By Paul Hudson
Climate correspondent, BBC News
This headline may come as a bit of a surprise, so too might that fact that the warmest year recorded globally was not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.
But it is true. For the last 11 years we have not observed any increase in global temperatures.
And our climate models did not forecast it, even though man-made carbon dioxide, the gas thought to be responsible for warming our planet, has continued to rise.
So what on Earth is going on?
Tonight’s Phillies game was snowed out.
Altitude + October = snow
Stop playing baseball in football season.
In 2007 it was claimed that the top 11 warmest years on record occurred in the last 13 years.
link
Was that not true at the time?
It’s important to remember that considerable yearly variation in temperatures is the norm. If you look at NASA temperature data you see that 1998 temperatures were a significant spike over and above the mean trend of general warming. It’s too early to say whether the warming trend has recently levelled off, is decreasing, or is still increasing. Which is rather the point of the BBC article.
Fixed that for you.
Interesting that in this period of “cooling”, the mean global temperatures have remained stable, rather than going down.
Here’s the latest from the green
profitprophet Al Gore, peace be upon him.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf-fzVH6v_U
The issue with science is that it depends so much on money from the taxpayer. The taxpayer is not going to want to fund things that are remotely important into his day to days life. So in order to get the money, “scientists” try to “sex up” their findings.
The politicians are happy because this is an easy way to “pump money” out of our pocket.
Ah, the old “it stopped in 1998”.
“And our climate models did not forecast it” — climatologists can only predict trends, not whether a given year will be a record. Additionally, global warming does not mean that every single year has to top the year before, any more than a rising economy means that the NASDAQ has to rise every single day.