|
9 Oct 09 - “For the last 11 years we have not observed any
increase in global temperatures,” admits this article by BBC
correspondent Paul Hudson. “The warmest year recorded globally was
not in 2008 or 2007, but in 1998.”
“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.”
“Climate change skeptics argue that any warming was caused by the
energy from the Sun increasing,” says Hudson. “After all 98% of the
Earth's warmth comes from the Sun.”
But research by the Royal Society seems to rule out solar
influences. "Warming in the last 20 to 40 years can't have been
caused by solar activity," said Dr Piers Forster from Leeds
University, a leading contributor to this year's Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Meanwhile, solar scientist Piers Corbyn from Weatheraction, a
company specialising in long range weather forecasting, claims that
solar charged particles impact us far more than is currently
accepted. These charged particles are almost entirely responsible
for what happens to global temperatures, says Corbyn.
Others blame the oceans.
“What is really interesting at the moment is what is happening to
our oceans,” Hudson continues. “They are the Earth's great heat
stores. In the last few years [the Pacific Ocean] has been losing
its warmth and has recently started to cool down.”
Research by Professor Don Easterbrook from Western
Washington University shows that ocean and global temperatures are
correlated.
The oceans warm and cool in a cycle, says
Easterbrook. The most important cycle is the Pacific decadal oscillation
(PDO). For much of the 1980s and 1990s, it was in a positive cycle
(warmer than average), and global temperatures were also warm. But in
the last few years it has been losing its warmth and has started to cool
down. In the past, these cycles have lasted for nearly 30 years.
The global cooling from 1945 to 1977 coincided with one of these cold
Pacific cycles, says Professor Easterbrook. But now, "the PDO cool mode
has replaced the warm mode in the Pacific Ocean, virtually assuring us
of about 30 years of global cooling."
And last month Mojib Latif, a member of the IPCC (Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change) says that we may indeed be in a period of
cooling worldwide temperatures that could last another 10-20 years.
Professor Latif is based at the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at
Kiel University in Germany and is one of the world's top climate
modellers.
So what can we expect in the next few years?
The Met Office says that warming is set to resume quickly and strongly.
Sceptics say that because of ocean and solar cycles a period of global
cooling is more likely.
Count me as one of the skeptics.
See entire article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8299079.stm
Thanks to Andrew in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Winona CAmpbell, Dean
Haskell, William T. Sellers, Lyn Jenkins in Gwbert, Cardigan , Wales,
UK, Earl Adams, Jr. Greenacres, WA, Brad at WCCO, and to John Brown in
Ardrossan, Scotland for this link |