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

Massive volcano eruption???

[Anonymous Coward]

Seeing as how I live 30 miles North of Yellowstone, I'm not rooting for that option.

Re:Massive volcano eruption???

[bigman2003]

Nothing to worry about here. That temperature change is in CELSIUS...we measure temperature in FARENHEIT, so it won't make a difference in America.

Thank god we're not in Canadia.

It's All Lies

[MightyMartian]

It's all lies, I tell you, all lies! It's a conspiracy by the atheistic climatological establishment to make us all buy small cars and turn off our lights. It's every American's God-given right to puke greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But thank God that George W. Bush, His faithful servant, is making sure that these foul secularist reports are altered, so that we can continue our God-sanctioned practice of driving large vehicles, burning fossil fuels for electricity and all those other things that a proper Christian country ought to do.

Re:I'm starting to believe.

[bcat24]

I only wish others would wake up and smell the coffee and be diligent too.

Nooooo! Making coffee only worsens global warming!

I don't know about you guys, but...

[penguin_asylum]

It's nice and cool in my new Hummer v2.

Science is hard

[jfengel]

No, correlation is not causation. But when you have correlation and the most accurate models imply causation, you definitely have to think hard about what you're doing. The fact that global warming was predicted by the models before the data could be taken further suggest that it's not simply alarmist readings of the data.

Science is hard; in many fields it's impossible to prove causation completely. But when you have a theory, and the theory holds up to all the available data, you act as if the theory were true and make decisions based on that. You don't over-react as long as there are competing theories that imply otherwise, but this is one more piece of data to suggest that global warming is very real and quite possibly man-made.

The "quite possibly" means that we shouldn't over-react; as you say, the correlation need not imply causation. But as the burden of evidence falls on the side of man-made global warming, it becomes increasingly dangerous to rely on "Yeah, but are you really, utterly, totally, completely sure?" arguments against action.

Re:Science is hard

[jnaujok]

Those models do not "predict" global warming. They show a trend towards warming with an increase in atmospheric CO2. However to call these models "the most accurate" is quite a stretch. I ask you to look into the quality of these models and ask simple questions, such as, "do you accurately model the largest heat sink on the planet, or are your oceans just a thin slab of water that is basically a rigidly driven model that doesn't adjust to changes realistically." Ask if they solve their fluid model for all variables, or do they just solve for two of the three (pressure and temperature, but not volume). I can go on for hours about how completely inaccurate these models are.

But I don't have to. The models show that CO2 causes an increase because the modelers set up the model so that CO2 holds more heat in the model. Good golly, what a shock.

On the other hand, we have data that all of the inner planets are now heating up. The Twin MER rover teams were shocked at how warm the Martian winter was this year on Mars. They never expected their rovers to make it through the winter, yet both survived without a problem. In just the 30 years since the Viking missions, the temperature of Mars has increased substantially. In fact, it's done so by very nearly the exact same percentage as the temperatures seen on Earth. Similar remote measurements of Venus have shown the same increase.

Now, unless you want to claim that Dick Cheney is secretly driving his SUV's on Mars, that means the cause of the rise in temperature must be mainly external. And, oh look, here's a study that's found just that.

Science is hard, Climatology is very hard. We have no hard evidence to support anthropogenic global warming theories. We have computer models. The same people on this list who would scoff at the idea of a computer predicting the weather one week in advance, will accept, without the slightest hesitation, the prediction of a computer 100 years into the future. And, no, don't give me the "it's climate, the little changes disappear into climate" because that's bullshit. It's been disproven time and time again. The "best model" in 1995 mispredicted the temperature in 2000 by 300%. That's not a minor mistake, that's not within one standard deviation, that's a wild-ass guess that was totally wrong.

Trillions of dollars and Millions of lives will be lost if the "we should take action just in case" crowd wins. Some of the best estimates say that cutting CO2 by 50% will cost 1.5 BILLION LIVES by 2100. Are you so eager to pull the trigger?

Re:I'm starting to believe.

[Seumas]

As an average citizen, I don't even care. I'll be dead before it ever impacts me. That's not a very nice thing to say - I know - but it's practical.

How many hundreds of people will have to nit-pick their entire lives over every purchase they make, every item they reuse, every thing they throw away, every little thing they consume, washing out tin cans to reuse them for... whatever... -- just to compensate for one illegally dumped barrel or government legitimized "waste disposal"?

Anyway, I figure I've already done my part. I don't drive or own a car and I don't intend to have any kids.

Frankly, I'm not sold on "man is killing the planet and causing it to heat up!". I'm open to it, but not sold on it. Nevertheless, it doesn't hurt for people, businesses and governments to take precautions anyway. Just because we may not be directly responsible for any global warming or cooling wouldn't mean that we shouldn't try to keep our planet clean and habitable for all on it anyway.

If this trend continues though, I'll just start wearing whatever the appropriate colored ribbon is that shows I care about the environment. Look at all the people with aids that red ribbons have helped. It's almost like fricking prayer beads! Ooh!

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".