Biggest news you've never heard: Earth isn't warming
How do you reconcile the early snow in Minneapolis, ski resorts already opening in Nevada, and that August chill in North Dakota with expert warnings about a warming climate?
You don鈥檛. Why? The Earth isn鈥檛 warming right now, is why. It may even be cooling down somewhat.
Five major climate centers around the world agree that average global temperatures have not risen in the past 11 years, In fact, in eight of those years, global average temperatures dipped a tad.
Yes, there have been several record heat spikes during that time period. The Southern Hemisphere this summer saw the highest land and water temperatures ever recorded, for instance. But overall? Steady as she goes.
Reasons cited range from a slightly cooling Pacific -- a major global heat trap -- as well as renewed questions about the sun鈥檚 role in warming (about which there is much debate). Also, it鈥檚 possible, that warming itself causes CO2 levels -- which are associated with warming -- instead of the other way around.
As a result, 鈥淭he depth of the cold of the coming winters will change the social and political climate in ways that only nature can orchestrate,鈥� predicts meteorologist Art Horn.
To be sure, it鈥檚 way too early to close one鈥檚 ears to those who predict more global warming and sea level rises. The UN's climate agency predicts that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than the current hottest year on record, which was 1998. And as most of us know, the Earth warmed at historic rates in the latter half of the 20th century, leading to ice cap melts and ecological implications around the globe.
But the warming stall, some experts say, is giving at least some credence to the contrarian (and not always scientifically sound) notion that it may be natural and solar forces contributing as much, or more, than man-made CO2. At the very least, a delay in warming even as total CO2 emissions increase, throws some doubt on the cause-and-effect relationship between mankind鈥檚 activities and mean global temperatures.
Climate specialists say their models incorporate all this, and insist their predictions for continued warming will still hold true. ( from the Guardian about why the 鈥済lobal warming is taking a break鈥� theme may be off-base.)
Meteorologists at the UK鈥檚 Hadley Centre, for instance, point out that global temperatures aren鈥檛 linear, and that all data sets -- including solar phenomenon and ocean temperatures -- indicate that warming will soon pick up again.
But as Paul Hudson, the BBC鈥檚 environment reporter, points out, Mojib Latif, a member of the UN鈥檚 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, agrees that the Earth may, in fact, continue to cool for another 10 to 20 years. Mr. Latif says that doesn鈥檛 make him a climate change skeptic, just a scientist. Eventually, he says, 鈥渢he overwhelming force of man-made global warming reasserts itself,鈥� according to the BBC.
Obviously, climate change has global ecological and political implications. The cap-and-trade bill and new auto emissions rules in the US are direct responses to climate implications of CO2. December鈥檚 Copenhagen climate conference will try to seek renewed global commitment to CO2 reduction.
Taken together, what does it all mean?
鈥淐limate change -- no matter how benign or severe a course it takes -- makes legislating during the 21st century one of the most complicated and complex tasks for elected officials in human history,鈥� in the Greensboro, N.C., News-Record newspaper.
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