2008 Is the Coldest Year of the 21st Century

dtjohnson writes "Data from the United Kingdom Meteorological Office suggests that 2008 will be an unusually cold year due to the La Nina effect in the western Pacific ocean. Not to worry, though, as the La Nina effect has faded recently so its effect on next year's temperatures will be reduced. However, another natural cycle, the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, is predicted to hold global temperatures steady for the next decade before global warming takes our planet into new warmth. If these predictions are correct, there must be a lot of planetary heat being stored away somewhere ... unless the heat output from the sun is decreasing rather than increasing or the heat being absorbed by the earth is decreasing due to changes in the earth's albedo."

Comments

Re:gore

[pcolaman]

How about setting them on fire and then tossing them at Gore? Would be a more efficient use IMO.

Re:Oh goody...

[Moridineas]

So your theory is that mankind, through pollution--including but not limited to CO2, etc--is dramatically destabilizing the global climate. Like The Day After Tomorrow but less lame?

Why? Where's the historical evidence for this, or what evidence are you basing this on?

Re:Global Warming

[ArcherB]

To borrow a phrase I have grown to hate.... citation needed. Every chart I have ever seen showed ever increasing temps until we all DIE.

Perhaps you should cite your images.

The graphs I've seen generally seem to be full of local maxima and minima. A hot period, followed by a cool period but with the overall trend continuing being upwards (ie each hot/cold cycle is warmer than the previous hot/cold cycle).

The El Nino and La Nina temperature fluctuations seem to be fairly well understood.

Ten years is not that long a time in terms of geographical-scale phenomena. It's pointless to look at the last ten years outside the context of the last 100.

BZZZZZZT! Try again.

Figures on this page were prepared by Dr. Makiko Sato. Please address questions about the figures to Dr. Sato or to Dr. James Hansen.

Don't believe anything with James Hansen's name on it. Let's see what we can find on his Wikipedia page:
Hansen was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa.
(Funny, I don't see Climatology or even Meteorology on there)

Hansen was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1996[7] and he received a $250,000 Heinz Environment Award[8] for his research on global warming in 2001.
(Heinze, Heinze, Heinze? Where have I heard that name. Oh, yeah, I remember. She was that moonbat freak who was married to that Herman Munster Senator who ran for president this last go-round. She is an extreme liberal, right? So, liberals paid Hansen? Isn't that the same thing as scientists who are paid by big oil companies? Why is Hansen credible, but the guys paid by big oil are not?)

More from his

wiki

page:

Correcting Climate Record Database

In August 2007 statistician Stephen McIntyre noticed that many U.S. temperature records from the Historical Climatology Network (USHCN) displayed a discontinuity around the year 2000. ...

In a website commentary[33], Hansen indicated that he felt that Fox [News] and the Washington Times, among others, had overreacted to this mistake, stating that they had "gone bananas." Hansen quoted the United States Founding Fathers and a Native American mystic and argued that "The deceit behind the attempts to discredit evidence of climate change reveals matters of importance. This deceit has a clear purpose: to confuse the public about the status of knowledge of global climate change, thus delaying effective action to mitigate climate change", and that "The contrarians will be remembered as court jesters. There is no point to joust with court jesters ... The real deal is this: the âroyaltyâ(TM) controlling the court, the ones with the power, the ones with the ability to make a difference, with the ability to change our course, the ones who will live in infamy if we pass the tipping points, are the captains of industry, CEOs in fossil fuel companies such as EXXON/Mobil, automobile manufacturers, utilities, all of the leaders who have placed short-term profit above the fate of the planet and the well-being of our children."

[edit] Statement About Extreme Scenarios

A controversy[citation needed] over his support for "objective" and "realistic" climate scenarios centers on what critics call a justification for "extreme" scenarios in this quote:

"Emphasis on extreme scenarios may have been appropriate at one time, when the public and decision-makers were relatively unaware of the global warming issue, and energy sources such as âoesynfuelsâ, shale oil and tar sands were receiving strong consideration. Now, however, the need is for demonstrably objective climate forcing scenarios consistent with what is realistic under current conditions. Scenarios tha

Re:Ignoring the real problem

[russotto]

People invented this thing called the "battery" about 100 years ago, look into it. Along the same lines, even on still days where you live, there's probably a south-facing hill nearby that's always windy about, oh, 80 feet above the ground.

Don't think so. Some pretty high flags were still today.

Cloudy days still let current solar cells work at about 25% efficiency, and the thousands of square feet of roof your home or apartment building has can generate a surprising amount of energy, provided you're not wasting anything.

Thousands of square feet? My house isn't that big. As for waste... sorry, I follow the laws of thermodynamics, so waste is inevitable.

That's what people said right before the airplane was invented/blockquote.
And inventing the airplane wasn't that easy!

Re:Burn Gore's Nobel Prize to keep warm

[ConceptJunkie]

Over what he's made from his movie and books and everything, he could retire with more than any hundred of us regular folks are likely to ever see in our lives. Al Gore has been a poster child for the wisdom of P. T. Barnum.