Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile -- the list goes on and on.
No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.
A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C -- a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.
Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn't itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.
Let's hope those factors stop fast. Cold is more damaging than heat. The mean temperature of the planet is about 54 degrees. Humans -- and most of the crops and animals we depend on -- prefer a temperature closer to 70.
7 comments:
i think it's a question of balance and we seem to be losing ours.
Hey there Tex, well I do believe in global warming and I also believe that our climate changes occur in cycles. It is our need to get ourselves in a damn hurry in this world and leave larger carbon footprints than our predecessors and that is what is getting us in more trouble.
I guess, first to answer your question, I would want to know the source of this article. Scratch that, just found it. "The Daily Tech," right? Well, every media source is swayed one way or another. So, I'd be interested to see what kind of 'news' they typically report. Yes, this cooling can happen (obvious re: ice age), but in no means does it mean that we should continue to destroy the ozone selfishly with our hummers and factories.
I always take the mentality of 'what if' What if what we do and make now compared to the early 1900s "does" have a larger impact on the earth of tomorrow? Is it such a bad thing to be preventative?
Anyway, my take on it :)
Merry Christmas!!
Billy, yep, tipping from one side to the other.
I'm not so sure I believe in global warming but cycles yes. I agree with you 100% on media sources being swayed particular ways on different issues. Even if I don't buy the whole global warming thing, I still agree that we should pollute as little as possible and all that. I do worry that the government will create a new tax to fight "The war on global warming or cooling." (Whichever it is doing at the time.)
Anyway, thanks for answering my question so quickly, I respect your opinion, that's why I asked.
Merry Christmas.
Thank ya for asking me. I am flattered :) I'm about to watch the 11th Hour - flick that Leo DeCaprio made which is dated about a year before that article was written.
I also belong to Defenders of Wildlife and read about the decreased ice space for polar bears due to melting. So, articles of cooling and cycles can be confusing but I'm more apt to believe scientists (not just celebrities) over political figures.
I think either way - it's good to leave a smaller carbon footprint.
Merry Christmas ! :)
YDG, kind of like the earth is a dog and humans are fleas? We'd better start looking for another dog!
Ha, yea, lets find another planet we can fuc up after we use this one up ;) Reminds me, have you seen those oil commercials lately? Drive me crazy. I'm bout to do a blog post on it. They go something like....we need to reach the "deeper oil"...with this new technology....oy vay. More later :)
Speaking of commercials, I hate the ones that say "I owed 3 million in taxes but only had to pay 1 million!"
"I owed the IRS 1 million but only had to pay 200,000."
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