Mounting evidence of lower temperature trends despite rising atmospheric CO2 levels
is becoming a real problem for the greenhouse gas crowd. And reports
that the cooling appears to follow a period of dormant solar activity
aren't likely to ease their anxieties.
Indeed,
without an immediate alarmist course correction, years of "the science
is settled" campaigning could prove for naught, as prolonged
temperature dips decimate the primary anthropogenic argument. After
all, Lord Gore has shouted the IPCC's proclamation of a 0.3°C warming
over the next decade from virtually every rooftop. Given new data
projecting the contrary, he and his green hordes will need to find a
way to not only explain the error, but keep the AGW dream alive.
And perhaps they have.
On April 21st, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed
that an impending phase shift in a natural climate event would likely
bring colder temperatures for as many as the next 20-30 years, noting
that:
"The
shift in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, with its widespread Pacific
Ocean temperature changes, will have significant implications for
global climate. It can affect Pacific and Atlantic hurricane activity,
droughts and flooding around the Pacific basin, marine ecosystems and
global land temperature patterns."
Well
aware of the impact the news might have on the green-deity IPCC's
warming predictions, the JPL was quick to add that "Sea level rise and
global warming due to increases in greenhouse gases can be strongly
affected by large natural climate phenomenon such as the Pacific
Decadal Oscillation and the El Nino-Southern Oscillation." JPL
oceanographer and climate scientist Josh Willis explained:
"The
comings and goings of El Niño, La Niña and the Pacific Decadal
Oscillation are part of a longer, ongoing change in global climate. In
fact, these natural climate phenomena can sometimes hide global warming
caused by human activities. Or they can have the opposite effect of
accentuating it."
Just
10 days later, the results of a model study on another phenomenon, this
time affecting the North Atlantic, were published in the journal Nature [PDF]. Dr Noel Keenlyside et al,
of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Germany, reported that
the "conveyor belt" of southern warm water known as the Meridional
Overturning Circulation is entering a weak cycle. As weak MOC cycles
-- which can last as many as 80 years -- are associated with cooler
North Atlantic temperatures, particularly around Europe and North
America, the team expects global surface temperatures to decrease over
the next decade. Oddly, a similar pattern between the 1940s and 1970s
may explain the cooling of global average temperatures during that
period, so assuming only the "next decade" seems an arbitrary call. Read rest...
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