If increasing temperatures are consistent with or are evidence of global warming, what theory is consistent with or evidence of falling temperatures? Global warming, too? Read more from William M. Briggs here.
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Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
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The question you ask is a false one, albeit entirely consistent with this site’s meme that short term weather events are to be confused with long term climate changes. Just more points on a long term graph – only the trends are truly conclusive.
The AGW hypocrisy is palpable – if we had 5 years of increasing temperature, then Slim and his mates would be screaming that this is proof.
But when we note 10 years of temperature decrease, Slim and his mates scream we are confusing weather with climate.
Slim – you are supporting pseudoscience – because only a pseudoscientfic theory can explain everything.
“we note 10 years of temperature decrease” is not only disingenuous, it is palpably false. There is not one major temperature series that you could utilise to could substatiate your claim. But let the blather continue.
Sillyfilly
Oh is that a fact? Palpably false? Evidence please or are you another evidence-free AGW clown newly posting here.
No problem, Slim one … just quantify your time period and then justify it.
If you don’t, you will be entirely consistent with your meme of not discussing empirical data.
Here we have a prime example of slight of hand from Mr Briggs.
The coldest in eight years, OK. The his claim is that it has been dropping “for a couple of years”. Marvelous. A couple of years is now a trend. He had to say “a couple of years”, because for the first five or so of those eight years, the temperature was rising.
SJT,
As I have oft mentioned here, you have problems with understanding plain English – especially the written word and your post above confirms it yet again.
Now which part of the temperature plot are you referring to? Or cannot you read the graphs?
Mind you, as one of Mr Gore’s useful idiots, you are doing well, but be careful when the blue collar workers finally twig to what is going on, as the AWU has just pointed out in the Oz recently – it would be wise to be a Green or a CO2 Clown in the near future. Such a position would be a serious risk to your health, based on the Jacobites methods during 1788-89 in France, etc.
Shucks, Ah say, I made a grammatical error theyare in the previous post but I doubt the boy would notice………….much fun as a sack of wet weasels.
Non-denialists are now the New Jacobites? Off with their heads!
Whatever Louis is on, I’ll have a double!
Slim is right, only the long term trends matter in climate evolution.
Therefore the short warming trend of the late 20 th century hardly amounts to such a historic anomaly that it deserves its own special hypothesis, especially since it’s been over for a decade now. It’s peak of 1998 has long been explained away as El Nino induced. That leaves a rather ordinary trend when considered in terms of centuries, rather than a few decades.
Temperatures over periods of decades cycle up and down. They do so over centuries too. 1100 years ago there were dairy farms in GREENland and vineyards in Northern Ireland. Elephant seals lived on beaches in Antarctica where they have been extinct for 500 years. Cheese hasn’t been an export commodity of Greenland for some thousand years now.
Fact: The Earth was warmer than today.
The LONG term temperature trend over the past thousand years is a slightly downward slope. How does the AGW hypothesis account for this. It doesn’t. Does it predict this. No. The AGW hypothesis predicts temperatures should be at historic highs and rising. They aren’t.
What does one call a hypothesis that can neither explain observed data or make useful predictions?
As Slim claims: “only the trends are truly conclusive.”
If the meme fits, wear it.
The AGW hypothesis is simply pseudoscience – no one has proved by experiment that increasing CO2 concentration in the earth’s atmosphere will raise the atmosphere’s mean temperaure, and until that experiment is done and replicated.
Wes, the point I made was the AGW suipporters shriek doom and gloom when short term temperatures trends rise but when we sceptics use the same logic for short term cooling, then that’s debatorially illegal, according to them.
I woudl also suggest it would not be a good time to identifiy oneself as a Greenie – once the mob work out this state sponsored scam is all about.
Gadzooks – I non sequitured – “and until that experiment is done and replicated”, all the AGW posts here can be dismissed as politically motivated waffle.
“…the point I made was the AGW suipporters shriek doom and gloom when short term temperatures trends rise but when we sceptics use the same logic for short term cooling, then that’s debatorially illegal, according to them.”
Louis, that’s true. Utter hypocrisy. Still it doesn’t mean their logic is worth emulating.
The fact is that global cooling since 1998 (or whenever) does NOT disprove the AGW hypothesis, however it does offer evidence that all is not right with the AGW apocalypse hypothesis, which can not adequately explain the cooling, not to mention historically known periods of warming. Since the science isn’t making useful forecasts it can’t be said to be settled. And the debate ain’t over.
Global cooling is evidence that we need more science performed transparently and reproducibly on the matter while we chill out on the policy formation side of the equation until a more complete understanding of climate evolution is developed.
Wes,
I agree, sort of.
If you want to look at variations in weather on a climate scale, which for bad or worse has been defined as weather averaged over a 30 year period, then the chronologically derived data have to be treated statistcally by a “running mean”. (Earth science uses a variation of this method in geostatistics which I won’t detail here).
Using the statistic “running average” means that, based on a 30 year filter, that the statistic is locked in place by plus or minus 15 years.
So, based on this assumption, climate statistics can only inform us about a particular climate statistic , say temperature, determined by 2008 minus 15 years, or 1993.
But please do note that in terms of chronology, based on the definition of climate as a 30 year average, a drop in measured value of some variable over ten years will have a significant effect on the value of the derived climate statistic, so arguments based on a 10 year series of measurements are valid in a climate sense, since 10 years represents 33.3% of the data set.
So I have to disagree with the assertion that short term trends are irrelevant in terms of climate statistics.
🙂