So long guys...enjoyed this blog....I'm going over to the Hysterics.....gotta cash in on the gold rush....

If a schoolteacher like Gore, who received five F's on divinity and natural studies, can turn down $200,000, i gotta figure out a gig........

One must remember the energy difference between solar Max and solar Min. is only 1/10 of 1% so the difference of heating the Earth is very little. However,the "Tunnels" effect on climate control is something man can regulate much cheaper than trying to regulate the suns output.

The most interesting facet of Watt's data is how different the GISS graph is from the rest. GISS data mysteriously manages to always stay close to one of Hansen's three predictions...

With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk.

John von Neumann

I found that the following comment on John Tierney's article echoed my own thinking. If global warming skeptics worked through the community of science instead of holding special conferences specifically to sway public opinion, their claims to scientific legitimacy would be taken more seriously.

Although I support you on advocating for a carbon tax, I disagree on your opposition to the subsidies for alternative energy and your kind of "mindless middle" mushiness about a conference that was set up specifically as a forum for the skeptics (a rather unpleasant habit they seem to be picking up from the creationists).

The simple fact of the matter is that it is still cheaper to continue to ride off of gasoline and coal until we hit the point where we find supplies either extremely volatile or simply declining, and when we find out that they are unpleasant. Without the subsidies, the technology simply won't be adopted on a large scale, or will take much, much longer - when we need it within the next few decades at the latest, and when you need an enormous amount of time and capital simply to change the infrastructure to something that is more energy-diverse. China is proof of that - in the absence of nuclear power or subsidized alternative sources, they've simply resorted to the lowest common denominator for energy in the form of coal plants.

As for the mushiness, Tierney needs to keep in mind that while the field welcomes criticism, it would be nice if said critics would actually try to work through the established scientific conferences and organizations instead of running out and trying to sway the public and politicians instead (again, another bad habit they seem to share in common with the creationists). That said, the safest route between two scientific points is not the mushy middle, "well, the critics raise some good points too, so I'll compromise by saying that the scientific body of evidence for global warming is probably exaggerated". It is entirely possible for a skeptical group to simply be wrong.

Thanks Brett.

Whatever the cause of this drop in temperatures, it should certainly be noted in looked into further. Here in Europe we've just had another very mild winter, but thats mainly down to the strong La Nina and the warm AMO, I think. I realise we're bucking the trend currently.

I looked a little closer at the NASA December, 2007 sunspot prediction. Sunspot numbers should be shooting up really fast now in March, and indeed the sunspot count is all the way up to zero.
http://www.spaceweather.com/

NASA seems to be firing on all cylinders these days.

Cooling trend?

The graph that your showing is a little difficult to read, because I only count 10 discernable data points between January 07-January 08. I assume that there are three or four on the "down line". But that slope isn't marking a trend. It is drawing a line between data points that are still above the historical average. Even January 08 is ABOVE the HISTORICAL AVERAGE.
Reply: I noted in the post that two out of the four graphs still ended with temperatures above normal.

As I read that chart, before ~1997, it was rare to see a spike above .3 degree anomaly. Since shortly after 1998, the numbers are trending around a .4 anomaly - right up until august-september 07 when the down spike began.

You could just easily say: Temperatures in January of 2008, while above historical averages, approached those averages for the first time since 1994, just one year after temperature anomolies spiked to a new record. The last three months in 2007 and January 2008 fell back to approaching historical means after a ten year trend of hovering around 0.4degC above historical means for 10 years.

How is .037 ABOVE a historical mean in any way a "reversal of 100 years" of warming. Did the person who wrote about that mean "months" which is what the chart refers to?

Reply: If you read Anthony's blog, which I linked to, at the bottom he states that he was misquoted about that comment.

According to that graph, we reached a similar low point in the solar cycle back around 1996. Yet, deniers tell us that our current solar minimum hasn't happened in a long time and it's a harbinger of the next Maunder Minimum.

Oil at $104 per barrel. Keep Communism alive and just drive, drive, drive, baby!!!

Wow,it didn't take those new little light bulbs long to make a difference in global climate, those people knew what they were talking about. People better quit using so many of them or we will be back in an ice age. Now maybe an extremist group can start up about global cooling and tell people to drive more, spray hair spray, use 125watt light bulbs and some nut will do a documentary and win the Nobel Peace Prize. If they think it will scare ya, they will try it. Bottom line: the earth does what the earth does and there is nothing that has any control over it, it has been happening for 5 billion years and will continue to do so.

Gentle reader, perhaps you are betting, or merely hoping that the current downturn in global temperatures will turn around in coming months but the news, Virginia, is not good.
Principle component analysis has repeatedly shown that solar insolation and oceanic circulation patterns account for 50 to 90% of global temperature changes by every researcher including these two 'causes' in their analysis.
The bad news is both of these components are now certain to be at low ebb for the next quarter century.

Rob,

After having espoused all of that; do you disagree with the data presented at the conference? If so, what do you disagree with and why?

It is entirely possible for a skeptical group to simply be wrong. It is also quite possible that the AGW zealot group is flat out wrong.

Also, how does this conference differ from the IPCC conferences?

Mark,

According to that graph, we reached a similar low point in the solar cycle back around 1996.

Yeah, Mark. It's called zero (0) sunspots. Very observant of you. Now see if you can tell me the difference between this minimum and the one in 1996 (the beginning of Cycle 23).

I have some shocking news. The sun is devoid of sunspots and since they're cooler, the sun is brighter. That means if the sun goes much longer without spots, the earth will begin to heat up big time. Whatever caused the recent gc is not related to sunspots.

GISS had the GREATEST temperature difference, -.750 celcius.

Why? It looks like Hansen is trying to compensate for initially OVERSTATING how warm the temperatures were *supposedly* getting. He got a little dose of reality. It appears that he is/was using flawed data or manipulating it. Either way, a MISTAKE was made on his part.

Geniuses can be wrong. Some are dishonest and some suffer from anxiety. After all, they are only human. Live and learn.

Brett, above you post there could be a few reasons for this (cooling)..La Nina, solar minimum, etc. 3 weeks ago you posted an article that said the abnormally COLD weather is now being BLAMED on global warming by *some scientists*.

As for the cooling, you said...I just do not know for sure, and I do not think anyone really has the definite answer right now.

Gotta love the honesty.

Personally, I dont see any concensus on anything. Humans are trying to explain chaos. There are simply to many variables to determine with any degree of certainty what IS going to happen. This is why we should just be THANKFUL for what we have and keep living our short lives. We can do this all while having compassion for others. Being blamed for something that we have no control over is just not right. I wish it would stop.

Besides, the earths temperature had risen by less than 1 degree over the past 100 years. Big deal. The temperature has dropped by .65 degrees in 12 months. We are at the mercy of something greater than ourselves. People should accept this. Will they?

oh mark, there you go again,
"Oil at $104 per barrel. Keep Communism alive and just drive, drive, drive, baby!!"...nope, its $104 because instead of promoting economically feasable home grown energy, we think its more important to "save the pigmy whale that eats the endangered pigmy shrimp", "save the caribou that eats the endangered, melting-beyond-belief tundra because the earth has a fever", "save the black-footed ferret with three toes and a hangnail", "save the spotted owl and its spotted poop", "save the golden shelled tortoise listed as the most endangered of endangered species because its such a slow walker across co2 saturated hiways", "save the planet from spontaneous ignition due to co2 overload", ect, ect...the one that gets me the most about the whining of gas prices, is the scam plan theory that says, if we pass a carbon "SUBSIDY" this TAX, TAX, TAX wont add to the price of crude and will somehow make it cost less....

Jim Hansen has an answer. Perhaps you should blog on it, Brett.

Reply: Thanks Steve. I will post that link with the cooling trend blog.

Dr. Hansen notes that last January was a warm record, which makes the comparison between it and this January appear much sharper. Oddly enough Anthony didn't mention that.

And yet more on that conference, I see. Tell me, was there any new science or even any new politics discussed there? If it's that it was a denialist conference with some serious money behind it, I agree that's a bit unusual, but you didn't discuss that aspect.

In the meantime, there have been major scientific conferences pertaining to climate that you haven't even mentioned. One of them was a major gathering of solar scientists, and the sun is a subject on which you blog pretty constantly.

Another is on the oceans and is still going on.

Rob,
While not in the extremely dubious field of Climatology I belong to the community of scientists you are talking about. AGW fails almost all guidelines for following scientific principles much less truth and transparency. Failure to respond to legitimate questions is a sure sign of faulty science. They are the ones whose legitimacy and science is in question.
Refusing to release code about how and why you make “ADJUSTMENTS” and show no proof to validate the “adjustments” is not science. But then climate study is such a young field that the leader doesn’t have a degree in that discipline or in statistics (a field that is needed when using measurements that are open to interpretation and adjustments.) That alone should explain why the science is not settled. Those who use scientific principles in other fields are looking in and seeing “climate studies” in a less than favorable light. Climatology has been described as people using scientific instruments and them making their best guess.
The science and question is not about China’s use of coal, moose farting, or America’s love affair with the SUV. It’s about what is happening to our planet now and is man causing it with CO2?
Sorry but the science alluding to this is so far insufficient to convince me and many others who have spent their lives doing real science. Vigorous scientific scrutiny was never done on this theory since its inception 2 centuries ago because nobody really cared about it. We have just footnoted this theory enough times so it’s part of mantra of climate studies. The debate is not on a level playing field. Skeptics have few places to go for funding while the AGW side is awash in funds. The constant flood of money made available to researchers by the AGW special interest groups who are pushing their agenda blaming mankind for a warmer planet is a fact. It is so seductive that every field (medicine, pharmacy, geology, etc.) are jumping on the gray train “proving” AGW. If you read and review those with that in mind you will see how mostly anecdotal and badly written they are. The many and repeated use of qualifiers in Climatology papers make other scientific fields blanch because it is no longer science but rather opinion and supposition. However the press and lay public assume the science is there and therefore it’s true. People in business and banking see that money can be made doing nothing but trading and taxing. Most don't want debate because money is much more seductive than the truth. Besides they are following the money.
This results in the science being secondary to what many people as a great chance to use AGW as an excuse to further their cause….whatever it may be.
Personally I want us off foreign oil and want to use sustainable energy sources but claiming we have to do it because of AGW just doesn’t have real science behind it.
Read, learn, ask questions and think for yourself

Patrick Cyclonebuster, for the benefit of us newcomers, could you please explain the tunnels effect? Thanks.

Joe

"Principle component analysis has repeatedly shown that solar insolation and oceanic circulation patterns account for 50 to 90% of global temperature changes by every researcher including these two 'causes' in their analysis."

Making up stuff on blogs is fun!

"Also, how does this conference differ from the IPCC conferences?"

The IPCC is comprised of the world's top climate scientists. The ICCC is sponsored by a right wing think tank and has about 5 climate scientists who rarely (if ever) publish. Oh, and Anthony Watts, who doesn't even know what a temperature anomaly is.

another chink in the al gore armor. This should not be happening in an world painted by al gore.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=ae6GlcvBtldY&refer=home

The alarmists seem to have forgotten their fundamental premise. Temperatures are not suppose to be falling, or level, or even trending up at a steady rate. The warming is suppose to escalate.

When actual data fails to verify a theory, the theory simply has to be questioned. Is that so hard to understand?

If I planted a row of corn, and a row of radishes sprouted instead, I would expect to be questioned. In fact, I would be questioning myself.

The fact alarmists are so hostile towards those who ask questions seems very odd.

Even odder is the fact they don't focus in on temperature data, and the causes of temperature changes. Instead they veer off into the subject of altering the infrastructure of our economy and society.

I can't help but suspect that was their focus all along: Changing the infrastructure of our economy and society.

I am all for reforming our society, and making the parts of our world and lives which are unlovely more lovely. However doing so using bogus data, propaganda, and quasi-adolescant peer-pressure really doesn't seem to be the way to do it.

Hi Rob,

If skeptics didn't face censorship, ridicule, job loss and decertification, they would probably still be working through "the scientific community."
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/science_policy_general/000318chris_landsea_leaves.html
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressRoom.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=32abc0b0-802a-23ad-440a-88824bb8e528
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=04373015-802a-23ad-4bf9-c3f02278f4cf)

Or perhaps "the scientific community" isn't so narrow and narrow minded as you might pretend?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/harper_conservatives/pdf/lettertoharper2.pdf
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=f80a6386-802a-23ad-40c8-3c63dc2d02cb

Or possibly the best science has always been done by mavericks working outside the consensus? Galileo, Wegener, Einstein for example.

By definition, the consensus is conservative and normally wrong. Scientific truth changes constantly.

Well here it is March. Yesterday it was reported that the normal temp for this day in Minneapolis is 34. Tomorrow night we expect -11. I am really, really sick of below zero weather. The depression is really kicking in around here. I doubt you could convince anybody about global warming after this winter. This may sound strange, but it feels different to me than any other year since I have lived in this state which is about 15 years. I just came in from the barn and it feels like January. I have no idea what all this means or why, but as far as I can tell nobody would bet the farm that the next 50 years will be a cooling one or a warming one. What is equally strange to me is why it matters so much to the alarmists if the deniers are in agreement with each other. I would imagine like most things the truth lies somewhere in the middle.