Just after posting "the house of cards is falling" yesterday, lo and behold, this story pops up:
The supposed 'consensus' on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of new temperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.The data was released without fanfare from the Met Office of the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini-ice age to rival the 70-year temperature drop that saw frost fairs held on the Thames River in the 17th century.Exactly what my data showed from my home thermometer which I check every couple of months. Or years. And NASA confirms.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations ... it confirms that the rising trend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
The linked article is one of the best I've seen, with graphs, and lithographs, and everything. You can always count on the Brits to mince no words.
Anyway, put that in your pipe and smoke it.
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Note to the granddaughters
One of the best-kept secrets in San Pedro is the marine biology library at Cabrillo Beach. It is co-located with the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium -- up on the second floor across the way from the aquarium itself, overlooking the beach, LA Port, and the western half of San Pedro harbor. I was told the marine biology library is the best of its kind in the US. I don't know if that's accurate, but it is very, very good. The aquarium is free, with a $5.00 suggested donation. One might be able to find free parking on the street outside the beach area, but if not, parking costs $1/hour with a maximum of $9/day. It's a very, very good deal.
Today -- August 5, 2012, while visiting and reading random book selections I came across this, regarding global warming, a scholarly work written in 1973:
During the last century, CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by about 11 percent, and this increase is enough to account for about half of the 0.6 C mean hemispheric warming that occurred before 1940. With the accelerated burning of fossil fuel that is expected durng the next three decades, the CO2 level will be increased by about 50 percent (to 450 parts per million) and global warming attributable to this cause will be about 1 C. Such a strong warming would be further reinforced by substantial changes in sea-ice extent and might trigger other important internal variables in the climate machine.Frozen Future: A Prophetic Report From Antarctica, Our Planet's Last Continent and Last Chance, edited by Richard S. Lewis and Philip M. Smith. Introcution by Walter Sullivan, science editor of The New York Times. c. 1973.
Thus it appears the CO2 influence on climate may soon become critical. On the other hand, other influences may counter these trends. For example, the cooling of the 1950s and 1960s shows that some ohter factor is more than countering the warming effect of CO2. Stratospheric dust form increasing volcanic activity reflects more sunlight away from the earth and thus causes cooling. This may account for recent trends, but records of dust load in the atmostphere are inadequte for a reliable evaluation. Man's contribution to the atomospheric dust load is increasing at an exponential rate with a doubling time in the 10- to 20-year range. A 10-year doubling time would more than compensate the warming due to CO2, a 20-year doubling time would compensate only partially. Thus it appears that the influence of each of these factors, dust and CO2, will become larger compared to natural variations, but the net effect is difficult to estimate without better data. -- pp. 136 - 137 from -->
Since that book was published, some attention has been thrown on solar flares as contributing to global warming but that, too, is very, very controversial. The point is: not all possible causes for global warming were mentioned in that book.
