theory" - figure it out). You just rant and throw insults and think that constitutes a rebuttal.

Also, as has been pointed out time and time again, gw-promotion is not the route to goverment grants - it is the route to getting frozen out. People who push GW do *not* improve their position at the trough.

To Mitch the troll:

An imperative statement, emphatically declared, is not a rebuttal. All it really does is label you as anything *but* rational.

[Mitch the Bitch]

I wasnt trying to rebutt anything Denis. I "Clearly Labeled" my opinion and personal theory, whether you appreciate it or not.

Reasonable according to whom? You? LOL...

This is WHY the internet is the greatest invention EVER! A very few self-congratulating over-educated egomaniacs no longer hold the keys...

Calling people GW deniers and trolls shines very poorly upon you. A mirror can tell an ugly truth.

[shadaik]

Usually, I like this site. However, this is not only unbalanced, but also short-sighted as global warming can very well cause global cooling as a secondary effect.

[Mitch the Bitch]

Everyone complains about the weather, but only liberals try to legislate it.

The circle is complete..LOL
---------------------------------------

Newsday Article
By Peter Gwynne
28 April 1975

There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production — with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient tropical areas — parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indochina and Indonesia — where the growing season is dependent upon the rains brought by the monsoon.

The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it. In England, farmers have seen their growing season decline by about two weeks since 1950, with a resultant overall loss in grain production estimated at up to 100,000 tons annually.

During the same time, the average temperature around the equator has risen by a fraction of a degree — a fraction that in some areas can mean drought and desolation. Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in 13 U.S. states.

To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. Meteorologists disagree about the cause and extent of the trend, as well as over its specific impact on local weather conditions. But they are almost unanimous in the view that the trend will reduce agricultural productivity for the rest of the century. If the climatic change is as profound as some of the pessimists fear, the resulting famines could be catastrophic.

“A major climatic change would force economic and social adjustments on a worldwide scale,” warns a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences, “because the global patterns of food production and population that have evolved are implicitly dependent on the climate of the present century.”

A survey completed last year by Dr. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a drop of half a degree in average ground temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere between 1945 and 1968. According to George Kukla of Columbia University, satellite photos indicated a sudden, large increase in Northern Hemisphere snow cover in the winter of 1971-72. And a study released last month by two NOAA scientists notes that the amount of sunshine reaching the ground in the continental U.S. diminished by 1.3% between 1964 and 1972.

To the layman, the relatively small changes in temperature and sunshine can be highly misleading. Reid Bryson of the University of Wisconsin points out that the Earth’s average temperature during the great Ice Ages was only about seven degrees lower than during its warmest eras — and that the present decline has taken the planet about a sixth of the way toward the Ice Age average.

Others regard the cooling as a reversion to the “little ice age” conditions that brought bitter winters to much of Europe and northern America between 1600 and 1900 — years when the Thames used to freeze so solidly that Londoners roasted oxen on the ice and when iceboats sailed the Hudson River almost as far south as New York City.

Just what causes the onset of major and minor ice ages remains a mystery. “Our knowledge of the mechanisms of climatic change is at least as fragmentary as our data,” concedes the National Academy of Sciences report. “Not only are the basic scientific questions largely unanswered, but in many cases we do not yet know enough to pose the key questions.”

Meteorologists think that they can forecast the short-term results of the return to the norm of the last century. They begin by noting the slight drop in overall temperature that produces large numbers of pressure centers in the upper atmosphere. These break up the smooth flow of westerly winds over temperate areas. The stagnant air produced in this way causes an increase in extremes of local weather such as droughts, floods, extended dry spells, long freezes, delayed monsoons and even local temperature increases — all of which have a direct impact on food supplies.

“The world’s food-producing system,” warns Dr. James D. McQuigg of NOAA’s Center for Climatic and Environmental Assessment, “is much more sensitive to the weather variable than it was even five years ago.”

Furthermore, the growth of world population and creation of new national boundaries make it impossible for starving peoples to migrate from their devastated fields, as they did during past famines.

Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects.

They concede that some of the more spectacular solutions proposed, such as melting the Arctic ice cap by covering it with black soot or diverting arctic rivers, might create problems far greater than those they solve. But the scientists see few signs that government leaders anywhere are even prepared to take the simple measures of stockpiling food or of introducing the variables of climatic uncertainty into economic projections of future food supplies. The longer the planners delay, the more difficult will they find it to cope with climatic change once the results become grim reality.

Lest we forget just how wrong the climate experts can be.

It’s funny isn’t it?

[davey]

I calls them like I sees them Mitch. I do think a lot of this does deal with personal theories though. You are on target! Problem is, social worldviews and greed get in the way of logic. Pity...