|
What on Earth Happened
To The Global Warming?
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might
that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008
or 2007, but in 1998.
So what on Earth is going on Al Gore?
Climate change sceptics, who passionately and consistently argue
that man's influence on our climate is overstated, say they saw
it coming.
They argue that there are natural cycles, over which we have
no control, that dictate how warm the planet is. But what is the
evidence for this?
During the last few decades of the 20th Century, our planet did
warm quickly.
Sceptics argue that the warming we observed was down to the energy
from the Sun increasing. After all 98% of the Earth's warmth comes
from the Sun.
But research conducted two years ago, and published by the Royal
Society, seemed to rule out solar influences.
The scientists' main approach was simple: to look at solar output
and cosmic ray intensity over the last 30-40 years, and compare
those trends with the graph for global average surface temperature.
And the results were clear. "Warming in the last 20 to 40
years can't have been caused by solar activity," said Dr
Piers Forster from Leeds University, a leading contributor to
this year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The biggest problem with any of Dr. Piers statements is that he
comes from the IPCC which automatically affects his credibility.
The IPCC is a branch of the United Nations and is very much under
the control of climate doomsters. If climate doom were not impending
the IPCC would not be necessary, thus it is a bureaucratic imperative
that the IPCC predicts climate doom. The IPCC and Al Gore were
jointly given the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a company specialising
in long range weather forecasting, disagrees with Forster.
He claims that solar charged particles impact us far more than
is currently accepted, so much so he says that they are almost
entirely responsible for what happens to global temperatures.
He is so excited by what he has discovered that he plans to tell
the international scientific community at a conference in London
at the end of the month.
If proved correct, this could revolutionise the whole subject.
Ocean cycles
What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening
to our oceans. They are the Earth's great heat stores.
In the last few years [the Pacific Ocean] has been losing its
warmth and has recently started to cool down
According to research conducted by Professor Don Easterbrook
from Western Washington University last November, the oceans and
global temperatures are correlated.
The oceans, he says, have a cycle in which they warm and cool
cyclically. The most important one is the Pacific decadal oscillation
(PDO).
For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle,
that means warmer than average. And observations have revealed
that global temperatures were warm too.
But in the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has
recently started to cool down.
These cycles in the past have lasted for nearly 30 years.
So could global temperatures follow? The global cooling from
1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold Pacific cycles.
Professor Easterbrook says: "The PDO cool mode has replaced
the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us of about
30 years of global cooling."
So what does it all mean? Climate change sceptics argue that
this is evidence that they have been right all along.
They say there are so many other natural causes for warming and
cooling, that even if man is warming the planet, it is a small
part compared with nature.
But those scientists who are equally passionate about man's influence
on global warming argue that their science is solid.
The UK Met Office's Hadley Centre, responsible for future climate
predictions, says it incorporates solar variation and ocean cycles
into its climate models, and that they are nothing new.
In fact, the centre says they are just two of the whole host
of known factors that influence global temperatures - all of which
are accounted for by its models.
In addition, say Met Office scientists, temperatures have never
increased in a straight line, and there will always be periods
of slower warming, or even temporary cooling.
What is crucial, they say, is the long-term trend in global temperatures.
And that, according to the Met office data, is clearly up.
To confuse the issue even further, last month Mojib Latif, a
member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
says that we may indeed be in a period of cooling worldwide temperatures
that could last another 10-20 years.
So what can we expect in the next few years?
Both sides have very different forecasts. The Met Office says
that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.
It predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will
be hotter than the current hottest year on record (1998).
Many reputable climate analysts in the world disagree. They insist
it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the dizzy heights
of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest. It is possible, they say,
that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global cooling
is more likely.
One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing
global warming is far from over.
|
