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[H/T to Marc] Mark
Paquette, who is a new colleague of mine here at AccuWeather.com came
to me last month and wanted to get involved with the global warming
blog. In addition to being one of our new early morning forecasters,
Mark has a particularly strong interest in climate change. Mark will
pop in from time to time with a blog, especially during one of the
weekend days when I normally would not post anything new. —Brett [Anderson]
* * * * *
As a new meteorologist at AccuWeather I am not going to be pretend to
be an expert at global warming, or maybe more appropriately named,
climate change. This subject has interested me since grade school, and
I even considered studying it at the graduate school level.
I recently came across a research report
written by Don J. Easterbrook, a Professor of Geology at Western
Washington University that explains his theory of global cooling, which
he says began in 2002, was interupted by the El-Nino of 2005, and will
continue, by his projections until 2040. For the whole time period of
2002-2040, he expects a drop in temperature of about 0.5 C. Curiously,
his projection is only for the Northern Hemisphere.
This article stood
out to me simply because since the late 80's, 1988 in particular, we
have been bombarded with media stories warning of the dangers of global
warming. Our more experienced readers may remember that in the 70's,
there were many an article about global cooling and even an impending
return to ice age conditions. So, an article on global cooling in this
day and age, which may be seen as being more appropriate 30 years ago,
piqued my interest. Also interesting is his explanation why he has the
earth cooling.
There have been recent studies and observations of a
lack of (or at least not as may) sunspots. Professor Easterbrook says
that the recent lack of sunspot activity may be part of a bigger trend
of lower sunspot activity ( possibly similiar to what happened in the
Maunder Minimum from about 1600-1700 AD where there was almost a
complete lack of sunspots altogether), and lower sunspot activity
signifies a slight reduction in the amount of energy being put out by
the sun, and thus received by the earth. This was at leat part of the
reason (if not the main reason) for the "Little Ice Age" that occured
from about 1300-1800 AD.
So the Professor basically says, if cooling
happened back then from a decrease in the amount of the sun's energy
hitting the earth, why couldn't it happen now? I personally think this
is a possibility, the scientific reasoning looks sound, but I question
where he gets his temperatures.
The earth has been cooling since 2002,
only briefly interrupted by El Nino in 2005? I'm not sure about that.
How does he get his temperatures for his projection? I think his theory
needs to be looked at, but his methods may need to be scrutinized more
closely.
Easterling also has a number of graphs in his report.
Source
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