Global Warming

[DimPrawn]

March 2011 Lower Tropospheric Global Temperature Analysis From the University of Alabama at Huntsville | Climate Science: Roger Pielke Sr.

March 2011 was coolest in more than a decade.

Global temperature still headed down- UAH: negative territory | Watts Up With That?

The global temperature has fallen .653°C (from +0.554 in March 2010 to -0.099 in March 2011) in just one year. That’s a magnitude nearly equivalent to the agreed upon global warming signal agreed upon by the IPCC. It is quite a sharp drop.




But CO2 levels are higher than ever and increasing every day?

Over to you pjclarke to tell us the sky is falling in and we'll all be dead by Tuesday unless we head for a cave now.

Ugg.

Still, sasguru enjoys paying all the extra Carbon taxes and Al Gore doesn't seem to be too depressed either.

[EternalOptimist]

you are going to have to try a lot harder than that DP, if you want to falsify the CO2 theory of CAGW.
In fact there is no way at all to falsify the the theory, which is why it is religion and not science

[DimPrawn]

Indeed, there is no science behind it.

[OwlHoot]

To me that graph shows, despite all the spikes and apparent dips, a clear slight and steady upward trend (*)

Also, don't forget we are currently in the middle of a big solar minimum. So let's see what the graph looks like in ten years.

An expected minimum of solar activity, between 2008 and 2009, was unusually deep. And while the sun would normally ramp up activity by now, heading into its next cycle, the sun may be on the verge of a weak solar cycle instead, astronomers said at the 216th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Miami last month [2010-06]. ..

(*) Squint at it this way - The average of the left half is clearly roughly between -0.25 and 0, whereas that of the right half is equally obviously between 0 and 0.25

[DimPrawn]

To me that graph shows, despite all the spikes and apparent dips, a clear slight and steady upward trend.

.

Yes, I agree, a slow, steady, not accelerating upward drift.

However, this is what AGW is all based on. Accelerating global temperatures due to accelerating CO2 in the atmosphere:



The reality on a decade later is this:




The world is not rapidly warming, CO2 levels are still rising.

[BlasterBates]

It's at the top of the cycle innit. Well the La Nina isn't going away soon so should either get lower or stay low. In 20 years it'll be back down to 1980.

[OwlHoot]

I don't recall seeing any climate change accounts, even the most alarmist, that attach undue significance to a positive rate of change in global temperatures, for the simple reason that a steady rise (if any) is quite alarming enough on its own.

That said though, a steady rise if it continued would inevitably lead to a cascade, or positive feedback, when vast amounts of methane are released by melting Siberian permafrost, and methane hydrates on the sea bed, and melting glaciers expose more dark rock to absorb the Sun's heat instead of reflecting it back into space. So, yes, one can expect accelerated warming eventually.

[TimberWolf]

I'm sure everything will be fine as long as we keep breeding like mad.

[EternalOptimist]

I don't recall seeing any climate change accounts, even the most alarmist, that attach undue significance to a positive rate of change in global temperatures, for the simple reason that a steady rise (if any) is quite alarming enough on its own.

That said though, a steady rise if it continued would inevitably lead to a cascade, or positive feedback, when vast amounts of methane are released by melting Siberian permafrost, and methane hydrates on the sea bed, and melting glaciers expose more dark rock to absorb the Sun's heat instead of reflecting it back into space. So, yes, one can expect accelerated warming eventually.

Even so, what is causing the slow rise in average temperatures ?
is a trace plant food gas in the atmosphere
or the fact that have left an ice age and are warming up

[BlasterBates]

Weather.

In the absence of a external forcing from the enhanced greenhouse effect would the global mean temp be exactly the same each month - a horizontal straight line? No. It varies month on month due to stochastic internal variability [aka weather]. In the presence of a forcing Who then would expect a positively sloping straight line - with every month a new record? Only a statistical ignoramus.

Coolest March in a decade, huh? Last November was the warmest in the whole record. The drop is due to La Nina, which drags cooler water to the surface. The UAH is a satellite based record so measures (actually estimates) the temperature of the lower troposphere rather than the surface, the troposhere being more sensitive to oceanic effects than the surface so it tends to cool more in La Nina, (and warm more during El Nino). In fact this minimum was predicted in the academic literature:



Hope this helps.

Indeed the prediction has been duly noted. We will review this again in 2012-2014.