2005 Will Probably be Warmest on Record

Nilmat writes "A Washington Post Article notes that 2005 will probably have the highest mean global temperature of any year since the advent of systematic temperature records. At the moment, the mean temperature is about 0.75 degrees C above the global mean from 1950 to 1990, approximately .04 degrees higher than 1998, the year of the previous record. Only something dramatic, such as a major volcanic eruption, could cause enough cooling to miss setting a new record."

Comments

Re:What?

[temojen]

Fine ash particulates in the atmosphere reflect solar radiation (light and heat) back into space.

The Weather Makers

[tarvo]

Read this book The Weather Makers by Tim Flannery, if you are genuinely interested in doing something about climate chnage.

It is brilliant and timely call to action for everyone to reconsider their energy use as it applies to C02 emmissions.

Re:The real question is

[blamanj]

Check out these maps to see how the coastlines would change (and have changed since the last ice age).

No, the Canadian Rockies aren't threatened, but Florida would be about 1/3 under water if the West Antarctic ice sheet melted, and about 90% underwater if the East sheet melted as well.

Recent demonstration of global warming

[ManufacturedMirth]

Myth 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
Fact: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures.

No, that's not true at all. All terrestrial measurements have shown a steady increase - the satellite measurements were the exceptions, and showed a much slower increase in temperature.

Until last year, fossil fuel advocates pointed to the satellite measurements as refutation of the warming trend. Then, a bunch of clever guys realised that the problem was that the satellite measurements were taking an average of a rapidly heating troposphere (where we live) and a cooler upper section of the atmosphere.

There's a great discussion of this in the rather frightening book The Weather Makers by Australian scientist Tim Flannery, which is due for release in the US about now.

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Spy der Mann]

I'd rather listen to a scientist than to a "friend" of science.

It seems very suspicious than an organization could be dedicated EXCLUSIVELY to deny claims about global warming.

Plus, why is it called with such an emotionally moving name like "friends of science"?

I searched google, and the only references to friendsofscience.org were forums inside that same site. Plus, I checked the hosting company, and it's "reveal.ca", a BUSINESS SEARCH company.

Can you spell "Astroturfing"?

Look, it's MORE THAN OBVIOUS that companies will lose A LOT OF MONEY if the U.S. abides by the Kyoto Protocol. Don't you think that they will start creating phantom organisations to dismiss the idea of global warming?

Look, we all know what companies like Microsoft are capable of. You think companies that produce huge emissions of CO2 and other pollutants wouldn't do ANYTHING to keep earning money?

I'm sorry but you seem to naive to believe the "friends of science".

Re:Let me be the first troll to say

[jcochran]

Record highs?

Hmm. I don't think so.

After all, they're still finding Viking farms under the ice in Greenland.
I suspect that we have people looking at short term changes and ignoring the geological evidence about cyclic changes in world temperatures.

As another data point look at: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/ mars_snow_011206-1.html

Somehow, I don't think what man is doing on Earth has much of an effect on Mars.

Some Info on William O'Keefe...

[mjbkinx]

...but first, a link to this article.

The promised information about him is here:

President, George C. Marshall Institute.

Adjunct Scholar, Competitive Enterprise Institute. Member, CEI Board of Directors. President and Founder, Solutions Consulting. President Emeritus, Global Climate Coalition. President, Solutions Consulting, Inc. Former Senior Vice President, Jellinek, Schwartz and Conolly, Inc. Chief Administrative Officer, Center for Naval Analyses.

According to federal lobbying records, O'Keef e was a paid lobbyist for ExxonMobil, 2001, 2002 and 2003 on the issues of environment and climate change, with contacts with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget. He writes frequently about climate change in his presidentail role at the George C. Marshall Institute.

O'Keefe has a long history of involvement with the fossil fuel industry. O'Keefe also served as Executive Vice President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, a position he held until 2000.

...and on some of the organisations he works for:

Competitive Enterprise Institute has received $1,645,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
George C. Marshall Institute has received $515,000 from ExxonMobil since 1998.
American Petroleum Institute
Currently "deactivated", the Global Climate Coalition was "A coalition of companies and trade associations seeking to present the views of industry in the global warming debate."

Re:Let me be the first to say

[Stephan Schulz]

If they are "friends of science", they maybe should read some current papers - and maybe not quote old ones out of context. As far as "Myth 1" is concerned, it is true that there has been (and to a small degree still is) a discrepancy between surface temperature and climate models on the one side, and balloon and satellite data on the other hand. However, recent publications have very nearly closed that gap. It turned out that the satellite data suffered from undetected orbital drift (i.e. the satellites reported night time temperatures as day time temperatures) and the balloons suffer from a number of sensor and calibration problems. If the data is corrected for these errors, there is a rather good fit with current climate models.

"Myth 4" is another mixture of truth and falsehood. Yes, water vapour is a greenhouse gas. However, relative humidity is more or less a constant in the atmosphere. Thus, the amount of water vapour (absolute humidity) is driven by the temperature. In this way water vapour increases the effect of any other heating - its an amplifier, but not a cause of global warming.

If you look over the site, you find more gems. "Myth 6", for example, not-cites the 1996 IPCC report, totally ignoring the current (2001) and upcoming reports.

Wikipedia has a reasonable good set of articles on global warming.

Re:Let me be the first troll to say

[Lars T.]

So we are looking at 0.42mm a year, due to glacial melt. To reach the claimed 80 Meters of sea level rise that is bandied about for all the claims of coastal flooding it would take 190,000 years to reach that level, since your worried about warming to increase, let's halve that to 95,000 years.

Jebus Griste, did you even read the page you just linked to?

Over the past 100 years, sea level has risen by 1.0 to 2.5 millimeters per year; thus the contribution from melting small glaciers would be approximately 20 to 30 percent of the total. Climate models based on the current rate of increase in greenhouse gases, however, indicate that sea level will rise at a rate of about two to five times the current rate over the next 100 years from the combined effect of ocean thermal expansion and increased glacier melt

Re:Science is hard

[syphax]

Oh man, you were talking a good game until you came out with the The "best model" in 1995 mispredicted the temperature in 2000 by 300% LIE.

How many times must this lie be debunked?

Apparently, very many times. Key points: It wasn't 1995, it was 1988, and Hansen wasn't off by 300%, he was frickin' on the money.

Also, remember that Arrhenius predicted anthropogenic CO2 global warming over 100 years ago. The basic premise- more atmospheric CO2 means more trapped heat- is well-understood and not controversial. The open question is the strength of the climate's negative feedback cycles.