World's climate could cool first, warm later

[pecan]

Big UN conference on Climate going on, but these statements by a leading author of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change do not seem to be getting air time...


World's climate could cool first, warm later

•   17:56 04 September 2009 by Fred Pearce, Geneva



Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter one or even two decades during which temperatures cool.
"People will say this is global warming disappearing," he told more than 1500 of the world's top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN's World Climate Conference.

"I am not one of the sceptics," insisted Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. "However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it."

Few climate scientists go as far as Latif, an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

But more and more agree that the short-term prognosis for climate change is much less certain than once thought.



pecan comment"  yep .. the science is settled

Nature vs humans

This is bad timing. The UN's World Meteorological Organization called the conference in order to draft a global plan for providing "climate services" to the world: that is, to deliver climate predictions useful to everyone from farmers worried about the next rainy season to doctors trying to predict malaria epidemics and builders of dams, roads and other infrastructure who need to assess the risk of floods and droughts 30 years hence.

But some of the climate scientists gathered in Geneva to discuss how this might be done admitted that, on such timescales, natural variability is at least as important as the long-term climate changes from global warming. "In many ways we know more about what will happen in the 2050s than next year," said Vicky Pope from the UK Met Office.


Cold Atlantic


Latif predicted that in the next few years a natural cooling trend would dominate over warming caused by humans. The cooling would be down to cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).


Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, he said NAO cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades. "But how much? The jury is still out," he told the conference. The NAO is now moving into a colder phase.

Latif said NAO cycles also explained the recent recovery of the Sahel region of Africa from the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. James Murphy, head of climate prediction at the Met Office, agreed and linked the NAO to Indian monsoons, Atlantic hurricanes and sea ice in the Arctic. "The oceans are key to decadal natural variability," he said.

Another favourite climate nostrum was upturned when Pope warned that the dramatic Arctic ice loss in recent summers was partly a product of natural cycles rather than global warming. Preliminary reports suggest there has been much less melting this year than in 2007 or 2008.


In candid mood, climate scientists avoided blaming nature for their faltering predictions, however. "Model biases are also still a serious problem. We have a long way to go to get them right. They are hurting our forecasts," said Tim Stockdale of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK.

The world may badly want reliable forecasts of future climate. But such predictions are proving as elusive as the perfect weather forecast.

[pecan]

Lorne Gunter: Global warming takes a break
Posted: September 11, 2009, 8:07 AM by NP Editor
Lorne Gunter, climate change

Imagine if Pope Benedict gave a speech saying the Catholic Church has had it wrong all these centuries; there is no reason priests shouldn't marry. That might generate the odd headline, no?

Or if Don Cherry claimed suddenly to like European hockey players who wear visors and float around the ice never body-checking opponents.

Or Jack Layton insisted out of the blue that unions are ruining the economy by distorting wages and protecting unproductive workers.

Or Stephen Harper began arguing that it makes good economic sense for Ottawa to own a car company. (Oh, wait, that one happened.)

But at least, the Tories-buy-GM aberration made all the papers and newscasts.

When a leading proponent for one point of view suddenly starts batting for the other side, it's usually newsworthy.

So why was a speech last week by Mojib Latif of Germany's Leibniz Institute not give more prominence?

Prof. Latif is one of the leading climate modellers in the world. He is the recipient of several international climate-study prizes and a lead author for the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He has contributed significantly to the IPCC's last two five-year reports that have stated unequivocally that man-made greenhouse emissions are causing the planet to warm dangerously.

Yet last week in Geneva, at the UN's World Climate Conference -- an annual gathering of the so-called "scientific consensus" on man-made climate change -- Prof. Latif conceded the Earth has not warmed for nearly a decade and that we are likely entering "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool."

The global warming theory has been based all along on the idea that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans would absorb much of the greenhouse warming caused by a rise in man-made carbon dioxide, then they would let off that heat and warm the atmosphere and the land.

But as Prof. Latif pointed out, the Atlantic, and particularly the North Atlantic, has been cooling instead. And it looks set to continue a cooling phase for 10 to 20 more years. "How much?" he wondered before the assembled delegates. "The jury is still out."

But it is increasingly clear that global warming is on hiatus for the time being. And that is not what the UN, the alarmist scientists or environmentalists predicted. For the past dozen years, since the Kyoto accords were signed in 1997, it has been beaten into our heads with the force and repetition of the rowing drum on a slave galley that the Earth is warming and will continue to warm rapidly through this century until we reach deadly temperatures around 2100.

While they deny it now, the facts to the contrary are staring them in the face: None of the alarmist drummers every predicted anything like a 30-year pause in their apocalyptic scenario.

Prof. Latif says he expects warming to resume in 2020 or 2030. "People will say this is global warming disappearing," he added. According to him, that is not the case. "I am not one of the skeptics," he insisted. "However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it."

In the past year, two other groups of scientists -- one, like Prof. Latif, in Germany, the second in the United States -- have come to the same conclusion: Warming is on hold, likely because of a cooling of the Earth's upper oceans. It will resume, though, some day.

But how is that knowable? How can Prof. Latif and the others state with certainty that after this long and unforeseen cooling, dangerous man-made heating will resume? They failed to observe the current cooling for years after it had begun, how then can their predictions for the resumption of dangerous warming be trusted?

My point is they cannot.

It's true the supercomputer models Prof. Latif and other modellers rely on for their dire predictions are becoming more accurate. A major breakthrough last year in the modelling of past ocean currents finally enabled the computers to recreate the climate history of the 20th century (mostly) correctly.

But getting the future equally correct is far trickier. Chances are some unforeseen future changes to real-world climate or further modifications to the UN's climate computers will throw the current predictions out of whack long before the forecast resumption of warming.

National Post
lgunter@shaw.ca

[pecan]

Genie humour

National Post  Published: Saturday, September 12, 2009

Re: Global Warming Takes a Break, Lorne Gunter, Sept. 11.

Here's what actually happened. Back in the early '90s, Al Gore was walking on the beach and he found a washed-up bottle. Naturally, he gave it a rub and a genie appeared, who offered him one wish. Al thought it over, then said: "Genie, as you know we lefties are in big trouble. Communism is dead, socialism has failed everywhere and 'liberal' has become a bad word. Social justice, human rights, racial equality, they've have all been taken over by conservatives. We need a new issue."

The genie replied: "How about I make it so you can blame the weather --any weather --on conservatives?"

David Dehaas, New Liskeard, Ont.

[ricky]

buh buh buh
the snow is going to melt, people are going to drown, penguins are going to die.....the people on the TV said so

[Jumbie]

buh buh buh
the snow is going to melt, people are going to drown, penguins are going to die.....the people on the TV said so

I going to sell orf that beach front property I purchased last year oui! 

[ricky]

Jumbie buy sando hill and wait it out

[pecan]

Jumbie buy sando hill and wait it out

yeah man .. look Jumbie here

[ZANDOLIE]

Allyuh only playing brave because TT eh posting regular 

[Jumbie]

allyuh is kicks oui!     

[pecan]

Allyuh only playing brave because TT eh posting regular 

we have another 10 years or so before it go start to heat up.  TT have plenty a time to post. 

[ZANDOLIE]

 

[Jumbie]

Allyuh only playing brave because TT eh posting regular 

we have another 10 years or so before it go start to heat up.  TT have plenty a time to post. 

TT real busy these days.. last time we spoke he showed me some power point design for some kinda boat. He was about to reveal more to me, but same time some idiot name Gore called on on his cell phone. I overheard them saying something about codename "ark" and "only our church friends will be invited"

TT almost looking like osama these days with the beard he growing.

[WestCoast]

 
if only BS was money

[pecan]

ha ha   lol   

[ricky]

watch allyuh damn self, the extra CO2 being emitted by your laughter go drown Miami

[truetrini]

so the f**king climate could cool first before warming?  lol And that means?


Obama: US `determined to act' on climate change
AP

    *
      Buzz up!161 votes
    * Send
          o Email
          o IM
    * Share
          o Delicious
          o Digg
          o Facebook
          o Fark
          o Newsvine
          o Reddit
          o StumbleUpon
          o Technorati
          o Twitter
          o Yahoo! Bookmarks
    * Print

Featured Topics:

    * Barack Obama

Obama: We can reverse climate change Play Video AP  – Obama: We can reverse climate change

   
U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the Summit on Climate Change, Tuesday, AP – U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the Summit on Climate Change, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2009, as U.N. …
By JENNIFER LOVEN, AP White House Correspondent Jennifer Loven, Ap White House Correspondent – 43 mins ago

UNITED NATIONS – President Barack Obama on Tuesday declared that the United States is a serious partner in combating global warming, telling world peers "we are determined to act."

"The journey is hard. And we don't have much time left to make it," Obama said in brief remarks at a high-level climate summit convened by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Obama sought to show U.S. resolve ahead of crucial talks in Copenhagen in December, when nations will try to reach a new global treaty to address climate change. He spoke at the start of a busy day of diplomacy at the United Nations that also was to include a three-way meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders in an effort to nudge forward the Mideast peace process.

"We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act," Obama said. "And we will meet our responsibility to future generations."

He spoke after Ban admonished leaders to put aside differences and move more quickly on global warming.

Obama is under pressure to put political capital behind getting a serious clean-energy law at home and show that the U.S., an economic giant, will do its part to cut heat-trapping emissions. The U.S. House passed a bill this summer that would set the first mandatory limits on greenhouse gases, but a Senate version appears increasingly unlikely this year.

In his first presidential visit to the United Nations, Obama also sought to show a clear break from former President George W. Bush without referring to his predecessor by name. Bush's critics said he didn't take climate change seriously enough.

"It is true that for too many years, mankind has been slow to respond to or even recognize the magnitude of the climate threat. It is true of my own country as well," Obama said. "We recognize that."

Environmental experts warn of catastrophic changes, from rising sea levels to more drought, if industrial and developing nations cannot collectively address a warming planet.

"Our generation's response to this challenge will be judged by history," Obama said.

Obama said his administration has made the "largest-ever" American investment in renewable energy. And he called on other nations — the rich and the developing countries alike — to rise to the challenge. He said undertaking costly environmental clean up work is difficult at a time when the world is trying to recover from a recession, but that it has to be done.

"All of us will face doubts and difficulties in our own capitals as we try to reach a lasting solution to the climate challenge," Obama said. "But difficulty is no excuse for complacency."

Tuesday's U.N. summit and the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh later this week seek to put added pressure on rich nations to commit to greenhouse gas cuts and to pay for poorer nations to burn less coal and preserve their forests.

Obama sought repeatedly to hold everyone accountable. He said developed nations such as the United States have a "responsibility to lead" but rapidly-growing nations must do their part.

As for Obama's Mideast diplomacy efforts, there were no expectations of a breakthrough from Tuesday's three-way meeting. But it was seen as a crucial step for the president nonetheless.

After seeing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas separately, Obama was bringing the two together for the first Israeli-Palestinian meeting since Netanyahu took office in March.

Even if little more than a photo opportunity, it will probably be the most-watched portion of a marathon day of international diplomacy for Obama, a 12-hour sprint through many high-profile global problems and disputes.

The Israeli-Palestinian sit-down wasn't announced until Saturday and comes with the two sides still far apart on what it would take to resume peace talks that broke off in 2008.

U.S. envoy George Mitchell failed last week to bridge the gap between the two sides on the issue of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, putting the long hoped-for three-way meeting in doubt. Obama has asked Israel to freeze all settlement construction, a condition for Abbas to resume negotiations. But Israel has only committed to a partial halt.

Still, the sides decided to go ahead, even though Obama is considered unlikely to resolve the settlement showdown and announce a relaunching of peace talks.

"We have no grand expectations out of one meeting," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

One reason to have the meeting is the need to get momentum going.

"The U.S. wants to and the U.S. needs to negotiate in public," said Jon Alterman, a senior fellow in Middle East policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former State Department official in President George W. Bush's first term. "There's a perceived need for the U.S. to visibly be involved in making progress on Arab-Israeli issues."

Obama's agenda on Tuesday also included meeting Chinese President Hu Jintao at a fraught time in the Washington-Beijing relationship; playing luncheon host, as America's first black president, to sub-Saharan African leaders for talks on boosting opportunities for young people in their poverty-stricken nations; delivering key speeches to former President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative and to a U.N. heads-of-state session on the stalled issue of climate change; and ending the day with a U.N.-sponsored leaders dinner.

[pecan]

so the f**king climate could cool first before warming?  lol And that means?

like I said before, that means you have 10 years of time to make a post before the revised climate change models predict that it will heat up again.

[truetrini]

boss you and the other jokjers grasping at straws...global warming is real and accelerated by mankind's actions.

Just look at all the hot air you and Ricky spewing, thats  enough to put quotas on allyuh shit talk!

[pecan]

lol