Met Office releases newfigures which show no warming in 15 years
By David Rose (Mail onSunday, UK)
Lastupdated at 5:38 AM on 29th January 2012
The supposed ‘consensus’ on man-made global warming is facing an inconvenient challenge after the release of newtemperature data showing the planet has not warmed for the past 15 years.
The figures suggest that we could even be heading for a mini ice age to rival the 70-yeartemperature drop that saw frostfairs held on the Thames in the 17th Century.
Based on readings from more than 30,000 measuring stations, the data was issued last week without fanfare by theMet Office and the University of East Anglia Climatic Research Unit. Itconfirms that the risingtrend in world temperatures ended in 1997.
A painting, dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius depicts one of manyfrost fairs on the River Thames during the mini ice age
Meanwhile, leading climate scientists yesterday told The Mail onSunday that, after emitting unusually high levels of energy throughout the 20thCentury, the sun is now headingtowards a ‘grand minimum’ in its output, threatening cold summers, bitter winters and ashortening of the season available for growing food.
Solar output goes through 11-year cycles, with high numbers ofsunspots seen at their peak.
We are now at what should be the peak of what scientists call ‘Cycle 24’ – which is why lastweek’s solar storm resulted in sightings of the aurora borealis further souththan usual. But sunspotnumbers are running at less than half those seen during cyclepeaks in the 20th Century.
Thames freeze in Oxford, 1890
Analysis by experts at NASA and the University of Arizona –derived from magnetic-field measurements 120,000 miles beneath the sun’ssurface – suggest that Cycle25, whose peak is due in 2022, will be a great deal weaker still.
According to a paper issued last week by the Met Office, there isa 92 per cent chance that both Cycle 25 and those taking place in thefollowing decades will be as weakas, or weaker than, the ‘Dalton minimum’ of 1790 to 1830. Inthis period, named after the meteorologist John Dalton, average temperatures inparts of Europe fell by 2C.
However, it is also possible that the new solar energy slump could be as deep as the ‘Maunder minimum’ (afterastronomer Edward Maunder), between 1645 and 1715 in the coldest part of the ‘Little Ice Age’ when,as well as the Thames frost fairs, the canals of Holland froze solid.
Yet, in its paper, the Met Office claimed that the consequencesnow would be negligible – because the impact of the sun on climate is far lessthan man-made carbon dioxide. Although the sun’s output is likely to decrease until 2100, ‘Thiswould only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08C.’ Peter Stott, oneof the authors, said: ‘Our findings suggest a reduction of solar activity to levels not seen in hundreds ofyears would be insufficient to offset the dominant influence ofgreenhouse gases.’
Frost frolic at Bank Side, Thames, 1920s
Thames freeze in London, 1855
These findings are fiercelydisputed by other solar experts.
‘World temperaturesmay end up a lot cooler than now for 50 years or more,’said Henrik Svensmark, director of the Center for Sun-Climate Research atDenmark’s National Space Institute. ‘Itwill take a long battle to convince some climate scientists that the sun isimportant. It may well be that the sun is going to demonstrate this on itsown, without the need for their help.’
He pointed out that, in claiming the effect of the solar minimumwould be small, the Met Office was relying on the same computer models that arebeing undermined by the current pause in global-warming.
CO2 levels have continued to rise without interruption and, in2007, the Met Office claimed thatglobal warming was about to ‘come roaring back’. Itsaid that between 2004 and2014 there would be an overall increase of 0.3C. In2009, it predicted that at least three of the years 2009 to 2014 would breakthe previous temperature record set in 1998.
So far there is no sign of any of this happening. But yesterday a Met Office spokesman insistedthat its models were still valid.
Frost Fair Mug, glass with engravedsilver mount, made in London, perhaps Southwark, (museum no. C.156-1997).Victorian & Albert Museum, 1684. Amiraculous survival, this tiny glass mug is a souvenir of the Frost Fair,bought from a stall erected upon the Thames ice when the river froze during thewinter of 1683-4.
‘The ten-year projection remains groundbreaking science. The periodfor the original projection is not over yet,’ he said.
Dr Nicola Scafetta, of Duke University inNorth Carolina, is the author of severalpapers that argue the MetOffice climate models show there shouldhave been ‘steady warming from 2000 until now’.
‘If temperatures continueto stay flat or start to cool again, the divergence between the models and recorded data willeventually become so great that the wholescientific community will question the current theories,’ hesaid.
Artist’s rendering offuture Frost Fair conditions
He believes that as theMet Office model attaches much greater significance to CO2 than to the sun, itwas bound to conclude that there would not be cooling. ‘The real issue is whether the model itself isaccurate,’ Dr Scafetta said. Meanwhile, one of America’s most eminentclimate experts, Professor Judith Curry of the Georgia Institute ofTechnology, said she found the Met Office’s confident prediction of a ‘negligible’ impact difficult to understand.
‘The responsible thing to do would be to accept the fact that themodels may have severe shortcomings when it comes to the influence of the sun,’ said ProfessorCurry. As for the warming pause, shesaid that many scientists are not surprised.’
She argued it is becomingevident that factors otherthan CO2 play an important role in rising or falling warmth, suchas the 60-year water temperature cycles in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
‘They have insufficientlybeen appreciated in terms of global climate,’ said Prof Curry. When both oceanswere cold in the past, such as from 1940 to 1970, the climate cooled. The Pacific cycle ‘flipped’ back from warm to coldmode in 2008 and the Atlanticis also thought likely to flip in the next few years .
Pal Brekke, senior adviserat the Norwegian Space Centre, said somescientists found the importance of water cycles difficult to accept,because doing so means admittingthat the oceans – not CO2 – caused much of the global warmingbetween 1970 and 1997.
A regular feature of Frost Fairs was a printing presswhere, as a souvenir, the visitor could have his name set in type and printedon a leaflet bearing a picture of the fair and some doggerel verse. These souvenirs are now extremely rare andthis one had been bought by William Hogarth when he visited the Frost Fair on 16February, 1740 and instead of his own name he had the name of his dog “Trump”printed on it. Copyright © The PeterJackson Collection
The same goes for the impact of the sun – which was highly active for much of the 20th Century.
‘Nature is about to carryout a very interesting experiment,’ he said. ‘Ten or 15 years from now, we will be able to determine much betterwhether the warming of the late 20th Century really was caused by man-made CO2, or by naturalvariability.’
Meanwhile, since the end of last year, world temperatureshave fallen by more than half a degree, as the cold ‘La Nina’effect has re-emerged in the South Pacific.
‘We’re now well into thesecond decade of the pause,’ said Benny Peiser, director of the Global WarmingPolicy Foundation. ‘If wedon’t see convincing evidence of global warming by 2015, it will start tobecome clear whether the models are bunk. And, if they are, theimplications for some scientists could be very serious.’
NOTE:
Not entirelyunexpected, I’mthinking.
I’m neither a climatologist nor evenparticularly science-minded, but I’m generally distrustful of shotgun conclusions regarding long-term (and especially multi-millennial)problems and sciencethat is intimately tied to politics, government-funding and “public-private partnerships” (à la Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac). Also, when a yutz like Al Gore assumes lectern position andstarts in with the damn laser-pointer about anything other than where to find superiorgrits, biscuits and gravy (a subject on which I would not question hisauthority and judgement), I become skeptical.
I reprinted this article from the Sunday Mail(UK) because I am a believer in the scientific method andthe patient, systematic search for truth over time, and it’s refreshing to note the careful, calm, qualified and considered speechof the scientists quoted in thearticle.
The story, which has been widely reported, alsoallowed me to research these atmosphericThames Frost Fair and other chilly London illustrations. (The final Frost Fair was held in 1814, but two of the pictures here – one above showing Tower Bridgeand one below showing the Houses of Parliament -- clearly reflect a vision thata revival might be imminent.) The storyabout William Hogarth’s FrostFair gift for his dog Trump isreally charming and gives us another wayto reach back and connect with this great artist.
My own suspicion, for which I’ve been called a soft-head (and worse) many times, is that global warming/climate change alarmis an indisputable example of cyclicalmillenarian apocalypse obsession,fueled largely by ourfear of mortality and reluctance to accept our relative insignificance in the universe. We cannot believe the world can or would dare to go on without us, so we’ve drawn a line in the sand stating as law, headline, broadside and symposium title, that it cannot. Then, intothis fear vacuum sweep large cohorts of Elmer Gantrys (like Al Gore, who really fits the bill in most respects,except for being really good looking like Burt Lancaster) ready to charge a buck, steal a buck, loot, pillage, lecture, demean the polis and its citizens, and degrade the language with neologisms.
All of this of this was on full display during the ridiculous and heavily ridiculed 2009 Copenhagen global warming summit held under United Nations auspices, which predictably accomplished absolutely nothing, apart from allowing the enormous U.S. delegation of senior legislators and their lackeys the opportunity conspicuously (like a bonfire) to burn vast amounts of fossil fuel in round-trip unnecessary international travel, expel hot air on the ground and run up astronomical limousine, hotel, restaurant and bar bills at taxpayer expense.
At the time, I was doing some consulting work for a start-up "virtue venture," a nascent media company planning to film a documentary about the conference, focusing on an art project called the Carbon Cube, which was a site-specific sculpture created by the architect Christophe Cornubert, seated in St. Jorgens Lake, near Copenhagen's Tycho Brahe Planetarium. The Carbon Cube represented the amount of space one metric ton of carbon dioxide would occupy if stored at standard atmospheric pressure -- specifically, a space that is the equivalent of 27 feet cubed, or 19,683 cubic feet.
My company was being engaged to film the art projectin order to educateand edify students allover the world.
I’m genuinely happy to report that the UnitedNations people we met with were all terrific – civilized, articulate, bearing exceptional expense accounts and good taste in wine and restaurants. So were the sculptor’s San Francisco-basedrepresentatives.
But the sculpture itself was boringand leaden -- aclear example of the limitsof political art conceived as argument by another means, rather than an affair of the head, heart andHeaven.
Like the conference, it was adamp squib,earthbound, not celestial (or even airborne), a complete waste of space.
A Frost Fair? Sounds nice. Especially with an Ice Palace.
Grays Inn Maskby Pyewackett
Final Frost Fair, 1814
Future Frost Fair site?
