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As the El Nino collapses, Joe Bastardi of Accuweather describes his forecast for the next year.
Among his predictions:
- Big north Atlantic hurricane season due to La Nina in the Pacific and tripole of temperatures in the Atlantic.
- Normal to mild winter for the continental US.
- Cold winter in Alaska.
- Overall global cooling.
Brian Williams reported the other night that 2009 was the warmest average global temerature ever recorded. What's with that?
ReplyDeleteHi Hugh,
ReplyDeleteWell, I try not to watch the network news, since it is so politicized. :-)
The problem with global temperatures is who you want to believe.
If you use James Hanson's NASA GISS data (which is the "warmest" data-set), the decade from 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record. But even that data-set only shows 2009 as fifth warmest on record, so it really seems that Brian Williams screwed up.
Hansen's GISS has been discredited for several serious lapses -- which are so great as to verge on fraud. One, it uses ground temperature measurements from long distances away (1000's of miles in areas like the arctic) to extrapolate temperatures into areas where their are no stations. Two, it "homogenizes" actual measurements based on other stations near by (even when the nearby stations are not actually close). These modifications almost universally result in a correction to a higher temperature. Three, while saying that it corrects for the urban heat island effect, in a preponderance of cases it actually applies inverse corrections, making city temperature hotter than the actual measurements, and rural temperatures cooler. Four, over the last 20 years, these corrections have consistently become larger year by year, even repeatedly changing temperatures in the past, always resulting in a larger positive slope. Five, GISS "corrects" temperatures in the 1800's to be colder than the actual measurements and recent temperatures to be hotter. All of these corrections to individual stations, when analyzed have been shown to be a blatant series of step functions simply added to the data to stair-step it up in recent decades. Seven, it does not account for the fact that in the last 30 years nearly all rural temperature stations have been closed (or their data is ignored) and replaced with stations at airports out on the tarmac. Eight, it does not account for the fact that cities have grown up around temperature stations, with asphalt parking lots, buildings, roads, etc. being built in many cases right up to the stations. Nine, it does not account for the fact that the transition to automated measurement systems in the 1980s resulted in many stations being moved to be much closer to buildings, or even onto the roofs of buildings so that cable runs could be reduced. The step functions from these changes can often be seen in the data. And ten, James Hansen is the inventor of the whole concept of global warming, and is constantly involved in radical protests. His management of the main data set that "proves" global warming is the wolf guarding the hen-house.
Without Hansen's "corrections" and "homogenizations" the actual measured temperature data, even with the "heat island" and other issues discussed above, shows little trend over the last 30 years.
The air temperature data from satellite measurements (University of Alabama at Huntsville) also shows very little trend -- certainly consistent with variations in the past.
Even one of the main global warming theory advocates, Phil Jones, of the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University (UK), was forced to admit (after "Climategate" scandal) that there has been no statistically significant global warming for the last 15 years.
So there is really no measured evidence for global warming. There are only computer models. And the computer models predictions have not held up.
Does this mean global warming is not happening or will not happen? No one knows, but I believe we should invest in a much better system of measurement stations, and take at least another 30 years of data before we decide to impoverish and enslave the world chasing a chimera.
Scott