Wonderful, Wonderful Coping With Deniers
The Flat Ten Years of Climate Temperature
Never mind the stolen climatologists' e-mails (aka Climate-gate), the biggie among climate change deniers is the fact that worldwide temperatures have been more or less flat for the last ten years or so. "SEE!?" they say, "NO WARMING!"
Well, three things: (1.) The flat temperature where the thermometer is stuck is still warm enough to be melting the North Polar Cap and glaciers all over the world, i.e. "stuck on warm." (2.) A likely reason for the pause in warming is that the sun is in "the deepest solar minimum in almost 100 years" cutting its radiation to the Earth - a situation not likely to last very long. (3.) In the context of even a brief period of time - one century - this flat spot is just a normal wiggle in the temperature graph.
See the flattening there? (top chart, right side) When the sun "wakes up," you can bet the line will start up again.
Trends aren't smooth lines. They wiggle. Seen over 1000 years (bottom chart), you can see a truly frightening trend since 1900.
Deniers, of course, are mostly on the payrolls of Big Energy, so why do we take them any more seriously than those who were on the payrolls of Big Tobacco?
I just don't know.
Chart credit
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Never mind the stolen climatologists' e-mails (aka Climate-gate), the biggie among climate change deniers is the fact that worldwide temperatures have been more or less flat for the last ten years or so. "SEE!?" they say, "NO WARMING!"
Well, three things: (1.) The flat temperature where the thermometer is stuck is still warm enough to be melting the North Polar Cap and glaciers all over the world, i.e. "stuck on warm." (2.) A likely reason for the pause in warming is that the sun is in "the deepest solar minimum in almost 100 years" cutting its radiation to the Earth - a situation not likely to last very long. (3.) In the context of even a brief period of time - one century - this flat spot is just a normal wiggle in the temperature graph.
See the flattening there? (top chart, right side) When the sun "wakes up," you can bet the line will start up again.
Trends aren't smooth lines. They wiggle. Seen over 1000 years (bottom chart), you can see a truly frightening trend since 1900.
Deniers, of course, are mostly on the payrolls of Big Energy, so why do we take them any more seriously than those who were on the payrolls of Big Tobacco?
I just don't know.
Chart credit
Ad credit
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