Global Cooling is the New Global Warming.

It's the Sun spots, baby!

Several trends in sunspot activity for this cycle are becoming clear.

First, northern sunspot activity is near its end while southern activity is at its zenith. The only drama left is when will southern spot polarity reversal occur. That is expected any time. The sun right now is a magnetic monopole. The sun will finish its inexorable journey to sunspot minimum after southern sunspot polarity reversal occurs.

The decline in sunspot magnetic field strength is continuing, but showing signs of leveling off along a shallow concave curve. Umbral intensity is showing a similar change in the reverse.

Sunspots may not disappear completely, but they will be so weak that a long term decrease in solar wind and a slight but prolonged decrease in the sun’s temperature will result.

The latest solar data from this month reinforces the belief that our sun is headed into a long-term period of low solar activity.

As time goes on a link between decreasing solar activity and the halt in global warming 17 years ago becomes harder and harder to deny.

It's like the American Left has been a constant source of Schadenfreude since October....

In other news, there is snowfall in Jerusalem and Cairo, and this is the 5th anniversary of Al Gore's famous prediction that in 5 years there would be no ice in the Arctic.

Cue hysterial laughter....

The new scientific consensus is that the world is entering into a "little ice age."

The good news is that Global Warming may be off the menu.

The bad news is that we may be looking at another Little Ice Age.

Lockwood thinks there is now a 25 per cent chance of a repetition of the last grand minimum, the late 17th century Maunder Minimum, when there were no sunspots for 70 years. Two years ago, Lockwood put the chances of this happening at less than 10 per cent (Journal of Geophysical Research, DOI: 10.1029/2011JD017013).

Little ice age

The Maunder Minimum coincided with the worst European winters of the little ice age, a period lasting centuries when several regions around the globe experienced unusual cooling. Tree ring studies suggest it cooled the northern hemisphere by up to 0.4 °C.

But Lockwood says we should not expect a new grand minimum to bring on a new little ice age. Human-induced global warming, he says, is already a more important force in global temperatures than even major solar cycles. Temperatures have risen by 0.85 °C since 1880, with more expected, according to the most recent assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

There may still be noticeable consequences. For instance, long term cold winters in the UK are common when solar activity is low. And less solar activity can slow the jet stream, triggering a suite of interlinked extreme weather events like the Russian heatwave of 2010, and the devastating floods in Pakistan that same year.

Global Warming - The last 10,000 Years.

It's been warm and its been cold and none of it had anything to do with humans.

In other words, we’re pretty lucky to be here during this rare, warm period in climate history.  But the broader lesson is, climate doesn’t stand still.  It doesn’t even stand stay on the relatively constrained range of the last 10,000 years for more than about 10,000 years at a time.

Does this mean that CO2 isn’t a greenhouse gas? No.

Does it mean that it isn’t warming? No.

Does it mean that we shouldn’t develop clean, efficient technology that gets its energy elsewhere than burning fossil fuels?  Of course not.  We should do all those things for many reasons — but there’s plenty of time to do them the right way, by developing nanotech.  (There’s plenty of money, too, but it’s all going to climate science at the moment. :-) ) And that will be a very good thing to have done if we do fall back into an ice age, believe me.

For climate science it means that the Hockey Team climatologists’ insistence that human-emitted CO2 is the only thing that could account for the recent warming trend is probably poppycock.

For 19 years, we've been hearing about the horrible effects Global Warming has been having on the world...

....which is weird since basically there was no warming as predicted.

The failure of the theory does not phase the true believers - the last two decades are sent down the memory hole before our very eyes!

The report also addressed the so-called “pause”, or the comparative lack of atmospheric warming, seen since 1998, which scientists said was far from unusual.

The report makes clear that each of the past three decades has been successively warmer at the Earth’s surface than any preceding decade since 1850, and that 1983-2012 was likely to have been the warmest 30-year period for 1,400 years.

The skeptical comments to this agitprop are worth reading.

Is this science...

...or the Nixon administration?

World's top scientists told to cover up fact that there has been no warming in 16 years.

Great moments in Science.

“The entire north polar ice cap will be gone in 5 years.”
 - Former Vice President Al Gore, December 13, 2008.

But actually the 2013 ice pack has grown 60% from 2012 and is at the same size as 1971.

Do these clowns get any of their predictions right?

Global Cooling.

Ice caps are 60% larger than the previous year.

A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent.

The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.

Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores.

Way to go BBC!

Remember last month when there was no arctic ice whatsoever?

Global warming expedition foiled by ice.

Global Warming - Is there nothing it can't do?

Michael Barone writes:

It’s the coolest summer in a century, or at least the government is reporting the fewest number of 100 degree days at U.S. HCN (Historical Climatology Network) stations. Yet I’m sure that somewhere someone is arguing that this is a result of man-made global warming — or, er, climate change. For years, global warming alarmists have claimed that any unusual or unpleasant weather is the result of global warming, even as, inconveniently, global temperatures seem to have plateaued or fallen over the last 15 years, contrary to global warming theory.

The science is settled, alarmists like to insist. But science is never settled; scientific theories are by definition falsifiable and sometimes are falsified. Recently Interior Secretary Sally Jewell assured an audience of DOI employees that everyone there believed in global warming. This is an exhortation more appropriate for a religious service than a regulatory agency meeting. For many global warming has become a substitute for religious, with rituals (recycling), festivals (Earth Day) and even indulgences (carbon offsets for Al Gore’s private jet travel). Sally Jewell’s exhortation was just another form of worship.

Does this mean that global warming theories have been conclusively refuted? No. There’s a difference between weather (short-term) and climate (long-term). If carbon dioxide emissions were the only factor affecting climate, then global warming alarmist theories would indubitably be correct. But other factors seem to affect climate as well — like the sun, clouds, oceans and the interactions between them and other factors. Scientists don’t fully understand how these factors interact. It makes sense for policymakers and citizens to keep an eye out for possible climate change and to think about how to mitigate any negative effects. But for the moment let’s appreciate this summer’s moderate temperatures.

Global Warming - 2013

Mildest summer on record:

This summer, the US has experienced the fewest number of 100 degree readings in a century. The five hottest summers (1936, 1934, 1954, 1980 and 1930) all occurred with CO2 below 350 PPM.

CO2 went over 400 PPM this year, indicating that heatwaves and CO2 have nothing to do with each other. Scientists who claim otherwise are either incompetent, criminal, or both.

Here's an interesting way to restore public confidence in science...

...don't be, you know, a political hack.

Even some of my colleagues think I should be clearer about my political beliefs. In a Twitter debate last month Gavin Schmidt, climate scientistand blogger, argued we should state our preferences to avoidaccusations of having a hidden agenda.

I believe advocacy by climate scientists has damaged trust in the science. We risk our credibility, our reputation for objectivity, if we are not absolutely neutral. At the very least, it leaves us open to criticism. I find much climate scepticism is driven by a belief that environmental activism has influenced how scientists gather and interpret evidence. So I've found my hardline approach successful in taking the politics and therefore – pun intended – the heat out of climate science discussions.

They call me an "honest broker", asking for "more Dr Edwards and fewer zealous advocates". Crucially, they say this even though my scientific views are absolutely mainstream.

But it's not just about improving trust. In this highly politicised arena, climate scientists have a moral obligation to strive for impartiality. We have a platform we must not abuse. For a start, we rarely have the necessary expertise. I absolutely disagree with Gavin that we likely know far more about the issues involved in making policy choices than [our] audience.

Even scientists who are experts – such as those studying the interactions between climate, economy and politics, with "integrated assessment models" – cannot speak for us because political decisions necessarily depend on values. There are many ways to try to minimise climate change (with mitigation or geoengineering) or its impacts (adaptation) and, given a pot of money, we must decide what we most want to protect. How do we weigh up economic growth against ecosystem change? Should we prioritise the lives and lifestyles of people today or in the future? Try to limit changes in temperature or rainfall? These questions cannot be answered with scientific evidence alone. To me, then, it is simple: scientists misuse their authority if they publicise their preferred policy options.

Some say it is safe to express our views with sufficient context: "this is just my personal opinion, but … " In my experience such caveats are ignored. Why else would we be asked "what should we do?" by the public or media, if not with an expectation of expertise, or the desire for data to replace a difficult decision? Rather than being incoherent – "I don't know much about policy, but I know what I like" – or dictatorial – "If I were to rule the world, I would do this" – we should have the courage and humility not to answer.

Others say it is simplistic and impossible to separate science from policy, or that all individuals are advocates. But there is a difference between giving an estimate of the consequences of a particular action and giving an opinion on how or whether to take that action; between risk assessment, estimating the probability of change and its effect on things we care about, and risk management, deciding how to reduce or live with that risk. A flood forecaster provides a map of the probability of flooding, but she does not decide what is an unacceptable level of risk, or how to spend the budget to reduce the risk (sea defences; regulation of building and insurance).

We must be vigilant against what Roger Pielke Jr in The Honest Brokercalls "stealth issue advocacy": claiming we are talking about science when really we are advocating policy. This is clearly expressed by Robert T Lackey:

"Often I hear or read in scientific discourse words such as degradation, improvement, good, and poor. Such value-laden words should not be used to convey scientific information because they imply a preferred … state [or] class of policy options ... The appropriate science words are, for example, change, increase, or decrease." (Science, Scientists and Policy Advocacy)

*Sheesh*

Io9 is publicizing a picture of a dead polar bear as evidence of global warming.

Have Polar Bears never starved to death before?

This couldn't have anything to do with Polar Bear overpopulation?

After all, there hasn't been "global warming" for the last 17 years and the Arctic had its shortest summer on record.

No Global Warming for 16 Years...

...and the problem of the non-linear warming caused by CO2.

In any reasonable scenario, carbon dioxide can’t cause catastrophic global warming by itself. This is because the absorption of infrared radiation by CO2 is non-linear. The first 20 parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere account for about one-half of the greenhouse warming from CO2. Adding more carbon dioxide has a diminishing warming effect. Doubling atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm, whether from natural or man-made causes, would by itself increase Earth’s surface temperature by only about 1.2oC.

So how do the climate models reach their alarming conclusions? They assume that positive feedback from water vapor will cause additional warming. The argument is that, since warmer air can hold more moisture, water vapor will increase in the atmosphere as Earth warms. Since water vapor is a greenhouse gas, additional water vapor will add additional warming to that caused by CO2.

The assumption of positive feedback from water vapor has been integral to the climate models since the 1960s, when Dr. Syukuro Manabe developed one of the first models. As part of his model, he assumed that global relative humidity remained constant as the atmosphere heated up. This meant that the atmosphere would hold increasing amounts of water vapor, adding additional greenhouse heating to that of carbon dioxide.

But, satellite data shows atmospheric water vapor to be relatively constant over the last 30 years. In addition, peer-reviewed papers by Lindzen and Choi (2011) and Spencer and Braswell (2010) show that climate system feedbacks are likely to be low or even negative. Rather than adding to the warming, water vapor and clouds may even act to reduce warming from rising atmospheric CO2.

Well, that's awkward.

No statistically significant warming for 17+ years:

It is better to focus on the ever-widening discrepancy between predicted and observed warming rates. The IPCC’s forthcoming Fifth Assessment Report backcasts the interval of 34 models’ global warming projections to 2005, since when the world should have been warming at a rate equivalent to 2.33 Cº/century. Instead, it has been cooling at a rate equivalent to a statistically-insignificant 0.87 Cº/century:

The variance between prediction and observation over the 100 months from January 2005 to April 2013 is thus equivalent to 3.2 Cº/century.//

Also, here is the chart that explains why "warmists" can claim that three of the hottest years in the last 50 have occurred in the last 17 years, i.e., those hot years were followed by "cold" winters and cooler years, which is to say that on average there was no increase in global warmth.