"Skeptics on Human Climate Impact Seize on Cold Spell" (NYT)

Thank you, New York Times.  It's about time that somebody counteracted all the crap going around the right-wing blogosphere about "global cooling" just because of one cool month due to a strong La Niña cycle.

 The problem with global-warming skeptics is that they are short-term focused.  Not surprising, since every aspect of our life is centered around short-term predictions: quarterly financial reports, weekly weather summaries .  However, the real danger in focusing in only short-term mindsets, is that you ignore the long-term trends.  Look at our stock market.  If you only looked at the past couple years, you'd assume there was a downward trend in the market.....take this view over the past 10 years, and you would see a continued uptrend.  If you only focus on the short-term, global weather temperature values look like a bunch of noise.....take this over the long term, and then there is another story.

For the doubters, the argument is easy:  you say that the earth is warming....but I can show you that this winter it was colder.  They can't see the forest from the trees.  

To understand what you are up against, take this little story to heart.  I recently discussed with a co-worker the topic of global warming.  They said global warming was a complete farce, he read so in a Michael Crichton (the auther of Jurassic Park).  If that just doesn't sum up the issue of global-warming skeptics, then nothing will.......<shakes head in dismay>

Yeah, another frequent argument is 'how can they predict 50 years in the future when they can't predict the weather a week in advance?'.  So many people just don't understand the difference between weather and climate, short-term and long-term.  We need to start teaching some environmental science in schools.

Michael Crichton's State of Fear is pretty frequently referenced.  Not as much as The Great Global Warming Swindle.  Both are utter garbage.  I didn't read Crichton's book, but the part I hear about most often is that James Hansen's global warming prediction of 1988 was off by 300%.  The way Crichton arrived at this conclusion was to ignore the 2 most accurate scenarios.  Hansen produced 3 different scenarios which were based on different emissions scenarios - A had a rapid increase in our greenhouse gas emissions, B was a steady increase, and C had emissions levelling off.  Scenario B was the closest to how our emissions actually changed, and Scenario B was also closest to how the global temperature changed.  But Crichton erased Scenarios B and C and just showed Scenario A, making it seem like Hansen was way off.

So through the dishonesty in State of Fear, Crichton fuels the misconception that climate models are inaccurate and unreliable.

 Very nice post!  I appreciate the analysis of Crichton's premise.  If you cherry pick the data, you can always state your case.  Taking all the data as a whole, makes the case for an argument much more difficult.  

Excellent work!

Thanks.  Indeed virtually every global warming 'skeptic' argument is made by cherrypicking data and ignoring the whole picture (as you can tell from my global warming myths wiki).  Even the few skeptical scientists tend to focus on one small aspect, like the temperature change in the troposphere, but generally ignore the vast amounts of evidence supporting anthropogenic global warming.

and, as winter sets in, this gets worse and worse!

i enjoyed tamino's short take on recent 'warming stopped' arguments, and the realclimate article that inspired it.

Hah yeah the NY Times could re-run this article every winter.

After the snowflurries in Las Vegas and LA, there was a period where 12 of 24 questions in YA global warming were suggesting that these weather events were evidence that global warming had stopped.  A little later in the day, 11 of 25 questions made the same error.

You could tell in almost every one of these questions, people were looking for reasons to reject anthropogenic global warming.  So I could tell that if I tried to explain the difference between weather and climate, I'd just be wasting my time.

That really bugs me when people make an error like that but don't realize it and aren't open-minded enough to learn from it.  They're not really asking a sincere question.  I hate that.

In response to these seemingly endless winter weather questions, I added Myth #13 to the Myths Wiki.

Myth #13:  A cold day or snowflurry in my town means global warming has stopped

As it's a wiki, you guys can feel free to edit or add to it.

Well I think you're overlooking some points that kind of explain why this belief is so common among the average person (note that on YA, it was mostly people who never participate in the GW section that asked those questions.)

1. It's not abnormal for people in the media to connect yesterday's unusually hot temperatures, or hurricane Katrina, to global warming. Most people don't read science reports or books, so these claims that small weather events are signs of global warming are all they hear and become, in their minds, the main evidence for AGW. So it's only natural for them to think that a slurry of cold days is sufficient evidence for global cooling. (Same goes for reports on ice levels, polar bear populations, etc.)

2. For some reason people insist on connecting "snow" with "cold". I guess they've forgotten that all you need for snow is temperatures below 32 degrees F, and moisture in the air. Freezing temperatures occur everywhere in the US for at least some point during the year (just look at Vegas' average temperatures for December/January.) As for moisture, this is almost 100% controlled by weather; not to mention the fact that we should expect moisture levels in the air to gradually increase as global warming continues.

Good points, I'll try to incorporate them into Myth #13.

Speaking of the snow myth, Open Mind has a really interesting analysis of snowcover trends.  Tamino shows that over the past 40 years there's been no significant trend in winter or fall snowcover, but spring and summer have declined dramatically.

"It’s really not a surprise that there’s no trend in winter snow cover. Warmer temperature tends to melt snow, but also causes more water vapor in the air, so there’s more possibility of snow. And as long as it’s still cold enough to snow (which it still is during winter), we shouldn’t be surprised by no change in snow cover.

Springtime snow cover tells a different story...This time there is a statistically significant trend, snow cover declining at about 68,000 km^2/yr. This is due to higher temperature causing earlier, and greater, springtime snowmelt.

The trend is even stronger in summer...Average summer snow cover has declined at a whopping 99,000 km^2/yr. Again, higher temperature is the reason. The lowest average summer snow cover yet recorded was for 2008; the 2nd-lowest was 2007."

"the rapid decline of springtime snow cover over the last four decades, and the even more rapid decline of summer snow cover, show the mark of global warming unambiguously."

tamino is great. i understand nearly half of what he posts! he did a bit on temp. variation, and what made instant sense to me as a gardener was a graph showing weekly highs and lows; the highs werent all that higher but there were loads less deep lows. i like th eodd sharp frost to kill off the overwintering pests, and havnt had a decent cold snap here for 4 or 5 years. had two already this year, thanks pacific oscillation or whatever.

well, even the The Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization has had to point out the difference now. a tenacious little meme.

Europe shivers, but world is getting hotter

www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5082S720090109

more statistical analysis.

Scientists Refute Argument Of Climate Skeptics

ScienceDaily (Jan. 10, 2009) — Scientists at the GKSS Research Centre of Geesthacht and the University of Bern have investigated the frequency of warmer than average years between 1880 and 2006 for the first time. The result: the observed increase of warm years after 1990 is not a statistical accident........

it is extremely unlikely that the frequency of warm record years after 1990 could be an accident and concluded that it is rather influenced by a external driver.

The fact that the 13 warmest years since 1880 could have accured by accident after 1990 corresponds to a likelihood of no more than 1:10,000.

These likelihood can be illustrated by using the game of chance "heads or tails": the likelihood is the same as 14 heads in a row.

Ah so basically they're calculating the probability that the recent warming could be a coincidence.  Not exactly a surprising result :-)

article here debunking 'the earth hasnt warmed', with a nice pic of increasing ocean heat content.

 bravenewclimate.com/2008/11/23/what-bob-carter-and-andrew-bolt-fail-to-grasp/

That was a really good page, with links to some of the best 'global warming has stopped' debunks.  It also answered your question regarding how much energy is going into melting ice (7%, apparently).

i like this site! yes, the article answers my q

"Indeed, it has been shown that about 90% of this additional energy has be used to heat water and about 7% to melt ice. Only about 3% is left over to warm the air. So we shouldn’t be at all surprised if air temperatures show the weakest response to the enhanced greenhouse effect - at least in the short term."

and it has cartoons :-D